On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 10:03 PM, John Berry <[email protected]> wrote:
You could argue that nothing really proves anything. > Even atoms are still just considered a theory, sure a popular one with > tons of evidence. > Yes, good point. When it comes down to it, nobody has seen an atom. It's all inference. > Atoms are of course redefines, quantum physics changed understanding of > the atom, was the previous model incorrect? > That is a very hard thing to answer, it certainly wasn't complete. > I do not believe previous models are incorrect, generally speaking -- previous models are often correct within the scope of their applicability. In astronomy, the Copernican system does the trick for figuring out where most of the heavenly bodies are going to be if you're willing to do all of the math. We just have happened upon a model we like better for doing the things we want to do these days (i.e., a heliocentric model of the solar system). We find it more conceptually elegant and useful. > So this is evidence for a substance to space, for an energy that does not > fit into the engineering and physics definition of energy. > I am very open to the existence of an energy that does not fit within the engineering and physics definition of energy. I guess my view is simply that when we step outside of engineering and physics, we've stepped outside of science and are now contemplating questions of a different nature; e.g., ones that you can't prove in the context of science. > Now does one person feeling something prove it, well no. > But a significant percentage of people do feel this. > I do not believe intersubjective agreement on the existence of a phenomenological experience is sufficient to prove a scientific conjecture. Really it suggests that the experience is widely shared. But it could be the widely shared experience of neurons randomly firing off. Something more is needed to "prove" something, at least, scientifically speaking. > Let's say this, there is based on the evidence I have been able to > gather definitively something that is not normally understood (and there is > already some degree of evidence on list) and it follows the rules that I > have found by modeling it on an aether. > I should clarify that I do not doubt that you have come across evidence of something unusual in your investigations and that it could point to something deeper about reality. I guess my doubt primarily concerns whether what you have found fits in the same basket as frame dragging and quantum mechanics and ether in the context of physics -- it seems to be of a nature altogether different from these. *So what evidence exists for there not being an entrained aether? > **None.* I think the main question at issue here is epistemological -- it's about what constitutes scientific knowledge. I don't think you can establish the scientific basis for something by showing that no evidence has been found that it doesn't exist. That does not detract from its possible significance in other areas of life, of course. Eric
