[lit-ideas] Re: knowledge and belief briefly

  • From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 13:46:28 -0330

The examples I gave in my recent post show, imho, that statements derived from
a
theory are not holistically integrated as to truth. One can thus "save the
theory" despite particular anomalies and falsifications of predictions. I'm
totally OK with OK's position here. And I agree, as I say, with Richard:
Donal's concerns amount to a tempest within a teapot, and I would add, a
tempest itself a tempest within another teapot a la Russian babushka dolls.
(Yes, it's turtles all the way down.)

But this being said, we must not reject Donal's view prematurely. 2 theories
may
"travel along the same rails" for some time. But at one point, the 2 theories
diverge, due to the findings of a "crucial experiment" - i.e. Eddington. These
findings falsify one theory but leave the other theory unscathed. Despite the
falsification, the falsified theory continues to generate useful applications -
i.e., we get to the moon, we can produce an 18 yr old single malt in 2 years,
and we have a cure for the common cold. Nevertheless, one theory yields false
predictions or inferences in one or a number of particular applications, while
the other does not, as yet. 

What I think all this means must await another occasion. For there are
leftovers
from Christmas dinner to be holistically integrated and served.

Waiting for the *real* Christmas, Valodsya Mihailovich Gavrilov Okshevsky III
(who does not cross himself backwards like some people .... and understands the
true theory of The Trinity as expostulated by St. Valodsya, Christianizer of
Olde Russe.)

Walter O
MUN

P.S. Yes, so the question emerges: How different is science from religion
really? If even a third of what Kuhn wrote is true, is there a defensible way
of distinguishing between the articles of faith of a religion and the
presuppositions of a scientific paradigm? Surely k-that can't be like turtles
all the way down. At bottom, there must be a foundation, as the last Witters
averred.




Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:

> This is correct if (and only if) all propositions made by Newton are linked
> to each other in the manner or logical conjunction. (P and Q) Not all
> statements that stand next to each other in linguistic discourse  are
> necessarily linked in this manner, as I have attempted to show by the little
> description of Tom. (In that example, the statements are connected
> thematically because they are all about Tom, but they do not bear a
> conjunctive logical relation to each other. The truth of one statement is in
> no way necessarily dependent on the truth of the other.) If Newton's theories
> are consistently logically linked to each other in the manner Donal claims
> they are, then he is right. If not, he is not. Will leave it at this.
> 
> O.K.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, December 26, 2013 10:47 AM, Donal McEvoy
> <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
> Omar wrote:- >A complex scientific paradigm like Newton's is surely
> not reducible to a single proposition, but rather it is a set of
> propositions,
> and so there is an at least theoretical possibility that it might be
> partially
> true or partially correct.> 
>  
> The suggested “theoretical possibility” is, in truth, a
> logical impossibility – one that also does not follow from the premise.
>  
> Grant the premise:- Newton’s physics is “not reducible to a
> single proposition, but rather it is a set of propositions”. But any
> counter-example that falsifies any element of that set renders that set as a
> whole false and not merely “partially false”; any counter-example
> therefore renders
> that set false so that the set cannot be “partially true”. The set cannot
> be “partially
> true” merely because elements of that set may be true, and it is a logical
> confusion to suggest this. To say parts of that set are (or may be) true is
> quite consistent with the set of propositions as a whole being not at all
> “partially
> true” but simply false; conversely, to say a set of propositions as a whole
> is
> false is quite consistent with admitting that parts of that set are (or may
> be)
> true.
>  
> The position is analogous to that mentioned in my previous
> post as follows:-
>  
> >Of course we can take a statement like “All tables are
> tables and all swans are purple” and split it into two – a false
> statement that
> “All swans are purple” and a true statement that “All tables are
> tables”. But
> it is just confused, logically speaking, to think this means that the
> statement
> “All tables are tables and all swans are purple” is “partially true”
> and
> “partially false”. It is not: the statement “All tables are tables and
> all
> swans are purple” is simply false, even if within that false statement
> there is
> a true statement. >
>  
> To amplify: if we sever the short statement “All tables are
> tables” from the conjunction “All tables are tables and all swans are
> purple”,
> we obtain the true (albeit tautologous) statement “All tables are
> tables”. But
> that does not mean the conjunction of this true statement with a false
> statement like “All swans are purple” is “partially true” – the
> conjunction-statement
> (“All tables are tables and all swans are purple”) is simply false: it is
> simply false because the claim “all swans are purple” is false; and it is
> logically
> confused to consider such a conjunction-statement as “partially true”
> because
> it contains within it a severable statement that if severed would be true.
> The
> converse also holds, logically:- a disjunction-statement comprised of the two
> shorter
> statements (viz. “All tables are
> tables or all swans are purple”) is
> simply true: it is simply true because the tautologous part of this
> disjunction-statement
> is true; and it is logically confused to consider such a
> disjunction-statement “partially
> false” because it contains within it a severable statement that if severed
> would be false.
>  
> The set of propositions that constitute Newton’s physics is
> a conjunctive rather than disjunctive set. Any counter-example that falsifies
> that set falsifies the set as a whole, so that the set is rendered simply
> false
> by the counter-example rather than merely “partially false.” Equally, as
> that
> set is rendered false and not merely “partially false”, that set cannot
> be “partially
> true” despite falsification. 
>  
> Of course, there are many other questions left open by this,
> including whether some severable form of Newton’s physics escapes a
> falsification of some wider set of Newtonian propositions. But even in such a
> case, the point still holds that the severable form will also be true or
> false
> and cannot be instead “partially true” and “partially false”. 
>  
> Where Newton’s physics proves inconsistent with an
> experimental outcome, it is simply not a logical option to conclude that
> Newton’s
> physics is nevertheless merely “partially false”; equally, it is not a
> logical
> option to conclude in such a case that Np nevertheless remains “partially
> true.”
>  
> Hope this helps clarify why Newton’s physics, as a set of
> propositions, must be either true or false and cannot be “partially true”
> and “partially
> false.”
>  
> Donal
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, 26 December 2013, 9:39, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>  
> 
> >Now, the physics that was used to do all that or 
> that would have to be used to repeat it, is, I suggest, consistent with or 
> identical with what Donal labels as that "false-false-false" Newtonian 
> physics.>
> 
> We can go further than a case where the physics "used" is "consistent with"
> Newtonian physics - further, that is, than a case like Einsteinian physics
> which is "consistent with" Newtonian physics to a large degree: i.e. to a
> large degree Einsteinian physics ['Ep'] and Newtonian physics ['Np'] do not
> give different predicted physical outcomes. 
> 
> 
> We can use Newtonian physics itself, not merely physics "consistent with" it
> up to a point (as is Einstein's), to do all kinds of things. And while
> Wittgenstein might be quoted or misquoted here to say it is nonsense to say
> so, clearly Newtonian physics is "identical with" Newtonian physics. So we
> can use what is "identical with" Np (i.e. Np itself) in all kinds of applied
> physics.
> 
> 
> Not only can we but we have. As a matter of historical fact, Newtonian
> physics was a foremost instrument in producing the Industrial Revolution. We
> could give myriad other examples of the application of Np, many more
> impressive than Richard's posted example.
> 
> But we should not for one second (whether that second is understood in terms
> of time in Newtonian physics or in Einsteinian physics) confuse the
> usefulness of a theory as an instrument with its truth or its degree of
> truth.
> 
> We can go further with this last point: imagine we produce a differential
> prediction between Ep and Np and experiment produces an outcome consistent
> with Ep and inconsistent with Np. We now have grounds to say Np is false - it
> has been falsified by experiment. This could be so even though there is no
> practical application of Ep that we can "use" where Np cannot be used
> instead; and indeed it could be the case that in practice we always use Np
> and not Ep in our applied physics because Np is more straightforward to use.
> Yet none of this massive instrumental prowess of Np, nor its greater
> practical advantages from an instrumental point of view when compared with
> Ep, reverses the crucial experiment - none of this greater instrumentality
> means Np is true or more truth-like than Ep. Np may be false yet more useful
> in practical terms than Ep.
> 
> 
> Only a very confused and/or scientifically illiterate person would suggest
> that crucial experiments, decisive between two competing theories, are, in
> effect, overthrown or reversed by practical considerations as to how useful a
> theory is in applied physics. Yet that seems to be the long and short of
> Richard's post. 
> 
> 
> Perhaps Richard's post should wear its own cap: "truly a "tempest in a (tiny,
> tiny) teacup" of practically 
> irrelevant, wrong-headed philosophizing of the worst stripe"?
> 
> Donal
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, 26 December 2013, 2:22, Richard Henninge
> <RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
>  
> Let's get this straight: Newtonian physics (Np) is 
> "[f]alse. False. False-false-false. False as false can be," according to 
> Donal.
>  
> Then consider this: of recent memory, Chinese 
> physicists managed to launch a rocket from the surface of the earth carrying
> as 
> payload, among other things, a lunar rover-type vehicle, cameras and various 
> other pieces of scientific equipment, and managed to land that payload in 
> operating condition on the surface of the moon. Wittgenstein famously said in
> 
> the first proposition of the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus that "[t]he world
> is 
> everything that is the case." As a thought experiment, imagine everything
> that 
> had to be the case from an hour before blast-off to an hour after the
> landing. 
> Picture it to yourself as a sort of three-dimensional cartoon along the
> actual 
> timeline of the days on which the actual events occurred. Imagine that every 
> piece of equipment could be modeled to be as close to functionally identical
> to 
> the equipment that was actually used. Or, what is practically-speaking the
> same 
> thing, simply imagine the actual equipment that was actually used.
>  
> Now, the physics that was used to do all that or 
> that would have to be used to repeat it, is, I suggest, consistent with or 
> identical with what Donal labels as that "false-false-false" Newtonian 
> physics. Np is not only "partially true, or true under certain conditions"; 
> there are only extremely limited circumstances in which it doesn't "hold" (I 
> would prefer to say) apparently--subatomically, i.e. below the order of 
> magnitude of the atom and in relation to objects in motion at or approaching
> the 
> speed of light. I doubt if any of the scientists on the project or involved
> in a 
> future similar endeavor to the moon or Mars is even, nor need 
> be, conversant with Eddington's results or relativity theory or quantum 
> physics. Proof enough of this would be to see whether any correction
> reflecting 
> twentieth-century physical "discoveries" is reflected in the computer
> programs 
> used to carry out such a feat. 
>  
> Wittgenstein, the "Austrian engineer," worked on 
> kites and a newly invented jet-propulsion engine. All he needed to explain
> that 
> was Newtonian physics. There comes a point at which one realizes that,
> analogous 
> to the world inside the atom, the "revolutionary impact on philosophy [of,
> say, 
> Eddington's findings] via Popper's philosophy of science and theory of 
> knowledge," is truly a "tempest in a (tiny, tiny) teacup" of practically 
> irrelevant, wrong-headed philosophizing of the worst stripe, perhaps in 
> particular in the philosophy of science and theory of knowledge, well worthy
> of 
> Wittgenstein's Golden Poker Award.
>  
> Richard Henninge
> University of Mainz
>  
>  
>  
> >So one experimental result that is incompatible with  Newtonian physics
> (where that physics makes claims that hold throughout the  whole physical
> universe), is enough to show Np is false – not merely  “partially
> false” and not merely so we can claim Np is nevertheless “at least 
> partially true, or true under certain conditions”. False. False. 
> False-false-false. False as false can be.
> > 
> >This is why Eddington’s experiments were so important.  There was more at
> stake than merely showing that Newton’s physics was now only  “partially
> true, or true under certain conditions”. What Eddington’s results 
> appeared to show was that the Newtonian physics under test was false. That
> meant that physics was false even in the  myriad cases where it was proven
> consistent with the experimental  outcome. 
> >
> >
> >
> >Now that is something with potentially revolutionary impact on  the
> direction of scientific theorising, testing and research. It also had a 
> revolutionary impact on philosophy via Popper's philosophy of science and 
> theory of knowledge.
> >
> > 
> >Donal
> >
> >

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