From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 16:01:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.080242.7042@math.ucla.edu> barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>I'm not so sure relativity was an outgrowth of his prejudices. I
>don't recall any quotes of young Einstein saying ``God does
>not fill the universe with Aether'', or ``God does not distinguish
>among reference frames''.

From Martin Gardner's _Mathematical_Circus_, in the chapter on simplicity:

	``Our experience,'' he [Einstein] wrote, ``justifies us in
	believing that nature is the realization of the simplest
	conceivable mathematical ideas.''  When he chose the tensor
	equations for his theory of gravitation, he picked the simplest
	set that would do the job, then published them with complete
	confidence that (as he once said to the mathematician John G.
	Kemeny), ``God would not have passed up an opportunity to make
	nature that simple.''

In an earlier article you point out that Einstein ceased being really
productive once he decided to reject quantum theory.  Although he himself
did not make any stunning contributions after GR, refutation of his
objections was the motivation for much productive physics.  Bell's theorem
is I think a good example of this.  Some of Einstein's thought experiments
led to a deeper understanding of the uncertainty principle, even though
Einstein's predictions about these experiments were wrong.

Your theories about philosophy simply don't stand up to the historical
facts.  This is not surprising, since under your own admission you don't
know many of the historical facts.

>(Relativity is essentially contained in Electrodynamics if you 
>allow yourself to interpret the theory correctly.)

As Torkel Franzen has pinted out, GR is not essentially contained in
electrodynamics.

In article <1992Aug28.133107.8402@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.

And you think this is a good thing???  This flabbergasts me!  Unbelievable!

Each time that I have gone back to study original works or studied the
history of science my understanding of science has increased enormously.
Modern textbooks erase all the false starts and misconceptions of the past,
leaving only a gleaming edifice that not only leaves the student with a
totally false impression of what the scientific enterprise involves but
which also leaves him wondering how on earth anyone ever figured any of it
out.  And if the student comes up with an alternative theory of his own
that is different from the usual one, he will be hard-pressed to find a
refutation of it in a textbook, even if it's a theory that was considered
and discarded in the past.  Going back to the originals, on the other hand,
answers many of these questions.

Examples of authors whose original work is of immense value even today:
Euclid, Galois, Darwin, Maxwell, Riemann.

>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

First of all it is impossible to understand many philosophical works without
knowing these old works.  Husserl assumes that the reader knows Descartes,
Marx assumes the reader knows Hegel and Feuerbach, and so on.  Secondly,
what do you mean by the ``concepts themselves''?  Synthetic vs. analytic,
absolute paradox, communism, absolute spirit, transcendental ego, forms,
the four causes, utilitarianism?  Surely you're not suggesting that everyone
reinvent the wheel---even scientists build on previous work.  But where
better to read about these concepts than in the works of Kant, Kierkegaard,
Marx, Hegel, Husserl, Plato, Aristotle, and Mill?  I think it is fortunate
that philosophers have the sense to read the originals instead of taking
for granted that what's in textbooks is the absolute truth, as so many
scientists seem to do.
-- 
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
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech