First collisions at the LHC with unprecedented Energy! (Ask a particle physisicist)

[Pyrrho]

Pyrrho,

Your story indeed reminds me of the old philosophical zombie problem, paired with a dose of solipsism...

The story isn't the point.  The point has to do with the value (or lack thereof) of such stories, their meaning and significance (or lack thereof).

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These stories are also similar to the doctrine of the Trinity, and the dispute about whether the holy ghost proceeds from the father and son, or just from the father.  (It is one of the big divisions between Christianity in the east and west, which keeps them from being able to be united.  That fact is bizarre, but nevertheless true.)  Saying that the holy ghost (or holy spirit) proceeds from the father and not the son is as problematic as saying that it proceeds from both.  (This example, though, has an easy "out," in that one can simply deny the existence of all of the things being discussed, which is a dissimilarity with the other stories, and one of the reasons why I did not previously use it.  It does, however, help illustrate the point, that there is a problem with the story, and so one ought not simply select an option within the story.)

Once one is dealing with a problematic story, saying the story is false is problematic in a manner similar to the problem of saying it is true.  The story of my wife not loving me is not false in the same way (if,  indeed, it is false at all) that an ordinary contingent falsehood is false.  Right now, it is false to say that I am in Denmark.  But that is very different from the story being false.  What, in fact, would it mean to say that the story is false?  How is its falsehood any different from it being true?  In the case of me possibly being in Denmark, the difference between me being there and me being somewhere else is fairly clear.   We know what it means for the statement, "Pyrrho is in Denmark" to be true, and we know what it means for it to be false.

(A smartass can bring up the issue of me standing on the boarder, with one foot in and one foot out of Denmark, but that is easily dealt with by making the issue be about whether I am entirely in Denmark, or about whether I am at least partially in Denmark.  In other words, it is a matter of clarifying the meaning of "in" Denmark, whether we mean entirely in or partially in.  And if there is some ambiguity about where the border is, that, too, is something that is merely a matter of clarification, not a fundamental problem with the issue.)

If we wanted an example seemingly closer to this thread in subject matter, suppose there are two people arguing about light.  They both agree that light behaves like a particle in some ways, and light behaves like a wave in some ways.  However, the first person says that light is really particles.  The second person says that light is really waves.  Siding with either one of them does not strike me as a good idea, and both seem to have the same problem.  And the problem seems very much like the problems with the stories I have been discussing.  And it does not help to say to these two people, light is not really particles, or light is not really waves.  My guess is, you are going to complain about the way that they are talking about light, rather than to assert that their statements are false in the usual sense of the term. Of course, you may speak for yourself on that point, if you wish.  I am suggesting that the correct response does not involve saying what light really is.  I don't think it is helpful to science (or anything else) to say what light really is.

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