physics and intuition

As an applied mathematician I disagree.

For example, I have a long interest in using Artificial Life and other virtual worlds. Sometimes I use them to solve physics-based engineering problems (e.g. ship hydro), at other times I use it for more abstract pursuits, e.g. finding solutions to purely mathematical equations that have no direct connection to physics or engineering.

Don't fence me in with your preconceptions, d00d!
Leo.

 

If I could like this more than once, I would.

 

Leo... your a geek! ... I mean like a proper one... cooooooooooooool! I'd be a geek if I was smart enough! LOL

 

A proper geek looks at his own shoes when talking to you. I'm an extrovert, I look at your shoes.

 

Geek humor even! and I get it, normally I don't They think I'm a computer geek but tis not true uber geekdom like applied maths! You guys are the elite...

 

Don't undersell yourself. 95% of what I do is writing computer code. After someone works out this or that particular equation to describe a physical process, there is still the matter of actually using it to calculate useful stuff accurately, and to hopefully get an answer before the world ends. I wish I had done more practical computing - e.g. learning how to use and co-ordinate multiple processors on an i7.

Leo.

 

Science gives us knowledge through pure and simple hard work. People don't appreciate that. We take too much for granted as to where all human knowledge has originated.

Intuition is only usefull in areas that you already have some experience or knowledge, and in the cold hard light of day its part of your brain working away behind the scenes.

Intuition is often wrong and leads to all sorts of hair brained theories, just look to the late Victorian era for mixes of magic, magnetism, electricity and a host of 'mysterious forces and fields' . Some of those beleif systems still continue today even though science has utterly discreditied them but the very long dead originator made a case that appeals to intuition.

 

Yeah but my intuition is better that yours.... it was intelligently designed !

 

in defense of intuition

Almost all real problem solving involves intuition. How do you know that just because water always froze at a particular temperature before, that it will continue to do so? There is no logical reason why this must be the case. Your intuition of nature tells you that the world is regular and lawful and that nothing happens without a reason.

How do you know that if you count a set of rocks and there are ten, then you count them again, that there will still be ten? This is your intuition of mathematics. There is no logical reason why numbers could not spontaneously change.

How do you know that kicking that old lady's cane away, grabbing her bag and running off is wrong? This is your intuition of ethics. There is no logical reason why she has any more right to the bag than you do.

As I said, the first law of thermodynamics is just a formalization of an intuition that already existed. Much of science is just the formalization of intuition and the exploration of its limits.

As you said, intuition is often wrong, but we don't respond to this by throwing out all our intuitions; if we did that, we could hardly reason at all. Logic alone is an extremely weak reasoning system. What you do is compare one intuition with another. You find inconsistencies and use other intuitions to decide how to resolve the inconsistencies. Even the idea that you want your beliefs to be consistent is an intuition.

The point of my original post was not that you should not use intuition to reason and it was not that intuition is sometimes wrong. I take it for granted that you have to use intuition to reason and that intuition is sometimes wrong. The point of the post was to explore one common way in which intuition goes wrong (as testified by other intuitions) and to think of ways to avoid that particular mistake in the future.

 

Supposedly intuition is the acquiring of knowledge without the use of logivc or reason. But the irreducible logic approach Occams razor type analysis needs to go deeper than that.
Then you can start attributing subconcious reasoning, experience and 'hidden knowledge' to the process you call intuition.

For example you say

So when does learning from simple observation and experience ( playing with rocks since you were crawling ) become intuition? Going back to irreducable explanation it's all in your brain reasoniong away behind the scenes one way or another.


Morality is learned beahaviour for example it's ok to kill the other tribe the other village, bomb the other cultures old ladies but it's reason one way or another that tells you to suppress such behaviour in your own society.

There is so much in science and engineering that is not intuitive at all.

 

No, intuition is not the acquiring of knowledge without reason. Almost all of what you call reasoning is nothing more than the application of intuition. For another example, there is no logical reason to use Occam's razor. Your preference for that principle is given you by intuition.

It is intuition that tells you that you can learn from experience. There is no logical reason to suppose that what has happened before will continue to happen. But besides that, the principles of mathematics are not something that you can learn by experience. If it were, the entire concept of a mathematical proof would be meaningless.

I'm sorry, but if you are suggesting that there is nothing inherently wrong with murder then I'm not going to take you seriously on the issue. If your premises lead you to an obviously false conclusion, then you should view it as a proof by contradiction that your premises are wrong.

 

Slow down. For a lot of mans history people didn't believe there was anything inherently wrong with killing. There is a difference between killing and "murder" -- It depends on what you believe justifies it. I believe this is learned.

 

I do not deny the value of intuition. What I strongly point out, is that intuition and proven facts are different.
On another point, I define applied math as physics. There may be other definitions, but we shouldn't argue about definitions as if we were arguing about facts. They are only conventions to have frames of reference.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'll note that there are almost no "proven facts" that don't rely on intuition at some level. Is it a proven fact that gravity generates a force proportional to mass? Only for people whose intuition tells them that nature is lawful and constant. Is it a proven fact that 2+2=4? Only if your intuition covers all of the steps in the proof.

Intuition is not just guesswork, nor is it some sort of mystical knowledge. Intuition is just the name for whatever faculty or faculties give you your inherent knowledge --the knowledge that can't possibly have come from experience.

 

Your thoughts remind me of the many applications of "gravity models" -- there are gravitational models of trade, of money laundering, and many others in the social sciences. Is this just physics envy? Probably. But will it lead to something? Maybe. Look at how many relationships physicists have applied Pi to. These may be simple misapplications -- they may develop into relationships we currently don't understand. I think they all began as intuitions.