HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Instrumentalism and paradigms (was: Re: Hidden Variables)
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 05:04:26 GMT

In article <snodgras.715541559@crash> Snodgrass writes:
>Mathematics is for description. Scientific models are not
>based on mathematics, they are _described_ using mathematics.

There are plenty of scientists around who believe that mathematics is
simply a tool for controlling or predicting our environment, who
believe in some kind of paradigm theory, who deplore those who accept
the current dogma blindly---and who also believe that the mathematics
of relativity and quantum mechanics is a powerful tool for control.
They might agree with you that it is wrong to think of time dilation or
wave functions or manifolds as "real" (whatever that means) but they
still accept the mathematics involved.

This is what I mean by saying that having the "correct" philosophy of
science is irrelevant to actually doing science and making progress.
Why is it that so many scientists who share your rejection of realism
and embrace the view of science as an instrument of control nevertheless
continue to cling to relativity?  If relativity really gives them no
control, would not control-hungry scientists (of which there are many)
notice this?  That they haven't means that either relativity brings
control, or that having the "right" philosophy of science doesn't cure
blindness to absurdity.

>As for the "very great success of QM", compared to what?
>Geocentricity was successful. The flint arrowhead too. Or
>conversely, shall we list its failures? Has it had very great
>success becoming consistent with the other great subjectivist
>doctrine, relatitivty? Has it had very great success in avoiding
>paradox? In creating a humanly comprehensible cosmology?

Every theory has failures.  So what?  Should we reject every theory that
has failures and thereby reject everything?  If some theories are acceptable
in spite of their weaknesses, why not QM?

>The new physics will be brought down by experiment, however. There's
>no other way.

What do you mean by "brought down"?  Completely rejected?  If so then
it seems that there is a serious problem with your theory of paradigms.
In a paradigm shift the old paradigm is rarely totally discarded.
Newtonian mechanics is an old paradigm but has survived into relativity
and quantum mechanics as a limiting case of these theories.  You are
advocating total rejection of these theories.  Such a wild paradigm shift
is unprecedented and there is no reason to expect that it will occur.
More reasonable is to conjecture that the next paradigm shift will retain
all of relativity and quantum mechanics as special cases.

It seems that you're totally convinced that the new physics is wrong.  NOW
who's being open-minded?  :-)
-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:36:00 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com


In article <1992Aug28.133107.8402@math.ucla.edu>, barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:

|> I might add that this is another thing that separates philosophical
|> study from scientific study. We don't worry about reading the
|> original works, or dwelling on the lives and miscellaneous writings
|> of the originators of physical theory. For some reason that I don't
|> understand, philosphers still devote much time to original 
|> works from Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, etc, etc, 
|> rather than merely focusing on the concepts themselves, divorced
|> from their proponents (and their proponents generally inferior
|> original presentations).

Well, we agree on this (at least to a substantial degree).  You
probably missed the previous postings by me and others a while ago
on just this topic, and I don't think we want to rehash the issues.

However, you conflate philosophical study with the study of the
history of philosophy.  Again, this makes me suspicious that your
actual experience and knowledge of both philosophy and philosophy
of science (particularly recent contributions to these) is severely
limited or missing entirely.  Quite honestly, to me you seem to be
running mostly on fumes here.  I find it odd that the only philosophers
you have ever mentioned are all dead.  (And in addition they had
virtually nothing to say regarding the philosophy of science.)  You
haven't even mentioned any of the positivists from the early part
of this century.  Sure, if your view of philosophy and philosophy
of science is through the eyes of the medievals through the 18th
century philosophers you would think they had little to offer
in terms of philosophy of science.  But this would be like me
complaining that chemists are goofy because they believed in phlogiston
or that physicists are dimwitted because Galileo gave a preposterous
explanation of why you can't use a suction pump to pump water higher
than 34 ft.

Why not give us an idea of the scope of your knowledge and study
in these areas?  At least this would enable the participants to
communicate a little more efficiently with you.  I bet I've taken
more courses in (and done more reading of) science than you have
of philosophy.  Geez, my wife (who used to be a philosopher of
science [biology]) has a degree in biology and was second author
of a paper in _Nature_ as an undergraduate.  You seem to think that
philosophers of science don't know any science and have never been
in a lab.  Not so.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
From: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: hidden variables
Date: 30 Aug 1992 20:50:05 GMT
Organization: Vampire Research Group at Berkeley :)
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu

   Is the proof of the finiteness of the universe from the existance of
existance at all similar to the following proof of God's existance?
1. We define God to be blueness; He is, moreover, the blue of blueness and
   the blueness of blue.
2. It therefore follows that God must be, since without blueness there can
   be no blue, and atheists are blue because of the overwhelming meta-
   physical despair their rejection of God creates; QED.
   Could this debate about existance and what does or does not follow from it
be moved to another thread? Or a connection with hidden variables shown?
Or (least I be accused of relying on an outdated binary logic) will it be
necessary for hordes of sneering positivists to descend upon this thread?
	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
	larval physicist
-- 
"Some savages are persuaded by the 'natural light' that it is their duty to
 eat people, and even Voltaire's savages, who are led by the voice of reason
 to hold that one should only eat Jesuits, are not wholly satisfactory."
-Bertrand Russell on Rousseau in _A History of Western Philosophy_, p. 694
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: invention of time
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 07:42:34 GMT

In article <snodgras.714772480@crash> snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)  
writes:
> This is why
> one so often hears of the 'beauty' of relativity theory.
> 
>       Now, the question is, is this science? Obviously, I think not. IMO, it
> is hard to swallow that nature has this, what I consider to be somewhat
> puerile simplicity to its structure. I consider it to be pre-information-age
> naivete to think that some mathematician, off the top of his head (or on the
> basis of crude experiments with mirrors and candles) say, "Ahk! So, you see,
> nothing can exceed the speed of light, because light is absolute! Yah, light
> is absolute, and moves through geometrical nothingness!" I AM SURE.

>       SnOdGrAsS

Here you go, merrily heading down the wrong path that so characterizes
the downfall of philosophy.

When will philosophers realize that "sounding right", "sounding reasonable",
"is this _science_", "is this the way nature works", "beauty", 
and all these other subjective criteria have no bearing whatsoever on
whether a physical theory is valid or useful. If it matches experiment
and is convenient to work with, its a good physical theory. Case closed.

Mr Snodgrass seems to epitomize the classic philosopher, whose main goal
is to have a theory they can feel cozy with, that fits into their 
limited world view, abides by their prejudices. 

Fine, but abandon all hope of making useful contributions to science. 
I hope you just do this stuff for a hobby.

--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: hidden variables
Date: 31 Aug 92 08:52:25 GMT
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista

In article <17rc9tINNsep@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu 
(Cosma R. Shalizi) writes:

   >Is the proof of the finiteness of the universe from the existance of
   >existance at all similar to the following proof of God's existance?

  Good heavens, no! Apparently your education has been sadly neglected.
The proof of the finiteness of the universe from the existence of
existence proceeds as follows: since existence exists, the universe
must be finite, since an infinite universe would not exist, contradicting
the existence of existence.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Hidden Variables
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Aug30.021938.10309@cis.umassd.edu>
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 07:49:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.021938.10309@cis.umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
 (Stephen Grossman) writes:

  >See:
  >"Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts"-Harry Binswanger, Ayn Rand In-
  > stitute, Los Angeles, 1990. (2nd Ren. Books)
  > "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology"-Ayn Rand, NAL, 1990.
  > ...

  Since your reply did not emphasize the existence of existence, it is
not altogether acceptable. The question of the existence of existence
should not, at any time, be left open.

  However, your article does draw attention to a major source of physical
insight arrived at by pure philosophical thought. Just a few months ago,
as I recall, there was an article in this group in which it was demonstrated,
using the principle of the existence of existence, that the universe is
finite.

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:05:58 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <exukjb.97.714929511@exu.ericsson.se>, exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell) writes:
|> 
|> Intellectual parasites indeed!  Science was born from womb of philosophy!

Or conversely -- it's pretty hard to tell.  I suppose philosophers
may have some claim to primacy on the grounds that the word has
a Greek root and 'science' doesn't.  But that seems cheap.  I just
checked my dictionary for the etymology of 'science' and discovered
the definition:  "the state of knowing".  Of course, we all know
that 'philosophy' means "the love of wisdom".  Does this mean that
philosphers *love* to know, but scientists are the ones who *do* know?
(Please -- it's a joke! -- don't flame me about the knowledge/wisdom
distinction.)  You ought to see the definition of 'philosophy' in
the same dictionary.  I dare not repeat it here.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:15:48 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <BtnLty.JC@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>In article <1992Aug27.143116.16970@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Angus H Rodgers) writes:
>|> In <1992Aug26.095740.17255@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
>|> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>|> 
>|> >it's not at
>|> >all clear that philosophical problems are amenable to scientific
>|> >solutions.  Having said that, one of the reasons I'm using set theory in
>|> >metaphysics is to try to bring some objectivity into the field.
>
>Objectivity, no.  Precision, yes.

I meant here objective as opposed to _subjective_ (and should have said
so).  If philosophers agree to use the same formal language then at
least they agree on something...
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay)
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 03:53:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.044437.19426@math.ucla.edu> 
barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
|[...] I was thoroughly dissapointed
|in their philosophical approach, by the way---the want to copy 
|the gedanken exp style from physics, but the experiments they propose
|as just a vague as the issues they are trying to clarify, unlike the
|case in physics.

I think the use of thought-experiments originated in philosophy, so I
am not sure it is fair to say that it is "copied" from physics. I also
think that the burden of proof is on you to that there is a sensible
"cure" to the vagueness of these philosophical questions. Many issues
seem clear until one tries to formulate one's position on them.

Keith Ramsay          "While this sort of holistic pragmatism is
ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca   attractive, it too has serious difficulties. (So
                      does *every* view; that is why the philosophy of
                      mathematics is so fascinating.)"
                         - Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Angus H Rodgers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:31:16 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

In <1992Aug26.095740.17255@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

>it's not at
>all clear that philosophical problems are amenable to scientific
>solutions.  Having said that, one of the reasons I'm using set theory in
>metaphysics is to try to bring some objectivity into the field.

Wouldn't it be more useful to bring some metaphysics into set theory?

As an example of a metaphysical question: what do people mean when they
talk about "universes of sets", when by "universes" they mean models of
ZFC, and by "models" they mean certain sets? It would be all right if,
as well as describing these "universes" with such formality, these
theorists gave equally rigorous (if not equally formal!) attention to
the naive and obvious question of which reasonings are valid, and which
not, when applied to the (one) Universe within which these so-called
"universes" are so casually (IMHO) presumed to exist - and which is
presumably also the same familiar Universe in which you and I and
Dan Quayle (perhaps) exist.

Have I just not been reading the right books? If this is a "frequently
asked question", it's certainly not a frequently answered one; so a
careful reply is unlikely to be a waste of bandwidth. If anyone can
answer it, I'll be grateful; and if anyone can answer it *objectively*,
I'll fall off my chair in surprise.

Angus H. Rodgers  (PhD student), | arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk  
Dept. of Computer Science, Queen | [ +44 | 0 ] 71 975 5248   
Mary & Westfield College,  Mile  |
End Rd., London E1 4NS, England  | My other .sig is witty.
--
Angus H. Rodgers  (PhD student), | arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk  
Dept. of Computer Science, Queen | [ +44 | 0 ] 71 975 5248   
Mary & Westfield College,  Mile  |
End Rd., London E1 4NS, England  | My other .sig is witty.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 04:23:48 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.162115.22963@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu  
(Timothy Y. Chow) writes:

>  How do you divorce the
> concept of "Being-in-the-world" from Heidegger, or "Absolute Spirit" from
> Hegel?  Such divorcing is not as easy as you seem to make it out to be.
> 

We quite succesfully divorced calculus from Newton and 
Electrodynamics from Maxwell. If the notions you cite cannot be divorced
from their authors, that says to me that the phrases don't really
mean anything, and that philosophers are more interested in
the individuals than in the ideas.


> Secondly, if the originals are inferior, where can we find these superior
> presentations that you seem to imply exist?  

I'm suggesting that the fact they cannot be found points to a weakness
in philosophy and/or philosophical discourse.


--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: Proof of God's Existence
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 03:53:33 GMT

In article <Btx5E0.2Kw@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu  
(David Chalmers) writes:
> The paper itself is quite fun, although it does rest on some dubious
> assumptions, viz: (1) to get the upper bounds required for the
> application of Zorn's Lemma, one must postulate that there is something
> causally anterior to every item in a given causal sequence; (2) to
> establish the uniqueness of God (who is, of course, a First Cause), one
> must assume that for any two events, there is some item that is
> causally anterior to both.


Also, it assumes there are no causal loops, which is also thoroughly 
unverified.

In any case, it equates God with a first cause----a pretty minimalist
interpretation, considering it could just be a quantum fluctuation
in a phase field. Not the sort of deity one can warm up to :-)

--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)
From: 72540.1731@CompuServe.Com (Flash Sheridan)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Sets and Objectivity (Re: Science vs Philosophy of)
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:25:45 GMT
Followup-To: sci.philosophy.tech
Organization: Balliol College, Oxford

In article <1992Aug28.202643.12965@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
(Angus H Rodgers) wrote:
> 
>   About the naive concept of set there is no agreement: not even
> on what axiom system to use (e.g. ZFC is found irksome for formalizing
> category theory), let alone on what sets really are. 

There is actually a fair amount of agreement on what the true axioms are:
certainly about ZF, and most people who avoid Choice do so because it's
inconvenient, not because they believe its negation.  Consensus of course
doesn't imply truth; indeed, I disbelieve the Axiom of Foundation, and
Separation except when restricted to well-founded sets.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Proof of God's Existence
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 13:22:52 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <TORKEL.92Sep4100904@isis.sics.se>, torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:

|> 
|>  >Do they ever send phil papers to real scientists to referee?
|> 
|>   This would make as much sense as sending scientific papers to
|> real philosophers to referee.

Come on guys, I know for a fact of two areas in which this *does*
happen.  One is (gasp!) the philosophy of physics (quantum mech.
in particular) where I know of philosophers who publish in
physics journals (and I'm sure some physicists publish in philosophy
journals).  The other is the philosophy of biology where perhaps
even more of this happens.  As one odd (and somewhat extreme)
example, consider the case of Mary Williams who couldn't seem to
get an appointment in a philosophy department.  She was (perhaps
still is) in something like the department of statistics at
U. of Maryland.  Yet over a long period of years she has been a
major contributer in the area of philosophy of biology in both
philosophy and biology journals.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: Evolutionary Epistemology
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 00:26:57 GMT

In article <Bu01JK.C4y@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)  
writes:
> 
> 
>  Most of this stuff is lifted from an old paper of my
> wife's:  "Can Darwinian Inheritance Be Extended from Biology to
> Epistemology?",

This provides a good example of what I consider the bad philosophy
of science. Not your wifes paper (she is essentially correct), but
the fact that philosophers would try to abstract Darwinian evolution
and then go around asking if this or that thing is a Darwinian evolution.

As usual, the philosophers desire to develop a theory of some 
incredibly grand thing (epistemology), and end up with useless 
mush. The value of Darwins (and derived) theory of evolution is that it answers  
questions about how traits are acquired and fixed in populations, how
new species develop, etc. When coupled
with genetics, it provides a complete, quantitative and predictive mechansim
for biological evolution. 

Epistemology is simply not open to a similar degree of quantification.

Even if epistemology did turn out to be a 'Darwinian system'
by someones definition, that doesn't change what epistemology is: the
historical development of ideas would still be a very vague, unpredictible
process lacking simple unifying ideas, and certainly little predictive
power, as there is no underlying genetic code which enforces an
orderly development process.

> And the source of new concepts
> is not located in other concepts, but in the mental activity of
> some human being.  Consequently, the way in which concepts are
> "inherited" is very unlike the way in which genes are inherited.
> Genes replicate themselves, but concepts must be "replicated" by
> human beings. 


At the level of the mushy theory desired by the philosopher, one
could easily refute these criticisms. Genes only replicate themselves
upon a given chemical subtrate. This substrate is prone to mutation. One
could say human minds are the substrate on which ideas replicate, and it
just happens to be a substrate very prone to mutation. 

The fact that then mutation would be the dominant factor in this 
theory makes it a useless theory, but philosophers seem undaunted by such.
--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech