epistemology, science, kinds of knowledge, methodology
There’s a basic distinction between the travel distance (or flight length) and the displacement. There should be a corresponding distinction between the travel time (or flight time) and the temporal displacement – which I’ll call the dischronment (dis-time-ment vs. dis-place-ment). The travel time is the total duration of the trip, and the travel distance is […]
I haven’t mentioned this before because I have a solution to it but there is a problem with deriving the Lorentz transformation from the Galilean transformation. If one uses the spatial Galilean transformation, the gamma factor leads to the Lorentz transformation. But if one uses the temporal Galilean transformation, the gamma factor does not lead
The standard transformation of reference frames begins with two frames in uniform relative motion along one axis (usually called x). Here we take the spatial axis to be the r-axis, which parallels the spatial axis of motion. Similarly, the temporal axis is taken to be the t-axis, which parallels the temporal axis of motion. One
In 1738 David Hume wrote of the “principle that the course of nature continues always uniformly the same.” (A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk I, pt iii, sec 6). In 1748 he wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: When we have long enough to become accustomed to the uniformity of nature, we acquire a
I wrote before here about the book Laws of Form. I’ve written recently about conceptual induction here. This post connects the two. In the book Laws of Form, Appendix 2, G. Spencer-Brown interprets the calculus of indication for logic and finds a problem when it is interpreted existentially. To avoid this problem he introduces “Interpretive
John P. McCaskey has done a lot of research (including a PhD dissertation) on the meaning of induction since ancient times. He keeps some of his material online at http://www.johnmccaskey.com/. A good summary is Induction Without the Uniformity Principle. McCaskey traced the origin of the principle of the uniformity of nature (PUN) to Richard Whately
A uniformity principle says, What is true of some is true of all. This is usually applied to nature: What is true of some of nature is true of all of nature. Or, What happened in one experiment will happen if the experiment is repeated by anyone else. Since J.S. Mill this principle of the
I have written about uniformity before, such as here and here. This post looks at the need for a principle of uniformity. David Hume’s principle of the uniformity of nature (PUN) asserts that unobserved cases closely resemble previously observed cases. This principle concerns the character of natural populations based on a sample as well as
If one travels a distance X east, then goes a distance Y north, that is the same as going a distance √(X² + Y²) northeast. But if one travels for a time X east, then goes for a time Y north, is that the same as going for a time √(X² + Y²) northeast? No,
The week before Christmas is a good time of year to write about miracles because it’s a time to be reminded of the meaningfulness of miracles. But what about their truth? Doesn’t the uniformity of nature make miracles impossible? Thomas Aquinas said a miracle is ‘beyond the order commonly observed in nature’ (Summa Contra Gentiles
