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And lo On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:52:27 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom>
did spake thusly:
> Warp wrote:
>> Maybe you could argue that science makes the *assumption* that
>> measurements
>> correspond to reality, but as long as there's no evidence of the
>> contrary,
>> there's no reason to think otherwise. Someone could argue this *is*
>> faith.
>
> I think what makes it faith is the behavior in the face of
> contradictions to what one has faith in.
>
> The behavior when showing a religious person things that tend to
> contradict their faith is generally denial and looking for some way to
> show you've misinterpreted their holy works or some such. The classic
> example is if you show someone where the bible says God is evil, they
> will tell you that you're misinterpreting the bible.
>
> If you tell a scientist that you have measurements that don't match
> theory, the first assumption is that you measured incorrectly. The
> second assumption is that the theory is wrong. I don't think there's
> ever an assumption that reality is conspiring against you.
And the third option is that something unknown is influencing the results.
If the theory matches the majority of results than the unknown influence
becomes the most logical thing to check for.
Said influence may well turn out to be that reality is conspiring against
you; although it's more likely to labeled "unknown" and only speculated
about.
Now of course if reality is just conspiring against you such that only
that one set of results should 'error' the only way to show it was if
every result was different. If they're not it has no reason to be factored
in.
The ball bounces, does it matter if it's red, blue or green? The Sun moves
in the sky in a fixed pattern, does it matter if it's being pushed along
by an invisible scarab? Science only gets involved if the answer is yes;
faith gets involved even if the answer is no ;-)
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If you tell a scientist that you have measurements that don't match theory,
> the first assumption is that you measured incorrectly. The second assumption
> is that the theory is wrong.
It's not that simple, actually. If you have 1000 different types of
measurements which confirm the theory and 1 measurement which contradicts
it, after corroborating that the measurement is valid the next step is not
to invalidate the theory. The next assumption is usually to see if there
are some *other* causes for the anomaly, and if nothing is found, whether
there are exceptional situations where the universe works differently from
the theory (in which case the theory might need fine-tuning).
Two example cases are the so-called Pioneer anomaly and the flyby anomaly,
both of which seem to contradict general relativity (AFAIK it's not currently
known whether both are symptoms of the same effect or whether they are
unrelated).
Just because these anomalies exist doesn't mean GR is bogus, even if
astrophysicists are scratching their heads with them.
--
- Warp
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On 03/28/10 12:06, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> 1) That reality works substantially in accordance with measurements.
>
> If you mean "the universe is deterministic", well if that isn't the
> case, it is impossible to know anything, and we can stop now. There, we
> just explored every possible consequence of that hypothesis. Now if we
> assume that the universe *is* deterministic, we have quite a lot of
> consequences to explore - hence, science exists.
Argument from extreme. The universe could be *mostly* deterministic,
but not entirely.
--
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible
crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
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On 03/28/10 13:52, Darren New wrote:
>> Maybe you could argue that science makes the *assumption* that
>> measurements
>> correspond to reality, but as long as there's no evidence of the
>> contrary,
>> there's no reason to think otherwise. Someone could argue this *is*
>> faith.
>
> I think what makes it faith is the behavior in the face of
> contradictions to what one has faith in.
>
> The behavior when showing a religious person things that tend to
> contradict their faith is generally denial and looking for some way to
> show you've misinterpreted their holy works or some such. The classic
> example is if you show someone where the bible says God is evil, they
> will tell you that you're misinterpreting the bible.
>
> If you tell a scientist that you have measurements that don't match
> theory, the first assumption is that you measured incorrectly. The
> second assumption is that the theory is wrong. I don't think there's
> ever an assumption that reality is conspiring against you.
Well sure - but that's because they take it on faith that reality
doesn't conspire against you in that manner (as you pointed out originally).
--
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible
crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
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On 03/28/10 10:58, Darren New wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> I contend that there are at least two things most scientists take on
>> faith, without supporting evidence:
>
> Oh, one more:
>
> 3) Reality is consistent.
> 3A) The physical laws don't change. To the extent they change,
> there is a physical law telling you how the laws change.
> 3B) The physical laws are consistent. (E.g., There *is* an
> as-yet-undiscovered scientific theory unifying QM and GR.)
That *is* a big assumption.
--
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible
crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible
> crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
That's a good question. The sort of thing that occurs to me all the time,
really.
I found out in Dallas that my security badge was apparently authorized to
unlock the building but not authorized to turn off the burglar alarm. Why
would you even *make* a system where it was possible to configure it that way?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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Warp wrote:
> Just because these anomalies exist doesn't mean GR is bogus, even if
> astrophysicists are scratching their heads with them.
I would classify them under "measured wrong". I.e., there's something
unaccounted for in the measurement. I guess you could classify evil spirits
as "unaccounted for". :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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On 28-3-2010 21:06, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> If you mean "the universe is deterministic", well if that isn't the
> case, it is impossible to know anything, and we can stop now.
Depending a bit on what you mean by deterministic, but in my definition
the universe isn't. That is what Einstein-Podolski-Rosen was about.
> Science is, by definition, only concerned with that which is provable.
> This isn't necessarily what is true, just what you can prove.
Which doesn't stop scientists from being mostly concerned about their
own position and securing the next grant (even if they need to stab a
colleague in the back).
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And lo On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:52:17 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>
did spake thusly:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible
>> crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
>
> That's a good question. The sort of thing that occurs to me all the
> time, really.
Try toasting a frozen slice of bread on the 'normal' setting.
> I found out in Dallas that my security badge was apparently authorized
> to unlock the building but not authorized to turn off the burglar alarm.
> Why would you even *make* a system where it was possible to configure it
> that way?
Depends on the setup. Off the top of my head imagine a situation with a
night-guard on reception. The building is locked, but the alarms aren't
on. Now if the building can't be locked without the alarms being activated
that's a pointless function of the card.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> Depends on the setup. Off the top of my head imagine a situation with a
> night-guard on reception. The building is locked, but the alarms aren't
> on. Now if the building can't be locked without the alarms being
> activated that's a pointless function of the card.
Yes, but that's not the problem. Indeed, that's how it works now.
The problem is that the card unlocks the door but does *not* turn off the
alarm. The right answer, in other words, is to disallow the card from
unlocking the door if the alarm is already set. Because as it stands now,
going into the building sets off the alarm, with no way to turn that off.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Yes, we're traveling together,
but to different destinations.
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