What was done in philosophy?


jts

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Don't think for a minute Rand would accept a student-teacher relationship in which she was the inferior party.

Rand did accept a relationship in which she was the student for a time with Isabel Paterson.

Ellen

Yes she did. It was at that time, it would seem, that she was really developing her Objectivist philosophy whatever basic principles she was already working off. I think that job was essentially and in detail done with the writing of Galt's speech. I'd bet that those two years of writing were somewhat--no, considerably--more than a literary task. But after that who was going to teach her any philosophy? Who was going to teach Prometheus about fire? What to do with it was another matter. Going on strike was practical hyperbole fit actually for those going into retirement. You can't tell college students to go on strike, nor did she, really. She was telling them to save the world and save themselves from the axis of altruism-collectivism. Unfortunately, she did not try to save them from lack of critical thinking and lack of rationality except superficially by declaring, in effect, that if you agreed with what she wrote you must already be rational--that that was a given, flattering the reader. Galt's speech was right from the pulpit. The church full of impressionable kids. (This is also a critique on their lack of education through their public education and implicit submission to authority. Rand became another, more highly powered authority, so she worked off a huge base. Like her heroic characters, it was all a great new world to be introduced too, but like them there was no explanation how that world became that world--the world of AS, not in it, or the world of NBI and Ayn Rand going to the Ford Hall Forum almost every year--or how they became who they were. She didn't really know beyond her cultural-intellectual creation, maintained by her et al.)

Rand implicitly embraced the great man theory. Galt was interjected into the political arena displacing the current politicos as he was so powerful as the leader of the striking men of the mind. The reality, of course, is what you have in Cuba or Zimbabwe. The poor and more run-over the country the more you, the SOB running the joint, are in control. If you want to displace a dictator you need enough wealth and moxie to show up at the palace and burn it down. Coming from Russia, Rand had no real idea about the American militia tradition and a country filled with private firearms. In that sense her Americans in AS were Europeans if not Russians. The idea of the United States as full of Russian giver-uppers only works in the alternate reality she depicted as a sort of end game of a future she wanted to prevent. I admit, we could go there but I truly expect a huge snapback long before that happens. Rand and AS would necessarily be part of that and what follows. In the meantime, everything needs intellectual work and local political happenings.

--Brant

I need to get out of the house

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Like most moderns from Descartes forward, Rand rejected the operation of Aristotle’s final causation in the world apart from conscious purposes in the world. That is a bit of philosophical progress, and it certainly looks like there will be no going back on it in the predominate intellectual culture of advanced countries. Rand also rejected, as have other moderns, Aristotle’s notion of the material world as composite of matter and form. Like Descartes, she rejected the Aristotelian/scholastic appeals to substantial forms in explanations. She rejected also Aristotle’s notion of essences of things as endowed with causal powers. (For more on the relation of Rand’s philosophy, both 1938 and 1957, to first philosophy of Descartes, including her sound correctives to him and systematic errors shared with him, see the second chapter of my forthcoming book.)

She applauded Aristotle, however, for more than his inauguration of term logic and his staking the principle of noncontradiction. She took him to have, first among philosophers, “defined the basic principles of a rational view of existence and of man’s consciousness: that there is only one reality, the one which man perceives—that it exists as an objective absolute . . . —that the task of man’s consciousness is to perceive, not to create, reality—that abstractions are man’s method of integrating his sensory material—that man’s mind is his only tool of knowledge . . .” (FNI 22).

However far Rand was right or wrong in locating the origin of such a worldview in Aristotle and however far she was right or wrong in crediting him with such attachment as there is to that view today, she was right to take the view as philosophic progress and as at least some of the flooring of modern science.

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[Rand declared] in effect, that if you agreed with what she wrote you must already be rational--that that was a given, flattering the reader.

Galt's speech was right from the pulpit. The church full of impressionable kids. (This is also a critique on their lack of education through their public education and implicit submission to authority. Rand became another, more highly powered authority, so she worked off a huge base...)

Coming from Russia, Rand had no real idea about the American militia tradition and a country filled with private firearms. In that sense her Americans in AS were Europeans if not Russians.

Brilliant, three ace of trumps or home runs or whatever. Puts the whole cottage industry out of business. Explains why it failed.

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I had to break this post into two parts. Sometimes I get a weird error message when I try to include a quote from another thread.

She rejected also Aristotles notion of essences of things as endowed with causal powers.

In the sense that she rejected Aristotle's idea of essences as forms in things. But she did see the "essential characteristic(s)" as actually existing and as having causative power:

"Metaphysically, a fundamental [essential distinguishing] characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others" (ITOE, 59)

"An essential characteristic is factual in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of 'essential characteristic' is a device of man's means of cognition - a means of classifying, condensing and integrating an ever-growing body of knowledge" (ITOE, 68) (my bold emphasis).

You explained further in a post on another thread:

Dan, although Rand did not think essential characteristics were such without their standing as concepts, she thought their warrant for being selected to be the essential (though conceptualized) characteristic was by reflection of objective dependency relations in the concrete world.

[...] essence for [Aristotle] was more like a single, recurring Platonic form that could make things in the world of concretes to be what they are [...]. Rand, like other moderns, rejected the idea that there are any such forms making or moving anything in the (metaphysically given) world. Explanatory power of essential characteristics under Rands conception derives ultimately from what causally makes what other things possible in the concrete world. The concrete world and what makes and moves it consists entirely of concrete identities at play on their own without supervision of mental forms.

Ellen

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(For more on the relation of Rands philosophy, both 1938 and 1957, to first philosophy of Descartes, including her sound correctives to him and systematic errors shared with him, see the second chapter of my forthcoming book.)

I'm very curious as to your views on "systemic errors shared with Descartes." I've long thought that Rand's conception of how volitional causality works is very like Descartes' idea of the "soul" as moving the body (via intersection at the pineal gland). I wonder if you're seeing something similar.

Ellen

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Ellen,

I gather Rand’s avoidance of talk of essences and its replacement with talk of essential characteristics is not only to stay clear of Aristotelian forms but of causal powers of essential characteristics. They don’t have causal powers in virtue of being essential, in her modern view. True, for her as for Aristotle, an essential characteristic of a thing makes a thing what it is, but that is not a causal making. Rationality makes an animal to be a man, though that is not a causal making (well, perhaps a formal causality, but not a material or efficient one). Her additional idea that rationality explains the greatest number of other distinctive characteristics of humans did not require each such explanatory relation to be a causal one. Causal is nice when you can get it, in the present context of knowledge, and I think I was taking it to be premier mode of Rand-explanation in my remark to Dan.

Rand’s idea that the concept value depends necessarily on the concept life is a dependency relation that does not seem to reduce to causal dependency in the sense of one thing making something happen in another thing or in the sense of material causality, as making proteins from amino acids. Then too the attributes of a thing are not always effects caused by a thing, though they depend on it. An electron’s mass is not caused by the electron (or anyway, so far as I know, there’s no use in thinking of it that way at present).

On the “systematic errors shared with Descartes in first philosophy,” I found three. Two I’ve never written about, and they are secrets for the book. The third is the one in the 1996 installment of “Volitional Synapses,” in the section Deterministic Error.* The likeness of Rand with Descartes you mention discerning is not among the three shared errors I came to see.

Stephen

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[Essential characteristics] dont have causal powers in virtue of being essential, in her modern view.

I take her to be making the reverse claim - that essential characteristics are essential (in the metaphysical sense) by virtue of their being causal. For instance, she says that rationality makes watch-making, building buildings, etc., possible.

Rands idea that the concept value depends necessarily on the concept life is a dependency relation that does not seem to reduce to causal dependency in the sense of one thing making something happen in another thing or in the sense of material causality [...].

I agree there, but the dependency she's talking about in that context is one of nesting of concepts - e.g., the concept "value" doesn't make sense without the context of the concept "life."

Ellen

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Rands idea that the concept value depends necessarily on the concept life is a dependency relation that does not seem to reduce to causal dependency in the sense of one thing making something happen in another thing or in the sense of material causality [...].

I agree there, but the dependency she's talking about in that context is one of nesting of concepts - e.g., the concept "value" doesn't make sense without the context of the concept "life."

It's always pleasantly nostalgic to consider Aristotle's four types of causation and the definition of terms like "value" and "rational."

I'm reluctant to define man as the only rational animal or the primarily rational animal, despite our apparently unique power to demonstrate the proofs of logic and mathematics, to devise instruments of measurement and make elaborate appliances like motor transport and aircraft, and to communicate knowledge in documents. Those are great powers indeed, but they were historically devoted to death-dealing purposes of war and religion and the most dubious and gruesome entertainments, which calls into question our essential rationality. I believe Rand properly emphasized man's voluntary exercise of reason. Man is the "choosing" animal -- in her phrase, a being of volitional consciousness. It's easy to show that dogs and dolphins learn, communicate, and undertake rational, purposeful action including joyous play, but lack the moral option of suicide and idiotic religious confections involving immortality and transubstantiation of water into wine, wine into blood.

With respect to a necessary dependency of "value" on "life" I would rather trust a dog to get it right more often than men.

As an artist, I've never cared a heck of a lot about my life. I smoke cigarettes, take enormous financial risks, and don't value myself very highly at all. To me, the ultimate good is artistic achievement. Living is only a means. I think I'm in good company (no pun intended). The American Revolutionary patriots cared more for liberty than personal survival. They were willing to risk everything, including their families, to free themselves from a tyrant. Heroism is not just a myth; people really do lay down their lives for values like freedom and justice. Therefore I've discarded half of Ayn Rand's theory of value. Instead of a two-directional ordinate scale, mine goes from zero to infinity.

No Value . . . . . "Good"

|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|--->

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 +

[COGIGG, p.26]

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Thanks to Ellen and all for the posts in this thread. Much good thought to assimilate.

Ellen underscored that there is metaphysics besides Aristotle’s. We retain metaphysics even though we moderns reject parts of his metaphysics, and of course, Aristotelian mechanics. Descartes contended that Aristotelian metaphysics was impairing the advance of science. Descartes advanced science in his explanation of the rainbow and in his straightening of Galileo’s new principle of inertia (a big reversal of the received Aristotelian views on motion) and in some biology. Kant too saw metaphysics as interfering conceptually with scientific advance in his own later era, although by then the metaphysics at issue was Wolffian, not Aristotelian. Kant’s own meta-view of mechanics was nonetheless a wrong conception of how we do physics and the character of its laws. And Descartes’ conception of the conduct of modern hard science was not a correct picture of how scientific advance was being accomplished and would be accomplished, even though he was a contributor, a contributor with some misconception of the enterprise.

Here is a contemporary example of the function of informed philosophic reflection on physics. I notice that the author draws into the light of day some metaphysical suppositions in received integrative meta-views, suppositions he recommends be discarded for a better integrative meta-view (and better metaphysics, better ontology?).

Rational Reconstructions of Modern Physics

Peter Mittelstaedt (Springer 2013)

“Philosophy begins in wonder. It never ends.” —Robert Nozick

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These various metaphysics are historical thus changing one to the next. It's actually epistemology for metaphysics as reality is not in our brains save as methodology. As such it is looking for a way to look at and through a structure not inherent in the object itself. Once there is true congruence we can say the object and the structure are effectively one and the same and it clicks into place--for at least one object. Then you generalize first by sweeping in more and more objects to find continuity and further verification until something doesn't work. Then the structure must be modified to fit both the doesn't work with what has worked so far. This can never stop, only pause, for for our purposes the objects (object of) are infinite and, of course, include the interactions of these objects for reality is dynamic. The tentativeness of knowledge is reflected in the scientific method. Absolutism--true absolutism--is only for the axiomatic core, but that doesn't stop the absolutists from running wild in the so-called "soft sciences" as they try to ram their notions down our throats for our own good as the scientific method isn't properly applicable mostly therein though rationality still rules--should rule--albeit used as an implicit "stolen concept" by the absolutists, one of which was even, sometimes, Miss Ayn Rand.

--Brant

this may sound loopy as I'm not quite smart enough to follow the preceding discussion in appropriate detail, so please don't take what I've said as the interjection of a discourtesy

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Now we have Objectivism, which might be the start of real progress in philosophy, or not.

The cash value of physical science is the technology that it engenders. What is the cash value of philosophy?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Speaking generally, as you are doing, it's zero for both. And you are assuming there is no philosophy foundational to science or a philosophy of science. If there is no philosophy of science you can't use science to attack philosophy. So what are you using? The philosophy of non-philosophy? That's a contradiction.

--Brant

With a few exceptions, the metaphysics of science is well regulated by empirical matter.

The Biggie of course is the assumption of Uniformity of Physical Law everywhere and everywhen (at least since the super expansion of the big bang cosmos at 10^-43 seconds after it happened. That and the logical law of non-contradiction.

Everything else is bounded by empirical data.

That is why Aristotle had to be dumped. However elements of Plato are still retained. Physicists to some extent are bound by mathematical considerations. To do math, you have to be a closet Platonist to some degree.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Bob,

How is Uniformity of Physical Law different from mere Existence of Physical Law? What does Uniformity add to Physical Law? Do you add Uniformity to your expression only to say what you mean by Physical Law?

How is Uniformity of Physical Law different from ye ol’ Uniformity of Nature? I imagine you rightly grasp that nature has identities more widely than it has laws and that with our level of science we are in position to include pursuit of those laws, not only more and more non-law identities of nature.

Are you counting physical-invariants-under-transformations under Physical Law? In light of modern physics, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Today, isn’t the more fundamental assumption: there are physical-invariants-under-transformations? (Along with: those are valuable things to find and, with our mathematics in play over empirical results, we are able to find them.)

More fundamental than that, of course, would be the assumption that existents have specific and particular identities. Though that is an assumption of science, it is not peculiar to science. I agree that science has some more narrow (and more sticking-your-neck-out) assumptions about identities of existents than that one.

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Assumptions last until contradicted by observation and data. They are essentially place-holders or bridges so we can think coherently. One big workable assumption is the "Big Bang" itself. The most important thing is our brains are not unemployed, for if they are we nether seek nor acquire necessary data. We wouldn't even know where to look. Unfortunately, one can be so invested in a theory one won't give it up. Let's say, hypothetically, that Einstein's theory of the "Cosmological Constant" (Relativity) is wrong. Most Einsteinians will never give that theory up; their whole careers are invested in it. They believe it absolutely. That wouldn't happen for several generations. Right now Relativity is incompatible with Quantum Mechanics. Nobody is trying to reconcile the two by starting out by disregarding Relativity itself. Instead physicists are rworking on "String Theory." That may be the correct approach. I, the layman, couldn't begin to know.

--Brant

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS

There is a "let's make it political and nasty" drizzling over most any topic, any post, such as the drizzle of #42, that makes this an unappealing place for some of us to post.

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such precious minds as these.

Inadvertently put me in mind of something I wrote long ago:

It is surprisingly cheap to buy a man’s soul. Offer him a clean house, the chance to do white-collar work or tinker with a cyclotron, and he will work gladly for a monarch. Franklin Roosevelt was a gracious, amusing king. Dinners at the White House were a riot, with Harpo Marx frequently an official court jester presiding over the punch bowl. Nothing much has changed since then. The Clintons are no less gregarious; their Hollywood pals are no less gay—and our terms of engagement remain the same. Work for the Pentagon, live in luxury. [Laissez Faire Law, p.86]
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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

Yes, but it is still the best theory of gravitation we have. If it breaks, it will give way in very strong gravitational fields such as are found near and in Black Holes. It remains to be seen whether the Einstein "fudge factor" can account for the effects of Dark Energy (that mysterious something which is causing the universe to expand and accelerate in its expansions).

Beckman was a bit of a maverick. He rightly challenged both general and special relativity and was shown to be incorrect in hischallenges. Beckman also challenged the hypothesis that AIDS was caused by a virus. However Beckman was no crackpot. He did solid work in electrodynamics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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That AIDS is caused by a particular virus which has been identified is still something of a medical-scientific myth which displaces the other myth that another virus is the culprit. This hasn't stopped more effective treatment of AIDS prolonging life enough that Hepatitis C might be more of a general health threat these days. The general use of drugs by homosexuals, especially "poppers," as an adjunct of grossly promiscuous sexual activity--some homosexuals would check into bath houses Friday night and not leave until Monday morning after being continually fucked up the behind (if you were a top you wouldn't stick around that long having been spent). It is impossible to recreate that scene today so such activity cannot be evaluated in the context of AIDS mortality and the present-day use of the anti-AIDS drug cocktail. That cocktail was preceded by an exceedingly toxic drug that may in itself contributed more to mortality than anti-mortality until its amount was reduced as other drugs were introduced creating the the benefit of its reducion or the benefit of the other drugs or both? Hard to tell. If I had AIDS--I don't; I'm as STD free as a new born baby--sure, I'd take the cocktail or whatever it is they are using these days.

--Brant

I'm only afraid of STDs from women; I'm through with guys for two or three psychological reasons which isn't too difficult because heterosexality is my birthright proved by what I went through with puberty (all I could think of was multiple sexual partners, all luscious women I imagined were in their early 20s available to me one after the other as if I were an Elvis Presley)

raging hormones (I think they scared me--especially when Momma found that girly magazine under my mattress and gave me the "Women aren't like that lecture"--too bad that there was no Dad to laugh and tell Mom to stuff it and leave me alone--"and put that magazine back where you found it!")

I think Dad should sex-educate the son and Mom the daughter so they both have the same perspective, male to male and female to female, otherwise you could easily get a sexual adversarial dynamic disrupting normal psycho-sexual development--this is especially true of Mom because nobody is more important to a 13 yo than his Mother--I'd put Mom over Dad at that age by a factor of 10; growing older changes the ratio to more Dad favorable as adulthood is personal individuation away from family dependence and there's Dad--The Minuteman!--what the lad grows up to be, paterfamilias!

(Dad told me this story about a Seventh-Day Adventist minister come back from the South Seas lecturing about his experience (1920s): "And then the young men were taken into the Long House and told what they ought not be told!)

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

Yes, but it is still the best theory of gravitation we have. If it breaks, it will give way in very strong gravitational fields such as are found near and in Black Holes. It remains to be seen whether the Einstein "fudge factor" can account for the effects of Dark Energy (that mysterious something which is causing the universe to expand and accelerate in its expansions).

Beckman was a bit of a maverick. He rightly challenged both general and special relativity and was shown to be incorrect in hischallenges. Beckman also challenged the hypothesis that AIDS was caused by a virus. However Beckman was no crackpot. He did solid work in electrodynamics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Of course he was "shown to be incorrect." But that's not the same as being "incorrect." And who did this showing?

--Brant

while he was a friend of Edward Teller, Teller remained an Einsteinian and must have been the much greater genius, although that doesn't make Teller right (Teller also made some nutty pronouncements like "a shield is better than a sword" or that it wouldn't take long to recover from GTW or that Oppenheimer was something of a security risk or suffusing the country with bomb shelters was a good investment in resources (a la Nelson Rockefeller whom he admired)

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

Yes, but it is still the best theory of gravitation we have. If it breaks, it will give way in very strong gravitational fields such as are found near and in Black Holes. It remains to be seen whether the Einstein "fudge factor" can account for the effects of Dark Energy (that mysterious something which is causing the universe to expand and accelerate in its expansions).

Beckman was a bit of a maverick. He rightly challenged both general and special relativity and was shown to be incorrect in hischallenges. Beckman also challenged the hypothesis that AIDS was caused by a virus. However Beckman was no crackpot. He did solid work in electrodynamics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Of course he was "shown to be incorrect." But that's not the same as being "incorrect." And who did this showing?

--Brant

while he was a friend of Edward Teller, Teller remained an Einsteinian and must have been the much greater genius, although that doesn't make Teller right (Teller also made some nutty pronouncements like "a shield is better than a sword" or that it wouldn't take long to recover from GTW or that Oppenheimer was something of a security risk or suffusing the country with bomb shelters was a good investment in resources (a la Nelson Rockefeller whom he admired)

The showing is done by independent experimenters coming up with falsifications to hypothesis.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

Yes, but it is still the best theory of gravitation we have. If it breaks, it will give way in very strong gravitational fields such as are found near and in Black Holes. It remains to be seen whether the Einstein "fudge factor" can account for the effects of Dark Energy (that mysterious something which is causing the universe to expand and accelerate in its expansions).

Beckman was a bit of a maverick. He rightly challenged both general and special relativity and was shown to be incorrect in hischallenges. Beckman also challenged the hypothesis that AIDS was caused by a virus. However Beckman was no crackpot. He did solid work in electrodynamics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Of course he was "shown to be incorrect." But that's not the same as being "incorrect." And who did this showing?

--Brant

while he was a friend of Edward Teller, Teller remained an Einsteinian and must have been the much greater genius, although that doesn't make Teller right (Teller also made some nutty pronouncements like "a shield is better than a sword" or that it wouldn't take long to recover from GTW or that Oppenheimer was something of a security risk or suffusing the country with bomb shelters was a good investment in resources (a la Nelson Rockefeller whom he admired)

The showing is done by independent experimenters coming up with falsifications to hypothesis.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The hypothesis that Einstein was wrong? And that by experiment?

--Brant

who is stuck to the tar baby: you or me?--dunno

I've pretty much come to the conclusion, though, that Einstein cannot be replaced only displaced and that Newtonian physics won't do that job (Petr said Newton was right and Einstein wrong while Einstein said he had no conflict with Newton whom he rightfully considered to be a giant)--for whatever my layman's opinion might be worth (hint: not very much)

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Brant,

You have so much right, I think, in the conception of the workings of science in your posts in this thread, but I want to assure you from the bottom of my heart that you are mistaken about physicists---any physicist---not being willing to abandon the theory of general relativity upon its empirical disconfirmation. The most elementary conjecture of general relativity is the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. Physicists continue to add greater precision to the measurement of those two in order to see if they continue to come out the same within smaller margins of error. And they are always interested in new ways of making those measurements to see if the results are consistent with results of their other, older ways of making the measurements. Were this most elementary conjecture of GR found false in experiment, physicists would check and independently repeat the experiment, and they would recheck the design of the experiment and its rightness for measuring what it is claimed to measure. But if, under heavy scrutiny, experiments refute the conjectured equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, all would abandon general relativity and all would move on to the quest for a new theory able to accommodate both the new experimental finding and all the earlier (by now rather spectacular array of) distinctive implications that have been drawn from GR and have been successful in experimental/observational trials. There is no loss of possible fruitful employment in fundamental physics, on account of experimental results, of such precious minds as these.

GR has always been controversial and remains so.

--Brant

Petr Beckmann: Einstein Plus Two

Yes, but it is still the best theory of gravitation we have. If it breaks, it will give way in very strong gravitational fields such as are found near and in Black Holes. It remains to be seen whether the Einstein "fudge factor" can account for the effects of Dark Energy (that mysterious something which is causing the universe to expand and accelerate in its expansions).

Beckman was a bit of a maverick. He rightly challenged both general and special relativity and was shown to be incorrect in hischallenges. Beckman also challenged the hypothesis that AIDS was caused by a virus. However Beckman was no crackpot. He did solid work in electrodynamics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Of course he was "shown to be incorrect." But that's not the same as being "incorrect." And who did this showing?

--Brant

while he was a friend of Edward Teller, Teller remained an Einsteinian and must have been the much greater genius, although that doesn't make Teller right (Teller also made some nutty pronouncements like "a shield is better than a sword" or that it wouldn't take long to recover from GTW or that Oppenheimer was something of a security risk or suffusing the country with bomb shelters was a good investment in resources (a la Nelson Rockefeller whom he admired)

The showing is done by independent experimenters coming up with falsifications to hypothesis.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The hypothesis that Einstein was wrong? And that by experiment?

--Brant

who is stuck to the tar baby: you or me?--dunno

I've pretty much come to the conclusion, though, that Einstein cannot be replaced only displaced and that Newtonian physics won't do that job (Petr said Newton was right and Einstein wrong while Einstein said he had no conflict with Newton whom he rightfully considered to be a giant)--for whatever my layman's opinion might be worth (hint: not very much)

The anomalous precession of the peri-hellion of Mercury falsifies Newtons law of gravitational force.

The anomaly had been known since the middle of the 19 th century. Einstein's General Theory correctly predicts the precession of the peri-hellion of mercury to within the resolution of the instruments used to observe mercury.

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Stephen,

Some further grist on the issue of how Rand thought of "essential characteristics" (posts #28, #30, #33, #34). Yesterday, when looking up a passage in her article "What Is Romanticism?," I noticed this example:

The Romantic Manifesto

Signet 1975 Second Revised Edition

pg. 99

Following the rule of fundamentality, it is as a volition-oriented school that Romanticism must be defined - and it is in terms of this essential characteristic that the nature and history of Romantic literature can be traced and understood.

She isn't talking physical causality there but ideational-implication causality. She's said earlier in the article:

The Romantic Manifesto

Signet 1975 Second Revised Edition

pg. 93

These basic premises of Romanticism and Naturalism (the volition or anti-volition premise) affect all the other aspects of a literary work [...] but it is the nature of the story structure - the attribute of plot or plotlessness - that represents the most important difference between them and serves as the main distinguishing characteristic for classifying a given work in one category or another.

I mention this example not to produce discussion of the correctness or incorrectness of her thesis on "Romanticism" in art. I'd prefer to discuss my quarrels with her thesis on threads devoted to aesthetics.

I cite the example just as illustrative of her applied thinking using her understanding of "essential characteristics" in a context outside the formal presentation in ITOE.

Ellen

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