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Author Topic:   What is a Theory?
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 142 of 249 (494252)
01-15-2009 6:10 AM
Reply to: Message 140 by erikp
01-15-2009 5:51 AM


Re: Beautiful!
erikp writes:
There is no need to distinguish between the "perfect theory" and the "other theory", because your perfect theory is an impossibility.
By your own reasoning, isn't your theory that the perfect theory is an impossibility inevitably false?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 5:51 AM erikp has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 6:22 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 146 of 249 (494266)
01-15-2009 7:04 AM
Reply to: Message 144 by erikp
01-15-2009 6:22 AM


Re: Beautiful!
erikp writes:
No, because I am making a statement that can be contradicted by just one fact and not an infinite number of facts.
My statement is therefore not infinitely falsifiable. It is falsifiable only by one, single fact (the appearance in reality of that one Theory of Everything).
So, my statement is not necessarily false.
Your statement would either be unfalsifiable or false. So it's unprovable. You've equated unprovability with falseness (something which others have told you is wrong) so by your "reasoning", your statement must be false. I'm not saying that it's necessarily false.
erikp writes:
"Water boils at 100 C" is necessarily false, but saying that the TOE does not exist is not necessarily false.
You need to be a lot more precise with language if you want to philosophise. "Water boils at 100 C" is a demonstrably true statement. "Water can only boil at 100 C" is demonstrably false.
Saying that a TOE does not exist at present is true. Stating that a TOE couldn't exist in the future is a different matter. These kind of statements aren't scientific theories, anyway.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 144 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 6:22 AM erikp has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 7:14 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 151 of 249 (494312)
01-15-2009 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 147 by erikp
01-15-2009 7:14 AM


Re: Beautiful!
erikp writes:
It is falsifiable, because the appearance of the TOE would falsify it. It is not necessarily false, because it can only be falsified by a finite number of facts (just one).
Not by your own reasoning, because a TOE, by your reasoning in this thread, would be false, and therefore would not falsify your statement. A theory isn't a fact, anyway. By everything you've been saying on this thread, a ToE, which would presumably have an infinite number of facts that could falsify it, would be false, and therefore your statement about a perfect theory being impossible is unfalsifiable by your own arguments (not by anyone elses).
erikp writes:
bluegenes writes:
You've equated unprovability with falseness (something which others have told you is wrong)
Where did I equate that? Please, quote.
Message 44
erikp writes:
Science will remain: unproven, false.
You seem to be equating "unproven" with "false". Unproven doesn't mean false in English. Again, by your reasoning (or more acurately, according to your special personal language) your statement about a perfect theory is false.
Apart from apparently abusing our language, most of what you seem to be claiming on this thread seems paradoxical.
Could you please try to clarify whatever point it is you're wanting to make?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 147 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 7:14 AM erikp has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 157 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 5:32 PM bluegenes has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 154 of 249 (494319)
01-15-2009 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 153 by Wounded King
01-15-2009 9:43 AM


Re: Inability to read of properly observe reality
Wounded King writes:
To be fair there are other conditions needed for ...
My point, that Petro took up, was about language.
Saying that "water boils at 100C" is not the same as saying "water will only boil at 100C" or, related to your point, "water will always boil at 100C". It's not really important to the thread in itself, and a trivial point, but when we're having philosophical discussions about whether theories or statements are true or false, it's important that we try to state our examples clearly, IMO.
You probably remember other attempts to argue against science based on weird use of language, and much more important than the water boiling is our friend's definition of "false" and "true". At one point, he claims that unfalsifiable theories are true, if I remember rightly, and I haven't started on that one yet. What it'll be leading up to, of course, is that unfalsifiable religious beliefs are true. So, both the Koran and the Bible are the word of God, and millions of other mutually exclusive "theories" must be "true".

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 Message 153 by Wounded King, posted 01-15-2009 9:43 AM Wounded King has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 156 by petrophysics1, posted 01-15-2009 5:00 PM bluegenes has not replied
 Message 158 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 5:40 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 163 of 249 (494424)
01-15-2009 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by erikp
01-15-2009 5:40 PM


Re: Inability to read of properly observe reality
erikp writes:
Who argues against science? I come to exactly the same conclusions as Gdel, using another way.
By the way, Gdel's theorem may also constitute some "weird use of language".
But then again, it is not because you think it is weird, that there is something wrong with it. It just means that you are unfit to read that kind of theorems.
I don't find Gdel's language weird at all. He knows the difference between "incomplete" and "false". Tell me, can you think of any tools that science uses that are not used in maths and logic, and if so, can you think of ways in which those tools might make a difference to the ways that Gdel's theorems might apply to science as compared to maths and logic?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 158 by erikp, posted 01-15-2009 5:40 PM erikp has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 169 by erikp, posted 01-16-2009 5:11 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 179 of 249 (494472)
01-16-2009 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by erikp
01-16-2009 5:11 AM


Re: Inability to read of properly observe reality
erikp writes:
bluegenes writes:
I don't find Gdel's language weird at all. He knows the difference between "incomplete" and "false".
According to the definitions of "true" and "false", incomplete theories are indeed false.
As soon as water has been observed to boil at any other temperature than 100 C, the theory that says "Water boils at 100 C", has been proven to false. It cannot be rescued just by saying that it is "incomplete". The definition simply says that it is false.
Here's where I quibbled with your chosen phrase before. Had you chosen "Water only boils at 100C", the statement would have been falsified, and is clearly false. As water frequently does boil at 100C, the statement isn't false, merely of little or no use to us in explaining anything about water. Here's an example of incompleteness:
"Biological evolution proceeds by variation combined with natural selection."
That's observably true. However, it also proceeds by other means, like genetic drift (neutral evolution), so:
"Biological evolution proceeds by variation combined with natural selection and by variation alone" is an improvement."
Neither statement is a comprehensive theory of all biology, but both are definitely true. Scientific procedure presumes the incompleteness of theories. They play a different role from the theorems of maths.
erikp writes:
So, the mathematical method of rigorously and systematically rejecting unreduced theories, is more of an ideal to strive to -- unfortunately unattainable -- for the other scientific disciplines.
In the rest of your post, you did bring in observations, correctly, and that's what I was looking for. It is observation and experimentation in the physical world that makes science radically different from maths, you'll agree, and that's perhaps why the effect of Godel's theorems will be different (but not non-existent).
You've got far too much to deal with from others, so I won't pile on!
Good luck!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by erikp, posted 01-16-2009 5:11 AM erikp has not replied

  
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