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diff --git a/essays/dissociation_physics.tex b/essays/dissociation_physics.tex index d56ab55..5255df0 100644 --- a/essays/dissociation_physics.tex +++ b/essays/dissociation_physics.tex @@ -1,8 +1,8 @@ -\Chp{The Perception-Dissociation of Physics} +\chapter{The Perception-Dissociation of Physics} From the physicist's point of view, the human dichotomy of sight and touch is a coincidence. It does not correspond to any dichotomy in the objective physical world. Light exerts pressure, and substances hot to the touch emit infrared light. It is just that the range of human receptors is too limited for them to register the tactile effect of light or the visual effect of moderate temperatures. -Our problem is to determine what observations or experiences would cause the physicist to say that the objective physical world had split along the humen sight-touch boundary, to say that the human sight-touch dichotomy was an unavoidable model of objective physical reality. Our discussion is not about perfectly transparent matter, or light retlection and emission in the absence of matter, or the dissociation of electromagnetic and inertial phenomena, or the fact that human sight registers light, while touch registers inertia, bulk modulus, thermal conduction, friction, adhesion, and so on. (However, these concepts may have to be introduced to complete our discussion.) Our discussion is about a change in the physicist's observations or experiences, such that the anomalous state of affairs would be an experimental analogue to the sight-touch dichotomy of philosophical subjectivism. Of course, philosophical subjectivism itself will not enter the discussion. +Our problem is to determine what observations or experiences would cause the physicist to say that the objective physical world had split along the human sight-touch boundary, to say that the human sight-touch dichotomy was an unavoidable model of objective physical reality. Our discussion is not about perfectly transparent matter, or light reflection and emission in the absence of matter, or the dissociation of electromagnetic and inertial phenomena, or the fact that human sight registers light, while touch registers inertia, bulk modulus, thermal conduction, friction, adhesion, and so on. (However, these concepts may have to be introduced to complete our discussion.) Our discussion is about a change in the physicist's observations or experiences, such that the anomalous state of affairs would be an experimental analogue to the sight-touch dichotomy of philosophical subjectivism. Of course, philosophical subjectivism itself will not enter the discussion. Because of the topic, our discussion will often seem psychological and even philosophical. However, the psychology involved always has to do with experimentally demonstrable aspects of perception. The philosophy involved is always scientific concept formation, the relating of concepts to experiments. Sooner or later it will be clear that our only concern is with experiences that would cause a physicist to modify physics. @@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ Let $T$ indicate tactile and $V$ indicate visual. Let the tactile sensation of o \begin{equation}\begin{pmatrix} p & p\\ f & p \end{pmatrix}\end{equation} - So far as temporal successions of concurrences (within the present world) are concerned, any permitted concurrence may succeed any other permitted concurrence. The succession of a concurrence by itself is excluded, meaning that at the moment, a $V_1$, is defined as lasting from the time the eyes open until the time they next close. We have said that our topic is a certain change; we can now indicate more precisely what this change is. As long as we have a $2\times2$ array, there are 16 ways it can be filled with $p$'s and $f$'s. That is, there are 16 imaginable states. The changes we are interested in, then, are specific changes from the present state (\ref{physpresent}) to another state such as \ref{physafter}. |