On Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 4:25:16 PM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote: > > The problem with physics is physicists ! Yeah, that's my conclusion after > many years of studying, arguing and reading. Many, perhaps most, attribute > ontological character to what is epistemological; namely the wf. This leads > to all kinds of conceptual errors, and ridiculous models and conjectures -- > such as MW, particles being in two positions at the same time, radiioactive > sources that are simultanously decayed and undecayed, and so forth. The wf > gives us information about the state of a system and nothing more. Sorry to > disappoint. AG >
Physics is only models that come and go. One model (an expression in a language) can be replaced by another if it's useful. Physicists who jump from a model to an absolute statement about reality are out over their skis. *How Models Are Used to Represent Reality* Ronald N. Giere https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216300663_How_Models_Are_Used_to_Represent_Reality Most recent philosophical thought about the scientific representation of the world has focused on dyadic relationships between language-like entities and the world, particularly the semantic relationships of reference and truth. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources, I argue that we should focus on the pragmatic activity of representing, so that the basic representational relationship has the form: Scientists use models to represent aspects of the world for specific purposes. Leaving aside the terms "law" and "theory," I distinguish principles, specific conditions, models, hypotheses, and generalizations. I argue that scientists use designated similarities between models and aspects of the world to form both hypotheses and generalizations. @philipthrift. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/372092e8-8782-4661-8d1e-5839246728df%40googlegroups.com.
