Epistemological Considerations Underpinning Spacetime Geometry
In Fall 2007, I took a graduate philosophy class at UCLA (Philosophy 232), which was basically a class on cosmology, dressed up as philosophy of science.
Like the other five people in the seminar, I took an “incomplete” in the course, opting to submit my final paper (the only basis for grading in the class) sometime later, giving me a chance to really digest the material that was being presented up until the last day of class.
Quarter after quarter, I kept delaying: the professor was always easy-going, and had no problem accepting a late paper. And university policy allowed graduate students to submit a change-of-grade petition (i.e., from the “F” to which the incomplete had lapsed to a real grade) with no questions asked.
Naturally, I took extreme (and I hasten to add, inappropriate) advantage of the situation, and procrastinated until the last day I could possibly turn it in without having to stay an extra term: one month after I graduated in the semester system, at the close of Spring Quarter 2009. But hey–I finished. And surprisingly, I’m a little proud of my paper.
As you may know, fair reader, my attitude about finishing grad school has been just that: I only cared about finishing. Grades were the least of my concern, given the disdain with which I regard(ed) law. I did care more about this philosophy class–at least it tackled issues that piqued my interest (even if they weren’t properly part of philosophy). And there was still a decent amount of rational thinking that I could do about the issues. (Boy is it a grave, unjust understatement to say that the state of modern philosophy is a complete mess.) Moreover, if I ever decide to go to philosophy grad school (which I can now only imagine doing once the state of academic philosophy improves dramatically), it would be good to have a good grade.
Anyway–back to the paper: I agonized for some time in the back of my mind about some of the issues (the tangled mess) that we discussed in class and read in the course materials. And as I was preparing to actually bunker down and write the paper, I agonized overtly over issues of spacetime geometry, calling up friends and even Keith Lockitch (whose number one fan-boy I am) to bounce ideas off of. After about 8-10 hours of going through the issues over and over again, I finally made some breakthroughs talking to some pretty drunk people at Aaron Meyer’s graduation party–at 2am. (It’s not important that they were drunk–only that I was sober and kept running my mouth, helping me to make new identifications I didn’t before. Although, I suppose one could argue that to make sense of modern philosophy, one needs to impair one’s mind!)
Somehow, I managed to finish. Aside from some improvements in style and adding some more detail and/or clarification, I think it was a pretty decent paper. Miraculously, I was able to pick a “focus” that allowed me to say what I thought was true, and not just regurgitate what so-and-so thought about such-and-such. And that let me give a presentation of some of the basics of the Objectivist epistemology–something I’ve been itching to take a crack at again for some time.
So if you’re interested in questions of the precision of measurement or of the structure of spacetime geometry (e.g., is it Euclidean or not?), feel free to enjoy my paper, Epistemological Considerations Underpinning Spacetime Geometry.
2009-06-16 Addendum:
This morning, I heard back from my professor. I got an “A-” on the paper: “The paper was overly ambitious and, hence, there were quite a few places where it could have been better developed, etc.”
Translation: I didn’t recapitulate ITOE. But an “A-”? That’s the highest grade I’ve earned in 4 years, so I’m pretty happy about that.
