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> Once you do an experiment and record certain results, those results don't change. You seem to believe that facts are like rocks: You can look at a rock with

> Once you do an experiment and record certain results, those results don't change. You seem to believe that facts are like rocks: You can look at a rock with one pair of glasses, and then you can put a different pair of glasses on and be reasonably assured that you're looking at the same rock. This works because the laws of physics give us a context in which rocks can be individuated. Reality is a convenient authority for this sort of thing. So far as I can tell, there is no such authority for facts. What wider context is there to appeal to if you want to know whether you're looking at the same fact in a different light, or a new fact? If you know of such a method, I am sincerely interested to know it. Consider the Michelson Morely experiment. Initially, it established that the velocity of the aether relative to the Earth was 0. Now, we look back on it and say that it established that the speed of light in certain directions does not depend on certain orbital characteristics of the earth. I don't think it's so crazy to imagine a future where a new means of interpreting experiments has taken hold, and from which we would give yet a third description for the experiment established. I think this situation is simpler if these all count as separate facts. > The facts of gravity didn't change when discovered General Relativity. All that changed was the theoretical model. Do "the facts of gravity" include the predictions made by the theory of gravity? Because in a number of notable cases they did in fact change when Einstein's theory became the one we use for gravity. Speaking of Einstein, before he pubished his paper on special relativity, wasn't it a fact that the velocity of a bullet fired from a train (relative to the track) is the sum of the train's velocity and the bullet's velocity? (i.e. the only relevant transformations re: velocity are galilean transformations)? We may not have noticed that this seemingly absolute fact was actually only a fact according to the galilean theory of motion, because no competing theories were available. But once alternatives became available, it was necessary to relativize the fact and add the "according to" part. Given that we can't know which facts might later need to be relativized, isn't the safer move to assume that all of them are in scope for this kind of change? If we managed to install in everyone a proper respect for scientific authority, would Einstein have had the courage to disregard the fact about how velocities are added?

pdonis 8y ago
> So far as I can tell, there is no such authority for facts. Huh? You just described it: reality is the authority. > I think this situation is simpler if these all count as separate facts. No, they are different theoretical descriptions of the facts. The facts are the particular experimental apparatus Michelson and Morley used and the particular numbers they recorded when they made their measurements. > Do "the facts of gravity" include the predictions made by the theory of gravity? Of course not. Predictions aren't facts. They're things that you compare with facts in order to test theoretical models. > Speaking of Einstein, before he pubished his paper on special relativity, wasn't it a fact that the velocity of a bullet fired from a train (relative to the track) is the sum of the train's velocity and the bullet's velocity? No. As far as I know nobody at that time had made accurate enough measurements of the velocity of anything to be able to test the Newtonian prediction vs. the relativity prediction. But that doesn't mean the Newtonian prediction was correct before relativity was discovered. It certainly doesn't mean that something changed about the world described by physical models when physicists switched from using the Newtonian model to using the relativity model. All that changed was the model: the world the model was describing didn't change. > Given that we can't know which facts might later need to be relativized Facts never need to be relativized. Relativizing is something that happens when you switch theoretical models. You seem to be consistently confusing facts with models.
- xfs 8y ago
  Raw facts are meaningless without models, theories, or even, ideologies. Without meaning you can't do anything useful with it, or anything "that works." You always have to have a theory in order to predict the future based on facts and then have experiments to verify the predictions. No meaningful experiments can exist without a establishing theory. All facts are alternative facts in the sense that facts are only accessible and made meaningful through theories and there is no one true theory.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > Raw facts are meaningless without models, theories, or even, ideologies. No, they're not. They just don't allow you to make predictions without a model. But you don't need to agree on a theoretical model to agree that, for example, Michelson and Morley had a particular experimental setup and procedure and recorded particular numbers when they ran the experiment. > You always have to have a theory in order to predict the future based on facts and then have experiments to verify the predictions. A "theory" in this sense can be just about anything, from a simple guess to a detailed mathematical model with lots of ramifications. So I don't see that much is gained by making this observation.

pdonis 8y ago

> So far as I can tell, there is no such authority for facts. Huh? You just described it: reality is the authority. > I think this situation is simpler if these all count as separate facts. No, they are different theoretical descriptions of the facts. The facts are the particular experimental apparatus Michelson and Morley used and the particular numbers they recorded when they made their measurements. > Do "the facts of gravity" include the predictions made by the theory of gravity? Of course not. Predictions aren't facts. They're things that you compare with facts in order to test theoretical models. > Speaking of Einstein, before he pubished his paper on special relativity, wasn't it a fact that the velocity of a bullet fired from a train (relative to the track) is the sum of the train's velocity and the bullet's velocity? No. As far as I know nobody at that time had made accurate enough measurements of the velocity of anything to be able to test the Newtonian prediction vs. the relativity prediction. But that doesn't mean the Newtonian prediction was correct before relativity was discovered. It certainly doesn't mean that something changed about the world described by physical models when physicists switched from using the Newtonian model to using the relativity model. All that changed was the model: the world the model was describing didn't change. > Given that we can't know which facts might later need to be relativized Facts never need to be relativized. Relativizing is something that happens when you switch theoretical models. You seem to be consistently confusing facts with models.

xfs 8y ago
Raw facts are meaningless without models, theories, or even, ideologies. Without meaning you can't do anything useful with it, or anything "that works." You always have to have a theory in order to predict the future based on facts and then have experiments to verify the predictions. No meaningful experiments can exist without a establishing theory. All facts are alternative facts in the sense that facts are only accessible and made meaningful through theories and there is no one true theory.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > Raw facts are meaningless without models, theories, or even, ideologies. No, they're not. They just don't allow you to make predictions without a model. But you don't need to agree on a theoretical model to agree that, for example, Michelson and Morley had a particular experimental setup and procedure and recorded particular numbers when they ran the experiment. > You always have to have a theory in order to predict the future based on facts and then have experiments to verify the predictions. A "theory" in this sense can be just about anything, from a simple guess to a detailed mathematical model with lots of ramifications. So I don't see that much is gained by making this observation.