Re: intelligent falling theory set to replace gravity in american education....
- From: "Energumen" <ener_gumen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:02:20 +0100
"TD" <tdefries@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:de4shs$c4p$1$8302bc10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Energumen" <ener_gumen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:4305d552$0$97108$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> "TD" <tdefries@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:de48v5$a36$3$8300dec7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>
>>> "Energumen" <ener_gumen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:4305055c$0$97108$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> "Blue" <blue@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> news:4304D6AC.E1F86E09@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> abelard wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2
>>>>>> "Burdett added: "Gravity - which is taught to our children as a law -
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual
>>>>>> force
>>>>>> between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac
>>>>>> Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of
>>>>>> course, he is alluding to a higher power." "
>>>>>>
>>>>>> who noticed my brilliant title!!
>>>>>
>>>>> Look, dust off Descartes' vortices by all means
>>>>> have some heavy atoms squashing us all down.
>>>>>
>>>>> But what's god got to do with it.
>>>>> Are we supposed to surmise from this site that god
>>>>> is a nip girl and she's not holding us down with her finger.
>>>>>
>>>>> How is this science if other countries don't think
>>>>> that this particular god is involved in this 'law'.
>>>>> We'll end up with a god for each phenomena and that's
>>>>> just pagan.
>>>>>
>>>>> God, religion or any hookum shouldn't be allowed to hide
>>>>> or sneak in, just because one place or other isn't explained
>>>>> with logic for five freaking minutes.
>>>>
>>>> Well gods, spirits, demons and such were just ways to stay grounded in
>>>> the world and paper over gaps in knowledge and understanding, not much
>>>> different to the medieval vapour theory of disease (which was
>>>> undoubtedly sometimes useful), epicycles or the electromagnetic ether.
>>>> In the future electrons, quarks etc may go the same way.
>>>>
>>>> Saying that God did not create living things is a bit like saying that
>>>> disease is not spread by vapours but by bacteria and virii. Modern
>>>> cosmology and evolution is really a refinement of the God creation
>>>> story.
>>>
>>> However, the claim that 'disease is spread by vapours' is a hypothesis
>>> that can be tested. AFAIK you can't perform experiments with gods,
>>> spirits and demons.
>>
>> Well you can, if you define them in terms of cause and effect ie. specify
>> what it is they do. One might even try to summon a demon and talk to it,
>> but I think you're missing the point. The electromagnetic ether
>> hypothesis wasn't abandoned because it's existence couldn't be tested.
>> You can only define things in terms of their effects. Thereby their
>> "existence" is their effect.
>
> That seems reasonable. You could say a particular species of demons
> spread disease, and they are called bacteria, and they can be held at bay
> by the washing and sterilisation of our utensils and tools. But that
> seems different to me from just saying that demons spread disease, which
> AFAIK some people used to think.
What specifically is different about it? We're not any cleverer we just have
more information (eg. the invention of microscopes lets us see bacteria).
> ISTM you can't develop that hypothesis to the same extent as a more
> scientific one.
The quality of the hypothesis is it's correspondence with reality, as
measured by how it let's you predict outcomes. Saying that disease is spread
by vapours (or even demons) is a valid scientific hypothesis. The science is
the method of verification and hypothesis acceptance and rejection. Don't
confuse "scientific" with "implausible given other information we now have".
>
> So ISTM if someone says invisible and insubstantial spirits keep us from
> floating off the ground, what else can be said? But if someone says
> masses exert forces on other masses and that's what keeps us from floating
> away, we can test this hypothesis and make predictions from it that can in
> turn be tested. That was my point.
My point is that "invisible and insubstantial spirits keep us from floating
off the ground" and "masses exert forces on other masses and that's what
keeps us from floating away" are essentially the same thing couched in
different terminology. The Egyptian pyramid makers and the builders of
Newgrange had no problem aligning structures to solar equinox points etc.
long before Newton or Kepler. Therefore their ideas about heavenly bodies
provided knowledge, since they could make accurate predictions with them
about what would happen in future years. That they anthropomorphised things
isn't any more fundamentally different or wrong in kind than an A level
Chemistry student unfamiliar with quantum mechanics visualising atoms as
coloured billiard balls with sticks called bonds attaching them to other
billiard ball type things.
>
>> Since we know that Newton's laws at the fundamental level are wrong, does
>> that mean that Newtonian properties such as the momentum of an object no
>> longer exist? Not really, it's more about reformulating and incrementally
>> adjusting definitions in light of new understanding.
>
> I agree.
>
> However, to clarify, Newton's theories are good enough for particular
> contexts, just as Einstein's are. If F=ma is sufficient for your
> purposes, why on earth would you want to use anything more complicated?
> But F=ma is substantially different from saying that demons keep objects
> moving after someone pushes them.
Unless you also state what these demons do apart from that (and that doesn't
happen) then it's the same thing. A thing is what it does.
>
>> So in that sense God exists, we just understand it better than we did
>> before.
>>
>> Consider the ancient Egyptian concept that Ra the living god rises in a
>> daily cycle and returns to the underworld and compare it to Newton's laws
>> of planetary motion describing the spinning of the Earth. If you want to
>> tell the time with a sundial either conception is equally useful. Both
>> make predictions which can be tested. In that sense the Egyptian Ra myth
>> embodies truth. To say that Ra "does not exist" is not really any
>> different than saying that the sun postulated within Newton's solar
>> system model does not exist, since we know from Einstein that that model
>> is wrong. But the sun does exist and in a very real sense Ra does exist.
>> All that has happened is that the depth of understanding has increased,
>> misconceptions eliminated and the definitions and models have adjusted to
>> new evidence. As I say, if you want to make a sun dial the Ra concept,
>> Newtonian physics or Einstein's relativity are all equally useful. This
>> is similar to the way that we teach architects to use Newton's laws
>> rather than relativity.
>
> It doesn't make a difference what we call the Sun. But if you claim the
> Earth orbits the Sun, or the Sun orbits the Earth, we can test those
> claims.
The claim of Ra's procession amounts to the same thing (from a certain frame
of reference). It is also testable in the same way.
>
> Equally it seems more useful to say the Sun generates light via nuclear
> fusion, rather than 'the Sun is a god', which is what IIRC the Egyptians
> thinking.
Of course it's more useful, but it is just a deeper understanding of the
same truth (with less misconceptions) but it will likely be improved in the
future yet again. Saying that the sun is a god in a sky chariot isn't really
any different from saying that atoms are miniature billiard balls.
>
> So I maintain that:
>
>>> In that context, gods are an intellectual dead end.
>
> ...while agreeing they may be psychologically useful.
>
.
- References:
- Prev by Date: Norman Tebbit
- Next by Date: WTC Conspiracy Myths
- Previous by thread: Re: intelligent falling theory set to replace gravity in american education....
- Next by thread: The loopy left
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
