Re: The hopeless confusion between observation and reality

From: AllYou! (idaman_at_conversent.net)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:02:55 -0500

<reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1106925041.355885.320500@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> AllYou! wrote:
> > <reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
> > news:1106921118.300474.19670@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > >
> > > AllYou! wrote:
> > > > "Daniel Weston" <daniel009@webtv.net> wrote in message
> > > > news:16082-41F933E3-281@storefull-3135.bay.webtv.net...
> > > > > PD makes a very interesting point regarding conceptualization
> and
> > > the
> > > > > language used to do the conceptualizing.
> > > > > I have heard and read some interesting research in this regard.
> > > This is
> > > > > one of the explanations why some countries do so poorly in
> science,
> > > to
> > > > > wit their language is inappropriate for scientific thinking and
> > > > > expression. It should be noted that the English Dictionary is
> by
> > > far
> > > > > the largest in the world. No language can even begin to
> provide
> > > the
> > > > > subtilities of language differentiation and nuance.
> > > > >
> > > > > During WW2 there was commissioned a study to examine the
> difference
> > > > > between the Chinese language and the Japanese language. It was
> > > found
> > > > > that the Japanese language was very precise and exacting,
> > > especially in
> > > > > maters military and scientific. Whereas the Chinese language
> had no
> > > such
> > > > > specificity. The Chinese language was more beautiful and
> poetic in
> > > > > meaning
> > > > > and scope, but quite unfit for exacting specificity.
> > > > >
> > > > > I find this area of how language colors our thinking to be
> > > interesting,
> > > > > but I have never received any education in this regard. Some
> > > > > philosophers spend a lot of time on this issue.
> > > >
> > > > And what Patrick doesn't get is that all of this confusion could
> be
> > > eliminated by simply
> > > > limiting physics that which was originally intended.
> > >
> > > You're the confused one.
> > >
> > > > No matter what the language, if it's
> > > > observable, it's studied, and if it's not, it isn't. No
> > > conceptualizations required.
> > >
> > > It's a theory that tells you what's observable!
> >
> > But it doesn't tell me that I observed, and it doesn't tell me how to
> catagorize.
>
> I does both.

Yet you've never shown me any such theory.

> > > You seem to think that
> > > observation is passive and pre-rational. It isn't. Without a large
> > > collection of interwoven theories, whose origins go back to their
> early
> > > invention in the womb, the mind can make nothing out of bodily
> > > sensations but a morass of unintellgible kaleidoscopic nonsense.
> >
> > But once again, you're focused on explaining the sensation and not
> the sensation itself.
> > That's where you're hopelessly lost. BTW, recognizing the type of
> sensation felt (e.g.,
> > hot or wet) doesn't require a theory either, and certainly not one
> created as a *free*
> > invention. It only requires the intellectual matching process which
> is not *free* in any
> > sense of the word.
>
> How many times do I have to tell you? You asked what Infeld meant by
> free invention and I am trying to answer that! Pay attention!

Not true. You wnet on to tell me what *you* thought it meant. Are you saying that you
agree with the limitation they put on it? Either way, your comments are vulnerable.

> What E&I were referring to when they talked about free invention is the
> free invention of physical concepts (or principles/axioms) that go into
> the invention of theories, not labels per se, though labels have to be
> a part of theories, of course.

See? You've now added your own opinions. And to those I reply that labels and
explanations are not required for the process of observation. They are only required to
process those observations.

> I already asked you to give me a theory of why we feel heat transfers.

No, I asked you for that. It's been my position right along that we don't need any
theories to observe. Give me the theory which I need to sense heat?

> This would deal directly with what E&I were writing about. If you
> refuse to do so then you don't really want an answer to the question
> that tops this thread.

I refuse to do so because I don't accept the notion that a theory is required to observe.

> Einstein wrote:
>
> The natural philosophers of those days were,
> on the contrary, most of them possessed with the
> idea that the fundamental concepts and postulates
> of physics were not in the logical sense free
> inventions of the human mind but could be deduced
> from experience by "abstraction" --- that is to say,
> by logical means. A clear recognition of the
> erroneousness of this notion reality only came with
> the general theory of relativity, which showed that
> one could take account of a wider range of empirical
> facts, and that, too, in a more satisfactory and complete
> manner, on a foundation quite different from the Newtonian.
> But quite apart from the question of the superiority of one
> or the other, the fictitious character of fundamental
> principles is perfectly evident from the fact that we can
> point to two essentially different principles, both of
> which corresponds with experience to a large extent;
> this proves at the same time that every attempt at a
> logical deduction of the basic concepts and postulates
> of mechanics from elementary experiences is doomed
> to failure.
>
> If, then, it is true that the axiomatic basis of
> theoretical physics cannot be extracted from
> experience but must be freely invented, can
> we ever hope to find the right way? Nay, more,
> has this right way any existence at all when
> there exits theories (such as classical mechanics)
> which to a large extent do justice to experience,
> without getting to the root of the matter? I answer
> without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a
> right way, and that we are capable of finding it.
> Our experience hitherto justifies us in believing
> that nature is the realization of the simplest
> conceivable mathematical ideas. I am convinced
> that we can discover by means of pure mathematical
> constructions the concepts and the laws connecting
> them with each other, which furnish the key to the
> understanding of natural phenomena. Experience
> may suggest the appropriate mathematical concepts,
> but they most certainly cannot be deduced from it.
> Experience remains, of course, the sole criterion of
> the physical utility of a mathematical construction.
> But the creative principle resides in mathematics.
> In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure
> thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.
> --- Found in: On the Methods of Theoretical
> Physics, A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions,
> Three Rivers Press, p273--274.

And he's clearly not referring to just observation, but rather, how to process those
observations into some model of how all of those observations work together and even their
causes. The observations themselves are not free inventions. This is clear when he
speaks of experiences.

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