01 October 2011
24 September 2011
Dialogue with a good friend
I always take things with a grain of salt. Perhaps I am too "scientific". My favourite book is "What is this thing called Science?" (year 1 text book in philosophy back in Sydney Uni). Ever since I started googling things on the internet, I always played the devil by googling the "opposite views". For example, if one theory is supported by 1 million articles, and if one keeps googling, all the articles will repeat themselves. In fact, many are just quotes on quotes. And then if I search the "opposite views", most likely I will find another 1 million articles that say otherwise. In short, the truth is out there. Only logic prevails. Research is hard work. And ever since Socrates gave his first lectures on philosophy, the world almost never agreed on anything. That is how free societies progressed, riding on disagreements as well as agreements. That's how we now have modern medicine, fridges, TVs, telephones, computers, rockets etc, thanks to this thing called science. Of course, we also bear its side-effects as manifest in many ways.
The morning news is instructive : They found it traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than light. That's sixty billionth of a second, a time no human brain could register.
Einstein's theory of relativity may be toppled by this new finding (subject to more experiments). That is what I meant by "falsification". According to the above book I quoted, science opens new realms by way of falsification. If a statement can be falsified, then new knowledge emerges, and human progress. Until then, it remains on our school books as is. If something cannot be falsified, it falls outside the realm of science (according to that book). Of course, this is also debatable. For example, is Freudian stuff part of science? This can be an emotional question.
Not that your views are wrong. I remain open. What I mean is that the subject itself is a bit unconventional, and is subject to debate and further research in the academic world. The standing of a theory can "normally" be measured by the standing of the journals in which it is published. Sometimes personal experience counts too, but whether personal experience can be totally shared is another question, e.g. different health conditions and life habits.
The morning news is instructive : They found it traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than light. That's sixty billionth of a second, a time no human brain could register.
Einstein's theory of relativity may be toppled by this new finding (subject to more experiments). That is what I meant by "falsification". According to the above book I quoted, science opens new realms by way of falsification. If a statement can be falsified, then new knowledge emerges, and human progress. Until then, it remains on our school books as is. If something cannot be falsified, it falls outside the realm of science (according to that book). Of course, this is also debatable. For example, is Freudian stuff part of science? This can be an emotional question.
Not that your views are wrong. I remain open. What I mean is that the subject itself is a bit unconventional, and is subject to debate and further research in the academic world. The standing of a theory can "normally" be measured by the standing of the journals in which it is published. Sometimes personal experience counts too, but whether personal experience can be totally shared is another question, e.g. different health conditions and life habits.
21 August 2011
港元會否人民幣化
「如果香港不負所望，成功落實李副總理的挺港措施，其投資收益，小則利港利民，大則興邦强國，甚至改變整個世界的金融秩序 ...」 (K.C. Au / I-Money 20.8.2011)
港元與人民幣掛勾指日可待？
還是港元會逐漸人民幣化？
港元與人民幣掛勾指日可待？
還是港元會逐漸人民幣化？
13 August 2011
10 August 2011
06 August 2011
30 July 2011
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