Hypothesis vs. theory, First person experience vs. objective science

[ughaibu]

Kriminal99: If you have one basketball and someone gives you one tennis ball, you would still have one basketball ie one plus one equals one, and two times one equals one.

[IDMclean]

Your forgetting to carry over your units Ughaibu.

 

it's not 1 + 1 = 1. That is dimensionless, or definitionless (excepting in the value judgement). It is 1 basketball + 1 tennis ball = 2 Balls or 1 basketball + 1 tennis ball.

 

You can only add together common elements. a tennis ball by definition is not a basket ball, though they both are balls. (:hihi: talking about balls.) [math] 1 Basketball \not= 1 Tennis ball[/math]

 

However [math]1 ball + 1 ball = 2 balls[/math]

 

I remember learning that in kendergarden as apples (x), oranges(y) and bananas (z). How many apples do you have, how many fruits do you have, etc.

[ughaibu]

Dimensions? So one basketball is a square.

[IDMclean]

I am not so sure of what you are implying, I would like a greater explination before I reply to that.

 

By dimension I mean the metric. [math]\frac{1 \cancel{ basketball}}{1 \cancel{basketball}}[/math]

 

A basketball has relatively percise defintions for it's dimension, length, width, depth, mass, density, internal air pressure. Things like that.

 

When you say "Basketball" you imply all those dimension folded up into that one word. Which is why a tennis ball and a basketball are only additive in their common elements, that is that they are balls. The definitions for a basket ball and a tennis ball however are not equivalent. So they can neither be additive (in total) or multiplicative.

 

Like units only. [math]2 tennis balls \cdot 2 tennis balls = 4 tennis balls[/math].

 

[math]2 basket balls \cdot 2 tennis balls \not= 4 tennis balls[/math]

Just like this is a null set in the majority of cases:

[math]2 x \cdot 2 y \not= 4 y[/math]

 

If the units of x and y are the same that is by idenity they are x = y, then various properties apply, otherwise they simple don't. say x = basket ball and y = basket ball then we have the same units and can solve for 4y. Otherwise if [math]x \not= y[/math], then this is a null set.

[ughaibu]

One plus one is an abstract mathematical statement, independent of tennis balls or basketballs. One basketball plus one tennis ball is no longer abstract, there is the mathematical dimension along which the mathematical result of one plus one exists, there is a physical dimension along which two balls exist, and two further dimensions along which single balls of each species exist. The objects under discussion are presently four dimensional.

[Kriminal99]

Indeed, the experiments to show that reality violates Bell's inequality are generally callled Aspect experiments after the first person to perform such an entanglement experiment. We have had long discussions on Bell in the past.

 

Unless of course you are asking (and it seems that you are, though I didn't originally understand) if you need to experimentally test deductive logic. I would think that a philosopher would be aware that if deductive logic breaks down, we have no tools left to work with. The fundamental assumption of both philosophy and physics is the validity of deductive logic.

 

However, deductive logic always follows from an initial idea. Hence, the deductive logic ties the idea to the conclusions we can draw from that idea.

-Will

 

What I was demonstrating in the post that you quoted one line from quite out of context was that there is no clear line between relying on deductive reasoning and relying on experimental evidence to support a theory.

 

Therefore, it is fallacious to attempt to seperate theories as scientific or unscientific based on this distinction. Rather it is simply a smoke screen for declaring theories that are popular amoung the academic community as scientific and others not.

 

One plus one is an abstract mathematical statement, independent of tennis balls or basketballs. One basketball plus one tennis ball is no longer abstract, there is the mathematical dimension along which the mathematical result of one plus one exists, there is a physical dimension along which two balls exist, and two further dimensions along which single balls of each species exist. The objects under discussion are presently four dimensional.

 

Personally I would never talk about such things without refering to the means with which they are realized as a foundation (rather than just abstract arbitrary definitons).

 

Meaning, when a person hears one basketball and frequently sees one basketball, and then two bballs and sees two bballs, and subsequently hears one tennis ball when seeing one tball and hearing two tballs and seeing two tballs and realizes that one and two operate on a groub called objects which contains any discrete sense idea (like a sound an image an object which is a function of sound and images and other things like smells etc) they define numbers as functions of objects.

 

So one isn't really just one, its one something where something is anything there can be one of. A basketball and a tennis ball give you two objects, but only one basket ball and one tennis ball.

 

Talking about squares created by different dimensions refers to unecessary spatial metaphors. There are only 3 dimensions in space, therefore the metaphor no longer works when you get past 3 dimensions (not that the metaphor is necessary anyways) It's only useful at all because most of our brains are devoted to processing images so sometimes it is easier to use a spatial metaphor.

 

To try and claim that the metaphor should continue but our brains are not capable of it is to create an artificial problem. I can look at a pile of all kinds of different balls all day long and make realizations about them with no problem. If you try to say that each ball is like a step in a different direction (whatever that means) and then ask me to draw a picture of course Im not going to know what to do because the balls aren't each a step in a different direction and because of that I have never seen anything like you are talking about, and because I have never seen anything like that of course I can't imagine it because I have no experience of anything like that (since its not real) to build on.

[Qfwfq]

Instead it could simply be the case that the inequality wouldn't hold anyways in a local hidden variable model, since we did not experimentally verify that it did.

As Uncle Al so often says:

 

Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim, volt zi geven mayn zeyde.

[Kriminal99]

As Uncle Al so often says:

 

Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim, volt zi geven mayn zeyde.

 

I fail to see the relevance?

 

Fairly simple. There is no such thing as a theory that does not rely on deductive reasoning which results in something that wasn't verified experimentally. Experimental data does not provide conclusions on it's own.

 

Therefore science is indistinguishable from philosophy, especially since a philosopher can refer to experimental data as easily as a scientist.

[Erasmus00]

Fairly simple. There is no such thing as a theory that does not rely on deductive reasoning which results in something that wasn't verified experimentally.

 

In science, the end point of the deductive reasoning is often tested by experiment.

 

Therefore science is indistinguishable from philosophy, especially since a philosopher can refer to experimental data as easily as a scientist.

 

The difference is the obvious focus on the quantitative in science, and the emphasis on testing. Philosophy often strays into areas that simply aren't quantifiable, and hence aren't rigorously testable.

 

Furthermore, a philosopher cannot refer to experimental data as easily, as the scientist is actively involved in producing experimental data.

-Will

[Kriminal99]

Focusing and emphasis being the key words here.

 

Testing the endpoint of deductive reasoning is not the same as testing the reasoning itself, it still depends on the belief that there are not other reasons why the same result would be the case. That is more useful in cases when it is unlikely (again reasoning required) that there could not be another explanation for the tested correlation. And sometimes it is not the endpoint tested or there isn't really a signifigant endpoint.

 

By stating that philosophers are just as capable as scientists of referring to experimental data, I was referring not to the current situation where experimental data is not as readily accessable to non scientists as it is to scientists, but rather to their capability of taking into account information when it is properly communicated to them.

[Qfwfq]

There is no such thing as a theory that does not rely on deductive reasoning which results in something that wasn't verified experimentally.

But Bell's inequalities are obtained by deductive reasoning. :rolleyes:

 

Experimental data does not provide conclusions on it's own.

You appeared to be implying somewhat the other way around. Knowing the manifold M to be orientable, would you be anxious to experimentally verify that it doesn't exhibit oddities like the Möbius strip does? Kowing it to be simply connected, would you rush to experimentally make sure that every closed differentiable form is exact?

 

Therefore science is indistinguishable from philosophy, especially since a philosopher can refer to experimental data as easily as a scientist.

Science is what we currently call natural philosophy, therefore it's only a part of philosophy. Strictly, science is the result of philosophy (which is how the term was used previously).

[Kriminal99]

But Bell's inequalities are obtained by deductive reasoning. :shrug:

 

You appeared to be implying somewhat the other way around. Knowing the manifold M to be orientable, would you be anxious to experimentally verify that it doesn't exhibit oddities like the Möbius strip does? Kowing it to be simply connected, would you rush to experimentally make sure that every closed differentiable form is exact?

 

Science is what we currently call natural philosophy, therefore it's only a part of philosophy. Strictly, science is the result of philosophy (which is how the term was used previously).

 

To get back on topic, the fact that scientific "results' like theories supported by Bell's inequalities rely on pure deductive reasoning for support (IE experiments conducted on them do not verify the inequality in the realm of QM) shows that science is indistinguishable from theories like "universal unconsious" by Jung. Such belief sets depend on deductive reasoning and things people experience or see in real life. Attempts to label such belief sets "unscientific" are fallacious, or if done only on the basis that the evidence is not third person documented observations, irrelevant.

[Qfwfq]

(IE experiments conducted on them do not verify the inequality in the realm of QM)

I don't get it, Krim. :D