“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[bilby]

He indirectly proved that the eyes are not a sense organ, one being that a dog cannot recognize his master from a picture. He should be able to, if a lightwave is bouncing off his master and striking his eye. He would wag his tail or show other signs of recognition (especially if he missed his master because he hadn't seen him in a while), but this doesn't happen.

That's not true. But if it were, it would no more prove that eyes are not a sense organ than the well known experiment with arachnid hearing proves that spiders hear through their legs.

Show

First, you train a spider to run away when a bell rings. This can be done by administering small electric shocks when the bell is rung; After a few rounds of this conditioning, the spider will run away at the sound of the bell, even though no shock is administered*.

Next, remove the spider's legs, being careful not to kill it**

Ring the bell, and the spider won't run away. Thus (indirectly) proving that spiders hear through their legs.

* You may need permission from the ethics committee for this phase of the trial.

** You almost certainly won't get permission from the ethics committee for this phase of the trial

 

[bilby]

Peacegirl has been repeating the same things for so long she can not think any other way.

FTFY

 

[peacegirl]

g

You are not paying attention all tat has been said.

Theories get accepted based on observation and ex[ferment.

It never really ends. There is always the possibility of something new, but it has to be tested.

There were known anomalies observed in the solar system with Newtonian gravity, resolved by relativity.

There were known anomalies in physics appalling Newtonian mechanics, resolved by quantum mechanics.

Einstein's theories of relativity are continuously tested, with the most recent, high-precision confirmations occurring in
2026 and 2024 through analysis of gravitational waves and cosmic structure. In January 2026, researchers found a third tone in a black hole's "ringdown" phase, reinforcing General Relativity. In 2024, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) validated his gravity theory across 11 billion years of cosmic history.

You refuse to acknowledge that based on tested science your ideas on sight and light are false, end of story. And if this stuff is linked to the book's great discovery, the discovery is in turn false.

To make your case you would have to have an experiment.


Your father may have had imagination, but he lacked the background in science.

He was a scientist of human behavior. He was an analytical thinker and a voracious reader of literature and philosophy. To say he couldn't have made such a discovery because he was not a scientist who did experiments is being shortsighted. It turns out that because he was an autodidact, he was able to think outside of the box.

In physical scene and engineering undergrad classes we learn basic lab techniques. How to set up, run, and document an experiment.

This debate is giving me a better appreciation for all the teachers I had.

That is wonderful. There is something to be said for basic lab techniques and documenting experiments, but this is not the only way to find the truth. Careful observation and sound reasoning are part of epistemology and count in appropriate situations.

 

[peacegirl]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

It is not odd, it just is.

Do you make use of GPS in your car? It doesn't work unless there is containment for time dilation.

It has nothing to do with time dilation. The way it actually works does not conflict with his claim in any way.

How​

GPS adjusts and finds one's location by continuously receiving signals from multiple satellites. The system uses the time it takes for signals to travel from the satellites to the receiver to calculate the distance and determine the user's position. The process involves the following steps:

• Signal Reception: The GPS receiver receives signals from satellites that include the time the message was sent and the satellite's exact location in space.
• Distance Calculation: The receiver calculates the distance to each satellite by multiplying the time delay between transmission and reception by the speed of light.
• Position Determination: By using signals from at least four satellites, the receiver computes its precise position through a method called trilateration. This involves knowing the location of orbiting GPS satellites and the distance from those satellites to the receiver's location on the planet.
• Error Correction: The receiver also accounts for the difference between its internal clock and the universal time kept by the satellites to solve for latitude, longitude, and elevation accurately.
  The GPS system is designed to be highly accurate, with the ability to pinpoint a location within meters anywhere on Earth. This accuracy is achieved through the use of atomic clocks on the satellites and precise calculations by the GPS receivers.
  
  
  6 Sources
  

 

[peacegirl]

You are still side stepping the issue Pg.

What is the experimental evidence for your father's claims?
Einstein are prominent, but most do not know of all the theories that have come and gone.

You can twist, turn, and wriggle like a frog held by the leg, but iou have no evidence for your cla.

A sign on someone's offce 'In god we trust, all else bring data'.

Bring data to make your case. That moves you from speculative philosophy to science.

It doesn't work that way. You need to follow his observations and reasoning, not expect a lab result. This subject is so difficult because it cannot be reduced to a physical experiment in the way people want to see, but it can be proven in other ways.

 

[peacegirl]

I picked up 'the map is not the countryside' from General Sm antics.

As I see it silence is map of reality, nit reality itself. Science is descriptive of perceived reality and predicative of experiments. Unikng Newtonian mechanics we can land a probe on the Moon. Using electromagnetics theory we can watch a TV from the Moon . An d so on.

Whether our picture of reality actually refle4cts reality is not knowable. So you can make your comments about time dilation as you pleases, but the fact is it externally works.

I picked up the term experimentalist from Popper. All we really know for certain is the result of an experiment. Beyond that it becomes progressively subjective and ineterprative

So again, to put your ideas about light and bison on a science basis provide data.

You still have not explained how your efferent vision works.

At this point are you starting to see why you have been getting nowhere?

He gave his observations. The present data scientists have used to determine what happens in the brain regarding sight is not fully understood. They have tried to explain the mechanism as to how each step in the process takes place, from light traveling to hitting the retina, to the photoreceptors being transduced into chemical messengers, and finally to being seen as a virtual image by the brain. There is no way they can prove that there is an image seen by the brain and interpreted as sight. How can they prove this? Can they see an image in the brain through an MRI or a CT scan? They may see that area of the brain light up, but that is not proof as to what is occurring in the occipital lobe. To ask him to explain the exact mechanism as to how efferent works from the optic nerve and beyond is creating a double standard. Someone can know something is true without understanding the entire mechanism.

 

[peacegirl]

With our most powerful telescopes we can view the universe as it was some 13.6 billion yeas ago, shortly after cosmic dawn. This of course would be totally impossible if we saw in real time. This was explained to you in great detail at FF.

We are not the ones afraid of having our “applecart” upset, or our “precious world view” challenged. That would be YOU.

You cannot abide anything that would prove your author incorrect. But he is incorrect.

Um, you just described yourself, and it went right over your head. You cannot abide by anything that would prove your god (Einstein) incorrect. But he MAY be incorrect with some of his theories. His stature, though, doesn't allow anyone to question. They are looked at as fools. Who is right and who is wrong would depend on whether there is an actual conflict with some of Einstein's theories and Lessans' take on how we see, and if there is, to determine who is right by studying both, not leaving Lessans out in the cold because it conflicts with Einstein. Remember, there are no sacred cows.

This is sadly and pathetically typical of you.

Nothing went “over my head.” And Einstein is not my “god,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I have no “gods,” religious or secular. I read and study and follow the evidence where it leads. You should try it sometime, though I don’t think you have the capacity to do so. People have been schooling you for 25 years on light and sight and nothing has sunk in. You keep resetting to the same nonsense.

Pood, with all due respect, you have taken Einstein's theory to a whole new level of time travel and other worlds that I can't compete with because they are ridiculous. How can anyone compete with the ridiculous? Logic can make what is not true appear true. Think about it.

Einstein was also a hard determinist, and I think he was wrong. Einstein also believed that QM was actually deterministic because of hidden variables. A test first conducted after he was dead proved that he was wrong. So much for Einstein or thinking that Einstein was a “god.”

You let go of theories that don't threaten you,, but dare anyone throw out theories that you depend on for your worldview? You will fight them tooth and nail, which is understandable. This is why Lessans had such a hard time proving anything that he observed, not just regarding the eyes, but that man's will is not free, because it defied the status quo. You know this, Pood, but you threw in compatibilism, which is a joke.

There is a direct conflict between your author’s claims and relativity. As has been explained to you countless times, relativity could not even have been formulated in a world of real-time seeing. Relativity has survived countless experimental checks for more than 100 years. GPS devices must take into account two forms of time dilation or they would not work. But they do work.

We have no “sacred cows.”

Yes you have, but you won't admit it or you're blind to it.

You do have a sacred cow, your father, who among other nuttiness believed that people fall in love with each other’s sex organs.

Nope, that is false, and the fact that you keep misinterpreting what he meant proves your dislike, not because of this comment taken out of context, but because you hate that you may be wrong about the eyes and Einstein, and everything that gives you a sense of stability in an unstable world.

 

[peacegirl]

I fall in love all the time, every time I see a woman with big boobs.

That’s lust, not love.

Romantic love IS LUST.

 

[steve_bank]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

It is not odd, it just is.

Do you make use of GPS in your car? It doesn't work unless there is containment for time dilation.

It has nothing to do with time dilation. The way it actually works does not conflict with his claim in any way.

How​

GPS adjusts and finds one's location by continuously receiving signals from multiple satellites. The system uses the time it takes for signals to travel from the satellites to the receiver to calculate the distance and determine the user's position. The process involves the following steps:

• Signal Reception: The GPS receiver receives signals from satellites that include the time the message was sent and the satellite's exact location in space.
• Distance Calculation: The receiver calculates the distance to each satellite by multiplying the time delay between transmission and reception by the speed of light.
• Position Determination: By using signals from at least four satellites, the receiver computes its precise position through a method called trilateration. This involves knowing the location of orbiting GPS satellites and the distance from those satellites to the receiver's location on the planet.
• Error Correction: The receiver also accounts for the difference between its internal clock and the universal time kept by the satellites to solve for latitude, longitude, and elevation accurately.
  The GPS system is designed to be highly accurate, with the ability to pinpoint a location within meters anywhere on Earth. This accuracy is achieved through the use of atomic clocks on the satellites and precise calculations by the GPS receivers.
  
  
  6 Sources

GPS has to do with clocks and timing of signals. Clocks in orbit run at differs speeds than on the ground. GPS and relatvity has been common knowledge since it began.

GPS satellites experience time dilation
due to high orbital speed (special relativity) and weaker gravity (general relativity), causing their atomic clocks to run about 38 microseconds faster per day than ground clocks. Without correcting for this, navigation errors would accumulate to 10 kilometers per day.
Key Time Dilation Effects on GPS:

Special Relativity (Velocity): Traveling at ~14,000 km/h, satellite clocks run ~7 microseconds slower per day.
General Relativity (Gravity): Being in weaker gravity (higher altitude) makes clocks run ~45 microseconds faster per day. Net Effect: The combined, or net, effect is that satellite clocks run roughly
38 microseconds faster
per day
.
Correction: Engineers shift the frequency of the atomic clocks on the satellites to be slightly lower before launch so they operate at the correct rate in orbit.

Without these corrections, GPS navigation would be unusable within hours.

Error analysis for the Global Positioning System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[peacegirl]

Pg

As I said I think yiu have a communication problem. You don;t undershorts how you are being viewed by those you to to reach.

I don't have a communication problem. The problem is that people have no time to read.

No, people here are highly educated and read BIG BOOKS. Your problem is not that we didn’t have “time to read” what you posted, but that we DID read what you posted.

And we discovered that it was wrong.

Who is the "we," Pood, that you keep talking about to boost your beliefs? You aren't speaking for everyone. Be honest and replace "we" with "I."

 

[peacegirl]

Given all the evidence to the contrary, that anyone would make the claim that the eyes are not sense organs is more than a little odd.

No more odd than time dilation, if you think about it.

It is not odd, it just is.

Do you make use of GPS in your car? It doesn't work unless there is containment for time dilation.

It has nothing to do with time dilation. The way it actually works does not conflict with his claim in any way.

How​

GPS adjusts and finds one's location by continuously receiving signals from multiple satellites. The system uses the time it takes for signals to travel from the satellites to the receiver to calculate the distance and determine the user's position. The process involves the following steps:

• Signal Reception: The GPS receiver receives signals from satellites that include the time the message was sent and the satellite's exact location in space.
• Distance Calculation: The receiver calculates the distance to each satellite by multiplying the time delay between transmission and reception by the speed of light.
• Position Determination: By using signals from at least four satellites, the receiver computes its precise position through a method called trilateration. This involves knowing the location of orbiting GPS satellites and the distance from those satellites to the receiver's location on the planet.
• Error Correction: The receiver also accounts for the difference between its internal clock and the universal time kept by the satellites to solve for latitude, longitude, and elevation accurately.
  The GPS system is designed to be highly accurate, with the ability to pinpoint a location within meters anywhere on Earth. This accuracy is achieved through the use of atomic clocks on the satellites and precise calculations by the GPS receivers.
  
  
  6 Sources

GPS has to do with clocks and timing of signals. Clocks in orbit run at differs speeds than on the ground. GPS and relatvity has been common knowledge since it began.

GPS satellites experience time dilation
due to high orbital speed (special relativity) and weaker gravity (general relativity), causing their atomic clocks to run about 38 microseconds faster per day than ground clocks. Without correcting for this, navigation errors would accumulate to 10 kilometers per day.
Key Time Dilation Effects on GPS:

Special Relativity (Velocity): Traveling at ~14,000 km/h, satellite clocks run ~7 microseconds slower per day.
General Relativity (Gravity): Being in weaker gravity (higher altitude) makes clocks run ~45 microseconds faster per day. Net Effect: The combined, or net, effect is that satellite clocks run roughly
38 microseconds faster
per day
.
Correction: Engineers shift the frequency of the atomic clocks on the satellites to be slightly lower before launch so they operate at the correct rate in orbit.

Without these corrections, GPS navigation would be unusable within hours.

Error analysis for the Global Positioning System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is nothing about this that conflicts with Lessans' claim of seeing in real time. Signal delay is a real thing and has to be used to get the right positioning, but it has NOTHING to do with the dilation of time itself. How could it when time is not a dimension that can be measured?

Ionospheric​

Ionospheric delay is a significant factor in GPS signal accuracy. It refers to the time delay experienced by satellite signals as they pass through the Earth's ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere filled with charged particles. This delay can cause positional inaccuracies in GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The delay is caused by the refractive index changes in the ionosphere due to the density of charged particles, which can be influenced by solar activity and time of day. To mitigate the effects of ionospheric delay, dual-frequency receivers are used, which can calculate and compensate for the delay using signals on different frequencies (e.g., L1 and L2 in GPS). Additionally, correction services like DGPS or SBAS (Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems) can provide real-time corrections to improve GPS accuracy.
OneSDR - A Wireless Technology Blog+2

 

[peacegirl]

Pg

Pick a few major schools. Send an email to the philosophy department and say your deceased father wrote a philosophy book and you would appreciate it if someone would review it.

Maybe a PHD student. If you can afford offer a fee for a written review.

I have sent questions to schools in the past, most recently the University of Washington climate science deportment a few years ago. I posted responses on the science forum.

The forum here is informal. You have dismissed academia but they are the ones who can give you a revue,

I did try that years ago. I never could actually talk to a professor. I made a concerted effort with a blurb about the reason for my email. Some thought it was spam. I could try it again. It's a good idea. I could also try to reach philosophers interested in this topic on academia.edu. It is just very hard when so many people are competing with their own ideas for them to want to take the time to understand this book, which is a true treasure.

The way the eyes and brain work in generating sight is not a matter of what we believe. Vision is a physical process that requires a physical means and mechanisms to enable the ability to see, eyes with light sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, optic nerve to convey signals to the brain, etc.....which does not permit seeing in real time/instant vision. That is impossible. It goes against physics, space/time, relativity....moreover, it's just a bad idea.

Again, you cannot just assume that the eyes work the way you believe because of space/time and relativity, as if everything theorized is absolute fact.

We assume nothing. Light and sight have studied down to the atomic level and are well understood. But of course you refused to read the essay the biologist The Lone Ranger wrote for you on this topic.

Light and sight at the atomic level have not been studied as to what happens in the brain. They conclude that delayed images are seen in the brain because they began with a theory that light bounces off the object, bringing the lightwave through space/time, which is converted to an image. This has never been challenged, but more importantly, it has never been proven.

Further, this version of vision does not exclude the intricacies of the eye, namely, light-sensitive cells, rods, cones, lenses, and the optic nerve, so you can't use this to dismiss his claim out of hand.

Bullshit. The eye is an evolved sense organ. The optic nerve is purely afferent.

The optic nerve may well be afferent. I'm not disputing that, so don't present a strawman.

 

[pood]

What a pathetic performance by @peacegirl. Where to begin? Or better yet, why bother?

 

[pood]

She doesn’t even know that the high tech she undoubtedly uses must correct for both special and general relativity, and that relativity could never even have been formulated in a world of real-time seeing. And it does not matter how many times you explain these things to her, it goes in one year and out the other.

 

[peacegirl]

What a pathetic performance by @peacegirl. Where to begin? Or better yet, why bother?

That is a response that

What a pathetic performance by @peacegirl. Where to begin? Or better yet, why bother?

What a pathetic performance by @peacegirl. Where to begin? Or better yet, why bother?

That is a response that tells me you have no answer, and that's okay. Just admit it so we can move forward, or leave if you believe, why bother? It's your choice IN THE DIRECTION OF GREATER SATISFACTION.

 

[steve_bank]

I picked up 'the map is not the countryside' from General Sm antics.

As I see it silence is map of reality, nit reality itself. Science is descriptive of perceived reality and predicative of experiments. Unikng Newtonian mechanics we can land a probe on the Moon. Using electromagnetics theory we can watch a TV from the Moon . An d so on.

Whether our picture of reality actually refle4cts reality is not knowable. So you can make your comments about time dilation as you pleases, but the fact is it externally works.

I picked up the term experimentalist from Popper. All we really know for certain is the result of an experiment. Beyond that it becomes progressively subjective and ineterprative

So again, to put your ideas about light and bison on a science basis provide data.

You still have not explained how your efferent vision works.

At this point are you starting to see why you have been getting nowhere?

He gave his observations. The present data scientists have used to determine what happens in the brain regarding sight is not fully understood. They have tried to explain the mechanism as to how each step in the process takes place, from light traveling to hitting the retina, to the photoreceptors being transduced into chemical messengers, and finally to being seen as a virtual image by the brain. There is no way they can prove that there is an image seen by the brain and interpreted as sight. How can they prove this? Can they see an image in the brain through an MRI or a CT scan? They may see that area of the brain light up, but that is not proof as to what is occurring in the occipital lobe. To ask him to explain the exact mechanism as to how efferent works from the optic nerve and beyond is creating a double standard. Someone can know something is true without understanding the entire mechanism.

It is neuroscience, data science is something else.

You are the expert on the book. When the light is flipped on when do we perceive it as vision? Now you say it is not science just his observation?

The first commercial artificial neural networks were used to do image recognition. They were based on the brain.

There is no way they can prove that there is an image seen by the brain and interpreted as sight. How can they prove this

Seeing is believing. There have been lengthy threads on objective/subjective perceptions.

In your quest to defend the book you are grasping at straws.

You are drifting into more general philosophical issues. What is reality? What is knowledge?

 

[pood]

I picked up 'the map is not the countryside' from General Sm antics.

As I see it silence is map of reality, nit reality itself. Science is descriptive of perceived reality and predicative of experiments. Unikng Newtonian mechanics we can land a probe on the Moon. Using electromagnetics theory we can watch a TV from the Moon . An d so on.

Whether our picture of reality actually refle4cts reality is not knowable. So you can make your comments about time dilation as you pleases, but the fact is it externally works.

I picked up the term experimentalist from Popper. All we really know for certain is the result of an experiment. Beyond that it becomes progressively subjective and ineterprative

So again, to put your ideas about light and bison on a science basis provide data.

You still have not explained how your efferent vision works.

At this point are you starting to see why you have been getting nowhere?

He gave his observations.

He had no observations, just empty claims.

The present data scientists have used to determine what happens in the brain regarding sight is not fully understood.

Of course it is. It was explained to you down to atomic detail in a paper written just for you by the biologist The Lone Ranger, a paper that you admitted you refused to read.

They have tried to explain the mechanism as to how each step in the process takes place, from light traveling to hitting the retina, to the photoreceptors being transduced into chemical messengers, and finally to being seen as a virtual image by the brain. There is no way they can prove that there is an image seen by the brain and interpreted as sight. How can they prove this?

By opening your eyes?

So now you are telling us that the image is not in light (which we already knew) and not in the brain, either. So where is it??

 

[pood]

He indirectly proved that the eyes are not a sense organ, one being that a dog cannot recognize his master from a picture. He should be able to, if a lightwave is bouncing off his master and striking his eye. He would wag his tail or show other signs of recognition (especially if he missed his master because he hadn't seen him in a while), but this doesn't happen.

That's not true. But if it were, it would no more prove that eyes are not a sense organ than the well known experiment with arachnid hearing proves that spiders hear through their legs.

Show

First, you train a spider to run away when a bell rings. This can be done by administering small electric shocks when the bell is rung; After a few rounds of this conditioning, the spider will run away at the sound of the bell, even though no shock is administered*.

Next, remove the spider's legs, being careful not to kill it**

Ring the bell, and the spider won't run away. Thus (indirectly) proving that spiders hear through their legs.

* You may need permission from the ethics committee for this phase of the trial.

** You almost certainly won't get permission from the ethics committee for this phase of the trial

I’ve heard this joke before but it always gives me a laugh.

 

[steve_bank]

Astronomy for Dummies, by Stephen P. Maran, is an accessible guide for beginners to the universe, covering topics from our solar system to distant galaxies, black holes, and the Big Bang. It includes star maps, charts, and photos, with updated editions featuring the latest research, exoplanet discoveries, and online resources like quizzes and apps for amateur astronomers. The book aims to make complex concepts easy to understand for anyone curious about the night sky, from backyard skywatchers to students.

Pg
search on how distance to sun us found, you will find video.

The distance to the Sun (about 93 million miles or 149.6 million km) is determined
using triangulation (parallax), by measuring the angle of the Sun from different spots on Earth, and through radar ranging of planets like Venus. Historically, observing the transit of Venus across the Sun allowed astronomers to calculate the distance using geometry.

Transit of Venus (Parallax Method): In the 18th century, astronomers in different parts of the world measured the time it took for Venus to cross the Sun. By knowing the distance between the observers, they calculated the parallax (apparent shift) of Venus, which was used to compute the Sun's distance.
Radar Ranging: Modern scientists use radar to bounce radio signals off Venus and other nearby planets. The time it takes for the signal to return, combined with the known speed of light, provides an extremely precise distance, notes this article on the Profmattstrassler site.
Triangulation (Historical): Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC) used the angle between the Moon, Sun, and Earth during half-moon phases to create a right triangle to estimate the distance.
Defining the Astronomical Unit (AU): Today, the average distance from Earth to the Sun is defined as one Astronomical Unit, which is officially set as exactly 149,597,870,700 meters.

Because Earth's orbit is an ellipse, the distance varies throughout the year, with the Sun being closest in January (perihelion) and farthest in July (aphelion).

Stellar parallax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Stellar parallax is the apparent shift of position (parallax) of any nearby star (or other object) against the background of distant stars. By extension, it is a method for determining the distance to the star through trigonometry, the stellar parallax method. Created by the different orbital positions of Earth, the extremely small observed shift is largest at time intervals of about six months, when Earth arrives at opposite sides of the Sun in its orbit, giving a baseline (the shortest side of the triangle made by a star to be observed and two positions of Earth) distance of about two astronomical units between observations. The parallax itself is considered to be half of this maximum, about equivalent to the observational shift that would occur due to the different positions of Earth and the Sun, a baseline of one astronomical unit (AU).

Parallax has a limit. Using parallax distance to nearby stars are fund and the luminosity is resumed. Then luminosity for stars out past parallax is fused to determine distance. There is moreo it butthat is it.


View attachment 53662

I'm not sure where stellar parallax proves him wrong.

Yes, stellar aberration can occur without calculating the speed of light but rather with the velocity of Earth's orbit. This phenomenon is a result of the Earth's motion around the Sun, which causes the apparent position of celestial objects to shift based on the observer's velocity relative to the star's motion. The angular displacement of a star due to this aberration is a function of the Earth's orbital velocity and the star's position in the sky.​

Wikipedia+5​

I hereby confer on you the forum PHD with honors in Network Search And Quotes

'A little knowledge is dangerous'

There are people on the forum knowledgeable in cosmology and relativity, I am not. You can srtart a science thread.

You keep trying to twist science to somehow show the book is as valid as sciences, it is not working.

 

[pood]

Your father may have had imagination, but he lacked the background in science.

He was a scientist of human behavior. He was an analytical thinker and a voracious reader of literature and philosophy. To say he couldn't have made such a discovery because he was not a scientist who did experiments is being shortsighted.

And this is you all over, deliberately misrepresenting what people say.

No one is saying he COULD NOT have made a scientific discovery, even an important one. However, especially in today’s highly specialized world, making an actual scientific discovery almost surely requires extensive scientific training.

What IS being said is NOT that he COULD NOT make a discovery, only that he DID NOT. And we know this precisely because we read what he wrote, which you claim we didn’t.

In 1905, Einstein formulated special relativity and the foundations of quantum mechanics.

He was a patent clerk — admittedly, one with high technical knowledge. But he was unknown and not part of a broader scientific community.

Nobody back then said he COULD NOT make these scientific discoveries, because he was a patent clerk. Instead, they CHECKED TO SEE IF HE WAS RIGHT.

He was.