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New Ohio law allows students to be scientifically wrong.

ecco

Veteran Member
OK.

A vintage steam locomotive leaves Sydney, Australia at 3 PM Tuesday local time and travels an average 40 MPH. It burns 76 cords of wood and arrives in Honolulu on Thursday at 4:56 AM local time.

How far did it travel and what was the mileage per dry pound of cypress wood?

It was built by Pittsburgh Locomotive Works and required 35 minutes of rep[airs enroute.



I said you need to properly define problems before they can be solved. You still didn't.


You failed to say how a train could travel from Australia to Hawaii. Did someone build tracks along the seafloor or was a sea-level causeway built?

This is not a problem with language nor is it a difficulty with mathematics. The error is in your failure to properly define the problem.


However...
Distance 5071 miles
at 40mph = 126 hours
126 / 24 = over 5 days

Australia at 3 PM Tuesday local time to Honolulu on Thursday at 4:56 AM local time = less than 5 days

Your "puzzle" is illogical nonsense.
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Most scientists don't seem to have a clue. Many actually believe every electron is identical.

This is (simplistically) because every electron is an excitation of the same quantum field. That's why it is a lot more difficult to understand how every electron is identical with just quantum mechanics, even advanced quantum mechanics: at a fundamental level, that all electrons are identical is a consequence of their nature as quantum fields and the properties that characterize quantum fields. It is true that one can show using quantum (statistical) mechanics as well as quantum chemistry and so on that electrons have as a fundamental property that they are characterized by Fermi-Dirac statistics (they are fermions). In fact, in general that certain quantum particles are identical of necessity is given by quantum numbers along with their transformation representation. Further, as in quantum mechanics electrons are complex-valued probability functions that encode key physical properties associated with specific experimental designs and measurement statistics, to say that electrons are identical is merely to label linguistically the set of state-function as such (i.e., as electrons). But one cannot adequately account for much of what electrons are or how they behave outside of at the least QED, which is a field theory, and here the identical nature of electrons is a much more natural consequence: same field, differently locally "excited".


I confess that much of the "science" I read is reported by the media. I'm fully aware that the media lie and is populated with uneducated and ignorant reporters and editors so they mangle every story (and imaginary event) that they report. I frequently decry the failed educational system that has led to this situation.
You seem to apply rather sweeping generalizations and categorizations of "science" based upon what you admit above to be a rather limited exposure.

I lack the interest to try to catch up and somehow my math ability isn't as good as it once was. People see what they believe and in time come to be their beliefs.
Ironically, given that you identify the issue of language and therefore intersubjectivity as a limiting factor in our scientific knowledge, one of the ways in which we can often bypass the limits of language is via math.

When I want to read journals, monographs, volumes, etc., in Indo-European linguistics, classics, Biblical studies, etc., I often find myself reading French or German. There are areas in linguistics and related fields I can only have a limited grasp of precisely because I can't understand and/or don't know the languages they concern or I don't know them adequately enough.
Meanwhile, in just about any section of one of my shelves on anything from neuroscience to neural networks or climatology to cosmology I have monographs or similar texts that are filled with grammatical errors despite having (in some cases) been through more than one edition. This is because in these areas most of the specialists are required to publish most of what they wish to publish in English. That the common language is English is far less important for our purposes here than the reason this is possible for any particular language: mathematics. People can fundamentally disagree over how best to understand tensor product spaces or similar factorizations of probability triples and associated measurable spaces in terms of joint vs. conditional probability and independence. Various incarnations of subjectivists, Bayesianists, frequentists, etc., have seen their respective proponents hotly debating what conditional probability and probability more generally mean/involve (especially within the past few decades with the widespread use of statistics across fields and the ability to apply Bayesian methods thanks to vast improvements in computational methods and capacities). Yet Kolmogorov's axiomatic measure-theoretic treatment remains the standard used by all of the above. Nor do they disagree as to how to what conditional probability is or what Bayes' theorem or rule are in the limited sense; rather, they disagree with what these mean conceptually and therefore how they can or should be understood as underlying justified inference.
Likewise, despite decades of intense debates and an ever-increasing literature full of ever-increasing alternative interpretations of quantum theory, most of the modern world depends on its accuracy and one can be educated as to what quantum theory consists of as well as how to apply it using matrix mechanics or path integrals (and any of a myriad of interpretations) without obtaining conflicting results.
Mathematics is precise where language is not. This does lead to an entirely different slew of problems (such as, for example, the fact that most numerical methods and modeling require computers, and computers understand nothing so everything must be boiled down into mechanical procedures). But it means transcending language barriers in ways that are not possible in other scientific fields.

So, on the one hand, there are areas in certain sciences where communication about findings as well as the subject itself require knowledge of languages in order to make-up for the ways in which language inevitably will fail us in certain respects. In other fields, the polysemy inherent in all linguistic constructions in all languages (not to mention contextuality of constructions) is bypassed via the use formal languages.

In fact, in many fields one cannot do much work without being able to so understand a problem and so fully describe it and its solution that one can communicate both to a machine incapable of understanding anything at all.
Again, this does not make the problems of language disappear entirely and does lead to issues itself, but it is impossible to work in or make sense out of much of modern science in fields like physics without mathematical precision.
And it is precisely such precision that makes it much easier to make sense out of why electrons are all identical than one can with language.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
That the common language is English is far less important for our purposes here than the reason this is possible for any particular language: mathematics. People can fundamentally disagree over how best to understand tensor product spaces or similar factorizations of probability triples and associated measurable spaces in terms of joint vs. conditional probability and independence. Various incarnations of subjectivists, Bayesianists, frequentists, etc., have seen their respective proponents hotly debating what conditional probability and probability more generally mean/involve (especially within the past few decades with the widespread use of statistics across fields and the ability to apply Bayesian methods thanks to vast improvements in computational methods and capacities). Yet Kolmogorov's axiomatic measure-theoretic treatment remains the standard used by all of the above. Nor do they disagree as to how to what conditional probability is or what Bayes' theorem or rule are in the limited sense; rather, they disagree with what these mean conceptually and therefore how they can or should be understood as underlying justified inference.
Likewise, despite decades of intense debates and an ever-increasing literature full of ever-increasing alternative interpretations of quantum theory, most of the modern world depends on its accuracy and one can be educated as to what quantum theory consists of as well as how to apply it using matrix mechanics or path integrals (and any of a myriad of interpretations) without obtaining conflicting results.
Mathematics is precise where language is not. This does lead to an entirely different slew of problems (such as, for example, the fact that most numerical methods and modeling require computers, and computers understand nothing so everything must be boiled down into mechanical procedures). But it means transcending language barriers in ways that are not possible in other scientific fields.

The weaknesses of modern language are not such that an individual can't understand anything at all. I have little doubt that scientists understand the mathematics and observation that shows electrons are identical. Indeed, in some ways or from some perspectives it is probable that electrons actually are identical or the math wouldn't exist as it does. The primary weakness of modern language is as a tool for communication. I have no doubt whatsoever that as you imply that this particular weakness is largely overcome in addressing this specific issue and (also) in communicating almost anything that can be reduced to mathematics. The most important weakness of modern language is that it comes with multiple sets of baggage. There is the baggage of the beliefs and axioms it carries, the necessity to create models for understanding, and that we must think in this language so the perspective this generates hides the nature of language itself. Models are not reality.

We each understand our own thoughts but the nature of thought is mostly masked to us. The natures of language and consciousness are virtually invisible and come with more baggage than nowhere to go with no means to get there. "Science" has made very very very little headway in even defining consciousness or in showing how it arises or even where.

I have almost no "beef" whatsoever with modern physics. I doubt that reality will prove be be reducible to equations because of the natures of math and reality but math probably really can show ever more accurate approximations and it's entirely possible that one of the approximations will someday lead to the breakthrough that allows fuller understanding. And, yes, this new understanding will probably be expressable mathematically.

We can't reduce things like linguistics to math. Perhaps where there is a great deal of data much of it will be understood in quantifiable terms one day but things like the Bible, Koran, or ancient writing from the 2nd millennium BC are never going to be in any meaningful way understood in such a way. We will never understand how and why civilizations rise and fall in terms that yield the ability to predict or to explain past events. A great deal of what we call "science" isn't science at all.

There are not only no right answers to questions the questions themselves are always wrong. Look and See Science is not science at all.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
"A massive world of things we know nothing at all about" may well lie just outside our perception, but we are constantly working to learn about it.

It's easier to study things you can see.

Most of it is unseen only because observers see something else. We each see what we know/ believe.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
It's easier to study things you can see.

Most of it is unseen only because observers see something else. We each see what we know/ believe.
Yeah. I guess you must be right.

I guess that's why we didn't discover black holes.
I guess that's why we didn't discover quarks.
I guess that's why we didn't discover gravity.

We just couldn't see the darn things.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Yeah. I guess you must be right.

I guess that's why we didn't discover black holes.
I guess that's why we didn't discover quarks.
I guess that's why we didn't discover gravity.

We just couldn't see the darn things.

It's been 4000 years since the tower and 500 years of science to learn all this.

Maybe we'd be much further ahead if we saw what's there (like spiral galaxies).
 

ecco

Veteran Member
It's been 4000 years since the tower and 500 years of science to learn all this.

Maybe we'd be much further ahead if we saw what's there (like spiral galaxies).
Yeah. Gee. If only God had allowed people to climb up the tower, maybe they would have discovered black holes 4000 years ago.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Yeah. Gee. If only God had allowed people to climb up the tower, maybe they would have discovered black holes 4000 years ago.

You are assuming people knew nothing about "black holes" before the "tower of babel".

I believe they had a very sophisticated understanding of reality and no beliefs at all.

But then we are drifting off-topic. I can say this though. People who had no beliefs at all and no words for belief would certainly agree that a question with four possible answers could NEVER make sense.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
It's easier to study things you can see.

And yet you use the dopey phrase "look and see science" as a pejorative.

You cannot even remain consistent in why you deride or approve of.

Must be that your broccas area is bifurcated such that it is scattered about in 19 places in the middle of your brain.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Must be that your broccas area is bifurcated such that it is scattered about in 19 places in the middle of your brain.

Now you're thinkin' . Most of the people who know me would agree there's something wrong inside of here. o_O

And yet you use the dopey phrase "look and see science" as a pejorative.
You cannot even remain consistent in why you deride or approve of.

No. The only thing I'm inconsistent about is whether or not I capitalize "Look and See Science".

This is very simple. Any science must have a metaphysics. Results are only meaningful within that metaphysics. Modern science is observation > experiment. Anything outside of that is look and see science or some other sort of mumbo jumbo and has no meaning in reality or science itself. It is not theory outside of experiment.

Ancient science was different and it worked ONLY because things were different. Ancient science was observation > logic. There is no longer any logic whatsoever to language but Ancient Language was tied to the wiring of the brain which is naturally logical (like all of nature). Ancient Language had the same internal logic as mathematics but was spoken rather than quantified. This allowed the "direct" observation of reality itself just as animals use to maintain their lives. "Consciousness" is the tool given by nature to succeed and survive. Without it life doesn't exist and wouldn't survive.

Since our language is "confused" (for 4000 years) we must use a new metaphysics we call observation > experiment. Look and See Science is not science at all and never was.

That you can't recall the simple fact from one post to the next or from one thread to another that there are no ancient words for "belief", "thought", taxonomies, nor reductionism has no bearing on whether there is something you consider "evidence" or not. You see what you expect so you see right answers, evolution, and a total lack of support for any other way to interpret evidence, logic, or experiment. You just don't see simple fact and simple evidence. You're just like all of us. Homo Omnisciencis.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
Now you're thinkin' . Most of the people who know me would agree there's something wrong inside of here.
Absolutely.
No. The only thing I'm inconsistent about is whether or not I capitalize "Look and See Science".

No, you contradicted yourself, and can't deal with it.
You are truly a science novice. You have no concept of what constitutes evidence. You have no idea what a theory is, or an hypothesis, or 'observation'.
You think you can skim a wiki page and know all there is to know because you pretend to know all about language - but you don't.
Modern science is observation > experiment. Anything outside of that is look and see science or some other sort of mumbo jumbo and has no meaning in reality or science itself. It is not theory outside of experiment.
It is so cool how you make up garbage philosophy to cover the fact that you do not even know how to spell words that you use to make dopey, child-like arguments.

When someone starts blabbing about 'metaphysics', I know that they've lost.

And I note - still no evidence for ANY of your garbage notions.

Homo Omnisciencis?

More like Homo dontknowmuchus.
 
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