I watched a show on fizziks that is freakin bugging me.

[Jon Miller]

Not all ways of thinking about something are right. Thinking about physics anti-mathematically is objectively wrong. You can't see that or accept that because your cultural conditiioning disallows that.

Physicists come up with new ways of thinking all the time. It is why we are the true heirs of the Aristotle and Newton, and not those who call themselves philosophers today.

JM

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Agathon
probably because he was German and had had a proper education in a culture where people cared about knowledge for its own sake.

Thanks. Not for the German bit, but the appreciation of knowledge for its own sake. This place here needs more of that.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Not all ways of thinking about something are right. Thinking about physics anti-mathematically is objectively wrong. You can't see that or accept that because your cultural conditiioning disallows that.

I did not say that every way of thinking was right. It is possible to think about things more or less well.

Physicists come up with new ways of thinking all the time. It is why we are the true heirs of the Aristotle and Newton, and not those who call themselves philosophers today.

Whatever gets you through the night, bubs.

[Jon Miller]

I guess that was a bit obvious.

JM

[Jon Miller]

But seriously, what do you have against Mathematics? I do beleive that there are two things that we can refer to as mathematics. One we discover, that is a very fundamental thing of this universe (which I think God is the source of, as a religionist). The other is the language that we have developed in order to communicate these ideas, which also serve to communicate how the universe works.

This is because, from experiment/etc, mathematics does seem to be fundamental to the universe. Here I am not talking about the language.

But how you expect english to adequently express the ideas that a whole language has been specifically developed for 100s of years is beyond me.

JM

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
But seriously, what do you have against Mathematics? I do beleive that there are two things that we can refer to as mathematics. One we discover, that is a very fundamental thing of this universe (which I think God is the source of, as a religionist). The other is the language that we have developed in order to communicate these ideas, which also serve to communicate how the universe works.

Nothing, except that mathematics is formal. When a physicist tells me that F=ma, I take him seriously because he can tell me what F, m, and a represent in the world. So F=ma is not just a formula with variables, but represents some real and interesting relation between things in reality.

One might argue that mathematics is an untranslatable language, but that needs to be argued for, not just asserted. If a quantum physicist tells me that the ideas represented in the mathematical formulas cannot be translated into ordinary language no matter what, then that is a very very strong claim that I want an argument for.

Look, this doesn't just happen in science. People found impressionism pretty hard to deal with when it first came out. Same with surrealism. Now we find it commonplace, because we are used to looking at that sort of art. Many people have the same trouble with contemporary art (the works of that shark dude still elude me).

In 100 years, people will probably find the ideas behind quantum mechanics to be quite easy to understand.

[Jon Miller]

The language changed to include the ideas found in impressionism and surrealism. I don't see any evidence of the english languaging changing to include the mathematics found in quantum mechanics and the like, despite people like the words and using them with little to no understanding.

The ideas behind quantum mechanics will only become commonly understood if people start learning the mathematics, or if english changes to incorporate the mathematics (language). I don't see any reason why english will change to incorporate the mathematics, you just have too many people who hate it and don't understand it or want to.

I would love it if quantum mechanics was commonly understood in 100 years. I would consider that quite an acheivement. I just don't beleive it will occur, I personally would consider it quite the acheivement if people truly understood what statistics and probability meant...

JM

[Jon Miller]

There are probably less than 100k people in the world who understand quantum mechanics. Maybe if I was generous, the number would be closer to 500k.

There are about 5b people in the world? Probably a bit more. That means for every person who understands quantum mechanics, there are about 10k people who do not. The odds might be a bit better here in the US, but still. Additionally, eeryone who understands quantum mechanics knows mathematics, and discusses science using that language.

JM
(by the way, not an instrumentalist)

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
The language changed to include the ideas found in impressionism and surrealism. I don't see any evidence of the english languaging changing to include the mathematics found in quantum mechanics and the like, despite people like the words and using them with little to no understanding.

The ideas behind quantum mechanics will only become commonly understood if people start learning the mathematics, or if english changes to incorporate the mathematics (language). I don't see any reason why english will change to incorporate the mathematics, you just have too many people who hate it and don't understand it or want to.

I would love it if quantum mechanics was commonly understood in 100 years. I would consider that quite an acheivement. I just don't beleive it will occur, I personally would consider it quite the acheivement if people truly understood what statistics and probability meant...

JM

So what? One could have said exactly the same about philosophy in ancient times. In fact, a lower proportion of humanity understood that.

Frankly, if it can't be explained in ordinary language, it probably is just instrumentalist and of no real use to people who actually want knowledge (I suspect this might actually be true, which would be really funny). But the kicker is that if this was in fact the case, then reputable scientists would not attempt to explain it, but some do.

If your thesis was as obviously accurate as scientific theories claim to be, then there would be little or no dispute among the experts.

[Kuciwalker]

Aggie: if you understand QM solely in English, then you don't. It's untranslatable because QM is nothing more than a mathematical framework for describing how certain things behave. Analogies to macroscopic mechanics don't work because when you actually try to use them to make predictions, you end up making the wrong ones.

I'll come up with a specific example later today (lotta stuff to do).

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Aggie: if you understand QM solely in English, then you don't. It's untranslatable because QM is nothing more than a mathematical framework for describing how certain things behave. Analogies to macroscopic mechanics don't work because when you actually try to use them to make predictions, you end up making the wrong ones.

I'll come up with a specific example later today (lotta stuff to do).

That's a fair comment. I'm not really bothered about macroscopic analogies, just the ability to explain it in ordinary language.

I'm not sure I get your meaning. Are you saying it is uninterpretable, such that, say, the Copenhagen Interpretation is meaningless? That's a pretty bold claim, if so.

[Kuciwalker]

You can have interpretations, but since they don't affect predictions they aren't really important.

If I had to pick one interpretation I'd pick objective collapse, but I generally agree with the "Shut up and calculate!"

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You can have interpretations, but since they don't affect predictions they aren't really important.

If I had to pick one interpretation I'd pick objective collapse, but I generally agree with the "Shut up and calculate!"

They are important if you think the theory describes something. To say otherwise seems a bit of a cop out, unless you are going to be an instrumentalist.

[Jon Miller]

Scientists generally try to differentiate between what they can do science on, and what they have to take on beleif/etc. On the interpretation of quantum mechanics or on the whether God exists or not, I can't do science on it (currently). So, it isn't important as far as that goes.

Yeah, it is imoprtant as far as we scientist humans go, but as far as a scientist it isn't unless I can probe it in some way.

JM

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Scientists generally try to differentiate between what they can do science on, and what they have to take on beleif/etc. On the interpretation of quantum mechanics or on the whether God exists or not, I can't do science on it (currently). So, it isn't important as far as that goes.

Yeah, it is imoprtant as far as we scientist humans go, but as far as a scientist it isn't unless I can probe it in some way.

JM

[Kenobi]That's not the distinction you are looking for.[/Kenobi]

Take two theories which a person happens to be in no epistemic position to improve (and don't insult my intelligence by trying to change the case, thank you very much).

Theory A says that the Sun rises every morning because the earth rotates around its axis once every day.

Theory B says that the Sun rises every morning because God makes it rise and he's a regular kind of dude (like he makes it rise after he takes his morning crap or something).

Both of these theories are equally predictive, but only one of them is true. And only one of them possibly yields knowledge and/or understanding. Knowledge/understanding is not the same as predictive power.

Now as an instrumentalist will point out to you, the only thing a scientific theory can really aim for is predictive power (since that is what makes it testable). No scientific theory will ever, it seems, be able to establish anything more than predictive power, because all it can do is predict the results of future experiments. But even a false theory (one that describes reality incorrectly) can predict correctly. A false description does not entail a false prediction.

What you are saying, in essence, is that scientific theories do not enable us to understand reality, but merely to predict what might happen. So you would agree that Plato was correct when he dismissed empirical science as not worth the name of knowledge.

BTW: there is no point in saying that the God theory might fail other predictions. We could spin an elaborate line of bull**** that would account for every possible eventuality. There is nothing preventing a theory that is completely false from being completely predictive (that's because for every true theory, you can construct a **** and bull story that has the same empirical consequences).