|
|
Post by carnyx on Jan 6, 2011 0:08:43 GMT 1
The power of physics has been amplified by its ability to generate and sustain metaphysical ideas.
As the development of these various metaphysical ideas have relied on the ready communication of the intrinsic physics to lots of different people through mathematical, verbal, visual, and even emotional metaphor, what are we to say of today's advanced physics?
It seems that their new insights are so tenuous that it is not possible to 'explain' them other than via highly advanced mathematics, and so they are not generating the kind of metaphysics that have any real power.
As it is also increasingly unlikely that the new physics will produce anything of practical use, are we now looking at a post-enlightment world that includes the retreat of physics?
|
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Jan 6, 2011 13:32:23 GMT 1
The power of physics has been amplified by its ability to generate and sustain metaphysical ideas. As the development of these various metaphysical ideas have relied on the ready communication of the intrinsic physics to lots of different people through mathematical, verbal, visual, and even emotional metaphor, what are we to say of today's advanced physics? It seems that their new insights are so tenuous that it is not possible to 'explain' them other than via highly advanced mathematics, and so they are not generating the kind of metaphysics that have any real power. As it is also increasingly unlikely that the new physics will produce anything of practical use, are we now looking at a post-enlightment world that includes the retreat of physics? Not at all, it just means that physicists will have to think of new experiments that will provide data with which to formulate newer models of reality. It's a real challenge because, for example, 'big' experiments like the LHC are complicated and expensive to set-up but there is no reason to think that physics is in decline - just that physicists will have to be more proactive in thinking up experiments that will provide new information. Inevitably, mathematics is used in order to build a picture of what the universe is like because maths is the most effective symbolic method with which to model the interrelationships of physics and provides a template with with to probe reality. |
|
|
|
Post by carnyx on Jan 6, 2011 14:04:56 GMT 1
And there we have it!
As I have attempted to point out, they have lost the power to excite general interest via metaphor, and metaphysics.
IRL people don't speak mathematics, and very few think in it.
|
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 6, 2011 14:06:51 GMT 1
What tosh! Hence rest of the statement can be dismissed as worthless............
|
|
|
|
Post by Progenitor A on Jan 6, 2011 15:02:28 GMT 1
The power of physics has been amplified by its ability to generate and sustain metaphysical ideas. As the development of these various metaphysical ideas have relied on the ready communication of the intrinsic physics to lots of different people through mathematical, verbal, visual, and even emotional metaphor, what are we to say of today's advanced physics? It seems that their new insights are so tenuous that it is not possible to 'explain' them other than via highly advanced mathematics, and so they are not generating the kind of metaphysics that have any real power. As it is also increasingly unlikely that the new physics will produce anything of practical use, are we now looking at a post-enlightment world that includes the retreat of physics? Certainly physics has gone beyond simple-to-understand models and relies more and more upon mathematical modelling which no-one outside mathematicians really understands - and, it seems. even mathematicians do not really understand, given their general inability to explain things so that a normally intelligent person can understand. And the unreliability of mathematics is notorious, even from our schooldays when we rejected results of quadratic equations because they were apparently gibberish, all the way to university mathematics courses where solutions to 2nd order differential equations are rejected because they are nonsense. And more, mathematics applied to cosmology is always coming up with infinities that make no sense whatsoever - such as the infinite strength of gravitational field in a singularity - real physicists shy away like mad from them simply because they expose our total ignorance in the face of the unknown. Physics is also not helped in the slightest by the great doubt that the very laws of physics do not apply at singularities, and then we venture into speculative metaphysical field such as multiverses which is the modern equivalent of Doctors of th eChurch discussing how many angels can dance upon a needlepoint. Even simple questions such a as how light travels more slowly in glass or a diamond in comparison to a vacuum are riddled with doubt and show great chasms of ignorance and doubt. Then we have the QM speculative fields in which the hypotheses about the nature of matter are not testable - for example th hypothesis that sub-atomic particles are in multiple states - an electron is in many places at once or a photon spins in all directions simultaneously, but we can never observe these strange phenomena directly because as soon as we look they do not behave like that! Such reasoning is so mind-blowingly childish that one wonders if the Copenhagen school assure their neighbours that there are fairies at the bottom of their gardens, but there is no point in looking because they disappear as soon as you look! So we have the high priests of physics squabbling about interpretations of physics and (in some cases) telling outsiders they do not understand the language of the discussion in just the same way as Christian High Priests squabbled over the Holy Texts which the great unwashed masses could not read; it would not unduly surprise me if at some time in the future in the squabblings of the Physics High Priests are shown to be the self-interested cabalistic nonsense that once Christian High Priests evidenced There are beacons of honesty such as Feynman and Penrose who repeatedly tells us that we do not really understand the physical world in which we live. Not that there is any dishonesty in trying to understand that world through scientific investigation, but then fools such as Hawking spoil it all by making great idiotic utterances that take us back to the black magic era. Still, the wonder of the world and our place in it - which is the underlying motivation for scientific study, is likely to reamain untarnsihed by scientific discoveries for some centuries yet We should probably remember that physics evolved out of the desire to create gold from base metals, something that has not been achieved either physically or metaphorically by science |
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Jan 6, 2011 16:25:02 GMT 1
naymissus, I think as science progresses it will inevitable appear increasingly obtuse to most people since the models it proposes have little or nothing to do with common experience. Carnyx asserts that science has ceased to provide any meaningful metaphors to, at least, provide ordinary people with some kind of framework within which to accommodate the latest scientific thinking, but this is rather unfair. Take the case of string theory as an example, which uses analogies like 'different dimensions' and 'vibrating strings' and 'branes' to enable people to at least visualize what might be going on. However, it's no good people complaining that mathematical models are totally incomprehensible because it appears this is what reality is like, the more knowledge science gains. How, for example, can a human being imagine what the fifth dimension looks like, yet mathematically and theoretically it is a valid idea. Perhaps we are simply too primitive to really grasp the more subtle aspects of reality and must wait till we evolve more, when our descendants will be in a better position to appreciate what science is discovering today.
|
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 6, 2011 17:17:58 GMT 1
Physics was NEVER at the level of simple to understand models. Anyone who thinks it was just doesn't know any actual physics.
Claiming that mathematicians don't understand maths because they can't explain it to the general public is getting things totally the wrong way round -- it just shows that the majority of the general public doesn't know much maths, or understand much maths, rather than showing that mathematicians don't understand it! To give an obvious anaology -- greek speakers can speak perfect greekm and understand it, yet since I don't understand it (not speaking greek), doesn't show that greek is nonsense, just that I don't speak greek! So, maths being all greek to someone else shows just the same -- that that person doesn't know maths.
And claiming that maths is notoroiusly unreliable is just so daft that it provides yet another glaring example as to how little maths (or physics) a person who can make such a statement actually understands.
To dissect this in a little more detail. ALL quadratic equations have two solutions, but whether a particular solution makes PHYSICAL sense in terms of the problem you introduced the quadratic to solve is another matter. Same for second-order differential equations (or any other system you might imagine). ALL the solutions make mathematical sense, but it is the mapping between the maths and the real-world problem that is being glossed over.
Let's take a simple case -- suppose I throw a ball upwards from the top of a tower, and ask what time does it reach the ground. In general, I can set up the equations so that I get TWO solutions, one negative, the other positive (taking zero time as the time I throw the ball). Why is this?
Because my initial data consists of the height of the tower, and the velocity of the ball when it is at that height. The rest of the motion is under gravity. But there are obviously two solutions, in that the negative one is the time the ball had to leave the ground if it had been fired to the top of the tower by a cannon (say), so as to reach the top of the tower with the specified velocity at t=0. The other positive solution is the solution I wanted, when it reaches the ground after I have thrown it. Hence the problem is in not being specific enough when we wrote the maths down -- both solutions make sense, but for our particular problem (we are throwing the ball, as opposed to watching a ball launched by a cannon at some earlier time), we need to further specifiy that we are only interested in the solution for positive time.
Its relating the maths to the actual problem that is often 'unreliable', or not specified in enough detail, NOT the maths.
And these seemingly daft solutions in physics CAN be very useful -- so, when Dirac found negative energy solutions for his equation for electrons, he didn't just throw them out, but instead discovered the anti-particle of the electron, the positron, and in effect showed that he couldn't make the physics consistent without having both. A shining example of this supposed 'unreliability' actually being a great discovery when someone who knows what they are talking about is on the case!
|
|
|
|
Post by Progenitor A on Jan 6, 2011 17:39:29 GMT 1
Carnyx asserts that science has ceased to provide any meaningful metaphors to, at least, provide ordinary people with some kind of framework within which to accommodate the latest scientific thinking, but this is rather unfair. Take the case of string theory as an example, which uses analogies like 'different dimensions' and 'vibrating strings' and 'branes' to enable people to at least visualize what might be going on. Odd you should mention them. I find that they are particularly dense and expose, to my mind, the floudering around of trying to explain that which is not truly understood However, it's no good people complaining that mathematical models are totally incomprehensible because it appears this is what reality is like, the more knowledge science gains. I homestly do not believe that the only 'explanations' are mathematical. Per contra, to me, stating that 'understanding' can be gained only through mathematics is tantamount to saying that we simply do not understand. Mathematics is a tool to understanding and in itself, not understanding. How, for example, can a human being imagine what the fifth dimension looks like, yet mathematically and theoretically it is a valid idea. It is not a valid idea unles it can be explained outside mathematical models. If mathematicians cannot explain without mathematics, then they do not understand what they are doing; they are simply following logical constructions without any real undestanding. Perhaps we are simply too primitive to really grasp the more subtle aspects of reality and must wait till we evolve more, when our descendants will be in a better position to appreciate what science is discovering today. All that science is discovering today is the fact that we do not really have a clue about the physical world. |
|
|
|
Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 6, 2011 17:50:34 GMT 1
And we have the same nonsense repeated ad infinitum -- if it's maths, that isn't REALLY understood.
Just because you don't understand maths isn't a real reason to claim that no one actually understands maths, or that supposed understanding based on maths isn't really understanding at all.
This statement is so DAFT, that nothing further needs to be said, apart from trying to get out of those that make it WHY they think their own personal anti-maths prejudice should be taken seriously by anyone else at all............................
|
|
