All laws in science are based upon explanations of observations. All explanations are theoretical. Therefore laws are theories.
in [Logic]
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From: Ron Peterson on 5 Jun 2010 12:12 On Jun 4, 9:57 pm, Charlie-Boo <shymath...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > When people try to define some branch of science, typically what they > describe applies to all of science. The above goes one better: It > applies to any cognative process. > Why is it particular to physics? If you read the definition, would > you have any idea they were talking about physics? > Start by defining science. Then mathematics. You're right. I think the appropriate definitions have to be an extension to the approach Kant used in defining knowledge as "a priori" or "a posteriori". Statements of mathematics and logic can be classified as true if they are provable. Statements involving science can only be "shown" to not be true by experiments and observation. Statements concerning observations may be true or false, but they are useful in developing or verifying scientific theories. A scientific theory is a model of some aspect of the real world. Philosophical statements are used frame our view of the world and a pragmatic way to communicate our ideas. -- Ron
From: Immortalist on 5 Jun 2010 21:10 On Jun 5, 9:12 am, Ron Peterson <r...(a)shell.core.com> wrote: > On Jun 4, 9:57 pm, Charlie-Boo <shymath...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > When people try to define some branch of science, typically what they > > describe applies to all of science. The above goes one better: It > > applies to any cognative process. > > Why is it particular to physics? If you read the definition, would > > you have any idea they were talking about physics? > > Start by defining science. Then mathematics. > > You're right. I think the appropriate definitions have to be an > extension to the approach Kant used in defining knowledge as "a > priori" or "a posteriori". > > Statements of mathematics and logic can be classified as true if they > are provable. > > Statements involving science can only be "shown" to not be true by > experiments and observation. > > Statements concerning observations may be true or false, but they are > useful in developing or verifying scientific theories. > > A scientific theory is a model of some aspect of the real world. > > Philosophical statements are used frame our view of the world and a > pragmatic way to communicate our ideas. > > -- > Ron Very good. But the scientific method is based exclusively upon "epistemology" which is a branch of philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_epistemology Here is what Kant claimed about math. I don't know if I agree with it.; V. IN ALL THEORETICAL SCIENCES OF REASON SYNTHETIC A PRIORI JUDGMENTS ARE CONTAINED AS PRINCIPLES 1. All mathematical judgments, without exception, are synthetic. This fact, though incontestably certain and in its consequences very important, has hitherto escaped the notice of those who are engaged in the analysis of human reason, and is, indeed, directly opposed to all their conjectures. For as it was found that all mathematical inferences proceed in accordance with the principle of contradiction (which the nature of all apodeictic certainty requires), it was supposed that the fundamental propositions of the science can themselves be known to be true through that principle. This is an erroneous view. For though a synthetic proposition can indeed be discerned in accordance with the principle of contradiction, this can only be if another synthetic proposition is presupposed, and if it can then be apprehended as following from this other proposition; it can never be so discerned in and by itself. First of all, it has to be noted that mathematical propositions, strictly so called, are always judgments a priori, not empirical; because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be derived from experience. If this be demurred to, I am willing to limit my statement to pure mathematics, the very concept of which implies that it does not contain empirical, but only pure a priori knowledge. We might, indeed, at first suppose that the proposition 7 & 5 = 12 is a merely analytic proposition, and follows by the principle of contradiction from the concept of a sum of 7 and 5. But if we look more closely we find that the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 contains nothing save the union of the two numbers into one, and in this no thought is being taken as to what that single number may be which combines both. The concept of 12 is by no means already thought in merely thinking this union of 7 and 5; and I may analyse my concept of such a possible sum as long as I please, still I shall never find the 12 in it. We have to go outside these concepts, and call in the aid of the intuition which corresponds to one of them, our five fingers, for instance, or, as Segner does in his Arithmetic, five points, adding to the concept of 7, unit by unit, the five given in intuition. For starting with the number 7, and for the concept of 5 calling in the aid of the fingers of my hand as intuition, I now add one by one to the number 7 the units which I previously took together to form the number, and with the aid of that figure [the hand] see the number 12 come into being. That 5 should be added to 7, I have indeed already thought in the concept of a sum = 7 & 5, but not that this sum is equivalent to the number 12. Arithmetical propositions are therefore always synthetic. This is still more evident if we take larger numbers. For it is then obvious that, however we might turn and twist our concepts, we could never, by the mere analysis of them, and without the aid of intuition, discover what [the number is that] is the sum. Just as little is any fundamental proposition of pure geometry analytic. That the straight line between two points is the shortest, is a synthetic proposition. For my concept of straight contains nothing of quantity, but only of quality. The concept of the shortest is wholly an addition, and cannot be derived, through any process of analysis, from the concept of the straight line. Intuition, therefore, must here be called in; only by its aid is the synthesis possible. What here causes us commonly to believe that the predicate of such apodeictic judgments is already contained in our concept, and that the judgment is therefore analytic, is merely the ambiguous character of the terms used. We are required to join in thought a certain predicate to a given concept, and this necessity is inherent in the concepts themselves. But the question is not what we ought to join in thought to the given concept, but what we actually think in it, even if only obscurely; and it is then manifest that, while the predicate is indeed attached necessarily to the concept, it is so in virtue of an intuition which must be added to the concept, not as thought in the concept itself. Some few fundamental propositions, presupposed by the geometrician, are, indeed, really analytic, and rest on the principle of contradiction. But, as identical propositions, they serve only as links in the chain of method and not as principles; for instance, a = a; the whole is equal to itself; or (a & b) a, that is, the whole is greater than its part. And even these propositions, though they are valid according to pure concepts, are only admitted in mathematics because they can be exhibited in intuition. 2. Natural science (physics) contains a priori synthetic judgments as principles. I need cite only two such judgments: that in all changes of the material world the quantity of matter remains unchanged; and that in all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal. Both propositions, it is evident, are not only necessary, and therefore in their origin a priori, but also synthetic. For in the concept of matter I do not think its permanence, but only its presence in the space which it occupies. I go outside and beyond the concept of matter, joining to it a priori in thought something which I have not thought in it. The proposition is not, therefore, analytic, but synthetic, and yet is thought a priori; and so likewise are the other propositions of the pure part of natural science. 3. Metaphysics, even if we look upon it as having hitherto failed in all its endeavours, is yet, owing to the nature of human reason, a quite indispensable science, and ought to contain a priori synthetic knowledge. For its business is not merely to analyse concepts which we make for ourselves a - priori of things, and thereby to clarify them analytically, but to extend our a priori knowledge. And for this purpose we must employ principles which add to the given concept something that was not contained in it, and through a priori synthetic judgments venture out so far that experience is quite unable to follow us, as, for instance, in the proposition, that the world must have a first beginning, and such like. Thus metaphysics consists, at least in intention, entirely of a priori synthetic propositions. http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/ http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason
From: Immortalist on 5 Jun 2010 21:15 On Jun 4, 7:57 pm, Charlie-Boo <shymath...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 4, 8:58 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Physics is an experimental science; > > it is the general analysis of nature, conducted > > to understand how the world around > > us behaves. > > > --H.D. Young & R.A. Freedman > > --Steve Holzner > > When people try to define some branch of science, typically what they > describe applies to all of science. The above goes one better: It > applies to any cognative process. > > Why is it particular to physics? If you read the definition, would > you have any idea they were talking about physics? > > Start by defining science. Then mathematics. > Since physics is a branch of science any definition should be applicable to it. Since science is very similar to naive human thinking and reasoning it does share much with that. Science is just a human way of reasoning with a stricter set of rules than normal thinking and reasoning. Here is a Wiki definition of physics which commits all the errors you claim the original definition committed. Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, as well as all applicable concepts, such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the world and universe behave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics > C-B >
From: Michael Gordge on 6 Jun 2010 02:41 On Jun 6, 10:59 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Many of the things I believe contradict Kant, By coincidence or accident and never by consequence. The primacy of your knowledge is consciousness, so was Kant's, i.e. anything goes, you have agreements and disagreements with Kant by coincidence or by accident. MG
From: Michael Gordge on 6 Jun 2010 03:59
On Jun 6, 10:15 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jun 4, 7:57 pm, Charlie-Boo <shymath...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > On Jun 4, 8:58 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > Physics is an experimental science; > > > it is the general analysis of nature, conducted > > > to understand how the world around > > > us behaves. > > > > --H.D. Young & R.A. Freedman > > > --Steve Holzner > > > When people try to define some branch of science, typically what they > > describe applies to all of science. The above goes one better: It > > applies to any cognative process. > > > Why is it particular to physics? If you read the definition, would > > you have any idea they were talking about physics? > > > Start by defining science. Then mathematics. > > Since physics is a branch of science any definition should be > applicable to it. Since science is very similar to naive human > thinking and reasoning it does share much with that. Science is just a > human way of reasoning with a stricter set of rules than normal > thinking and reasoning. Here is a Wiki definition of physics which > commits all the errors you claim the original definition committed. > > Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its > motion through spacetime, as well as all applicable concepts, such as > energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, > conducted in order to understand how the world and universe behave > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics > > > > > C-B- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - Ewe're an idiot, to claim science is nothing but theory is to equate science to mystical religionist mumbojumbo, ewe're a scientologist aren't ewe Mortal?. MG |