"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: JimboCat on 9 Mar 2010 13:22 On Mar 6, 7:42 pm, Darwin123 <drosen0...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > I usually here the word causality used more often in physics than >determinism. I think that is because in most cases it it easier to >determine the past than the future. History is easier to examine than >the future can be predicted. And yet, the evolution of entropic processes can be easily predicted, but cannot be retrodicted well at all. Given the temperature distribution in a solid object, it is easy to predict the temperature distribution as far into the future as you like. Eventually it is virtually uniform. But it is essentially impossible to determine, based on current temperature measurements, what the distribution was in the past. Especially if it is uniform today! And most real-life processes are entropic in nature. Your "most cases" are really just representative of the tiny sub-set of cases that are amenable to the calculation of past states. Your assertion is nothing but selection bias. In truth, quite the opposite is the case. Jim Deutch (JimboCat) -- "Attempts to crack this to thioacetone monomer itself have been made - ah, but that's when people start diving out of windows and vomiting into wastebaskets, so the quality of the data starts to deteriorate." [Derek Lowe]
From: Erik Max Francis on 9 Mar 2010 14:23 Jenny wrote: > On Mar 9, 11:25 am, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: >> : Jenny <yuan...(a)gmail.com> > >> : How about this for a Doctor of Medicine? > ... ... >> : Since he was not taken seriously at the time, his achievements were >> : overlooked and credit was given to James Joule. He almost committed >> : suicide after he discovered this fact. > > >> Two problems with this example in the upthread context. First, it's >> not a paradigm-changing revolution. It augmented rather than replaced. >> Second, though he didn't know the theory backwards and forwards, he >> consulted experts who did, and actually paid attention to them. > > In some geometries there are no true parallels. First, you never named the guy, but it's clear you're talking about Julius Robert von Mayer, and it's also clear from googling that you got the text you quoted from Wikipedia -- so not a great start. Second, the more controversial claims (such as him attempting to commit suicide after he discovered he wouldn't be "taken seriously") aren't cited and are contradicted by claims later (with citations) -- he attempted suicide only after his two children died. > He wrote to the experts, most ignored him and some even ridiculed him, > after all he wasn't even properly trained. The one who responded told > him that he was wrong and to go away and do the experiment - but that > guy obviously didn't take the idea seriously enough to do it for > himself. You act like this is a bad thing. Scientists, dandies from the 19th Century or not, have lots of stuff to do rather than try every idea they hear from every random other non-scientist. Especially in this case, this is an experiment that von Mayer _could conduct himself_. He doesn't need a known scientist to do it. "Go away and do the experiment" is not a libel in science -- it's how things are done. If we're actually going to go by the Wikipedia article as your primary source, the article itself shows why his ideas were probably not taken very seriously -- it's because he reached the wrong conclusions. He tried to explain conservation of energy by asserting that there was a conservation of force, which is something that is clearly _not_ true. Hence, his article to a peer-reviewed journal _contained errors_ that were found by the peer-review process and was thus rejected. This is the way peer-review is supposed to work. Then as you admit, his findings _were_ in fact published, in a reputable paper. In other words, he learned from his mistakes, listened to the corrections, and fixed them. That's a counterexample to what Wayne was talking about. > Physicians 2 Physicists 0 > > Joule also was considered an amateur without proper training. "He > discovered Joule's laws in 1840 and hoped to impress the Royal Society > but found, not for the last time, that he was perceived as a mere > provincial dilettante". And yet he's remembered as the discoverer of the conservation of energy and even our system of internal units has the unit of energy named after him. No one says that being right in _anything_ will gain you instant fame and accolades. How many authors and artists had to die before their works were appreciated? > Dilettantes 1 Physicists 0 > > And Newton was hammered so hard that even he was almost too scared to > publish. Uh, what? -- Erik Max Francis && max(a)alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis Whatever it is you came to teach me / I am here to learn it -- India Arie
From: Wayne Throop on 9 Mar 2010 14:50 : Jenny <yuancur(a)gmail.com> : In some geometries there are no true parallels. As, for example, in your upthread analogy, which is basically a swing and a miss. Because 1) it's not a case of a revolution, and b) it's eventual success was predicated on an experiment rather than on armchair philosophising. And simply claiming that the mean physicists were rude to him until he *did* the experiment won't change those basic elements of the situation. Wayne Throop throopw(a)sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
From: Jenny on 9 Mar 2010 17:19 On Mar 9, 1:23 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...(a)alcyone.com> wrote: > Jenny wrote: > > In some geometries there are no true parallels. > First, you never named the guy, but it's clear you're talking about > Julius Robert von Mayer, and it's also clear from googling that you got > the text you quoted from Wikipedia -- so not a great start. Second, the > more controversial claims (such as him attempting to commit suicide > after he discovered he wouldn't be "taken seriously") aren't cited and > are contradicted by claims later (with citations) -- he attempted > suicide only after his two children died. It's easier to copy from Wikipedia than reference the sources I actually got it from. I wasn't trying to impress, I don't feel any need to impress people that I'll never meet who don't even know who I am. I was just making the point that "outsiders" (i.e untrained amateurs) can come up with good science. You make that same point yourself below, with respect to writings and art. Now translate that sideways to science and you'll find yourself agreeing with me. > > He wrote to the experts, most ignored him and some even ridiculed him, > > after all he wasn't even properly trained. The one who responded told > > him that he was wrong and to go away and do the experiment - but that > > guy obviously didn't take the idea seriously enough to do it for > > himself. > You act like this is a bad thing. I made no moral judgement. >Scientists, dandies from the 19th > Century or not, have lots of stuff to do rather than try every idea they > hear from every random other non-scientist. Especially in this case, > this is an experiment that von Mayer _could conduct himself_. He > doesn't need a known scientist to do it. "Go away and do the > experiment" is not a libel in science -- it's how things are done. Did Einstein measure the deflection of light, or did Eddington do it? Who told Einstein to "go away and do the experiment"? > If we're actually going to go by the Wikipedia article as your primary > source, the article itself shows why his ideas were probably not taken > very seriously -- it's because he reached the wrong conclusions. He > tried to explain conservation of energy by asserting that there was a > conservation of force, which is something that is clearly _not_ true. > Hence, his article to a peer-reviewed journal _contained errors_ that > were found by the peer-review process and was thus rejected. This is > the way peer-review is supposed to work. The issue isn't the initial rejection, the issue is that he *eventually* got it right. .. The words "force" and "energy" were very much in a state of flux at that time so without reading the article, we can't be sure that what he meant by "force" is not conserved. You also write "conservation of force, which is something that is clearly _not_ true". It's not so clear to me. I dare say that I'm more of a skeptic than you are. > Then as you admit, his findings _were_ in fact published, in a reputable > paper. In other words, he learned from his mistakes, listened to the > corrections, and fixed them. That's a counterexample to what Wayne was > talking about. I didn't "admit" anything, I quoted from Wikipedia. > > Physicians 2 Physicists 0 > > Joule also was considered an amateur without proper training. "He > > discovered Joule's laws in 1840 and hoped to impress the Royal Society > > but found, not for the last time, that he was perceived as a mere > > provincial dilettante". > And yet he's remembered as the discoverer of the conservation of energy > and even our system of internal units has the unit of energy named after > him. No one says that being right in _anything_ will gain you instant > fame and accolades. How many authors and artists had to die before > their works were appreciated? You seem to be agreeing with my point, good (or even great) work is often not appreciated - or even understood. > > Dilettantes 1 Physicists 0 > > And Newton was hammered so hard that even he was almost too scared to > > publish. > Uh, what? Example: Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. (yes, that's Wikipedia again, but read any decent biography) > Whatever it is you came to teach me / I am here to learn it Great! You've learned that Newton was discouraged by criticism and that nobody told Einstein to go do his own experiments. We seem to have agreed that good work by "outsiders" is often misunderstood and unappreciated by the "experts". And it follows that "outsiders" often outdo the "experts" and are ignored. Pascal: "How difficult it is to submit to someone else's opinion without being preoccupied (concerned?) about having to do so... ... Generally speaking we are more firmly convinced by reasons that we have discovered for ourselves, than by those which are given to us by others". (Not from Wikipedia - you don't approve of that, so I typed in that quote myself from The Pensees). Love, Jenny
From: Jenny on 9 Mar 2010 18:14
On Mar 9, 1:50 pm, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > : Jenny <yuan...(a)gmail.com> > : In some geometries there are no true parallels. > As, for example, in your upthread analogy, which is basically a swing > and a miss. Because 1) it's not a case of a revolution, and b) it's > eventual success was predicated on an experiment rather than on armchair > philosophising. The concept that energy is conserved *was* revolutionary as far as I can tell. It seems to have been a radically new principle, up till then there were energy sources and sinks. Energy came and went. The idea that the energy of motion changed form to produce an equivalent amount of energy in the form of heat *was* revolutionary. It was as revolutionary in it's day as the relativity of simultaneity and the wave nature of matter were in their day. > And simply claiming that the mean physicists were rude to him until he > *did* the experiment won't change those basic elements of the situation. I didn't use emotive words like "mean" and "rude". I wrote "He wrote to the experts, most ignored him and some even ridiculed him, after all he wasn't even properly trained... ...when he came up with the requested evidence, his results were all but ignored". If you think that means "mean and rude", that's your take, not mine. Love, Jenny |