Dick Hake gives an interesting commentary from an interesting source.
Conventionalism is not the type of constructivism about which I have
written many words on this list.
I'm not so sure that the quoted statement in Dick's note: "No one who has
deeply thought about this subject will deny that the world of sense
perceptions practically determines the theoretical system uniquely..." is
all that obvious or necessaryily an assumption that is consistent with what
we know of the history of physics.
Dewey
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper
"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [their] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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