The Half-life of Facts.

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

(For details, you can search the Web for "Galilean transformation".)

Since Google's first hit on "Galilean transformation" is another Wikipedia article with a misleading interpretation of Newton's Principia, let me state how Newton's train of thought works there. Newton starts out by stating his laws of motion in three space coordinates and one time coordinate (x, y, z, t), where space and time are expressed in terms of some inertial system. ("Inertial" means "zero acceleration".)

Then he applies the Galilean transformation to see how the same laws look when described in the coordinates of some different inertial system, (x', y', z', t). He discovers that the same laws of motion apply. This is an important and interesting insight since the coordinates, and hence the numbers representing the motions, are all different.

Newton's relativism (albeit limited, because time is still the same in all frames of reference) is a discovery, not an a priori philosophical assumption. It's a much more powerful point because of it. Einsteinian relativity, though much more famous, is just an incremental patch of Galilean/Newtonian relativity to make t depend on the frame of reference, too.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Are you saying that Newton had no belief in absolutes as a substrate for his mechanics ? (See first two paras of my quote)

Physicists aren't in the believing business; they are in the model-building and observation business. Whatever Newton's personal beliefs, his mathematical models of the physical world imply absolute time, but not absolute space. (For some more details, see my post from about five minutes ago.)

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For instance whether one chooses to measure the rate of acceleration in free fall due to gravitational pull inside a moving train cabin, or in the station platform (discount air resistance), or in the Moon, the same constant is verified, that is to say, all body's will accelerate exactly in the same way. Equally regarding inertia in any frame of reference a body will maintain its velocity if no extra force is applied.

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The point being made here does not refer to time per se but rather to the erroneous common sense claim that "relativity" invalidates any Universal agreement. So far two examples were provided regarding inertia and acceleration constancy due to gravitational pull.

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@Thomas,

You make a possible but convoluted case to save Newton from "absolutism".
Since you are a "realist" I don't see the point other than to attempt undermine my general analogy.

My interpretation (brandishing Occam's Razor) is that Newton started with absolute time and space as axiomatic and went from there. In some ways the case is similar to that of Clerk-Maxwell whose development of his successful equations rested on the axiom of an "aether" as the "elastic medium" in which e-m waves could propagate like mechanical waves. It is of course possible to derive his equations from later theory without the assumption of the aether, but it is interesting to contemplate whether the success of the original equations was a necessary stage in the development of later theory. i.e. Epistemological progress appears to be involve sequence of reactive refinements to earlier axioms (facticity shifts ?). We are not so much converging to any "ultimate truth/reality" as we are diverging from that concept.(TOE being the speculative exception !) Once again I stress the dynamism of epistemology as a contrast to the static nature of absolutes.

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@parados,

Quote:

You state this as if it is a fact. I submit that if facts have half lives then your statement is no longer true.

For that to hold you would have to demonstrate how physiology accounts for cognition. If you succeed you will be the first. It would be awesome.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Since you are a "realist" I don't see the point other than to attempt undermine my general analogy.

You're right. There's no point really. It's just a nice tangent, involving a subject I enjoy talking about.

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@Thomas,

Candor indeed !

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@fresco,

Quote:

...aka people who disagree with you and each other, especially about the state of health of "society" .

Liars, I meant. Dis-informants. People who's job it is to spread lies. You're welcome in their club if you think you fit in there.

Quote:

...and not " logical necessity"...rather a "functionally useful axiom".

Both actually. Eg you cannot account for your own existence / genesis without this assumption. So either you throw away logic, or you keep the assumption that something can exist whether or not you as a 'preceptor' of that something exist.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Give evidence for your "no longer true".

parados wrote:

Quote:
1. Physiology appears to be necessary for cognition but cannot account for it.

You state this as if it is a fact. I submit that if facts have half lives then your statement is no longer true.

If you are arguing that it is true then does that mean that facts don't have half lives?

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@Olivier5,

'Perceiver' I mean

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
You state this as if it is a fact. I submit that if facts have half lives then your statement is no longer true.

For that to hold you would have to demonstrate how physiology accounts for cognition. If you succeed you will be the first. It would be awesome.

If the OP was correct about facts having half lives and I assume that is indeed a fact and if I then propose an If/then based on that assumption why would I have to demonstrate anything beyond what the OP proposed in order for my statement to be true? Wouldn't it be the original assumption, which I merely used, that fails to meet your standard?

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@parados,

Quote:

Wouldn't it be the original assumption, which I merely used, that fails to meet your standard?

I think you misread the proposition of the OP. That facts don't have infinite duration does not mean you can discard one on a whim with no kind of justification or explanation.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

That facts don't have infinite duration does not mean you can discard one on a whim with no kind of justification or explanation.

Are you claiming this is a fact?

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@parados,

Do you know the definition of "half-life" ? It is the time it takes half of a set of particular atoms to "decay" (turn into other types). You cannot look at a single specific atom (=fact) and predict its moment of decay.
It is a discursive analogy which gives a picture of the general nature of facts as transient units of human knowledge. An analogy can be assessed as "inappropriate" but not "false".

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@fresco,

Quote:

Do you know the definition of "half-life" ? It is the time it takes half of a set of particular molecules to "decay" (turn into other types). You cannot look at a single specific molecule (=fact) and predict its moment of decay.

I understand perfectly what half-life means when it comes to molecules fresco.

This however is what you said in the OP which directly contradicts molecular half-life.

Quote:

" a fact" today has a finite life expectancy

Should I accept your definition of half-life or the molecular one?

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@parados,

Are you just here to chat or what ? The key word is analogy. Each molecule or fact has a finite life expectancy whose general statistical average is implied by the word "half-life".
None of this has anything to do with the specific "fact" which might be stated in the form "cognition cannot be accounted for by physiological processes alone". If you have an argument to the contrary i.e. which will trigger the decay of that "fact", then by all means present it.

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@parados,

Lets just say that it is how we roll.

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@fresco,

Except you stated a fact has a finite life expectancy.

Under the "half-life" theory there is no finite life expectancy for any given atom. Under the half life theory it is mathematically impossible for all atoms to be finite.

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@parados,

So you don't like the analogy. Fine.
What has that got to do with the specific "fact" about cognition/physiology ?

1 Reply

The Half-life of Facts.

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