On 22 May 2014, at 18:16, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 5:12 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 22 May 2014, at 16:39, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]
> wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 1:18 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 5/21/2014 3:44 PM, LizR wrote:
Yes, I was indeed thinking of the superhero Bicycle Repair Man when
I wrote that.
However I'm not so keen on deifying the Wright brothers when they
were just two in a long line of people in many countries who
gradually developed powered flight. They did make a significant
improvement, of course, but there were plenty of others who helped
pave the way to modern aeroplanes (including one somewhat dubious
claim from New Zealand)
Interestingly in the context of this thread, one of the Wright
brother's main contributions was their systematic (dare I say
"scientific") approach using a wind tunnel to study air foils.
It is perhaps good to make a distinction between "science: the
method" and "science: the game". Although honest scientists will
attempt to focus on the former and avoid the pitfalls of the
latter, honest scientists are human beings with human emotions and
bills to pay. So the end results is always some combination of the
two. I think this is unavoidable, but good to be aware of,
especially in times when the needle moves to much to the game side.
"Science: the method" is all about generating hypothesis and
testing them. Generating hypothesis is a creative process, and I
don't think that academia was ever a particularly good environment
for creativity. It's relationship to it is a bit bipolar: it
eventually glorifies the successful creative thinkers, but it
fights creativity every step of the way until then. Part of this
behaviour is for good reasons, but part is pathological, I would
say. This is also true of the relationship between academia and
art, if you look at how the major artistic movements of the XX
century were received at first.
So it's not so surprising that academia is side-stepped to achieve
invention, which doesn't mean at all that "science: the method" is
thrown out of the window. In fact, academia tries very hard to
create a monopoly on "science" but this is perverse. Anyone can
apply the scientific method. It doesn't care about formal
qualifications, institutions, or even scientific journals or peer-
review. It will wield its results regardless -- and that is
beautiful in my view. A bit like the hacker's ethos in the 80s that
lead to a lot of the permission-free innovation in computer systems
that we enjoy today.
Coincidently, this just showed up on my facebook wall:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761
It's an exaggeration, but I think it illustrates the science as
method / science as game distinction.
Of course the "the scientific method" in that diagram if what
Deutch and myself criticize. It uses a fuzzy "establish" which is
already on the slope for making science into pseudo-religion.
Ok, but we could interpret "establish" as a recommendation for
betting on something. For engineering purposes, for example.
All right.
The "actual method" is fun, but the idea that theory is not
hypothesis witness again a misunderstanding of what science can
possibly (seen by Plato in the Theaetetus and Parmenides).
I tend to assume that a theory is a hypothesis that yielded at least
one valid prediction and survived falsification so far.
Example:
axiom 1: God is a cuttlefish,
axiom 2: God is a cuttlefish implies that it will rain soon or later
in Brussels" .
It makes one valid prediction, at least a correct prediction so far,
and it survived obviously falsification.
OK, let us try to define an *interesting* theory. In my opinion: it is
a theory which is conceptually simple, and hang together, or unify,
most known statements in most possible fields.
The quantum QED and QCD are jewel of that kind in physics, but
elementary arithmetic is better, as it explains, with comp at the meta-
level, computer science, and computer's computer science, and the
difference between, and the origin of machines beliefs in the quantum,
consciousness, matter, and perhaps even QCD and QED, either
explicitly or as particular geographies in a map of all accessible (by
us the universal numbers) geographies.
Physics is very good, but not ambitious enough.
Now with a comp, we have an arithmetical view of what the machine's
science can be and its difference with machine's knowledge,
observation and sensation.
We have a bit the choice to start by observing a natural phenomenon
or start by introspecting oneself, but we have to observe the out-
reality to refute the theory (up to dream and emulation, cela va
sans dire).
I suspect this is above the level of sophistication of the joke :)
They use the term "natural phenomena", which already causes me to
cringe a bit, for reasons already discussed.
OK.
À +
Bruno
a+
Telmo.
Bruno
Telmo.
Brent
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