An interesting on footnote on Positivism:
... "Ernst Mach advocated a version of Occam's razor which he called the Principle of Economy, stating that "Scientists must use the simplest means of arriving at their results and exclude everything not perceived by the senses." Taken to its logical conclusion this philosophy becomes positivism; the belief that there is no difference between something that exists but is not observable and something that doesn't exist at all. Mach influenced Einstein when he argued that space and time are not absolute but he also applied positivism to molecules. Mach and his followers claimed that molecules were metaphysical because they were too small to detect directly. This was despite the success the molecular theory had in explaining chemical reactions and thermodynamics. It is ironic that while applying the principle of economy to throw out the concept of the ether and an absolute rest frame, Einstein published almost simultaneously a paper on Brownian motion which confirmed the reality of molecules and thus dealt a blow against the use of positivism. The moral of this story is that Occam's razor should not be wielded blindly"... Source
Comments
I'll stick to the regular shit.
*sniff*
FREE YOUR MIND....
from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, meaning that the pressure at your ear
oscillates back and forth 20 to 20,000 times per second. Each
frequency gives a different audible pitch. Visible light has
frequencies from around 4*10^14 Hz to around 8*10^14 Hz. Each
frequency gives a slightly different visible color. Not only are the
light frequencies much higher, but the highest one is only about
twice the lowest one. The sound frequencies are much lower, and the
highest one is a thousand times higher than the lowest one. So you
can see that there's no direct match between the sound and light
oscillations.
There are two main differences between sound waves and light waves. The first difference is in velocity. Sound waves travel through air at the speed of approximately 1,100 feet per second; light waves travel through air and empty space at a speed of approximately 186,000 miles per second. The second difference is that sound is composed of longitudinal waves (alternate compressions and expansions of matter) and light is composed of transverse waves in an electromagnetic field. Although both are forms of wave motion, sound requires a solid, liquid, or gaseous medium; whereas light travels through empty space. The denser the medium, the greater the speed of sound. The opposite is true of light. Light travels approximately one-third slower in water than in air. Sound travels through all substances, but light cannot pass through opaque materials. Frequency affects both sound and light. A certain range of sound frequencies produces sensations that you can hear. A slow vibration (low frequency) in sound gives the sensation of a low note. A more rapid sound vibration (higher frequency) produces a higher note. Likewise, a certain range of light frequencies produces sensations that you can see. Violet light is produced at the high-frequency end of the light spectrum, while red light is produced at the low-frequency end of the light spectrum. A change in frequency of sound waves causes an audible sensation?a difference in pitch. A change in the frequency of a light wave causes a visual sensation?a difference in color.
Fellowship
see more here: http://www2.bc.edu/~santorap/list.png
Either way you are depending on your reason to enable you to precieve what is there---at some point, we all practice a form of positivism.
Originally posted by murbot
Tought to do a line of vanilla coke man, it runs right off the mirror.
I'll stick to the regular shit.
*sniff*
You gotta inject that stuff, man.
Originally posted by Scott
It seems like if we take the position of "positivism" then it puts a halt to speculation about things we don't know. How far would Rutherford have gotten if he didn't ponder atomic structure.
A bit exactly, I would say. What we have here is, in my opinion, a choice quote that may very well be employed by Fellowship and his legion. For, if we take the quote on face value, we see that true positivism, and in extensio agnosticism (religious positivism, anyone?) is prone to error and mistake. Positivism, sometimes wrongly equated with the base scientific attitude, was itself dealt a blow by science man #1 (at least in the minds of the regular folk), Albert Einstein. Therefore, one may very well conclude that we should in fact embrace the unknown as well as The Unknown.
Originally posted by dmz
At some point the senses have limitations---whether it be sound waves or science itself. What makes up the universe cannot be infinitely complex unless the universe is infinite.
Either way you are depending on your reason to enable you to precieve what is there---at some point, we all practice a form of positivism.
Yes of course. I have to reason out what's there. BUT I don't have to rely on only my own limited senses. If I think the atomic model could be pudding with raisins OR separated charges then I can think up and experiment to differentiate the two. In Rutherford's case it was scattering alpha particles of different energies. If an atom has a "solid" ball of charge in the middle I get one result, if it's mixed up positive and negative charges I get another.
So what's so bad about that?
Originally posted by Scott
Yes of course. I have to reason out what's there. BUT I don't have to rely on only my own limited senses. If I think the atomic model could be pudding with raisins OR separated charges then I can think up and experiment to differentiate the two. In Rutherford's case it was scattering alpha particles of different energies. If an atom has a "solid" ball of charge in the middle I get one result, if it's mixed up positive and negative charges I get another.
So what's so bad about that?
I see what you mean----and that is the great part of true science---getting your data and correlating it ways that point to things that are unseen. Maybe your reluctance on this is that at some point, we can't say for certain what has/is happened/happening. I think the origins and nature of our species/universe is where this makes the biggest difference.
Originally posted by majorspunk
Einstein published almost simultaneously a paper on Brownian motion which confirmed the reality of molecules and thus dealt a blow against the use of positivism.
Wouldn't positivism then apply, since the molecules were confirmed? I don't think this is really what logical positivism is anyway. Testable theories are part of it: If some phenomenon can best be explained by assuming the existence of some as-yet-unseen-but-can-be-verified-in-the-future particles, I don't see how that would go against logical positivism.
This idea was readily ridiculed by Wittgenstein himself when he visited the Vienna Circle (who revered him for his first book) and commenced to read from the Brothers Karamazov . . . . The Vienna Circle (Carnap et al) believed that poetry and fiction and art etc were basically only distrations with no sort of meaning that is meaningful.
Also, Wittgenstein's later work, especially the Philosphical Investigations, went counter to his Tractatus Logico Philosphicus, and argued convincingly that meaning in language is more layered and nuanced than simple mathematical tautologies (as if these Brit philosophers never read their Kant's Critique!!!!) and that Language, Meaning, and even Truth, were 'forms of life' and were integral parts of living in cultures and communities with histories and layered lives.
Positivism, as a philosophical endeavor, pretty much ended in the first half of the 20th century . . . with the exception of a few holdouts here and there . . . . but then again there are still people who believe that the Earth is flat . . .