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Post by mrsonde on Jan 10, 2014 3:49:53 GMT 1
Look at a star. The spectrum you see is the result of quantum interactions between electrons and atoms that took place anything from a few minutes ago to millions of years before any conscious beings evolved, and the spectra are reproducible anywhere in the universe or the laboratory. Therefore electrons do exist, and go about their business entirely independently of any observer. Don't confuse the Schrodinger wave function model, which allows you to calculate the behaviour of particles, with reality, which is the observed behaviour of particles. Except that you seem to be overlooking the fact that all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously and it is the participation of an "observer", however far removed in time, that determines what particular reality is experienced. Neither of these assertions are "facts". Nor is there the slightest evidence that they could be. They're merely yet further bonkers gobbledygook. I knew you'd pay for that mistake, Alan.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 10, 2014 3:54:15 GMT 1
..."which includes the behaviour of particles" would, I hope you'd agree, be more accurate. Reality is very much more than what particles get up to; and as you've just pointed out, they get up to it whether anything observes them or not. Sorry if it seems I'm quibbling - but Abacus is genuinely confused enough. Also, the wave function model - Schrodinger's or Feynman's or anyone else's - allows you to calculate the probability of a range of possible behaviours of particles. As, for that matter, does Heisenberg's matrix mechanics - just as accurately as Schrodinger's, of course, but without all this nonsense about the "wavefunction" or "probability waves" being some sort of metaphysical entities, "interacting" with things in the world like "consciousness"! With Heisenberg's formulation the purely mathematical nature of these calculating equations is obvious and indisputable - just tables of numbers and operations thereof. (And mathematically the two formulations are exactly the same thing!) Abacus has been led to believe that numbers come up on a roulette wheel in the predictable way they do (over time, given enough runs) because the calculus of chances somehow dictates that they do so - indeed, he believes the calculus of chances is all that really exists, and that the droppings of actual balls into actual slots is a result of our consciousness somehow interacting with those probability calculations. Not his fault really - there are enough bonkers physicists going around parrotting the same sort of nonsense for him to reasonably suppose this is what "science has confirmed over and over again". What has any of this got to do with it? The fact is that the only scientific way we may "interact" with the external world is through symbolic representations, whether it be numbers or language. Like I said, someone who lives entirely in his head. Try doing something in the world. Making something. Thread a needle. Try skiing. Because it's rubbish. Utter rubbish. If you believe this about matrix mechanics, why don't you believe the same thing about wave mechanics? Why do you dismiss one as a result of our pattern-making activity, but the other you insist is metaphysically real and effective - that it creates the universe, indeed? More than that even - you believe it's so real and effective that: So - explain, please. Why are you led to believe the above piece of gobbledygook is a "fact", because it's one possible way to interpret Schrodinger's wave mechanics, but when it's matrix mechanics (or "any other method" apparently, when you're in the mood!) all such metaphysical fantasies are out of place - they just describe "our patterned observations which are produced by our filters of perception"? You don't know whether you're coming or going, abacus. As for this repetitive mistake you keep making about the nature of perception, I'll ask you again, for the fourth time: How do you distinguish perceptual illusions from accurate perceptions? How do we ever learn that we make mistakes? You won't answer, and frankly I think everyone fully understands why. You haven't a clue what you're talking about. Frankly, I'm disappointed - this could have been a good and fruitful discussion.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 10, 2014 4:12:12 GMT 1
Personally, I believe there's another fundamental reason that allows this sort of free-floating metaphysical fantasising to appeal so greatly and persuasively to a certain frame of mind. The temptation to come to the sort of conclusions abacus does is clearly very strong, and persistent - its manifestation in the Copenhagen Interpretation is merely a modern take on a set of conceptual mistakes that go back at least to the ancient Greeks. I think what makes these mistakes so tempting is that some people live almost entirely in their heads - their interaction with the world consists overwhelmingly of dealing with ideas, words, or "information". The Ivory Tower syndrome of philosophers; or as with George Berkeley, of the religious; or with an influential strand of physicists, in the arena of mathematics and pure theory. I'm willing to bet Abacus is a teacher or office worker or "manager" of some sort. People like engineers, builders, product designers, craftspeople, artisans - people who actually have to work in and with the world - would never fall for this "reality is only our ideas" business. A craftsman or engineer knows he has to deal with the world - the real solid unyielding material world - if he wants to achieve his aims. He knows he has to do so correctly - if he makes the slightest mistake Reality will punish him for it. The world exists, it is what it is and does what it does, irrespective of our ideas or beliefs or fantasies. You're falling into the trap of assuming outward appearances represent the true nature of things. No, the "trap" is yours, and it's one of assuming that outward - or inner - appearances can not be part of the "true nature of things." They can, and they largely are. For example - I play the guitar, and can see it over there on the wall. If someone who'd never seen or heard the guitar asked me what it was, I'd explain it has so many taut strings, tightened by these machine heads, that when plucked vibrate; these vibrations are transferred through the bridge to a sounding board and amplified by a resonant chamber. I could go on to explain the means by which the strings can be made of different lengths by pressing down on the frets, and how the consequent vibrations are mathematically related so that the pressure waves in the air produced harmonise physically to produce pleasing tunes...and so on and so on. All true statements; all related to readily confirmable appearances, or elaborations of them that without too much ingenuity could also be readily confirmed. Now - one could go on and on, no doubt, explaining the structure of the wood, the molecules and atoms it's composed of, perhaps how the ear works, and the nervous system...but all of this additional structural analysis would not in the least invalidate the truths of my more basic statements. And at no point would I ever arrive at a description or explanation that would be "knowledge of the thing-in-itself", whatever you think that might mean. It's not necessary, it's not required, it's not possible, and I suggest it's not even meaningful. It's merely a mistake of an idea, that's all - an error in understanding what "knowledge" is. You have a very bizarre notion of what "clearly" means. It is true. It's also true that we can investigate things further than their immediate appearances. Why on earth do you think there's a contradiction between the two? In your case, both commonsense and your understanding of science has failed, I'm afraid.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 10, 2014 4:29:09 GMT 1
You do. You. And you can call it "bananas" for all I care, and for all the difference it makes.
I've pointed out to you half a dozen times that you've done neither. Fascinating has done the same thing. We've both pointed out your blatant errors in logic; and we've both pointed out to you that you don't respond to posts, answer questions put to you, or move one iota in elaborating your argument. You merely repeat yourself over and over, with your fingers in your ears.
I need no rhetoric to undermine your position. I merely need to point out the glaring errors in it, as I have done, over and over.
Both Newton and Einstein would have laughed at anyone who argued because mathematics works in describing certain aspects of nature this is evidence for a "cosmic intelligence". They were both Platonists, as are most working mathematicians. It's only people who haven't thought about the nature of mathematics who fall into the basic sort of five-year old confusion about it that you've just cited.
On the other thread I explained to you how mathematics can be deduced from just two basic axioms, of such stark simplicity that it's impossible to conceive of any sort of universe where it would not apply. Newton and Einstein didn't know those axioms, but they fully understood that this is the truth about mathematics. Nothing to do with God, or any form of intelligence. This is how maths is, and must be. As for the nature of the universe - whatever else it is, it must be mathematical. God or no God.
Most of all, being both thoroughgoing Realists, they would have laughed at this:
They might not have bothered going through the pain of what Samuel Johnson did when asked about Berkeley's (and your) philosophy - kick a rock and say "I refute it thus!" They'd have probably just said you need to get out more. Try doing something physical.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 10, 2014 18:52:14 GMT 1
;D I think you've forgotten about God, Alan. Naughty. It's mutual, I assure you. When he acknowledges my existence, I'll acknowledge his.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 10, 2014 19:00:37 GMT 1
Except that you seem to be overlooking the fact that all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously No, that is the Feynman et al model of reality, i.e. a convenient means of calculating (but not explaining) what goes on. Tautology. You can't have experience without an experiencer. But that's irrelevant. Are you suggesting that what you wrote here yesterday did not exist until I read it today? In that case, what were you doing yesterday? Did you even exist? Our perception of reality is indeed what we observe. But if the interaction took place before you were born, how did it know you would be there a million years later to observe it? And if I observe photons signifying the same quantum interaction, does that make it more or less real?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 10:17:33 GMT 1
I've already done so three times in this thread alone. Your argument consists entirely of this: 1) All we experience is our experience. 2) Our experience is entirely subjective. > Therefore we can know nothing of an objective world that exists independent of our experience. Your conclusion does not follow because you have failed to take into account the possibility - "proven" by every empirical means that defines "proof" - that our experience contains elements by which we are able to gain access to an objective world independent of it. 2) is incorrect and is probably the source of your confusion. I never said our experience is entirely subjective but that whatever originally causes phenomena can never be known directly - only through our subjective lens. Just because we abstract features from our sense experiences does not mean we have direct access to the original cause. We use mathematics to abstract features from phenomena but mathematics is user-defined in terms of symbolic representations of our experiences. An electron does not pre-exist in the form we observe it when we measure it but comes about as an act of observation. No, Berkeley's position was that we literally create reality from our consciousness while my position is that we combine with something external to us to experience objective reality. You keep getting this wrong. All you are doing us agreeing with me but you continue to split hairs which achieves nothing. I have never said we do not have access to so something outside of our subjective experiences but not direct access. A simple analogy would be trying to understand a foreign language through an interpreter. So, we perceive the same world as a spider, do we? Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds? A bug would indeed die, so what? All this shows is that the bug's sense experiences come to an end due to something we can never ultimately know about. This does not change any aspect of my position. This is rather silly because nobody can explain why QM behaves the way it does so how can you expect that I have a special insight into the deeper aspects of nature? All we can do is observe and think. So, here again, you seem to be actually agreeing with me that knowledge can only ever consist of our consciousness, even though there are realms we can never directly know about. Evidence please. Yes, measuring physical things by physical things (us) allows us to interact with the world. However, before, say, the distance between New York and London had been measured such a measurement did not exist although it had the potential to do so.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 12:04:47 GMT 1
Except that you seem to be overlooking the fact that all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously 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 did not exist for you until you read it or, perhaps, you could have been told about it, in which case you would have known about it indirectly. It did not take place if consciousness did not exist as the time, therefore, it would not have been observed and thus not exist in the form we experience it as we do now. It would have been held in a limbo state waiting for someone or something to interact with it.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 12:15:14 GMT 1
Except that you seem to be overlooking the fact that all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously and it is the participation of an "observer", however far removed in time, that determines what particular reality is experienced. Neither of these assertions are "facts". Nor is there the slightest evidence that they could be. They're merely yet further bonkers gobbledygook. So in your view Feynman and his colleagues did not have a clue about what they were studying. Isn't that rather presumptuous? Yes, he did rather walk into that one and in doing so supported my whole case.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 12:22:53 GMT 1
What has any of this got to do with it? The fact is that the only scientific way we may "interact" with the external world is through symbolic representations, whether it be numbers or language. Like I said, someone who lives entirely in his head. Try doing something in the world. Making something. Thread a needle. Try skiing. How is that relevant to the current discussion? Because it is the theory that best fits the data. It would be a more fruitful discussion if only you would be less dogmatic. Who is talking about perceptual illusions? Certainly not me.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 12:33:21 GMT 1
You're falling into the trap of assuming outward appearances represent the true nature of things. No, the "trap" is yours, and it's one of assuming that outward - or inner - appearances can not be part of the "true nature of things." They can, and they largely are. For example - I play the guitar, and can see it over there on the wall. If someone who'd never seen or heard the guitar asked me what it was, I'd explain it has so many taut strings, tightened by these machine heads, that when plucked vibrate; these vibrations are transferred through the bridge to a sounding board and amplified by a resonant chamber. I could go on to explain the means by which the strings can be made of different lengths by pressing down on the frets, and how the consequent vibrations are mathematically related so that the pressure waves in the air produced harmonise physically to produce pleasing tunes...and so on and so on. All true statements; all related to readily confirmable appearances, or elaborations of them that without too much ingenuity could also be readily confirmed. Now - one could go on and on, no doubt, explaining the structure of the wood, the molecules and atoms it's composed of, perhaps how the ear works, and the nervous system...but all of this additional structural analysis would not in the least invalidate the truths of my more basic statements. And at no point would I ever arrive at a description or explanation that would be "knowledge of the thing-in-itself", whatever you think that might mean. It's not necessary, it's not required, it's not possible, and I suggest it's not even meaningful. It's merely a mistake of an idea, that's all - an error in understanding what "knowledge" is. You are making false analogies when referring to atoms, wood, the nervous system and so forth because these are things that exist in the perceptual world, i.e, which are user-defined, not the "noumenal" world, as Kant termed it. Have you no concept of the noumenal term? Unsubstantiated.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 11, 2014 12:51:46 GMT 1
You do. You. And you can call it "bananas" for all I care, and for all the difference it makes. That was a rather silly comment. I think fascinating should be allowed to speak for himself/herself, don't you? If I repeat myself it is because I am forced to by your lack of comprehension. Yes, but then according to you Richard Feynman hasn't a clue either! Need I say more? Brian Cox is interesting in presenting general science but he is not a quantum physicist. Strange that you think people like Newton and Einstein could have thought of their grand theories using commonsense alone. If you are serious you have a lot to learn about science. Why did Newton have to (co) invent calculus if the knowledge was already there?
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 11, 2014 19:00:03 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. Not a good idea to use poetic language ("exist for you") in this forum. Existence and purpose are quite different. And if I post a letter with your address, it does indeed "exist for you" - and nobody else - even if you never open it, or die before it is delivered. Jumbled garbage. The interaction took place a zillion years ago and the particles invoved were annihilated. The emitted photons cannot have been held in limbo - the speed of light is constant. What astronomers (or indeed anyone) observe is the result of what happened some time ago. If you stand closer to the source than I do, you will experience it before me. But will that experience be different if the source knows that I am going to see it too? According to you, it will,. So how does the electron/positron annihilation on Omega Krypton know how many people are going to see it in a million years' time?
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 12, 2014 7:20:50 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".
Again - you need to explicate this apparently crucial notion of yours of "direct access". At the moment, I'm guessing you mean the same sort of indisputable experience we have as when we see redness, for example, or feel a toothache?
This isn't knowledge; it isn't what is meant by "knowledge". That's called "experience". Knowledge is the abstracting the features part, expressing them as a proposition, and validating that proposition as a fact by verifying it against further experience.
You're confusing yourself unnecessarily by this double-sense of "mathematics" here, I think. Primary qualities can be measured, certainly, and formulated mathematically - that's what science and knowledge is. But our experience of them is immediate - they do not need to be "user-defined" in symbolic representations. The first aspects of the sensory world that our visual apparatus can distinguish are lines and boundaries, for example. Contrast, connectedness.
Well, that's one theory, certainly. Totally unverifiable, of course - so according to Popper, it's not a scientific theory, even though it pretends to be. Pseudo-science, he called that: and in this case I thoroughly agree with him.
But, generally, I would say what I said to you several times on the other thread. You assert very grand and sweeping statements about the nature of reality and our perception based solely on this sort of interpretation of certain experiments in quantum mechanics. Experiments using elementary particles. For some reason you seem to believe you are justified in asserting that these interpretations - purely speculative interpretations - imply definite truths about macroscopic reality, even though no one has the faintest notion how to connect the two.
I keep asking you what this "something external to us" is, and all you can say is: it's "probability waves". And I point out to you that "probability waves" are not "something external to us" at all, by anyone's theoretical speculation. They're features in a mathematical equation. So it's not me who keeps getting it wrong.
No - what you're doing now is shifting your position. Which is fine and good, because your previous one was totally untenable.
Yes, you have, repeatedly. You have repeatedly asserted that this is all reality is - this is all the term means, indeed.
But let's try and be clear exactly what it is you're wishing to say now. Are you now claiming that we are able to have access - whatever form of access, direct or indirect - to "probability waves"?
Meaning? Compared to what?
Okay. Easy enough, isn't it?
Nope. It's a simple statement of fact. I can see a spider now, crawling over my rug. He's having a hard time of it, because he's only a couple of inches big, and it's a woolen rug with strands about three inches long. Up and down he goes, like navigating a jungle. Pity he can't fly, but he hasn't got wings, and he experiences gravity like the rest of creation. At least it's dry, so he won't drown; and warm, so he won't freeze; and no doubt somewhere he's got a stash of food, which he'll eat and digest and nourish himself, in a perfectly scientifically explicable manner.
So what? So "reality" is not "user-defined", is it? It's something we all share, whether we "define" it or not, and if we do "define" it, there are facts about it that would constitute any "definition".
My windshield. F=ma. Too much force for its little bodily defences to cope with, I'm afraid. I know this - whether there are further things to know, even unto the ultimate, is irrelevant to this fact.
We know things without having "direct" experience of them. These things are true, they're facts, they're part of Reality. Don't you agree? If you do, you've changed your position beyond recognition. If you don't, kindly explain why not. You don't know the bug is going to get squished if it flies into my moving windshield?
I'm not talking about QM, you are, and extrapolating what you think you know about it to everything else. Even though as you've just admitted: "nobody can explain why QM behaves the way it does".
Look - please try and pay attention to the thread of the conversation. At this point we're talking about perception and reason: how they are able to interact successfully with the independent, objective Reality outside of them. Not QM - just bog-standard perception. Your analysis can't explain how it works. Nor can it explain how it doesn't work, which as we know it freqeuntly doesn't.
Do you want me to go back over this debate and find the four or five occasions I've pointed this out to you, asked you what your response is, and you've totally ignored the issue? Or are you going to respond this time?
Read the passage again. Try to grasp that the proposition "New York City is in New York State" does not "consist of our consciousness", whatever you think that phrase might mean. It's a fact, a truth about Reality, testable and confirmable as such. As for "there are realms we can never directly know about", I certainly haven't agreed to that opaque assertion either! I suspect that you don't know what you mean by "directly know", for a start. Until you explain what you mean by that concept, I can't really agree or disagree with it. But what I will say and have said is that it doesn't matter - knowledge doesn't have to be "direct" to be knowledge.
Evidence of what? That Kant's ideas are not fully accepted any more? Well, he thought space had to be Euclidean, for a start, and that Time was absolute, and could be no other. He adduced some very clever arguments to demonstrate so. He also argued that it was impossible to conceive of anything without those (and ten or so other) concepts - something you've directly contradicted with your peculiar assertions about the nature of measurement.
That's not answering my question again. You're merely stating a tautology, as Alan pointed out. I didn't ask you if measurements existed before measurements were made; I asked you whether what is measured existed. In your example, the space between NY and London.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 12, 2014 9:24:48 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?
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