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Robert Peirce Robert Peirce is offline
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Thus whole discussion has gone far afield of where I thought it would
go. I will make one more attempt and then I am dropping out.

I saw an opportunity to state a point that might provoke some thought
and to provide evidence. The point and the evidence were lost in a
discussion of what people thought I said and whether the evidence was
correct. The evidence was selected because it seemed to apply to audio
and that was my first mistake. Therefore I will try one last time.

The point was that no scientific theory is necessarily true. In fact,
to be a scientific theory the possibility must exist to prove it false.
It may in fact be true, in which case it never will be proved false.

I cannot cite papers or other evidence for what follows. In many cases
it comes from something I read, possibly years ago. For that reason it
could be wrong. Consequently, it should be taken for the idea, not the
details.

Let us go back thousands of years when the widely accepted theory was
that the earth was the center of the universe. This theory had been
proven both mathematically and through observation. It was a very sound
theory but it was wrong.

A better theory came along that said the earth and the other planets
revolved around the sun. This could also be explained mathematically
and through observation. The math was simpler and the observations made
more sense.

As one example, if the planets were actually around the same size as the
earth and in some cases much larger then how could they suddenly reverse
direction? Prior observation and math indicated they did but newer math
said they didn't.

So, there wasn't anything wrong with the original theory and it was
considered to be true until it wasn't. That was my only point.

I also took a shot at unscientific theories. One is that the universe
was created by a supreme being. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't but
there is no way to prove it or to disprove it. Another theory that is
more current is that the universe is infinite. Again, there is no way
to prove it or to disprove it. We are limited by the speed of light.

If a theory is supposed to be accepted as scientific, then the
possibility of disproving it must exist. That doesn't mean it ever will
be, just that it could be.


[ Replies should move back to audio and away from cosmogony,
ontology, and theology. -- dsr ]




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[email protected] vocproc@gmail.com is offline
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On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 8:02:33 AM UTC-6, Robert Peirce wrote:
The point was that no scientific theory is necessarily true. In fact,
to be a scientific theory the possibility must exist to prove it false.
It may in fact be true, in which case it never will be proved false.

I cannot cite papers or other evidence for what follows. In many cases
it comes from something I read, possibly years ago. For that reason it
could be wrong. Consequently, it should be taken for the idea, not the
details.

Let us go back thousands of years when the widely accepted theory was
that the earth was the center of the universe. This theory had been
proven both mathematically and through observation. It was a very sound
theory but it was wrong.


There, in fact, was no "theory" that the earth was the center of the
universe. It was a religious doctrine. It was, in fact, TRVTH (tm),
handed down from on high that was to be followed without question,
and often, not followed at the risk serious personal consequences.

And, again, the point you seem to refuse to accept is that first,
it was NOT a theory and, second, whatever "math" was used (epicycles,
for example), the books were deliberately cooked to support a
political, religious and economic agenda.

If a theory is supposed to be accepted as scientific, then the
possibility of disproving it must exist. That doesn't mean it ever will
be, just that it could be.


No again, you are using an extremely limited and thus incorrect
definition of "theory". In addition to explaining observed
phenomenon, a supportable theory must also make testable predictions
and it is those predictions that provide the notion of falsifiablility.
Einstein's general theory of relativity not only provided a mathematical
framework for explaining the observed behavior of gravitational systems,
one that was substantially different in its basis from Newtonian gravity,
but also made a number of testable prediction of phenomenon not yet
observed, among them:

1. Due to the warping of spacetime by massive objects, the paths
of light around massive objects should be warped. This
prediction was observed and confirmed numerous times POST
the formulation of the theory

2. Again, due to the warping of spacetime around massive objects,
time itself should be warped, with time slowing down the closer
one gets to a massive pobject. Again, this was confirmed in
a number of experiments post the formulation of the theory, in
notable experiment where Mossbauer spectrometry was used to detect
the difference in the warping of spacetime due to the earth's
mass over a difference in altitude of maybe a few dozen feet.

3. Massive objects interacting create gravitational waves. TO my
knowledge, this has yet to be universally confirmed. It's lack
of confirmation is a missing piece of the puzzle, but if an
experiment were to be devised where a definitive negative result
could be obtained, it would be a serious challenge to general
relativity.

Now, the DSR's point about making this relevant to audio. All good
scientifically-based theories are provisional: they stand until
something better comes along, whether it be a refinement of that
theory or a wholesale replacement. The Shannon-Nyquist THEOREM,
the basic foundation underpinning not only digital audio but
audio in general, does not fall into that category. It is a theorem,
provable mathematically, unlike theories. I might suggest you do
a search on the topic before you continue to hold forth on it.

And, yes, it is the basis to the engineering behind current audio
systems. But, be careful here for a couple of reasons:

1. Those who are, for whatever reasons, unsatisfied with
digital audio, have yet to advance even the most crude
theory of what's wrong that will withstand the same level
of unimpassioned, agenda-free objective scrutiny which,
if their hobby-horse was valid, would survive,

2. To paraphrase Suffolk Audio's First Law of Acoustics: any
idiot can design a digital audio device and, unfortunately,
many do. Often, the grossly incompetent implementation of
an audio design is held up as "proof" of someone's absurd
"theory". I can only once again cite a real-world example.

The cable crowd has often pointed to a number of examples
where different cables did sound different. And, in doing some
related research, I in fact, found such an instance. Take
a specific semi-pro DAC recorder whose design was hobbled
an incompetently design S/P-DIF output driver, couple it
with a very fancy, expensive S/P-DIF cable with excessive
capacitance (but it has arrows on it and it was fat, so it had
to be good), and use that to drive a very expensive high-end
DAC with among the most incompetently design clock recovery
circuit, and the combination was, at best, marginally functional.
swapping the cable made ENORMOUS differences in the sound,
simply because the DAC was unable to make sense out of clock
recovery. As a result, that particular DAC was championed in
the high-end audio realm as being transparent and revealing of
subtle differences in cables.

When, in fact, it was a seriously overpriced piece of sh*t.
and, in egual fact, it was the current standing theory that
predicted exactly WHY it was the piece of sh*t that it was.

3. Much of high-end audio is not about engineering, it's not
about theory, it's about cult of personalities. I point to
long and often sordid career of people like Tiffenbrun, how
had not theories, but almost religious doctrinal declarations:

* The presence of ANY digital device in the same room as a
premier audio system will negatively affect the sound of
that system, regardless of what the device is (and that
included digital wrist watches) or whether that device is
even on or not.

* The existing (at the time) theory that the effective mass
of a tonearm in combination with the stylus's compliance
leads to a mechanical resonance MUST be wrong, because
tone arms CANNOT have mass. They can have moments of
inertia, but that's not mass.

That and many other pronouncements turned out, on further
examination, not only to be wrong, but embarrasingly wrong.

And the same goes for pronouncements like "stuff is missing between
the samples" or "digital audio systems have stair-step outputs",
or "the higher in frequency you go, the more errors you have in
the phase response of systems" and on and on and on.

Here we are, as mere three decades after the commercial introduction
of the CD. One might argue that the field of digital audio is not
yet mature enough to withstand the onslaugfht of challenges to the
"theory".

But, wait, folks: the CD is a new comer to the field of sampling.
The basis of the theorems behind it are approaching their 200th
birthday. Nyquist did his formulation of the sampling theorEM
in the first quarter of the 20th century, SHannon published
his works in 1952.

Yes to be a theory, it has to walk like a theory, talk like a
theory and act like a theory. Hanging a "Theory" sign around a
an incoherently babbling immobile drunkard is not less of a
strawman than insisting on Nyquists theorem being a "theory".

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KH KH is offline
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On 3/20/2015 6:53 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 8:02:33 AM UTC-6, Robert Peirce wrote:
The point was that no scientific theory is necessarily true. In fact,
to be a scientific theory the possibility must exist to prove it false.
It may in fact be true, in which case it never will be proved false.

I cannot cite papers or other evidence for what follows. In many cases
it comes from something I read, possibly years ago. For that reason it
could be wrong. Consequently, it should be taken for the idea, not the
details.


snip

Yes to be a theory, it has to walk like a theory, talk like a
theory and act like a theory. Hanging a "Theory" sign around a
an incoherently babbling immobile drunkard is not less of a
strawman than insisting on Nyquists theorem being a "theory".


Very true, and Nyquist/Shannon comes under the category of theorem, not
theory, and it is easily proven mathematically.

Many, many implementations can be based on Nyquist, and fail to achieve
sonic accuracy - and fail miserably. But that's an engineering failure,
not a falsification of the underlying Theorem. If the theorem says that
samples taken at 1/2 fz intervals are sufficient to reproduce the
waveform - no "missing data" no "stair steps", but some real world
implementation of digital based on that theorem fails to achieve the
expected accuracy, that says nothing about "digital" per se, nor about
the general theorem.

Only *after* the engineering methods used for that implementation are
shown to be sufficiently rigorous and accurate do the results have a
wider applicability.

Your real world example of a pathological DAC is the poster child.

Keith


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Robert Peirce Robert Peirce is offline
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On 3/20/15 9:53 AM, wrote:
There, in fact, was no "theory" that the earth was the center of the
universe. It was a religious doctrine. It was, in fact, TRVTH (tm),
handed down from on high that was to be followed without question,
and often, not followed at the risk serious personal consequences.

And, again, the point you seem to refuse to accept is that first,
it was NOT a theory and, second, whatever "math" was used (epicycles,
for example), the books were deliberately cooked to support a
political, religious and economic agenda.


No again, you are using an extremely limited and thus incorrect
definition of "theory". In addition to explaining observed
phenomenon, a supportable theory must also make testable predictions
and it is those predictions that provide the notion of falsifiablility.


I had resolved not to get involved in this any further, especially since
it was moving from science to religion and nobody can speak with
certainty about that. Then I saw a letter in the Washington Post from
"Galileo" and realized where you are coming from.

When I spoke of the geocentric theory I was referring to the theory
developed by many ancient civilizations more than four centuries before
the birth of Christ, let alone Christianity, not to the religious dogma
developed during the late middle ages.

Ancient astronomers observed something in nature that needed to be
explained and they attempted to do that based on the knowledge they had
at the time. In other words, they developed a theory. Their work
produced testable predictions that were refined as more knowledge became
available and the theory carried long enough and well enough that it
became religious dogma, but that was almost 2000 years later. This was
a really long time for a theory to be accepted and may have had a lot to
do with it becoming religious dogma.

Even when Copernicus and Galileo came along, most astronomers were
reluctant to accept their ideas without considerable proof and it took
many years. Whether religious or not, there was a scientific consensus
and it took a long time to overcome it. However, as it seems always to
happen, the better theory eventually supplanted the poorer.

Now, the DSR's point about making this relevant to audio. All good
scientifically-based theories are provisional: they stand until
something better comes along, whether it be a refinement of that
theory or a wholesale replacement. The Shannon-Nyquist THEOREM,
the basic foundation underpinning not only digital audio but
audio in general, does not fall into that category. It is a theorem


You may be correct. I was under the impression that this came from
using mathematics to explain an observation (a theory) rather than by
deductive reasoning from known facts (a theorem). If I was wrong, I
apologize. It was a bad example. Aside from that I don't think we are
disagreeing about the basics. Our statements may appear to be different
but our conclusions are the same.

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[email protected] dpierce.cartchunk.org@gmail.com is offline
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First, my apologies to the moderators and everyone else that got
confused in this thread I am managing a half dozen gmail accounts
for various clients, and I was less than careful about posting
from which accounts. Replies attributed variously to "cartchunk"
"vocproc" or and the like were all me. I will tryo to be more diligent
in the future.

On Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 12:43:37 PM UTC-6, Robert Peirce wrote:
On 3/20/15 9:53 AM, cartchunk wrote:
There, in fact, was no "theory" that the earth was the center of the
universe. It was a religious doctrine. It was, in fact, TRVTH (tm),
handed down from on high that was to be followed without question,
and often, not followed at the risk serious personal consequences.

And, again, the point you seem to refuse to accept is that first,
it was NOT a theory and, second, whatever "math" was used (epicycles,
for example), the books were deliberately cooked to support a
political, religious and economic agenda.


Now again, you are using an extremely limited and thus incorrect
definition of "theory". In addition to explaining observed
phenomenon, a supportable theory must also make testable predictions
and it is those predictions that provide the notion of falsifiablility.


I had resolved not to get involved in this any further, especially since
it was moving from science to religion and nobody can speak with
certainty about that.


Uh, no. the historical record is quite clear on that.

And, if you want, you can blame me for moving the discussion
in that direction: it was, in fact, a very deliberate course
correction, because you confused the concept of scientific theory
with what is clearly recorded in the historical record as religious
doctrine.

Take specifically the case of Galileo: his major opponent was NOT,
as you claim below "other scientist," it was VERY specifically the
hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church: Galileo was put on trial
by the church for the crime of heresy.

The refinement, on the other hand, of Newtonian gravity provided
by Einstein's General Relativity was much less onerous on Newton.

It should be noted that it took about a wee over 200 years for
General Relativity (1915) to replace Newtonian gravity (1687).

It took the church 125 years longer (1983) to retract its verdict
on Galileo (1633).

These, by the way, are commonly available historical facts from
a wide variety of credible sources, so it's not clear how one
cannot speak with certainty on these topics.

Then I saw a letter in the Washington Post from
"Galileo" and realized where you are coming from.

When I spoke of the geocentric theory I was referring to the theory
developed by many ancient civilizations more than four centuries before
the birth of Christ, let alone Christianity, not to the religious dogma
developed during the late middle ages.


What "theories" are these? All of the world models at the time were
either superstition or religious at their root (and, one might
argue, what's difference?).

There were no "theories", not in anything even remotely approaching
current accepted definition of the word.

Ancient astronomers observed something in nature that needed to be
explained and they attempted to do that based on the knowledge they had
at the time. In other words, they developed a theory. Their work
produced testable predictions


Uh, no, they didn't that's why they were so broken.

Where is the predictability of a universe consisting of
a tortoise shell supported by elephants, just to pick the
first example that pops into my head? Or that the sun was
disgorged by a fish in the morning and then swallowed by
another at sunset?

that were refined as more knowledge became
available and the theory carried long enough and well enough that it
became religious dogma, but that was almost 2000 years later.


Really? The Phoenician, the Egyptian, the Grecian, the Eutruscan,
the Roman, the Mayan, the Incan, the Chinese, (and so on) world
models had to wait until the Middle ages to arise and gain
foothold in their respective contexts?

Really?

Even when Copernicus and Galileo came along, most astronomers were
reluctant to accept their ideas without considerable proof and it took
many years. Whether religious or not, there was a scientific consensus
and it took a long time to overcome it.


Where was this "scientific consensus". Hell, where was this "science".

It is widely acknowledge by historical experts in the field that it
was, in fact, Galileo that essentially invented "science", if by
"science" one might take it to mean the use of the scientific
method, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, which didn't exist
prior to Galileo.

And other's "reluctance" at the time went by a specific name:
"The Inquisition". Recall that the Roman Catholic Church succeeded
in silencing Galileo not by countering his observations and theories
with reasoned argument, but by letting him witness the kinds of torture
applied to non-believers and non-conformists of the era.

However, as it seems always to
happen, the better theory eventually supplanted the poorer.


You keep insisting on dignifying ancient superstitions, religious
dogma, and shoving political and religious dogma down people's
throat at the tip of a spear or at the stake as "theory" and "science."

Stop doing that, if you please.

Now, to DSR's point about making this relevant to audio. All good
scientifically-based theories are provisional: they stand until
something better comes along, whether it be a refinement of that
theory or a wholesale replacement. The Shannon-Nyquist THEOREM,
the basic foundation underpinning not only digital audio but
audio in general, does not fall into that category. It is a theorem


You may be correct. I was under the impression that this came from
using mathematics to explain an observation (a theory) rather than by
deductive reasoning from known facts (a theorem).


Please do not take my word for it: it's not whether I'm "correct"
or not, do the research yourself. Go look up "Nyquist's Theorem"
on wikipedia to start, and follow the references, several of which
lead right to the horse's mouth. Do the same for the "sampling theorem".


Again, my apolgies for confusing people with multiple identities.
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