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Re: Thoughts on causation



At 10:16 AM 10/20/00 -0600, Dewey Dykstra, Jr. wrote:

It is interesting to note that we do not really measure force. We measure
effects we claim to be caused by force (effects we explain by a construct
we call force?).

I'm not sure where this is going. This mentions only the tip of an
iceberg. Non-rhetorical questions include:
Do we really measure force?
Do we really measure mass?
Do we really measure time?
Do we really measure distance?
Do we really measure energy?
Do we really measure temperature?

In an important sense, the answer is "no" to all of the above. We measure
certain effects and claim they are explained (to some level of
approximation) by the laws of physics. We know the Way that can be walked
is not the true Way... but we can come pretty close.

OTOH, if quoted passage was supposed to mean that force-measurements are
intrinsically more arbitrary, harder to perform, or harder to interpret
than other physics measurements, the point is implausible and
unsupported. Would someone care to explain and/or elaborate?