[FRIAM] Opportunity to join a discussion about Charles Sanders Peirce

[Robert Wall]

By the way, there is a lively debate going on about the Sabine Hossenfelder
article How Popper killed Particle Physics
<https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-popper-killed-particle-physics.html?m=1>
posted
just yesterday.  It could make a good thread, as a few of you on the list
seem to agree with her rant and it would be good to hear as to why that is
so ... I am guessing this sentiment has something to do with Thomas Kuhn in
Nick's case at least.

Kuhn's criticism of Popper seems to be saying that logical positivism
(verificationism ... looking for ways to prove we are right ... instead of
wrong) dominates science ... still ... and not in a good way.  I think that
is right (e.g., LHC), but it doesn't undermine what Popper is saying about
how to be sure and honest about what we really know ... lest we backslide
into epistemological relativism or intellectual totalitarianism (e.g., a
leading paradigm doesn't shift until its authors die off ... something like
that).

Sabine seems to be backing off the rant a bit, I think; she says she is not
criticizing Popper, only saying that falsification is not enough ... and it
should not halt any theory development.  I would have to believe that even
Popper might agree with some of this with some clarifications.  I thought
the reply comment about "mathematicism" was interesting and kind of funny.

Looking back over this particular thread, it turns out that I did not
mention String Theory per se. I did mention that Smolin's "Genesis" theory
is claimed to be testable.  Perhaps this is what prompted Carl's insertion
of Sabine's rant.

Good to see Smolin getting a shout-out in the comments along with Lisa
Randall. Kum ba ya.

[image: Inline image 1]

Cheers

On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 1:20 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Excellent!  Yes, complement is a much more appropriate relation between
> the ideas than compete, I think.  Thanks.
>
> On 11/06/2017 11:08 AM, Robert Wall wrote:
> >
> > Actually, I think I said that Smolin's idea "competes" with
> Mareletto's.  That was sloppy; I meant that Smolin's theory can exist in
> the same space with Constructor Theory as an explanatory system, but one
> that operates on the macro scale (cosmological), especially with respect to
> initial conditions (constraints) to our universe. Constructor Theory
> proposes a physical universe at the microscale that could start here and
> unfold with new constraints "evolving" from earlier ones.  I see the
> heavier elements (e.g., carbon ... gold) being generated from later
> generation suns as a possible example of this. England seems to take this
> history into the abiogenesis by appealing to the idea of metabolic
> homeostasis with the production of dissipative systems being a likely
> outcome in this universe. Anyway, I should have used the term "complements"
> versus "competes."
>
> --
> ☣ gⅼеɳ
>
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