Re: Baghdad

Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
On May 27, 1:38 am, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Of course it is. Nothing that can't be tested is accepted as a
scientific conclusion.

The spring theories and M-theory can't be tested

Nonsense. It is entirely possible for a discovery to be made that is inconsistent with either of them and that would therefore invalidate them. (I assume you mean "string theory" rather than "spring theory".)

and yet they are accepted as truly scientific.
My criterium is fecundity: is a theory fecund?
The mentioned theories are, they led to a
plethora of new mathematical tools, and so,
even if they should fail in the end - and there
will never be a Theory Of Everything, so they
are bound to fail - they are still truly scientific.

Whereas you make up stuff in your head, and you associate unrelated
things and imagine that they are related.

The world is much more simple than we ever
can imagine, and much more complex than
we ever can imagine, Goethe said.

Goethe's musings have no bearing on anything.

We are
always making things up in our mind, and
we hope that they are close to reality.

I hope for world peace. I hope you can see the distinction between my hoping for it and its actual occurrence. I hope you'll understand the difference between your hopes and reality but I don't see that hope being realized any time soon either.

You don't know me, yet you have a rather
clear idea of whom I are, and so I have
a rather clear idea of you, just from
reading your messages, in fact I could
anticipate your message and anticipate
mynanswer (this one here) before I read
your lines, this morning when I woke up.
Are mathematical theorems discovered
or made up? That's a big question.

They are rigorously deduced or at least rigorously induced. If you don't comprehend the difference between inventing, hoping, and rigorous deduction and induction, then of course this conversation is never going to go anywhere.

I'd say we make up everything, yet
as we are made up by nature, making
things up is in our nature, and in the
end we can't really fall out of nature
as we are a part of it. Sir Karl Popper
asked not only for testable and falsifiable
hypotheses and theories but also for
daring ones - the more daring the better.

I don't care what Karl Popper said.

And the most beautiful theories we have
are at the same time very simple and
very complex, connecting phenomena
we never thought would be related,

Connecting them via convincing evidence and deductive reasoning, not via hope and poetry and humming in a dark room.

and this in the most simple and elegant
way. So making things up and connecting
and connecting seemingly unrelated things
are hallmarks of good theories.
.

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