Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 06:54:02 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu (Mati):
> >> Fine, lets assume that we've an element with a lifetime of 10^40
> >> seconds. This will give us 10^(-10) decays per second. You'll have
> >> to wait few hundred years to observe one. Lets assume a lifetime of
> >> 10^50 seconds. Now even if you wait over a time span equal to the age
> >> of the universe, there is still a negligible chance to observe a
> >> decay. So, also this element is in principle unstable, you cannot
> >> distinguish it from a stable one (which has an infinite lifetime).
> >> "But", you may say, "I know it is unstable." Well, how do you know.
> >> Its instability is not a mathematical definition, it can only be
> >> established experimentally. There is no outside source of information
> >> here, no direct line from God. So, stability is the limit of
> >> instability here.
moggin:
> > Sorry, I can't agree. I know it's unstable because you told
> >me. (You're the physicist here, right?)
Mati:
> Is that a reason to trust all I say? :-)
Good point. Physicists are known to pull hoaxes, after all.
moggin:
> >Presumably you have some
> >way to know it's unstable that you didn't bother to fill me in on
> >(which is fine -- please spare me the details). Or maybe you were
> >just making an assumption, as you said. In that case, it's given
> >for purposes of this example. But it's unstable either way. If
> >experiment _was_ the only way to know,
Mati:
> The experiment is the only way to know. And I may assume, for the
> purpose of an example or based or other some theoretical reasons that
> such instability exists, but the assumption doesn't make it into a
> certainty. You think in terms of a student in a lab who views his
> goal as getting as close as possible to the "exact" result known by
> the instructor. But no such result exists, at most you've the results
> of more precise experiments.
Then your example was misconceived. You began by stating that
a given element was unstable. I don't know how you figured it out,
but that's what you said. But if you didn't observe it decay, and
observation is "the only way to know," then your premise was false,
and the entire illustration becomes meaningless.
> Sure, you can compare the experimental results to theory, where the
> calculation may be seemingly "exact". But who said that the theory
> itself is exact. It may be a scary thought to some but there isn't a
> single bit of science which is a "stable ground", an absolutely and
> exactly known reference to which everything else can be compared. No
> lab instructor notebook where you can peek to find out whether what
> you got matches the "true result". All that's there is a bunch of
> mental approximations being compared with experimental approximations.
Doesn't frighten me a bit. The point is that _you_ claimed to
know that the element was unstable. I went along, to be sociable.
Now you tell me, "But you can't know that!" Well, make up your mind.
Mati:
> >> Similarly no change is the limit of change in any
> >> case. And a flat is the limit of the hill.
moggin:
> > Exactly -- the limit is the point that it never arrives at,
> >as far as it's a hill. And no change is the condition change is
> >never in, so far as it's change.
Mati:
> Only if you've an independent way to find out that the change, in
> fact, exists. Which you don't.
Again, you posited change, and the hill. If you don't want to,
don't -- what else can I tell you? But my point was that if change
reaches the point of no change, it's _no longer_ change, and ditto
for the hill -- if it reaches the point of flatness (as you posited,
in both cases), it's not a hill anymore, by definition. Now, you
may remember some of my earlier comments about flat hills, towering
plains, and the like: if your world is filled with those natural
features, o.k. -- that would be another story. (Probably one with
a girl named Alice.)
Mati:
> >> If the finest instrumants
> >> cannot measure the difference between the assumed hill and the flat,
> >> how do you know there is a hill over there? By definition? Whose
> >> definition? We do not define differences, we find them through
> >> measurement. And if no measurement can distinguish between two
> >> situations then, physically, they are identical. [...]
moggin:
> > You know it's a hill because I told you. That's the premise
> >I began with, just as you assumed that some element was unstable.
Mati:
> Yeah. And in bost cases you reach a point where the statement is
> unverifiable. "I told you so" is not a sufficient basis in science.
That's the basis on which you've been speaking. You _assumed_
that some element was unstable, remember? Now you want to change
the rules. Which is o.k. But notice what you're doing. Anyway, I
came at it from the other side, too -- as I said, if your procedure
is to begin with the measurements, and you can't measure a hill, it
follows that, for you, a hill doesn't exist. What's the problem?
moggin:
> >Notice that I underlined "if," just to make that clear. And if it
> >_is_ a hill, then it can't be flat (by definition). But I made a
> >place for your perspective. If you decide that it must be flat,
> >since your measurements don't detect any height, then it can't be
> >a hill. Simple.
Mati:
> I wouldn't say "it can't be" only "it can't be distinguished from".
> But that's nitpicking. The point is, the limit doesn't need to be
> "arrived at", you just need to arrive at a situation which cannot be
> distinguished from the limit.
Need to for what?
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 07:30:31 GMT
moggin@nando.net (moggin):
> >> > Remember, too, that a hill is _never_ flat, by definition --
> >> >a flat hill is a contradiction in terms. So _if_ you have a hill
> >> >(that is, if the existence of a hill is given), it can't be flat,
> >> >even if it's so short that the finest instruments can't measure
> >> >its height; while if you decide that it _is_ flat, then you don't
> >> >have a hill anymore.
caj@baker.math.niu.edu (Xcott Craver):
> I am reminded of a philosophy student here who, in his logic
> class, had trouble with the notion of an "empty set." As far as he
> was concerned, a set is _never_ empty, by definition, because once
> you decide there's nothing in it, it's not a set anymore. I
> convinced him otherwise after a few simple examples (variants of
> the notion of {} actually arise quite commonly in everyday chatter:
> "I have nothing in my wardrobe," "There's nobody sitting in that
> chair," etc. etc).
Hey, caj -- nice to see you again. I'm fine with empty sets,
though. (Practically my favorite kind, unless I'm hunting in the
cupboard.)
> I would rather say that a flat hill is not a contradiction
> in terms, but simply a trivial case. Of course, that's just the
> voice of the little demon of abstraction whom all my Analysis
> courses summoned from the bowels of mathematical HELL. If I were
> on a walk in the countryside, and someone pointed to a cornfield and
> said, "lookit dat hill!" I would respond with a WHUH? But in the
> classroom, or in front of a blackboard, a hill becomes a more
> abstract concept.
I assume you're thinking along the same lines as Matt. If
that's the case, then you're not talking about a hill, but (I'm
speculating here, of course) about a broader category, probably
"elevation" or "height," which subsumes both hills and plains.
A flat hill _is_ a contradiction in terms, but "zero elevation"
isn't.
Mati:
> >> That's not physical thinking.
moggin:
> > Does that mean "the thinking of physicists"? I never said it
> >was -- it's mine.
caj:
> OH!! It's your thinking. You mean you meant to say, "IN MY
> OPINION, a flat hill is yadda yadda blah blah"...? All right. I can't
> say that your opinion is misguided; indeed, if you drew a non-flat hill
> and a flat hill and asked 100 people on the street if both were
> hills, you would get 100 "no"s. In my opinion a non-flat hill is yet
> a hill --- that's an abstraction of the concept beyond its everyday,
> 100-average-d00dz-on-the-street definition.
No, I meant to say that I don't take the fact that physicists
think differently as any objection.
> Come to think of it, its rather depressing: most of my
> concepts of numbers, space, shape, distance, infinity, etc. have in
> these past years evolved into something entirely contradicting the
> 100-average-d00dz-on-the-street definition. Perhaps that should
> serve as a reminder that tossing common-sense notions into an
> academic discussion can lead to confusion! Or it could mean that I
> should change my major.
This makes me feel a little uncomfortable -- I don't usually
find myself defending common-sense notions, or playing a d00d-on-
the-street. I'll try to work with it, though.
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu (Mati):
> >> Fine, lets assume that we've an element with a lifetime of 10^40
> >> seconds. This will give us 10^(-10) decays per second. You'll have
> >> to wait few hundred years to observe one. Lets assume a lifetime of
> >> 10^50 seconds. Now even if you wait over a time span equal to the age
> >> of the universe, there is still a negligible chance to observe a
> >> decay. So, also this element is in principle unstable, you cannot
> >> distinguish it from a stable one (which has an infinite lifetime).
> >> "But", you may say, "I know it is unstable." Well, how do you know.
> >> Its instability is not a mathematical definition, it can only be
> >> established experimentally. There is no outside source of information
> >> here, no direct line from God. So, stability is the limit of
> >> instability here.
moggin:
> > Sorry, I can't agree. I know it's unstable because you told
> >me. (You're the physicist here, right?) Presumably you have some
> >way to know it's unstable that you didn't bother to fill me in on
> >(which is fine -- please spare me the details). Or maybe you were
> >just making an assumption, as you said. In that case, it's given
> >for purposes of this example. But it's unstable either way. If
> >experiment _was_ the only way to know, and its instability wasn't
> >observable, then you wouldn't have had any reason to say that it
> >was unstable, in the first place.
caj:
> Yeah, if there was some other way to know. If there's no
> "direct line from God" that will tell you if the shtuff is stable
> or not, then we can at best classify it by its behavior. In that
> case, stability is the limit of instability, and what is
> unstable only a super-teensy bit would be classified as stable.
> If, on the other hand, we can predict it as being unstable with a
> super-teensy rate of decay, we would classify it as such. Quite,
> yes.
If observation is your only source of knowledge, and you can't
observe the element decay, then the premise that the element isn't
stable goes in the trash, and the example become meaningless. Now,
if you _can_ observe it decay, that's fine -- but then you don't
need to make any assumptions, and again the example is meaningless.
You bring up another possibility -- that you can _predict_ it will
decay; but that's knowledge several steps removed from observation.
And by the time you start using predictions to classify things --
well, you could be halfway across Wyoming, if you were in a car.
Mati:
> >> Similarly no change is the limit of change in any
> >> case. And a flat is the limit of the hill.
moggin:
> > Exactly -- the limit is the point that it never arrives at,
> >as far as it's a hill. And no change is the condition change is
> >never in, so far as it's change.
caj:
> I can't disagree with your definition of "limit," since
> in Mathland a limit of a sequence of things is something never
> arrived at through a *finite* number of steps; but this is very
> fluffy reasoning.
And your thinking reminds me of a lead weight. (Is this the
ritual exchange of insults?)
> Perhaps if you start with a hill, and let a
> single step be making it half as steep. FLAT is the limit of
> the hill, and you will never actually reach it after a finite
> number of steps, but that doesn't make the limit not a hill.
If flat means, y'know, _flat_, and the limit is flat, then
the limit is not a hill. Which would explain perfectly why the
hill never arrives. I wonder if we could apply this to Godot?
caj:
> Take numbers (another tangent! HA!!!!). Every real number
> is the limit of a sequence of fractions. Pi can not be expressed
> as a fraction, but there is a sequence of fractions (indeed, a
> countless number of them) whose limit is PI. Of course, after
> any number of finite steps you don't have PI, since what you have
> is yet a fraction. In this case, the limit is not a rational number
> (in Math lingo we call the set of fractions "open," because it
> has limits that aren't fractions). On the other hand, 1/1 *is*
> a fraction, and is the limit of the sequence {1/2, 3/4, 7/8, 15/16,
> ... }. We NEVER REACH ONE, just like we never reached pi, but
> the limit is still a fraction.
Sorry, I don't take numbers. But thanks for offering.
> The point is that the mere fact that we never reach a limit
> doesn't say anything about what it is. Just because you won't
> ever reach flatness when you approach it from a certain way doesn't
> mean a flat thing is outside of the set of hills.
I can go along with the first proposition, and halfway with the
second. Yes, the fact that you don't reach flatness from a certain
angle doesn't mean anything in particular (except that you can't get
there from here, which is pretty significant, actually). But what
we're dealing with is the fact that you can't reach flatness from
the direction of _hills_. Or rather, you can get there, but you do
it by climbing down the hill.
Mati:
> >> If the finest instrumants
> >> cannot measure the difference between the assumed hill and the flat,
> >> how do you know there is a hill over there? By definition? Whose
> >> definition? We do not define differences, we find them through
> >> measurement. And if no measurement can distinguish between two
> >> situations then, physically, they are identical. [...]
caj:
> I'm going to assume that when you say "physically," you
> mean, "empirically."
You're talking to Mati now -- ask him.
caj:
> In that case, sure: there is some small number
> epsilon for which a hill of height epsilon is indistinguishable from
> a flat plane by human measuring devices. Being a realist, I am quite
> averse to the notion of identifying two things just because we can't
> measure a difference between them, mind you! It isn't an empirical
> line of reasoning that would make me think that a flat plane is a
> hill, but just abstraction.
moggin:
> >Notice that I underlined "if," just to make that clear. And if it
> >_is_ a hill, then it can't be flat (by definition). But I made a
> >place for your perspective. If you decide that it must be flat,
> >since your measurements don't detect any height, then it can't be
> >a hill. Simple.
caj:
> By some definition, sure. By some definitions, a person is
> a 4-tuple. Careful when you say "by definition" --- confusing
> definitions with elementary consequences, for example, is a common
> mistake. Real life concepts are too fuzzy to hammer them into
> definitions that can be so easily matched or broken. A chair's
> purpose is pretty much to be sat upon, but sealing a chair in a
> plexiglass display case in a museum, away from the warmth of the
> human fanny, does not make it not a chair.
What are the consequences of a hill? I drove my car into one,
a few months ago -- shook me up some, but the consequences weren't
remarkable.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: faster than light travel
From: jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 07:16:24 GMT
In <327F7FE1.18F9@cyberspc.mb.ca> Doug Craigen
writes:
>
>Eric Kniffin wrote:
>>
>> jw wrote:
>> >
>> > In <01bbc62c$da817b00$7ec4abcf@default> "Kevin Thomas"
>> > writes:
>> > >
>> > >The "grandfather paradoxes" are actaully just erros of logic.
There
>
>The "grandfather paradoxes" are for wimps. Anybody with guts would go
back
>and kill themself. The grandfather parodox has me terrified to
encourage my
>kids to follow my footsteps in physics. If I start up a dynasty of
>physicists, I increase the odds of being bumped off as a part of
somebody's
>thesis research.
On the other hand, maybe your *conception* was a result
of just such a project: so don't keep your kids away from
physics, or you may go out like
a candle, never to have existed. :-)
>My favorite of these is to arrange a completely mechanical situation,
such as
>a pair of worm holes such that a ball goes into one, enters the second
at the
>end, and comes out the other at the right time to knock itself out of
going
>into the first one. No spilled guts, but a paradox nevertheless.
Kip Thorne describes exactly this model.
One case was for the billiard ball to give itself, in the past,
a glancing blow on the right, to change its trajectory
so that next "time" - back into the past again -
it gave itself a glancing blow on the *left* - and so on.
The result is that a macroscopic, classical body
would behave in an indeterministic fashion, having
two or many futures.
But then Hawking figured out that a beam
of vacuum oscilations would arise, apparently always
destroying the whole
setup just before it could become a time machine...
||"Hawking suspects that the growing beam of vacuum
||fluctuations is nature's way of enforcing
||chronology protection: *Whenever one tries
||to make a time machine, and no matter what
||kind of device one uses in one's attempt
||(a wormhole, a spinning cylinder, a "cosmic
||string", or whatever), just before one's
||device becomes a time machine, a beam of
||vacuum fluctuations will circulate through
||the device and destroy it.*
||[...] My own calculations [...]
|| suggest to me that Hawking is
||likely to be right. However, we cannot know
||for sure until physicists have fathomed in depth
||the laws of quantum gravity."
(Kip Thorne, _Black Holes & Time Warps_, Chapter 14)
Subject: Re: Hermeneutics and the difficulty to count to three...
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 07:33:21 GMT
In article , moggin@nando.net (moggin) writes:
... snip ...
>meron@cars3.uchicago.edu (Mati):
>
>> The experiment is the only way to know. And I may assume, for the
>> purpose of an example or based or other some theoretical reasons that
>> such instability exists, but the assumption doesn't make it into a
>> certainty. You think in terms of a student in a lab who views his
>> goal as getting as close as possible to the "exact" result known by
>> the instructor. But no such result exists, at most you've the results
>> of more precise experiments.
>
> Then your example was misconceived. You began by stating that
>a given element was unstable. I don't know how you figured it out,
>but that's what you said. But if you didn't observe it decay, and
>observation is "the only way to know," then your premise was false,
>and the entire illustration becomes meaningless.
>
Why? If you want to talk about science, you've to be willing to
tackle "what if" questions. I could rephrase the example as "can you
distinguish between a stable element and one with a lifetime of, say,
10^50 years?". Or, if you prefer "suppose there exists an unstable
element with a lifetime of 10^50 years, could you distinguish it from
a stable one".
>> Sure, you can compare the experimental results to theory, where the
>> calculation may be seemingly "exact". But who said that the theory
>> itself is exact. It may be a scary thought to some but there isn't a
>> single bit of science which is a "stable ground", an absolutely and
>> exactly known reference to which everything else can be compared. No
>> lab instructor notebook where you can peek to find out whether what
>> you got matches the "true result". All that's there is a bunch of
>> mental approximations being compared with experimental approximations.
>
> Doesn't frighten me a bit. The point is that _you_ claimed to
>know that the element was unstable. I went along, to be sociable.
>Now you tell me, "But you can't know that!" Well, make up your mind.
I did. Long time ago.
>
>Mati:
>
>> >> Similarly no change is the limit of change in any
>> >> case. And a flat is the limit of the hill.
>
>moggin:
>
>> > Exactly -- the limit is the point that it never arrives at,
>> >as far as it's a hill. And no change is the condition change is
>> >never in, so far as it's change.
>
>Mati:
>
>> Only if you've an independent way to find out that the change, in
>> fact, exists. Which you don't.
>
> Again, you posited change, and the hill. If you don't want to,
>don't -- what else can I tell you? But my point was that if change
>reaches the point of no change, it's _no longer_ change, and ditto
>for the hill -- if it reaches the point of flatness (as you posited,
>in both cases), it's not a hill anymore, by definition.
As somebody posted today, the limit of a set doesn't have to be a
member of the set. But long before you reach the limit, you won't
know the difference.
>
>Mati:
>
>> >> If the finest instrumants
>> >> cannot measure the difference between the assumed hill and the flat,
>> >> how do you know there is a hill over there? By definition? Whose
>> >> definition? We do not define differences, we find them through
>> >> measurement. And if no measurement can distinguish between two
>> >> situations then, physically, they are identical. [...]
>
>moggin:
>
>> > You know it's a hill because I told you. That's the premise
>> >I began with, just as you assumed that some element was unstable.
>
>Mati:
>
>> Yeah. And in bost cases you reach a point where the statement is
>> unverifiable. "I told you so" is not a sufficient basis in science.
>
> That's the basis on which you've been speaking. You _assumed_
>that some element was unstable, remember? Now you want to change
>the rules. Which is o.k. But notice what you're doing. Anyway, I
>came at it from the other side, too -- as I said, if your procedure
>is to begin with the measurements, and you can't measure a hill, it
>follows that, for you, a hill doesn't exist. What's the problem?
No problem at all. The hill may be there still (in theory) but
measurement cannot verify it. Space can be curved so slightly that
measurement won't distinguish it from flat. etc. The point is that
entities which you would assume are inherently different can in fact
continuosly transform one to another.
... snip ...
>Mati:
>
>> I wouldn't say "it can't be" only "it can't be distinguished from".
>> But that's nitpicking. The point is, the limit doesn't need to be
>> "arrived at", you just need to arrive at a situation which cannot be
>> distinguished from the limit.
>
> Need to for what?
You don't like "need"? No problem, feel free to substitute something
else instead.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: the gravitational wave detection revolution
From: kfischer@iglou.com (Ken Fischer)
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 07:33:52 GMT
[sci.physics.relativity added]
adona26963@aol.com wrote:
: The international science community ought to be bracing itself for the
: third and greatest revolution in astronomy and physics-- the detection of
: gravitational waves and the "mapping" of spacetime. The first two
: revolutions I am referring to are the Optical and Radio Wave Astronomical
: Revolutions, not Copernicus and Kepler, although the two sets are
: comparable. The possibilities for answers from data taken from a
: resonant-mass (pioneered by Joseph Weber), laser interferometer (CIT&MIT;),
: or truncated icosahedral (LSU) detector are endless, yet gravitational
: wave detection techniques are not quite refined at this time - more
: research needs to be done.
Can you wait till LIGO is completed? :-)
: We must discover and utilize technology to
: detect gravity waves, which can only help because of their central role in
: this drama; as gravity, mass(which=e/csquared, approximately), and time
: are the keys to unlock the doors to the answers of such questions as:
: 1. What happens to matter and timeflow at the quantum scale?
What do you consider to be the "quantum scale"?
: 2. What efficient energy extraction processes are we missing?
Good luck on that.
: 3. "The cosmological constant, Hubble's constant, and the age of the
: universe"
Perhaps too ambitious.
: 4. What are the exact properties of:
: 1. the dark matter 2. black holes or singularities 3. QSOs, quasars 4.
: more
Do the first two exist?
: 5. WHAT DOES THE SPACETIME AROUND US LOOK LIKE?
: this fifth question is the most important one, mostly because it is of my
: opinion that we have no constructive observational data to give us any
: idea what our very own "spacetime quantum fluctuation and subsequent
: expansion" (read "The Universe") looks like other than where light comes
: from stars and galaxies.
The first thimg is to detect gravitational radiation
simply to verify it's existence.
I find myself in the uncomfortable position of trying
to make known the physics of a model of gravitation which
precludes gravitational waves ( [MTW] page 719 ).
: The dark matter, whether "hot" (neutrinos, etc)
: or "cold" (planets, brown dwarfs, etc) doesn't get detected by sight or by
: radio astronomy (excluding certain data like COBE's map and particle
: detectors-- I'm talking about the real massive bodies like QSOs, and the
: black holes and turbulent cores associated with them, and the "halos"
: (like the one around our galaxy) around nearby or especially significant
: galaxies, protogalaxies, or young galaxies like those seen by Hubble last
: December.
: As you can see, I might have overextended the reach that this revolution
: could possibly have - It is probably the opinion of most who even consider
: this matter that more could be done in other fields (no pun intended)
: besides Einstein's Gravitational ones. Fields like condensed matter/low
: temperature physics, statistical, fluid mechanics, or even elementary
: particle physics are in my opinion underneath Gravitation Physics/General
: Relativity/"Experimental" Quantum Gravity
: in the hierarchy of importance, using an Einsteinian "top-down" problem
: solving method. Therefore, we, the scientific community, ought to show
: interest and suppport for the detection of gravitational waves by calling
: for (can we do that?) a space-bound, Earth orbiting, or Moon or Mars-based
: (there's a real fantasy) G.W.D., preferably a Long Baseline Interferometer
: (LBI?).
LIGO has a rather long baseline, doesn't it?
: who thinks gravitational waves are a mirage, not the goldmines I think
: they could be?
I wish you would not have asked that.
: have you heard this all before? because I think you'll hear it again soon.
Good, I think gravity deserves more study.
Ken Fischer
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 08:04:58 GMT
Hardy Hulley :
>>>>>>>>>The question of what does quantum physics *really* mean,
>>>>>>>>>physically, is still very controversial, and I guess one could
>>>>>>>>>adopt the stance that it isn't meaningful. Of course, you'd then
>>>>>>>>>have to contend with the fact that it does make incredibly good
>>>>>>>>>*testable* predictions, in contradistinction to Derrida, who
>>>>>>>>>makes no testable claims at all.
Anton Hutticher :
>>>>>>>>And successful predictions are of course the only reliable way to
>>>>>>>>distinguish complex statements which sound like gibberish, but are
>>>>>>>>not, from complex statements which are gibberish. The exception
>>>>>>>>are fields which are formalized enough to permit a formal analysis
>>>>>>>>without recourse to verbal handwaving.
moggin@nando.net (moggin):
>>>>>>> Thanks, folks, for falsifying Russell's statement that logical
>>>>>>>positivism is dead.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
>>>>>>Would you care to explain what you imagine the views suggested above
>>>>>>have to do with logical positivism? Or are you merely trying to show
>>>>>>incompetence in yet another discipline?
moggin@nando.net (moggin) writes:
>>>>> You're in no position to be issuing challenges, but I'll humor
>>>>>you, just this once. Logical positivism: meaning is verification;
>>>>>a statement that can't be verified is meaningless.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
>>>>Not. Verificationism is neither necessary nor sufficient as a
>>>>characterization of logical positivism. For starters, you must
>>>>do justice to the genus and the differentia.
moggin@nando.net (moggin) writes:
>>> So who's characterizing? I offered a tenet, namely the one
>>>in common with the statements above.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
>>In other words, your offering had nothing to do with falsifying the
>>statement that logical positivism is dead. Thank you for playing.
moggin:
> Sure it did: if a central tenet of logical positivism is in
>circulation, and cited with approval, then it must not be dead.
At the risk of hating myself in the morning for catering to the
wilfully obtuse, here goes another attempt. F.H. Bradley, among
others, articulated the view that all propositions must have the
logical form of general assertions. It follows that all Bradleyan
propositions make predictions, and all predictions are, by definition,
testable. Hence BY YOUR LIGHTS, Bradley must be a logical positivist.
Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com
ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 04:48:20 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: In article <55vpse$ub0@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: >: In article <55vho0$o2k@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >: >
: >: >Quite. However, Derrida is in the business of thoughts, even though he
: >: >just might omit the just. Different priorities, so to speak.
: >: >
: >: Sure. And the thoughts of scientists are sometimes interesting at
: >: their own right. Still, it is worthwhile to realize that the thoughts
: >: of scientists, at any given moment, are a set which overlaps but is in
: >: no way identical to science.
: >
: >Believe me, I'm aware of it. I am not aware, however, of Derrida having
: >applied for a professorship in physics, so it doesn't seem all that
: >relevant. The argument against Derrida so far has usually taken the form,
: >"hah, the guy doesn't even know the science, he doesn't know what he's
: >talking about, why should I listen to him."
: The argument as I've seen it (note that I'm not involved in it) was
: rather "His statements in the specific passage quoted don't seem to
: make any sense."
Okay, I'll bite -- why doesnt it make any sense? Because nobody who
reacts that way has read SSP or has even the faintest notion of what
"center" means in this context.
: > As soon as it turns out,
: >however, that some people who know intimately what they are talking about
: >when talking about science share some of the concerns that seem oh-so
: >risible in the allegedly undereducated Derrida,
: I'm not sure what are the concerns you mention. I'm yet to see a
: clear statement on this issue.
Actually, a colleage of mine who has graduate degrees in both physics and
litcrit has mailed me his lecture on this question; I will, his
permission granted, post his take on it.
For the time being, however, let me phrase it like this: a lot of
scientists who were original contributors to 20th century science seem to
have understood SR and QM as profoundly unsettling in a philosophical
sense (Lew has posted on this briefly as well); I would think that these
people would not have been so quick to dismiss Derrida's statement that
SR can be seen as "the very concept of variability." My personal hunch is
similar to moggin's -- i.e. that it concerns changing notions of time and
space.
: >the question of expertise is all of a sudden declared to be
: >irrelevant -- I find this an amazingly backtracking strategy.
: Again, I'm not sure what expertise was declared irrelevant. Sorry if
: I sound dense.
I'm amazed that this point seems hard to grasp. I'll try again: Derrida
refers to SR as a decentering, destabilizing theory -- so have major
physicists before him. In deriding Derrida's (brief and cryptic, but this
_is_ oral and conversational, after all) perspective, lots of
"scientists" around here have made fun of his credentials and alleged
that the remark, taken out of context, shows his utter inanity in regard
to science. Now some people start pointing out that eminent physicists
might have had a similar take on these matters --- which seems to suggest
to me that it is _not_ a question of scientific expertise, but of
philosophical perspective, framework, etc.
Have I made myself clearer?
: > If people who _do_ know QM or SR etc. as you seem
: >willing to grant draw philosophical conclusions that you don't agree
: >with, then you will have to address these conclusions in the realm in
: >which they were raised, and you cannot hide behind "you guys don't know
: >your science so I don't have to engage with your thought" anymore. I know
: >that Heisenberg and Bohr are controversial figures in the philosophy of
: >science and amongst scientists sans philosophy, but it seems that
: >dismissing them tout court will not do.
: It is not an issue of dismissing, only of recognizing a very important
: distinction. Let me limit the issue to physics, I'm not trying to
: speak for all of science here. When you look at physics, at any given
: moment, you'll find a body of well defined statements, having to do
: with definitions of quantities, relations between them, how to measure
: them and how to compare them. This part is the hard core of physics
: and here there is no room for arguments regarding interpretations.
: Given same initial conditions the equations will yield same results,
: regardless of whether the calculation is performed by a Nobel Laurate
: or by a graduate student. OF course there is always the cutting edge,
: right at the boundary between the hard core and the unknown. That's
: where things are just in the process of being defined, concepts are
: being generated and that's where the "great" ones leave their impact.
Again, that's not the issue -- the issue is what kind of expertise allows
you to judge Derrida's remarks to be "gibberish" -- and by your line of
argument, the answer seems to be, none whatsoever.
: Now, around this hard core, there is a swirling "cloud" of personal
: philosophies and statements, where interpretations of "what does all
: this mean" appear and disappear. It is no doubt quite fascinating but
: one should be aware that what one finds there are mostly personal
: statements, ones which don't necesserely represent physics, rather the
: beliefs of whoever uttered them.
Again, that's not the issue. The issue is whether Derrida's take on
these matters belies scientific ignorance; if his take is similar to
the pioneers of modern physics, this argument starts to look pretty
stupid.
[...]
: The difficult part, of course, is to recognize when reading somebody's
: statements which part is science and which just personal opinion.
: That's the point where knowing some science may be useful.
"personal opinion" doesn't quite cut it here; philosophy is a discipline
with a long history and its own sets of rules and legitimazation
strategies; if the people to whose "personal opinions" you object are
brilliant physicists, then "knowing some science" is simply not the issue
-- knowing some philosophy is.
: Mind you, non of this is any comment on Derrida's knowledge (or lack
: of) of science). As I've mentioned above, I'm not involved in this
: argument and don't intend to.
Then the remarks do not apply to you in person -- to deny that the
"science camp" has argued in such a way, however, strikes me as rather blind.
Silke
: 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: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 09:03:39 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu (Mati):
> >> The experiment is the only way to know. And I may assume, for the
> >> purpose of an example or based or other some theoretical reasons that
> >> such instability exists, but the assumption doesn't make it into a
> >> certainty. You think in terms of a student in a lab who views his
> >> goal as getting as close as possible to the "exact" result known by
> >> the instructor. But no such result exists, at most you've the results
> >> of more precise experiments.
moggin:
> > Then your example was misconceived. You began by stating that
> >a given element was unstable. I don't know how you figured it out,
> >but that's what you said. But if you didn't observe it decay, and
> >observation is "the only way to know," then your premise was false,
> >and the entire illustration becomes meaningless.
> Why? If you want to talk about science, you've to be willing to
> tackle "what if" questions.
I've got nothing against what-if questions -- I'm just pointing
to a small problem with yours. You said, "Let's assume that a given
element is unstable," and then argued, "We can't know that, because
all knowledge comes from observation." O.k., then: don't go around
making assumptions.
> I could rephrase the example as "can you
> distinguish between a stable element and one with a lifetime of, say,
> 10^50 years?". Or, if you prefer "suppose there exists an unstable
> element with a lifetime of 10^50 years, could you distinguish it from
> a stable one".
The answer to the first question rests entirely on your criteria
for making distinctions. I'd say that the answer is yes -- you just
did. But if you say no, because you haven't observed it, then you've
got to correct your statement. Ditto for the second one. If we use
your supposition, it's easy to distinguish them -- one is stable, one
is not. But if you object that the distinction isn't observable, it
follows that something is wrong with your supposition.
[...]
Mati:
> >> >> Similarly no change is the limit of change in any
> >> >> case. And a flat is the limit of the hill.
moggin:
> >> > Exactly -- the limit is the point that it never arrives at,
> >> >as far as it's a hill. And no change is the condition change is
> >> >never in, so far as it's change.
Mati:
> >> Only if you've an independent way to find out that the change, in
> >> fact, exists. Which you don't.
moggin:
> > Again, you posited change, and the hill. If you don't want to,
> >don't -- what else can I tell you? But my point was that if change
> >reaches the point of no change, it's _no longer_ change, and ditto
> >for the hill -- if it reaches the point of flatness (as you posited,
> >in both cases), it's not a hill anymore, by definition.
Mati:
> As somebody posted today, the limit of a set doesn't have to be a
> member of the set. But long before you reach the limit, you won't
> know the difference.
As far as I understand the concept, the limit of a set would
have a pretty hard time signing up as a member. I'm not sure that
I follow your other point -- if you simply mean that a hill often
slopes down so gradually that you can't say exactly when it stops,
without being arbitrary, then of course I agree.
I'm deleting the rest. Nothing wrong with "need," though --
I was just asking about the need in question.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Do gravitational waves carry momentum? was: Does gravitational waves carry momentum
From: kfischer@iglou.com (Ken Fischer)
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 08:16:51 GMT
Nathan M. Urban (nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu) wrote:
: In article , kfischer@iglou.com (Ken Fischer) wrote:
: > In General Relativity, freefalling objects move
: > along geodesics in spacetime, and they move in inertial
: > motion (are _NOT_ accelerated), but everybody says they
: > are accelerated.
: > Bodies in orbit move in inertial motion, yet
: > everybody says they are accelerated.
: Relativists don't say they are accelerated.
I trust an explanation follows.
: > The reason that I brought this up, is that the
: > discussion was about binary stars (in orbit around
: > each other) producing gravitational radiation because
: > they are accelerating.
: > Gravitational radiation is supposedly a prediction
: > of General Relativity. In General Relativity, stars
: > in orbit around each other are _NOT_ accelerated (in
: > Newtonian gravitation they are).
: > So I am at a loss to understand how binary stars
: > in orbit around each other produce gravitational radiation
: > ( I must be a little stupid, maybe a lot :-), because
: > someone said two people received a Nobel prize for
: > their study of the effects of the gravitational radiation).
: It's not a stupid question, your objections are quite natural. Yet
: gravitational radiation is consistent with general relativity and the
: equivalence principle.
I found something on page 719 [MTW] that really
discourages me. It is something about gravitational
radiation being not being required if the expansion of
the universe is homogenous and isotropic.
I haven't fully digested it yet, but it is
another case of finding GR has already considered the
possibility of matter expanding, but, the authors dismiss
the idea in a single sentence, only on the basis that if
the expansion was general all the way down to sub-atomic
scales, there would be no way to detect or measure it,
at least that is the way I interpret what is said at first
read.
I consider surface gravity to be a pretty good clue.
: That there must be gravitational radiation of some sort is pretty
: clear. If you accelerate a charge, the stress-energy distribution of
: space changes, so the curvature must change to reflect this. This
: manifests itself as a "wave" of curvature changes propagating
: spherically outwards from the source. Because spacetime curvature can
: possess energy density, these waves can carry energy away from the
: system.
I concede that _if_ the expansion is like a balloon
with the galaxies represented by pennies glued on it's surface,
then there has to be gravitational radiation.
Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that the galaxies
also expand, and that all matter itself expands, due to quark-
quark repulsion. I don't enjoy the prospect of promoting
a model that excludes gravitational radiation, at least I
think it does, and it seems that MTW says the same thing, but
they dismiss the model on a "if it were, we couldn't tell,
so it isn't" basis (I suspect there was more thought put into
it than that, but I haven't read any more about it).
: But the conditions for radiation are interesting. The naive "it's
: accelerating so it must radiate" condition is not sufficiently
: precise. It turns out that mere geodesic deviation is not sufficient.
: Ohanian says that it is produced by a time-varying stress-energy
: distribution, which makes sense from the above argument. Yet
: "time-varying" in GR automatically causes problems. If you are in flat
: spacetime, a particle moving at constant velocity will have a
: time-varying stress-energy distribution from your point of view, but
: will not, of course, from its own. So that's not a precise
: characterization of the conditions. What you really need is a
: gravitational quadrupole moment; that can't be transformed away using
: the equivalence principle.
I haven't read Ohanian, my local bookstore is yielding
to an impending competition from a large chain bookstore and I
can't get any special order reading material right now.
But the time-varying part interests me.
: > In Newtonian gravitation, a rock pushed off a cliff
: > accelerates until it hits the ground below. According
: > to the definition of binary stars producing gravitational
: > radiation, it would seem that a rock pushed off a cliff
: > would produce gravitational radiation, at the speed of
: > light, and a detector on the ground below should receive
: > the gravitational radiation before the rock hits.
: > The nearness of the rock, even though it's mass
: > is small, should produce a greater flux for the detection
: > of gravitational radiation than binary stars many light
: > years away.
: Do the calculation. If the flux is as strong as you think it is, then
: why is everyone trying to detect astrophysical sources of gravitational
: waves?
Well, i g is much of an acceleration, but large
artillery shells are designed to withstand 50,000 g's,
and railguns might provide a decent accelerating mass.
I assume the flux would have to follow the inverse
square rule.
: Look at box 36.2 of MTW. They do a back-of-the-envelope calculation
: that shows that the gravitational radiation flux of a meteorite
: striking the Earth 10,000 km away is on the order of 10^-34 erg/cm^2,
: whereas the flux received from a star exploding 100,000 light years
: away is on the order of 10^-12 erg/cm^2. That's a difference of 22
: orders of magnitude! (However, this is the total flux over a time
: interval, and the flux for the latter case was calculated for a time
: interval that is 10^12 times longer. Still, that's 10 orders of
: magnitude.) But it's pretty clear that if you want the flux from a
: rock to be on that order of magnitude, your detector is going to have
: to be REALLY REALLY close to it.
I see in the box, comparisons of fission bombs and
small and large scale interactions. And the text relating to
the slowing of orbital speed-increased gravitational binding
part escapes me.
I think I could accept loss of mass or cooling,
moreso than I can loss of orbital speed, but I guess I
can't do analysis of the problem mentally as well as higher
math does (make that "I know").
: And, of course, since the waves from the rock will be highly localized,
: the relative intensities at different parts of the detector could be
: quite significant if it's a large detector. I think that things like
: LIGO work better with approximately planar gravitational waves.
I really expected spherical wavefronts, I don't
know what you mean.
: > But in General Relativity, the falling rock is not
: > accelerated, so it should _NOT_ produce gravitational
: > radiation. The question is, should binary stars in
: > orbit produce gravitational radiation?
: Yes. Why do you keep trying to insist that a prediction of GR
: isn't a prediction of GR? If the calculation follows from the
: equations of the theory, then it must be a valid prediction of the
: theory, since the equations themselves were predicated on postulates
: like the equivalence principle. This is a "paradox" in the same sense
: of the twin paradox -- something predicted by the equations that seems
: not to make sense until you study it more carefully.
: --
: Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia Tech
I have to insist (and it seems that page 719 concurs)
that if the expansion were general at all scales, gravitation
would produce a geometrical pseudo-field which would not require
gravitational radiation.
At least this is a more timely thing to study than
some of the other threads that go on and on.
Ken Fischer
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 09:23:09 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu (Mati):
> >> [...] One of the originators
> >> of the "least action" approach (an extraemly important part of physics
> >> but I won't get into details now), either Maupertois or Fermat (or
> >> maybe even both of them), was motivated in his work by theological
> >> notions. So, if somebody reads his rambling on the subject and
> >> considers them to be part of the his contribution to physics, one may
> >> conclude something like "one of the centerpieces of physics is based
> >> on religious mistycism". Which ain't true, although that founding
> >> father really thought so.
moggin:
> > Well, _one_ of them is -- as I've mentioned before, Newton
> >imported his concept of action-at-a-distance to physics from his
> >studies in hermetic philosophy (read: religious mysticism). The
> >reaction from his colleagues was just what you would expect: they
> >felt it was poppycock. But when the dust settled (as one might
> >say), it had become orthodoxy, and it stayed that way for several
> >hundred years.
Mati:
> I don't know if you did read the excerpt from Principia that somebody
> (I think either Weiss or Siemons) posted here few days ago. Newton
> writes there about gravity and clearly states that he has no
> explanation for its action and not going to try to offer one since
> (I'm not using his words here, only paraphrasing them, maybe somebody
> will repost) offering hypotheses which can't be verified isn't the job
> of a scientist. Doesn't strike me as introducing a mystical idea,
> rather stating "that's the way it works, though we don't know why".
Missed the excerpt, or read it too quickly. I agree that what
you're saying here isn't mystical, but I was referring to the concept
of action-at-a-distance, which Newton introduced to explain the way
that gravity worked -- in other words, to provide a means by which it
could exert its force. Action-at-a-distance is mystical in that it
comes from hermeticism, and also in the rather ghostly quality which
it has, as an idea. But as an explanatory principle, it's empty, I
think, more than it is mystical -- really, it just begs the question.
> Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "it became orthodoxy". It was
> used since it worked.
Wait a minute -- you just finished telling me it didn't exist.
> Mind you, Newtonian gravity is a formula, not a theory. There is no
> explanation of any sort offered. So, how does a formula become an
>orthodoxy?
That's a different question, and I'd like to stick with this one,
for now. Action-at-a-distance _is_ the explanation that Newton gave,
and the one that eventually became accepted, after the resistance died
down, even though it meant introducing sheer mysticism into physics.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Yipee, Yipeee, Yipee! The Pyramid is a RADIO!
From: pmj@netcom.ca(Peter Michael Jack)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 09:25:16 GMT
In <560gsv$af7@starman.rsn.hp.com> schumach@convex.com (Richard A.
Schumacher) writes:
>
>We don't doubt that. To effect a cure, try learning some
>basic modern biology and geology.
If you take two myths and put them together you get
a third myth. In this, and by this miracleous way,
marvelous theories are made. Eventually, you get an
entire structure of myth. Ideas, classifications,
groupings, and conjecture, all couched in a formal
dress of serious science can make idle speculation
look like science. But, here is truth -
I build a rocket, jump in, go to mars, pick up a rock,
come back to earth, and display it - it's a rock from
mars; that's science.
I walk about on earth, pick up a rock, examine it by
the most sophisticated techniques available -- I'll
never know where the rock came from. It could be mars,
it could be the astroid belt between mars and jupiter,
it could by a stray comet fragment, it could be all
manner of conjectures.
Hey, I don't know all about biology, nor all about geology,
and I too like to fool around with crazy ideas, but when I
decide to play scientist, I know what basic science is.
pmj
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 09:38:42 GMT
Hardy Hulley :
> >>>>>>>>>The question of what does quantum physics *really* mean,
> >>>>>>>>>physically, is still very controversial, and I guess one could
> >>>>>>>>>adopt the stance that it isn't meaningful. Of course, you'd then
> >>>>>>>>>have to contend with the fact that it does make incredibly good
> >>>>>>>>>*testable* predictions, in contradistinction to Derrida, who
> >>>>>>>>>makes no testable claims at all.
Anton Hutticher :
> >>>>>>>>And successful predictions are of course the only reliable way to
> >>>>>>>>distinguish complex statements which sound like gibberish, but are
> >>>>>>>>not, from complex statements which are gibberish. The exception
> >>>>>>>>are fields which are formalized enough to permit a formal analysis
> >>>>>>>>without recourse to verbal handwaving.
moggin@nando.net (moggin):
> >>>>>>> Thanks, folks, for falsifying Russell's statement that logical
> >>>>>>>positivism is dead.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
> >>>>>>Would you care to explain what you imagine the views suggested above
> >>>>>>have to do with logical positivism? Or are you merely trying to show
> >>>>>>incompetence in yet another discipline?
moggin@nando.net (moggin):
> >>>>> You're in no position to be issuing challenges, but I'll humor
> >>>>>you, just this once. Logical positivism: meaning is verification;
> >>>>>a statement that can't be verified is meaningless.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
> >>>>Not. Verificationism is neither necessary nor sufficient as a
> >>>>characterization of logical positivism. For starters, you must
> >>>>do justice to the genus and the differentia.
moggin@nando.net (moggin:
> >>> So who's characterizing? I offered a tenet, namely the one
> >>>in common with the statements above.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
> >>In other words, your offering had nothing to do with falsifying the
> >>statement that logical positivism is dead. Thank you for playing.
moggin:
> > Sure it did: if a central tenet of logical positivism is in
> >circulation, and cited with approval, then it must not be dead.
zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny):
> At the risk of hating myself in the morning for catering to the
> wilfully obtuse, here goes another attempt. F.H. Bradley, among
> others, articulated the view that all propositions must have the
> logical form of general assertions. It follows that all Bradleyan
> propositions make predictions, and all predictions are, by definition,
> testable. Hence BY YOUR LIGHTS, Bradley must be a logical positivist.
Far be it from me to harm your self-image, but it seems to me
that the statements above are sufficiently doctrinaire to qualify,
in virtue of their contents. Bradley, of course, is everything any
self-respecting logical positivist would reject, but I don't feel
at all compelled to enlist him in their ranks.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: cri@tiac.net (Richard Harter)
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 1996 09:38:41 GMT
weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>Richard Harter (cri@tiac.net) wrote:
>: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>: >I'm afraid you couldn't; distorting the quote won't help. Derrida
>: >corrects "constant" to "center" -- and if you want to understand the
>: >sentence, you will have to know what "center" means in the context of
>: >Structure, Sign, and Play. Which means you'll have to, gasp. read it.
>: Please, he does no such thing; the correction is from "center" to
>: "game".
>I beg your pardon: "The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a
>center." (Structuralist Controversy, p. 267. Later, the paraphrase is not
>of center for game, but of "_not_ a center" for "concept of the game."
Well, lets see: Hyppolites question ends:
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?
And Derrida replies:
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
In the first sentence Derrida says, three things very straight
forwardly:
(1) The Einsteinian constant is not a constant (as he is using the
term).
(2) The Einsteinian constant is not a center (as he is using the
term).
(3) The Einsteinian constant is the concept of the game.
This is in reply to Hyppolite who asks if the Einsteinian constant is
a center where "Einsteinian constant" is ostensibly defined by
Hyppolite. Hereafter, for convenience, I will use "boojum" for
"Einsteinian constant".
Now you said: Derrida corrects "constant" to "center".
And I said: Derrida corrects "center" to "game"
Now I should have said "concept of the game" because those are the
words that Derrida used. Other than that the essence is that H.
propose the erroneous proposition that a boojum is a center and D.
corrects his error, saying a boojum is the concept of a game.
Nowhere in this exchange does D. correct "constant" to "center"
unless, perhaps, he is correcting himself, i.e., he meant to say
"center" and first said "constant". If it is your contention that he
was correcting himself and that was what your point was addressing
then (a) your remark was highly tangential and (b) it was quite
misleading. I don't suppose that you meant any such thing, merely
that that interpretation is the only thing that fits in with his
remarks.
Without going into what D.'s "constant" and "center" are, there is a
clear implication in the text that the "center" must be a "constant"
which makes sense in view of the suggested role of the "center" in the
"game". Since two different terms are used we may likewise assume
that the intended meanings differ in some wise.
Of course you may have had some interpretation in mind that has
escaped me. I may have missed the obvious. Feel free to beat me
about the head and shoulders with it.
>Sheesh. Et tu, Richard?
Even so. Sad is it not?
>I will play this game with you as well: what does Derrida mean by center?
>What does he mean when he says that "the Einsteinian constant" is "not a
>center"? Not a center of what, for instance? If, as you say, the sense is
>"quite clear," this will be child's play. I do however caution you
>against using a concept of center that is not in keeping with the one
>Derrida alludes to in the essay.
Why, I would imagine that it is the concept of something starting from
which an observer could master the field. I don't suppose that that
is all that a center is, not at all, but that much seems straight
forward to me and is, after all, what the man said. The point is, he
is explaining why a boojum is not a center and that is the reason he
gave; it is consistent with the idea of a field being a game. I
didn't claim that one could deduce what D. meant by a center from a
single passage, merely that the relevant meaning within the context
was clear.
> Perhaps my
>: analysis was faulty; perhaps not. It is hard to say because it was
>: simply ignored. And that has been the fairly consistent fate of any
>: serious analysis in these discussions - it is ignored. Instead the
>: snidery's work overtime.
>: I find this a bit frustrating
>You know, I found my daughter Stella on the phone one day; I asked
>her whom she was calling, and she said, "the lady who tells you to hang
>up and try again.
Chortle. If you are saying that my little forays into pseudo
intellectualism have no audience and that I am not entirely swift in
not perceiving this, why, I can appreciate that. But if you are
contending that all efforts at intelligent discourse reach the lady
who tells you to hang up and try again, why I would be far from
arguing with you. Saddened perhaps, but the evidence is with you.
Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
Life is tough. The other day I was pulled over for doing trochee's
in an iambic pentameter zone and they revoked my poetic license.
Subject: Re: Where's the theory? (was: Specialized terminology)
From: cri@tiac.net (Richard Harter)
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 1996 09:40:41 GMT
brian artese wrote:
>Richard Harter wrote:
>> It is, by the way, not clear to me that Levi-Strauss's ur-myth is not
>> priveleged. It differs from all the others because the names are
>> place holders rather than actual names. To borrow the jargon of
>> computer science it is a class definition rather than an object;
>> objects (particular myths) are instantiations of the class definition
>> (the generalized ur-myth). The names and images in the ur-myth are
>> not real names and images; they are simply uninterpreted tags which
>> can be replaced by real names and images. Since this is a standard
>> tactic in formal logic one wonders how Derrida deals with it.
Brian does me the courtesy of answering my question:
>The things you call 'names' in the myths also act as metaphors or
>symbols, and therefore as functions or 'place holders.'
This isn't quite right; there is a substantial difference between a
symbol and a place holder.
>Or the argument can be inverted: You'll find that each of Levi-Strauss's
>'place holders' are either (1) utterly dependent on named objects, or
>(2) relational schemas that are unintelligible without reference to at
>least one of a finite set of particular objects (e.g., the earth, a
>plant, a man, etc).
There are two different issues here as I see it. The first, which you
point to, is that Levi-Strauss's symbols, the elements of his
ur-myths, are symbols of the same type as those in the myths that they
are intended to represent. [Disclaimer: ot having read L-S, I am
merely going from what has been written.] Thus, replacing Grandfather
Raven (I am quite fond of Grandfather Raven) with Oompah, where Oompah
is the creative being, is not an essential generalization. This
falls in line with Derrida's objection, as presented, that L-S's
ur-myth is not a center of the posited structure.
>What you call a 'class definition,' in this case, exists only as the
>rubric of a genus. Once you attempt to use this rubric as a 'place
>holder' it no longer acts as a genus -- it simply 'stands in' or 'acts
>as' one of the finite number of species that is associated with it. If
>you substitute a piece of paper with an 'X' written on it for an object,
>that does not allow you to posit a 'class X' that exists independently
>of that piece of paper.
This, on the other hand, is quite superficial. Since I don't feel
like writing an extended essay at the moment, you will just have to
take it as a naked opinion.
Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
Life is tough. The other day I was pulled over for doing trochee's
in an iambic pentameter zone and they revoked my poetic license.