aah, it’s you! :) We might indeed go for a fika sometime in the near future then. I wonder if you were following the Swedish-transhumanism-FHI squabble on my last post.
I’m confused. Why does it sound like that to you? Saying someone has made “significant contributions” doesn’t sound excessively adulatory, especially if you’re talking about someone who is widely regarded as having made significant contributions (as evidenced by, say, his National Medal of Science).
First, I never heard of Patrick Suppes in any of my physics studies. Or at all, until he was mentioned here. So this puts a cap on the significance of his contributions to the “foundations of physics”. Second, the medal is “National Medal of Science for Behavioral and Social Science”, not anything physics-related (unless you consider “subjective probability” physics). Now, my attitude toward “philosophy of science” roughly matches that of Feynman, so I am not going to touch that one. What’s left is “the theory of measurement”, which am not in a position to evaluate, except to say that, from the list of relevant publications it seems like he worked in the decision-theoretic area, rather than any physical measurement. Now, maybe he did make “significant contributions” to decision theory, I cannot tell, except that this forum does not mention him much while discussing decision-theoretic issues.
Not to put him down, he did a lot of interesting work and is likely in the top 0.1% of physics PhDs by various metrics, just not as “foundational” as the wiki article presents him.
I’m not familiar with his writings on the foundations of quantum mechanics, but in addition to his work on causality, the three volumes on measurement he co-authored have also been hugely influential. His intellectual autobiography (pdf) might be worth a look.
Patrick Suppes to the left?
I would buy a modapuccino¹ if we lived in a 100km radius!
Modafinil’s version of a cappuccino
Well, I hope you’re in Oxford soon again, João! :)
aah, it’s you! :) We might indeed go for a fika sometime in the near future then. I wonder if you were following the Swedish-transhumanism-FHI squabble on my last post.
Yes! Less Wrong, please give vallinder extra karma, for identifying the more ambiguous cartoon dude. :)
Ah, so another philosopher that I originally thought was a mathematician.
From his wikipedia page:
Sounds like either self-advertisement or a hero-worship, depending on who wrote it.
I’m confused. Why does it sound like that to you? Saying someone has made “significant contributions” doesn’t sound excessively adulatory, especially if you’re talking about someone who is widely regarded as having made significant contributions (as evidenced by, say, his National Medal of Science).
First, I never heard of Patrick Suppes in any of my physics studies. Or at all, until he was mentioned here. So this puts a cap on the significance of his contributions to the “foundations of physics”. Second, the medal is “National Medal of Science for Behavioral and Social Science”, not anything physics-related (unless you consider “subjective probability” physics). Now, my attitude toward “philosophy of science” roughly matches that of Feynman, so I am not going to touch that one. What’s left is “the theory of measurement”, which am not in a position to evaluate, except to say that, from the list of relevant publications it seems like he worked in the decision-theoretic area, rather than any physical measurement. Now, maybe he did make “significant contributions” to decision theory, I cannot tell, except that this forum does not mention him much while discussing decision-theoretic issues.
Not to put him down, he did a lot of interesting work and is likely in the top 0.1% of physics PhDs by various metrics, just not as “foundational” as the wiki article presents him.
I’m not familiar with his writings on the foundations of quantum mechanics, but in addition to his work on causality, the three volumes on measurement he co-authored have also been hugely influential. His intellectual autobiography (pdf) might be worth a look.
I think you might have finally got it. I hope so at least, this google image madness has to stop.