The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[kiaer.ts]

Ellen, so far *in this thread*, anything DF has said that was of interest wasn't true, and everything else hasn't been of interest but to reveal his completely unwarranted condescending attitude about philosophy and laymen as such. You of all people shouldn't be letting him get away with a bogus conclusion that all philosophers are clueless because 99/100 are.

If he wanted to be of use here, he could try his hand at explaining, yes, for the layman, why we shouldn't be alarmed by the Aspect (spooky action at a distance) experiments. (Einstein himself was alarmed, Bell was alarmed, and yet DF denigrates a layman for also being alarmed).

Shayne

I am not alarmed.

[sjw]

I am not alarmed.

Neither is a corpse. Nor an infant. Nor an idiot. But Einstein, Bell, and me, we're alarmed.

Edited August 27, 2010 by sjw

[kiaer.ts]

I am not alarmed.

Neither is a corpse. Nor an infant. Nor an idiot. But Einstein, Bell, and me, we're alarmed.

So, Shayne, what exactly are the voices telling you?

[sjw]

So, Shayne, what exactly are the voices telling you?

Don't mock me, you're the one making the remarks of a fool who's self-satisfied with their foolishness because they think the majority approves. Or was this just your incompetent way of asking what I find so curious/alarming about the experiment?

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

So, Shayne, what exactly are the voices telling you?

Don't mock me, you're the one making the remarks of a fool who's self-satisfied with their foolishness because they think the majority approves. Or was this just your incompetent way of asking what I find so curious/alarming about the experiment?

Shayne

Oh, my! Not only are you so easily provoked that they loose their ability to write grammatical sentences, they apparently also think they have the ability to read my mind. Why ask me to explain myself if they already know the answer?

No need to mock you, they are doing a perfect job of mocking themself.

In any case, unlike their example of the corpse baby, I do understand the implications, and I am still not alarmed.

[sjw]

Oh, my! Not only are you so easily provoked that they loose their ability to write grammatical sentences,

Now you're mocking me for an insignificant grammatical error while you pretend it's because I'm loosing my cool, too funny. I noted the self-congratulation you awarded yourself several posts back, totally out of context, and of zero interest to anyone else here, now you come in and say you're not alarmed, again, totally irrelevant to any other person here because you don't offer any reasons. You're a narcissist.

In any case, unlike their example of the corpse baby, I do understand the implications, and I am still not alarmed.

All that matters to you is that you *think* you understand the implications, but I note that you are not so confident in your understanding to bring yourself to saying something relevant.

Your gig is up. More vacuous self-congratulation on your part will just be responded to by me by reminding you that you are a narcissist. I dare you to invent a rationalization to cover for your narcissism while simultaneously permitting you to engage in it further.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

Oh, my! Not only are you so easily provoked that they loose their ability to write grammatical sentences,

Now you're mocking me for an insignificant grammatical error while you pretend it's because I'm loosing my cool, too funny. I noted the self-congratulation you awarded yourself several posts back, totally out of context, and of zero interest to anyone else here, now you come in and say you're not alarmed, again, totally irrelevant to any other person here because you don't offer any reasons. You're a narcissist.

In any case, unlike their example of the corpse baby, I do understand the implications, and I am still not alarmed.

All that matters to you is that you *think* you understand the implications, but I note that you are not so confident in your understanding to bring yourself to saying something relevant.

Your gig is up. More vacuous self-congratulation on your part will just be responded to by me by reminding you that you are a narcissist. I dare you to invent a rationalization to cover for your narcissism while simultaneously permitting you to engage in it further.

Shayne

That alarms me even less than instantaneous action at a distance.

[Xray]

Cobblers should stick to their lasts.

That's why you and those like you have zero credibility. You don't know what you're doing (we can tell) and the last thing you want is a kind of physics that makes sense. You're part of a little priesthood of experts where no layman shall tread.

The emperor has no clothes. LOL.

Shayne

The emperor is sufficiently well dressed to create the physics which has produced the engineering which has produced the computer on which you spew your nonsense.

As long as useful gadgets come pouring out the far end of the pipeline primed by the physicists, I will feel good will toward the physicists. The output of useful technology is the other empirical test of physical theories. The first test is, of course, experimental verification of the predictions.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Well said, Ba'al.

Given that you've listened to the lectures Ted and that what you're saying fits in with the modus operandi of most Objectivists I assume you're correct.

If Objectivist physicists want to make themselves useful and to demonstrate how great their philosophy is, then they should take up some of the thorny problems in physics and provide solutions. They shouldn't try to tell people how to think when they themselves haven't demonstrated a particular aptitude for creating thinking. I think Harriman's book is only intended or useful for the already convinced.

The absence of evidence of any Objectivist physicists providing solutions to those thorny problems can't be denied.

No surprise, if you consider ITOE as the "epistemological foundation" of their "great philosophy" ...

I think Harriman's book is only intended or useful for the already convinced.

Which would mark the book as some kind of catechism, rather than a scientific publication.

xray I fully agree with Feynman. It *is* a deep prejudice to think that there isn't something radically new going on at the quantum scales. But that is far different from saying that we'll never be able to comprehend this radically new thing -- that is your position, not Feynman's.

No, it is is not my position that we will never understand. You disregarded the modifiers in my post which I'll bold here:

From my post:

Xray. Stone age man probably thought of lightning as spooky too - so maybe it will take millions of years before the descendants of the current homo sapiens sapiens will find out the explanation, and that explanation would probably not be rationally understandable to us current ancestors because our brain is at a stage of Evolution far behind the brain they will have.

Or we may never find out the "why" of it.

"Maybe" and "may" are speculations, and not statements about what will happen.

As for Feynman's position, he spoke of us being at the very beginning of time for the human race:

Richard Feynman: We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Richard_Feynman/

I suspect that DF and BC are both in favor of government-funded physics.

[To Ted Keer]

Your gig is up. More vacuous self-congratulation on your part will just be responded to by me by reminding you that you are a narcissist. I dare you to invent a rationalization to cover for your narcissism while simultaneously permitting you to engage in it further.

Shayne

Are those two posts by Shane examples of the so-called "Objectivist rage"?

Edited August 27, 2010 by Xray

[sjw]

Yes xray, I think catechism is probably a fair assessment of it. Yes, maybe you are too stupid to figure out QM, I don't think you can speak for the rest of us. No it certainly isn't "Objectivist rage."

[kiaer.ts]

To Ted:

Your gig is up. More vacuous self-congratulation on your part will just be responded to by me by reminding you that you are a narcissist. I dare you to invent a rationalization to cover for your narcissism while simultaneously permitting you to engage in it further.

Shayne

Is that an example of "Objectivist rage"?

More like paranoia and megalomania. All I said was that the idea of instantaneous action at a distance doesn't alarm me, and this was instantly taken as evidence of a personal attack, my belonging in some apparent clique of Shayne critics, and evidence of all sorts of bizarre things and motivations on my part. That, followed by rage at my failure to take his nonsense seriously, or to respond to questions prefaced with insults.

[sjw]

All I said was that the idea of instantaneous action at a distance doesn't alarm me, and this was instantly taken as evidence of a personal attack

No, I take it as evidence of irrationalism, for there is no rational reason for saying it doesn't alarm you without an accompanying reason.

Observe how nobody opposing me wants to cut to the heart of the matter and specifically address why anyone should be satisfied with a "physics" that says an event on one side of the universe can instantaneously and without any intermediary medium (listing both characteristics is of course redundant) cause an event on the other side. There is a reason they don't want to address it, it's because they are unabashed irrationalists.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

All I said was that the idea of instantaneous action at a distance doesn't alarm me, and this was instantly taken as evidence of a personal attack

No, I take it as evidence of irrationalism, for there is no rational reason for saying it doesn't alarm you without an accompanying reason.

Observe how nobody opposing me wants to cut to the heart of the matter and specifically address why anyone should be satisfied with a "physics" that says an event on one side of the universe can instantaneously and without any intermediary medium (listing both characteristics is of course redundant) cause an event on the other side. There is a reason they don't want to address it, it's because they are unabashed irrationalists.

Shayne

I find it interesting that you think not being alarmed is a state of being which requires an explanation.

Your first mistake, Shayne, was to think that my statement was in "opposition" to you and your second was to think that your hysterical reaction would motivate me to answer you as if you were a civil interlocutor.

I suggest you step outside the persecution complex and reread my comment as if I meant exactly what I said, no less, and no more. You could also read my prior comments, and keep in mind that the Feynman Validation was what non-Objectivists and believers in humor like to call a joke.

Then if you have any questions, I might enjoy answering them.

[sjw]

Ted, it's not a "persecution complex", it's a "people are morons, and here's yet another" complex. Your remark that you are not alarmed, however it might be interpreted, is moronic. It is moronic if you are not actually alarmed in the sense I meant, because it means you do not grasp the enormity of the implication of the results of the experiment. And it is moronic if you are quibbling with my meaning of the word "alarmed"; perhaps you are not "alarmed", perhaps you are merely acutely interested, or perplexed, or curious, or whatever.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

Ted, it's not a "persecution complex", it's a "people are morons, and here's yet another" complex. Your remark that you are not alarmed, however it might be interpreted, is moronic. It is moronic if you are not actually alarmed in the sense I meant, because it means you do not grasp the enormity of the implication of the results of the experiment. And it is moronic if you are quibbling with my meaning of the word "alarmed"; perhaps you are not "alarmed", perhaps you are merely acutely interested, or perplexed, or curious, or whatever.

And, based on your version of Objectivism (or whatever your code you derive your etiquette from), the best way to handle a situation where you are unsure is to assume the worst, insult first, and ask questions later? I don't happen to think that your method of first attacking me gratuitously based on your sour view of people other than myself and then expecting me to answer you civilly and at length if I want you to consider withdrawing your insults is a valid way of dealing with people.

I am reminded of your solipsistic "review" of Harriman at Amazon. It amounts in part to a statement of how much smarter than everyone else you are:

I was present in an eariler Harriman/Peikoff lecture on the subject of this book. When it came time to discuss the Galileo pendulum experiments, I asked whether Peikoff saw anything interesting in that in spite of the fact that Galileo made an error in arriving at his formula, it ended up furthering the science that would eventually provide the correct formula. (This is my recollection of the question from years ago; it is not verbatim). Harriman was in the front row, violently shaking his head "NO!" Peikoff then said that I must not have read his book, OPAR. I said that I had. Then he said I must not have understood the part about "context." This is the Peikovian way of saying that I had it wrong that Galileo had made any mistake whatsoever, that the formula was "true in Galileo's context of knowledge." Finally Peikoff answered that he saw nothing of interest.

Now I find in the book a semi-recognition that the formula was indeed actually wrong, that it was formed from approximations and that Galileo himself was "privately expressing his dissatisfaction with the lack of a proof" while (evidently) pretending in public that it was rock-solid truth. And this is put on a pedestal by Harriman as an example of a proper scientific approach. It was not in fact true in Galileo's context, in fact it was an approximation and Galileo himself knew that it was one.

One might think you were taking credit for having changed Harriman's mind.

You even manage to miss the importance of the development of the individual from perceptual level child to highly abstract adulthood over time for the Objectivist theory of concepts.

I do not believe we need to consult how children think in order to learn how adults ought to think; on the contrary, given my experience with teenagers, I think this approach is probably counterproductive.

In your scorn you miss the essential point.

Children and adults are not two different species with two different modes of contact with reality. All adults were at one time children and then (shudder the thought!) teenagers, and adult minds do not and cannot spring into being ex nihilo, no matter how many curmudgeons cannot rememeber their own or even their sibling's childhood. Neither the adult mind nor the adult body can be fully understood without taking into account that it developed over time from necessary earlier stages. Not even yours.

Ted, it's not a "persecution complex", it's a "people are morons, and here's yet another" complex.

Talk about "here's yet another." You are not the first Objectionist I have met who resorts to contact with another ego by throwing up defenses and casting insults. Frankly, it is boring.

[sjw]

So Ted, are you saying I was wrong regarding what you meant when you said you weren't alarmed? Or is your rant just you wallowing in pity over that hole I poked in your narcissism?

Anyways, the debate that you started, the one that is relevant here, the one I keep trying to remind you of, is over whether the experiment is alarming/curious/surprising/interesting/unexplained or whatever you want to call it, it is not about those other new things that you want to use to avoid talking about the relevant issue here. If you want, hijack the thread someplace else, maybe I'll join you there, but then again, maybe I'll just be happy you've gone.

It might occur to anyone following along that the best way to refute what I said is to refute what I said, i.e., to show me how wrong I was about how I interpreted Ted, so his best argument should have been to spell out why he's not alarmed, but note how he perpetually fails to do that. Which indicates precisely what is behind his statement: absolutely nothing but narcissistic puffery. All the rest of his BS is just a distraction from that essential fact.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

So Ted, are you saying I was wrong regarding what you meant when you said you weren't alarmed? Or is your rant just you wallowing in pity over that hole I poked in your narcissism?

Anyways, the debate that you started, the one that is relevant here, the one I keep trying to remind you of, is over whether the experiment is alarming/curious/surprising/interesting/unexplained or whatever you want to call it, it is not about those other new things that you want to use to avoid talking about the relevant issue here. If you want, hijack the thread someplace else, maybe I'll join you there, but then again, maybe I'll just be happy you've gone.

It might occur to anyone following along that the best way to refute what I said is to refute what I said, i.e., to show me how wrong I was about how I interpreted Ted, so his best argument should have been to spell out why he's not alarmed, but note how he perpetually fails to do that. Which indicates precisely what is behind his statement: absolutely nothing but narcissistic puffery. All the rest of his BS is just a distraction from that essential fact.

Shayne

Now I am really confused.

First of all, it really would help if you would pick either the second or the third person, and stick to it.

And where is this pity? For whom? I don't see any pity.

And no, I did not start a debate. I said that the implications of Bell's theorem do not alarm me. That's it. Your response to that was to label me the "opposition" and to loose a string of bizarre insults, followed by an all too late realization that if you had wanted me to take you seriously - and I don't - you should have asked me what I meant before you insulted me. Pretending that if I don't take you seriously then it makes your accusations serious is a non-starter. Next you'll be double-jinxing me, I suppose.

Now, what I think you are saying is that you have totally lost interest in physics. Or Harriman. Or whether instantaneous action at a distance should alarm anyone. And now you want me instead to refute your understanding of the straw man of your own creation, and if I don't do so, then it proves I am a narcissist, which, you now say, is the "relevant issue here."

Well, I'll tell you one thing. I withdraw the accusation that you are a solipsist. Solipsists are not so easily distracted as you.

As for your repeated use of such big words as moron, irrational, narcissist, relevant and now, essential, I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

[sjw]

Perhaps the incoherence of your last post is explained by the fact that it is Friday night and are perhaps being kept company by some good whiskey, but if the upshot is that this is where we agree to disagree, then there's something we can agree on. By all means, continue with your enjoyment of the evening.

[tjohnson]

But, for the umpteenth times, scientific expertise counts for nothing -- zero, nada -- when the scientist ventures into philosophy. The physicist is as capable of spewing philosophical nonsense as anyone else, and some have done precisely this.

I agree with George on this. It is unfortunate that some physicists feel the need to do this but they are only human. Brilliant people can make ridiculous statements at times but that doesn't take anything away from their accomplishments. But the deeper issue is the value of philosophy vs physics, and in that regard there is no question who the winner is.

[BaalChatzaf]

But, for the umpteenth times, scientific expertise counts for nothing -- zero, nada -- when the scientist ventures into philosophy. The physicist is as capable of spewing philosophical nonsense as anyone else, and some have done precisely this.

I agree with George on this. It is unfortunate that some physicists feel the need to do this but they are only human. Brilliant people can make ridiculous statements at times but that doesn't take anything away from their accomplishments. But the deeper issue is the value of philosophy vs physics, and in that regard there is no question who the winner is.

It is well that most first rate theoretical physicists stay clear of philosophy while they are young and in their most productive years as physicists. Some wax philosophical during their creative decline. Feynman was an exception. He said very little of philosophical import his entire life. When he was productive (and before the cancer started killing him) he did physics and he did it brilliantly.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

Judging from his popular books and from his interviews, Feynman was incessantly philosophical. I think you guys just have some deranged view of what philosophy is, and so all you're really saying Feynman didn't practice *that kind* of philosophy. I'd agree with that.

And anyway, who are you guys to talk about what intellectual tools theorists need to do their work? What new theories in any area have you come up with?

[tjohnson]

Judging from his popular books and from his interviews, Feynman was incessantly philosophical. I think you guys just have some deranged view of what philosophy is, and so all you're really saying Feynman didn't practice *that kind* of philosophy. I'd agree with that.

And anyway, who are you guys to talk about what intellectual tools theorists need to do their work? What new theories in any area have you come up with?

The "intellectual tool" is loosely referred to as 'scientific method'. Most philosophy is just a bunch of vague talk since it doesn't have to adhere to any methodology.

[sjw]

The "intellectual tool" is loosely referred to as 'scientific method'. Most philosophy is just a bunch of vague talk since it doesn't have to adhere to any methodology.

Most philosophy.... is vague talk.... Ugh... how can you do this year after year? Babble babble babble babble.

[tjohnson]

The "intellectual tool" is loosely referred to as 'scientific method'. Most philosophy is just a bunch of vague talk since it doesn't have to adhere to any methodology.

Most philosophy.... is vague talk.... Ugh... how can you do this year after year? Babble babble babble babble.

It's easy.

[Ellen Stuttle]

But the deeper issue is the value of philosophy vs physics, and in that regard there is no question who the winner is.

What I think there's no question of is that what you demonstrate with that statement is your persistence in having a dumb view of what philosophy is. Try doing physics in a culture that doesn't value freedom of inquiry and the advancement of knowledge and without the scientific methodology which is a *philosophical* viewpoint on the universe, and see how far you get.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Judging from his popular books and from his interviews, Feynman was incessantly philosophical. I think you guys just have some deranged view of what philosophy is, and so all you're really saying Feynman didn't practice *that kind* of philosophy. I'd agree with that. [my emphasis]

And I'd agree with Shayne on that.

Ellen