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From: myers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Bob Myers)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Truth of theories (was: Re: Simplicity and truth)
Message-ID: <3893@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Fri, 4-Sep-87 15:24:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.3893
Posted: Fri Sep  4 15:24:18 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 19:12:17 EDT
References: <20297@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <20304@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <3800@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <20371@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Reply-To: myers@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Bob Myers)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 39
Keywords: truth Ockham's razor

In article <20371@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Paul Kube) writes:
>
>Look, statements can be pretty long; but if you prefer to think of a theory
>as a set of statements instead, that's fine.  The theory is true iff each
>of the statements it makes are true.  Or what are you getting at here?
>I'm not saying that every statement is a theory, only the converse.

I'm saying that a theory is not a set of statements, but a manner of
looking at the world that allows one to *make* true statements.  It is a
conceptual model.  Science is a human activity, done by humans to help them
understand their environment -- which means to make conceptual models of
their environment, which I call theories.  It is not done in the absence of
an observer -- statements by themselves do not make a theory.  This is the
objection I have to Biep's "mechanization" of science.

>If Newtonian Physics says "F=ma, period" then it's false, since there
>are circumstances in which F!=ma.  If it says "F=ma to a real good
>approximation at reasonable masses and velocities, etc."  then it's
>not false on that account.

F=ma (at reasonable ...  etc.) is a true statement that Newtonian Physics
allows one to make.  It is not the theory, though it is an important part
of it.  One really important part is the concept of mass -- which is
introduced by Newtonian Physics.  What is mass?  F=ma is, in the end, a
definition of mass.  What makes it useful is that it is consistent in any
Newtonian reference frame (which is the other important concept of
Newtonian Physics).  I think it is safe to say that most of us have
conceptions of acceleration and force, but mass is something we experience
only through F=ma.  It is this conceptual model -- mass, F=ma, and the
Newtonian reference frame -- that make up the theory of Newtonian Physics.
Is it true?  This still seems (to me) a strange way of looking at a model.
Can it produce true statements?  Yes.

Have I clarified my position any?

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Bob Myers                                         myers@tybalt.caltech.edu
			 {rutgers,amdahl}!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!myers