Semantic loading of categories in modern science (on the example of the "Movement" concept) Chapter 5

Modern science and SP analysis (part 2)

?SP analysis allows us to explore science history by combining all these types of analysis or by examining one object with several types at the same time. This is achieved since this analysis has developed systems that can be independently investigated for the presence of binary or polysemantic properties. These systems can be related to each other to study linear characteristics.

Moreover, the same object or fact can be considered as a system with an attributive concept and as a system with a relational concept. In the philosophy of science, there are a large number of concepts for the development of science. There are also several methodological ideas about the history of the development of science.

For example, cumulativeism and anti-cumulativeism can be distinguished here.

The theory of cumulativeism is based on the idea of the continuity of the development of knowledge. From lat. “Cumulatio” - increase, congestion. Cumulativeism excludes the possibility of qualitative changes in knowledge. The development of knowledge is a sequence of theoretical systems, in which each subsequent one includes the previous one as its own particular case. There is linear progress: subsequent theories are more general, they explain everything that was explained by their predecessors, as well as additional facts. Т1 – Т2 -- .... Тn are interconnected so that each subsequent theory includes the previous one as a special case.

Cumulativeism as a system belongs to chain systems. A chain is a system whose relational structure relates each element to no more than two other elements. This is how the representatives of cumulativeism imagine the historical development of science. Each new theory - correlates only with the previous one and is the basis for a new theory based only on it, but additionally explaining some more facts. The limiting case of a chain system is a closed system. But the theory of cumulativeism cannot be attributed to such systems. In a closed system, each element correlates directly with two and only two other elements of the system.

Non-cumulative models are associated with post-positivist epistemology and the philosophy of science.

The most famous in this regard are the models of T. Kuhn, P. Feyerabend, I. Lakatos. All of them accept the thesis about the theoretical loading of facts and about the change in the meanings of theoretical terms during scientific revolutions. As a result, gaps are formed in the growth of knowledge. Kuhn and Feyerabend defend the thesis of complete ruptures - the incommensurability of old and new paradigms (fundamental theories). Examples: phlogiston chemistry and Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry, Newtonian mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity. All concepts change their meanings, facts from old knowledge systems are not preserved.

Fundamental breaks - changing ways of seeing the world (16-17 centuries). As a result, theories turn out to be rationally incomparable, and the choice between them is carried out only on worldview and socio-psychological grounds. The history of science appears as a discrete process devoid of continuity. The scientific community, historically and synchronously, splits into communities of adherents of various fundamental theories, who do not accept and do not understand the views of their opponents (for example, the discussions of Galileo and Bruno with the scholastics).

Modern science and SP analysis (part 3)

?In 1911 E. Rutherford proved that an atom consists of a nucleus and negatively charged particles - electrons. But this scheme, proceeding from the laws of classical mechanics, could not exist. The most difficult problem that faced the researchers: according to the laws of electrodynamics, the electron should eventually fall onto the nucleus.

Niels Bohr found a way out of this situation by introducing the concept of energy quanta that are released during the transition of an electron from one orbit to another.

Quantum mechanics, which appeared in1925-1926, operates with laws that determine not the motion of a particle - its position and speed at any given moment, but only the probability of position and the probability of speed.

A situation arose when quantum physics, answering the questions of classical physics, denied the classical idea of the definiteness of coordinates and speed. But quantum mechanics cannot be explained without the classical concepts of "speed" and "coordinate".

With all this, quantum mechanics differs from A. Einstein's theory of relativity.

The theory of relativity has thrown away the classical concepts of space, time and motion. In quantum mechanics, the classical concepts of "speed" and "coordinates" are applicable to all phenomena of physics, but with the condition of limiting their accuracy. According to N. Bohr: "The decisive moment is the realization of the fact that no matter how far the phenomena go beyond the framework of the classical physical explanation, all experimental data should be described using classical concepts."

The concepts of classical physics are exact, binary, they either exist or not. The concepts of quantum physics - in turn - take on the character of linear parameters in SP analysis.

But, undoubtedly, something else is also: the substrates of the systems of classical and quantum physics contain elements that are clearly contradictory. This can be seen in the example of the phenomenon of particle transmutation in quantum mechanics.

In 1929, P. Dirac wrote the equation of motion of an electron. One of the results of this equation was the discovery of the positron. A positron is an electron, but with a positive charge. The classical concepts of the structure of matter allowed for changes in matter. But these changes were reduced to a rearrangement of the structure of matter at the level of the atom or its constituent parts. Transmutation is not such a regrouping. Accordingly, there are no classical mechanical laws here either. Using the categorical apparatus of the SP analysis, it should be noted that, in terms of relational parameters, both systems have the parameter “partial coincidence in the substrate”.

If we consider science from a historical perspective, then this is not a resource system. It means that it’s such a system that the attribution of certain property by some elements prevents the attribution of the same property by other system elements. Different, sometimes contradictory properties are present during the development of science. But at a certain stage of development, science is a resource system. Resource system - such a system when the number of elements is strictly limited and they will be listed at a certain stage of development.