On 31 December 2013 10:38, John Mikes <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Liz, > as a former ed-in-chief of a science magazine (Ion Exchange and Membranes) > I know the difficulties one can run into if trying to get peer-review > approval on "NEW" ideas that do not fit into the conventional scientific > fabric of college courses. I was a risk-taker and provided space for > several new ideas that made sens - to me. ('Let the readership decide and > debate'). >
There are two things being presented here. One is an idea which is fine in itself - reality is computed. It isn't obviously self-contradictory, and has I think been suggested quite a few times in various flavours (I'm sure Conway must have come up with this, as have Russell Standish, I think, and Bruno of course, plus probably some other people). It's a fairly obvious idea for the age - "it steam-engines when it comes steam engine time" or whatever. The other is a Newtonian theory of time. This contradicts special relativity, and hence is an "extraordinary claim". This claim has not yet had any support that shows its author understands what the problems with it are. Hence it not only "doesn't fit into the scientific fabric of college courses", it flatly contradicts everything we've learned about reality since 1905 - all the experimental confirmation of SR, the whole lot. That should require extraordinary evidence before it is worth considering. > > Sometimes new ideas (versions?) do not fit into the 'reductionistic' > conventional stuff of the Rosenesque MODEL content, limited to the already > known inventory of science etc. While it does not support the 'new' ideas, > it does not prove them wrong by itself, either. > There is no contradiction between Edgar's theory and reductionism, it is a reductionist theory. What proves (or comes very close to proving) Edgar's theory of time wrong is that it contradicts most of 20th century physics, both theoretical and experimental. His theory of computational reality isn't itself rendered wrong by the "known inventory of science" of course. (By the way, your use of these buzz phrases does rather suggest that you are pushing an agenda here. Science is far more than you are trying to make out - it isn't all conventional, blinkered fuddy-duddies dismissing crackpot ideas, but has room for plenty of outrageous speculation - as long as it is properly grounded, doesn't flat-out contradict a century of experimentation, etc.) > > I submitted a paper once with some 'mild' novelty (J. of Consciousness > Sci) and an irate (conservative) reviewer called me a > "homespun fireside philosopher" - an ornamental epitheton I value highly > ever since. > > Always easiest to think your opponents have dismissed your ideas because they are "conservative" (or "bourgeois", or "heretics" or whatever epitheton you wish to apply) -- rather than because just maybe they knew more about the subject, and could see where your ideas were wrong. PS "epitheton" is itself an "ornamental epitheton", I'd say. I do hope it wasn't just a typo! -- 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.
