Category: Epistemology and Method

DO PARADIGMS REALLY FALSIFY? WHAT DOES ORDER MEAN? OPERATIONALISM IN ACTION

Better way of saying it: There is one most parsimonous paradigm (We call it science. Now I call it ‘P-grammar’). There is no value in false paradigms. There is only value in different attempts to solve a problem within the most parsimonious paradigm.

(Note: my position is that language is a system of measurement, and the p-grammars identify the paradigm, and that operationalism constitutions the universal grammar. That would mean the universe is always reducible to classical description.)

—“All paradigms are eventually false. :)”—Rick Paris

That’s demonstrably false. Instead, we increasingly identify limits that cause us to increase the parsimony of our theories.

All scientific paradigms appear increase in parsimony. Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein all evolve to greater precision. Take Humors (disease) and Phlogiston theory (chemistry), Einstein’s static universe(cosmology), or the expanding earth (plate tectonics). They were false but they were progress in the right direction.

Conversely there are three categories that always fail to increase in parsimony:

1) Magic -> Pseudoscience (action-physical)

2) Idealism -> Philosophy (verbal-rational)

3) Occult -> Theology (emotional-intuitionistic)

So we have deflationary grammars of Law, Science, Logic, and Mathematics that all increase in parsimony.

And we have inflationary grammars of magic(physical), idealism(verbal), and the occult(emotional) that fail all tests of parsimony.

Of course we also have the outright deceits too.

—“It is not false. The Universe is expanding, in that what is outside the current momentary paradigm is defined as the Unknown. There is always greater amounts of the Unknown shifting our perceived facts of what is known, as the Unknown is always greater < than the known. So,”No man steps into the same river twice.” is a metaphor for all physical experience. Paradigms are currently, and simply limited and only limited by belief. All paradigms are fictitious mental constructs. Attempting to measure the illogical, is useless and limited the human potential. Logic is very tedious and limits the strongest aspects of the human mind. Only the imagination (what is common sense) is the part of us that can penetrate the very fabric of the Unknown. The greatest of all human gifts is the imagination. It is the function behind all, and cannot be interpreted by logic alone .This is not based in an opinion, it is based in my own experience.”—Rick Paris

—“Curt I think I can see/agree a little with Rick. By the very nature of biology, you will always have a body of diversity, not just in capacity, but also concerns. The big fallacy is mistaking diversity for equality and/or dismissability. There will always be a need for more peasants than kings… This doesn’t mean that worker bees should rule the give (all you get is drones if such happens)… At the same time, if the king doesn’t address with reciprocity the needs of the peasants, you leave a tinder wound and a jealous rage ready to eat the rich and a cultural cancer that no longer gives a shit. Homogeny is the cultural cream that will come to the surface given time and peace (consistent enforced reciprocity).”—Anne Summers

This is a long standing debate, and it’s a matter of grammatical deficiency in our language, so we must state our meaning operationally to avoid sophistry.

ONE

Does existence persist independent of our perception? Yes.

Does the universe demonstrate regularities independent of our perception? Yes.

Do we define order as I did above as the intersection of periodicity and scale of resolution?

Or do we define order as the regularities what we might potentially identify at various periodicities and scales?

Or do we define order as dependent upon those periodicities and scales we can measure and reduce to analogy to experience?

Or do we define order as dependent upon the periodicity and scale open to our perception at human scale?

Or do we define order as those permutations of paradigms – networks of relations – that vary between humans despite relative invariance of human perception at human scale – such as the asian perception of the world as continuous motion(coherent world) or the european perception of the world as discreet objects (mechanistic world).

TWO

As for paradigms, this depends upon whether it is possible, when specifying both theory(search criteria), operations (measurement criteria) and limits (full accounting) whether we maintain progress toward the most parsimonious description or not. So, given human perception, human system of measurements, and human chosen time scale, when stating a theory, measurement, and limit, we appear to have successfully – at least in the ancient and modern worlds – slowly evolved greater precision and parsimony – in math, logic, and the sciences at least. And this is why it’s not clear than any of Aristotle, Newton, or Einstein are false at their levels of resolution. Instead it’s fairly obvious that we have just been increasing the precision of the general theory we call description of the regularities observable directly or instrumental in the universe. So if one’s definition is IDEAL then yes, theories are frequently falsified. But if one’s definition is testimonial then it certainly appears that we are continuously increasing precision and that the number of false theories is rapidly decreasing.

So, when you attempt to refute my definition, description, and proposition which definition of order are you using?