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The parent article is about 99% fluff, but for people interested in Philosophy of Science, John D. Norton (from the article) has a treasure trove of interesting

The parent article is about 99% fluff, but for people interested in Philosophy of Science, John D. Norton (from the article) has a treasure trove of interesting stuff. https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120702103247/http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/jdnorton.html https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120702103247/http://www.p... https://web-beta.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/* https://web-beta.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pitt.edu/~jdno... Unfortunately our universities are big failure when it comes to properly maintaining and archiving their websites. I guess the librarians have not been involved when it comes to matters of IT. Anyway, you have to search for his stuff on archive.org. For thought experiments, check out things like: Thought Experiment Anti-Thought Experiment Pairs https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120703003926/http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/TE-antiTE/index.html https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120703003926/http://www.p... and his papers on Maxwell's demon: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20140309110028/http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/exorcism_phase_vol/exorcism_phase_vol.html https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20140309110028/http://www.p... http://www2.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/ExorcistXIV/Exorcist1.pdf http://www2.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/ExorcistXIV/Exorcist1.... http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/ExorcistXIV/Exorcist2.pdf http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/ExorcistXIV/Exorcist2.p...

mannykannot 10y ago
Thanks for the links, and I see that they are of Norton's work. Going solely on the article, I felt I could understand Norton's view, but in the author's outline of Brown's view, I haven't been able to make the jump from "the laws of gravity... are 'real' in that they exist, again, independently of human observers" to "thought experiments are genuine examples of how the human mind can 'perceive' laws of nature by simply thinking about reality." The first thing I want to ask about that (beyond just how it works) is how can you tell that you are not just making it up? Of course, one way would be to use reasoning to see if your ideas are consistent with what you take to be known, but does that not give you just Norton's view decorated with some metaphysical musings? I realize that Brown's version may be too subtle to even be summarized in an article such as this, and if someone knows of a link to a fair outline of Brown's views, I would give it a go. As an aside, I am also amused to see 'real' in quotes (and it is not for the reason I just put it there). It puts me in mind of George Burns' joke about faking sincerity.

mannykannot 10y ago

Thanks for the links, and I see that they are of Norton's work. Going solely on the article, I felt I could understand Norton's view, but in the author's outline of Brown's view, I haven't been able to make the jump from "the laws of gravity... are 'real' in that they exist, again, independently of human observers" to "thought experiments are genuine examples of how the human mind can 'perceive' laws of nature by simply thinking about reality." The first thing I want to ask about that (beyond just how it works) is how can you tell that you are not just making it up? Of course, one way would be to use reasoning to see if your ideas are consistent with what you take to be known, but does that not give you just Norton's view decorated with some metaphysical musings? I realize that Brown's version may be too subtle to even be summarized in an article such as this, and if someone knows of a link to a fair outline of Brown's views, I would give it a go. As an aside, I am also amused to see 'real' in quotes (and it is not for the reason I just put it there). It puts me in mind of George Burns' joke about faking sincerity.