Dear colleagues,
Perhaps, the "rainbow" argument is opening a window to constructivism. The definitions of poverty or IQ, for example, guide us in our perceptions of reality and the possibilities of measurement. One can measure IQ because the concept is discursively constructed and codified. The nature of the codification process may be different among the sciences (e.g., between social and natural sciences), but not the need to construct discursively and to codify scholarly communication in processes of validation. Best wishes, Loet From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Hans von Baeyer Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 12:52 AM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: [Fis] Social constructivism Stan asks: Would we be justified in viewing QBism the latest venture of [social] constructivism? WOW, I sure hope not! While it is true that there are fads in science, and that the direction of research is influenced to some degree by the society that funds it and consumes its fruits, I think that the underlying methodology distinguishes socially constructed models of reality from scientific ones. Social constructions use arguments that play no role in any account of the scientific method as it applies to the Natural Sciences (as opposed to the Social Sciences). Some examples: Deutsche Physik referred to the ethnicity of scientists, Lysenkoism adduced ideological goals; Creationism appeals to scripture; Feminist Science Studies consider the gender of scientists. QBism does not change any of the impressive successes of quantum mechanics. It simply says that quantum mechanics is a very complex, abstract encoding of the experiences of generations of scientists interacting with atomic systems. It disenfranchises a physicist from knowing what an electron spin, for example, REALLY is, while celebrating her ability to predict correctly, albeit probabilistically, what to expect in the next experiment. She and her predecessors have created an abstract model, and validated it by appeal to experiments, without appeal to any of the other considerations listed above. In conversation with Joseph Brenner and others I have used the rainbow as a metaphor. The rainbow is a phenomenon that everyone experiences slightly differently, but that we all agree on. The scientific model that "explains" it is very complicated and highly abstract. Is the rainbow "real"? It certainly does not exist when nobody is looking. It is, in the end, a personal experience. For me the experience is enhanced considerably by my understanding of the scientific model of it, because it allows me to look for and discover details I had never noticed, but I would not presume to say I know what YOUR experience of it is. Maybe you are thinking of Iris or Noah, and feeling awe or curiosity, and remarking on its (apparently) immense size and variable brightness. QBism suggests that we look at the world as consisting of rainbows -- an ensemble of complex phenomena about which we know some things, but whose essences we cannot capture. The QBist says: I don't know what the world is. All I know is what I experience in my interactions with the world, as they are illuminated and modified by what I have learned from other people, past and present, who have had similar experiences and encoded them in the succinct language of mathematics. Hans
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