Re: Physics cannot validate the existence anything!


Sue... wrote:
> Sue... wrote:
> > Somebody wrote:
> > << Physics cannot validate the existence of anything!
> > Models are either useful or they are not. >>
>
> > That sounds like the same definition as Mathematics.
> > What is the difference ?
>
>
> > Sue...
>
>
> Patrick wrote:
> It's really quite simple. You want to believe in, say, the electron,
go
>
> for it! The electron is a great model in physics. But physics doesn't
> PROVE that electrons exist. If you choose to believe in the electron,
> you do so within your personal natural philosophy.
>
> Physics presents many useful models that we can choose to believe in
as
>
> "real" or not. The value of a model in physics is ONLY that it find a
> home within a theory that works, not that it is true or false.
>
>
> Patrick
>
> Sue wrote:
> Indeed eletrons and so called free flight photons are both wispy
> critters.
> But I have glowing CRT phosphors before me that gives one of the
wispy
> of all particles enough substance to discriminate it from the
> indivisible
> *photons* that split four ways and interfer with themselves in a
> telescope.
>
> One entity is a characterizable entity, the other a mathematical
> abstraction.
> It is not a matter of personal philosophy.

What precisely is not a matter of personal philosophy? An entity? What
is the entity? And prove that it is.

>
> A physicist that is not discriminating this level, will discover a
> dirth of
> snarks, snipes and slithy toves to chase after.

?

> IMHO the "watering down" of physics to mathematical abstractions is a
> thinly veiled excuse used by theorists who didn't really mean real
when
> they predicted that something was real. ;-)

What do you mean is this evil "mathematical abstraction"? The entire
physical theory works together to tell you under certain conditions
what a real, true, verifiable, meaningful, actual, visible, measuring
instrument will read! There's reality!!!!!!!

>
> Sue...


To predict that something is "real" means to predict ONLY a
measurement. There is nothing else! It's theory --- not intuition or
metaphysics --- that tells (i.e., interprets) you WHAT you measured.

Patrick

.

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