[extropy-chat] what is probability?

[John K Clark]

"Benjamin Goertzel" <ben at goertzel.org>

> it is simply BS that all of "philosophy of science" ever written
> is either trivially obvious, or wrong.

Easiest way to prove me wrong is to provide a counter example. So tell me
one thing, just one thing, that philosophers of science have discovered that
is clear, precise, unexpected, and true.

> How would you tell the story of the "disproving"

Please explain what those quotation marks mean.

>of classical gravitation theory and its replacement by Einsteinian
> gravitation?

Subtle experiments were performed that Einstein could explain and Newton
could not. And Newton was not replaced he was supplemented; Newton works
just fine most of the time, it was good enough to get us to the moon, and
that's why it's still taught.

> Consider the mass of the top quark, for example. [.] there is some
> artfulness and judgment involved in defining which empirical observations
> are to be considered actual observations of the top quark, versus which
> are to be considered noise generated by the experimental equipment.

It's interesting that you had to go to the very cutting edge of experimental
science where there has not been time to sort things out. If everything is
culturally related why didn't you discuss the great controversy scientists
are having over the mass of the electron, or the mass of a baseball for that
matter? I'll tell you why, because such a controversy doesn't exist.

  John K Clark