zodiac28 Dec 2005

"Perceptual verification" is also logical deduction.

Suppose your scientist deduces 332 planets. Then he looks through his telescope and sees 332 dots. (If he's using a radio telescope he sees 332 splotches of radio waves that look like what he's deduced stars' radio waves look like, not the stars themselves, but that's beside the point.) In the end, he has to logically deduce that the 332 dots he sees are stars. Even if he were to construct a spacecraft and land on each of 332 "planets", he would at some point or level have to deduce that, for one, the matter he was standing on comprised a "planet" and this "planet" orbits the sun he was considering, and for two, that the sensations he was experiencing meant he was "standing" on "matter". Is his conclusion - that a particular star has 332 planets - any less logically deduced because he's seen the planets or stood on them? I'd say no. But I have a feeling -=Dark_Angel=-'s going to get back from the Orkneys and tear us all new ones on this. Best to go on about our business and pretend this whole thing never happened.