Insights, Snippets, Quotes, Epiphanies & All That Sort of Things

Started by Wakefield, December 30, 2012, 01:55:32 PM

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Florestan

Quote from: ritter on July 19, 2020, 11:42:51 PM
I use to live two blocks away from the street that bears Donoso Cortés' name here in Madrid. Until now, that was my only contact with him or his oeuvre (the chap has lapsed into almost complete oblivion in Spain, were it not for the street).

I don't think I was missing much ::), but thanks anyway for bringing him to my attention. ;)

Un abrazo, Andrei.

Good day, Rafael. It's precisely of you that I was thinking when posting that longish quote. I said to myself "Let's see if Rafael has ever heard of M. Le Marquis de Valdegamas." :D

Btw, you missed this one:

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,30017.msg1307106.html#msg1307106

;)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

greg

Normally I don't like quotes, as they are too simplified, but this one I heard of today, I really like.

From Schopenhauer:

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."
Wagie wagie get back in the cagie

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: greg on September 09, 2020, 09:06:22 AM
Normally I don't like quotes, as they are too simplified, but this one I heard of today, I really like.

From Schopenhauer:

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."

My favorite philosopher.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
Niels Bohr.

Florestan

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on June 01, 2021, 10:09:06 AM
"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
Niels Bohr.

Excellent!

In the same vein:

"Science is a cemetery of dead ideas." - Miguel de Unamuno.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

drogulus

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on June 01, 2021, 10:09:06 AM
"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
Niels Bohr.

     I have this map. It's a wonderful map. But it isn't a map of anything, see, because we only know the map. I only think it takes me to Grandma's house. Really (if I can use that word) it goes to Grandma's map house. We don't know anything about houses, just maps that say house on them, or street. Who knows where maps come from or why they are useful. Maybe we can find a description of a person who knows the answer.
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greg

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on June 01, 2021, 10:09:06 AM
"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
Niels Bohr.
I think he totally could have worded this better lol....
Wagie wagie get back in the cagie

drogulus

Quote from: Florestan on June 01, 2021, 11:16:21 AM
A Grandma's speech would be more intelligible than all of the above.

     We can't talk about that, only what we can say about talking about it.

     The whole quote is:

There is no quantum world. This is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.

     Descriptions are of something. It is the task of physics to describe nature by making statements about it. The statements are the means, nature is the subject.
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drogulus

Quote from: Florestan on June 01, 2021, 12:06:52 PM
IFWIW,  I am a trained, Mechanical Engineer, M. Sc. 

What are your own credentials, if I may ask?



     I'm sure you are very good at applying your knowledge to the physical world, and not only to statements about it. This is a problem that has cropped up in philosophy more than once, and even quite recently in discussions about representation. The claim was made that we don't see the world but only representations of it. I would say that we do see the world and construct representations of it. That way the world stays in as the cause of things we see, and isn't obliterated by a representational hall of mirrors.

     
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drogulus

Quote from: Florestan on June 01, 2021, 12:29:16 PM
None of the above is the answer to my question, which I reiterate: ---

What are your own credentials, if I may ask?

     You certainly may. I don't know why you do, but it's a free country. The arguments I present are hardly original. I generally restate arguments that I find convincing. They take place among credentialed people, but in my case the arguments "credential" themselves more than who makes them.

     To put my point slightly differently, Bohr presents alternatives between "what we can say" and "finding out how nature is". He says it's one and not the other, and I think that's not the case. What we can say is physics presents an incomplete, approximate and probabilistic description of what nature is. It's not the "naive realist" picture, but it's still about what nature is.
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drogulus

Quote from: greg on June 01, 2021, 11:34:15 AM
I think he totally could have worded this better lol....

     The wording is fine. It's just wrong. You can't say anything of substance about nature that is not about what nature is.
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steve ridgway

Quote from: drogulus on June 01, 2021, 11:54:47 AM
There is no quantum world. This is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.

     Descriptions are of something. It is the task of physics to describe nature by making statements about it. The statements are the means, nature is the subject.

I see it more as making mathematical models that are consistent with nature on a certain level. But then some sort of concept or explanation is needed so people can picture what's going on.

drogulus

Quote from: steve ridgway on June 02, 2021, 09:54:19 AM
I see it more as making mathematical models that are consistent with nature on a certain level. But then some sort of concept or explanation is needed so people can picture what's going on.

     I agree. That's how we express what we know about how nature is, in sentences, equations and pictures. Bees do dances. The lack of exactitude is something we have to live with. There's no reason to adopt an impossible standard for how nature is.
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steve ridgway

Quote from: drogulus on June 01, 2021, 12:21:12 PM
The claim was made that we don't see the world but only representations of it. I would say that we do see the world and construct representations of it. That way the world stays in as the cause of things we see, and isn't obliterated by a representational hall of mirrors.

Yeah, the Buddhist idea of "dependent origination" says nothing is truly independent, the perception arises from the interaction between the world and the observing consciousness.

drogulus

Quote from: steve ridgway on June 02, 2021, 11:05:12 AM
Yeah, the Buddhist idea of "dependent origination" says nothing is truly independent, the perception arises from the interaction between the world and the observing consciousness.

     Y'see! Y'see! Buddhists!
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steve ridgway

Quote from: drogulus on June 02, 2021, 01:56:57 PM
     Y'see! Y'see! Buddhists!

Well they pointed it out some time ago but it's true or not regardless of who said it.

Florestan

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
–George Orwell, 1984
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

drogulus

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Karl Henning

Since Stalingrad, even the smallest military success has been denied us. On the other hand, our political chances have hugely increased, as you know.
— Josef Goebbels, quoted in his office on January 25, 1944 by Wilfred von Oven in Mit Goebbels bis Zum Ende.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

With the possible exception of Buddhism, no religion we know about is capable of allying itself to the state without working to the destruction of liberty. Less commonly noted is that it will also work to the destruction of itself, by trivializing its own teachings, or rendering them obnoxious in the attempt to impose them legally, instead of by exhortation, example and witness. In its proper sphere, private life, a religion can keep its teachings as pure and strict as it likes, as long as they do not break the law.
— Clive James
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot