On Thursday, November 21, 2019 at 11:42:29 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote: > > > > On Thursday, November 21, 2019 at 6:22:05 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: >> >> >> >> On 11/21/2019 11:28 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> >> They make predictions of outcomes whether or not those outcomes are ever >> observed. >> >> >> It's tautalogous that predictions are of "outcomes". The point was that >> they can be judged right or wrong* only* if they are predictions of >> *observations.* Otherwise they are like your priest predicting that a >> donation to the church will put you in heaven when you die. >> >> >> Whether predictions are "right" or not is a pragmatic practice that is >> outside the scientific model/formulation/theory itself. >> >> >> A pragmatic practice? So when Eddington measured the deflection of >> starlight by the Sun, he should have then asked himself whether it will be* >> useful *to think that his observation matched Einstein's predict? He >> should have thought about what papers could be written and chairs endowed? >> >> Brent >> > > > Models make predictions of outcomes whether they are observed by humans > (or hypothetical intelligent beings) or not. The models predict outcomes in > galaxies far from ours. In multiverse models, they may make predictions of > outcomes in other universes where we don't even live. > > How human observations relate to models (their predicted outcomes) is a > matter of *pragmatic philosophy*, or so-called agreed-upon scientific > practice. But this is not part of the models. > > @philipthrift >
Also models (like Einstein Field Equations) make predictions of outcomes that are at odds with observations (quantum-scale phenomena, wormholes, etc.), but we still keep them around. Again, that's *pragmatic philosophy*. They are just tools that my be replaced by other tools in the future. @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/0b629c30-0227-4b3b-ad85-f424619e7089%40googlegroups.com.
