Is There Progress in Philosophy?

[Obvious Leo]

To explain these, the novel paradigm we seek must rest on a hypothesis that there are causal processes which relate present events and properties to past events and properties.

This is hardly a novel paradigm, Austin, since all he needs to do is ask a biologist.

I reckon Smolin was closer to quantum gravity ten years ago than he is today. When I read "The Trouble with Physics" back in 2006 I felt sure he had the answer at his fingertips. He was far more dismissive of most of current theory but nowadays he seems to be overthinking the problem by trying to draw a lot of it back in. That's not how a paradigm shift works.

[Obvious Leo]

For example, why keep fucking around with the dark matter idea? It's been around for 80 years for no tangible result and not a single scrap of supportive evidence. Galaxies fly apart due to the gravitational effects of other galaxies. Including the one we're living in. End of story.

[PoeticUniverse]

Smolin - Novel results when no precedents due to uniqueness when no copies:

In the real ensemble interpretation proposed in [73] I give one possible answer: it is the ensemble of atoms existing at that time (in the preferred global time) in the universe with the same constituents and preparation, so that they would be described by the same quantum state. I propose a dynamics wherein the different copies of a system making up such an ensemble interact with each other by copying values of their “beables” and show that a particular form of that dynamics reproduces the predictions of quantum evolution via the Schrödinger equation.

An immediate consequence is that systems that have no such ensemble of copies will not evolve according to quantum dynamics; in particular, the superposition principle will fail for them. This immediately solves the measurement problem and explains why macroscopic bodies such as ourselves and our cats are not described by quantum mechanics, while the atoms we are made of, which have many copies, are. This novel view of the problems raised by quantum mechanics is a direct outcome of pursuing the research program set out here, and we can imagine that there are more to come.

The real ensemble formulation of quantum mechanics implies that quantum dynamics will fail for systems with no copies. This could be seen in experiments aimed at realizing quantum computation and communication which construct systems in pure quantum states that due to their complexity may not exist elsewhere in the universe. Such novel, artificial quantum systems could serve as the point where quantum mechanics fails an experimental test.

The theory is in an early stage and so far incomplete. The principle of precedence can account for the seemingly lawful behavior of systems with many precedents, and a system without precedence must give a result which is not predictable based on knowledge of the past, no matter how complete. What the theory lacks is a hypothesis to describe what happens in between, as precedence builds up over the period when nature is confronted with the first several instances of a measurement.

[Greta]

What we find in mathematics is a peerless body of conceptions of the most general relations among features of the world, robbed, however, of all phenomenal particularity and temporal depth: a lifeless and faceless terracotta army.

Nice! Leo's cadaver analogy is also appropriate. Science is about phenomena, existing is about noumena.

Physics, by definition, is concerned with the physical, so anything that is "not physical" is automatically not covered. Since we can never fully probe reality, unexplained phenomena are thrown into the metaphysics or nonsense piles - until sometime in the future when the physical mechanisms are found.

Even then, we will always fall short. The situation reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time novel, where The Auditors of Reality are in an art gallery attempting to understand the appeal of art by breaking paintings in down to their component atoms ...

'Still nothing?'

'No, only known atoms and molecules so far'.

'Is to something to do with the proportions? The balance of molecules? The basic geometry?'

'We are continuing to—'

[Greta]

For example, why keep fucking around with the dark matter idea? It's been around for 80 years for no tangible result and not a single scrap of supportive evidence. Galaxies fly apart due to the gravitational effects of other galaxies. Including the one we're living in. End of story.

I believe that weak gravitational lensing and the rate with which galaxies fly apart are the evidence.

[Obvious Leo]

For example, why keep fucking around with the dark matter idea? It's been around for 80 years for no tangible result and not a single scrap of supportive evidence. Galaxies fly apart due to the gravitational effects of other galaxies. Including the one we're living in. End of story.

I believe that weak gravitational lensing and the rate with which galaxies fly apart are the evidence.

They aren't. They're a desperate attempt to salvage a broken theory because all of this so-called "evidence" is open to a far simpler interpretation.

Take a look at the Hubble picture of the Pinwheel galaxy. Does that look to you like a gravitationally bound galaxy? Andromeda and the Milky Way would look just like that to a face-on observer but not after they merge it won't. ( for many billions of years anyway).

Humpty-Dumpty is putting himself back together again, Greta, but regrettably you and I won't be around for the crunch.

[Greta]

For example, why keep fucking around with the dark matter idea? It's been around for 80 years for no tangible result and not a single scrap of supportive evidence. Galaxies fly apart due to the gravitational effects of other galaxies. Including the one we're living in. End of story.

I believe that weak gravitational lensing and the rate with which galaxies fly apart are the evidence.

They aren't. They're a desperate attempt to salvage a broken theory because all of this so-called "evidence" is open to a far simpler interpretation.

Take a look at the Hubble picture of the Pinwheel galaxy. Does that look to you like a gravitationally bound galaxy? Andromeda and the Milky Way would look just like that to a face-on observer but not after they merge it won't. ( for many billions of years anyway).

Humpty-Dumpty is putting himself back together again, Greta, but regrettably you and I won't be around for the crunch.

Does the math say that galaxies they should be aggregating or flying apart more quickly than they are? I don't think you disputed lensing caused by dark matter so much as talked smack about physicists.

Why is it so far fetched to for clouds of stuff slightly thicker than the stuff of "space" to exist around aggregations of known matter? I was skeptical about dark matter too but the more I read of the studies and reasons why researchers think it exists, the more inclined I am to wait for more LHC testing.

[Obvious Leo]

Does the math say that galaxies they should be aggregating or flying apart more quickly than they are?

I'm saying that the maths are a function of the theory which they're designed to be modelling and don't reflect the evidence.

"Mathematics can be used to prove ANYTHING"....Albert Einstein.

"It is the THEORY which determines what the observer will observe".....Albert Einstein.

There simply is no way of determining exactly how quickly galaxies should be flying apart because this depends entirely on the relativistic motion of every other galaxy in the cosmos, inversely proportional to their proximity. Neither is there any coherent theory for why spiral galaxies should exist at all but if a spiral galaxy isn't one being torn asunder by tidal forces I'll eat my manuscript. They look exactly exactly like a star experiencing the same thing except on a larger scale. Don't forget that when Andromeda and the Milky Way eventually combine the combined masses of both will cause the new mega-galaxy to form into an ellipse, but there is simply no possible way of knowing for how long it will retain this shape before it too starts to experience tidal forces from yet another mega-galaxy.

Why is it so far fetched to for clouds of stuff slightly thicker than the stuff of "space" to exist around aggregations of known matter?

Because it's unnecessary and that which is unnecessary cannot be. What the fuck is the "stuff of space?" It doesn't sound like a very scientific term to me.

I was skeptical about dark matter too but the more I read of the studies and reasons why researchers think it exists, the more inclined I am to wait for more LHC testing.

There is barely a particle geek left standing who still reckons the LHC will find dark matter. Most of them are still shattered by the trauma of the Higgs boson, which was far from the triumph they claimed it to be. It broke their bloody hearts because it told them exactly nothing new. However I'm still optimistic that higher energy collisions will eventually allow the LHC experiment to prove what they secretly all want it to prove. They desperately need something that will prove the Standard Model WRONG so they can get a lead on a possible new direction.

[Lacewing]

I don't mean to interrupt this discussion, I'd just like to offer a thought regarding the topic title...

I think it depends (as maybe with all things) on the scope we're talking about. If we're talking about philosophy within the human bubble we're familiar with, it seems there would be progress as we discover and define more elements and angles of what we're able to create and perceive where we are. However, if we expect that our philosophy somehow reflects what is truly beyond our human capabilities of perception and understanding, then it's surely fantasy. So our contemplations may progress within the bubble... and that's all fun and entertaining... but outside of the human bubble, our ideas likely mean nothing.

[Greta]

There simply is no way of determining exactly how quickly galaxies should be flying apart because this depends entirely on the relativistic motion of every other galaxy in the cosmos, inversely proportional to their proximity.

That's my point. We see a galaxy in a certain state and we cannot readily decide what it's doing over time.

Neither is there any coherent theory for why spiral galaxies should exist at all but if a spiral galaxy isn't one being torn asunder by tidal forces I'll eat my manuscript.

Every star and world in space spins due to residual energy from inflation.

I have sometimes wondered whether "the big bang" was actually a large collection of bangs, one per galaxy rather than a single explosion from one point. That would certainly tend to push galaxies apart until chaotic detail appeared (eg. The Great Attractor). More of a growing dynamic than an explosive one.

Why is it so far fetched to for clouds of stuff slightly thicker than the stuff of "space" to exist around aggregations of known matter?

Because it's unnecessary and that which is unnecessary cannot be. What the fuck is the "stuff of space?" It doesn't sound like a very scientific term to me.

"What the fuck" yourself, you obstreperous old fart

Entertainment done, back to business ... we've talked about this before, the actual lack of hard distinction between space, energy and matter. It's all the same stuff, part of one thing, just in different densities and configurations. That's why true space doesn't exist - it's not empty, just thinner. It's all still part of this one humungous network of "stuff" (assumed to be fundamental at Planck scale at this stage).

The false space/things duality will look even weaker if we prove there is a transitional material, dark matter around galaxies. I can easily imagine galaxies surrounded by huge fields of highly energised and magnetised "space" that, at least close to the galaxies' outskirts having properties more akin to interstellar space than intergalactic space. The mass of those regions just outside the galaxy may form a feedback loop with the mass of the galaxy proper. By the same token, we are each surrounded by a cloud of microbial, EM and gravitational fields. There's only weak feedback loops between us and our fields, but at galactic scale it could be that those fields have emergent properties and "take on a life of their own" (so to speak).

After all, considerable unexpected and exotic materials and conditions have been found in the outskirts of our solar system by Voyager. One of the most astonishing is the discovery that the solar system is encased by a huge sphere of magnetic bubbles. When you consider the energies and forces in galaxies (and our inability to comprehend things of that scale) it would not surprise me at all to find all manner of exotic conditions around them via emergence.

[Obvious Leo]

That's my point. We see a galaxy in a certain state and we cannot readily decide what it's doing over time.

We can nevertheless draw a number of conclusions from the historical evidence. There is ample evidence that our own galaxy has eaten a number of dwarf galaxies over the past 10 billion years and there is no logical reason to suppose that bigger galaxies will not devour smaller ones as a matter of cosmological principle. This is no different from the interstellar cloud of gas and dust coalescing under the influence of gravity except being transacted on a grander scale.

I have sometimes wondered whether "the big bang" was actually a large collection of bangs, one per galaxy rather than a single explosion from one point. That would certainly tend to push galaxies apart until chaotic detail appeared (eg. The Great Attractor). More of a growing dynamic than an explosive one.

Thinking of the big bang as an explosion from a point doesn't make a lot of sense. It's better to think of it as a gradual re-awakening from a point of maximum gravitational density, rather like Hawking radiation leaking out of a black hole but on a cosmic scale. The formation of galaxies then seems a lot more intuitive. Don't forget that mine is a bang/crunch model so imagine how slowly time must have been passing at the big bang compared with the speed at which we're hurtling into the future now. The re-birth of the universe under such a paradigm could well have taken hundreds of trillions of our years but in an eternal reality this metric doesn't mean a hell of a lot.

"What the fuck" yourself, you obstreperous old fart

I plead provocation. The "stuff of space" indeed. What next. Virtual particles popping into existence out of fucking nowhere? You're surely not expecting me to seriously address such bollocks. These are mathematical constructs and not physical ones. ( as is your comment about inflation which I simply ignored.)

Entertainment done, back to business ... we've talked about this before, the actual lack of hard distinction between space, energy and matter. It's all the same stuff, part of one thing, just in different densities and configurations. That's why true space doesn't exist - it's not empty, just thinner. It's all still part of this one humungous network of "stuff" (assumed to be fundamental at Planck scale at this stage).

At the Planck scale we have only quanta of energy from which matter is emergent. Quanta of energy are zero-volume points with no spatial extension so where the hell does space come from? How many zero-volume nothings does it take to produce something with a volume? If we simply define volume as an observer effect this simplest of metaphysical questions simply vanishes.

[uwot]

What the fuck is the "stuff of space?" It doesn't sound like a very scientific term to me.

It isn't, it is an ontological, hence philosophical term. I don't know if this helps Leo, but what physicists try to establish is the software. The philosophical question is what is the hardware? What is the universe, matter, observers made of?
I've said it before, to me the most plausible explanation for all the phenomena that give the impression that there is a universe made of some stuff, is some stuff the universe is made of.

[Obvious Leo]

Don't we already know what the universe is made of? Whatever happened to E=mcc? The universe is made of quanta of energy and that's all there is to it. You guys are overthinking this.

[uwot]

Energy is fundamentally how much damage something wiil do to you if it hits you. That is determined by its mass and velocity. I suppose the philosophical question is whether mass is a property of some stuff, or does mass simply 'exist'. Personally, I think mass is best explained as a property of some substance.

[Obvious Leo]

Energy is fundamentally how much damage something wiil do to you if it hits you. That is determined by its mass and velocity. I suppose the philosophical question is whether mass is a property of some stuff, or does mass simply 'exist'. Personally, I think mass is best explained as a property of some substance.

I think you should try and catch up with the breaking news because it's been known for well over a century that mass is an emergent property of energy. That's what makes it useful for thermonuclear weapons.