On 15 Sep 2013, at 18:02, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
Me:
>> Feynman predicted in 1948 that the magnetic moment of an electron
can't be exactly 1 in Dirac units as had been thought because it is
effected by an infinite (and I do mean infinite and not just
astronomical) number of virtual particles. He brilliantly figured
out a way to calculate this effect and do so in a finite amount of
time, he calculated it must be 1.00115965246, while the best
experimental value found much later is 1.00115965221. That's like
measuring the distance between Los Angeles and New York to the
thickness of a human hair, and Feynman got it right just by using
his mind. That's too good to be a coincidence, Feynman must have
been onto something good.
> Feynman was a giant in physics. No doubt. I just said that he was
bad in philosophy.
Feynman showed that virtual particles must exist, particles that can
violate the law of conservation of mass-energy, at least for a short
time. Feynman showed that when a particle moves from point X to
point Y it can do so by any path with various degrees of
probability, and when you add up all the infinite (and not just very
large) number of paths you get the path we observe the particle to
be moving at, and he showed us how to add up these infinite number
of things in a finite amount of time and get numbers out of them.
These profound philosophical discoveries dwarf anything Popper
found, assuming he found anything at all.
And Feynman wasn't the only one, Darwin showed how multicellular
life such as ourselves came to be, Godel found that some things are
true but can't be proved, Turing showed that some things are
deterministic but not predictable, Cantor proved that there are
degrees of infinity, Hubble found that the universe was expanding,
and Watson and Crick showed how heredity works at the most
fundamental level. None of these huge philosophical discoveries were
made by somebody who called himself a philosopher, and that's why I
say that philosophers no longer do philosophy.
That's natural philosophy, but today we call that physics, biology,
biochemistry.
Popper made clear what science is all about, which was already clear
for good scientists, but which is still ignored by most professional
philosopher, and most applied scientists.
But I do agree with you that "philosophy" today is a bit sick, like
theology (the science) has virtually disappear since the Roman Empire.
In many universities, when I was young, philosophy was just Marxism
and anti-americanism. Academical philosophy is used today as a tool to
ignore scientific results when they are politically unpleasant (like
the fact that cannabis cure cancers, or that primary matter does not
exist, to name a few).
Personally, I am problem driven, and don't believe in clear separation
of field, which is just a practical tool to make experts. I don't
really believe in academical philosophy. In many places, they have
prevents philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, debate on QM, if
not forbidden the use of terms like "consciousness", etc. The pity is
that some scientist give them the full academical authority.
Today, we use philosophy, like "theology" has been used before
enlightenment. Just unfounded authoritative (violent) arguments.
How many philosophers told me "you have not the right to reason like
that ...", when of course a scientist would show precisely that a
rule, or method of reasoning, is invalid, by providing a counter-
example.
Bruno
John K Clark
it would be hard to find ANY calculation in modern particle physics
that doesn't involve some form of virtual particles.
virtual particles
I am not a pal of Feyerabend, nor of many philosophers since 1500
years. Feyerabend is too much relativist to be taken seriously when
you study machine's (logical) theology.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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