MISLED REALISM IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

[Pentcho Valev]

Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or
explaining major scientific change. Greatly impressed by the universal
shifting of allegiance from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics, and
suspecting that there may be some truth in the former, realists
construe change as a more or less turbulent movement from less truth
to more truth:

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 39: "Consequently our final strengthening of realism involves
adding what I call the thesis of verisimilitude (hereafter cited as
TV): the historically generated sequence of theories of a mature
science is a sequence of theories which are improving in regard to how
approximately true they are."

This construal of scientific change is inconsistent with the deductive
nature of theories. Deductivism implies that only movements from
absolutely false to absolutely true and from absolutely true to
absolutely false are possible. Consider Einstein's 1905 light
postulate:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ "...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."

By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.

If Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, then its antithesis, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light, is true.
This can easily be seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley
experiment:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Therefore the respective theory (the set of all consequences of the
antithesis, c'=c+v, deduced validly and in the absence of false or
absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely true in the sense that all
its conclusions are true.

Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the concepts of truth content
and falsity content, largely used in today's philosophy of science,
are irrelevant. Deductive theories are either absolutely true or
absolutely false. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic
mechanics was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely
true or a transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Stamenin]

Post by Pentcho Valev
Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or
explaining major scientific change. Greatly impressed by the universal
shifting of allegiance from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics, and
suspecting that there may be some truth in the former, realists
construe change as a more or less turbulent movement from less truth
W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 39: "Consequently our final strengthening of realism involves
adding what I call the thesis of verisimilitude (hereafter cited as
TV): the historically generated sequence of theories of a mature
science is a sequence of theories which are improving in regard to how
approximately true they are."
This construal of scientific change is inconsistent with the deductive
nature of theories. Deductivism implies that only movements from
absolutely false to absolutely true and from absolutely true to
absolutely false are possible. Consider Einstein's 1905 light
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/"...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."
By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.
If Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, then its antithesis, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light, is true.
This can easily be seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
Therefore the respective theory (the set of all consequences of the
antithesis, c'=c+v, deduced validly and in the absence of false or
absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely true in the sense that all
its conclusions are true.
Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the concepts of truth content
and falsity content, largely used in today's philosophy of science,
are irrelevant. Deductive theories are either absolutely true or
absolutely false. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic
mechanics was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely
true or a transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.
Pentcho Valev

I like that Mr Valev likes to show that many people consider that the
Theory of Relativity is wrong but I do not understand why all these
people and himself do not make a difference between the motion of the
material bodies and the motion of the light. In this article I show
why appered the three theories in physic that pretend to have all of
them corectly described the phenomena about the motion related to
light and material bodies. It is evident that only the Galilei-Newton
theory is correct and the other are errant theories.

THE GENESIS OF THE FALSE THEORIES

In this article is explained the way in which have appeared three
theories in physics about the description of the motion of material
bodes.
-The enormous problems in physics appeared with the discovery of the
light aberration by Bradley in 17th century. He gave an exceptional
explanation of this phenomenon by using the corpuscular theory of
light. He took the relation
tg(phi)=v/c, as being valid in this case, where c, is the light speed
and v, the linear speed of the earth evolving around the sun. By
determining the angle (phi)=40,9s, he calculated from the above
relation that c=303,000km/s. Obviously these results confirm perfectly
the Galilei- Newton theory but the corpuscular theory wasn’t accepted
at that time.
-As the scientists were not satisfied with this explanation, they
tried to explain the aberration by the point of view of the wavy
theory of the light. Robert Young did this explanation in 1804. But he
needed a material medium because the wavy phenomena as it is the case
of the sound propagation, can be transmitted only through a medium. In
this way was supposed that in cosmos must exist the ether, a substance
very fine with special properties.
-Such a substance is not discovered until now but that doesn’t stop
the scientists to continue to do researches in this direction.
-The biggest mess was done with the discovery of the Lorentz
transformation as a consequence of the wavy theory about the light
propagation, which introduced the abnormal conclusions, about the
contraction of the space and the time dilatation.
-Einstein accepted the Lorentz transformation as being a valid
mathematical relation and by this was emitted the Theory of the
relativity.
-The curious thing is that in both theories is not realized that this
transformation is obtained by a poor supposition that the propagation
of the light must be a wavy phenomenon!
In Einstein theory of the relativity the wrong conclusions are
enlarged and the space the time the mass and other, become relative
notions. These conclusions are a consequence of the Lorentz
transformation and because of that evidently are errant, but many
scientists accepted Einstein theory of the relativity as being
correct.
-And all these conclusions are based on only one desire the
assumption, that the propagation of the light must be a wavy
phenomenon.
But today is accepted the corpuscular theory about the propagation of
the light as being a photonic flux and the photon representing a
minimal quantity of energy. But the energy is not equivalent with the
mass of the material bodies. So the photons can’t be attracted by
gravitational fields and create inertial forces. And all these doesn’t
matter. It is very strange but is the real situation in physics today.
We have three theories, the ether theory the theory of the relativity
and the Galilei-Newton theory. Which of them is the right theory?
Evidently, only one of these three theories can be correct.
This question is explained in my articles published in Galilei-Newton
group and could be find at: http://groups.google.com/group/galilei-newton-group
Stamenin.

[Pentcho Valev]

Nowadays all relatively clever Einsteinians know that Einstein's 1905
light postulate is false, so the rallying cry in Einsteiniana is: Even
if "light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant speed of the
Lorentz transform", special relativity "would be unaffected":

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/dc1ebdf49c012de2
Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
of applicability would be reduced)."

http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/Chronogeometrie.pdf
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond "De la relativité à la chronogéométrie ou: Pour
en finir avec le "second postulat" et autres fossiles": "D'autre part,
nous savons aujourd'hui que l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumière
est une conséquence de la nullité de la masse du photon. Mais,
empiriquement, cette masse, aussi faible soit son actuelle borne
supérieure expérimentale, ne peut et ne pourra jamais être considérée
avec certitude comme rigoureusement nulle. Il se pourrait même que de
futures mesures mettent enévidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle,
du photon ; la lumière alors n'irait plus à la "vitesse de la
lumière", ou, plus précisément, la vitesse de la lumière, désormais
variable, ne s'identifierait plus à la vitesse limite invariante. Les
procédures opérationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat"
deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La théorie elle-même en serait-elle
invalidée ? Heureusement, il n’en est rien ; mais, pour s’en assurer,
il convient de la refonder sur des bases plus solides, et d’ailleurs
plus économiques. En vérité, le “premier postulat” suffit, à la
condition de l’exploiter à fond."

http://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Relativity-Beyond-Approaches-Theoretical/dp/9810238886
Jong-Ping Hsu: "The fundamentally new ideas of the first purpose are
developed on the basis of the term paper of a Harvard physics
undergraduate. They lead to an unexpected affirmative answer to the
long-standing question of whether it is possible to construct a
relativity theory without postulating the constancy of the speed of
light and retaining only the first postulate of special relativity.
This question was discussed in the early years following the discovery
of special relativity by many physicists, including Ritz, Tolman,
Kunz, Comstock and Pauli, all of whom obtained negative answers."

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg20026801.500-why-einstein-was-wrong-about-relativity.html
Why Einstein was wrong about relativity
29 October 2008, Mark Buchanan, NEW SCIENTIST
"Welcome to the weird world of Einstein's special relativity, where as
things move faster they shrink, and where time gets so distorted that
even talking about events being simultaneous is pointless. That all
follows, as Albert Einstein showed, from the fact that light always
travels at the same speed, however you look at it. Really? Mitchell
Feigenbaum, a physicist at The Rockefeller University in New York,
begs to differ. He's the latest and most prominent in a line of
researchers insisting that Einstein's theory has nothing to do with
light - whatever history and the textbooks might say. "Not only is it
not necessary," he says, "but there's absolutely no room in the theory
for it." What's more, Feigenbaum claims in a paper on the arXiv
preprint server that has yet to be peer-reviewed, if only the father
of relativity, Galileo Galilei, had known a little more modern
mathematics back in the 17th century, he could have got as far as
Einstein did http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1234). "Galileo's thoughts are
almost 400 years old," he says. "But they're still extraordinarily
potent. They're enough on their own to give Einstein's relativity,
without any additional knowledge." (...) This was a problem if
Maxwell's theory, like all good physical theories, was to follow
Galileo's rule and apply for everyone. If we do not know who measures
the speed of light in the equations, how can we modify them to apply
from other perspectives? Einstein's workaround was that we don't have
to. Faced with the success of Maxwell's theory, he simply added a
second assumption to Galileo's first: that, relative to any observer,
light always travels at the same speed. This "second postulate" is the
source of all Einstein's eccentric physics of shrinking space and
haywire clocks. And with a little further thought, it leads to the
equivalence of mass and energy embodied in the iconic equation E =
mc2. The argument is not about the physics, which countless
experiments have confirmed. It is about whether we can reach the same
conclusions without hoisting light onto its highly irregular pedestal.
(...) But in fact, says Feigenbaum, both Galileo and Einstein missed a
surprising subtlety in the maths - one that renders Einstein's second
postulate superfluous. (...) The result turns the historical logic of
Einstein's relativity on its head. Those contortions of space and time
that Einstein derived from the properties of light actually emerge
from even more basic, purely mathematical considerations. Light's
special position in relativity is a historical accident. (...) The
idea that Einstein's relativity has nothing to do with light could
actually come in rather handy. For one thing, it rules out a nasty
shock if anyone were ever to prove that photons, the particles of
light, have mass. We know that the photon's mass is very small - less
than 10-49 grams. A photon with any mass at all would imply that our
understanding of electricity and magnetism is wrong, and that electric
charge might not be conserved. That would be problem enough, but a
massive photon would also spell deep trouble for the second postulate,
as a photon with mass would not necessarily always travel at the same
speed. Feigenbaum's work shows how, contrary to many physicists'
beliefs, this need not be a problem for relativity."

On the other hand, Divine Albert is quite clear:

Albert Einstein: "If the speed of light is the least bit affected by
the speed of the light source, then my whole theory of relativity and
theory of gravity is false."

So who is right: Divine Albert or today's worshippers who want to be
more faithful than himself? It would be reasonable to define a class
of conditionals (if P then Q) such that the prior probability of the
conclusion (Q) is zero:

If P then Q: If the speed of light does not depend on the speed of the
light source, then a situation is possible in which I observe your
clock running slower than mine and you observe mine running slower
than yours and both observations are correct.

Theorem: For conditionals such that the prior probability of the
conclusion is zero, the combination "false premise, true conclusion"
is impossible. (Clearly, if the premise is false, the prior
probability is the only "evidence" we could rely upon in evaluating
the conclusion.)

If the above theorem is correct, Divine Albert, not today's
worshippers who want to be more faithful than himself, is right.

So far, by definition, the truth-table of ANY conditional was:

P...................Q.....................if P then Q
true................true.................true
true................false................false
false...............true.................TRUE
false...............false................true

For the class of conditionals just defined, the correct truth-table
is:

P...................Q.....................if P then Q
true................true.................true
true................false................false
false...............true.................FALSE
false...............false................true

Note that the correct truth-table, although formally identical to that
of the biconditional, does not convert the conditional whose
conclusion has zero prior probability into biconditional.

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or
explaining major scientific change. Greatly impressed by the universal
shifting of allegiance from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics, and
suspecting that there may be some truth in the former, realists
construe change as a more or less turbulent movement from less truth
to more truth:

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 39: "Consequently our final strengthening of realism involves
adding what I call the thesis of verisimilitude (hereafter cited as
TV): the historically generated sequence of theories of a mature
science is a sequence of theories which are improving in regard to how
approximately true they are."

This construal of scientific change is inconsistent with the deductive
nature of theories. Deductivism implies that only movements from
absolutely false to absolutely true and from absolutely true to
absolutely false are possible. Consider Einstein's 1905 light
postulate:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ "...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."

By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.

If Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, then its antithesis, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light, is true.
This can easily be seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley
experiment:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Therefore the respective theory (the set of all consequences of the
antithesis, c'=c+v, deduced validly and in the absence of false or
absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely true in the sense that all
its conclusions are true.

Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the concepts of truth content
and falsity content, largely used in today's philosophy of science,
are irrelevant. Deductive theories are either absolutely true or
absolutely false. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic
mechanics was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely
true or a transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

Deductive systems establish a procedure whereby one passes from a
premise or premises to a conclusion. The derivations are usually
presented as a sequence of numbered lines. For instance:

(1) Premise A
(2) Premise B
(3) Conclusion C 1,2
(4) Conclusion D 2,3
(5) ....................

The entry to the right of line (4) shows that that line was obtained
from the second and third lines, that is, that Conclusion D was
deduced from Premise B and Conclusion C.

This particular presentation of the derivations as a sequence of
numbered lines seems practical and yet it has never been and will
never be used by Einsteiniana's highest priests. The reason is easy to
see if one first considers the bug-rivet story:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Relativ/bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

and then tries to imagine the following sequence of numbered lines
published in both the journal Nature and the journal Science:

(1) Premise: The principle of relativity
(2) Premise: Einstein's 1905 light postulate
(3) Conclusion: Time dilation 1,2
(4) Conclusion: Length contraction 2,3
(5) Conclusion: The bug is dead 4
(6) Conclusion: The bug is alive 4

In the era of Postscientism REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM is universally called
"paradox", that is, there is camouflage that misleads everybody, and
yet Einsteiniana's highest priests wholeheartedly avoid the
presentation of the derivations as a sequence of numbered lines.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "Doublethink means the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both
of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories
must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with
reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself
that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it
would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to
be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and
hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since
the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while
retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To
tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any
fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed,
to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take
account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably
necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is
tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this
knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead
of the truth."

Fundamental doublethink in philosophy of science:

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 55:
"A theory is a set of assertions and if the number of assertions in a
theory were finite we might initially seek to explicate the notion of
relative verisimilitude in terms of the number of truths and the
number of falsehoods contained within the theories. (...) A theory
contains all the consequences of the postulates and this set, called
the deductive closure of the postulates, is INFINITE IN SIZE."

The consequences of the postulates are obviously a finite number so
"INFINITE IN SIZE" is just "the lie one leap ahead of the truth". On
the other hand, Newton-Smith is, in my view, a very clever philosopher
of science so unfortunately another characteristic of doublethink is
relevant in this case:

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners
of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is
a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the
best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest
from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the
understanding, the greater the delusion ; the more intelligent, the
less sane."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or
explaining major scientific change. Greatly impressed by the universal
shifting of allegiance from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics, and
suspecting that there may be some truth in the former, realists
construe change as a more or less turbulent movement from less truth
to more truth:

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 39: "Consequently our final strengthening of realism involves
adding what I call the thesis of verisimilitude (hereafter cited as
TV): the historically generated sequence of theories of a mature
science is a sequence of theories which are improving in regard to how
approximately true they are."

This construal of scientific change is inconsistent with the deductive
nature of theories. Deductivism implies that only movements from
absolutely false to absolutely true and from absolutely true to
absolutely false are possible. Consider Einstein's 1905 light
postulate:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ "...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."

By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.

If Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, then its antithesis, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light, is true.
This can easily be seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley
experiment:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Therefore the respective theory (the set of all consequences of the
antithesis, c'=c+v, deduced validly and in the absence of false or
absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely true in the sense that all
its conclusions are true.

Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the concepts of truth content
and falsity content, largely used in today's philosophy of science,
are irrelevant. Deductive theories are either absolutely true or
absolutely false. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic
mechanics was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely
true or a transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM exposes a statement ("The bug is dead") and its
negation ("The bug is alive") as consequences of the same set of
postulates. The respective theory is an inconsistency, and some
philosophers of science hold that the inconsistency deserves "the
lowest degree of verisimilitude" (without referring to Divine Albert's
Divine Theory of course):

W. H. Newton-Smith, The rationality of science, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 229: "A theory ought to be internally consistent. The grounds
for including this factor are a priori. For given a realist construal
of theories, our concern is with verisimilitude, and if a theory is
inconsistent it will contain every sentence of the language, as the
following simple argument shows. Let 'q' be an arbitrary sentence of
the language and suppose that the theory is inconsistent. This means
that we can derive the sentence 'p and not-p'. From this 'p' follows.
And from 'p' it follows that 'p or q' (if 'p' is true then 'p or q'
will be true no matter whether 'q' is true or not). Equally, it
follows from 'p and not-p' that 'not-p'. But 'not-p' together with 'p
or q' entails 'q'. Thus once we admit an inconsistency into our theory
we have to admit everything. And no theory of verisimilitude would be
acceptable that did not give the lowest degree of verisimilitude to a
theory which contained each sentence of the theory's language and its
negation."

Other philosophers of science find the inconsistency fruitful:
"Pursuing inconsistent systems is sometimes the only way to obtain new
information":

http://homepage.mac.com/otaviobueno/.Public/InconsistenNotHell.pdf
Why Inconsistency Is Not Hell
Making Room for Inconsistency in Science
Otavio Bueno
"On most accounts of belief change, inconsistent belief systems are an
"epistemic hell" to be avoided at all costs (see, e.g., Gärdenfors
1988, p. 51). From a normative point of view, we can perhaps
understand why this is the case. The underlying logic of most theories
of belief change is classical, and classical logic is explosive, that
is, everything follows from a contradic-tion. And a belief system from
which everything follows should definitely be avoided. It is certainly
of not much use if one wants to determine what one should believe and
what one should do.....I argue that Levi's own approach to belief
change could become stronger by making room for inconsistency, without
giving up the crucial features of his pragmatism. The crucial move is
to change the underlying logic to a paraconsistent one, which, in
consistent contexts, yields exactly the same results as the classical
approach (see, e.g.,da Costa and Bueno 1998). Once there is room for
inconsistency, there is also room for informativeness in inconsistent
belief systems.....Pursuing inconsistent systems is sometimes the only
way to obtain new information, particularly information that conflicts
with deeply entrenched theories (see Lakatos 1978 and Feyerabend
1988).....The considerations above indicate that, properly
conceptualized, inconsistent belief systems, whether about empirical
or nonempirical domains, can provide invaluable information. Even
though an inconsistent system may only be a first, but important, step
toward a consistent successor, the point still remains that such a
system is significant.....Suppose, however, that the only way of
obtaining certain bits of information is by deliberately expanding
into inconsistency. Bohr's case discussed above illustrates this
situation - as well as the earlier formulations of the calculus and
the conjunction of quantum mechanics and relativity theory. To obtain
the relevant information, in each of these cases, it looks as though
one is forced to expand into inconsistency. Now, as long as the
underlying logic is paraconsistent, there need not be anything
unacceptable here."

Who is right: Newton-Smith or Otavio Bueno?

Pentcho Valev wrote:

Deductive systems establish a procedure whereby one passes from a
premise or premises to a conclusion. The derivations are usually
presented as a sequence of numbered lines. For instance:

(1) Premise A
(2) Premise B
(3) Conclusion C 1,2
(4) Conclusion D 2,3
(5) ....................

The entry to the right of line (4) shows that that line was obtained
from the second and third lines, that is, that Conclusion D was
deduced from Premise B and Conclusion C.

This particular presentation of the derivations as a sequence of
numbered lines seems practical and yet it has never been and will
never be used by Einsteiniana's highest priests. The reason is easy to
see if one first considers the bug-rivet story:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Relativ/bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

and then tries to imagine the following sequence of numbered lines
published in both the journal Nature and the journal Science:

(1) Premise: The principle of relativity
(2) Premise: Einstein's 1905 light postulate
(3) Conclusion: Time dilation 1,2
(4) Conclusion: Length contraction 2,3
(5) Conclusion: The bug is dead 4
(6) Conclusion: The bug is alive 4

In the era of Postscientism REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM is universally called
"paradox", that is, there is camouflage that misleads everybody, and
yet Einsteiniana's highest priests wholeheartedly avoid the
presentation of the derivations as a sequence of numbered lines.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Dirk Van de moortel]

Post by Stamenin

Post by Pentcho Valev
Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or

[snip usual stomach content]

Post by Stamenin

Post by Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev

I like that Mr Valev likes to show that many people consider that the
Theory of Relativity is wrong but I do not understand why all these
people and himself do not make a difference between the motion of the
material bodies and the motion of the light. In this article I show
why appered the three theories in physic that pretend to have all of
them corectly described the phenomena about the motion related to
light and material bodies. It is evident that only the Galilei-Newton
theory is correct and the other are errant theories.
THE GENESIS OF THE FALSE THEORIES

[snip usual colon content]

It must be a major blow to a failed intellectual like Valev to
receive this kind of, well..., 'support' from a failed imbecile
like Stamenin.

Dirk Vdm

[Stamenin]

On Oct 7, 8:49 am, "Dirk Van de moortel"

Post by Dirk Van de moortel

Post by Stamenin

Post by Pentcho Valev
Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or

[snip usual stomach content]

Post by Stamenin

Post by Pentcho Valev
Pentcho Valev

I like that Mr Valev likes to show that many people consider that the
Theory of Relativity is wrong but I do not understand why all these
people and himself do not make a difference between the motion of the
material bodies and the motion of the light. In this article I show
why appered the three theories in physic that pretend to have all of
them corectly described the phenomena about the motion related to
light and material bodies. It is evident that only the Galilei-Newton
theory is correct and the other are errant theories.
                THE GENESIS OF THE FALSE THEORIES

[snip usual colon content]
It must be a major blow to a failed intellectual like Valev to
receive this kind of, well..., 'support' from a failed imbecile
like Stamenin.
Dirk Vdm

I see that the wise Dirk has no arguments and than he uses the insult
as argument. I can't help you anymore and please look about what could
be done to eliminate the black hall from your head and don't try to
find out if exist such a hall in universe.

[maxwell]

Post by Pentcho Valev
Most activity in philosophy of science consists of accounting for or
explaining major scientific change. Greatly impressed by the universal
shifting of allegiance from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics, and
suspecting that there may be some truth in the former, realists
construe change as a more or less turbulent movement from less truth
W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London,
1981, p. 39: "Consequently our final strengthening of realism involves
adding what I call the thesis of verisimilitude (hereafter cited as
TV): the historically generated sequence of theories of a mature
science is a sequence of theories which are improving in regard to how
approximately true they are."
This construal of scientific change is inconsistent with the deductive
nature of theories. Deductivism implies that only movements from
absolutely false to absolutely true and from absolutely true to
absolutely false are possible. Consider Einstein's 1905 light
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/"...light is
always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is
independent of the state of motion of the emitting body."
By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of the postulate, that
is, the set of all its consequences deduced validly and in the absence
of false or absurd auxiliary hypotheses. If the light postulate is
true, then all its consequences are true, and IN THIS SENSE the theory
is absolutely true.
If Einstein's 1905 light postulate is false, then its antithesis, the
equation c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light, is true.
This can easily be seen on close inspection of the Michelson-Morley
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."
http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."
Therefore the respective theory (the set of all consequences of the
antithesis, c'=c+v, deduced validly and in the absence of false or
absurd auxiliary hypotheses) is absolutely true in the sense that all
its conclusions are true.
Clearly if "theory" is properly defined the concepts of truth content
and falsity content, largely used in today's philosophy of science,
are irrelevant. Deductive theories are either absolutely true or
absolutely false. The transition from Newtonian to relativistic
mechanics was either a transition from absolutely false to absolutely
true or a transition from absolutely true to absolutely false.
Pentcho Valev

The antithesis of the light-postulate is not the particle-emission
postulate. This would only be true if light is also ASSUMED to be a
propagating entity (wave or particle). The other alternative is to
assume that EM is an action-at-a-distance phenomenon which is
independent of the velocity of either charged particle.