Reefer gravity

Joe wrote:

Ernst Mach: A thought experiment is an imaginary experiment.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A thought experiment [gedankenexperiment] comes to much the same as an experiment which is sketched or painted or described instead of being carried out. And so the result of a thought experiment is the fictitious result of a fictitious experiment.

imaginary: 1. existing only in the imagination or fancy; not real; fancied.

fictitious: 1. not real or true, being imaginary or having been fabricated.

JoshingThySelf wrote:: No one, especially not me, has claimed that there's no distinction between empirical, scientific experiments and thought experiments. They're distinguished by the word THOUGHT, you fucking obscurantist pile of shit.

Below, substituting "gravity" for "experiments".

Joe wrote:: No one, especially not me, has claimed that there's no distinction between empirical, scientific gravity and thought gravity. They're distinguished by the word THOUGHT, you fucking obscurantist pile of shit.

Let's logically unpack the distinction between mind-dependent and mind-independent contexts - with an appropriate analogy. From the old Warner Brothers cartoon series - in one episode, the Road Runner hands the Coyote an anvil, the Coyote steps back over the ledge of a canyon, but he does not instantaneously plunge into the pit. The Coyote hovers in space - motionlessly - until the Road Runner points-out to him that he's hovering. Only after the Coyote realizes that he's buoyant, does he plummet.

If anyone can - somehow - redefine the word "gravity" to make it sensitive in mind-dependent (thought) contexts, then the same result as in the cartoon above would be produced in reality - say - a person suspended over a canyon would not plunge until he realizes that he's suspended. However, the force of gravity is not answerable to a mind. Likewise, the results of an experiment are not answerable to a mind. Either an experiment obtains under the mind-independent conditions of the world, or what you are calling an experiment is no experiment. A thought simulation of an experiment is no experiment.

Ernst Mach: Thought experiment is in any case a necessary precondition for physical experiment. Every experimenter and inventor must have the planned arrangement in his head before translating it into fact.

JoshingThySelf seeks to convince himself that the linguistic determines the extra-linguistic. Can - by merely prefixing the occult-word "thought" to the word "gravity" then by thinking about gravity, warp space and time, determine the orbits of the planets, generate a black hole, etc. - as "empirical" gravity does?

Similarly with the word "experiment": The only way that an imaginary experiment could be an experiment is if reverse supervenience (cartoon causation) prevails in our universe; that is, should the mental determine the physical. If - by imagining an experiment, it resulted in a set of human actions, emerging under the mind-independent conditions of the world, only then could an imaginary experiment be an experiment.

Sargent Joe Friday from Dragnet: Cannabis Sativa. Also known as pot, bud, stick, weed, dope, gage, grass, ganga, mary jane, square mackerel, the wacky weed, the assassin of youth. No matter what you call it, it spells trouble.

JoshingThySelf:: Thought experiments exist. They are experiments in the form of thought.

Below, substituting "reefers" for "experiments".

Joe wrote:: Thought reefers exist. They are reefers in the form of thought.

JoshingThySelf wrote:: NO ONE SAID THAT THEY ARE THE SAME AS EMPIRICAL EXPERIMENTS. THEY ARE THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Below, substituting "REEFERS" for "EXPERIMENTS".

Joe wrote:: NO ONE SAID THAT THEY ARE THE SAME AS EMPIRICAL REEFERS. THEY ARE THOUGHT REEFERS. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!

If thought reefers were reefers, existing in reality, would this not obviate the role of the black-market economy - in which pot growers, dealers and customers currently play? A pot smoker could (with his mind alone) imagine some ultra-potent Kush - which would satisfy his desire to get roaringly baked. Yet, only with imaginary guns, badges, bullets, battering-rams and pot-sniffing dogs could imaginary narcs raid the "grow ops of the mind".

Incoherently whining that empirical reefers are different than thought reefers is a tautology - an empty expression. You cannot roll thought reefers, 'cuz - since they do not exist in reality, thought reefers cannot be rolled. Nor can you smoke thought reefers, 'cuz - since they do not exist in reality, thought reefers cannot burn. Identically with thought experiments, experiments cannot be carried-out - solely - in the province of the mind.

Should - by merely - imagining the possession of a stack of fat doobies land a citizen a mandatory-minimum stretch in the pokey?

The Scientific Enlightenment was supposed to have sounded the death-knell to Josh's mind-dependence (thought) slop. Following the ideals of the Enlightenment, the world (including the fundamental force of gravity, a reefer or an experiment) exists independently of human minds. In rather audacious fashion, Josh rejects the Enlightenment - that pillar of science, objectivity and rationality.