Science: Conjectures and Refutations

[Plasmatic]

Say G.C your response made me look further and I see my statement derived from the latter part of your quote was hasty. I thank you for that with a glad heart.

[bboyer]

Popper is perhaps the first person to see, in the glorious history of scientific discovery, nothing more productive and exhilarating than a huge W.E.A. philosophy class, and one which, to add to its charms, might go on forever.

Can someone tell me what W.E.A. is, please? I'm guessing it's some sort of Americanism.

Workers Educational Associations?

http://books.google.com/books?id=S4ayX8 ... n#PPA83,M1

Abstract

Workers' Educational Associations have developed the thinking ability and knowledge of individuals as citizen learners. The force of their minds and of their activism has been a source for social change. WEA's are an adult education model for delivering liberal arts learning in the community. They are community associations run by the learners but associated with universities and supported by government funding. In Nordic, European, and some Commonwealth countries, the WEA is an integral part of adult education provision. As a result, adults who would rarely taken university level courses have access to a liberal arts education, and therefore develop critical inquiry skills. Study circles and tutorial methods of learning, and small group learning methods which facilitate dialogue, are used in order to link the curriculum to issues of interest to class participants. As a result, WEA's help adults better understand their life and their society. The record shows WEA students thus informed often become social activists, a force for social change.

....

The WEA's were founded in the first decades of the twentieth century and continue to be important associations for learning in this century. For example, in Nordic countries (Norway, Finland, Sweden), in some European countries (Denmark, Germany), and in some Commowealth countries (the UK, Australia), the WEA is the largest voluntary provider of non-formal learning. The national associations of local WEA branches are members of the International Federation of Workers' Educational Associations (IFWEA), which was founded in 1947....

[Grey Cloud]

Arc-us
Thanks for the info on WEA. Do I detect a little intellectual snobbery by the authors of Plasmatic's extract?

[bboyer]

Arc-us
Thanks for the info on WEA. Do I detect a little intellectual snobbery by the authors of Plasmatic's extract?

I'm not sure what they're on about. "... doth protest too much, methinks." ?

I'd never even heard of Popper and his ideas until a year ago on the old forum a thread was started on, I think, the subject of what would falsify the EU theory. I recall thinking something like "What the hell is the value of falsifying a theory all about?" Anyway, what with trying to make heads-or-tails out the APM stuff and whatnot, I'd finally gotten around to checking into it in more depth which is when I started this thread. Hadn't heard of his book The logic of Scientific Discovery, either, until I ran across Wal's timely article. So I found an online pdf and have been reading through it. Can't say I agree with everything he says but I do find much of it makes sense, taken in context, and am beginning to see its value from his viewpoint. The information on inductive vs deductive reasoning has been helpful, something I'd not been too clear on personally since my freshman year's course on logic back in '73 (yikes!).

[TalonThorn]

I'm a little late for the party but thought I'd throw out a line...

In the case of induction, the problem imho appears to be that too many "scientific" theories claim induction to "prove" that they are sound and, typically, irrefutable. In actuality, they "prove" T is true for n=1 by observation, and then show n=2 and even n=3. From this they assume n = N+1 without ever bothering to prove N+1 (probably because N+1 isn't actually testable).

On the side, it seems to me that at least part of the problem with Einstein's theories isn't that it doesn't work (since it does) but that the fallacy is where math is tied to reality. The math works, but the reasoning behind what the math describes is flawed. Perhaps this is another area where "science" can go awry and yet seem ok.

Now, not to just be critical, I do like the idea of looking at testability/refutability as a criteria for a scientific theory.

[junglelord]

Induction vs Deduction
Right vs Left brain

I feel it boils down to right-brain visual thinking.

A zone where things are "seen" in 3D/4D terms. Holistically.

It's also a zone where the false "correctness" of left-brain thinking
simply dose not apply. Instead, geometric certainty crystalizes out of ambiguity.

I find myself tossing ideas out into the "space " of that zone.
Idea after idea. Angle after angle. Without judgement.

Then, if you let them, they arrange themselves into structures of solution.

That is the relationship of Induction.
That is physics.
That is a whole brain relationship.

This is how my synestesia works with physics.
I throw out them out and then they come back self arranged.


Its always structure and function arrangements which complement.
This is how the idea of Isotropic Vectorial Equilibirum Matrix was born by Buckminster Fuller.
Inductive Reasoning! Exploding into whole brain concepts.

Einsteins Deductive Reasoning was all Left Brained. It left out the Right Sided Inductance of Fuller which leads to a whole brain understanding of space and structure.

[altonhare]

I actually hadn't even heard of Popper before coming to this forum (is that understandable or is there a rock far above me I cannot see?). However I've taken some time to read a bit of his writing and I haven't had to read much. Popper is an abominable scientist. He is conceited, self-righteous, hypocritical, and illogical.

I think perhaps some people on this forum have taken my efforts on these boards as a condescension. I assure it is not so. I seek to improve communication and thinking for everyone.

GC does not like to "think". I cannot conceive of what he means, so I cannot argue it. If he engages in some productive activity without thinking or communicating I am happy for him. I do not hold license over his thinking or lack thereof. Whether he ascribes to my ideals otherwise is a matter of his purpose for communication. I can only imagine one purpose, and that is to learn. To conceptualize what I could not have by myself. As such, I ask anyone who communicates with me to define what THEY mean when they use their words in a single way, that I may know what THEY are thinking about rather than what I would be thinking had I used those words .

I want each symbol/word/whatever to be defined one way and used one way for the purposes of any single conception/idea/theory/etc. To demand less would render communication meaningless.

I demand internal consistency in my own thoughts, a single thing has a single identity. To demand less of myself would render thinking meaningless.

Popper represents everything I am not.

Every generation of scientists since the Enlightenment has been convinced that their's was virtually the last word in understanding and knowledge; that their's was the ultimate in intellect. Meanwhile the Universe carries on working like it always has - regardless as to whether it is supposed to doing so according to Newtonian, Einsteinian, Quantum or Electric 'Laws'.

-GC

Absolutely. The universe does not care what mathematical model(s) we use. Indeed, this is exactly what I argue against when I criticize the blaze labs article on "EMRP" in "Review and criticism of Vincent's...". The author proposes that the discrete nature of emission/absorption of light is due completely to the fact that he uses the Poynting vector in his equations! Mother nature could not care less what vectors are used or not used! Light is what is what it is! The author cannot actually explain WHY light is emitted and absorbed discrete, he merely states that the Poynting vector lets us capture this behavior quantitatively. This is mathematics, the study of simulating reality. It is not physics, the study of reality.

[Grey Cloud]

Hey Junglelord,
You wrote:

I find myself tossing ideas out into the "space " of that zone.
Idea after idea. Angle after angle. Without judgement.

Then, if you let them, they arrange themselves into structures of solution.

That is a whole brain relationship.

I throw out them out and then they come back self arranged.

Different vocabularly but that is what I do. Athene sorts it out for me.

[Grey Cloud]

Altonhare wrote:

GC does not like to "think". I cannot conceive of what he means, so I cannot argue it. If he engages in some productive activity without thinking or communicating I am happy for him.

On what do you base the statement that I do not like to think?

[altonhare]

Altonhare wrote:

GC does not like to "think". I cannot conceive of what he means, so I cannot argue it. If he engages in some productive activity without thinking or communicating I am happy for him.

On what do you base the statement that I do not like to think?

Specifically you said:

This is partly because I don't use my brain if I can avoid it.

Which I define as thinking, but if you define thinking differently I apologize for misrepresenting you. I reword my statement:

If he engages in some productive activity without using his brain or communicating I am happy for him.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Alton,
As I've said on numerous occassions on these boards, I prefer to use my mind.

[altonhare]

Hi Alton,
As I've said on numerous occassions on these boards, I prefer to use my mind.

What is "mind"?

[junglelord]

Inductive reasoning is a way of seeing the answer without linear thinking.
Therefore the answers jump out at you.
The process of thinking is not involved, rather the act of knowing occurs.
You should try it some time. However I warn you half a brain will never pull that off.
It will require a whole brain state.
Maybe you could try some Hemi-Sync CD's and maybe read Mega-Brain.

[Grey Cloud]

Altonhare asked:

What is "mind"?

That which I use for thinking.

[altonhare]

Altonhare asked:

What is "mind"?

That which I use for thinking.

How is it different from your brain exactly?

GC, you agreed with me that numbers all ultimately refer to a physical object. So if all of JL's math actually means something, why can he not show us how the physical objects at the root of his theory interact to bring about the observed effects? Rope theory does that. The math, ultimately, is superfluous and just gives one a little added confidence at best. Any theory of physics can be described mathematically! The theory must first qualitatively explain! If the theory cannot SHOW you HOW and WHY this or that happens, have you actually learned anything or have you just developed a correlation?