tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post4271994879017576026..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: The Philosophy of Modern Cosmology (srsly)Sabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-74547083527619436212016-09-02T09:32:01.437-04:002016-09-02T09:32:01.437-04:00All phenomena a mix of process and substance at al...All phenomena a mix of process and substance at all scales. I don't think this is a particular issue in either view of time.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03016608637645316849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-44082498983395748282016-09-01T16:01:18.415-04:002016-09-01T16:01:18.415-04:00Matthew,
Yeah, I kind of assumed that was what yo...Matthew,<br /><br />Yeah, I kind of assumed that was what you were referring to, which is why I concluded my comment above in the manner I did. And I wasn't trying to denigrate Smolin either; I'm personally a fan of LQG. But you can't expect Smolin, or his metaphysics, to not be influenced by LQG; in fact, I would naturally expect it (his metaphysics) to be informed by LQG. But PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-59694079452409149412016-08-31T08:56:48.320-04:002016-08-31T08:56:48.320-04:00I was referring specifically to Unger's claim ...I was referring specifically to Unger's claim that what has come to be called "block time" is a metaphysical assumption hidden in SR and not a fundamental theorem of it.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03016608637645316849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-63884002023643841032016-08-30T16:57:41.256-04:002016-08-30T16:57:41.256-04:00Well now, I have an all inclusive sense of humor; ...Well now, I have an all inclusive sense of humor; I find everything funny, even those things physically discomforting to me personally! And I certainly don't believe a person is not allowed to criticize anything a philosopher produces, quite the contrary, I believe a person is responsible for criticizing anything and everything spewed forth by philosophy - or science for that matter. I PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-64110401404322448952016-08-30T09:20:07.839-04:002016-08-30T09:20:07.839-04:00Dr. H I have a few times recommend the book by Ung...Dr. H I have a few times recommend the book by Unger & Smolin "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy". The first part (by Unger) in particular a very good illustration of how philosophy can help unmuddle some long buried assumptions in physics and cosmology as concerns the special relativity view of time.<br />Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03016608637645316849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-53748696414752061152016-08-30T01:40:56.778-04:002016-08-30T01:40:56.778-04:00Wes,
I have said very clearly in this post in the...Wes,<br /><br />I have said very clearly in this post in the previous post and in many other posts that I think philosophy is more important to the foundations of physics than many theoretical physicists want it to be. You seem to believe that this means I am not allowed to criticize anything a philosopher produces, hence you misread my criticism of certain conclusions as a dismissal of Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-85440706845390553122016-08-29T17:18:37.365-04:002016-08-29T17:18:37.365-04:00Okay, now you're being disingenuous, I mean, c...Okay, now you're being disingenuous, I mean, come on:<br /><br />"In any case, it turns out that it doesn’t matter much for the rest of the paper exactly what realism means to the authors – it’s a great paper also for an instrumentalist because it’s long enough so that, rolled up, it’s good to slap flies."<br /><br />Implicit in the previous post and this one is an expression of PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-84814249347173927342016-08-28T02:10:23.011-04:002016-08-28T02:10:23.011-04:00Wes,
I don't find the paper ridiculous. I don...Wes,<br /><br />I don't find the paper ridiculous. I don't know why you think so. And I haven't said anything about expecting scientific rigor from philosophers. Please stop assigning opinions to me that I have never expressed anywhere and that I de facto don't hold. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-47141956597741551882016-08-27T17:01:25.533-04:002016-08-27T17:01:25.533-04:00You know Sabine, you and I both find the paper you...You know Sabine, you and I both find the paper you link to above ridiculous, the difference being, you find it ridiculous for invalid reasons while I find it ridiculous for valid reasons. You find it ridiculous because it doesn’t meet your standards of scientific rigor. But it’s not meant to be a scientific argument, it’s a philosophical argument; the issue at hand is not a scientific issue, PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-21954593936463446492016-08-25T18:30:35.265-04:002016-08-25T18:30:35.265-04:00"Hence, if underdeterminism is supposed to be..."Hence, if underdeterminism is supposed to be a meaningful (ie well-defined) concept, there must be a way to express it as a property of that set of axioms."<br /><br />I'm sure you've probably moved on by now, but I find this topic rather interesting so I've been digging a bit deeper. You seem to reject Quine's underdetermination outright so I'll just address that PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-15649119427358687672016-08-24T17:51:05.211-04:002016-08-24T17:51:05.211-04:00Quentin,
Thanks for the reference to your blog. I...Quentin,<br /><br />Thanks for the reference to your blog. I read the first two posts and will continue with the others time permitting. From what I've read, I believe Kevin Knuth's work with Information Physics, what he call's "Observer-Centric Foundations," could perhaps shed a bit of light on your philosophical question. I would direct your attention to an introductory PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-67586639717542737502016-08-23T16:11:01.248-04:002016-08-23T16:11:01.248-04:00@Wes Hansen
I'm not a realist either, but it&...@Wes Hansen<br /><br />I'm not a realist either, but it's quite mainstream in contemporary (analytic) philosophy... Now there's the intuition that our theories still tell us something about reality (its nomological structure perhaps? Structural realism is the most sensible version of scientific realism to me). <br /><br />If ever you're interested, I just started a blog recently Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-71859465237966882272016-08-22T14:45:10.214-04:002016-08-22T14:45:10.214-04:00I'm going to excuse myself from this discussio...I'm going to excuse myself from this discussion because I'm not well enough informed, but before I go . . . <br /><br />Apparently, and you're probably aware of this, there are two types of underdetermination in the literature: the one by Quine which asserts that there exist theories which are LOGICALLY INCOMPATIBLE but empirically equivalent (the paper I linked to above gives an PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-58619456325729189982016-08-21T09:29:08.036-04:002016-08-21T09:29:08.036-04:00Quentin,
Thanks for the references & apology ...Quentin,<br /><br />Thanks for the references & apology accepted. I am glad we managed to sort this out and I think I learned a lot thanks to your patience :o) Best,<br /><br />B.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-71308656412293584782016-08-21T06:36:10.503-04:002016-08-21T06:36:10.503-04:00Stanford's encyclopedia is always a good entry...Stanford's encyclopedia is always a good entry point to find references.<br /><br />You might find some in this article, in particular the paragraph I linked directly<br />http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-theory-observation/#ObsExcPerPro<br /><br />See also this paragraph<br />http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theoretical-terms-science/#2.1<br /><br />And perhaps this article (Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-42813736422852818042016-08-21T05:23:01.571-04:002016-08-21T05:23:01.571-04:00Quentin,
Yes, I would agree on all in your last c...Quentin,<br /><br />Yes, I would agree on all in your last comment. <br /><br />I would be interested in a reference on the direct/indirect distinction in the philosophy literature that you mention. As someone who works on 'indirect' tests (of quantum gravity) it's a topic that keeps coming back to me. Best,<br /><br />B.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-11239395837047863102016-08-21T04:42:53.372-04:002016-08-21T04:42:53.372-04:00Sabine,
If you're not talking about direct ob...Sabine,<br /><br />If you're not talking about direct observation, your notion of equivalence makes more sense and I'd agree.<br />That direct/indirect is not binary was indeed emphasised by philosophers decades ago, as well as the fact that measurement technics are various and can evolve independently of the theories, and that direct perception is as much, if not more revisable than Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-22820086021036678102016-08-21T03:37:12.114-04:002016-08-21T03:37:12.114-04:00Quentin,
As I said I'm an instrumentalist. If...Quentin,<br /><br />As I said I'm an instrumentalist. If you have an isomorphism from the predictions of theory one to the predictions of theory two, they're not different theories because you've just showed that they're not. A duality relation, for example, actually shows that the theories you thought were different are not - they're the same. (It might be the case that Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-61951373606234182162016-08-21T03:17:32.327-04:002016-08-21T03:17:32.327-04:00@Wes
Indeed, scientific realism is about our theo...@Wes<br /><br />Indeed, scientific realism is about our theories being true about the unobservable.<br /><br />Observable in philosophy means *directly* observable (without instruments), so ADN and cells are unobservable. If you think they exist you're a realist. The same goes for electrons.<br /><br />Realists think that this is the best explanation to our theories success: that they're Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-3159124201324344502016-08-21T02:15:41.711-04:002016-08-21T02:15:41.711-04:00Wes,
That's all well and fine, but for most s...Wes,<br /><br />That's all well and fine, but for most scientists two theories that make the same predictions in all possible observable cases aren't worth calling different theories. There is (trivially) an isomorphism between the two, so why worry. Just pick the one you prefer to work with. As I said earlier, I'm an instrumentalist, not a realist. It somewhat depends of course on Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-33514037469190129152016-08-20T18:37:46.242-04:002016-08-20T18:37:46.242-04:00You see, this is why I linked to the article, &quo...You see, this is why I linked to the article, "Underdetermination of Theory by Data," above: underdetermination, as defined by its originator, Quine, has absolutely nothing to do with axioms; in the concept as proposed by Quine, theories which are underdetermined are empirically undecidable, as to which is preferable, past, present, and future, and future being the key point! I know PonderSeekDiscoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913503952284529871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-36340176787487823472016-08-20T11:22:41.436-04:002016-08-20T11:22:41.436-04:00Ok this wasn't very clear, but my first assump...Ok this wasn't very clear, but my first assumption was A=B.<br />I said: "(1) assume a theory is underdetermined just if it has at least one unnecessary axiom."<br />By "underdetermined", I meant having other empirically equivalent theories ("my" definition), since it is how underdetermination is defined everywhere as far as I know. (Otherwise (1) would not have Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-41792300844614138072016-08-20T07:31:08.722-04:002016-08-20T07:31:08.722-04:00Quentin,
"I showed that A=B leads to an absu...Quentin,<br /><br />"I showed that A=B leads to an absurdity."<br /><br />I used A to refer to [your definition of underdetermined] and B to refer to [my definition of underdetermined]. Your first assumption is not that A=B (which you claim you show to be absurd) but merely the statement B, which, as I have now told you several times I agree is absurd. You hence haven't shown what Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-12867810230646610752016-08-20T04:51:01.970-04:002016-08-20T04:51:01.970-04:00Look at the argument again: I showed that A=B lead...Look at the argument again: I showed that A=B leads to an absurdity. So I showed that A=B is absurd, not that B is absurd. Obviously, B ("having unnecessary axioms") is not an absurd concept, I can make up an example if you want, nor is A ("having other theories with the same empirical consequences") absurd, nor is the view that all theories have alternatives with the same Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-57568717236061413362016-08-20T02:54:15.462-04:002016-08-20T02:54:15.462-04:00Quentin,
Ok, then, it seems you really didn't...Quentin,<br /><br />Ok, then, it seems you really didn't understand what I said. So let me try this again.<br /><br /><i>"Sorry but my argument is valid."</i><br /><br />Your argument is technically wrong. I hope we can agree on this. You want to show that A is not equal to B. Instead you show that (in your own words) B is "absurd" and since you don't believe A is Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.com