Saturday, November 07, 2015

How new theories grow from the old

The beautiful thing about philosophy is that philosophies die. New philosophy can then grow from the soil enriched by the dead. (Bas van Fraassen, 2004)

I think that much of what looks like radical rethinking of a theory arises from mistaken apprehension of the theory displaced by the new insights. For example, it seems that Einstein did not see gravity and acceleration as different, even though Newton’s physics tacitly assumed they were.

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There's No History Here (poem)

There’s No History Here Above Kama Bay This country has no history, they say. Then what’s that breathing there? There are no stories told mo...