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 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:39 pm
Mecill A scientific law can be a fact if you provide qualifiers, such as "in a vacuum..." Mecil The wiki definition is: In science, a fact is a verifiable and objective observation. These two statements are contradictory. A law is a description, not an observation. As such, it cannot be a scientific law. Of course, if one uses non-scientific definitions of "fact" and/or "law," it can lead to all sorts of strange things. Mecill And I think arguing about this is counterproductive. You can argue about this or you can accept you exist and not worry. I was not trying to get into a philosophical discussion. As far as this topic goes, I think we can all accept the implicit assumptions of mutual existence. Mecill I was thinking to prove something completely "true" or "false" you'd have to provide an infinite number of qualifiers so usually people just assume the infinite qualifiers and don't state them. Just as an aside, this can be done with a finite number of assumptions/qualifiers. It is still rarely worth stating them.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:17 pm
zz1000zz Mecill A scientific law can be a fact if you provide qualifiers, such as "in a vacuum..." Mecil The wiki definition is: In science, a fact is a verifiable and objective observation. These two statements are contradictory. A law is a description, not an observation. As such, it cannot be a scientific law. Yes, they are somewhat not compatible but that is okay because they refer to different definitions. The part of the wiki definition I think is important is that the observation must be verifiable and objective (similar to my working definition). Basically the conversation is in the politics forum. You can't go there and ignore political science just like someone from there can't go to the sci and tech ed and make unscientific statements without people getting mad at them. Also, I don't think a non-scientific law is a description, it's a rule that must be followed. But a scientific-law can be a description. zz1000zz Mecill And I think arguing about this is counterproductive. You can argue about this or you can accept you exist and not worry. I was not trying to get into a philosophical discussion. As far as this topic goes, I think we can all accept the implicit assumptions of mutual existence. I realize that statement was a bit unclear. I didn't mean you as in you personally, but rather one in general. My reason for bringing up this point is that denial of scientific fact is like denial of the existence of scientific fact. With me, arguing about logic always degenerates into a philosophical discussion. I'm trying to work on it. zz1000zz Mecill I was thinking to prove something completely "true" or "false" you'd have to provide an infinite number of qualifiers so usually people just assume the infinite qualifiers and don't state them. Just as an aside, this can be done with a finite number of assumptions/qualifiers. It is still rarely worth stating them. Can it really be done rigorously with a finite number of qualifiers?
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:46 pm
Mecill Yes, they are somewhat not compatible but that is okay because they refer to different definitions. The part of the wiki definition I think is important is that the observation must be verifiable and objective (similar to my working definition). Basically the conversation is in the politics forum. You can't go there and ignore political science just like someone from there can't go to the sci and tech ed and make unscientific statements without people getting mad at them. Also, I don't think a non-scientific law is a description, it's a rule that must be followed. But a scientific-law can be a description. The discussion in that thread has only been over the scientific definitions of these words. At the start of the exchange, and all the way throughout, we have specifically limited ourselves only to the scientific definitions. If not for that, I would agree with you. Mecill Can it really be done rigorously with a finite number of qualifiers? It certainly can. You just have to start with some assumption, such as "The reality I perceive is the same reality everyone else perceives" and build. It doesn't take too many steps from there. Once you figure out the assumption chain, you can apply it to any statements you make. (There are certain assumptions implicitly taken in that assumption, such as "I exist." Mapping out all of the necessary assumptions can be done, but you start running into wording issues. I picked that assumption just for simplicity.)
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 8:41 pm
zz1000zz The discussion in that thread has only been over the scientific definitions of these words. At the start of the exchange, and all the way throughout, we have specifically limited ourselves only to the scientific definitions. The topic of the post is scientific discussions but there is no requirement stating that it must be discussed with a certain set of definitions. As I said there, even among the scientific community there is not consensus. But the fact (haha, sorry) that the people calling you a troll didn't understand what you meant when you said "Ohm's law is not a fact" shows they have a lack of understanding of how science actually works. zz1000zz You just have to start with some assumption, such as "The reality I perceive is the same reality everyone else perceives" and build. It doesn't take too many steps from there. Once you figure out the assumption chain, you can apply it to any statements you make. Nice. Thanks! smile
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:09 pm
Mecill zz1000zz The discussion in that thread has only been over the scientific definitions of these words. At the start of the exchange, and all the way throughout, we have specifically limited ourselves only to the scientific definitions. The topic of the post is scientific discussions but there is no requirement stating that it must be discussed with a certain set of definitions. As I said there, even among the scientific community there is not consensus. But the fact (haha, sorry) that the people calling you a troll didn't understand what you meant when you said "Ohm's law is not a fact" shows they have a lack of understanding of how science actually works. The exchange started when I made a comment along the lines of, "The Big Bang and evolution are just theories." Someone responded, and I clarified by saying something like, "I am using 'theory' as it is used in science." The topic has always been over the scientific use of these terms. De nada.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:33 am
zz1000zz The exchange started when I made a comment along the lines of, "The Big Bang and evolution are just theories." Someone responded, and I clarified by saying something like, "I am using 'theory' as it is used in science." The topic has always been over the scientific use of these terms. The discussion in that part of the topic was about definitions. (I guess it started about the scientific use of the terms but later on there were other misunderstandings.) The people arguing with you didn't understand the scientific definitions, but scientists must also use common language definitions precisely in writing. When you're writing a paper you might avoid using other definitions of certain special words like law and theory without clarification, to prevent confusion, but you can use them freely otherwise. Also, I could argue that the definitions they chose to use were no less "scientific" except that their use of them had mistakes.
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Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 8:47 am
Guys, I just realized I think I read String Theory science fiction at a young age without being aware of it. rofl
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Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:39 pm
Due to the notation I'm using, I very much want to turn the phonology of my conlang into a tensor.
I have sixteen consonants and sixteen vowels, and I'm currently writing Cij and Vij for them (0≤i,j≤3) because I don't want to assign letters to them just yet.
The notation is just so suggestive.
I might even start writing Sijᵏˡ since the syllable structure is CV except for initial vowels.
And while covariance and contravariance are currently meaningless, they could very well show up in the semantics.
This is what happens when you try to design a language with a built-in numerology.
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Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:39 pm
So I got a B in my Honors Analysis course, also my first Analysis course. Don't know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it feels like that I ran a gauntlet and succeeded. On the other, it's not an A.
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 9:56 am
Layra-chan Due to the notation I'm using, I very much want to turn the phonology of my conlang into a tensor. I have sixteen consonants and sixteen vowels, and I'm currently writing C ij and V ij for them (0≤i,j≤3) because I don't want to assign letters to them just yet. The notation is just so suggestive. I might even start writing S ijᵏˡ since the syllable structure is CV except for initial vowels. And while covariance and contravariance are currently meaningless, they could very well show up in the semantics. This is what happens when you try to design a language with a built-in numerology. Lol. Wow. That sounds very interesting... Is it an independent project?
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:33 pm
Yeah, it's just something that I'm doing in my free time. The syntax is entirely regular and the lexicon is going to have at least some structure.
It's not going to be so much a language as an algebraic structure with semantics attached.
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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:30 pm
Oh. Sounds really cool. Can you make it so you can use it for mathematical arguments with semantic content? XD
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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:21 pm
At the moment there isn't any semantic content. I don't have any vocabulary yet, only a lot of grammar.
I've got a syntax, which is entirely composed of two functions.
I've got, if not an actual phonology, combinatorial rules for building syllables.
I've got a number system, wherein each vowel is assigned a value between 0 and 15 and whatever Cº² followed by that vowel is the numeral for the assigned value, and larger numbers are pronounced and written as strings of base-16 numerals.
I haven't really made any actual vocabulary beyond this; I have some ideas but haven't fleshed them out at all.
Oh, I do have the fractal tense system. There are two morphemes, which I'll label by f and p, where f indicates the future, p indicates the past.
ff indicates a time after f, and pp indicates a time before p. fp indicates a time before f but after the present, pf indicates a time after p but before the present.
fpp indicates a time before fp but after the present, fpf indicates a time after fp but before f. pff indicates a time after pf but before the present, pfp indicates a time before pf but after p.
And so on.
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Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 3:25 pm
Hey guys, I'm back. I'm in a much better place now, so I'll try not to be such an emo dipshit all the time. I'm still extremely bitter/resentful about a lot of abstract math and physics, but I'm no longer in those fields, so I feel much better.
So...
What'd I miss?
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Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 8:58 pm
I have learned that grad school is hard.
What are you doing now?
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