Subject:
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I don't "believe" in Australia (was Re: John Leo's opinion)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 2 Oct 2002 21:40:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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787 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
> This is what I meant by Spock phrasing it better--he said something like 'on
> a planet with positive gravity'--it's ST:TOS--when was the last time I
> caught one of those episodes? ;)
Was that from "The Alternative Factor?" I haven't seen much TOS in quite
a while, so my memory may be faulty.
The problem is that his statement as you quoted it had no boundaries, so
we could only assume that it applied to the universe at large. With that in
mind, then my destruction of his statement was valid. When his argument is
further qualified, then certainly we can make better predictions within its
framework. But even in that case context is everything--if the hammer were
attached by a taut bungee cord to a bridge overhead, then the hammer would
certain not fall when he dropped (ie, released) it, at least not initially!
> I don't have to witness the effects of gravity repeatedly to know it exists,
> just as I don't actually have to visit Austrailia to know it exists--there
> has to come a time when, with enough data, the hypothesis is 'true enough',
> theory of relativity included
Be careful, because you're veering close to the oft-disproved ontological
argument for the existence of God.
Anyway, although you don't need to witness gravity repeatedly to know that
it exists, you *do* have to witness it repeatedly to be able to make
informed predictions about how it will affect objects within its influence.
Your assertion that hypotheses become "true enough" is reasonable in
real-world applications, but that's not the issue we were discussing. We
were discussing Spock's statement.
Do you really "know" Australia exists? Or do you accept the likelihood
that it exists? You are using a somewhat elastic definition of "to know"
and I would caution against inadvertant equivocation. "To know," in the
most basic sense, means either to have had direct sensory experience of a
thing, or else to have arrived at a conclusion through reason and logic.
Contrast each of these with "to believe" and "to pretend," which mean "to
accept without evidence" and "to accept in spite of evidence" respectively.
And contrast all of these with "to accept the likelihood of" which means
that, having weighed the evidence, but lacking direct physical or logical
exposure to a thing, you still are willing to accept that "the hypothesis is
true enough," relative to the seriousness of the stakes involved.
The last of those is at play in your Australia equation. I have no direct
experience of Australia, so I weigh the likelihood of the following:
Either
1) Either all of my indirect evidence (such as alleged photos of
Australia, alleged artifacts from Australia, testimony of people who allege
to have been to Australia, allegedly Australian kangaroos at the Pittsburgh
Zoo, and the existence of alleged Australian croc hunter Steve Erwin and the
unfortunate existence of the alledged Australian alleged comedian Yahoo
Serious) is false
or
2) Australia exists
Given the non-extraordinary circumstances that would be required for
Australia to exist (ie, a water-bounded land mass which has come to be known
as Australia), versus the extraordinary circumstances that would be
necessary for its existence to be false (ie, all of the above criteria would
have to be flawed, false, or erroneous), then it is reasonable for me to
accept the likelihood that Australia exists. Until I actually confirm the
existence of Australia with my own senses, I cannot say for certain that "I
know" that Australia exists. Only after I see/smell/hear/touch/taste
Australia can say that "I know" it exists, and that's as close to 100% as I
can ever really hope to get.
> I often wondered what would happen if we were to drill an 8 foot hole
> straight through the planet (of course, this idea assumes the core of the
> earth to be a nice room temperature, not molten rock...) and if wer were to
> jump down said hole--would we go past the center of the planet, slow down on
> the way to the other surface and just basically bounce back and forth thru
> the tunnel until we came to rest, free floating, at the exact center of the
> planet?
I think the answer to that question is yes, if you assume that the
gravitational center of the earth is the physical center. That's why the
so-called climax of the "film" Lost in Space wouldn't work; they try to
slingshot the Jupiter II into escape velocity by going through the core of
the exploding planet. The net gain to their velocity would be close to zero
after they'd passed the gravitational center and gone an equal distance from
the other side.
You're describing simple pendulum motion!
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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| (...) <snip> intellectual posturor! (...) This is what I meant by Spock phrasing it better--he said something like 'on a planet with positive gravity'--it's ST:TOS--when was the last time I caught one of those episodes? ;) I don't have to witness (...) (22 years ago, 2-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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