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Theory Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 20:59, 10 February 2023
, 20:59, 10 February 2023no edit summary
|History=Initially, the theory rejection theorem was accepted as deducible from the conjunction of [[The First Law (Barseghyan-2015)|the first law]] for theories and [[Rory Harder|Harder]]'s [[The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)|zeroth law]]. After the replacement of Harder's zeroth law with [[Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)|the compatibility corollary]], suggested by [[Patrick Fraser|Fraser]] and [[Ameer Sarwar|Sarwar]], it became accepted that the theory rejection theorem is a deductive consequence of the first law for theories and the compatibility corollary.[[CiteRef::Fraser and Sarwar (2018)|pp. 72-74]]
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{{Theory Example
|Title=Plenism
|Description=Barseghyan considers the case of ''plenism,'' "the view that there can be no empty space (i.e. no space absolutely devoid of matter)", as a key historical illustration of the '''Theory Rejection theorem''' in [[Barseghyan (2015)]].
<blockquote> Within the system of the Aristotelian-medieval natural philosophy, ''plenism'' was one of many theorems. Yet, when the Aristotelian natural philosophy was replaced by that of Descartes, ''plenism'' remained in the mosaic, for it was a theorem in the Cartesian system too. To appreciate this we have to consider the Aristotelian-medieval law of violent motion, which states that an object moves only if the applied force is greater than the resistance of the medium. In that case, according to the law, the velocity will be proportional to the force and inversely proportional to resistance. Otherwise the object won’t move; its velocity will be zero ...
Taken as an axiom, this law has many interesting consequences. It follows from this law, that if there were no resistance the velocity of the object would be infinite. But this is absurd since nothing can move infinitely fast (for that would mean being at two places simultaneously). Therefore, there should always be some resistance, i.e. something that fills up the medium. Thus, we arrive at the conception of plenism ...
There weren’t many elements of the Aristotelian-medieval mosaic that maintained their state within the Cartesian mosaic. The conception of plenism was among the few that survived through the transition. In the Cartesian system, plenism followed directly from the assumption that extension is the attribute of matter and that no attribute can exist independently from the substance in which it inheres ...
In short, when the axioms of a theory are replaced by another theory, some of the theorems may nevertheless manage to stay in the mosaic, provided that they are compatible with the newly accepted theory. This is essentially what the theory rejection theorem tells us. Thus, if someday our currently accepted general relativity gets replaced by some new theory, the theories that followed from general relativity, such as the theory of black holes, may nevertheless manage to remain in the mosaic. </blockquote>
|Example Type=Historical
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{{Acceptance Record
