Bulletin of the American Physical Society

2009 APS March Meeting
Volume 54, Number 1

Monday–Friday, March 16–20, 2009; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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Session K1: Poster Session II (2-5:00pm):
Education; SPS/Undergrad Research; Metals; Magnetism; Instrumentation and
Measurements; Chemical Physics; Artificially Structured Materials; Surfaces,
Interfaces and Thin Films; AMO Physics; Quantum Information; Bio
Physics

2:00 PM–2:00 PM, Tuesday, March 17,
2009

Room: Exhibit Hall
A

Abstract ID: BAPS.2009.MAR.K1.153

Abstract: K1.00153 : Changing What Science Is and
How It's Done

Preview Abstract

Author:

Robert Jones

Knowledge is of an approximate character. Our
formalisms abstract and simplify. Each formalism is an idealization, often times
approximating in its own DIFFERENT ways, each offering somewhat different
coverage of the domain. Having MULTIPLE overlaping theories of a knowledge
domain is then better than having just one theory (R. Jones, APS Gen. Meeting,
March 2008 and refs. therein). In the future each field will possess multiple
theories of its domain and scientific work and engineering will be performed
based on the ensemble predictions of ALL of these. This idea can be considered
an extension of Bohr's notion of complementarity, ``...different experimental
arrangements...described by different physical concepts...together and only
together exhaust the definable information we can obtain about the object.''
Although finding the ``correct'' or ``most probable'' theory has been the goal
of scientific investigation in the past we now know that the pluralistic science
that I am describing here is more successful (Peter Cheeseman in The Mathematics
of Generalization, D. H. Wolpert, Ed, 1995, pg. 315 and Michael Weisberg, J. of
Philosophy, 2007, pg. 646). This is not postmodernism. Theories are accepted
based upon experimental evidence not human opinion. Over the years I have tried
to keep with this new pluralism in both my fusion energy and artificial
intelligence work.

To cite this abstract, use the following reference:
http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2009.MAR.K1.153

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