Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 03/01/05 

Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:19:19 GMT

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:18:55 -0500, Tony Orlow (aeo6)
<aeo6@cornell.edu> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>Lester Zick said:
>> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:32:02 -0600, Albert <albertwagner@cox.net> in
>> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>
>> >Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:
>> ><snip>
>> >> Mark a number of spots on a balloon. Blow it up. Notice that from the
>> >> p.o.v. of any spot all other spots are moving away. Generalise to 3D
>> >> space, etc.
>> >
>> >I thought analogical evidence was disallowed by science.
>> >Although I have no reason to disbelieve in universal expansion, I
>> >am a little disturbed that recourse to baloon spots and raisin
>> >bread is used to verify an interpretation of red shift,
>> >especially when red shift is the primary evidence for universal
>> >expansion. Sounds circular to me.
>>
>> More evasive than circular, Albert. They can't explain the effect in
>> three dimensions so they just regress it to two dimensions and try to
>> explain it there and hope no one will notice they don't explain it in
>> two dimensions either but only on a two dimensional surface in three
>> dimensions.
>>
>> Regards - Lester
>>
>Lester, why don't you try explaining a sphere in 2 dimensions? You could
>only do so by drawing an anology to circles. Haven't you ever read
>Flatland? If our 3D space is curved around a 4D hypersphere, the balloon
>with dots is exactly analogous spatially, if not temporally. There is no
>other way to picture it given our 3D imagining capabilities.

Tony, I probably read about flatland before you were born. And there
is no way to picture 4D given our 3D imagining capabilities because
there is no 4D hyperspace and that's the reason we have only 3D
imagining capabilities. I always wondered why they explained things in
two dimensions instead of three since that was where the action was
supposed to take place. Then I realized they couldn't explain things
and the reason they couldn't is that there is no fourth spatial
dimension academic pretensions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Haven't you ever wondered why our imagining capabilities are 3D?

>If you discount the possibility of curvature in a fourth spatial
>dimension, please explain why, logically, not empirically, you think the
>universe is limited to three spatial dimensions. To discount the high
>likelihood that the 3D space we experience is curved in some way around
>a 4D space seems to me to be premature at best.

Well, Tony, there are two answers. The first relates to whether 4D
space actually solves problems like the omnidirectional cosmic red
shift. The fact is that it doesn't unless we're at the center of the
universe because spatial and temporal metric eccentricity of any
dimensionality implies directionality and not omnidirectionality.

The second answer is more subtle and depends on what I term the
commensuration of space in dimensional terms. In other words we can
commensurate lines, planes, and solids to one another mathematically
but not higher or lower dimensioned figures to lines, planes, or
solids. This is where dimensionality comes from and what it means.

Regards - Lester

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >imagining capabilities are limited. ... >to develop an intuition about higher dimensions. ... maintain that hyperspace dimensions exist and yet are different ... Mathematicians have ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >imagining capabilities are limited. ... >to develop an intuition about higher dimensions. ... maintain that hyperspace dimensions exist and yet are different ... Mathematicians have ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >imagining capabilities are limited. ... >to develop an intuition about higher dimensions. ... maintain that hyperspace dimensions exist and yet are different ... Mathematicians have ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >> three dimensions so they just regress it to two dimensions and try to ... >other way to picture it given our 3D imagining capabilities. ... commensurate lines, planes, and solids to one another mathematically ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >> three dimensions so they just regress it to two dimensions and try to ... >other way to picture it given our 3D imagining capabilities. ... commensurate lines, planes, and solids to one another mathematically ...
    (sci.cognitive)
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