No one would talk about views in, say, quantum mechanical interpretations this way so doing so here frankly sounds stupid. — MindForged
And, you call me "stupid"?
— Inis
— SophistiCat
I have to say, you leave me little choice. — SophistiCat
If you have nothing new to add, perhaps seek a different thread. — Arkady
Not something I ever claimed. But the mere fact that we're discussing the wrongness of Aristotelian physics means that very smart people can sometimes go wrong. And I'll say one last time: just because someone disagrees, it doesn't mean they don't comprehend. You can stamp your feet all you want, but all you're doing is coming across as looking very juvenile. So, I'm done with you.Oh, to be in the presence of those with bigger brains than Galileo! — Inis
I largely agree with your treatment of this question, Sophisticat. However, the above assumption (i.e. that the falling bodies behave as if they're separate bodies until the string is taut) seems debatable to me: as the weights were connected by the tether prior to their being dropped, they've always been "one body," and thus it could be argued that the composite body comprising the two weights plus tether would always fall faster than either body alone, given that they've always been one object for the purposes of this experiment. — Arkady
An interesting side note to all of this is that, if Aristotelian physics (or, at least the part of the theory which posits that heavier objects fall faster than light ones) really does imply a contradiction, one must reach the modal conclusion that there are no possible worlds in which heavier objects accelerate faster than light ones under the force of gravity alone! Intuitively speaking (for my intuition, anyway), it seems odd to put such a seemingly contingent physical fact on par with blatant contradictions such as square circles, or objects which are both red all over and green all over, etc. — Arkady
In thinking about this topic recently, an ill-formed thought has been niggling in the back of my mind that there is something logically suspect about being able to disprove a supposedly contradictory statement (or a statement which implies a contradiction) through empirical means. Even if one holds the view that Artistotelian physics can be disproven a priori through thought experimentation, I doubt anyone would object that it can also be experimentally disconfirmed. So, empiricism and pure rationality would each be sufficient, but unnecessary, for such a disproof.Unlike in Galileo's thought experiment, there is no logical reductio here. — SophistiCat
I am familiar with this thought experiment, but not well-versed in its detailed treatment in the literature. I wonder how much of a point of contention this particular issue is. — Arkady
I agree. It would be a peculiar situation, to say the least, if a logical truth could be put to an empirical test (as Aristotelian physics can be).I don't know. It seems to me that only a defeasible statement can be meaningfully tested. How do you test a tautology (or a contradiction)? — SophistiCat
Oh, I know...I was referring specifically to the one object/two object dispute, and how the nature of the tether (e.g. rigid vs. slack) affects the parameters of the thought experiment.There seem to be quite a lot of references to the thought experiment in the literature — SophistiCat
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