sci.physics.electromag

On Mar 19, 3:33=A0pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, PD wrote:
>
> [cut]
>
> > In this spirit, fields have properties just like baseballs and
> > neutrinos and banana peels have: they carry momentum, charge(s),
> > energy, and so on. Thus they are as real as baseballs and neutrinos
> > and banana peels.
> [cut]
> > continuous treatment is completely consistent with observation.
> > Because the choice of the observation is so tightly coupled with the
> > properties being examined, the collection of properties may cast a
> > changing or chimeric perspective on the underlying "reality" of the
> > field. Since we can't really deduce any reality other than the
> > properties we used to characterize it, we have to live with the
> > chimera, and I don't really think that is an intolerable or
> > fundamentally flawed world view.
>
> I don't find it intolerable. It's interesting, even. Given that it seems
> to be the best we can do at the moment, and perhaps forever, I don't see
> it, as a world view, any more fundamentally flawed than the world itself.
> Which is to say, not at all.
>
> However, some might think it's a very negative philosophy, a
> philosophy of ignorance. But, while, along with the fact that all theories=

> in physics are potentially subject to revision, it means that in some
> fundamental sense, we know very little, to focus on this is to ignore the
> very large amount that we do know. So what if there's always uncertainty?
> That's opportunity to discover, revise, correct, and contribute!
>

And if anyone claims it is a philosophy of ignorance, I would caution
that a good chunk of what science always involves is taxonomy, and
taxonomy is a *human*-driven and variable, if not arbitrary,
convention. For example, I doubt seriously that nature has any
fundamental classification of "mammal". There are certainly organisms
that fall under *our* taxonomy of "mammal", but there is no
unambiguous "best" taxonomic strategy.

Indeed, sometimes we gain enlightenment by scrapping a previous
taxonomy that was part of the conceptual framework for a physical
model(s) and trying a new one. As long as we have the freedom to do
so, our grasp of physical reality is going to be colored by that
choice.

PD