As it happens, I wrote the article. If you don't think I know what I'm talking about, I recommend you complain vigorously to those charlatans at Philosophy Now who saw fit to publish it.
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Really? Do you understand that the sales of the magazine funds this forum? Every member of the forum is entertained by Philosophy Now. If morons like me didn't write the articles, there would be no magazine and therefore no PN Forum. If you know better than me, and value this forum, you should consider submitting 3000 to 4500 words to the editors Grant and Rick, which could help the whole shebang keep rolling.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
If you care so much then why are you such a dick?uwot wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 9:09 pmReally? Do you understand that the sales of the magazine funds this forum? Every member of the forum is entertained by Philosophy Now. If morons like me didn't write the articles, there would be no magazine and therefore no PN Forum. If you know better than me, and value this forum, you should consider submitting 3000 to 4500 words to the editors Grant and Rick, which could help the whole shebang keep rolling.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Well, it doesn't really matter what anyone says; lots of people will disagree. And it doesn't really matter how you say it; lots of people will find it ugly. If you commit something to print, you have to accept that at least some of the readers will think you're a dick.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
These, so called, "competing paradigms" only exist because some of 'your', human beings', interpretations are just PLAIN WRONG.
The reason WHY 'you', human beings, in the days when this was written, could NOT YET unify, so called, "relativity" and "quantum mechanics" is just PLAIN OBVIOUS.
What is Wrong, and what is Right, in your interpretations of BOTH, and of ALL things in fact, can be clearly shown and expressed, if, and when, any one of 'you' expresses clearly how you interpret 'things'.
See, there is NO, actual, "competition" in Life, Itself, other than among 'your', human being, views, (and physical activities).
The, so called, "GUT" will and does reveal this Fact.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
If, so called, "human science" is proving some theories wrong, then do not forget that ALL of those theories were arrived at by, so called, "human ingenuity".uwot wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:11 amAll dead and buried. Yeah, that was the basic premise of Popper's falsification and of course some hypotheses are demonstrably wrong. The thing is that most physicists make a living by making things happen and if, for example, the mathematics of Newton's law of universal gravitation will get the job done, no one is going to worry that the idea of absolute and empty space it's based on is known to be untrue - it's that general rule that leads more pragmatic physicists to say philosophy is useless. Since Kuhn, Hume's critique of causality has morphed into underdetermination. Simply put; while human science might prove some theories wrong, human ingenuity will always be able to come up with alternative theories which explain exactly the same phenomena equally well.
LOL the CONTRADICTION here is hilarious.
Once you have arrived at thee Truth, then you KNOW It.
By definition, you have to KNOW, 'for sure', to be able to get to thee Truth.
By the way, 'theories' will NEVER get you to thee Truth. In fact, theories detract you from thee Truth, as can be clearly evidenced and proven throughout human history hitherto.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
I suggest only declaring something true 'that' what is actually true.Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:51 amThat's pretty close to how I think of it as well. Truth is the most undiscoverable thing there is therefore to progress we need not consider it overtly and only declare something true if it fits the data.uwot wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:11 am Simply put; while human science might prove some theories wrong, human ingenuity will always be able to come up with alternative theories which explain exactly the same phenomena equally well. The other thing is whether a theory will predict all future observations; you can't know that until you have observed all future observations. So even if we do get to The Truth, we won't know it.
See, 'you', human beings, have a tendency to interpret the 'data', to fit in what you sometimes already believe is true.
And, 'you' make 'your' beliefs based on what you have previously observed, and/or experienced, and we all, in this forum, know that what 'you', human beings observe and/or experience and believe is not necessarily true at all. For example, observing a flat earth, a universal centric earth, and an expanding universe.
Just because 'you', human beings, "see" and "experience" these things, this certainly does NOT mean that they are true at all.
What can be clearly shown, and proven, is that when 'you', human beings, have believed any of these three things, or just about any thing else for that matter, then 'you' will "find" "data", as well as "see" "that", which supposedly "fits" the "data".
Well if there is NO separation, then 'god' is the mind. Or, 'God' is the Mind. Depending on which way you want to look at this.Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:51 am It's the paradigms we create, the reality myths, which move us forward. The Ptolemaic system was as successful for as long as it was because it yielded the results as expected and true to the extent it managed to do that. Truth is as impossible to know as is the mind of god there being no separation between the two...whoever or whatever god is.
By the way Truth is, actually, as simple and as easy 'to know' as is 'God', and thee 'Mind.
To express that they are impossible to know is to express as though you know the Truth.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Will you provide example/s of any idea/s, which, to you, "should have been long ago abandoned"?Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:07 amSo, the reason I mentioned those, and I could have mentioned many more discredited sciences, was to draw a distinction between the paradigms of philosophy and those of science. Old science does properly die and the paradigms are fully replaced, but not so with philosophy which still discusses ideas that ought to have been long ago abandoned yet are not.uwot wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:11 amAll dead and buried. Yeah, that was the basic premise of Popper's falsification and of course some hypotheses are demonstrably wrong. The thing is that most physicists make a living by making things happen and if, for example, the mathematics of Newton's law of universal gravitation will get the job done, no one is going to worry that the idea of absolute and empty space it's based on is known to be untrue - it's that general rule that leads more pragmatic physicists to say philosophy is useless. Since Kuhn, Hume's critique of causality has morphed into underdetermination. Simply put; while human science might prove some theories wrong, human ingenuity will always be able to come up with alternative theories which explain exactly the same phenomena equally well. The other thing is whether a theory will predict all future observations; you can't know that until you have observed all future observations. So even if we do get to The Truth, we won't know it.
Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:07 am Science, once "natural philosophy", is DIFFERENT. And what characterises that difference is that science relates to the physical world and paradigms have to be replaced, philosophy never replaces paradigms, but collects them like a nurd collects comic books; philosophy relates not to the physical world but the world of ideas.
Where we are with science is where we have always been in that there is a hard core of observational stuff, with a range of interpretations upon it; between which there is good hard knowledge. As time moves on the the peripheries of science widen, as the deeper simpler stuff remians unchallengable and can grow. More observations means more periphery means more interpretation, but the core of certainly remians solid. But peripheries are bigger than the core, and competing theories remain.
Two things can happen. Either the some of those questions get answered, and the periphery grows, OR humans simply reach a point where their mental capacity is superseeced by the complexity of the theories needed to explain the periphereral stuff. We may have already reached that point. Only time will tell.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
A lot of what is said here, in this post, like a lot of what "others" have said here, in this thread, CONTRADICTS ITSELF.seeds wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:12 pmAh, quoting the "real experts" now. Very good!
However, it's not just space that is "liquid-like," but also reality itself.
I'm bored, so I apologize for nit-picking here, but the "space" we are talking about as it relates to Einsteinian "spacetime" is not "infinite." No, only pure and absolute "nothingness" is infinite.
The "space" in Einstein's spacetime is a "real and tangible" fabric that, again, can bend and contort in a gravitational field.
And my nit-picking point is that there may indeed be an unimaginably vast number of universes wherein Einsteinian "spacetime" is the invisible substance that binds their contents together,...
...but to think that such a real and tangible substance could be as infinite as infinity ("nothingness") itself, seems to be based on a very loose (and erroneous) definition of what the word "infinite" really applies to.
(Sorry, uwot. Again, I was bored, and my immediate choices for entertainment were torn between 1. watching cat videos on YouTube, or 2. picking on you. )
_______
And the type of "communication" here in this thread between posters is PRIME EXAMPLE of how human beings "communicated" for thousands of years, which shows, and explains, WHY they were still so confused, and lost, in the days when this was being written.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
What do you think 'space' was to "schrodinger"?uwot wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:18 pmIt depends what you mean by 'material'. Do you mean it in the philosophical sense of 'substance', some stuff with mechanical properties? I personally think Schrödinger was about right when he said "What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space." I suspect the same is true of consciousness.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
What is the concept of 'spacetime', to you, which, supposedly, "modern physics" is based on?uwot wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 7:49 amWhile we're waiting for Sculptor to realise that a paradigm is not simply an hypothesis about the physical underpinning of a mathematical model, yer might enjoy this chat by Noam Chomsky who describes the state of science neatly and quite succinctly. Modern physics is based on concepts like force, energy, mass, field, gravity, spacetime; all of which are extrapolations from watching the behaviour 'physical' objects. 'Physical' itself is widely taken to mean something like 'material' or 'substantial', but for the purposes of physics just means something that can be observed. Modern physics wouldn't change at all if any of the terms were replaced with 'magic'. Anyway, here's Chomsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVFBABFdLXE
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
I was not refering to your printed article, but your contrinutions to the forum.uwot wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 9:50 amWell, it doesn't really matter what anyone says; lots of people will disagree. And it doesn't really matter how you say it; lots of people will find it ugly. If you commit something to print, you have to accept that at least some of the readers will think you're a dick.
Tip: it might serve your position were you not to go anonymous, but instead declare your interests honestly.
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
The main reason 'you', human beings', are NOT forming a 'uniform accumulation of objective truth about the way the world functions' is because instead of just looking at, and thus just observing, what is essentially and actually just is thee Truth of 'things, 'you' look at what 'you' imagine is true, 'you' then just form and create 'theories', about what 'you' guess is true. It is the subjective truths which, unintentionally, is what is taking 'you', human beings, further away from uniform accumulation of objective truth about the way the world functions.Philosophy Now wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:46 pm Will Bouwman considers the development of a paradigmatic revolutionary.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996
Re: Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Astrology, alchemy, the four humours, Phogistan theory, geocentric model of the unvierse, theory of the soul.Age wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 11:37 amWill you provide example/s of any idea/s, which, to you, "should have been long ago abandoned"?Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:07 am So, the reason I mentioned those, and I could have mentioned many more discredited sciences, was to draw a distinction between the paradigms of philosophy and those of science. Old science does properly die and the paradigms are fully replaced, but not so with philosophy which still discusses ideas that ought to have been long ago abandoned yet are not.