Subject: Re: Do people see colours the same?
From: Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
Date: 12 Jan 1997 00:16:38 GMT
cmartin@hotdog.demon.co.uk (Christian Martin) wrote:
>Is there any evidence that different people see different colours
>(sorry, UK!) the same? For instance, is my 'red' someone else's
>'green'? I have thought about this for a long time, but even if you
>consider frequencies used (say 4.3x10^14Hz), everybody could call this
>'red' while some may see it as my green (but call it red) and some may
>see it as my 'purple' (but call it red).
A month or two back, Science hosted an article which listed amino acid
substitutions (mutations) in all the catalogued color blindnesses, along
with a series of color charts to test yourself.
One therefore is given to presume that,
1) everybody, on the average, sees the same color from the same
stimulus, and
2) mutants have been well-characterized; and are testable, detectable,
and quantifiable.
--
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
Subject: Re: Mars Rock Crock!
From: =eat-me@designated-mealtimes.org= ( >>>--->Word Warrior<---<<< )
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 00:43:57 GMT
casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova) wrote:
> >>>--->Word Warrior<---<<< wrote:
>Y'know, it would help readability if you would insert (or leave, in
>the case of quoted text) blank lines as separators.
Irrelevant.
>>casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova) wrote:
>>>On Fri, 10 Jan 1997 18:41:20 GMT, in sci.skeptic,
>>>>>>--->Word Warrior<---<<>>>casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova) wrote:
>>>>>On Wed, 08 Jan 1997 20:54:25 GMT, in sci.skeptic, =green@pipeline.com=
>>>>>(Word Warrior) wrote:
>>>>>>patrick@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola) wrote:
>>>>>>>In article <5api57$pvv@dropit.pgh.net> green@pipeline.com writes:
>>>>>>>>JohnAcadInt started it:
>>>>>>>>>It might be interesting, for example, to offer prizes
>>>>>>>>>for a cancer cure. Say, a billion dollars to the first
>>>>>>>>>team to crack it. [ I hope nobody is going to complain
>>>>>>>>>that we couldn't measure the results! Ed.]
>>>>>>>>People properly nourished in clean surroundings won't
>>>>>>>>get cancer at all.
>>>>>>>Clean surroundings, of course, being defined as excluding all radiation
>>>>>>>such as sunlight.
>>>>>>Your definition is inaccurate.
>>>>>Not if your objective is to prevent cancer, since the UV in sunlight
>>>>>can lead to skin cancer.
>>>>Sunlight is the source of all life on the planet.
>>>Yes, it is (no surprise here). Is it then your contention that
>>>anything required for life is therefore harmless? A number of drowning
>>>victims would probably dispute this.
>>My contention would be moderation, were I in need of one.
>Fine. So you agree that, in excess, solar radiation can be harmful,
>with no need for pollutants as "enablers".
Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>Thank you.
Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>(This was the
>point you initially disagreed with.)
Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>>>>That chronic contamination and dehydration of the
>>>>skin cells renders them more susceptible to the
>>>>damage of overexposure to daylight isn't a part
>>>>of that radiation per se.
>>>Since the radiation itself, with no assistance from any contaminants,
>>>can indeed cause skin problems,
>>Your substantiation for that would be _?_
>Ask a qualified medical doctor.
I have.
You make unsubstantiated claims.
>>> your point is invalid.
>>Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>Accurate/applicable; true regardless.
Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>>>Or do you
>>>believe that sunburn (which killed even in the time prior to the
>>>industrial revolution) is possible *only* because of pollution? Or
>>>that cancer was unknown to man prior to, say, 1500AD?
>>I believe that inundation in sunlight is something
>>the organisms on this planet are well adapted to
>>absorb in normal quantities in normal conditions.
>See above. And thanks for your admission of initial error.
Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
>>>>>>>First, that's not a cure, that's a preventative. Second, it's not
>>>>>>>a preventative as the treatment is more injurious than the disease.
>>>>>>Your substantiation for that would be _?_
>>>>{still waiting}
>>>>Organisms are designed to thrive, or had you
>>>>forgotten that?
>>>Organisms aren't "designed" at all.
>>Are they not designed by their necessities?
>Are necessities sentient?
Perhaps you'd imagine they'd need to be.
You've still failed to substantiate your claims.
_____________________________________________________________________________
|Respectfully, Sheila ~~~Word Warrior~~~ green@pipeline.com|
|Obligatory tribute to the founding fathers of the United States of America:|
| This is not to be read by anyone under 18 years of age, who should read up|
| on history and the First Amendment to the Constitution, as an alternative.|
| *Animals, including humans, fart, piss, shit, masturbate, fuck and abort.*|
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Subject: Re: THE UNIVERSE - HOW IT WORKS
From: nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan M. Urban)
Date: 11 Jan 1997 19:34:09 -0500
In article <5b8lm8$kcm$1@mhade.production.compuserve.com>, ALLEN GOODRICH <105516.1052@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
> The low tide, not the high tide,
> is observed directly under the full moon. This contradicts
> physics texts, the dictionary and encyclopedia definition of
> tide, which shows a picture of the earth with a bulge of water
> on the side facing the full moon, and states that the high tide
> occurs directly under the full moon. This is an error.
Diagrams are often drawn that way to make an illustrative point of the
effects of tidal forces, but any physics texts which state that the
high tide occurs directly under the moon are indeed in error. That
does not mean that known physics is wrong, it means the books are.
Take a look at Box 2.5 of Kip Thorne's _Black Holes & Time Warps_.
He, like most, draws the high tide under the moon. But the bottom of
the box says,
"If the tides at your favorite ocean beach do not behave in precisely
this way, it is not the fault of the Moon's gravity; rather, it is
because of two effects: (1) There is a lag in the water's response to
the tidal gravity. It takes time for the water to move in and out of
bays, harbors, river channels, fjords, and other indentations in the
coastline. (2) The Sun's gravitational stretch and squeeze are almost
as strong on the Earth as the Moon's, but are oriented differently
because the Sun's position in the sky is (usually) different from the
Moon's. The Earth's tides are a result of the combined tidal gravity of
the Sun and Moon."
> It is not conceivable that the moon could pull several feet
> of ocean water around the earth at better than 1000 mph.
You're right, it's not. I have a question: Why do you ignore everyone
else's explanation of why this does not happen? We don't need a
"Unified Theory" to explain the tides; Newtonian gravity does that just
fine.
--
Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia Tech
Subject: Re: The Physics of Absolute Motion
From: Gregory Loren Hansen
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 21:13:06 -0500
I'm back from vacation! Are you still around?
On Fri, 20 Dec 1996, Charles Cagle wrote:
> >That sounds downright mystical to me. In a sense, I side with the logical
> >positivists on this one. The only really scientific knowledge is that
> >which can be experimentally tested. Anything that cannot be subject to
> >empirical examination is not a part of scientific knowledge.
>
> empirical () adj.
> 1. derived from experience or experiment.
> 2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without
> using scientific method or theory, esp. in medicine.
> 3. verifiable by experience or experiment.
>
> Well then, what say you? Is revelation empirical since it can be
> experienced?
Come on, don't pull semantics on me. Otherwise there will be nothing
that is not empirical, and we'll no longer have a useful word.
> Science, being the process of experimentation and then looking at the data
> gathered from the experiments with a view to fitting that data to a causal
> framework which might be termed a theory is not quite a perfected process
> for the acquisition of truth. Pure experimentalism as a restricted
> scientific process works fine to develop just about any technology that we
> have. On the far edge we have theories which may help lead us to
> different types of experiments to develop technology but in the end the
> only thing that is 'scientific' by the strictest definition are the
> experiments and the data. But where do theories come from and why do we
> like to refer to them as 'scientific' theories when often there is nothing
> 'scientific' about them at all other than the fact they may have been
> dreamed up by persons who are esteemed to be 'scientists'.
Scientific theories are logical constructions that help us to make sense
of the world. They make predictions about the physical world that can be
tested, and a theory has been verified at least to some degree. A
fledgling, untested theory is an hypothesis.
Religion is not scientific because it usually doesn't concern measurable
quantities of nature, and it won't be disproved by physical evidence.
For instance, find any die-hard Christian creationist and ask if he'd be
willing to rewrite Genesis if it is found inconsistent with physical
evidence. If it's scientific, then Genesis must change to fit our
expanding knowledge or else be left behind as a disproved has-been.
Fiction is not scientific, but that one should be pretty obvious. Art
criticism is not scientific, because there is no set of physical
properties we can measure that will tell us if some interpretation of a
painting is "correct". Art criticism is meant to enlighten us in other ways.
> >They then go on to claim that metaphysics is therefore useless, but I
> >disagree with that. The metaphysics gives your theory an underlying
> >structure, guides your thinking. But I'm something of a metaphysical
> >relativist in that sense; if it's internally consistent, consistent with
> >the data, and works for you, one is as good as another.
>
> One may appear to be as good as another and the difference is made
> manifest when one predicts things not predictable by the other whether it
> be data that is already in hand or data to be gathered. Then one can
> advance ahead of the other.
>
> >I'm sure that
> >must be an officially catagorized and labelled school of thought, but I'm
> >equally sure I have no idea what it would be called.
>
> You already labeled it. Metaphysics. A person who practices it would be
> a Metaphysician or Metaphysicist. I've heard of the former not the
> latter.
Metaphysics is the general study of the nature of reality. There are
many different theories of metaphysics, or schools of thought, collected
since the ancient Greeks. I was trying to think of a specific name.
> The difference comes out in the stochastically measured effects. Like the
> general effect of having a multiplicity of particles in a container is gas
> pressure because of the impracticality of computing and tracking what
> appears to be random motions of particles. A tabulated report, however,
> of the processes at the individual particle level would provide me with
> more information than I might need to build, say, airpump technology.
> What we want in the end to build most technolgy are averages. I would
> make the point that the most advanced technology would be to learn what to
> do to control the statistics so that we don't deal with randomness but can
> direct the quantum states of whole ensembles of particles at once. We
> wouldn't be able to achieve that level of control without a deep
> understanding of the most primal principles of physics.
It's not at all clear that this is even possible. You may as well ask to
simultaneously measure the exact position and momentum of a particle.
> QM is a statistical theory and the mathematical mechanics of it are well
> tested. But QM doesn't point any deeper, in fact, it doesn't really
> address process at all.
I think it's Feynman who once said that anyone who says they
understand quantum mechanics is lying. I can do the math, I've trained
myself to think about probability waves in useful ways, but I sure
couldn't tell you where it all came from or why that's a useful way to think.
> >But it's all we have. It's easier to make that objection in cosmology
> >because there is more out there that we haven't seen than we've seen. But
> >it's no different, in principle, than stating "This is my friend Bob,
> >because there is nothing else I know of that looks like him, talks like
> >him, acts like him, and has the same memories I believe Bob should have."
>
> I disagree. It is quite a bit different than Bob. We can interact
> directly with Bob. We can talk to Bob and hear what he has to say and
> observe him even when he may be unaware that we are observing him. Since
I did say "in principle", acknowledging there are some important
differences between between watching a black hole and watching Bob. But
we still don't have direct experience of Bob. We only have sense data,
or maybe photographs or a video or something, that we interpret as Bob.
> their essence and their interrelationships with each other. But
> nevertheless we then start pontificating about black holes and even make
> it a career (Hawking for example) when the facts are that the three
> inscrutable fundamental aspects of a BH remain in the sphere of absolute
> conjecture. This is nothing less than the blind men describing the
> elephant.
Black holes are based on theories that have had some verification. Black
holes are an example of extending that theories into realms we haven't
observed yet. That's the whole point of a theory, it advances physics
beyond a mere catalog of observed events. And as we noted, there are
some objects out there that can be explained as black holes but not as
other known objects. Just because you're holding out on finding some new
object that looks just like a black hole doesn't mean we don't have some
evidence of them. More on evidence later.
> >The old saying goes, "If you want proof, go to the mathematics
> >department." Science in general, including physics, can't supply "proof"
> >in the same sense that a mathematician can prove the Pythagorean theorem.
> >It would at first seem a theory can be proven correct by running an
> >experiment and showing the results match the predictions. But you've only
> >done one of an infinite number of possible tests, at one time out of all
> >possible times and one place out of all possible places. So "proof" in
> >science really does reduce to failing to disprove.
>
> Oh come now. That is insane. How did you ever talk yourself into that?
The same way I'm going to talk you into it.
1) No theory can ever be "proven" as certain knowledge. We can
never make the infinite number of experiments to a test a
theory under all possible conditions at all possible times.
We must always accept that our knowledge is incomplete, and
perhaps tomorrow a new discovery will blast our cherished
theory into the scientific history books.
2) We can, however, prove a theory is false, simply by showing
a prediction it makes is untrue. Proving false is the only
certain knowledge we can ever have about a theory.
Given those points, what would you have us do?
> Any accusation (or assertion) then, would constitute proof if one could
> not prove otherwise. This is science ala Maxwell's demons.
As I've said in previous letters, we can talk about a confidence level of
a theory. A new theory that has never been proven wrong, but has never
been tested in any way, is an untested hypothesis. Unless it has a very
compelling symmetry or something, we would be right in having no
confidence in it at all. But special relativity has been tested,
debated, and used continuously for decades without failing. It seems
reasonable to continue using it.
But first, before any of that can even begin, the assertion has to be
stated in proper scientific terms. That is, it has to make some kind of
prediction that we can test, with failure being grounds for dismissing
the theory.
> > The number one most important step is to formulate your hypothesis in
> >a falsifiable form. You must be able to make some prediction that can, at
> >least in principle (even if engineering difficulties currently prohibit
> >it) show your hypothesis is false by not giving you the results you
> >expect. This is the fundamental difference between science and
> >disciplines like theology.
>
> Then there is an open endorsement to the concept that there is no such
> thing as 'absolute truth'. Because if there were absolute truth it could
> never be falsified nor could one cobble up a test to disqualify if from
> the realm of absolute truth. This is a variant of Russell's Paradox. If
> you were in possession of the 'absolute truth' or perfect universal theory
> then you would not be able to logically derive any test except tests which
> would confirm it. Even if you could do the most miraculous things in the
> world which science had not even yet dreamed of with certainty then this
> perfect universal theory could not cut the mustard if cutting the mustard
> meant to be falsifiable. This requirement stands as the insidious
> guardian of truth not as a beacon to lead you to it but rather to forever
> prevent you from obtaining it.
I thought you understood, but then you swerved and missed the point.
Starting at the end, being falsifiable doesn't mean finding a condition
that makes the theory false. It means finding a condition that the
theory requires and that we can measure, where a measurement
contradicting the prediction means the theory is false. I could tell you
there are invisible creatures watching you that do not interact with the
physical world in any way. There is nothing you can to do disprove that
because there is no way to measure something that doesn't interact with
your senses or your instruments. That doesn't make those invisible
creatures true, it just makes them non-scientific constructs. I.e., it
is not a proper hypothesis.
Getting back to your first point, I thought it was pretty well understood
that "absolute truth" is something that goes beyond the physical sciences.
> > Theology may be logically rigorous, but the
> >subject is one that cannot be disproven (i.e. revealed knowledge,
> >scripture, God). Or art. We cannot run a chemical analysis on a painting
> >to see if a particular interpretation is "correct".
>
> This is non sequitor because a painting might be a very subjective
> abstract. There is no right or wrong to interpret.
Correct! In fact, the chain of reasoning that goes into the criticism is
usually more interesting and important than the conclusions. If you tell
your art teacher "This artist is obviously expressing a lot of rage",
he'll invariably ask you "Why do you say that?", and he'll wait for you
to answer, and probably discuss it.
The point here is just that art criticism is not science.
> Sure, philosophy is indeed the thing that separates people because it is
> from distinct philosophical frameworks that all data is interpreted. I
> believe, however, that all philosophies reduce to only two general
> underlying constructs. Everything else in the way of details is merely
> window dressing to hide the basics. I do understand your philosophical
I believe that there are two groups of people: those that seperate people
into two groups, and those that don't.
> position and that is why I might make the effort to encourage you to
> rethink it and perhaps change it. There is a better way of doing science
> than you ever imagined.
What is that?
> As far as your low opinion of 'revealed knowledge' there would be little
> point in arguing this with you if you have had no such experience
> yourself. But I'm not talking about the sort of 'revealed knowledge' that
> someone like Jean Dixon, or Omar the Astrologer might come up with or that
> which allegedly has come through from some 'channeler' or some UFO
> 'contactee'. Rather I am testifying that the Living God can make known
> to those who love Him all mysteries.
And how do we know that from Dixon or Omar? For every genuine
inspiration you'll find some yahoo that claims to be the second coming of
Christ, or Napoleon, or that a theory of everything can be found in the
measurements of the pyramids, or that God told him to shoot those people.
Revealed knowledge might be very useful to the person it's revealed to,
but only to the extent that it shines a light for further research. It
doesn't become useful until it's turned into an experiment and written up
for others to read and reproduce. And then it's empirical knowledge.
Until that experiment has been done, there's no way to tell if some peice
of intuitive or revealed knowledge is correct. That's built into the
whole scientific endeavor. Some assertion isn't true because God says it
is, it's true because people around the world have done the experiment
and measured it. This is called repeatability. If some result can't be
repeated by other people, it's considered a matter of error or fraud.
Later.
--
"But you can't let the package hide the pudding; evil is just
plain bad. You don't cotton to it. You've got to hit it in the nose
with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness. Bad Dog! BAD! DOG!"
- The Tick
