APS and the Global Warming Scam


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On 3/14/2017 at 2:16 AM, Ellen Stuttle said:

Changing the prediction to something or other, we know not what, might or might not happen an unknown X number of years from now wouldn't retroactively make the string of failed predictions right.

And I hope you're aware of the kind of financial drain being called for in an appeal to "European countries to come together to fund a dedicated (exascale) flagship climate-computing centre – a sort of Climate CERN [...]."  Europe isn't being burdened enough already with the financial and lifestyle hardships produced by climate alarmism?

Ellen

I say we should spend some money on more powerful computers to see if we can get our climate models  precise enough to make genuine testable predictions.  We also should see if we can get better approximations to the solutions of the Navier Stokes equations.  If you saw the video of Palmer he says one of the problems right now is that we cannot  get solutions to the Navier Stokes equation of a wide enough set  of precision scales. 

The alternative to do little or nothing to see if our practices are harmful to life and health  is to keep on doing what we are doing  and find out if there are any ill effects the hard way.  That won't cost anything  up front.   The problem with that is if we, by our energy producing technologies are damaging sea and sky,  by the time we find out we are doing harm, it will be too late to undo the harm.  I think a steady moderate cost approach to improving the science is called far.  Also collecting more data.  What I would really like to see are the 'viros  who know shit about the science, shut up. 

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2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I say we should spend some money on more powerful computers to see if we can get our climate models  precise enough to make genuine testable predictions.  We also should see if we can get better approximations to the solutions of the Navier Stokes equations.  If you saw the video of Palmer he says one of the problems right now is that we cannot  get solutions to the Navier Stokes equation of a wide enough set  of precision scales. 

The alternative to do little or nothing to see if our practices are harmful to life and health  is to keep on doing what we are doing  and find out if there are any ill effects the hard way.  That won't cost anything  up front.   The problem with that is if we, by our energy producing technologies are damaging sea and sky,  by the time we find out we are doing harm, it will be too late to undo the harm.  I think a steady moderate cost approach to improving the science is called far.  Also collecting more data.  What I would really like to see are the 'viros  who know shit about the science, shut up. 

GIGO.

Harm now in lieu of possible(?!?!) harm later.

--Brant

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13 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

GIGO.

Harm now in lieu of possible(?!?!) harm later.

--Brant

How is improving our knowledge of climate  a harm?

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11 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

How is improving our knowledge of climate  a harm?

The harm now is throttling economic endeavor before that knowledge is acquired on the assumption it's gotta happen--harm--so we gotta stop it.

The focus is on CO2--the alleged pollutant.

Now, the atmospheric pollution out of China is worthy of discussion, but not if it's mixed in with CC. That's because CC is so politicalized it's left science in the basement. That's long before the bait and switch of the AGW bait morphed into CC.

--Brant

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6 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The harm now is throttling economic endeavor before that knowledge is acquired on the assumption it's gotta happen--harm--so we gotta stop it.

The focus is on CO2--the alleged pollutant.

Now, the atmospheric pollution out of China is worthy of discussion, but not if it's mixed in with CC. That's because CC is so politicalized it's left science in the basement. That's long before the bait and switch of the AGW bait morphed into CC.

--Brant

1. CO2 is NOT a pollutant.  It is a trace gas and it is plant food.  No CO2 in the atmosphere,  no plants therefore no us.

2  CO2 inhibits  the  radiation of energy in the IR range into space.  This is a scientific -fact-  established by Fourier and Tyndall in the late 19 th century and verified  zillions of times  subsequently by  ever more capable  experimental  technologies..

CO2 acts  somewhat like a blanket.  It is NOT a heat source but it slows the radiation of IR into space somewhat.  Strictly speaking a real physical blanket keeps us warm by inhibiting convection.  CO2 keeps us warm by back scattering some of the IR  radiation it absorbs back to the ground. The effect is to -slow- the rate at which IR  energy is radiated into space.

Without CO2 in the atmosphere  the earth would have an average surface temperature of  -15 deg C. Too cold for us to survive even if we could grow plants in a green house. Designating CO2 as a pollutant is  one of the foul tricks used by the AGW Alarmists. 

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15 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

1. CO2 is NOT a pollutant.  It is a trace gas and it is plant food.  No CO2 in the atmosphere,  no plants therefore no us.

2  CO2 inhibits  the  radiation of energy in the IR range into space.  This is a scientific -fact-  established by Fourier and Tyndall in the late 19 th century and verified  zillions of times  subsequently by  ever more capable  experimental  technologies..

CO2 acts  somewhat like a blanket.  It is NOT a heat source but it slows the radiation of IR into space somewhat.  Strictly speaking a real physical blanket keeps us warm by inhibiting convection.  CO2 keeps us warm by back scattering some of the IR  radiation it absorbs back to the ground. The effect is to -slow- the rate at which IR  energy is radiated into space.

Without CO2 in the atmosphere  the earth would have an average surface temperature of  -15 deg C. Too cold for us to survive even if we could grow plants in a green house. Designating CO2 as a pollutant is  one of the foul tricks used by the AGW Alarmists. 

How could this be known respecting the presence of other trace gases?

Now, what is the percentage of CO2 in the "blanket" compared to other trace gases? What is the percentage of inhibiting it does compared to the other trace gases you mentioned, especially water vapor? What Fourier and Tyndall did according to you was demonstrate inhibition. You imply you know how much and that it is significant. Who has demonstrated significance?

--Brant

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1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

How could this be known respecting the presence of other trace gases?

Now, what is the percentage of CO2 in the "blanket" compared to other trace gases? What is the percentage of inhibiting it does compared to the other trace gases you mentioned, especially water vapor? What Fourier and Tyndall did according to you was demonstrate inhibition. You imply you know how much and that it is significant. Who has demonstrated significance?

--Brant

The radiation of IR  by the CO2 we get from quantum theory.

https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

The explanation is fairy good here even though this is not my favorite site.

You might find this better:  http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-the-greenhouse-effect/

I trust Spencer's judgement.  He is a lukewarmer.  

Here is one from Princeton University.  They are reliable;

 https://www.princeton.edu/geosciences/people/bender/CO2Sampling/climate.xml

I like this article:  

https://www.princeton.edu/geosciences/people/bender/CO2Sampling/fossil_fuel.xml
 

Here is the bottom line.  We are NOT going to turn into Venus anytime soon.  Even so  prudence and good sense indicate we should  start transitioning away from combustion based means of generating electricity.  Our best bet is nuclear fission.  The technology exists,  we know how it works and the newer reactor designs are modular and use passive cooling.  That way we will have no more Fukishima Dai Ichi   type disasters....

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Well, the first link was garbage and the second uninteresting, at least. The last two were informative enough to be interesting: That glacial ice because of "splintering" becomes impermeable and contains trapped air as old as 800,000 years. Thus we can drill into it and extract the air to measure the CO2. And it seems when there are no glaciers to speak of the CO2 has been 300 ppm and only 220ppm when in an ice age. [This does not mean CO2 caused GW, btw.] Today it's 380ppm. Also, industrial activity is calculated to add 4ppm each year but only 2ppm ends up in the atmosphere (but this 4ppm amount is accelerating). The rest is going into the oceans and plants helped by reforestation in excess of deforestration.

You didn't answer my questions, of course.

--Brant

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10 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Well, the first link was garbage and the second uninteresting, at least. The last two were informative enough to be interesting: That glacial ice because of "splintering" becomes impermeable and contains trapped air as old as 800,000 years. Thus we can drill into it and extract the air to measure the CO2. And it seems when there are no glaciers to speak of the CO2 has been 300 ppm and only 220ppm when in an ice age. [This does not mean CO2 caused GW, btw.] Today it's 380ppm. Also, industrial activity is calculated to add 4ppm each year but only 2ppm ends up in the atmosphere (but this 4ppm amount is accelerating). The rest is going into the oceans and plants helped by reforestation in excess of deforestration.

You didn't answer my questions, of course.

--Brant

You did not like Spencer's explanation of how CO2 (the gas)  interacts with electromagnetic radiation in the infra-red spectrum?  Why?  It was just right for people who do not know science well.  That last two sources was for people who knows some post quantum physics.  

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14 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

You did not like Spencer's explanation of how CO2 (the gas)  interacts with electromagnetic radiation in the infra-red spectrum?  Why?  It was just right for people who do not know science well.  That last two sources was for people who knows some post quantum physics.  

You--they--didn't answer my questions.

--Brant

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On March 19, 2017 at 6:05 PM, BaalChatzaf said:
On March 19, 2017 at 4:11 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

It's further vague and doesn't so much as take a stab at answering the questions I asked.

Same with the second paragraph.

Ellen

that was my best shot.  Sorry.  

 

Give me an example of an answer you consider "unvague".  Thank youl

 

Here's the statement of yours in regard to which I asked for specifics - What cost? How provided? Who's doing the research?

On March 15, 2017 at 11:21 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:
On March 14, 2017 at 7:42 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Do you think it is worth the cost of finding out if  human activity will produce harmful weather and climate effects,  or what natural weather and climate effects are going to happen regardless of what we do?   I think it is worth the cost.

Well, that's nice and vague.  You think "it is worth the cost."

What cost? What price tag do you have in mind? Money provided by whom? Collected how? Allocated how?

Research conducted by whom? Overseen and vetted by whom?

The same pseudo-scientific modelers who have given us a stream of unfalsifiable crud and who you said above "might be right"?

Ellen

 

You write in a subsequent post:

On March 19, 2017 at 6:31 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

I say we should spend some money on more powerful computers to see if we can get our climate models  precise enough to make genuine testable predictions.  We also should see if we can get better approximations to the solutions of the Navier Stokes equations.  If you saw the video of Palmer he says one of the problems right now is that we cannot  get solutions to the Navier Stokes equation of a wide enough set  of precision scales. 

The alternative to do little or nothing to see if our practices are harmful to life and health  is to keep on doing what we are doing  and find out if there are any ill effects the hard way.  That won't cost anything  up front.   The problem with that is if we, by our energy producing technologies are damaging sea and sky,  by the time we find out we are doing harm, it will be too late to undo the harm.  I think a steady moderate cost approach to improving the science is called far.  Also collecting more data.  What I would really like to see are the 'viros  who know shit about the science, shut up. 

You think "we should spend some money on more powerful computers [...]" and that "a steady moderate cost approach to improving the science is called [for]."

Again, what specifics do you have in mind? "We should [...]," you say.  Do you mean the U.S. government should be taxing U.S. citizens to get the money? Or do you want the Europeans to pay for it, a la Palmer's suggestion of a CERN-like operation? And how much do you have in mind "we" should spend? And what proposal do you have for achieving quality control of the research?

Ellen

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On March 17, 2017 at 5:23 PM, william.scherk said:

CATO just published an article by Chip Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels, titled Natural Variability’s Role in Arctic Sea Ice Decline Strengthens Case for Lukewarming.

Beyond the title, William doesn't indicate what point the article is making.

I think that a better title would have been:

"Natural Variability’s Role in Arctic Sea Ice Decline Further Invalidates Alarmist Projections."

Quoting the concluding paragraphs:

Quote

[emphasis added]

Arctic ice loss is a positive feedback on temperature as the loss of ice (both acting to reduce the area of a highly reflective surface as well as exposing a larger area of warm water) leads to rising temperatures which leads to more ice loss, and so on. This is the primary reason why the warming in the Arctic is supposed to exceed the global average warming rate.

But if a sizeable proportion of the ice loss is being caused by natural variability (and not greenhouse gas emissions), then some proportion of the warming observed over the past 30 years must be caused by the same forces of natural variability. 

This means that when comparing the rates of observed warming with the rates of warming expected by climate models, that natural variability acting on Arctic sea ice has been making the models seem to be closer to reality than they actually are. In other words, this form of natural variability is (fortuitously) acting to improve (apparent) model/observed agreement.

And considering that the climate models are already performing poorly as it is, the new finding means that they are actually faring even worse than has been generally realized. And accounting for this strengthens the case for a lukewarming [i.e., a non-alarmist] future from greenhouse gas emissions.

Ring up another strike against the climate models, and another reason why basing government policy on their output is a bad idea.

Ellen

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5 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Beyond the title, William doesn't indicate what point the article is making.

I think that a better title would have been:

"Natural Variability’s Role in Arctic Sea Ice Decline Further Invalidates Alarmist Projections."

Quoting the concluding paragraphs:

Ellen

What we need are better climate models.  

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10 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You--they--didn't answer my questions.

--Brant

I can't answer your questions. All I am interested in is the thermodynamics.  If you wish to ask thermodynamics questions and I know something that will help you, I will be glad to contribute. 

As a thermodynamic system the earth is very complicated. The underlying processes are chaotic  and they require much better mathematical tools than we currently have.  In matters  of climate  we are still at the pre-Newtonian stage of understanding it.  We are in the embarrassing state of understanding the sub-systems  of the climate fairly well but when we put them together  they make a mess that does not match the empirical data we have very well.

This is not a new situation.  After WW2   Kelly Johnson and his team at the Skunk Works  started using computers to analyze and model various parts of an airplane.  The found they could optimize  each part but when they put them together they would not fly.  That is why wind tunnels and models are still used in aircraft design.  The divide-and-conquer strategy does not work all that well for aircraft. 

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34 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 In matters  of climate  we are still at the pre-Newtonian stage of understanding it.  We are in the embarrassing state of understanding the sub-systems  of the climate fairly well but when we put them together  they make a mess that does not match the empirical data we have very well.

This is not a new situation.  After WW2   Kelly Johnson and his team at the Skunk Works  started using computers to analyze and model various parts of an airplane.  The found they could optimize  each part but when they put them together they would not fly.  That is why wind tunnels and models are still used in aircraft design.  The divide-and-conquer strategy does not work all that well for aircraft. 

That's honest. A good example of empiricism's limitations and ultimate failure. Losing sight of the bigger picture. Far as I can tell, the whole AGW issue is rooted in anti-conceptualists against conceptualists (but the anti's have got all the force and mind control on their side to make it happen).

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14 minutes ago, anthony said:

That's honest. A good example of empiricism's limitations and ultimate failure. Losing sight of the bigger picture. Far as I can tell, the whole AGW issue is rooted in anti-conceptualists against conceptualists (but the anti's have got all the force and mind control on their side to make it happen).

Empiricism,  wrinkles and limitations notwithstanding  has gotten us much farther than any other  programmatic approach to understanding the physical (i.e. natural)  world.   Two cheers for empiricism and reductionism.  The a priori apodeictic approach is a loser.  Plato and Aristotle pushed that program and it held up the creation of effective physical science  for over a thousand years.  The A  Priori or axiomatic  approach works very well for mathematics  but does not suit physical science very well.  The only thing that keeps the theories and hypotheses of physical science from turning into dogmatic nonsense is experiment and measurement. 

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2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Empiricism,  wrinkles and limitations notwithstanding  has gotten us much farther than any other  programmatic approach to understanding the physical (i.e. natural)  world.   Two cheers for empiricism and reductionism.  The a priori apodeictic approach is a loser.  Plato and Aristotle pushed that program and it held up the creation of effective physical science  for over a thousand years.  The A  Priori or axiomatic  approach works very well for mathematics  but does not suit physical science very well.  The only thing that keeps the theories and hypotheses of physical science from turning into dogmatic nonsense is experiment and measurement. 

First, I was not talking about empiricism the scientific method, but the epistemology. I'm meaning that I bet there are not too many philosophical minds in the AGW field who can 'put it all together'. Apparently empiricists can and will find one thousand factoids, but aren't able to form essential concepts. ('A priori' against 'a posteriori' constitute a false dichotomy I believe).

How much of GW is man-made Vs. how much is metaphysically given? (All man's fault? Good. That'll teach him to get bigger than his britches). It follows too, that few politiscientists are capable of making (conceptual) value judgments: the cost Vs. the pay off. Will the (endless) price to be paid be worth the (hoped for) results?

Instead of conceptual reasoning, what we get is an emotional stampede predicting terrible consequences if we do not surrender freedoms, wealth, our self-confidence, our peace of mind, etc. - and some visceral hatred for a minority of dissidents.

Even then, for one moment assuming all the worst predictive 'models', will the world be so fearful if some things change, and is man so incapable of adapting to change?

Not least are the bureaucrats who promote fear-mongering to gather more control and interfere more. Mankind really has become a bunch of timid scaredy-cats lately.

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4 hours ago, anthony said:

 

How much of GW is man-made Vs. how much is metaphysically given? (All man's fault? Good. That'll teach him to get bigger than his britches). It follows too, that few politiscientists are capable of making (conceptual) value judgments: the cost Vs. the pay off. Will the (endless) price to be paid be worth the (hoped for) results?

How much warming is the result of natural drivers and how much is due to human activity?   That is a good question for which we have less than good answers. Some climate mavens are of the opinion that most of the current warming is due to natural drivers and there are other who think almost all of it is due to human activity.  The models that the climate sensitivity researchers use are rather crude.  There are very few people in the science community who believe Earth is on the verge of turning into Venus (i.e. runaway global warming....). 

By the way you almost certainly will almost never, ever  hear the term "metaphysically given"  come out the mouth of a scientist.  Among most physical scientists  "metaphysics"  is almost a dirty word.   The physical science community does not hold philosophy in high esteem, particularly metaphysics and theology. Aristotle is often used among scientists as an example of what not to do.  Aristotle's account of matter and motion is 90 percent wrong.  The only scientific work of Aristotle that has garnered respect are his books on the structure and function of animals. Charles Darwin thought very highly of Aristotle as a naturalist in connection with Aristotle's work on various kinds of animals. 

Anything that is part of the natural world independent of human artifice  is referred to as physical or natural.  The Greek root of the word physics  means natural.

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10 hours ago, anthony said:

Far as I can tell, the whole AGW issue is rooted in anti-conceptualists against conceptualists (but the anti's have got all the force and mind control on their side to make it happen).

GFS-025deg_NH-SAT1_T2_anom.png

-- once every month or so the folks at ReAnalyzer put animations on their Facebook page.  Here below is one that looked at an earlier Arctic warm wave.   It is an interesting slice of weather.  The better the future can be guessed at, the better we can exploit the future.  And if it looks like continued dark-season warming up there is a good bet, we can be prepared for good and less good consequences.

At some point we will be able to predict what seems utterly unpredictable, explain the heretofore inexplicable,  by better understanding finer-grained details of atmospheric circulation.

Or so says Pollyanna, who flunked out of Alarmist U.

-- for those who hadn't applied independent eyes to the study introduced by CATO's Knappenberger and Thomas, I add the link from their article and the abstract. I will try to fork up some other commentary subsequent to the K&T posting noted above.

Ding, Q., et al., 2017. Influence of high-latitude atmospheric circulation changes on summertime Arctic sea ice. [Full text] 

The Arctic has seen rapid sea-ice decline in the past three decades, whilst warming at about twice the global average rate.Yet the relationship between Arctic warming and sea-ice loss is not well understood. Here, we present evidence that trends in summertime atmospheric circulation may have contributed as much as 60% to the September sea-ice extent decline since 1979. A tendency towards a stronger anticyclonic circulation over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean with a barotropic structure in the troposphere increased the downwelling longwave radiation above the ice by warming and moistening the lower troposphere. Model experiments, with reanalysis data constraining atmospheric circulation, replicate the observed thermodynamic response and indicate that the near-surface changes are dominated by circulation changes rather than feedbacks from the changing sea-ice cover. Internal variability dominates the Arctic summer circulation trend and may be responsible for about 30–50% of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979.

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17 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 

By the way you almost certainly will almost never, ever  hear the term "metaphysically given"  come out the mouth of a scientist.  Among most physical scientists  "metaphysics"  is almost a dirty word.   The physical science community does not hold philosophy in high esteem, particularly metaphysics and theology. Aristotle is often used among scientists as an example of what not to do. 

You'd have to explain this stigma against metaphysics, it is as it was and will ever be, the "branch of philosophy investigating the fundamental nature of reality".[Wikipedia]

How does it get aligned with "theology"? Do some scientists who avoid the concept "metaphysical given" believe it to be at all 'supernatural'? 'Above Nature'? I trust they are not the ones researching Global Warming. Heh, but it makes sense if many are. Many ex-/anti-religious remain self-suppressed mystics in my opinion, which will pop up in alternate forms - neo-mysticism, e.g. The State, or Gaia worship etc..

From Wiki's main page:

Metaphysics

 
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy investigating the fundamental nature of reality.[1] While various views and methods have been called 'metaphysics' across history, this article approaches metaphysics first from the perspective of contemporary analytical philosophy, and then explores metaphysics in other traditions. In this vein, metaphysics seeks to answer two basic questions:[2]
  1. Ultimately, what is there?
  2. What is it like?

Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to one another. Another branch is metaphysical cosmology: which seeks to understand the origin and meaning of the universe by thought alone.[citation needed]

There are two broad conceptions about what "world" is studied by metaphysics. The strong, classical view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist independently of any observer, so that the subject is the most fundamental of all sciences. The weaker, more modern view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist inside the mind of an observer, so the subject becomes a form of introspection and conceptual analysis. Some philosophers, notably Kant, discuss both of these "worlds" and what can be inferred about each one.

Some philosophers and scientists, such as the logical positivists, reject the entire subject of metaphysics as meaningless, while others disagree and think that it is legitimate.

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6 hours ago, anthony said:

You'd have to explain this stigma against metaphysics, it is as it was and will ever be, the "branch of philosophy investigating the fundamental nature of reality".

Metaphysics is the philosophy of being as such.  Scientist rarely talk of "being"  of "existence"  in the abstract.  They talk of existence of objects and processes in nature,  i.e.  the really real physical world.  For a philosopher, what is "reality"? For Plato, it is the Forms.  The stuff we perceived were distorted bad imitations of the Forms.  For Aristotle  reality is what we perceive. Form and substance are joined.  Unfortunately the common sense reality isn't quite what is happening at a microscopic level. But Aristotle had no microscopic level, because he had no magnifiers or microscopes.   Aristotle believed all matter was infinitely divisible.  He did not subscribe to the atomic  notions  of Democritus and Luekipus. 

The abstractions of physicists include things like energy,  fields, sub-atomic particles, forces, etc.. These things are not generally directly perceived but are inferred from things which are perceived  such as measurements  and the output of instruments.  What is a force?  Intuitively it is a push or pull but our perceptual notions of force refer to objects in direct contact.  This has to be extended to forces exerted at a distance such as the electromagnetic forces.   Aristotle would have rejected any other notion of force. For Aristotle pushes and pulls are what we see and feel which is a good starting point but does not go deep enough.  For moderns, force is a change of momentum in time.

 Aristotle never hit on the notion of inertia and he believed at all motion is the result of pushes and pulls plus a built in urge to be where one ought to be. He saw some motions  as exhibitions of purpose.  That is why heavy objects  general went downward  and fire and heat went upward (according to Aristotle).  It has been noted that the forces and bodies in nature which Aristotle dealt with correspond to unschooled "common sense"   which most people are comfortable with,  but do not explain adequately what happens in nature. Aristotle did not have the notion of inertia nor the reaction forces. When you push against a wall, the wall pushes back. That is a force and reaction force.  Newton's third law of motion.  Which implies that momentum is conserved.  That is why we can have bodies that move in straight lines  with no variation in speed.  When no forces are applied  momentum remains constant.  Aristotle did not have these ideas. It took over a thousand years to get to them.  Around 530 c.e. an Alexandrian monk, John Phillponus  hit on a notion of impulse or motion retained after the force ceased to act. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#History_of_the_concept)  That was the first move toward the modern notion of momentum.  Philliponus had reservations about Aristotle's idea that all motion requires an applied force.  If so, why didn't an arrow just fall straight down after it left the bow?   Philliponus came up with the idea of retained motion which is gradually dissipated.  This was a thousand years after the time of Aristotle.  That is how long it took before people began to get some idea of momentum.

If you want to get "into Aristotle's head"  I suggest you read Aristotle's "Physics"  as translated by Joe Sachs.  Sachs haa complete by-passed the Latin-like English translations from Aristotle's Attic Greek.  Sachs prefers to go directly to ordinary anglo-saxon based English translations which sound less "scholarly"  but are truer to the way Aristotle thought.  Aristotle  was a champion of common-sense  and quite at odds is Plato's Idealism.  Aristotle's common-sense approach brought one in contact with the outer layers  of physical, natural reality (not the Realism of The Forms that Plato loved).  Unfortunately Aristotle was unable to go deeper.  He lived in a world  ruled by friction and a world without optical instruments.  No magnifiers. No telescopes.  No microscopes.  The Greeks of Aristotle's time did not understand light very well.  They thought light came from the eye and went out to touch objects.  This idea was not overturned until  Light was not understood until the time of Ibn-al-Haytham a Muslim philosopher who lived around 1000 c.e over 1300 years after Aristotle.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham). Roger Bacon hit on the same idea of light coming FROM the object TO the eye in the 13th century c.e (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon)

So Aristotle had no optical aid to see nature in the small or the very, very far away.  Aristotle worked at a man-scaled view of nature and he did as well as anyone could so limited by the natural senses.  Aristotle's detailed work on the anatomy of animals and plants are the best non-microscopic  descriptions until modern times.  Charles Darwin rated Aristotle as one of the greatest of naturalists in his study and description of animals.  Coming from Darwin,  that is very high praise. 

Aristotle also had a different notion of cause from that held in modern physical science.   For modern science cause is mostly efficient cause.  One object acts on another or one event-type precedes another.  Formal cause is wrapped up in mathematical description of nature (which Aristotle did not have).  Most important, Aristotle saw final-cause, telos,  action driven by ends or purposes as an integral description of nature.  For studying living things this is not for fetched but for studying non-animated things in the cosmos  it does not work well.  Aristotle believed the cosmos was alive.  Modern physical scientists tend not to think along these lines (although there are exceptions. For example,  Lee Smolin sees a kind of evolutionary change in natural laws over cosmic time).  Even so, moderns let in a bit of Aristotle's kind of language.  They talk metaphorically about one object "feeling" the force exerted by another object, for example.  And objects "wanting"  to follow the path of least action. Sometime the purpose filled view of nature supplies better metaphors than the purely mathematical view.

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8 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Metaphysics is the philosophy of being as such.  Scientist rarely talk of "being"  of "existence"  in the abstract.  They talk of existence of objects and processes in nature,  i.e.  the really real physical world.  For a philosopher, what is "reality"? For Plato, it is the Forms.  The stuff we perceived were distorted bad imitations of the Forms.  For Aristotle  reality is what we perceive. Form and substance are joined.  Unfortunately the common sense reality isn't quite what is happening at a microscopic level. But Aristotle had no microscopic level, because he had no magnifiers or microscopes.   Aristotle believed all matter was infinitely divisible.  He did not subscribe to the atomic  notions  of Democritus and Luekipus. 

The abstractions of physicists include things like energy,  fields, sub-atomic particles, forces, etc.. These things are not generally directly perceived but are inferred from things which are perceived  such as measurements  and the output of instruments.  What is a force?  Intuitively it is a push or pull but our perceptual notions of force refer to objects in direct contact.  This has to be extended to forces exerted at a distance such as the electromagnetic forces.   Aristotle would have rejected any other notion of force. For Aristotle pushes and pulls are what we see and feel which is a good starting point but does not go deep enough.  For moderns, force is a change of momentum in time.

 Aristotle never hit on the notion of inertia and he believed at all motion is the result of pushes and pulls plus a built in urge to be where one ought to be. He saw some motions  as exhibitions of purpose.  That is why heavy objects  general went downward  and fire and heat went upward (according to Aristotle).  It has been noted that the forces and bodies in nature which Aristotle dealt with correspond to unschooled "common sense"   which most people are comfortable with,  but do not explain adequately what happens in nature. Aristotle did not have the notion of inertia nor the reaction forces. When you push against a wall, the wall pushes back. That is a force and reaction force.  Newton's third law of motion.  Which implies that momentum is conserved.  That is why we can have bodies that move in straight lines  with no variation in speed.  When no forces are applied  momentum remains constant.  Aristotle did not have these ideas. It took over a thousand years to get to them.  Around 530 c.e. an Alexandrian monk, John Phillponus  hit on a notion of impulse or motion retained after the force ceased to act. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#History_of_the_concept)  That was the first move toward the modern notion of momentum.  Philliponus had reservations about Aristotle's idea that all motion requires an applied force.  If so, why didn't an arrow just fall straight down after it left the bow?   Philliponus came up with the idea of retained motion which is gradually dissipated.  This was a thousand years after the time of Aristotle.  That is how long it took before people began to get some idea of momentum.

If you want to get "into Aristotle's head"  I suggest you read Aristotle's "Physics"  as translated by Joe Sachs.  Sachs haa complete by-passed the Latin-like English translations from Aristotle's Attic Greek.  Sachs prefers to go directly to ordinary anglo-saxon based English translations which sound less "scholarly"  but are truer to the way Aristotle thought.  Aristotle  was a champion of common-sense  and quite at odds is Plato's Idealism.  Aristotle's common-sense approach brought one in contact with the outer layers  of physical, natural reality (not the Realism of The Forms that Plato loved).  Unfortunately Aristotle was unable to go deeper.  He lived in a world  ruled by friction and a world without optical instruments.  No magnifiers. No telescopes.  No microscopes.  The Greeks of Aristotle's time did not understand light very well.  They thought light came from the eye and went out to touch objects.  This idea was not overturned until  Light was not understood until the time of Ibn-al-Haytham a Muslim philosopher who lived around 1000 c.e over 1300 years after Aristotle.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham). Roger Bacon hit on the same idea of light coming FROM the object TO the eye in the 13th century c.e (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon)

So Aristotle had no optical aid to see nature in the small or the very, very far away.  Aristotle worked at a man-scaled view of nature and he did as well as anyone could so limited by the natural senses.  Aristotle's detailed work on the anatomy of animals and plants are the best non-microscopic  descriptions until modern times.  Charles Darwin rated Aristotle as one of the greatest of naturalists in his study and description of animals.  Coming from Darwin,  that is very high praise. 

Aristotle also had a different notion of cause from that held in modern physical science.   For modern science cause is mostly efficient cause.  One object acts on another or one event-type precedes another.  Formal cause is wrapped up in mathematical description of nature (which Aristotle did not have).  Most important, Aristotle saw final-cause, telos,  action driven by ends or purposes as an integral description of nature.  For studying living things this is not for fetched but for studying non-animated things in the cosmos  it does not work well.  Aristotle believed the cosmos was alive.  Modern physical scientists tend not to think along these lines (although there are exceptions. For example,  Lee Smolin sees a kind of evolutionary change in natural laws over cosmic time).  Even so, moderns let in a bit of Aristotle's kind of language.  They talk metaphorically about one object "feeling" the force exerted by another object, for example.  And objects "wanting"  to follow the path of least action. Sometime the purpose filled view of nature supplies better metaphors than the purely mathematical view.

Well, it seems you are more against a type of metaphysics than metaphysics as such. It seems Aristotle was limited by the absence of certain technology which was only invented--what?--1600 years later. If the civilizations of Greece and Rome couldn't provide the context for true scientific advancement should we blame him? Look what happened to Archimedes! Anyway, where do we go from here? Modern technology is coming at us in a rush. America more than any other country has enabled this.

--Brant

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4 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Well, it seems you are more against a type of metaphysics than metaphysics as such. It seems Aristotle was limited by the absence of certain technology which was only invented--what?--1600 years later. If the civilizations of Greece and Rome couldn't provide the context for true scientific advancement should we blame him? Look what happened to Archimedes! Anyway, where do we go from here? Modern technology is coming at us in a rush. America more than any other country has enabled this.

--Brant

It was not just technology.  Aristotle had no notion of momentum or inertia.  These concepts were not formulated until 900 years had passed.

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1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

It was not just technology.  Aristotle had no notion of momentum or inertia.  These concepts were not formulated until 900 years had passed.

Okay, but why didn't other people have this notion? Was his metaphysics so dominant in his day? And prior?--Cro-Mag man had been around and about 40,000 years and building cities for 10,000.

--Brant

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