The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[merjet]

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

I will be pleased to tell you. Look at the title of Mr. Harriman's book. There is your answer.

The title is The Logical Leap. The subtitle is Induction in Physics, reasonably construed to mean examples from physics are used to illustrate induction, and unreasonably construed to mean it will cover all of physics.

If you are such an authority on induction in physics, why don't you tell us all about how induction was used to discover electrons, derive Coulomb's law, arrive at field equations, and anything else you believe is even remotely related?

[BaalChatzaf]

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

I will be pleased to tell you. Look at the title of Mr. Harriman's book. There is your answer.

The title is The Logical Leap. The subtitle is Induction in Physics, reasonably construed to mean examples from physics are used to illustrate induction, and unreasonably construed to mean it will cover all of physics.

If you are such an authority on induction in physics, why don't you tell us all about how induction was used to discover electrons, derive Coulomb's law, arrive at field equations, and anything else you believe is even remotely related?

I did not make that division. My review will be based on how well Harriman connects induction with physics. I will also review the accuracy with which he brings up historical matter in physics. I am somewhat of a history buff on the subject of physics and I know my shit. And I am dreadfully hard when it comes to scientific error. Be patient. The book is on the way and then I will do surgery on it after reading every single word.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

You keep calling Bob K a redneck.

Dayaamm!

I'm a redneck (from the backwoods of Virginia) and I assure you he is not.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

I will be pleased to tell you. Look at the title of Mr. Harriman's book. There is your answer.

The title is The Logical Leap. The subtitle is Induction in Physics, reasonably construed to mean examples from physics are used to illustrate induction, and unreasonably construed to mean it will cover all of physics.

If you are such an authority on induction in physics, why don't you tell us all about how induction was used to discover electrons, derive Coulomb's law, arrive at field equations, and anything else you believe is even remotely related?

I did not make that division. My review will be based on how well Harriman connects induction with physics. I will also review the accuracy with which he brings up historical matter in physics. I am somewhat of a history buff on the subject of physics and I know my shit. And I am dreadfully hard when it comes to scientific error. Be patient. The book is on the way and then I will do surgery on it after reading every single word.

Your review has already been reviewed, Bob, which is very strange considering you haven't written it yet.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Your review has already been reviewed, Bob, which is very strange considering you haven't written it yet.

--Brant

Strange indeed. One thing for sure. Once I have done the reading and posted the review (it will be on a separate thread) it will be the first thread that is entirely about the book TLL and not a lot of peripheral matters. If the review passes muster (i.e. people have had a chance to point out whatever errors I have made), I will correct the review and post it on Amazon.Com.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[James Heaps-Nelson]

> There are some here who are physics experts and some who are not physics experts but who can follow physics mathematically if it is well explained. [Jim]

Yes, but the reason for my post was that Baal's posts are usually -not- well explained and they tend too heavily to jargon unnecessarily (and often sweeping crackpot claims).

Plus the people you mentioned in some cases may -think- they are up to date on the latest physics or history of science, but that knowledge may be partial or from decades ago.

It's always best to explain too much than too little.

Furthermore, it's always best to explain something in layman's language when possible because then you get both audiences - the expert and non-expert. [As an aside, in order to deal with the issues in Harriman's book and to assess the validity of his -entire- thesis, one should be concentrating mostly on epistemology not on mathematical aspects of physics. And the whole Galileo-Newton thing is a huge sideshow.]

The "dumb schmuck" comment is typical Baal: patronizing, elitist, contemptuous, and redneck.

And typical of the kind of thinking of too many arrogant Oists who can't be bothered to learn some skills of explanation.

BTW, I mentioned Isaac Asimov's science writing for a reason.

(Anyway, this is the kind of 'tar baby' type debate over what should not require multiple posts, explanations, and re-clarifications that I typically wish I hadn't gotten into.)

Phil, I have a different take on Baal. For people who have taken the time to understand mathematics at a deep level, it is often irritating that people brazenly comment on that which they don't understand. I think Objectivist arrogance is much more a hallmark of Harriman and Peikoff who apparently believe that you can understand the world at a deep level without mathematics, debate or precision.

I think Baal's take is much more Heinlein than Objectivist. Here's a choice quote from Heinlein, not one with which I agree, but one that does have a certain piquancy:

"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house."

Jim

[kiaer.ts]

Your review has already been reviewed, Bob, which is very strange considering you haven't written it yet.

--Brant

Strange indeed. One thing for sure. Once I have done the reading and posted the review (it will be on a separate thread) it will be the first thread that is entirely about the book TLL and not a lot of peripheral matters. If the review passes muster (i.e. people have had a chance to point out whatever errors I have made), I will correct the review and post it on Amazon.Com.

Ba'al Chatzaf

And the lion shall lay down with the lamb.

[BaalChatzaf]

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

I will be pleased to tell you. Look at the title of Mr. Harriman's book. There is your answer.

The title is The Logical Leap. The subtitle is Induction in Physics, reasonably construed to mean examples from physics are used to illustrate induction, and unreasonably construed to mean it will cover all of physics.

If you are such an authority on induction in physics, why don't you tell us all about how induction was used to discover electrons, derive Coulomb's law, arrive at field equations, and anything else you believe is even remotely related?

As near as I can tell, J. J. Thompson did a lot of science and very little philosophy, which is probably why he discovered what he discovered. As a rule philosophers come up rather short with specific information about the world.

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 27, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I think Baal's take is much more Heinlein than Objectivist. Here's a choice quote from Heinlein, not one with which I agree, but one that does have a certain piquancy:

"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house."

Jim

One of my favorite quotes from R.A.H. He got a little squishy in his old age, but in his prime he was dynamite. His opus -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress- occupies a place of honor on my bookshelf.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Neither you nor Dr. Cox explained how induction was used.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Neither you nor Dr. Cox explained how induction was used.

Merlin,

That's OK. Harriman doesn't explain how physics is used either :-).

Jim

[BaalChatzaf]

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Neither you nor Dr. Cox explained how induction was used.

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8941&pid=115383&st=100entry115383

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Neither you nor Dr. Cox explained how induction was used.

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivi...00

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ever heard the phrase non sequitur? You are popping them out like cupcakes.

[merjet]

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivi...00

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ever heard the phrase non sequitur? You are popping them out like cupcakes.

Yes, and with a much-less-than-half-cooked link sausage.

[Selene]

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivi...00

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ever heard the phrase non sequitur? You are popping them out like cupcakes.

Yes, and with a much-less-than-half-cooked link sausage.

cupcakes and sausages...? Seems we all have to work on our image building!

[BaalChatzaf]

I will let Dr. Brian Cox, a real physicist do the explaining.

Please see:

Neither you nor Dr. Cox explained how induction was used.

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivi...00

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ever heard the phrase non sequitur? You are popping them out like cupcakes.

Not at all. I presented a list of papers (some of which I have read) indicating that Cox does know how induction is used and he uses it. He is doing real physics at CERN. What is your buddy Harriman doing of late?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

Subject: You Might Be a Redneck If You...

> You keep calling Bob K a redneck...I'm a redneck (from the backwoods of Virginia) and I assure you he is not. [MSK]

Michael, I use the term "redneck" a lot for a certain kind of attitude.

It's metaphorical, not literal. Even if someone is highly educated, raised in an urban area, a jewish or russian or european intellectual, extremely knowledgeable in their fields, well-versed in Objectivism, highly educated, or whatever, the term often applies.

It suggest coarseness or crudeness of a very specific kind, some defiant and unapologetic combination of lack of polish or nuance or social awareness, often with a solipsistic kind of cranky against-the-world kind of hostility. And, like with literal backwoods people who never went to college or got out of high school, it often suggests a stubborn, literal-minded or closed-minded bristling, suspicious resentment of any 'furriner' type viewpoints or ideas.

A clinging to dogma type of mind-set, not open to other ways or other ideas - whether they be about how to do science or how to write a post in a non-jargon type way.

The "redneck" will often react with extreme hostility to anyone who tries to challenge his ways, calling them "uppity smartalecks" or "dumb schmuchks".

Insulting all who question or try to change them is the "intellectual redneck" non-physical force equivalent of a pump-action shotgun or running them off the road with your off-the-road vehicle. Or a broken beer bottle bar fight.

Edited November 27, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Selene]

Subject: You Might Be a Redneck If You...

> You keep calling Bob K a redneck...I'm a redneck (from the backwoods of Virginia) and I assure you he is not. [MSK]

Michael, I use the term "redneck" a lot for a certain kind of attitude.

It's metaphorical, not literal. Even if someone is highly educated, raised in an urban area, a jewish or russian or european intellectual, extremely knowledgeable in their fields, well-versed in Objectivism, highly educated, or whatever, the term often applies. [I guess effete rednecks do not capitalize?]

It suggest coarseness, lack of polish or nuance or social awareness, often a solipsistic kind of cranky against-the-world kind of hostility. And, like with literal backwoods people who never went to college or got out of high school, it often suggests a stubborn, literal-minded or closed-minded hostility to any 'furriner' type viewpoints or ideas.

A clinging to dogma type of mind-set, not open to other ways or other ideas - whether they be about how to do science or how to write a post in a non-jargon type way.

The "redneck" will often react with extreme hostility to anyone who tries to challenge his ways, calling them "uppity smartalecks" or "dumb schmuchks".

Insulting all who question is the "intellectual redneck" non-physical force equivalent of a pump-action shotgun or running them off the road with your off-the-road vehicle. Or a broken beer bottle bar fight.

Ahh, so you are an "effete redneck," now I got it..

This is from the online etymology dictionary which I use quite a bit.

redneck "cracker," 1893; attested 1830 in more specialized sense ("This may be ascribed to the Red Necks, a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians in Fayetteville," from Ann Royall, "Southern Tour I," p.148). According to various theories, red perhaps from anger, or from pellagra, but most likely from mule farmers' outdoors labor in the sun, wearing a shirt and straw hat, with the neck exposed. Redneck: Encyclopedia II - Redneck - Etymology

Redneck - Etymology

Redneck - Possible Scots-Irish Etymology

The word redneck was first cited in Scotland. In Scotland, the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant (a.k.a. Covenanters) signed documents stating that Scotland desired a Presbyterian Church Government, and rejected the Church of England as their official church. Many of the Covenanters signed these documents using their own blood, and many in the movement began wearing red pieces of cloth around their neck to signify their position to the public. They were referred to as Rednecks. These Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to Ulster (the northern province of Ireland) during the 17th Century and soon settled in considerable numbers in North America across the 18th Century. Some immigrated directly from Scotland to the American colonies in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries as a result of the Lowland Clearances. One etymological theory holds that since many Scots-Irish Americans who settled in Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term was bestowed upon them and their descendants.

Redneck - Possible American Etymology

The popular etymology says that the term derives from such individuals having a red neck caused by working outdoors in the sunlight over the course of their lifetime. The effect of decades of direct sunlight on the exposed skin of the back of the neck not only reddens fair skin, but renders it leathery and tough, and typically very wrinkled and spotted by late middle age. Similarly, some historians claim that the term redneck originated in 17th-Century Virginia, because indentured servants were sunburnt while tending plantation crops.

It is clear that by the post-Reconstruction era (after the departure of Federal troops in the American South in 1874-1878), the term had worked its way into popular usage. Several 'black-face' minstrel shows used the word in a derogatory manner, comparing slave life over that of the poor rural whites. This may have much to do with the social, political and economic struggle between Populists, the Redeemers, and Republican Carpetbaggers of the post-Civil War South and Appalachia, where the new middle class of the South (professionals, bankers, industrialists) displaced the antebellum planter class as the leaders of the Southern states. The Populist movement, with its pseudo-socialist message of economic equality, represented a threat to the status quo. The use of a derogative term, such as 'redneck' to belittle the working class, would have assisted in the gradual disenfranchisement of most of the Southern lower class, both black and white, which occurred by 1910.

Another popular theory stems from the use of red bandannas tied around the neck to signify union affiliation during the violent clashes between United Mine Workers and owners between 1910 and 1920."

Adam

Always here to help the "effete rednecks"

[Philip Coates]

> I think Baal's take is much more Heinlein than Objectivist. Here's a choice quote from Heinlein, not one with which I agree, but one that does have a certain piquancy: "Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house." [JHN]

Jim, the difference is that Heinlein didn't mean it literally or even close.

Note that I don't mean to pick on Baal or exclude orthodox Objectivists from my criticism of 'redneckism'.

Edited November 27, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Your description sounds more like an Objectivist fundamentalist than a middle-class blue-collar worker from the South.

I never thought of comparing O-fundies with backwoods bumpkins, though.

The idea's a hoot.

Michael

[Selene]

Phil,

Your description sounds more like an Objectivist fundamentalist than a middle-class blue-collar worker from the South.

I never thought of comparing O-fundies with backwoods bumpkins, though.

The idea's a hoot.

Michael

Michael and Phil:

I have had more deeply intelligent conversations about natural law, morality and epistemology with farmers in the "red neck" areas of the United States than all the "Objectivist fundamentalists" that I have had occasion to engage.

And Michael, just think of the Youtube parodies of O-fundies and backwoodsmen like Davey Crockett...endless funnies!

Adam

[merjet]

Here is a list of papers which Cox has authored or co-authored. Quite on ouvre for somone who does not know how induction is used.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8941&pid=115383&st=100entry115383

I presented a list of papers (some of which I have read) indicating that Cox does know how induction is used and he uses it. He is doing real physics at CERN.

Your inconsistency is showing.

[BaalChatzaf]

Your inconsistency is showing.

No. Your error is showing.

And how much physics is your buddy Harriman doing?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[James Heaps-Nelson]

> I think Baal's take is much more Heinlein than Objectivist. Here's a choice quote from Heinlein, not one with which I agree, but one that does have a certain piquancy: "Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house." [JHN]

Jim, the difference is that Heinlein didn't mean it literally or even close.

Note that I don't mean to pick on Baal or exclude orthodox Objectivists from my criticism of 'redneckism'.

Phil,

I know Heinlein meant it in a playful, benevolent, appeal to mankind's best kind of way. The problem I have with Harriman is not the lack of mathematics. It is that his model of causality is fundamentally flawed. Physics, at bedrock, is based on a small cluster of conservation laws, which globally cannot be broken. Conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, conservation of angular momentum, conservation of charge and conservation of certain quantities related to weak and strong forces plus gravity. There is no global requirement for entity action causality. That it happens to be true in most cases to a reasonable approximation is of great benefit to us, but it does not fully describe some of the most interesting physical phenomena out there.

Jim

[kiaer.ts]

The problem I have with Harriman is not the lack of mathematics. It is that his model of causality is fundamentally flawed. Physics, at bedrock, is based on a small cluster of conservation laws, which globally cannot be broken. Conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, conservation of angular momentum, conservation of charge and conservation of certain quantities related to weak and strong forces plus gravity. There is no global requirement for entity action causality. That it happens to be true in most cases to a reasonable approximation is of great benefit to us, but it does not fully describe some of the most interesting physical phenomena out there.

I disagree with this. Our knowledge of all causes derives from our knowledge of entities which have certain natures and exhibit certain behaviors. There are no behaviors not of entities of which we know. When you get down to subatomic particles you run up against the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which explains that, since our tools have a necessary limit in their bluntness (Bob will scream Plank length) you cannot measure both the position and velocity of the smallest particles without affecting them. In macroscopic observation, the mass energy of the light that reflects off the moon is insignificant in comparison with the moons mass. It can safely be ignored and we can very accurately measure the moon's position and motion. But with subatomic particles, the mass energy of the photons and the particles involved approach parity and we reach a horizon across which we cannot observe.

This epistemological limit due to the bluntness of our instruments does not amount to a metaphysical claim about the entities at that level. The uncertainty in the measurement is not a lack of identity in the thing. That is the problem with modern philosophical interpretations of subatomic physics. This is not to say that the identity of the thing is not to fluctuate in ways that are not observed at macroscopic levels. That is the problem with some Objectivists' views of physics. The law of identity does not require subatomic particles to behave like discrete billiard balls.

Perhaps we will never achieve the energies necessary to observe the scales we need to reach to get to the next level of understanding. Perhaps we will never have the ability to make the observations needed to posit the entities underlying the phenomena. This does not mean a priori that such entities do not exist. Furthermore, if we were to reach some smaller level underlying the Planck level (I don't imagine we can, but let's posit it) the we would still run up against the uncertainty principle, simply moved down to the next lower level of scale. All knowledge comes at a cost and all effort to achieve it is finite. There will always be horizons and singularities limiting our knowledge. This does not mean that nothing exists beneath those singularities or beyond those horizons.