Physicists Losing Their Grip??
Consc
Got the following from somewhere. If you have time this holiday,
pls. go over it. It's a serious comment about what is occuring
inside quantum physics. What quantum reality versions (he
mentions a lot) do you believe in. What part did the author
make a wrong assumption, if ever. Thanks. - Consc.
Nick Herbert talks about "Quantum Reality":
"Physicists Losing Their Grip
One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have
lost their grip on reality.
News of the reality crisis hardly exists outside the physics
community. What shuts out the public is partly a language
barrier-the mathematical formalism that facilitates communication
between scientists is incomprehensible to outsiders-and partly
the human tendency of physicists to publicize their successes
while soft-pedalling their confusions and uncertainties. Even
among themselves, physicists prefer to pass over the
uncomfortable reality issue in favor of questions "more
concrete".
"No development of modem science has had a more profound impact
on human thinking than the advent of quantum theory. Wrenched out
of centuries-old thought patterns, physicists of a generation ago
found themselves compelled to embrace a new metaphysics. The
distress which this reorientation caused continues to the present
day. Basically physicists have suffered a severe loss: their hold
on reality." - Bryce DeWitt Neill Graham
Recent popularizations such as Heinz Pagels' Cosmic Code have
begun to inform the public about the reality crisis in physics.
In Quantum Reality I intend to examine how physicists deal with
reality -- or fall to deal with it-in clear and unprecedented
detail.
Nothing exposes the perplexity at the heart of physics more
starkly than certain preposterous-sounding claims a few outspoken
physicists are making concerning how the world really works. If
we take these claims at face value, the stories physicists tell
resemble the tales of mystics and madmen. Physicists are quick to
reject such unsavory associations and insist that they speak
sober fact. We do not make these claims out of ignorance, they
say, like ancient mapmakers filling In terra incognitas with
plausi ble geography. Not ignorance, but the emergence of
unexpected knowledge forces on us all new visions of the way
things really are.
The new physics vision is still clouded, as evidenced by the
multiplicity of its claims, but whatever the outcome it is sure
to be far from ordinary. To give you a taste of quantum reality,
I summarize here the views of its foremost Creators in the form
of eight realities which represent eight major guesses as to
what's really going on behind the scenes. Later we will look at
each of these realities in more detail and see how different
physicists use the same data to justify so many different
pictures of th e world.
Quantum Reality #1 The Copenhagen Interpretation, Part I (There
is no deep reality.) No one has influenced more our notions of
what the quantum world is really about than Danish physicist
Niels Bohr, and it is Bohr who puts forth one of quantum physics'
most outrageous claims: that there is no deep reality. Bohr does
not deny the evidence of his senses. The World we see around us
is real enough, he affirms, but it floats on a world that is not
as real. Everyday phenomena are themselves built not out of phe
nomena but out of an utterly different kind of being.
Far from being a crank or minority position, "There is no deep
reality" represents the prevailing doctrine of establishment
physics. Because this quantum reality was developed at Niels
Bohr's Copenhagen institute, it is called the "Copenhagen
interpretation." Undaunted by occasional challenges by mavericks
of realist persuasion, the majority of physicists swear at least
nominal allegiance to Bohr's anti-realist creed. What more
glaring indication of the depth of the reality crisis than the
official rejectio n of reality itself by the bulk of the physics
community?
Einstein and other prominent physicists felt that Bohr went too
far in his call for ruthless renunciation of deep reality. Surely
all Bohr meant to say was that we must all be good pragmatists
and not extend our speculations beyond the range of our
experiments. From the results of experiments carried out in the
twenties, how could Bohr conclude that no future technology would
ever reveal a deeper truth? Certainly Bohr never in tended
actually to deny deep reality but merely counseled a cautious
skepticism t oward speculative hidden realities.
Bohr refused to accept such a watered-down version of the
Copenhagen doctrine. In words that must chill every realist's
heart, Bohr insisted: "There is no quantum world. There is only
an abstract quantum description"
Werner Heisenberg, the Christopher Columbus of quantum theory,
first to set foot on the new mathematical World, took an equally
tough stand against reality-nostalgic physicists such as Einstein
when he wrote: "The hope that new experiments will lead us back
to objective events in time and space is about as well founded as
the hope of discovering the end of the world in the unexplored
regions of the Antarctic."
The writings of Bohr and Heisenberg have been criticized as
obscure and open to many interpretations. Recently Cornell
physicist N. David Mermin neatly summed up Bohr's anti-realist
position in words that leave little room for misunderstanding:
"We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody
looks." (We will take a look at Mermin's "demonstration" in
Chapter 13.)
Quantum Reality #2. The Copenhagen interpretation, Part 11
(Reality is created by observation.) Although the numerous
physicists of the Copenhagen school do not believe in deep
reality, they do assert the existence of phenomenal reality. What
we see is undoubtedly real, they say, but these phenomena are not
really there in the absence of an observation. The Copenhagen
interpretation properly consists of two distinct parts: I. There
is no reality in the absence of observation; 2. Observation
creates reality . "You create your own reality," is the theme of
Fred Wolf's Taking the Quantum Leap.
Which of the world's myriad processes qualify as observations?
What special feature of an observation endows it with the power
to create reality? Questions like these split the
observer-created reality school into several camps, but all
generally subscribe to quantum theorist John Wheeler's memorable
maxim for separating what is real in the world from what is not.
"No elementary phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an
observed phenomenon," Wheeler proclaims. Without a doubt,
Mermin's description of the inconstant moon qualifies him for
membership in the observer-created reality school.
The belief that reality is observer-created is commonplace in
philosophy, where it serves as the theme for various forms of
idealism. Bertrand Russell recalls his fascination with idealism
during his student days at Trinity College: "In this philosophy I
found comfort for a time . . . There was a curious pleasure in
making oneself believe that time and space are unreal, that
matter is an illusion and that the world really consist of
nothing but mind."
Since pondering matter is their bread and butter, not many
physicists would share Russell's enjoyment of matter as mere
mirage. However, like it or not, through their conscientious
practice of quantum theory more than a few physicists have
strayed within hailing distance of the idealist's dreamworld.
Quantum Reality #3 (Reality is an undivided wholeness.) The views
of Walter Heider, author of a standard textbook on the
light/matter interaction, exemplify a third unusual claim of
quantum physicists: that in spite of its obvious partitions and
boundaries, the world in actuality is a seamless and inseparable
whole - a conclusion which Fritjof Capra develops in Tao of
Physics and connects with the teachings of certain oriental
mystics. Heitler accepts an observer-created reality but adds
that the act of ob servation also dissolves the boundary between
observer and observed: "The observer appears, as a necessary part
of the whole structure, and in his full capacity as a conscious
being. The separation of the world into an 'objective outside
reality' and 'us,' the self-conscious onlookers, can no longer be
maintained. Object and subject have become inseparable from each
other."
Physicist David Bohm of London's Birkbeck College has especially
stressed the necessary wholeness of the quantum world: "One is
led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the
classical analyzability of the world into separately and
independently existing parts . . . The inseparable quantum
interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental
reality.
Quantum wholeness is no mere replay of the old saw that
everything is connected to everything else, no twentieth-century
echo, for instance, of Newton's insight that gravity links each
particle to every other. All ordinary connection s-gravity, for
one-inevitably fall off with distance, thus conferring
overwhelming importance on nearby connections while distant
connections become irrelevant. Undoubtedly we are all connected
in unremarkable ways, but close connections carry the most
weight. Quantum wholenes s, on the other hand, is a fundamentally
new kind of togetherness, undiminished by spatial and temporal
separation. No casual hookup, this new quantum thing, but a true
mingling of distant beings that reaches across the galaxy as
forcefully as it reaches across the garden.
Quantum Reality #4 The many-worlds interpretation (Reality
consists of a steadily increasing number of parallel universes.)
Of all claims of the New Physics none is more outrageous than the
contention that myriads of universes are created upon the
occasion of each measurement act. For any situation in which
several different outcomes are possible (flipping a coiWritingn,
for instance), some physicists believe that all outcomes actually
occur. In order to accommodate different outcomes without
contradiction , entire new universes spring into being, identical
in every detail except for the single outcome that gave them
birth. In the case of a flipped coin, one universe contains a
coin that came up heads; another, a coin showing tails. Paul
Davies champions this claim, known as the many-worlds
interpretation, in his book Other Worlds. Science fiction writers
commonly invent parallel universes for the sake of a story. Now
quantum theory gives us good reason to take such st ories
seriously.
Writing in Physics Today, a major magazine of the American
physics community, Bryce DeWitt describes his initial contact
with the manyworlds interpretation of quantum theory:
"I still recall vividly the shock I experienced on first
encountering this multiworld concept. The idea of 10 ^ 100+
slightly imperfect copies of oneself all constantly splitting
into further copies, which ultimately become unrecognizable, is
not easy to reconcile with common sense
Invented in 1957 by Hugh Everett, a Princeton graduate student,
the many-worlds interpretation is a latecomer to the New Physics
scene. DeSpite its bizarre conclusion, that innumerable parallel
universes each as real as our own actually exist, Everett's
many-worlds picture has gained Considerable support among quantum
theorists. Everett's proposal is particularly attractive to
theorists because it resolves, as we shall see, the Major
unsolved puzzle in quantum theory-the notorious quantum
measurement problem.
These four quantum realities should give you some feeling for the
diversity of claims regarding the world's ultimate nature. While
followers of Everett bear witness to uncountable numbers of
quantum worlds, plus more on the way, students of Bohr and
Heisenberg insist that there is not even one quantum world. In
their struggle to gain firm footing amidst the slippery bricks of
quantum fact, physicists have invented more realities than four.
Keep your wits about you as we press on.
Quantum Reality #5: Quantum logic (The World obeys a non-human
kind of reasoning.). Quantum logicians argue that the quantum
revolution goes so deep that replacing new concepts with old will
not suffice. To cope with the quantum facts we must scrap our
very mode of reasoning, in favor of a new quantum logic.
Logic is the skeleton of our body of knowledge. Logic spells out
how We use some of the shortest words in the language, words such
as and, or, and not The behavior of these little linguistic
connectors governs the way we talk about things, and structures,
in turn, the way we think about them.
For two thousand years, talk about logic (in the West) was cast
in the syllogistic mold devised by Aristotle. In the
mid-nineteenth century, George Boole, an Irish schoolteacher,
reduced logical statements to simple arithmetic by inventing an
artificial symbolic language which laid bare the logical bones of
ordinary language.
Boole's clear codification of the rules of reason jolted logic
out of the Middle Ages and launched the now-flourishing science
of mathematical logic. Outside the mathematical mainstream, a few
creative logicians amused themselves by constructing "crazy
logics" using rules other than Boole's, These deviant designs for
and/or/not, although mathematically consistent, were considered
mere curiosities since they seemed to fit no human pattern of
discourse.
However, according to some New Physicists, one of these crazy
logics may be just what we need to make sense out of quantum
events. Listen to quantum theorist David Finkelstein calling for
mutiny against the rules of Boole:
"Einstein threw out the classical concept of time; Bohr throws
out the classical concept of truth . . . Our classical ideas of
logic are simply wrong in a basic practical way. The next step is
to learn to think in the right way, to learn to think
quantum-logically."
As an example of the usefulness of changing your mind rather than
changing your physics, quantum logicians point to Einstein's
general theory of relativity, which achieved in the realm of
geometry what they propose to do with logic.
Geometry is the science of points and lines. For two thousand
years only one geometry existed, its rules compiled by the Greek
mathematician Euclid in his bestselling book The Elements, which
once rivaled the Bible in popularity. The latest revival of
Euclid's Elements is your high school geometry book.
Coincident with Boole's pioneer work in logic, a few adventurous
mathematicians thought up "crazy geometries," games points and
lines could Play outside of Euclid's rules. Chief architect of
the New Geometry was the Russian Nicola] Lobachevski along with
German mathematicians Karl Gauss and Georg Riemann. Their
cockeyed geometries were regarded, like "on-Boolean logics, as
high mathematical play, clever business but out of touch with
reality. Euclidean geometry, as everyone knows, was the geometry,
being after all, nothing but common sense applied to triangles
and other geometric figures.
However, in 1916 Einstein proposed a radical new theory of
gravity that demolished the Euclidean monopoly. Einstein, in
opposition to Newton and everybody else, declared that gravity is
not a force but a curvature in space-time. Objects in free fall
are truly free and move in lines as straight as can be-that is,
lines straight by the standards of a gravity-warped geometry.
Einstein's theory has testable consequences: for instance the
deflection of starlight grazing the sun (confirmed by Eddington
in 1919) and the existence of black holes (according to
astrophysicists, in the constellation Cygnus, black hole Cygnus
X-1 resides). On Earth, where our common sense was formed,
gravity is weak and space almost Euclidean; out near X-1, high
school geometry flunks.
Einstein's lesson is plain to see, say the quantum logicians. The
question of the world's true geometry is not settled by common
sense but by experiment. Likewise with logic. For the rules of
right reason, look not inside your own head but get thee to a
laboratory.
Quantum Reality #6. Neorealism (The world is made of ordinary
objects.) An ordinary object is an entity which possesses
attributes of its own whether observed or not. With certain
exceptions (mirages, illusions, hallucinations), the world
outside seems populated with objectlike entities. The clarity
and ubiquity of ordinary reality has seduced a few physicists - I
call them neorealists - into imagining that this familiar kind of
reality can be extended into the atomic realm and beyond.
However, the unrem arkable and common-sense view that ordinary
objects are themselves made of objects is actually the blackest
heresy of establishment physics.
"Atoms are not things," says Heisenberg, one of the high priests
of the orthodox quantum faith, who likened neorealists to
believers in a flat earth. "There is no quantum world," warned
Bohr, the pope in Copenhagen; "there is only an abstract quantum
description."
Neorealists, on the other hand, accuse the orthodox majority of
wallowing in empty formalism and obscuring the world's
simplicity with needless mystification. Instead they preach
return to a pure and more primitive faith. Chief among neorealist
rebels was Einstein, whose passion for realism pitted him
squarely against the quantum Orthodoxy: "The Heisenberg-Bohr
tranquilizing philosophy -- or religion? - is so delicately
contrived that, for the time being, it provides a gentle pillow
for the true believer from which he cannot very easily be
aroused. So let him lie there."
Despite their Neanderthal notions, no one could accuse
neorealists of ignorance concerning the principles of quantum
theory. Many of them were its founding fathers. Besides Einstein,
prominent neorealists include ,max Planck, whose discovery of the
constant of action sparked the quantum revolution; Erwin
Schrodinger, who devised the wave equation every quantum system
must obey; and Prince Louis de Broglie, who took quantum theory
seriously enough to predict the wave nature of matter.
De Broglie, a French aristocrat whose wartime involvement in
radio swerved his research from church history into physics,
fought for ordinary realism until 1928 when he converted to the
statistical interpretation (another name for Copenhagenism).
Twenty years later, however, influenced by David Bohm's
neorealist revival, de Broglie recanted and returned to the faith
of his youth:
"Those interested in the psychology of scientists may be curious
about the reasons for my unexpected return to discarded ideas . .
. I am thinking not so much of my constant difficulties in
developing a statistical interpretation of wave mechanics, or
even of my secret hankering after Cartesian clarity in the midst
of the fog which seemed to envelop quantum physics [but the fact
that, as I examined the statistical picture) I could not help
being struck by the force of the objections to it and by a
certain o bscurity in the arguments in its defense . . . too
abstract . . . too schematic . . . I realized that I had been
seduced by the current fashion, and began to understand why I had
been so uneasy whenever I tried to give a lucid account of the
probability interpretation."
One of the physics community's few traditions is the custom of
celebrating the birthdays of its great men with a Festschrift - a
festival of papers. In 1982, Louis de Broglie, ninety years old
and gloriously unrepentant, was honored in this scholarly manner
by his scientific colleagues. Virtually every neorealist In the
world attended de Broglie's birthday party: there was no need to
send out for extra chairs.
Einstein, despite his numerous contributions to its success,
never accepted quantum theory into his heart and stubbornly held
to the oldfashioned belief that a realistic vision of the world
was compatible with the quantum facts. During the thirties
Einstein and Bohr engaged in an extended debate on the quantum
reality question. Bohr argued that as far a' reality was
concerned, quantum theory was a closed book. By 1928 Perceptive
physicists had already grasped the theory's essence. Quantum
theory would devel op in detail but its principles would not
change. Bohr's confidence has been upheld so far; fifty years
later, physicists still follow the old rules.
Quantum theory is complete as it stands, said Bohr. It has no
need of ordinary objects. Furthermore such objects cannot be
added without spoiling its predictive success. Ordinary objects
are not merely unnecessary luxuries in quantum theory, they are
strictly impossible.
Einstein's strategy was to confront Bohr with a series of thought
experiments which aimed to show that quantum theory had left
something out. He did not attempt to show that the theory was
wrong, but by demonstrating that it was incomplete Einstein hoped
to open the door for what he called "elements of reality."
As the winners tell the story, Bohr closed each of Einstein's
loopholes, but in the minds of each the debate was never settled.
Long after their arguments had ended, on the day Bohr died, his
blackboard contained a drawing of one of Einstein's thought
experiments. Bohr struggled with Einstein to the end.
Einstein too never gave up. In his autobiography he expresses his
final thoughts on the quantum reality question: "I still believe
in the possibility of a model Of reality - that is, of a theory
which represents things themselves and not merely the probability
of their occurrence."
Quantum Reality #7 (Consciousness creates reality.) Among
observercreated realists, a small faction asserts that only an
apparatus endowed with consciousness (even as you and 1) is
privileged to create reality. The one observer that counts is a
conscious observer. Denis Postle examines reality-creating
consciousness in Fabric of the Universe. I include this quantum
reality not only because it is so outlandish but because its
supporters are so Illustrious. Consciousness-created reality
adherents include ligh t/matter physicist Walter Heitler, already
cited in connection with undivided wholeness, Fritz London,
famous for his work on quantum liquids, Berkeley S-matrix
theorist Henry Pierce Stapp, Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, and
world-class mathematician John von Neumann.
Hungarian-born von Neumann was the mathematical midwife for some
of the twentieth century's most exciting developments. Wherever
things were hottest, the brilliant von Neumann seemed to be there
lending a hand. In the late forties he invented the concept of
the stored-Program computer; today's computer scientists refer to
all computers from pocket calculators to giant IBMs as "von
Neumann machines." In collaboration with Oskar Morgenstern, von
Neumann laid the mathematical foundation for strategic game theo
ry, on which much government and corporate policy in both the
East and the West is based. He also worked on early robots and
helped develop the atom bomb. In 1936 with Harvard mathematician
Garrett Birkhoff he came up with the idea of quantum logic, but
von Neumann's biggest contribution to quantum reality research
was his book on quantum theory.
By the late twenties physicists had constructed a quantum theory
that met their daily needs: they possessed a rough mathematical
structure which organized the quantum facts. At that point von
Neumann entered the picture, putting physicists' crude theory
into rigorous form, settling quantum theory into an elegant
mathematical home called "Hilbert space" where it resides to this
day, and awarding the mathematician's sea] of approval to
physicists' fledgling theory.
In 1932 von Neumann set down his definitive vision of quantum
theory in a formidable tome entitled Die Mathematische Grundlagen
der Quantenmechanik. Our most general picture of quantum theory
is essentially the same as that outlined by von Neumann in Die
Crundlagen (The Foundations). Von Neumann's book is our quantum
bible. Like many other sacred texts, it is read by few, venerated
by many. Despite its importance it was not translated into
English until 1955.
Many of the issues I discuss in Quantum Reality were first made
public in von Neumann's book. For instance, there is von
Neumann's proof that if quantum theory is correct, the world
cannot be made of ordinary objects -Le., the neorealist
interpretation is logically impossible. Von Neumann posed, but
did not solve to everyone's satisfaction, the famous quantum
measurement problem which is the central issue of the quantum
reality question, In addition, von Neumann was the first to show
how quantum theory sugg ests an active role for the observer's
consciousness. Physical Objects would have no attributes, von
Neumann said, if a conscious observer were not watching them.
Von Neumann himself merely hinted at consciousness - created
reality in dark parables. His followers boldly took his arguments
to, their logical conclusion: if we accept von Neumann's version
of quantum theory, they say, a consciousness - created reality is
the inevitable outcome.
At the logical core of our most materialistic science we meet not
dead matter but our own lively selves. Eugene Wigner, von
Neumann's Princeton colleague and fellow Hungarian (they went to
the same high school in Budapest), comments on this ironic turn
of events: "It is not possible to formulate the laws of quantum
mechanics in a fully consistent way with out reference to the
consciousness . . . It will remain remarkable in whatever way our
future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external
w orld led to the conclusion that the content of the
consciousness is an ultimate reality."
Quantum Reality #8. The duplex world of Werner Heisenberg (The
world is twofold, consisting of potentials and actualities.)
Most physicists believe in the Copenhagen interpretation, which
states that there is no deep reality- QR # 1) and observation
creates reality QR # 2). What these two realities have in common
is the assertion that only phenomena are real; the world beneath
phenomena is not.
One question which this position immediately brings to mind is
this: "if observation creates reality, what does it create this
reality out of? Are phenomena created out of sheet nothingness or
out of some more substantial stuff?" Since the nature of
unmeasured reality is unobservable by definition, many physicists
dismiss such questions as meaningless on pragmatic grounds.
However, since it describes measured reality with perfect
exactness, quantum theory must contain some clues concerning the
raw material out of which phenomena spring. Perhaps using the
power of imagination we can peer beneath this theory and make
some shrewd guess about the background world against which our
familiar world of solid observations stands.
Werner Heisenberg was fully aware of the difficulties of
attempting to describe the subphenomenal world: "The problems of
language here are really serious," he said. "We wish to speak in
some way about the structure of the atoms and not only about the
'facts'-for instance, the water droplets in a cloud chamber. But
we cannot speak about the atoms in ordinary language." Although
he realized the difficulty in doing so, Heisenberg was one of the
few physicists to try to express what he saw when he looked into
quantum reality.
According to Heisenberg, there is no deep reality-nothing down
there that's real in the same sense as the phenomena] facts are
real. The unmeasured world is merely and achieves full reality
status during the act of observation: "In the experiments about
atomic events we have to do with things and facts, with phenomena
that are just as real as any phenomena in daily life. But the
atoms and the elementary particles themselves are not as real;
they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than
one of things or facts . . .
"The probability wave . - - means a tendency for something. It's
a quantitative version of the old concept of potentia in
Aristotle's philoso- phy. It introduces something standing in the
middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a
strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between
possibility and reality."
Heisenberg's world of potentia is both less real and more real
than our own. It is less real because its inhabitants enjoy a
ghostly quantum lifestyle consisting of mere tendencies, not
actualities. On the other hand, the unmeasured world is more real
because it contains a wealth of coexistent possibilities, most of
which are contradictory. In Heisenberg's world a flipped coin can
show heads and tails at the same time, an eventuality impossible
in the actual world.
One of the inevitable facts of life is that all of our choices
are real choices. Taking one path means forsaking all others.
Ordinary human experience does not encompass simultaneous
contradictory events or multiple histories. For us, the world
possesses a singularity and concreteness apparently absent in the
atomic realm. Only one event at a time happens here; but that
event really happens.
The quantum world, on the other hand, is not a world of actual
events like our own but a world full of numerous unrealized
tendencies for action. These tendencies are continually on the
move, growing, merging, and dying according to exact laws of
motion discovered by Schrodinger and his colleagues. But despite
all this activity nothing ever actually happens there. Everything
remains strictly in the realm of possibility.
Heisenberg's two worlds are bridged by a special interaction
which physicists call a "measurement." During the magic
measurement act, one quantum possibility is singled out, abandons
its shadowy sisters, and surfaces in our ordinary world as an
actual event. Everything that happens in our World arises out of
possibilities prepared for in that other-the world of quantum
potentia. In turn, our world sets limits on how far crowds of
Potentia can roam. Because certain facts are actual, not
everything is possibl e in the quantum world. There is no deep
reality, no deep reality-as-we-know-it. Instead the unobserved
universe consists of possibilities, tendencies, urges. The
foundation of our everyday world, according to Heisenberg, is no
more substantial than a promise.
Physicists do not put forth these quantum realities as science
fiction Speculations concerning worlds that might have been, but
as serious pictures of the one world we actually live in: the
universe outside your door.
Since these quantum realities differ SO radically, one might
expect them to have radically different experimental
consequences. An astonishing feature of these eight quantum
realities, however, is that they are experimentally
indistinguishable. For all presently conceivable experiments,
each of these realities predicts exactly the same observable
phenomena.
The ancient philosophers faced a similar reality crisis. For
instance three ancient realities - 1. The World Tests on a
turtle's back; 2. The World is bottomlessly solid,- 3. The world
floats in an infinite ocean-led to identical consequences as far
as anyone could tell at that time.
Likewise modern physicists do not know how to determine
experimentally what kind of world they actually live in. However,
since "reality has consequences" we might hope that future
experiments, not bound by our current concepts of measurability,
will conclusively establish one or more of these bizarre pictures
as top-dog reality. At present, however, each of these quantum
realities must be regarded as a viable candidate for "the way the
world really is." They may, however, all be wrong.
Physicists' reality crisis is twofold: 1. There are too many of
these quantum realities; 2. All of them without exception are
preposterous, Some of these quantum realities are compatible with
one another. For instance QR # I (There is no deep reality) and
QR # 2 (Reality is observer-created) are in fact two halves of a
single consistent picture of the world called the Copenhagen
interpretation. But other quantum realities are contradictory: in
the many-worlds interpretation QR #4), for instance, the world's
deep reality consists of quadrillions of simultaneous universes,
each one as real as our own, which maximally mocks Bohr's
no-deep-reality claim. Not only can physicists not agree on a
single picture of what's really going on in the quantum World,
they are not even sure that the correct picture is on this list.
None of the conflicting options which physicists have proposed as
possible pictures of our home universe can be considered
ordinary. Even that quantum reality closest to old-fashioned
notions of how a world should behave -the neorealist contention
QR #6) that the world is made out of ordinary objects-contains,
as we shall see, the requirement that some of these objects move
faster than light, a feature that entails unusual consequences:
time travel and reversed causality, for example.
This book is a snapshot of the reality crisis in physics taken at
a moment when that crisis is not yet resolved. Nobody knows how
the world will seem one hundred years from now. It will probably
appear very different from what we now imagine. Here's what John
Wheeler, a physicist actively concerned with the nature of
quantum reality, imagines when he looks into the future:
"There may be no such thing as the 'glittering central mechanism
of the universe' to be seen behind a glass wall at the end of the
trail. Not machinery but magic may be the better description of
the treasure that is waiting."
George Bajszar
Especially when you are not in a state to egoisticize anything and
someone comes and punches you in the face. And then you go:
sure, go ahead and kill me like Slavek Krepelka, maybe that's the point.
Bill Hobba
"Consc" <cons...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1103719993.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Got the following from somewhere. If you have time this holiday,
> pls. go over it. It's a serious comment about what is occuring
> inside quantum physics. What quantum reality versions (he
> mentions a lot) do you believe in. What part did the author
> make a wrong assumption, if ever. Thanks. - Consc.
I have not read the entire article - it looks long so I only may be able to
touch on a few points. So here goes.
>
> Nick Herbert talks about "Quantum Reality":
>
> "Physicists Losing Their Grip
>
> One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have
> lost their grip on reality.
Well one problem here is you will not see reality as discussed in physics
books (at least the ones I read) - it really is a philosophical issue.
>
> News of the reality crisis hardly exists outside the physics
> community. What shuts out the public is partly a language
> barrier-the mathematical formalism that facilitates communication
> between scientists is incomprehensible to outsiders-and partly
> the human tendency of physicists to publicize their successes
> while soft-pedalling their confusions and uncertainties. Even
> among themselves, physicists prefer to pass over the
> uncomfortable reality issue in favor of questions "more
> concrete".
And for good reason - as I said above it really is a philosophical issue.
>
> "No development of modem science has had a more profound impact
> on human thinking than the advent of quantum theory. Wrenched out
> of centuries-old thought patterns, physicists of a generation ago
> found themselves compelled to embrace a new metaphysics. The
> distress which this reorientation caused continues to the present
> day. Basically physicists have suffered a severe loss: their hold
> on reality." - Bryce DeWitt Neill Graham
That depends on a number of factors such as what interpretation of QM one
holds to and what one thinks 'reality' is.
>
> Recent popularizations such as Heinz Pagels' Cosmic Code have
> begun to inform the public about the reality crisis in physics.
> In Quantum Reality I intend to examine how physicists deal with
> reality -- or fall to deal with it-in clear and unprecedented
> detail.
>
> Nothing exposes the perplexity at the heart of physics more
> starkly than certain preposterous-sounding claims a few outspoken
> physicists are making concerning how the world really works. If
> we take these claims at face value, the stories physicists tell
> resemble the tales of mystics and madmen. Physicists are quick to
> reject such unsavory associations and insist that they speak
> sober fact.
They do - usually the outcomes of experiment.
> We do not make these claims out of ignorance, they
> say, like ancient mapmakers filling In terra incognitas with
> plausi ble geography. Not ignorance, but the emergence of
> unexpected knowledge forces on us all new visions of the way
> things really are.
>
> The new physics vision is still clouded, as evidenced by the
> multiplicity of its claims, but whatever the outcome it is sure
> to be far from ordinary.
Sure QM is out of the ordinary; but so are plenty of ideas in physics like
the existence of unseen fields that can transmit electrical influences in
antenna to other antenna on the other side of the world by bouncing of an
unseen ionosphere. QM is not alone is being out of the ordinary.
> To give you a taste of quantum reality,
> I summarize here the views of its foremost Creators in the form
> of eight realities which represent eight major guesses as to
> what's really going on behind the scenes. Later we will look at
> each of these realities in more detail and see how different
> physicists use the same data to justify so many different
> pictures of th e world.
So we come ot the crux of the issue - QM has a number of differnt
inteprestions.
Here we have another example of the philosophical flavor the whole thing.
There is a well known issue - what is called the collapse of the wave
function - the issue being exactly what can be counted as an observation and
what property does it posses that collapses a wave function. But linking
such to a problem with 'reality' is something else again - something not
necessarily suggested by the facts. Because we do not know exactly what
counts as an observation does not mean we in principle have a problem - it
means no more and no less than the theory in mute on the issue. However
recent investigations into the phenomena of decoherence has clarified a lot
about what is happening. For example primary state diffusion is a possible
answer and may in fact be experimentally verifiable -
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9508021
> Questions like these split the
> observer-created reality school into several camps, but all
> generally subscribe to quantum theorist John Wheeler's memorable
> maxim for separating what is real in the world from what is not.
> "No elementary phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an
> observed phenomenon," Wheeler proclaims. Without a doubt,
> Mermin's description of the inconstant moon qualifies him for
> membership in the observer-created reality school.
It depends on the context Wheeler meant by 'real'. I take it to mean as
registered in controlled experiments.
>
> The belief that reality is observer-created is commonplace in
> philosophy, where it serves as the theme for various forms of
> idealism. Bertrand Russell recalls his fascination with idealism
> during his student days at Trinity College: "In this philosophy I
> found comfort for a time . . . There was a curious pleasure in
> making oneself believe that time and space are unreal, that
> matter is an illusion and that the world really consist of
> nothing but mind."
>
> Since pondering matter is their bread and butter, not many
> physicists would share Russell's enjoyment of matter as mere
> mirage. However, like it or not, through their conscientious
> practice of quantum theory more than a few physicists have
> strayed within hailing distance of the idealist's dreamworld.
I suggest only to those who want to read more into the evidence than is
required.
Basically that seems to be the slant of the whole article - a desire to read
more into the facts than the evidence indicates. It might be good for
selling popular books on the subject (and I seem to recall buying and
reading a copy of Herbert's book ages ago) but not necessarily about being
balanced.
For brevity rest snipped - not because it is rubbish but purely because I do
not think it would serve any purpose examining the same theme over and over
ie reading more into the facts than is warranted.
For a modern take on an interpretation that resolves most if not all the
issues see http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/histories.html
Thanks
Bill
Uncle Al
>
> Got the following from somewhere.
Put it back.
[snip 600 lines]
Philosophy has no bearing on reality. If it did it would be
empirically falsified.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
tadchem
Uncle Al wrote:
<snip>
> Philosophy has no bearing on reality. If it did it would be
> empirically falsified.
Great, Al! That one's a keeper!
.
.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Androcles
"tadchem" <thomas....@dla.mil> wrote in message
news:1103736509....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Uncle Al wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Philosophy has no bearing on reality. If it did it would be
>> empirically falsified.
> Great, Al! That one's a keeper!
Keep this one, then.
"Thence we conclude that a balance-clock at the equator must go more
slowly, by a very small amount, than a precisely similar clock situated
at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions."
Reference :
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
Time dilation has no bearing in reality and is empirically falsified.
Androcles.
> Tom Davidson
> Richmond, VA
>
re...@asu.edu
Consc wrote:
> Got the following from somewhere. If you have time this holiday,
> pls. go over it. It's a serious comment about what is occuring
> inside quantum physics. What quantum reality versions (he
> mentions a lot) do you believe in. What part did the author
> make a wrong assumption, if ever. Thanks. - Consc.
>
> Nick Herbert talks about "Quantum Reality":
>
> "Physicists Losing Their Grip
>
> One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have
> lost their grip on reality.
Physics is not about reality and it NEVER has been. Physics is about
the invention of theories that work, because it can prove it can
accomplish that much.
Patrick
Mark Martin
Indeed.
Bohr: "Physics isn't about how nature is. Physics is about what we can
say about nature."
-Mark Martin
AllYou!
<re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1103741919.9...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
How do we know they work if we're free to invent any data we want?
AaronB
the data. Data is just data, it can verify one theory, or many
theories, depending on what that data is and what the theories are
trying to say.
A.
AaronB
AllYou!
"AaronB" <amino_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1103743663.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
I know this and you know this, but ole Patrick doesn't. To him, there is no such thing as
physicality. To him, everything you and I would consider physical he considers as free
inventions of the mind. It's all just conceptual.
Peter Kinane
Great post, thanks.
>
> Got the following from somewhere. If you have time this holiday,
> pls. go over it. It's a serious comment about what is occuring
> inside quantum physics. What quantum reality versions (he
> mentions a lot) do you believe in. What part did the author
> make a wrong assumption, if ever. Thanks. - Consc.
>
> Nick Herbert talks about "Quantum Reality":
>
> "Physicists Losing Their Grip
>
> One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have
> lost their grip on reality.
>
> News of the reality crisis hardly exists outside the physics
> community. What shuts out the public is partly a language
> barrier-the mathematical formalism that facilitates communication
> between scientists is incomprehensible to outsiders-and partly
> the human tendency of physicists to publicize their successes
> while soft-pedalling their confusions and uncertainties. Even
> among themselves, physicists prefer to pass over the
> uncomfortable reality issue in favor of questions "more
> concrete".
>
> "No development of modem science has had a more profound impact
> on human thinking than the advent of quantum theory. Wrenched out
> of centuries-old thought patterns, physicists of a generation ago
> found themselves compelled to embrace a new metaphysics. The
> distress which this reorientation caused continues to the present
> day. Basically physicists have suffered a severe loss: their hold
> on reality." - Bryce DeWitt Neill Graham
>
> Recent popularizations such as Heinz Pagels' Cosmic Code have
> begun to inform the public about the reality crisis in physics.
> In Quantum Reality I intend to examine how physicists deal with
> reality -- or fall to deal with it-in clear and unprecedented
> detail.
>
> Nothing exposes the perplexity at the heart of physics more
> starkly than certain preposterous-sounding claims a few outspoken
> physicists are making concerning how the world really works. If
> we take these claims at face value, the stories physicists tell
> resemble the tales of mystics and madmen. Physicists are quick to
> reject such unsavory associations and insist that they speak
> sober fact. We do not make these claims out of ignorance, they
> say, like ancient mapmakers filling In terra incognitas with
> plausi ble geography. Not ignorance, but the emergence of
> unexpected knowledge forces on us all new visions of the way
> things really are.
>
> The new physics vision is still clouded, as evidenced by the
> multiplicity of its claims, but whatever the outcome it is sure
> to be far from ordinary. To give you a taste of quantum reality,
> I summarize here the views of its foremost Creators in the form
> of eight realities which represent eight major guesses as to
> what's really going on behind the scenes. Later we will look at
> each of these realities in more detail and see how different
> physicists use the same data to justify so many different
> pictures of th e world.
>
At least some physicists have a clue.
>
> The writings of Bohr and Heisenberg have been criticized as
> obscure and open to many interpretations. Recently Cornell
> physicist N. David Mermin neatly summed up Bohr's anti-realist
> position in words that leave little room for misunderstanding:
> "We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody
> looks." (We will take a look at Mermin's "demonstration" in
> Chapter 13.)
I expect Bohr was quite able to sum up his opinion. Mermin coming into
relation with it effected a new (and probably) inferior effect.
>
> Quantum Reality #2. The Copenhagen interpretation, Part 11
> (Reality is created by observation.) Although the numerous
> physicists of the Copenhagen school do not believe in deep
> reality, they do assert the existence of phenomenal reality. What
> we see is undoubtedly real, they say, but these phenomena are not
> really there in the absence of an observation. The Copenhagen
> interpretation properly consists of two distinct parts: I. There
> is no reality in the absence of observation; 2. Observation
> creates reality . "You create your own reality," is the theme of
> Fred Wolf's Taking the Quantum Leap.
"Effect, through, and indeed as, relationship 'of forces' and somewhat
first person".
>
> Which of the world's myriad processes qualify as observations?
> What special feature of an observation endows it with the power
> to create reality? Questions like these split the
> observer-created reality school into several camps, but all
> generally subscribe to quantum theorist John Wheeler's memorable
> maxim for separating what is real in the world from what is not.
> "No elementary phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an
> observed phenomenon," Wheeler proclaims. Without a doubt,
> Mermin's description of the inconstant moon qualifies him for
> membership in the observer-created reality school.
When physicists, like 'philosophers', have tired of riggling their
butts they will say yes to "Effect, through, and indeed as,
relationship 'of forces', indefinite, dynamic and somewhat first
person".
>
> The belief that reality is observer-created is commonplace in
> philosophy, where it serves as the theme for various forms of
> idealism. Bertrand Russell recalls his fascination with idealism
> during his student days at Trinity College: "In this philosophy I
> found comfort for a time . . . There was a curious pleasure in
> making oneself believe that time and space are unreal, that
> matter is an illusion and that the world really consist of
> nothing but mind."
>
> Since pondering matter is their bread and butter, not many
> physicists would share Russell's enjoyment of matter as mere
> mirage. However, like it or not, through their conscientious
> practice of quantum theory more than a few physicists have
> strayed within hailing distance of the idealist's dreamworld.
Probably, Russell, like virtually all the rest of them, was still
struggling to get past the letter "A" of the philosophy alphabet.
... a ring of "inferentially multi-faceted" here.
And which is the better seller currently?
>
> Coincident with Boole's pioneer work in logic, a few adventurous
> mathematicians thought up "crazy geometries," games points and
> lines could Play outside of Euclid's rules. Chief architect of
> the New Geometry was the Russian Nicola] Lobachevski along with
> German mathematicians Karl Gauss and Georg Riemann. Their
> cockeyed geometries were regarded, like "on-Boolean logics, as
> high mathematical play, clever business but out of touch with
> reality. Euclidean geometry, as everyone knows, was the geometry,
> being after all, nothing but common sense applied to triangles
> and other geometric figures.
>
> However, in 1916 Einstein proposed a radical new theory of
> gravity that demolished the Euclidean monopoly. Einstein, in
> opposition to Newton and everybody else, declared that gravity is
> not a force but a curvature in space-time. Objects in free fall
> are truly free and move in lines as straight as can be-that is,
> lines straight by the standards of a gravity-warped geometry.
> Einstein's theory has testable consequences: for instance the
> deflection of starlight grazing the sun (confirmed by Eddington
> in 1919) and the existence of black holes (according to
> astrophysicists, in the constellation Cygnus, black hole Cygnus
> X-1 resides). On Earth, where our common sense was formed,
> gravity is weak and space almost Euclidean; out near X-1, high
> school geometry flunks.
Yeah, as well as speed being constant across frames ..., through time
dilation - matter contraction - curved lines are straight through
space being curved - thereby retaining c.
>
> Einstein's lesson is plain to see, say the quantum logicians. The
> question of the world's true geometry is not settled by common
> sense but by experiment. Likewise with logic. For the rules of
> right reason, look not inside your own head but get thee to a
> laboratory.
Elephant in a china shop.
'Easy on argumentation - and a little more assertion, please.'
:)
>
> Einstein, despite his numerous contributions to its success,
> never accepted quantum theory into his heart and stubbornly held
> to the oldfashioned belief that a realistic vision of the world
> was compatible with the quantum facts. During the thirties
> Einstein and Bohr engaged in an extended debate on the quantum
> reality question. Bohr argued that as far a' reality was
> concerned, quantum theory was a closed book. By 1928 Perceptive
> physicists had already grasped the theory's essence. Quantum
> theory would devel op in detail but its principles would not
> change. Bohr's confidence has been upheld so far; fifty years
> later, physicists still follow the old rules.
Elephant in a china shop.
>
> Quantum theory is complete as it stands, said Bohr. It has no
> need of ordinary objects. Furthermore such objects cannot be
> added without spoiling its predictive success. Ordinary objects
> are not merely unnecessary luxuries in quantum theory, they are
> strictly impossible.
If I may say so, smart guy - well on the way to value as relational.
>
> Einstein's strategy was to confront Bohr with a series of thought
> experiments which aimed to show that quantum theory had left
> something out. He did not attempt to show that the theory was
> wrong, but by demonstrating that it was incomplete Einstein hoped
> to open the door for what he called "elements of reality."
>
> As the winners tell the story, Bohr closed each of Einstein's
> loopholes, but in the minds of each the debate was never settled.
> Long after their arguments had ended, on the day Bohr died, his
> blackboard contained a drawing of one of Einstein's thought
> experiments. Bohr struggled with Einstein to the end.
>
> Einstein too never gave up. In his autobiography he expresses his
> final thoughts on the quantum reality question: "I still believe
> in the possibility of a model Of reality - that is, of a theory
> which represents things themselves and not merely the probability
> of their occurrence."
As a Relativist, he would.
>
> Quantum Reality #7 (Consciousness creates reality.) Among
> observercreated realists, a small faction asserts that only an
> apparatus endowed with consciousness (even as you and 1) is
> privileged to create reality. The one observer that counts is a
> conscious observer. Denis Postle examines reality-creating
> consciousness in Fabric of the Universe. I include this quantum
> reality not only because it is so outlandish but because its
> supporters are so Illustrious. Consciousness-created reality
> adherents include ligh t/matter physicist Walter Heitler, already
> cited in connection with undivided wholeness, Fritz London,
> famous for his work on quantum liquids, Berkeley S-matrix
> theorist Henry Pierce Stapp, Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, and
> world-class mathematician John von Neumann.
******* ****** ******* *************.
Here we go again, reverting back to presumed discrete entities.
(Matter is matter in so far as matter is matter,
And this matters in so far as it matters.
Yet some would ask, "If it all flew away would it matter?")
"Not machinery but [Effectuationism] may be the better description of
the treasure that is waiting."
--
Peter Kinane
http://www.effectuationism.com
Mike
Bill Hobba wrote:
[snip]
>
> Well one problem here is you will not see reality as discussed in
physics
> books (at least the ones I read) - it really is a philosophical
issue.
>
So the ones you read do not deal with reality? If not, are they about?
Dreams? Fantasy?
> >
> > News of the reality crisis hardly exists outside the physics
> > community. What shuts out the public is partly a language
> > barrier-the mathematical formalism that facilitates communication
> > between scientists is incomprehensible to outsiders-and partly
> > the human tendency of physicists to publicize their successes
> > while soft-pedalling their confusions and uncertainties. Even
> > among themselves, physicists prefer to pass over the
> > uncomfortable reality issue in favor of questions "more
> > concrete".
>
> And for good reason - as I said above it really is a philosophical
issue.
No, it's not. That's you misinterpretation of what philosophy is all
about. One task of philosophers is to identify the right questions to
be asked so physicists and angineers can proceed for answers, develop
theories and "save the phenomena".
>
> It depends on the context Wheeler meant by 'real'. I take it to mean
as
> registered in controlled experiments.
>
Maybe, but Wheeler knows what he's talking about and you seem you
don't, obviously.
'Reality' is about what IS. When scientists use accelerators to smash
particles and identify the structure of matter they are basically try
to reduce the set of ontological questions, i.e. determine features of
reality, what actually exists out there.
People on this planet started with many philosophical questions but as
science progresses the number of unanswered questions is being reduced,
slowly but it is. The unltimate goal of science, and physics in
particular, is to undersyand how the world works. While this maybe
impossible, the idea that physics has nothing to do with reality ihas
its source in crackpot theories and crank scientists whose postulates
cannot be proved and are not self evident. Those circles are doing a
great diservice to humanity by delaying the process of understanding
reality and resolving several survival issues that can only be resolved
if such understanding is reached.
Understand this: the unltimate goal of physics should be anesering of
all the ontological questions currently part of metaphysics using
experimental techniques and mathematical modeling. Thus, the goal will
be reached when physics totally answers all philosophical questions.
Whilst this may turn to be impossible, it is the only legitimate task
of physics. Anything else, beyond being a waste of tax money, is no
more that Hollywood script writting.
Mike
>
> Thanks
> Bill
re...@asu.edu
Uncle Al wrote:
> Consc wrote:
> >
> > Got the following from somewhere.
>
> Put it back.
>
> [snip 600 lines]
>
> Philosophy has no bearing on reality. If it did it would be
> empirically falsified.
Do you mean reality as it is perceived by humans? Or do you mean
reality as the universe when it's left alone from human interaction?
Patrick
re...@asu.edu
And what can we "say about nature"? Only whatever is contained in our
theories that work. And a "theory that works" does NOT reverse-engineer
deep reality.
The distinction Bohr made is between epistemology and metaphysics. For
centuries people believed that science is THE means to know what nature
really is. They were wrong. The inability of humans to get at deep
reality (not just what instruments read) through physics has nothing to
do with QM weirdness though, or even the intangibility to humans of the
microworld! Although both of these factors exacerbate the problem. The
failure shows itself to be quite classical in nature. There is no
logical (i.e., necessary) connection between human-invented concepts
that are used in theories and the putative things-in-themselves.
The most a "theory that works" is ever going to be is just a "theory
that works."
Patrick
re...@asu.edu
Patrick
re...@asu.edu
That is a very obvious distortion of what I've been saying. I don't
find you to be a good representative of my viewpoints. If at some point
I did hire you to do that, you're now fired.
It seems quite clear that after all these months you haven't learned
the first thing I've said about operational definitions.
I can teach just about anyone -- except perhaps you -- how to use a
stop watch to time a runner's time as he makes one lap around a track,
and never include the word "physical" in my instruction set on how to
do it!
On the one hand, you insist that space IS physical and that time is not
physical; whereas, I claim that people are free to either not even use
the word "physical" or else if they want to use it, to arbitrarily
decide which theoretical variables they will call "physical" and which
they will not. So who is right?
Patrick
AllYou!
<re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1103747478....@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Isn't data part of the physical realm which is all a free invention of the mind?
AllYou!
<re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1103748309.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> AllYou! wrote:
> > "AaronB" <amino_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1103743663.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > > We're not free to invent data, we're free to invent theories that
> fit
> > > the data. Data is just data, it can verify one theory, or many
> > > theories, depending on what that data is and what the theories are
> > > trying to say.
> >
> > I know this and you know this, but ole Patrick doesn't. To him,
> there is no such thing as
> > physicality. To him, everything you and I would consider physical he
> considers as free
> > inventions of the mind. It's all just conceptual.
>
> That is a very obvious distortion of what I've been saying. I don't
> find you to be a good representative of my viewpoints. If at some point
> I did hire you to do that, you're now fired.
If ever you had offered me the job, I'd have refused. You don't have viewpoits.
> It seems quite clear that after all these months you haven't learned
> the first thing I've said about operational definitions.
Like the meaningless one for physical? Or the meaningless one for measurement?
> I can teach just about anyone -- except perhaps you -- how to use a
> stop watch to time a runner's time as he makes one lap around a track,
> and never include the word "physical" in my instruction set on how to
> do it!
Of course not. You'd just find synonyms. BTW, I gotta laugh at the phrase *time a
runners time*. That just about says it all about your view of the physical realm.
> On the one hand, you insist that space IS physical and that time is not
> physical; whereas, I claim that people are free to either not even use
> the word "physical" or else if they want to use it, to arbitrarily
> decide which theoretical variables they will call "physical" and which
> they will not. So who is right?
As usual, you fail to articulate your position well and use vagaries to do so. If by
*people* you mean each individual, then this is laughable on it's face. However, if you
mean the collection of human thought, then that decision making process should always be
subject to discussion, debate, and revision. While current thinking seems to be that both
space and time are equivalent in that regard, I believe that we must revise that decision
and so I will argue that we should.
And this is where your position is useless. While you advocate that people, whoever they
are, are free to decide which *variables* they will call physical, you also argue that
time is not physical. Another in a long series of contradictions by you.
But tell me, how is a theory ever proven? While it can be proven that theories don't
work, it can never be proven that they do. All we can do is show evidence that they did
work under very specific circumstances. But then again, I fail to see how any experiment
you would conduct could ever be useful because you don't believe that the sensory input
required to make sense of the results of these experiments is anything more than free
inventions of the mind.
Andr? Michaud
Remarkably complete.
Regarding de Broglie, you may be interested to know that his
causalist philosophy did not pass away with him. He founded
a foundation directed by Georges Lochak that still is in
operation: the "Foundation Louis de Broglie"
André Michaud
re...@asu.edu
I told you before that "physical" doesn't need an operational
definition. It's not even needed in physics. I asked you before to show
us a case where it is needed in physics. We're all still waiting for
that example from you.
>
> > I can teach just about anyone -- except perhaps you -- how to use a
> > stop watch to time a runner's time as he makes one lap around a
track,
> > and never include the word "physical" in my instruction set on how
to
> > do it!
>
> Of course not. You'd just find synonyms. BTW, I gotta laugh at the
phrase *time a
> runners time*. That just about says it all about your view of the
physical realm.
Maybe you better be more specific in your point.
>
> > On the one hand, you insist that space IS physical and that time is
not
> > physical; whereas, I claim that people are free to either not even
use
> > the word "physical" or else if they want to use it, to arbitrarily
> > decide which theoretical variables they will call "physical" and
which
> > they will not. So who is right?
>
> As usual, you fail to articulate your position well and use vagaries
to do so. If by
> *people* you mean each individual, then this is laughable on it's
face. However, if you
> mean the collection of human thought, then that decision making
process should always be
> subject to discussion, debate, and revision. While current thinking
seems to be that both
> space and time are equivalent in that regard, I believe that we must
revise that decision
> and so I will argue that we should.
And I support your right to do so. I merely claim that your reason for
making the distinction between space and time physicality is wrong,
being based on your personal metaphysical notions of reality. Theory
tells us what's "real." Physics isn't about your personal metaphysical
beliefs being accepted as unquestionable dogmas.
>
> And this is where your position is useless. While you advocate that
people, whoever they
> are, are free to decide which *variables* they will call physical,
you also argue that
> time is not physical. Another in a long series of contradictions by
you.
Once again, you have it backward. Do you ever read what I write. I told
you that time is physical if it lives in a theory that has P-content,
such as in SR, Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, QM, etc.
>
> But tell me, how is a theory ever proven?
That depends on what you mean by "proven." I know lots of theories that
the physics establishment considers to work well on their domains of
applicability, such as those I just mentioned! However, I make no claim
that any of those theories is "true."
Patrick
re...@asu.edu
I remember saying that physical concepts and physical theories are free
inventions of the human mind. I do not remember saying that data is
either a physical concept or a physical theory. Data is a collection of
measurement datums, each of which is a number assigned to an event
pair: the manner in which the number is assigned is determined by the
operational definition that is assigned to the measurement by the
theory.
Patrick
Bill Hobba
"Mike" <ele...@yahoo.gr> wrote in message
news:1103744357.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Bill Hobba wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> > Well one problem here is you will not see reality as discussed in
> physics
> > books (at least the ones I read) - it really is a philosophical
> issue.
> >
>
> So the ones you read do not deal with reality? If not, are they about?
> Dreams? Fantasy?
They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with experiment. If
one wishes to say such tells us about reality is a philosophical issue. I
believe it does, and I also believe most people believe it does, but the
scientific method makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been
commented that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does not
actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic in their
approach while scientists working on fundamental issues take the view it
does. Science is capable of accommodating either view.
>
> > >
> > > News of the reality crisis hardly exists outside the physics
> > > community. What shuts out the public is partly a language
> > > barrier-the mathematical formalism that facilitates communication
> > > between scientists is incomprehensible to outsiders-and partly
> > > the human tendency of physicists to publicize their successes
> > > while soft-pedalling their confusions and uncertainties. Even
> > > among themselves, physicists prefer to pass over the
> > > uncomfortable reality issue in favor of questions "more
> > > concrete".
> >
> > And for good reason - as I said above it really is a philosophical
> issue.
>
> No, it's not. That's you misinterpretation of what philosophy is all
> about. One task of philosophers is to identify the right questions to
> be asked so physicists and angineers can proceed for answers, develop
> theories and "save the phenomena".
The above would not be an interpretation right? - after all whatever you
think must be true must it not? Exactly what makes your opinion any better
than mine? In science the ultimate coin of the realm is corresponded with
experiment - if you take a position that experiment can not decide between
then it is philosophy - not science - which is my entire point.
>
>
> >
> > It depends on the context Wheeler meant by 'real'. I take it to mean
> as
> > registered in controlled experiments.
> >
> Maybe, but Wheeler knows what he's talking about and you seem you
> don't, obviously.
>
> 'Reality' is about what IS.
I am glad you cleared that up for everybody. Now I do not know if
philosophers have a prize similar to the Nobel prize or the Fields Medal but
I am sure you are a shoe in for it with such an earth shattering observation
I am certain al philosphers will immediately agree with and wonder why they
never thought of it before. (1)
> When scientists use accelerators to smash
> particles and identify the structure of matter they are basically try
> to reduce the set of ontological questions, i.e. determine features of
> reality, what actually exists out there.
(1).
>
> People on this planet started with many philosophical questions but as
> science progresses the number of unanswered questions is being reduced,
> slowly but it is.
Not in philosophy - they can not even refute Soliphism
> The unltimate goal of science, and physics in
> particular, is to undersyand how the world works.
Science is a method for having theories in accord with experiment - the rest
is philosophical baggage.
> While this maybe
> impossible, the idea that physics has nothing to do with reality ihas
> its source in crackpot theories and crank scientists whose postulates
> cannot be proved and are not self evident.
Did I say that physics has nothing to do with reality? - I said the issue is
a philosophical one - not something science is worries about.
> Those circles are doing a
> great diservice to humanity by delaying the process of understanding
> reality and resolving several survival issues that can only be resolved
> if such understanding is reached.
Those that ascribe to your views are doing a great disservice to humanity by
confusing science and philosophy.
>
> Understand this: the unltimate goal of physics should be anesering of
> all the ontological questions currently part of metaphysics using
> experimental techniques and mathematical modeling. Thus, the goal will
> be reached when physics totally answers all philosophical questions.
> Whilst this may turn to be impossible, it is the only legitimate task
> of physics. Anything else, beyond being a waste of tax money, is no
> more that Hollywood script writting.
Understand if the question can not be decided by experiment is it philosophy
and should properly be treated as such - and by most it is. That does not
mean scientists do not necessarily believe in philosophical positions such
as objective reality exists out there independent of us (myself and Weinberg
for example believe it does) - it simply means they understand since it can
not be refuted by experiment it is not a question for science.
Bill
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> >
> > Thanks
> > Bill
>
Consc
Note Nick Herbert begins his discussing in earlier articles
from the point of view of electrons and stuff specifically
and especially their being without position and momentum
unless measured. This means they don't have objective
existence unless measured. It's like saying when you are
alone in your room and no one sees you. You don't exist physically but
as some kind of wave. This is what the
physicists are implying and not just temporary construct for
purpose of mathematics, right. Or not. When scientists work
out formulas about it. Are they just assuming it is only real
mathematically while in real world, it is not.. like one kind
of separate oneself in 2 situations. It's like believing Santa
Claus is real when doing certain calculations and when done.
Knowing Santa Claus doesn't exist. But the calculations is
assuming Santa Claus exist. So for quantum physics. Does one
believe Santa Claus exist or not. Or in other words, does
one believe the phenemonon is real objectively (electrons
literally doesn't have position unless observed) and not just
a virtual construct for purposes of mathematics. Or does one
believe it is only real when done in calculations and not real
objectively. Maybe most believe it's the former, that it's
not just a mathematical construct. If so. It's such a strange
world isn't it. Don't you feel awe sometimes by it. Or are
you so used to it that it's normal. If it's normal. Then this
world being based on strange laws is normal, right. And
because there are other weirder theories. This is what Herbert
meant when he said physicists are losing grip on reality (in a
non-offending but laconic kind of way) because there are many
theories that obviously are not just mathematical constructs).
Consc
tadchem
<re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1103746368.6...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> Or do you mean
> reality as the universe when it's left alone from human interaction?
It's more than a little too late to even consider that.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Morituri-|-Max
> Especially when you are not in a state to egoisticize anything and
> someone comes and punches you in the face. And then you go:
> sure, go ahead and kill me like Slavek Krepelka, maybe that's the point.
You gotta be fucking kidding me.. you quoted 35K of stuff for a 3 line response?
Morituri-|-Max
> "tadchem" <thomas....@dla.mil> wrote in message
> news:1103736509....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Uncle Al wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> Philosophy has no bearing on reality. If it did it would be
>>> empirically falsified.
>> Great, Al! That one's a keeper!
>
> Keep this one, then.
No thanks.. it wasn't interesting like Als.
nightbat
nightbat
Via verifiable co peer affirmed observations and results, called
non falsified working theories and scientific evidence, the rest is
philosophy or unproved fantasy based sci fi.
the nightbat
nightbat
nightbat
Then just try coming up with a multi peer affirmable useful one,
for a working applicable theory or model is what physics is all about,
not philosophy, religion, or no evidence fantasy based sci fi.
the nightbat
Mike
Bill Hobba wrote:
> They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with
experiment. If
> one wishes to say such tells us about reality is a philosophical
issue. I
> believe it does, and I also believe most people believe it does, but
the
> scientific method makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been
> commented that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does
not
> actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic in
their
> approach while scientists working on fundamental issues take the view
it
> does. Science is capable of accommodating either view.
>
Them experimenrs according to you are not part of reality, but
something else. You started with a fallacy and the rest of your post
will be just as fallacious.
> The above would not be an interpretation right? - after all whatever
you
> think must be true must it not? Exactly what makes your opinion any
better
> than mine?
The fact that you treat experiments as processes not part of reality.
> In science the ultimate coin of the realm is corresponded with
> experiment - if you take a position that experiment can not decide
between
> then it is philosophy - not science - which is my entire point.
>
You point is a straw man and a red herring.
>
> Science is a method for having theories in accord with experiment -
the rest
> is philosophical baggage.
>
Philosophy is what enables science to ask the right questions and seek
answerss.
> Did I say that physics has nothing to do with reality? - I said the
issue is
> a philosophical one - not something science is worries about.
>
No it is not. You are confused about the task of philosophy.
> > Those circles are doing a
> > great diservice to humanity by delaying the process of
understanding
> > reality and resolving several survival issues that can only be
resolved
> > if such understanding is reached.
>
> Those that ascribe to your views are doing a great disservice to
humanity by
> confusing science and philosophy.
>
Hey Hobba: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It's your wake
up call.
I guess according to you, Newton did a great disservice. You know why
Newton named it like that? Because at that early stage in the
development of mechanics a big part of the job was to determine the
proper questions to ask. And Newton did ask the proper questions.
>
> Understand if the question can not be decided by experiment is it
philosophy
> and should properly be treated as such - and by most it is. That
does not
> mean scientists do not necessarily believe in philosophical positions
such
> as objective reality exists out there independent of us (myself and
Weinberg
> for example believe it does) - it simply means they understand since
it can
> not be refuted by experiment it is not a question for science.
The infidels of science and philosophy, like modern anti-realists, are
rensponsible for this confusion, which although you say you do not
agree with, neverthless you constantly promote in these ng's because it
seems you want to play 'trendy'.
Science does not determine what are the proper questions to ask. Tha's
the task od philosophical inquiry. Science does not try to prove the
validity of the philosophical process. The two are connected in series,
not in parallel.
While western science is immersed in self-denial of the very same
principles it is based on just to support some crackpot theories like
relativity, the east is progressing without getting confused about the
roles of science and philosophy. It is known from history that
deterioration of power involves a decline in scientific thinking, this
is also what happened to Greeks and the empire of Alexander the Great
was broken into pieces.
Everything I read along these lines you promote here while at the same
time you insist you are against showing you have a double face, it is
clear to me that western superiority in science and as a result in
economy and everything else is approaching its end fast. The reason:
the lost touch with reality and the denial of the immediately given and
the effort to promote a superiority of the mind world. To me, this is
how future slaves think.
The result is that unless there is a gigantic effort to clean the
garbage sick minds have proliferated science with and to return to the
proper tasks of philosophy and science, the west is doomed to be
enslaved by the east which has retained the golden dichotomy between
mind and matter, that is between philosophical inquiry and reality of
what exists.
But unfortunately, it seems that falling and rise of empires is a
natural phenomenon, and reversing its course wan never achieved in the
history of mankind by any means. The process is irreversible. Some of
the people you admire gained their fame by jeoperdizing the feature of
science. The style of thinking they imposed completely skrewed up the
capability for a recovery. By those I mean your friend Dr. AL and the
Copenhagen anti-realists and all the followers thereof.
Still, I have some hope that the 'beast' inside west can 'wake up' and
do somthing before we end up working for 25 year old Chineese who eat
frog legs for breakfast.
Mike
>
> Bill
>
> >
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Bill
> >
Peter Kinane
>
>
> But unfortunately, it seems that falling and rise of empires is a
> natural phenomenon, and reversing its course wan never achieved in the
> history of mankind by any means. The process is irreversible. Some of
> the people you admire gained their fame by jeoperdizing the feature of
> science. The style of thinking they imposed completely skrewed up the
> capability for a recovery. By those I mean your friend Dr. AL and the
> Copenhagen anti-realists and all the followers thereof.
>
>
> Mike
Perhaps you would say a bit more about your take on the Copenhagen school,
for example, whether it may have been at least unwinding from "absolutist
notions", and may I say, making progress towards "value, through, and indeed
as, relationship' of forces', indefinite, dynamic and inferentially
multi-faceted"?
AllYou!
<re...@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:1103757401....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
As soon as you tell me what you mean by *physical*, I'll tell you if it's needed in
physics. In fact, as soon as you can tell me what you mean by physics, I'll tell you why
it's needed.
We're all waiting.
We're also waiting for a definition of some new words you invented like P-theory and
physicaltheory. What's the matter.......cat got your tongue?
> > > I can teach just about anyone -- except perhaps you -- how to use a
> > > stop watch to time a runner's time as he makes one lap around a
> track,
> > > and never include the word "physical" in my instruction set on how
> to
> > > do it!
> >
> > Of course not. You'd just find synonyms. BTW, I gotta laugh at the
> phrase *time a
> > runners time*. That just about says it all about your view of the
> physical realm.
>
> Maybe you better be more specific in your point.
*time a runners time* LOL!
Physical is physical.
> > > On the one hand, you insist that space IS physical and that time is
> not
> > > physical; whereas, I claim that people are free to either not even
> use
> > > the word "physical" or else if they want to use it, to arbitrarily
> > > decide which theoretical variables they will call "physical" and
> which
> > > they will not. So who is right?
> >
> > As usual, you fail to articulate your position well and use vagaries
> to do so. If by
> > *people* you mean each individual, then this is laughable on it's
> face. However, if you
> > mean the collection of human thought, then that decision making
> process should always be
> > subject to discussion, debate, and revision. While current thinking
> seems to be that both
> > space and time are equivalent in that regard, I believe that we must
> revise that decision
> > and so I will argue that we should.
>
> And I support your right to do so. I merely claim that your reason for
> making the distinction between space and time physicality is wrong,
> being based on your personal metaphysical notions of reality.
And that's where you continue to make a fool of yourself. I've never shared my views on
reality with you. This is a physics NG, not a philosophical one. And how can you know
that I'm wrong about physicality when you have no idea what it means? If you did, you've
be willing to share it with us.
> Theory
> tells us what's "real." Physics isn't about your personal metaphysical
> beliefs being accepted as unquestionable dogmas.
No shit. Where did you ever come to the completely misguided conclusion that I thought it
was? Oh......that's right......you've decided that I belong to a group and that group
believes that against which you argue. Hmmmmmm. an argument all made up and no one
against whom to use it. Kinda like getting dressed and no where to go, huh?
> > And this is where your position is useless. While you advocate that
> people, whoever they
> > are, are free to decide which *variables* they will call physical,
> you also argue that
> > time is not physical. Another in a long series of contradictions by
> you.
>
> Once again, you have it backward. Do you ever read what I write. I told
> you that time is physical if it lives in a theory that has P-content,
> such as in SR, Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, QM, etc.
Now that you've made up a new word for all of us, you've got no choice but to tell us what
it means. We're all waiting! Tell us what *P-content* means. LOL! I've got you reduced
to making up shit just to avaoid being pinned down to your failed and empty arguments.
> > But tell me, how is a theory ever proven?
>
> That depends on what you mean by "proven."
No, you're the one that used the term so I want you to tell us all what you mean by it.
"Physics is not about reality and it NEVER has been. Physics is about the invention of
theories that work, because it can prove it can accomplish that much."
So in the context of that claim, what do you mean by proven?
> I know lots of theories that
> the physics establishment considers to work well on their domains of
> applicability, such as those I just mentioned! However, I make no claim
> that any of those theories is "true."
But you do claim that they can be proven. So what do you mean by proven? You've got
yourself so twisted around with one foot in a conventional, physical world and the other
in this mystical, never, never land that even you can't figure out what you believe.
Consc
It all boils down to "experiments" and the "instruments"
that can study some of the theories. Ages ago.. Philosophers
wonder what is the smallest particle and how small it would
end up. Now physics show there is an atom. In similar
fashion, philosophers wonder the nature of the universe.
Maybe science may show a new kind of unseen energy that can
compose all the four fundamental forces. Right now, just
because science can't detect them doesn't mean they don't
exist. Not long ago. We couldn't detect electromagnetic
field so we don't know they exist. If the scientists that
day concluded em doesn't exist because no instruments can
detect it, it doesn't follow em doesn't exist. Likewise,
there may be energies not yet detected by science.
Philosophers speculate on it, future science may discover
it. Sometimes we get deceived by our senses and think the
world is all there is to see. What we see now is not even
what it really is. When you view an apple in front of you.
Light particles reach your retina. What you see is just a
map of the apple. What if the apple also emits lets say
eth-ro energy which our biological equipment can't handle.
Then we don't see the full image of the true apple.. but
only its photonic version.
Right now. Some scientists dislike philosophers because they
think they are somewhat delusional thinking that soul may
even exist when science shows our consciousness is brain
stuff. But if you will study the debate on consciousness
which turns into serious study after Francis Crick stated
brain can produce consciousness so study the brain. You will
see many valid counterarguments... Our brain may produce
functions but what turn neural patterns into images. What
gives us awareness of being aware. Who knows. Someday
science may discover that there is a very subtle group of
micro"particles" and these particles are not wave nor really
particles but some kind of hologram substance. And they may
discover our consciousness... that gives us the subjective
feeling of being aware of our awareness is this substance
that beat the rhythm of the wave function in quantum
physics. Thats it... a new physics that study beyond the
wave function and what is the behind the scene.. Then you
have a new science that philosophers only dreamt about once
upon a time. The date is 3000 A.D. The discovery that humans
have a soul.
Get the point? You guys debate is fruitless in that one just
tends to emphasize one point of view and just belittle the
others and more a semantic challenge.
Consc
slavek krepelka
nightbat wrote:
> Then just try coming up with a multi peer affirmable useful one,
> for a working applicable theory or model is what physics is all about
the nightbat
Unfortunately.
My kind regards, Slavek.
Consc
tadchem
> It all boils down to "experiments" and the "instruments"
> that can study some of the theories. Ages ago.. Philosophers
> wonder what is the smallest particle and how small it would
> end up.
Don't forget the great philosophical screw-ups...
A similar number of 'philosophers' seemed to feel that:
1) matter was not atomic, but that one could indefinitely continue
subdividing something
2) there were only four elements, corresponding to what we now call the
three commonest "states of matter" plus 'fire'
3) there were four 'kingdoms' that comprised the universe - minerals,
vegetables, animals, and spirits
4) all is Maya (illusion)
and so on...
Only when experimentalists started keeping systematic records and
analyzing their results did most of these 'musings' evaporate in the
harsh light of data.
Philosophers also gave us the "flat earth", the geocentric universe,
Aristotelian gravity, and any number of quaint and curious mythologies.
Every "truth" that we are handed by our sages needs to be tested in the
physical universe, which provides the only impartial judge of validity.
Any crank can devise a theory (and usually does). The *real* expertise
is required in devising ways to empirically and repeatibly test the
validity of these theories.
Philosophy stimulates us experimentalists to demonstrate the nudity of
the philosopher kings.
> In similar
> fashion, philosophers wonder the nature of the universe.
All intelligent people *wonder*. Some of us are more effective in
finding answers to our questions than are others. Our degrees may say
"Doctor of Philosophy," rather anachronistically, but we eschew the
title of "philosopher" as something that begs for unearned respect. We
call ourselves many things, but generally do not call ourselves
anything that would suggest that we expect others to respect us more
than anyone else. For example, I call myself a 'chemist'. My
professional friends (those with Ph.D. degrees) call themselves
'teacher' or 'writer' or the like - except for Crazy Ben, who calls
himself things I can't repeat.
> Not long ago. We couldn't detect electromagnetic
> field so we don't know they exist.
China, 1st century AD:
http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/grads/mpruis/magnetics/history/hist.html
> If the scientists that
> day concluded em doesn't exist
Premise disqualified:
"We know that the magnet loves the lodestone, but we do not know
whether the lodestone also loves the magnet or is attracted to it
against its will." - Arab physicist of the twelfth century
[Ibidem]
> Likewise,
> there may be energies not yet detected by science.
> Philosophers speculate on it,
Philosophers are like weathermen - all talk, no action.
> future science may discover
> it.
Empiricism and experimentalists Rule! Yeah!
> Sometimes we get deceived by our senses and think the
> world is all there is to see.
Speak for yourself. I have no trouble conceptualizing a four-tensor
even though none of my senses respond to it. Have you ever solved a
differential equation in your sleep?
> What we see now is not even
> what it really is. When you view an apple in front of you.
> Light particles reach your retina. What you see is just a
> map of the apple. What if the apple also emits lets say
> eth-ro energy which our biological equipment can't handle.
> Then we don't see the full image of the true apple.. but
> only its photonic version.
You've got to learn to *BE* the apple...clear your
mind...focus...breathe...you *ARE* the apple...Got it yet?
> Right now. Some scientists dislike philosophers because they
> think they are somewhat delusional thinking that soul may
> even exist when science shows our consciousness is brain
> stuff.
Most of us dislike them because they are pretentious and arrogant,
refusing to acknowledge that even _their_ ideas must be held
accountable to observational validation. Until they make *testable*
statements, they are just babbling. Many of them are even guilty of
some of the most basic fallacies of informal logic against which they
chide *us*.
> But if you will study the debate on consciousness
"Consciousness" is still not operationally defined to the satisfaction
of all interested parties. Without such an empirically useful
definition, we can't even be sure we are all talking about the same
phenomena.
> Someday
> science may discover that there is a very subtle group of
> micro"particles" and these particles are not wave nor really
> particles but some kind of hologram substance.
Smoke and mirrors...until *you* can tell us what the *** you are
talking about there is *NO* substance to your discussion of
'micro"particles"'.
> And they may
> discover our consciousness... that gives us the subjective
> feeling of being aware of our awareness is this substance
> that beat the rhythm of the wave function in quantum
> physics.
Again, "consciousness" is not defined yet.
> Thats it... a new physics that study beyond the
> wave function and what is the behind the scene.. Then you
> have a new science that philosophers only dreamt about once
> upon a time. The date is 3000 A.D. The discovery that humans
> have a soul.
I have heard it well-argued that humans *are* souls [i.e. what we
really are is soul-stuff which has no observable properties of matter
or energy in the physical sense], and that they *have* bodies. Science
deals with that which can be observed, measured, and tested. Science
cannot deal with things that cannot be observed, measured, or tested.
Science certainly cannot deal with thing that have not even been
*defined* in a manner acceptable to the consensus of investigators.
> Get the point? You guys debate is fruitless in that one just
> tends to emphasize one point of view and just belittle the
> others and more a semantic challenge.
Semantics is everything in science. Until we agree on exactly what we
are talking about, we can make no more progress.
I took an epistemology course as an undergraduate. The essay final was
on the meaning of the word 'knowledge.' I was able to demonstrate that
each of the philosophers we had studied through the year was operating
with a different effective definition of the term, and was able to
connect most of these different concepts associated with the single
English word "knowledge" with distinct verbs in German (z.B. kennen,
wissen, lernen, seien - Liebergott!).
The inconsistencies and incompatibilities of the various philosophers
within 'epistemology' were mainly traceable to *semantic* differences
over the meaning of the root word of their specialized field. Each had
his own personal type of fruit he was calling an 'apple.'
.
.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
re...@asu.edu
> >
[snip]
> > I told you before that "physical" doesn't need an operational
> > definition. It's not even needed in physics. I asked you before to
show
> > us a case where it is needed in physics. We're all still waiting
for
> > that example from you.
>
> As soon as you tell me what you mean by *physical*, I'll tell you if
it's needed in
> physics. In fact, as soon as you can tell me what you mean by
physics, I'll tell you why
> it's needed.
That's ridiculous. If YOU think it is necessary to include the word
*physical* in the language of physics, YOU show us why. Your proof
requires YOUR definition, not mine.
>
> We're also waiting for a definition of some new words you invented
like P-theory and
> physicaltheory. What's the matter.......cat got your tongue?
A model, law, or principle is said to be "physical" if it lives in a
theory with P-content. A theory is said to have P-content if it makes,
in principle, testable predictions through operational definitions.
Patrick
Consc
> Consc wrote:
> > It all boils down to "experiments" and the "instruments"
> > that can study some of the theories. Ages ago.. Philosophers
> > wonder what is the smallest particle and how small it would
> > end up.
>
> Don't forget the great philosophical screw-ups...
>
> A similar number of 'philosophers' seemed to feel that:
> 1) matter was not atomic, but that one could indefinitely continue
> subdividing something
Isn't it that string theory says the quark may be a particular
expression of a string... so maybe not subdividing but something
like that.
> 2) there were only four elements, corresponding to what we now call
the
> three commonest "states of matter" plus 'fire'
Four elements.... Four Fundamental forces. Well. I'm not saying they
are right. Remember they are just trying to speculate about reality
and it is up to science to prove or disprove them. I'm not into
philosophers study or don't side with philosophers. It's just that
let's not be so hard on them.
> 3) there were four 'kingdoms' that comprised the universe - minerals,
> vegetables, animals, and spirits
How do you know the spirit doesn't exist, just for sake of discussion.
Physics deal with the physical. What if there is a non-physical that
no instruments can detect "yet". I'm not saying there is spirit, but
let's not conclude there is nothing beyond it. What is behind the
wave function for example. What realy happens during a quantum
measurement. Why is it it is. Science just describes it but doesn't
explain it as its core. Those who attempt to explain it such as
physicist Fred Wolf are dingling between science and metaphysics
and we can't blame people such as them because they want to attempt
to explain the why of everything.
> 4) all is Maya (illusion)
> and so on...
Maybe what is the behind the wave function is the real reality. See.
Well. I'm not siding with philosophers but let's not be so hard on
them.
>
> Only when experimentalists started keeping systematic records and
> analyzing their results did most of these 'musings' evaporate in the
> harsh light of data.
Yes. I'm a hard data person too. It's up to science to prove or
disprove the philosophers. They go hand in hand.
>
> Philosophers also gave us the "flat earth", the geocentric universe,
> Aristotelian gravity, and any number of quaint and curious
mythologies.
Because they don't have science yet at that time. Philosophers
speculate reality. Science prove or disprove it.
>
> Every "truth" that we are handed by our sages needs to be tested in
the
> physical universe, which provides the only impartial judge of
validity.
What if there is a reality that is Bohmian in nature... that is higher
order quantum or behind what causes quantum events.
>
> Any crank can devise a theory (and usually does). The *real*
expertise
> is required in devising ways to empirically and repeatibly test the
> validity of these theories.
Yes. I agree. As I said. I'm a hard data person too.
> Philosophy stimulates us experimentalists to demonstrate the nudity
of
> the philosopher kings.
Don't conclude that the science we have now is the ultimate science.
There may be more to come that deal with paraquantum or beyond the
quantum as many scientists are not inkling.
>
> > In similar
> > fashion, philosophers wonder the nature of the universe.
>
> All intelligent people *wonder*. Some of us are more effective in
> finding answers to our questions than are others. Our degrees may
say
> "Doctor of Philosophy," rather anachronistically, but we eschew the
> title of "philosopher" as something that begs for unearned respect.
We
> call ourselves many things, but generally do not call ourselves
> anything that would suggest that we expect others to respect us more
> than anyone else. For example, I call myself a 'chemist'. My
> professional friends (those with Ph.D. degrees) call themselves
> 'teacher' or 'writer' or the like - except for Crazy Ben, who calls
> himself things I can't repeat.
Philosopher may be a bad term nowadays. It has to do with tags. Maybe
what must challenge science is not philosophy but hmm... maybe
metaphysics or just plain human interest in things unseen. Don't
know other terms... but curiosers... the mere tagging of "philosophy"
can cause automatic response in scientists.
> Philosophers are like weathermen - all talk, no action.
Yes. That's right.
> You've got to learn to *BE* the apple...clear your
> mind...focus...breathe...you *ARE* the apple...Got it yet?
And if you are the apple. It's hidden reality may also come up.
What if there is a hologram substance in every atom linking all
of them together.. sorta kinda of a morphogenetic field.
>
> > Right now. Some scientists dislike philosophers because they
> > think they are somewhat delusional thinking that soul may
> > even exist when science shows our consciousness is brain
> > stuff.
>
> Most of us dislike them because they are pretentious and arrogant,
> refusing to acknowledge that even _their_ ideas must be held
> accountable to observational validation. Until they make *testable*
> statements, they are just babbling. Many of them are even guilty of
> some of the most basic fallacies of informal logic against which they
> chide *us*.
So this is why scientists hate philosophers. Philosophers may be
semantically abused words already. Maybe just use the generic term
curiosers. Newton, Einstein, etc. were once curious.
>
> > But if you will study the debate on consciousness
>
> "Consciousness" is still not operationally defined to the
satisfaction
> of all interested parties. Without such an empirically useful
> definition, we can't even be sure we are all talking about the same
> phenomena.
I don't know if you know EL. He suggested that for sake of discussion,
the definition of consciousness is "the awareness of being aware".
See the thread.....
Support or challenge him.
>
> > Someday
> > science may discover that there is a very subtle group of
> > micro"particles" and these particles are not wave nor really
> > particles but some kind of hologram substance.
>
> Smoke and mirrors...until *you* can tell us what the *** you are
> talking about there is *NO* substance to your discussion of
> 'micro"particles"'.
Just for sake of illustration. Anyway. Do you think it's possible
that the wave function of two separate atomic orbital can be
somehow connected to its other.. as if within them Bell Theorem
of non-local interconnected works? What's the prove they are not
connected or has no hidden mechanism for interconnection. I mean
maybe the wave function has separate reality wherein they may
be connected in different atoms or configurations or matter. A
physicist called Giuliana Conforto theorize some kind of hologram
interconnects individual atoms just like a DNA having the information
of the entire being. Can you show beyond the shadow of doubt none of
it happen. What is the "why" of the wave function really. Conforto
didn't say it is the wave function but that it's the particles
themselves which can cause it thru another mechanism. I just think
the wave function may have a more logical pathway if ever that
occurs.
> > And they may
> > discover our consciousness... that gives us the subjective
> > feeling of being aware of our awareness is this substance
> > that beat the rhythm of the wave function in quantum
> > physics.
>
> Again, "consciousness" is not defined yet.
Consciousness = the awareness of being aware. Says EL.. you know this
guy. I heard he teaches in universities.
>
> > Thats it... a new physics that study beyond the
> > wave function and what is the behind the scene.. Then you
> > have a new science that philosophers only dreamt about once
> > upon a time. The date is 3000 A.D. The discovery that humans
> > have a soul.
>
> I have heard it well-argued that humans *are* souls [i.e. what we
> really are is soul-stuff which has no observable properties of matter
> or energy in the physical sense], and that they *have* bodies.
Science
> deals with that which can be observed, measured, and tested. Science
> cannot deal with things that cannot be observed, measured, or tested.
> Science certainly cannot deal with thing that have not even been
> *defined* in a manner acceptable to the consensus of investigators.
So let's deal with those that can't be tested "yet" para-science or
just simply speculative science... but if we want to defend the word
"science" for use in measurement... then maybe we call that what
they speculate... metaphysics or metascience... or whatever. Tagging
is not really good.
>
> > Get the point? You guys debate is fruitless in that one just
> > tends to emphasize one point of view and just belittle the
> > others and more a semantic challenge.
>
> Semantics is everything in science. Until we agree on exactly what
we
> are talking about, we can make no more progress.
For philosophers. Science is about studying reality. For scientists.
Science is about measurement and mathematics. For scientists,
philosophy is abouts wild speculations. For philosphers. philosophy
is about wondering about reality. If science can be defined sa
studying reality and philosphy wondering about reality. Then they can
embrace in harmony. If it's other definition. They can grab each other
neck and engage in perpetual wrestling.
> I took an epistemology course as an undergraduate. The essay final
was
> on the meaning of the word 'knowledge.' I was able to demonstrate
that
> each of the philosophers we had studied through the year was
operating
> with a different effective definition of the term, and was able to
> connect most of these different concepts associated with the single
> English word "knowledge" with distinct verbs in German (z.B. kennen,
> wissen, lernen, seien - Liebergott!).
>
> The inconsistencies and incompatibilities of the various philosophers
> within 'epistemology' were mainly traceable to *semantic* differences
> over the meaning of the root word of their specialized field. Each
had
> his own personal type of fruit he was calling an 'apple.'
The old philosophers may be wild speculators. But the new philosophers
maybe a bit better. Anyway. I don't like to use tags of "philosophers"
or "scientists". I just want theory and data and I agree physical
proof is very important in anything.
Consc
Franz Heymann
"Peter Kinane" <pki...@iol.ie> wrote in message
news:cqeadg$895$1...@kermit.esat.net...
Does burbling like this come naturally to you, or do you have to put
in much practice to become such an excellent expositor of the art?
Franz
vergon_en...@highstream.net
then it became a "science".
I firmly believe the posit that the objective universe consists of
matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through that
space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
man.
If you want a viewpoint on the reality of QM, go to
http://www.wbabin.net -- then go the pulldown marked "list of authors"
- go to Vertner Vergon and click on the article "On the Quantum as a
Physical Entity".
It is a physical model of QM that explains much such as the strong
force and gravity.
Consc
> Lest we forget, originally physics was called "Natural Philosophy" --
> then it became a "science".
>
> I firmly believe the posit that the objective universe consists of
> matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through
that
> space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
> man.
What if there is additional non-physical field that is
not em in nature that can affect physical matter maybe
thru the wave function pathway.
Ok. I live in Asia. For decades. I encountered stuff
with no known western scientific correlates. I deal
with Qi. China scientists have experimented on it
and suggest it can affect even the nuclues radioactive
decay rate (which we know is not possible). It can
also affect matter substance and expression. See this
web site.
http://www.accessv.com/~yuan/yansci/time/2002_YanXin_Qigong_JSE.pdf
In Asia. We deal with Qi healing and able to remove
symptoms that can't be solved directly by medical
sciences. In qi healing. We treat what we called the
bioetheric template or bioplasmic body. Here's a
description of them.
http://www.pranichealing.com.au/htmlpages/auras.htm
http://www.pranichealing.com.au/htmlpages/chakras.htm
There is a branch of it in every country. See.
http://www.pranichealing.org/directory/headquarters.htm
Note I'm not connected with them directly, just learned
it since their headquarter is just a few drive in my
neighborhood. Note there are other schools of it such
as the Therapeutic Touch founded by Dolores Krieger
based in the United States. Note that in this qi
healing, we never touch the physical body of the
patient, but just dealing directly with their
holographic field.
For years. I went to different scientific disciplines
to study it. I study the neurosciences, medical
sciences, genetics, immunology, psychology, etc in an
attempt to under its possible correlates but can't
find the complete answer there. It is possible that
new physics concepts may explain it. Of course. I'm open
for how it can be explained convensionally. In fact
I've been searching for convensional explanations but
it is not enough. This is what made me interested in
quantum physics.. for within it may lie the answer.
I think this bioetheric template that we treat are
some kind of hologram field that is beyond the atoms
but which can affect it thru the electron expression
and bonding via the electron quantum probability clouds
that can promote, decrease or alter the rate of
reactions thereby affecting it collectively. And
when we treat this bioetheric body (which we called
for lack of western correlates). We are treating the
hologram field. In the end. I'm interested in core
fact. I don't have a stake in anything in qi healing
so I'm not biased or have any agenda. Just want to
understand it. I hope you who read this can be open
minded enough to consider the possibility. Try to attempt
to debunk it withou bias and objectively. To
understand what it does. Pls. understand it fully first
before debunking it. Actually. I'd love it more if it is
just convensional physics as it makes life easier and
less complicated but it seems new physics concepts is
the only one that may explain it. Note many scientists
study them too. Some of them offered new physics
concepts to explain them. I want to understand them at
its core. In the past, em wave that bounce the
atmosphere and cause signal in antanne may be like
magic, so is quantum mechanics... here we may be
dealing with a new kind of energy. It may sound like
magic too. Someday a hundred years later when children
are born with qi physics already in textbook. It may
seem normal like em wave, things that one can't see
with normal eyes. Therefore don't feel great resistance
to this seemingly new field called in qi research that
many experiments shown can affect substance reactions
and even radioactive decay rates (which is not possible
in convensional terms). Here's what Wikipedia says about
qi or subtle energy "that the variations and complexities
of subtle energies manifest the four forces and elements
that compose all force and matter. This last perspective,
if proven true, would indicate that 'Qi' is a particular
expression of space at the sub-quark level."
Consc
Bill Hobba
>
> Bill Hobba wrote:
> > They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with
> experiment. If
> > one wishes to say such tells us about reality is a philosophical
> issue. I
> > believe it does, and I also believe most people believe it does, but
> the
> > scientific method makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been
> > commented that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does
> not
> > actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic in
> their
> > approach while scientists working on fundamental issues take the view
> it
> > does. Science is capable of accommodating either view.
> >
>
> Them experimenrs according to you are not part of reality, but
> something else. You started with a fallacy and the rest of your post
> will be just as fallacious.
Are you incapable of comprehension or something? I said the existence of
'reality' and issues associated with what 'reality' is are philosophical
issues. Science is a method for having experiments in accord with theory.
And what do you do - respond with philosophy thus proving my point.
Philosophy can not even refute Soliphism ie the experimenters and the
experiments may all just be the imaginings of my mind. But one can still
hold to that and practice science - it can accommodate many different
philosophical positions about 'reality' even a position which says 'reality'
does not exist. Because such philosophical positions are not experimentally
testable science can not be used to decide. It is really that simple and if
you fail to get it then all I can say is people have read what I have had to
write, what you have had to write and can make up their own minds.
Bill
Paul Stowe
>
>"Mike" <ele...@yahoo.gr> wrote in message
>news:1103795449....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Bill Hobba wrote:
>>> They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with
>>> experiment. If one wishes to say such tells us about reality
>>> is a philosophical issue. I believe it does, and I also
>>> believe most people believe it does, but the scientific method
>>> makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been commented
>>> that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does not
>>> actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic
>>> in their approach while scientists working on fundamental issues
>>> take the view it does. Science is capable of accommodating
>>> either view.
>>
>> Them experimenrs according to you are not part of reality, but
>> something else. You started with a fallacy and the rest of your
>> post will be just as fallacious.
>
> Are you incapable of comprehension or something?
I've often wondered the very same thing about you... PKB!
> I said the existence of 'reality' and issues associated with what
> 'reality' is are philosophical issues.
Oh, I see... Go back to Matrix Bill.
> Science is a method for having experiments in accord with theory.
Only when it suits YOU Bill?
> And what do you do - respond with philosophy thus proving my point.
> Philosophy can not even refute Soliphism ie the experimenters and
> the experiments may all just be the imaginings of my mind.
Is solid matter 'real' Bill? Yes or No please. How about a
gas? Again, Yes or No please. If not what are you breathing and
with what did you type these words??? Sorry Billy Boy but science
IS about reality.
> But one can still hold to that and practice science - it can
> accommodate many different philosophical positions about 'reality'
> even a position which says 'reality' does not exist. Because such
> philosophical positions are not experimentally testable science
> can not be used to decide. It is really that simple and if
> you fail to get it then all I can say is people have read what I
> have had to write, what you have had to write and can make up their
> own minds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
It's Billy Boy with his red nose and big floppy shoes that should
'get real' & quit clowning around...
Paul Stowe
Bill Hobba
"Paul Stowe" <p...@acompletelyjunkaddress.net> wrote in message
news:q6lms09p39a0i1q04...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:28:40 GMT, "Bill Hobba" <bho...@rubbish.net.au>
wrote:
>
> >
> >"Mike" <ele...@yahoo.gr> wrote in message
> >news:1103795449....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> >>
> >> Bill Hobba wrote:
> >>> They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with
> >>> experiment. If one wishes to say such tells us about reality
> >>> is a philosophical issue. I believe it does, and I also
> >>> believe most people believe it does, but the scientific method
> >>> makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been commented
> >>> that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does not
> >>> actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic
> >>> in their approach while scientists working on fundamental issues
> >>> take the view it does. Science is capable of accommodating
> >>> either view.
> >>
> >> Them experimenrs according to you are not part of reality, but
> >> something else. You started with a fallacy and the rest of your
> >> post will be just as fallacious.
> >
> > Are you incapable of comprehension or something?
>
> I've often wondered the very same thing about you... PKB!
Which is why I implore people to read what I say, what others say an make up
their own minds. A pity you do not show similar tolerance.
Bill
Paul Stowe
>
>"Paul Stowe" <p...@acompletelyjunkaddress.net> wrote in message
>news:q6lms09p39a0i1q04...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:28:40 GMT, "Bill Hobba" <bho...@rubbish.net.au>
>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "Mike" <ele...@yahoo.gr> wrote in message
>>> news:1103795449....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>>>
>>>> Bill Hobba wrote:
>>>>> They are about science - whose basis is correspondence with
>>>>> experiment. If one wishes to say such tells us about reality
>>>>> is a philosophical issue. I believe it does, and I also
>>>>> believe most people believe it does, but the scientific method
>>>>> makes not claim it does. Indeed it has often been commented
>>>>> that applied scientists tend to hold to the view it does not
>>>>> actually tell us about 'reality' - they are much more pragmatic
>>>>> in their approach while scientists working on fundamental issues
>>>>> take the view it does. Science is capable of accommodating
>>>>> either view.
>>>>
>>>> Them experimenrs according to you are not part of reality, but
>>>> something else. You started with a fallacy and the rest of your
>>>> post will be just as fallacious.
>>>
>>> Are you incapable of comprehension or something?
>>
>> I've often wondered the very same thing about you... PKB!
>
> Which is why I implore people to read what I say,
Indeed, generally a good laugh ,if they don't go to sleep first...
> ... what others say and make up their own minds.
That's always good advice. Now if you only practiced what you
preach.
I generally don't initiate calling other people's presentations
'rubbish'. If it is, as you say, each can 'make up their own
minds'.
> A pity you do not show similar tolerance.
My intolerance is for two-faced individuals like you, who say
one thing and practice another...
>>> I said the existence of 'reality' and issues associated with what
>>> 'reality' is are philosophical issues.
>>
>> Oh, I see... Go back to Matrix Bill.
>>
>>> Science is a method for having experiments in accord with theory.
>>
>> Only when it suits YOU Bill?
No comment, I sorta' expected none, since the truth hurts...
>>> And what do you do - respond with philosophy thus proving my point.
>>> Philosophy can not even refute Soliphism ie the experimenters and
>>> the experiments may all just be the imaginings of my mind.
>>
>> Is solid matter 'real' Bill? Yes or No please. How about a
>> gas? Again, Yes or No please. If not what are you breathing and
>> with what did you type these words??? Sorry Billy Boy but science
>> IS about reality.
Rather simple questions, one knows however why you didn't answer.
Your whole argument is RUBBISH! Selective reasoning based on
the very thing you're arguing against, PHILOSOPHY!
>>> But one can still hold to that and practice science - it can
>>> accommodate many different philosophical positions about 'reality'
>>> even a position which says 'reality' does not exist. Because such
>>> philosophical positions are not experimentally testable science
>>> can not be used to decide. It is really that simple and if
>>> you fail to get it then all I can say is people have read what I
>>> have had to write, what you have had to write and can make up their
>>> own minds.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality
>>
>> It's Billy Boy with his red nose and big floppy shoes that should
>> 'get real' & quit clowning around...
Apparently, ain't never gonna happen.
Paul Stowe
Mike
Bill Hobba wrote:
[snip]
>
> Are you incapable of comprehension or something? I said the
existence of
> 'reality' and issues associated with what 'reality' is are
philosophical
> issues. Science is a method for having experiments in accord with
theory.
> And what do you do - respond with philosophy thus proving my point.
> Philosophy can not even refute Soliphism ie the experimenters and the
> experiments may all just be the imaginings of my mind. But one can
still
> hold to that and practice science - it can accommodate many different
> philosophical positions about 'reality' even a position which says
'reality'
> does not exist. Because such philosophical positions are not
experimentally
> testable science can not be used to decide. It is really that simple
and if
> you fail to get it then all I can say is people have read what I have
had to
> write, what you have had to write and can make up their own minds.
>
> Bill
This is the last time I respond to your posts because it's obvious now
I'm delaing with a crank. if you think philosophy is about absurdities
you are wrong and so are those you follow in a rampage against truth.
Philosophy is a very well defined science, as a matter of fact the
mother of all science and it has specific procedure, methodology and
objectives. You probably think that philosophy is something like the
comic books you read when you were young about little green men.
Let me tell you something Hobba: Experiment and philosophy have nothing
to do with each other. You keep confusing these two areas of episteme.
Philosophy, again, is about determining what are the right questions to
ask. Physics and experiment try to find answers to these questions. You
seem to think that postulating for instance that there is an aether is
a philosophical position. You are wrong Hobba, it is not. The set of
philosophical positions is very narrow and has nothing to do with
postulations or dogmatism or even hypothesis making.
It is disturbing to me that there are people in the ng's who pretend to
be 'experts' and do not know that philosophical positions are not
subject to experimental confirmation. No wonder you have been so
confused and confusing at the same time. Also you should know that
there is no theory around, including relativity, that is not made f two
parts. One part is the philosophical position which deals with what are
the questions the theory is trying to answer. The other part is the
methodology to provide answers to these questions. For instance,
according to Relativity:
Philosophical part. The right question to be asked is the following:
Should phenomena have the same explanation in all inertial reference
frames?
The answer of Relativity is that yes, they should and provides a theory
to conform to this answer. The problem with Relativity and maybe the
only one argument one has to make to refute its whole base is that the
theory it proposes to answer the questio is based on the postulate that
c is the same in all inertial reference frames.
The problem is of course, that the postulate already postulates a
priori the answer the method should be providing. Only a fool could
come uo with such theory. Yet, thousands of fools have been praising
this foolness, a clear violation of logical procedures in the
development of scientific theories. And what is the argument of the
fools: all predictions of the theory are confirmed. Of course they will
be, the set of such predictions is restricted to what will be confirmed
by definition. Now comes the task of philosophy you want cunningly to
eliminate:
The question is: Are there things out there that Relativity does not
predict and could be confirmed by experiment? What are those things?
What are the questions we must ask?
Of course, there can be no progress unless someone understands the
limitations of relativity and moves on. There are many more things out
there.
I think I have spent enough the time to teach you what you should
understand before you play smart. Listen Hobba, I'm not afraid to lose
any grants so I can speak freely and call all of you relativity priests
fools.
Have a nice holiday
Mike
nightbat
nightbat
Hello Slavek, and unfortunately for the average 95% of those
folks trying to come up one one and not making the grade. And very
fortunate for those 95% when the select 5% scientifically do.
Ditto,
the nightbat
Bill Hobba
Good.
> if you think philosophy is about absurdities
> you are wrong and so are those you follow in a rampage against truth.
Are you seriously going to tell me Soliphism is not a philosophical position
that rejects realty as most people understand the term? Of course it is
doubtful any actual scientist believes in it. But that is not the point -
the point is science is capable of accommodating even such an extreme
position because it is a method - a method for having theories in accord
with experiment. Most likely the dichotomy than occurs in practice would be
between a view that our theories are simply aids to describing realty and
not reality itself and a Platonic view our theories are actual reality and
what we perceive is mere shadows on the wall from this reality. But such
questions are really irrelevant to the scientific enterprise - they are
questions for philosophy - and questions of a general philosophical nature
at that.
Bill
Bill Hobba
"Consc" <cons...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1103843541.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> vergon_en...@highstream.net wrote:
> > Lest we forget, originally physics was called "Natural Philosophy" --
> > then it became a "science".
> >
> > I firmly believe the posit that the objective universe consists of
> > matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through
> that
> > space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
> > man.
>
> What if there is additional non-physical field that is
> not em in nature that can affect physical matter maybe
> thru the wave function pathway.
>
> Ok. I live in Asia. For decades. I encountered stuff
> with no known western scientific correlates. I deal
> with Qi. China scientists have experimented on it
> and suggest it can affect even the nuclues radioactive
> decay rate (which we know is not possible). It can
> also affect matter substance and expression. See this
> web site.
>
> http://www.accessv.com/~yuan/yansci/time/2002_YanXin_Qigong_JSE.pdf
>
> In Asia. We deal with Qi healing and able to remove
> symptoms that can't be solved directly by medical
> sciences. In qi healing. We treat what we called the
> bioetheric template or bioplasmic body. Here's a
> description of them.
I studied Tai-Chi under a student of Earle Montague - a genuine Tai Chi and
Qi master. He believes there is nothing mystical about it at all - simply
some complex physiology associated with how our bodies work. I have seen
demonstrations and found nothing indicating a 'bioetheric template or
bioplasmic body'. Indeed I seem to recall my teacher mentioning Earle has a
prize for anyone that can demonstrate such effects. To the best of my
knowledge it has never been claimed - in fact he is well known for debunking
false claims. And yes I did a quick internet search to confirm it -
http://www.taijiworld.com/Articles/empty_force.htm. For example I saw a
demonstration where he showed the claim of Qi masters they can bring Qi to
the surface and repel a sword is just a trick to do with the flexible mature
of the sword - once it is bent no force is applied at the tip so it will
piece nothing. However it is possible to hit people in certain ways and
places that will make them faint or pass out. A very well known one is to
hit an acupuncture point near the temple - anyone involved in martial arts
or even boxing knows about this - it works because that area controls blood
pressure (I think the technical name is the carotid sinus or something like
that - I asked my doctor about it one day and she said it is a particularly
dangerous area to muck around with) Legitimate demonstrations of Qi I have
seen are simply more sophisticated examples of this well known technique.
About the only thing I do not agree with Earle about is he claims to heal
people form a distance over the hone etc. I believe he can do what he
claims but I am sure it is simply an example of the power of suggestion.
Bill
Mike Helland
> Quantum Reality #1 The Copenhagen Interpretation, Part I (There
> is no deep reality.) No one has influenced more our notions of
> what the quantum world is really about than Danish physicist
> Niels Bohr, and it is Bohr who puts forth one of quantum physics'
> most outrageous claims: that there is no deep reality. Bohr does
> not deny the evidence of his senses. The World we see around us
> is real enough, he affirms, but it floats on a world that is not
> as real. Everyday phenomena are themselves built not out of phe
> nomena but out of an utterly different kind of being.
This isn't very outragous once you consider the following:
The words "real" and "reality" are tools that we invented. We choose
what they mean so that they are useful as tools to us.
I'll explain:
For starters, look around you.
That is your conscious experience.
You have an observation; you have a thought or a theory or a belief;
you have an emotional feeling or a physical sensation; you have
language and cultural laws and scientific laws.
All of this is known to you thanks to your consciousness. From within
this conscious experience, emerging out of your unique collection of
observations and knowledge, there is a world. Temporarily this will be
refered to as the subjective world.
In addition to this experience, human beings have long supposed,
perhaps many even unknowingly, that beyond this subjective world is a
world external to the one in our minds. Temporarily this will be
refered to as the objective world.
So we can speak of two worlds, the subjective one and the objective
one. If our intention is to present the most complete and consistent
description of reality yet, at this point, there is something that is
not quite clear. Is reality subjective or objective?
To tackle this question thoroughly we need to assume that the words
"exist", "real", and "something" are all synonymous; as well as
"existence", "reality", and "everything." Something is real and exists;
reality is made up of everything in existence.
So back to the question. Is existence subjective or objective or both?
It is common to assume that existence should be objective. After all,
the subjective experience is merely an individual's personal and
inaccurate view of the objective world. One might be hesistant to
accept a reality that is flawed by perception.
But consider what it would mean for existence to be purely objective.
Then our observations of the world are not real as we experience them;
our feelings and emotions are only real in the sense that they are
chemical reactions, and they cannot be real in the unique way that we
experience them. But those things seem so real to me. Should I deny
that they are real even when they seem so real?
Also, consider the consequences of this position on the existence on
knowledge. If something is objective, then human beings know nothing.
On the other hand, if something is subjective, then human beings do
know something, but it's not absolute knowledge, which leaves reality
somewhat fragile. Personally, I think that knowing something that is
probably wrong is a more optimistic take than knowing nothing, if only
because it allows something to evolve into something better.
It is important to realize that the word "real" is just a label. We
invented it as a tool, and we should be using it the way that serves us
best.
So I take the position that reality is subjective. What you see, what
you feel; what seems real is real. That means that every consciousness
has their own reality.
The objective world still serves a purpose in this conjecture: it is
the superset of all our subjective realities. But it must be understood
that its presence is purely hypothetical.
The issue of "what is reality?" should be seen as nothing more profound
than "what meaning shall we give to the word reality?"
Paul Stowe
>Consc wrote:
>
>> Quantum Reality #1 The Copenhagen Interpretation, Part I (There
>> is no deep reality.) No one has influenced more our notions of
>> what the quantum world is really about than Danish physicist
>> Niels Bohr, and it is Bohr who puts forth one of quantum physics'
>> most outrageous claims: that there is no deep reality. Bohr does
>> not deny the evidence of his senses. The World we see around us
>> is real enough, he affirms, but it floats on a world that is not
>> as real. Everyday phenomena are themselves built not out of phe
>> nomena but out of an utterly different kind of being.
>
> This isn't very outragous once you consider the following:
Actually, it is...
> The words "real" and "reality" are tools that we invented. We
> choose what they mean so that they are useful as tools to us.
But, individuals and small groups don't get the change their
meaning to suit their whims. I've buy the generally accepted
meaning of real & reality as applied to 'facts'.
> I'll explain:
>
> For starters, look around you.
>
> That is your conscious experience.
>
> You have an observation; you have a thought or a theory or a
> belief; you have an emotional feeling or a physical sensation;
> you have language and cultural laws and scientific laws.
So?
> All of this is known to you thanks to your consciousness. From
> within this conscious experience, emerging out of your unique
> collection of observations and knowledge, there is a world.
> Temporarily this will be refered to as the subjective world.
And when 'you' dies it ceases to exist... Again, so?
> In addition to this experience, human beings have long supposed,
> perhaps many even unknowingly, that beyond this subjective world
> is a world external to the one in our minds.
Based upon obervation, yes. That fits the facts in evidence.
> Temporarily this will be refered to as the objective world.
Temporarily???
> So we can speak of two worlds, the subjective one and the
> objective one. If our intention is to present the most complete
> and consistent description of reality yet, at this point, there
> is something that is not quite clear. Is reality subjective or
> objective?
Objective...
> To tackle this question thoroughly we need to assume that the
> words "exist", "real", and "something" are all synonymous;
Actually, we need 'assume' nothing other than conciousness is a
result of processes in organic beings existing in the objective
reality.
> as well as "existence", "reality", and "everything." Something
> is real and exists; reality is made up of everything in existence.
A redundant statement.
> So back to the question. Is existence subjective or objective
> or both?
Technically, both.
> It is common to assume that existence should be objective. After
> all, the subjective experience is merely an individual's personal
> and inaccurate view of the objective world. One might be
> hesistant to accept a reality that is flawed by perception.
Why? That's simply perspectives...
> But consider what it would mean for existence to be purely
> objective. Then our observations of the world are not real as
> we experience them;
Faulty logic...
> our feelings and emotions are only real in the sense that they
> are chemical reactions, and they cannot be real in the unique
> way that we experience them.
Wrong. That's the whole point OF those electro-chemical
reactions.
> But those things seem so real to me. Should I deny that they are
> real even when they seem so real?
Irrelevant since your whole argument is based upon a false premise.
> Also, consider the consequences of this position on the existence
> on knowledge. If something is objective, then human beings know
> nothing. On the other hand, if something is subjective, then
> human beings do know something, but it's not absolute knowledge,
> which leaves reality somewhat fragile. Personally, I think that
> knowing something that is probably wrong is a more optimistic take
> than knowing nothing, if only because it allows something to evolve
> into something better.
>
> It is important to realize that the word "real" is just a label.
> We invented it as a tool, and we should be using it the way that
> serves us best.
>
> So I take the position that reality is subjective. What you see,
> what you feel; what seems real is real. That means that every
> consciousness has their own reality.
And when someone sneaks up behind them and kills them 'reality'
ceases to exist, eh?
> The objective world still serves a purpose in this conjecture: it
> is the superset of all our subjective realities. But it must be
> understood that its presence is purely hypothetical.
The facts do not support your conclusion.
> The issue of "what is reality?" should be seen as nothing more
> profound than "what meaning shall we give to the word reality?"
Whatever floats your boat...
Paul Stowe
tadchem
<snip>
> > A similar number of 'philosophers' seemed to feel that:
> > 1) matter was not atomic, but that one could indefinitely continue
> > subdividing something
>
> Isn't it that string theory says the quark may be a particular
> expression of a string... so maybe not subdividing but something
> like that.
"String theory" is a mathematical model of fundamental particles (read
'particles that cannot be subdivided') based upon the mathematics of
vibrating strings, extended to a higher number of independent variables
(often called 'dimensions').
> > 2) there were only four elements, corresponding to what we now call
> the
> > three commonest "states of matter" plus 'fire'
>
> Four elements.... Four Fundamental forces.
There are also four:
cardinal directions
dimensions in electromagnetic theory
horsemen of the Apocalypse
'seasons' in the astronomical year
If you want to get into numerology, I don't think this is a forum that will
welcome you.
> Well. I'm not saying they
> are right. Remember they are just trying to speculate about reality
> and it is up to science to prove or disprove them.
So are all the cranks, religious zealots, crackpost and delusional
schizophrenics whose posts can continually be found in this forum.
Fortunately it is not difficult for science to either 1) reach into its
archives of data to pull out empirical observations that completely
contradict many of thses 'speculations', or 2) to logically demonstrate that
the 'speculations' are so logically flawed that they cannot even provide
testable predictions of the behavior of the universe, and thus can never be
proven OR disproven.
> philosophers... let's not be so hard on them.
I see no reason why they cannot adhere to the same standards of logic and
validation that us empiricists live with every day - the only price to pay
is one's arrogance.
> How do you know the spirit doesn't exist, just for sake of discussion.
We do not know that it exists, nor do we know that it does not. The concept
of 'spirit' has no common definition we can all agree upon, and no one has
suggested any observable consequences of either its presences or its absence
that can be independently verified. All we can say about 'spirit' is that
the concept has made no measurable contribution to our understanding of the
operation of the universe.
> Physics deal with the physical. What if there is a non-physical that
> no instruments can detect "yet". I'm not saying there is spirit, but
> let's not conclude there is nothing beyond it.
Until it can be detected or measured or the consequences of its existence
and/or presence can be independently observed, it will remain
inconsequential.
Like the 'points' on "Whose Line Is It?", it doesn't matter (pun definitely
intended).
> What is behind the
> wave function for example.
Please define the word 'behind' in this usage.
> What realy happens during a quantum
> measurement. Why is it it is. Science just describes it but doesn't
> explain it as its core. Those who attempt to explain it such as
> physicist Fred Wolf are dingling between science and metaphysics
> and we can't blame people such as them because they want to attempt
> to explain the why of everything.
I fear your absence of clearly organized thoughts on this question has
proven to much of an handicap for your grammatical skills and your
vocabulary to overcome.
> Maybe what is the behind the wave function is the real reality. See.
> Well. I'm not siding with philosophers but let's not be so hard on
> them.
Why not be 'hard' on them. Perhaps if they were more accountable for their
utterances, they could improve the overall quality.
I had a math professor (Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra)
who practiced teaching through daily *graded* homework problems and weekly
quizzes. The rapid and precise feedback he gave the students insured that
they understood what they were doing and did it properly, *before* a minor
misunderstanding could grow out of proportion and cause them to blow a
mid-term or a final.
By the time the term was complete, his students were so confident in their
mastery of the subject matter that those few who actually 'studied' for the
finals did so out of habit and not out of desperate hope to catch some datum
they had missed earlier that might affect their final grade.
Philosophy students should be trained half as well.
Yes, Virginia, there *IS* a 'right and wrong' way to do something.
> Yes. I'm a hard data person too. It's up to science to prove or
> disprove the philosophers. They go hand in hand.
Scientists are also responsible for proving or disproving themselves. If
more philosophers understood the scientific method and the fact that is is
possible to obtain reliable and repeatible validation or contradiction of a
statement in a manner independent of the philosopher, they they could
perhaps make more progress. Until then they spend an awful lot of their
time and energy tilting at windmills.
> > Philosophers also gave us the "flat earth", the geocentric universe,
> > Aristotelian gravity, and any number of quaint and curious
> mythologies.
>
> Because they don't have science yet at that time. Philosophers
> speculate reality. Science prove or disprove it.
Scientist also gave us the *viable* alternatives to those mush-headed ideas.
Philosophers and scientist *BOTH* speculate about reality, bot only the
empiricists *DO* something to test their speculations. Once the
philosophers completed their 'speculations, they placed them untested out in
the open for all to wonder at and accept as the truth, as revealed to the
philosophers. When the speculations are done, the scientist says to himself
"OK, Let see if it works" and tries it out. It is this critical step that
distinguishes scientists from mere philosophers. If philosophers could
learn to do it, they would become scientists, and they could expand on their
successes and learn from their failures.
> What if there is a reality that is Bohmian in nature... that is higher
> order quantum or behind what causes quantum events.
Reality is whatever it is. There is only one reality because any given
observation has only one result. We cannot directly examine "why" something
happens. We can only examine *what* happens and compare that to the
predictions of our models. When two or more models agree in details of
their preditions, their is not empirical reason to prefer one over the
others. Ther *are* reasons, but they are mostle aesthetic and have no
empirical justification. Even Ockham's Razor is more of an aesthetic reason
than an empirical one for making a choice among agreeable models.
> Don't conclude that the science we have now is the ultimate science.
> There may be more to come that deal with paraquantum or beyond the
> quantum as many scientists are not inkling.
I have never even implied that. I do assert that, so far, nothing other
than empiricism (reliance on the scientific method and on the experimental
testing of our models of reality) has allowed us to collect and organize the
massive body of observations (the 'lore' of science) and continually refine
our ability to predict the way the universe would function under a variety
of circumstances. As we learn more, our ability to observe grows. We can
now image the universe in the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to
cosmic rays. Next week we may be imaging the ocean floor in ultrasound or
the earth's crust and mantle in seismic waves (even as we are doing now with
the sun).
Gravitational wave imaging, someday, maybe?
> Philosopher may be a bad term nowadays.
They have brought it upon themselves with their arrogance.
The scientific method consists of several steps - *processes* that extract
one 'substance' from another in the manner of alchemy.
1) The 'physical world' is *observed* to extract 'data'
2) The 'data' is *analyzed* to discern 'ideas' about how things may be
working
3) The 'ideas' are *extrapolated* to develop 'predictions' about how things
are expected to work
4) The 'predictions' guide *experimenting* to alter the 'physical world'
The process is cyclic, and therefore self-correcting in the manner of a
numerical predictor-corrector algorithm - accuracy is improved by a method
of successive corrections.
The approach to exactness is asymptotic, and may therefor require an
infinite number of iterations, but the empiricist is not after *exactness*
so much as a prediction with errors too small to measure.
> Don't
> know other terms... but curiosers... the mere tagging of "philosophy"
> can cause automatic response in scientists.
Philosophers' claim to fame is in achieving mastery (in their own eyes, at
least) of step 2 above. All four steps are needed to complete the cycle,
and the completed cycle is necessary to roll ahead and make progress.
> What if there is a hologram substance in every atom linking all
> of them together.. sorta kinda of a morphogenetic field.
Does that concept have any observable consequences? If so, you need to
define it well enough that any of us empirical idiots here can recognize it
reliably when we see it, and then tell us how it affects when we can obseve.
If you can also tell us what the observable consequences of altering it or
eliminating it would be (Step 3), that would be even better. It would give
us lab geeks who toil in Step 4 something to do. If, after we have done it,
there is something new to observe in Step 1 again, we can all accept your
concept and you will be hailed as the new emperor and properly clad in
honors and awards from Swedish societies.
Hey, it worked for Einstein. He defined and predicted the nature of the
'photoelectric work function' which let to irrefutable evidence of the
quantization of light:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect
> So this is why scientists hate philosophers. Philosophers may be
> semantically abused words already. Maybe just use the generic term
> curiosers. Newton, Einstein, etc. were once curious.
That ('curiousers') sounds like something from a Lewis Carroll novel. If
'philosophers' could even progress to Step 3 of the scientific method, we
could fairly call them 'theoreticians.'
> I don't know if you know EL.
Let me look. Um...Oh, yes...here he is deep in my killfile.
> He suggested that for sake of discussion,
> the definition of consciousness is "the awareness of being aware".
That is about as succinct as circular reasoning can get. It reminds me of
some of the alleged 'philosophy' that arose from the Acid Generation
(Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco - late 1960's)
> See the thread.....
>
>
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics.new-theories/browse_frm/thread/c525679e8a6d6ef9/d54ed59239b31634?_done=%2Fgroup%2Falt.sci.physics.new-theories%2Fthreads%3Fstart%3D30%26order%3Drecent%26&_doneTitle=Back&&d#d54ed59239b31634
>
> Support or challenge him.
Not today. I've got to wash my hair - or something. Really.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Mike Helland
> > The words "real" and "reality" are tools that we invented. We
> > choose what they mean so that they are useful as tools to us.
>
> But, individuals and small groups don't get the change their
> meaning to suit their whims. I've buy the generally accepted
> meaning of real & reality as applied to 'facts'.
In 1905 the word "time" changed from an absolute concept to a relative
one, thanks to Einstein.
Also around then "reality" changed from an absolute concept to a
relative one, thanks to Bohr.
As far as what "facts" are, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that a
"fact" is nothing more than a widely believed and well jusitified
"law", which is nothing more than a widely accepted and well tested
"theory", which is nothing more than a very good "hypothesis", which is
nothing more than a testable "conjecture", which is a wild ass guess.
So in some schools of thought facts are relative. You shouldn't have a
problem with reality being relative too.
Unless you think Ayn Rand had it right. Which I sincerely doubt.
> > So we can speak of two worlds, the subjective one and the
> > objective one. If our intention is to present the most complete
> > and consistent description of reality yet, at this point, there
> > is something that is not quite clear. Is reality subjective or
> > objective?
>
> Objective...
So reality is objective.
> > So back to the question. Is existence subjective or objective
> > or both?
>
> Technically, both.
So reality is both subjective and objective.
It seems as if you have a difficult time keeping your story straight.
If reality is our conscious expereince *and* an external world not
directly perceived, then "reality" is pretty meaningless.
> > The objective world still serves a purpose in this conjecture: it
> > is the superset of all our subjective realities. But it must be
> > understood that its presence is purely hypothetical.
>
> The facts do not support your conclusion.
Bohr seemed to think so.
tadchem
<vergon_en...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:1103839098....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Lest we forget, originally physics was called "Natural Philosophy" --
> then it became a "science".
Even Jessica Simpson was not very pretty at the moment her umbilicus was
severed. Everything has to come from something.
> I firmly believe the posit that the objective universe consists of
> matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through that
> space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
> man.
Stuff, a place to put it, and something for it to do... You can't get much
simpler than that, and there's little need to complicate that picture.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Paul Stowe
>Paul Stowe wrote:
>> On 24 Dec 2004 06:54:44 -0800, "Mike Helland" <moby...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>> The words "real" and "reality" are tools that we invented. We
>>> choose what they mean so that they are useful as tools to us.
>>
>> But, individuals and small groups don't get the change their
>> meaning to suit their whims. I've buy the generally accepted
>> meaning of real & reality as applied to 'facts'.
>
> In 1905 the word "time" changed from an absolute concept to a
> relative one, thanks to Einstein.
Time is still time. Perception is NOT ALWAYS reality...
> Also around then "reality" changed from an absolute concept to
> a relative one, thanks to Bohr.
Bohr tried, Einstein wasn't buyin'...
> As far as what "facts" are, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that
> a "fact" is nothing more than a widely believed and well jusitified
> "law", which is nothing more than a widely accepted and well tested
> "theory", ...
Believe that while jumping from a 100 story building...
> which is nothing more than a very good "hypothesis", which is
> nothing more than a testable "conjecture", which is a wild ass
> guess.
Your premise doesn't get any more valid with repition...
> So in some schools of thought facts are relative. You shouldn't
> have a problem with reality being relative too.
When you're smokin' that funny weed, eh?
> Unless you think Ayn Rand had it right. Which I sincerely doubt.
Talk about a red-herring...
>>> So we can speak of two worlds, the subjective one and the
>>> objective one. If our intention is to present the most complete
>>> and consistent description of reality yet, at this point, there
>>> is something that is not quite clear. Is reality subjective or
>>> objective?
>>
>> Objective...
>
> So reality is objective.
Duh, yeah...
>>> So back to the question. Is existence subjective or objective
>>> or both?
>>
>> Technically, both.
>
> So reality is both subjective and objective.
Reality is objective, human perceptions of it are subjective...
> It seems as if you have a difficult time keeping your story straight.
Only in the fog of your mind :)
> If reality is our conscious expereince *and* an external world not
> directly perceived, then "reality" is pretty meaningless.
What's meaningless is this statement...
>>> The objective world still serves a purpose in this conjecture: it
>>> is the superset of all our subjective realities. But it must be
>>> understood that its presence is purely hypothetical.
>>
>> The facts do not support your conclusion.
>
> Bohr seemed to think so.
While Bohr was entitled to his 'opinion', opinions are like
assholes, everybody has one. Einstein never bought that load,
and neither do many, many, others, including myself.
Paul Stowe
robert j. kolker
Paul Stowe wrote:
>
> Time is still time. Perception is NOT ALWAYS reality...
Perception is our only gateway to reality, faults and all.
Bob Kolker
Mike Helland
> > Also around then "reality" changed from an absolute concept to
> > a relative one, thanks to Bohr.
>
> Bohr tried, Einstein wasn't buyin'...
I'm not saying that Bohr's view was totally right.
I would change a few things.
To summarize from my earlier post, and to assign terms to what I
temporarily labeled "subjective world" and "objective world", here are
the terms that I will use from now on:
the universe: the hypothetical world external to our consciousness
nature: the conscious reality; a subset of the universe unique to
every observer
Let me briefly explain a few things about nature that science hasn't
done a marvelous job at explaining. Newton didn't believe space and
time were only absolute. He believed that there was relative space and
relative time in addition to absolute space and absolute time. From the
Principia he makes this pretty clear.
http://acnet.pratt.edu/%7Earch543p/readings/Newton.html
And Einstein seemed to agree. He helped clarify a few things about
space and time and made it explicitly clear that the relative versions
are the only versions that science can effectively deal with. This is
because the relative versions exist as our observations, and
observation is the activity that science is based on. In a conversation
with Heisenberg, Einstein reveals that our observations are shaped by
our theories, indicating that relative time is what is observed, but
that absolute time still plays a role in his grand hypothesis, even
though it is never apart of our observations:
"But you don't seriously believe," Einstein protested, "that none but
observable magnitudes must go into a physical theory?"
"Isn't that precisely what you have done with relativity?" [Heisenberg]
asked in some surprise. "After all, you did stress the fact that it is
impermissible to speak of absolute time, simply because absolute time
cannot be observed; that only clock readings, be it in the moving
reference system or the system at rest, are relevant to the
determination of time."
"Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning," Einstein admitted, "but
it is nonsense all the same. Perhaps I could put it more
diplomatically by saying that it may be heuristically useful to keep
in mind what one has actually observed. But on principle, it is quite
wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In
reality, the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides
what we can observe."
'Physics and Beyond - Encounters and Conversations', Harper Torchbooks,
1972, p. 63.
If you haven't guessed by now this conjecture also incorporates both
the relative and absolute concepts of space and time. The universe
includes absolute space and absolute time, while the collection of
observations and knowledge you call nature contains relative space and
relative time. For brevity, the word "relative" is often omitted. Time
is meant to imply relative time.
But unlike Newton and Einstein, on the issue of matter this conjecture
follows the lead of Leibniz, who thought that matter was both relative
and absolute. In the (hypothetical) universe exists (hypothetical)
absolute matter, whereas in nature there exists matter, which implies
the relative variety.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/leib-met.htm#Implications%20of%20Conceiving%20Substances%20as%20Monads
So here we have a picture of nature, that consists only of matter,
space and time that is relative to the observer. You may be wondering
how energy plays a role in all of this. This paper assumes that energy
is a secondary concept to matter, space, and time. I'll show you.
Lets start out with a mass of ten grams in space. Space itself doesn't
require coordinates, but for the sake of our description of this mass
in space we will place it at the three-dimensional coordinate 0,0,0.
Next we will add to our description the state of the ten gram mass one
second after the original state.
If the mass has changed position to coordinates 0,0,4, then using the
formula v = dx/dt we could say that between the two states the change
in the position is 4 and the change in time is one second so the
velocity of the described object is 4 coordinates per second.
We see that describing a phenomenon in the terms of matter, space, and
time allows us to derive another term in physics, velocity. As another
example, acceleration emerges from a change in velocity, therefore
adding a third state to our description where the object is at 0,0,12
two seconds after the initial state we can say that there is
acceleration because of the change in velocity. Combine the mass of the
object with its acceleration and you can create force. And of course,
force makes power and energy attainable.
So we have matter, space, and time in our relative natures. This isn't
a bold statement considering that we already knew that observers had
their own relative experiences with matter, space, and time. The theory
of relativity notes that time and space are relative. And quantum
mechanics tells us that the properties of matter are uncertain until
they've been observed. This is a very obtuse way of saying "matter is
relative" but it manages to say it anyways.
In addition to nature we suppose an encompassing universe with its own
absolute matter, absolute space, and absolute time. Because the
relationship between the universe and nature is embodied by the
relationship between absolute and relative, I will more often than not
refer to the universe as "absolute nature."
Now we can consider a new interpretation of quantum mechanics wherein
indeterminately changing systems of matter are modeled as observations
of determinately evolving systems of absolute matter.
This is essentially a Copenhagen Interpretation where God does not play
dice.
I think Bohr and Einstein would equally find my interpretation
acceptable. The reason they didn't think of it themselves is because it
requires models built in computer programs to conceptualize, where the
only tools Bohr and Einstein had available to them were systems of
equations, primitive by comparison.
Also, this is a view of our subjective reality with a deeper world. So
you should have no reason to object.
The only difference I can see between you and I is that I decided it is
not a good idea to call the deeper, objective world "reality".
I simply don't use the word that way since it doesn't clarify things at
all. You seem to disagree.
But all in all, since our main disagreement is the use of a word, we
should still be able to have a discussion despite that trivial point.
A discussion where you refrained from accusing me of being stoned out
of my mind would be preferable.
Consc
Your example of qi repelling sworld is just like giving
an example that the electron doesn't exist because it
can't repel sword. Qi is as subtle or more subtle than
the electron. Scientific. I'm thinking whether qi is
some kind of wave function stuff that can change
electron probability clouds that can influence object.
About distant effect of qi.. since the wave function
is non-local, you can access the wave function by
mere consciousness input to it anywhere on the planet
since you are dealing with an information field. The
following is experiment of an effect on crystal patterns
in water when qi is projected thousands of miles away.
http://www.pranichealingontario.ca/waterresearch.htm
They described it as projecting it thousands of miles
away when the fact is it can just be an input to the
wave function domain. I'm still organizing my mind about
this all... esp. if the wave function is related to
qi at all. My experience with qi is too extensive
covering over a decade with over 500 qi healers, over
5000 patients from every part of the planet who visited
the headquarter of pranic healing which is just a few
drive away from my home. I've seen things others
normally hasn't encountered.
Consc
Bill Hobba
The claim is that Qi can repel the tip of a sword. Earle has shown that no
Qi is required to do that - simply that the sword needs to be bent. Anyone
can see such demonstrations provide zero evidence for such a claim - dubious
analogies like the above introduced to cloud rather than illuminate not
withstanding.
> Qi is as subtle or more subtle than
> the electron. Scientific. I'm thinking whether qi is
> some kind of wave function stuff that can change
> electron probability clouds that can influence object.
> About distant effect of qi..
Have you something concrete to offer other than vague analogies?
> since the wave function
> is non-local,
>
Who said the wave function is non-local? Bell showed that if we assume a
hidden variable type explanation then that must be non local - not that the
wave function is non local. It is possible that no hidden variables exist
for non locality to enter into the issue - see The Kochen-Specker theorem
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kochen-specker/ which says observable can
not be value definite and non contextual. We can choose the challenge
either or both. If we challenge both then there is nothing to be non local.
> you can access the wave function by
> mere consciousness input to it anywhere on the planet
> since you are dealing with an information field.
I strongly suspect you do not understand the foundations of QM. For a
modern interpretation that removes most if not all the issues see consistnet
quantum histories - http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/histories.html:
'Wave function collapse (or reduction) was introduced by von Neumann [1] as
a separate mode of time evolution for a quantum system, quite distinct from
the unitary time evolution implied by Schrödinger's equation. The concept
leads to a number of conceptual difficulties, and is one of the sources of
the widespread (but incorrect) notion that there are superluminal influences
in the quantum world. From the consistent histories perspective, wave
function collapse is a mathematical procedure for calculating certain kinds
of conditional probabilities that can be calculated by alternative methods,
and thus has nothing to do with any physical process. That is, "collapse" is
something which takes place in the theorist's notebook, not in the
experimentalist's laboratory. Consequently, there is no conflict between
quantum mechanics and relativity theory.'
and
'Is quantum mechanics nonlocal? This depends on what one means by
"nonlocal." Two separated quantum systems A and B can be in an entangled
state that lacks any classical analog. However, it is better to think of
this as a nonclassical rather than as a nonlocal state, since doing
something to system A cannot have any influence on system B as long as the
two are sufficiently far apart. In particular, quantum theory gives no
support to the notion that the world is infested by mysterious long-range
influences that propagate faster thaan the speed of light. Claims to the
contrary are based upon an inconsistent or inadequate formulations of
quantum principles, typically with reference to measurements.'
> The
> following is experiment of an effect on crystal patterns
> in water when qi is projected thousands of miles away.
>
> http://www.pranichealingontario.ca/waterresearch.htm
>
> They described it as projecting it thousands of miles
> away when the fact is it can just be an input to the
> wave function domain. I'm still organizing my mind about
> this all... esp. if the wave function is related to
> qi at all. My experience with qi is too extensive
> covering over a decade with over 500 qi healers, over
> 5000 patients from every part of the planet who visited
> the headquarter of pranic healing which is just a few
> drive away from my home. I've seen things others
> normally hasn't encountered.
Then claim the million dollar prize offered by the skeptical society - Earle
has even offered in an extra $1000.00. Until then one can justifiably claim
it is all horseshit - which is exactly what I do claim it is without reading
any further.
Bill
>
> Consc
>
Bill Hobba
"Mike Helland" <moby...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1103900084.0...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I believe reality is objective and exists independent of us. But your view
is legit as well - reasonably argued and fully in accord with the scientific
method. Which is just another example of my conjecture - science can
accommodate many different philosophical positions.
> What you see, what
> you feel; what seems real is real. That means that every consciousness
> has their own reality.
>
> The objective world still serves a purpose in this conjecture: it is
> the superset of all our subjective realities. But it must be understood
> that its presence is purely hypothetical.
>
> The issue of "what is reality?" should be seen as nothing more profound
> than "what meaning shall we give to the word reality?"
Yes of course - to answer questions such as does reality exist etc one must
carefully sate what one means by those terms. And when one is ultra careful
then one finds the answer almost pops out - it depends entirely on those
definitions you decide on in the first place. The thing is getting everyone
to agree from the start - but AFAICS that is what a lot of philosophy is
about - justifying a particular view on what the terms mean.
Thanks
Bill
Bill Hobba
Space does not require coordinates but if you wish to measure things like
the position of a point then coordinates are necessary.
> Next we will add to our description the state of the ten gram mass one
> second after the original state.
>
> If the mass has changed position to coordinates 0,0,4, then using the
> formula v = dx/dt we could say that between the two states the change
> in the position is 4 and the change in time is one second so the
> velocity of the described object is 4 coordinates per second.
>
> We see that describing a phenomenon in the terms of matter, space, and
> time allows us to derive another term in physics, velocity.
The following may be of value in such considerations: -
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Briefs/Real.htm.
> As another
> example, acceleration emerges from a change in velocity, therefore
> adding a third state to our description where the object is at 0,0,12
> two seconds after the initial state we can say that there is
> acceleration because of the change in velocity. Combine the mass of the
> object with its acceleration and you can create force. And of course,
> force makes power and energy attainable.
>
> So we have matter, space, and time in our relative natures. This isn't
> a bold statement considering that we already knew that observers had
> their own relative experiences with matter, space, and time. The theory
> of relativity notes that time and space are relative.
It is probably better to view it as the element of space-time remains the
same but instruments make different projections of these elements. Tom
Roberts has written extensively on this - see
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&selm=3714210B.9081...
and
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3384368904d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&c2co...
'Go back and look at my building analogy. GEOMETRY affects the RELATIONSHIP
between a measuring tool and the object being measured, but NEITHER object
nor measuring tool is "affected". The underlying process is geometrical
projection: In Euclidean space, lay a rod of length L along the X axis;
measure it using a ruler parallel to the X axis and you obtain L. But if you
measure it with a ruler inclined wrt the X axis, you must PROJECT the ends
of the rod onto the ruler; do that perpendicular to the ruler and you get a
value smaller than L. The distance between the ends of the rod is a spatial
interval, and measuring with a ruler ivolved PROJECTING that interval onto
the ruler; while the value obtained varies with the relationshiop between
ruler and rod, neither ruler nor rod are "affected" by the inclination of
rod wrt ruler. The EXACT same thing happens with clocks in SR -- there is a
geometrical PROJECTION involved. A given clock PROJECTS a spacetime interval
onto its own trajectory. A moving clock is INCLINED in the X-T plane wrt a
clock at rest on the X axis. But this is hyperbolic geometry, so a clock
with an inclined trajectory (i.e. is moving) registers a smaller value for
the interval between two points (e.g. the departure and arrival of the
traveling twin/clock) than does a clock with a trajectory that is not
inclined (i.e. is not moving).'
> And quantum
> mechanics tells us that the properties of matter are uncertain until
> they've been observed. This is a very obtuse way of saying "matter is
> relative" but it manages to say it anyways.
Not necessarily - that depends on ones interpretation of QM. See the
following for an interpretion that removes these difficulties -
http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/histories.html.
>
> In addition to nature we suppose an encompassing universe with its own
> absolute matter, absolute space, and absolute time. Because the
> relationship between the universe and nature is embodied by the
> relationship between absolute and relative, I will more often than not
> refer to the universe as "absolute nature."
>
> Now we can consider a new interpretation of quantum mechanics wherein
> indeterminately changing systems of matter are modeled as observations
> of determinately evolving systems of absolute matter.
The problem I have with things like the above is the existence problem. It
is one thing defining something ie 'a new interpretation of quantum
mechanics wherein
indeterminately changing systems of matter are modeled as observations of
determinately evolving systems of absolute matter.' - it is quite another to
show such actually exists ie an actual interpretation that is consistent
with observation. The following may be an example of the type of thing you
want to introduce - http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9508021 where wave
function collapse is modeled as primary state diffusion. But it is best to
be definite about what you mean to avoid any ambiguity.
>
> This is essentially a Copenhagen Interpretation where God does not play
> dice.
>
> I think Bohr and Einstein would equally find my interpretation
> acceptable. The reason they didn't think of it themselves is because it
> requires models built in computer programs to conceptualize, where the
> only tools Bohr and Einstein had available to them were systems of
> equations, primitive by comparison.
>
> Also, this is a view of our subjective reality with a deeper world. So
> you should have no reason to object.
>
> The only difference I can see between you and I is that I decided it is
> not a good idea to call the deeper, objective world "reality".
>
> I simply don't use the word that way since it doesn't clarify things at
> all. You seem to disagree.
>
> But all in all, since our main disagreement is the use of a word, we
> should still be able to have a discussion despite that trivial point.
>
> A discussion where you refrained from accusing me of being stoned out
> of my mind would be preferable.
The problem I have, as I said above, is the existence problem - you need to
show an interpretation that meets the condition ' wherein indeterminately
changing systems of matter are modeled as observations of determinately
evolving systems of absolute matter' actually exists.
Thanks
Bill
Consc
tadchem wrote:
>
> > What is behind the
> > wave function for example.
>
> Please define the word 'behind' in this usage.
>
> Tom Davidson
> Richmond, VA
Oh, I almost missed this message. You are so hard
on the philosophers, huh. I'm not into it so don't want
to defend them so much. Let's just say, don't be so
hard on them. Once I am so hard on the religious
nuts but ignore them now as there is nothing you can
do. Just request them to be logical and deal more with
hard data).
Speaking of hard data. I deal directly with phenomena.
I deal with Qi energy (I call it conscious energy that
I think may be related directly to the wave function
domain). I live in Asia and have experiences many
never dreamt possible. Sorry for the bad english
as I seldom talk in english. I'm trying to find the
scientific correlates of it all.
I'm thoroughly familiar with many biological sciences
(genetics, immunology, neulogy, endocrinology, etc.)
and related subjects such as psychology, cognitive
sciences, etc. so I'm not deceived or gullible.
I come to this group to discuss what is behind the
wave function. By "behind" is meant what really occurs
there. I wrote the following in the "Electron Wave
Function" thread so will just quote it again. You
asked what I meant by "behind" the wave function.
What I mean is the nature of the
wave function itself. Ok. Let me address the
question directly that has been bugging me for days.
In Airy experiment where light hit a wall. All
electrons do not strike the same phosphor molecule
but hit different spots on the screen. If all
electrons are really alike, why do they behave
differently. Orthodox physics explains that fact
that unmeasured electrons are identical in being
but different in behavior by appealing to quantum
randomness. Physics stops at this point.
Now. I'm wondering if it is possible to act directly
on the wave function that can bestow order to it.
Better yet, whether one can program the wave function
itself. As in programable wave function. This means
the wave function may not be just a dry nothingland
or static but is intelligent that can accept input.
Furthermore. I think electron behavior and atomic
expression can be affected thru wave function
programming. In the following is experiment where
what we described in the east as qi or conscious
energy can affect the crystal patterns of water.
http://www.pranichealingontario.ca/waterresearch.htm
My theory is that the qi can directly affect the
wave function of the water as if qi is one entry
point that can program the wave function. Of course
this is not accepted by physics. I'm asking what
if it can. Ok. Rather than debating what is qi and
you commenting how delusional people can be. Can you
suggest an experiment where one can perform at home
where one can attempt to alter the wave function
of a system and seeing if there is a change in the
output. You can't tell me to attempt controlling the
light wave function to make the light strike at the
center and reduce the airy disc size. I'm talking
more in terms of affecting the electron probability
clouds of atoms and their collective expression such
as crystal patterns in water. This theory suggests
the wave function has certain limit to how you can
manipulate it as if there is just a window of
parameters where you can affect it like the crystal
patterns of water.
I will rely on experiments to disprove what
I'm talking about. Thru experiment I also want to
find out if input to the wave function is not only
possible but need certain energetic configurations
(like qi or others). Kind you suggest experiments rather
than telling flat that it is not possible because
conventional quantum physics says so. I want to know
from direct knowledge it is not possible after
trying many energetic input parameters to affect
or program the wave function at will.
Sincerely,
James
Bill Hobba
>
> It all boils down to "experiments" and the "instruments"
> that can study some of the theories. Ages ago.. Philosophers
> wonder what is the smallest particle and how small it would
> fashion, philosophers wonder the nature of the universe.
> compose all the four fundamental forces. Right now, just
> because science can't detect them doesn't mean they don't
> exist. Not long ago. We couldn't detect electromagnetic
> field so we don't know they exist. If the scientists that
> day concluded em doesn't exist because no instruments can
> detect it, it doesn't follow em doesn't exist. Likewise,
> there may be energies not yet detected by science.
> Philosophers speculate on it, future science may discover
> it. Sometimes we get deceived by our senses and think the
> world is all there is to see. What we see now is not even
> what it really is. When you view an apple in front of you.
> Light particles reach your retina. What you see is just a
> map of the apple. What if the apple also emits lets say
> eth-ro energy which our biological equipment can't handle.
> Then we don't see the full image of the true apple.. but
> only its photonic version.
>
> Right now. Some scientists dislike philosophers because they
> think they are somewhat delusional thinking that soul may
> even exist when science shows our consciousness is brain
> stuff.
I am not a scientist so can not speak for them. All I can really do is
speak for myself. Philosophy is ok except for some philosophers like Hegel
who AFAICS sprout nonsense eg - 'For the subject matter is not exhausted by
any aim, but only by the way in which things are worked out in detail; nor
is the result the actual whole, but only the result together with its
becoming. the aim, taken by itself, is a lifeless generality; the tendency
is a mere drift which still lacks actuality; and the naked result is the
corpse which has left the tendency behind.' It is unintelligible gibberish
masquerading as intellectualism I dislike. But in all fairness I must say
my philosophy teacher was a Hegel student (she did her PhD on Hegel) and had
a keen intellect and was able to make sense of such. This was a never
ending source of amazement for me. She accused me of being merely material.
Thanks
Bill
> But if you will study the debate on consciousness
> which turns into serious study after Francis Crick stated
> brain can produce consciousness so study the brain. You will
> see many valid counterarguments... Our brain may produce
> functions but what turn neural patterns into images. What
> gives us awareness of being aware. Who knows. Someday
> science may discover that there is a very subtle group of
> micro"particles" and these particles are not wave nor really
> particles but some kind of hologram substance. And they may
> discover our consciousness... that gives us the subjective
> feeling of being aware of our awareness is this substance
> that beat the rhythm of the wave function in quantum
> physics. Thats it... a new physics that study beyond the
> wave function and what is the behind the scene.. Then you
> have a new science that philosophers only dreamt about once
> upon a time. The date is 3000 A.D. The discovery that humans
> have a soul.
>
> Get the point? You guys debate is fruitless in that one just
> tends to emphasize one point of view and just belittle the
> others and more a semantic challenge.
>
> Consc
>
Don1
deck:^)
Don
Paul Stowe
wrote:
>
>
>Paul Stowe wrote:
>
>>
>> Time is still time. Perception is NOT ALWAYS reality...
>
> Perception is our only gateway to reality, faults and all.
Indeed, but even the blind know they have limitations and that
those do NOT affect there objective environment. If one does
NOT use reason and deductive logic to go beyond the limitations
of their perceptions they shall alway remain in their self
imposed ignorance!
Paul Stowe
Paul Stowe
>Paul Stowe wrote:
>
>>> Also around then "reality" changed from an absolute concept to
>>> a relative one, thanks to Bohr.
>>
>> Bohr tried, Einstein wasn't buyin'...
>
> I'm not saying that Bohr's view was totally right.
>
> I would change a few things.
So would I :)
> To summarize from my earlier post, and to assign terms to what I
> temporarily labeled "subjective world" and "objective world",
> here are the terms that I will use from now on:
>
> the universe: the hypothetical world external to our consciousness
Hypothetical?
> nature: the conscious reality; a subset of the universe unique to
> every observer
My definitions,
Universe: All that encompasses objective reality
Nature: The processes of the universe.
Consciousness: Awareness of self & Nature (See Intelligence)
Reality: See Nature
Real: Anything that can be demonstrated to exist
independent of self
> Let me briefly explain a few things about nature that science hasn't
> done a marvelous job at explaining. Newton didn't believe space and
> time were only absolute. He believed that there was relative space and
> relative time in addition to absolute space and absolute time. From the
> Principia he makes this pretty clear.
>
> http://acnet.pratt.edu/%7Earch543p/readings/Newton.html
Newton was one of the most intelligent men that ever existed. He
was correct. Obviously, if there are absolute time & space there
MUST be subjective (relationships) between different observed
events. More importantly, it is the absolute underpinning that
will provide the 'rules' (grouping) of how these subjective
observations can be related consistently. That such rules exist
is solid evidence of the absolute nature of these.
> And Einstein seemed to agree. He helped clarify a few things about
> space and time and made it explicitly clear that the relative versions
> are the only versions that science can effectively deal with. This is
> because the relative versions exist as our observations, and
> observation is the activity that science is based on. In a conversation
> with Heisenberg, Einstein reveals that our observations are shaped by
> our theories, indicating that relative time is what is observed, but
> that absolute time still plays a role in his grand hypothesis, even
> though it is never apart of our observations:
>
> "But you don't seriously believe," Einstein protested, "that none but
> observable magnitudes must go into a physical theory?"
>
> "Isn't that precisely what you have done with relativity?"
> [Heisenberg] asked in some surprise. "After all, you did stress
> the fact that it is impermissible to speak of absolute time,
> simply because absolute time cannot be observed; that only clock
> readings, be it in the moving reference system or the system at
> rest, are relevant to the determination of time."
>
> "Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning," Einstein admitted, "but
> it is nonsense all the same. Perhaps I could put it more
> diplomatically by saying that it may be heuristically useful to keep
> in mind what one has actually observed. But on principle, it is quite
> wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In
> reality, the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides
> what we can observe."
Now go try to convince some of the Bozo's around this. Especially those
like Roberts & Hobba... etc.
> 'Physics and Beyond - Encounters and Conversations', Harper Torchbooks,
> 1972, p. 63.
>
> If you haven't guessed by now this conjecture also incorporates both
> the relative and absolute concepts of space and time. The universe
> includes absolute space and absolute time, while the collection of
> observations and knowledge you call nature contains relative space and
> relative time. For brevity, the word "relative" is often omitted. Time
> is meant to imply relative time.
I've never doubted this 'reality'. :)
> But unlike Newton and Einstein, on the issue of matter this conjecture
> follows the lead of Leibniz, who thought that matter was both relative
> and absolute. In the (hypothetical) universe exists (hypothetical)
> absolute matter, whereas in nature there exists matter, which implies
> the relative variety.
>
> http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/leib-met.htm#Implications%20of%20Conceiving%20Substances%20as%20Monads
Ah, like relativistic mass :)
> So here we have a picture of nature, that consists only of matter,
> space and time that is relative to the observer. You may be wondering
> how energy plays a role in all of this. This paper assumes that energy
> is a secondary concept to matter, space, and time. I'll show you.
Here we diverge. We have fundamentals of Space (volume) & mass, period!
Time, thus momentum & energy are the result of the process you outline
below. IOW, time results from motion. We could say that the
fundamentals are Space, Mass, and the motion of those masses. But I
like, Space and many discrete quantas of momentum therein...or simplified
to Space & Momentum...
> Lets start out with a mass of ten grams in space. Space itself doesn't
> require coordinates, but for the sake of our description of this mass
> in space we will place it at the three-dimensional coordinate 0,0,0.
> Next we will add to our description the state of the ten gram mass one
> second after the original state.
>
> If the mass has changed position to coordinates 0,0,4, then using the
> formula v = dx/dt we could say that between the two states the change
> in the position is 4 and the change in time is one second so the
> velocity of the described object is 4 coordinates per second.
>
> We see that describing a phenomenon in the terms of matter, space, and
> time allows us to derive another term in physics, velocity. As another
> example, acceleration emerges from a change in velocity, therefore
> adding a third state to our description where the object is at 0,0,12
> two seconds after the initial state we can say that there is
> acceleration because of the change in velocity. Combine the mass of the
> object with its acceleration and you can create force. And of course,
> force makes power and energy attainable.
>
> So we have matter, space, and time in our relative natures. This isn't
> a bold statement considering that we already knew that observers had
> their own relative experiences with matter, space, and time. The theory
> of relativity notes that time and space are relative. And quantum
> mechanics tells us that the properties of matter are uncertain until
> they've been observed. This is a very obtuse way of saying "matter is
> relative" but it manages to say it anyways.
A space filled with discrete monentum quantum leads directly to this.
> In addition to nature we suppose an encompassing universe with its own
> absolute matter, absolute space, and absolute time. Because the
> relationship between the universe and nature is embodied by the
> relationship between absolute and relative, I will more often than not
> refer to the universe as "absolute nature."
>
> Now we can consider a new interpretation of quantum mechanics wherein
> indeterminately changing systems of matter are modeled as observations
> of determinately evolving systems of absolute matter.
>
> This is essentially a Copenhagen Interpretation where God does not play
> dice.
Indeed, God does and does not play dice, depending upon the level
one looks. When on does play dice the process underlying the game
is completely deterministic, the outcome, because we do not have
absolute control of all process paramters, becomes probabilistic.
That is the nature of our world also :) Again, Bozos like Hobba
can never come to grips with this simple fact. Thus, they are
forever doomed to flop around in dogma.
> I think Bohr and Einstein would equally find my interpretation
> acceptable. The reason they didn't think of it themselves is
> because it requires models built in computer programs to conceptualize,
> where the only tools Bohr and Einstein had available to them were
> systems of equations, primitive by comparison.
Yeah, finite element & Monti-Carlo modeling does wonders in openning
one's eyes doen't it??? :)
> Also, this is a view of our subjective reality with a deeper world. So
> you should have no reason to object.
I don't :) The Hobbit will however...
> The only difference I can see between you and I is that I decided it
> is not a good idea to call the deeper, objective world "reality".
>
> I simply don't use the word that way since it doesn't clarify things at
> all. You seem to disagree.
>
> But all in all, since our main disagreement is the use of a word, we
> should still be able to have a discussion despite that trivial point.
>
> A discussion where you refrained from accusing me of being stoned out
> of my mind would be preferable.
OK... I was trying to emphasize that distortion of one's personal
perceptions cannot change the objective world around us. What we
observe and 'measure' and subject to the rules of perspective mentioned
above. That these exist and can be quantified will allow the reasoning
individual to compensate and glimpse the the underlying objective
absolutes. You won't see me claiming that if I can screen out light
it (light) cannot be a fundamental property of the universe :)
Paul Stowe
robert j. kolker
Paul Stowe wrote:
>
> Indeed, but even the blind know they have limitations and that
> those do NOT affect there objective environment. If one does
> NOT use reason and deductive logic to go beyond the limitations
> of their perceptions they shall alway remain in their self
> imposed ignorance!
It is reasoning and logic that is limited by perception. Where do you
think we got the basic rules of logic from?
Facts come first. Logic comes second.
Bob Kolker
robert j. kolker
Paul Stowe wrote:
>
> Newton was one of the most intelligent men that ever existed. He
> was correct.
No he wasn't. His theory of gravitation has been empirically falsified.
His physical theory is Galilean Invariant and that has been empirically
falsified.
None of the above errors takes away from Newton's greatness in the
least. He produced version 1.0 of physics as we know it. Improvements
were certain to follow and he, above all, was aware of that.
Bob Kolker
Mike Helland
> Real: Anything that can be demonstrated to exist
> independent of self
This is purely philosophical, and since it is the most basic point we
disagree on this is pretty much all I will address of your post.
If there is anything else in your post that you think I have unfairly
ignored, if you point me to it I will respectfully discuss it with you,
but to keep this focused, at least temporarily, let's just talk about
the above.
Why should we say independent of self?
Doesn't the developments of the 20th century, (relativity: time and
space relative to the observer -- quantum mechanics: matter relative to
the observer), hint that the observer has a far greater importance in
reality than we had previouslly thought?
Isn't self, as in "I think, therefore I am", the very basic and only
certain knowledge we can know?
> Now go try to convince some of the Bozo's around this. Especially
those
> like Roberts & Hobba... etc.
I would also suggest that in addition to not making fun of me, not
making fun of others would be a good idea too. Hobba seems to be a
rational chap, even though we have come to different conclusions.
> OK... I was trying to emphasize that distortion of one's personal
> perceptions cannot change the objective world around us.
And we agree on this too. I only think that the objective world does
not deserve the label "real".
Let me just say that I would be open to the suggestion that the
objective world is a reality, as long as it is consistently qualified
as "objective reality."
However we would also have to be in agreement that in "objective
reality" the principles of relativity and uncertainty are unapplicable,
as they are principles of what is observed, which is *not* "objective
reality."
That is actually the reason why I don't call the objective world
"real", but if we agree that the laws of physics *only* apply to
subjective reality, then my position is possibily more idealogical than
it need be.
Paul Stowe
>Paul Stowe wrote:
>> On 24 Dec 2004 09:54:35 -0800, "Mike Helland" <moby...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>> Real: Anything that can be demonstrated to exist
>> independent of self
>
> This is purely philosophical, and since it is the most basic point we
> disagree on this is pretty much all I will address of your post.
>
> If there is anything else in your post that you think I have unfairly
> ignored, if you point me to it I will respectfully discuss it with you,
> but to keep this focused, at least temporarily, let's just talk about
> the above.
>
> Why should we say independent of self?
Because it is. This is not to be construed as independent of
interaction of measurements taken BY self. When you or I die
(which is inevitable) what is real continues unabated.
> Doesn't the developments of the 20th century, (relativity: time and
> space relative to the observer -- quantum mechanics: matter relative to
> the observer), hint that the observer has a far greater importance in
> reality than we had previouslly thought?
Actually, no. What is showed is that 'self' is not independent of
the real surroundings. That which alters the surrounding (motion
for example),, alters self, and all else in the surroundings. That
was Lorentz's proposal in 1904 for example with respect to what is
now called SR. This leads to a physical dichotomy, time dilation
and length contraction not symmetrically reciprical. But, because
of the means, and limitations set by nature, observationally it can
appear to be so. There are means to discriminate, but to do so
would require entire macoscopic laboratories be set in motion up to
relativistic velocities. This is currently physically impossible to
achieve.
> Isn't self, as in "I think, therefore I am", the very basic and only
> certain knowledge we can know?
If that were so libraries would be useless.
>> Now go try to convince some of the Bozo's around this. Especially
>> those like Roberts & Hobba... etc.
>
> I would also suggest that in addition to not making fun of me, not
> making fun of others would be a good idea too. Hobba seems to be a
> rational chap, even though we have come to different conclusions.
Well there is a long history here that does not involve you. But,
fair enough, when discussing topics with you I will refrain from
such comments. You have shown a courteous and professional demeanor
and have behaved honorably, even when in disagreement. The same
cannot be said of these others.
>> OK... I was trying to emphasize that distortion of one's personal
>> perceptions cannot change the objective world around us.
>
> And we agree on this too. I only think that the objective world does
> not deserve the label "real".
Why? This, I do not understand...
> Let me just say that I would be open to the suggestion that the
> objective world is a reality, as long as it is consistently qualified
> as "objective reality."
I agree, that is to me, implicit in the definition.
> However we would also have to be in agreement that in "objective
> reality" the principles of relativity and uncertainty are unapplicable,
> as they are principles of what is observed, which is *not* "objective
> reality."
Again, I do not understand your arbitrary constraint here. Relativity
(both SR & GR) can be shown to be a requirement of such an objective
reality and that those real processes cannot possibly physically change
just because of an observer's prespective. Uncertainty is easily
understood in the context of granularity of any continuum.
> That is actually the reason why I don't call the objective world
> "real", but if we agree that the laws of physics *only* apply to
> subjective reality, then my position is possibily more idealogical
> than it need be.
I really need a better understanding of why you think real and subjective
are so incompatible.
Paul Stowe
Mike Helland
<snip>
> > Let me just say that I would be open to the suggestion that the
> > objective world is a reality, as long as it is consistently
qualified
> > as "objective reality."
>
> I agree, that is to me, implicit in the definition.
>
> > However we would also have to be in agreement that in "objective
> > reality" the principles of relativity and uncertainty are
unapplicable,
> > as they are principles of what is observed, which is *not*
"objective
> > reality."
>
> Again, I do not understand your arbitrary constraint here.
The constraint in question is: between our subjective view of the world
and the objective world external to it, the principles and laws of
physics only apply to the subjective.
The reason stems from how those principles came into existence. Through
the use of creativity and language (mostly mathematics) we've come up
with a description of what we observe, and we formulated that
description as laws, principles, and theories.
It makes sense that the description of what we observe should apply to
any model of what we observe.
But you're asking why the description for our subjective world doesn't
apply to what's going on underneath the subjectivity.
Can you think of any possible reasons?
The reason I have for saying that the laws and principals should not
apply to the world beyond our observations is because that allows us a
new approach in formulating a model of what we observe; that is by
encompassing it with an objective world that may function without
obeying the principles of relativity or uncertainty, just as long as
every observer's subjective nature in the model does adhere to the
science.
You see, I'm suggesting many subjective model's (that are relative and
indeterminate to the observer) within a larger absolute and determinate
model.
This is possible if and only if the laws of physics are limited in
scope to the subjective reality of the observer.
So I don't think the constraint is very arbitrary. Its actually quite
useful.
hanso...@hotmail.com
"version 1.0" - a superb way of putting it, Bob. :-)
--
Mike.
vergon_en...@highstream.net
than "what meaning shall we give to the word reality?"
Reply
By
Vergon:
A very good analysis.
In a paper I wrote I define the universe thus:
The objective universe consists only of matter, space between matter,
and the motion of matter through that space, the rest is
anthropocentric interpretation.
In elucidation thereof:
Man perceives matter, to quantify it he conceptualizes "mass".
Matter exists objectively, mass is a concept.
Matter resists motion or alteration of motion. Man perceives that as
"inertia" which in turn quantifies mass.
Matter moves with varying degrees of motion. Man compares all motion to
one used as a standard which is constant. This standard motion is
divided into arbitrary units. The transit of the standard through one
unit is designated as time. (The rotation of the earth is a standard
motion. One rotation is designated as a day {time} with arbitrary
subdivisions.) All other motions are then compared to a unit of time.
Thus, at base, time is the comparison of motions, nothing more.
The quantification of motion in terms of time is conceptualized as
"velocity". Ultimately this is a comparison of motions against the
standard.
The quantification of the motion of matter in terms of mass and
velocity
is conceptualized as "momentum", i.e., there is a simultaneous
determination of the quantity of matter and the quantity of motion it
possesses.
Matter moves and changes that motion by interaction. Man perceives
the rate of change as "force", i.e., the change of momentum with
respect to time. Collaterally he perceives "acceleration" as the change
of velocity with respect to time.
Matter interacts with matter forming an altered configuration.
Man regards that as "energy", ultimately energy is matter (mass) in
motion.
There is space between matter. Man perceives that and quantifies it by
arbitrary standards of matter. Thus is created the concepts of
"dimension" and "distance".
-<*>-
So we see that dimension, space, time, mass, inertia, momentum,
acceleration, force, and energy are all subjective interpretations by
man of matter and its motion through space.
****************************
I think this fits nicely to your thesis.
vergon_en...@highstream.net
To Tom Davidson
Excellent dialog.
I have a couple comments. In your discussion of scientist versus
philosopher, have you forgotten that originally physics was called
"Natural Philosophy? And you are right, science grew out of
philosophy.
Re your step (3) I respectfully disagree.
Quote:-
"3) The 'ideas' are *extrapolated* to develop 'predictions' about how
things
are expected to work."
I think this is a narrow view. To my view this is the area occupied by
the theoretician. And the objective of developing a theory is not to
just predict but to explain, i.e., develop a model that accounts for
all we know about phenomena. Some of that theory will contain known
phenomena and some will contain as yet unknown phenomena. The latter
are the predictions.
Let's take quantum mechanics for example. This is the prime example of
the six blind men examining the elephant.
Despite its successes there is no model that explains QM so that it is
visualizable. If a theory did just that with no "predictions" it could
be considered a success. A great man once said, "You never understand
QM you just get used to it."
If you haven't guessed it by now I must inform you - yes -- I have
developed such a theory (model).Should you want to look at it go to
http://www.wbabin.net -- then go to the pulldown marked "List of
authors", find Vertner Vergon and click on that.
The title of the work is On The Quantum as a Physical Entity.
Also, speaking of the scientific process, you must realize that it is
denatured by the egos and biases of the practitioners.
True impartial objective reasoning is a rarity when it should be the
norm.
Proof of the pudding is an article I wrote that has been turned down by
three journals so far.
The article actually demonstrates Einstein made an erroneous
interpretation of a mathematically correct conclusion, and the article
results in a major correction of the theory.
I would like to point out that my article contains no conjecture, no
supposition, no postulate, no posit nor anything that could be
construed as speculative.
It does contain a chain of logic involving accepted concepts in special
relativity, that and nothing more. Yet the conclusion is amazing and
constitutes a step forward in the understanding of the theory. What we
have here is a logical construction not a mathematical one.
In my humble opinion the only thing that would warrant rejection would
be to find a flaw in the logic. Naturally, I don't see one.
Two things are accomplished. (1) The concept of time dilation is shown
to be invalid - and a different observed time replaces it. (2) When
this new time concept is applied to the Twin Paradox, it resolves it
unquestionably. This new time concept is empirically observed, and not
conjecture.
For your perusal, I reproduce it here.
ON TIME DILATION AND DOPPLER TIME
Vertner Vergon
Abstract
We examine time dilation and find it leads to an unforgiving
contradiction. We also find it is contrary to empirical experience. In
examining Doppler time we find it has none of these deficiencies. We
therefore conclude that the erroneous concept of time dilation be
replaced with the concept of Doppler time variation.
We start our examination of the time dilation concept by going to its
source -- Einstein's paper,On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. We
refer to his gedanken experiment of moving clocks. One of two identical
clocks remains at rest while the other moves away and returns. When
Einstein perceived the difference of the clock readings in his
calculations, he stated the moving clock "was slow by ...". The
immediate perception by the public was that he meant if a clock was
"slow by" - it had to have run slower. He also said the moving clock
was "behind" the inertial clock by ... . These two statements do
not mean the same thing. If one clock is running slower, then it is
running slower, and that has only one meaning.
On the other hand to say one clock is behind the other is open to
alternative explanations, eg., the moving clock could have traveled a
shorter world line -- or may have traveled faster than observed. In
either case the clock would maintain its normal (proper) rate but for a
shorter duration than the inertial clock and thus be behind. At any
rate the accepted version is that the clock ran slower and thus was
born the concept of time dilation.
This concept is usually stated by an illustration that says if one were
to observe a clock on a fast moving spaceship, they would observe it to
run slowly. It must be emphasized that this running slowly occurs
regardless of the direction or vector of the ship. That is to say it
matters not whether the spaceship is receding or approaching, time runs
slower. Also to be emphasized is that this slowness of time is not just
a matter of observation but actually takes place -- for when the clock
returns it is actually 'behind" the stationary (or Earth) clock.
Since this is the case, we are inevitably drawn to only one conclusion,
the moving clock has to be running slowly in its own coordinate system.
Here we are faced with an unforgiving contradiction for basic
relativity states that all clocks keep proper time in their respective
coordinate systems. It is inconsistent that a clock can actually run
slowly in its own coordinate system - and also, the while, keep
proper time. This contradiction requires that the time dilation
concept, i.e., t' = t sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) be discarded.
The question arises, is there something to take its place? The answer
is yes.
To lay the foundation for this replacement we note that any known
constant frequency is a clock. The scientific community has chosen the
excited cesium atom as the standard. This is an arbitrary choice. Next,
we note that the cesium clock (or any other constant frequency atom)
will never vary in its rate. So they will always keep proper time.
However, observations of these clocks will show a variation due to the
Doppler effect. We declare this variation in frequency is a variation
in observed time. Since the frequency is a clock, an observed variation
in the frequency is an observed variation in time. Call it Doppler or
what one will, that is merely a description of the mechanics. In the
final analysis it is a variation in observed time.
Next, we examine a counter argument which states that the relativistic
Doppler rate is the result of the following: If one takes the
non-relativistic Doppler rate and modifies it by the time dilation
they, come up with the relativistic Doppler rate. This, supposedly,
confirms time dilation. Upon further examination, we perceive that even
if we were to accept that explanation, what we have is the situation
whereby an approaching clock is observed to run fast -- not as fast as
non-relativistic mechanics would have -- but fast. This is contrary to
time dilation which requires an approaching clock to run slowly. That
a reversal in direction results in a reversal of time rate is to be
expected since time variation is the result of velocity vectors - and
vectors are directional.
If a theory conflicts with empiricism, it has to be discarded.
Next we point out that we need not necessarily accept the above
explanation. We note that above, the non-relativistic Doppler is
modified by applying time dilation. We also note that time dilation is
written t' = t v(1 - v2/c2), where v(1 - v2/c2) is the
Lorentz transformation.
Now non-relativistic Doppler in direct approach is written (where V =
v/c and nu is frequency).
nu'/nu = 1/1- V
Next, we apply time dilation:
nu'/nu = (1/ 1 - V) x t v(1 - V2).
It is immediately apparent how clumsy this equation is. Frequency times
time is n/t x t = n (where n is a number) To avoid this problem we may
write:
nu'/nu = (1/1 - V) v (1 - V2)
Now the argument presents itself that the equation immediately above
does not represent the application of time dilation but does instead
simply apply the Lorentz transformation to the frequency as it does to
other parameters in transposing from one coordinate system to another.
Thus relativistic Doppler is simply that - and not modified by time
dilation.
It can easily be shown -- using the famous "Twin Paradox" as an example
-- that utilizing the observed Doppler time rate will yield -- when the
clocks are reunited -- a difference in the readings commensurate with
the time dilation rate. And to restate, it can be shown that using the
Doppler time rate will yield the time dilation effect. And that is the
proper way to refer to it -- "time dilation effect". The reason: The
net time differential when the movement of the clock is complete is the
same as though dilation time was operative throughout, whereas it was
Doppler time operating.
What then? What is the explanation for the "effect", but not the
actuality of time dilation? Particle accelerator operators and Ives &
Stillwell claim to have "directly observed" time dilation.* What they
have observed is transverse Doppler rates. It so happens, by some
extraordinary coincidence, that the transverse Doppler rate is the same
as the time dilation rate.
And now to display the Doppler time resolution of the Twins Paradox:
What is displayed here is the round trip Twins' experience with no
paradox. The upward arrow signifies outward bound, the downward arrow
signifies inward bound. The double arrows signify the ship being
observed going outbound while in fact it is traveling inbound. (second
chart). This, of course, is due to the time it takes light to travel.
The velocity is sqrt(.75c). At this velocity the so called time
dilation rate is 1/2 . The distance to far-point is sqrt(3 light
seconds). So the elapsed time for the ship is one second due to the
fact the distance traversed is a coordinate system in relative motion
to the ship and to the ship is .5 v3 light second due to the
foreshortening effect.
( For seconds or years, the figures hold.)
This means that four years on earth would be only two years on the
ship. The time rates shown in the second chart are the time rates of
the ship as observed by earth. Both charts are Doppler time rates. They
have to be. Any invariable frequency -- clock or atom -- will be
observed at Doppler rates. The same is true for observations of earth
by the ship (first chart). It will be noted there is a parity of rate
observations as required by the principle of relativity.
Notice, there is no time dilation rate observed (1/2 in this case) --
but when the trip is concluded the difference in the clock readings is
as though the ship's clock had run at half time to the earth clock,
i.e , run at dilation time. When Einstein saw that differential in his
calculations (1905 paper) he said the moving clock "ran slow" by ... .
This created the impression that time really ran uniformly slower for
the ship's clock. The tables below show this isn't so. Time runs
slower and faster depending on direction but the net result is as
though it had run uniformly slower.
It is worth repeating that according to the time dilation concept a
clock in the approach mode runs slowly- but astronomers observe
clocks in the approach mode, and they are running fast. Consequently,
there is no time dilation. There is, however, a time dilation effect,
i.e., there is a transit time differential on the two clocks -- and it
was created by Doppler time. However, quantitatively it appears to be
created by time dilation.
ASTRONAUTS TABLE
ELAPSED x DOPPLER = OBSERVED TIME
TIME ON TIME/ ON EARTH
SHIP FREQUENCY
(in seconds) (t/f)
====================================
/|\
| 1.00 x .268 = .268
| 1.00 x 3.732 = 3.732
\|/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2.000 4.000
total elapsed time
ASTRONOMER'S TABLE
ELAPSED x DOPPLER = OBSERVED TIME
TIME ON TIME/ ON SHIP
EARTH FREQUENCY
(in seconds) (t/f)
====================================
/|\
| 2.00 x .268 = .536
/|\ | 1.732 x .268 = ,464
| \|/
| .268 x 3.732 = 1.000
\|/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
4.000 2.000
total elapsed time
Note: Not only is there a parity of rate observations, but the length
of time each twin is an observer is equal to the time he is observed.
Thus there is a time commonality of observation. This, in a space-time
chart given in Spacetime Physics (by Taylor and Wheeler), is labeled
the "line of simultaneity".
__________________________
* Both Ives & Stillwell and accelerator operators made right angle
observations of fast traveling radiation-emitting atoms or particles
and found that the radiation shifted in accordance with time dilation
calculations (which happen to be the same as transverse Doppler).
vergon_en...@highstream.net
> matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through
that
> space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
> man.
Stuff, a place to put it, and something for it to do... You can't get
much
simpler than that, and there's little need to complicate that picture.
Tom Davidson
VERGON:
Ocham's razor.
What have you got against simplicity if it works? Einstein said
(correctly) that if we really understood the universe we could teach it
to children.
Also your remark about give it something to do is answered by the rest
of post which you snipped.
Looks like you might be part of the problem rather than a solution.
tadchem
<vergon_en...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:1104082286....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > I firmly believe the posit that the objective universe consists of
> > matter, the space between matter, and the motion of matter through
> that
> > space -- that and nothing more. The rest are concepts in the mind of
> > man.
>
>
> Stuff, a place to put it, and something for it to do... You can't get
> much
> simpler than that, and there's little need to complicate that picture.
>
> Tom Davidson
>
> VERGON:
>
> Ocham's razor.
>
> What have you got against simplicity if it works?
Absolutely nothing. Us bench-top empirical scientists must of necessity
also be pragmatic. Whatever gave you the idea that I have something agains
workable simplicity? Are you perhaps inferring sarcasm in my post?
> Einstein said
> (correctly) that if we really understood the universe we could teach it
> to children.
>
> Also your remark about give it something to do is answered by the rest
> of post which you snipped.
> Looks like you might be part of the problem rather than a solution.
I gather from your tone that you have not yet understood I am *agreeing*
with you here.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
tadchem
<vergon_en...@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:1104081520.3...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> In your discussion of scientist versus
> philosopher, have you forgotten that originally physics was called
> "Natural Philosophy? And you are right, science grew out of
> philosophy.
"Grew out" is the key phrase. Science is no longer 'pure' philosophy.
Empiricism is an integral element of science now, and will always remain so.
IIRC, the French Academy of Sciences (no doubt in a moment of passionate
egalitarian and anti-elitist fervor) acted to divorce itself from arts,
natural philosophy, and theology by declaring that henceforth they would
only concern themselves with investigation those things that are amenable to
measurement. That report may be apocryphal for all I know, but it makes the
point that the experience of the time was that matters concerning 'God',
'feelings', and 'consciousness' are inherently impossible to decide by
*independent* measurements or observations, and there is an implicit point
that many of the subjects that the rationalists spent so much time debating
were doomed to being unresolvable because ther was no common semantic
basis - mutually agreeable operational definitions of the basic concepts
could never be developed.
> Re your step (3) I respectfully disagree.
> Quote:-
>
> "3) The 'ideas' are *extrapolated* to develop 'predictions' about how
> things
> are expected to work."
>
> I think this is a narrow view. To my view this is the area occupied by
> the theoretician. And the objective of developing a theory is not to
> just predict but to explain, i.e., develop a model that accounts for
> all we know about phenomena. Some of that theory will contain known
> phenomena and some will contain as yet unknown phenomena. The latter
> are the predictions.
You are right that this is the domain of the theoretician - the *predictive*
theoretician. Had Einstein not predicted the anomalous advance of the
perihelion of Mercury, or the gravitaional refraction of light, he would
have justifiable been considered a crank. The success of the first drew
attention to his theory (Newtonian mechanics could not account for it) and
the success of the second starting persuading others. Empirically testable
and verifiable prediction is essential.
> Let's take quantum mechanics for example. This is the prime example of
> the six blind men examining the elephant.
> Despite its successes there is no model that explains QM so that it is
> visualizable. If a theory did just that with no "predictions" it could
> be considered a success. A great man once said, "You never understand
> QM you just get used to it."
Scroll down to the section titled "Philosophical consequences" in this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics
I will leave the debate over the Copenhagen versus the Bohm interpretation
to others. I consider it mostly a matter of personal aesthetics which set
of ideas bring the theorist more comfort. I take my comfort in statements
that say "A depends on B and C according to the equation...", or "If one
were to observe D under the conditions E and F, the theory claims that the
result will be...".
To me a theory with no 'predictions' is inconsequential. What is the use of
a musical instrument that makes no music? The ability to describe the
universe in terms of the interactions of its constituents is the entire
purpose of science. You cannot know that you understand anything unless you
can prove that what you think you understand agrees with the way the
universe actually works.
> If you haven't guessed it by now I must inform you - yes -- I have
> developed such a theory (model).Should you want to look at it go to
> http://www.wbabin.net -- then go to the pulldown marked "List of
> authors", find Vertner Vergon and click on that.
> The title of the work is On The Quantum as a Physical Entity.
Rah.
> Also, speaking of the scientific process, you must realize that it is
> denatured by the egos and biases of the practitioners.
> True impartial objective reasoning is a rarity when it should be the
> norm.
The vetting process of independent observations - multiple 'experimenters',
including those seeking to discredit ideas they don't like - polishes the
theories by removing the 'tool marks' left by the OEM. Scientists have
vaster differences of opinin than anybody else in a single 'organization'
except perhaps an Israeli political party. The peer-review process and the
feedback of experiment and theory quite efficiently scrubs out any personal
biases and egos, although it sometimes may take a generation or two.
> It does contain a chain of logic involving accepted concepts in special
> relativity, that and nothing more. Yet the conclusion is amazing and
> constitutes a step forward in the understanding of the theory. What we
> have here is a logical construction not a mathematical one.
So you are a Cartesian rationalist, then...
> In my humble opinion the only thing that would warrant rejection would
> be to find a flaw in the logic. Naturally, I don't see one.
Xeno's paradoxes embodied perfect logic, as did Aristotle's astronomy.
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem established that no system of logic is
complete, and thus could permit logically consistent statements that are
undecideable within the system of logic itself. The elegance of empiricism
is that the experimental validation process can decide the validity or
invalidity of statements using a method that lies *outside* of the finite
logical system.
In my "humble" opinion, the only thing that warrants acceptance *or*
rejection of a theory (or of a _reinterpretation_ of a theory) is it
consistency or inconsistency with observations.
> Two things are accomplished. (1) The concept of time dilation is shown
> to be invalid - and a different observed time replaces it. (2) When
> this new time concept is applied to the Twin Paradox, it resolves it
> unquestionably. This new time concept is empirically observed, and not
> conjecture.
>
> For your perusal, I reproduce it here.
I will not pretend to have read and understood your article. I am a bench
chemist. I am not really qualified to develop experimental tests of GR or
even SR. I *do* feel qualified to discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of empiricism and rationalism.
Since *you* feel that your task as a theoretician is to 'explain', can you
explain what practical difference is made between your interpretation of SR
and Einstein's? By 'practical' I of course mean 'observable' and
'measurable.'
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Mike
"tadchem" <tadche...@comcast.net> wrote
>
> Since *you* feel that your task as a theoretician is to 'explain', can you
> explain what practical difference is made between your interpretation of
> SR
> and Einstein's? By 'practical' I of course mean 'observable' and
> 'measurable.'
>
Keep in mind that the premise we are working from is not been completely
justified. We are assuming that the universe is reasonable and logical. We
may not yet know how that logic is expressed, or the detail of that
reasoning. But that's our working assumption. We wouldn't work to understand
at all if we did not assume that the universe was locically consistent at
every level. But we haven't proven it yet. For all we know, the universe may
not be logically consistent, and we are just deceiving ourselves. Yet that
possibility seems absurd. So let us not be too proud of our theories. All we
have is just a more elaborate creation myth.
dlzc1 D:cox T:net@nospam.com N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Mike" <no....@please.com> wrote in message
news:3eLzd.960$uN2.3...@monger.newsread.com...
>
> "tadchem" <tadche...@comcast.net> wrote
>
>>
>> Since *you* feel that your task as a theoretician is to 'explain', can
>> you
>> explain what practical difference is made between your interpretation of
>> SR
>> and Einstein's? By 'practical' I of course mean 'observable' and
>> 'measurable.'
>>
>
> Keep in mind that the premise we are working from is not been completely
> justified. We are assuming that the universe is reasonable and logical.
> We may not yet know how that logic is expressed, or the detail of that
> reasoning. But that's our working assumption. We wouldn't work to
> understand at all if we did not assume that the universe was locically
> consistent at every level. But we haven't proven it yet. For all we know,
> the universe may not be logically consistent,
It has been so far. The problem has been in unlearning provincial points
of view, and looking either more simply, or larger.
> and we are just deceiving ourselves.
We all deceive ourselves. That is the nature of Nature. But science is
about making quantifiable predictions, and not what meaning we might read
into a theory. You can test science. You cannot test a religious belief,
lest ye sin.
> Yet that possibility seems absurd. So let us not be too proud of our
> theories. All we have is just a more elaborate creation myth.
There is such a myth for every human.
David A. Smith
Paul Stowe
> Paul Stowe wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> Let me just say that I would be open to the suggestion that the
>>> objective world is a reality, as long as it is consistently
>>> qualified as "objective reality."
>>
>> I agree, that is to me, implicit in the definition.
>>
>>> However we would also have to be in agreement that in "objective
>>> reality" the principles of relativity and uncertainty are
>>> unapplicable, as they are principles of what is observed, which
>>> is *not* "objective reality."
>>
>> Again, I do not understand your arbitrary constraint here.
>
> The constraint in question is: between our subjective view of the
> world and the objective world external to it, the principles and
> laws of physics only apply to the subjective.
Let's settle on a very specific example of something that you
think only applies to the 'subjective'. Is Lorentz Covariance
(the Foundation of SR) such a process?
> The reason stems from how those principles came into existence.
> Through the use of creativity and language (mostly mathematics)
> we've come up with a description of what we observe, and we
> formulated that description as laws, principles, and theories.
>
> It makes sense that the description of what we observe should
> apply to any model of what we observe.
>
> But you're asking why the description for our subjective world
> doesn't apply to what's going on underneath the subjectivity.
Actually, I'm not. It most certainly does. Those define the
rules of the subjectivity. If this were not true then the rules
would be subjective also making it possible for each to set
their own.
> Can you think of any possible reasons?
>
> The reason I have for saying that the laws and principals should
> not apply to the world beyond our observations is because that
> allows us a new approach in formulating a model of what we
> observe; that is by encompassing it with an objective world that
> may function without obeying the principles of relativity or
> uncertainty,
However, if that were 'the rules' of the objective then the POR
and uncertainty would not exist in the subjective. I think of
'subjective' as the observer's perspective. While perspectives
change between observers the objective underneath cannot. That
is what results in those properties (POR & HU).
> just as long as every observer's subjective nature in the model
> does adhere to the science.
>
> You see, I'm suggesting many subjective model's (that are relative
> and indeterminate to the observer) within a larger absolute and
> determinate model.
We agree then...
> This is possible if and only if the laws of physics are limited in
> scope to the subjective reality of the observer.
I disagree and if you want we can take SR's rules as an example.
> So I don't think the constraint is very arbitrary. Its actually
> quite useful.
Paul Stowe
tadchem
<SNIP>
> Keep in mind that the premise we are working from is not been completely
> justified. We are assuming that the universe is reasonable and logical. We
> may not yet know how that logic is expressed, or the detail of that
> reasoning. But that's our working assumption. We wouldn't work to
understand
> at all if we did not assume that the universe was locically consistent at
> every level. But we haven't proven it yet. For all we know, the universe
may
> not be logically consistent, and we are just deceiving ourselves. Yet that
> possibility seems absurd. So let us not be too proud of our theories. All
we
> have is just a more elaborate creation myth.
Consider the alternative: if the universe was not *completely* reasonable
and logical, we could never *really* know anything for sure, and could never
rely on what we think we know. At any moment, everything could decide to
fall *up* or something like that.
That path leads to madness.
Unless I *assume* that the universe is logical, consistent, and ultimately
'knowable', there is no point to my efforts to try to understand it. The
quest for knowledge would become an exercise in futility.
Before you can know anything you must assume of necessity that you *can*
know it.
The difference between our theories and an "elaborate creation myth" lies in
validation by observation. The universe itself is the judge of how accurate
our theories are. Creation myths stand alone as articles of faith. Well,
not alone, exactly. They are always surrounded by a small cadre of the
'faithful' who have decided they don't need to know any more that what they
have been told by the authors of their 'holy' scriptures.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Mike
"tadchem" <tadche...@comcast.net> wrote
> Unless I *assume* that the universe is logical, consistent, and ultimately
> 'knowable', there is no point to my efforts to try to understand it. The
> quest for knowledge would become an exercise in futility.
o. k. .... if the universe is logical, then it should also be possible to,
as you say, start with that premise and work your way to observation. It
should be possible to derive physics from logical principles alone. Some may
think this is speculative, but we must accept the premise that the universe
is logical. I don't think such an effort would be any less likely to succeed
than, say, string theory, or M-theory, or loop-quantum-gravity, or dynamical
triangulation, etc. All these are speculative and start with a premise based
on principle and have not been confirmed by observation, yet.
tadchem
<snip repost>
> o. k. .... if the universe is logical, then it should also be
possible to,
> as you say, start with that premise and work your way to observation.
It
> should be possible to derive physics from logical principles alone.
Some may
> think this is speculative, but we must accept the premise that the
universe
> is logical.
Descartes concluded that he existed as a result of the fact that he
observed himself 'thinking', but could not get much beyond that.
The Principle of Relativity states (in its own specialized way) that
the universe operates according to laws that are independent of the
inertial motion of observers. Basically this is an operational
requirement for a consistent universe. It is a start.
We observe that the universe appears to be logical, but we have yet to
formulate a general principle in which the 'logic' of the universe is
operationally defined in a way that would let us approach it
analytically, thus allowing us to eventually deduce all physical laws.
> I don't think such an effort would be any less likely to succeed
> than, say, string theory, or M-theory, or loop-quantum-gravity, or
dynamical
> triangulation, etc. All these are speculative and start with a
premise based
> on principle and have not been confirmed by observation, yet.
These are all in the tradition of _empirical science_, in which the
observation precedes the discerning of patterns and the deduction of
quantities and 'laws' that describe the interactions of those
quantities.
_Rationalist science_ seeks to move the opposite direction, seeking to
deduce the laws and the quantites they govern before predicting the
interactions that can be observed in the observable universe.
The two complement each other, forming the scientific method as a
cyclic process that alternates between observation and prediction, with
each guiding and refining the other.
Neither can work alone.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Mike Helland
> On 26 Dec 2004 01:39:46 -0800, "Mike Helland" <moby...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> > Paul Stowe wrote:
> >>> However we would also have to be in agreement that in "objective
> >>> reality" the principles of relativity and uncertainty are
> >>> unapplicable, as they are principles of what is observed, which
> >>> is *not* "objective reality."
> >>
> >> Again, I do not understand your arbitrary constraint here.
> >
> > The constraint in question is: between our subjective view of the
> > world and the objective world external to it, the principles and
> > laws of physics only apply to the subjective.
>
> Let's settle on a very specific example of something that you
> think only applies to the 'subjective'. Is Lorentz Covariance
> (the Foundation of SR) such a process?
Yes. As far as I know Einstein took this view too. That there was an
objective reality "beneath" the Lorentz transformation.
Again, this is as far as I know. I've been told this, and I've made
efforts to verify this claim with this language in Einstein's writings
(I'm almost sure it would be more likely to appear in his later
material) but I have not found anything yet.
But as far as I know, he said objective reality lied at a more
fundamental level than where Lorentz appears on the stack.
<snip>
> > You see, I'm suggesting many subjective model's (that are relative
> > and indeterminate to the observer) within a larger absolute and
> > determinate model.
>
> We agree then...
How could you agree that our subjective reality is indeterminate *and*
that an encompassing objective reality is determinate, but...
> > This is possible if and only if the laws of physics are limited in
> > scope to the subjective reality of the observer.
>
> I disagree and if you want we can take SR's rules as an example.
... but not agree that scientific principles, such as uncertainty only
apply to the subjective?
How could objective reality be determinate if uncertainty applied to it?
vergon_en...@highstream.net
predict and could be confirmed by experiment? What are those things?
What are the questions we must ask?
Of course, there can be no progress unless someone understands the
limitations of relativity and moves on. There are many more things out
there.
(snip)
Have a nice holiday
Mike
Vergon
Well put, Mike.
Your remarks re SR are well taken.
Is the theory truly correct and people just have a hard time adjusting
to it - or is it really faulty and in need of correction?
What if an article came along that actually demonstrated Einstein made
an erroneous interpretation of a mathematically correct conclusion, and
the article resulted in a major correction of the theory?
I would like to point out that I have written such an article that
contains no conjecture, no supposition, no postulate, no posit nor
anything that could be construed as speculative.
It does contain a chain of logic involving accepted concepts in special
relativity, that and nothing more. Yet the conclusion is amazing and
constitutes a step forward in the understanding of the theory. What we
have here is a logical construction not a mathematical one.
In my humble opinion the only thing that would warrant rejection would
be to find a flaw in the logic. Naturally, I don't see one.
Two things are accomplished. (1) The concept of time dilation is shown
to be invalid - and a different observed time replaces it. (2) When
this new time concept is applied to the Twin Paradox, it resolves it
unquestionably. *This new time concept is empirically observed, and not
conjecture. *
Over the years there have been many "solutions" to the paradox.
There isn't one of them I can't find faulty. In applying the
correct time variation to the Twin scenario, no paradox or problem
appears.
Best Regards,
Vertner Vergon
THE ARTICLE:
Vertner Vergon
ASTRONAUTS TABLE
==================================================
/|\
| 1.00 x .268 = .268
| 1.00 x 3.732 = 3.732
\|/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2.000 4.000
total elapsed time
ASTRONOMER'S TABLE
ELAPSED x DOPPLER = OBSERVED TIME
TIME ON TIME/ ON SHIP
EARTH FREQUENCY
(in seconds) (t/f)
==================================================
/|\
| 2.00 x .268 = .536
/|\ | 1.732 x .268 = ,464
| \|/
| .268 x 3.732 = 1.000
\|/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
4.000 2.000
total elapsed time
Note: Not only is there a parity of rate observations, but the length
of time each twin is an observer is equal to the time he is observed.
Thus there is a time commonality of observation. This, in a space-time
chart given in Spacetime Physics (by Taylor and Wheeler), is labeled
the "line of simultaneity".
__________________________
* Both Ives & Stillwell and accelerator operators made right angle
observations of fast traveling radiation-emitting atoms or particles
and found that the radiation shifted in accordance with time dilation
calculations (which happen to be the same as transverse Doppler).
ADDENDUM
ABSTRACT
Establishes the existence of superluminal velocities - and
consequently a showing that the concept of a traveling twin returning
younger than his bother is not valid.
**********
In the above dissertation it was stated that the distance to Farpoint
was sqrt(3 light seconds) and that to the transiting space ship this
distance was foreshortened to ½ that. This is not quite true.
Whereas it is true the measurement taken by the ship would show a
foreshortening - it should be recognized that the space does not
really contract. What then?
The sqrt(3 light seconds) is 1.732 light seconds - and half that is
.866 light second. Since the ship transits the distance in one second,
the passenger calculates his velocity to be .866 light second per
second.
We recognize this is the result of a foreshortened measurement - but
that the proper distance remains 1.732 light seconds. Therefore, we can
state that the proper velocity of the space ship is 1.732 light seconds
per second. We recognize this as a superluminal velocity.
Thus we see that the true cause for the time differential between a
moving coordinate system and an inertial one is that the moving system
is traveling faster than measured. The faster velocity is the proper
velocity, the slower velocity is the relative velocity.
Measurement from the inertial frame is another matter. This measurement
is strictly a subjective one in which the distance to far point does
not foreshorten. Thus, in the example, the distance to be traversed is
1.732 light seconds and the velocity of the ship - though having a
proper velocity of 1.732 light seconds per second - is
perceived by the inertial observer at .866 light second per second by
the following considerations:
Einstein has already shown that a rod in a moving coordinate system
will measure as contracted or foreshortened so that will not be
repeated here. If we substitute the space ship for the rod, we conclude
that a measurement of the ship also contracts in length. Further, we
conclude that length is the same as distance - and since distance
contracts, velocity being distance per time, also contracts. So every
proper velocity has a corresponding relative velocity.
Applying that to our example, we conclude that to the inertial observer
the 1.732 light seconds per second proper velocity of the spaceship
foreshortens to a relative velocity of .866 light second per second -
and further, the calculated time for transit of the 1.732 light second
distance is 1.732 / .866 or 2 seconds.
But we are not through yet. This is the calculated time not the
observed time. The observed time develops as follows:
The calculated time for transit is 2 seconds. At the end of that time
the ship will have arrived at farpoint - but the inertial observer
will not be aware of that until the signal of that arrival reaches him.
At a distance of 1.732 light seconds to farpoint that will take an
electromagnetic signal 1.732 seconds.
Thus it will take 2 + 1.732 seconds from departure for the inertial
observer to observe the completed transit.
The observed velocity, then, is distance / time or 1.732 / 3.732 = .464
light second per second.
This is based on a relative velocity which is a derivation of a proper
velocity - and which undergoes the mechanism of observation.
If one will consult the Twins Astronomer chart above they will come up
with the same result.
The time for the outward (up arrows) observation is 3.732 seconds
elapsed time on earth - and the distance (being inertial) is 1.732
light seconds. This 1.732 / 3.732 yields an observed velocity of .464
c.
One last consideration. Now that we have established superluminal
velocities, what are the complications?
Let us again use the Twins example.
Consulting the charts we see that to the Astronaut the round trip is
two seconds, whereas to the Astronomer it is four seconds. (Let us
transpose seconds to years).
What happens when the Astronaut lands and strolls over to stand
shoulder to shoulder with the Astronomer? He must necessarily see the
same as does the Astronomer. What would that be? And would that violate
any laws of physics?
We again consult our charts and we see that the landing must take place
at the first line of ASTRONOMER'S TABLE which is two years into his
observations. This is so because Astronaut's journey is two years.
Now, what do they both see?
Line 2 (double arrow). Translated, that means they "see" Astronaut
still on his outward journey though he is actually on his way inward.
Yes, Astronaut observes himself on his outward journey.
This transpires for 1.732 years. At the end of that time both parties
observe (line 3) Astronaut on his way in at the observed velocity of
1.732 light seconds /. 268 seconds or 6.463 light seconds / second.
Thus, the inward journey will be observed by both for .268 years.
Regardless of first impressions, this violates no laws of physics. Let
me relate an analogy.
A pilot of a super sonic jet traveling at a super sonic velocity turns
off his engine and glides silently. What does he experience? As he
slows down to subsonic velocities he hears, as it catches up to him,
the sonic boom created by his supersonic flight. So it is with light.
The question arises, what about the accepted concept that one can never
chase a light beam and catch up to it? *
Consider the following: As one increases their velocity in this
pursuit, the beam gradually reduces in frequency - until at the speed
of light, there is no frequency at all. If one exceeds this velocity
and then stops, it violates no law that he perceives the
electromagnetic vibrations left behind, same as the pilot having his
sonic boom overtake him. Note that the reduction in frequency does not
alter the fact of the beam always preceding the observer at c until the
frequency reaches zero.
Finally, as a consequence of the above, we see that there is no age
difference between Astronomer and Astronaut. Astronaut lands after two
years from departure - and Astronomer greets him two years into a
four year observation, the latter two of which they experience
together.
V. VERGON
October, 2004
----------------------------------------------------
* CHASING A LIGHT BEAM
In actuality it is impossible to chase a light beam (or photon) for
that means it is advancing before the observer. Photons or beams can
only be observed when they are approaching the observer. Therefore, the
situation must be that the observer is proceeding in the same direction
- and within - the light beam. Thus, in actuality, what he is
observing is the source of the emission - and from that he is
receding. Should he recede at the speed of light, the observed
transmission would have a frequency of zero.
ste...@nomail.com
: "tadchem" <tadche...@comcast.net> wrote
:> Unless I *assume* that the universe is logical, consistent, and ultimately
:> 'knowable', there is no point to my efforts to try to understand it. The
:> quest for knowledge would become an exercise in futility.
: o. k. .... if the universe is logical, then it should also be possible to,
: as you say, start with that premise and work your way to observation. It
: should be possible to derive physics from logical principles alone.
No, that does not follow. Logic depends on axioms. A logical universe
would depend on its axioms. Theoretically two different universes could
have the exact same rules of logic but start with different axioms and
as a result be very different.
Stephen
vergon_en...@highstream.net
much
simpler than that, and there's little need to complicate that picture.
(LATER)
I gather from your tone that you have not yet understood I am
*agreeing*
with you here
VERGON:
Semantics.
In my cultural background when someone told you to "stuff it" that
meant in your ear -- or where you sit. It is a pejorative remark.
And when you say, "give it something to do" , I took that to mean it
was useless.
However, I am pleased you agree. Especially since you are one of the
very few intellectuals on this NG.
Mike
<ste...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:cqq8ja$2qgf$1...@msunews.cl.msu.edu...
logical to us. For example, we can probably impose that the universe started
from a manifold, or perhaps a superposition of manifolds like in dynamical
triangulation. Then we would ask how particles could arise form such a
manifold. One suggestion might be that particles are places where spacetime
ends, they are holes in spacetime. There might be conservation laws that we
postulate such as a conservation of information. This might follow from the
assumption that the probability of the universe as a whole existing is
always a 100% certainty.
But ultimately, if physics cannot be derived from some self-evident axioms,
then we will never really know for certain that the laws of physics could
not instantly change and become something we did not expect. So the goal
remains to justify our underlying assumption that the universe is logical.
Mike Helland
> I believe reality is objective and exists independent of us.
Ok, I decided that since no one was agreeing with me, I should try to
agree with you :-)
I would love to hear what you think about this:
http://www.techmocracy.net/science/time.htm
mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>
>But ultimately, if physics cannot be derived from some self-evident axioms,
There ain't no such thing as "self evident axioms". You can get "oh,
these make good sense to me", but this doens't mean much.
>then we will never really know for certain that the laws of physics could
>not instantly change and become something we did not expect.
Indeed, we never really know for certain anything regarding physics,
and never will.
> So the goal remains to justify our underlying assumption that the universe
>is logical.
>
Unjustifiable, other than in probabilistic sense, i.e. "so far, so
good".
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
me...@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
vergon_en...@highstream.net
news:1104081520.3...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Vergon:
I repeat, prediction is important but the primary objective of
theorizing is to hook together all known phenomena -- in other words to
explain how the universe works -- prediction helps forwarding knowledge
by being confirmed.
Vergon:
Agreed. All I am saying is that there is more involved than just
prediction. Both prediction and explanation constitutes the bread and
butter of advancement. To use your analogy, the musician can't make
music without the instrument. It takes two to tango.
If you ever develop a theory you will see what I mean.
> If you haven't guessed it by now I must inform you - yes -- I have
> developed such a theory (model).Should you want to look at it go to
> http://www.wbabin.net -- then go to the pulldown marked "List of
> authors", find Vertner Vergon and click on that.
> The title of the work is On The Quantum as a Physical Entity.
Rah.
Vergon:
What does *that* mean?
> Also, speaking of the scientific process, you must realize that it is
> denatured by the egos and biases of the practitioners.
> True impartial objective reasoning is a rarity when it should be the
> norm.
The vetting process of independent observations - multiple
'experimenters',
including those seeking to discredit ideas they don't like - polishes
the
theories by removing the 'tool marks' left by the OEM. Scientists have
vaster differences of opinin than anybody else in a single
'organization'
except perhaps an Israeli political party.
Vergon:
Have you heard the Republicans and the Democrats in Congress?
The peer-review process and the
feedback of experiment and theory quite efficiently scrubs out any
personal
biases and egos, although it sometimes may take a generation or two.
Vergon.
Sorry, that is a naive viewpoint. Try and get a fair review on a
subject toward which bias floureshes. Naturally, everybody believes
their own theory is correct (even kooks). But I maintain my proposition
is air tight becuse there is no suppostion in any form -- just logic
used. The result is important to SR. Nonetheless
peer revue was denied by three journals which sumarily rejected it
because their bias was that (a) it was not a mathematical jungle, and
(b) it was about relativity, the kooks favorite stamping ground.
> It does contain a chain of logic involving accepted concepts in
special
> relativity, that and nothing more. Yet the conclusion is amazing and
> constitutes a step forward in the understanding of the theory. What
we
> have here is a logical construction not a mathematical one.
So you are a Cartesian rationalist, then...
Vergon:
Name calling will get you nowhere. :-)
I'm too novel to be categorized.
> In my humble opinion the only thing that would warrant rejection
would
> be to find a flaw in the logic. Naturally, I don't see one.
Xeno's paradoxes embodied perfect logic, as did Aristotle's astronomy.
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem established that no system of logic is
complete, and thus could permit logically consistent statements that
are
undecideable within the system of logic itself. The elegance of
empiricism
is that the experimental validation process can decide the validity or
invalidity of statements using a method that lies *outside* of the
finite
logical system.
Vergon:
Exactly, my logic deals with empiricism and accepted concepts of SR. It
is not internally dependent
You cannot disavow a logical construct by quoting that there are
defective constructs in history -- and they were defective. Show me
where mine is.
In my "humble" opinion, the only thing that warrants acceptance *or*
rejection of a theory (or of a _reinterpretation_ of a theory) is it
consistency or inconsistency with observations.
Vergon:
Again, exactly. I show in my thesis that SR is inconsistent with
empiricism -- that it requires moving clocks to keep proper time
and run slowly *simultaneously* -- and that it declares approaching
clocks to run slowly when empiricism shows them to run fast.
A cesium clock in the approach mode would be observed to run fast a la
the Doppler effect. SR says it would be observed to run slowly.
> Two things are accomplished. (1) The concept of time dilation is
shown
> to be invalid - and a different observed time replaces it. (2) When
> this new time concept is applied to the Twin Paradox, it resolves it
> *unquestionably*. This new time concept is empirically observed, and
not
> conjecture.
> For your perusal, I reproduce it here.
I will not pretend to have read and understood your article. I am a
bench
chemist. I am not really qualified to develop experimental tests of GR
or
even SR. I *do* feel qualified to discuss the advantages and
disadvantages
of empiricism and rationalism.
Vergon:
You may not have read it (shame on you) but I will guarantee you would
understand it -- that is of you have an elemental grasp of SR.
I had two years of chemistry before I realized that it was the theory
of atoms that enticed me. Also, I became entranced by SR when I was 14.
Since *you* feel that your task as a theoretician is to 'explain', can
you
explain what practical difference is made between your interpretation
of SR
and Einstein's? By 'practical' I of course mean 'observable' and
'measurable.'
VERGON:
I did that above. If you want a more detailed account, read the
article.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
vergon_en...@highstream.net
> On 26 Dec 2004 01:39:46 -0800, "Mike Helland" <mobyd...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > Paul Stowe wrote:
> Let's settle on a very specific example of something that you
> think only applies to the 'subjective'. Is Lorentz Covariance
> (the Foundation of SR) such a process?
Yes. As far as I know Einstein took this view too. That there was an
objective reality "beneath" the Lorentz transformation.
Again, this is as far as I know. I've been told this, and I've made
efforts to verify this claim with this language in Einstein's writings
(I'm almost sure it would be more likely to appear in his later
material) but I have not found anything yet.
Vergon:
If you are looking for an objective reality beneath the Lorentz
transformation, I can show you one.
But it requires a knowledge that is beyond your ken -- and the point is
you will have problems absorbing it. But here goes anyway (n outline,
actually).
THE DUAL VELOCITY THEORY OF RELATIVITY
A body moving at high velocity has two velocities, the velocity extant
(Newtonian), and the velocity observed (relativistic) -- much the same
as a fish in a pond has one location actual and another observed or
that a rod in a moving system has one length in that system and another
observed. The cause and effect mechanism of this latter phenomenon,
which results from the constancy of the velocity of light, is clearly
displayed. Also, it is shown to be both quantitatively and
qualitatively commensurate with relativistic mechanics.
The dual velocity phenomenon is referred to as an aberration, the
Newtonian
velocity is aberrated to be observed as a slower relativistic velocity.
It is found that energy requirements and momentum follow Newtonian
dynamics and that these quantities appear unchanged in the presence of
the aberrated relativistic velocity. The greater the velocity, the
greater the aberration.
*This aberration is the ratio of the Newtonian velocity to the
Relativistic velocity. This ratio is the Lorentz transformation. The
Newtonian velocity times the Lorentz transformation yields the
relativistic velocity*
The velocities transpose but the parameters do not. So the parameters
of the Newtonian velocities are found in the presence of the
corresponding relativistic velocity.
For example, at an infinitely great velocity (Newtonian) the energy
requirement is infinite and the momentum is infinite. This infinite
momentum observed in the company of the aberrated velocity c creates
the inference that the mass is infinite at that velocity- even though
the mass is invariant and is the rest mass.
The infinite energy observed at c is interpreted to mean that an
infinite energy is required to attain c. In section 4 of his famous
paper Einstein states: "... the velocity of light in our theory plays
the part, physically, of an infinitely great velocity".
At high Newtonian velocities the energy and momentum will be those of
Newtonian dynamics and observed as such but associated with the
observed
(aberrated) lesser relativistic velocity thus creating relativistic
dynamics. The Lorentz transformation is a measure of this aberration.
At high velocities the apparent length of a body will appear contracted
when in fact the body itself does not change in dimension. The
mechanism of this phenomenon is also displayed.
Transit times will be observed to be those of the Newtonian velocity
but associated with the lesser relativistic velocity. Thus an observer
will observe a transit time (in the frame of the object) to be less
than the relativistic velocity would indicate because it is actually
the transit time of the higher Newtonian velocity. This creates the
illusion that time has slowed (dilated) in the frame of the body.
At an infinitely great velocity the time for a body to transit any
distance is zero. Thus the time rate in the frame of the body will be
zero while the velocity will be observed as c. This creates the
impression that time stops still at c velocity. It is this phenomenon
that creates the time differential of moving clocks revealing that
whereas time is velocity invariant on the Newtonian scale, because of
the aberration, apparent time differentials exist between moving
frames.
Mike
<mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:6v5Ad.24$25.1...@news.uchicago.edu...
> In article <xJ3Ad.1021$uN2.3...@monger.newsread.com>, "Mike"
> <no....@please.com> writes:
>>
>>But ultimately, if physics cannot be derived from some self-evident
>>axioms,
>
> There ain't no such thing as "self evident axioms". You can get "oh,
> these make good sense to me", but this doens't mean much.
I don't think you could actually prove that reality is not logical. It
sounds like a contradiction of terms to suggest that you can prove that
something is not subject to logic. For it seems that any construction of a
proof automatically starts with the subject being compliant with logical
principles so that it is possible to proceed from there. Please think again,
for it seems to be the definition of insanity to suggest that something that
is real definitely contradicts logic. Can we at least agree to assume that
reality IS logical, but there may be some practical barriers preventing us
from discerning it in all detail?
robert j. kolker
Mike wrote:
> is real definitely contradicts logic. Can we at least agree to assume that
> reality IS logical, but there may be some practical barriers preventing us
> from discerning it in all detail?
Practical barriers such as mediocre senses, short lifespan and the
limitations of a three pound brain. That aside, we don't do too badly
for killer apes. We are the Smartest, Baddest Apes in the Monkey House.
Bob Kolker
ste...@nomail.com
: I don't think you could actually prove that reality is not logical. It
: sounds like a contradiction of terms to suggest that you can prove that
: something is not subject to logic. For it seems that any construction of a
: proof automatically starts with the subject being compliant with logical
: principles so that it is possible to proceed from there. Please think again,
: for it seems to be the definition of insanity to suggest that something that
: is real definitely contradicts logic. Can we at least agree to assume that
: reality IS logical, but there may be some practical barriers preventing us
: from discerning it in all detail?
People do assume that reality is logical. They just do not assume
that they can deduce the laws of nature without observation. You have
to make observations in order to find out what the Universe is like.
Einstein's relativity is not more logical than Galilean relativity,
it just matches observations better.
Science is like a very complicated version of 'determine the next number
in the sequence game'. You are given a sequence of numbers, such
as 2, 3, 5, 9, 26, and you need to figure out what the next number is.
The assumption that the Universe is logical is analogous to the assumption
that the sequence is determined by some formula. If the numbers
were just chosen randomly there is no way you could figure out which
one is next. You also need to be given some numbers in the first
place. These are analogous to observations. You need some data
to start with. There is no way to deduce what the sequence is
without observations, and there is no way to check your answer
without more observations.
Stephen
tadchem
Mike wrote:
<snip repost>
> I don't think you could actually prove that reality is not logical.
Logic is a construct of analytical minds. The universe is not.
Whatever the source of all that is the universe, it exists and
evidently its existence is independent of logic or analysis. It is
supremely *consistent*, however. Logic is simply a man-made tool for
trying to identifiy the consistencies of the universe.
> It
> sounds like a contradiction of terms to suggest that you can prove
that
> something is not subject to logic.
You haven't met my teen-age daughter, have you? :-[
> For it seems that any construction of a
> proof automatically starts with the subject being compliant with
logical
> principles so that it is possible to proceed from there. Please think
again,
> for it seems to be the definition of insanity to suggest that
something that
> is real definitely contradicts logic.
The physical, observable universe simply *is*. The universe cares not
one whit about logic. It is up to logic and those who create and use
logic to analyze and model the universe in a non-contradictory manner.
> Can we at least agree to assume that
> reality IS logical, but there may be some practical barriers
preventing us
> from discerning it in all detail?
No. The universe is self-consistent. Goedel proved that no finite
system of logic is complete and/or self-consistent.
The observable universe allows no paradoxes. Logic does. Logic is
subject to validation by the universe, not the other way around. Logic
is either right or wrong, and it is up to the universe to decide which.
The universe is never wrong.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Mike
"tadchem" <thomas....@dla.mil> wrote in message
news:1104261673.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Mike wrote:
>
> <snip repost>
>
>> I don't think you could actually prove that reality is not logical.
>
> Logic is a construct of analytical minds. The universe is not.
> Whatever the source of all that is the universe, it exists and
> evidently its existence is independent of logic or analysis. It is
> supremely *consistent*, however. Logic is simply a man-made tool for
> trying to identifiy the consistencies of the universe.
Consistency is just another term for logical.
Consistency means that if one fact/proposition proves a second, then the
second proves the first.
You can't mention the word "consistent" without implying the
existence/validity of logic.
>
>> For it seems that any construction of a
>> proof automatically starts with the subject being compliant with
> logical
>> principles so that it is possible to proceed from there. Please think
> again,
>> for it seems to be the definition of insanity to suggest that
> something that
>> is real definitely contradicts logic.
>
> The physical, observable universe simply *is*. The universe cares not
> one whit about logic. It is up to logic and those who create and use
> logic to analyze and model the universe in a non-contradictory manner.
The universe "is", as opposed to non-existence. Thus enters binary
propositional logic to model existence. Logic allows a true proposition to
be proven from a false proposition. And this models the posibility of the
universe being brought forth from nothing. But logic does not allow a false
proposition to be proven from a true premise. And since logic is our model
of the universe, this means that we don't expect the universe to simply pop
out of existence now that it is here. If the universe were not logical, then
we should account for the possibility of the universe to simply cease to
exist in an instant without explanation. Do you think that will ever happen?
Why not?
>
>> Can we at least agree to assume that
>> reality IS logical, but there may be some practical barriers
> preventing us
>> from discerning it in all detail?
>
> No. The universe is self-consistent. Goedel proved that no finite
> system of logic is complete and/or self-consistent.
How does Godel's Incompleteness Theorem have anything to do with reality? We
are not trying to find every single axiom that is valid. In fact we are only
trying to find one axiom from which the rest stem.
>
> The observable universe allows no paradoxes. Logic does. Logic is
> subject to validation by the universe, not the other way around. Logic
> is either right or wrong, and it is up to the universe to decide which.
> The universe is never wrong.
>
That sounds like a statement of faith. I doubt very much that such a
condition could ever be proven.
mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>
><mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
>news:6v5Ad.24$25.1...@news.uchicago.edu...
>> <no....@please.com> writes:
>>>
>>>But ultimately, if physics cannot be derived from some self-evident
>>>axioms,
>>
>> There ain't no such thing as "self evident axioms". You can get "oh,
>> these make good sense to me", but this doens't mean much.
>
And this has to do with what's written above what, exactly?
> It sounds like a contradiction of terms to suggest that you can prove that
>something is not subject to logic.
You should work on your reading comprehension. In no place did I talk
about what I can prove, only about what you cannot.
Mike
<mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:YNkAd.25$25.1...@news.uchicago.edu...
How could you not recognize the implications of what you said? You made a
statement that "there ain't no such thing as 'self evident axiom'". How
could this mean anything else other than that the universe is not reducible
to any system of logic? And I was stating that I didn't think it would be
possible to actually prove the universe not reducible to a system of logic.