From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:22:21 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Oct08.200637.162851@watson.ibm.com> platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt) writes:

>|> >A gedanken experiment is an act of faith.
>|> 
>|>      A gedanken experiment is a construct that admits falsifiability if
>|>      it is physics.  It is not an act of Faith.
>
>Now this I feel misses the point.  I think gedanken experiments are
>ways of exploring the consequences of principles or theories in a
>more practical setting.  Einstein's relativistic railroads were never
>things that one could do falsifiable tests on.  However, they did
>provide a good way to articulate consequences.

     I feel compelled to point out that falsifiability does not
     necessarily imply that you need to perform the experiment, or even
     that you know how.  A mental construct can admit falsifiability, even if
     you do not actually know how to falsify it.  If it does not
     admit falsifiability, it is not physics.  

     On a more concrete level, these consequences of which you speak
     can falsify your gedankenexperiments.  The ability is sufficient.

>These constructs also allowed the exploration of the consequences of
>quantum mechanics in areas that lay at the foundation of the field,
>such as EPR, Bell's theorems, etc.  So, in this sense, they provide
>a way of exploring the scope of theories more than being a way of
>enforcing falsifiability.

      Every time you 'explore the scope' you submit your construct
      to falsifiability.  That is the whole point of the construct.

>|>      There is a great deal of difference between Faith and blindly
>|>      treading down the path.  Faith is actually the antithesis of
>|>      blind treading.  However the discussion of such issues
>|>      is certainly best left elsewhere.
>
>It sounds like you are on the edge of saying faith is not blind, but has
>an origin and direction...  Some people have based theology on an idea like
>'the universe was created good' ("In the beginning...").  While the textual
>sources are flasified (the Babylonian cosmology in the P source, and the more
>primitive J source doesn't hold water, even if creationsists want equal time
>in our schools), the intent that the universe is good is not
>falsifiable; yet it is something derived from experience.  People spend
>lots of time talking about it in communicating their experience. 

     I don't want to go too deeply into religion, but I do hope that you'll 
     understand.  

     No text or concept taken on Faith has ever been falsified, by physics or 
     by anything else.  Try to rid yourself of the rules by which you
     are thinking of this.  If one of my tenets of Faith was that the moon 
     was made of green cheese, no amount of 'evidence' to the contrary
     would suffice to falsify this tenet, simply because evidence does
     not matter with Faith.  Evidence has absolutely nothing to do with 
     Faith. 

     And the creationists should not be allowed ANY time in science classes
     because what they preach is not science, it is Faith.  They are
     welcome to take their place in the comparative religion class with
     the scores of other religions.

>Here's a point I tend to agree with.  One point I feel worth making is
>that science is description.  There's lots of people who feel very 
>confident in talking about the characteristics of my coffee cup's
>quantum state vector, without reference to the idea that this kind of
>language presupposes that quantum state vectors are real tangible things
>with substance.  I'd tend to say that they are descriptions, just as
>'mass', 'momentum', 'temperature', and even 'time' are descriptions
>constructed to understand, organize, and predict the behavior of the
>universe around us.  Attaching substance to these descriptions is a
>*non-falsifiable* interpretation of the descriptions, and seems to 
>fall into the area of 'faith.'

     All of these descriptions are certainly falsifiable in that they
     are all tentative.  They do not generally fall into the category
     of Faith.

                                dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics