Difference between revisions of "5. How do we structure reality?"

Revision as of 12:43, 7 September 2013

What is REAL?

a. Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence: real objects; a real illness.

b. True and actual; not imaginary, alleged, or ideal: real people, not ghosts; a film based on real life.

c. Of or founded on practical matters and concerns: a recent graduate experiencing the real world for the first time.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/real

What is REALITY?

1. The quality or state of being actual or true.

2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual: "the weight of history and political realities" (Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.)

3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence.

4. That which exists objectively and in fact: Your observations do not seem to be about reality.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reality

Day the Universe Changed: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality

Everyone has their own structure for what reality is. You make everything fit that structure. What our brain expects to see is what we see.

Role of interpretation - Each person has their own version of seeing reality.

Frame of reference

Organizes, evaluates, and explains experience

Gives bases for beliefs, judgments, values, morals and ethics

Purpose of structure of reality

Your view of the world dictates what you do.

It dictates how many questions you ask

Structure controls haw science progresses. The rules of the structure control investigation until there is a detail the structure can’t handle, then a new structure is created.

The only structure in the changing face of nature is the one we impose on it with our theories.

Why structures change

Discoveries

Science get effected by expectations

When details don’t fit

Science is what the people think is important

The Grand Design

Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

“There is no picture or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we will adopt a view that we will call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the models to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science.”

“A model is a good model if it:

1. Is elegant

2. Contains few arbitrary or adjustable elements

3. Agrees with and explains all existing observations

4. Makes detailed predictions about future observations that can disprove or falsify the model if they are not borne out. “

Michael Urdahl

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