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The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 20:11, 10 February 2023
, 20:11, 10 February 2023no edit summary
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''.
What does it mean that the ''law of compatibility'' also extends to employed ''methods''? This matter receives significant attention in [[Barseghyan (2015)]]. As per Barseghyan, if two disciplines employ different requirements, their methods are not incompatible as they apply to two different disciplines, they merely "appear conflicting".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.162]] Even considering methods in the same discipline, two methods that "appear conflicting" are not necessarily incompatible. For instance, these methods may either be complementary ("connected by a logical AND"), providing multiple requirements for new theories, or provide ''alternative'' requirements for new theories ("connected by a logical OR").[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.162-3]] Thus, Barseghyan asserts that methods are only incompatible "when they state ''exhaustive'' conditions for the acceptance of a theory. Say the first method stipulates that a theory is acceptable if and only if it provides confirmed novel predictions, while the second method requires that in order to become accepted a theory must necessarily solve more problems than the accepted theory. In this case, the two methods are incompatible and, by the ''law of compatibility'', they cannot be simultaneously employed".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.163]] We should be careful not to confuse these the concepts of ''compatibility'' and ''consistency''. Barseghyan details the distinction between these two concepts:
<blockquote>"the formal definition of inconsistency is that a set is inconsistent just in case it entails some sentence and its negation, i.e. ''p'' and ''not-p''. The classical logical principle of noncontradiction stipulates that ''p'' and ''not-p'' cannot be true ... In contrast, the notion of compatibility implicit in the zeroth law is much more flexible, for its actual content depends on the criteria of compatibility employed at a given time. As a result, the actually employed criteria of compatibility can differ from mosaic to mosaic. While in some mosaics compatibility may be understood in the classical logical sense of consistency, in other mosaics it may be more flexible ... in principle, there can exist such mosaics, where two theories that are inconsistent in the classical logical sense are nevertheless mutually compatible and can be simultaneously accepted within the same mosaic. In other words, a mosaic can be ''inconsistency-intolerant'' or ''inconsistency-tolerant'' depending on the criteria of compatibility employed by the scientific community of the time"[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)||pp.154]].</blockquote>
