Re: Fundamental problems in Physics

[John Kineman <***>]

Judith, Howard, et al.,

I'd like to suggest that the only difficulty with these statements is 
their absoluteness. That is what is irritating on the other side. What 
does "completely general" mean as opposed to perhaps "general for 
certain contexts."  I do not believe, for example, that spacetime 
itself  is completely general outside the known universe. And physics 
does speculate about other universes, quite seriously. Hence all the 
general dynamical laws based on space and time are not "completely 
general." All Rosen was saying was that the generality is always context 
dependent.

JK

Here's Howard's original statements:

HP: "I don't know any physicist today who believes in or subscribes to 
such an  "inbred, closed orthodoxy," i.e., that every model of a system 
can be obtained from the largest model by formal means (LI, p. 103). I 
think that is a straw man. (Consequently, as I have mentioned before, 
physicists find this one of Rosen's most irritating claims.) ...On the 
other hand, I don't know any physicist that does not believe that there 
exists completely general physical laws that every living system must 
follow in detail at all levels of complexity."




Judith Rosen wrote:

> On re-reading Howard's sentence: "On the other hand, I don't know any 
> physicist that does not believe that there exists completely general 
> physical laws that every living system must follow in detail at all 
> levels of complexity." I'm not sure but I think I may have 
> misinterpreted it initially. It's the combination of double-negatives 
> that is throwing me off.
>
> Just to clarify: It was tmy interpretation that Howard was saying most 
> physicists DON'T "believe that there exists completely general 
> physical laws that every living system must follow..."I was responding 
> to in my comments:
> "I agree with sentence number two but I think the physicists are wrong 
> about sentence number one."
>
> If Howard was saying that most physicists DO believe there are general 
> laws, then I would agree with them, obviously! (The disagreement then 
> is in what those laws may be). Sorry for any confusion. The rest of my 
> post remains as written.
>
> Judith 
>
>