Subject: Re: IFETS-DISCUSS Digest - 15 Jan 2000 to 16 Jan 2000
From: Ania Lian (ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au)
Date: Tue 18 Jan 2000 - 00:25:44 MET
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 09:25:44 +1000 (EST) From: Ania Lian <ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au> Subject: Re: IFETS-DISCUSS Digest - 15 Jan 2000 to 16 Jan 2000
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On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, Charles Nelson wrote:
> What about verifying cosmological theories like the Big Bang where the
> entire universe was initially compressed into an area smaller than the head
> of a pin?
There is a litle book 'Stephen Hawking's Universe' by John Boslough not to
mention Hawking's writings themselves or those by Sagan (sorry but my
knowledge about sciences is limited to popular writings) who explain that
a lot of big questions are attempted to be resolved by the science of
small things like quantum physics. Experiments, so I read, are possible
although extremely costly. I read that Switzerland has conditions for such
experiments which do take place there. The real issue is, say, that we
make an argument that rain is (what I used to think when I was little) a
kind of sewage from paradise (the thing with God, angels, the whole
community living up there...., yes , please, .. that was a long time
ago.. at least I thought about it.....!
In any case, how can we prove that it is not? So the way to go about it is
to complexify the elements of the question itself. We can thus divide
teh question is many ways. The result will be experiments and answers
invented in order to show that rain can be also other things than
sewage... but who can disprove me that it is not?? I guess, I can argue
til the cows come home, if I want to, that no matter how much someone's
tehory of raisn explains, there may well be other explanations just as
valid. The difference is: my arguments will neither predict rain nor have
a potential to think of ways for creating rain. Someone else's may do
exactly this. As Chris said, the reason for acceptance is in eistemic gain
not in apparence of the truth of the argument. Someone talked about atom.
Atom is useful because the concept and this way of thinking about matter
allows us to solve some problems, but of course the truth of the atom is
limited to the truths that it enables us to perceive. And of course
neither the tehory of the big bang nor the theory of the atom enable us to
tell it how things are: because what things?
Ania Lian
http:/www.ozemail.com.au/~mlal2
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