o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o (01)
IJ = Ingvar Johansson
JA = Jon Awbrey (02)
JA: In what "frame of reference" shall I evaluate your objection?
I tried to follow fashion by invoking analogies from physics.
Relative to that frame of reference, I can only iterate what
all my physics professors dinned into my skull, to wit, that
older common sense notions of magnitude had simply ceased to
make sense any more lacking reference to an observer's frame
and the specified operations commonly known as "measurements"
that are an absolute, er, relative "must" to pin operational
definitions to the given magnitudes. That's how they taught,
but I will refrain from echoing all the ridicule they heaped
on former generations of deluded philosophers, prescientists,
and especially common sense normal folks who ever languished
in the dissociative styles of thought that dreamed otherwise. (03)
JA: Ingvar sought to evade the point of that analogy by shifting
the frame of reference to everyday epistemology and ordinary
language acceptability. The very attempt to change the fact
by shifting the frame of reference has just proved the point. (04)
IJ: 1. I did not try to evade any lesson to be learnt from the theory
of special relativity. I tried to point out the following. We
learn (both as children and as adults) many concepts (everyday
as well as scientific) by means of meeting protypical examples
or performing prototypical actions. In case of understanding
the concept of 'the correspondence theory of truth' there
is a prototypcial example available: the correspondence
or non-correspondence between ordinary perceptions on
the one hand and statements in ordinary language
on the other. (05)
IJ: 2. I think it is fair to say that "older common sense"
implicitly had a Newtonian notion of absolute space
and time, and that the special theory of relativity (SR)
proved this notion to be obsolete. But this does does mean
that SR proved either that *epistemological relativism* is true
or that *operationalism* in the philosophy of science is true.
What SR does mean, among other things, is (i) that each inertial
frame of reference is just like the absolute space of Newtonian
mechanics, and (ii) that there is a special formula (the Lorentz
transformations) by means of which measurement values obtained in
one inertial frame of reference can be translated into the values
that would be obtained in another such frame. This story is
neither a threat to a fallibilist epistemology nor to the
correspondence theory of truth. (06)
Ingvar, (07)
Apologies for my attribution of a motive -- it was only
my first guess as to why we appeared to be talking past
each other on what I thought was a long-familiar lesson. (08)
There's a whole lot of traffic to cache up on from this morning,
so I'll save a more detailed response for the cool of the night.
Up till now I've really tried to limit myself to the historical
review -- more like a sampler of favorite quotations, I suppose --
part of this discussion, but I hope to have clarified where I'd
like to be going with it in my last response to John Sowa, here: (09)
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2007-08/msg00363.html (010)
So I'll leave it there till later tonight ... (011)
Jon Awbrey (012)
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o (013)
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