----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Baker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 3:44 PM Subject: Re: derivable from, consistent with, and inconsistent with
Dan said: >> One thing that I have been writing about, perhaps with less clarity >> than I would like, is the difference between something being >> reducible to observations and being consistent with observations. >> Another is whether one can define values like right and wrong or >> good and evil in terms of phenomenon. >I think that in this post you aren't being as clear as you might have >been. I would use "reducible" not in the sense of something being >"reducible to observations" (whatever that might mean) but in terms of >one theory or explanation being reducible to another. By this, I would >mean that the predictions of the more fundamental theory can be used to >produce the predictions of the less fundamental theory as a subset of >its own predictions (at least in principle) or, which is almost the >same thing, that the rules of the less fundamental theory can be >derived from those of the more fundamental theory. I've thought about it a bit, and I think that a better way to describe what I am taking about is being able to sucessfully explain one in terms of the other. That also has problems, because that word choice has nuances that I really don't want to invoke. So, lets look at your questions and see how they apply to that idea. >- two theories (your QED/chemistry example) Q. Why does chemistry work the way it does? A. Because QED works the way it does. Chemical properties can be expressed in terms of the properties of QED. >- sets of states and a theory (the first part of your meteorology >example) >- an earlier state and a later state obeying the rules of a theory (the >second part of your meteorology example) These fit together more than I communicated to you. Q. Why were there showers at my house and not at the nearby store? A. That type of shower pattern can be explained by what we know of meterology. However, due to the inherent indetermancy in the underlying physics, we will never be able to predict exactly where scattered rain will fall a day from now. So, we can explain why there are scattered showers from basic principals. But, these basic principals also indicate that it is literally impossible As you pointed out, this does differ with the previous example in that states are predicted through the use of the knowledge of previous states and the use of a model (scientific theory), instead of a logical deduction of one theory from another. But, what was important for me was the way the quesiton "why" is answered. In some cases, one can explain why particular results were obtained. In others, one cannot. I shied away from using the word "explain" because of the connotations I read in sci.physics discussion. In one sense a scientific explains why something works the way it does; in another it doesn't. A scientific theory starts with a limited number of axioms, initial conditions, and predicts future conditions. In that sense, one can point to the initial conditions and the axioms to explain why things are the way they are. But, in another sense, this isn't an explaination....at least not one that provides a partiular framework for understanding. For example, Weinburg discussed an unfortunate young theorist who floundered when he "tried to understand quantum mechanics." Trying to explain how "things can be so weird" is an excercise in metaphysics, not science. Maybe you can help me find better language. I do appreciate your constructive criticism. >This conflation is most obvious in the paragraph on evolution and good >and evil. Your prior argument about the weather comes down to there >being no constraints on states in fluid mechanics that prevent the ( H >& �S ) or ( �H & S ) states from being valid, but "good" and "evil" are >more akin to theories than they are to states - they are, at least, >interpretations of features of a history joining sets of states (or sets >of such histories). What I was adressing with this was the attempt to explain good and evil naturalistically. By "reducing it to observations" I was thinking of arguements that tried to define these terms in terms of variables that are subject to scientific analysis. Evolutionarily favored is something that can be adressed scientifically. If one can explain good and evil in terms of what is and what is not evolutionarily favored, then one reduces these terms to more fundamental terms that are part of valid models of observations. That is an example of what I mean by reduced to observations. >As an aside, you wrote: >> Further, while the computational requirements for complex chemical >> reactions are significant, the complications are more linear than >> exponential. >Isn't it the case that the complexity of solving the equations >multi-particle quantum mechanics increases exponentially in the number >of particles? Thinking about it again, you're probably right on this. >Will there be an article in the series on causation? Eventually, perhaps. My next post will be on the study of history. Causality is a subject that would probably require a longer post than L3. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
