Subject: Re: Early 1950's SF film "The Magnetic Monster" and Thermodynamics.
From: jac@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Date: 23 Oct 1996 22:49:51 GMT
gfp@sarnoff.com writes:
>
>This is a movie I saw on tv many times as a kid.
I only saw it once, on Ch. 9 out of Windsor, Ontario, in the mid-70s
after the second date with the young woman I married. Do I have to
add that she is a trekkie? Anyway, thanks to this article, we will
soon have it on videotape from Sinister Cinema.
>After some 30 years., it's still fun to watch (one of the principle
>players walks around with a pipe trying to look like Oppenheimer).
The hero is a professor at "State University" (even though it
seems to be set mostly in Canada), who boldly pushes the Deltatron
past its limits (mucho sparking) and saves the planet.
>A lone (mad?) scientist, accidently creates an atom of a superheavy
>element that is radioactive , but in reverse.......
I am sure it is a magnetic monopole. A very hungry monopole.
My recollection is that it was created in a regular old experiment
after something was bombarded with X MeV deuterons for N hours.
Pion condensates were being muttered about at the time, with a
local columnist wondering if the new heavy ion machine might
destroy the city if it made one (how he got his hands on the
proposal we will never know), so it was semi-plausible.
>It draws in electric charge (energy) constantly, converts it to mass,
>and doubles its size every eleven hours. (I won't say what happens if
>it doesnt get fed on time.).
Doesn't it want all of that energy during a short time when it
does its doubling thing? Once they reach the capacity of the
north american grid, they *know* they are in trouble. And how
do they know? Here is the good part: theoretical calculations
on the MANIAC at Los Alamos!
>So is this absolutely impossible, or not?
Absurdly funny, yes. The film of the sparkler run in reverse does
suggest a little entropy problem, but they left enough details vague
that it could work out OK globally.
--
James A. Carr | Raw data, like raw sewage, needs
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac | some processing before it can be
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | spread around. The opposite is
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | true of theories. -- JAC
Subject: Re: When did Nietzsche wimp out? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com (-Mammel,L.H.)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 02:55:12 GMT
In article <326E6E4E.36F5@ovpr.uga.edu>,
RICHARD J. LOGAN wrote:
>So, even prior to Einstein's work, it was understood that there was no
>absolute motion, no reference frame that could be claimed to be
>absolutely at rest? ...
Not by Newton on any account :
Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation
to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.
Relative space is some movable dimension or measure
of the absolute spaces; ...
My opinion is that the "Galilean transformation" was formulated
by way of contradistinction to the Lorentz transformation. Note
that late nineteenth century physicists were certain of the
reality of a luminiferous aether, which one would think would
have been identified with Newton's absolute space.
Also, don't forget that in the ninteenth century "the universe"
was thought to be comprised of our galaxy alone. This provided
a natural absolute frame.
So, I don't know if anybody circa 1800 or so achieved a
philsophy of Newtonian relativism, but I doubt it.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Subject: Re: Question on Force, Work, and Torque was: Emory's Professors
From: msw5513@vms1.tamu.edu (Gumby)
Date: 23 Oct 1996 22:00 CST
lparker@curly.cc.emory.edu (Lloyd R. Parker) writes...
>Gumby (msw5513@vms1.tamu.edu) wrote:
>: >But perhaps this will be even clearer: Biologists also work with
>: >stirrers, spectrometers, etc. So should they also know as much about them
>: >as a physicist or an engineer? Does an English teacher need to know
>: >exactly how a modern printing press works? Or how paper is made? Or why
>: >the graphite in a pencil works the way it does? They certainly work with
>: >these.
>: Yes. I'm a theater major, and I can tell you how the shear forces of the
>: paper fibers erode the graphite, resulting in a black residue.
>Do you know about the sp2 hybridization of the carbon atoms in graphite
>vs the sp3 hybridization in diamond, which makes the graphite planar
>instead of 3-dimensional, which in turn lets the sheets of graphite slide
>over one another?
Yes.
>: I have a
>: rough idea of the difference in composition between a #2 pencil I use to
>: write plays with and the 2H lead I use for drafting.
>OK, what IS the difference in composition?
If you want to know, ask in email. If you are calling me a liar, please
state it as such so there is no confusion.
>: I can go to the EE
>: department and buy a bunch of AND and OR gates and make a crude, but
>: working, model of the CPU in the computer I'm typing on.
>I'd like to see you make one that can do word processing that way.
It'd take way too long. I can make a nice chair out of wood, but I don't
because there are as good or better ones that I can buy in the store for
minimal cost.
>: I've been in a
>: newspaper printing building and seen exactly how a modern press works.
>: I'm interested in all the aspects of what afects my life.
>OK, tell me about the forces that hold your atoms together into molecules,
>and your molecules together into cells. (This does affect your life,
>doesn't it?) Tell me about fusion as it relates to quantum mechanics (the
>sun does affect your life, doesn't it?). Tell me about what it is about
>water that determines that it has an unusually high boiling point and makes
>it float whereas most solids are denser than their liquid phase (water
>does affect your life, doesn't it?).
A chemist plugs in a centrufuge. He turns it on. He watches it spin.
He repeats this process many times a day for many years. Why is it
so hard for you to understand that he should know what it does?
I do not work with fusion. I don't boil anything other than water.
These are completly different things. Your analogies are as flawed
as your knowledge of physics.
BTW, I can answer your questions, but you didn't ask them to be answered,
so I'm not going to bother.
Marc
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
Date: 23 Oct 1996 23:12:37 -0400
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
>>>>>Thus spake Jacques Derrida:
>>>>> When I take, for example, the structure of certain algebraic
>>>>> constructions [ensembles], where is the center? Is the center the
>>>>> knowledge of general rules which, after a fashion, allow us to
>>>>> understand the interplay of the elements? Or is the center certain
>>>>> elements which enjoy a particular privilege within the ensemble?
>>>>> ...With Einstein, for example, we see the end of a kind of
>>>>> privilege of empiric evidence. And in that connection we see a
>>>>> constant appear, a constant which is a combination of space-time,
>>>>> which does not belong to any of the experimenters who live the
>>>>> experience, but which, in a way, dominates the whole construct;
>>>>> and this notion of the constant -- is this the center?
moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin):
>>>>I'm afraid you're badly mistaken: Derrida didn't say any of the above.
Zeleny:
>>>I am afraid that you are correct. I have omitted the attribution of
>>>the above question to a Derridean sycophant. Not that apportioning
>>>boundless ignorance to two parties makes any difference in the outcome.
moggin:
>> Your error is of commission, not ommission: you wrote, "Thus
>>spake Jacques Derrida" and proceeded to quote another person entirely
>>(namely Jean Hyppolite). This type of thing is frowned on, for the
>>reasons you demonstrate above.
Zeleny:
>On the contrary, my point was to focus on the nonsensical claim that
>the Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center. Hence its
>force would not have been blunted, had I not neglected to expand my
>attribution to read "Thus spake Jacques Derrida in response to vigorous
>brown-nosing by Jean Hips-or-Lips", or whoever.
Nope, that's still not it. One more time: the words you
quoted after saying, "Thus spake Jacques Derrida" aren't his. The
passage above ain't Derrida spaking, either in reply to Hyppolite or
anyone else. It's Hyppolite. And there's the trouble: you quoted
Hyppolite, but attributed his comments to Derrida. Lengthening the
attribution to read "Thus spake Derrida in response..." wouldn't be
any help, for the simple reason that you weren't quoting Derrida.
Zeleny:
>>>>>As Sokal rightly says, "Derrida's perceptive reply went to the heart of
>>>>>classical general relativity:"
>>>>> The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center.
>>>>> It is the very concept of variability -- it is, finally, the
>>>>> concept of the game. In other words, it is not the concept of
>>>>> something -- of a center starting from which an observer could
>>>>> master the field -- but the very concept of the game ...
>>>>>(Derrida, Jacques. 1970. Structure, sign and play in the discourse of
>>>>>the human sciences. In The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of
>>>>>Man: The Structuralist Controversy, pp. 247-272, edited by Richard
>>>>>Macksey and Eugenio Donato. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.)
moggin:
>>>> Here your attribution is half-right and wholly misleading. The
>>>>passage you quote comes not from the well-known essay, "Structure,
>>>>Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," as one would
>>>>expect from your reference, but rather from the discussion following
>>>>Derrida's presentation of that essay at the Hopkins symposium, "The
>>>>Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," in the fall of 1966.
Zeleny:
>>>EXCUSE ME? Are you implying that having railed against the evils of
>>>phallogocentrism entitles Derrida to a special dispensation to issue
>>>inconsequential howlers, provided that someone else transcribes them?
>>>Hippolyte offers an egregious question. Derrida obliges him with an
>>>egregious answer. Sokal shows that both are blathering. Case closed.
moggin:
>> I thought I was being quite explicit, but let me make it even
>>plainer for you, since that appears to be necessary. The howlers are
>>yours. You assigned Hyppolite's words to Derrida. You made it seem
>>as if remarks Derrida offered following a lecture came from his essay,
>>"Structure, Sign, and Play." You then added a sarcastic comment about
>>"Derrida's" learning and posted the stew to five different newsgroups,
>>with the expectation that the population of sci.physics would find it
>>especially delectable.
Zeleny:
>Have you by any chance flunked remedial reading? Does writing "Thus
>spake Jacques Derrida:" look like making it seem "as if remarks Derrida
>offered following a lecture came from his essay"?
You're slow to catch on. Writing "Thus spake Jacques Derrida"
made it seem as if you were quoting Derrida. However, you weren't --
instead, you were quoting Hyppolite. That's one mistake, and the most
blatant. You also committed another by quoting remarks Derrida made
following a lecture and citing them as if they were part of the essay,
"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences."
Then you passed this display of brilliant scholarship on to the world.
(Incidentally, I miscounted, or rather I didn't notice that
talk.philosophy.misc had been added -- so make that six newsgroups.)
moggin:
>> What does this show? First of all, that your claims to rigor
>>are unfounded. Secondly, that your criticism of Derrida begins with a
>>basic mistake: you're unable to correctly identify his work. If I'm
>>right to say you got your information from Sokal's hoax, as seems to
>>be the case, then it also shows that while you're eager to attack
>>Derrida, you've been reluctant to read him. And given your response,
>>it shows that you find none of these failings to be of any concern.
Zeleny:
>Actually, I got my information from recalling Weinberg's article about
>Sokal's hoax in the New York Review and pulling the quotations from
>Sokal's home page. Lacking the Hopkins symposium publication, I have
>the Seuil edition of _L'écriture et la différence_, which I have
>been using in my discussion with Silke Weineck. And in my ongoing
>conversation with Brian Artese, I have quoted the Minuit edition of
>_De la grammatologie_. So if you were able to count, you might have
>concluded that I overcame my alleged reluctance to read Derrida in at
>least two cases.
Now that you mention it, I do recall your discussion with
Silke -- it may have slipped my mind because your references to the
text were so few and far between. As I remember, you spent most of
the time asking Silke to summarize the relevant essay for you, which
should hardly have been necessary if you had it on hand (not that I
doubt your word).
moggin:
>> There's also the irony that I mentioned before: Sokal's hoax,
>>designed to unmask post-modernism, has served to expose the thinking
>>and scholarship of its opponents. You're merely the latest victim.
Zeleny:
>What does it tell me about your own "thinking and scholarship" that
>you would rather cavil about the format of attributions than address
>the textual substance that I presented on three separate occasions?
This isn't a question about format. You set out to attack
Derrida, but right off the bat you wrote, "Thus spake Jacques Derrida"
and immediately proceeded to quote the wrong guy -- not an auspicious
beginning. Then you quoted comments Derrida made in discussion and
made them seem part of the famous essay, "Structure, Sign, and Play."
(Reading it in your copy of _L'ecriture et la difference_ might have
prevented that error, assuming your mistake was unintentional.)
In short, your claims to rigor are hollow. You can't figure
out who you're quoting and you misidentify basic texts, apparently due
to a lack of familiarity with their contents. None of which has any
visible importance to you. So while it was worth my time and trouble
to correct your errors, there's little else here for me to do.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: When will the U.S. finally go metric?
From: Daryl Lilburn
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:29:45 +1000
Peter Kerr wrote:
>
> > Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States
> > standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original
> > specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and
> > Bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a
> > specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be
> > exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just
> > wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.
>
> > > But a "base" of 60 is evenly divisable by quite a few handy integers:
> > > 2,3,4,6,10,12,15,30.
> > >
> > > And 12 inches/foot(or hours/half-day or eggs/basket), as already noted, by:
> > > 2,3,4,6
> > >
> > > Or 24 hours/day:
> > > 2,3,4,6,8,12
>
> I think this is the fault of the Babylonians. And with precedents like that
> you can't really expect Congress to move too quickly ;-)
>
> > > Of course, this advantage doesn't do squat for multiplication. And of course
> > > I can't figure out why there are 5280 feet to a mile. Or 3 feet/yard. And
> > > I would have to look up the size of an acre.
>
> It's those damn horses again, 8 furlongs = 1 mile
> The length of a plowed furrow, 1 furlong = 220 yards
>
> But now comes some medieval metrication:
> 1 furlong = 10 chains
> 1 chain = 100 links
> and to cap it off 1 furlong x 1 chain = 1 acre
>
> p'raps someone could provide a reference for the base unit 1 link = 8 inches
> was actually the length of some piece of Royal anatomy?...
>
> Our old title deeds are marked by a rubber stamp put there about
> metrication time in 1967: 1 chain = 20.12 metres
> 1 acre = 0.4046 hectares
>
> I guess they decided the difference of 3.2mm per chain was within the
> error of placement of most survey pegs on residential subdivisions, and
> while 8 sq ft per acre may sound a lot, when you spread it around the
> perimeter it makes interesting geodesy, but not great lawsuits.
>
> --
> Peter Kerr bodger
> School of Music chandler
> University of Auckland NZ neo-Luddite
I guess from this we can roughly calculate the speed of light in
furlongs per fortnight:
1 furlong = 10 chains = 200.12 metres.
Number of seconds in fortnight = 60 x 60 x 24 x 14
= 1.2096 x 10^6
Distance light travels in fortnight = 2.98 x 10^8 x 1.2096 X 10^6
= 3.605 x 10^14 metres
Hence, speed of light = 3.605 x 10^14 / 200.12
= 1.8012 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight
I hope someone finds this useful!
Dary Lilburn
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 03:22:08 GMT
In article , rvien@dreamscape.com (Robert Vienneau) writes:
>
>A traditional metaphor (from Popper?) - and it's a good one - is that
>science is reconstructing a fleet of ships while in full sail at mid
>sea.
>
A good one, indeed.
>Mati, can you summarize the "Whig theory of history" and tell us whether
>it is well-thought of by contemporary historians?
You got me here. How would I know (but lets read the quote)
... quote reluctantly snipped to save space (but extracted to
my archives, I'm going to keep it) ...
>
... On second thought, I decided to leave it. Won't hurt anybody to
read it again.
>A quote:
>
> "For many years now historians have preferred to turn their attention
> to long periods, as if, beneath the shifts and changes of political
> events, they were trying to reveal the stable, almost indestructible
> system of checks and balances, the irreversible processes, the
> constant readjustments, the underlying tendencies that gather force,
> and are then suddenly reversed after centuries of continuity, the
> movements of accumulation and slow saturation, the great silent,
> motionless bases that traditional history has covered with a thick
> layer of events...These tools have enabled workers in the historical
> field to distinguish various sedimentary strata; linear successions,
> which for so long had been the object of research, have given way to
> discoveries in depth. From the political mobility at the surface down
> to the slow movements of 'material civilization,' ever more levels of
> analysis have been established: each has its own peculiar
> discontinuities and patterns; and as one descends to the deepest
> levels, the rhythms become broader. Beneath the rapidly changing
> history of governments, wars, and famines, there emerge other,
> apparently unmoving histories: the history of sea routes, the history
> of corn or crop rotation, the history of the balance achieved by the
> human species between hunger and abundance...
>
> At about the same time, in the disciplines that we call the history of
> ideas, the history of science, the history of philosophy, the history
> of thought, and the history of literature (we can ignore their
> specificity for the moment), in those disciplines which, despite their
> names, evade very largely the work and methods of the historian,
> attention has been turned, on the contrary, away from vast unities like
> 'periods' or 'centuries' to the phenomena of rupture, of discontinuity...
> ...they direct historical analysis away from the search for silent
> beginnings, and the never-ending tracing-back to the original
> precursors, towards the search for a new type of rationality and its
> various effects...they show that the history of a concept is not
> wholly and entirely that of its progressive refinement, its continually
> increasing rationality, its abstraction gradient, but that of its various
> fields of constitution and validity, that of its successive rules of use,
> that of the many theoretical contexts in which it developed and matured..."
>
> -- Michel Foucault, _The Archaeology of Knowledge_, Pantheon Books,
> 1972, pp. 3-4.
>
Judging by the quote, this a book I should read. Anyway, there is a
lot here that I can identify with, especially regarding the broader
rhytms at the deepest levels. And I would apply the same thinking to
the history of ideas. Concepts indeed evolve over time and their context
may change and broaden. To the uninformed observer many of the
changes may apperar as discontinuities. But, this is very rarely the
case. Looking deeper underneath the surface one discovers the deep
currents which keep pressing till, at some point, the dam bursts and
the hitherto arid land becomes inundated.
Not recognizing the continuity means missing a big part of the
picture. Of course contemporary accounts tend to stress the change,
not the continuity. That's just human nature, we tend to tune out the
slow, gradual build up and recognize only the rapid changes. Viewed
from some perspective, though, things look different.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: more gibberish ?
From: lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com (-Mammel,L.H.)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 03:37:10 GMT
In article <53ka40$ek0@lynx.dac.neu.edu>,
Michael Kagalenko wrote:
>-Mammel,L.H. (lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com) wrote:
>]
>]Classically, the world could be viewed as existing in time, so that
>]the world itself experienced time the way we do. SR creates a
>]spacetime continuum, which is of itself a static thing - timeless.
>]In this context our experience of time becomes a problem, somehow
>]we move through this timeless realm experiencing the here-and-now.
>
> This is gibberish, quite unrealted to the actual SR.
Found this:
A four-dimensional continuum ... was called "world"
by Minkowski, who also termed a point-event a
"world-point". From a "happening" in three-dimensional
space, physics becomes as it were, an "existence"
in the four-dimensional "world".
RELATIVITY The Special and General Theory, by A. Einstein
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Subject: Re: When did Nietzsche wimp out? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 03:57:53 GMT
In article <54mlqg$qra@ssbunews.ih.lucent.com>, lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com (-Mammel,L.H.) writes:
>In article <326E6E4E.36F5@ovpr.uga.edu>,
>RICHARD J. LOGAN wrote:
>>So, even prior to Einstein's work, it was understood that there was no
>>absolute motion, no reference frame that could be claimed to be
>>absolutely at rest? ...
>
>
>Not by Newton on any account :
>
> Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation
> to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.
> Relative space is some movable dimension or measure
> of the absolute spaces; ...
>
You must realize (difficult as it may be) that what Newton though of
the subject has nothing to do with the issue, only what's in his
physics is relevant. And there is no absolute space in F= ma, this
equation remains the same in all frames moving at constant velocity
one to another.
>My opinion is that the "Galilean transformation" was formulated
>by way of contradistinction to the Lorentz transformation. Note
>that late nineteenth century physicists were certain of the
>reality of a luminiferous aether, which one would think would
>have been identified with Newton's absolute space.
Actually, the aether got into physics as an attempt to solve the
crisis brought up by the electromagnetic theory. Maxwell's equations
aren't invariant under Galilean transformations, thus creating the
impression that there may be an absolute frame after all, namely the
frame in which they are valid. This is the same crisis that
eventually got resolved throughtheintroduction of relativity.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 03:48:51 GMT
In article <54m6be$q51@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>Anton Hutticher (Anton.Hutticher@sbg.ac.at) wrote:
>: Shure, but it is not the normal use in natural science. Communication
>: would be extremely cumbersome in science if right or wrong are understood
>: in absolute terms only. And "Newton was wrong...." does talk about a
>: scientific theory being wrong. Therefore most people will assume a
>: certain usage of this word.
>
>I understand that. Whenever a thread is cross-posted between science
>community and non-science community, however, mutual accomodations are in
>order. Witness the "generalization" terminology: for most people,
>"generalizing" something means to make it _more_ applicable, to extend or
>expand its applicability. I do not for a moment doubt that Mati uses the
>term correctly according to sci usage, but it's counter-intuitive to the
>rest of us.
>
You've been reading too much moggin lately :-) I suggest you stop
relying on his musing, go back to my posts and read for yourself.
The above is exactly the sense in which I'm using generalization. The
modifications introduced by Einstein, for example, extended the
applicability of then existing scientific theories to a wider realm,
without infringing on their applicability to the realms which were
previously covered. Where is the supposed semantic problem here?
This business of "two different meanings of generalization" is a
mythos invented by moggin as a smoke screen, to cover his retreat. I
didn't bother to comment on it when he brought it up, assuming that in
view of previously posted material the laughability of this excuse
should be obvious even to a casual reader.
>: Imagine someone at r.a.b. discussing Hamlet and starting with the line:
>: Hamlet is a chauvinistic piece of shit because the heroine, Juliet, is
>: killed by her lover, Romeo, against her wishes. Wouldn´t someone on
>: r.a.b. ask: Please, read *Hamlet* before you say that, and, if
>: possible, other Shakespearean pieces.
>
>I still think my analogy is better, since, as we established above,
>"right" and "wrong" as moggin uses them are legitimate uses of the word
>outside of sci,
Hardly. If I ask you "what time it is now" you'll say "quarter to 11"
or, if you've already been brought up on digital watches, you may say
"it is ten forty four". I rather doubt that you'll mention seconds
and I'm sure that you won't get into fractions of seconds. But this
is not a scientific exchange, that's standard usage. So, according to
the view you seem to champion, you answer is "wrong". Similarly, if I
ask for your height you'll give an answer rounded to the nearest half
inch (or the nearest centimeter, being an European). Again, knowing
that it takes infinite number of digits to get absolute accuracy, this
answer is "wrong". And, again, this is not a scientific exchange.
So, you see, this concept of "wrong" as used by moggin is not only mot
in use in science, it is also not accepted in general usage. So,
where is it valid?
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
Date: 23 Oct 1996 23:49:43 -0400
Noel Smith :
>"With Einstein," writes Derrida, "for example, we see the end of a
>kind of privilege of empiric evidence." Unfortunately this is simply
>not true, and in fact reflects a position, as Meron says, which is not
>possible for 20th century physics.
What's "simply not true" is that Derrida said what you claim.
>Such statements are driven by the underlying moral imperative of
>postmodernism, which is to liberate us from repression.
While _your_ imperative is to misquote Derrida, Nietzsche,
Foucault, and God knows who else. Ah, but now you've got competition!
(Incidentally, the example of Foucault disproves your assertion.)
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 02:00:53 GMT
Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin) writes:
: >zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
: >>>>Thus spake Jacques Derrida:
: >>>>
: >>>> When I take, for example, the structure of certain algebraic
: >>>> constructions [ensembles], where is the center? Is the center the
: >>>> knowledge of general rules which, after a fashion, allow us to
: >>>> understand the interplay of the elements? Or is the center certain
: >>>> elements which enjoy a particular privilege within the ensemble?
: >>>> ...With Einstein, for example, we see the end of a kind of
: >>>> privilege of empiric evidence. And in that connection we see a
: >>>> constant appear, a constant which is a combination of space-time,
: >>>> which does not belong to any of the experimenters who live the
: >>>> experience, but which, in a way, dominates the whole construct;
: >>>> and this notion of the constant -- is this the center?
: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin):
: >>> I'm afraid you're badly mistaken: Derrida didn't say any of the above.
: Zeleny:
: >>I am afraid that you are correct. I have omitted the attribution of
: >>the above question to a Derridean sycophant. Not that apportioning
: >>boundless ignorance to two parties makes any difference in the outcome.
: moggin:
: > Your error is of commission, not ommission: you wrote, "Thus
: >spake Jacques Derrida" and proceeded to quote another person entirely
: >(namely Jean Hyppolite). This type of thing is frowned on, for the
: >reasons you demonstrate above.
: On the contrary, my point was to focus on the nonsensical claim that
: the Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center. Hence its
: force would not have been blunted, had I not neglected to expand my
: attribution to read "Thus spake Jacques Derrida in response to vigorous
: brown-nosing by Jean Hips-or-Lips", or whoever.
Just as quick nit-picky correction here: when JD gave that talk, he was
nobody; JH was big stuff. In other words, you're fantasizing.
Silke
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 02:05:08 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: In article <54lifs$nrh@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >LBsys (lbsys@aol.com) wrote:
: >
: >: Sorry, but again it seems, that in the humanities there is not much
: >: understanding of technical things, thus Silkes point wasn't well thought
: >: up at all. If her (Oh Lord, won't you buy me) Mercedes Benz would contain
: >: a fuel pump which goes broke after too short a time, Mercedes will
: >: silently replace it with a _newly_ engineered and differently made model
: >: for to fix the bug, which otherwise would just occur again. This is what
: >: Mati quite obviously meant (a fault in the construction of one element)
: >: and not the replacing of the same element after just a mechanical wore-out
: >: of the first. Such an assumption wouldn't have helped in the analogy at
: >: all, as elements of theories do not wear out, but do have to be replaced
: >L by _different_ ones, if there's a bug to fix. In my opinion that wasn't
: >: too hard to see even without a technical background.
: >
: >So you are suggesting that 20th century developments in physics are the
: >equivalent to a clandestine ("silent") fixing? Seems to me you're getting
: >in deepter instead of digging yourself out.
: Why clandestine? I know, I know, you pick on the "silently" above.
: It is important, with analogies, to concentrate on the essential, not
: on irrelevant details, else not much progress can be made.
No doubt. We are still looking at the analogy. Newtonian mechanics was
the car, physics as an institution was Mercedes. QM, I think, was the
fuel pump. Lbsys doubted the accuracy of my critique of your metaphor.
Science itself is not in question; rhetorical accuracy is.
: >: Also, as a sidenote, what appears to Silke as a completely new model of
: >: one brand is mostly only the outer appearance. Over lots of generations
: >: lots of parts are kept (like motors, axles and the like) and only
: >: reluctantly exchanged for newer ones. So of course 'Classical mechanics'
: >: vs. 'Relativistic mechanics' may look like two different models to the
: >: onlooker, the brandnew one replacing the older one, when in fact the same
: >: heart still is beating under the bonnet.
: >
: >I assume that most physicists pay more respect to Einstein, Newton, and
: >co. It's of course your and Mati's prerogative to think of them as
: >fuel-pumps; seems that even Mati has parted company with you in the
: >meantime, though.
: Again, lets concentrate on the essential. The issue is not whether
: fuel pump or transmition are better comparisons. The issue is one of
: continuity. The analogies are there to illustrate a point and if you
: find one analogy more pleasing then another, I'm not about to quible.
: But if we now start arguing about details in the analogies, we may be
: forced to use second order analogies to illustrate the first ones, and
: so on ad infinitum and ad nauseam. So, lets get back to the issues.
It seems you have clarified the issues you think are important quite
satisfactorily; as I said before, your explanation makes perfect sense. I
was nitpicking the analogy a bit, and didn't expect that to snowball into
yet another attack on my professional credentials or the state of
humanities as such.
[...]
Silke
Subject: Re: How much to invest in such a writer? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 00:17:04 -0400
haneef@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
[...]
> I just want to point out the important point here that these
> examples of bad speech are NOT CRITICISMS of ANY SCIENTIFIC
> KNOWLEDGE! Neither of these statements attacks ANY SCIENCE in
> any way. "Newton was wrong", according to Maggin (as far as I
> can tell from what I have read, in exactly the way scientists
> take him to be "wrong." The argument has been about the use of
> the word "wrong" - a semantic, and ironically linguistic (as
> opposed to scientific), debate. They both agree that the results
> of N's laws hold for certain domains of experience. I am fairly
> certain that your own bad speech is equally misunderstood "good
> speech."
Anton Hutticher :
:Then you have read moggin exactly the "wrong" way around. Moggins
:claim is essentially that only at v = 0 or c = infinite Newton
:is right and the slightest deviation from the "exactly true" value
:makes him wrong. This is *not* how scientists take Newton to be
:wrong.
You're nobody to give lessons in reading; in fact, you're a
member in good standing of the scientific illiterati. It seems you
never even managed to read what I said to you in my last post. Or do
you remember Newt, the train conductor? He announced the first stop
with almost perfect accuracy. On the second one, he was five minutes
off; the third one, fifteen. Then a half-hour, two hours, and so on.
Anybody with a lick of sense would conclude Newt was reading from the
wrong schedule, even though his first announcement was nearly exact,
and his first several announcements were at least close enough to be
useful.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: When did Nietzsche wimp out? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 01:03:44 -0500
In article <326E8005.703A@OVPR.UGA.EDU>, "RICHARD J. LOGAN"
wrote:
>I was startled by a previous posters response
>that religious people daily question the founding principles of their
faith (at
>least that's the way I interpretted the posters comment) and that the
practice of
>science was in some sense a religious enterprise. I don't accept this view
>primarily because (to use my example) it's possible to question and revise
>fundamental concepts like space and time in science but I think it would be
>impossible for a christian to question and revise the divine nature of christ.
Um, why? I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that by
"to question and revise the devine nature of christ" you mean "to accept
that christ has a devine nature, but to question and revise what that IS
and what it MEANS." Otherwise, of course, your analogy is just plain
wrong, since it is NOT possible for physicists (or anyone else) to decide
that space and time don't exist in any sense. So, why can't a christian
question the meaning or nature of christ's divinity, in the same way that
a physicist might question or revise the best way to model "space" or
"time"??
To
>most (if not all) classical physicists, the nature space and time were
concepts as
>hallowed as the divinity of christ to a believer (so I think this
satisfies your "it
>is good to behave in such a fashion..." requirement).
How so? I am about as far from an expert on christianity as you are
likely to find anywhere, but it seems to me that one of the central tenets
of the faith is "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your mind, and all your soul." (Probably misquoted.) That is a
statement of the form "it is good to behave...". It is also a statement
open to wide interpretation, since it's not at all clear what precisely it
entails in practice, as a guiding commandment for living one's life.
I don't see any sort of behavioural recommendation in the phrase "the
nature of space and time."
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew_Perry@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st001914@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin)
Date: 24 Oct 1996 00:33:32 -0400
(Mati):
>This business of "two different meanings of generalization" is a
>mythos invented by moggin as a smoke screen, to cover his retreat. I
>didn't bother to comment on it when he brought it up, assuming that in
>view of previously posted material the laughability of this excuse
>should be obvious even to a casual reader.
Wrong on the facts, since I brought it up literally weeks ago
(by now it might even be months), when the discussion was at its peak.
As I remember, you did comment on it at the time, although I could be
mistaken about that.
(And while it's a matter of interpretation, you sure seem to
have picked up your heels, while I haven't gone anywhere, as of yet.)
Mati:
>[...] If I ask you "what time it is now" you'll say "quarter to 11"
>or, if you've already been brought up on digital watches, you may say
>"it is ten forty four". I rather doubt that you'll mention seconds
>and I'm sure that you won't get into fractions of seconds. But this
>is not a scientific exchange, that's standard usage. So, according to
>the view you seem to champion, you answer is "wrong". Similarly, if I
>ask for your height you'll give an answer rounded to the nearest half
>inch (or the nearest centimeter, being an European). Again, knowing
>that it takes infinite number of digits to get absolute accuracy, this
>answer is "wrong". And, again, this is not a scientific exchange.
>So, you see, this concept of "wrong" as used by moggin is not only mot
>in use in science, it is also not accepted in general usage. So,
>where is it valid?
A better question is, how is that an honest account of my
meaning?
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Science and Aesthetics
From: Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 01:36:54 -0500
In article <54dlai$8j0_001@fi.smart.net>, fi@oceanstar.comDeleteThis
(Fiona Webster) wrote:
>Silke, can you explain a little further what you mean about "the end of
>aesthetics as we know it"? How would scientific research into human
>perception of aesthetic value, be substantively different than research
>into other psychological/neurological topics -- such as memory,
>identity, time perception, etc.?
I'm not Silke, but I'll take a stab at the question. There are those who
would say that for aesthetics to BE aesthetics, it must take "The
Aesthetic" to be a privileged realm, which in this context simply means a
realm which is not reducible to, say, normative psychology, neurological
mapping, or ideology critique. There is an investment, empirically
observable but difficult fully to account for, in preserving the
(illusory?) belief that Art is special in some sense, and that scientific
and/or ideological accounts of it are missing something crucial. Perhaps
the simplest way to put it is just to say that aesthetics takes Art to be
its object of study, whereas both science and ideology critique take art
to be their object. The latter believe that the capital A obscures clear
perception of the object, whereas the former sees it as integral to the
object.
Thus, anyone who accounts for aesthetic reactions either scientifically or
ideologically is by definition killing aesthetics.
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew_Perry@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st001914@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole