If "complete" means "incorrect," okay.

If "complete" means "incorrect," okay. — Terrapin Station

As I say, its only a model. It can't be correct or incorrect. Your statement shows little understanding for the philosophy of science. One uses models to form a theory, then tests the theory with a hypothesis. The hypothesis is either correct or incorrect.

Let's assume the hypothesis is correctly drawn from the model, which is defined by the field of science called logic.

• If the hypothesis is correct, then the theory is substantiated, making the model more useful.
• If the hypothesis is incorrect, then the theory is unproven, making the model less useful.

The model itself is neither correct nor incorrect. It is only a model. Note, also, a theory can never be proven, only substantiated.

It has been a long-standing naive confusion in the modern world, so you are not to be blamed for misunderstanding that, only for not accepting it now you've been told.

chaos and order emerged to fight with each other, — ernestm

"Chaos and order emerged to fight with each other" is an empirical statement, isn't it?

Also, if "model" is just "anything we make up," where it's not supposed to have any correspondence to anything else (which makes it curious as a "model" per conventional usage of that term), then what in the world would make any model more "complete" than another? The idea of completeness would be incoherent in that case.

Chaos and order emerged to fight with each other" is an empirical statement, isn't it? — Terrapin Station

No, that is Anaximander's first proposition, or assertion, in his model of how the universe that we experience derives, or fits within, the boundless, called the 'Apeiron.' He also believed that, in addition to the known universe, there are an infinite number of unknown universes, now called 'possible worlds.' But he did not argue that point, it was only a belief.

He did argue that Apeiron is primally ordered, but paradoxes in the primal order then created Heraclitean chaos. That is, he disagreed with Heraclitus, who said chaos was primary. There is a directly equivalent debate in Far Eastern philosophy, known as the conflict between yin and yang. Neoconfucianists assert that the passive, ordered nature of yin is primary; whereas, Taoists assert that the active, chaotic nature of yang is primary instead.

But Anaximander is not just describing primal forces. He presents a building-block model. Therefore, it was argued, to create a model, chaos must be secondary to order, otherwise no model is possible at all. By contrast, Heraclitus, like Taoists, can only say that chaos makes all prediction indeterminate.

Anaximander's point is that order can be observed empirically, and therefore, the Apeiron must be ordered, even though boundless.

Further, he asserted that there were two main types of the water element: ordered time, also known as chronological time; and unbounded time, also known as Ionic or Eonic time, within which the main eras, or ages of the human race are defined: the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.

No, that is Anaximander's first proposition, or assertion, in his model of how the universe that we experience derives, or fits within, the boundless, called the 'Apeiron.' — ernestm

That's not not an empirical claim for that. It's an empirical claim.

You've got that disease where you can't keep your responses brief, by the way.

no a second time, it is one step above claim, it is the model. The model makes no claims. It is an abstract but ordered construction, like mathematics. One draws theories from the model which can be tested empirically. the model itself makes no claims. It is merely a model.

no a second time, it is one step above claim, — ernestm

"One step above claim"--what in the world would that refer to?

Aren't assertions or propositions claims about things?

A model defines relationships between concepts, which enable predictions of events. Like a computer program, a model does not 'claim {subtext ASSERT THAT IT IS TRUE}' anything. It has no consciousness. We conceive ideas from a model about the way the world works, and then test them with hypotheses if we are scientific. But the model doesnt try to say anything is true or not. It's merely an abstraction.

That's actually a segue to the second part of Anaximander's model. Because it encompasses more than the physical world, it does not regard the nature of time and space to define the center of the universe. Geometrically in space and time, the earth is not in its center, but on the edge of one galaxy where the anvil was struck with just the right force, upon matter of just the right nature, to create the spark which ignited life.

If one considers a map of the universe in terms of entropy, instead, then, we know that organic compounds can reach a far greater degree of ordered construction than any other matter we have been able to find, all the way from the DNA in viruses to the human brain. One human brain has more neural connections in it than stars in our galaxy.

Thus, from the perspective of entropy, the world we know as the earth, with all the people on it, is actually the center of the known universe. As entropy is a measure of order, versus chaos, it should be the primary measuring stick for the universe, not geometric space, according to Anaximander's model.

Now one may wonder whence Anaximander's thought derived. We do not believe he had much handed down to him from prior philosophers, such as Heraclitus. He had four main texts, all first written about 700 BCE, although Homer had been handed down by word of mouth for quite a long time before:

Homer's iliad
Homer's Odyssey
Hesiod's Theogeny
Hesiod's Work and Days

Theologians and moral philosophers may wish to argue with the beliefs laid down by these prior authors as to whether Gods exist or not. Anaximander was really not concerned with which Gods really exist, if at all. There were many competing pantheons at the time. Even across the Greek city states, there were many variations in the Hellenic Pantheon (as Hesiod's Theogeny is now known).

Anaximander was more concerned with making his model compatible with existing thought on the higher forces. He didn't care whether Love and War were really sentient Gods. He merely stated that such abstractions exist, but are not physical, because, unlike us, their bodies contain no Earth element. there's been alot of confusion on that point in the last three thousand years.

So for Anaximander, empirical observations were drawn on, for example, the accounts of Aphrodite and Ares facing off during the siege of Troy.

A model defines relationships between concepts, which enable predictions of events. — ernestm

How would it enable a prediction of an event if it's just any arbitrary thing we're making up?

What you are doing is like confusing mathematics, numeric quantities, and equations. The field of mathematics, which is a domain of science, defines a numerical model, whereby fixed quantities may be added to themselves to make equiproportional geometric sequences, known as numbers. From the numbers you can make more abstract theories of relationships, instantiated by equations. Equations assert something which may be considered to be true or false.

Mathematics just provides the numerical model. You don't say mathematics is true or false. You don't say the numerical model is true or false. You say the equations drawn from the numerical model are true or false. That's exactly the same for any other model in science.

So now you're going to explain how it would enable a prediction of an event if it's just any arbitrary thing we're making up?

That's what I asked because it's what I hoped you'd answer.

So now you're going to explain how it would enable a prediction of an even if it's just any arbitrary thing we're making up? — Terrapin Station

If you're asking me, I think Anaximander was right. The Apeiron is primarily ordered, so predictions are possible. But they only appear to be predictions to us because we have limited perception through the water element, otherwise we would simply be able to observe future events without needing a model to predict them.

Anaximander deduces a theory, that anything which disturbs the order must be transient. Therefore, he hypothesizes, wars are limited in effectiveness, and he points to the Iliad as substantiation.

What I was asking you was to explain the notion that models have nothing to do with what the actual world is like, yet they somehow enable predictions about the actual world. How would that work?

Maybe models do have something to do with what the actual world is like, and maybe they don't. They are only models.

Maybe models do have something to do with what the actual world is like, and maybe they don't. They are only models. — ernestm

So now we don't know whether they do or not?

What you are trying to do is like arguing whether photons really exist. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Sometimes models representing light as particles create theories that are empirically substantiated, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes we loosely say light behaves like a wave instead. The point is, we dont need to know whether light is a particle or wave in order to use the models. We just need to know when the two models or light are useful, and when not.

My contention here is that Anaximander's model is useful, in fact, it is far more productive of theory than the piecemeal scatterings of bits in the social sciences, even now.

What you are trying to do is like arguing whether photons really exist. — ernestm

I thought I was asking you a question.

My contention here is that Anaximander's model is useful, in fact, it is far more productive of theory than the piecemeal scatterings of bits in the social sciences, even now.

The social sciences are not exactly ‘scientific’ and would have more in relation with Anaximander than the hard scientific methodology of physics. Modern science, as we know it, is barely a century or two old.

Apologies. The way you ask your questions frame the responses as arguments in this case.

It seems to me there has been no attempt to systemize them as Lavoisier for the periodic table, or Eichler's taxonomy of species. You are right it's new, they were still filling in slots in the periodic table when I was born. But since then, especially with computerization, everything seems to be pretty filled up now.

No problem. I was literally, straightforwardly asking the question I asked.

ernestm — ernestm

I think the main problem with Anaximander's theory, if you want to see it as a modern scientific theory, is that it's not falsifiable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability). That means that you should be able to conceive an experiment whose result could be NOT in agreement with your theory.
However, it is true that some modern models of the universe have the same problem.

Well as a classification system, its the same as Eichler's taxonomy of species. If you think it's wrong, you change the classification. So you are right there. It's interesting as a thought experiment, still, because there are projections that can be made from it, just like for the Darwinian theory of evolution from Eichler's Taxonomy.

Could you explain what you mean by "projections"? Maybe an example?

Well so far I only stated one, which was Anaximander's first theory: because the universe is primarily ordered, chaos is transient. Therefore chaotic powers, such as war, are ultimately ineffective. And he substantiated the theory with the 7-year Trojan war, after which the victorious King of Kings was murdered by his own wife while in the bathtub. As was written down, about 100 years earlier, as Homer's Iliad.

Agamemnon's death may seem inconsequential to the Trojan war he started, but, again, according to the ancient Greeks, the act of starting war summoned the three Moirai, the Fates. Even the King of Kings could not escape the vengeance of the Moirai, even by winning a war to prove himself right. And even the Gods could not stop his fate, the Moirai being more powerful than the Gods. In Hesiod's cosmogony, the Moirai are the force by which Titans control both Gods and the human race.

Anaximander observes that war is transient, and therefore ineffective compared to the primarily ordered universe. Fate is the power which ensures that war ultimately does not reward its instigators. He looks to the one historical text he has, the Iliad. And its main protagonist, Agamemnon, was victorious in the war he started, but the account ends with him being murdered by his own wife.

The power of Anaximander's theory is echoed by Xenophon, recording the futility of Cyrus' expedition to conquer Persia; and then by Alexander the Great, whose empire broke apart almost straight away upon his death. So the idea of Anaximander also became the main subject of the tragic playwrights, such as Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus during the height of Athenian culture 300 years after Anaximander. That's because there had been three major failed conquests, by the time they started enactment of the stories for the illiterate, over a long weekend every year.

If it's true, the Bush family will never be in the White House again. That would be my projection. But as you observe, that is open for debate.

If there will be a third world war with nuclear weapons that destroys completely humanity and civilization, would it be a prove that Anaximander's theory is false?

I don't know if Anaximander expressed an opinion on the end of the world.

He thought the world was the center of the universe. From an entropic view, science so far finds that he is still right about that.

He had an opinion on the beginning of the world, that chaos emerged from paradox, battling with the order of the Apeiron, to create the Universe we experience. The four alchemical elements of earth, water, air and fire are simply products of that battle.

But he did also say chaos is impermanent, so the universe must also end. In which case, there would be no physical matter any more. Time would end. Titans, Gods, elementals, and humans would cease to exist. All that would remain would be boundless energy, with no physical or spiritual power acting on it.