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Re: reality of energy +- mechanism of energy

At 06:48 PM 10/11/01 -0500, Joseph Bellina wrote:
I think it is fair to say that you as a person as satisfied with the
sort of accounting you can get from strictly energy and
symmetry...others look for more...I don't think that search is
illusionary...its just different.

I don't think it is illusionary. Elucidating the mechanism is 100% commendable. It is nice work if you can get it. Example: Genetics à la Watson+Crick is clearly an advance over genetics à la Mendel.

I was making two slightly more subtle points:

1) In many cases you don't have a mechanism:
-- Newton didn't have a mechanism for universal gravitation.
-- Mendel didn't have a mechanism for heredity.
-- We don't have a mechanism for many of the most-fundamental and most-valuable notions of present-day physics.

2) You shouldn't let the lack of a mechanism freak you out.
a) Don't lie about it. Don't pretend you have a mechanism when you don't. don't be afraid to say "Hypotheses non fingo."
b) Don't let the lack of a mechanism hold you back. Mendelian laws of heredity are a huge advance over no laws of heredity. Newtonian laws of universal gravitation are a huge advance over no laws of universal gravitation.

And we can agree to add a third point:

3) If you think the mechanism might be within your grasp, go for it.


What you have presented, I think, is a well formulated instrumentalist
view of the world...that is until you finished with a reality claim...of
course you might not have been really serious about that claim, but if
you were...I don't think you can have it both ways.

I was 100% serious. I was using the word "real" as the antonym of "fictional". (All my dictionaries include this as a perfectly standard usage.)
-- In a fictional world, anything is possible, including six-foot-tall flying unicorns, energy non-conservation, et cetera.
-- In the real world, things behave according to very strict natural laws. These laws are not of our choosing (although we do get to choose how to represent and/or approximate nature's laws).