Dear Jesse, do not think that scientists are so dumb in philosophy and epistemological issue as you might imagine... To quote the relativist and strumentalis accounts, I read the theories of Feyerabend, Kuhn, Popper, van Frassen, Benacerraf, Laudan, Brigdman, the same Quine, but also of Roscellinus, Occam, Boethius, Abelard. Therefore, we scientist are perfectly and deeplt aware of such positions and concerns. Howewer, in a Peircian way, I can state as follows: if I am a scientist, and I am a True Believer of the theory-laden science that you call naive or received, and if, based on my experimental observations, I produce an antibiotic and I save the life of my son who got an infection, therefore, despite all the beautiful worlds of the above mentioned relativists and strumentalists and yours, he's me that is right. I admit that somebody like Raymond Lullus might have been helpful in the following developments of computation, or Nicholas de Cusa in the study of mathematical infinitum, but I cannot do more for your philosophers. Tell me one prevision of Feyerabend, Kuhn, Popper, van Frassen, Benacerraf, Laudan, Brigdman, the same Quine, but also of Roscellinus, Occam, Boethius, Abelard, but also of Heidegger, Husserl, that has been useful in order to discover a drug, or to develop an useful, true scientific concept (based on mathematical observables, of course, because anything else is worth to be pursued by science). The only philosopher who, for pure luck, of course, guessed a lot of scientific future developments was the despised Diderot The relationships between NO-VAX, homeopaty (and such nice pseudoscience) and the relativistic positions are self-evident: if I think that science is mistaken, i can say all the bollocks I want, and to say I'm doing science. Respectfully, Arturo TozziAA Professor Physics, University North TexasPediatrician ASL Na2Nord, ItalyComput Intell Lab, University Manitobahttp://arturotozzi.webnode.it/
----Messaggio originale---- Da: "Jesse David Dinneen" <jesse.dinn...@vuw.ac.nz> Data: 17/11/2017 1.39 A: <fis@listas.unizar.es> Ogg: Re: [Fis] I do not understand some strange claims Dear Arturo (and greetings to everybody), Just a few more reasons to be wary of dismissing concepts and thinking that science is free of them: The position you are promoting constitutes a pop view (sometimes called the received view or naive view) of science, in which empirical items (e.g., measurable things) are taken to be unassailable rather than contingently defined and conceived of by science, implicitly or otherwise. To call concepts like the previously discussed triad 'useless' ignores the fact that they are necessary for meaningful scientific discourse (e.g., you cannot talk about observables without having a concept of what they are). Scientific discourse is inescapably value- and concept-laden (and full of implicit philosophical views), especially so when the terms used are implicitly defined or dogmatically defended; if you find these claims dubious, the introductory philosophers of science, like Kuhn and Popper, might be of interest to you. Further, the theories and observables of past scientific discourse have been either abandoned or refined beyond recognition despite relative successes in their time (e.g., phlogiston), and so it is reasonable to induce that the equivalent items of our time will someday meet similar fates -- thus it is risky to put too much faith in their objects being somehow more epistemologically sound or reliable than the objects of abstract thinking or their study free of concepts, philosophical thinking, etc.Your concern that discussion of information theories leads to NO-VAX surprises me; I am curious to know what harmful social movements you foresee being caused by, say, the Bar-Hillel-Carnap Paradox.Finally, it seems to me that by promoting this view of science, you are doing philosophy more than doing science, at least by your own view of the latter.Here I'm not trying to lower science, but defend concepts -- they are useful and necessary for scientific discourse, and seem to me very appropriate for this particular venue.Respectfully,Jesse David DinneenSchool of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 10:11 AM, tozziart...@libero.it <tozziart...@libero.it> wrote: Dear FISers, science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters. Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of philosophers' statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from nowhere, the ridicolous Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind communication, qualitative subjective issues of the mind, inconclusive phenomelogical accounts with an hint of useless husserlian claims, and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT scientific. It could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of Ermetes Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a scientist, this is simply not science. Such claims are dangerous, because they are the kind of claims that lead to NO-VAX movements, religious stuff in theoretical physics, Heideggerian metapyhsics. Very interesting, but NOT science. That's all: 'nuff said. Arturo TozziAA Professor Physics, University North TexasPediatrician ASL Na2Nord, ItalyComput Intell Lab, University Manitobahttp://arturotozzi.webnode.it/ _______________________________________________ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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