Enjoying the Dangerous View from the Frontier

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 "Acquired"  through experience is not how new knowledge comes into being, it comes into being through conjecture.

Knowledge does _not "_come into being". Knowledge is a label for what humans have so far learned through trial and error, and have successfully catalogued. Maybe an argument can be made that a specific person's knowledge colloquially comes into being the moment they have read and understood a page of a physics textbook, but I object to any nebulous statement of knowledge existing or "coming into being" independently of the learner.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody > 
Acquired means copied (or interpreted and re-instantiated in the case of humans minds, which is ALSO a form of conjecture--even in the "copying"), in this existing definition of knowledge.

Dude, I have no idea what you are talking about. LOL.

Acquire does not mean copy. Acquisition could occur via the "copy" mechanism, but they are not one in the same.

[snoopy]

To summarize, I think you have misread and misinterpreted Popper's paper. In it, he never once diverges from his thesis "Scientific knowledge". You appear to believe that it's talking about how the unqualified layman learns about the world around them. That is not what Popper is writing about in that paper.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 "Explanatory knowledge is the nemesis of hierarchy."

This caption below your Nixon image seemed odd to me so I looked it up. It appears you've been posting it exactly like this on Twitter a few times. But I found that the origin of this comes from David Deutsch's _"But from the cosmic perspective, explanatory knowledge is the nemesis of the hierarchy rule. It's the destroyer of the great monotony."
_
Your version is misleading to me because you omitted "the" and "rule".  Deutsch's makes perfect sense as he is talking about how how explanatory knowledge can cause more rapid course change due to novelty in collective human thinking.

[snoopy]

After billions of years of monotony, the universe is waking up

Theoretical physicist David Deutsch delivers a mind-bending meditation on the "great monotony" -- the idea that nothing novel has appeared in the universe for billions of years -- and shows how humanity's capacity to create explanatory knowledge could be the thing that bucks this trend. "Humans are not playthings of cosmic forces," he says. "We are users of cosmic forces."

(www.ted.com)

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 Show me an observation that's not theory laden and I'll show you a charlatan.

I wanted to further examine your offer so here we go...
Observation not theory laden : H2O becomes solid when in sufficiently cold temperatures
Show me a charlatan.

[cozy]

Your version is misleading to me because you omitted "the" and "rule".  Deutsch's makes perfect sense as he is talking about how how explanatory knowledge can cause more rapid course change due to novelty in collective human thinking.

I wasn't trying to mislead you, but your interpretation, your conjecturing of my ideas as expressed in English as I have structured it, seems to have been? Or, perhaps I should elaborate?

Now, why is there a great monotony in the universe at large, and what makes our planet buck that trend? Well, the universe at large is relatively simple. Stars are so simple that we can predict their behavior billions of years into the future, and retrodict how they formed billions of years ago. So why is the universe simple? Basically, it's because big, massive, powerful things strongly affect lesser things, and not vice versa. I call that the hierarchy rule.

Above is the context for the "hierarchy rule," he refers to. "Hierarchy" is a word, and abstraction for a pattern found in nature. It's useful for explanations about reality. But not in the context of human minds and the growth of knowledge. Just as you have done in conversation, I've used a word colloquially. I don't think it's misleading at all any more than saying "the world," can also mean "reality" in many conversations.

Also, why is "nebulus" such a useful word for describing the way I communicate again?

[cozy]

H2O becomes solid when in sufficiently cold temperatures

This is an explanation, not an observation. There's also caveats to it regarding the environment and specific temperature.

Could say something like, "some liquids become solids when..." for a more scientific phrasing I think. But even that is an explanation, and still involves interpretation. It doesn't just exist in nature and get copied around willy nilly from some perfect Form.

The freezer we use at work uses electromagnets to keep water from crystalizing as temperatures drop so that when the water does crystalize the crystallization occurs more quickly, this allows the crystal to form with more detail and not break the cell wall of raw food products frozen in this way.

When human bodies are experiencing frostbite it can actually feel like it's on fire, so this leads many to take off all their clothes to get cool again. We know this is ridiculous because we have the above explanation for it.

Reading that sentence also involves interpretation: what is H20, what does it mean to "become...when" (this grammatical structure indicates causality), same with "cold temperatures". I list these things because they, perhaps, seem "obvious," like they are just there. "Cold is obvious, it's cold." "Water is obvious, it's water." But each one of those words is an explanation, in the form of an abstraction, about reality. They exist in many languages in different forms, and there is no perfect language within which to express them. So we could still find better ways to express that explanation, infinitely.

[cozy]

I think Josh is right we're kind of talking past each other. Maybe we should move to the new question based, Socratic method, style thread format? I would be cool with that.

Regarding the cake cutting:

The principle operates with two constants...
1. If you get a slice, it will be the last remaining slice
2. You certainly should never get a slice before anyone else.

I want to ask some question about this again, still see some issues with it that I don't understand how it would be beneficial to me or anyone. BUT, I again think Josh is right, I think we should move to a new thread specifically for that topic. It's confusing enough as it is in this thread.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 This is an explanation, not an observation...

Originally posted by Fidel > 
 H2O becomes solid when in sufficiently cold temperatures.

I disagree. It's an observation. A reply to the question of "How does this liquid become solid?" would be an explanation. If that explanation were rigorously tested and put through the falsification ringer and survived as the best available explanation as to how H2O becomes solid, that explanation becomes accepted by the scientific community as a theory. Anything less is just a hypothesis.

Another example would be evolution. The theory of evolution is what explains how life evolves. It's a theory because it has withstood the falsification ringer.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 I wasn't trying to mislead you, but your interpretation, your conjecturing of my ideas as expressed in English as I have structured it, seems to have been? Or, perhaps I should elaborate?

No need to elaborate. I just couldn't understand his quote because you left out two key words. I understand the quote fine now because I found the source.

Originally posted by Cody > 
 There's also caveats to it regarding the environment and specific temperature.

All of that would be part of the hypothesis that attempts to explain the process of solidification.

In short and to summarize...

I don't agree that observations are theory laden because I am sticking to the scientific definitions of observation and theory and it appears you may be invoking the colloquial use of the term "theory" as in hunch or gut feeling. Therefore, I cannot agree with any supposed subsequent premise that relies on the italicized statement.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 Also, why is "nebulus" such a useful word for describing the way I communicate again?

I think the fact that you lose me on definitions by redefining and/or interchanging between scientific usage and colloquial usage, and THEN extrapolate out further, which results in what sounds to me like a collection of words that, together, make not much sense to me.

[snoopy]

Here is an example of what becomes nebulous to me and the breakdown(my next post) of why it sounds that way to me...

Originally posted by Cody >
This is an explanation, not an observation. There's also caveats to it regarding the environment and specific temperature.

Could say something like, "some liquids become solids when..." for a more scientific phrasing I think. But even that is an explanation, and still involves interpretation. It doesn't just exist in nature and get copied around willy nilly from some perfect Form.

The freezer we use at work uses electromagnets to keep water from crystalizing as temperatures drop so that when the water does crystalize the crystallization occurs more quickly, this allows the crystal to form with more detail and not break the cell wall of raw food products frozen in this way.

When human bodies are experiencing frostbite it can actually feel like it's on fire, so this leads many to take off all their clothes to get cool again. We know this is ridiculous because we have the above explanation for it.

Reading that sentence also involves interpretation: what is H20, what does it mean to "become...when" (this grammatical structure indicates causality), same with "cold temperatures". I list these things because they, perhaps, seem "obvious," like they are just there. "Cold is obvious, it's cold." "Water is obvious, it's water." But each one of those words is an explanation, in the form of an abstraction, about reality. They exist in many languages in different forms, and there is no perfect language within which to express them. So we could still find better ways to express that explanation, infinitely.

[snoopy]

The very first statement you make "This is an explanation, not an observation" starts it all. The statement I made "H20 becomes solid..." is not an explanation. the statement, by itself, it has absolutely no explanatory power. If the sentence were to go something like "Because H2o becomes solid..." THAT would qualify as an explanation, or part of an explanation, and would not be an observation. Since we had this disagreement, it made everything you wrote after that have no meaning to me. For example...

You went on to say _"Could say something like, "some liquids become solids when..." for a more scientific phrasing I think. But even that is an explanation, and still involves interpretation. It doesn't just exist in nature and get copied around willy nilly from some perfect Form."

_I am confused by this because..."some liquids become solids when..."
1. is NOT an explanation.
2. is not any more scientific phrasing than _"H20 becomes solid..."

_Scientific explanations are called "theories" and do not involve interpretation. Once achieving theory status that explanation, through the rigorous scientific testing process, does not involve interpretation. If it did, then rigorous testing and falsification would not be possible because varying interpretations would yield varying results.

With that said, this sentence becomes nebulous to me, LOL..."_It doesn't just exist in nature and get copied around willy nilly from some perfect Form."

_And then you added the following  two sentences, while interesting, I cannot engage with because in order to do so, I must first agree with your definition of scientific explanation, but I don't...

A. "The freezer we use at work uses electromagnets to keep water from crystalizing as temperatures drop so that when the water does crystalize the crystallization occurs more quickly, this allows the crystal to form with more detail and not break the cell wall of raw food products frozen in this way."

B.  "When human bodies are experiencing frostbite it can actually feel like it's on fire, so this leads many to take off all their clothes to get cool again. We know this is ridiculous because we have the above explanation for it."

And by those final 7 words, I will now show you how I get to the feeling that your communication is nebulous...

_When human bodies are experiencing frostbite it can actually feel like it's on fire, so this leads many to take off all their clothes to get cool again. We know this is ridiculous because we have this explanation: The freezer we use at work uses electromagnets to keep water from crystalizing as temperatures drop so that when the water does crystalize the crystallization occurs more quickly, this allows the crystal to form with more detail and not break the cell wall of raw food products frozen in this way.

_I couldn't draw a straight line from B to A anywhere. In any case, by the time I had read your entire post my brain had already taken an off-ramp at the first sentence.

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody >
 I think Josh is right we're kind of talking past each other. Maybe we should move to the new question based, Socratic method, style thread format? I would be cool with that.

I don't think that's the case. On the contrary. Thus far it's just about not letting either of us talk any further ahead until any and all confusion has been sorted out. One example is that I was confused by "Explanatory knowledge is the nemesis of hierarchy." It made no sense, so I couldn't go any further until I tracked down the source and found "Explanatory knowledge is the nemesis of the hierarchy rule."  Then the confusion over that was cleared up.

[cozy]

Scientific explanations are called "theories" and do not involve interpretation.

How does an explanation (theory) get from one person to another?

How does a new explanation (theory) get into the first person?

How does an explanation (theory) improve?

is not any more scientific phrasing than "H20 becomes solid..."

How do we observe H20?

[cozy]

"All observations are theory laden," still really gets to the heart of our misunderstandings, I think.

I'm going to try and rewrite those arguments for clarity. Looking forward to your misinterpretations ;). AND I take responsibility for my mistakes, through misleading and interpetation, in advance

(This is a very Popperian idea [sorry not sorry, dangerously paraphrasing, again, lol]:
there's no way to communicate that prevents misleading or being misunderstood)

Rods & Cones are theories about photons created by evolution to solve short-term problems for life. Source: https://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html

Another way to put this is that _observations rely on theorie_s. There's no way to observe something that is free of criticism. There's no perfect observation. Our senses, for example, are the theories we are born with, provided to us by evolution, that allow us to interpret reality. But they are imperfect tools. We built better tools to replace and augment them, but those tools are also imperfect. We criticize and improve them, that's fallibalism.

But, how do we decide which theories are even worth criticizing? If I said that you needed to eat a pound of grass to cure the common cold, do you need to eat a pound of grass to find out?

This is where Deutsch's contribution builds on Poppers (in my own words): What we're after in science is good explanations (theories) that are resistant to change even when the test itself changes ("hard-to-vary"), AND every part of the explanation serves a purpose. The purpose being that the explanation counts for something if it solves some problem. This also gives context for why observation is still important and what purpose it plays in reality. Observation is where solutions are confirmed, but more importantly for science, observation is where new problems come to light.

Newton's "law of universal gravitation," that gravity is a force and "every particle attracts every other particle in the universe," was wrong. It was right at the time, it was our best theory. We solved a lot of problems with it, made built some amazing stuff. But as more problems arose, it became clear it was wrong. How can something be both right and wrong?

It was right given the tests it passed. But, the tests that it passed were insufficient, the observations being made didn't capture enough information. All the evidence that said it was true, was insufficient. Reality stepped in and provided the problems that debunked the explanation. Eventually, Einstein came up with his theory of gravity, that gravity is "a curvature of time and space caused by mass and energy." That also solved lots of problems, it was right, and was out best theory. We built all kinds of stuff that relies on that theory. My favorite to mention is GPS, it wouldn't work without Einstein's equations. However, Einstein's theory is also wrong. It doesn't explain gravity's place at the quantum (multiverse) level and how it may affect quantum computing. Scientists are conjecturing new theories (not based on prior observation) about what the best new theory could be.

But they will never be enough, and I think we may have answers for why in Deutsch's improvements on Everett's many-worlds theory in relations to observations in quantum computing. I could be wrong about the multiverse, but the difference is I'm interested in observing things that haven't been observed before. In a lot of ways our layman conversations are similar to Bohr and Einstein's debates, we're arguing about the best way to observe things that haven't been observed before.

[snoopy]

How does an explanation (theory) get from one person to another?

How does a new explanation (theory) get into the first person?

How does an explanation (theory) improve?

These questions tell me you're talking about the colloquial use, and social application of "explanation" and "theory". Yet Popper, in his paper, is using those words as they are applied in the scientific method and used within the scientific community at large.

So I am again confused as to whether or not you want to adhere to Popper's usage of these terms, or shall we put Popper's paper aside and move on to the colloquial use, and social applications?

Your subsequent post is unapproachable to me(nebulous!! LOL) until we sort this out, because I've read the Popper paper thoroughly and these 3 questions make no sense to me.

[snoopy]

I couldn't resist. I probably disagree with every single line in your subsequent post. LOL.

Originally posted by Cody >
 Another way to put this is that _observations rely on theorie_s.

On the contrary. scientific theories rely on observations...without supporting observations, it remains a hypothesis at best...a wild guess at worst.

Originally posted by Cody > 
 There's no way to observe something that is free of criticism

This makes no sense and holds no utility. Physicists observe particles doing X, Y or Z in the LHC. Do they then say shit like "That's particle is an asshole, man!"?

Originally posted by Cody > 
 Our senses, for example, are the theories we are born with.

Unless put through the rigorous process of testing and falsification, our senses cannot be theories. Theories are sets of statements. Senses are a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus. There is no way such faculties can be granted "theory-hood".

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Cody > 
But they are imperfect tools.

First you said our senses are theories. Then you say our senses are tools. Can you see how I am getting confused?