Astronomy is awesome

[Ryan Thunder]

Telescopes are just devices that focus light so that images to faint to be seen by the eye are visible. There is nothing to explain

Except for the fact that there are things to explain, and an entire field of physics is devoted to those things: optics.

I don't dispute the fact that telescopes allow us to make very accurate predictions; I dispute the fact that they can offer us some objective, direct perception of reality.

What are you? Some kind of solipsist?

[Witch]

I am sorry but "Philosophers of Science" is a non sequitur... "Philosophy" and "Science" are two things that should NEVER go together.

This is so historically uninformed that it actually makes me cringe. Even the terminology is absurd. "a non-sequitur"? The term makes no pretense at being an argument, and thus it cannot be a non-sequitur. Judging by the next sentence, you presumably mean a contradiction in terms, which is laughable. It should be noted that individuals like Descartes, Leibniz, Newton and Galileo never thought of themselves as scientists, as that term is but a nineteenth century creation. They considered themselves philosophers, as is evident from their titles at court, the titles of their works, etc. More recently, Einstein was heavily inspired by the philosophical works of Poincaré, mathematics was shaken by the philosophico-mathematical work of Russell, Whitehead and Gödel, and so on. Kuhn was a physicist. Philosophy and science are most definitely related.

Regardless of this historical background, the existence of a very large academic discipline called 'philosophy of science' might give you pause.

Even if philosophical whatevers like this might be "true" in that human observations might not be truly "objective" in its "direct perception of reality", because human senses and human instruments are flawed and it's not really air we're breathing Neo take the red pill or the blue pill, why should it matter? Who gives a fuck?

It doesn't matter on itself - it matters because scientists and the common public frequently misunderstand what science is and the limits of its reach. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, there was still a notion that somehow, there exist 'sensations', uninterpreted fragments of data that can be used as evidence for theories. This has turned out to be undefensible: all data is immediately interpreted by the conceptual framework of the observer; if the instrument used to record those data also relies upon that conceptual framework, even more interpretation enters the picture.
I mention this because I have grave doubts about the ontological claims of the sciences, which are all too often easily accepted by those of positivist bent. I have grave doubts about those ontological claims. Time after time, they have been proven false: phlogiston, heat as a substance, the ether... people believed those things existed. They believed the existence of those things had been observed. People even thought physics were complete at the end of the nineteenth century, and dissuaded students from initiating a doctorate in physics at that point - and yet the ontology of physics was utterly changed by Einstein.

That's why I wanted to object to the representation of this film as 'direct observation'. The amount of theoretical background to the creation of that film is vast - it requires a theory of optics, a description of photons, et cetera. I want to instill a healthy skepticism on claims of 'this is how it is'. I'll accept claims of 'this is how we've been able to make surprisingly good predictions', but I'll go no further than that.

What are you? Some kind of solipsist?

I identify myself mostly with Michael Friedman's pragmatic version of Kant's transcendental idealism, which reduces Kant's categories to culturally determined concepts.

[Liberty]

*snip*

You're good at using big words, but I'm confused. Most people consider things that they can see with their eyes "direct observation." If you dispute this, there is no such thing as direct observation, no? Also, a telescope merely magnifies things so that what we see with our eyes what we could have if we were much closer to the phenomenon being observed. In other words, it's merely a tool that allows us to see something far away with our eyes. Thus, it's direct observation. I'm confused as to what you're taking issue with here.

[Witch]

I might have been confusing two concepts, the notion of direct observation and the notion of theoryladenness. Now, both perception with telescopes and with human eyes are theoryladen, but I suppose one could still call the latter direct observation. In order to use a telescope, however, you need a background theory that assures you that they can be trusted (a background theory which, for instance, Galileo's contemporaries initially denied), and this theory needs to be accepted before one can accept its observations. That's why you can't call it 'direct observation'.

[Bakustra]

I mention this because I have grave doubts about the ontological claims of the sciences, which are all too often easily accepted by those of positivist bent. I have grave doubts about those ontological claims. Time after time, they have been proven false: phlogiston, heat as a substance, the ether... people believed those things existed. They believed the existence of those things had been observed. People even thought physics were complete at the end of the nineteenth century, and dissuaded students from initiating a doctorate in physics at that point - and yet the ontology of physics was utterly changed by Einstein.

That is a common misconception. There were some sentiments to that effect in the 1870s, but that was before certain critical experiments revealed the existence of subatomic particles, and even then there was still the problem of the orbit of Mercury. That is why Einstein's theories of relativity, despite their radical claims, were accepted so quickly; because his gravitational equations predicted the orbit of Mercury perfectly. Quantum Mechanics also arose in response to the mysterious behavior of the electron. In addition, bringing up phlogiston, the ether, and other such disproven claims is a red herring. Those were determined by inferences, rather than direct observation, much like Aristotleian elements. Newtonian gravitation and the right-hand rule were determined by observation followed by developing a formula to describe the observed behavior. They are not condemnations of the concept of observation. For an aspiring philosopher of science (or philosopher in general), you would do better to understand more of the history and theory of science before entering condemnations.

That's why I wanted to object to the representation of this film as 'direct observation'. The amount of theoretical background to the creation of that film is vast - it requires a theory of optics, a description of photons, et cetera. I want to instill a healthy skepticism on claims of 'this is how it is'. I'll accept claims of 'this is how we've been able to make surprisingly good predictions', but I'll go no further than that.

Wait. This was taken in a very simple manner. Take an IR telescope. Hook up a camera to it. Point it in the direction you want to look. Take pictures. Color pictures according to an algorithm that assigns colors based on wavelength. Assemble pictures into video. While such theoretical background is required to build the telescope and the camera, so, too is a theory of thermodynamics "required" to enable you to live, move, and so on. Does that mean that you do not consider your existence a matter of direct observation, since optical theory is also necessary to describe the behavior of the eyes?

What are you? Some kind of solipsist?

I identify myself mostly with Michael Friedman's pragmatic version of Kant's transcendental idealism, which reduces Kant's categories to culturally determined concepts.

I have a question for you. In your view, is there a definable reality outside of our observations? Furthermore, what is the practical use of the term "theoryladen" if everything is so? How can we determine that phlogiston is not valid, and the principles of combustion so, if they are equally dependent on human observation, which is flawed according to your philosophy? Or, for biology, how does this philosophy of science allow us to distinguish between Darwinism, Lamarckism, and creationism, if there are no objective observations?
Now do you see why you are accused of solipsism?

I might have been confusing two concepts, the notion of direct observation and the notion of theoryladenness. Now, both perception with telescopes and with human eyes are theoryladen, but I suppose one could still call the latter direct observation. In order to use a telescope, however, you need a background theory that assures you that they can be trusted (a background theory which, for instance, Galileo's contemporaries initially denied), and this theory needs to be accepted before one can accept its observations. That's why you can't call it 'direct observation'.

Is a computer capable of playing chess? Furthermore, the theory behind telescopes is exactly the same as the one that describes the behavior of our eyes. The fact that one is built-in and the other is not doesn't change matters objectively.

[Simon_Jester]

Comments directed to everyone who isn't Witch:

So, we have this black hole in the center of the Milky Way. How do we know it's there? Well ...
[video clip]
We have video of it...

Sweet. I saw some footage of that a few years back, without the false colors and name labels; speaking for myself I find it even more impressive that way. Especially the star that practically ricocheted through the gravity well in Fall 2000 ("SO-16" in the diagram)... in a space roughly the size of the orbit of Pluto, as I recall.

As for an awesome thing about astronomy, how about the fact that we will soon be able to detect Earth's twin around a Sun-like star, just by looking at how much it tugs a star back and forth over an object, with a velocity of only about a single meter per second? IOW, we will soon be able to detect stellar motions on the order of a normal walking pace.

I've been looking forward to that. My greatest pet peeve when listening to speculation about extrasolar planets over the past five to ten years has been "Well, if Earth were orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby star, would we be able to see it?" As long as the answer is "no," we have effectively no idea how common Earthlike planets are; for all we know, the hot Jupiters and occasional super-Earths we've detected are the freaks of the universe that just happen to be easiest to detect.

Then again, the converse could equally well be true, I suppose; our sample is currently so limited by our detection ability that it doesn't give us enough pieces of the puzzle.

In addition, bringing up phlogiston, the ether, and other such disproven claims is a red herring. Those were determined by inferences, rather than direct observation, much like Aristotleian elements...

Nitpick: Aristotle does not deserve blame for the "four elements" model of cosmology. The Four Elements are properly the Empedoclean elements.

He's already got enough scientific errors piled in front of his tombstone; let's not burden the poor wight with ones he didn't earn.

[Simon_Jester]

Comments directed to Witch:

I am sorry but "Philosophers of Science" is a non sequitur... "Philosophy" and "Science" are two things that should NEVER go together.

This is so historically uninformed that it actually makes me cringe.

It makes me cringe for the opposite reason: the effects of scientifically illiterate philosophy can be a real mess.

Given the fact that stars don't actually look like that, I'm sceptical about this being a direct video. It's a model.

(Back when I was innocent of the full extent of your distrust of telescopes, I said this):
I saw the underlying footage, without the labels, as I said. No false coloration, just glowy lights on the screen where the telescope picked up infrared light sources in the sky. It's real.

This entire argument is absurd. You're invoking photons, highly theoretical particles that are invoked to explain light, in order to explain why what is seen by a telescope is the same as what is seen by a human eye, and yet you claim that telescopes aren't theoryladen.

Witch, I have to ask: Do you understand the theory? Have you studied or performed the experiments involved in checking whether those theories work?

Do you have a viable explanation for how photons could not exist? For how things like solar panels and night-vision goggles, designed on the assumption that they do exist, could function in a universe where they did not?

Consider the counterfactual: assume photons do not exist. Then soldiers wearing night vision gear should be blundering around in the dark, because the device puts a wall between the "real" incoming light and the light the user actually sees. A wall that would normally be opaque if the device did not work by absorbing and reradiating photons.

People using NVDs wouldn't just gain no benefit, they would actually be more blind than they would be relying on their natural night vision. Likewise, LEDs would not glow, lasers would not lase, cathode ray tubes could not be used to generate oddly specific colors of light by slamming electrons into a phosphor screen. And you probably wouldn't be reading this, because I'm willing to bet what I consider a noticeable sum of money that you're using some sort of photon-based screen technology to see this.

They're theoryladen precisely because they assume the existence of photons and the fact that they can observe them. This is parallel to the reason why Galileo's scientific opponents didn't accept the telescope as a valid instrument - they didn't agree that it wouldn't distort observation.

...Aand they were wrong. The craters of the Moon, for example, are real, and even by your standards we know this because we physically lobbed a bunch of guys over there to take a look.

Time after time, they have been proven false: phlogiston, heat as a substance, the ether... people believed those things existed. They believed the existence of those things had been observed. People even thought physics were complete at the end of the nineteenth century, and dissuaded students from initiating a doctorate in physics at that point - and yet the ontology of physics was utterly changed by Einstein.

You may or may not notice a pattern in all those exploded notions:

1)Most of them predate the institution of science in the modern sense of the word. For example, people posited the notion of phlogiston well before the scientific model was applied consistently (it was originally a tweak to the classical "four elements" theory. Likewise, various sorts of intangible "ether" that would serve as the medium of propagation for forces that otherwise seem to act at a distance (gravity, electromagnetism).
2)Most of them fell apart the first time anyone devised a serious experiment to test them. Phlogiston died messily in the late 1700s, for example; heat-as-fluid lasted only long enough for someone to invent statistical mechanics, discover the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and hang himself. The luminiferous ether lasted a little longer... because it was correspondingly harder to test. By contrast, the closest we have to a nontestable theory about the underlying nature of the universe today is the complex called String Theory... which has thousands of people working madly to find a mechanism for testing.

That's why I wanted to object to the representation of this film as 'direct observation'. The amount of theoretical background to the creation of that film is vast - it requires a theory of optics, a description of photons, et cetera. I want to instill a healthy skepticism on claims of 'this is how it is'. I'll accept claims of 'this is how we've been able to make surprisingly good predictions', but I'll go no further than that.

Exactly how good would a prediction have to be before you bought it as "how it is?" Can you give me an example of a prediction I could make for your benefit that would be surprising enough to convince you that I actually knew something, as opposed to merely having some notion that coincidentally resembled the truth?

And given your standard of how impressive predictions have to be before you'll treat them as pointers to known facts... would you apply the same standard in day to day life? If I told you I knew how a person thought and what they would like, would you expect me to show you evidence as low-prior-probability, as outright miraculous, as the evidence that modern engineering has constructed using modern science?

[Ryan Thunder]

What are you? Some kind of solipsist?

I identify myself mostly with Michael Friedman's pragmatic version of Kant's transcendental idealism, which reduces Kant's categories to culturally determined concepts.

Wrap it in whatever flowery nonsense you like; your asinine ideology is about as helpful right now as an ignorant five-year old.

In short, get fucked, and stop polluting the thread.

[Formless]

Funny thing, but according to google, there is no such word as "theoryladen." There is "theory-laden" however-- the idea that every statement has a theoretical basis, but like I said before that's a misunderstanding of science-- in science, theory is the highest level of certainty possible. All scientific theories can be disproven at later date-- it wouldn't be science otherwise. Speaking in terms of epistomology, the only things that are more certain are "cogito ergo sum" and the anthropic principal. There is no pragmatic reason to disregard the accuracy of your own senses-- would you stick your hand in a fireplace because the statement "fire is hot and will burn you" is based on chemical theory and thermodynamics? Or stick a gun to your head and pull the trigger because its "just" the theory of physics that says the bullet will blow your brains out and, heck, "just" the theory of biology that says you will die? No? Than you understand why we consider your objections to be absurd.

Epistemology/science > ontology > metaphysics > Kant > Aristotle

In that order.

[Formless]

What are you? Some kind of solipsist?

I identify myself mostly with Michael Friedman's pragmatic version of Kant's transcendental idealism, which reduces Kant's categories to culturally determined concepts.

Wrap it in whatever flowery nonsense you like; your asinine ideology is about as helpful right now as an ignorant five-year old.

In short, get fucked, and stop polluting the thread.

Ryan, what, other than anger, have you contributed to this thread that others like myself didn't contribute first?

Parrot.

[Simon_Jester]

Wrap it in whatever flowery nonsense you like; your asinine ideology is about as helpful right now as an ignorant five-year old.

In short, get fucked, and stop polluting the thread.

Ryan, I'm going to have to disagree with this.

At the very least, Witch is saying something that a rational person can talk about. Which is a damn sight more impressive than sticking your head into the conversation from stage left, wiggling your fingers in your ears, and going "neener neener," as you are now doing.

[SapphireFox]

I might have been confusing two concepts, the notion of direct observation and the notion of theoryladenness. Now, both perception with telescopes and with human eyes are theoryladen, but I suppose one could still call the latter direct observation. In order to use a telescope, however, you need a background theory that assures you that they can be trusted (a background theory which, for instance, Galileo's contemporaries initially denied), and this theory needs to be accepted before one can accept its observations. That's why you can't call it 'direct observation'.

No Witch you do not have to be versed in "theroy" to use a simple optical telescope all you need is to look down the eyepiece and see the image, even a child or primative would be able to understand on their own that it magnifies what can be seen normaly. No understanding of "theroy" would be required. Other kinds of telescopes you need to activate the systems and view the data. To understand WHY or HOW that is where "theroy" might come in.

I cant believe you are using men who failed to help your "theroryladen" argument, Galileo's contemporaries were scripture to shape their model of the universe, not exatly proponents of "direct observation".

While this debate over your philosophy is ineresting I feel that it should be moved into its own therad so it can be discussed on philosopical level because it is not about astronomy in any way. That way this thread can get back on track.

[Ryan Thunder]

Wrap it in whatever flowery nonsense you like; your asinine ideology is about as helpful right now as an ignorant five-year old.

In short, get fucked, and stop polluting the thread.

Ryan, I'm going to have to disagree with this.

At the very least, Witch is saying something that a rational person can talk about. Which is a damn sight more impressive than sticking your head into the conversation from stage left, wiggling your fingers in your ears, and going "neener neener," as you are now doing.

The thread topic is astronomy, more specifically, images from it. Witch has hijacked it into a discussion about his own pet ideology that appears to be something to the effect of "nothing we see can be confirmed". I don't care to hear about his ideology. He can blab about it all he wants, as far as I'm concerned--in a different thread. I'd just rather not have to slog through it all to get to

[...]fucking awesome stuff about astronomy, the sky, and other neat things.

This is why my preference is to ask him to shut the fuck up rather than address his arguments. Of course, if this is somehow out of line, I'll back off.

Ryan, what, other than anger, have you contributed to this thread that others like myself didn't contribute first?

Parrot.

Excuse me?

[Formless]

Threads drift in topic, Ryan. That wasn't a hijack, and if you think the conversation should be split you should say so rather than telling people to STFU when you have contributed nil.

Excuse me?

Other people had already dealt with Witch's solipsism long before you started spouting one liners. I even wrote this:

This philosophy you are describing sounds dangerously like solipsism, and very much like a strawman of science.

So if you aren't going to add anything of substance, go fly into an airliner, pretty parrot, and stop spamming this thread with bile.

[Ryan Thunder]

Threads drift in topic, Ryan. That wasn't a hijack, and if you think the conversation should be split you should say so rather than telling people to STFU when you have contributed nil.

Excuse me?

Other people had already dealt with Witch's solipsism long before you started spouting one liners. I even wrote this:

This philosophy you are describing sounds dangerously like solipsism, and very much like a strawman of science.

I'll freely admit that I skimmed over just about everything that didn't seem to be related to the OP. My bad.

So if you aren't going to add anything of substance, go fly into an airliner, pretty parrot, and stop spamming this thread with bile.

Oh, shove it up your ass. I'm out.

[Formless]

Oh, shove it up your ass. I'm out.

Thank you, asshole.

[Lord Relvenous]

Incidently, look at the time scale in the corner. Those stars are BOOKING in terms of velocity. Damn.

That was my first thought as well. At first watch, I thought it must be a projected model for such motion to be observed. That is crazy fast.
I mean, hell, S0-2 completes a full orbit. That's crazy.
Cool find, Surlethe.

As for my contribution (as you said the thread was for cool astronomy stuffs), I've always loved the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field picture. Nothing blows my mind better than a view of infinity.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Witch, it seems to be you are taking the notion that if ANY theory can be disproven then ALL theories are unreliable. That's simply not the case.

Take, for example, the nature of the shape of the earth. In the earliest days of the greeks, we presumed the world to be flat, and at the center of the universe. This was wrong.

Later, Coppernicus and Gallileo peered into the heavens and found the motions of the planets and the sun could not accomodate a ptolemaic universe. They therefore concluded the sun was the center of the universe. This was also wrong, but closer to the truth than before.

Then, Colombus sailed to the Caribbean and Magellan circumnavigated the world. Then we thought the earth was round. This isn't quite true, but its better than a flat earth.

You can track the progress of theories and understanding through the ages as verifiable experimentation and observation REFINE our theories of the universe. We now know the world is a flattened spheroid bulging at the equator orbiting the sun in an elliptical trajectory. That sun is, itself, circling the Milky Way Galaxy at an orbital period of more than two hundred million years, and our galaxy is careening through space at a speed of almost 600 kilometers per second. Is this the total and entire truth of the nature of our world?

Maybe. But if it isn't, then what we know so far is very close to the truth.

[Surlethe]

Of course, if this is somehow out of line, I'll back off.

Your back-seat moderating is out of line, so back the fuck off.

[Shroom Man 777]

It doesn't matter on itself - it matters because scientists and the common public frequently misunderstand what science is and the limits of its reach. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, there was still a notion that somehow, there exist 'sensations', uninterpreted fragments of data that can be used as evidence for theories. This has turned out to be undefensible: all data is immediately interpreted by the conceptual framework of the observer; if the instrument used to record those data also relies upon that conceptual framework, even more interpretation enters the picture.
I mention this because I have grave doubts about the ontological claims of the sciences, which are all too often easily accepted by those of positivist bent. I have grave doubts about those ontological claims. Time after time, they have been proven false: phlogiston, heat as a substance, the ether... people believed those things existed. They believed the existence of those things had been observed. People even thought physics were complete at the end of the nineteenth century, and dissuaded students from initiating a doctorate in physics at that point - and yet the ontology of physics was utterly changed by Einstein.

That's why I wanted to object to the representation of this film as 'direct observation'. The amount of theoretical background to the creation of that film is vast - it requires a theory of optics, a description of photons, et cetera. I want to instill a healthy skepticism on claims of 'this is how it is'. I'll accept claims of 'this is how we've been able to make surprisingly good predictions', but I'll go no further than that.

Okay then. Would "this is as accurate as we can get with our current theories developed by our meat brains, and it is a surprisingly good prediction with our theories corresponding to the observed phenomenon, and thanks to the scientific method we will continue to enhance this understanding and revise and improve our predictive theories to the best of our capacity as time goes by and as our understanding deepens, to make our predictions even BETTER?" be better?

Because isn't that what the scientific method, and science, is supposed to be? It was science, and the scientific mindset, in itself that made outdated theories like phlogiston and ether outdated and obsolete. This mindset, and what science does with its theories - revising them and perhaps discarding them and making even more sophisticated and accurate theory when more information is made available - has pretty much been crucial to developing our ever-growing understanding of the universe. This is NOT some stagnant dogmatic belief that originated as some superstition made up by ancient goat farmers, and has been rigidly enforced and unchanging for eons because of religulousity or something like that.

I mean, if you believe in that nothing is definite because of the subjective perspective or whatever of human beings, or because of solipist whatevers, or because of THE MATRIX, then this viewpoint is pretty much as good as it gets, isn't it? Because it promotes consistent and constant questioning and poking and observationing and experimentationing of what we see around us, which is a very good thing if you think that we can't be truly objective in our direct perception of reality, am i rite?

[Samuel]

Then, Colombus sailed to the Caribbean and Magellan circumnavigated the world. Then we thought the earth was round. This isn't quite true, but its better than a flat earth.

Just a nitpick, but people knew this before hand. The shadow of the Earth on the moon is circular after all. Eratosthenes figured out the Earth's circumferance 2300 years ago.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I know, but it didn't really enter the public consciousness until the rennaissance. In fact, Colombus used Eratosthenes' notes when computing the diameter of the earth.

[Samuel]

I know, but it didn't really enter the public consciousness until the rennaissance. In fact, Colombus used Eratosthenes' notes when computing the diameter of the earth.

Wasn't the result too big so he had to use another set of numbers so that China would be close enough?

[Simon_Jester]

Your back-seat moderating is out of line, so back the fuck off.

A front seat moderator having returned, I'd like to move that the tangent discussion on... I'm not sure what to call it... be split off into another thread. It's definitely a Science and Logic discussion, but it is kind of off the original topic.

That was my first thought as well. At first watch, I thought it must be a projected model for such motion to be observed. That is crazy fast.
I mean, hell, S0-2 completes a full orbit. That's crazy.

Yeah, but as I said, I've seen the raw (or, at least, raw-er take); it's real.

As for my contribution (as you said the thread was for cool astronomy stuffs), I've always loved the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field picture. Nothing blows my mind better than a view of infinity.

Wow. Shiny.

I know, but it didn't really enter the public consciousness until the rennaissance. In fact, Colombus used Eratosthenes' notes when computing the diameter of the earth.

Wasn't the result too big so he had to use another set of numbers so that China would be close enough?

That, or Columbus was bad at math.

Maybe he was still using Roman numerals... Probably not, though.

[Thanas]

Wikipedia is surprisingly clear on the subject and has a better summary than I could give on short notice:

Columbus believed the (incorrect) calculations of Marinus of Tyre, putting the landmass at 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Moreover, Columbus believed that one degree represented a shorter distance on the Earth's surface than was actually the case. Finally, he read maps as if the distances were calculated in Italian miles (1,238 meters). Accepting the length of a degree to be 56⅔ miles, from the writings of Alfraganus, he therefore calculated the circumference of the Earth as 25,255 kilometers at most, and the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan as 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles). Columbus did not realize Alfraganus used the much longer Arabic mile (about 1,830 m).