To: ckilmer
Ironically, the most significant consequence of the view that the natural world is computational may be the death of the notion that technology is applied science.News flash: there are many deterministic things in nature that are demonstrably not computable.
It's already happening in physics: Philosopher of science Andrew Pickering suggests that the quark, which in its unbound state has not - and some say cannot - be observed, should be regarded as a scientific invention rather than an actual particle.
News flash: when Gell-Mann first proposed quarks, he called them a "mathematical fiction", a mere heuristic crutch to help him work out the equations. Deep inelastic scattering experiments later showed that there really are pointlike particles inside protons and neutrons, with properties corresponding to the "fictional" quarks he proposed. The existence of quarks asserted itself as an experimental reality in spite of the beliefs of physicists. The universe is the way that it is, and not how we would wish it to be.
There are several other things obviously wrong with this article, but I'll restrain myself. I have to go buy parsnips.
3 posted on
02/10/2004 5:34:11 PM PST by
Physicist
(Sophie Rhiannon Sterner, born 1/19/2004: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1061267/posts)
To: *crevo_list; VadeRetro; jennyp; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Physicist; LogicWings; ...
PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]
4 posted on
02/10/2004 6:01:43 PM PST by
PatrickHenry
(Theory: a comprehensible, falsifiable, cause-and-effect explanation of verifiable facts.)
To: Physicist
I have to go buy parsnips.Avoid the Peruvian parsnips, there was too much rain this season, and many of the parsnips split open because they grew too fast. Seriously.
/john
8 posted on
02/10/2004 6:27:38 PM PST by
JRandomFreeper
(I'm not quite just a cook anymore.)
To: Physicist; SJackson
"There are several other things obviously wrong with this article, but I'll restrain myself. I have to go buy parsnips."
Mind telling me what you intend on doing with those parsnips? I only ever buy them for chicken soup, and I wonder what else can be done with them.
11 posted on
02/10/2004 7:25:24 PM PST by
adam_az
(Be vewy vewy qwiet, I'm hunting weftists.)
To: Physicist
News flash: there are many deterministic things in nature that are demonstrably not computable. M&Ms are in black and white only now (for a while). Need I say more?
News flash: when Gell-Mann first proposed quarks, he called them a "mathematical fiction
Once again, need I say more?
![](http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/unknown/quark-tribble.jpg)
17 posted on
02/10/2004 10:17:55 PM PST by
freedumb2003
(Everyone is stupid! That is why they do all those stupid things! -- H. Simpson.)
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