[geocentrism] Foundations.

From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "geocentrism list" <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:36:03 +1000
to all on the list. 
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/carnap.htm

In our discussions here, I often see clashes between the philosopher and the 
physicist. Allen and Jack etc, tend to clash with Paul and myself over what is 
observed or observable..  What you see is what you get sort of dispute.  And 
this is important when we try to discuss our subject that deals a lot with what 
cannot be seen. This problem is highlighted in an article I found today. The 
author says, for example, 

"Here, a warning must be issued. Philosophers and scientists have quite 
different ways of using the terms "observable" and "nonobservable". To a 
philosopher, "observable" has a very narrow meaning. It applies to such 
properties as "blue", "hard", "hot". These are properties directly perceived by 
the senses. To the physicist, the word has a much broader meaning. It includes 
any quantitative magnitude that can be measured in a relatively simple, direct 
way. A philosopher would not consider a temperature of, perhaps, 80 degrees 
centigrade, or a weight of 93 pounds, an observable because there is no direct 
sensory perception of such magnitudes. To a physicist, both are observables 
because they can be measured in an extremely simple way. The object to be 
weighed is placed on a balance scale. The temperature is measured with a 
thermometer. The physicist would not say that the mass of a molecule, let alone 
the mass of an electron, is something observable, because here the procedures 
of measurement are much more complicated and indirect. But magnitudes that can 
be established by relatively simple procedures-length with a ruler, time with a 
clock, or frequency of light waves with a spectrometer-are called observables. 
A philosopher might object that the intensity of an electric current is not 
really observed. Only a pointer position was observed. An ammeter was attached 
to the circuit and it was noted that the pointer pointed to a mark labelled 
5.3. Certainly the current's intensity was not observed. It was inferred from 
what was observed. 

The physicist would reply that this was true enough, but the inference was not 
very complicated. The procedure of measurement is so simple, so well 
established, that it could not be doubted that the ammeter would give an 
accurate measurement of current intensity. Therefore, it is included among what 
are called observables." 

"There is no question here of who is using the term "observable" in a right or 
proper way. There is a continuum which starts with direct sensory observations 
and proceeds to enormously complex, indirect methods of observation. Obviously 
no sharp line can be drawn across this continuum; it is a matter of degree. ...

The scientist makes repeated measurements, finds certain regularities, and 
expresses them in a law. These are the empirical laws. As indicated in earlier 
chapters, they are used for explaining observed facts and for predicting future 
observable events......

Theoretical laws concern nonobservables, and very often these are 
micro-processes. If so, the laws are sometimes called micro-laws. I use the 
term "theoretical laws" in a wider sense than this, to include all those laws 
that contain nonobservables, regardless of whether they are micro-concepts or 
macro-concepts. .....

It is important in the present context to be extremely careful in the use of 
this word (fact) because some authors, especially scientists, use "fact" or 
"empirical fact" for some propositions which I would call empirical laws. ......

and he even asks the question I raised here today, and yet condemns the 
question and the questioner for asking an "invalid" ?  question.

There is no answer to the question: "Exactly what is an electron?" Later we 
shall come back to this question, because it is the kind that philosophers are 
always asking scientists. They want the physicist to tell them just what he 
means by "electricity", "magnetism", "gravity", "a molecule". If the physicist 
explains them in theoretical terms, the philosopher may be disappointed. "That 
is not what I meant at all", he will say. "I want you to tell me, in ordinary 
language, what those terms mean." Sometimes the philosopher writes a book in 
which he talks about the great mysteries of nature. "No one", he writes, "has 
been able so far, and perhaps no one ever will be able, to give us a 
straightforward answer to the question: 'What is electricity?' And so 
electricity remains forever one of the great, unfathomable mysteries of the 
universe." 



From 

Rudolph Carnap (1966)

Philosophical Foundations of Physics
Chapter 23: Theories and Nonobservables

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Philosophical Foundations of Physics (1966) publ. Basic Books Inc. 
Chapters 23 to 26 reproduced here.

I recommend it to the list, as I am certain it will help in establishing 
clearer communication links between us. Read it here. Though I tremble that it 
is from the Marxists web archive..  

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/carnap.htm

Philip.
[geocentrism] Foundations.

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