Re:Zen Buddhism and Alan Watts
by ghc on Sunday October 05, 2014 @11:05AM
(#8412449)
I'll chime in here as someone who studied to become a physicist: it's not bullshit; the truth about the nature of matter is too complex (and weird) for someone without a deep understanding of mathematics to understand. Particle/wave duality is a useful abstraction that relates the math to something humans can grasp intuitively.
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Re:Zen Buddhism and Alan Watts
by marcosdumay on Sunday October 05, 2014 @03:28PM
(#8413184)
You are not refuting the GP, you are just redefining bullshit.
Yes, the wave/particle duality is a nice abstraction we can apply to QM so that we can extract some results from it intuitively (or with just a few calculations). Besides, it's a concept with deep historical significance. Even if it wasn't a good abstraction, it would still be important.
But the duality is also something you can wave in front of people that didn't study QM to make sure they don't question your arguments. Doing that will make the arguments harder for them to understand, but sound like an explanation (that means, something that makes it easier to understand).
"Bullshit" is a common name for that second kind of usage.