4 ms·

The thing is, science is full of things without definition. There is no definition for energy. All we have is a bunch of book-keeping. Everytime we couldn't bal

The thing is, science is full of things without definition. There is no definition for energy. All we have is a bunch of book-keeping. Everytime we couldn't balance the books (ie. conserve energy) we just added another column to the accounting. But what is energy? https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_04.html https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_04.html

gnulinux 6y ago
It is relevant to remember Kuhn's philosophy of science. Science is often thought as an institution that converges to truth. Kuhn, however, argues this is not true just like an organism gets away with evolving "good enough" features to ensure its survival, science merely evolves into "good enough" state that explains phenomenon of interest. Therefore, it is not necessary for science to converge into something that's close or even relevant to what is actually "true". Read: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#DeveScie https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#DeveScie
- mathgenius 6y ago
  I really should read more philosophy, but I just can't cope with all the long sentences and curlicues of jargon... It's the same reason I struggle with algebra. Academia in general builds walls of language, it's not designed to be user friendly.
  - gnulinux 6y ago
    In my experience, reading reliable secondary sources is a bit easier than primary sources. E.g. for philosophy, I read Stanford's Plato encyclopedia of philosophy. For math, I read nlab or Wikipedia. Unfortunately, both of these will require you to be familiar with basic terminology and concepts of the field and that's where most people stop learning at. E.g. I'm a complete layman in physics and want to learn more but the jargon beyond basic mechanics (i.e. velocity, position, acceleration etc) might as well be Greek to me.

4 ms·

The thing is, science is full of things without definition. There is no definition for energy. All we have is a bunch of book-keeping. Everytime we couldn't bal

by mathgenius 6y ago

gnulinux 6y ago
It is relevant to remember Kuhn's philosophy of science. Science is often thought as an institution that converges to truth. Kuhn, however, argues this is not true just like an organism gets away with evolving "good enough" features to ensure its survival, science merely evolves into "good enough" state that explains phenomenon of interest. Therefore, it is not necessary for science to converge into something that's close or even relevant to what is actually "true". Read: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#DeveScie https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#DeveScie
- mathgenius 6y ago
  I really should read more philosophy, but I just can't cope with all the long sentences and curlicues of jargon... It's the same reason I struggle with algebra. Academia in general builds walls of language, it's not designed to be user friendly.
  - gnulinux 6y ago
    In my experience, reading reliable secondary sources is a bit easier than primary sources. E.g. for philosophy, I read Stanford's Plato encyclopedia of philosophy. For math, I read nlab or Wikipedia. Unfortunately, both of these will require you to be familiar with basic terminology and concepts of the field and that's where most people stop learning at. E.g. I'm a complete layman in physics and want to learn more but the jargon beyond basic mechanics (i.e. velocity, position, acceleration etc) might as well be Greek to me.