User talk:Admin/Einstein

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From what I have seen, I think it's very good and correct. I interpret the     vs     issue in quantum theory in this way. The     types like Bohr, Rutherford, probably Pauli (ILI I think) were willing to accept that the equations of quantum theory could be confirmed empirically even if it wasn't understood what they actually meant. That was something difficult for     types like Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger to accept; they kept insisting on the need for a wider "model", a view of the global picture. That led Schrödinger to propose his (soon contexted) model based on waves; and led Einstein to context the uncertainty principle, which was based on "randomness" that Einstein saw as simply not having a model and therefore lack of understanding. Expat 22:41, 6 November 2008 (GMT)

Yes, exactly. Funny, but this exact issue is what David Deutsch spends much of his book discussing (The Fabric of Reality): is science's purpose to explain (   ) or predict (   )? He basically says that there's no satisfaction from knowing what will happen without understanding why. --Admin 22:51, 6 November 2008 (GMT)

Deutsch also argues that it is impossible to know all the individual facts about the universe, but that it may be possible to understand how they fit together, which would make more sense than trying to know all the facts. The problem with quantum theory is that nobody has been able to understand it; Einstein or Schrödinger would just continue to try to understand it, while Bohr would prefer just to use it. Expat 22:56, 6 November 2008 (GMT)

It might be possible to view the development of science as alternating periods of     and     dominance. --Admin 23:00, 6 November 2008 (GMT)

I'm not sure. For instance, the ancient Romans were famously good in engineering in a     way, and engineering as such is far more     than    , but their approach to science was poor. That continued in medieval times - progress in engineering continued, but separate from    , which at the time had to do with religion and philosophy, and law. Law was actually where the Romans'     was focused. I think that the development of the modern scientific method, from the 18th century on, caught on when     and     started to be used together.     without     isn't science; it's applied engineering (or business methods, etc) in an empirical way, like the Romans.     without     does not even have to be science, except - perhaps - in mathematics, but I would question even that. Einstein's methods put     before    , but even he based his     models on previous     evidence, and he also thought that his relativity theory needed confirmation. That is why I think that anything deserving to be called "science" must have both working together. Expat 06:46, 7 November 2008 (GMT)

Your message looks like gibberish with all the symbols, but I completely understand it:)) Maybe engineering and law are     +     and     +    , whereas philosophy and experimental science are     +     and     +    ? I agree that science as we know it appeared near the end of the Middle Ages. Before that there probably still was the interplay of     and     in science, but the rate of progress was almost imperceptible. With the printing press and ever more communication and ways of storing information, the process has become much faster, and the interplay of     and     more apparent. If this interplay is actually a fundamental part of the process, then by analogy there should be other areas where     and     alternate, etc. Something to think about. --Admin 17:36, 7 November 2008 (GMT)

I agree with most of it; a quibble would be that I would say that design engineering (which is often mixed with experimental science) is also    +   . As for areas where     and     alternate, all I can think of is in the realm of politics, or more broadly, how communities evolve from families (or small tribes) to larger groups. Expat 18:19, 7 November 2008 (GMT)

That's an interesting idea. Maybe there are periods where communities tend to increase (   ) or decrease in size (   ) due to political, social, and technological processes. The past 15 years have seen a     period, with all sorts of new, expanding communities due to the Internet and globalization. Now, with the economic crisis, this may turn around and turn into an     period when people have to focus more on their personal relationships, family, friends, local communities, etc. to cooperate not on the level of ideas, but to actually work and do things together out of necessity. That would suggest a     +     to     +     shift. That's plausable, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. --Admin 18:26, 7 November 2008 (GMT)

While quantum mechanics may have been seen as a more     +     theory at first (    because of its dependence on probability and     for its simply being an "effective" theory), it has been made much more rigorous and algebraic since then. I don't know if this was due to the LII Dirac and (ILE?) Schrodinger, but it shows that the theory itself incorporates different kinds of informational influences over time. In fact, quantum mechanics in its present form is much much more algebraic than general relativity, which suggests greater value and sophistication of    . Thehotelambush 22:11, 14 November 2008 (GMT)

That makes sense. A new theory will probably most clearly demonstrate the functional makeup of its author, but a lasting and successful one will eventually gain backing from many different sources. --Admin 22:21, 14 November 2008 (GMT)

The article says that Einstein

viewed quantum mechanics' assertations as temporary; "the theories which invoked indeterminacy were forced to do so only because of man's ignorance" (p. 348).

A closely related controversy has existed for a long time within probability theory itself: Some people want to view probabilities as saying something directly about the object under study, others want to view probabilities as saying something about an observer's state of knowledge about the object under study. It's known as the "objectivist camp" vs. the "subjectivist camp", or Bayesians vs. non-bayesians. The famous Ed Jaynes has written quite a bit on this, touching on QM foundations as well.

An intro is available on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Thompson_Jaynes , essays about the topic may be found on http://bayes.wustl.edu .

Jaynes calls this phenomenon of projecting observer's uncertainty into uncertainty in Nature itself the "mind projection fallacy".

In any case, people of all socionics types have always objected to the IMHO fanatic assertion that present models - be they probabilistic or not - are the final word. Ragnar the nerd 16:32, 23 July 2009 (BST)