Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Yep.  That's his philosophy.

Ahmmm... about philosophy... and this thread:

[Isaac]

Not sure what you mean, since there's a continuity between these things.

Oh well.

Augenblick!

[Ray]

I think the important issue here is this: What did Cartier-Bresson have to say about photons vs. gravitons?   

Well first Eric, I think one has to admit that every photo he took was absolutely dependent on the existence and behaviour of photons. Without them the photographic process wouldn't exist.

Secondly, without the effects of gravity, we wouldn't exist, and probably no other form of life either.

Thirdly, HCB's most famous photo of a man jumping a puddle, captures through the existence of photons, a moment of a balance between two opposing forces of kinetic energy and gravitational attraction.

Have I answered your question? 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Well first Eric, I think one has to admit that every photo he took was absolutely dependent on the existence and behaviour of photons. Without them the photographic process wouldn't exist.

Secondly, without the effects of gravity, we wouldn't exist, and probably no other form of life either.

Thirdly, HCB's most famous photo of a man jumping a puddle, captures through the existence of photons, a moment of a balance between two opposing forces of kinetic energy and gravitational attraction.

Have I answered your question? 

No.

 Because you didn't provide a quote from HCB, so although I now know what Ray has to say, but I don't know what HCB had to say on this subject.   

[Ray]

No.

 Because you didn't provide a quote from HCB, so although I now know what Ray has to say, but I don't know what HCB had to say on this subject.   

Surely his photos are a better expression of anything he had to say verbally; and his photos were heavily dependent upon the existence of photons and the mysterious gravitons. 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Surely his photos are a better expression of anything he had to say verbally; and his photos were heavily dependent upon the existence of photons and the mysterious gravitons. 

Since this entire thread is devoted to blind nit-picking, whatever HCB expressed in non-verbal ways is clearly irrelevant. So perhaps your answer is: "Nothing."   

[Ray]

Since this entire thread is devoted to blind nit-picking, whatever HCB expressed in non-verbal ways is clearly irrelevant. So perhaps your answer is: "Nothing."  

If you think that's the case, Eric, we should try to steer the thread away from blind nit-picking towards photon-reception clarity, which is what I've tried to do.  

[jjj]

Glad you said "not saying that is what you are doing here".  

When you do philosophy, you need to use language with a kind of mathematical precision.  There's no way around it.  If you don't know how to read it, it seems torturous.  But every word is intended to have a function.

I can read, parse and understand such writings, but too often it simply comes across as a stylistic tic rather than something being written for clarity. There is a skill to writing accurately and without such mannerisms, one many academics lack.

But when you [LKaven] argue that gravity is a philosophical construct rather than a measurable and observable physical phenomenon, it appears you've crossed the line from precisely-worded language to fatuous pomposity for pomposity's sake.

Describes what I've been talking about very well.

[jjj]

But if we stopped you'd have nothing to snark about.

Ha, ha!

[LKaven]

You walked into a thread after a month off just to post that?  Really Jeremy?

You posted one of Jonathan's mistakes again as well.  Yes, in the course of this exchange, Jonathan used three or so separate concepts and treated them as though they were one.  These are common mistakes that first and second year undergraduates make.

Actually, Jonathan did speculate on something that is plausible in later work, though in doing so, he missed the point of what was being said, was completely incurious about the distinction, decided to resort to invective in order to protect his ego, and then felt he had nothing to apologize for.

There's no mystery here.  I put in the years with top scholars in this area, who showed me day in and day out where the difference was between saying one thing and saying another.  This understanding of language is reflected in thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles, and my usage reflects community standards, which exist for a reason.  All routine stuff.

If you weren't so incurious, you and Jonathan might learn something interesting.  [I don't doubt that you have other areas of knowledge where you might teach me as well.]  But instead, you need to feel powerful with your invective, which is exactly an argument against /nothing/.  A real scientist would be curious.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Actually, you're the one making elementary mistakes. The great majority of real scientists (as opposed to philosophers, which are another thing entirely) do not regard the retina as the only means by which humans can perceive the world around them. As such, an "observation" as defined by the scientific community can include phenomena that can be perceived by any of the senses, as opposed to being limited to the minuscule segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be perceived by the human eye. Gravity cannot be seen with the eye, but its existence certainly can be felt, and it can be measured with a great deal of precision with the right equipment. To call it an "unobservable" is ludicrous. It cannot be seen, but it certainly can be perceived.

I'm curious why I should occupy my limited free time pondering a philosophical construct that is so obviously flawed.

[amolitor]

Luke is using words in very specific ways. He's made it completely clear that he's using them in the strict senses used in a particular field of study.

As far as I can tell, he's using them correctly.

Arguing that he's *wrong* is silly. You can argue that he should not use technical terms in this venue. You can argue that philosophy as a whole is wrong. But you cannot argue that he's using the words incorrectly unless you can demonstrate that -- within the system he's made clear he is operating -- he in fact is. Since he's using the word "unobservable" correctly within that system, simply saying "well you're wrong" isn't even silly, it's a non sequitur.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Except that he claims to have a scientific background as well as a philosophical background. And in science all sorts of things are called "observations" that cannot be seen directly.

Also, his philosophical definitions are contradictory. If you look at the definitions for "observable" and "unobservable" cited earlier, "unobservable" is anything that cannot be seen, and "observable" is anything that can be perceived. So by those definitions, gravity is simultaneously "observable" (because it can be perceived) and "unobservable" (because it cannot be seen).

If you use "unobservable" as he defines it, then the logical confusion one must come to based on that premise is that a blind man couldn't be a philosopher, because a blind man can't see anything, and therefore could never understand truth. OTOH, if you narrow the definition of "unobservable" to exclude things that can be "perceived" vice things that can be "seen", then gravity is not an unobservable, because it can be perceived. So his choices are:

A. Blind people are lesser beings because they lack the only sense capable of truly perceiving and understanding the world around them.

or

B. Gravity is not an "unobservable".

Luke, you've accused me of not being curious. Here's some questions for you:

What is so special about the sense of sight that would lead one to define it as the exclusive means of discovering the truth of the world around us?

Do you believe that our other senses are somehow less reliable, valid, or truthful?

If so, what is the basis of that belief?

[Ray]

I think you are being just a little bit obtuse, Jonathan, if you'll forgive me for saying so. 

We can certainly observe the effects of a force which we call gravity, but we can't identify any particle or wave which is responsible for those effects. In this sense, gravity can be said to be unobservable. Its fundamental nature is still a mystery.

Following is an interesting article by String Theorist, Erik Verlinde who seems to be of the opinion that gravity doesn't actually exist and is possibly an illusion. Give it a read.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/11/gravity-doesnt-exist-is-gravity-an-illusion.html

[amolitor]

I think it is true that 'observable' and 'unobservable' are not antonyms when use as technical terms of philosophy.

So?

Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, too.

[Jonathan Wienke]

I think you are being just a little bit obtuse, Jonathan, if you'll forgive me for saying so. 

We can certainly observe the effects of a force which we call gravity, but we can't identify any particle or wave which is responsible for those effects. In this sense, gravity can be said to be unobservable. Its fundamental nature is still a mystery.

I'm not being obtuse. We don't completely understand any of the four known fundamental forces. We don't know if there is any particle that carries gravitational force, but the exact same thing is true of the electromagnetic force. We know that when the electromagnetic force is made to vibrate, those vibrations form particles we call photons, which move at the speed of light, and transfer energy from one place to another. But when it is static, a force can still be transmitted.

Consider the case where two permanent magnets are mounted to a rigid surface adjacent to each other. There are no known particles being emitted by the magnets, but yet there is a force between those magnets. What carries that magnetic force from one magnet to the other is unknown. A similar case exists between two electrically charged plates, such as the ones in a capacitor. Depending on the polarity of the charge, those plates attract or repel each other. How that electrostatic force is transferred from one plate to the other is also unknown.

We can't really understand why photons behave as they do without understanding how the magnetic and electrostatic aspects of the electromagnetic force propagate and transmit force from one body to another. If you use our ignorance of whether gravitational force is carried by some particle to define gravity as "unobservable", then you have to use our ignorance of whether the electrostatic and magnetic aspects of the electromagnetic force are carried by some unknown particle or particles to define photons as "unobservable" as well. The fundamental nature of photons and the electromagnetic force is just as mysterious as the fundamental nature of gravity.

Defining photons as "unobservable" opens a Pandora's box of of illogical contradictions. But so does defining gravity as "unobservable" without doing the same to photons.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

How does one get out of a thread that becomes unbearably unobservable (in the sense "painful to follow/watch/read")?

[LKaven]

I'm under a deadline for a research report right now, so only have a few moments.

The observable/unobservable distinction has historical roots in an attempt to create a science that was built out of pure observations.  This is why I mentioned the historical "observation sentences" earlier.  This research program, called variously "logical empiricism" or "logical positivism" is now seen as a failed research program.  Thank god.  In contemporary philosophy, the distinction is not so clean.  This is why I said Jonathan's point was "plausible", though it was not the thing that I was discussing at the time.  It would be equally difficult to argue that gravity is any kind of pure observable even when one admits the sense of "feel".  More paradigmatic forms of "unobservables" are causation and belief.

Jonathan, it pays to sort out perceived disagreements before insulting people personally.  In this case, you've been pointing fingers at a place where I wasn't standing.  None of the discourse on this subject is simple. 

[LKaven]

How does one get out of a thread that becomes unbearably unobservable (in the sense "painful to follow/watch/read")?

Apparently you can't resist it.  You should ask Jeremy why he walked back in a month after the thread shut down just to stick hot needles into someone in case they had forgotten about it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Apparently you can't resist it...

Look away.

I wish it is that easy. I participated in this thread at some point and now it pops-up every time I click on the "Show new replies to your post" link at the top of the page. On certain threads, where I regretted participating, I can go and delete my posts (not something I like doing, btw), but this one has 26 pages to wade through. Yes, I can also do use the search function to find my posts in this thread, but that might be more work than I a prepared to do. I wish there is a simpler way to stop following a certain thread.