🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <schiller.726741786@hpas5> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes:
>sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>
>>The fact that you put the question by requesting an example of how
>>a theory is necessary to observe something indicates a lack of
>>understanding and sensitivity to the real issues.  I don't need a
>>theory to observe *something*.  But to say (in a coherent manner
>>and with a clear intersubjective sense) that *what* I have observed
>>is an *electron* requires substantial theoretical superstructure.
>
>
>No. It requires only to show that what you see here is the *same*
>as what you saw in your previous experiments. No theoretical structure
>is necessary, just the list of jour previous observations.
>
As with your your use of "similar" in an earlier posting, the term "same"
does all the work here, but is ill-defined. Which features are relevant
to two observations being the "same"? Certainly not *all* of them. Presumably
they are allowed to take place a different time, and in different places.
They can be observed by different people. So how much the "same" need they
be?

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1