God no! Science has become a very specialized discipline, as has philosophy. There is a lot of trash out there written by physicists who think that they can simply relax when they write philosophy. This is not true of all of them, but it is definitely something to watch out for. Similarly, physics is nt something that one can merely armchair into correctness (sorry, Leibniz).
You are just ignorant of the Intellectual History of the Subject.
What science did he ever produce? He produced a very limited philosophy of science, one that is not widespread in popularity among philosophers of science–it is known, but not preferred.
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Ignorance upon ignorance. Popper is the most influential philosopher of science of the 20thC - superseded by none. in the Number 2 spot is Kuhn.
You are a waste of space. Has a science Forum closed from lack of interest, that you troll on this one?
The trouble with science is that it is only descriptive. It’s no wonder we get refugees that come here looking for something a bit more stimulating.
Are you sure that you want to be calling people ignorant before you figure out how to use the “quote” function?
Darwin did great work with little direct mathematical appeal, but I never claimed that he used a lot of mathematics in those books. I claim that the success of his theories rests on a lot of mathematical work. The success of evolutionary theory relies on a lot of measurements and statistical inferences.
It takes far, far more than a single observation to provide significant support to a theory. In any case, the observation you cite relied on the ability of the observation to provide a measurement of the amount of bending of light produced by the sun. The observation was supposed to show that the amount of bending was twice that predicted by the Newtonian theory of the day.
You can say that if it makes you feel better.
Really? Kuhn has sold far more books and probably has far more references. I have never heard any professional philosopher or historian claim that anyone in the 20thC philosophy of science was more influential than Kuhn, even though vanishingly few of them think that Kuhn was right. Popper seems to be a good choice for second and that influence does seem to be somewhat deeper. But few people think that Popper is the last or best word on science.
No. you are squirming. You attacked me when I refuted this:[i]
2) If someone claims to have a theory that supercedes the best of the modern theories, he is a crackpot. If he tells you this theory without using a lot of complicated math, he’s a stupid crackpot.
But verified by a single non mathematical observation during a solar eclipse.
Once again you talk from ignorance here as you did with Darwin above.
Arthur Eddington, verified Einstein’s theory by means of a simple observation during a solar eclipse.
I was the one who made that claim, not PhysBang. And there are two reasons why my claim is right.
Darwin came up with theory of evolution one hundred and fifty years ago. Science has changed dramatically since then. Much as being a lone inventor used to be a career path for the solitary genius but now everyone works for corporations, lone scientists who can generate entirely new theories are no longer part of the picture. This is because in science and regarding inventions, most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked; what remains is too complex for one person to solve alone.
If there were, somehow, a lone genius who was able to generate an entirely new theory without working alongside others – well, this genius might work in a Swiss patent office, but he sure as hell wouldn’t waste his time telling the other clerks about it. For example, I have created new theorems and advanced mathematical theory. (I’m not bragging that I’m some great genius – by definition every mathematican has done the same thing.) But (excepting as an example) I don’t go on ILP and say, “guess what! All fully nonarchimedean compact sets are countable, and so all existing theorems that purport to tackle nonarchimedean behavior by appealing to a standard finiteness condition have to be discarded! And I AM THE FIRST PERSON EVER TO DISCOVER THIS.” This is because people here might be interested, and I could explain it to them, but they would get very little out of it, and I would benefit even less. It would be exactly like you doing something important at work, everyone being pleased with you, and then you going home and bragging about this to your 7-yr old child.
No, even if someone were to generate a new theory, they would be publishing this in peer-reviewed journals and getting appointments at Princeton. They would certainly not brag about it on ILP.
Due to your claim you are still characterising Darwin as a "stupid crackpot’.
You are view science in a very restricted way, discluding the human sciences whose theories can still be generated without complex maths.
PS. If someone claims to have a theory that supercedes the best of the modern theories, he is a crackpot. Is still bullshit. I suggest you reduce the hyperbole.
A short note to let you know that I bought Joy of Cats and had some interesting coincidences.
About a year ago, I sat in on a Cal Tech class on Topology. Cal Tech has the most restrictive admittance requirements for math in the country. Anyway, what appeared to be the smartest guy in the class asked for and received permission to take supplemental lessons in category theory. I think this partially confirms your comments on the subject matter.
Further, large collections were discussed in the introduction, or somewhere early in the text, and I think that I will incorporate them somewhere in the text that I am preparing for a post on Principia Mathematica.
I just thought that you should know that your recommendation did not completely go for not.
Thanks Ed
Hi HC,
I finally have decided that it will be likely that I will make a post on Principia Mathematica. It took forever for me to commit to the post. Sorry!
HobbesChoice, this is my last response to you barring you saying something particularly interesting. I don’t mean offense – it’s just that this current exchange isn’t something I’m going to continue.
No, I’m not; Darwin was alive during a simpler era of science, and furthermore he never bragged about his new theory on ILP. For these reasons my claim doesn’t apply to him. This was the point of my entire last post - read it more carefully.
My overall point had nothing to do with math. Even for a genius psychologist it is virtually guaranteed that he’ll never generate and populate an entirely new theory on his own; and if he did, he would publish and become famous, rather than about going on ILP and bragging about his unpublished, untested and non-peer-reviewed theory.
I am sorry to say that I have only read a small part of category theory. (Twenty lashes, I know I deserve it). I still hope to read more. I actually brought the book with me to Cal Tech but I thought it would look too much like a prop, so I left it in the car.
It would have been cool if the smart kid and I sat down and worked on it after class.
I am a little sensitive to the age difference. They are probably 18 to 20 years old and I am 63. But much to their credit they don’t even seem to see the age difference.
I would be happy to send you a draft of my post. It is only about 5 to 6 pages so far and I have not yet gotten to Principia. This weekend I might be able to complete the background.
Well… maybe not. I still want to complete the other foundations and try give lay people a background on the methodology for dealing with infinity.
Anyway, I will try to get the background section to you soon.
Thanks Ed
P.S.
The class was on coverings. for me it was a little boring.
Do not fault me for your failure to read what I wrote very carefully.
You have not refuted that, at all.
You really should bother to read some history on that subject before you go embarrassing yourself again. Can you point to anything I said about the details that was incorrect?
Speaking of history the progenitor of E=mc^2 or at least energy mass equivalence as I opined earlier was not actually Einstein. Since someone asked for sources here is one:
It had been around for a while, which of course does nothing to denigrate his efforts to put it into a scientifically testable and consistent hypothesis which could be shown.
In fact even before the 20th and even the 19th century some people were well used to the idea that there was an equivalence between energy and mass.
I can’t remember or find the exact quote Newton used to describe equivalence, but it ran along the lines of light being related in it’s proportion to the mass of an object.
What the “bullshit” is quite seriously is, “if my worshipful masters didn’t say, then it is bullshit”. It is just another of the very many examples of the weak minded accusing others of their own guilt.
Note that Ed3 has NEVER done that.
… nor have I.
…and a wise man doesn’t “publish” anything until he assesses the responses to it… even from the “crackpot”" worshipers.
The problem is not that you assess the responses, it’s the affect that you see all negative criticism as brainwashed conspiracy by the establishment to keep you down, which is why you in fact will always be a crackpot, and it is why you will never publish anything. And don’t think I am saying this just to keep you down, you are doing it to yourself your putting yourself in a position that is so anti any sort of scientific method that no one will ever listen to you. If you don’t play the game by the rules James you will never publish anything. Which is of course sad, we need thinkers and dreamers, what we don’t need is supercilious people who think they can bypass the whole scientific process with conjecture, get a free ride just because they have some conjectural idea that denies all scientific progress. Telling others that they are crackpots because they at least went the whole nine yards is another symptom of the crackpot. James everyone who knows anything about anything is telling you you are not right, this is not because they are jealous of your brilliance, brainwashed or just don’t get how mighty you are, this is because you are so devout in your belief that your religion is all you can hear.
James you publish something in the future and when you do send me a paper in an accredited journal and I will thank all that is holy that you actually listened to someone at some point. I dare you, I double dare you. Sadly I think you will remain a crank all your life, and that I do not want. You have to wake up and smell the coffee though, you cannot magically pass GO! and collect £200 pounds without actually passing GO!
No. The “problem” is that You never actually discuss the topic, merely worshipfully attack the poster in an attempt to give praise to yourself and your most honorable masters along with Twit and quite a few others around here.
I have discussed the topic on numerous occasions, this methinks is an excuse so that you don’t have to answer any questions. I can and have showed you where I have addressed your topic and not actually attacked you in fact dozens of times over many years. Do you really think your cowardice is going to play forever. The fact is you don’t have any answers, so you shift the onus onto some imaginary fantasy that people are making about you, and pretty much anyone with any sense just sees it immediately, you don’t do science you just make excuses. And it’s not just me either you do it with everyone who has attacked you, avoid deny and hide. If it was just me you’d have a point but you just wont discuss things with people on this forum if you are asked difficult questions. It shows you up as nothing but a crackpot.
Yes the irony in what you said is not lost on me. You never actually address anyone’s arguments yourself, because as you see it they are all subservient to some masters that you have imagined in your world, it’s all about your delusion that everyone is controlled in their belief, they just cant understand you because there are some illuminati type organisations brainwashing people into not accepting your magnificent truth. Do you not understand how delusional you sound there? This is not rational james the Science establishment is not set up to keep claims out it is set up to keep conjecture based on nothing but you’re insistence on its veracity out.
James this is constructive criticism, if you chose to go on doing what you do, ignoring what people say, not responding to people, using repetition and obfuscation as a means to an end, then all anyone in any world whether on a forum or in the real world is ever going to think is that you are a crackpot. Take that as you will, we’re all trying to keep you down. Well no, we’re all actually trying to wake you up. Play the game by the rules, even if you think they are false, answer to your peers even if you think they are brainwashed and you will actually get somewhere. Keep on doing what you are doing and the only thing you will achieve is nothing. Achieve something, prove me wrong? We can but hope. We’re not trying to rob you James we’re trying to help you, sadly you are robbing yourself. Short of an intervention that sends you into logic rehab there’s little anyone can do to help you at the moment.
Only the tiny bit to use as an excuse to attack the poster, thus… Liar.
Thus the rest of what you said is disregarded… along with just about everything you say.
You are here only by the grace of moderators who forgive the rules so that you will have a place to play. And then you curse them for letting you know. The greater problem is that children grow to the age of 80 and beyond, yet never seem to mature.
But telling a child to stop being childish is a bit pointless, as your babysitters are discovering.
Yeah I know about Darwin. But what you said, you said.
If you don’t want the come-back then avoid hyperbole.
If you have a good point to make it’s always better to make it without exaggeration.
And advising someone to read more carefully is a bit rich when you have not taken the care needed to write the thing in the first place.