|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 16, 2013 15:26:19 GMT 1
Your claim has been that this current model could feasibly be replaced, and I'm pointing out that nevertheless by this process we discover truths about an existent universe - so that our "paradigm" (accursed term!) could not be replaced by one that contradicts it: by one that, for example, presents a model of water that says it is not composed of hydrogen and oxygen; or one that says the Earth is not approximately spherical. I keep pointing out to you that your metaphysic entirely ignores and leaves unexplained this crucial feature of our understanding - of what knowledge of reality is. If you ever responded to points put to you, we wouldn't have to keep going round and round in circles like this. All you are really saying is that we construct models of our experienced reality which seem to work in a consistent way and over time but does that mean such models describe the phenomena in totality and forever? We see the earth as a sphere but this might be but one aspect we readily see and use in a utilitarian way but there may be aspects that escape us because we have no use for them, at least not so far. How do we know, for example, that the earth does not exist in another dimension or dimensions as well as the one we know about? The point I'm trying to make is that we choose which reality to call reality based on its ability to appeal to our predisposed patterns of thought which usually implies something that allows us to exploit it in terms of usefulness. In a sense, we are in agreement about an independent existent universe but not the form. You insist it is equivalent to what we experience before we experience it while I maintain it is different. Which false premises?
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 15:33:31 GMT 1
She didn't say she had no proofs, she said she had no absolute proof. That is, she was correctly using the word proof in the two distinct ways I've already explained to you several times over: one, in the accepted sense of adequate empirical evidence; the other in the sense you keep conflating it with of logical demonstration.
She has given you a proof in the example of Neptune - the proof was the perturbation of the orbit of Uranus, and its subsequent discovery. Something your metaphysic is totally inadequate to explain.
Here's another one. I was watching the other afternoon a repeat of an enthralling BBC documentary about an expedition to a part of completely unexplored Borneo. A team of various scientific disciplines descended into an open shaft of about thirty feet diameter that had very recently (a few years) opened up to sunlight by the collapse of its limestone ceiling. They were it can reasonably be certain the first human beings to do so. On reaching the bottom, a further opening was found, leading into a long tight tunnel; with more courage and foolishness than I can credit, they crawled and squeezed their way through to a vast cathedral-like chamber, and further network of chambers - an entirely unexplored complex of caverns. These were the first humans - the first mammals, indeed - ever to lay eyes on these caves.
Under the terms of your metaphysical theory, these caves were created - brought into actuality - by these novel observations. Before this documentary, they did not actually exist - except (perhaps) as some sort of undefined and mysterious something you call "potentials".
And yet, here we see stalagmites and stalactites, calciferous structures that have - according to a realist metaphysic - taken centuries of depositation to form. How are you able to explain this? According to you, not only do these and other features of these caverns somehow come into existence only when observed, for the first time last year, but they do so in a way that mischievously deludes us into accounting for their forms by projecting their evolution thousands of years back into an unobserved past. And we can do so in a systematic manner!
For you, this is a complete mystery, this process of scientific, rational explanation...
...And hence it is by far the better hypothesis that explains our experience. This is why it is rationally preferable to your metaphysic, even though one cannot "know" it to be true in the sense it is a valid logical system. We "know" it empirically, as a valid deduction drawn from a hypothesis; and the support for the hypothesis is the evidence.
Logical proof has nowt to do with empirical propositions. How many more times??!
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 15:56:01 GMT 1
I know. But you don't seem to appreciate the point, however many times I say it. This is it: the above metaphysic is able to produce rational explanations of our experience; yours can't. See? This process of "discovery" by deductive means does not mean there has to be something pre-existing in its fully developed state before somebody focusses on it. Yes, it does - whatever you may mean by "fully developed state", in the example of Neptune's deductive discovery under consideration it means at the very least that it has locality in space and time, that it has mass, interacting gravitationally with Uranus, that it emits photons, enabling it to be observed, that their spectra exhibit characteristics leading us to be confident of the elements its atmosphere contains...and so on. Virtually every primary quality observable about it has been confirmed. It is such confirmations that constitute what is meant by empirical proof. A logical proof would say absolutely nothing about empirical reality: it would merely be a valid conclusion drawn from stated premises, which can be completely false as far as the logical process of proof is concerned. If you use language in a way that is entirely idiosyncratic to yourself, you're not communicating at all.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 15:58:47 GMT 1
Berkeley's dead, alas, and besides he had the excuse that he had not yet been adequately responded to. You could begin, though. I suggest your first step should be what he would have done: respond to the points put back to you. Try to take on board that very fine minds have been cogitating and arguing about what we're talking about here for thousands of years, that what you're saying is not new but was all said centuries ago, in a far more convincing manner, and has since been thoroughly answered. We all have the right to our own opinions. You are attempting to explain our experience. An "opinion" isn't adequate - you need rational argumentation.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 16:08:50 GMT 1
Science attempts to elaborate "explanations of our experience" of reality, that's the difference between us. Or should be, if you had the courage of your convictions. But science must be tempered by logic, which is the role of philosophy. ;D Yes, certainly. A point I've made to you several times before too, I think. By the way - you won't find many scientists conceding to the assertion that they don't use logic! I know that's what you've stated. My point is: you have no rational ground to do so, given your metaphysical theory! Your "potentials" are an entirely ad hoc superfluity! No evidence possible for them, and they play no explanatory role. Explain how we are able to have any experience of this "something external to our perceptions" if all we experience of reality is this plus our interpretation of this source? How are the two untangled, if all they consist of are subjective experiences? It would not be correct to say this at all. It is not what is generally meant. In fact, what is generally meant absolutely demands a distinction between "reality" and "subjective experience" for the phrase "subjective experience" to have any sense at all.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 16, 2013 16:57:08 GMT 1
She didn't say she had no proofs, she said she had no absolute proof. That is, she was correctly using the word proof in the two distinct ways I've already explained to you several times over: one, in the accepted sense of adequate empirical evidence; the other in the sense you keep conflating it with of logical demonstration. She has given you a proof in the example of Neptune - the proof was the perturbation of the orbit of Uranus, and its subsequent discovery. Something your metaphysic is totally inadequate to explain. Here's another one. I was watching the other afternoon a repeat of an enthralling BBC documentary about an expedition to a part of completely unexplored Borneo. A team of various scientific disciplines descended into an open shaft of about thirty feet diameter that had very recently (a few years) opened up to sunlight by the collapse of its limestone ceiling. They were it can reasonably be certain the first human beings to do so. On reaching the bottom, a further opening was found, leading into a long tight tunnel; with more courage and foolishness than I can credit, they crawled and squeezed their way through to a vast cathedral-like chamber, and further network of chambers - an entirely unexplored complex of caverns. These were the first humans - the first mammals, indeed - ever to lay eyes on these caves. Under the terms of your metaphysical theory, these caves were created - brought into actuality - by these novel observations. Before this documentary, they did not actually exist - except (perhaps) as some sort of undefined and mysterious something you call "potentials". And yet, here we see stalagmites and stalactites, calciferous structures that have - according to a realist metaphysic - taken centuries of depositation to form. How are you able to explain this? According to you, not only do these and other features of these caverns somehow come into existence only when observed, for the first time last year, but they do so in a way that mischievously deludes us into accounting for their forms by projecting their evolution thousands of years back into an unobserved past. And we can do so in a systematic manner! For you, this is a complete mystery, this process of scientific, rational explanation... ...And hence it is by far the better hypothesis that explains our experience. This is why it is rationally preferable to your metaphysic, even though one cannot "know" it to be true in the sense it is a valid logical system. We "know" it empirically, as a valid deduction drawn from a hypothesis; and the support for the hypothesis is the evidence.Logical proof has nowt to do with empirical propositions. How many more times??! Then how do you account for Wheeler's cosmic double slit experiment where how we choose to measure something in the present alters some event that happened in the distant past, even many millions of years before mammals, let alone humans, existed? This experiment shows that reality isn't pre-packaged, ready for us to stumble upon but is suspended in a potential awaiting an observer to interact with it and define it depending on how the observer chooses to measure it. In the case of the aforementioned experiment, there is only a limited set of ways to arrange the apparatus in order to measure the light coming from a distant galaxy but in daily life when we first observe something in our environment we automatically arrange whatever potentials exist out there according to our "physiological" measuring apparatus. This is scientific proof of my basic theory, yet you choose to ignore it. Why? "We will see that, like a particle, the universe doesn't have just a single history, but every possible history, each with its own probability; and our observations of its current state affect its past and determine the different histories of the universe, just as the observations of the particles in the double-slit experiment affect the particles' past." www2.fodian.net/world/art/art_past.htmWhat this says is that the universe has all possible histories and by us making an observation we "force" a particular history out of the myriad to become "reality."This is the meaning of "potentials."
|
|
|
Post by fascinating on Dec 16, 2013 21:55:52 GMT 1
Abacus9900 said
OK let's be skeptical, skeptical that the Universe can exist if there are no observers present. Equally, let's be skeptical that the Universe cannot exist without observers present. Now where does that get us?
We are onto page 14 in this discussion and I think we are not much further forward in mutual understanding. I want to try a different tack and concentrate on specific issues and questions. I hope that you will henceforth agree to answer any specific questions put to you, and I will agree to answer questions put to me.
Take your imaginary Universe consisting entirely of an oven. Your Universe consists entirely of (what you call) an oven, which is made up of atoms and molecules, and no observers of any kind. Am I right in thinking that you are asserting that, as there are no observers of the oven, then such a Universe is impossible? I would be glad if you would answer.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 17, 2013 10:09:33 GMT 1
Abacus9900 said OK let's be skeptical, skeptical that the Universe can exist if there are no observers present. Equally, let's be skeptical that the Universe cannot exist without observers present. Now where does that get us? We are onto page 14 in this discussion and I think we are not much further forward in mutual understanding. I want to try a different tack and concentrate on specific issues and questions. I hope that you will henceforth agree to answer any specific questions put to you, and I will agree to answer questions put to me. Take your imaginary Universe consisting entirely of an oven. Your Universe consists entirely of (what you call) an oven, which is made up of atoms and molecules, and no observers of any kind. Am I right in thinking that you are asserting that, as there are no observers of the oven, then such a Universe is impossible? I would be glad if you would answer. We have to be careful when we talk about atoms and molecules, etc., because objects like this only exist as objects when we measure them. If you refer back to the measurement problem and the link I gave you, you will see there isn't a world of fundamental particles that exist independently of observation but a state of spread out waves of probability which only turn into particles on measurement. So, our imaginary oven wouldn't even be composed of solid particles in a completely unobserved universe and therefore could not possibly be an oven at all! All this is established scientific fact so why people here keep denying it is still rather perplexing to me.
|
|
|
Post by fascinating on Dec 17, 2013 10:38:27 GMT 1
As you have not given a direct answer to my question as whether the Universe consisting entirely of an oven is possible or not, I give up in frustration.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 18, 2013 2:37:50 GMT 1
Describe the phenomena? Yes. Another repetition required: our "models of experienced reality" do not attempt to decribe the phenomena. They're hypothetical underlying structures that if existent would give rise to the phenomena. Now, these aren't accurately descriptive in totality and forever, obviously - they're not intended to be. They're hypotheses, explaining as best we can what we can observe. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that they can't be true, in totality and forever, within their remit. New York City is in New York State (sorry - the area of land we call such), and this is true in itself, without any need for qualification, and always will be.
There are no possible aspects that would negate the fact that it is a sphere. Here's a good example of a hypothesis that has become a fact, through phenomenal observation. There are many many other such - theories are not condemned to always remain in that status. The existence and action of germs, viruses, prions, vitamins, atoms, elements, for example. The double helical structure of DNA was once a theory - since 1990, we have photographs of it.
That would not negate the fact that it's spherical in the three the assertion refers to. Maths cannot be self-contradictory.
You need another term for this thing you wrongly call "reality".
We are in agreement merely because - for no reason yet elucidated - you contradict yourself.
You maintain that we and other observers play a crucial role in creating it. This is not what I mean by "independent" and "existent".
As for your misrepresentation of what I insist, I have specifically said that the equivalence lies in its primary qualities - because they can be perceived and correctly abstracted from experience in the same way they exist in reality. A sphere is a sphere as defined mathematically and as it exists in space.
But - I hesitate to go into this now, because it's leaping so far ahead, and due to your reluctance to respond properly to anyone else's posts we're still hardly much further than the beginning. Chapter 2 or 3 at most - and this is jumping on to Chapter 16 at least. But what the hell, never mind.
Yes - it would be my developed position that the things we experience in the universe are by and large perceived accurately, pretty much as they are. At least - what we experience of them is a valid and true representation, a correct registration of what is actually there: though it must be stressed, the parts that we can and do perceive. The Earth is a sphere, even though it might be a hypersphere in higher dimensions too. It must also be stressed that this doesn't mean we don't often make mistakes - visual illusions, cognitive distortions, mistaken beliefs, and so on.
This developed argument that I'm being daft enough to anticipate would include secondary qualities, by the way: that is to say, the primary/secondary quality distinction is in important respects a mistaken analysis (Berkeley was right in this respect). But the correction to the mistake is in the opposite direction to yours - primary qualities aren't equal in status to secondaries, it's the other way around.
As I said - that's jumping ahead. Let's clear up the confusion we're in first.
You don't know your premises, or you don't know wherein lies their falsity?
These are your premises, as you've stated them:
1) Everything we know about the world is as a result of receiving sensations through our bodily senses, and by mentally processing those sensations in our brains.
2) We have no way of saying that sensations and our mental processing of them have any relation to a world outside of them. (A being with different sorts of senses or a different type of brain might receive completely different sensations, and thereby construct the supposed outside world to it in an entirely different way.)
You've stated both these premises several times, in several different ways. If you now wish to resile from either of them, please say so now.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 18, 2013 3:12:07 GMT 1
This is not how I would describe the process hypothesised in this thought experiment. There's a snake's nest of assumptions and unexpressed "philosophical speculations" hidden within that description.
I would take the time to analyse them, but I've already pointed out to you the basic drawbacks in drawing so far illegitimate conclusions about the nature of "the universe" from our current understanding of quantum physics. It is a fascinating subject, and I certainly expected to be discussing those matters when I opened this thread - but now it's taken on this unexpected direction, for 14 pages, I think it would be appropriate to do so elsewhere.
No, it doesn't. At present, the most it says is that our current understanding of what we call quantum physics is inadequate to explain certain observations of the behaviour of elementary particles.
When we observe something in our environment it is something - we never observe a probability wave. That's an artifact in our mathematical equations. If it corresponds to anything that actually occurs in reality is another matter. To the extent that elementary particles do indeed behave like waves, it probably does - at root it's the basic wave equation, the same thing that describes a sound wave or a wave on the ocean, after all. Born's assertion that this is a probability wave is I strongly suspect a fundamental error in the whole subject (I'm far from being the only one, before you accuse me of arrogance - I'm happy to be in the company of Schrodinger, de Broglie, Planck, Einstein, and a host of other Nobel Prize-winning physicists.)
Again, a nest of undemonstrated assumptions in that assertion. I would say they're almost certainly wrong. If they helped you gain a clearer understanding of what is actually going on in these experiments, I wouldn't be so sure. As it is, they merely add to the confusion.
I've told you. If this is the only proof of your theory - the only reason you're propounding it - then you need to give an account of how quantum objects relate to macroscopic ones before you can infer that anything "observed" of them implies anything at all about the rest of reality (which, as a matter of fact, is all we "observe".)
The usual utter gobbledygook spouted by physicists whenever they start to expostulate on quantum mechanics. I can give you many more such quotes from famous physicists, saying even more bizarre nonsense (and most of them directly contradicting this particular interpretation you've chosen to seize upon.)
Yes, I gathered long ago. So when I repeatedly asked you whether you were drawing your theory from quantum physics - not to mention this particular absurd interpretation of it - and that "potentials" actually means uncollapsed wavefunctions, why didn't you simply respond with a resounding yes? It would have saved us all a lot of time and bother.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 18, 2013 3:47:38 GMT 1
Abacus9900 said OK let's be skeptical, skeptical that the Universe can exist if there are no observers present. Equally, let's be skeptical that the Universe cannot exist without observers present. Now where does that get us? We are onto page 14 in this discussion and I think we are not much further forward in mutual understanding. I want to try a different tack and concentrate on specific issues and questions. I hope that you will henceforth agree to answer any specific questions put to you, and I will agree to answer questions put to me. Take your imaginary Universe consisting entirely of an oven. Your Universe consists entirely of (what you call) an oven, which is made up of atoms and molecules, and no observers of any kind. Am I right in thinking that you are asserting that, as there are no observers of the oven, then such a Universe is impossible? I would be glad if you would answer. We have to be careful when we talk about atoms and molecules, etc., because objects like this only exist as objects when we measure them. Your evidence for this is? She might see that this is what some commentator has said about particles and the world. If she actually looks at the data that the commentator is drawing this theory from, she'll see that in actual fact no "waves of probability" have ever been seen, by anyone, but only particles. In certain circumstances, arranged in patterns that strongly suggest that they move as waves do - that very likely they may in fact be waves (real, physical, existent waves, not mathematically abstract ones.) An illegitimate extrapolation; an assumption that mathematical inferences drawn from observations made on loose and lone elementary particles apply to systematised conglomerations of them. I've pointed out to you before - no one pretends they know how to make this extrapolation. An electron, for example, may be a spread out wave - but it's still entirely contained within an atom when its surrounding a nucleus! (Not quite absolutely true, but near enough, quibblers.) A photon may be a wave expanding spherically through the universe when emitted - but it is emitted, and more to the point it is absorbed: from and into atoms. Entirely hypothetically, an atom can be treated as a quantum object - with amongst other incomprehensible costs the price of treating the universe as if it was made up of hundreds of distinct dimensions - and considered as a spread-out wave too, but it's still bonded with other atoms in a molecule! A molecule can be treated quantum mechanically - again, purely mathematically - but it's still part of, say, a rod of iron, or an egg. And so on. Because it's not established fact. It's a highly dubious theory, expressed in highly dubious terms. Physicists are not philosophers - with very few exceptions, they don't have the experience, the training, or the aptitude. Still less are "popular science" writers. Einstein was one such rare exception; from the other direction, Popper was another. Neither of them agreed with your cited characterisation. Neither of them could explain these odd observations either, but that doesn't detract from the point - that these conclusions of yours do not follow from the facts. Something else does, but we don't yet understand what - the usual situation in science, incidentally. May I recommend you read Susan Stebbing's excellent "Philosophy and the Physicists" to gain some much-needed appreciation of just how daft are some of the things even the best physicists say about these and related matters? Precisely because when attempting to philosophise and draw logical conclusions they are so obviously out of their depth? It's still in print (Pelican): a short and eminently readable devastating critique of the sort of illegitimate reasoning you've quoted above. You could learn the same lesson from Popper's "Conjectures and Refutations" too, though in fairness that's not so brilliant - Stebbing was something else.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 18, 2013 4:06:03 GMT 1
As you have not given a direct answer to my question as whether the Universe consisting entirely of an oven is possible or not, I give up in frustration. I hope you don't do that. It is very irksome and a little rude, I agree. But otherwise it's an interesting and enjoyable debate, I think, and you have a valuable knack for progressing it.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 18, 2013 5:27:46 GMT 1
By the way, abacus, this is one of the points that has been put to you twice already that you still haven't answered yet. How these sorts of cognitive error are possible if your metaphysical theory were true needs explaining. It's no good saying something like "there are these things called potentials" - according to you, we've already collapsed a certain set of them. How would we ever come to realise we'd made a mistake and replace them with something we deem more correct? We're able to uncollapse these wavefunctions too, as well as bring them into full existence? How?
Try to give a coherent rational answer to this question without contradicting this previous statement:
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 19, 2013 16:21:02 GMT 1
Your claim has been that this current model could feasibly be replaced, and I'm pointing out that nevertheless by this process we discover truths about an existent universe - so that our "paradigm" (accursed term!) could not be replaced by one that contradicts it: by one that, for example, presents a model of water that says it is not composed of hydrogen and oxygen; or one that says the Earth is not approximately spherical. I keep pointing out to you that your metaphysic entirely ignores and leaves unexplained this crucial feature of our understanding - of what knowledge of reality is. If you ever responded to points put to you, we wouldn't have to keep going round and round in circles like this. It is not a question of contradicting what knowledge we acquire from our interaction with nature but of realising such knowledge it highly subjective in that it represents our particular interpretations of the qualia we experience as a result of our idiosyncratic predispositions. This is where you keep going wrong - by arguing from a scientific standpoint when you should be looking beyond the science. They are "true" for a specific set of circumstances, not in any absolute sense. Yes, but, again, not in any universal, absolute sense. Actually, it has been shown that even mathematics can be self-contradictory, given sufficient complex axioms. No, I don 't because any term would be contentious. You still can't seem to make the intellectual leap of realising reality is interdependent, not independent. Until you are able to free yourself from what is essentially still a Newtonian view of the world you will never change your opinion. 2) is incorrect. There has to be some relation between our mental processing and the world outside of them else we would not be able to make an interpretation.
|
|