List, Jon, Howard: What is the relation between the chemical sciences and the correspondence theory of truth?
What are the correspondence relations between mathematical sciences and the chemical sciences? At the ground, the same set of astounding facts provide the direct empirical answer to both questions. These facts are well-known. These facts serve a wide range of applied mathematical applications, including quantum mechanical theories of motion. These facts correspond with CSP's notions of the relation between sinsign and index, as well as icon and rhema. These facts were not known to CSP, (most of) the measurements and the interpretation were formulated after he past. These facts are used routinely in almost all chemical calculations, but these facts are not necessary for thermodynamic calculations. (Linguistic clue: adjectives modify the meaning of nouns. :-) ) (Physical Clue: these facts emerge from calculations grounded on physical measurements and basic physical laws.) (Logical Clue: Each of these facts is a natural proposition.) Cheers Jerry On Sep 19, 2014, at 12:44 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote: > Peirce, unlike Hertz, did not stop at a correspondence theory of truth. And > that has made all the difference. > > Jon > >> At 10:39 AM 9/18/2014, Benjamin wrote: >> >>> Only humans (at least here on Earth) do sociology, psychology, biology, >>> chemistry, or physics. I have no evidence that elementary nature does even >>> simple physics, or even wears a lab coat. >> >> HP: I agree. These are all fields in which humans make models of their >> experiences. They may agree on their models but still disagree on different >> epistemologies, realism, nominalism, eliminative materialism, and so on. >> These epistemologies are interpretations of their models with respect to >> what they believe exists or what they believe is real. >> >> Epistemologies are not empirically decidable, e.g., not falsifiable. True >> belief in any epistemology requires a leap of faith. There are degrees of >> faith, skepticism being at the low end. In my own view as a physicist, >> nominalism requires a much safer leap of faith than realism. However, I >> often think realistically. I see no harm in it as long as I don't see it as >> the one true belief. >> >>> BU: Being alive, instantiating life, is far from enough to do biology. >>> Instantiating mathematical structure is far from enough to do mathematics. >> >> HP: Again, I agree. That does not mean that "doing math" is the same as >> "doing physics". Mathematics is the best language that we use to describe >> physical laws. There is an inexorability in physical laws that does not >> exist in the great variety of mathematical concepts and rules. >> >>> > [HP] No one has discovered a point or a triangle or a number, the >>> > infinite or the infinitesimal, in Nature >>> >>> BU: In your sense, nobody has discovered a physical law in nature either. >>> Rules, constraints, norms, distributions, etc., are not animals, >>> vegetables, minerals, or particles. Therefore by your standards they are >>> not real. >> >> HP: Here I disagree. You are not distinguishing mathematical rules from >> physical laws. Mathematics provides the most exact symbolic language in >> which the laws are described. Symbolic rules are not like physical material >> forces. Specifically, laws are inexorably time and rate-dependent. Logic and >> mathematics do not involve time and rates. That is why I say that "only >> humans do mathematics" (manipulate symbols), which they do at their own >> rates. Humans cannot "do forces and laws". Forces act at the lawful rates >> whether we like it or not. >> >>> By saying that X is "real," Peirce means that X is objectively investigable >>> as X. You won't use the word "real" in that way. >> >> HP: I do not understand. What I call real depends only on my epistemic >> assumptions, and I am not at all sure that defining "real" is important to >> have a good model. What we need to understand is what Wigner called the >> "unreasonable effectiveness" of our mathematics in describing laws. There is >> no good reason for this effectiveness. Wigner quotes Peirce: " . . . and it >> is probable that there is some secret here which remains to be discovered." >> >> Peirce, as a chemist (1887) also agreed with Hertz's epistemology (1884): >> “The result that the chemist observes is brought about by nature [Hertz: >> “the image of the consequents of nature”]; the result that the mathematician >> observes is brought about by the associations of the mind. [Hertz: >> “consequents of images in the mind”] . . . the power that connects the >> conditions of the mathematicians diagram with the relations he observes in >> it is just as occult and mysterious to us as the power of Nature that brings >> about the results of the chemical experiment." [W:6, 37, Letter to Noble on >> the Nature of Reasoning, May 28, 1987. (1897)] >> >> Hertz: "As a matter of fact, we do not know, nor have we any means of >> knowing, whether our conception of things are in conformity with them in any >> other than this one fundamental respect [Peirce's "power that connects"]. >> >> Howard >> >> >> > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu > . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu > with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at > http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . > > > >
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