editor, Administrators
146
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 19:22, 10 February 2023
, 19:22, 10 February 2023no edit summary
|Formulation File=The Zeroth Law Harder 2015.png
|Description=Harder's reformulation of the Zeroth Law states that “at any moment of time, the elements of the mosaic are compatible with each other”. ''Compatibility'' is a broader concept than strict logical ''consistency'', and is determined by the compatibility criteria of each mosaic.
In Barseghyan's presentation of the Zeroth Law, he explains it thus: "The law of compatibility has three closely linked aspects. First, it states that two theories simultaneously accepted in the same mosaic cannot be incompatible with one another. It also states that at any moment two simultaneously employed methods cannot be incompatible with each other. Finally, it states that, at any moment of time, there can be no incompatibility between accepted theories and employed methods".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.157]] Importantly, the Zeroth Law extends only to theories that are ''accepted'', not merely ''used'' or ''pursued''.
We should be careful not to confuse these concepts of ''compatibility'' and ''consistency''. Barseghyan details the distinction between these two concepts:
Now, imagine another community that accepts the position of ''fallibilism''. This community holds that no theory in empirical science can be demonstratively true and, consequently, all accepted empirical theories are merely quasi-true. But if any accepted empirical theory is only quasi-true, it is possible for two accepted empirical theories to be mutually inconsistent. In other words, this community accepts that two contradictory propositions may both contain grains of truth, i.e. to be quasi-true. [[CiteRef::Bueno et al (1998)]]. In order to avoid triviality, this community employs a paraconsistent logic, i.e. a logic where a contradiction does not imply everything. This fallibilist community does not necessarily reject classical logic; it merely realizes that the application of classical logic to quasi-true propositions entails triviality. Thus, the community also realizes that the application of classical principle of noncontradiction to empirical science is problematic, for no empirical theory is strictly true. As a result, by the third law, this community employs criteria of compatibility very different from those employed by the infallibilist community.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.154-6]]</blockquote>
|Example Type=Hypothetical
}}
{{Theory Example
|Title=Mutually Incompatible Theory Use
|Description=Barseghyan presents the following example of the possibility for simultaneous use of mutually incompatible theories, even in the same scientific project.
"Circa 1600, astronomers could easily use both Ptolemaic and Copernican astronomical theories to calculate the ephemerides of different planets. Similarly, in order to obtain a useful tool for calculating atomic spectra, Bohr mixed some propositions of classical electrodynamics with a number of quantum hypotheses.[[CiteRef::Smith (1988)]] Finally, when nowadays we build a particle accelerator, we use both classical and quantum physics in our calculations. Thus, sometimes propositions from two or more incompatible theories are mixed in order to obtain something practically useful".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.157-8]]
|Example Type=Historical
}}
{{Theory Example
|Title=Mutually Incompatible Theory Pursuit
|Description=Barseghyan presents the following historical examples of the simultaneous pursuit of mutually incompatible theories. Of course, we should note that there is "nothing extraordinary" about this: it is the pursuit of different options that makes scientific change possible!
<blockquote>Take for instance, Clausius’s attempt to derive Carnot’s theorem, where he drew on two incompatible theories of heat – Carnot’s caloric theory of heat, where heat was considered a fluid, and also Joule’s kinetic theory of heat, where the latter was conceived as a “force” that can be converted into work.[[CiteRef::Meheus (2003)]]. Thus, the existence of incompatible propositions in the context of pursuit is quite obvious. There is good reason to believe that “reasoning from an inconsistent theory usually plays an important heuristic role”[[CiteRef::Meheus(2003)||pp.131]] and that "the use of inconsistent representations of the world as heuristic guideposts to consistent theories is an important part of scientific discovery"[[CiteRef::Smith(1988)||pp.429]].[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.158]]</blockquote>
|Example Type=Historical
}}
{{Acceptance Record
