Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[polymath257]

The physics classes I had in the early 90's spent a little time on the history. Tycho Brahe stands out in my memory.

He has been described as "the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts". Most of his observations were more accurate than the best available observations at the time.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants. The availability of books and then computers and now the internet has made learning nearly any subject possible by anyone around the world. And this information is difficult if not impossible to remove.

In the past, a rare book could be destroyed and all that it contained, lost for all time. But now in this digital age, it would nearly be impossible to destroy modern books in physics, math, astronomy.

This is also a double edge sword. We gain all of the good ideas but we are also stuck with religious texts as well that often impede educational progress.

I disagree here. paper books last for thousands of years in many cases. How long do you think a hard drive or flash drive will last? How many of our books will go away if there is ever a serious and fairly permanent power outage?

And this is not to mention that our encoding techniques change fairly quickly. The machines to read data from the Apollo missions are already rare to non-existent. Even being able to *read the tapes* isn't a given without some serious effort. How many different USB standards have we had? Have you tried to read something on a floppy drive in the last few years?

I am a LOT less assured that the information we have cannot be removed. if anything, I feel like we are cutting very close to the edge of losing a LOT of information simply because nobody has updated it.

[Anomalocaris]

I think digital media obsolescence introduces a much faster acting, and much more wide spread in effect, agent of systemic information loss than has existed since writing has become widespread. However, an offsetting development is increasing web/cloud connectedness of the storage media and large scale automated search, duplicating and indexing services such as Google.

[vulcanlogician]

But, there is a question. How much of this history should a physicist know to be able to do physics? How much do the actual conclusions of the Oxford calculators impact the ideas we have today in physics?

And the frank answer is "not much". While they were absolutely essential to *getting to where we are*, their ideas and techniques have been supplanted and NONE of modern physics (anything past Newton) replies on their analyses. That is very different than the impact of Newton on the *current* ideas in physics.

I liked your thoughtful reply. And this is an interesting conversation to have.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on pretty much everything. I agree with your thesis: "It's important not to overestimate the importance of history of science." But my thesis is this: history of science is important to some degree. It's not an overly-ambitious thesis. All I'm saying is, we will have lost something valuable if we can't trace our knowledge of the world back to its roots and study the voyage from ignorance to gnosis.

I feel the same way about literature. Is it super important to conduct a forty page analysis of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury? No. But it is important. I personally wouldn't touch a forty page Faulkner analysis with a ten-foot pole. Not my cup of tea. But I'm glad there are disciplines that perform such analyses. Literature tells us much about the human condition... in a way science can't. Philosophy is in this same boat. I think you know me well enough, Poly, to recognize I love science and I'm not knocking science in any way. Historically speaking, science pretty much embarrassed philosophers' attempt to understand nature. I guess what I'm saying is: science is but one mode of investigation into reality (maybe the best one, the most indisputable one)... but not the only one... that yields fruitful insights and gets us closer to the truth.

So, Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as Thomas Badwardine, are *historically* important, their ideas are NOT important for how modern physics actually approaches problems. Literally nothing in their analysis of physics remains in anything required in a modern physics class. But the ideas of Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, and others *are* relevant to our current understanding. These people were right in ways that previous thinkers were wrong.

So, yes, I agree, these lessons were hard fought. The insights of many people were required for us to get where we are today. They should be honored and studied for their *historical contributions*. But their ideas, outside of learning the history, can be safely ignored if all you want to do is understand physics.

Agreed.

And I agree. I am very interested in the history of ideas. How did we get to the understanding we have today? That is a very interesting question to me. And to understand the progression of ideas can be a useful caution to taking our current ideas too seriously. But the *conclusions* of these thinkers is often, even usually *wrong*. And unless you want to investigate the history, their views can be safely ignored and should certainly NOT be part of the current debate about how things work.

I also think that *very* few of the ideas of Aristotle have stood up to the studies of the past 2000 years. Again, he was crucial to getting us on the right track, but his conclusions are almost universally wrong. He was a product of his time, with many of the biases and ignorance of that time. That is NOT saying he was not important historically.

But his ideas are NOT important for any modern analysis, I think.

Something we're trying to parse through in Neo's Aquinas thread is whether Aquinas's notions are contrary to modern physics. Does Aquinas say something that directly contradicts a modern understanding of nature? If so, his postulations either need to be corrected to conform to a modern understanding OR (and this is the way I'm leaning) be dismissed entirely on account of "Aquinas misunderstands reality."

It's also possible that Aquinas is talking about something "deeper" than that to which modern physics refers. I'm giving that one some consideration too, but hopes are slim.

I remember several lectures discussing: "Why are philosophers so concerned with history of philosophy?" It's a good question, as nearly all philosophers are. But why?

History of philosophy is important, I would argue, because ancient thinkers had valuable insights concerning timeless questions. Things that we still ponder today. Things that haven't really been settled by science or contemporary philosophy. The ancients' thinking is still "good" on some matters. Ethics or metaphysics will never be "settled" in the way scientific matters can be. But I would argue that ethics is (nonetheless) really, really important to pay attention to. What kind of fools would the human race be if they didn't concern themselves with ethics? But luckily, we do. And maybe we'll never make progress in the arena of ethics, but at the very least we aren't foolish enough to ignore ethics altogether. (This isn't an argument for moral realism; even those who reject moral realism are impelled to do some thinking about ethics... it's important even to them).

I don't want to go on and on here, but I do want to provide some reflections on how wrong ideas are (sometimes) just as valuable as correct ones. Luminiferous ether. Wrong idea. But a hypothesis supported by good reasoning, considering what we knew about waves when it was formulated. In proving the idea wrong, we learned something about the nature of light and space. Since we now know that luminiferous ether doesn't exist, there is little value in returning to it and studying it (your thesis). But at the same time we ought to recognize how instrumental that wrong idea was in getting us to the right idea. It was like a sounding board for the right idea.

Wrong ideas are more valuable than we take them to be. I don't mean "any" wrong idea. I mean well-supported ones. Not bigfoot or some shit. I mean ideas that are wrong but still seem true to reasonable people. Ideas that can't be easily dismissed or disproven. These kind of wrong ideas are necessary stepping stones to right ideas. Indispensable to finding the right ideas I might argue (if I was feeling fruity). Not feeling THAT fruity... but still leads back to there being some value in following our knowledge back to its roots.

[The Grand Nudger]

There was never any evidence for a lumineferous aether, there were never any good arguments to believe as much based on what we did know, and nothing about us holding on to that idea helped - completely the opposite. That was, purely and succinctly, a demonstration of the power of institutional thinking. There may be good examples of us getting things wrong for effect, but that probably isn't one of them. It's just another word for witches.

I..personally, don't see the point in doling out consolation prizes to people who got shit wrong, and, as a consequence, enjoyed centuries of unearned acclaim that calcified into strong opposition to more accurate (and in many cases immediately and obviously or even pre-existingly more accurate) ideas about reality.

Good for them, they tried...some not quite so hard as others, for reasons™. I hit a hell of alot of almost home runs when I played ball too. I get that we're angling for a "at east they were looking" sort of thing..but...at least looking for your keys in wisconsin means exactly what to finding the keys in your living room? Nothing other than active detriment, so far as I can tell.

[HappySkeptic]

There was never any evidence for a lumineferous aether, there were never any good arguments to believe as much based on what we did know, and nothing about us holding on to that idea helped - completely the opposite.  That was, purely and succinctly, a demonstration of the power of institutional thinking.  There may be good examples of us getting things wrong for effect, but that probably isn't one of them.  It's just another word for witches.

The Luminiferous Aether was a reasonable hypothesis in 1690.  It was too bad no-one actually tested it until the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887.

[The Grand Nudger]

It was a hypothesis, but not a reasonable one. The mm experiment fully closed the door on the idea, which was important because it had been resistant to every piece of evidence (which was every piece of evidence..literally) which had come before it. Just using the dates provided, everything required to disprove the hypothesis was known by 1772 (at the latest)...and that it lasted a further century is a demonstration of exactly what I'm mentioning. In that century (or more), it didn't spin off productive research, it did the opposite of that trying to protect itself.

I'm sympathetic (I think..most of us are sympathetic) to the idea that even when we lose we're winning (when it comes to investigating the universe)...but the la hypothesis-then-theory was never one of those instances.

[polymath257]

There was never any evidence for a lumineferous aether, there were never any good arguments to believe as much based on what we did know, and nothing about us holding on to that idea helped - completely the opposite.  That was, purely and succinctly, a demonstration of the power of institutional thinking.  There may be good examples of us getting things wrong for effect, but that probably isn't one of them.  It's just another word for witches.

The Luminiferous Aether was a reasonable hypothesis in 1690.  It was too bad no-one actually tested it until the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887.

Actually, it was a reasonable hypothesis when Maxwell gave his equations in 1861-2. The idea that a wave needed a material to travel through was not an unreasonable one.

I have a physics textbook from the 1880's that describes the aether as the most substantiated idea  at the time. And that is even a correct statement.

That is one reason the Michelson-Morley experiment caught everyone off guard.

---

It was a hypothesis, but not a reasonable one.  The mm experiment fully closed the door on the idea, which was important because it had been resistant to every piece of evidence (which was every piece of evidence..literally) which had come before it.  Just using the dates provided, everything required to disprove the hypothesis was known by 1772 (at the latest)...and that it lasted a further century is a demonstration of exactly what I'm mentioning.  In that century (or more), it didn't spin off productive research, it did the opposite of that trying to protect itself.

I'm sympathetic (I think..most of us are sympathetic) to the idea that even when we lose we're winning (when it comes to investigating the universe)...but the la hypothesis-then-theory was never one of those instances.

I think that is a pretty bad misunderstanding of the history. Relatively minor adjustments were required for first order null results. it was the second order results, started by the MM experiment, that ultimately did in the theory of aether. Also, the fact that Maxwell's equations and Newton's equations didn't play well together. The resolution of this by Einstein, Poincare, and others is part of the reason for the dismissal of the LA. Saying it was obvious by 1772 is rather silly since Maxwell's equations were seen as supporting the theory.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

The Luminiferous Aether was a reasonable hypothesis in 1690.  It was too bad no-one actually tested it until the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887.

Actually, it was a reasonable hypothesis when Maxwell gave his equations in 1861-2. The idea that a wave needed a material to travel through was not an unreasonable one.

I have a physics textbook from the 1880's that describes the aether as the most substantiated idea  at the time. And that is even a correct statement.

That is one reason the Michelson-Morley experiment caught everyone off guard.

---

It was a hypothesis, but not a reasonable one.  The mm experiment fully closed the door on the idea, which was important because it had been resistant to every piece of evidence (which was every piece of evidence..literally) which had come before it.  Just using the dates provided, everything required to disprove the hypothesis was known by 1772 (at the latest)...and that it lasted a further century is a demonstration of exactly what I'm mentioning.  In that century (or more), it didn't spin off productive research, it did the opposite of that trying to protect itself.

I'm sympathetic (I think..most of us are sympathetic) to the idea that even when we lose we're winning (when it comes to investigating the universe)...but the la hypothesis-then-theory was never one of those instances.

I think that is a pretty bad misunderstanding of the history. Relatively minor adjustments were required for first order null results. it was the second order results, started by the MM experiment, that ultimately did in the theory of aether. Also, the fact that Maxwell's equations and Newton's equations didn't play well together. The resolution of this by Einstein, Poincare, and others is part of the reason for the dismissal of the LA. Saying it was obvious by 1772 is rather silly since Maxwell's equations were seen as supporting the theory.

 Probably way way off topic, seeing as I last did physics in year ten.    Something  completely ridiculous has stuck in my mind.   Our Physics book  had a whole chapter devote to The Phlogiston theory. I never received a satisfactory answer to my simple question of "why is this in our Physics book?"

 I understand it's not like algebra, even though I've never actually been  there. Below an explanation for those of you who did not have the benefit of a catholic education (If you'll excuse  the expression)

"The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston (/flɒˈdʒɪstən, floʊ-, -ɒn/)[1][2] contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlogistón (burning up), from φλόξ phlóx (flame). The idea was first proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher and later put together more formally by Georg Ernst Stahl. Phlogiston theory attempted to explain chemical processes such as combustion and rusting, now collectively known as oxidation, was challenged by the concomitant weight increase, and was abandoned before the end of the 18th century following experiments by Antoine Lavoisier and others. Phlogiston theory led to experiments which ultimately concluded with the discovery of ."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

[Foxaèr]

History is only needed for not repeating mistakes of the past, which doesn't seem to work in a society where people think they already have all the answers.

[Anomalocaris]

History is only needed for not repeating mistakes of the past, which doesn't seem to work in a society where people think they already have all the answers.

History is needed for a lot more than just not repeating the mistakes of the past.    History is actually a gigantic laboratory experiment that provides the only real indicator of how large systems in which many humans have agency is likely to behave when stimulated.

You might as well give up on medium to long term prognostication if you don’t care to study history.

---

There was never any evidence for a lumineferous aether, there were never any good arguments to believe as much based on what we did know, and nothing about us holding on to that idea helped - completely the opposite.  That was, purely and succinctly, a demonstration of the power of institutional thinking.  There may be good examples of us getting things wrong for effect, but that probably isn't one of them.  It's just another word for witches.

I..personally, don't see the point in doling out consolation prizes to people who got shit wrong, and, as a consequence, enjoyed centuries of unearned acclaim that calcified into strong opposition to more accurate (and in many cases immediately and obviously or even pre-existingly more accurate) ideas about reality.

Good for them, they tried...some not quite so hard as others, for reasons™.  I hit a hell of alot of almost home runs when I played ball too.  I get that we're angling for a "at east they were looking" sort of thing..but...at least looking for your keys in wisconsin means exactly what to finding the keys in your living room?  Nothing other than active detriment, so far as I can tell.

Of course there was evidence for a lumineous aether.      Evidence was in fact noted everywhere.    Sound waves is evidence for lumineferoys aether.   Waves in water is evidence for lumineferous aether.     Are they conclusive or direct evidence?  No.  The only way to get that would be to first make luminiferous actually exist.   But without means yet for getting direct evidence, evidence of what seems reasonably to be as a close an analogue as one could have is the next best thing.

In science, the best available course to take to the destination sometimes steers one directly away from it.    The leg is necessary to get to the next point whence one could take a new, better bearing to the destination,