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Post by mrsonde on Jan 12, 2014 9:41:22 GMT 1
No, that is the Feynman et al model of reality, i.e. a convenient means of calculating (but not explaining) what goes on. I would have thought that saying all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously is explanation enough! It doesn't explain a thing, just as your "God" or "cosmic intelligence" notion doesn't. An explanation demonstrates observations as deductions from an underlying structure. There is no underlying structure proposed here; and there is no deduction. For it to explain anything, it would have to specify how our particular observations materialise, rather than the infinite other possibilities - or, if you prefer, why this particular universe we experience is the privileged one, rather than the infinite others that "exist" in this (purely hypothetical, and forever - in principle - unverifiable and unfalsifiable) manner. No evidence for these assertions exist, or could possibly exist. What therefore does it explain?
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 12, 2014 9:51:25 GMT 1
This wasn't Feynman's view of the matter, actually - unless he changed it towards the end of his life, which I very much doubt. Feynman's interpretation was very much more subtle. This interpretation is down to Hugh Everett and Bryce DeWitt, and as far as I'm aware no one took it seriously - except the ever-provocative John Wheeler - until very recently (the 90s or so) when it somehow got entangled with an entirely different set of wild speculations known as superstring theory.
As for what they were studying - it certainly wasn't anything that supposedly exists in alternative universes, that in principle can't ever possibly be observed by anybody in this one, nor have any possible effect on anything in this one. What's to study?
And the accusation of "presumptiousness". No. Most definitely not as applied to anything Feynman ever came up with - as he himself insisted over and over. Nor anyone else, I think. Despite what the IPCC might like to think, science isn't some secret hierophantic arcana, suitable only for the Elected to learn or comment about.
I don't think so. A simple slip of the pen, I would say. Demonstrable by the immediately preceding passage which you conveniently chose to ignore.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 12, 2014 10:10:50 GMT 1
Your understanding of what experience and knowledge are is inadequate, and its inadequacies have led you to your bizarre conclusions (not speculations about QM). One of the leading reasons for that is you are seduced by what John Dewey termed "the spectator theory of knowledge" - a tendency to misconceive what rationality is that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You overlook our primary source of information and subsequent knowledge about the world - our physical interactions with it. This is how we first came to formulate concepts such as mass, inertia, gravity, motion, force, resistance, field, power, and so forth. We do not simply passively receive sensations from the world, we are not mere onlookers, juggling about "abstract ideas" and "information". If you went skiing you would experience this "directly" enough - but please do wear a helmet! Those abstract ideas shaped like rocks can be obstinately hard and unyielding, however you choose to "user-define" them.
Matrix mechanics accounts for all the data wave mechanics does - all possible data that fit the latter equally fit the former. The two formulations are mathematically equivalent.
I've pointed out before - I'm not the one insisting that a speculative theory based on no observations whatsoever - and no possible observations, furthermore - is a fact, scientifically confirmed time and again.
No, not you - that's my complaint! I am talking about them - I keep asking you how you can possibly explain them, when you insist that it is our perceiving "potentials" in the world that collapses them into the actualities that our perceptions create. According to you, therefore, "illusions" should exist, it's all the "reality" there is, and we would thus have no way or reason to ever discover that they are illusory. Right?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 11:52:35 GMT 1
I would have thought that saying all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously is explanation enough! No. You must learn to distinguish between mathematical models and reality. Otherwise you will end up sharing the delusions of the IPCC, Lysenko, and pretty well every other intellectual failure. Define reality. Not poetic language - logical language. How can something exist for me if I have never experienced the perceptual existence of it? It may exist for others but that is beside the point. If someone told me they had seen a unicorn, for example, why would I assume unicorns actually exist until I had seen one with my own eyes? That does not really stand up I'm afraid because, for example, in the cosmic double-slit experiment (which you may or may not be familiar with) as soon as one observer at one location makes a measurement in a particular way, another observer on a more distant location then has no more choice in how to set-up the experiment and thereby obtain different results, if your view is correct. The implication of this is that as soon as some scientific experiment has produced data it becomes fixed forever and not amenable to falsification, which seems absurd.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 12:58:49 GMT 1
You have frequently said our experience is entirely subjective. In fact, you've frequently gone further and claimed that reality is entirely subjective! But never mind. Explain what you mean instead by "known directly". What is it to know something in a direct way? Answer this and we might start to learn what you mean by "subjective and "objective". Noumenon : a posited object or event as it appears in itself independent of perception by the senses. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noumenal But it is knowledge gained from experience. You really are splitting hairs very badly here. Primary qualities and the method we choose to measure them are just part of the whole sensory theatre of human psychology. We still need to express things within our own psychological make-up. There is a difference between philosophy and science. Currently we have philosophical discussions about the nature of reality and have to live with it! Exactly, which shows that we have to use analogies in order to erect models of what the data is telling us. Mathematics itself is only an analogy, in the final analysis. I cannot imagine our experience being anything but that, so why don't you just admit this is all we have? This is my whole point yet you seem to think we have access to something beyond experience - a contradiction if I ever heard one! The reason you think this is probably because you are not reading and digesting my posts properly. Probability waves are merely an analogue, a model. We may only ever model reality. But would your spider be able to appreciate Shakespeare or a Mozart symphony? However, you have to ask how and why your formula comes about. Is it something that existed before people thought about force? Which is why you should be thinking about QM because it causes us to question many assumptions about reality that hitherto were not addressed. My response has never altered - we can only construct reality in our own terms, end of. Ok, let me put it this way. Would that still be true for dead people who possess no consciousness? His ideas about the nature of reality have nothing to do with these and are still as relevant today as they were then. Nobody said Kant was correct about everything. It is the word "existed" which is at issue here. You cannot simply dismiss it by using fancy words like "tautology".
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 13:40:11 GMT 1
I politely ask Abacus to answer this question ie did the space between New York and London exist before it was measured? Perhaps you can be good enough to answer a second, closely-related, question, did the space between the Earth and the Moon exist before it was measured? Only to observers. No observers, no space.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 13:51:17 GMT 1
I would have thought that saying all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously is explanation enough! It doesn't explain a thing, just as your "God" or "cosmic intelligence" notion doesn't. An explanation demonstrates observations as deductions from an underlying structure. There is no underlying structure proposed here; and there is no deduction. For it to explain anything, it would have to specify how our particular observations materialise, rather than the infinite other possibilities - or, if you prefer, why this particular universe we experience is the privileged one, rather than the infinite others that "exist" in this (purely hypothetical, and forever - in principle - unverifiable and unfalsifiable) manner. How many more times must I tell you that we cannot really explain anything - all we can do is make mental models of our experiences that prove to be useful. There is no ultimate explanation of anything. It is arguing from a a priori position. For example, there are probably things in the universe that we have never experienced or even thought of yet if and when we come into interaction with them, or rather, the potential of interacting with them, they will become part of our "reality".
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 14:05:42 GMT 1
This wasn't Feynman's view of the matter, actually - unless he changed it towards the end of his life, which I very much doubt. Feynman's interpretation was very much more subtle. This interpretation is down to Hugh Everett and Bryce DeWitt, and as far as I'm aware no one took it seriously - except the ever-provocative John Wheeler - until very recently (the 90s or so) when it somehow got entangled with an entirely different set of wild speculations known as superstring theory. As for what they were studying - it certainly wasn't anything that supposedly exists in alternative universes, that in principle can't ever possibly be observed by anybody in this one, nor have any possible effect on anything in this one. What's to study? And the accusation of "presumptiousness". No. Most definitely not as applied to anything Feynman ever came up with - as he himself insisted over and over. Nor anyone else, I think. Despite what the IPCC might like to think, science isn't some secret hierophantic arcana, suitable only for the Elected to learn or comment about. What you have not grasped is that whatever interpretation you choose, you are effectively "picking out" a particular way of experiencing the universe. What this means is that you create your own, subjective "working space" that then goes on to develop and fill out over time. Feynman's ideas acted as a starting point for this process to begin. Since we are in the realm of philosophy you have no reason to reject his ideas since they cannot be scientifically tested, although it is obvious to me the many histories concept is valid as a working hypothesis. The man stated that for something to be real it has to be observed! You cannot get much more unambiguous than that.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 14:25:11 GMT 1
Your understanding of what experience and knowledge are is inadequate, and its inadequacies have led you to your bizarre conclusions (not speculations about QM). One of the leading reasons for that is you are seduced by what John Dewey termed "the spectator theory of knowledge" - a tendency to misconceive what rationality is that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You overlook our primary source of information and subsequent knowledge about the world - our physical interactions with it. This is how we first came to formulate concepts such as mass, inertia, gravity, motion, force, resistance, field, power, and so forth. We do not simply passively receive sensations from the world, we are not mere onlookers, juggling about "abstract ideas" and "information". If you went skiing you would experience this "directly" enough - but please do wear a helmet! Those abstract ideas shaped like rocks can be obstinately hard and unyielding, however you choose to "user-define" them. Abstract ideas that are based on our primary perceptions, yes. Since such perceptions are not the "things in themselves" our abstract ideas are inevitably more about us than the original cause. Yes, so we are really talking about the same thing! They are equivalent fantasies of the noumenal realm. I have referred to scientific observations throughout. What are you talking about? They do exist. For example, many works of art, including plays and movies, began as illusions. Even scientific progress relies on dreamers who ask questions and thereby create new realities. Einstein was said to be a dreamer. Newton wanted to "know the mind of God" through scientific means.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 12, 2014 14:51:47 GMT 1
I politely ask Abacus to answer this question ie did the space between New York and London exist before it was measured? Perhaps you can be good enough to answer a second, closely-related, question, did the space between the Earth and the Moon exist before it was measured? Only to observers. No observers, no space. That's not quite as full an answer as I was hoping for, but I thank you for at least an answer. So you are actually saying that, until somebody first went on a ship from England to (what is now) New York, there weren't the thousands of miles of (what we now call) the Atlantic Ocean, there existed only sea a few miles out on each coast, that being the only part of the ocean that could be observed? I am also interested in the apparent sophistry you display when you write: Now reality can be defined as what is true. You are asserting things about the nature of the Universe, in other words you are advocating a view of reality, and you apparently hold this view to be the true view of reality. And anyway, you have no difficulty in using the word "reality" eg So what do YOU mean be "reality" in that sentence? But later you go on to say: What about your explanation for things coming into existence by observation? I thought that was your ultimate explanation of everything? Or are you just playing a game here?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 17:41:54 GMT 1
Only to observers. No observers, no space. That's not quite as full an answer as I was hoping for, but I thank you for at least an answer. So you are actually saying that, until somebody first went on a ship from England to (what is now) New York, there weren't the thousands of miles of (what we now call) the Atlantic Ocean, there existed only sea a few miles out on each coast, that being the only part of the ocean that could be observed? Well, one of the problems with assuming things are there whether observers are about or not is that it is impossible to prove. So, however much commonsense might persuade you that the Atlantic Ocean must have always have existed before people explored it you can never actually prove it logically. How could you since you would have to have people see it before they actually knew it was there, but then that is not the same as it existing without people seeing it because that violates the terms of the experiment. It is a sort of Catch-22 situation.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 12, 2014 18:40:41 GMT 1
I'm not going to argue against any of that; I want you to address the questions I last asked you, about your assertion that things become actualised by observation. Even though you are asserting that our apprehension of reality is at one remove, we only get subjective (and selective) responses to what is there in actuality, you nevertheless keep saying that our action of observation (even though it is a subjective operation for a human to observe, you seem to say) causes actual change in what is happening in reality (I think).
You have not given your definition of reality yet - though you do use the word. I also want you to address my questions about what you believe to be real/true. You have, throughout this discussion, been asserting that the Universe has a way of coming into existence by observation by conscious beings - now are you saying that is what happens "in reality", that what you say there is "true"?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 12, 2014 19:59:04 GMT 1
I'm not going to argue against any of that; I want you to address the questions I last asked you, about your assertion that things become actualised by observation. Even though you are asserting that our apprehension of reality is at one remove, we only get subjective (and selective) responses to what is there in actuality, you nevertheless keep saying that our action of observation (even though it is a subjective operation for a human to observe, you seem to say) causes actual change in what is happening in reality (I think). You have not given your definition of reality yet - though you do use the word. I also want you to address my questions about what you believe to be real/true. You have, throughout this discussion, been asserting that the Universe has a way of coming into existence by observation by conscious beings - now are you saying that is what happens "in reality", that what you say there is "true"? I have actually answered your question on a number occasions but for some reason you have not acknowledged it. This my be because you do not like the answer I have given, who knows? Reality, or to be more precise, objective reality, is caused by the interaction of conscious beings and the things in themselves, as outlined above. If you are asking me what the things in themselves are I cannot tell you because they are forever hidden from human perceptions. So, it is incorrect to say that there is "a" reality, something I suspect that you wish to define once and for all. If you want a short answer then it is that reality is that which we observe or measure because even an observation is a kind of measurement since our senses automatically detect and encode incoming sensations. I tend to think you will not be satisfied with this definition because you have a fixed idea about what reality should be, however, you need to forget about intuition and commonsense and use logic and reason to understand. It might be useful to find out what your definition of reality is because then we might be able to come to a better mutual understanding of this question.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 13, 2014 2:19:31 GMT 1
No, the interaction is the cause of experience. The fact that the hydrogen spectrum looks the same whatever the source, whoever the observer, and whenever the electron transitions occured, implies that reality pre-exists observation.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 13, 2014 6:28:46 GMT 1
I'm making no analogies - I'm talking completely literally. "Atoms, wood, the nervous system and so forth" are things that exist in the real world, thankyou. I still have no idea what you mean by "user-defined" - it strikes me as gibberish, frankly. The existence of atoms, wood, the nervous system and so forth are confirmable in a thousand different ways - by using various perceptual apparatus, certainly, if you choose to say by looking at them etc they "exist in the perceptual world". Nothing at all amiss about that - as I've explained, and you've admitted, our perceptions give us access to the real world. Or you can photograph them, take X-rays of them, analyse their elemental and molecular composition, measure their extensions and masses and electromagnetic interactions, "see" the very atoms and electrons they're composed of using an electron-tunnelling microscope, PET scans, and so forth and so forth. You can trace wood from its seed through its development as a tree to your chopping it down and cutting it up and shaping it into a guitar; you can do the same with an ear, or the nervous system. All this data mutually confirms each other in a systematic manner, leading to hypotheses about underlying structures that explain the data, and which can then be confirmed by further investigations - and is and has been so confirmed. This is what science is, this is what knowledge is, this is what reason is. By its means and potentiality we can learn to understand the world, and develop from amoeba to walking on the Moon and building devices like the ones we're using now.
Your claim on the other hand is mere empty dogmatism. There is not a shred of evidence for it, nor could there be. No possible observation could support your diktat; it leads to no further possible enquiry; it is not knowledge, it is not rational, it is not scientific; it can never be confirmed, never be falsified, explains nothing, describes nothing: it merely leads to intellectual atrophy. It leaves our abilities to learn about the world completely unexplained, even in principle.
I've told you - I consider it fundamentally meaningless. The "thing-in-itself", insofar as I can discern any meaning at all in the term, is it seems to me very likely to be energy, formed into its multifarious forms. It is those forms that we experience and come to "know". That's it - that's all there is to it. Ultimately, "appearances" are exactly all there is to know. And then there's energy, and the void the deformations of which is how it arises and all that it Is. We don't and can't "know" this - we experience it, no doubt, but this is not knowledge.
Kant is a key historical development, abacus, as Newtonian mechanics was, or Maxwell's equations; but it's 19th Century stuff. Philosophy has moved on, developed, progressed, just as science has, in just the same sort of manner.
Substantiated enough, I think.
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