Nowhere. In fact definition 4 says exactly that and, since it was the point I was making, I don't know why you ask me this. I guess I wasn't clear somehow so I will try to be as clear as possible. I think it is a mistake to say that a scientific theory is philosophical but it is correct to say that there are philosophies behind scientific theories.
Do you consider the equation F=ma a philosophical statement? How about the statement that momentum is conserved? I don't think either is philosophical in the slightest.
A time-space invariant fixed-frame universe has about the same philosophical implications as a relativistic universe?
I said they were very similar and they are in many ways. Obviously they are not identical. I'm curious though what you mean by philosophical implications. These sound like empirical questions about space-time to me.
Nothing has ever been demonstrated to be "fully deterministic", except in some formal mathematical studies whose domains of discourse are highly restricted.
These theories are formal mathematics and they are fully deterministic as I have said. If they truly reflected reality then it too would be deterministic. But as we know, it is not so the theories are "wrong" - but still enormously useful.
When it comes to the observable net behavior of the universe at large scale, there is nothing wronger, ever, than Newton's law.
In the first place I clearly said "in a wide range of conditions." You even quoted me. Newton's theory stood, unsuspected of error, for 200 years. Every reasonable person would call that a wide range of conditions. Even today if you don't get too much mass in one place and things aren't going too fast and you don't look more than maybe a million light years, it works just fine.
Would you characterize this discussion we are having right here, in this paragraph, as more technical, or more philosophical in nature?
Well, truth be told, I think it is semantic. I know you are a reasonable person so I suspect we're just having a failure to communicate.
Are we engaged in correcting a technical mis-understanding, or are we engaged in an ontological/epistemological discussion about the interpretation, limits, meaning, and implications of what we observe?
See what I mean? I thought we were discussing if a statement of a scientific theory can properly be said to be a philosophical one.
So...I take it you adhere to one of the earlier models of the atom, wherein electrons are in smooth orbit around nuclei, in obedience to Newton's or Einstein's laws of motion?
I don't know how you'd get that from what I said.
However, now that you bring it up, my understanding is that electrons in very high, but still bound, energy states actually can be usefully treated as classical particles moving under the influence of classical central inverse square force. It just goes to my point that classical physics is a very good approximation of reality.
Because? A theory is not a material entity; it is not a tangible force; it is not an part of a formal mathematical proof; it is not an element of grammar...and it seems at least vaguely connected to the world of ideas about how the universe is organized, such as Plato's in the Parable of the Cave. Do you think the parable of the cave is not philosophy?
Do you consider the equation F=ma a philosophical statement? How about the statement that momentum is conserved? I don't think either is philosophical in the slightest.
Sure I do. F=mA is just symbols in a row without some philosophy attached to it. F=mA can't tell you, all by itself, to what phenomena it sensibly applies, or why you should apply it. I'm curious what elegant criteria you have discovered that tells you that some things that seem to be highly abstract statements about the way the universe is organized are philosophy, and some are not?
However, now that you bring it up, my understanding is that electrons in very high, but still bound, energy states actually can be usefully treated as classical particles moving under the influence of classical central inverse square force. It just goes to my point that classical physics is a very good approximation of reality.
Well now, that's a bit of physics that escaped my attention, can you tell me how the orbital velocities of the electrons were measured?
These theories are formal mathematics and they are fully deterministic as I have said. If they truly reflected reality then it too would be deterministic. But as we know, it is not so the theories are "wrong" - but still enormously useful.
"Fully Deterministic" could be a pretty bold claim--is it in this case?, or are you just pointing out that Newton's laws, like Euclid's, could be considered a nice looking set of fundamental predicates in a system of formal development.
Can you point me to the formal proof of the theory of gravity? Can you show me how the theory of gravity can be used to calculate which slit a bucky ball will fall through in the slit experment?