So, a real bridge is following instructions like in a video game? — Agent Smith
n the simplest situation, the model will be fit to a set of measurements, which always refer to the past. — lll
I don't see how the mathematical 'necessity' can escape into the world and bind whatever is counted by x and y. — lll
Differential equations, lll, are they part of load & stress equations in re bridges? Can you explain them to me, please? Simplify them, if you can or want to. — Agent Smith
There's something other than inductive logic at work here isn't there? — Wayfarer
Has anyone ever reported that force equaled something other than mass times acceleration? — Wayfarer
It seems clear to me that we are projecting the structure of the past onto the future. — lll
we've already discussed that Newton's model was wrong — lll
Not wrong. It's applicability is shown to be limited but with the range of applicability it's not wrong. — Wayfarer
If something is knowable a priori, then it's known independently of experience, so I don't see how the past comes into it. — Wayfarer
May be I wasn't clear enough. Oh well! Your answer is, I'm certain, a notch above the rest. — Agent Smith
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/It is by means of Empfindung or sense experience that sentient beings are able to distinguish individuals from one another, including, in some instances, individuals that share the same essence. The form of experience is temporality, which is to say that whatever is directly experienced occurs “now”, or at the moment in time to which we refer as “the present”. Experience, in other words, is essentially fleeting and transitory, and its contents are incommunicable. What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.
Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent. That thoughts present themselves to the consciousness of individual thinking subjects in temporal succession is due, not to the nature of thought itself, but to the nature of individuality, and to the fact that individual thinking subjects, while able to participate in the life of spirit, do not cease in doing so to exist as corporeally distinct entities who remain part of nature, and are thus not pure spirit.
Does it help if I tell you I have a nice big quad HD monitor and not a smartphone, and I used that instead? — lll
It takes some time to grok differential equations — lll
But only one is realistic. — Wayfarer
One answer I got on Stack Exchange was:
There is no causation in logic. Some formulas are equivalent to others, and common language confuses the issue with formulations like "this circle has circumference Pi because its diameter is 1", when in fact saying one proposition is the same as saying the other. It is not analogous to physical causation (I.e. The observation that some events often happen in succession).
I see the point, but I can't help but think there's something wrong with it. I mean, it seems to me science relies heavily on the application of logic to the analysis of causal relationships. And that 'natural law' is where these meet. You conjecture that if [x] then [y], and then carry out an experiment or make an observation that confirms or disconfirms it. So I'm considering the idea that scientific law is where logical necessity and physical causation intersect, but I've never heard anyone else say that. — Wayfarer
We're sorrounded by the products of applied maths and physics. — Wayfarer
It seems to me that "why" questions could be just as easily asking about causality. Formal and final causes are illusory in that the goal in the mind in the present is what is causing something to happen. Goals don't exist in the future, but are visions of the future in the present moment and it is always the state-of-affairs in the present that determine the future, not the other way around.Yeah. The how questions are questions about material and efficient causality. The why questions go to formal and final cause. — apokrisis
The general is the illusion that other events can be the same as another event and therefore lead to the same effects. Similar states-of-affairs lead to similar effects, not the same effects.It's the search for a causal account. Every particular must be the product of something more general. — apokrisis
We're sorrounded by the products of applied maths and physics. The very devices we're using to conduct this conversation rely on quantum physics ( — Wayfarer
Occam's razor, :kiss: Men are simple folk. Women, no, they remind me of Rube Goldberg machines, they do! — Agent Smith
Why are things the way they are? — Luke
How much time did it take you? — Agent Smith
the Wikipedia article on the topic associates efficient cause with an Agent: — Luke
Goals don't exist in the future, but are visions of the future in the present moment and it is always the state-of-affairs in the present that determine the future, not the other way around. — Harry Hindu
The general is the illusion that other events can be the same as another event and therefore lead to the same effects. Similar states-of-affairs lead to similar effects, not the same effects. — Harry Hindu
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.