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DarkSkyKnight t1_irkncx6 wrote

Reply to comment by JoTheRenunciant in Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality by ADefiniteDescription

I think true incommensurability is in practice a milder factor (not that it isn't important) than what may be implied by the examples in Kuhn or found in other examples like Boyle and Hobbes. IMO it isn't simply a difference in world view. Often there are real economic concerns that lead to disagreements or outright hostility. A massive scientific revolution doesn't just demand a change in worldview but also has the potential of sinking your years of training and requiring you to train for years to get up to speed once again. It might even cost you your career. There's also the sheer laziness factor in that it's convenient to stick to the paradigm that everyone is familiar with.

I have found that many scientists actually understand different worldviews and see where others are coming from. But it's usually more convenient to stick to the paradigm. Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.

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JoTheRenunciant t1_irkztef wrote

Yeah, I kind of tacked that part about Thomas Kuhn on without going deep enough into it, but I agree. In the cases we're talking about on this sub, there isn't even any incommensurability at all, and there's still polemic. It seems that when something hints at potential future incommensurability, people react strongly, and that's probably to protect those economic factors and the ego as well.

>Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.

Definitely, I just meant that you can start to see the seeds of it. But I have seen far too many scientists that ultimately try to push away anything that doesn't fit their current model by saying it's BS, doesn't fit with common sense, etc. The strange thing is that some of these points can very well fit in with the current paradigm, it's just that they aren't explicitly contained within it, but somehow that's enough to trigger these sorts of responses.

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