Then, a long time ago a man named Brown was watching paint chips dance
around under a microscope, and it occured to him that one way to
explain it would be water molecules bouncing off the paint chips in
random vectors. This explanation is of course just another example of
the human mind seeking to find patterns where none exist,




Wally wrote:
It could just as easily be an example of the human mind imposing a notion of
randomness where none exists.



Except that this is not the way the human mind seems to work. Other
mammals share the characteristic, too... as far as psych researchers can
determine... we all are struggling to bring order out of chaos!




... but it fits
nicely in with a number of other such explanations... none of these
explanations can be proven false and together they seem to explain &
predict (to a large extent) behavior... does that make it true?


Nope. Empirical generalisations yield no truths - unless you redefine
'truth' to fit (and are willing to deal with the notion of 'truer' truths
than the redefinition accounts for).


Sure. As you said earlier, it is only "true" to the extent that it has
been observed consistently for about 400 years. After all, just because
the sun rose in the east every morning for the last gazillion years,
does not prove that it will rise in the east tomorrow morning.



What would Aristotle say?


No idea.


Aristotlean physics was based on the very intuitive notion that heavy
things fall faster. Of course I'm not sure, but I suspect he would
consider it silly to propose that water might flow up hill and the sun
might rise in the west.

DSK