🚀 go-pugleaf

As you suggest, I don't have a problem with facts-in-a-context.  I think it
is what we physicists indeed use.  I just have problems with abstractions
to facts without context.
On the other hand, I don't know how to ever make a clear distinction
between fact and theory since they are so intertwined.  It seems to me that
any verifiable experimental date are know only in the context of some
theory.  Thus facts-in-the-context-of-a-theory are ok, but facts that are
theory free, I'm not so sure.

Enjoy  

In article <PHYSHARE%94051421233073@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>, LUDVIK KOWALSKI
<KOWALSKI@APOLLO.MONTCLAIR.EDU> wrote:

> >I would like to suggest that Newton's Laws are indeed axioms and that
> >Newton's approach was an axiomatic deductive one akin to what one finds in
> >mathematics.  Clearly the questions asked are philosophical ones, not
> >scientific ones.  The meaning such terms as why and explanation are open
> >for discussion.  An even more difficult term is "facts".  I for one would
> >not include any other the facts mentioned below as facts at all.  What does
> >one mean by fact anyway? another philosophical question!!!!  Sad to say, I
> >have no answers.
> >                        Joseph Bellina (jbellina@saintmarys.edu)
> 
> Verifiable experimental data are facts in physics. They are often used as
> starting points of theoretical considerations and we feel good when new
> facts can be predicted by "pure reasoning". It is true that the words we use
> to describe facts are often influenced by previous theoretical considerations
> and that "pure facts" and "pure theories" are philosophical abstractions. But
> why should we physicists be bothered by such nuances? What is wrong with a
> statement that "attraction of electric charges is a fact of nature"?
> 
> Before answering you would probably ask for the meaning of the term "electric
> charge". I would say that an electric charge is a physical quantity which is
> measured, for example, with a ballistic galvanometer. You may object by
> arguing that the functioning of that instrument is based on a theory which
> can be traced to the law of attraction. And you would be right by saying
> that a vicious cycle is created. But why should I be bothered by the
> "chicken or the egg" dilemma when dealing with a particular egg or a
> particular chicken? Clear distinctions between facts and theories can
> usually be made in specific problems analyzed by physicists.
> 
>          Ludwik Kowalski
>                                       Kowalski@Montclair.Apollo.edu.

-- 
Joseph Bellina (jbellina@saintmarys.edu)