The unification of physics

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

Thank you, Scott. You are making my arguments at least as well as I can make them for myself and these sorts of arguments are now achieving a resonance in physics which has been absent for almost a century and is long overdue. Despite our vigorous disagreements on a number of other questions your honourable conduct towards me on questions which are of profound importance to me are warmly appreciated and I both respect and thank you for this.

Finally some simple logic is being applied to an intractable problem which stubbornly refuses to go away and this is not for want of any effort or for the want of any intellectual capacity on the part of the many theorists who are seeking to solve it. Simple common sense requires us to accept that if the unification problem of physics is actually a problem of physics then some clever bugger would have figured it at some stage in the course of the past century. If anything physics is now further away from a unification model than it's ever been and this has finally caused the new generation of geeks to seriously question many of their eternal verities. The simple fact is that the methodology of physics is not designed to assist then in their quest for the holy grail because this is the Ptolemaic strategy of model-building, where the new is merely grafted onto the old by brute mathematical force until the entire house of cards collapses under the weight of its own mathematical virtuosity. Modern physics has now become such a mathematical extravaganza that it has been broken up into various sub-disciplines effectively operating in isolation from each other, as well as in isolation from significant breakthroughs which have been taking place in various other sciences, such as biology, cognitive neuroscience and information theory, to name but a few. Many of the modern illuminati have finally woken up to the fact that they're behaving like the frog in the bottom of the well who can only see his own single patch of blue sky above and yet this is exactly what Bohr had cautioned them against in the Copenhagen interpretation. As Feyerabend and Kuhn suggested it's time to sweep all the crap out of the cupboard and start all over again.

Unfortunately I've been scattering my ideas on this subject through a number of different threads in this forum but in fact the topics concerned are all closely interrelated. Those who are interested in pursuing what I have to say should also be reading "Determinism", "Where is here" and "Questions we'll never solve". I've been joined in these discussions by Austin (aka Poetic Universe), a friend and colleague who I've been working with for some years. Although I'm no slouch myself Austin has an even better grasp of mathematical physics than I do and he certainly has a far better fluency in the manipulation of the mathematical tools of physics than I have. My own emphasis throughout my journey into the philosophy of physics has always been more on the history of science going back for millennia as well as the history of the philosophies which have provided science with its metaphysical underpinnings. To deny that such metaphysical underpinnings exist is simply fucking preposterous and a proposition which makes a complete mockery of the philosophy of human knowledge. Science does NOT model reality but models a particular narrative of reality and to suggest otherwise is a blatantly unphilosophical statement which has no place in a forum such as this. I've been using Austin as my sounding board for a long time in an effort to tighten up my language of expression. Although we are kindred spirits in many ways he has a subtly different way of thinking the world from mine and his thoughts have been of great help to me in formulating some very simple yet highly nuanced ideas into a coherent package suitable for the digestion of Einstein's barmaid.

I'm not abandoning this thread but merely pointing out that to get the full picture of what I'm banging on about it will be necessary for those interested to follow these other threads as well. Mine is a big story with a lot of interesting side-stories but it's not an especially complicated story for those with an open mind to follow because mine is the story of a universe which is exactly what it appears to be.
Dubious
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Dubious »

Scott Mayers wrote:Sorry, but logic is the foundation of philosophy.
... as well as being indispensable for everything else, regardless of purpose. One trains for that even as a kid if he ever wants to experience puberty.
Scott Mayers wrote:Also, I've pointed out before that you cannot utilize the tools of logic without granting them as real. This is what many of today's scientists do when they discredit philosophy. And it is more about politics than anything.
It's not that scientists discredit philosophy only that it's become a different discipline with little or no connection to physics. Philosophers create their thought constellations, logical or less so, on whatever subject they want without requiring the addition of proof or probability which, according to the far more disciplined methodology of science, is not an option that can be discounted. Merely asserting that it's more about politics without providing reasons is something philosophers - especially on forums such as these - do incessantly and all too well! Why! Because it's all so easy. Simply make a declarative statement on any subject, remove any hint of uncertainty and voila! you've manufactured a fact which one is often challenged to disprove.
Scott Mayers wrote:Just as one like yourself even questions whether Stephen Hawking may alter his opinion stands to point out your concern: if he is found to have changed his mind, then you find such inconsistencies troublesome and thus lose faith in anything he might have to say afterwards.
Not in the least true. If it were, I wouldn't have asked for the reasons as to why Hawking would have negated his work on Black Holes which would have been both a shock and a revelation for everyone, especially the science community. In fact, such a renouncement by the most famous of the top Black Hole theorists would be published the world over almost immediately. So I asked for some feedback but received none. I googled it. Nothing! The reason is simple it never happened as stated. In fact the opposite did.
Scott Mayers wrote:It's no wonder to me that the institution of science should be FORCED to have to maintain consistency politically because there are such people as yourself who would only disrespect them for it and lose confidence in their efforts.
Hard to imagine a more ridiculous statement. It may be true when referring to the CEO of UNIVERSE INC., if there were such an entity, but certainly not that imperfect creature called man for trying to reverse engineer the fucking thing! It wouldn't be politically correct!
Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

Dubious wrote:It's not that scientists discredit philosophy only that it's become a different discipline with little or no connection to physics.
I don't deny that this is true but merely claim that this is undesirable and the reason for this in the case of my own philosophy is transparently obvious. I am questioning the ontological status of the Cartesian space and denying its very physical existence. Whether or not you find my arguments persuasive is neither here nor there but you could hardly suggest that such a claim is irrelevant to physics.

Furthermore I'll remind you that in addition to being a work of philosophy mine is also a genuine scientific hypothesis because it yields a testable prediction which differs from the one offered by current theory. It can be easily tested in a simple and repeatable experiment and if my prediction is validated then the spacetime paradigm is unambiguously dead in the water.

The remark I made about Hawking was contained in a more general article about black holes which appeared in New Scientist a few months ago as well as an earlier one in Scientific American but it was not breaking news to me when I read it. In the light of the firewall paradox Hawking has changed his tune about a number of his own earlier papers regarding black holes. He went right off the singularity almost 20 years ago, has been in two minds about the event horizon ever since and is currently working on an "apparent" event horizon proposal with which to replace it. The informational paradoxes thrown up by his "Hawking radiation theory" are far from being resolved and Gerard t'Hooft has also been raising a quizzical eyebrow at a host of serious problems with the current models of black hole physics. So too have Maldacena and Susskind and all Hawking was doing was responding to some of these extremely valid criticisms. Hawking is famous for throwing out thought bubbles whenever the media spotlight focuses on him, much to the annoyance of his colleagues, and I did NOT say that he was negating all of his previous work. All he was doing was admitting that a lot of it would need revision in the light of further theoretical advances and his remark about black holes not even existing was in all likelihood one of his infamous throwaway lines. I wouldn't for a moment claim that Hawking no longer accepts the existence of black holes but merely suggest that they almost certainly aren't what he thought they were 40 years ago. If you have a problem with that then take it with him but that's the way science works. In fact any physicist worthy of the name would openly admit that none of them know fuck-all about black holes and almost nothing could surprise them.

In the case of my own model it would probably suit me better if a simplified high entropy version of a black hole could be shown to exist but I'm by no means mathematically fluent enough to be certain if this is absolutely necessary. To be honest I couldn't give a shit because at no stage have I been claiming that my model introduces new physics. All it does is offer a new way of thinking about physics which will eventually lead to new physics.
Scott Mayers
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Scott Mayers »

Dubious wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote:Also, I've pointed out before that you cannot utilize the tools of logic without granting them as real. This is what many of today's scientists do when they discredit philosophy. And it is more about politics than anything.
It's not that scientists discredit philosophy only that it's become a different discipline with little or no connection to physics. Philosophers create their thought constellations, logical or less so, on whatever subject they want without requiring the addition of proof or probability which, according to the far more disciplined methodology of science, is not an option that can be discounted. Merely asserting that it's more about politics without providing reasons is something philosophers - especially on forums such as these - do incessantly and all too well! Why! Because it's all so easy. Simply make a declarative statement on any subject, remove any hint of uncertainty and voila! you've manufactured a fact which one is often challenged to disprove.
You are being presumptuous here on a few things. For one, you seem to collectively umbrella all philosophy and philosophers as equivalent in their capacity and credibility to argue. And then you also adapt some kind of presumed perfectionism to 'science' distinctly to intellectual pursuit. We are ALL people and no matter what discipline one is in, and we have equal distribution of good as to bad practitioners. So your statement here are unqualified and act as your own declarative statements regarding the class of philosophers as a whole. I've actually provided depth on my own position in many places too.
Scott Mayers wrote:Just as one like yourself even questions whether Stephen Hawking may alter his opinion stands to point out your concern: if he is found to have changed his mind, then you find such inconsistencies troublesome and thus lose faith in anything he might have to say afterwards.
Not in the least true. If it were, I wouldn't have asked for the reasons as to why Hawking would have negated his work on Black Holes which would have been both a shock and a revelation for everyone, especially the science community. In fact, such a renouncement by the most famous of the top Black Hole theorists would be published the world over almost immediately. So I asked for some feedback but received none. I googled it. Nothing! The reason is simple it never happened as stated. In fact the opposite did.
You defaulted to presuming a need for Hawking (as in any other scientist) to remain consistent to something they proposed in an earlier time. What you don't seem to understand is that Hawking's own theories are merely philosophy too. While he may be using information derived from the observations of science and has a degree as one, much of his own efforts do not involve anything directly scientific as your understanding of it is.
And my point is that you should seem shocked and even concerned should Stephen, even as a scientist or philosopher, should say something inconsistent as if his popular credibility grants him such perfection in everything he may have to say simply because he fits under the banner of science. So you are tending towards the very justification of what I was pointing to regarding the politics: You are propping up the scientists above all other philosophers as if they're justified supreme beings. And this only contributes how and why such scientists are FORCED to appeal like rock stars to their fans' subtle expectations to conform to the consistency demanded of them.
Scott Mayers wrote:It's no wonder to me that the institution of science should be FORCED to have to maintain consistency politically because there are such people as yourself who would only disrespect them for it and lose confidence in their efforts.
Hard to imagine a more ridiculous statement. It may be true when referring to the CEO of UNIVERSE INC., if there were such an entity, but certainly not that imperfect creature called man for trying to reverse engineer the fucking thing! It wouldn't be politically correct!
Okay, just please tell me whether you believe institutes even in science are immune to politics or not. What do you define science and philosophy as formally?
Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

The ultimate metaphysical question is this one:

Did the universe have a beginning or didn't it?

Since this question is unanswerable the only logical way forward is to test both hypotheses against the evidence, which is easier said than done but not impossible. Physics proceeds from Newton's assumption that the universe did indeed have a beginning and we're all familiar with the vast suite of paradoxes and counter-intuitive absurdities which have been derived as perfectly logical conclusions from this a priori assumption. In an effort to resolve these paradoxes and counter-intuitive absurdities I decided to see what happens when we test the alternative assumption, namely that the universe has always existed. This meant that one of the canonical principles of physics had to be abandoned forthwith. The methodology of physics proceeds from the principle that reality is created according to a suite of laws and in an eternal universe this is logically impossible because in an eternal universe no explanation is possible for the origin of these laws. Physics rightly asks Why these laws rather than some other laws? without actually realising that this question is mandated by an assumption which is unproven and can never be proven, even in principle. Thus in an eternal universe physics is asking a question which it is not legitimate to even ask. Our cherished position of a universe mandated by law must be abandoned.

However this is not the metaphysical nightmare that it appears to be at first blush because this is something we already know. If all the matter and energy in the universe behaved according to a suite of laws then, in principle at least, it would be possible to predict the future events in the universe down to the most precise of detail, an excellent point made by Pierre-Simon Laplace. As we all know this is bullshit and therefore we are free to conclude that the law-mandated universe is a creationist fantasy. The future of the universe is unknowable and the reason why Laplace was wrong is because his reasoning was circular. His conclusion was contained within his premise, namely that the universe was the artefact of a creator.

The problem with the universe of Newton and Laplace is one of exquisite simplicity because the circularity of the reasoning behind it leads to a misunderstanding about the nature of determinism. One of the most self-evident statements which we can make about our universe is that it has order. The fact that this is so allows us to draw a simple conclusion which predates philosophy and even predates the human species. All sentient beings are hard-wired to understand the universal doctrine of causality. If effects were not preceded by causes in an orderly and generative fashion then the order that we observe in our universe would be logically impossible. That nothing can happen unless it has been caused to happen must therefore be adopted as an axiomatic metaphysical first principle, and indeed it has been in every school of philosophy ever devised in human thought. In a self-causal universe this axiomatic first principle takes the form of a meta-law and this meta-law must be regarded as central to the ontology of the universe because in a self-causal reality it is the only law which is either necessary or possible. In the language of Kant the meta-law is the ding an sich, the thing-as-it-is, the Noumenon which underpins all of our observed Phenomena.

From this perspective we get to regard our familiar "laws of physics" in a somewhat different light. We can still loosely think of them as laws but we need to remind ourselves that these laws have been brought into existence by the meta-law and thus in the correct form of language we call them EMERGENT laws because they emerge from a causal reality which operates at a scale beneath their own sphere of operation. Emergence is a fundamental property of the universe but it is a principle very poorly understood by physics because it is incompatible with the Newtonian narrative, which is exclusively reductionist. Emergence in the common parlance simply means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which specifically means that the whole has physical PROPERTIES which the parts don't have. We can say that the parts confer these properties on the whole but this is where the concept of emergence gets a bit tricky because it is at this point that we need to take into consideration the consciousness of the observer. These emergent properties of the whole are DETERMINED by the meta-law but it is the observer who specifies what these properties actually are and for this he needs a theory about the nature of his observation. Data is just data and whenever we hear somebody say that the evidence speaks for itself we know we're dealing with a dickhead because evidence does not speak. It is the observer who attributes the meaning to his observation because the meaning of his observation is not a property of the universe itself.

This is perhaps one of the most important points of my entire philosophy so to illustrate it carefully I'll use the atom as an example. We don't need a lot of physics to get this but it helps to have a little bit. Firstly it must be stated quite emphatically that the atom is NOT a physical object. The atom is a physical PROCESS which the observer has chosen to objectify. For the sake of convenience and familiarity I'll use the same terminology as the physicists use when speaking of the atom but it is important to stress that there is no valid reason for supposing that the atom can only be modelled in this way, or even if the model of the atom is the best way of modelling the world at all. There could very well be an infinite number of different ways in which reality can be modelled at this scale but this just happens to be the one we've settled on because it works. The moment we decide that there's a better way of doing this we can chuck all these ideas in the bin and start all over again. This qualification is critical because that's how science works.

Physicists use a model called the Standard Model of Particle Physics (SM) to model the atom, and the SM is without question the most remarkable feat of human ingenuity in the history of human knowledge, but the SM is NOT modelling the real world. The SM is modelling a particular narrative of the world and this must never be forgotten. The SM speaks of a large suite of sub-atomic particles which they are pleased to call fundamental particles. This is a careless misuse of language because these particles are not fundamental at all. They did not exist at the first instant of the big bang but came into existence at some finite point in time thereafter. Furthermore they are continuously winking in and out of existence as they interact with each other, sometimes joining together to form different particles and at other times busting apart into smaller particles. The details are unimportant to this story because the real point is that all this is happening at very close to the speed of light and this is why I stress the point that the atom is NOT a physical object but a physical PROCESS. In fact some of the particles within the atom are massless and these particles move at the cosmic speed limit which is the speed of light itself so the correct way to think the atom is that it is a process which is occurring at the speed of light. From one Planck interval to the next our atom is physically no longer the same atom so this simple "ship of theseus" thought procedure illustrates the point that our objectification of the atom is illusory. Reality is that which is continuously RE-MAKING itself at the speed of light.

What are these particles? I've already made the point that these particles are the invention of the observer which have no objective ontological status but there is another very important statement that we can make about them. They cannot possibly be fundamental entities because they all have different physical properties, such as mass, charge and spin. As I said earlier these are EMERGENT properties and are therefore a construct of the theory of the observer but however we choose to define these properties we are forced to the conclusion that they have been conferred on the particles by a yet more fundamental process which is occurring at the Planck scale. The physicists are wide awake to this fact and have spent the last 40 years trying to model this underlying process with various theories called string theories, M-theories, brane theories etc. None of these theories have worked because they're attempting to model them within a dodgy spacetime paradigm, but that's a story for another day. The main point is that the subatomic particles have been specified for by an underlying process and that's all that matters for the purposes of this story because at the Planck scale the only law that is needed to encode for these particles is the meta-law of cause and effect. I have proposed a mechanism for this based on the model of Conway's Game of Life and outlined a brief summary of it in the thread "questions we will never solve".

It is at this emergent scale of the subatomic particles that we see our familiar "laws of physics" become apparent but to understand why this is so it is first necessary to understand the true nature of determinism, and ironically the bloke who actually told us this is the same bloke who caused all the confusion in the first place, Isaac Newton. The relativistic motion of the subatomic particles within the atom is determined by gravity, just as the motion of every other physical entity in the universe is determined by gravity. Furthermore the motion of every physical entity is causally linked to the motion of every other and the speed of this causal information transfer is the speed of light. However the final truth needed to join up at dots at this sub-atomic scale was revealed to us by Albert Einstein in GR. Gravity and time are two different expressions of the same thing because they bear a precise mathematical relationship to each other which is inversely logarithmic in its nature and this relationship obtains all the way down to the Planck scale. Einstein had quantum gravity in his grasp all along but he simply couldn't see the elephant in the room. The so-called "forces" which the physicists claim cause the sub-atomic particles to behave as they do are not causes at all. They are EFFECTS. The relativistic gravitational motions of the particles are the causes and the "laws of physics" are the effects.

Gravitational motion is non-linear, or chaotic. Chaos has received a lot of bad press in the public imagination because we traditionally associate chaos with randomness or disorder. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chaotic motion is both entirely deterministic and utterly unpredictable but its unpredictability is a function of the causal dynamics of the entire system and has nothing to do with randomness. However physics is unable to model motion in this way at the subatomic scale or even at the cosmological scale because it's using the wrong mathematical tools. Non-linear dynamic systems cannot be modelled in a Cartesian co-ordinate system precisely because they are DYNAMIC. Such systems can only be modelled in a topological space and the exact name for such a space in modern mathematics is a fractal dimension, a name coined by a prodigious genius called Benoit Mandelbrot. A fractal dimension is purely a mathematical object, just as a Cartesian dimension is, but it is only in such a dimension that the chaotic motions of the sub-atomic particles can be understood. A fractal universe is an informational entity so to understand the atom we should use the language of the computer nerds. We say that the subatomic particles have been ENCODED FOR at the Planck scale and that they EMERGE at a higher order of INFORMATIONAL COMPLEXITY. This simply means that they have properties at this scale which in turn make them causal agents at this scale. These emergent properties then allow the subatomic particles to ENCODE FOR the atoms, of which there are a great many different kinds, and each of these emergent atoms in turn has a different suite of emergent physical properties which makes them all causal agents in their own right. The atoms then go on to ENCODE for the practically infinite range of self-organising molecules which then give us chemistry. This is the essential mechanism of a self-causal reality and it is all that is needed to account for the vast array of informationally complex entities in our universe, including ourselves, and herein lies the magic of a a self-causal reality, the truth that is bigger than god.

Chaotic systems evolve from the simple to the complex for the simple reason that they cannot do otherwise, a truth from which the term "complexity from chaos" derives. This is as fundamental a meta-law as the doctrine of causality itself because it is causality itself which makes it so. This is the exact opposite universe from the one given to us by the spacetime paradigm because the spacetime universe devolves from the complex to the simple according to the second law of thermodynamics. However this so-called "law" is a property of the model and not a property of the universe and the reason why it's a property of the model is once again because of the a priori assumption that the universe had a beginning. In fact this second law of thermodynamics is complete and adequate evidence that the Newtonian universe is bollocks. We have 13.8 billion years worth of evidence that the universe is not falling to bits at all but is in fact trending in the opposite direction, precisely what one would expect to see in a fractal universe which is itself becoming.
surreptitious57
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by surreptitious57 »

Scott Mayers wrote:
It can still use them inappropriately though if the interpretation of the phenomena being observed
( sensed ) is in error. Thus this main factor is what requires philosophical introspection the most
Science is primarily an inductive discipline and as such errors in interpretation of evidence are only to be expected
Scientists are fully aware of this and accept that the discipline has to be eternally self correcting as a consequence
But rather than philosophical introspection what is needed is new evidence or the falsification of existing evidence
Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

I don't really have the time today to chase another argument but you make some good points about the politics of physics and in particular about the relationship between science and the media. The public expects their scientists to deliver them absolute truths about the world and in many ways they pander to this expectation, which I regard as a grave mistake because they often then need to eat their own words. So much so that many people nowadays regard science as something which one can either believe or disbelieve in accordance with one's conceptual or ideological taste. The global warming debate is a rather obvious example.

Academic physics also has some serious problems with its peer review system and it's tenure protocols for post-graduate placements. These are very tightly structured to maintain the canonical doctrines and thus the group-think in physics is legendary. For almost 20 years no theoretical physicist could get a post-doc placement at a major institution unless he was a string theorist. Nowadays the few who still claim to be string theorists do so only in the privacy of their own minds. The funding caravan has moved on.
Philosophy Explorer
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

Leo,

This statement "Furthermore they [subatomic particles] are continuously winking in and out of existence as they interact with each other, sometimes joining together to form different particles and at other times busting apart into smaller particles" demands clarification. What do you mean by continuously? You're implying this process of change is on an infinitesimal scale when it's known that the Planck scale is the smallest unit of physical measure. And you're playing loose with the term existence. If a particle changes into another doesn't mean it has gone out of existence, but can mean it has changed its form. It's like me putting on a hat, I'm still the same person, but now I'm wearing a hat. I'm well aware that according to SM, that since the properties have changed, that makes it a different particle, but SM is just a model. These are my thoughts.

PhilX
surreptitious57
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by surreptitious57 »

Obvious Leo wrote:
The ultimate metaphysical question is this one
Science is not the least bit interested in metaphysical questions
As it is only interested in the observation of natural phenomena
So leaves any metaphysical questions to philosophy and religion
Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

I feel certain that I've stated often enough that time is not infinitely divisible and that when I speak of continuous change I speak of change at Planck speed, which is the speed of light. I thought I made it clear enough that an atom changes into another atom at the speed of light because that is the speed at which changes take within it. Literally trillions of trillions of trillions of discretely different events occur in an atom every second so to the think of the atom as a "piece of stuff" is absurd because an atom is a process.

The Phil that was you at the start of the reading of this post has winked out of existence and been replaced by a new Phil.
Obvious Leo
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Obvious Leo »

surreptitious57 wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
The ultimate metaphysical question is this one
Science is not the least bit interested in metaphysical questions
As it is only interested in the observation of natural phenomena
So leaves any metaphysical questions to philosophy and religion
Without question this is one of the stupidest posts I've ever seen posted in a philosophy forum. I'm not even going to bother refuting it.
surreptitious57
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by surreptitious57 »

I was rather sceptical about some of your earlier pronouncements and decided to run them past those
who are more knowledgeable than I. They ended up completely rejecting them so I am not concerned
about your response here. Though I suspect that we maybe using different definitions of metaphysical
Scott Mayers
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Scott Mayers »

surreptitious57 wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote:
It can still use them inappropriately though if the interpretation of the phenomena being observed
( sensed ) is in error. Thus this main factor is what requires philosophical introspection the most
Science is primarily an inductive discipline and as such errors in interpretation of evidence are only to be expected
Scientists are fully aware of this and accept that the discipline has to be eternally self correcting as a consequence
But rather than philosophical introspection what is needed is new evidence or the falsification of existing evidence
Yes, it can be 'self-corrected' when the philosophical aspects are also re-included as a part of its process. Otherwise, they would simply have to accept being the workhorses that leave the philosophers to actually use to interpret for theories. I mentioned the point of a PhD as a function of the philosophical aspect of a degree. This has been diminished as insignificant as if only the practice through inductive processes are all that matters. But it is leading to graduates who lack the value of philosophy to represent what is 'truth' without their actual capacity to be fully qualified without the actual lessons learned through the intellectual process of philosophy.

Philosophy is best at arguing from first principles up (the bottom-up approach). This is what theories and/or theorems are derived through. At present, science is the top-down process of taking what we have and try to induce the patterns that lead to generalizations. Then this is where the philosophers' expertise takes over. But the 'philosophical' parts are being inappropriately given to the scientists who lack the kind of background when the institutions abandon a need for these experts to even respect philosophy let alone be required to study it. Thus we get PhD's who actually lack the qualifications to properly theorize beyond their 'bureaucratic' style of process.

If it helps, how I (and perhaps Leo) see this is like having police officers who are skilled at the practice of enforcing laws to become the law makers themselves. While they do learn what is practical in the functional processes of trying to get evidence, they lack the type of skills that those experienced in politics and law to inspect the complexities involved in interpretation and law creation on an intellectual level outside of the practice of enforcing them. Thus science either has to include philosophy as the functioning branch of determining truth including making the laws, or stick to the practice of investigating without drawing conclusions and leave philosophy to be the final judge on truth.
surreptitious57
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by surreptitious57 »

Scott Mayers wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote:
It can still use them inappropriately though if the interpretation of the phenomena being observed
( sensed ) is in error. Thus this main factor is what requires philosophical introspection the most
Science is primarily an inductive discipline and as such errors in interpretation of evidence are only to be expected
Scientists are fully aware of this and accept that the discipline has to be eternally self correcting as a consequence
But rather than philosophical introspection what is needed is new evidence or the falsification of existing evidence
science either has to include philosophy as the functioning branch of determining truth including making the laws or
stick to the practice of investigating without drawing conclusions and leave philosophy to be the final judge on truth
Given that science is not primarily concerned with truth per se it has zero problem in leaving that to philosophy
As it is purely an investigative discipline that observes phenomena and nothing else. Which is why it is perfectly
possible for the two to be entirely separate from each other. And science is actually independent of philosophy
where as philosophy in part at least is dependent on science. Questions about the nature of reality for example
cannot be asked without reference to science. Even though science itself has nothing to say about reality at all
Though it could be argued the role of philosophy is to ask questions that can be answered not ones that cannot
Scott Mayers
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Re: The unification of physics

Post by Scott Mayers »

surreptitious57 wrote: Given that science is not primarily concerned with truth per se it has zero problem in leaving that to philosophy
As it is purely an investigative discipline that observes phenomena and nothing else. Which is why it is perfectly
possible for the two to be entirely separate from each other. And science is actually independent of philosophy
where as philosophy in part at least is dependent on science. Questions about the nature of reality for example
cannot be asked without reference to science. Even though science itself has nothing to say about reality at all
Though it could be argued the role of philosophy is to ask questions that can be answered not ones that cannot
This is fine. But I don't think many actually agree to this and often act hypocritical when they appeal to science as being the only essential factor to seeking truth. It bothers me if I hear a credible scientist declare dismissal of philosophy but then feign credibility in it to argue why their suggested theories do using the expertise of philosophy. So my point is that if we accept a clear distinction, then philosophy takes the reigns OR include philosophy within the realm of science as two parts of it. If it is included within the topic, then the scientific empirical method belongs only to the practical part while the theoretical parts require an expanded function that includes a different but inclusive method to proceed.

At present, the philosophical aspects are blurred as they get used in theory without credibility. One with a PhD in some scientific expertise no longer requires a mastery in philosophy itself but get credit for it as a PhD by default.
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