Sunday, August 27, 2006

6. ‘Aesthetics has no real value to societies’ Examine, with reference to the Aesthetics, how the concept of value applies to knowledge


The first thing aesthetics brings to mind is that it is nothing more than just an opinion. Though it is thought that mere opinions cannot contribute to obtaining knowledge, it is useful in filtering for the scientists and mathematicians to filter off “ugly” knowledge and to beautify what they have found. But how does the concept of value apply to knowledge?

Things can be valued with different criterions. An aesthetically valuable thing is something that is simple, ideal or pragmatic, depending on the scientist, mathematician and the observer. But let us consider only simplicity and ideals for this essay.

Firstly, take mathematics as an example. To a mathematician, a beautiful mathematical proof is one that uses a minimum of additional assumptions or previous results, unusually short, easy to generalize to solve a family of problems. Without aesthetics, no doubt that the mathematician can produce the same results with a lengthier proof, and justify many other mathematical beliefs, but this will involve too many calculations. It is due to aesthetics, the opinion, that mathematicians reduce their methods into short, simple ones. And in this case, it has refined the knowledge from “ugly”, over-elaborated ones to “beautiful”, simple ones.

As such, William Ockham and his “Occam’s razor” come to mind. Occam’s razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible and eliminating those assumptions that does not make a difference to the prediction. This suggests that the simplest explanations are usually the best. As quoted by Albert Einstein, “Things should be as simple as possible, but not any simpler.” This quote suggested that Einstein, the founder of Einstein Field Equations which is used in general relativity, used Occam’s razor to some extent.

In both cases, aesthetics has given support to the societies of the modern world. Even though it is just opinion, these aesthetically beautiful equations, explanations and etceteras have benefited the society. With the aid of these equations and explanations, we have been able to calculate when the next eclipse is, where a planet will be after a period of time and what aliment a patient is suffering from and such. It is unfair to say that aesthetics has no real value to societies.

Idealism, founded by Plato, suggested perfect forms. Perfect suggests a state of flawlessness and completeness. For example, a flawless precious gem is of a higher value than one that is flawed. Idealism can be used to evaluate objects or observations in the sense that when these things are compared to what is deemed as perfect, how close to the perfect form is it. Idealism is a valuable tool of epistemology. Considering if aesthetics have no real value to the societies, would this render idealism invalid too?

In the school of thought where ideals are considered first and simpler explanation and methods are preferred over others, aesthetics plays a major part in the construction of knowledge, either as a filter or an incentives to scientists and mathematicians that derive aesthetic pleasure from their work.

“Aesthetics has no real value to societies.” This is probably the motto of an opposing school of thought.

In terms of simplicity, a few people considered Occam’s razor too extreme or rash. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also devised his own anti-razor that used the Principle of Plentitudes.

This principle asserts that anything that can happen will happen. Leibniz anti-razor gives rise to “infinite monkey theorem” that states that a monkey hitting keys on a typewriter at random for an infinite amount of time will almost surely create a particular text. But the chance of it happening is very low. Consider the word monkey. There is fifty keys on a typewriter, therefore the chances of hitting the letter “M” is one out of fifty. The chance of hitting the letter “O” is also one out of fifty. Since the event is independent, the chance of hitting an “O” after an “M” is one out of two hundred and fifty. Therefore to type out the word “banana”, it is a one out of fifty to the power of six chances.

Skeptics will ask, “Without aesthetics the societies will improve at similar rate?”, “How can simplified things be valued above the rest?”, “Could the simplification of mathematical equations reduce the amount of time calculating so significantly that the world can advance so quickly?”

In my opinion, the world is a better place due to the simplicity of knowledge. No doubt the world can reach the same stage of development without simplification and ideals but it will only reach the stage at a slower rate.

In conclusion, the aesthetically beautiful explanations and equations and the aesthetic concept of value, when applied to knowledge has aided the world in its advancement and that it has a value to the societies.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience” Discuss the implication of the statement.

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience” Discuss the implication of the statement.

Experience, it is obtain when a person goes through a certain event. Therefore experience will give rise to empirical knowledge or a posterior knowledge. This is because knowledge that is obtained experience must first be observed through sense and perception first, then processed and justified. Knowledge, to set the context straight, would be justified truth. This means that true knowledge can only be obtained through truth and belief.

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.” This statement implies that without experience, no one is able to obtain knowledge. An example of knowledge through experience would be knowing that a naked flame can burn and cause harm to yourself after observing the naked flame burn someone, or yourself.

It is a statement disregards the existence of a priori knowledge, which the knowledge is obtained to pure reasoning alone. After all, the knowledge is not obtained to experiencing it, but by reasoning it to be justified truth.

Infants tend to grab onto things that they can touch. What makes them do it? Is it because they feel safer, more secure, with something to hold onto? But this will imply that the infants believe that grabbing something will bring security. They have no prior knowledge that doing so will protect them, so why are they doing it? Could it be that we are born with innate knowledge? Or is the human body “wired” to do such things? If it can be proven that humans are born with knowledge, the statement will no longer hold true.

In science classes, students are made to conduct experiments after experiments, to record all their findings and to evaluate their results. Students are made to experience these experiments to gain the knowledge that mixing certain reagents will give that result or that higher the mass, the greater the velocity it will travel down a slope. Teachers make their students practice math questions so that they can get used to the questions, observe patterns, formulate ideas and hopefully do better in their examination. These teachers believe that through experiencing doing the question is more effective than just reading about them. And this belief would be gotten from past observations that students that practices do much better than those who do not. The statement will used as a dogma if it holds true and there students will be made to experience to gain their knowledge.

Another implication of the statement is that second-hand experiences and third-hand experiences will not build up one’s knowledge although it may alter his perceptions. Second-hand or third-hand experiences are ultimately not one’s own experience, but someone else experiences. But even in first-hand experience, the observation is subjected heavily to sense-perception errors and personal interpretation. With second-hand experience, it will complement the first-hand experiences with multiple points of view, improvements and so on. Second-hand experience will give rise to new knowledge. Would this be true if the statement is held as an absolute?

Classic condition or associative learning, as described by Aristotle, is when two things commonly occur simultaneously, the appearance of one will bring the other to mind. The statement where no man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience will explain this phenomenon. After one has experience the occurrence of two things at once, over and over again, he will associate the appearance of one with the other. This is a typical empirical observation that has become “knowledge” or just a belief to that one person alone. Ivan Pavlov has conducted experiments on classic conditioning and the results all agree with each other. A traumatic experience can also condition the mind in such a way that similar events will cause fear into the observer.

Edwin Hubble observed a peculiar event going on in the outer space. He observed that galaxies are actually moving away from each other and the velocity the galaxies are receding from one another is proportional to the distance they are from each other. Through his observations, Edwin Hubble came up with the equation, V=HD, where V is the velocity the galaxies are receding, H is a constant and D is the distance between the galaxies. Without Hubble’s observations, or experiences per se, this equation would not hold water anymore. This is empirical knowledge being formed. This knowledge is then used to support the Big Bang Theory by Georges Henri Lemaitre, a physicist and an astronomer.

Georges Henri Lemaitre, through reasoning and mathematics concluded that the universe started as a singularity. Reasoning and mathematics are typical forms of a priori knowledge. This is another example that would be disregarded if the statement holds through.

Therefore, “No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience,” is a statement that cannot be held as an absolute although it has it basis in many things. It can be improved by saying that knowledge can also be obtained through reasoning alone.

Monday, August 07, 2006

That big bang idea - Fred Hoyle

That big bang idea - Fred Hoyle

The Father of the Big Bang Theory

• Father Georges-Henri Lemaître, 1984-1966 , proposed his theory in, 1927.
• Using Albert Einstein’s General Relativity, Lemaître derived equations and proposed, on the basis of the recession of spiral nebulae that the universe began with the “explosion” of the “primeval atom”.
• Fred Hoyle coined the name “Big Bang” by referring to Lemaître's theory as “this big bang idea”.

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Foundations of Big Bang
• General Relativity
– The presence of matter bends space-time, and this curvature affects all free particles.

• Cosmological Principle
– A reasonable assumption or axiom that states:
• On larger scales, the universe is homogeneous and isotopic.

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The Observations.
• In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced that galaxies outside the Milky Way were systematically moving away from us with a speed proportional their distance from us. This phenomenon was observed as a cosmological redshift of a galaxy spectrum.

• Hubble’s Law of Expansion
– The further an object, the faster it is traveling.
– V = Recessional velocity of distant object.
– H0 = Hubble’s constant, measured to be (71+/- 5%)km/s/Mpc by WMAP probe recently.
– D = Distance of the object

• Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
– The Big Bang theory predicted that cosmic microwave background radiation had a near perfect blackbody spectrum and it anisotropies.
• In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation accidentally when they tried to find the source of interference on the SHF band microwave links.

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Observations. So?
• This observations tells us a few things.
– Since the galaxies are moving apart today, they must have been closer in the past.
• This implies that very long ago, these galaxies would be at the same point.

• Big Bang Theory predicted the existence of background radiation.
– The existence of CMB is confirmed.
• Gives evidence that Big Bang is the start of the universe

The chim stuff...

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The chim stuff...


Red-Shift
Observations of distant galaxies and quasars show that these objects are red-shifted, meaning that the light emitted from them has been shifted to longer wavelengths. This is seen by taking a frequency spectrum of the objects and then matching the spectroscopic pattern of emission lines or absorption lines corresponding to atoms of the chemical elements interacting with the light. From this analysis, a red-shift corresponding to a Doppler shift for the radiation can be measured which is explained by a recessional velocity. When the recessional velocities are plotted against the distances to the objects, a linear relationship, known as Hubble's law, is observed.

Doppler Effect
Named after Christian Andreas Doppler, is the apparent change in frequency and wavelength of a wave that is perceived by an observer moving relative to the source of the waves. 1st proposed in 1842.
This hypothesis was tested for sound waves by the Dutch scientist Christoph Hendrik Diederik Buys Ballot in 1845. He confirmed that the sound's pitch was higher as the sound source approached him, and lower as the sound source receded from him.
Hippolyte Fizeau discovered independently the same phenomenon on electromagnetic waves in 1848.
It is important to realize that the frequency of the sounds that the source emits does not actually change. To understand what happens, consider the following analogy. Someone throws one ball every second in a man's direction. Assume that balls travel with constant velocity. If the thrower is stationary, the man will receive one ball every second. However, if the thrower is moving towards the man, he will receive balls more frequently because the balls will be less spaced out. The converse is true if the thrower is moving away from the man. So it is actually the wavelength which is affected; as a consequence, the perceived frequency is also affected.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
Form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965 that fills the entire universe. It has a thermal 2.725 kelvin black body spectrum which peaks in the microwave range at a frequency of 160.4 GHz, corresponding to a wavelength of 1.9 mm.
Black body radiation is the kind of radiation given off from an object which if cold would be perfectly black, that is would absorb radiation of all wavelengths equally well. When heated such a body emits radiations with a well defined distribution over wavelengths.



Big Bang’s Theory on CMBR

In the theory, the early universe was made up of hot plasma of photons, electrons and baryons. The photons were constantly interacting with the plasma through Thomson scattering. As the universe expanded, the cosmological redshift caused the plasma to cool until it became favorable for electrons to combine with protons and form hydrogen atoms. At this point, the photons did not scatter off of the neutral atoms and began to travel freely through space. This process is called recombination or decoupling (referring to electrons combining with nuclei and to the decoupling of matter and radiation respectively).
The photons continued cooling until they reached their present 2.725 K temperature. Accordingly, the radiation from the sky we measure today comes from a spherical surface, called the surface of last scattering, from which the photons that decoupled from interaction with matter in the early universe, 13.7 billion years ago, are just now reaching observers on Earth. The big bang suggests that the cosmic microwave background fills all of observable space, and that most of the radiation energy in the universe is in the cosmic microwave background, which makes up a fraction of roughly 5×10-5 of the total density of the universe.

Thomson Scattering
In physics, Thomson scattering is the scattering of electromagnetic radiation by a charged particle. The electric and magnetic components of the incident wave accelerate the particle. As it accelerates, it in turn emits radiation and thus, the wave is scattered. Thomson scattering is an important phenomenon in plasma physics and was first explained by the physicist J.J. Thomson.