Subject: Re: Causality Violation
From: erg@panix.com (Edward Green)
Date: 24 Nov 1996 19:58:50 -0500
In article <32983D50.811@mail.ic.net>, Peter Diehr wrote:
>Edward Green wrote:
>>
>> I just want to add to the following, and I am not trying to stir up
>> trouble here or anything, that FTL signaling would hardly create
>> causality violations if it were allowed in only one frame. In other
>> words, in some privileged frame you could allow even instantaneous
>> communication, but in other frames only as another view of what is
>> happening in that frame. This is a possible self-consistent extension
>> to special relativity (I am not saying that any such thing is observed).
>>
>
>How could you possibly limit supra-light communication to within a
>single frame of reference? You and I, walking along the street,
>each have independent reference frames (centered on ourselves),
>which change all the time. Your suggestion requires a set of
>permanent fixtures, unmoving (i.e., an absolute reference system
>of buoys), which are the objects that can communicate in supraluminal
>fashion.
>
>But how would you keep the results of this communication within
>that fixed frame? Person with the ability to use the fixed system
>could use ordinary means to drop messages into all other local
>reference frames by ordinary means.
>
>Thus I conclude that any such special system must remain hidden ...
>and hence it is not something that we could ever find.
>
>Much like Newton's association of absolute space and time with
>"the sensorium of God".
>
Hi Peter. Look, I am not a relativity nut. Really!
Lets try an excercise... suppose, just for the sake of argument,
that I *have* said something sensible, but am having trouble in
communicating it to you. It is difficult to express anything
unexpected to the listener in a way that absolutely cannot be
misunderstood unless I were to write a 500 page legal brief, and you
were to promise to read it. I am suggesting a possible *logical*
extension to SR, i.e., a possible self consistent extension to the
observed local behavior of the universe. Bear with me...
I was indeed afraid somebody would say "but how can you confine FTL
communication to a fixed frame". Of course the answer is, you
can't... but lets pretend for a second I am *not* proposing the
obviously nonsensical possibility you see, but one whose expression
is necessarily closely related by the vageries of language. I tried
to indicate this by the phrase: "(observed) in other frames only as a
view of what is happening in this one". This is still subject to
misinterpretation ("How can something happen "in" a frame?"), but try
to understand what I am saying. Let's try a story.... (fade out)
Long ago and far away, God created the observable universe. He
cunningly constructed it so that locally, reference frames moving
with all imaginable relative velocities would see the laws of physics
identical in form, as expressed in the coordinates of those frames.
Since these laws included the laws of electromagnetism it came to pass
that the velocity of light was the same in the coordinate systems of
all these frames of reference. And it was good.
Now God saw that in this universe, there were no tachyons, and He
was sad, because He spent hours each day playing with his pet
tachyons, and He felt our universe should have some too. So Mr. Y
came down to our little patch of physical law, and had a seat. Now
naturally, whereever God sits, is a privileged frame of reference,
because He is the big man, Mr. Y. That is, God is certainly not
moving unless He wants to, so He must be at rest. But He saw that
there was no consequence of this.... *until* he let out his pet
tachyon.
Now the tachyon did cavort at superluminal speeds relative to the big
man, going this way and that. And it created quite a stir, because
some saw it moving slower than light, in their favorite frame of
reference, and some saw it moving faster than light, and some saw it
moving backward in time! (How they knew it was moving backward in
time is the subject of another story...) But no paradoxes could be
observed, because indeed there were none. And indeed, when the big
man saw it was good, and let out an entire swarm of the little guys,
and they all did cavort and play and cause much consternation among
the sub-luminal, no harm resulted to logic, because their influence
always moved forward in time in the reference frame beloved of the big
guy.... so clearly their is no paradox there. "Paradox" is a
frame independent notion... a *paradox* is either paradoxical in all
frames of reference, or in none. Amen
Look, special relativity makes us think in what at first are
uncomfortable ways, but eventually we get used to it. Now I am
asking you to think in a further uncomfortable way, but now the
discomfort is *relative* to special relativity. Any talk of allowing
a "privileged" frame (or less tendentiously, a breaking of the
Lorentz symmetry) may invite the reaction that I am some kind of
Newtonian recidivist, but I am just raising a logicial possibility
(for which I by no means claim precedence, by the way):
In addition to the observed structure of special relativity, let us
arbitrarily single out a fixed frame of reference, and let us
introduce a new kind of particle, the tachyon, which for concreteness
suppose always travels at 1.5c *relative to this fixed frame of
reference* (naturally in other frames of refernce it would either be
seen to be moving faster or slower than light according to the
behavior of its world line as plotted in the variables of that
frame -- which is what you saw as the nonsensical nature of my proposal,
that I seemed to deny this). I merely assert that this is a
self-consistent way the universe could be, not ruled out on the basis
of "casuality violtations". Do you see the distinction?
Naturally such a phenomenon would break the absolute symmetry of
physical law with respect to all inertial frames of reference... but
it would not break logic. And in answer to your question, no, it
need not remain hidden. All observers could interact with the
phenomenon in perfectly mundane ways.
Ed
Subject: Re: Can science provide value? (was: Where's the theory?)
From: jti@santafe.santafe.edu (Jeff Inman)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 00:50:50 GMT
"Michael S. Morris" writes:
>Boy, do you have me stereotyped. I would be the very last person
>on earth to claim that science is the way to eradicate human suffering.
>What I said (and we could easily retrieve the quote if necessary) is
>that a light donning of "alternative truth" bears an *ethical* price.
It's true that I got a little worked up, as they say. I was
intending, by developing contradictory ethical (or aesthetical)
systems, to help us try to distinguish values from the scientific
method. Another interesting and relevant experiment would be to try
and illustrate the inherent ethical bias in what is commonly
considered the "objectivity" of the scientific method. I find this
latter to be a much steeper hill, with the scientists I have
encountered, because the former experiment still allows one to
imagine that he is being crisp and analytical, as he sacrifices his
ego to the higher truth "logic", etc, etc, something which scientists
are fond of doing -- whereas the latter, which is really continuous
with the former at some level, requires one to discover that "logic"
is indistinguishable from instinct, and even from passion.
But, naturally, I got all involved with my own values.
That said, I don't see that there is any "ethical price" particular to
alternative "sciences" which the scientific method can claim to be
above.
>Not that it is the source of all suffering, but that it adds
>unnecessarily to the suffering we already bear. I do think the
>problem of credulity is much larger than it is given credit for. For
>instance, I would make the bald assertion that the problem of racism
>in the United States pales by comparison.
Lot more witches around, since they stopped burnin' 'em.
>The "ain't shit" sounded like you were saying that *I* granted
>no human worth to those who disagree. Since the heart of
>Enlightenment liberal political philosophy is to grant equal
>worth of soul to all human beings, regardless of disagreement,
>it is this possibly unintended inflection to which I was
>responding. But, of course, granting "worth of soul" is a far
>different thing than coming around to buy an airline ticket.
Well, like I said, I was probably enjoying myself too much to
practice complete moderation in my discourse.
What good does it do to grant everyone "equal worth" (of soul) when
you know that some of them are going to have to be killed so that
others can live? (Oops. Trying to provoke you, again.) I guess it
just doesn't interest me whether you grant people "worthiness of
soul", when you dismiss them anyway. As you say, they may be worthy
souls, but you aren't buying any trips on their airline.
Brief digression: "enlightenment liberal political philosophy" seems
like a nice idea, if you consider Nature to have so much abundance
that there is enough for all, provided that each takes only that which
he needs. Or that it is possible to pursue life, liberty and
happiness without infringing on the abilities of others to do the
same. A scientist would want to examine these premises. I find both
premises extremely suspicious, though I don't claim to "refute" your
ethical system, thereby. I rather envy the kind of optimism that
could believe such a thing. Would be a big relief to live in a world
so ammenable to reasonable mediation. I guess that's why Noel was
always harping on and on about reason. The old kind of reason, I
mean.
>Jeff:
>> As the alchemists would say, one has to be able both to analyze
>> and to compose. Hmmm. The translation could be better. I
>> expect you'll get the point though. Maybe that's not a very
>> good pointer, because you'll just rejoin with something about
>> science involving both deduction and induction, which wasn't
>> quite what I meant.
>
>Look, induction and deduction were not what I was thinking.
>But I object loudly to the imputation that science is merely
>the cold, rational breaking up of all that is beautiful and
>whole in creation (as though even reason were "cold"!). It seems
>to me rather profoundly creative. And not just of aeroplanes,
>but I mean that Rutherford's planetary model of the atom, for
>instance, is the result of a deeply human and personal relationship
>with the universe on a par with Leonardo's "Lady with a Stoat".
I don't dispute that science is deeply creative and personal. In
fact, that's my point. It seems though, that to the extent it is
these things, it is not what has been meant by "science". Unless you
are going to tell me, as I think Mati Meron would, that the personal
experience involved is (*necessarily*) superfluous to the actual
scientific work being done. Mati would say (correct me if I'm wrong)
that it's all well and good if you have a dream about atoms dancing
and holding hands, but the only science involved is the bloodless and
reducible carbon ring. Scrape all the human goo off of your concepts.
And so forth.
>Of course there's more Truth than science can give, even in my
>philosophy. But my philosophy says first of all that yes, there
>*is* Truth. It also says science can give some of it. And my
>experience tells me that even this isn't easy.
No particular dispute there. What we are arguing about is not whether
science can deliver some truth, but rather about what truth is, and
about how scientists get ahold of it. Perhaps, some facets of truth
leave them standing on the doorstep with their wilting flowers, since
they haven't got enough gumption to woo. They don't like wooing, and
are afraid of being caught at it.
--
"What's a mook?"
"A mook, what's a mook?"
"I don't know."
"What's a mook?"
Subject: Professor Abdus Salam passes away
From: bala@tamucc.edu (M.K. Balasubramanya)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 01:16:31 GMT
The great theoretical physicist Professor Abdus Salam passed away in
the early hours of November 21 in London. It is a sad loss to physics,
and, in particular to the scientific community in the non-European world.
Reproduced below are two articles on the man and his mission, both
available at the web site
www.alislam.org/pakistan/salam.html.
M.K. Balasubramanya
Assistant Professor of Physics
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi
====================================
[1] From the New Scientist, 26 August, 1976
Professor Abdus Salax is a brilliant theoretical physicist who was
born of a Moslem family in what is now Pakistan. He shares his
enormous intellectual energy between the pursuit of quarks and a
passionate advocacy of third world needs. He talked about his life
to Dr. Robert Walgate.
Abdul Salam in a lecture delivered last December to the students of
the University of stockholm, spoke with controlled anger of the
exploitation of the third world by the advanced nations. Piling
fact upon fact, finally he burst out passionately with these lines
of Omar Khayyam:
"Ah love! could thou and I with fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire
Would not we shatter it to bits and then
Remould it nearer to the heart's desire"
Salam physicist, FRS, Moslem born by the banks of the Chenab,
passionate advocate for the third world has the heart of a poet
and the mind of a scientist. He loves beauty and looks for it in
his science. He is an excellent physicist concerned with deep
pattern; he is also deeply compassionate man. These two threads
intertwine through his life.
His work in particle physics has made many important contributions
to his subject, not least the unification of two of the forces of
nature - the weak and the electromagnetic - in a model which is
receiving thorough experimental support. He commutes between
Imperial College, London, and his creation, the International Centre
for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, a centre where third world
scientist's can keep abreast of development in physics. At 50, Salam
is full of energy, travelling all over the world to give lectures,
make speeches and - often successfully - persuade politicians to
realise visions. He fell in love with United Nations when he
attended the first Atoms for Peace conference in 1955, and helped
set up the UN Advisory Committee for Science and Technology, of
which he was an active member from 1963 until last year. And for
eight years he was by personal invitation scientific adviser to
President Ayub Khan of Pakistan.
He is direct, disarming, humorous deeply serious. He comes of a
line of Rajput princelings converted to Islam about the year 1200.
His forebears were scholars and physicians; but they were poor,
Salam's Moslem upbringing gave him the mores of Islam, the moral
code of the Koran, but it is relatively recently that he has come
to a spiritual discovery of his religion. "Islam to me is a very
personal thing." Salam says, "Every human being needs religion, as
Jung has so firmly argued; this deeper religious feeling is one
of the primary urges of man-kind." But Salam does not consign to
enternal hell fire those outside the fold: "I would like you to
become a Moslem, and share thee feelings I have but I wouldn't
stick swords into you if you didn't!"
Salam does not believe that there is any conflict between his
science and his religion. In physics, he has mostly been involved
with symmetries; and "that may come from my Islamic heritage; for
that is the way we consider the universe created by God, with
ideas of beauty and symmetry and harmony, with regularity and
without chaos. The Koran places a lot of emphasis on natural law.
Thus Islam plays a large role in my view of science; we are
trying to discover what the Lord thought; of course we miserably
fail most of the time but sometimes there is great satisfaction
in seeing a little bit of the truth." Salam also stresses that
from 750-1200 AD science was almost totally Islamic, and that,
"I am simply carrying that tradition on."
"My father had not taken scholarship as a profession, but he was
very keen that I should succeed that way. He influenced me very
strongly in that respect." The best jobs in Pakistan were civil
service jobs; but Salam took a maths degree in Lahore, won a
unique scholarship to Cambridge, and while there 'drifted into
physics'.
"There was no question I was very fortunate. If I had not been
awarded scholarship by the then Indian government it would
have been totally impossible financially for me to come to
Cambridge." The way Salam got the scholarship is to him
"something of a miracle". During the Second World War,
many Indian politicians wanted to help the British war effort.
One of them collected a fund of about 15,000 pounds but the
war ended, and he had to decide what to do with the money.
He instituted five scholarships for foreign education.
Salam and four others were selected. Salam had taken the good
care to apply to Cambridge simulataneously; and "the same
day I got the scholarship, 3 September 1946, I also had a
cable saying that an unexpected vacancy had come up at
St John's college - admissions were usually done much earlier
- and could I come up that October?" So Salam went to Cambridge,
but his four colleagues who were to be offered places next year,
never made it. The munificent politician died that year; his
successor cancelled the scholarship scheme. "In the end all that
effort to collect a War Fund, for buying munitions ended up
in one thing alone: to get me to Cambridge!" Salam laughed.
"Now one could call it a set of coincidences; but my father
didn't believe this. He had desired and prayed for this and
saw this - I think, rightly - as an answer to his prayers."
Salam emphasises the general moral. "Opportunities are so
sporadic in the third world that the man who is absolutely tops
may not even get a chance." There is everything against doing
science as a profession; "it is poorly paid, very little endowed.
You have to be highly motivated if you take it up; it carries
no influence or status in a status conscious society."
In Cambridge Salam took the part II mathematical tripos and
part II physics and came out a Wrangler - a first class degree.
The Cambridge tradition was that those with firsts did experiment,
while seconds and thirds did theory. "But for experimental work
you need qualities I totally lack - patience, an ability to make
things work - I knew I couldn't do it.Impossible. I just hadn't
got the patience."
Salam found his way onto some problems in quantum electrodynamics,
then a subject in the throes of birth (now the most accurate
theory known).
"There were a few problems left" said his supervisor, "but all
of those have been solved by Matthews". (Paul Matthews, now a
professional colleague of Salam's at Imperial College and shortly
to become Vice Chancellor of Bath University. He was then finishing
as Cambridge research student). "So I went to Matthews and I said -
have you got any crumb left?" Matthews gave him an important
problem "for three months". If Salam hadn't solved it in that
time Matthews would take it back. Salam solved it, and thereby
made an important contribution to "re-normalising" (eliminating
infinities from) meson theories. It took five months. That was
his PhD!
Salam returned to what was now Pakistan and to his old university
of the Punjab in Lahore as a professor. There was no tradition
of doing any post-graduate work; there were no journals; Salam's
salary was 700 pound a year and "I certainly couldn't put the
journals on that". There was no possibility of attending any
conferences. The nearest physcist to Salam was in Bombay and
that was another country.
The head of Salam's institution told him that though he knew
Salam had done some research he could "forget about it". He
offered Salam a choice of three jobs; bursar, warden of a
hall of residence; or president of the football club. "I
chose the football club."
The whole tenor of society was geared against any continuation
of research work in physics. Salam was faced with a tragic
dilemma; "I had to make a choice; physics or Pakistan" Salam
returned to Cambridge. There and subsequently at Imperial
College, London (where he was appointed professor in 1957 to
start the department of theoretical physics) Salam threw
himslef passionately into physics, inventing the two component
theory of the neutrino, working on particle symmetries and
in particular SU (3), and gauge theories with the unification
of weak and electromagnetic forces as a goal. But, in addition
to
this work, his burning concern, fired by his own unhappiness
at having to leave his country was to find ways of making it
possible for those like him, to continue working for their
own communities while still having opportunities to remain
first rate scientists. "I believe passionately that developing
countries need scientists as good as the developed countries do,
certainly in the university system. So in 1960 Salam conceived
the idea of setting up an International Centre for Theoretical
Physics, with funds from the international community, for example,
the UN.
To such a centre, those working in the developing countries would
come and with frequency to renew their contacts with physics while
spending the bulk of their time teaching in thier own countries.
The cnetre - rather than the developing country governments would
pay for such visits. Salam, after meeting a lot of indifference in
the first world, finally convinced the International Atomic Energy
Agency to take up the idea of the centre. Italy, the poor man of
Europe, came up with the most generous offer of site and running
costs and ICTP was established in 1964 in Triests.
After an experience of running the Centre for 12 years there has
been a shift in the disciplines, the Centre now emphsises, a shift
away from fundamental physics' to physics which may be more relevant
to the needs of the developing countries - for example physics of
the condensed matter. "We do post PhD work, not with an eye to
industrial laboratories - there are none in most of our countries
- but the hope is that if you have teachers in the universities
who have worked, for example, in solid state physics, then the
next generation at least will have an orientation which is much
more industrial.
"Thus we are stressing research in physics of solds, plasma
physics, physics of oceans and the earth, applicable mathematics;
physics of technology, of natural resources; together with
physics on the frontier. As an exmaple, in solid state
physics, professor John Ziman of Bristol, Norman March of
Imperial College and stig Lundqvist from Sweden, Chiarotti
from Italy, Garcia Molinere from Spain and their collegues
have created (through the work they do at the Centre) a mini
revolution in studies of this subject in the developing
countries. This is evidenced in the degree of scientific
maturity we now notice in the people coming to ICTP compared
to 1964."
Salam emphasises that "It is a most important point to make that
- even in a relatively large country like Pakistan - the active
physics community numbers no more than 50 persons for a population
of some 70 million people. And this is the total sample of men
who are responsible fro all advanced teachings, for all norms
and standards in physics, taught for engineering as well as for
all advice to the government on matters concerning technology
based on physics."
"Now considering that the active physics community is so small,
one can argue whether the teachers we train should be high
energy physicists or solid state physicists.
"Many people argue that we shouldn't do any fundamental science
at all but concentrate on, say, applied physics of solar energy.
Unfortunately things are not so simple. For solar energy
research the need is there, but the money is not there, nor
are the facilities.
"In the end it will be the U.S physicists, with the
mutimillion dollar facilities available to them, who will
produce a design that is the epitome of all designs for
economic devices in the solar energy field.
"But this does not mean we should not have men trained at
the highest possible level in solar energy work, men who
know from inside what the current work in this discipline is.
Perhaps the ideal would be men who commute between fundamentals
of solid state physics as well as its application to say, solar
energy devices. I do not believe this is impossible. To be
multidisciplinary in physics is the cross those working in
developing countries must be prepared to bear. Another is the
philosophy we are trying to live up to at ICTP."
Salam's concern for the third world has not been confined to
ICTP. He has struggled, from inside, with the educational,
scientific, and development policies of Pakistan. But his
first love has always been Physics, with a life that is a
tangle of Physics and non-physics interests. "It is hard to
switch; you find you are in the middle of something very
exciting and then you must simply drop it."
Salam gave a current example. At present he is alone with a
colleague, Jogesh Pati, in proposing that quarks can be free.
It is the right psychological moment to develop the idea, for
quark confinement is in theoretical difficulties. But with
constant interruption of work through the demands on his time
in running the Centre and keeping it alive, Salam bemoans the
fact that he cannot spare enough time to develop his ideas.
Does Salam think he's got the balance about right? "Well sometimes
I feel I'm being very foolish. I do what is necessary to achieve
what I want to but often less than that." Salam is a man with
tremendous enthusiasm - but he is one man without
time, strung across two worlds and two problems. It is a loss
to the world that he cannot have two lives.
[2]The News International (Pakistan) 29 January, 1996.
Abdus Salam -- Past And Present
by Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy
"Dear Abdus, On 29 January, 1996 you will celebrate your 70th
birthday and I should like to send to you the best wishes in
the name of your European colleagues.....I would like to
remember the day when I first met you. It was in December
1956 when you gave a talk at the Rutherford Laboratory about your
two-component theory in a colloquium which was chaired by
Wolfgang Pauli and when at the end he publicly apologized that
he had discouraged you to publish this fundamentally new theory...
Apart from your scientific successes, the foundation of ICTP in
Trieste was one of the greatest achievements in this century."
In the above lines Herwig Schopper, President of the European
Physical Society, pays tribute to one of the most remarkable
men of science of the 20th century, Professor Abdus Salam. In
alluding to Salam's unpublished 1956 two-component theory of
the neutrino, Schopper reminds us that Salam had narrowly missed
credit for a fundamental scientific discovery and for which,
instead, two American physicists shared the Nobel Prize in 1958.
Had Salam not made an unfortunate error of judgment, he would
have had not one but two Nobel Prizes today.
Tragically, the numerous congratulatory messages from the
world's prominent scientists might be incomprehensible to the
man to whom they have been sent. Now confined to his wheelchair,
he is the victim of a mysterious neurological disorder
leading to a gradual loss of control over body functions.
Visitors who have met him in recent months bring back little good
news. Today it is hard to recognize in him the Salam of
yesteryears - enthusiastic, vibrant, bluntly authoritarian, and
with a mind sharper than a razor's edge.
The Salam of days gone by was a man visibly possessed by two
passions. First, an urge to understand the nature of physical
reality using the tools of mathematical physics. Second, the
desire to put Pakistan on the high road to prosperity through
science.
Salam's first passion brought him fame and recognition. In 1949
this young prodigy, born in a very ordinary lower middle class
family in Jhang, earned a first-class degree in physics from
Cambridge University in just a year. Then in 1950 he solved an
important problem in renormalisation theory and instantly became
a minor celebrity. In 1951 he returned to Government College,
Lahore, but found to his disappointment that research was not
encouraged, even frowned upon. Without a library or colleagues
to talk to, he reluctantly went back to Britain in 1954.
By the early '60s, Salam was already one of the world's top
particle physicists with an enviable reputation in this most
difficult and fundamental area of science. But Salam was a
political animal as well. He skillfully used his growing
reputation to push his European and American colleagues
into supporting his dream of a major centre for physicists
from the developing world. With his unhappy period at
Government College at the back of his mind, Salam wanted
a place where third world physicists could practise the
advanced science of the West without being forced to become
part of the brain drain, as he himself had been.
In 1964, supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Salam succeeded in setting up the International Centre for
Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. Why Italy and
not Pakistan? The reason was simple: Pakistan showed no
interest, but Italy wanted the centre and was willing to
put down a lot of money for it. Today the ICTP is a sprawling
complex of buildings regularly visited by scientists engaged
in research from over 50 developing countries. There have
been over a thousand visits by Pakistani scientists.
Combining administration with research is never simple. But
over a period of four decades, Salam won about 20
international awards which, apart from the 1979 Nobel Prize,
includes the Hopkins Prize of Cambridge University for the
most outstanding contribution to physics in 1957-1958, the
Hughes Medal of the Royal Society, the Oppenheimer Memorial
Prize, the Adam's Prize, and many others. But more than a
winner of prestigious prizes, posterity will record Salam,
together with Steven Weinberg, as one of the unifiers of the
apparently different fundamental forces which govern the
universe.
In recent years, Salam's unified electroweak theory has been
elevated to the status of a touchstone. Now generally called
the Standard Model of particle physics, it has been tested
in dozens of clever experiments and has passed with flying
colours in each. Today the search for the "Higgs" particle,
predicted by Salam, is considered the number one priority
in the world of physics. Billions of dollars continue to be
spent on building accelerators with energies high enough to
produce this highly elusive particle.
With prizes, awards, seminars and meetings, the world of
physics has paid its due to Salam. But what about his country?
Under Ayub Khan, Salam wielded considerable influence. As the
chief scientific adviser to the President, he was instrumental
in launching a massive training programme for scientists, in
setting up PINSTECH as a high quality research institution,
and in creating the space agency SUPARCO. His influence
continued, albeit to a lesser extent, in the Yahya and
early Bhutto years.
1974 marked the turning point in Salam's life. By a decision
of the National Assembly, the Ahmedis were excommunicated
from Islam. Salam resigned from his official position as
chief scientific adviser in protest. On Bhutto's request,
he agreed to help informally. But from then onwards his
involvement with the Bhutto government was more symbolic
than substantial.
Somewhat paradoxically, Salam enjoyed better relations with
General Zia, who received him as a state guest and awarded
him the Nishan-i-Imtiaz in 1979. However, Salam was carefully
excluded from exercising any real influence over scientific
matters. Benazir Bhutto, on the other hand, during her first
term as Prime Minister, felt no need to accede to Salam's
request for an audience with her. And Nawaz Sharif, at a
Government College function, topped it all by reading from
a list of college alumni who had achieved distinction and
failed to mention the most distinguished one of them all.
Why did the leaders of government in Pakistan choose to
drive out the single Pakistani scientist who put this
country on the scientific map of the world? The answer
is obvious. Our leaders have always acquiesced, and even
pandered to, the growth of intolerance in the country. Salam
was but an incidental victim; to defend him was considered not
worth the political risk.
In 1979, when Salam visited Islamabad at General Zia's
invitation, the physics department at Quaid-i-Azam
University wanted Salam to give a lecture on his Nobel
Prize winning theory. But, because of threats from a student
group with a penchant for violence, this invitation was never
conveyed to him by the university authorities. There are other
examples: a cover story in the weekly Takbeer accused Salam
of selling out Pakistan's nuclear secrets. This perverted concotion
would have been amusing, rather than simply disgusting, had
it not been so laced with crude insults and abuse.
Fearful of being attacked, many admirers of Salam's achievements
have chosen to remain silent. Consequently, unlike India
which has science institutions named after men like Saha,
Raman, Bose and Bhabha, Pakistan does not have any institution
named after it's one and only great scientist. Nor is his name
made known to children through their text-books, or through
television and radio, even though the names of far lesser
persons are. Had Salam been an Indian, there is little doubt
that he would have been in the ranks of his equals.
Prejudices against Salam are not simply a matter of the past. Some
months ago the government created a committee which would set up
a new centre for physics in Islamabad. Reportedly after a brief
internal debate, the committee decided against
naming the centre after Salam. No reason was given.
And so it puzzles me why, in spite of all this, Salam remained
committed to Pakistan. Was it just plain stubbornness? Or was
it that certain beliefs acquired in one's early years remain,
no matter what? Whatever the reasons, this commitment was
transparent. Salam kept his Pakistani citizenship, spurning
British and Italian offers. At his Trieste centre, all
Pakistanis - including staunch anti-Ahmedis -- got preferential
treatment and had easier access to the director. Sometimes
visitors from other countries resented this. I also think
Salam's favouritism was wrong as a matter of principle, but
it is a clear indication of his deep attachment to his land
of birth.
More importantly, for over a decade, Salam has quietly been
supporting needy science students throughout Pakistan with his
Nobel Prize money. The money has also been used to purchase
scientific equipment for half a dozen Pakistani colleges, and
to support an annually awarded prize for scientific research.
Life's long journey, and debilitating illness, made Salam
deeply sensitive to estrangement from his country. How
much so, I saw from close at a 3 day conference held in
Trieste to honour his retirement from Imperial College,
London. Professor Ghulam Murtaza and I had been invited from
the physics department of Quaid-e-Azam University to attend
this veritable feast for the intellect. The world's top physicists
deliberated upon startling new clues to the birth of the universe,
down to relatively more mundane matters like quarks and
superconductivity.
One the third day of the conference, Salam was presented an
honorary doctoral degree by the University of Petersburg. The
conference hall was full. Flanked on his left by Nobel Prize
winners C.N. Yang and J. Schrieffer, and on his right by the
rector of the University, Salam listened from his wheelchair
but made no attempt to speak. At the end of the formal
proceedings, a multitude of people from the international
scientific community thronged forward and stood patiently in
line to offer congratulations.
As I watched, it was the turn of a nervous young Pakistani visitor
to the ICTP. "Sir, I am a student from Pakistan. We are
very proud of you..." The rest I was unable to hear clearly.
Salam's shoulders shook and tears coursed silently down his face.
A feeling of deep sadness overcame me. Nature has chosen to be
cruel to Salam. But nature is to be forgiven because it is
blind, both in its gifts and its punishments. Much less easy
to forgive is the treatment that we in Pakistan have given to
our best.
(Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy is professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam
University, Islamabad.)
Subject: Bell, Bohm and Bohr
From: "Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D."
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 18:15:00 -0800
Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> Barron Burrow wrote:
>
> >
> > Not so. Serious scientific point. Scientists only give quantitative
> > formulations, omit qualitative.
>
> Not so. Qualitative is usually first step toward quantitative.
>
> >Thus, ask scientist who is older, father or
> > son, he thinks question "nuts". But from psychological *qualitative*
> > standpoint, son may be v. much *wiser* than father .... i.e. puts data
> > together in a way that belies his lack of years. Scientist, because of
> > psychological bias, only interested in quantitative answer, does not admit
> > he has "staged" experiment ref question of "older" versus "younger";
> > therefore guilty of nontrivial error. Repeat: failure to incorporate
> > psychological component leads to nontrivial error.
> >
> > I argue it is crucial to include psychological/qualitative component into
> > cosmogony. Why? Because only psychology can account for lost symmetry,
> > i.e. symmetry lost with creation after big bang.
>
> Why? In a qualitative way, I define psychology as the nonunitary
> dynamics of protected macro-quantum states informed by back-action.
>
> >Consider: When first
> > particle created after big bang, which is the whole and which the part?
>
> Not an interesting question.
>
> > Deny *psychic* aspect to particle, and You say particle is just matter.
> > But "matter" is from L. 'materia', *mater*, meaning "mother". Human hubris
> > (and/or fear of plenum?) says particle is "only matter"; but that is to deny
> > particle is, finally, inseperable from *matrix*,
>
> This is less with more. The psychic aspect to the particle is simply its
> quantum pilot wave. End of story. The hidden variable particle is the
> material rocklike thing and the attached pilot wave is the thoughtlike
> thing in sense of beginiing of Stapp's book. Add back-action and the
> hard problem is solved.
>
> >i.e. 'vacuum' -- which is
> > on other side of "mirror of dialectical reversal"!
>
> The universe is made from fundamental acts of creation C and destruction
> D on different "modes" wich can be thought of as archetypal patterns or
> symbols of the Cosmic Code.
>
> Each mode has a lowest energy state |0> called its "vacuum" within a
> finite region of spacetime determined by boundary conditions on quantum
> fields made from the modes.
>
> D|0> = 0 = NOTHING = VOID
>
> That is the fundamental act of destruction destroys the vacuum. The
> vacuum is something. But it can be made into nothing. Conversely
>
> C|VOID = |0> = VACUUM
>
> So from nothing comes something.
>
> End of lesson 1.
>
> >From the Sacred Song of SAR.
>
> By the way Barron you are writing like Charlie Chan's No 1 Son. :-)
Jack Sarfatti on John Bell
Version 0.1
�.. despite numerous solutions of the [quantum measurement] problem �for
all practical purposes�, a problem of principle remains. It is that of
locating precisely the boundary between what must be described by wavy
quantum states on the one hand, and Bohr�s �classical terms� on the
other. The elimination of this shifty boundary has for me always been
the main attraction of the �pilot-wave� picture.� p. viii Speakable and
unspeakable in quantum mechanics, Cambridge, 1987
Bohm�s theory shows why Bohr�s idea that �the result of a �measurement�
does not in general reveal some preexisting property of the �system�,
but is a product of both �system� and �apparatus�...� This is because
the Bohm quantum force of pilot-wave on its attached particle, whose
actual position is the �hidden variable�, is nonlocal and
context-dependent. �Nonlocal� means action-at-a distance which can
effectively occur over �faster-than-light�,i.e., �spacelike� separations
between events in Einstein�s flat spacetime. �Context-dependent� means
that the force is form-dependent on which pilot-wave in quantum Hilbert
space beyond spacetime is �active� in Bohm�s sense.
�While the usual predictions are obtained for experimental tests of
special relativity, it is lamented that a preferred frame of reference
is involved behind the phenomena.�
This is because flat spacetime is still not dynamical in special
relativity the way it is in general relativity where there are preferred
frames within the given solution to the Einstein curved spacetime field
equations. For example, the preferred frame in the standard classical
cosmological model of our expanding universe is the Hubble flow in which
the cosmic blackbody radiation is isotropic to one part in a hundred
thousand.
�Any study of the pilot-wave theory, when more than one particle is
considered leads quickly to the question of action at a distance, or
�nonlocality�, and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations.�
Even the one-particle problem has nonlocality because the boundary
conditions on that particle�s pilot-wave is a phenomenological �lumped
parameter� description of all the particle that make the walls at which
the pilot-wave is forced to vanish.
Bell says he has a �negative� attitude toward the several version of the
�many-worlds� intepretations of the meaning of quantum theory.
Bell says, e.g. p. 146 that no local theory can reproduce all the
statistical predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics. Note orthodox
quantum mechanics has no direct �back-action� of the hidden-variable
actual position of the particle on its guiding pilot-wave. Back-action
causes a distortion away from the orthodox statistical predictions, but
it does not restore locality. On the contrary, it permits the control of
nonlocality which is uncontrollable when the back-action is effectively
zero.
Bell (e.g., p. 155) shows that Bohr did not successfully refute
Einstein. Yet many science journalists, like Martin Gardner, piously
quote a famous passage by Bohr that Bell shows is vacuous. I mean Bohr�s
mention of �no question of a mechanical disturbance ... an influence on
the very conditions which define the possible types of predictions
regarding the future behavior of the system ... with the finite and
uncontrollable interaction between the objects and the measuring
instruments...�. Bell responds that he has �very little idea� of what
Bohr means by �mechanical disturbance� and �an influence on the very
conditions� which is the cliche oft-quoted in the New York Times and
Scientific American, for example as if it explained the problem. Bell
concludes (p. 156) �Is Bohr just rejecting the premise-no action at a
distance�- rather than refuting the argument?�
To be continued
Subject: Re: Can science provide value? (was: Where's the theory?)
From: jti@santafe.santafe.edu (Jeff Inman)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 01:19:21 GMT
>> fi@oceanstar.comDeleteThis (Fiona Webster) writes:
>>> ... *if* (note the if) you value truth, then it's
>>> obvious that science -- by seeking truth -- does provide something
>>> valuable.
>Jeff replied:
>>There are kinds of truth -- not fairly demeaned as whimsy or fanstasy
>>-- which "science" (more properly: the technological, abstract, and
>>reductive metaphysical regime which lays claim to "truth" these days)
>>is poorly equipped to pursue.
>
>I agree.
>
>>In fact, perhaps "science" is best
>>equipped to deny that such kinds of truth have value.
>
>How is that? How can science decide what has value?
Well, it's going to sound like I'm contradicting myself, but I don't
think I am. What I meant was that while the ideal of "pure" science,
(which most scientists urge themselves toward) may seem to be devoid
of all interest -- science-boy scout keywords: disinterested,
dispassionate, objective -- yet it may be that this is a
misunderstanding of what "reasoning" really is. Or "observation".
The very idea of these kinds of *values* of disinterest and
objectivity are already one kind of interest and passion. This is not
mere wordplay. Science has a very clear notion of what truth is, how
one recognizes it, where it comes from, etc. This constitutes a value
system, and it also propagates and elaborates its values in the
phenomena with which it is capable of dealing.
Other phenomena don't "exist".
>>If you can't build an airplane, then you aint shit.
>
>I don't get your airplane comments. Building an airplane is
>a technological accomplishment, not a scientific one. The products
>of science are always intangible.
Yes and no. The priniples of Euclidian geometry might be untouchable
from the domain of any demonstrations from the given axioms and
postulates, but they do touch those demonstrations. (This is
Aristotle's touching without being touched.) A DC-3 comes into being
out of a certain world of concept and (intellectual) impulse.
[...]
>Yes, scientists are influenced by their values, in their search for
>Truth. I'm not sure what that has to do with things that exist, vs.
>things that don't exist.
I guess I don't want to try to explain this any better, just now.
Seems clear to me.
>Actually, I think I'm in over my head in this whole discussion, so maybe
>I should quit trying. I'm confused about why people are conflating
>science and technology.
For the reasons I mentioned above. And because it seems a suitably
demeaning tool of argument.
>I'm confused about what is meant by "to provide
>value" -- as opposed to "confer value" (which I understand) or "provide
>valuable things" (which I understand).
Name some valuable things.
>"Provide value" sounds to me
>like squeezing goodness out of a toothpaste tube -- a silly notion.
>Goodness is not created; it is assigned by human beings.
Welcome to post-modernism, as far as I feebly understand it. Do you
suppose that Truth could work in the same way? (For the record, I'm
not sure if I do. But at least I can see that there are compelling
arguments for imagining it this way, sometimes, and so when I am told
that such arguments are "stupid" I'm inclined to take up the
challenge.)
>>Science has limited itself to certain narrow kinds of things, so far.
>>The scientists keep assuring us that this route is the best way to go,
>>if we want to get to deeper insights with any degree of confidence.
>
>Who are these scientists? Why are "we" talking of "them"? Are not some
>of us scientists? My father is a scientist, my husband is a scientist,
>and I have had a variety of jobs doing science, myself. I don't know
>any scientists who say science is the answer to everything -- the only
>route to Truth, or even the only route to useful technologies. Science
>is the production of many very tiny little truths -- truths that are as
>non-value-laden as they can be, given that all scientists work in a
>world that itself has values built in.
>
>But there *is* this thing about capital-T Truth. If you get my father,
>my husband, many of my friends, etc., in a loquacious reflective mood
>late at night, and you ask them, "What *drives* you to be a scientist?"
>they always answer, "Curiosity." And "What is curiosity all
>about?"you ask them. And they say, "The search for Truth. And the
>conviction that while any one single item of information may have no
>value, that Truth itself, is a very good thing."
I also know scientists, and have worked in scientific fields for about
ten years now. But I'm getting bored. If scientists are really all
motivated by curiosity, then why are so many of them unimaginative
clods? Intelligent, no doubt. Bright and subtle and clever, yes.
But it seems to me that a really curious person would be brighter and
subtler and cleverer still, once he realized, as even a modestly
bright one would soon do, that his own curiosity and means of
questioning, etc -- his own *values* -- were the most difficult and
fruitful, uh, adversary. He would question his questioning. He would
doubt reason itself. He would contend with his pure selfless devotion
to truth. (And he also wouldn't be a reductionist.)
But this part of our discussion is about particular values, and so is
a digression, I suppose.
--
"What's a mook?"
"A mook, what's a mook?"
"I don't know."
"What's a mook?"
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: moggin@mindspring.com (moggin)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 02:32:29 GMT
weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck):
[...]
>>: >Btw, did you see the Plotnitsky quote I posted? Any comments?
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
>>: Can't add much to what I said before. The moment we start playing the
>>: game of "lets assume that when so and so said such and such, what he
>>: actually meant was (substitute you favorite phrase here)"
Silke:
>>as in, when someone says "space-time," what he actually meant was
>>"space-time"? You're right, the arbitrariness is just too much...
Mati:
>Coming in the wake of "Einsteinian constant" it definitely is too
>much. Nobody (in science at least) refers to space-time as
>"Einsteinian constant".
Hyppolite, who raises the question, isn't in the sciences. Of
course Derrida isn't, either. So it's a moot point. But since
Hyppolite explicitly refers to "a combination of space-time,"
suggesting that's what he meant is anything but arbitrary.
>So, how to we get to the "Einsteinian constant is space-time"?
Silke, Richard, and I have all given the answer before, but
I'll make another run-through. To start, remember we're
dealing with off-the-cuff remarks -- not a carefully written
paper. What's more, we're working from a translation of a
transcript of a conference -- the editor warns that "...some
of the participants in the discussions may have difficulty
recognizing themselves..." In other words, there's plenty of
room for error.
With that in mind, look at the discussion. In the course of a
long question, Hyppolite mentions "...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..." He calls this a "constant." Why, I can't tell you.
It seems to be a misnomer. But what he's referring to by the
term is plainly "a combination of space-time."
Derrida answers the rest of Hyppolite's question before he
gets around to Einstein. "...the Einsteinian constant," he says,
"is not a constant, is not a center." Which makes good sense
if you read it as a correction of Hyppolite's use of "constant."
If we add some punctuation the transcript may need, Derrida
is saying that "the Einsteinian 'constant' is not a _constant_."
Or to paraphrase, "What you're calling a constant isn't really
a constant at all." Then Derrida briefly addresses the subject
Hyppolite _was_ talking about -- space-time, considered as
what Derrida calls a "center" in "Structure, Sign, and Play."
From there, follow Plotnitsky:
[...] The moment one accepts this possibility and reads the Einsteinian
constant as meaning the Einsteinian concept of space-time, Derrida's
statement begins to sound quite a bit less strange. It acquires an even
greater congruence with relativity theory once one understands the term
"play/game" as connoting, in this context, the impossibility, within
Einstein's framework of space-time, of a unique or uniquely privileged
frame of reference -- a "center starting from which an observer could
master the field" (i.e. the whole of space-time). [...]
With these considerations in mind, on emight see Derrida's statement as
suggesting that, in contgrast to classical physics, the space-time of
special (and even more so of general) relativity disallows either a
(Newtonian) uniersal background or a uniquely privileged frame of
reference for physical events (which become contingent upon the frame of
reference from which they are seen). In short, one might see Derrida's
statement as alluding to standard features and questions at issue in
Einstein's relativity -- admittedly, in an idiom that is nonstandard,
especially for physicists.
[...]
Mati:
>To make matters more confusing, it has been already stated (by you,
>among others) that one shouldn't ascribe to the words "constant",
>"center" and "game" the meanings which these words have in common
>speach. Which is fine with me, but then I'm yet to see a clear and
>agreed upon (by all the participants) definition of what these words
>are supposed to mean.
The exchange about Einstein took place during a question period
-- the question period followed a paper that Derrida gave. The
paper is called "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the
Human Sciences." That's where to look -- maybe I'll do a bit of
typing later, but it's in Derrida's _Writing and Difference_, and
also in _The Structuralist Controversy_, where you'll find the
transcript of the discussion we've been arguing about.
[...]
Silke:
>>Btw, I'm not convinced by your argument "it's on s/p therefore
>> it must be physics;"
Mati:
>Oh, not at all. Most of the stuff on s.p. has little to do with
>physics. All I said was that if you crosspost a statement which
>sounds as pertaining to physics ("Newton was wrong" qualifies) to s.p.
>you should expect that it'll be evaluated from the point of view of
>physics. Now, if somebody has a different meaning in mind, all he/she
>has to do is say so. I'm kinda baffled by people who'll prefer to
>write 400 lines to obfuscate an issue rather then a single line to
>clarify it.
Still at it, huh? You make it sound as though somebody wrote
"Newton is wrong" and posted it to sci.physics for a response. Not
so. What happened, of course, was that someone (not me, I hasten
to say) added sci.physics and r.a.b. (at the same time, by the way)
to an on-going discussion. You jumped in with both feet -- for all
practical purposes, you trolled yourself. And now you complain
you didn't get a proper explanation.
Silke:
>> after all, it's also on rab, therefore about books, or on ap,
>>therefore about postmodernity, etc. etc.
Mati:
>True, and given most of the contents it belongs there. So, why it
>keeps being crossposted to s.p. at all?
Why do the p.'s keep posting to it?
-- moggin
Subject: Re: Can science provide value? (was: Where's the theory?)
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 02:25:39 GMT
Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>>>weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>>>>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>>>>>weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: >>>>>>>>>>>Michael Kagalenko (mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>>>>>>>Silke-Maria Weineck (weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: >>>>>>>>>>>>>Read a book or something, as Kagalenko would say. By Plato, on
: >>>>>>>>>>>>>Plato, something related. I've worked on Plato for five years
: >>>>>>>>>>>>>straight now,
: >>>>>>>>>>>>Gorgias' followers just wouldn't leave the Teacher alone.
: >>>>>>>>>>>You're _still_ trying to pretend you've read Plato? Kudos on
: >>>>>>>>>>>your persistence. Listen, it's rather simple: the logos/mythos
: >>>>>>>>>>>distinction is post-Platonic, and you cannot even begin to
: >>>>>>>>>>>understand Socrates if you don't understand why he stood still
: >>>>>>>>>>>before he joined the Symposion.
: >>>>>>>>>>How keen of Plato to have insisted on this post-Platonic distinction
: >>>>>>>>>>in _Phaedo_ 61b, _Timaeus_ 26e, as well as countless other places!
: >>>>>>>>>>Your aptitude for creative thinking would be most welcome at the
: >>>>>>>>>>Institute of Historical Review.
: >>>>>>>>>And when you get old enough to move away from soundbites, you may want
: >>>>>>>>>to consult Robert Zaslavsky's _Platonic Myth and Platonic Writing_
: >>>>>>>>>(Wash.D.C.: UP of America, 81) about the relevance of the above.
: >>>>>>>>>Meantime, you might want to acquaint yourself with the variety of
: >>>>>>>>>meanings given to both logos and mythos throughout Plato's oeuvre and
: >>>>>>>>>proclaim again, with a straight face, that Platonic logos equates to
: >>>>>>>>>science.
: >>>>>>>>The relevance of the above is to your claims (a) that "[you]'ve worked
: >>>>>>>>on Plato for five years straight now" and (b) that "the logos/mythos
: >>>>>>>>distinction is post-Platonic". In view of the said distinction being
: >>>>>>>>explicitly articulated by Plato, your arrogation of expertise implies
: >>>>>>>>a moral responsibility for your erroneous rebuttal. In other words,
: >>>>>>>>having lied about Plato, you are now trying to cover up your egregious
: >>>>>>>>lie by appealing to your critical authority.
: >>>>>>>It's called scholarship. Welcome to the concept.
: >>>>>>Appealing to your critical authority is called scholarship?
: >>>>>>Silly me -- I thought it was called preening.
: >>>>>>>> Sorry, that will not do.
: >>>>>>>>As I said elsewhere, that wilful overinterpretation of the classics
: >>>>>>>>can arbitrarily arrive at any desired conclusion does not make for a
: >>>>>>>>critical breakthrough. As regards your positivistic conception of
: >>>>>>>>science, it only betokens your crass innumeracy.
: >>>>>>>Give us an argument for science establishing values, and we'll
: >>>>>>>talk. So far, you're blowing smoke, as usual. Commit yourself to
: >>>>>>>an argument.
: >>>>>>The best positive argument is that science establishes truth, and
: >>>>>>truth is a value. On the negative side, there is the argument that
: >>>>>>ought implies can, and all possibilities are determined by science.
: >>>>>>Most undergraduate philosophy majors learn this much in introductory
: >>>>>>ethics classes.
: >>>>>You may have just inadvertently put your finger on what's wrong with
: >>>>>introductory ethics classes around here. Science establishes truth, but
: >>>>>not the value of truth. That truth is a value gets established elsewhere.
: >>>>That the value of truth gets established elsewhere does not imply that
: >>>>it cannot be established here and now, by a simple evolutionary model.
: >>>>At any rate, you asked for an argument for science establishing values,
: >>>>which is exactly what I delivered.
: >>Response?
: >You didn't give an argument for science establishing value, but for
: >science buttressing values already established. You said (in case you've
: >forgotten): "The best positive argument is that science establishes truth,
: >and truth is a value." Science may establish truth (even though we've
: >heard vociferous denial from scientists as to all that), but it doesn't
: >establish the valuableness of truth.
: I merely suggested the argument because its triviality does not bear
: articulation. Concern for truth has obvious evolutionary fitness value.
: Say what you will about evolutionary fitness, but it is certainly a
: value established by science.
The argument isn't applicable, and repeating it won't make it so. What
makes fitness a value? What makes survival a value? And what about
Nietzsche's argument that too much truth is pernicious to survival? If
you have any non-trivial arguments, let's see them.
: >>>>>>>I will, if it makes you happy, reformulate my initial assertion
: >>>>>>>that the "logos/mythos distinction is post-Platonic" to "the
: >>>>>>>logos/mythos distinction as it would apply to the context of this
: >>>>>>>thread is post-Platonic."
: >>>>>>Since you brought up the logos/mythos distinction in the first place,
: >>>>>>it is up to you to explain how it applies.
: >>>>>You introduced "logos" as synonymous with "science" -- I pointed out to
: >>>>>you that that usage of logos is Post-Platonic (or I have now), since
: >>>>>Plato uses "logos" to denote a variety of discursive acts, some of them
: >>>>>non-compatible with scientific inquiry.
: >>>>Must you exercise your talent for confabulation so often? I never
: >>>>used "logos" as synonymous with "science". Whatever you pointed out,
: >>>>was pointed out to Kagalenko, rather than me. To repeat the salient
: >>>>point, Socrates argued that virtue (arete) was scientific knowledge
: >>>>(techne or episteme) involving an ability to give an account (logos)
: >>>>suitable for teaching it to others. An example of this argument will
: >>>>be found in the _Laches_, explained by Gerasimos Santas in the 1969
: >>>>Review of Metaphysics.
: >>>You used logos in a different post just as I said; I'm too lazy to look
: >>>it up. The problem with tekhne and episteme, however, is just the same.
: >>>Tekhne can be mere craft (as in knowing how to ride a horse), and
: >>>episteme covers the knowledge acquired by revelation as well.
: >>Your memory is failing you again. At any rate, Socratic ethics is
: >>certainly rationalistic, which is the only relevant point here.
: >My memory as to Plato's use of tekhne is failing me? Please do elaborate.
: You are misattributing spurious claims about logos to me.
And you haven't addressed my point about tekhne.
: >Socratic ethic is part rationalistic, part mystical (or revelationary, if
: >you prefer); even so, rationalistic is not the same as scientific, so you're
: >still nowhere.
: The point is that rational accounts are neither arbitrary nor a priori
: separable from science. So if Socrates' argument is granted, your
: dissociation of values and science cannot be sustained.
No, the point is that science does not equal rational discourse, and that
therefore you haven't established anything about science by establishing
something about rational discourse (which you haven't established yet
anyway).
: >> If
: >>you have primary references for the implied claim that he countenanced
: >>acquisition and transmission of moral knowledge by revelation, please
: >>share them.
: >Phaedrus, myth of the soul; "the greatest values have come to Greece by
: >way of madness." Let me guess, you're going to ask me whether I can prove
: >that madness functions like revelation...
: We are talking about the philosophy of Socrates the historical person,
: not the various views articulated by Socrates the literary character.
And whose incarnation are you to have access to a non-literary Socrates?
: In this connection, Phaedrus is of little more relevance than the Laws.
: Even so, you are not accounting for acquisition, much less transmission
: of knowledge as such, until you articulate its logos to those who do not
: partake of your mania. And even if you should muster such articulation,
: there would remain a small matter of proving that thea mania yields some
: values inaccessible to rational inquiry.
You haven't read the Phaedrus or you are unable to address the argument I
made. The question is where knowledge is produced; if the transmission of
mystically acquired (intuited) knowledge takes itself the form of a logos
about revelation, you are begging the question of the transcendental leap.
S.
: 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
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