Some of you may be interested in Quine if you’re not already familiar with him.
From “On What There Is”
The physical conceptual scheme simplifies our account of experience because of the way myriad scattered sense events come to be associated with single so-called objects…Physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of experience, just as the introduction of irrational numbers simplifies laws of arithmetic. From the point of view of the conceptual scheme of the elementary arithmetic of rational numbers alone, the broader arithmetic of rational and irrational numbers would have the status of a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth (namely, the arithmetic of rationals) and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part. Similarly, from a phenomenalistic point of view, the conceptual scheme of physical objects in a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.
From “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries–not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
i’m like a third through this book, and your responses (up to this post, haven’t read the rest yet) are more interesting/detailed than anything i’ve read so far. thanks
Quantum stuff made a lot more sense (to the extent it makes sense at all) after I learned all about Fourier transforms and syntheses. Unfortunately I don’t know if there’s an easy layman’s guide to those concepts.
As much as there have been elegant experiments to support many of the weirdest predictions of quantum mechanics, I think there is ample room for skepticism about the dark matter and dark energy. Were they not to exist, it would not be the first or even second time physicists posited the existence of something that they assumed had to be there based on trying to explain unexpected observations with the best science they knew, but instead it turned out they didn’t know enough.
That said, as much as I consider the decades that have gone by without actual detection of anything that could be dark matter or dark energy as evidence against their existence, it’s also weird that no decent alternative explanation has come forward, either. There doesn’t seem to be a ton of money in dark energy, everyone’s solid since I don’t think you can nuke anyone with it, so it may be a while longer before it’s resolved.
the fact we’re all in here trying to explain quarks to people like me who have no hope of really understanding it while also on the verge of ecological and thermonuclear disaster is why this species is fucked, but i guess capitalism and orange man bad too
Dark matter seems a lot more solid than dark energy.
Dark energy could literally just be bad assumptions about type 1A supernovas.
Dark matter is observed as stars which should be reaching escape velocity in every galaxy, and galaxies that should be achieving escape velocity in every galaxy cluster - all based on centripetal force vs. gravity - nothing exotic. Maybe it’s not actually matter. But it’s something that clumps and exerts gravitational force.
Last week, Singapore became the first country to approve the commercial sale of a protein grown “out of thin air”, according to its marketing tagline. Solein, a yellow powder resembling grated parmesan, is the product of microbes that are fed gases – carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen – and nutrients. According to its developer, the Finnish company Solar Foods, it will be used in products such as plant-based meats, breads and spreads
song about driving in Canada