Re: Fundamental problems in Physics

[Steve Johnson <***>]

Discovery of General Relativity comes to mind. Even
though it challenged the foundations in a major way no
one thought much of it until the famous experiment
with the bending of the ray of light by Sun's gravity.


Rosen's critique of the established paradigm is
extremely effective and LI was probably the most eye
opening book I've ever read. Tim and Judith are right
that this information is hard to come by unless you
stumble on it. But for better or worse scientists (as
a group) value theories that help them understand much
less than those that help them predict outcomes of
experiments. Witness for example Quantum Mechanics.
Pretty much everyone agrees that its philosophical
foundations are shoddy yet it does not lead many
people to question it as long as it explains the data.

Einstein, Bohm and others (including the paper Tim
posted recently) rebelled against it but were swept
aside by the sheer accuracy of its predictions.

Rosen like Einstein was always interested in "finding
out what is actually going on". As QM example
illustrates few people (present company excluded) are
actually interested in that.


- Steve

--- Howard Pattee <***> wrote:

> Steve,
> Thank you for your detached evaluation. Judith and I
> are obviously not 
> communicating productively. She attributes my
> criticism of Rosen to basic 
> scientific disagreement or personal antagonism,
> which is not the case. I am 
> really trying to criticizing the strategy of Tim and
> Judith in promoting 
> his ideas. It sounds like a promotional
> confrontational strategy (you are 
> either with us or against us) which is not a
> persuasive strategy. Even if 
> Rosen is right and all physicist and biologists are
> wrong, I do not believe 
> this is an effective way to present his ideas.
> 
> If I look at the history of physics and biology I
> can't think of a case 
> where an abstract idea like Rosen's without concrete
> empirical support has 
> replaced the established paradigms. I think
> established models and 
> paradigms fall only after they don't fit the
> empirical facts. They do not 
> change because their philosophical underpinnings
> have been challenged. Few 
> scientist believe a new theory, no matter how
> logically sound, until it is 
> empirically tested.  Am I wrong on this. Can anyone
> give a counterexample.
> 
> Anyway, if this is the usual case, then all this
> talk about reductionist 
> models being "wrong," the machine metaphor being
> "discarded" and physics 
> "shirking its duty," whether it is right or wrong,
> is simply useless. In my 
> opinion it is counterproductive.
> 
> Howard
> 



                
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