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10-43: Some say: "A scientist knows science like a fish knows hydrodynamics." There is no definition of Science here. I discovered (I think I told you about this before) somewhere in high school, different teachers told me about various subjects, and I could see that different teachers talked about the same subjects in different ways. Moreover, at the same time I was looking at what we were doing, and that was again something different.
Now, you probably said: "We do experiments, you look at the data and formulate theories." This is likely nonsense. Before you can gather the right data, you must have a theory. You can't just gather a random set of data: the colors in this room, the type of the next bird you see, etc., expecting that they carry some meaning. You must have some theory before collecting data. Furthermore, you cannot interpret the results of experiments you might conduct without a theory. Experiments are a theory that has gone the whole way from start to finish. You have biases, and you must interpret events with that in mind.
You acquire a tremendous amount of biases from cosmogony. Primitive tribes tell different stories around the campfire, and children hear them and learn the customs and traditions (Ethos). If you are in a large organization, you learn the rules of behavior largely by observing the behavior of others. As you grow older, you can't always stop. I tend to think that when I look at women my age, I can see a reflection of what dresses were in fashion during the days when those women were in college. I may be fooling myself, but I tend to think that way. You've all seen old Hippies who still dress and behave in the way that was acceptable back when their personalities were being formed. It's amazing how much you acquire this way, without even realizing it, and how hard it is for older ladies to relax and let go of their habits, acknowledging that they are no longer considered common behavior.
Knowledge is a very dangerous thing. It comes with all the prejudices you've previously heard. For example, you may have the bias that A precedes B and A is the cause of B. Well. Day inevitably follows night. Is night the cause of day? Or is day the cause of night? No. And another example that I really like. The level of the Potomac River correlates very well with the number of phone calls. Phone calls cause the river level to rise, which is why we get upset. Phone calls do not cause the river level to rise. It rains, and for this reason people tend to call taxi services more often and for other related reasons, such as informing loved ones that they will be delayed due to the rain or something like that, and the rain causes the river level to rise.
The idea that you can name cause and effect just because one precedes the other can be misleading. This requires some caution in your analysis and thinking and can lead you down the wrong path.
In prehistoric times, people seemingly personified trees, rivers, and stones, all because they could not explain the events occurring. But Spirits, you see, have free will, and thus the events were explained. However, over time we tried to limit the spirits. If you made the appropriate air passes with your hands, then the spirits would do this or that. If you recited the correct incantations, the spirit of the tree would do this or that, and everything would repeat itself. Or, if you planted crops on a full moon, the harvest would be better or something like that.
Perhaps these representations still weigh heavily on our religions. We have quite a few of them. We act rightly towards the gods, or the gods grant us the blessings we ask for, provided, of course, that we act rightly towards our loved ones. Thus, many ancient gods became one God, despite the existence of the Christian God, Allah, the one Buddha, although now they have a series of Buddhas. A greater or lesser part merged into one God, but we still have quite a bit of black magic around. We have much black magic in the form of words. For example, you have a son named Charles. You know that if you stop and think, Charles is not the child himself. Charles is the name of the child, but it is not the same. Nevertheless, black magic is often associated with the use of a name. I write down someone's name and burn it or do something else, and somehow this is supposed to affect the person.
Or we have sympathetic magic, where one thing looks similar to another, and if I take this and eat it, certain events will occur. A significant part of medicine in early days was indeed homeopathy. If something looks like another, it will behave differently. Well, you know that doesn't work very well.
I mentioned Kant, who wrote an entire book, "Critique of Pure Reason," which he undertook in a large, thick volume in difficult-to-comprehend language, about where we know what we know and what we leave this subject unattended. I do not think this is a very popular theory on how you can be sure of something. I will give an example of a dialogue I have used several times when someone said they were certain about something:
--- I see that you are absolutely sure?
--- No doubts.
--- No doubts, good. We can write down on paper that if you are wrong, you will, firstly, give up all your money, and secondly, you will commit suicide.
Surprisingly, they do not want to do that. I say: but you were sure! They start babbling nonsense and, I think, you can see why. If I ask about something you were absolutely sure of, then you say: "Okay, okay, maybe I'm not 100% sure."
You may be familiar with some religious sects that believe the end is near. They sell all their possessions and head to the mountains, yet the world continues to exist, and they come back and start all over again. This has happened many times and several times in my lifetime. Various groups that have done this were convinced that the world was coming to an end, but it did not happen. I try to convince you that absolute knowledge does not exist.
Let's take a closer look at what science does. I told you that, in fact, before starting measurements, a theory needs to be formulated. Let's see how it works. Some experiments are conducted, and certain results are obtained. Science attempts to formulate a theory, usually in the form of a formula that covers these cases. However, none of the latest results can guarantee the next one.
In mathematics, there is a concept known as mathematical induction, which, if you make a series of assumptions, allows you to prove that a certain event will always occur. But first, it is necessary to accept many different logical and other assumptions. Yes, mathematicians can prove correctness in this extremely artificial situation for all natural numbers, but you cannot expect that a physicist can also prove that it will always happen. It doesn't matter how many times you drop a ball; there is no guarantee that the next physical object you drop will behave better than the previous one. If I hold a balloon and let it go, it will rise. But you will immediately have an alibi: "Oh, but everything falls except for this. You have to make an exception for this object.
Science has plenty of such examples. And this is a problem whose boundaries are not easy to define.
Now that we have tried and examined what you know, we are faced with the necessity of using words to describe it. And these words can have meanings different from those you assign to them. Different people can use the same words with different interpretations. One way to eliminate such misunderstandings is when there are two people in the lab arguing about a subject. Misunderstanding halts them and forces them to clarify what they mean when they speak about different things, to a greater or lesser extent. You may often find that they do not mean the same thing.
They argue over different interpretations. Then the arguments shift to what it means. After clarifying the meanings of the words, you understand each other much better and can debate the meaning ā yes, the experiment says one thing if you understand it that way, or the experiment says another if you understand it differently.
But at that point, you understood only two words. Words serve us poorly.
To be continuedā¦
Thanks for the translation, Artem Nikitin.
Who wants to help with ā write in private messages or to the email magisterludi2016@yandex.ru
By the way, we have also launched the translation of another cool book ā )
We are especially looking for those who can help translate . (we translate for 10 minutes, the first 20 have already been taken)
Table of contents and translated chapters
- Intro to The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (March 28, 1995)
- āFoundations of the Digital (Discrete) Revolutionā (March 30, 1995)
- āHistory of Computers ā Hardwareā (March 31, 1995)
- āHistory of Computers ā Softwareā (April 4, 1995)
- āHistory of Computers ā Applicationsā (April 6, 1995)
- āArtificial Intelligence ā Part Iā (April 7, 1995)
- āArtificial Intelligence ā Part IIā (April 11, 1995)
- āArtificial Intelligence IIIā (April 13, 1995)
- ān-Dimensional Spaceā (April 14, 1995)
- āCoding Theory ā The Representation of Information, Part Iā (April 18, 1995)
- āCoding Theory ā The Representation of Information, Part IIā (April 20, 1995)
- Ā«Error-Correcting CodesĀ» (April 21, 1995)
- Ā«Information TheoryĀ» (April 25, 1995) Done, just need to publish
- Ā«Digital Filters, Part IĀ» (April 27, 1995)
- Ā«Digital Filters, Part IIĀ» (April 28, 1995)
- Ā«Digital Filters, Part IIIĀ» (May 2, 1995)
- Ā«Digital Filters, Part IVĀ» (May 4, 1995)
- Ā«Simulation, Part IĀ» (May 5, 1995)
- Ā«Simulation, Part IIĀ» (May 9, 1995)
- Ā«Simulation, Part IIIĀ» (May 11, 1995)
- Ā«Fiber OpticsĀ» (May 12, 1995)
- Ā«Computer Aided InstructionĀ» (May 16, 1995)
- Ā«MathematicsĀ» (May 18, 1995)
- Ā«Quantum MechanicsĀ» (May 19, 1995)
- Ā«CreativityĀ» (May 23, 1995). Translation:
- Ā«ExpertsĀ» (May 25, 1995)
- Ā«Unreliable DataĀ» (May 26, 1995)
- Ā«Systems EngineeringĀ» (May 30, 1995)
- Ā«You Get What You MeasureĀ» (June 1, 1995)
- (June 2, 1995) translating in 10-minute segments
- Hamming, Ā«You and Your ResearchĀ» (June 6, 1995).
Who wants to help with ā write in private messages or to the email magisterludi2016@yandex.ru
Source: habr.com
