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The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 20:30, 6 September 2016
, 20:30, 6 September 2016no edit summary
The Logical Argument: A [[Scientific Community|scientific community]] cannot always know all the logical consequences of its [[Theory|theories]] at the time of their acceptance. Logical consequences of theories often emerge later, in the course of scientific research. Therefore, scientists can never rule out the possibility that their mosaic contains a contradiction. Thus, the presence of contradiction in the consequences of the theory cannot be what determines its presence in a mosaic.
The Historical Argument: There are historical instances in which a scientific community has knowingly accepted a contradiction. One such example is the contradiction in the current mosaic between consequences of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity and quantum mechanics. [[CiteRef::Harrison Fine(20002013)]] Einstein's relativity maintains that all signals are local. That is, no signal can travel faster than light. Quantum theory, on the other hand, predicts faster than light influences. This has been known since the 1930's [[CiteRef::Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (1935)]], yet both quantum theory and relativity remain in the mosaic.
Therefore, we cannot stipulate strict non-contradiction in a descriptive scientonomic theory, since at least one historical example contradicts it. Based on these two challenges to the law of consistency, Rory Harder proposed to reformulate the zeroth law as the law of compatibility. This new formulation was accepted by the Scientonomy community.
