Things we take for granted
Patrick Reany
questions I ask seem strange only because I ask questions about those
things we take for granted in the foundation to physics. Haven't we
learned yet that asking such questions is a good thing to do? Well,
maybe some of us have not learned that lesson.
Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
use other variables for the description of physical events? In other
words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
Patrick
richard miller
> they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
'inexplicably'?
They are Newtonian-wise, independent of each other. At least locally, you
may stand a few metres away, but we can hold synchronised clocks, the clocks
don't tick at any special rate with respect to the distance apart. One of us
could stuff some food, our mass would also vary. The big thing is that they
are independent of each other. These variables are all asummed umltimately
independently of each other. If they are not, then there are constraint
equations involved. I stand a metre away from you, you are pouring a jug of
water, the water outpours at a constant rate, you are filling a beaker and
measuring time by its increasing 'fullness' (yeuch). I could move a metre
along, nowt changes. Your time is independent of my mass length, time,
posting ratio, heavy metal vinyl collection, ad nauseum. It's not strange,
its what we live with..
"Patrick Reany" <re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:844a1b64.04080...@posting.google.com...
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
> Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> use other variables for the description of physical events? In other
> words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
The variables we use have the outstanding virtue of being measurable.
That is a starting point. If it ain't meaurable or its value is not
readily inferable from what is measurable it ain't worth anything.
Bob Kolker
Uncle Al
>
> I have recently been accused of "asking strange questions."
You are stupid, ineducable, malicious, and mentally aberrant.
Nobody cares what you post beyond that you abusively post and are
despised for it.
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html
<http://www.firehead.org/~jessh/film/kubrick/Kubrick-Psycho.html>
<http://www.naturalchild.com/elliott_barker/prisons.html>
Die.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
Gerry Quinn
re...@asu.edu says...
>
> Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> use other variables for the description of physical events? In other
> words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
We can look at the issue from the point of view of dimensionless
analysis. Equations must match dimensionally (so we are talking about
the same things). This typically entails that their parameters be
configurable into integral or simple rational powers [we have never
observed any physical process entailing, for example, distance to the
power of pi]. And we can rule out the addition of parameters that
invoke inconsistent dimensions.
Distance + distance = distance. We cannot add distance to kilograms.
The dimensions we observe are those we record - if you can think of
another, feel free to post it here.
We can couch equations in any dimensionally consistent set of units.
Many units are commonly used, many more than would be a minimal set.
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
says...
[pronoun signs reversed]
> I am stupid, ineducable, malicious, and mentally aberrant.
> Nobody cares what I post beyond that I abusively post and am
> despised for it.
Often a sign change corrects an equation.
- Gerry Quinn
Daniel Weston
Patrick's original post has been repeated enough, I am not going to do
it again. He made his grand exit by asking his usual strange question.
as follows: (emphasis mine)
"In other words, are the variables we now use either TRUE of the world
OR are they inexplicable indispensable for doing physics correctly?"
Huh????
By TRUE Patrick means absolutely TRUE.
Absolute TRUTH is not the concern of science and that makes his question
strange, unscientific, and grossly out of place on this ng. It is a
turd in the punch bowl, speaking alagorically.
Instead of TRUE, Patrick should have used a scientific word such as
accurate. The question would then read:
In other words, are the variables we now use either accurate or are they
inexplicable indispensable for doing
physics correctly? Huh???
The answer is that the issue is not an "OR". Both are part of science.
A strange man has asked a strange question in a strange sentence
evidencing strange science and using strange syntax.
(5 turds in the punch bowl)
p.s. Patrick please do not answer me as it will simply be wasting
everybody's time.
(unless you can make it entertaining)
Androcles
| questions I ask seem strange only because I ask questions about those
| things we take for granted in the foundation to physics.
Yep. That's what makes 'em strange. If Rene Descartes said "I think,
therefore I am", Patrick would ask what he meant by 'I', 'think' and 'am'.
The rest of us take the definition of individual words for granted but find
the sentence carries some real meaning. Shame on us.
| Haven't we
| learned yet that asking such questions is a good thing to do?
Some of us might ask "What am I?". Patrick will ask us what do we mean by
"what"?
Yes, we have learned to ask questions about Nature and our ideas concerning
Nature, and it is a 'good' thing to do. We have also learned not to ask
questions in the form "What do you mean by 'causality'?", the meaning of the
word is understood. Patrick wants definitions of words instead of the
meaning of sentences. That is what is strange abut his questions.
| Well,
| maybe some of us have not learned that lesson.
And of course it is remarks like that which prompt replies in the form
"idiot", because (note the use of the word "because", it implies cause) he
is accusing others of not being as wise as he thinks he is.
Well, maybe Patrick really is an idiot.
|
| Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
| variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
| use other variables for the description of physical events?
Why does Reany still beat his mother rather than give her a big hug?
There is no cause, they are there, we use them. It's about communication of
ideas. If Patrick wants to know why, he should use his other variables,
nobody is preventing him from doing so. Then when (or if) he finds he is
unable to communicate his ideas he may realize why. Or maybe he'll decide he
is the only individual on the planet that understands physics. Or maybe
he'll discover that there is nobody called physics, there are only
physicists communicating. "Why does physics" indeed. First establish that
'physics' does as he claims.
| In other
| words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
| they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
What do you mean, Patrick, 'do' physics? Nature IS. You can't DO Nature, you
can only study it. Engineers do all the doing, and are not interested in
your 'charm' or 'beauty' quarks until you tell them what to 'do' with them.
If you concerend yourself a little more with ideas instead of definitions
you might get somewhere.
Write a computer program. Put your definitions at the beginning and then
ideas into the code. There is no need to continually return to the
definitions.
Androcles
| Patrick
Dirk Van de moortel
> questions I ask seem strange only because I ask questions about those
> things we take for granted in the foundation to physics. Haven't we
> learned yet that asking such questions is a good thing to do? Well,
> maybe some of us have not learned that lesson.
>
> Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> use other variables for the description of physical events?
When you want to build a bridge, you will have to
plan ahead. You will need to know how broad the
river is (length), when it will be finished (time), how
much wood you will need (mass), and how much
the laborers will cost (charge) ;-)
> In other
> words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
True of the world indeed.
Dirk Vdm
Ian Stirling
There are any number of ways you could express current variables.
Length could be expressed in terms of the time light would take to
travel that distance in free space, ....
However, once you look at all the units, it turns out that though the
various variables can be expressed in different ways, they can all
be converted by simple rearrangement to a few basic properties of space/
matter.
In short, you are free to pick whatever way you want to express these
variables (in various fields, it can be handy to express variables in odd
ways to save conversions), but it all can be converted to the standard
forms.
Much like you can express 2/3 as 6/9, or (2+8)/(7.5*2), but they are
all fundamentally the same number.
Patrick Reany
Yes, they are virtuous by being measurable, and that's part of their
mystery. We claim to get length from observing nature, but we get no
"natural" unit of length. (Remember that modern science started 400
years ago, though no matter what unit of length one might claim as
"natural," I will claim as arbitrary. It is irrational to talk of
distance wihtout a unit of distance, right? So, what is Nature's unit
of distance.) For a couple hundred years we thought we knew what the
unit of charge was and then came the quark. We keep thinking we know
Truth and we keep getting slapped in the face.
But are the variables we use True of Nature or reality? If so, what is
the proof of this? Are our variables True of Nature or just convenient
for a human purpose. Do Nature's laws employ them too? If there are
laws of Nature (i.e., they exist), where do they exist?
If our variables are True of reality, what explains our great fortune
to be able to have recognized, have been privy to them in the first
place, these True variables? Was it part of God's design, or just the
random "luck" of our evolution?
Einstein put it this way about taking reference frames for granted:
What has nature to do with our coordinate systems and their
state of motion? If it is necessary for the purpose of
describing nature, to make use of a coordinate system
arbitrarily introduced by us, then the choice of its state
of motion ought to be subject to no restriction; the laws
ought to be entirely independent of this choice (general
principle of relativity). (First printed in 1919. Appeared
in Albert Einstein's General Relativity, Crown Publication,
New York, 1979, p63.)
If the successful description of phenomena is not tied to
anthropomorphic frames of references, why should it be tied to
anthropomorphic variables of any kind? Is there a relativism of
allowables variables for doing physics? If not, why not?
Patrick
ueb
> I have recently been accused of "asking strange questions." The
> questions I ask seem strange only because I ask questions about those
> things we take for granted in the foundation to physics. Haven't we
> learned yet that asking such questions is a good thing to do? Well,
> maybe some of us have not learned that lesson.
I can only encourage you to ask "strange" questions, and would
ask you to appreciate "strange" answers.
> Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> use other variables for the description of physical events?
Do "physical events" not mean the combination of these variables ?
What variables would you propose ?
> In other
> words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
Could you express yourself rather natural scientifically than
philosophically ?
Ulrich
Androcles
| "Robert J. Kolker" <robert...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<DldQc.205459$a24.68727@attbi_s03>...
| > Patrick Reany wrote:
| >
| > > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
| > > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
| > > use other variables for the description of physical events? In other
| > > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
| > > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
| >
| >
| > The variables we use have the outstanding virtue of being measurable.
| > That is a starting point. If it ain't meaurable or its value is not
| > readily inferable from what is measurable it ain't worth anything.
| >
| > Bob Kolker
|
| Yes, they are virtuous by being measurable, and that's part of their
| mystery. We claim to get length from observing nature, but we get no
| "natural" unit of length.
What ARE you babbling about? What scientist ever thought there was a natural
unit of length? Good grief! Mathematicians routinely use radians simply
because that is the ONLY natural unit of angle, and shun the degree because
it is arbitrary.
| (Remember that modern science started 400
| years ago, though no matter what unit of length one might claim as
| "natural," I will claim as arbitrary.
Well done, you may at last be catching up to the rest of the world. OF
COURSE the units of length are abitrary. As to that big bold "*I* will
claim",
do you imagine it was it dispute? Jeez... *I* will claim the oceans are made
predominantly of water. and I don't have to remember the origins of modern
science to do so either.
| It is irrational to talk of
| distance wihtout a unit of distance, right?
Utter bullshit. Of course we can discuss distance without units, and
rationally too. What ARE you smoking?
I can say the sun is 400 times further from us than the moon, it is rational
and I haven't mentioned miles, kilometers, donkey dicks or the mean
intelligence of a moron. It may not be accurate, but that's beside the
point.
So, what is Nature's unit
| of distance.)
There ISN'T one.
For a couple hundred years we thought we knew what the
| unit of charge was and then came the quark. We keep thinking we know
| Truth and we keep getting slapped in the face.
Oh crap. Only you get a slap in the face for thinking there should be a unit
of distance. You are pathetic! What is one horsepower? Bloody obviously the
amount of power a horse can develop, except a horse can develop 10
horsepower. It can't keep it up all day, though. Of course it is arbitrary,
and inaccurate as well. But that won't stop anyone buying a 1 horsepower
electric motor and measuring to see if they got their money's worth.
Why did I choose the horsepower as an example, Patrick?
Answer - MASS, LENGTH, TIME. These are the DIMENSIONS of Nature. They are
NOT the units.
|
| But are the variables we use True of Nature or reality?
Yes, they are.
| If so, what is the proof of this?
They are arbitrary and hence defined. One does not prove a definition.
Are our variables True of Nature or just convenient
| for a human purpose.
Just convenient for human purpose. We all KNOW that. This is the perfect
example of why your questions are strange. I realize now that you are simply
scientifically illiterate.
Do Nature's laws employ them too?
No. Look up Newton's or Kepler's laws and show me where either mentioned a
unit.
".... an equal and opposite reaction."
"... equal areas in equal times"
If there are
| laws of Nature (i.e., they exist), where do they exist?
They are written down in huge tome that god keeps on the back shelf in his
library, and every time a human being wants to look one up a frigging angel
wants to see his library card, and they are only issued by Peter at the
pearly gates so we can't get one yet. Accordingly we decided to investigate
for ourselves and try to work out what they were (it's more fun that way),
and we told Gabriel to get stuffed. We've been telling god's emissaries to
get stuffed since Copernicus, since whole bunch wants Nature to be a mystery
to which only they have the answers.
|
| If our variables are True of reality,
Well, they are not. Variables are arbitrary, so your point is moot.
| what explains our great fortune
| to be able to have recognized, have been privy to them in the first
| place, these True variables?
They don't exist. Are you sure you are not a priest, come to give us a bum
steer because someone's taken the great tome out without a library card?
Was it part of God's design, or just the
| random "luck" of our evolution?
As I said, you ask the strangest questions. You assume something only you
accept as 'True' and then proceed to ask questions about it. Yep, you really
are scientifically illiterate.
How many toenails does a fish have, Patrick?
Androcles.
Dirk Van de moortel
"Androcles" <andr...@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:HcyQc.505$n86.5...@news-text.cableinet.net...
[snip]
> I can say the sun is 400 times further from us than the moon, it is rational
> and I haven't mentioned miles, kilometers, donkey dicks or the mean
> intelligence of a moron. It may not be accurate, but that's beside the
> point.
The mean intelligence of the moron:
http://www.google.com/search?q=androcles+site%3Ausers.pandora.be
It is very accurate and very to the point indeed.
Dirk Vdm
Robert J. Kolker
Androcles wrote:
> What ARE you babbling about? What scientist ever thought there was a natural
> unit of length? Good grief! Mathematicians routinely use radians simply
> because that is the ONLY natural unit of angle, and shun the degree because
> it is arbitrary.
Why is the attribute length, regardless of what units are used, of
physical significance? The question is not about units, which are
arbitrary, but about attributes.
Bob Kolker
Henri Wilson
Please define 'attributes'.
Henri Wilson.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm
See proof that light speed is source dependent.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/variablestars.exe
Bilge
Physics originally used those things because they were obviously
something which could be measured. We use them today, mainly because we
have to translate the theories into quantities that we can measure, which
generally means decay rates and scattering cross sections. It would be a
lot more convenient to _not_ have to do that. It would be a lot simpler to
have a meter that measures the weak coupling constant than try to extract
and express it in terms of the decay rates of a handful of nuclei for
which a tractable calculation is possible. Making the lagrangian invariant
under some symmetry means eliminating those variables from the lagrangian,
since a symmetry means something is unmeasureable. For example, rotational
symmetry means the lagrangian doesn't depend upon some angle. The only
physically meaningfull numbers are dimensionless. You might be able to
make a case for planck units, since that defines a scale. In general
relativity, length is used because general relativity is geometry, which
makes length sort of the natural choice. In nuclear physics, one talks
about nuclei mostly in terms related to the level structure. 12C for
example is a 0^+, N=Z nucleus. That means a lot more than talking about
how big it is. We now formulate theories in terms of whatever happens to
look like a common feature.
Bilge
>distance wihtout a unit of distance, right? So, what is Nature's unit
>of distance.)
Well, you could make a case for plank units, but since the natural
thing to do is set hbar = c = G = 1, that gives you a length which
is dimensionless.
>For a couple hundred years we thought we knew what the unit of charge
>was and then came the quark. We keep thinking we know Truth and we
>keep getting slapped in the face.
Unfortunately, because people invented units like coulombs, it's hard
undo that sort of thinking. The electric charge is given by the square
root of the fine structure constant. It makes no real difference if
you multiply everything by 3 in order to eliminate the 1/3's and
2/3's in the quark sector, but since everyone is familiar with those
numbers there's not much incentive to change it.
>But are the variables we use True of Nature or reality?
They obviously represent reality in this era of the universe. The
theories today are addressing the physics before the fisrt 10^-14 sec
or so when the universe was a lot different, e.g., there were no
massive particles.
[...]
>If the successful description of phenomena is not tied to
>anthropomorphic frames of references, why should it be tied to
>anthropomorphic variables of any kind? Is there a relativism of
>allowables variables for doing physics? If not, why not?
I submit that there exists no ``anthropomorphic view'' possible in
a theory concerned with the physics at times like 1 femtosecond following
the big bang and going back further, like 10^-50 sec, one has to
consider the possibility of a theory in which time and space don't
mean anything, which I think pretty much rules out a lot anthrop-
omorphizing, even if one is really tempted to try.
Bilge
>Patrick's original post has been repeated enough, I am not going to do
>it again. He made his grand exit by asking his usual strange question.
>as follows: (emphasis mine)
the answers.
Patrick Reany
> Patrick Reany wrote:
> > I have recently been accused of "asking strange questions." The
> > questions I ask seem strange only because I ask questions about those
> > things we take for granted in the foundation to physics. Haven't we
> > learned yet that asking such questions is a good thing to do? Well,
> > maybe some of us have not learned that lesson.
>
> I can only encourage you to ask "strange" questions, and would
> ask you to appreciate "strange" answers.
>
> > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> > use other variables for the description of physical events?
>
> Do "physical events" not mean the combination of these variables ?
> What variables would you propose ?
First, I'm using the term "physical events" in the sense of physical
values at spacetime points. These events include field values and
boolean variables such as "electron-here," "quark-here,"
"photon-here," "mass continuum-here," etc. Obviously I'm referring to
"physical" attributes in the purely theoretical sense, as the boolean
variables are indicating the "theoretical objects" freely created by
humans to make theories that work.
I propose no specific alternatives to those we use. I simply see no
compelling reason to believe that the variables we use are either True
of Nature or unique to human possibility. The fact that I can't think
of alternatives is not in itself proof that they don't "exist" in
theory land or in deep reality.
One obvious possible indication to the ability to find "new" variables
is through canonical transformations on variables in Hamiltonian
theory. The pont I want to make here is that just because one could
generate a new set of variables by a canonical transformation doesn't
mean that the new set is "natural" for human use. But I'm not
restricting consideration to algorithmically generated new variables.
>
> > In other
> > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
>
> Could you express yourself rather natural scientifically than
> philosophically ?
>
> Ulrich
I can't. The issue here is philosophic not scientific. The question
is, Why consider these "strange questions" in the first place? It's to
determine the outer limits of possible human knowledge by knowing what
possible boundary conditions exist on human theories. Just how free
are we in the creation of human theories.
Those who follow Truth have a very small set of possible models they
allow themselves to invent and use in the pursuit of Truth. Those that
pursue theories that work have a much, much larger set of models they
allow themselves to invent. Which belief system is more likely to
succeed in the end?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> news:844a1b64.0408...@posting.google.com...
> | "Robert J. Kolker" <robert...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<DldQc.205459$a24.68727@attbi_s03>...
> | > Patrick Reany wrote:
> | >
> | > > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> | > > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> | > > use other variables for the description of physical events? In other
> | > > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> | > > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
> | >
> | >
> | > The variables we use have the outstanding virtue of being measurable.
> | > That is a starting point. If it ain't meaurable or its value is not
> | > readily inferable from what is measurable it ain't worth anything.
> | >
> | > Bob Kolker
> |
> | Yes, they are virtuous by being measurable, and that's part of their
> | mystery. We claim to get length from observing nature, but we get no
> | "natural" unit of length.
>
> What ARE you babbling about? What scientist ever thought there was a natural
> unit of length? Good grief! Mathematicians routinely use radians simply
> because that is the ONLY natural unit of angle, and shun the degree because
> it is arbitrary.
I am babbling about what realists force me to babble about:
challenging them to prove their idiotic notions that humans can
rationally know deep reality by scientific means.
I'm specifically challenging the hypothesis that length or distance is
TRUE in Nature (i.e., Nature uses this variable). If length or
distance is TRUE in Nature then Nature must also be using a natural
unit of distance, because it is meaningless to have distance without a
unit of distance. If physicists could suggest a possible "natural"
unit of length or distance then that would at least be a starting
point for supporting the hypothesis. In other words, the hypothesis
has to be rationally supported to be a "rational" hypothesis.
[snip]
>
> | It is irrational to talk of
> | distance wihtout a unit of distance, right?
>
> Utter bullshit. Of course we can discuss distance without units, and
> rationally too. What ARE you smoking?
> I can say the sun is 400 times further from us than the moon, it is rational
> and I haven't mentioned miles, kilometers, donkey dicks or the mean
> intelligence of a moron. It may not be accurate, but that's beside the
> point.
Yes, you are right about your example being rational, since you
implicitly defined a unit of distance, namely the earth-moon distance,
which we'll label as \tau. So we now have a new system of units for
distance: miles, kilometers, \tau's, AU's, etc.
Realists maintain that the laws of physics (those anthropomorphic laws
of human invention) somehow correspond to True laws of Nature. Now,
since the laws of physics use distance and time variables, using
realist thinking this implies that Nature must use distance and time
variables, and have Natural units for both metrical variables. What
are these Natural units? Without units for metrical variables there
are no metrical variables. Without metrical variables there are no
metrical laws.
>
>
> So, what is Nature's unit
> | of distance.)
>
> There ISN'T one.
How do you know?
>
>
>
> For a couple hundred years we thought we knew what the
> | unit of charge was and then came the quark. We keep thinking we know
> | Truth and we keep getting slapped in the face.
>
> Oh crap. Only you get a slap in the face for thinking there should be a unit
> of distance. You are pathetic! What is one horsepower? Bloody obviously the
> amount of power a horse can develop, except a horse can develop 10
> horsepower. It can't keep it up all day, though. Of course it is arbitrary,
> and inaccurate as well. But that won't stop anyone buying a 1 horsepower
> electric motor and measuring to see if they got their money's worth.
Now who's babbling?
>
> Why did I choose the horsepower as an example, Patrick?
> Answer - MASS, LENGTH, TIME. These are the DIMENSIONS of Nature. They are
> NOT the units.
> |
> | But are the variables we use True of Nature or reality?
>
> Yes, they are.
By what reasoning do you arrive at this conclusion?
>
> | If so, what is the proof of this?
>
> They are arbitrary and hence defined. One does not prove a definition.
Does Nature define the unit of distance it uses?
>
>
>
> Are our variables True of Nature or just convenient
> | for a human purpose.
>
> Just convenient for human purpose. We all KNOW that. This is the perfect
> example of why your questions are strange. I realize now that you are simply
> scientifically illiterate.
>
>
> Do Nature's laws employ them too?
>
> No. Look up Newton's or Kepler's laws and show me where either mentioned a
> unit.
> ".... an equal and opposite reaction."
> "... equal areas in equal times"
>
Those phrases have no operational meaning without a complete system of
kinematics. In particular, neither Nature nor ourselves can get by to
make practical use of the second phrase by a mere congruence notion of
area.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> Patrick's original post has been repeated enough, I am not going to do
> it again. He made his grand exit by asking his usual strange question.
> as follows: (emphasis mine)
>
> "In other words, are the variables we now use either TRUE of the world
> OR are they inexplicable indispensable for doing physics correctly?"
> Huh????
>
> By TRUE Patrick means absolutely TRUE.
> Absolute TRUTH is not the concern of science and that makes his question
> strange, unscientific, and grossly out of place on this ng. It is a
> turd in the punch bowl, speaking alagorically.
>
> Instead of TRUE, Patrick should have used a scientific word such as
> accurate. The question would then read:
And this great advice from someone who says he's studied philosophy.
The question IS of concern in science because in science there are a
lot of scientific realists --- people who maintain that successful
scientific theories say something True of deep reality. I challenge
that dogma as irrational. Not wrong, just irrational, i.e., not
provable. I also challenge it as impractical as it is unnecessarily
restrictive on free invention.
One's philosophy of science can greatly restrict one's personal
allowances for the invention of physical model and theories, thus
affecting the future of science. Yes, it is an issue of interest to
science, if science cares about its future evolution.
Patrick
Robert J. Kolker
Henri Wilson wrote:
>
> Please define 'attributes'.
Discernable properties of things. Predicate. Generally represented in
European languages as adjectives or adjectival phrases. Length is a
property of extended bodies. We talk of tall things, short things, wide
things, narrow things, long things etc. We use measuring sticks to
quantifiy the adjective.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
Patrick Reany wrote:
>
> And this great advice from someone who says he's studied philosophy.
> The question IS of concern in science because in science there are a
> lot of scientific realists --- people who maintain that successful
> scientific theories say something True of deep reality. I challenge
> that dogma as irrational. Not wrong, just irrational, i.e., not
> provable.
The notion that reality exists independent of us or our wills and wants
is equally unprovable, but we all assume it is the case, except for the
solopsists who and a very strange bunch. They are not joiners.
Bob Kolker
Daniel Weston
reality is not a scientific concept. Deep reality in Patrick's hands is
like "absolute truth". It is not an issue in a science ng unless
someone volunteers it like Reany. Then it is our duty to show it up as
non science and moonbeam stuff. His ongoing juxtapositioning of deep
reality with superficial reality, is to introduce a false dichotomy.
Patrick is chasing moonbeams.
Androcles
Then you are challenging your own hypothesis. Why do it here?
| If length or
| distance is TRUE in Nature then Nature must also be using a natural
| unit of distance, because it is meaningless to have distance without a
| unit of distance.
Sentences beginning with "If" are neither statements nor questions. They are
arguments to a premise that I for one have not made.
Did you have a statement to make or a question to ask?
| If physicists could suggest a possible "natural"
| unit of length or distance then that would at least be a starting
| point for supporting the hypothesis.
Sentences beginning with "If" are neither statements nor questions. They are
arguments to a premise that I for one have not made.
Did you have a statement to make or a question to ask?
| In other words, the hypothesis
| has to be rationally supported to be a "rational" hypothesis.
Ah... a statement.
Why should anyone want to support your irrational hypothesis?
|
| [snip]
| >
| > | It is irrational to talk of
| > | distance wihtout a unit of distance, right?
| >
| > Utter bullshit. Of course we can discuss distance without units, and
| > rationally too. What ARE you smoking?
| > I can say the sun is 400 times further from us than the moon, it is
rational
| > and I haven't mentioned miles, kilometers, donkey dicks or the mean
| > intelligence of a moron. It may not be accurate, but that's beside the
| > point.
|
| Yes, you are right about your example being rational, since you
| implicitly defined a unit of distance, namely the earth-moon distance,
| which we'll label as \tau.
Does that unit of distance exist in Nature? Is it real? Does your symbol
for it, \tau, exist in Nature? Can I use \mu as the unit of distance to the
sun, or am I compelled to say the distance to the sun is 400\tau?
| So we now have a new system of units for
| distance: miles, kilometers, \tau's, AU's, etc.
So? Who cares? We communicate using symbols and ideas, we are not limited to
just one system.
|
| Realists maintain that the laws of physics (those anthropomorphic laws
| of human invention) somehow correspond to True laws of Nature.
False.
| Now,
| since the laws of physics use distance and time variables, using
| realist thinking this implies that Nature must use distance and time
| variables, and have Natural units for both metrical variables. What
| are these Natural units? Without units for metrical variables there
| are no metrical variables. Without metrical variables there are no
| metrical laws.
Your statement was false. Your argument is about a false statement, and is
preceded by an "If" in the form "Now, since..", as is quite clear by the
term 'implies' used later.
| >
| >
| > So, what is Nature's unit
| > | of distance.)
| >
| > There ISN'T one.
|
| How do you know?
I know because units of distance are arbitrarily chosen be me, for the
purpose of discussion, and I am rational and you are not. Your choice of the
Earth moon distance was arbitrarily chosen by you as \tau. That's fine, but
you then said "we'll label as \tau", which is quite incorrect. YOU labelled
it as \tau, not I.
I label the Earth - moon distance as \mu/400.
Now, do you want to discuss physics, relativity or symbology, because your
off-the-wall strange questions are boring me to tears?
If symbology, take it elsewhere, else if physics, start doing it.
[remainder snipped unread]
Androcles
ueb
> ueb wrote in message news:<u74uec...@Muse2.private.de>...
>> Patrick Reany wrote:
[snip]
>> > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
>> > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
>> > use other variables for the description of physical events?
>>
>> Do "physical events" not mean the combination of these variables ?
>> What variables would you propose ?
> First, I'm using the term "physical events" in the sense of physical
> values at spacetime points.
Clear.
> These events include field values and
> boolean variables such as "electron-here," "quark-here,"
> "photon-here," "mass continuum-here," etc. Obviously I'm referring to
> "physical" attributes in the purely theoretical sense, as the boolean
> variables are indicating the "theoretical objects" freely created by
> humans to make theories that work.
Your famous slogan. :):):)
I'd agree that you can add such Boolean variables to the "events".
What were the use ? Are you aware of the very different meaning
of the examples called by you ? Thus, *free* electrons and photons
really exist during quarks and the mass continuum do not and are
indeed nothing else than having been freely created by humans.
> I propose no specific alternatives to those we use. I simply see no
> compelling reason to believe that the variables we use are either True
> of Nature or unique to human possibility. The fact that I can't think
> of alternatives is not in itself proof that they don't "exist" in
> theory land or in deep reality.
The variables are indeed not unique to human possibility. But there
are indeed variables which are "True of Nature", and fundamentally
distinguish from the rest. All of them are in the Einstein-Maxwell
equations.
> One obvious possible indication to the ability to find "new" variables
> is through canonical transformations on variables in Hamiltonian
> theory. The pont I want to make here is that just because one could
> generate a new set of variables by a canonical transformation doesn't
> mean that the new set is "natural" for human use. But I'm not
> restricting consideration to algorithmically generated new variables.
Ok. There are lots of transformations, and just engineers use them.
Mostly, a new (virtual) space is introduced, for example, functions of
time are transformed to functions of frequency.
>>
>> > In other
>> > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
>> > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
>>
>> Could you express yourself rather natural scientifically than
>> philosophically ?
> I can't. The issue here is philosophic not scientific. The question
> is, Why consider these "strange questions" in the first place? It's to
> determine the outer limits of possible human knowledge by knowing what
> possible boundary conditions exist on human theories. Just how free
> are we in the creation of human theories.
We are free as we like. The question is what has it to do with
nature.
> Those who follow Truth have a very small set of possible models they
> allow themselves to invent and use in the pursuit of Truth.
Yes, indeed.
> Those that
> pursue theories that work have a much, much larger set of models they
> allow themselves to invent.
Indeed. Humble question: How do you notice whether and how such
theory really works ?
> Which belief system is more likely to
> succeed in the end?
The second "belief system" can present lots of fictitious successes.
For that reason, a (rather seldom) success in the first is also
a real success, and unlikely more worth.
(Do you understand why people do not like to hear of the simulations
according to the Einstein-Maxwell equations ?)
Ulrich
Y. T.
from the universe that is in fact contained in it. The concern of
science is exactly everything that is in fact true. If there happens
to be "Absolute TRUTH" and if it is in fact accessible to the
scientific method then it is very much a concern of science. If there
happens to be a god, or paranormal abilities or extraterrestrial
beings, then these are very much a "concern of science".
Thus...
dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message news:<410-411...@storefull-3138.bay.webtv.net>...
> [...] Absolute TRUTH is not the concern of science [...]
Every sentence of the form "{x} is not the concern of science" is
equivalent to the statement "{x} is not actually an aspect of the
universe", i.e. it constitutes a claim for which the burden of proof
rests on the claimant.
Daniel Weston
never prove that the fact we think we have found is absolutly true.
Absolute truth is defined as a statement that has been true for all time
(forwards and backwards) and in every nook and cranny of the universe.
Absolute truth can only come from a revelation from god, therefore
absolute truth is a matter of theology, not science. The strongest
statement of fact that can be made in science, is that it is agreed to
by all reasonable men. This also fails form time to time. e.g. "the
earth is flat." If you want absolute truth, go to church. (the right
one of course)
Robert J. Kolker
Daniel Weston wrote:
The only propositions we know that fit this are tautologies. They are
absolutely and positively true forever and everywhere. Unfortunately
they tell us nothing about the world. Humans have never run into a
synthetic a prior statement that is absolutely true. That is why we
cannot deduce the universe a priori.
Bob Kolker
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Patrick Reany
> Patrick Reany wrote:
> > ueb wrote in message news:<u74uec...@Muse2.private.de>...
> >> Patrick Reany wrote:
> [snip]
> >> > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> >> > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather than
> >> > use other variables for the description of physical events?
> >>
> >> Do "physical events" not mean the combination of these variables ?
> >> What variables would you propose ?
>
> > First, I'm using the term "physical events" in the sense of physical
> > values at spacetime points.
>
> Clear.
>
> > These events include field values and
> > boolean variables such as "electron-here," "quark-here,"
> > "photon-here," "mass continuum-here," etc. Obviously I'm referring to
> > "physical" attributes in the purely theoretical sense, as the boolean
> > variables are indicating the "theoretical objects" freely created by
> > humans to make theories that work.
>
> Your famous slogan. :):):)
I may have made it famous here, but the phrase has appeared elsewhere.
Maybe it's original with me but I doubt that. The sentiment of my
epigram is central to the instrumentalist position of pragmatism and
free invention. It is, of course, very simplistic and some people like
to mischaracterize my philosophy as simplistic. But one needs
something as a sound bite.
The central issue that instrumentalism has against the realist view is
their claim that the purpose of science is to find out deep reality.
Now, I have views of deep reality (in my own natural philosophy) and I
don't care that other people have their own beliefs about deep
reality. I just insist that science is NOT the right tool to prove
what deep reality is all about. I have a principle which few people
have, and I don't break it. The principle is that whatever we should
define science to be, it should be about what it can PROVE it can
accomplish. Science CAN prove that it has theories that work. It can't
prove that even a single one of them is True. In fact, as I have
argued may times, it is meaningless to say that any explanation of
natural events is true. A theory is an explanation in the form of a
deductive system. As far as I'm concerned there is NOTHING in the
natural world which is a deductive system. So, it is meaningless to me
to say that an explanation or deductive system is true of Nature. The
universe does not need and did not ask for human-invented
explanations.
I think there may be a misconception that instrumentalism is nothing
more than an apolgetic for modern physics. As far as I'm concerned,
science was never able to justify realism and shame on it for ever
thinking it could. Does the earth really orbit the sun, or is it the
other way around? The instrumentalist answer is, "Who cares? Choose
the simplest theory and be done with the worrying about the Truth of
it."
------------------------------------
The instrumentalist viewpoint is argued at:
http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=276
A question that comes up often is whether or not science aims at true
(or truthlike) theories. Alternatives include the idea that all
science requires are theories that "work", whether that means
providing accurate predictions or something similar, or are
"successful", which is again open to interpretation. Some people
appear to argue that since no theory can ever be absolutely certain,
it follows that science isn't really trying to find the truth but
instead what works or theories that are successful: we shouldn't worry
about truth and can instead get on with the business of science that
works.
-------------------------------------
The science we learn in school is the set of theories that work best.
They
could be correct, or incorrect. They are the best we have. Some very
basic
theories agree with more advanced theories. The basic ones can be
called
the reasons for the others. Still, the reality is the reason for the
science: the science is just a possible description of how reality
works.
Science cannot tell us why reality happens to be as it is.
Dr. Ken Mellendorf
Illinois Central College
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00316.htm
-------------------------------------
Except that Mellendorf did not define "reality" for us. Apparently he
is just as cavalier and as blind to the deepness of this concept as
most posters here are. Science can't tell us HOW reality really works
either. It can, however, invent theoretical decriptions that tells us
what to expect of the behavior of "reality."
> I'd agree that you can add such Boolean variables to the "events".
> What were the use ? Are you aware of the very different meaning
> of the examples called by you ? Thus, *free* electrons and photons
> really exist during quarks and the mass continuum do not and are
> indeed nothing else than having been freely created by humans.
I don't give a damn what really exists for purposes of doing science.
I care only about those concepts which really are instrumental for the
invention of theories that work.
I care what really only within my personal natural philosophy.
>
> > I propose no specific alternatives to those we use. I simply see no
> > compelling reason to believe that the variables we use are either True
> > of Nature or unique to human possibility. The fact that I can't think
> > of alternatives is not in itself proof that they don't "exist" in
> > theory land or in deep reality.
>
> The variables are indeed not unique to human possibility. But there
> are indeed variables which are "True of Nature", and fundamentally
> distinguish from the rest. All of them are in the Einstein-Maxwell
> equations.
Did you know that Einstein was unsatified with the linear Maxwell
equations?
>
> > One obvious possible indication to the ability to find "new" variables
> > is through canonical transformations on variables in Hamiltonian
> > theory. The point I want to make here is that just because one could
> > generate a new set of variables by a canonical transformation doesn't
> > mean that the new set is "natural" for human use. But I'm not
> > restricting consideration to algorithmically generated new variables.
>
> Ok. There are lots of transformations, and just engineers use them.
> Mostly, a new (virtual) space is introduced, for example, functions of
> time are transformed to functions of frequency.
>
> >>
> >> > In other
> >> > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or are
> >> > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
> >>
> >> Could you express yourself rather natural scientifically than
> >> philosophically ?
>
> > I can't. The issue here is philosophic not scientific. The question
> > is, Why consider these "strange questions" in the first place? It's to
> > determine the outer limits of possible human knowledge by knowing what
> > possible boundary conditions exist on human theories. Just how free
> > are we in the creation of human theories.
>
> We are free as we like. The question is what has it to do with
> nature.
There are two very different answers to that question, depending on
whether you're a realist or an instrumentalist. The instrumentalist
insists that the only correct objective (well, really intersubjective)
test of a theory against nature is the limited realm of human
observation and instrument readings. The realist, however, insists
that some intuition about what is True of deep reality MUST be added
onto that. Instrumentalists don't give so much trust in intuitions,
not the least because they aren't universally held by people.
Intuitions are subject to dogmatism, whim, and fashion, none of which
give me any confidence as producers of Truth.
>
> > Those who follow Truth have a very small set of possible models they
> > allow themselves to invent and use in the pursuit of Truth.
>
> Yes, indeed.
What would happen if these followers of Truth do go astray from he
path of Truth and don't realize it? If the path itself has been
sanctified, it'll be a long time before the error is fixed. The real
error is to sanctify the path in the first place.
>
> > Those that
> > pursue theories that work have a much, much larger set of models they
> > allow themselves to invent.
>
> Indeed. Humble question: How do you notice whether and how such
> theory really works ?
The degree of match between a theory's predictions and its
experimental tests.
>
> > Which belief system is more likely to
> > succeed in the end?
>
> The second "belief system" can present lots of fictitious successes.
1) How do you know when a success is fictitious?
2) Why does it matter if a success is fictitious?
Why do you argue with success?
Patrick
Daniel Weston
This turns out to be a helpful statement, but very shallow.
THE BIG QUESTION THAT HAS NOT BEEN ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED IS ---FOR WHAT
PURPOSE DO WE WANT THEORIES THAT WORK??
Imagine if you will Shangrala where most of the population spend their
time performing experiments. Everybody gets a huge kick and a rush,
every time they perform an experiment. They are especially happy when
the experiment turned out exactly as some theory predicted. And they
keep doing this ad infinitum. Nobody is interested in working out
better statements about reality, just performing theories that work
(i.e. come out as predicted) There is no law against performing the
same experiment more than once, so many people keep performing the same
experiment because they are assured that the experiment will turn out as
predicted. In Shangrala doing experiments that came out as predicted,
is an end in itself. What a sad state of affairs.
Reany's "inventing theories that work" is superficial in that it does
not address for what purpose we do that. I will tell you several
reasons. The first is that, however hard the task, we as humans want to
understand reality on a deeper level. It is hard wired into our brain.
Call it intuition if you wish. I call it a primordial urge. For
example: The amount of money spent on astronomy through out the world is
astronomical. (no pun) No one thinks that a better toilet will be made
from studying massive black holes, or better cars will come from more
exactly measuring the size of the universe, etc. Occasionally we do get
a fall out practical benefit, but the motivation is not practical but
primordial. This is often referred to as our spiritual side.
This quest for "reality" more deeply understood, can be, and has, been
taken to extreme. Theories proposed would be ignored unless it was
thought that it gave us at least a tenuous insight into reality. This
led to extremes and generated the Instrumentalist movement. I am an
instrumentalist to counteract endless arguments abut how we learn about
reality, but Reany takes it to the extreme of a religious convert. As a
result he has ignored "Why we want theories that work". Theories that
work are to help us understand reality better and better.
Reality is not a dirty word, and working theories are not the all to end
all. We must temper our enthusiasm with moderation. Patrick suffers
from tunnel vision. Instrumentalism itself breaks down into numerous
camps. He throws it around as if it has been defined with mathematical
exactitude. He misuses
the word Realist and Realism. Realism means many things and is in
itself difficult to define giving due regard to all its branches. He
does not use he word _real_ as a philosopher should. He has good points
to make, but he rants and raves.
Theories that work, are not an end in themselves. They are just a
beginning, not an end.
Patrick Reany
> Let us take a look at the mantra, "science is about theories that work".
> This turns out to be a helpful statement, but very shallow.
Of course it's shallow! I admitted the same in the very post your post
is in reply to! Entire books could be written on realism vs
instrumentalism and the like. How ya gonna fit an entire book into
half a dozen words? You're not! The rest of this post is proof
positive that I know how to expand upon the meaning of my epigram!
>
> THE BIG QUESTION THAT HAS NOT BEEN ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED IS ---FOR WHAT
> PURPOSE DO WE WANT THEORIES THAT WORK??
How about the question, Why do we want scientific theories at all?
>
> Imagine if you will Shangrala where most of the population spend their
> time performing experiments. Everybody gets a huge kick and a rush,
> every time they perform an experiment. They are especially happy when
> the experiment turned out exactly as some theory predicted. And they
> keep doing this ad infinitum. Nobody is interested in working out
> better statements about reality, just performing theories that work
> (i.e. come out as predicted)
OK, Mr. Pragmatist, what's the practical difference between "better
statements about reality" and "theories that work"? I can't imagine
why a realist would want only statments about reality, whatever that
is. I thought even realists wanted realist theories.
By the way, I don't believe that you're an instrumentalist. You care
too strongly to adhere to realist values of metaphysics and
epistemology.
> There is no law against performing the
> same experiment more than once, so many people keep performing the same
> experiment because they are assured that the experiment will turn out as
> predicted. In Shangrala doing experiments that came out as predicted,
> is an end in itself. What a sad state of affairs.
I never claimed that the goal of science is NOTHING BUT (only) the
search for theories that work. There is one objective standard for
comparison of theories that work equally well on the same domain of
applicability: logical economy. There are many subjective standards to
use to evaluate theories that works, one of which is unity, or
harmony, with the bigger picture in the field of the theory. Another
is beauty.
>
> Reany's "inventing theories that work" is superficial in that it does
> not address for what purpose we do that. I will tell you several
> reasons. The first is that, however hard the task, we as humans want to
> understand reality on a deeper level.
You divide understanding reality into "understanding deep reality" and
"understanding nondeep reality." Weston's model of understanding
reality:
"understanding deep reality " + "understanding nondeep reality"
What is the divide between "deep understanding" and "nondeep
understanding"? What is the CAUSE of this divide? Is reductionism
implied in this philosophy?
> It is hard wired into our brain.
> Call it intuition if you wish. I call it a primordial urge. For
> example: The amount of money spent on astronomy through out the world is
> astronomical. (no pun) No one thinks that a better toilet will be made
> from studying massive black holes, or better cars will come from more
> exactly measuring the size of the universe, etc. Occasionally we do get
> a fall out practical benefit, but the motivation is not practical but
> primordial. This is often referred to as our spiritual side.
>
> This quest for "reality" more deeply understood, can be, and has, been
> taken to extreme.
Why do you put the word "reality" in quotes above. You were using, not
referencing, the word. Don't you really know what "reality" means?
You've used it for years as though you do!
How do you know which statements purporting to be true of reality are
actually true of reality? For examples, use the statements "The sky is
blue," "phlogiston is the cause of combustion," "The earth is flat,"
and "There is an electron in the neutral hydrogen atom."
> Theories proposed would be ignored unless it was
> thought that it gave us at least a tenuous insight into reality.
What does "insight into reality" mean? Give an example of a theory
that worked but was ignored because it didn't deliver your concept of
"insight into reality"? Is QM such a theory? Does a theory that uses a
continuous mass variable providing "insight into reality" even though
no one believes that mass is really continuous? It gets used!
Every theory that works is an *explanation* of why it works. That's
what theories are -- explanations. So ALL theories that work give
"insight into reality." Reality is a theory-laden concept.
> This
> led to extremes and generated the Instrumentalist movement.
Wrong. The origin of the instrumentalist movement was in the tiresome
burden that was perceived by the American pragmatist Peirce and Dewey
that people ask too many undecidable questions in science (actually,
in life, but we'll restrict our discussion to science), and that the
remedy of such a waste of time was to decide which questions are
instrumental for progress and which are not on the basis of the
practical difference that knowing the answer to the question makes.
Just do your own homework for a change. I already told you all this
stuff before.
> I am an
> instrumentalist to counteract endless arguments abut how we learn about
> reality, but Reany takes it to the extreme of a religious convert. As a
> result he has ignored "Why we want theories that work". Theories that
> work are to help us understand reality better and better.
Do you really consider yourself a pragmatist? Anyway, By what
declared, objective standard do you use to decide when understanding
inherent in theory B is "better" than understanding inherent in theory
A? What is "inherent understanding" anyway?
>
> Reality is not a dirty word, and working theories are not the all to end
> all. We must temper our enthusiasm with moderation. Patrick suffers
> from tunnel vision.
Patrick suffers from a hatred of terms used as though they are precise
when in fact they are not. All imprecise words are "dirty" in physics
in that regard. If you ever want the term "reality" to be precise for
your usage, YOU have to stipulate your precise meaning for it. THAT IS
ALL I'VE EVER ASKED FROM YOU. You can't just say, "Look it up in a
dictionary." Dictionaries provide multiple mutually contradictory
meanings. The ONLY way for the reader to disambiguate the meaning of
"reality" is for the user of the term to stipulate its meaning up
front.
How do you KNOW that hydrogen atoms really exist? Will Weston finally
answer this question, or will he simply ignore it once again? For
someone such as Weston, who is on the mission for "deeper
understanding," you'd think that he'd love the chance to tackle this
question sincerely. We'll see.
> Instrumentalism itself breaks down into numerous
> camps.
List them.
> He throws it around as if it has been defined with mathematical
> exactitude. He misuses
> the word Realist and Realism.
Prove it.
> Realism means many things and is in
Implicit in the context of the philosophy of science is the convention
that "realism" is a short form of "scientific realism." Look it up
yourself. Start with
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/
Scientific Realism
It is easier to define scientific realism than it is to identify its
role as a distinctly philosophical doctrine. Scientific realists hold
that the characteristic product of successful scientific research is
knowledge of largely theory-independent phenomena and that such
knowledge is possible (indeed actual) even in those cases in which the
relevant phenomena are not, in any non-question-begging sense,
observable. According to scientific realists, for example, if you
obtain a good contemporary chemistry textbook you will have good
reason to believe (because the scientists whose work the book reports
had good scientific evidence for) the (approximate) truth of the
claims it contains about the existence and properties of atoms,
molecules, sub-atomic particles, energy levels, reaction mechanisms,
etc. Moreover, you have good reason to think that such phenomena have
the properties attributed to them in the textbook independently of our
theoretical conceptions in chemistry. Scientific realism is thus the
common sense (or common science) conception that, subject to a
recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most
scientific knowledge is approximate, we are justified in accepting the
most secure findings of scientists "at face value."
------------------------------------------------------
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Scientific%20realism
Scientific realism is the view that the universe really is as science
describes it. It holds that the things of the universe such as
subatomic particles, microbes, stars, electromagnetic force and so
forth exist independently of observation or perception.
---------------------------------------------------------
Then do a Google search on this string "instrumentalism realism".
I'll put it to you this way, Weston. Do you believe that science
PROVES that atoms are real? Then, give a definition of what an atom
is.
> itself difficult to define giving due regard to all its branches. He
> does not use he word _real_ as a philosopher should. He has good points
> to make, but he rants and raves.
You make a lot of claims but give no proof or examples to butress your
endless rhetorical complaints.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
for the umpteenth time. Ans: We conclude that hydrogen atoms are part
of nature as more specifically described by the scientists, and among
those scientists there is no reasonable doubt. We may have to change
our mind later, and there is no absolutely true knowledge in science.
The philosophically correct way to ask the question is, Q. With what
degree of certitude should we conclude that hydrogen atoms are part of
nature?" Patrick is intellectually lazy so all his "profound" inquires
use blurry words thereby promoting endless and fruitless dialogue. Is
he intellectually lazy, or dumb, or trolling, or self agrandizing?
Which?
The rest of the post is the usual banalities. If a third person has a
question of me, I will do my best to answer. Trying to educate Reany is
like trying to clean out the Aegean stables.
p.s. I use Realism when I feel it is helpful to do so, and modify or
bypass it when another approach is more appropriate. I look on my
philosophy as my friend and helpmate. Patrick seizes upon some branch
off of a branch off, and treats it as if it emanated from a Papal Bull,
and to be defended at all costs. So we are treated to philosophical
Papal Bulls, generously interspersed with Reany Bulls. More fun than a
barrel of monkeys!
ueb
> ueb [please delete the return address] wrote in message news:<k4u0fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
[snip] ...
>> > humans to make theories that work.
>>
>> Your famous slogan. :):):)
> I may have made it famous here, but the phrase has appeared elsewhere.
> Maybe it's original with me but I doubt that. The sentiment of my
> epigram is central to the instrumentalist position of pragmatism and
> free invention. It is, of course, very simplistic and some people like
> to mischaracterize my philosophy as simplistic. But one needs
> something as a sound bite.
> The central issue that instrumentalism has against the realist view is
> their claim that the purpose of science is to find out deep reality.
What should be the purpose of science else ? (Every reasonable human
will realize that one will never completely fulfill this purpose.)
That you tell below is the purpose of theoretical engineering.
> Now, I have views of deep reality (in my own natural philosophy) and I
> don't care that other people have their own beliefs about deep
> reality. I just insist that science is NOT the right tool to prove
> what deep reality is all about. I have a principle which few people
> have, and I don't break it. The principle is that whatever we should
> define science to be, it should be about what it can PROVE it can
> accomplish. Science CAN prove that it has theories that work. It can't
> prove that even a single one of them is True. In fact, as I have
> argued may times, it is meaningless to say that any explanation of
> natural events is true.
It is true as long it is not disproved.
> A theory is an explanation in the form of a
> deductive system. As far as I'm concerned there is NOTHING in the
> natural world which is a deductive system.
Look out ! This claim might be very precipitate.
I have demonstrated that the natural world is completely deductive,
if one sees it geometrically. One may not confuse it with `causal'
or `deterministic'. Even since the world is completely deductive,
it is not fundamentally deterministic.
> So, it is meaningless to me
> to say that an explanation or deductive system is true of Nature. The
> universe does not need and did not ask for human-invented
> explanations.
That does not prevent me from giving the universe such explanation.
> I think there may be a misconception that instrumentalism is nothing
> more than an apolgetic for modern physics. As far as I'm concerned,
> science was never able to justify realism and shame on it for ever
> thinking it could. Does the earth really orbit the sun, or is it the
> other way around? The instrumentalist answer is, "Who cares? Choose
> the simplest theory and be done with the worrying about the Truth of
> it."
I think that I understand what you mean, but I do not even find it good.
No wonder that people insist on their own "natural philosophy", and
are unable to get any insights. They are totally unflexible. -
That is the modern trend.
> ------------------------------------
> http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=276
Do you not mean: "Science can't *completely* tell us HOW reality really
works" ? I believe you have not understood Mellendorf.
> It can, however, invent theoretical decriptions that tells us
> what to expect of the behavior of "reality."
Pardon, what is the difference ?
>> I'd agree that you can add such Boolean variables to the "events".
>> What were the use ? Are you aware of the very different meaning
>> of the examples called by you ? Thus, *free* electrons and photons
>> really exist during quarks and the mass continuum do not and are
>> indeed nothing else than having been freely created by humans.
> I don't give a damn what really exists for purposes of doing science.
You are really a very modern human. I'm understanding more and more
what runs in modern science. It is a relapse to the Middle Age.
> I care only about those concepts which really are instrumental for the
> invention of theories that work.
> I care what really only within my personal natural philosophy.
Of course. I understand that now.
>>
>> > I propose no specific alternatives to those we use. I simply see no
>> > compelling reason to believe that the variables we use are either True
>> > of Nature or unique to human possibility. The fact that I can't think
>> > of alternatives is not in itself proof that they don't "exist" in
>> > theory land or in deep reality.
>>
>> The variables are indeed not unique to human possibility. But there
>> are indeed variables which are "True of Nature", and fundamentally
>> distinguish from the rest. All of them are in the Einstein-Maxwell
>> equations.
> Did you know that Einstein was unsatified with the linear Maxwell
> equations?
Yes. He proposed "relativistic" Maxwell equations already in his
"Four Lectures". These went into the Einstein-Maxwell equations.
[snip]
...
>> > The issue here is philosophic not scientific. The question
>> > is, Why consider these "strange questions" in the first place? It's to
>> > determine the outer limits of possible human knowledge by knowing what
>> > possible boundary conditions exist on human theories. Just how free
>> > are we in the creation of human theories.
>>
>> We are free as we like. The question is what has it to do with
>> nature.
> There are two very different answers to that question, depending on
> whether you're a realist or an instrumentalist. The instrumentalist
> insists that the only correct objective (well, really intersubjective)
> test of a theory against nature is the limited realm of human
> observation and instrument readings. The realist, however, insists
> that some intuition about what is True of deep reality MUST be added
> onto that.
May be that you know such kind of "realist". But a real scientist does
even that you insinuate in this paragraph that an instrumentalist
does it. May I quote your above sentence
``I don't give a damn what really exists for purposes of doing science.''
Do you see the contradiction ? I mean with "really exist" just that
observed by humans and read from instruments.
> Instrumentalists don't give so much trust in intuitions,
> not the least because they aren't universally held by people.
> Intuitions are subject to dogmatism, whim, and fashion, none of which
> give me any confidence as producers of Truth.
A good scientist uses intuition as tool. Did you know that ?
That has nothing to do with Truth.
>>
>> > Those who follow Truth have a very small set of possible models they
>> > allow themselves to invent and use in the pursuit of Truth.
>>
>> Yes, indeed.
> What would happen if these followers of Truth do go astray from he
> path of Truth and don't realize it?
They experience the same as instrumentalists (as you describe them)
experience always.
> If the path itself has been
> sanctified, it'll be a long time before the error is fixed.
With your favoured method, this time is infinite. Always.
> The real
> error is to sanctify the path in the first place.
Very agree. You sanctify the nothing.
>>
>> > Those that
>> > pursue theories that work have a much, much larger set of models they
>> > allow themselves to invent.
>>
>> Indeed. Humble question: How do you notice whether and how such
>> theory really works ?
> The degree of match between a theory's predictions and its
> experimental tests.
I see the contradiction with the quoted sentence again.
>>
>> > Which belief system is more likely to
>> > succeed in the end?
>>
>> The second "belief system" can present lots of fictitious successes.
> 1) How do you know when a success is fictitious?
Not at all. That is the bad.
> 2) Why does it matter if a success is fictitious?
Because it is useless then.
> Why do you argue with success?
You did it.
> Patrick
Ulrich
Patrick Reany
> Patrick Reany [return address deleted] wrote:
> > ueb [please delete the return address] wrote in message news:<k4u0fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
> [snip] ...
> >> > humans to make theories that work.
> >>
> >> Your famous slogan. :):):)
>
> > I may have made it famous here, but the phrase has appeared elsewhere.
> > Maybe it's original with me but I doubt that. The sentiment of my
> > epigram is central to the instrumentalist position of pragmatism and
> > free invention. It is, of course, very simplistic and some people like
> > to mischaracterize my philosophy as simplistic. But one needs
> > something as a sound bite.
>
> > The central issue that instrumentalism has against the realist view is
> > their claim that the purpose of science is to find out deep reality.
>
> What should be the purpose of science else ?
I believe I have made that clear.
> (Every reasonable human
> will realize that one will never completely fulfill this purpose.)
> That you tell below is the purpose of theoretical engineering.
>
> > Now, I have views of deep reality (in my own natural philosophy) and I
> > don't care that other people have their own beliefs about deep
> > reality. I just insist that science is NOT the right tool to prove
> > what deep reality is all about. I have a principle which few people
> > have, and I don't break it. The principle is that whatever we should
> > define science to be, it should be about what it can PROVE it can
> > accomplish. Science CAN prove that it has theories that work. It can't
> > prove that even a single one of them is True. In fact, as I have
> > argued may times, it is meaningless to say that any explanation of
> > natural events is true.
>
> It is true as long it is not disproved.
Yeah, just like I am immortal until I die, right?
>
> > A theory is an explanation in the form of a
> > deductive system. As far as I'm concerned there is NOTHING in the
> > natural world which is a deductive system.
>
> Look out ! This claim might be very precipitate.
> I have demonstrated that the natural world is completely deductive,
That doesn't address what I claimed at all.
> if one sees it geometrically. One may not confuse it with `causal'
> or `deterministic'. Even since the world is completely deductive,
> it is not fundamentally deterministic.
>
> > So, it is meaningless to me
> > to say that an explanation or deductive system is true of Nature. The
> > universe does not need and did not ask for human-invented
> > explanations.
>
> That does not prevent me from giving the universe such explanation.
True, we humans arrogate that priviledge to ourselves of our own
doing, so we can hardly believe that the result is Truth.
>
> > I think there may be a misconception that instrumentalism is nothing
> > more than an apolgetic for modern physics. As far as I'm concerned,
> > science was never able to justify realism and shame on it for ever
> > thinking it could. Does the earth really orbit the sun, or is it the
> > other way around? The instrumentalist answer is, "Who cares? Choose
> > the simplest theory and be done with the worrying about the Truth of
> > it."
>
> I think that I understand what you mean, but I do not even find it good.
> No wonder that people insist on their own "natural philosophy", and
> are unable to get any insights. They are totally unflexible. -
> That is the modern trend.
That is the modern trend, because it's always been the trend. Keep an
open mind --- that's the secret. One great purpose of philosophy is to
help us keep an open mind.
If a person believes that all there is to the universe is phenomena
(appearances or the "visible behavior of reality"), that person might
have a hope of finding the rules to the universe if 1) the universe is
really guided by, or at least appears to be guided by, rules, and 2)
the universe doesn't change its visible behavior over time, which it
could. But I believe that there is more to physical existence than
mere appearances. I call that "more" stuff, along with whatever rules
guides its behavior, as "deep reality." We can never know that at all.
All we can do is to invent physical concepts that are useful in the
characterization of deep reality to the extent that they are useful to
make predictions in phenomena (the visible realm). We either believe
in them or not in our personal natural philosophies. If we do, we
should not say that science proves them. For example, we should not
say that atoms or energy levels really exists a scientific TRUTH,
although we can claim them as conventional truths.
Science can get by without anybody believing in any model of deep
reality. And if we don't believe in the models used in theories of
deep reality, we can still use the models as instruments of thought
for arriving at theories that work. Nature doesn't care either way.
Why do we?
But this is slippery stuff, and even the hardcore positivist
Heisenberg got it wrong. He inferred the existence of energy levels in
atoms from mere atomic radiation. I believe in both, but I can prove
the existence of neither. I suppose the question comes down to this:
What's wrong with admitting that science is based on faith? And that
all truths of science are theory-laden?
I'll make a guess at your meaning. We must accept direct observation
and meter readings on faith too. Besides all that, the universe is
underdetermined due to the existence of arbitary variables that have
to be accepted among scientists. For example, it is considered as fact
that the earth revolves around the sun. It is coventional "truth." A
conventional "truth" is unprovable, but if you question it, you look
strange. A "fact" is any statement held true by convention.
Conventional truths are often accepted on the basis of good theories
-- they are "theory laden." Good theories have then replaced
scholasticism and religion and authoritarianism outside of science
(such as governments) as "dogma generators" in science. It's all about
scientists getting comfortable with a particular viewpoint to the
exclusion of all others.
Are conventional truths wrong then? No. But they should be recognized
for what they are. It's the dogmatism that's wrong.
>
> > Instrumentalists don't give so much trust in intuitions,
> > not the least because they aren't universally held by people.
> > Intuitions are subject to dogmatism, whim, and fashion, none of which
> > give me any confidence as producers of Truth.
>
> A good scientist uses intuition as tool. Did you know that ?
> That has nothing to do with Truth.
Of course not. But intuitions used only for the creation of theories
that work, but NOT used as excuses to proclaim TRUTH, are just fine!
>
> >>
> >> > Those who follow Truth have a very small set of possible models they
> >> > allow themselves to invent and use in the pursuit of Truth.
> >>
> >> Yes, indeed.
>
> > What would happen if these followers of Truth do go astray from he
> > path of Truth and don't realize it?
>
> They experience the same as instrumentalists (as you describe them)
> experience always.
But the point is that instrumentalists are in principle NOT committed
to a priori viewpoints that such falsifications of their "pet" theory
would cause them to endlessly pursue the "face saving" program of
adding-in ad hoc hypotheses to fix them.
Don't get me wrong, though. There are pragmatic reasons for trying to
maintain a "falsified" theory that otherwise works well on a broad
base. But if after long efforts to fix the theory are fruitless, at
some point one must give up the theory and look elsewhere.
>
> > If the path itself has been
> > sanctified, it'll be a long time before the error is fixed.
>
> With your favoured method, this time is infinite. Always.
Waiting till forever is impractical.
>
> > The real
> > error is to sanctify the path in the first place.
>
> Very agree. You sanctify the nothing.
>
> >>
> >> > Those that
> >> > pursue theories that work have a much, much larger set of models they
> >> > allow themselves to invent.
> >>
> >> Indeed. Humble question: How do you notice whether and how such
> >> theory really works ?
>
> > The degree of match between a theory's predictions and its
> > experimental tests.
>
> I see the contradiction with the quoted sentence again.
>
> >>
> >> > Which belief system is more likely to
> >> > succeed in the end?
> >>
> >> The second "belief system" can present lots of fictitious successes.
>
> > 1) How do you know when a success is fictitious?
>
> Not at all. That is the bad.
Maybe it isn't as bad as you think! Ignorance, ironically, gives us
freedom to invent!
>
> > 2) Why does it matter if a success is fictitious?
>
> Because it is useless then.
>
> > Why do you argue with success?
>
> You did it.
>
> > Patrick
>
> Ulrich
I'll ask again. Unless TRUTH is the hidden goal, who cares if the
successfulness of a theory is based on a fictitious physical concept?
I don't.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> "How do you KNOW that hydrogen atoms really exist?" asks Patrick Reany
> for the umpteenth time. Ans: We conclude that hydrogen atoms are part
> of nature as more specifically described by the scientists, and among
> those scientists there is no reasonable doubt.
By what argument do they arrive at this "no reasonable doubt" of
yours? What does "no reasonable doubt" even mean in matters of
scientific metaphysics? (Now this is an ontological question.)
> We may have to change
> our mind later, and there is no absolutely true knowledge in science.
And for the umpteenth time you failed to answer me. I want YOU to give
a detailed scientific reason why anyone should believe that hydrogen
atoms exist, including an experimental means of detecting a hydrogen
atom. Mere appeal to authority is NOT an answer! Accept the challenge
as a formal exercise.
I'll make it a bit easier for you to accomplish by giving you a warmup
exercise first: Give us an operational means of determining when it is
raining outside.
This is an exercise in scientific justification. Of course I believe
that hydrogen atoms exist. The point is to reveal the exact rationale
that humans use to justify their beliefs without their realizing it. I
want to lay those beliefs open for review. Half of the philosophy of
physics can be motivated by this one challange!
So, who is willing to take up the challange? Dogmatists need not
apply. If it helps to reveal my own bias, I believe that a good
rationale for believing in the existence of hydrogen atoms exists. I
am prepared to give it too, but I want someone else to give theirs
first.
>
> The philosophically correct way to ask the question is, Q. With what
> degree of certitude should we conclude that hydrogen atoms are part of
> nature?"
That's silly. I don't see how proposing a probability number is in any
way philosophical. For the purpose of this post, I'm NOT interested in
whether or not hydrogen atoms really exist in the universe. I'm
interested in the rationale science gives for their existence. And my
question is not philosophic; it's scientific, because science tells us
to believe in them!
Patrick
Daniel Weston
arguments for the existence of the hydrogen atom, check out a text book.
You should consult an expert in atomic physics if that is really what
you are interested in. The fact that all PHDs in atomic physics hold
that the hydrogen atom is part of nature, is good enough for me. It is
accepted as being beyond a reasonable doubt. That is about as strong a
statement that you can get in science.
If you are about to go into one of your long and tortured Idealistic
rants about how we do not know Absolute TRUTH, forget it. You are
confusing science and religion. You are having such trouble with
reality, so you ease into the mystical.
With the exception of your theological training, you don't know
philosophy from sour apples.
p.s. Why don't you tell us sometime how all the PHD physisits that
think that hydrogen atoms are part of nature, went about their science
incorrectly? You may save Western Science yet.
ueb
> ueb wrote in message news:<do66fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
..
>> It is true as long it is not disproved.
> Yeah, just like I am immortal until I die, right?
No. :):):)
Your nice example could help to clarify something.
I take as true that you live until you die. With other words:
You really exist then.
On the contrary, I refuse the claim that you be immortal until you die.
But modern physicists make such crazy claims. They tell of unseen
dimensions and unmeasurable forces or mystic sub-particles as though
that be the total truth (and do not like contradiction).
But classical theories like Newton's mechanics or electrodynamics
dealt only with observable quantities. Thus, they were true until
they reached their limits, i.e. have been disproved. However,
a theory that confines itself only to "work" might be pretty weak.
That is purely subjective. How will you get any insights ?
That you prefer is less than engineering.
..
> That is the modern trend, because it's always been the trend. Keep an
> open mind --- that's the secret.
Whom do you tell that !
[snip]
>> > http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00316.htm
>> > -------------------------------------
>>
>> > Except that Mellendorf did not define "reality" for us. Apparently he
>> > is just as cavalier and as blind to the deepness of this concept as
>> > most posters here are. Science can't tell us HOW reality really works
>> > either.
>>
>> Do you not mean: "Science can't *completely* tell us HOW reality really
>> works" ? I believe you have not understood Mellendorf.
>>
>> > It can, however, invent theoretical decriptions that tells us
>> > what to expect of the behavior of "reality."
>>
>> Pardon, what is the difference ?
> If a person believes that all there is to the universe is phenomena
> (appearances or the "visible behavior of reality"), that person might
> have a hope of finding the rules to the universe if 1) the universe is
> really guided by, or at least appears to be guided by, rules, and 2)
> the universe doesn't change its visible behavior over time, which it
> could. But I believe that there is more to physical existence than
> mere appearances. I call that "more" stuff, along with whatever rules
> guides its behavior, as "deep reality." We can never know that at all.
There is "more stuff", but that is per definitionem not physical.
What physically exists does also appear. That is physics per
definitionem. I admit that one cannot more call the modern stuff physics.
GR is the last physics.
> All we can do is to invent physical concepts that are useful in the
> characterization of deep reality to the extent that they are useful to
> make predictions in phenomena (the visible realm). We either believe
> in them or not in our personal natural philosophies. If we do, we
> should not say that science proves them. For example, we should not
> say that atoms or energy levels really exists a scientific TRUTH,
> although we can claim them as conventional truths.
That is no truth at all. In which, atoms do really exist, because
they appear. But energy levels are a weird model in order to make
a theory that work. ;-)
> Science can get by without anybody believing in any model of deep
> reality. And if we don't believe in the models used in theories of
> deep reality, we can still use the models as instruments of thought
> for arriving at theories that work. Nature doesn't care either way.
> Why do we?
What has a model to do with deep reality ?
> But this is slippery stuff, and even the hardcore positivist
> Heisenberg got it wrong. He inferred the existence of energy levels in
> atoms from mere atomic radiation. I believe in both, but I can prove
> the existence of neither. I suppose the question comes down to this:
> What's wrong with admitting that science is based on faith? And that
> all truths of science are theory-laden?
The last sentence is banal. And I can comment your example with
the insight that atoms (with the "energy levels") are discrete
stationary solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations, and radiation
appears at the transition from one solution to another.
[snip]
>> May be that you know such kind of "realist". But a real scientist does
>> even that you insinuate in this paragraph that an instrumentalist
>> does it. May I quote your above sentence
>> ``I don't give a damn what really exists for purposes of doing science.''
>> Do you see the contradiction ? I mean with "really exist" just that
>> observed by humans and read from instruments.
> I'll make a guess at your meaning. We must accept direct observation
> and meter readings on faith too.
That is matter of engineering. ;-)
> Besides all that, the universe is
> underdetermined due to the existence of arbitary variables that have
> to be accepted among scientists. For example, it is considered as fact
> that the earth revolves around the sun. It is coventional "truth." A
> conventional "truth" is unprovable, but if you question it, you look
> strange. A "fact" is any statement held true by convention.
> Conventional truths are often accepted on the basis of good theories
> -- they are "theory laden." Good theories have then replaced
> scholasticism and religion and authoritarianism outside of science
> (such as governments) as "dogma generators" in science. It's all about
> scientists getting comfortable with a particular viewpoint to the
> exclusion of all others.
> Are conventional truths wrong then? No. But they should be recognized
> for what they are. It's the dogmatism that's wrong.
As long I understand the many words, I'd widely agree.
In which, the arbitrary variables are on the whole the length-related
components of the metric tensor. If these are negligible, you
come to the "conventional truths".
[snip]
>> >> > Which belief system is more likely to
>> >> > succeed in the end?
>> >>
>> >> The second "belief system" can present lots of fictitious successes.
>>
>> > 1) How do you know when a success is fictitious?
>>
>> Not at all. That is the bad.
> Maybe it isn't as bad as you think! Ignorance, ironically, gives us
> freedom to invent!
This kind of freedom seems to be the "Glasperlenspiel" (bead game),
that the great poet Hermann Hesse foresaw more than 60 years ago.
..
> I'll ask again. Unless TRUTH is the hidden goal, who cares if the
> successfulness of a theory is based on a fictitious physical concept?
> I don't.
You are not alone with it. That is the bad.
Ulrich
Patrick Reany
> Patrick, you are being silly. If you want to know the _scientific_
> arguments for the existence of the hydrogen atom, check out a text book.
> You should consult an expert in atomic physics if that is really what
> you are interested in. The fact that all PHDs in atomic physics hold
> that the hydrogen atom is part of nature, is good enough for me. It is
> accepted as being beyond a reasonable doubt. That is about as strong a
> statement that you can get in science.
>
> If you are about to go into one of your long and tortured Idealistic
> rants about how we do not know Absolute TRUTH, forget it. You are
> confusing science and religion. You are having such trouble with
> reality, so you ease into the mystical.
Since science claims that hydrogen atoms exist, it should be willing
to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
> With the exception of your theological training, you don't know
> philosophy from sour apples.
>
> p.s. Why don't you tell us sometime how all the PHD physisits that
> think that hydrogen atoms are part of nature, went about their science
> incorrectly?
I tried, apparently for naught, in my post (which you deleted to
intensionally misrepresent me yet again) to get you to understand that
I make no such claim.
> You may save Western Science yet.
Since you are too lazy to provide an honest rationale for the
existence of hydrogen atoms, then just tell me how you know when it is
raining where you live.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
live. And then make your point and I will respond.
In the past people quite knowledgeable in atomic physics have told you
how science concludes that hydrogen is an aspect of nature. You did not
attempt to prove them wrong, you just bugged out to raise the issue
again later. Going to a lot of trouble to explain something to you is a
waste of time because you ignore it and raise the issue next month, as
infinitum.
Gerry Quinn
re...@asu.edu says...
> Since science claims that hydrogen atoms exist, it should be willing
> to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
We can calculate that an isolated proton-electron system is stable, and
demonstrate via astrophysical arguments that it is commonplace. We can
also create isolated hydrogen atoms in the laboratory under certain
conditions. Happy?
- Gerry Quinn
Bilge
>This is an exercise in scientific justification. Of course I believe
>that hydrogen atoms exist.
It's simple, patric. We define a hydrogen atom as a unit of the
group known as the periodic table, which is itself, defined by
the _dimensionless_ (read: ``number created by nature'') number,
1/137.03... and the thing we call ``matter'', i.e., things which
are stable.
>The point is to reveal the exact rationale
>that humans use to justify their beliefs without their realizing it.
I do realize my rationale. I just don't believe reality is all that
deep (meaning it consists of an empirical part only, without some
mystical part). Personally, I don't think it's possible to discuss
this with you at the level that would would be needed to justify
what you would consider ``fundamental'', since you have a quirky
notion that ``information'' is something related to human cognition.
Since I'm getting ready to leave town for several weeks, I'll be
unable to indulge your metaphysical objections. You could try spending
the time you'd spend responding in studying a little about complexity.
Patrick Reany
ueb <Ulrich.B...@t-online.de> wrote in message news:<7g39fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
> Patrick Reany wrote:
> > ueb wrote in message news:<do66fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
>
> ..
> >> It is true as long it is not disproved.
>
> > Yeah, just like I am immortal until I die, right?
>
> No. :):):)
> Your nice example could help to clarify something.
> I take as true that you live until you die. With other words:
> You really exist then.
> On the contrary, I refuse the claim that you be immortal until you die.
> But modern physicists make such crazy claims. They tell of unseen
> dimensions and unmeasurable forces or mystic sub-particles as though
> that be the total truth (and do not like contradiction).
I don't see the analogy that you see.
> But classical theories like Newton's mechanics or electrodynamics
> dealt only with observable quantities.
I guess that critically depends on what you mean by "observable
quantities." Newton's mechanics uses the notions of invisible point
mass particles, invisible gravity, and an absolute acceleration space,
also invisible.
Classical E&M uses the notion of invisible fields. To me, invisible
means nonobservable, at least in the direct sense or the classical
sense (though not necessarily in the QM sense). We don't observe
fields; we observe their ostensible influence on observable particles
or on instruments designed to register being hit by invisible
particles.
> Thus, they were true until
> they reached their limits, i.e. have been disproved. However,
> a theory that confines itself only to "work" might be pretty weak.
> That is purely subjective. How will you get any insights ?
> That you prefer is less than engineering.
Isn't the notion of "insight" subjective itself? Only a realist would
bother to argue with success.
>
>
> ..
> > That is the modern trend, because it's always been the trend. Keep an
> > open mind --- that's the secret.
>
> Whom do you tell that !
Everyone, including myself!
>
> [snip]
> >> > http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00316.htm
> >> > -------------------------------------
>
> >> > Except that Mellendorf did not define "reality" for us. Apparently he
> >> > is just as cavalier and as blind to the deepness of this concept as
> >> > most posters here are. Science can't tell us HOW reality really works
> >> > either.
> >>
> >> Do you not mean: "Science can't *completely* tell us HOW reality really
> >> works" ? I believe you have not understood Mellendorf.
I can't answer YOUR question until you define "reality" and "really
works." But by my own definitions of those terms, I'd have to say that
science cannot tell us HOW reality really works. First, because nature
knows nothing of deductive systems, which is what a theory is, and we
explain in terms of theories. Second, because the variables we use
have no logical (or compelling) connection to reality, that is, to the
variables that Nature itself uses to rule over the evolution of
itself. If you argue that humans have successful theories about nature
and success argues for truth, I will reject that out of hand. On the
contrary, I argue that the successfulness of a theory is NOT an
indication of its truthfullness of reality.
What has Nature to do with human variables and theories? As far as
anyone has ever proved to me, NOTHING.
> >>
> >> > It can, however, invent theoretical decriptions that tells us
> >> > what to expect of the behavior of "reality."
> >>
> >> Pardon, what is the difference ?
There is a trickiness here on the term "reality" that I can fall
victim to as easily as anyone else, and that is in using more than one
meaning to the term "reality" depending on the context.
I define physics as the search for the smallest set of rules (laws and
law-like structures) by which we can accurately predict the behavior
of the inanimate material world under natural conditions. By "behavior
of the inanimate material world" I mean phenomena, or that which can
be seen by humans or measured by instruments. I hope I have not used
the term "behavior" to refer to "unseeable events of deep reality."
I'm trying to be clear by not doing so.
>
> > If a person believes that all there is to the universe is phenomena
> > (appearances or the "visible behavior of reality"), that person might
> > have a hope of finding the rules to the universe if 1) the universe is
> > really guided by, or at least appears to be guided by, rules, and 2)
> > the universe doesn't change its visible behavior over time, which it
> > could. But I believe that there is more to physical existence than
> > mere appearances. I call that "more" stuff, along with whatever rules
> > guides its behavior, as "deep reality." We can never know that at all.
Instead of "behavior" in the above sentence, use "evolution" instead.
Reality can evolve at both the superfical and deep levels, but the
"behavior" of reality is only that which we can "observe" of that
evolution. If I stick to this dichotomy it should be less confusing
for us all.
>
> There is "more stuff", but that is per definitionem not physical.
> What physically exists does also appear. That is physics per
> definitionem. I admit that one cannot more call the modern stuff physics.
> GR is the last physics.
I guess your definition of physics is different than mine. I'm not a
phenomenalist. That is, I don't believe that all physics is allowed to
talk about are phenomena. Within phenomena our theories are tested,
but theories can invent models whose ostensible referents are "deeper"
than phenomena, such as the point mass particle. We can also invent
theories with models that point to nothing in the real world but which
work anyway, such as the continuum model of matter. On principle,
realists should decry the use of the continuum model of matter, but
they don't, leaving me to wonder just how committed they are to their
idealist principles when a pragmatic solution avails itself.
Instrumentalism is from the pragmatist tradition (See Peirce and
Dewey).
This is why theory is the central concept of science, especially of
physics. A theory is "physical" if it makes predictions testable in
the empirical realm. Every model used crucially in a physical theory
is a "physical model" whether it corresponds to something "really"
existing or not. In other words, if the theory is physical, every
model or agent crucially in the theory is "physical." Otherwise,
physics gets bogged down with unproductive metaphysical arguments. The
discrepancy between what "really is" and how a theory models the world
is covered by the expression: "Well, that's just our formal point of
view."
The phi function of QM is a physical model though it doesn't literally
stand for a real thing. A model is a representation of a thing,
concept, or relationship. Knowledge is certainly a concept and it is
certainly a relationship between the knower and the thing known. The
phi function of QM is a physical model because it is part of a
representation of what can be measured in an experiment! It is a
representation of what we can know of certain ostensible physical
systems, such as atoms. Theories can only be judged holistically, not
by their postulates taken one at a time. (See Duhem-Quine Thesis.)
>
> > All we can do is to invent physical concepts that are useful in the
> > characterization of deep reality to the extent that they are useful to
> > make predictions in phenomena (the visible realm). We either believe
> > in them or not in our personal natural philosophies. If we do, we
> > should not say that science proves them. For example, we should not
> > say that atoms or energy levels really exists a scientific TRUTH,
> > although we can claim them as conventional truths.
>
> That is no truth at all. In which, atoms do really exist, because
> they appear. But energy levels are a weird model in order to make
> a theory that work. ;-)
Give us an operational method to prove that a hydrogen atom exists.
Tell us how to know when it's raining outside (include boundary
conditions! What about verga rain? What reference system?).
I have no problem saying that in the human effort to make sense of the
physical realm, we can arbitrarily chop it up into convenient pieces
and then call the pieces "real." But the universe is really just a
single entity. A hydrogen atom is real and deserving of a
classification all its own just as much as my coffee cup and the fire
hydrant on the corner and the star alpha centuri are a single "real"
object deserving of a classification of its own.
The pizza comes out of the oven a single whole. It then gets cut up
into pieces. Why? For the convenience of humans who prefer to "analyze
it" at the bite-sized level. It's just another aspect of
anthropomorphism. Pizza reductionism: the piece is made out of the sum
of its bites, the whole pizza is made out of the sum of its pieces.
For the same reasons humans chop up the universe into mentally
bite-sized units. Divide and conquer intellectually. But what makes
those pieces we invent "real"? To the instrumentalist it doesn't
matter if the pieces are "real." It only matters if the pieces are
useful as instruments of thought for the invention of theories that
work. To that end, hydrogen is certainly a useful model of a bit of
the universe.
The pragmatist is always asking whether a question having been asked
is worth the effort to answer! The standard used by the pragmatist is
this: If the practical state is not dependent on the answer to the
question, the question is irrelevant and not worth answering. This is
even more important in science than to individuals because the group
of scientists must make personal consessions in their beliefs to
arrive at in principle a set of dogmas that the group can agree on. In
that sense, the scientist as a scientist has less freedom than the
individual. Total freedom to think about natural reality only occurs
in natural philosophy. The scientist is supposed to distinguish his or
her beliefs as scientific or natural philosophic, and not pretend that
the latter are the former.
Science cannot prove the existence of that which we cannot see for
ourselves; and that which we can see for ourselves, we don't need
science to prove for us. Science is bootstrapped by accepting the
existence of those things which we can see for ourselves. Science is
not in the business of proving what exists. It's in the business of
inventing theories that work. Science does not prove that bacteria
exists. It proves that bacteria are great models of minute living
organisms. I personally believe that bacteria exist within my personal
natural philosophy. By pragmatic standards, my system of beliefs is in
no way inferior to that of the realists, though without their level of
dogmatism and rigidity inherent in their system.
Eddington invented a philosophy of science he called "selective
subjectivism." It refers to the inescapable subjective nature of
physical theories because they must meet the subjective needs of the
people who invent them. He gave the example of the icthiologist in
search of inductions he could make by sampling the ocean by casting
into it a net and bringing it back to the boat to review its catch.
Eddington made the simple but profound observation that the very
nature of the knowledge claims that can be made about what is "really"
in the ocean is a function of the mesh size of the net. Meaning that
the nature of what we can say about the universe is partly "what is
really out there" and partly how we squeeze what's out there to fit
into our own anthropomorophic "net" as finite creatures who insist on
thinking about the universe in reductive, metric anthropomorphic
classifications. The net itself is an anthropomorphic extension of the
human body.
>
> > Science can get by without anybody believing in any model of deep
> > reality. And if we don't believe in the models used in theories of
> > deep reality, we can still use the models as instruments of thought
> > for arriving at theories that work. Nature doesn't care either way.
> > Why do we?
>
> What has a model to do with deep reality ?
In science it need not have any relationship to it in a particular
realist meaning. It certainly doesn't have to be "true." It does have
to represent some aspect of the physical realm, even if only
abstractly, holistically, and/or indirectly.
>
> > But this is slippery stuff, and even the hardcore positivist
> > Heisenberg got it wrong. He inferred the existence of energy levels in
> > atoms from mere atomic radiation. I believe in both, but I can prove
> > the existence of neither. I suppose the question comes down to this:
> > What's wrong with admitting that science is based on faith? And that
> > all truths of science are theory-laden?
>
> The last sentence is banal. And I can comment your example with
> the insight that atoms (with the "energy levels") are discrete
> stationary solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations, and radiation
> appears at the transition from one solution to another.
I doubt that most posters here would agree with your characterizing my
statements as "banal." I don't think they are, or I wouldn't waste my
time with making them. Some are profound but I can't take credit for
any of the profound ones. I can take credit for the "banal"
hydrogen-pizza-rain-coffecup analogies, however.
>
> [snip]
> >> May be that you know such kind of "realist". But a real scientist does
> >> even that you insinuate in this paragraph that an instrumentalist
> >> does it. May I quote your above sentence
> >> ``I don't give a damn what really exists for purposes of doing science.''
> >> Do you see the contradiction ? I mean with "really exist" just that
> >> observed by humans and read from instruments.
>
> > I'll make a guess at your meaning. We must accept direct observation
> > and meter readings on faith too.
>
> That is matter of engineering. ;-)
No, I'm talking about performing experiments to test physical
theories.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> Patrick, why don't you tell us how you know that it is raining where you
> live. And then make your point and I will respond.
>
Coward.
Patrick
Uncle Al
>
> Hydrogen, pizza, Eddington, Duhem-Quine Thesis, and QM justified
Stooopidity, flounder, Edwina Poswilly, Venus in Furs, why
Patricia can't think.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
Patrick Reany
> In article <844a1b64.04080...@posting.google.com>,
> re...@asu.edu says...
>
> > Since science claims that hydrogen atoms exist, it should be willing
> > to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
>
> We can calculate that an isolated proton-electron system is stable,
What do you mean by a "proton-electron system"? By what criteria would
you claim such a system as "stable"?
> and
> demonstrate via astrophysical arguments that it is commonplace.
By certain chemical arguments I can "prove" the existence of
phlogiston too. By certain mechanical arguments I can "prove" that the
sun orbits the earth. By certain astrophysical arguments I can "prove"
that an absolute acceleration space exists (Newton).
> We can
> also create isolated hydrogen atoms in the laboratory under certain
> conditions. Happy?
Elated! It's those "certain conditions" that are going to get you. For
example, how do you prove that a proton-electron "system" is ever
isolated. Could you even claim that a proton-electron "system" is
really a "system" at all if it were not isolated? What is the
procedure of isolation? Does finding a proton-electron "system"
experimentally interfer with or destroy the true nature of the
"system"?
>
> - Gerry Quinn
What makes the existence of your notion of hydrogen more real or
useful than any other arbitrary chopping up of the universe into bits?
Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
It's similar to the "sorites paradox". It goes like this for example:
Two grains of sand do not make a heap of sand, but a million grains of
sand poured out from a container onto a flat surface do make a heap of
sand. If n grains of sand do not make a heap, neither do n+1 grains.
If n grains of sand do make a heap, so too does n-1 grains. Apply
induction and stir. What is the minimum value of n such that the
collection of sand makes a heap?
The paradox is that no one grain of sand on the collection can make
the difference between the collection being or not being a heap. What
is the solution? It's not to be found in commonsense and there is no
"rational" answer! The solution is to act like God and fix n
arbitrarily, by fiat. Fact building by consensus and arbitration.
Where is absolute truth there? And if not there, where? Maybe the
whole notion of a heap of sand is arbitrary. Maybe the whole notion of
an atom is arbitrary too, except for its utility to the invention of
theories that work. Fuzzy sets at work here, which includes the set of
"nonmaterial physical boundaries in space" to ostensibly physical
material things, such as hydrogen atoms. See
http://www.ee.vt.edu/~dadone/fuzzyIntro/intro_to_fuzzy_sets.pdf
Tell us how you know when it's raining. What's the minimum number N of
rain drops per second per square acre? Why isn't N-1 rain drops per
second per square acre also called "rain"? Just because?
The epistemology of physics has to come to terms with the vagueness of
human terms in the language of physics used to represent arbitrary
human conceptualizations of the physical realm. The only solution to
me is a pragmatic one. It's true that in QM vagueness has been dealt
with at the atomic-subatomic level, but all of physics has to follow
this lead.
The hydrogen model is a damn good model whether hydrogen meaningfully
exists objectively or not. Does the universe give special names to all
possible subsets of itself? Which brings up another vagueness in the
language of physics, which is, What do really mean by saying that some
"physical object" objectively exists in the universe?
Patrick
Daniel Weston
to show Patrick can again demonstrate the uselessness of his philosophy.
I hear thunder and I see lightning. I smell the effects of rain. I
hear rain drops falling heavily against the glass panes. If it keeps
raining at this intensity, my dog out in his dog house will be sleeping
in water. I put on a raincoat and go out to rescue my dog. On the way
there and on the way back I step in several puddles and the rain is
hitting my ankles, hands and arm, and my face. The rain gets in my eyes
and hair. After arriving back at the house I dry off the dog and
myself.
It is raining.
p.s. I can hardly wait to hear Patrick-style philosophic response.
Kirk Gregory Czuhai
turns, Chewhi do not bother me!
a chant maybe someday on TV!
more and at what length
or mass one could only wonder
if such scalars were worth measuring by you or me?
http://www.altelco.net/~lovekgc/energy.htm
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peace and love,
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http://www.altelco.net/~churches/BlueRoses.htm
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"Patrick Reany" <re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:844a1b64.0408...@posting.google.com...
> "Androcles" <andr...@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<HcyQc.505$n86.5...@news-text.cableinet.net>...
> > "Patrick Reany" <re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
> > news:844a1b64.0408...@posting.google.com...
> > | "Robert J. Kolker" <robert...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:<DldQc.205459$a24.68727@attbi_s03>...
> > | > Patrick Reany wrote:
> > | >
> > | > > Anyway, I ask another strange question: Why does physics use the
> > | > > variables it uses (such as length, time, mass, and charge) rather
than
> > | > > use other variables for the description of physical events? In
other
> > | > > words, are the variables we now use either true of the world or
are
> > | > > they inexplicably indispensible for doing physics correctly?
> > | >
> > | >
> > | > The variables we use have the outstanding virtue of being
measurable.
> > | > That is a starting point. If it ain't meaurable or its value is not
> > | > readily inferable from what is measurable it ain't worth anything.
> > | >
> > | > Bob Kolker
> > |
> > | Yes, they are virtuous by being measurable, and that's part of their
> > | mystery. We claim to get length from observing nature, but we get no
> > | "natural" unit of length.
> >
> > What ARE you babbling about? What scientist ever thought there was a
natural
> > unit of length? Good grief! Mathematicians routinely use radians simply
> > because that is the ONLY natural unit of angle, and shun the degree
because
> > it is arbitrary.
>
> I am babbling about what realists force me to babble about:
> challenging them to prove their idiotic notions that humans can
> rationally know deep reality by scientific means.
>
> I'm specifically challenging the hypothesis that length or distance is
> TRUE in Nature (i.e., Nature uses this variable). If length or
> distance is TRUE in Nature then Nature must also be using a natural
> unit of distance, because it is meaningless to have distance without a
> unit of distance. If physicists could suggest a possible "natural"
> unit of length or distance then that would at least be a starting
> point for supporting the hypothesis. In other words, the hypothesis
> has to be rationally supported to be a "rational" hypothesis.
>
>
> [snip]
> >
> > | It is irrational to talk of
> > | distance wihtout a unit of distance, right?
> >
> > Utter bullshit. Of course we can discuss distance without units, and
> > rationally too. What ARE you smoking?
> > I can say the sun is 400 times further from us than the moon, it is
rational
> > and I haven't mentioned miles, kilometers, donkey dicks or the mean
> > intelligence of a moron. It may not be accurate, but that's beside the
> > point.
>
> Yes, you are right about your example being rational, since you
> implicitly defined a unit of distance, namely the earth-moon distance,
> which we'll label as \tau. So we now have a new system of units for
> distance: miles, kilometers, \tau's, AU's, etc.
>
> Realists maintain that the laws of physics (those anthropomorphic laws
> of human invention) somehow correspond to True laws of Nature. Now,
> since the laws of physics use distance and time variables, using
> realist thinking this implies that Nature must use distance and time
> variables, and have Natural units for both metrical variables. What
> are these Natural units? Without units for metrical variables there
> are no metrical variables. Without metrical variables there are no
> metrical laws.
>
> >
> >
> > So, what is Nature's unit
> > | of distance.)
> >
> > There ISN'T one.
>
> How do you know?
>
> >
> >
> >
> > For a couple hundred years we thought we knew what the
> > | unit of charge was and then came the quark. We keep thinking we know
> > | Truth and we keep getting slapped in the face.
> >
> > Oh crap. Only you get a slap in the face for thinking there should be a
unit
> > of distance. You are pathetic! What is one horsepower? Bloody obviously
the
> > amount of power a horse can develop, except a horse can develop 10
> > horsepower. It can't keep it up all day, though. Of course it is
arbitrary,
> > and inaccurate as well. But that won't stop anyone buying a 1 horsepower
> > electric motor and measuring to see if they got their money's worth.
>
> Now who's babbling?
>
> >
> > Why did I choose the horsepower as an example, Patrick?
> > Answer - MASS, LENGTH, TIME. These are the DIMENSIONS of Nature. They
are
> > NOT the units.
> > |
> > | But are the variables we use True of Nature or reality?
> >
> > Yes, they are.
>
> By what reasoning do you arrive at this conclusion?
>
> >
> > | If so, what is the proof of this?
> >
> > They are arbitrary and hence defined. One does not prove a definition.
>
> Does Nature define the unit of distance it uses?
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Are our variables True of Nature or just convenient
> > | for a human purpose.
> >
> > Just convenient for human purpose. We all KNOW that. This is the perfect
> > example of why your questions are strange. I realize now that you are
simply
> > scientifically illiterate.
> >
> >
> > Do Nature's laws employ them too?
> >
> > No. Look up Newton's or Kepler's laws and show me where either mentioned
a
> > unit.
> > ".... an equal and opposite reaction."
> > "... equal areas in equal times"
> >
>
> Those phrases have no operational meaning without a complete system of
> kinematics. In particular, neither Nature nor ourselves can get by to
> make practical use of the second phrase by a mere congruence notion of
> area.
>
> Patrick
Gerry Quinn
re...@asu.edu says...
> Gerry Quinn <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b82ce118...@news.indigo.ie>...
> >
> > > to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
> >
> > We can calculate that an isolated proton-electron system is stable,
>
> What do you mean by a "proton-electron system"? By what criteria would
> you claim such a system as "stable"?
I'm just going by the usual meanings. I see no point in starting some
more or less infinitely regressive thread in which you pointlessly
challenge the meaning of every term I use. You asked about hydrogen,
and I answered. You can work out the answers to the above questions,
which are of much the same form, by yourself.
> > and
> > demonstrate via astrophysical arguments that it is commonplace.
>
> By certain chemical arguments I can "prove" the existence of
> phlogiston too. By certain mechanical arguments I can "prove" that the
> sun orbits the earth. By certain astrophysical arguments I can "prove"
> that an absolute acceleration space exists (Newton).
That's very interesting. By what arguments do you prove the existence
of phlogiston?
> > We can
> > also create isolated hydrogen atoms in the laboratory under certain
> > conditions. Happy?
>
> Elated! It's those "certain conditions" that are going to get you. For
> example, how do you prove that a proton-electron "system" is ever
> isolated. Could you even claim that a proton-electron "system" is
> really a "system" at all if it were not isolated? What is the
> procedure of isolation? Does finding a proton-electron "system"
> experimentally interfer with or destroy the true nature of the
> "system"?
No, I'm comfortable with the conditions. The only real issue is that
you need to polarise the electrons all one way if you want to keep
hydrogen atoms close to one another without them reacting energetically
to form hydrogen molecules.
> Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
> until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
We usually refer to 'Rydberg atoms' when we are close to the ionisation
limit. It's an interesting study in itself.
> It's similar to the "sorites paradox". It goes like this for example:
>
> The paradox is that no one grain of sand on the collection can make
> the difference between the collection being or not being a heap. What
> is the solution? It's not to be found in commonsense and there is no
> "rational" answer! The solution is to act like God and fix n
> arbitrarily, by fiat. Fact building by consensus and arbitration.
I am familiar with the sorites paradox, and your reasoning is invalid.
Nobody makes an arbitrary decision by fiat on how many grains is a heap.
I've never heard of such a thing being done. Instead, we use the term
'heap' when we consider it appropriate, and remain aware of the limits
of language. We know the word 'heap' is vague, but that this vagueness
does not contaminate the reality of our sandpile.
> Where is absolute truth there? And if not there, where? Maybe the
> whole notion of a heap of sand is arbitrary. Maybe the whole notion of
> an atom is arbitrary too, except for its utility to the invention of
> theories that work. Fuzzy sets at work here, which includes the set of
> "nonmaterial physical boundaries in space" to ostensibly physical
> material things, such as hydrogen atoms. See
> http://www.ee.vt.edu/~dadone/fuzzyIntro/intro_to_fuzzy_sets.pdf
I've never heard of any physical theory that invokes the notion of a
fuzzy set. And what on earth are these "non-material physical
boundaries in space" you are hypothesising? Could you break me in
gently by proving the existence of phlogiston?
> Tell us how you know when it's raining. What's the minimum number N of
> rain drops per second per square acre? Why isn't N-1 rain drops per
> second per square acre also called "rain"? Just because?
I looked up just an hour ago because I heard sounds I associate with
rain, and indeed it was raining heavily. Had it been raining less
heavily I mightn't have noticed. For the record, I don't use or have a
definition of rain based on drops per second per unit area. So
obviously I don't determine whether it is raining by making such a
measuremnent.
> The epistemology of physics has to come to terms with the vagueness of
> human terms in the language of physics used to represent arbitrary
> human conceptualizations of the physical realm. The only solution to
> me is a pragmatic one. It's true that in QM vagueness has been dealt
> with at the atomic-subatomic level, but all of physics has to follow
> this lead.
No, the epistemology of physics is not subject to the limitations of
language. And QM is no vaguer than any other model.
> The hydrogen model is a damn good model whether hydrogen meaningfully
> exists objectively or not. Does the universe give special names to all
> possible subsets of itself? Which brings up another vagueness in the
> language of physics, which is, What do really mean by saying that some
> "physical object" objectively exists in the universe?
The universe doesn't give names to the entities in it - if it did there
might me some relevance in your going on about the limitations of
language, because those limitations would then be physical. The sorites
paradox would cause problems every time sand piled up, as the universe
would not know whether it had a heap or not. This may be considered
proof that language paradoxes have no relevance to the subjects of
physics.
I'm not sure what distinction you are making between hydrogen
"existing" and "existing objectively" - could you elaborate?
- Gerry Quinn
Patrick Reany
Despite your typical, predictable idiotic and loquacious reply, you
failed, as usual, to answer my question. Your naive, cavalier, and
simplistic answer, lacking objective quantification (this is a science
NG), amounts to just this: "It's raining when I say it's raining." I
want a more mature and objective answer than that. I'll dumb down the
question to your level of imbecility:
What is the precise minimum number of drops of
precipitation per second per acre striking the ground
that constitutes rain where you live?
I don't see anything "philosophic" in my response so far. Quite the
opposite! I will observe, however, that your naive, cavalier, and
simplistic approach you take to determining if it's raining is the
same naive, cavalier, and simplistic approach you take to science
philosophy generally. You trivialize it.
That fact that you're an idiot doesn't make me a troll. Trolls set
devious traps. I only set obvious ones. If you'd quit being cavalier
you'd quit falling into these "traps." I predicted to my philosopher
friend that your knee-jerk response would be to think of one and only
one condition of "rain": and that is "obviously raining." There's your
cavaliernesss showing again. Are you ever going to learn? I really
doubt it! You are quilty of failing to see the Sorites Paradox in all
of this. Why didn't you even consider boundary conditions? You didn't
because you dismissed my question as trivial from the start.
Maybe I should make it even easier on you. Does one drop of
precipitation per second per acre striking the ground constitute rain
where you live? If it does, explain why. If it doesn't, explain why.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
tits on a boar when it comes to science and philosophy.
Patrick challenges me thusly:
"Maybe I should make it even easier on you. Does one drop of
precipitation per second per acre striking the ground constitute rain
where you live? If it does, explain why. If it doesn't, explain why."
This challenge of Patrick's suffers from a fatal defect. The issue
Patrick has raised is _only_ one of definition. Is one drop rain? Ans.
If I define it as so. Is one drop not rain? Ans. Depends entirely on
how I wish to define rain. Patrick should study the philosophy of
definitions. I have.
If anybody is hardup enough to go for tits on a boar, they are
sufficiently mentally disoriented to go for Patrick's "philosophy".
ueb
> Patrick Reany wrote:
>>
>> Hydrogen, pizza, Eddington, Duhem-Quine Thesis, and QM justified
> [snip]
> Stooopidity, flounder, Edwina Poswilly, Venus in Furs, why
> Patricia can't think.
I find that Patrick rather thinks too much.
Patrick only tells that many modern scientists do, but wouldn't admit.
Ulrich
ueb
> Hydrogen, pizza, Eddington, Duhem-Quine Thesis, and QM justified
Pardon, you become childish. Do rather delete the return address.
> ueb wrote in message news:<7g39fc...@Muse2.private.de>...
[snip]
>> But classical theories like Newton's mechanics or electrodynamics
>> dealt only with observable quantities.
> I guess that critically depends on what you mean by "observable
> quantities." Newton's mechanics uses the notions of invisible point
> mass particles,
Mass as physical quantity is directly measurable, during the point
particle is no quantity but an idealization.
> invisible gravity,
Huh ? Why do you not tip over, during you go or stand ?
We can *directly* perceive the curvature vector with our senses.
> and an absolute acceleration space,
> also invisible.
Is not acceleration defined for a body ? <wonder>
> Classical E&M uses the notion of invisible fields.
So ? What do you see with your eyes ?
> To me, invisible
> means nonobservable, at least in the direct sense or the classical
> sense (though not necessarily in the QM sense). We don't observe
> fields;
I'm afraid that I must give you a radio.
See also above.
> we observe their ostensible influence on observable particles
> or on instruments designed to register being hit by invisible
> particles.
Fields have been observed before people told anything of particles.
You can of course not understand that particles are fields too,
i.e. discrete solutions of field equations.
>> Thus, they were true until
>> they reached their limits, i.e. have been disproved. However,
>> a theory that confines itself only to "work" might be pretty weak.
>> That is purely subjective. How will you get any insights ?
>> That you prefer is less than engineering.
> Isn't the notion of "insight" subjective itself?
May be. But without insights, you have nothing at all.
Ulrich
Uncle Al
Patrick Reany
> In Patrick's post above he again demonstrates that he is as useless as
> tits on a boar when it comes to science and philosophy.
>
> Patrick challenges me thusly:
>
> "Maybe I should make it even easier on you. Does one drop of
> precipitation per second per acre striking the ground constitute rain
> where you live? If it does, explain why. If it doesn't, explain why."
>
> This challenge of Patrick's suffers from a fatal defect. The issue
> Patrick has raised is _only_ one of definition. Is one drop rain? Ans.
> If I define it as so. Is one drop not rain? Ans. Depends entirely on
> how I wish to define rain. Patrick should study the philosophy of
> definitions. I have.
It doesn't show.
I see no fatal defect. The entire point is that the definition of rain
is arbitrary! Now here's an amazing thing: A supposed objective fact
of science -- that it's raining or not -- can be determined by an
observation compared to an arbitrary definition. What else is
seemingly "objective" yet depends on arbitrary definitions? How about
the existence of atoms? What gives humans the right to just assume
that Nature came prepackaged as collections of atoms? I look at the
universe and see an undivided whole. Whatever objective parts it has
is the result of human imagination and invention.
Whatever you think a hydrogen atom really is, imagine one in space.
Now, let the electron and proton separate until they are a 1000 light
years apart. Is that electron-proton pair still an atom? If not, at
what separation did they stop being a hydrogen atom?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> In article <844a1b64.04081...@posting.google.com>,
> re...@asu.edu says...
> > Gerry Quinn <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b82ce118...@news.indigo.ie>...
> > >
> > > > Since science claims that hydrogen atoms exist, it should be willing
> > > > to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
> > >
> > > We can calculate that an isolated proton-electron system is stable,
> >
> > What do you mean by a "proton-electron system"? By what criteria would
> > you claim such a system as "stable"?
>
> I'm just going by the usual meanings. I see no point in starting some
> more or less infinitely regressive thread in which you pointlessly
> challenge the meaning of every term I use. You asked about hydrogen,
> and I answered. You can work out the answers to the above questions,
> which are of much the same form, by yourself.
Your pointless is my pointed. You miss the fact that what I am
questioning is precisely the "usual meaning."
>
>
> > > and
> > > demonstrate via astrophysical arguments that it is commonplace.
> >
> > By certain chemical arguments I can "prove" the existence of
> > phlogiston too. By certain mechanical arguments I can "prove" that the
> > sun orbits the earth. By certain astrophysical arguments I can "prove"
> > that an absolute acceleration space exists (Newton).
>
> That's very interesting. By what arguments do you prove the existence
> of phlogiston?
I put the term "proof" in quotes. I was being facetious to some
degree, yet, people can accept any standard of "proof" they want. Just
looking at posts on this NG demonstrate that. Proofs around here are
rarely rational or persuasive, but that doesn't stop people, for
example, from believing in ether. The point is that a lot of educated
people used to believe that they had a "proof" of phlogiston, just
like a lot of educated people today think that they have a scientific
proof of atoms.
[snip]
>
> > Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
> > until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
>
> We usually refer to 'Rydberg atoms' when we are close to the ionisation
> limit. It's an interesting study in itself.
Philosophically, too. Let's refer to your defining distance, the
Rydberg distance, as R. Let the distance between the electron-proton
pair be given as d(e,p). Then are you saying that whenever d(e,p) > R,
the hydrogen atom no longer exists? We can also ask if whenever d(e,p)
<= R the proton-electron pair always consitutes a hydrogen atom.
>
> > It's similar to the "sorites paradox". It goes like this for example:
> >
> > The paradox is that no one grain of sand on the collection can make
> > the difference between the collection being or not being a heap. What
> > is the solution? It's not to be found in commonsense and there is no
> > "rational" answer! The solution is to act like God and fix n
> > arbitrarily, by fiat. Fact building by consensus and arbitration.
>
> I am familiar with the sorites paradox, and your reasoning is invalid.
> Nobody makes an arbitrary decision by fiat on how many grains is a heap.
Yet YOU made an arbitrary fixing of the hydrogen atom to exist
whenever d(e,p) <= R.
> I've never heard of such a thing being done. Instead, we use the term
> 'heap' when we consider it appropriate, and remain aware of the limits
> of language. We know the word 'heap' is vague, but that this vagueness
> does not contaminate the reality of our sandpile.
There is no damn invalid reasoning on my part. I have gone to quite a
bit of trouble simply to prove that the term "heap" IS vague. The
point is that we frequently use vague terms as though they are NOT
vague, without even realizing we do so. The notion of an atom is a
vague term; the notion of "it's raining" is vague. The notion that the
universe comes prepackaged into bits called atoms is a pure human
invention.
If we arbitrarily choose the minimum number of drops of water per
second per acre to be 1000, then there is no rational reason why it
couldn't also be set at 1001 or 999. The point being that the
condition that it is really, truly, objectively raining ouside is
vague.
>
> > Where is absolute truth there? And if not there, where? Maybe the
> > whole notion of a heap of sand is arbitrary. Maybe the whole notion of
> > an atom is arbitrary too, except for its utility to the invention of
> > theories that work. Fuzzy sets at work here, which includes the set of
> > "nonmaterial physical boundaries in space" to ostensibly physical
> > material things, such as hydrogen atoms. See
> > http://www.ee.vt.edu/~dadone/fuzzyIntro/intro_to_fuzzy_sets.pdf
>
> I've never heard of any physical theory that invokes the notion of a
> fuzzy set.
Sure you have: atomic theory, just to name one. Physics should say a
lot more about it at the introductory level.
http://aurora.phys.utk.edu/p641/21stcent.html
http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/marchives/fuzzy-mail96/0702.html
> And what on earth are these "non-material physical
> boundaries in space" you are hypothesising?
Here's a boundary made of nothing material though it "exist" in
physical space and time: Let's go back to our hydrogen atom, Radius =
R. Think of it as an imaginary sphere centered at the proton.
>
> > Tell us how you know when it's raining. What's the minimum number N of
> > rain drops per second per square acre? Why isn't N-1 rain drops per
> > second per square acre also called "rain"? Just because?
>
> I looked up just an hour ago because I heard sounds I associate with
> rain, and indeed it was raining heavily. Had it been raining less
> heavily I mightn't have noticed. For the record, I don't use or have a
> definition of rain based on drops per second per unit area. So
> obviously I don't determine whether it is raining by making such a
> measuremnent.
The point is that whatever minimum number you might choose to define
rain would be arbitrary. In other words, you have used a vague term as
though it is not vague, without even knowing that you were doing so.
>
> > The epistemology of physics has to come to terms with the vagueness of
> > human terms in the language of physics used to represent arbitrary
> > human conceptualizations of the physical realm. The only solution to
> > me is a pragmatic one. It's true that in QM vagueness has been dealt
> > with at the atomic-subatomic level, but all of physics has to follow
> > this lead.
>
> No, the epistemology of physics is not subject to the limitations of
> language.
I just gave you a clear example proving the opposite. Explain why the
justification of statements made in a language is NOT dependent on the
vagueness of terms used in the language. Let the statement S be: "I
know it's not raining outside." S is twice vulernable,
epistemologically speaking, to vagueness. First, the vaguness of where
to fix the minimum number of drops, and second, on measuring
accurately the number of drops per unit time per unit area. Just
change the standard by which one defines rain and the S's truth value
can go from true to false or from false to true.
> And QM is no vaguer than any other model.
I'd say that it is.
>
> > The hydrogen model is a damn good model whether hydrogen meaningfully
> > exists objectively or not. Does the universe give special names to all
> > possible subsets of itself? Which brings up another vagueness in the
> > language of physics, which is, What do really mean by saying that some
> > "physical object" objectively exists in the universe?
>
> The universe doesn't give names to the entities in it -
Then what justifies our giving names to special subsets of the
universe? If the point of science is supposedly to say true things
about the external world, then why do we justify inventing 'objects'
and naming them which the universe itself does not do?
Even the term "entities" is admitting to the existence of arbitrary
objective subsets of the universe. You see, we can't even begin to
discuss the universe at all unless we anthropomorphize it to include
entities.
> if it did there
> might me some relevance in your going on about the limitations of
> language, because those limitations would then be physical.
What's important is that the limitations are epistemological, not
physical per se. Although there are also limitations imposed on our
ability to decide the truth values of some statements about the
microscopic world even when our concepts seem clear. There are also
limits to accurately say that it is or isn't raining outside.
> The sorites
> paradox would cause problems every time sand piled up, as the universe
> would not know whether it had a heap or not. This may be considered
> proof that language paradoxes have no relevance to the subjects of
> physics.
Maybe the universe doesn't know about atoms. It's not my point to
prove that the universe does or doesn't know about atoms. My only
point is that we not insist that they are objective entities whose
objectivity is not dependent on human conceptualizations.
If you would quit confusing what "is" with our human-invented
conceptualizations of what "is" (i.e., the map is not the territory),
maybe you could follow my reasoning for a change. We don't literally
think in terms of real things; we think in terms of our concepts of
what "is" or what could be or what is just convenient to think in
terms of but aren't--things I refer to as "chimera," such as mass
continuums.
>
> I'm not sure what distinction you are making between hydrogen
> "existing" and "existing objectively" - could you elaborate?
>
> - Gerry Quinn
Simple, it is absurd to believe that a thing objectively exists though
its definition depends on an arbitrarily fixed parameter of some sort.
It's ludicrous to believe that hydrogen comes into existence as r goes
less than R and goes out of existence as r goes larger than R.
Patrick
Gerry Quinn
> > I'm just going by the usual meanings. I see no point in starting some
> > more or less infinitely regressive thread in which you pointlessly
> > challenge the meaning of every term I use. You asked about hydrogen,
> > and I answered. You can work out the answers to the above questions,
> > which are of much the same form, by yourself.
>
> Your pointless is my pointed. You miss the fact that what I am
> questioning is precisely the "usual meaning."
No, you demonstrate an intention of asking for definitions endlessly
whatever I answer. To which I could give answers endlessly, and so on.
I don't see how any conclusions can be drawn from that except that
physics is not math (similar questions about math would terminate in a
set of axioms).
> > That's very interesting. By what arguments do you prove the existence
> > of phlogiston?
>
> I put the term "proof" in quotes. I was being facetious to some
> degree, yet, people can accept any standard of "proof" they want.
Well, there's nothing more to be said about phlogiston, so. I don't
have any problem with the notion of phlogiston per se, the question of
whether phlogiston exists is merely the question of whether the set of
properties that we refer to using the word 'phlogiston' correspond to
properties of the universe.
> > > Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
> > > until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
> >
> > We usually refer to 'Rydberg atoms' when we are close to the ionisation
> > limit. It's an interesting study in itself.
>
> Philosophically, too. Let's refer to your defining distance, the
> Rydberg distance, as R. Let the distance between the electron-proton
> pair be given as d(e,p). Then are you saying that whenever d(e,p) > R,
> the hydrogen atom no longer exists? We can also ask if whenever d(e,p)
> <= R the proton-electron pair always consitutes a hydrogen atom.
Hang on, I never claimed that such a distance R exists! A Rydberg atom
is still an atom, and in any case there is no universally defined radius
beyond which an atom becomes a non-atom. The term 'atom' is a little
vague, like all words. Some things exist that might be described as
atoms in some contexts and not in others, while other things exist that
would be defined as atoms in any context.
> > I am familiar with the sorites paradox, and your reasoning is invalid.
> > Nobody makes an arbitrary decision by fiat on how many grains is a heap.
>
> Yet YOU made an arbitrary fixing of the hydrogen atom to exist
> whenever d(e,p) <= R.
No I did not make any such fixing. Every term in that equation was
introduced by you. I just mentioned that atoms near the ionisation
limit are often called Rydberg atoms.
> > I've never heard of such a thing being done. Instead, we use the term
> > 'heap' when we consider it appropriate, and remain aware of the limits
> > of language. We know the word 'heap' is vague, but that this vagueness
> > does not contaminate the reality of our sandpile.
>
> There is no damn invalid reasoning on my part. I have gone to quite a
> bit of trouble simply to prove that the term "heap" IS vague. The
You needn't have bothered - I knew that. The word atom is imprecise
too. The imprecision of our words hardly controls whether their
referents exist or not, though, does it? If the town has been stalked
last night by a vampire and I mistakenly think a werewolf has been
active, the corpses do not thereby disappear. The vampire existed. And
the thing that I think of as a werewolf existed. My vagueness has no
impact on whether the thing I am talking about exists.
> point is that we frequently use vague terms as though they are NOT
> vague, without even realizing we do so. The notion of an atom is a
> vague term; the notion of "it's raining" is vague.
These terms are imprecise, I will grant you - 'vague' is overegging the
cake.
> The notion that the
> universe comes prepackaged into bits called atoms is a pure human
> invention.
How do you mean "prepackaged"? I've never said that! The universe
doesn't care what words we use to describe it. Rain exists, and atoms
exist - that is to say that the things we refer to when we use those
words exist (which is the meaning of the sentence "X exists").
All *notions* are human inventions. But atoms and rain aren't.
> If we arbitrarily choose the minimum number of drops of water per
> second per acre to be 1000, then there is no rational reason why it
> couldn't also be set at 1001 or 999. The point being that the
> condition that it is really, truly, objectively raining ouside is
> vague.
But I have never suggested otherwise! The question was whether rain, or
atoms, exist. It may certainly be a difficult call as to whether rain
exists at point X on such and such a date, but that is a different
question from the one you asked.
> > > Where is absolute truth there? And if not there, where? Maybe the
> > > whole notion of a heap of sand is arbitrary. Maybe the whole notion of
> > > an atom is arbitrary too, except for its utility to the invention of
> > > theories that work. Fuzzy sets at work here, which includes the set of
> > > "nonmaterial physical boundaries in space" to ostensibly physical
> > > material things, such as hydrogen atoms. See
> > > http://www.ee.vt.edu/~dadone/fuzzyIntro/intro_to_fuzzy_sets.pdf
> >
> > I've never heard of any physical theory that invokes the notion of a
> > fuzzy set.
>
> Sure you have: atomic theory, just to name one. Physics should say a
> lot more about it at the introductory level.
>
> http://aurora.phys.utk.edu/p641/21stcent.html
>
> http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/marchives/fuzzy-mail96/0702.html
Well the first looks like philosophy - the second is certainly a list of
some papers. Well, if somebody has found a use for fuzzy logic in
modelling quantum theory, good luck to them, although from what I know
of quantum logic the enterprise seems dodgy. Decoherent states don't,
except maybe in the classical limit, obey the simple statistics on which
fuzzy logic is based.
> > > Tell us how you know when it's raining. What's the minimum number N of
> > > rain drops per second per square acre? Why isn't N-1 rain drops per
> > > second per square acre also called "rain"? Just because?
> >
> > I looked up just an hour ago because I heard sounds I associate with
> > rain, and indeed it was raining heavily. Had it been raining less
> > heavily I mightn't have noticed. For the record, I don't use or have a
> > definition of rain based on drops per second per unit area. So
> > obviously I don't determine whether it is raining by making such a
> > measuremnent.
>
> The point is that whatever minimum number you might choose to define
> rain would be arbitrary. In other words, you have used a vague term as
> though it is not vague, without even knowing that you were doing so.
But I don't define such a number. And I never claimed the term was
precise. The question was "does rain exist", not "is the word 'rain'
precisely defined"? The answer to the first is yes, the answer to the
second is no.
> > No, the epistemology of physics is not subject to the limitations of
> > language.
>
> I just gave you a clear example proving the opposite. Explain why the
> justification of statements made in a language is NOT dependent on the
> vagueness of terms used in the language. Let the statement S be: "I
> know it's not raining outside." S is twice vulernable,
> epistemologically speaking, to vagueness. First, the vaguness of where
> to fix the minimum number of drops, and second, on measuring
> accurately the number of drops per unit time per unit area. Just
> change the standard by which one defines rain and the S's truth value
> can go from true to false or from false to true.
But the question was whether rain exists. There are many situations in
which its existence is beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, we learn the
word 'rain' by experience of such situations. Why do you think the word
exists at all if it doesn't refer to something real?
> > The universe doesn't give names to the entities in it -
>
> Then what justifies our giving names to special subsets of the
> universe? If the point of science is supposedly to say true things
> about the external world, then why do we justify inventing 'objects'
> and naming them which the universe itself does not do?
We don't < invent 'objects' >. We < invent names for objects >. The
justification is that it helps us talk about them. I can talk to you
about rain, but rain would still exist if language didn't.
> Even the term "entities" is admitting to the existence of arbitrary
> objective subsets of the universe. You see, we can't even begin to
> discuss the universe at all unless we anthropomorphize it to include
> entities.
Introducing entites is not anthromorphism, unless the entities are
anthropomorphic. But in any case, we do introduce words when we want to
discuss things. But things are not words, and if the words are vague it
doesn't make the things vague, or non-existent.
> > if it did there
> > might me some relevance in your going on about the limitations of
> > language, because those limitations would then be physical.
>
> What's important is that the limitations are epistemological, not
> physical per se. Although there are also limitations imposed on our
> ability to decide the truth values of some statements about the
> microscopic world even when our concepts seem clear. There are also
> limits to accurately say that it is or isn't raining outside.
I don't see any serious epistemological problems with the statement
"rain exists" or "it rains". Accurately defining when it rains is a
different problem. Likely enough we'd take a temporary formula, thus,
"For the purposes of this study, 'rainy days' will be defined as days in
which 2.5 mm or more of rain was recorded at Dublin Airport".
> > The sorites
> > paradox would cause problems every time sand piled up, as the universe
> > would not know whether it had a heap or not. This may be considered
> > proof that language paradoxes have no relevance to the subjects of
> > physics.
>
> Maybe the universe doesn't know about atoms. It's not my point to
> prove that the universe does or doesn't know about atoms. My only
> point is that we not insist that they are objective entities whose
> objectivity is not dependent on human conceptualizations.
Of course the universe doesn't know about atoms, any more than it knows
about heaps. The words "atom" and "heap" are words we use to describe
aspects of the universe. But we describe them because they are real;
they are not real as a result of our describing them. The limitations
of our descriptions have no impact on their reality.
> If you would quit confusing what "is" with our human-invented
> conceptualizations of what "is" (i.e., the map is not the territory),
> maybe you could follow my reasoning for a change. We don't literally
> think in terms of real things; we think in terms of our concepts of
> what "is" or what could be or what is just convenient to think in
> terms of but aren't--things I refer to as "chimera," such as mass
> continuums.
I'm not making any such confusion - you are the one doing that. You are
confusing the word "rain" with the aspect of the universe that the word
refers to. As to how we think, that's a whole other question. Sparks
fly through our brains, and some of the sparks are initiated when
atmospheric precipitation drips off the end of our noses.
> > I'm not sure what distinction you are making between hydrogen
> > "existing" and "existing objectively" - could you elaborate?
>
> Simple, it is absurd to believe that a thing objectively exists though
> its definition depends on an arbitrarily fixed parameter of some sort.
> It's ludicrous to believe that hydrogen comes into existence as r goes
> less than R and goes out of existence as r goes larger than R.
Well then, you'll be glad to know I don't believe anything of the sort!
But are you accepting that it exists?
- Gerry Quinn
Daniel Weston
question is, can you keep it up for the next 4 years without losing your
cool with Patrick. He dismisses your logic and argument totally and
will repeat next week the things that you found most objectionable and
proved as nonsense. Patrick is on an evangelistic mission and he
considers it is his calling to keep repeating the epistemological gospel
without being deterred by pagan objections. I have now reached the
point where I ignore Patrick, or use his nonsense to generate some
humor. (hopefully)
Patrick Reany
Ignore Patrick. It shows you less a fool and religious bigot that way.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
exist?"
We can answer this the complex way or the easy way. I shall try the
easy way hoping against hope that Patrick will get it.
Take some water and put in a glass container and subject the water to
electrolysis. Tube A collects a gas we arbitrarly call oxygen. Tube B
collects a gas we arbitrarily call hydrogen. Testing by a chemist
demonstrates that oxygen and hydrogen have distinctly different
properties.
But is the hydrogen real? Fill up a balloon with hydrogen and put Reany
in the basket and launch it. Up, up, and away.
At 2000 ft lightning hits the hydrogen balloon and the balloon blows up
and Reany falls 2000 ft and lands on his bum. Would that convince Reany
that hydrogen is real?
Let's take up bets.
Patrick Reany
You haven't done it in the easy way or the complex way, because you
simply haven't done it at all. You said NOTHING about atoms at all!
I guess for some people one has to repeatedly be overly specific. I'm
NOT -- that is again, NOT -- asking anyone to prove that something
called "bulk hydrogen gas" exists. I'm asking someone to prove to me
that a single hydrogen atom exists.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
standard text book on atomic physics, or a good science history book.
For many years there were certain things that showed themselves as
irreducible. and scientists arbitrarily gave to them the name of atom.
Robert J. Kolker
Daniel Weston wrote:
Atom is Greek for ha'tomos. Meaning uncutable.
Bob Kolker
Patrick Reany
I already gave the meaning of what a hydrogen atom is: A collection of
a proton and an electron. The question is, when is such a collection a
hydrogen atom? You still haven't proved that there is such a real
thing and how the existence of such a "real" thing as a single
hydrogen atom is confirmed empirically.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
particles get close enough to trigger the strong force. That is my
understanding. I am not an expert on atomic physics so I am not the one
to give to you the reasons why all the PHDs in physics think that it is
an atom. It is apparent that you are not as interested in the answer to
the question as you are in making some metaphysical point. What is it?
The term "real" means that it exists in nature. The statement that
atoms of hydrogen exist in nature is universally accepted by all the
PHDs whose business it is to search for this kind of information. It
has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Even you acknowledge that
this is the strongest statement of certitude that can be had in science.
Since you have all the PHDs in the world arrayed against you on this
matter, you had better come up with some good arguments to the contrary.
I have not heard them as yet.
Science has now gotten to the point where it can tell us with a high
degree of certitude, the electrons, neutrons, and protons, that compose
each atom. You are now challenging us as to why atoms
exist!, in much the same manner that you have in the past challenged us
as to
whether the moon exists.
Are you now saying that all of Western Science is mistaken on this issue
about nature? You claim to be an Instrumentalist and are challenging a
theory that works beyond all reasonable doubt??!! You really spend a
lot of time being inconsistent. You have been reading to much of Kant,
Hagel, Berkeley,
and Leibnitz. Try reading Schiller, Pierce,
James and especially John Dewey. And please stop telling us that you
are an Instrumentalist. Honest to God Patrick, you really come across
as confused.
Robert J. Kolker
Daniel Weston wrote:
> The term "real" means that it exists in nature. The statement that
> atoms of hydrogen exist in nature is universally accepted by all the
> PHDs whose business it is to search for this kind of information.
Has anyone ever -seen- a hydrogen atom? I have no problem accepting
atoms as hypothetical entities, because doing so leads to correct
predictions and nifty technology. But where an when has anyone ever
perceived an atom (any atom) directly?
Hypotheses are fine when they lead to verified observations, but should
they be taken literally?
If you ask me if atoms exist, I reply, -something- exists beyond our
means of perception which accounts for what we do perceive. Whether that
something is the hypothetical atom (remember we have gone through at
least three versions of what an atom it) I do not know and neither do
you. We can suppose what we will and as long as our suppostions do not
clash with observed fact, all is well.
Bob Kolker
luke
In your desire to reach conclusion on the issue of existence of
hydrogen atoms, you have not reached stage one, what would constitute
such an atom. I suggest you could use lyman alpha excitation as a
criteria.
Of course, the drop of rain you mention is already sufficient proof
for me.
Daniel Weston
position that unless it has been seen with our eyeballs that it is not
real?
Patrick Reany
> Patrick, an electron and a proton become an atom when these two
> particles get close enough to trigger the strong force. That is my
> understanding. I am not an expert on atomic physics so I am not the one
> to give to you the reasons why all the PHDs in physics think that it is
> an atom.
One doesn't have to be an expert to get simple things right about
physics. How could you get it so wrong! Although for the purpose of
this thread I'm not interested in the nature of the "force" that is
supposed to hold the hydrogen atom together, you could have appealed
to electrostatic force for one.
> It is apparent that you are not as interested in the answer to
> the question as you are in making some metaphysical point. What is it?
The fact that a trillion, trillion physicists believe something
doesn't make it so. The fact that the model of a hydrogen atom may be
useful (such as Bohr's or Schrodinger's model) doesn't PROVE that the
model is true of Nature. I'm not going to go back over the Sorites
Paradox again. If you're too stupid that you don't get it at this
point, I give up on you.
>
> The term "real" means that it exists in nature.
Fine. The term "prove it" means prove it! I mean prove it to any claim
that something really exists. Normally we take the existence of
macroscopic objects' existence for granted. But atoms are different.
How do we know that atoms exist as specific special states of subsets
of the universe? Consider all the ways in which a supposed atom can
become a non-atom. If you can't figure it out by now, give up.
> The statement that
> atoms of hydrogen exist in nature is universally accepted by all the
> PHDs whose business it is to search for this kind of information.
Everyone is free to believe anything he or she wants within his or her
personal natural philosophy. I'm waaiting for you to apply the Sorites
paradox to the model of the hydrogen atom, but you're too dumb to get
it.
> It
> has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Even you acknowledge that
> this is the strongest statement of certitude that can be had in science.
I remember making no such claim. Analytic claims would be stronger.
> Since you have all the PHDs in the world arrayed against you on this
> matter, you had better come up with some good arguments to the contrary.
> I have not heard them as yet.
Damn, you are closed-minded. Beyond all reasonable doubt the moon, my
left shoe and a star in the Andremeda galaxy exists, but nobody claims
that that subset of the universe should get its own special name. Why
do we give a non-permanent collection of a proton and an electron a
special name and claim that those two parts together makes up a "real"
thing? Why is it any more "real" than any other arbitrary collection
of particles in the universe?
> Science has now gotten to the point where it can tell us with a high
> degree of certitude, the electrons, neutrons, and protons, that compose
> each atom. You are now challenging us as to why atoms
> exist!,
Who said anything about "why"? Besides, one doesn't have to believe in
the existence of particles to use particle models. I don't have to
believe that continuum exists to use a continuum model.
> in much the same manner that you have in the past challenged us
> as to
> whether the moon exists.
>
> Are you now saying that all of Western Science is mistaken on this issue
> about nature? You claim to be an Instrumentalist and are challenging a
> theory that works beyond all reasonable doubt??!!
Nitwit. I challenged no theories at all. Scientific theories are about
physical models, not about "real" things per se. The map is not the
territory. How many hundreds of times do I have to tell you that?
> You really spend a
> lot of time being inconsistent. You have been reading to much of Kant,
> Hagel, Berkeley,
> and Leibnitz. Try reading Schiller, Pierce,
> James and especially John Dewey. And please stop telling us that you
> are an Instrumentalist. Honest to God Patrick, you really come across
> as confused.
And this "wisdom" from the guy who thinks that the strong force holds
the common hydrogen atom together.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
before. There is not to much point going over them again ad infinitum.
I am sure you would agree.
Let's approach this problem from an entirely different angle.
Question: What evidence would you accept as being sufficient, that the
hydrogen atoms are real?
Patrick Reany
I think any model of the hydrogen atom that requires a proton and an
electron in "close" proximity is enough to use the Sorites-paradox
argument against it.
The point is that Nature can deal with vagueness but humans prefer to
invent precise concepts as part of those free inventions of the human
mind. We are free to conceptually chop up the universe into atomic
bits. We are free to conceptually chop it up into some other
arrangement of fundamental bits.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
For a start, how about a definition of an atom that doesn't require
the use of any arbitrarily set parameters. You seem completely
incapable of separating synthetic knowledge into its empirical and
definitional parts. You ask for evidence when the issues has been all
along a definition. My point has been all along that the very concept
of an hydrogen atom is vague, like rain is vague. Objectivity can't
live in vagueness.
Give up on it. You aren't up to this conundrum.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
challenged us with, "How do you know a hydrogen atom really exists." He
tried to hang everybody up on the meaning of "really" and "exists". I
finally asked of him, "What evidence would he accept as sufficiently
proving that hydrogen atoms exist". At this point Patrick knew that he
had been cornered and the end was near. So he tries the escape
mechanism of now challenging us to define "atom".
If I define atom for him he will then want every word in the definition
defined, etc ad infinitum. Patrick is a troll.
John Gribbin is a PHD in astrophysics from Cambridge. In his book "Q is
for QUANTUM, An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics", in his discussion of
"atom" defines an atom as, "The smallest component of an element that
can take part in a chemical reaction." OK Patrick, a PHD in
astrophysics has given you a definition of "atom". What cop out will
you come up with next to avoid answering my question to you stated
above?
If Patrick were even a half ass Instrumentalist, he would observe that
hydrogen atoms are sufficiently identified so they can be major factors
IN THEORIES THAT WORK, and give experiments that are repeatable. He
would say that asking questions such as ultimate existence, absolute
proof, and that Solopsistic nonsense WAS EXACTLY WHAT INSTRUMENTALISM
WAS DESIGNED TO AVOID. Patrick's brain has been so contaminated with
theology that he can no longer detect when he is inconsistent.
Theologians aren't worried about contradictions and inconsistencies.
They simply shrug these off as one of God's "mysteries". Scientists do
not shrug off inconsistencies and contradictions.
If Patrick is an Instrumentalist, I am a Chinese fortune cookie.
Patrick Reany
> Patrick is stupid. In this thread and many others Patrick has pompously
> challenged us with, "How do you know a hydrogen atom really exists."
Only a dogmatist would call it "pompous" to challenge dogma. The
scientific attitude IS to question. And to seek clarity.
> He
> tried to hang everybody up on the meaning of "really" and "exists". I
> finally asked of him, "What evidence would he accept as sufficiently
> proving that hydrogen atoms exist". At this point Patrick knew that he
> had been cornered and the end was near. So he tries the escape
> mechanism of now challenging us to define "atom".
>
> If I define atom for him he will then want every word in the definition
> defined, etc ad infinitum. Patrick is a troll.
Patrick has politely asked you to quit because you are too closeminded
to even get what he's asking for.
>
> John Gribbin is a PHD in astrophysics from Cambridge. In his book "Q is
> for QUANTUM, An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics", in his discussion of
> "atom" defines an atom as, "The smallest component of an element that
> can take part in a chemical reaction."
Definitions are just definitions. Are you claiming that we just define
atoms into existence? I can define a unicorn but that doesn't mean
that it exists. Besides, you're going to have to produce for me at
least an operational definition. (Oh dear, that assumes that you know
what an "operational definition" is.)
> OK Patrick, a PHD in
> astrophysics has given you a definition of "atom". What cop out will
> you come up with next to avoid answering my question to you stated
> above?
I did not ask merely if a hydrogen atom exists. I asked how you KNOW a
hydrogen atom exists. A proof is a justification for knowing.
>
> If Patrick were even a half ass Instrumentalist, he would observe that
> hydrogen atoms are sufficiently identified so they can be major factors
> IN THEORIES THAT WORK, and give experiments that are repeatable.
So, you're making an inference based on faith from the behavior of
macroscopic hydrogen in experiments you haven't even yourself
performed? Faith in what? A theory? Give us your entire inductive
argument then. Be precise about it too, for a change.
Instrumentalists care about theories that work, not about real things.
But as I've already informed you, my query is epistemological, not
metaphysical.
OK. I'll try to make it VERRRRRY simple for you: If you do NOT believe
the hydrogen atom exists, then just say so. Else, if you do believe
that the hydrogen atom exists then tell me either that your belief is
based on science alone or it is based on something else. Ya with me so
far? I can repeat this if you need me to. Now, if it is based on
science alone then simply prove to me by scientific means that a
hydrogen atom exists. Produce one for me.
> He
> would say that asking questions such as ultimate existence, absolute
> proof, and that Solopsistic nonsense WAS EXACTLY WHAT INSTRUMENTALISM
> WAS DESIGNED TO AVOID. Patrick's brain has been so contaminated with
> theology that he can no longer detect when he is inconsistent.
> Theologians aren't worried about contradictions and inconsistencies.
> They simply shrug these off as one of God's "mysteries". Scientists do
> not shrug off inconsistencies and contradictions.
>
> If Patrick is an Instrumentalist, I am a Chinese fortune cookie.
What I am asking for is at least an operational procedure which can be
use to prove the existence of a hydrogen atom. We have gone away from
the physics meaning of a hydrogen atom being a combination of a proton
and an electron (which is typical in physics), for a chemistry notion
of the hydrogen element. Fine. Produce the operational procedure for
establishing the existence of a "smallest component of an element," in
this case, of the hydrogen element.
So far, you have produce only fallacious appeal-to-authority
arguments: "The hydrogen atom surely exists because various experts
say it exists." That's not good enough for the challenge. I am
challenging the appeal-to-authority argument itself. I want a real
proof. I want someone to produce a hydrogen atom (at least in
principle) and explain how they KNOW that they have produced a
hydrogen atom.
Aren't you the guy who just recently proclaimed that there's no place
for faith in science, yet here you are making bold knowledge claims on
the basis of claims made by others.
Reading your post makes it quite obvious that science education has
failed miserably. You haven't the slightest idea what I've been asking
for all this time.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> Patrick is stupid. In this thread and many others Patrick has pompously
> challenged us with, "How do you know a hydrogen atom really exists."
Only a dogmatist would call it "pompous" to challenge dogma. The
scientific attitude IS to question. And to seek clarity.
> He
> tried to hang everybody up on the meaning of "really" and "exists". I
> finally asked of him, "What evidence would he accept as sufficiently
> proving that hydrogen atoms exist". At this point Patrick knew that he
> had been cornered and the end was near. So he tries the escape
> mechanism of now challenging us to define "atom".
>
> If I define atom for him he will then want every word in the definition
> defined, etc ad infinitum. Patrick is a troll.
Patrick has politely asked you to quit because you are too closeminded
to even get what he's asking for.
>
> John Gribbin is a PHD in astrophysics from Cambridge. In his book "Q is
> for QUANTUM, An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics", in his discussion of
> "atom" defines an atom as, "The smallest component of an element that
> can take part in a chemical reaction."
Definitions are just definitions. Are you claiming that we just define
atoms into existence? I can define a unicorn but that doesn't mean
that it exists. Besides, you're going to have to produce for me at
least an operational definition. (Oh dear, that assumes that you know
what an "operational definition" is.)
> OK Patrick, a PHD in
> astrophysics has given you a definition of "atom". What cop out will
> you come up with next to avoid answering my question to you stated
> above?
I did not ask merely if a hydrogen atom exists. I asked how you KNOW a
hydrogen atom exists. A proof is a justification for knowing.
>
> If Patrick were even a half ass Instrumentalist, he would observe that
> hydrogen atoms are sufficiently identified so they can be major factors
> IN THEORIES THAT WORK, and give experiments that are repeatable.
So, you're making an inference based on faith from the behavior of
macroscopic hydrogen in experiments you haven't even yourself
performed? Faith in what? A theory? Give us your entire inductive
argument then. Be precise about it too, for a change.
Instrumentalists care about theories that work, not about real things.
But as I've already informed you, my query is epistemological, not
metaphysical.
OK. I'll try to make it VERRRRRY simple for you: If you do NOT believe
the hydrogen atom exists, then just say so. Else, if you do believe
that the hydrogen atom exists then tell me either that your belief is
based on science alone or it is based on something else. Ya with me so
far? I can repeat this if you need me to. Now, if it is based on
science alone then simply prove to me by scientific means that a
hydrogen atom exists. Produce one for me.
> He
> would say that asking questions such as ultimate existence, absolute
> proof, and that Solopsistic nonsense WAS EXACTLY WHAT INSTRUMENTALISM
> WAS DESIGNED TO AVOID. Patrick's brain has been so contaminated with
> theology that he can no longer detect when he is inconsistent.
> Theologians aren't worried about contradictions and inconsistencies.
> They simply shrug these off as one of God's "mysteries". Scientists do
> not shrug off inconsistencies and contradictions.
>
> If Patrick is an Instrumentalist, I am a Chinese fortune cookie.
What I am asking for is at least an operational procedure which can be
Patrick Reany
> Patrick is stupid. In this thread and many others Patrick has pompously
> challenged us with, "How do you know a hydrogen atom really exists."
Only a dogmatist would call it "pompous" to challenge dogma. The
scientific attitude IS to question. And to seek clarity.
> He
> tried to hang everybody up on the meaning of "really" and "exists". I
> finally asked of him, "What evidence would he accept as sufficiently
> proving that hydrogen atoms exist". At this point Patrick knew that he
> had been cornered and the end was near. So he tries the escape
> mechanism of now challenging us to define "atom".
>
> If I define atom for him he will then want every word in the definition
> defined, etc ad infinitum. Patrick is a troll.
Patrick has politely asked you to quit because you are too closeminded
to even get what he's asking for.
>
> John Gribbin is a PHD in astrophysics from Cambridge. In his book "Q is
> for QUANTUM, An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics", in his discussion of
> "atom" defines an atom as, "The smallest component of an element that
> can take part in a chemical reaction."
Definitions are just definitions. Are you claiming that we just define
atoms into existence? I can define a unicorn but that doesn't mean
that it exists. Besides, you're going to have to produce for me at
least an operational definition. (Oh dear, that assumes that you know
what an "operational definition" is.)
> OK Patrick, a PHD in
> astrophysics has given you a definition of "atom". What cop out will
> you come up with next to avoid answering my question to you stated
> above?
I did not ask merely if a hydrogen atom exists. I asked how you KNOW a
hydrogen atom exists. A proof is a justification for knowing.
>
> If Patrick were even a half ass Instrumentalist, he would observe that
> hydrogen atoms are sufficiently identified so they can be major factors
> IN THEORIES THAT WORK, and give experiments that are repeatable.
So, you're making an inference based on faith from the behavior of
macroscopic hydrogen in experiments you haven't even yourself
performed? Faith in what? A theory? Give us your entire inductive
argument then. Be precise about it too, for a change.
Instrumentalists care about theories that work, not about real things.
But as I've already informed you, my query is epistemological, not
metaphysical.
OK. I'll try to make it VERRRRRY simple for you: If you do NOT believe
the hydrogen atom exists, then just say so. Else, if you do believe
that the hydrogen atom exists then tell me either that your belief is
based on science alone or it is based on something else. Ya with me so
far? I can repeat this if you need me to. Now, if it is based on
science alone then simply prove to me by scientific means that a
hydrogen atom exists. Produce one for me.
> He
> would say that asking questions such as ultimate existence, absolute
> proof, and that Solopsistic nonsense WAS EXACTLY WHAT INSTRUMENTALISM
> WAS DESIGNED TO AVOID. Patrick's brain has been so contaminated with
> theology that he can no longer detect when he is inconsistent.
> Theologians aren't worried about contradictions and inconsistencies.
> They simply shrug these off as one of God's "mysteries". Scientists do
> not shrug off inconsistencies and contradictions.
>
> If Patrick is an Instrumentalist, I am a Chinese fortune cookie.
What I am asking for is at least an operational procedure which can be
Daniel Weston
clearly. I could go through the progress of our discussion and show you
how you have wify waffled all over the place.
I am at a loss as to what you want me to prove about the hydrogen atom.
And prove with what degree of certainty.
Please tell us what you would accept as proof for whatever it is that
you would like to know about the hydrogen atom.
What proof would satisfy you? Don't ask me for any definitions because
it is your responsibility to tell me what it is that is to be proved.
Do you want a picture? Do you want the weight? The color? What are
looking for, ar are really looking for anything.
Patrick Reany
I had already given you the standard of the Sorites paradox applied to
the model of the hydrogen atom. You didn't seem to get it, so what's
the point of continuing.
The whole point was that the notion of an atom is vague but useful
anyway. A vague concept cannot correspond to an objective reality.
Objective reality has always referred to something precisely defined
without arbitrarily set parameters. If the definiton of the atom
requires humans to arbitrarily set one or more metrical parameters,
then it's humanity that has "created" the atom, not Nature! Can't you
get it?
I'm NOT saying that I don't believe that there are electrons and
protons and neutrons flying around, and in doing so, often form a
configuration that is well modeled behaviorally by what we call an
atom. I am saying that just because we have a model that works doesn't
give us the right to say that such an arbitrarily chosen subset of all
possible physical states of those particles has objective meaning,
sotospeak, to the universe. There's no doubt that the model of an atom
has subjective meaning to humans.
To say that it's raining outside has no objective meaning -- that is,
a meaning apart from human arbitrary definitions which decides when it
is and when it is not raining. It's really so simple. This is part of
the price we humans pay for trying to impose order on the chaos of the
universe: We have to superimpose our anthropomorphic values systems
(the cookie cutter) onto the universe --- which doesn't itself use our
value system --- to produce "shapes" that aren't objective but which
humans can recognize and deal effectively with the resulting model.
To put it metaphorically, the universe is the dough. Human cognition
of the dough is done by applying a cookie cutter to the dough to chop
it up into "recognizable" pieces. To understand the dough, humans have
a limited number of cookie cutters to apply to the dough and there is
no logical connection between the dough and the cookie cutter's
ability to form "order." The cookie cutters are arbitrarily introduced
by humans. The universe comes to us as simply a whole. But humans
cannot rationalize the whole. They must rationalize by imposing
anthropomorphic structures onto the universe. There's no doubt that
this procedure works for our own human purposes, but that is not the
same thing as claiming that the end result is objective knowledge of
the universe.
Mentally cutting up the macroscopic universe into atoms is useful but
not objective reality. Instrumentalists don't need objective reality.
They just need a theory that works to account for observation.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
atoms. A new picture was posted today. Has your problem now been
resolved?
www.spacedaily.com/news/physics-04za.html
Gerry Quinn
> invent precise concepts as part of those free inventions of the human
> mind. We are free to conceptually chop up the universe into atomic
> bits. We are free to conceptually chop it up into some other
> arrangement of fundamental bits.
But we aren't chopping it up. We are pointing to what we see as
'natural kinds'. The fact that we could point to something else doesn't
make what we are pointing to go away.
In short, any vagueness is in the word 'atom', not in the atoms we point
to using that word. So to say that linguistic arguments can have
implications for whether atoms exist is nonsense.
I have never thus far needed a precise definition for rain, but if I
wanted to I could define rain-x in very specific terms, drops per square
metre or whatever. But I don't normally need to define rain-x to
observe that it is raining. The same applies to atoms. (And as Daniel
Weston has pointed out, they are regularly photographed, and have been
since the '50s - though much later my teachers told me that atoms could
never be photographed...)
- Gerry Quinn
Patrick Reany
I can take a picture of many kinds of buildings of human manufacture,
yet why do we arbitrarily distinguish a hut from a house from a
mansion? I have never said that matter doesn't align itself into
certain semi-stable structures. We distinguish between drizzlng,
sprinkling, and raining (which I can photograph), but why should
Nature honor our distinctions? Nature doesn't care if I get wet
because I didn't take an unbrella.
I said that for us to treat certain of those structures in Nature as
more real in Nature -- deserving of special names and regarded as
"objective" more than all other natural structures (perhaps ones that
don't photograph as easily) -- is a pure invention of the human mind.
We give names to things or states of being that have a definite
meaning to ourselves as physical anthropomorphic objects that need to
relate to other physical "objects" or states of being, as we perceive
them.
Just because we give a human-perceived "object" (or a state of being)
a special name does not by itself make the "object" more "objective"
than the "objects" (or states of being) that we don't bother to give
special names.
Since the electric force is infinite, why don't we consider every
electron in the universe to form a hydrogen atom simultaneously with
every proton in the universe?
Patrick
Patrick Reany
You guys keep missing the point. Why should Nature care about our
classification schemes? Does Nature keep tract of the difference
between 1 drop of precipitation per sec per acre and 2 drops of
precipitation per sec per acre etc? Does it give each state of being a
unique classification name? Does it care what humans call as rain?
According to Nature, when is a proton and an electron not a unit
called a hydrogen atom?
Patrick
Daniel Weston
Question; How many zerings = dinging?
Obviously (except to Patrick) the question is absolutely unanswerable.
The fact that I could not answer the question proves no profound
philosophical notion, it just proves that the question itself is vague
to the point of uselessness. The question of "How many zerings =
dinging", can only be answered if BOTH words are defined by the
_questioner_. If the questioner refuses to define "dinging" [raining]
he is playing word games. He asks the question without defining
"raining" and then when we try to define "raining" we are accused of
being arbitrary. Self serving and self centered stupidity.
Before Patrick went overboard on the _so_called_ Sorites paradox, he
should have read how philosophers have pointed out its meaninglessness.
The philosophers that have analyzed it conclude it is not paradoxical
but rather semantical. "Semantical" is a philosopher's polite word for,
playing word games.
Patrick correctly points out that all human speech and thought processes
suffer from anthropomorphism. What he is saying is that all human
speech and human thought processes are limited to the extent they are
done by humans. Big deal. What he is setting us up for is ergo, we
should seek God's word which is divinely revealed and free from
anthropomorphism. This is in Theology 101.
Patrick tells us that the universe is "chaos"
and our attempts to bring order by conjuring up atoms is not
"objective". What Patrick is telling us is that to be "objective" we
must give up on seeing "order" in the universe. OH REALLY!!!
Who told Patrick that the universe was chaos??????? His theology
instructor?
Has he had a revelation? Is Patrick hearing voices? By what right does
he announce to us that the universe is "chaos". And if we disagree with
him, and in our anthropomorphicly weakened state try to find order, that
proves we are not "objective" like he is.
Again Patrick has contradicted himself.
He points out that human words and thought are contaminated by
anthropomorphism, but he pompously announces to us that the universe is
chaos, (not ordered in any degree) when by his own words he admits his
thinking is unavoidable effected by his own anthropomorphism. In a nut
shell, "you guys are anthropomorphic but I am not." The only people that
can live comfortably with contradictions, are theologically contaminated
victims.
Patrick is philosophically deficient. He has read 3 or 4 book by
philosophers supposedly, but he is unfamiliar with the whole scope of
philosophical approaches, as taught in a secular university. I would
suggest that his friend that helps him write Patrick's posts, proof read
his stuff for inconsistences, contradictions and nonsense.
Patrick Reany
> Let me begin with a question as follows:
> Question; How many zerings = dinging?
> Obviously (except to Patrick) the question is absolutely unanswerable.
> The fact that I could not answer the question proves no profound
> philosophical notion, it just proves that the question itself is vague
> to the point of uselessness. The question of "How many zerings =
> dinging", can only be answered if BOTH words are defined by the
> _questioner_. If the questioner refuses to define "dinging" [raining]
> he is playing word games. He asks the question without defining
> "raining" and then when we try to define "raining" we are accused of
> being arbitrary. Self serving and self centered stupidity.
Define "raining" any way you want and then tell us why Nature could
care about our definition of "rain."
>
> Before Patrick went overboard on the _so_called_ Sorites paradox, he
> should have read how philosophers have pointed out its meaninglessness.
> The philosophers that have analyzed it conclude it is not paradoxical
> but rather semantical. "Semantical" is a philosopher's polite word for,
> playing word games.
>
> Patrick correctly points out that all human speech and thought processes
> suffer from anthropomorphism. What he is saying is that all human
> speech and human thought processes are limited to the extent they are
> done by humans. Big deal. What he is setting us up for is ergo, we
> should seek God's word which is divinely revealed and free from
> anthropomorphism. This is in Theology 101.
>
> Patrick tells us that the universe is "chaos"
> and our attempts to bring order by conjuring up atoms is not
> "objective".
That's somewhat close, but does Daniel really know what I mean by
"objective" in this context? I have my doubts. ("objective" means
"known to the universe" apart from human inventions or consciouness.)
> What Patrick is telling us is that to be "objective" we
> must give up on seeing "order" in the universe.
Actually, I believe I said just the opposite: In order to "see order
in Nature" one has to give up believing that the universe exists as a
collection of "parts" that humans conceived of, existing themselves as
individuated "objective" objects.
I remember saying NOTHING about chaos of nature per se, except
metaphorically. As usual, Daniel refused to give a quote in context
for us to look at. (The act of an intellectual charlatan.) I remember
talking about the chaos of our sensory inputs and our attempt to
impose an order on them by free invention of physical concepts. I do
remember saying that whatever scheme we choose to impose to foster an
image of "order on Nature" has no provable relationship to anything
true (or "objective") or Nature itself. When humans chop up the
universe into parts, they do so without the express blessing of
Nature, and they can never KNOW the truthfulness of such a chopping up
of the universe into parts. The very notion that the universe even has
individuated "parts" may be nothing more than a convenient human
invention. But that's OK, because science really doesn't need the
approbation of nature to do science effectively.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
[snip]
>
> > > > Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
> > > > until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
> > >
> > > We usually refer to 'Rydberg atoms' when we are close to the ionisation
> > > limit. It's an interesting study in itself.
You didn't really answer the question put to you, though.
> >
> > Philosophically, too. Let's refer to your defining distance, the
> > Rydberg distance, as R. Let the distance between the electron-proton
> > pair be given as d(e,p). Then are you saying that whenever d(e,p) > R,
> > the hydrogen atom no longer exists? We can also ask if whenever d(e,p)
> > <= R the proton-electron pair always consitutes a hydrogen atom.
>
> Hang on, I never claimed that such a distance R exists! A Rydberg atom
> is still an atom, and in any case there is no universally defined radius
> beyond which an atom becomes a non-atom. The term 'atom' is a little
> vague, like all words.
Now, *that* I will not allow. A term is either vague or not vague for
my purpose in this thread. There's no point in distinguishing degrees
of vagueness. At least you haven't yet shown a need for that
distinction.
> Some things exist that might be described as
> atoms in some contexts and not in others,
Some things exist such as?
> while other things exist that
> would be defined as atoms in any context.
Such as?
>
> > > I am familiar with the sorites paradox, and your reasoning is invalid.
> > > Nobody makes an arbitrary decision by fiat on how many grains is a heap.
> >
> > Yet YOU made an arbitrary fixing of the hydrogen atom to exist
> > whenever d(e,p) <= R.
>
> No I did not make any such fixing. Every term in that equation was
> introduced by you. I just mentioned that atoms near the ionisation
> limit are often called Rydberg atoms.
My apology. It's very important to distinguish what might exist from
specific scientific claims of what does exist. (I'm not interested at
all in what you personally believe exists.) I'm looking for the
justification of the knowledge claims in science of:
1) I know it's raining outside.
2) I know it's not raining outside.
3) I know that the hydrogen atom exists.
4) I know that the hydrogen atom does not exists.
If the term "rain" is vague at all it is vague and what then is the
meaning of a knowledge claim that "It is raining outside"? It does
indeed mean something to humans, which I have never disputed. There's
no need for me to dispute it. What I dispute is any inference that
because I know that it is raining outside by human standards that that
particular state of being of precipitation has any significance to
Nature compared to any of a virtual infinite other possible
classifications of RELATIVE precipitation states (i.e., one drop of
precipitation per acre per second, atc). Does Nature invent terms for
each one of these possible precipitation states? The term rain is
either vague, or, if well defined, then arbitrarily defined, and in
both cases Nature couldn't care less about human classifications.
If you claim to me that it's raining outside, how do I know you aren't
referring to a mere 3 drops per second per square mile? And if you
are, I would disagree with you. How does science handle this
epistemologi problem?
>
> > > I've never heard of such a thing being done. Instead, we use the term
> > > 'heap' when we consider it appropriate, and remain aware of the limits
> > > of language. We know the word 'heap' is vague, but that this vagueness
> > > does not contaminate the reality of our sandpile.
What is the reality of our sandpile?
> >
> > There is no damn invalid reasoning on my part. I have gone to quite a
> > bit of trouble simply to prove that the term "heap" IS vague. The
>
> You needn't have bothered - I knew that. The word atom is imprecise
> too. The imprecision of our words hardly controls whether their
> referents exist or not, though, does it?
When are you going to get it? Of course our words don't effect
reality. But our word choices effect what we can know about reality!
We use vague words all the time to make knowledge claims about
reality. I'm trying to remove the vagueness of the term "atom." Either
help me do that or just quit.
[snip]
>
> > point is that we frequently use vague terms as though they are NOT
> > vague, without even realizing we do so. The notion of an atom is a
> > vague term; the notion of "it's raining" is vague.
>
> These terms are imprecise, I will grant you - 'vague' is overegging the
> cake.
I'm not dropping the term. Imprecise and vague mean the same as far as
I'm concerned in this discussion.
>
> > The notion that the
> > universe comes prepackaged into bits called atoms is a pure human
> > invention.
>
> How do you mean "prepackaged"? I've never said that! The universe
> doesn't care what words we use to describe it.
I was clearly discussing metaphysics, not semantics, when I said
"prepackaged". What is the justification of any claim that something
"exists in the universe" as an individuated object?
> Rain exists, and atoms
> exist - that is to say that the things we refer to when we use those
> words exist (which is the meaning of the sentence "X exists").
Then tell us all the precise tests by which science KNOWS knows when
its raining and when a hydrogen atom exists.
>
> All *notions* are human inventions. But atoms and rain aren't.
What? They aren't human notions?! What are they, then?
>
> > If we arbitrarily choose the minimum number of drops of water per
> > second per acre to be 1000, then there is no rational reason why it
> > couldn't also be set at 1001 or 999. The point being that the
> > condition that it is really, truly, objectively raining ouside is
> > vague.
>
> But I have never suggested otherwise! The question was whether rain, or
> atoms, exist. It may certainly be a difficult call as to whether rain
> exists at point X on such and such a date, but that is a different
> question from the one you asked.
I'm asking you to give us all a precise definition of "rain" which can
be used to deterime if it's raining outside. I'm also asking you to
tell us all precisely when an proton and electron pair constitutes a
hydrogen atom.
Here's one for ya: Since the electromagnetic force is infinite, why
isn't it the case that every electron (all N of them) in the universe
combines SIMULTANEOUSLY with every proton (all M of them) in the
universe in pairs to form N*M hydrogen atoms, regardless of the
distance between the pairs?
[snip]
> > The point is that whatever minimum number you might choose to define
> > rain would be arbitrary. In other words, you have used a vague term as
> > though it is not vague, without even knowing that you were doing so.
>
> But I don't define such a number. And I never claimed the term was
> precise. The question was "does rain exist", not "is the word 'rain'
> precisely defined"? The answer to the first is yes, the answer to the
> second is no.
If the term "rain" is NOT precisely defined then how can you claim to
be able to use it in a declarative statement that "I know that it is
raining outside" under all possible circumstances of precipitation?
The epistemology of science is affected by its use of vague terms.
>
> > > No, the epistemology of physics is not subject to the limitations of
> > > language.
> >
> > I just gave you a clear example proving the opposite. Explain why the
> > justification of statements made in a language is NOT dependent on the
> > vagueness of terms used in the language. Let the statement S be: "I
> > know it's not raining outside." S is twice vulernable,
> > epistemologically speaking, to vagueness. First, the vaguness of where
> > to fix the minimum number of drops, and second, on measuring
> > accurately the number of drops per unit time per unit area. Just
> > change the standard by which one defines rain and the S's truth value
> > can go from true to false or from false to true.
>
> But the question was whether rain exists. There are many situations in
> which its existence is beyond reasonable doubt.
By implication then there are circumstances when there is reasonable
doubt. The doubt may come from measuremenet inaccuracies, but that
supposes the existence of clear boundaries in the first place. Where
did those clear boundaries come from?
> Indeed, we learn the
> word 'rain' by experience of such situations.
You call that "scientific"?
> Why do you think the word
> exists at all if it doesn't refer to something real?
I just proved to you that it is that particular realm of precipitation
in which the uncertainty of the meaning of rain prevails that the
truth value of the claim "It is raining outside" is subject to whim of
the individual, or to ceonvnetion, or changes in convention, even to
the scientist's, if no precise definition of rain states is given. My
point was, if you'll be so kind as to look above, to prove that the
epistemology of physics is subject to the limitations of language.
It's a pretty low stadnard of metaphysics if your entire notion of
existence is "to be recognized by and given a name by humans." What
about "objective existence"?
>
> > > The universe doesn't give names to the entities in it -
> >
> > Then what justifies our giving names to special subsets of the
> > universe? If the point of science is supposedly to say true things
> > about the external world, then why do we justify inventing 'objects'
> > and naming them which the universe itself does not do?
>
> We don't < invent 'objects' >. We < invent names for objects >.
Are you saying that the hydrogen atom exists objectively -- that is,
independently of human invention or consciousness (i.e., exists to the
universe)? We simply recognize the existence of objects whose
existence is intrinsic to the universe? Is that it?
Are you saying that the truth or falsity of the statement "It is
raining" exists objectively -- that is, independently of human
invention or consciousness (i.e., exists to the universe)?
[snip]
> > Even the term "entities" is admitting to the existence of arbitrary
> > objective subsets of the universe. You see, we can't even begin to
> > discuss the universe at all unless we anthropomorphize it to include
> > entities.
>
> Introducing entites is not anthromorphism, unless the entities are
> anthropomorphic.
Yes it IS anthropomorphic! We assume that enities are finite in bounds
because we are finite in bounds! We assume the entities have structure
because we have structure. We assume that entities evolve because we
evolve. We assume that the universe guides or confines the behavior
of entities because it guides or confines the behavior of ourselves.
These are all anthromorphisms which you have simply taken for granted
without once questioning why you do that!
> But in any case, we do introduce words when we want to
> discuss things. But things are not words, and if the words are vague it
> doesn't make the things vague, or non-existent.
More to the point is that the use of vague words gives no credulity at
all to the existence of nonvague things!
On what authority do you cordon off a subset of the universe and give
it a special name and think of it as an "object"?
Is EVERY possible subset of the universe an objective thing or object?
Even if I grant for the sake of argument that objective things exist
in the universe and that things are not words and if words are vague
it doesn't make the their referents vague, or non-existent, that still
doesn't remove the problem that our KNOWELDGE of such things is vague
and knowledge claims can be hypersensitive to infinitesinal changes of
state, such as the existence of a hydrogen atom depending on an
infinitesimal change in the separation distance of the proton and
electron.
>
> > > if it did there
> > > might me some relevance in your going on about the limitations of
> > > language, because those limitations would then be physical.
> >
> > What's important is that the limitations are epistemological, not
> > physical per se. Although there are also limitations imposed on our
> > ability to decide the truth values of some statements about the
> > microscopic world even when our concepts seem clear. There are also
> > limits to accurately say that it is or isn't raining outside.
>
> I don't see any serious epistemological problems with the statement
> "rain exists" or "it rains". Accurately defining when it rains is a
> different problem. Likely enough we'd take a temporary formula, thus,
> "For the purposes of this study, 'rainy days' will be defined as days in
> which 2.5 mm or more of rain was recorded at Dublin Airport".
Why can't you see that the very definition of rain is part of the
language of science? Where do you think it exists if not in the
language of science?
>
> > > The sorites
> > > paradox would cause problems every time sand piled up, as the universe
> > > would not know whether it had a heap or not. This may be considered
> > > proof that language paradoxes have no relevance to the subjects of
> > > physics.
> >
> > Maybe the universe doesn't know about atoms. It's not my point to
> > prove that the universe does or doesn't know about atoms. My only
> > point is that we not insist that they are objective entities whose
> > objectivity is not dependent on human conceptualizations.
>
> Of course the universe doesn't know about atoms, any more than it knows
> about heaps. The words "atom" and "heap" are words we use to describe
> aspects of the universe.
What do you mean by "aspects of the universe"?
> But we describe them because they are real;
What do you mean by "real"? What is the "them" you refer to?
> they are not real as a result of our describing them. The limitations
> of our descriptions have no impact on their reality.
Then what exactly do you mean when you say that "hydrogen atoms
exist"? You might as well claim that the 1 and 12 balls on a pool
table constitutes an objective real object as a pair!
>
> > > I'm not sure what distinction you are making between hydrogen
> > > "existing" and "existing objectively" - could you elaborate?
> >
> > Simple, it is absurd to believe that a thing objectively exists though
> > its definition depends on an arbitrarily fixed parameter of some sort.
> > It's ludicrous to believe that hydrogen comes into existence as r goes
> > less than R and goes out of existence as r goes larger than R.
>
> Well then, you'll be glad to know I don't believe anything of the sort!
> But are you accepting that it exists?
Hydrogen atoms do NOT exist objectively by any measure we can prove
them to exist. All we do KNOW is that the model of a hydrogen atom is
useful for human science.
Patrick
Gerry Quinn
re...@asu.edu says...
> Gerry Quinn <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b8f2ace8...@news.indigo.ie>...
> >
> > 'natural kinds'. The fact that we could point to something else doesn't
> > make what we are pointing to go away.
> >
> > In short, any vagueness is in the word 'atom', not in the atoms we point
> > to using that word. So to say that linguistic arguments can have
> > implications for whether atoms exist is nonsense.
> You guys keep missing the point. Why should Nature care about our
> classification schemes? Does Nature keep tract of the difference
> between 1 drop of precipitation per sec per acre and 2 drops of
> precipitation per sec per acre etc? Does it give each state of being a
> unique classification name? Does it care what humans call as rain?
No - that's what I've been trying to point out to you. It's YOU who
keeps bring up stuff about classification. As indeed you seem to be
admitting in the above paragraph, the exact definition of rain doesn't
make any difference to whether rain exists. Nature doesn't care about
our classification schemes. And thus difficulties with classification
schemes, such as the Sorites paradox, are irrelevant to discussions
about what things exist in nature.
When we say "it's raining" we are pointing to a feature of nature that
exists entirely independently of anything we say. The same applies to
an atom, or a heap of sand.
> According to Nature, when is a proton and an electron not a unit
> called a hydrogen atom?
Nature doesn't have names for things, so that question makes no sense.
- Gerry Quinn
Patrick Reany
> In article <844a1b64.04081...@posting.google.com>,
> re...@asu.edu says...
> > Gerry Quinn <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b8f2ace8...@news.indigo.ie>...
> > >
> > > But we aren't chopping it up. We are pointing to what we see as
> > > 'natural kinds'. The fact that we could point to something else doesn't
> > > make what we are pointing to go away.
> > >
> > > In short, any vagueness is in the word 'atom', not in the atoms we point
> > > to using that word. So to say that linguistic arguments can have
> > > implications for whether atoms exist is nonsense.
>
> > You guys keep missing the point. Why should Nature care about our
> > classification schemes? Does Nature keep tract of the difference
> > between 1 drop of precipitation per sec per acre and 2 drops of
> > precipitation per sec per acre etc? Does it give each state of being a
> > unique classification name? Does it care what humans call as rain?
>
> No - that's what I've been trying to point out to you. It's YOU who
> keeps bring up stuff about classification. As indeed you seem to be
> admitting in the above paragraph, the exact definition of rain doesn't
> make any difference to whether rain exists. Nature doesn't care about
> our classification schemes. And thus difficulties with classification
> schemes, such as the Sorites paradox, are irrelevant to discussions
> about what things exist in nature.
>
> When we say "it's raining" we are pointing to a feature of nature that
> exists entirely independently of anything we say. The same applies to
> an atom, or a heap of sand.
When we say "it's raining" we are using a linguistic construction to
make a declarative statement about existence.
>
> > According to Nature, when is a proton and an electron not a unit
> > called a hydrogen atom?
Would it help if instead of the above I ask: According to what's true
in nature, by what standards can we humans claim that a particular
configuration of a proton and an electron is/isn't a unit called a
hydrogen atom?
>
> Nature doesn't have names for things, so that question makes no sense.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
If Nature doesn't use names to justify existence, what justifies
humans to use names to justify existence?
I've asked people to come up with a proof of the existence of the
hydrogen atom. If you have a proof, you have a rational justification
of existence. It's true that the existence in truth of the hydrogen
atom (whatever that means) is not dependent on linguistic
constructions, but the proof of existence the hydrogen atom, as a
rational explanation, is indeed dependent on the terms we use and on
the definitions we give them. The very term "hydrogen atom" is itself
a linguistic construction. All formal proofs in science are linguistic
constructions. Use it or lose it!
So far, I win, and it doesn't look like I need fear any further
answers in this thread. Nobody so far has even seen the distinction
between the metaphysics and the epistemology regarding the existence
of the hydrogen atom.
Patrick
Daniel Weston
by showing that hydrogen atoms exist according to all the Phd's in
physics. That is, we proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. When he got
clobbered on that issue, he changed the ground of the discussion and
pursues his nihilism by challenging us by asking at what point does the
proximity of the electron to the proton bring the atom into existence.
We gave him the answer, "when the proximity of the electron to the
proton enables the combination to participate in a chemical reaction."
When he insists on the precise distance, it is lost somewhere in a
dimension that gets smack dab in the middle of the HUP. So What. The
hydrogen atoms were made 4.7 b years ago in the big bang. Patrick is a
condesending troll.
He now complains that nobody understands his epistemology and
metaphysics. That is no doubt true except for me. Patrick is an
Idealistic Nihilist. "We cannot trust the anthropomorphic brain, we
cannot trust the language we use, our experiences are not reality, we
cannot PROVE anything, we cannot KNOW about existence". And this jack
ass is going to save Western Science and claims to be an
Instrumentalist. This why Patrick always ends up contradicting himself.
He is in his confused state, and wants to keep one foot in the Nihilist
camp, and the other in the Instrumentalist camp. It is sort of
pathetic, even though it is from time to time a source of humor.
Question for Patrick: If human brains suffer from anthropomorphism, and
Patrick is a human, does not Patrick's brain suffer from
anthropomorphism?
Daniel Weston
squirt my keyboard with some WD40.
Stuart Wilson
> Take some water and put in a glass container and subject the water to
> electrolysis. Tube A collects a gas we arbitrarly call oxygen. Tube B
> collects a gas we arbitrarily call hydrogen. Testing by a chemist
> demonstrates that oxygen and hydrogen have distinctly different
> properties.
Perhaps this half of the answer required. `Hydrogen' exists, with all
the desirable qualities we would want `hydrogen' to have.
But can we determine that it is atomic? This is the classic question
answered by atomists in the early part of the century, notable
Einstein's work on Brownian motion.
But re-reading this recently made me think: has such a experiment been
performed for `hydrogen'? What properties of hydrogen gas
require/imply that it is molecular/atomic?
P.S. This is my first message to a group.
Patrick Reany
Welcome, Stuart, to this newsgroup. I'm glad to read that my thread
encouraged someone to think beyond the dogmas and easy canned answers
we normally live by.
Patrick
Patrick Reany
> In article <844a1b64.04080...@posting.google.com>,
> re...@asu.edu says...
>
> > Since science claims that hydrogen atoms exist, it should be willing
> > to give a sound, rational argument to support that claim.
>
> We can calculate that an isolated proton-electron system is stable, and
> demonstrate via astrophysical arguments that it is commonplace. We can
> also create isolated hydrogen atoms in the laboratory under certain
> conditions. Happy?
>
> - Gerry Quinn
Why should I be. You have once again ignored all the tough questions I
keep asking of you. All you've accomplished is to prove that our
anthropomorphic model we call "hydrogen" is useful for predicting the
behavior of the world.
Your biggest mistake is to just assume that the hydrogen really
exists. I want you to tell me PRECISELY under what conditions a
proton-electron pair constitutes a hydrogen atom and when it is NOT a
hydrogen atom. Then and only then can we begin.
Patrick
Gerry Quinn
re...@asu.edu says...
> Gerry Quinn <ger...@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b918d67b...@news.indigo.ie>...
> > When we say "it's raining" we are pointing to a feature of nature that
> > exists entirely independently of anything we say. The same applies to
> > an atom, or a heap of sand.
>
> When we say "it's raining" we are using a linguistic construction to
> make a declarative statement about existence.
That's a very long way of saying "we are pointing to a feature of nature
that exists independently of anything we say".
> > > According to Nature, when is a proton and an electron not a unit
> > > called a hydrogen atom?
>
> Would it help if instead of the above I ask: According to what's true
> in nature, by what standards can we humans claim that a particular
> configuration of a proton and an electron is/isn't a unit called a
> hydrogen atom?
> > Nature doesn't have names for things, so that question makes no sense.
The same reply goes for your even more confused second version.
> If Nature doesn't use names to justify existence, what justifies
> humans to use names to justify existence?
We don't use names to justify existence. An animal that never uses
words at all can still see that it is raining.
> I've asked people to come up with a proof of the existence of the
> hydrogen atom. If you have a proof, you have a rational justification
> of existence. It's true that the existence in truth of the hydrogen
> atom (whatever that means) is not dependent on linguistic
> constructions, but the proof of existence the hydrogen atom, as a
> rational explanation, is indeed dependent on the terms we use and on
> the definitions we give them. The very term "hydrogen atom" is itself
> a linguistic construction. All formal proofs in science are linguistic
> constructions. Use it or lose it!
What a crazy jumble of concepts. As far as I can gather, your are
applying the usual infinite recursion, i.e. unsatisfied with proof of
hydrogen's existence, you are now demanding proof of the proof.
> So far, I win, and it doesn't look like I need fear any further
> answers in this thread. Nobody so far has even seen the distinction
> between the metaphysics and the epistemology regarding the existence
> of the hydrogen atom.
A self-proclaimed victory - I'm surprised you haven't demanded of
yourself to prove you have won, or indeed that the thread exists.
You've completely failed to provide any justification for bringing
linguistics in through the back door. Language is not relevant to
whether features of the natural world exist.
- Gerry Quinn
Daniel Weston
Nihilist. Arguing with a nihilist takes a special skill.
At some point the nihilist is to be ignored, or just relax and enjoy the
process. No answer will ever convince Patrick because your brain is
anthropomorphic and is therefore forever imprisoned. But is not
Patrick's brain similarly imprisoned and therefore from whence cometh
his authoritarianism? He challenges all statements of TRUTH, all
statements of PROOF, all statements of REALITY, all statements of
EXISTENCE, all statements of KNOWledge.
Patrick's bottom line is, "I am absolutely certain that we cannot know
anything with absolute certainty". Or, "I know we know nothing." He
for some reason is not troubled by the inconsistencies brought about by
his philosophy. When he is informed about the logical fallacy of self
referencing, he ignores it and changes the subject.
Patrick Reany
[snip]
>
> A self-proclaimed victory - I'm surprised you haven't demanded of
> yourself to prove you have won, or indeed that the thread exists.
> You've completely failed to provide any justification for bringing
> linguistics in through the back door. Language is not relevant to
> whether features of the natural world exist.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
To me, a proof is necesarily formed in some language. Language is
absolutely relevant to any declaration made in a rational argument
that some "feature" of the natural world exist. Like I said, you're
still not differentiating metaphysics from epistemology.
Patrick
Stuart Wilson
> stuar...@yahoo.com.au (Stuart Wilson) wrote in message news:<e227b6ef.0408...@posting.google.com>...
> > dani...@webtv.net (Daniel Weston) wrote in message news:<8923-411...@storefull-3138.bay.webtv.net>...
> > > Take some water and put in a glass container and subject the water to
> > > electrolysis. Tube A collects a gas we arbitrarly call oxygen. Tube B
> > > collects a gas we arbitrarily call hydrogen. Testing by a chemist
> > > demonstrates that oxygen and hydrogen have distinctly different
> > > properties.
> >
> > Perhaps this half of the answer required. `Hydrogen' exists, with all
> > the desirable qualities we would want `hydrogen' to have.
> >
> > But can we determine that it is atomic? This is the classic question
> > answered by atomists in the early part of the century, notable
> > Einstein's work on Brownian motion.
> >
> > But re-reading this recently made me think: has such a experiment been
> > performed for `hydrogen'? What properties of hydrogen gas
> > require/imply that it is molecular/atomic?
So, we kind of have an idea about what hydrogen. One clue as for why it is
`atomic' may lie in a hydrogen BEC created by the Ultracold Hydrogen Group at
MIT in 1988.
Taking quantum mechanics as a starting point, a BEC of hydrogen is all of the
hydrogen gas existing in one quantum state, the `ground' state, at the bottom
of a trap.
Could this ground state be considered a single hydrogen atom?
Problems are:
1) In a BEC millions of `atoms' occupy the ground state;
does that mean the millions become one?
2) Assuming this IS an appropriate definition of an atom, does it mean an atom
is only defined in a ground state? Perhaps QFT could privide the answer/idea
of an atom at any point in a trap, or more simply, in free space?
I feel this idea is flawed, but maybe it's another starting point...
Daniel Weston
language is used, and therefore any problems with the language would
impinge adversely on both. Differentiating between epistemology and
metaphysics is not the solution to the language problem. Your postings
do not themselves differentiate between epistemology and metaphysics.
It is you that is constantly blurring the distinction. Your comments to
Gerry were nonsensical. Please do not respond unless you have something
intelligent to say.
Patrick Reany
> Patrick began by asking, Prove that the atom exists. We answered that
> by showing that hydrogen atoms exist according to all the Phd's in
> physics. That is, we proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Your so-called argument is clearly the fallacy of appeal to authority.
I already told you this. If you aren't capable of doing primary
thinking on your own (which seems to be the case), and instead must
rely on secondary claims, then you're a dolt. If you must reply by
appealing to authority, at least give us the exact proof that these
authorities used to "prove" that the hydrogen atom exists.
[snip]
> He now complains that nobody understands his epistemology and
> metaphysics.
That is yet another misrepresentation on your part of my beliefs. I
have never claimed that people don't know my epistemology and
metaphysics (and I don't even see what relevance it is either way). I
have indicated that in this context those replying to me don't know
the difference between epistemology and metaphysics period -- Weston
included! Those replying to me have made metaphysical claims and
passed them off as epistemological arguments. I'll try, once again, to
distinguish them for the readership. A metaphysical claim tells us
what someone believes exists. An epistemological argument in science
is an attempt to rationally justify a knowledge claim, such as a claim
to know that something exists in Nature. Simple! (At least it would be
to an open minded person of at least average intelligence!)
So, Weston, either tell me that Nature knows what a heap of sand is or
tell me why it's not relevant to the argument that the model of the
hydrogen atom is dependent, for practical purposes, on having an upper
bound, defined by humans, to its "size." (In both cases "existence"
depends on the fixing of an arbitrary parameter: The radius of the
atom in one case, and the minimum number of grains of sand in the pile
of sand on the other.)
First, let's deal with the metaphysics: the metaphysical claim that
the hydrogen atom exists in Nature is equivalent to the metaphysical
claim that Nature has selected a proton and electron to "exist" as an
individuated unit, with its own identity. I won't challenge you if you
believe that claim. What I challenge is the claim that to believe such
a thing is rational. It is clearly NOT rational. Of course, that
doesn't make the belief wrong. I have nothing against irrational
beliefs. Most nontrivial beliefs are irrational to some degree anyway.
I am NOT going to challenge anyone for believing in the existence of
the hydrogen atom. I AM challenging the claim that there is a rational
proof of its existence. Such a proof by necessity MUST be given in a
natural language (such as in English). And it is in the doing so that
we realize how vague our notion of a hydrogen atom is. Even a dolt
like you, Weston, should be able to see that much of the argument by
now, whether you agree with it or not. But, you don't follow it at
all.
My second argument was that the model of the hydrogen atom is like the
state of being known as raining. I figure that the reason posters do
not get this analogy is because they fail to appreciate that Nature
doesn't give names to "things" or states of being. But I was not even
understood when I explained this analogy. They took me too literally.
I am not literally claiming that the universe has to give actual names
to subsets of itself! If for once just one of you posters would give
me a chance you just might "get it" for a change. Instead, you spend
all of 3 micro-seconds trying to understand me and then jump to the
"obvious" (but usually wrong) conclusion about that I mean. Stop it!
Before going on, I want you to think very hard about what it means to
individuate something, i.e., to form into a separate, distinct entity.
So, I'll explain it in even more detail: For Nature to "give a name to
something or precess, as humans preceive them" is a metaphor for
Nature individuating a subset of the whole universe (or a finite state
of being of the universe) as a SPECIAL collection/evolution of the
universe that is to be treated as a "new" fundamental unit of
existence and identity. But if that's true, what happened to the
presumed fundamentality of the subatomic particles? The obvious
logical course to take here is to leave the subatomic particles as
"fundamental" and to treat atoms as physical MODELS which correspond
to epiphenomena, whose properties are well-modeled by the Bohr or
Schrodinger theory.
> That is no doubt true except for me.
You know nothing. You're just a loud-mouthed bigot, dogmatist. You
speak only for your own insecurities and prejudices. You settle for
second-hand arguments and stale knowledge. You refuse to think an
original thought. Or to generate a carefully prepared argument of your
own. You refuse to think outside the box you're comfortable within.
You are 400 years behind. You'll never catch up.
> Patrick is an
> Idealistic Nihilist. "We cannot trust the anthropomorphic brain,
Are you claiming we can (whatever you mean by the "anthropomorphic
brain")? To what degree can we trust it?
> we
> cannot trust the language we use,
Are you claiming we can? To what degree can we trust it?
> our experiences are not reality,
Are you claiming they are reality? If so, how do you know that they
are? Is there any reality outside of experience? Are experiences
objective or subjective? Explain the moon illusion. Does the earth
revolve around the sun, or is it the other way around?
> we
> cannot PROVE anything,
Never said any such thing. I didn't set out to do so, but I proved
that you're a dolt.
> we cannot KNOW about existence".
Never said any such thing. How do you KNOW what really exists?
> And this jack
> ass is going to save Western Science and claims to be an
> Instrumentalist.
Why am I not an Instrumentalist, according your great knowledge?
> This why Patrick always ends up contradicting himself.
It does seem that Patrick always ends up contradicting Weston.
In the human effort to bring order to the jumble of sensory
impressions that the human mind receives through the human body (most
of this organization being done by the mind automatically and
subconsciously), the mind needs to consciously build a super-theory
which explains the cause and effect relationships presumed to exist in
Nature, to whatever degree is possible. But as we all know, building
requires tools. And the tools of our theory building include concepts,
models, and language itself. If you place these three things above
inspection, refusing to admit to their possible limitations, you are
beyond naive, you are just stupid. I have warned you now of that.
If the tools are defective, then we are not justified in having so
great a confidence in the building they helped to construct -- that's
true not only of physical, but also of mental, constructions.
[snip]
> Question for Patrick: If human brains suffer from anthropomorphism, and
> Patrick is a human, does not Patrick's brain suffer from
> anthropomorphism?
First explain your silly expression "human brains suffer from
anthropomorphism."
Patrick
Daniel Weston
understand nature are valid. Let us assume that atoms do not really
exist. What are we supposed to do now??