His gratuitous accusation of "self promotion" is a good candidate.

The size of entity is an attribute, not a container. Space is the total of the sizes relating entities to each other. It's not a thing. "The space" between pieces of furniture is the size of the air between them, which is measured as an attribute such as the length or volume. That is how space relationships are identified.

A good and very interesting book for you to read on Heisenberg's role in the development of quantum mechanics and the Bohr group is Cassssidy, Uncertainty; The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg.

Thanks Mike, but it's "99% perspiration".

Realism does not mean rationalism. In this context it means ordinary realism of science being about the real world as opposed to 'idealism' and the 'model' mentality. It never means "empiricism" of the empiricism/rationalism dichotomy (and false alternative). See Leonard Peikoff's lecture course on the history of philosophy.

Induction does not "fail because of the black swan". Induction does not mean simple enumeration, which is a fallacy. Harriman used the term induction to mean what Ayn Rand and everyone else has meant by it. It is not "abduction" (even in the technical sense as opposed to space aliens). See IOE, Leonard Peikoff's early 1970s lectures on logic, W.B. Joseph's Logic, etc.

Harriman's Logical Leap is an excellent overview of the success of induction in physics through prominent examples and some of the methods employed, but the book does not do everything it claims to. It is not a solution to the "problem of induction" -- what are the principles of deciding when you have enough of what kinds of information (not how much repetition of the same thing).

The claim to have solved the "problem of induction" was based on Leonard Peikoff's own theory isolated in chapter 1, which isn't even consistent with Ayn Rand's statements on the topic at the epistemology workshops. Logical Leap does not even attempt to illustrate in the scientific development the Objectivist theory of concept formation emphasized and summarized in principle in the first chapter.

And it does not provide sufficient details on the historical cases it describes to explain why the inferences where correct despite questions about the particular cases regarding known errors, or the role of the interplay between the development of theory formation and concept formation over the time span of the development of new ideas and principles.

Nevertheless it gives an interesting and inspiring overview and introduction of the rational realism required for science and its discoveries of new principles. Like any good work, it raises (at least implicitly) more questions than it answers.

I paid attention to everything you wrote. I was responding mainly to your assertion that “Space is a relationship between entities.” How can space be a “relationship between entities” when such entities could not even exist without space? If entities require space to exist in, and relationships require entities that relate, then by the rules of logic, space cannot be a relationship. Space and time are primary aspects of existence as we know it, relationships are attributes of the interactions of two or more entities that exist within space and time. Space and time do not owe their existence to the entities that occupy them. Relationships, however, do.

You might check that particles having a wavelike nature. No single particle has ever shown a wavelike nature. What is seen, is seen in distributions of ensembles of particles in experiments such as edge diffraction, two edge, interference, stop diffraction, two slit interference, etc.
What you get depends upon the experimental setup. In the two slit experiment, whether the experiment is either single slit or both slits, the probabilities of particles passing through the slit(s), making the interference pattern, add to 1 in any of the experiments, leaving no room for particles passing through a slit interfering with itself or going though both slits and interfering with itself.
Remember that concepts and in particular mathematics can not be reified, but are, objectively, mental patterns and not some kind of existing matter. I have said elsewhere many times that "those who reify mathematics live in fantasy worlds." Concepts, as patterns, are part of objective reality as are minds and their consciousnesses. There is nothing outside of it. No other dimensions with supernatural gods, angels, demons, etc.

Well there we're getting back to the "one true religion" case and arguing that before you can study science properly one has to come at the matter from a specific viewpoint. In order for that to be true, one has to prove the case that the viewpoint is correct. I fear that it introduces circular reasoning.

I would think that a better approach would be to recognize that knowledge acquisition is gradual and that we must be willing to go where the data lies. We must be willing to examine not only our science but also our philosophy. We must be willing to make adjustments and course corrections to both science and philosophy. If we don't use science to check our philosophy, we can end up relying on faulty premises and erroneous conclusions. If we don't use philosophy to ground our pursuit of science, we risk falling into the never-ending trap of confirmation bias.

Not only do you write well, you know a lot. You must be really smart. I mean that. No one here is stupid: we have get over the first hurdle just to be here. But some people are a whole head taller than everyone else. I really appreciate your investing your time with this.

We have a problem with definitions. In the introductory lecture for "Basic Principles of Objectivism" delivered live by Nathaniel Branden,in Cleveland, Ohio, September 1966, the question was asked: "Is realism the same thing as rationalism?" Branden's answer was that as the words are used commonly, yes. However, he continued, in formal philosophy, they are very different.

I mean "realism" in the same sense as "empiricism" - that we can experience reality but never understand it rationally. Our theories just get in the way. All that counts is direct experience.

Rationalism is the opposite of that. I had a professor for symbolic logic who agreed that A is A, but was not certain that the sun would rise tomorrow just because it always had.

Induction fails because of the black swan.

Harriman did a good job in The Logical Leap. Aside from little flaws throughout, his book was innovative and important. He just needed a new word, different from induction. Induction has already been taken. Nouns and adjectives "objective", "objectivism", and "objectivist" fit better, are known to mean what we mean by them: rational-empiricism - the unity of reason and experience.

Other Objectivists (Rand fans) have suggested (I believe) "abduction" as better for what Harriman describes.

Thank you. You write well.

Thanks.

You didn't pay attention to anything I wrote. Trying to deduce space and time as some kind of containers is a rationalistic fallacy.

Heisenberg rationalized a "derivation" for his ideological version, but didn't even get that right because he didn't understand basic optics and the resolving power of a microscope. Bohr had to correct it. The correct version of the "uncertainty principle" is an inequality relating the widths of a wave and its Fourier transform. It's a standard result in signal processing theory. This turns out to relate certain distributions in quantum mechanics like the wave functions for position and momentum.

You can read about the criteria for the relevance of quantum effects in terms of de Broglie wavelengths and quantum numbers in elementary text books. If you are relying on attempted book reviews by Shermer you are in big trouble!

Realism is not "also erroneous". We are discussing science here on a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason.

Induction does not mean that "something new won't come along". Knowledge expands. We make new discoveries based on what is already known.

Feynman had contempt for philosophy for good reason based on what he had encountered. But no one can escape the necessity of some form of philosophical outlook, including how to think in science.

Gell-Mann was not responsible for the extreme quackery influenced by quantum theory. It spread from the bad philosophy already adopted. Most physicists still have enough sense to not follow the absurdities to that extreme, but to the extent they think about the philosophical justifications at all mistakenly think that the overall views from the Positivists (and Pragmatism in the culture at large) is the best there is and represents a scientific outlook.

No philosophy automatically produces new physics, and that is not required to discuss the fundamental principles or to reject nonsense falsely portrayed as a result of science. To denounce the Harriman article for not being something it was not intended to be, demanding that it be a detailed analysis of particular physicists and that it provide major results in physics, suggests a refusal to pay attention to what he did choose to write about as the prerequisite for, especially, developing and understanding scientific theory.

You can make up a fictional dialog any way you want to about some other subject, but it has nothing to do with the Harriman article. Harriman's illustration is based on the actual bad philosophical views promoted in the name of science and as part of it as if they had been experimentally confirmed by science itself. I previously described what parts of physics theory they came from, which perhaps you don't understand. It is not a "strawman". Harriman's background in both physics and the philosophy of science is far more than going to the library and looking at 8 books, and anyone who has studied the subject at a technical level has experienced these alleged explanations perpetrated in the name of science.

Heisenberg was not "just one guy". His views were prominent in the field and he is one example of many spreading them. He formulated the original matrix mechanics generalizing the older inadequate Bohr atom quantization -- by algebraically capturing patterns of observed atomic spectra for the first time in a manner mathematically equivalent to the subsequent Schrodinger equation. Heisenberg was famous in the field and extremely influential as part of the group of quantum physicists around Bohr developing the theory and their interpretations telling people how to think about it.

To dismiss Heisenberg as "Heisenberg Schmeisenberg just one guy strawman" shows a real lack of knowledge of the development of the theory of quantum physics and its intellectual influences.

Heisenberg originated (with Bohr's help) the uncertainty principle as a speculative doctrine for the meaning of quantum theory (in contrast to the "uncertainty principle" as the standard inequality between distributions which is also found in signal processing). It was part of their famous Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which quickly became the dominant interpretation. It remains so to this day, including in the standard text books where it undermines scientific understanding and serves to drive students interested in rational understanding of science out of the field. It grew in a philosophically sympathetic intellectual environment of bad European philosophy and is echoed over and over. Even scientists like Einstein who opposed the Copenhagen school could not stop it. It resulted in Feynman's much later famous statement that no one understands quantum mechanics. It makes an already difficult subject impenetrable to rational understanding. Yet in the 1970s the aging Heisenberg appeared at Harvard University where his talk -- invoking the same philosophical nonsense -- attracted a packed house of admirers from far beyond Harvard.

This kind of garbage being promoted in the name of science would be enough to justify denouncing it in common sense even if one had no good explicit philosophy and little understanding of the physics. The Harriman article is much better than that, showing the contrast with a philosophy of realism that is required as a rational basis of science in general, in contrast to the corrupt influences of Kant and Pragmatism that are so prevalent now that they are taken for granted -- to the point where they are used on this very thread to resentfully denounce a philosophy of realism as mere worthless "ideology". For those who are doing that: pot, meet kettle. The irony is apparent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vc-U...

Its called a wave, which is what Schrodinger's equation says

I am certainly no physicist, but my understanding of the uncertainty principle is that it is theorized to relate to any interaction between classical and quantum objects, though only experimentally demonstrated on some particle(s).

I know of no such paper(s).

The Uncertainty Principle is a result of experiment. it may have been deduced from the mathematics, but the empirical fact is that it is impossible to know simultaneously both the position and momentum of a subatomic particle. Or am I wrong about that? Has some Objectivist physicist published a paper of which I am unaware?

The problem is not that one begins "with a philosophical standpoint" but exactly what that standpoint is. Philosophy is always at the root of everything. Most often, it is implicit, not well-defined or not explicitly identified. But we all have "philosophies" that inform our life work.

I know what you are saying: good science does not begin with preconceived notions. Lysenko was one of many examples; and global warming is another. It is not so much whether or not the Earth is warming, but whether or not you hate capitalism that informs the research.

But an active and working philosophy is not just any old notion. My offering of the Objectivist interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation is that to the extent that it it corresponds to reality, it works and is therefore correct.

Benjamin Franklin and other electricians of the 18th century treated electricity as a fluid, even storing it in a Leyden jar. But Franklin did not claim that his senses were inadequate or that he was unable to perceive "ultimate reality."

"Chance favors the prepared mind." -- Pasteur.

If one can invent without understanding the method, then use the invention to reverse-engineer the method? I think they call those "accidents" - like the discovery of x-rays. I'm all for happy accidents.

I have an instrumentation story from Lewis-Glenn NASA Research in Cleveland. It was meant to encourage interns. They were measuring some aspect of flow on wings and found that at a "critical angle" the measurements leveled off, held, and then fell again as the angle changed. They accepted that... until the intern examined the instrument and found that it could not measure past a certain setting. Oh...

The canals on Mars may have been the reflection of Percival Lowell's own blood vessels.

So, yes, instruments can introduce errors.

I believe that what will open up quantum and relativity will be a new invention, not a new theory. If you consider the history of science, the steam engine preceded thermodynamics. The telephone and telegraph and even radio and television were built without any modern understanding of what an electron is, especially the first two. In fact, the telegraph was 50 years old and Edison was lighting up cities before J. J. Thompson identified electrons as existing inside an atom, like raisins in a pudding. Aerodynamics was a little more advanced, but pilots still argue lift because it is seldom explained correctly in the textbooks. And yet we fly.

Faster-than-light drive and teleportation will make it possible to develop a consistent theory of quantum mechanics and relativity.