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Gravity Threads are Real

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6 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Way too thin for what? If it doesn’t fall short of the standard for validity what other standard does it fall short of?

Falls short of any modern physics.

I don't think a thin theory is valid. Thin implies minimal explanatory power. But my focus was on thinness, because I think that is the bigger issue than simply being invalid.

The only reason to throw out a theory is if the theory does not sufficiently describe and predict reality. You would offer a new theory if the old one contradicted reality in some way, or if there literally was no other theory about the topic. Another option is to improve the old theory, by taking its weaknesses, and then improving upon those. But if you are improving a theory, you would be able to cite what you are improving.

I mean, isn't the stuff pretty straightforward? I imagine if you have 2 degrees in physics, one of them would be a masters. 
 

 

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32 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Falls short of any modern physics.

I don't think a thin theory is valid. Thin implies minimal explanatory power. But my focus was on thinness, because I think that is the bigger issue than simply being invalid.

The only reason to throw out a theory is if the theory does not sufficiently describe and predict reality. You would offer a new theory if the old one contradicted reality in some way, or if there literally was no other theory about the topic. Another option is to improve the old theory, by taking its weaknesses, and then improving upon those. But if you are improving a theory, you would be able to cite what you are improving.

I mean, isn't the stuff pretty straightforward? I imagine if you have 2 degrees in physics, one of them would be a masters. 
 

 

For clarity the purpose, and the only purpose, of my questions was to get a clear idea of what it was that you meant.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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On 4/21/2019 at 2:18 AM, StrictlyLogical said:

What’s wrong with the theory?

1. I’ll begin with the most serious mistake and continue with the less serious ones.

The premise of your “theory” is that the possible trajectories an object can take in free fall are in fact real. You call them “gravity threads”. In your view, an object follows a path by “attaching” itself to the “thread” corresponding to the object’s velocity.

Until and unless the reality of the gravity threads is established, any speculations about details, e.g. how it would work in different circumstances, are absolutely useless.

In the absence of a solid justification of your premise, your “theory” is neither true nor false, it is simply arbitrary.

This essential objection was already made by MisterSwing - but you failed to comment on it, which is unfortunate...

Besides, yours is not a theory, it is a hypothesis - at most !

 2. You did not justify the necessity of revising the classical Newtonian theory of as applied to free fall: non-concordance with observations, possible gaps in the theory and so on.

In the classical theory the various trajectories are potentialities, only one will be taken in reality, depending on the initial velocity (value and direction) and the strength of the gravitational field.

 3. You say nothing about how it would be possible to prove the reality of the “gravity threads”.

 4. If the trajectories/“gravity threads” are real, it should be possible to observe them. For this they should interact with our senses or instruments, and thus they probably have to possess some energy. Because you postulate an infinity of such “gravity threads”, you have an obvious problem: one will need an infinite energy to create them (at least a continuum infinity of the 6-th order!!)

 5. I will also mention one of the least important mistakes.

You write that “in space above the Earth and within the Earth's influence, Threads all follow parabolic arcs”. This is false: even in the absence of any other force beside the Earth gravity (such as air resistance), the parabolic arcs (y=Ax+Bx2) are only approximations - namely second order approximations. Even in the ideal case, the true trajectories are (almost) never parabolas. Details – on demand.

 PS: wrong is also your question addressed to the audience: “What’s wrong with the theory?”. This question is wrong from the point of view of the onus of proof rule.

Edited by AlexL
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Excellent.

Between the lot of you we have at least touched on:

1. Reification of abstraction i.e. rationalism in the form of conflating mathematics with reality.

2.  Distinction between unnecessary pure speculation armchair physics and observation based theorizing to resolve a necessary problem.

3.  related to 2 that theory with no evidence nor any possibility of verification is problematic and arbitrary.

I really would have loved to see Rand’s razor mentioned as it is invaluable as an inoculation against rationalism run rampant.

To close this out I would like to invite some further comment in the abstract answering the following:

Is superfluous explanation valid, although absent evidence, absent any independently verifiable prediction, if it helps a person to grasp what’s going on?  Is reification of math or relationships between entities ever justifiable on the basis that it is easier to “see it that way”? 

IF true Gravity Threads would seem as valid as the reified space-time we hear of so often.

 

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Also, the idea that some entity must play the role to mediate the interaction between the object and the Earth, inevitably leads to an infinite regress,  as by the same logic some mechanism (read entity)  must be required for the interactions between the Thread and the object ...eg attaching means of some kind... and between the Thread and the Earth ... eg spool causing the emergence of the Thread... 

at some point one should accept and be happy with an action-interaction-relationship simply being directly between two things without any further invocation of extra entities.

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21 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Also, the idea that some entity must play the role to mediate the interaction between the object and the Earth, inevitably leads to an infinite regress,  as by the same logic some mechanism (read entity)  must be required for the interactions between the Thread and the object ...eg attaching means of some kind... and between the Thread and the Earth ... eg spool causing the emergence of the Thread... 

at some point one should accept and be happy with an action-interaction-relationship simply being directly between two things without any further invocation of extra entities.

Is there anything actually wrong about an infinite regress? It seems only to apply to monism, and I don't think Oism posits a monist conception of reality. Things can be divided infinitely. Or at least, there's no reason to say things can't be divided infinitely in principle. If there were an absolute end, I think that would be evidence for reality being a simulation, or the existence of God. 
 

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Oh, I see!!!

Your „gravity threads theory“ wasn’t for real, you intended it as an exercise in philosophical detection! Possibly in the context of the discussion in the thread “Fundamentally, is there only ‘spacetime’?", which I did not follow...

Edited by AlexL
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12 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

To close this out I would like to invite some further comment in the abstract answering the following:

Is superfluous explanation valid, although absent evidence, absent any independently verifiable prediction, if it helps a person to grasp what’s going on?  Is reification of math or relationships between entities ever justifiable on the basis that it is easier to “see it that way”? 

 

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13 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Is superfluous explanation valid, although absent evidence, absent any independently verifiable prediction, if it helps a person to grasp what’s going on?  Is reification of math or relationships between entities ever justifiable on the basis that it is easier to “see it that way”? 

If a figurative or metaphorical explanation is presented as literal truth, I think that can be disastrous, on par with religious myths that people faithfully believe. But metaphor presented as such can be useful in understanding difficult concepts.

Also, I considered arguing that "gravity thread" is an anti-concept, until I realized what you were doing and that there was no real epistemological issue to fix. Even if there were, it is risky to begin by accusing someone of rationalism. I prefer addressing the cause of the conceptual error, which is the original misidentification of the existent in question.

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21 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

If a figurative or metaphorical explanation is presented as literal truth, I think that can be disastrous, on par with religious myths that people faithfully believe. But metaphor presented as such can be useful in understanding difficult concepts.

Also, I considered arguing that "gravity thread" is an anti-concept, until I realized what you were doing and that there was no real epistemological issue to fix. Even if there were, it is risky to begin by accusing someone of rationalism. I prefer addressing the cause of the conceptual error, which is the original misidentification of the existent in question.

True enough that the onus is on he who asserts the positive ... and that the concept of Gravity Threads as real, although consistent with the math, is an arbitrary concept which also is an unnecessary and superfluous concept.  

What are your thoughts about the relationship between Rand's Razor and Arbitrary concepts (and anti-concepts)?

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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17 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

What are your thoughts about the relationship between Rand's Razor and Arbitrary concepts (and anti-concepts)?

Perhaps we could do a new thread on this, because it's an interesting question on its own. My initial thought is that Rand's Razor is a tool of cognition while the arbitrary is an absence of cognition. We use the razor to identify mistakes in concept-formation, but the arbitrary is not a mistake, it's not even trying. It's just barfing up words without knowing their meanings. So how would you use the razor on that? At least with an anti-concept it is supposed to mean something, which makes it particularly destructive to the real concept it's replacing. The idea of a "flat planet" is no threat to cognition, until you apply it to the shape of the Earth.     

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On 4/21/2019 at 4:51 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

Knowing THAT something is invalid is impossible until you actually know WHY it is invalid, until then you can only merely suspect that something is invalid.

This probably depends on what you mean by "invalid." But it reminds me of the discussion about experience and logic. It's impossible to separate the two. Logic is our method of experiencing the world. So whenever we gain some knowledge, we already have the "why" it's true, even if we can't fully explain it in words. Usually, even a child can give you the basic reason: "because it is." That's the first attempt at explaining the law of identity. Sometimes you'll hear, "because I said so." Then you know you have a problem on your hands.

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