Role of Concepts in describing observations of concrete objects

[akhil999in]

Role of Concepts in describing observations of concrete objects

The important thing about Isaac Newton's Laws is not the statement but the abstract concepts he invented, like the concept of Force.

Force is not an observable, concrete thing. It is an abstract idea that helps us to communicate certain observed things in an easier and systematic way, and to produce hypotheses about observables.

Theoretically it should be possible to write a complete description of all of Physics without ever using the concept of Force, but it would be greatly complicated and difficult to think and understand.

We would for instance not be able to state that Force = Mass X Acceleration.

As Force is never seen by anyone, there should not be any reason why Physics cannot be studied without the idea of Force.

Inventing new concepts that practically amount to "creating" new abstract objects, is the most important thing in advancement of knowledge of science.

If we have the concept of Force, it does not matter if by mistake Isaac Newton said that:

Force = 7 times the Mass X Square Root of Acceleration

The exact relation could always be easily found out by anyone, but it takes an Isaac Newton to think of the notion of Force to explain and bind together the ideas of Mass, Position or Motion, and Time for the first time ever, and thereby giving science a totally new direction.

Hope others can give a clearer statement for what I have rather crudely tried to say above.

Next the question arises whether we can build a machine or a program, that automatically creates all the possible abstract objects, or, concepts, at least those relevant to science, or, at least some if not all.

Science would take a big jump if only we knew how to know all possible hypotheses at once, which in turn depends on knowing all possible abstract concepts.

All possible advancements of scientific knowledge could be made through two steps, as follows:

(A) We have a Hypothesis Generator, that generates all possible hypotheses.

This includes, for instance the hypothesis H1 about something, and
hypothesis H2 that experiment X1 will verify the Hypothesis H1.

(B) We have a Universal Proposition or Statement Implementer.

It carries out or Implements, all (physically possible) ( Actions according to) Statements. For instance, "take 5 ML of water in a Test Tube" is a possible Statement and its Implementation is the physically possible Action of taking water in a test tube, which this Universal device is able to do.

The Universal device need not be very original or complicated, as separate devices could be there for different types of Statements.

Then we use these two devices to generate all hypotheses, verify them by possible physical experiments, and tell us the results, and so on till knowledge of science is completely discovered without any need for human creative thinking, invention of new concepts, or humans having to imagine new hypotheses, all of which takes up almost infinite time and is not guaranteed to go to completion in a finite amount of time.

Please let me know me if the above ideas are fundamentally wrong, and how.

 

[Valerie Park]

To summarize, concepts are important for describing observations of concrete objects. Concepts allow us to understand and explain observed phenomena in a systematic and logical way, and to generate hypotheses about observables. They also provide the foundation for the development of more advanced scientific knowledge.