Necessary Factual Truth

[syrakusos]

I attend Eastern Michigan University, a fairly nondescript midwestern taxpit where Marxists vie with postmodernists.

So, I am waiting for the start of my class in Police Organization (CRIM 432) and I look in a classroom and see AYN RAND written on the blackboard next to ARISTOTLE.

The professor is Greg Browne, author of Necessary Factual Truths.

How lucky can I get?

[Alfonso Jones]

I attend Eastern Michigan University, a fairly nondescript midwestern taxpit where Marxists vie with postmodernists.

So, I am waiting for the start of my class in Police Organization (CRIM 432) and I look in a classroom and see AYN RAND written on the blackboard next to ARISTOTLE.

The professor is Greg Browne, author of Necessary Factual Truths.

How lucky can I get?

The editorial review of Necessary Factual Truth from Amazon:

In this book Gregory Browne rejects the views of David Hume and the Logical Positivists, and argues that there are necessary factual truths, which include a wide range of truths from many fields of knowledge. Browne argues for the necessity of Newton's Laws and truths about natural kinds, and for the factuality of definitional truths and truths of logic and mathematics. Browne synthesizes the work of Kripke, Putnam, Quine and others, but goes beyond the usual discussions of the meanings and definitions of terms to discuss the references of various kinds of terms, and specifically to develop a theory of kinds, distinguishing "Deep Kinds" (roughly, natural kinds) and "Shallow Kinds" (e.g., triangles, bachelors). His theory of Deep Kinds does not accept all of the assumptions commonly associated wtih a theory of natural kinds.

I've never heard of him before. Keep us posted on what you learn. It should be a stimulating experience.

Alfonso

[BaalChatzaf]

I attend Eastern Michigan University, a fairly nondescript midwestern taxpit where Marxists vie with postmodernists.

So, I am waiting for the start of my class in Police Organization (CRIM 432) and I look in a classroom and see AYN RAND written on the blackboard next to ARISTOTLE.

The professor is Greg Browne, author of Necessary Factual Truths.

How lucky can I get?

Not much more than that short of winning the lottery. It is good to know there are islands of sanity in a sea of tommy rot.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

In the 1970ths Reason published a list of college teachers of value to Libertarians. Perhaps there are so many today it would take too much room in the magazine but maybe somebody could revive the list.

Edited October 2, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Alfonso Jones]

I attend Eastern Michigan University, a fairly nondescript midwestern taxpit where Marxists vie with postmodernists.

So, I am waiting for the start of my class in Police Organization (CRIM 432) and I look in a classroom and see AYN RAND written on the blackboard next to ARISTOTLE.

The professor is Greg Browne, author of Necessary Factual Truths.

How lucky can I get?

Michael -

We eagerly await reports on how your class is going.

Alfonso

[syrakusos]

Dr. Browne and I have been exchanging emails. He wrote:

"My doctoral dissertation, Four Dichotomies of Truth, was inpired by Leonard Peikoff's "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy". I took mostly the same position as he did, for much the same reasons, and I took the discussion into areas he has not covered. I then took the parts on the necessary/contingent and factual/non-factual dichotomies and made it into my book, Necessary Factual Truth (University Press, 2001). It was reviewed in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies last year."

Greg also had quite a bit to say here on OL under Outer Limits > Chewing on Ideas a few months back.

In response to Alfonso, I do not have Dr. Browne for a class. He teaches freshman philosophy, and I do not need another 100-level course in philo. I am a criminology major, a senior, and my transcript includes a few philosophy classes at the 200 and 300 level from other schools. In fact, interestingly enough, ALL criminology majors hereabouts are REQUIRED to have one semester of Symbolic Logic. Dr. Browne's class meets before one of my crim classes in the same hallway. That's how I saw the names AYN RAND and ARISTOTLE on the blackboard.

I got his book, Necessary Factual Truth, from the library and am hacking my way through it. (It is way beyond my resources. I will not finish it.) I sent him a paper I did for my symbolic logic class on about the same general theme, the fallacy of the ASD. "Is Physics Analytic or Synthetic" was a reply to my instructor's claim that we could imagine a "counter factual world" in which gravity followed an inverse-cube law and therefore monkeys could fly. I showed that the laws of (empirical) physics derive from (synthetic) geometry and that an inverse-cube force would make pancakes out of flying monkeys.

There is no such thing as a counterfactual world.

[BaalChatzaf]

There is no such thing as a counterfactual world.

That is quite true. BUT if my grandmother did have balls (which she didn't) she WOULD have been my grandfather. There is a difference between possible and actual. Possible world is a world in which there are no -logical- contradictions. We live in one of the possible worlds. We live in the possible world that actually happens to exist, it so happens. Our burden is to come to know and understand what we are able to know and understand about the world we happen to live in. It is our house. And there is no way, that anyone knows about, for moving to another house (so to speak). Travel between alternative worlds, or alternative time lines is science FICTION. It is an enjoyable (to some) way of letting our fancies fly about. It is ENTERTAINMENT (for some). As long as we don't confuse fiction with reality, all is well.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

BUT if my grandmother did have balls (which she didn't) she WOULD have been my grandfather. There is a difference between possible and actual. Possible world is a world in which there are no -logical- contradictions.

That is false. In the YouTube thread, I posted links to Mike Wallace's 1959 interview with Ayn Rand. She deftly handled seeming challenges, such as "what if one man controlled a vital strategic resource?" Rand pointed out that there is no way that something so scarce could become a "vital resource."

If your grandmother "had balls" she could not have been your ancestor and you would not have been born. A woman with testicles is not a man.

My professor of logic was such a logical positivist. She was firm on the law of identity. She even wrote it on the board in form of "A is A." But she denied the necessity of empirical facts. To her "anything could be true" (apart from logical contradictions that deny A is A).

That said, it is still possible to imagine so-called "possible worlds." Jobs and Wozniak could wonder, "What will happen when we sell this computer we just built?" Before the Apple II, the world was one way. After it, the world was different. However, I point out that it is impossible to imagine a world other than the one you know. "What would have happened if Lincoln had not been assassinated" cannot be answered because we only know a world in which he was. I challenge anyone to find a prediction from 1980 that shows the world of 2000 as it is today. Back then, we suggested that people could use computers to calculate recipes. Even within cyberpunk, I know of no stories that presaged the WWW, YouTube, MyBook, etc., etc., concommitant with sexual predators and SCOTUS rulings that applied rules of discovery to email.

L. Neil Smith calls it "Asimov's Fallacy." Asimov's so-called psychohistory was supposed to be a mathematical prediction of human development, an ultra-marxism. However, the fact is that one individual has free will and so do one trillion. You cannot predict the actions of one trillion because you cannot predict the actions of one.

[Brant Gaede]

SCOTUS rulings that applied rules of discovery to email.

L. Neil Smith calls it "Asimov's Fallacy." Asimov's so-called psychohistory was supposed to be a mathematical prediction of human development, an ultra-marxism. However, the fact is that one individual has free will and so do one trillion. You cannot predict the actions of one trillion because you cannot predict the actions of one.

Sure you can--your own. A trillion, too, but you'll probably be wrong. I predict aliens from another planet will land in Washington and free us all--in 351 years. If you mean "correctly predict" then say what you mean. I correctly predicted I would write this.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

I finished the book the first time through and I confess that it was tough sledding. The arguments are close and detailed. This was not a casual read. It is about on par with ITOE. I had to return the book to the library and at that it came via InterLibrary Loan, so I am getting my own personal copy. I recommend this book highly. If you do not want to buy a pig in a poke at least get the book from a library (again, ILL if you have to) and read it. If you are serious about Objectivist philosophy, you will want to buy it after you read it. Arguing for the free market is pretty easy. Arguing for metaphysical objectivism is a bit harder, but it is more important because this is the real battle. Dr. Browne disassembles a plethora of false dichotomies. We accept this dichotomous kind of thinking too easily. This goes beyond "communism is the ideal system, but it just isn't practical."

Journal of Ayn Rand Studies -- Volume 7, No. 1 - Fall 2005

Roderick T. Long

The widespread assumption among academic philosophers that no truth can be simultaneously necessary and factual, founded on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, was challenged from outside the profession by Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff in the 1960s, and from within the profession by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam in the 1970s. Gregory M. Browne's book Necessary Factual Truth represents a long-overdue attempt to synthesize the Rand-Peikoff and Kripke-Putnam approaches into an integrated theory. While Browne's project is partially successful, it gives up one of the chief attractions of these approaches: the ability to preserve continuity of reference across radical theoretical change.

http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/v7_n1/7_1toc.asp

Journal of Ayn Rand Studies -- Volume 8, No. 1 - Fall 2006

Gregory M. Browne

This essay strongly affirms, rather than denies, continuity of reference across theory change, while reconciling this with other claims made in the book Necessary Factual Truth, and in addition defends the book's claim that all non-disjunctive qualities common to the paradigms are essential to a kind, discusses its arguments against truth by convention, and denies that its attempt to show Newton's axioms necessary is a priori, rejecting the a priori altogether.

Rejoinder to Gregory m. Browne -- A Beauty Contest for Dichotomies:

Browne's Terminological Revolutions, pp. 143-62

RODERICK T. LONG

While regarding Gregory M. Browne as mainly on target in his Rand-inspired treatment of reference and necessity, as well as in his rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Long argues, first, that Browne is mistaken in rejecting some other vital distinctions, such as the a priori / a posteriori distinction; second, that Browne is nevertheless implicitly committed, under different terminology, to these very distinctions that he purportedly rejects; and third, that Browne's treatment of kinds and definitions leads him to misdescribe and misprescribe ordinary language use, and also to embrace unnecessary semantic incommensurability.

http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/v8_n1/8_1toc.asp

Gregory Browne, in this essay, replies to criticism of his book Necessary Factual Truth, a work which attempts to combine Misesian apriorism with Randian scholasticism. Rand, argues Browne, essentially pursues the same rationalistic method as the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. She can do so "because Objectivists believe that all facts except those resulting from human free will choices are ... 'necessary' and that no truths [can be considered] 'non-factual' [i.e., the analytical-synthetic dichotomy is wrong]." This allows Rand to "do ethics the way she does" while harmonizing Rand's economics "with the Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises."

Having not read Browne's book, I cannot say how convincing (or unconvincing) his defense of necessary factual truths. However, I would be surprised if any convincing arguments could be brought on behalf of the notion of necessary truth.

Greg Nyquist (Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature) http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.c...01_archive.html

In this book Gregory Browne rejects the views of David Hume and the Logical Positivists, and argues that there are necessary factual truths, which include a wide range of truths from many fields of knowledge. Browne argues for the necessity of Newton's Laws and truths about natural kinds, and for the factuality of definitional truths and truths of logic and mathematics. Browne synthesizes the work of Kripke, Putnam, Quine and others, but goes beyond the usual discussions of the meanings and definitions of terms to discuss the references of various kinds of terms, and specifically to develop a theory of kinds, distinguishing "Deep Kinds" (roughly, natural kinds) and "Shallow Kinds" (e.g., triangles, bachelors). His theory of Deep Kinds does not accept all of the assumptions commonly associated wtih a theory of natural kinds

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/602-1...asin=0761818863

(Yup: Sixty bucks from Target, but two fins cheaper from Barnes&Noble:

This is a philosophical study based on a doctoral dissertation written in the early 1990s. It deals with the necessary/contingent and factual/vacuous dichotomies of truth, and also refers to the analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori dichotomies. Discusses the various sources of the mistakes that lead to the denial of necessary factual truths, and gives background on terms, concepts, categories, and classes related to the author's arguments about necessary factual truths. Argues that some factual truths, including truths in chemistry and biology, are necessary, referring to the work of Kripke and Putnam. Author information is not given. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearc...=9780761818861)

Gregory Browne was born in Ohio and grew up in Michigan. He had many interests as he proceeded through his school years, including political science, history, philosophy, economics, anthropology, biology, and astronomy. In the 10th grade, he decided that he was most interested in the social sciences, especially political science.

As graduation approached, he was awarded a National Merit scholarship, and decided to attend Michigan State University. He had intended to major in political science, but then he found out about the University's James Madison College, an interdisciplinary social sciences program. So he chose to major in that, specializing in their "Justice, Morality and Constitutional Democracy" core, i.e., political philosophy. However, since he still planned to do his graduate work in political science, he eventually took that subject as a second major.

He received his bachelor's degree in his two majors in 1979, and as time went on he realized that he was most interested in political history. Since that subject is usually covered by history departments rather than by political science departments, he changed his major to history in 1981. After a year in the doctoral program in history at the University of Michigan, during which he took some courses in intellectual history and ran up against a number of philosophical issues, he changed his major to philosophy and returned to Michigan State in 1985.

While maintaining his interest in political philosophy and its foundations in ethics, he acquired a deep interest in metaphysics and epistemology, which became his area of concentration in this field. He received his doctorate in 1994.

After receiving his degree, Dr. Browne taught philosophy at two Michigan community colleges through the year 2000. He has been teaching part-time for Central Michigan University in their College of Extended Learning, and adapted the core of his dissertation into a book, Necessary Factual Truth, which was published by University Press of America at the end of 2000. Dr. Browne teaches "The Progressive Era" at Yorktown University.

Yorktown University, Denver, Colorado

http://www.yorktownuniversity.com/faculty/browne.html

Edited November 8, 2007 by Michael E. Marotta

[BaalChatzaf]

Dr. Browne teaches "The Progressive Era" at Yorktown University.

Yorktown University, Denver, Colorado

http://www.yorktownuniversity.com/faculty/browne.html

This book goes on my -must read- pile of books. Thank you for the "heads up".

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I attend Eastern Michigan University, a fairly nondescript midwestern taxpit where Marxists vie with postmodernists.

So, I am waiting for the start of my class in Police Organization (CRIM 432) and I look in a classroom and see AYN RAND written on the blackboard next to ARISTOTLE.

The professor is Greg Browne, author of Necessary Factual Truths.

How lucky can I get?

The editorial review of Necessary Factual Truth from Amazon:

In this book Gregory Browne rejects the views of David Hume and the Logical Positivists, and argues that there are necessary factual truths, which include a wide range of truths from many fields of knowledge. Browne argues for the necessity of Newton's Laws and truths about natural kinds, and for the factuality of definitional truths and truths of logic and mathematics. Browne synthesizes the work of Kripke, Putnam, Quine and others, but goes beyond the usual discussions of the meanings and definitions of terms to discuss the references of various kinds of terms, and specifically to develop a theory of kinds, distinguishing "Deep Kinds" (roughly, natural kinds) and "Shallow Kinds" (e.g., triangles, bachelors). His theory of Deep Kinds does not accept all of the assumptions commonly associated wtih a theory of natural kinds.

I've never heard of him before. Keep us posted on what you learn. It should be a stimulating experience.

Alfonso

Newton's Laws are wrong. They lead to predictions refuted by factual observation. For example the precession of the perihelion of Mercury is not correctly predicted by Newton's Law of Gravitation. Also, classical momentum is not conserved in interactions (particularly collisions). Einstein's repair to Newtonian laws was necessary to bring them into line with the facts.

Here is a hint. If a theory is Galilean Invariant it is wrong.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 8, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[syrakusos]

Newton's Laws are wrong. They lead to predictions refuted by factual observation. For example the precession of the perihelion of Mercury is not correctly predicted by Newton's Law of Gravitation. ... Einstein's repair to Newtonian laws was necessary to bring them into line with the facts.

The Discovery Channel and books such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Tao of Physics did much to popularize modern science in the common mind. Like much else, though, the explanations can be as complicated as you want them to be. Actually, all of the planets have that precession of the perihelion. It is only that Mercury's is most observable.

The deeper question is whether and to what extent any selective perception of reality can be formulated as what I call "an Orwellian sentence." In George Orwell's 1984, people learned easy formulae as the state sought to control them by reducing their language and thought. East Asia is the enemy! Goldstein is a traitor! We do the same thing in school: Name the Five Causes of the Civil War. (Slavery, sectionalism, state's rights, industrialism verus agrarianism and protective tariffs.) Newton's Laws and Einstein's E=mcc are both examples of that. Bowling, shooting pool, playing softball and driving a car are all fairly Newtonian tasks and yet the n-body problem remains unapproachable except via restricted cases and numerical approximations that are not resolved with quantum mechanics or general relativity or string theory etc., etc.

The social sciences struggle with this because they know that they are not as "rigorous" as the physical sciences. However, as outlined above, neither are those physical sciences so nicely packaged. Also, social sciences are about the interactions of people and each person has free will. So, predictions about human action cannot be as precise as making a billiard shot putting the runner out at second or stopping on a dime. Yet, they are sciences. The physical sciences are approachable from the perspective of the social sciecnces. In other words, do not expect to predict the position of a planet with a line of high school algebra.

[BaalChatzaf]

Newton's Laws are wrong. They lead to predictions refuted by factual observation. For example the precession of the perihelion of Mercury is not correctly predicted by Newton's Law of Gravitation. ... Einstein's repair to Newtonian laws was necessary to bring them into line with the facts.

The Discovery Channel and books such as The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Tao of Physics did much to popularize modern science in the common mind. Like much else, though, the explanations can be as complicated as you want them to be. Actually, all of the planets have that precession of the perihelion. It is only that Mercury's is most observable.

Quite correct. The anomalous precession of the perihelion was -first- observed for Mercury because it is in the strongest gravitational field (nearest to the sun). All bodies rotating about the sun have a precessing perihelion and Newton's Law gets ALL OF THEM wrong. Why? Because the gravitational field itself gravitates, which is not deducible from Newton's Law which has a scalar gravitational potential. The anomaly is very small and was first observed for Mercury. Similar (and smaller) anomalies have be subsequently observed for Venus and even the Moon.

Bottom line: Newton's Law of Gravitation is not correct. Why? Among other things it assumes space is flat (in the Euclidean sense) and that time is absolute. You will notice both Newton's Law and Coulomb's law assumes the interaction between masses and charges, respectively are instantaneous. Newtonian physics is categorically flawed because it has an incorrect model for space and time or more correctly space-time. Newtonian physics using point-point force laws cannot account for the motion of charged particles in an electromagnetic field because point-point force laws do not reckon the velocity of the charges (or masses) in the field.

The errors are very small in low velocity regimes and in weak fields which is why it took so long to detect the defect in Newton's laws.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 16, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bottom line: Newton's Law of Gravitation is not correct.

Bob,

This kind of broad throwing out the good with the bad grates on my sense of correctness. If Newton's Law Gravitation is not correct, that means what goes up does not come down.

Baloney.

Later scientists added to the law and corrected parts of it. They did not trash the whole thing.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bottom line: Newton's Law of Gravitation is not correct.

Bob,

This kind of broad throwing out the good with the bad grates on my sense of correctness. If Newton's Law Gravitation is not correct, that means what goes up does not come down.

Baloney.

Later scientists added to the law and corrected parts of it. They did not trash the whole thing.

Michael

Do you make a distinction between what is factually correct and what is not? I do. Newton's law does not predict correctly. Furthermore if the GPS used only Newtonian timing it would be off by hundreds of kilometers. Einstein did not -correct- Newton's Law. He postulated a totally different concept of space and time. He did trash the whole thing. Einsteinian gravitation is governed by twenty non-linear field equations with tensor potential. Newtonian gravitation requires no field formulation and is governed by a scalar potential.

Einstein made a revolution, not a minor fix. Unfortunately you won't take the time to learn the underlying physics. I did take the time so I know what I am talking about.

If Newtonian and Classical physics had not been replaced in the entirety we would still be living in 1875. Quantum field theory which is based both on relativity (Lorentz Invariance) and quantum mechanics has made possible the computer on which you type your very wrong statements.

There is something worse than ignorance. And that is invincible ignorance. We were all born ignorant, but there is no excuse for not learning.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 16, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[merjet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_la...sal_gravitation

See especially about 2/3rds down the page.

[BaalChatzaf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_la...sal_gravitation

See especially about 2/3rds down the page.

Thank you. That is a pretty good Guide to the Perplexed and a Light Unto the Ignorant.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Bottom line: Newton's Law of Gravitation is not correct.

Bob,

This kind of broad throwing out the good with the bad grates on my sense of correctness. If Newton's Law Gravitation is not correct, that means what goes up does not come down.

Baloney.

Later scientists added to the law and corrected parts of it. They did not trash the whole thing.

Michael

Michael, you are confusing the fact of gravity (what goes up comes down) with the explanation of that fact. Newton's explanation was found not to be accurate in predicting certain things, and it was supplanted with a more (predictively) accurate explanation, viz., Einstein's.

Both the fact and the explanation might be called the "law"of gravity, but you are arguing at cross-purposes when you quarrel with Bob about this issue the way you do. Bob is focusing on scientific explanation, and he has studied it, while you have not, and he is warranted in saying that Einstein's view (explanation) of gravity is correct, while Newton's is not.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I will not argue with Bob on much on this, since he makes a determined effort to claim that Newton's laws are invalid at least 3 times a week (for several months now). When a person needs to repeat that much, there is a problem with his own beliefs.

So if I understand you, because I haven't studied this in depth, Newton's part about "what goes up must come down" is now false? It used to be a good description of the law of gravity.

I thought you agreed with the contextual view of knowledge and with the fact that knowledge can be built on, discarding the false part and keeping the true part as new discoveries are made.

Maybe I should study more...

Maybe Newton was a pooh-pooh head all along and it was actually Einstein who formulated what goes up must come down.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Roger,

I will not argue with Bob on much on this, since he makes a determined effort to claim that Newton's laws are invalid at least 3 times a week (for several months now). When a person needs to repeat that much, there is a problem with his own beliefs.

So if I understand you, because I haven't studied this in depth, Newton's part about "what goes up must come down" is now false? It used to be a good description of the law of gravity.

I thought you agreed with the contextual view of knowledge and with the fact that knowledge can be built on, discarding the false part and keeping the true part as new discoveries are made.

Maybe I should study more...

Maybe Newton was a pooh-pooh head all along and it was actually Einstein who formulated what goes up must come down.

Michael

Newton's Universal Law of Gravititation is F=GMm/r^2.

Jim

[BaalChatzaf]

Roger,

I will not argue with Bob on much on this, since he makes a determined effort to claim that Newton's laws are invalid at least 3 times a week (for several months now). When a person needs to repeat that much, there is a problem with his own beliefs.

So if I understand you, because I haven't studied this in depth, Newton's part about "what goes up must come down" is now false? It used to be a good description of the law of gravity.

Dammit. That is not Newton's Law. Newton's Law of Gravitation states that the force that two point masses m1 and m2 at distance r > 0 exert on each other is G*m1*m2/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant measured by Cavendish about 110 years after Newton published -Principia-. -That- is the law of gravitation. It is a mathematical formula postulated by Newton. It happens to predict the motions of bodies in space -incorrectly- as was found in the middle of th 19th century by telescopic observations.

Newton never said anything as inane as what goes up must come down. First of all it false. The Moon doesn't come down to earth. The Moon revolves around Earth held following a trajectory determined by the gravitational interaction of the Moon and the Earth. If we send up a missile with enough speed and direct it properly, it will not come down. It will orbit the Earth.

Every kid who has ever fallen down and scraped a knee knows about gravitation. What Newton did was posit a law that gave the gravitational force between masses. You have managed to conflate and equivocate the -fact- of gravitation with a law that describes the forces of gravitation. Newton's law happens to be incorrect (not by much). We now know some of Newton's physics as he stated it are incorrect.

What is it about a simple fact of theory of physics that eludes your understanding? How many times have I said Newton's Law of Gravitation (a mathematical formula) is incorrect? This has been known since 1915 (when Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity) based on observations made over 150 years ago. Gravitation keeps on gravitating whether or not theories describing and predicting it are made.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 16, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Dragonfly]

I will not argue with Bob on much on this, since he makes a determined effort to claim that Newton's laws are invalid at least 3 times a week (for several months now). When a person needs to repeat that much, there is a problem with his own beliefs.

Repetitio mater studiorum est.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I will not argue with Bob on much on this, since he makes a determined effort to claim that Newton's laws are invalid at least 3 times a week (for several months now). When a person needs to repeat that much, there is a problem with his own beliefs.

Repetitio mater studiorum est.

Repetition is the mother of learning. You've got that right Dragonfly.

Jim

[merjet]

If one accepts the idea of "degrees of truth", it provides a basis for comparing Newton's theory of gravity to Einstein's. I don't mean there are degrees of truth for a proposition which is clearly true or false. But the idea is useful for theories comprised of a number of propositions, or which imply a much larger number of other propositions. (It's useful for other things, too, e.g. a reporter's story which contains both truth and falsehood.)

As I understand it Einstein's theory has a higher degree of truth than Newton's because it gives more accurate quantitative results for a wider range of phenomena. The degree of quantitative divergence between the two theories isn't uniform. Newton's theory still gives quite accurate results for situations with small gravitational potential and low velocities. It diverges more from Einstein's theory when said potential or velocity is large. Newton's theory continues to be used as an excellent approximation of the effects of gravity, and it's a simpler model. Einstein's relativity theory is only required when there is a need for great accuracy, or when dealing with gravitation for very massive objects. Some of this is stated in the Wikipedia article linked in #17.

Another point. Fundamental to either theory is a mathematical model (a set of equations) which gives quantitative results (velocity, distance, time, etc.) which can be compared to measurable aspects of reality. Ultimately it is the degree of accuracy the model's quantitative results have to measurable aspects of reality that determines the model's (or theory's) truth value. (Reality doesn't write equations for us. It is humans that write them to try to match, or correspond to, reality).

Edited November 16, 2007 by Merlin Jetton