the nature of science

[bluetwinky]

While watching the video on the nature of science I was reminded of an arguement which I encountered in a book by Ludwig Wittgenstein entitled the Blue and Brown Books. The statement is used as an example or perhaps a metaphor in talking about various philosphical problems. To those interested the book is published by Harper & Row under the Harper Torchbooks imprint. The ISBN is 0-06-131211-8.


... We have been told by popular scientists that the floor on which we stand is not solid, as it appears to common sense, as it has been discovered that the wood consists of particles filling space so thinly that it can almost be called empty. This is liable to to perplex us, for in a way of course we know that the floor is solid, or that, if it isn't solid, this may be due to the wood being rotten but not to its being composed of electrons. To say, on this latter ground, that the floor is not solid is to misuse language. for even if the particles were as big as grains of sand, and as close together as these are in a sandheap, the floor would not be solid if it were composed of them in the sense in which a sandheap is composed of grains. Our perplexity was based on a misunderstanding: the picture of the thinly filled space had been wrongly applied. For this picture of the structure of matter was meant to explain the very phenomenon of solidity. (page 45)

[bluetwinky]

The point of my post, I am explicitly connecting the dots here, is to address the example of the chair being sat on in the nature of science.

Our senses provide us with data to which we apply an intellectual construct. This is either usefull or not. The point of all this is obviously to explain what we experience and hopefully be able to predict future events. Our experience is not valid or invalid. It is our understanding of our experiences which either are or are not valid. Problems come about when we apply explanations which do not help us acheive or goals but hinder. So for example we discount the danger of carbon monoxide and work on an automobile while it is running in an enclosed garage. We begin to feel sleepy. At this point the question is not what we experience but the meaning of that experience and what to do.

It is a picky point, but I think it is a mistake to take the position that our explanation of what happens when we sit in a chair means that we are not sitting but rather are levitating, or that solid floors are not solid. Why? Because it is good to put yourself beyond effective counter arguement.

[goney3]

*scratches head* ... I have to admit I don't think that deeply about things