🚀 go-pugleaf

On May 28, 6:35 pm, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Doublethink and philosophy of science:
>
> 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."
>
> Karl Popper, "Quantum theory and the schism in physics". London:
> Hutchinson, 1982, pp. 29-30:
> "The decisive thing about Einstein’s theory, from my point of view, is
> that it has shown that Newton’s theory - which has been more
> successful than any other theory ever proposed - can be replaced by an
> alternative theory which is of wider scope, and which is so related to
> Newton’s theory that every success of Newtonian theory is also a
> success for that theory, and which in fact makes slight adjustments to
> some results of Newtonian theory. So for me, this logical situation is
> more important than the question which of the two theories is in fact
> the better approximation to the truth."

Doublethink inside Einsteiniana:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
Steve Carlip, Professor, University of California, Davis: "Einstein
went on to discover a more general theory of relativity which
explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and he talked about
the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the 1920 book
"Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote: ". . .
according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
[. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of
light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light
varies with position." Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector
quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not
clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to
special relativity suggests that he did mean so. THIS INTERPRETATION
IS PERFECTLY VALID AND MAKES GOOD PHYSICAL SENSE, BUT A MORE MODERN
INTERPRETATION IS THAT THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS CONSTANT IN GENERAL
RELATIVITY."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com