At the end of the OP in this thread i had written the following: "...and Albert Einstein admitted that he could not have the gumption to oppose Newton's immortal status without reading Hume." I first came across this tidbit in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, but it was not until now i found more information to substantiate this. Albert Einstein is notorious for his perceptive insights in physics that changed the field forever, and freed it from the domineering presence of Newton. Nevertheless, what isn’t common knowledge is how he arrived at those intuitive theories. To the dismay of those with manifestly anti-philosophy bias, Einstein clearly indicated a debt to the writings of the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume. By ruminating on Hume’s assertion that mere observation alone couldn’t grasp the very laws of nature, Einstein arrived at the theory of relativity. On the brilliant golden standard of the Enlightenment philosophy, Treatise of Human Nature, he wrote, “I studied it with fervor and admiration shortly before the discovery of relativity. It is very well possible that without these philosophical studies I would not have arrived at the solution.” With a circle of friends who called themselves the Olympian Academy, the twenty-something years old Einstein read Hume’s Treatise, and was powerfully impacted by this declaration: “Habit may lead us to belief and expectation, but not to knowledge, and still less to the understanding of lawful relations.” In other words, people got by with the convenient fictions of habits and instinct during their day-to-day activities. However, those fictions were obstacles for theoretical physicists, given that their speculations often flew in the face of common sense. The genius of Einstein gave birth to odd truths that contradicted with the very habits and customs of the mind, of which Hume had claimed to anchor us in sanity. The theory of relativity was founded on the counterintuitive idea that time is not a universal standard, that God’s clock of the cosmos did not exist. Relativity demonstrated the arbitrariness of absolute time as a conjecture once and for all and nothing more. In closing, we should not take our intuitive beliefs for granted even if they’re practical and aids us in our short-term goals. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
>> Albert Einstein is notorious for his perceptive insights in physics that changed the field forever, and freed it from the domineering presence of Newton. A total con artist.... perpetuated a myth... plagerised previous workers without credit E=mc^2 was Heayiside's, and the list goes on. Anything can work when you rewrite the rules of Nature...... but the fantasy is obviously not a mirror of reality....... However there is a GREAT political investment by some people in maintaining the illusion.
As if on cue... Who is Heayiside? Did you misspell the name? Heaviside, perhaps? Google is powerless, so you will have to explain yourself just a bit more. This claim has all the burden of proof in the world. At least I found this, yet "Heayiside" or Heaviside is not cited as the originator of the theory. You presume there are fixed "rules of Nature." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We have a platonist here, people. Ah, the conspiracy theory! Something no paranoid is home without. :bugeye: I regret to inform you that I have nothing to profit from this, so casting asperisions about the advocates of the theory is a weak approach that requires tons of evidence.
Zarkov, kindly keep the conspiricy theories in phys and maths, where James R has to deal with them and I don't.
Did Hume himself believe that there really are such things as "laws of nature", Heretic? I've only read bits of him, many years ago.
I'm no hume scholar but I did stay at holiday inn last night. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But seriously, bubblecar that question depends on what you mean by 'laws of nature.' It is a good one, and the answer won't please any of those who have been indoctrinated by the textbook representation of scientific laws. The consensus on Hume, as a thorough-going empiricist, is that the laws of nature weren't much more than approximations of the regularity of experience . . I will say some more later when I am less drunk.
As for laws of nature, it is important to keep in mind that there are two "Humes" we may be confused about. One is the philosopher David Hume, who was a necessitarian with regards to the LoN. A necessitarian took the LoN to be necessary in some fashion. You may be exclaiming in response, "Wait! Wasn't Hume the great skeptic who demolished induction?" The scholar response is that his skepticism is epistemological - and centers on how the idea or notion of physical necessity emerged, arose, or from whence in experience it came. Despite this skepticism Hume thought that the LoN were physical necessities. The other is "Humean" or the followers of Hume who denies that the LoN are necessary - which means there is no physical necessity in either the laws or nature itself. No bridge between the logical necessity and the utter chaos of contingency. Recommendation: Read the sections 4, 5, and 7 of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding for Hume's discussions on the LoN.
He very well could have plagiarized his work: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0971962987/102-6845268-6987323?v=glance
