Falsifiability

[pmb]

I created this thread in order to demonstrate the usefulness of a sub forum on the philosophy of physics.<br /><br />The philosophy of physics obviously falls under general philosophy. The subject of falsifiability falls under the philosophy of physics. However it someone wishes to create a thread which falls under the philosophy of physics, then, as of now, it should e oosted in the general philosophy forum. Most physicists I know would never poke their nose into a forum labeled <i>General Philosophy</i>. And that includes the famous ones I know. However they just might poke their nose into a forum labeled <i>Philosophy of Physics</i>, if for nothing else for curiosity when the other physics forums have no interest to him/her at that time. <br /><br />Here's a good example to illustrate what I mean. Suppose someone wants to toss the subject of falsifiability around to see what they can learn from the discussion. So, as I did the other day, posted the query of how postulates which are not falsifiable have become part of mainstream cosmology.<br /><br />So to toss the idea of falsifiability around I'll start with the postulate <i>White swans do exist.</i> This is not falsifiable since no counter-example is logically possible. Someone who heard the postulate "White swans do exist" might think it's a scientific postulate but since it's not falsifiable it isn't. Therefore such logic exists in science since I've just stated one. So for a postulate to be true it need not be falsifiable. That notion can certainly confuse any physicist ... including me before I was aware of this example. <br /><br />This discussion belongs in a philosophy forum. However if it finds itself in the general forum a physicist might never become aware of its existance due to the lack of interest of philosophy by physicists.<br /><br />Things like this is why I suggest a sub forum called the <b>Philosophy of Physics</b>. There is a huge amount of very interesting things to discuss in such a forum. For example. In the text I had in my Philosophy of Science course there was an article which, in part, tried to understand how "science" is defined in practice. E.g. one part is the thinking and making mistakes part of physics. We all make mistakes and over come them. That's part of doing the work of a scientist. Another part is how ideas originate and what the scientist is thinking, but not writing part of science. Each of these never get into a scientific paper. That is the kind of thing I enjoy discussing and thinking about and which properly fall under the field of study of the philosophy of science.

Edited May 22, 2012 by pmb