OK: I'll bite, but first let me digress. I first clicked on the link to Ralph Raimi's web page and out of curiosity checked out the academic integrity link and from there went to homework. Excellent treatise! I couldn't agree more.
As for the circularity issue, I think that at least in psychological science it is exactly want leads to the ultimate demise of a theory: How does the captain know what time to fire the cannon: he sets his watch by the large clock out side the watchmaker's shop. How does the watchmaker know what time it is? He sets his clock by the firing of the captain's cannon. So it is, with, for example, levels of processing. A very nice proposition but suffering from a fatal flaw: how do we know that we have processed something more deeply? We remember it better. What does it mean to have remembered something better? Well, it means we have processed it more deeply. This type of a lack of independent evidence when dealing with the abstract nature of human cognitive processes can't work. We are already in a deep black box for which we have to infer its working. Circularity doesn't allow us to make a clear inference. Who wants to take this in another direction? Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 16:09:43 -0800 >From: Richard Hake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [tips] The Crazy Old Sea Captain - A Parable of Science? >To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> >Cc: <[email protected]> > >Ralph Raimi <http://www.math.rochester.edu/people/faculty/rarm/>, who >occasionally posts on Math-Learn, sent me the story of "The Crazy >Old Sea Captain" (APPENDIX). According to Ralph: > >(a) the story is more or less as told by the late Everett Hafner ><http://www.everetthafner.com>, physicist, musician, author, and >former Science Dean of Hampshire College; > >(b) Hafner regarded the story as an explicit parable for science, >which he could only see as logically circular [Raimi agrees]. > >Any comments? > >Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University >24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 >Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands. ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ><http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake> ><http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi> > > >*********************************************** >APPENDIX >THE CRAZY OLD SEA CAPTAIN > >There was this crazy old sea captain who retired from the sea; he >bought a little white house on top of a hill overlooking a small >seaside village and lived there all alone. He converted the windows >to portholes and the stairways to ladders, scraped the rust off >everything and had it >ship-shape in every way. Out in the yard he mounted a small cannon, >which he fired off to sea every day at precisely noon. He associated >with nobody except the lad who brought him groceries and other things >from the village, and even then he mostly hauled the basket up to his >window with a rope and pulley. He had a peg leg, of course, but >didn't make much of it, since he wore good long canvas pants at all >times. > >He spent much of his time with his glass, looking out towards the >horizon for passing ships, and sometimes studying the village, too. >He got to know all the streets and shops, and even many of the people >as they passed in and out: those who bought pork chops and those who >bought lamb, and what kind of hats and gloves they bought and where. >One shop in particular was important to him, the shop of the >watchmaker, who sold clocks and repaired them, and had a large clock >hanging outside (a real one, showing the time, hanging from two heavy >chains) as his sign. It was by this clock that the sea-captain set >his own watch, for in the days of which I tell, radio and television >had not yet been invented. > >So that while the villagers did not know the sea captain, he knew >them, and one day he decided to go down and have a closer look. He >went to the butcher, the shoemaker, the baker and the dry-goods >store. Nobody knew him and he didn't tell. When he went to the >watchmaker's he spent some time looking at the displays and asking >some technical questions about the tools and such. Then he asked how >the watchmaker set the time on his clocks, and the man said, "Well, >there's this crazy old sea captain who lives up on that hill there, >and every day exactly at noon he fires off this cannon. . . . . . . . >. . . . . . ." >*********************************************** > >Regarding the above story, Ralph Raimi wrote to me on 13 September 2007: > >"It is entirely possible that Everett Hafner invented the story >himself, though when he told it to me apropos of the philosophical >discussion we were having I simply took it as the sort of story >current among physicists. Of course I have changed the wording >somewhat, but it was a sea captain and the story itself is unchanged; >my improvements were in the direction of ensuring that the surprise >at the end is not telegraphed by the wording by which the story >unfolds. I have never found it necessary to invent an ending to the >last sentence." > > >--- >To make changes to your subscription contact: > >Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
