Re: Empirics and Life

[Howard Pattee <***>]

At 12:56 AM 1/29/05 -0500, Judith wrote:

> What is theoretical science,
> then? I think it is the use of logic to find invariant relations (Natural
> Laws) out of all observables-- which includes experimental results (even
> data from "failed" experiments, often the most instructive of
> all). 

HP: That's too general a definition. Sometimes logic is used.
Example: Galileo's logic  that large bodies and small bodies fall at
the same rate. His "proof by contradiction": If small bodies
fall slower, then attaching a slower small body to a large body would
slow it down. But the two together are even larger than the large body,
so they should fall faster. 

On the other hand, most great discoveries in both math and science are
more like artistic creations that are not logical or even fully
conscious. Einstein said that language played no role in the initial
thoughts of relativity. He said that visual and even muscular awareness
were essential. Many similar cases are recorded in Brewster Ghiselin's
The Creative Process, in Hadamard's The Psychology of Invention
in the Mathematical Field, and Miller's Imagery in Scientific
Thought. The problem is that nobody writes much about the
psychological motivations (Rosen does a bit in AS and LI). Consequently,
scientific writing is only about the final logical _expression_, the tip of
the creative iceberg. 

> Judith wrote: So, basically
> "invariant," as it applies here, is a subjective
> judgment.

HP: That is true in a specific sense. You are correct to say that
choosing to pay attention only to those models that give answers that
cannot be influenced or controlled by any real or imaginable observer is
indeed a subjective decision. Deciding to be a vegetarian or a physicist
is a subjective choice. But all choices are subjective, by definition.
Life has been defined as physical systems that make choices. Inanimate
nature does not make choices. But choosing to pay attention to the speed
of light does not logically or physically imply that the speed of light
is a subjective choice. 

Your comments on closed to efficient causation are helpful. I still have
to figure out how to apply it to what goes on in cells at a more detailed
level. And by the way, detailed models need not imply reductionism
although they are often misinterpreted as reductionism.

Howard