Hi John
>>It doesn't take a genius to realize that if a idea isn't getting anywhere,
>>that is to say if it doesn't produce new interesting ideas, your time would
>>be better spent doing something else.
Whats with this idea that the only good ideas are ones it would take a genius
to realize? The best ideas are ones kids can understand. Your idol Feynmann
would have put you over his lap and spanked you for saying that. Few people had
greater contempt for 'ideas' only 'geniuses' could understand.
Anyway, its at the core of Popper's view that theories should aim to be
productive in making falsifiable predictions and you are only regurgitating
that view because rightly or wrongly, via Popper, it has seeped into our
culture's conception of what good science is. 150 years ago, you wouldn't have
really cared. You would have been happy had scientists worked purely
inductively. Most likely you'ld have swallowed psychoanalysis hook line and
sinker without even considering whether it could be falsified.
>>Are you trying to tell me with a straight face that without Popper people in
>>2013 wouldn't have been able to figure out that the study of penis envy
>>wasn't a good use of your time?
John, are you honestly telling me I should keep a straight face when
corresponding with you?
>> Obviously it matters!
Does it? The point is that there is a debate about that.
>> all of them agree that it matters that string "theory" has not made any
>> testable predictions
No, there are testable predictions. They make predictions like we might see xyz
happen when we smash particles together at abc energies. And we spend lots of
cash seeing if that is true. Then, when its not, we go, ah well maybe xyz
happens at abc+1. In other words, a lot of science operates within a
verificationist framework.
But eventually, the community begins to get hacked off and goes: wouldn't it be
better to stop testing until we have some prediction that is falsifiable? In
other words a debate emerges using arguments derived from Popper. You do
appreciate the difference between 'testability' and falsifiability, right?
>> The big question is whether string theory will ever be able to make testable
>> predictions, and Popper is of absolutely no help whatsoever in answering
>> that question. None zero zilch goose egg.
Its comments like this that make me think its a bit mean to insist I keep a
straight face. It wasn't Popper's concern to help particular theories develop
falsifiable predictions it was his concern to argue that they should.
>>Bullshit.
Titwank?
>>There was both good science and pseudoscience a hundred years ago and there
>>is both good science and pseudoscience today. Popper changed nothing.
The fact you employ words like pseudoscience shows that he has. You think about
science in Popper's terms. Like it or not, you are a fan-boy of Popper
demarcating between 'good science' and 'pseudoscience'. It seems to me you are
more Popper than anyone else on this list.
All the best.
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 10:10:17 +1200
Subject: Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
From: lizj...@gmail.com
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
On 20 September 2013 05:31, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> A computation is a process.
> I can agree with this, unless you meant a "physical process", OK.
As Rolf Landauer said "Computation is physical", all computations must use
energy and generate heat. And what's the difference between a physical process
and a non-physical process anyway?
I thought it was only erasing the results of computations that had to use
energy and increase entropy? - if so - quibbling, I know, but sometimes
quibbles have important consequences.
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