Re: Incommensurability of Mathematical Logic and Scientific Logic
- From: "AllYou!" <Idaman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:05:13 -0500
"jem" <xxx@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:df4af.118$ii.63@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
AllYou! wrote:
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AllYou! wrote:
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Daniel Weston wrote:
Pentcho: I agree with you completely. To state it another way, math is
metaphor. Or the map is not the territory. Or the description is not
the thing described.
What often happens is that people are so math orientated that they
anthropomorphisize math. They give some math procedure a name, then
state that the math procedure so named is the cause of some physical
event. Such as, "gravity is caused by the curvature of spacetime".
These people are totally blind concerning this logical error. Kepler's
planetary laws of motion do not cause the planets to move the way they
do.
Your problem is you don't know where the dividing line is between map and territory. Planets are elements of a model, and the logical rules that govern their behavior within models can certainly be considered to cause that behavior.
Rules are man's best guess at predicting the behavior of the elements of the model, and as such, those guesses cannot cause anything to happen to anything.
The behaviors of the elements of a model don't have to be guessed; they're entirely defined.
The behaviors of the elements of a model will be as they will be observed. The rules man devises about those behaviors are his predictions of future observations based upon past observations. Predictions can't cause anything to happen to anything.
Models are completely distinct from the real-world measurements they're designed to reproduce. Models are hypothetical worlds where everything is *defined* to work in a specified manner. The worth of a model lies entirely in how well the defined hypothetical measurements of the model match up with actual real-world measurements. Physics makes no attempt to speculate about the "causes" for real-world measurements, because no sense can be made of such speculations.
Models are completely distinct from real-world measurements because there's no way to ascertain what the real world is, or even whether or not it exists.
A real-world exists. Physics defines it as the collection of all measurable phenomena.
Physics is only about building models of what we observe. Reality is a philosophical issue, not a scientific one.
To claim, as you do, that there are two sets of
measurements (i.e., that of the defined hypothetical measurements and that of real world measurements) is pure folly. Please provide an
example of two such meansurements and how we'd match them.
A weather model indicates that real-world devices called thermometers will register 20 degrees Celsius when other real-world devices called clocks register noon. Hold a clock and a thermometer side by side so that both readings are visible simultaneously. When the clock reads 12:00, check to see whether the thermometer reads 20.
Can you identify what's from the model and what's from the real-world?
Now I see what you meant. You think physics is about building models of what will happen in the future, but that physics can determine what the real world is in the present. Well, I hate to break this to you, but that's not what's meant by physics being used to build models.
I don't have the time right now to respond to all of your post, but tell me where you've learned about Physics' modelling process.
That's irrelevant. I'm providing a basis for you to more fully explore your positions, and you the same for me. For me, this has been a positive debate to date because it causes me to think through my arguments which either leads to refinement of them in some way or other. But I see no intellectual value in comparing credentials.
If my arguments are flawed, you'll be able to show why that's so. If not, then you won't. Same for me. That's really all there is to it. My mistake if I made it seem as though there were only one universally accepted notion of what physics is about, and that only I knew what it was. I'll restate that last statement by saying that *model buliding in physics is not limited to simply recording the past and predicting the future. It's more than just a tool, it's the whole point.*
As I've
said, all we have at any given present time are observations. Physics isn't concerned about if what we observed really happened or not. We have no way of knowing if our lying eyes, or any devices we've invented *really* happened as we observed them. To claim that we do is to close off a whole set of possibilities. Even AE claimed that no observer has a valid claim over any other observer about what *really* happened.
We make observations, and we build a model of what reality is. Now, we can use that model to make the sorts of predictions you spoke of, but as far as physics is concerned, all we have is the model, and reality has nothing to do with anything.
All we have are observations, and we use those observations to build a model of what we believe might be an accurate reflection of a real world, should one exist.
Where "accurate reflection of a real world" means that predicted measurements match actual measurements (within suitable tolerances).
No. We can only hop our model is accurate. But there's no way of knowing that at all. All we can do is build the mot reliable model possible.
The real-world *is* the measurements - of course it exists.
Maybe, maybe not, but that's a philosophical issue, not a scientific one.
The worth of the model lies in it's abiltiy to reliably predict future
and retrodict past
observations, and those predictions are based upon past observtions,
Those predictions/retrodictions are based entirely on a model. The extent to which the formulation of the model relied on past observations is irrelevant.
Ignoring the past to make predictions is nothing more than sheer random guessing. I base my prediction that the rock will hit the Earth, how fast it will get there, and the force with which it will impact, when I let it go based upon past observations. Those observations are in no way irrelevant to those predictions.
> and speculations as to the causes of those
observations. IOW, we observe the Earth in orbit around the Sun,
We've observed certain affects on certain measuring instruments (e.g. eyes, clocks, sextants, etc.), and built a model containing entities called Sun, Earth and orbit.
There's nothing in what I've said that's contrary to this. So why'd you post it?
we predict that this orbit will continue along a certain path,
We've *defined* the paths of the Earth and Sun (model entities), and translated those paths into numerical results that are expected to match the readings on particular real-world instruments.
We can define a path all we want, but the observation will be the observation, and natural phenomena will ignore any definition created by man. It will be what it will be, and all we can do is match our prediction of what it will be to what it is in order to value the worth of our model.
and we base
this prediction upon the observations we've made which result in speculation as to the cause.
The prediction is based solely on the model; no speculation is needed in order to designate a cause within the model.
Well, of course we base all of this upon the model. There's nothing in that proposition that's contrary to what I said.
The worth of our model lies in the reliability of those predictions.
It lies in the correctness of the predictions.
And the *correctness* is determined by matching the predictions which were made using the model to the observations.
.
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