Understood and agreed (01)
I think part of this discussion is about whether reality (uncertainty
in this case) exists independently of the observers.
I am trying to distinguish between the uncertainty that is independent
of the observer,
and the uncertainty that depends on the perspective adopted by the observer (02)
the uncertainty about a bridge becoming unstable
is different about the uncertainty of the engineers being able to predict it (03)
I consider the former an objective uncertainty - soemthing engineers
cant do much about, simply a fact of life, therefore a dimension of
reality, although we cannot model the dynamic precisely we know its
there - (04)
and the second uncertainty is subjective - engineers decide to what
extent they want/can incorporate uncertainty in their model,
therefore it looks to me like a subjective perspective (the risk
model adopted by the engineers may or may not be suitable to the risk
which exists independently from the observer) (05)
PDM (06)
On 8/30/07, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Paola,
>
> Different people may prefer different perspectives.
> Their preferences may be subjective, but that does not
> imply that the perspectives are subjective.
>
> To take the example of the photographs of the city,
> perhaps you prefer one photo and I prefer another.
> Our preferences are subjective, but each photo is
> an objective representation of one perspective.
>
> > ... how can I express such distinction otherwise?
>
> I suggest that you can start by expressing them as a list
> that says "Here are multiple ways of describing the same
> thing from different perspectives."
>
> The goal of science is to find general equations or other
> kinds of formulas that can characterize a large collection
> of low-level data more concisely.
>
> One of my favorite examples is the collection of data by
> the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who made very accurate measurements
> of the motions of the planets because he wanted to support the
> Ptolemaic theory about how the sun and other planets revolved
> around the earth. But then his assistant, Johannes Kepler,
> used the same data to demonstrate that the earth and other
> planets went around the sun in elliptical orbits.
>
> You could say that Brahe and Kepler started with the same
> objective data, but they had different preferences about
> how it should be generalized. In the end, Kepler's version
> proved to be simpler, more general, and more accurate than
> Brahe's.
>
> John
>
>
>
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> (07)
--
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
********************************************* (08)
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