Hi John
>> 250 years ago the young Jean-Paul Marat tried to get into the French Academy >> of Science on the basis of his thesis on animal magnetism. The greatest >> chemist of the 18'th century, Antoine Lavoisier recommended against this and >> called Marat's paper worthless because it led to nothing that could be >> tested. Both evolutionary theory and the natural selection have a history that predates Darwin. But we know of them through Darwin. Darwin wasn't great for having these ideas, because they didn't originate with him. He was great because his work made these ideas impossible to ignore. Likewise, we know of falsificationism through Popper. You'll like this quote from Newton's Optiks : "Hypotheses have no place in experimental philosophy" and from his Principia: "hypotheses non fingo" - which is latin for 'I don't make hypotheses'. If Newton wasn't making hypotheses he sure as shit wasn't trying to falsify any. And he wasn't. He worked inductively. He used observations to arrive at theories. In actual fact, the idea that a scientist should work from the top down, ie. should have a theory, make a hypothesis about some phenomena, derive an observational prediction upon which the hypothesis stands or falls and then test for it, was alien. It was thought to be diluting empiricism with metaphysics to start with a theory already in mind. This is very different from how contemporary scientists claim to operate. Interestingly, Darwin was aware of the top down approach from theory to observation and used it but hid that fact from peers. He advises a young scientist the following: “let theory guide your observations, but till your reputation is well established, be sparing of publishing theory. It makes persons doubt your observations” but in public he said he proceeded : "on true Baconian principles and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale” So, even in the 1860s bad science was considered to be science that moved from theory to prediction and testing. In the 1950s though, there had been an about turn. Inductive methods were considered important but inconclusive and the approach Darwin had to hide from his fellow scientists was considered king cat. >> Marat never forgot or forgave and 20 years later when he became a leader of >> the French Revolution he ordered that poor Lavoisier, probably the greatest >> mind in France, be beheaded. In episode 1 series 1 of 'The Charlie Brown and the Snoopy Show', Snoopy teases Woodstock. >> Are you seriously trying to tell me that popper invented deductive >> reasoning?! No. And there you go again being silly but demanding I take you seriously. >> One doesn't need to read Popper to know that pseudoscience exists And that shows just how famous and influential Popper's demarcation principle has become. Rightly or wrongly it has been appropriated as a good principle so universally that smelly, lazy and ignorant academics insist that its just common sense. That only 'an idiot' would fail to see it. 200 years ago though, and certainly in 1600s, that just wasn't the case. Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 12:29:30 -0400 Subject: Re: What gives philosophers a bad name? From: [email protected] To: [email protected] On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 , Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote >>> what is the meaning of "computation is physical"? >> Which word didn't you understand? > The word "is", in the sentence "computation is physical". That sounds as if it were written by a lawyer. Scientists don't need to consult a lawyer before they answer a question, philosophers and politicians do. In sworn testimony during the Lewinsky sex scandal Bill Clinton answered a question this way: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement," >> True, I have only read the first 2 steps (or maybe it was 3, I forget) of your Ulster Defense Association proof, but proofs are built on the foundation of what comes before, so when one comes upon a ridiculous blunder in step 2 (or maybe 3) it would be equally ridiculous to keep reading. > This avoid telling us what you don't understand. Bruno, if you have something new to say about this "proof" of yours then say it, but don't pretend that 2 years of correspondence and hundreds of posts in which I list things that I didn't understand about the first 3 steps didn't exist. If you can repair the blunders made in the first 3 steps then I'll read step 4, until then doing so would be ridiculous. John K Clark > It looks to me that this consists in single out some universal system and > declare that only running it makes things real.[...] What does mean > "physical"?. I don't take that notion for granted. I'll explain what "physical" means just as soon as you explain what "real" means, and what "means" means. I don't use it.I am the one asking what it could mean, especially in this context. >> So your great discovery is that you don't know what the end of a >> computation will be until you come to the end of the computation. > Some have said exactly this to Feynman for his sum over histories formulation of QM. It is the same problem, with similar conclusions, and both are testable and comparable. Feynman's theory said the magnetic moment for the electron should not be exactly 1 as had been thought but 1.00115965246, what number does your theory say it should be? A quite difficult open problem. No doubt about this. But the goal I pursue is not doing physics, but formulating and progressing on the mind-body issue. > You have study only 2/8 of part UDA, True, I have only read the first 2 steps (or maybe it was 3, I forget) of your Ulster Defense Association proof, but proofs are built on the foundation of what comes before, so when one comes upon a ridiculous blunder in step 2 (or maybe 3) it would be equally ridiculous to keep reading. This avoid telling us what you don't understand. And in none of your writings do you factor in the IHA principle. > and 0/8 of AUDA, so you might try to be cautious in your judgment. I don't see how friend of Lawrence of Arabia, Auda ibu Tayi, is relevant to our conversation. UDA = Universal Dovetailer Argument (called paradox in the original work)AUDA = Arithmetical Universal Dovetailer Argument, which I write in case they put a literary philosopher in the jury, who are known for rejecting form of reasoning without explaining why they think that there are invalid. It is the part called "Interview of the Universal machine in the SANE2004 paper. I think I have already told you this more than one time. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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