Dear Simon,
Thank you, nice reference indeed!
Your comment shows me that it is useless to describe what we mean in
philosophically unambiguous adjectives. I prefer to use an intuitive
interpretation. Otherwise, each CRM definition becomes a treatise in
philosophy, provoking even more concerns. My concern and point of
view of observation has nothing to do with the question if we can truely
observe objects or not ("close enough to the thing"), but if the method
can be repeated and results be compared as long as the environment is
sufficiently stable.
I tend to regard the whole discussion about the ability or inability to
perceive the "things behind the sensory impressions" or if they are
"real" in whatever sense or not as useless from a practical point of
view (intellectually fascinating nevertheless!). I'd say science is
about the ability to predict, and history is about possible pasts in
terms of the same entities we successfully use to predict, including our
own bodily presence. In the CRM we are concerned with these entities, as
long as we can assign intersubjectively verifiable identities and
diachronical stability to them, regardless theories about realities.
CRM is about reliable communication consistent with known constraints
imposed by reality as we know it.
I wrote:
"Regardless whether a measurement is made by an instrument or by human
senses, it represents the initial transition from physical reality to
information without any other*documented information object* in between
in the reasoning chain that would represent the result of the
interaction of the observer or device with reality."
If this leaves any ambiguity about what I mean by immediate, it is
worthwhile to consider other terms. Practically, it means that the
physicist evaluates a bubble chamber photo, and does not observe the
electron. If two scientists see the same electron path in the bubble chamber
without a photo, it's a nice personal experience but irrelevant for our
applications.
Opinions?
Best,
Martin
On 8/12/2016 10:49 μμ, Simon Spero wrote:
[My in-house philosopher of science is currently zoned out under a cat]
There are a lot of theoretical issues involved in the ontological
status of observations / observation reports / observation sentences,
etc. See e.g. [1].
/Directly observable /can be a loaded term ; my cat-laden reference
source notes the term is used by different philosophers to mean the
kind of observations that their school of thought thinks is
particularly good.
Immediate might also be problematic, as it may taken as meaning
unaided (e.g. no telescopes).
Simon
[1]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-theory-observation/#WhaDoObsRepDes
_______________________________________________
Crm-sig mailing list
Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr <mailto:Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>
http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig
<http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig>
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr | Vox:+30(2810)391625 |
Research Director | Fax:+30(2810)391638 |
| Email: mar...@ics.forth.gr |
|
Center for Cultural Informatics |
Information Systems Laboratory |
Institute of Computer Science |
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) |
|
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, |
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece |
|
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl |
--------------------------------------------------------------
