RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 3:24 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 5:47 am
Your above is based on ignorance that there are atoms because there are real apples.
What you learned in 1952 of Physics are now the dinosaurs of Physics and it is not easy to keep up with the latest in Physics especially when you are THAT old.
Yes, I'm old, but the real difference between us is, I never stopped learning. You apparently have. Most people, like you, learn a few things and then settle back and spend the rest of their lives defending whatever nonsense their teachers have taught them, quoting whatever authorities they have decided to accept, without ever thinking for themselves, ever having an original thought, or learning anything new.
That you jumped to the conclusion about "my learning state" indicate your very low level of learning ability. Otherwise you would have asked me about or for proofs to
LEARN about my current state of learning. You did not attempt to LEARN, did you?
FYI, in the last 12 months or so I have saved appx. 1400 files in 72 folders [articles, books, notes, mostly on morality and ethics] plus those in Kant.
I presume you will make noises I did not learn anything therefrom?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun May 16, 2021 4:30 am
You should have known the consequences of Big Bang, then subatomic particles, atoms, and smaller elements that enable things like "apples" to emerge much later in time.
Tell you what, show me the big bang, an atom, or any subatomic particle and I'll take you to the grocery store and show you an apple. Why would you think what you have never seen or ever can is more real than what you do see?
Are you implying that you will not believe any warnings [backed by scientific research and forecasts] on hurricanes, tsunami, snow-storm, volcano eruption, earthquakes, other serious threats etc. coming your way, because you did not see them and such are not real?
It is only real when you are directly affected by these catastrophes, which it may be too late if you are one of those unlucky ones.
You should have learned [since you are into Science, Physics, ] that scientific knowledge is the most reliable generating the highest confidence level at present and so are the predictions from scientific knowledge as most possible.
Apple aside, whatever "thing" you insist is real cannot be relied upon by common sense but has to be scientifically verified and justified empirically and philosophically.
As such, what is apple scientifically within Physics [atomic] and Chemistry [chemically] is more realistic than what is apple within the science of Biology [merely genus or species].
Are you insisting there is no difference in the degree of reality between common sense, conventional sense, biology, chemistry and physics?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun May 16, 2021 4:30 am
'What is apple' is merely what humans name a cluster of atoms [and other particles] in a certain configuration.
You have actually seen these atoms you say apples are made out of? I've actually seen apples, picked them off trees I've actually seen, eaten and tasted apples, and made apple pies from them.
Where have you ever seen an atom (or "other particles"), or touched them, or tasted them. How do you know they exist at all, or are you just taking the word of things you've read that they exist?
Show me an atom and I'll show you an apple and we can compare to see which is more real.
Note my point that scientific knowledge is more reliable than what you claim based upon your personal senses and perception.
It is not between you and me.
From the humanity perspective, apple-in-terms-of-atoms are more real than what is perceived as an "apple-in-your-eyes"
There is no real apple-in-itself but merely apple-via-humanselves, i.e. what is apple is conditioned within human conditions. When apples rot what is still left are the molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles which in this case are more real than the apple-itself.
That is the oddest description of atoms I have ever read. I have studied all the models of atoms through history, including those of Democritus, Dalton, Thompson, Rutherford, Bohr, and Schrödinger, but not one scientist I know ever pictured atoms as the slop left over from rotting apples. That's a whole new theory of atoms. If that is all atoms are, where did they come from before there were apples?
You insisted you have not stopped learning but your points above exposed the truth your knowledge database has remained stagnant for a long time.
Scientific Knowledge [albeit are at best polished-conjectures] is the most reliable at present. Thus even if the conception of 'atom' has changed, it has no impact on the credibility of scientific knowledge. Scientists will rely on which scientific knowledge that works effectively for them. Example, even there are the later Einsteinian and QM perspectives of reality, the classical Newtonian scientific theories are still useful.
Every scientist [Physics, Chemistry, General] will understand the following;
If put an apple in a tight container with the relevant gases to allow it to rot, what is left surely are the molecules, atoms, particles or in terms of energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
Whilst the molecules, atoms, finer particles are more realistic than the "seen whole apple," they themselves are not real in the ultimate sense without being conditioned upon human conditions.
What you do not understand is that atoms are just sciences way of, "picturing," the nature of chemical attributes of actual entities.
There are no atoms, "in themselves," only atoms as a means of describing the chemical attributes of physical things.
At one time, they were, "pictured," as, "particles," like grains of sand, then as little, "balls," or even miniature, "solar systems," like the Rutherford and Bohr models.
If you had kept up with science, you would know atoms are no longer pictured is tiny particles, but more as, "clouds," or, "waves," as in the Schrödinger model.
But they are all, just models, and have no existence of their own except as explanations of entities which actually exist on their own and can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted.
Atoms are, in fact, just very useful fictions invented to help scientist picture what are only properties and not actual entities at all.
Every actual existent must be different in some way from all other existents. It is not possible that any two things can be identical in every way and be two thing. If there were no difference at all in what were supposed to be two things, they would be the same thing.
In every model, all atoms of the same element are pictured as identical. All iron atoms are identical to all other iron atoms. If atoms were actual existents, every atom would have to be different from every other atom in some way. It would have to have some attribute or characteristic that was different from all other atoms of the same kind. In order to account for the fact they must be different atoms must are pictured as differentiated solely by, "relative attributes," i.e. position and behavior (such as energy levels). But relative attributes are not inherent in entities and only exist as relationships. No real thing can exist with no inherent attributes whatsoever--atoms only exist as concepts for attributes and characteristics of perceivable physical entities, not as independent entities on their.
If actual perceivable physical entities are not truly real, nothing invented to explain their nature (like atoms) can be true either.
There is nothing that is real-in-itself.
Note my definition of
what is real is conditioned upon the specific Framework and System of Knowledge.
This is where we have real scientific knowledge [the most credible], real medical knowledge, real economic, legal, etc.-real-knowledge relative to their respective specific Framework and System of Knowledge [FSK].
You are telling me about model-based reality??
I have been quoting Stephen Hawking's Model Dependent Realism so often,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism
Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena.[1]
It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, multiple, equally valid, realities exist.
It claims that it is meaningless to talk about the "true reality" of a model as we can never be absolutely certain of anything.
The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.
My point is,
what is the real apple to you based on common sense, conventional sense and naive realism is too crude as compared to the scientific-based-model of reality, i.e. in terms of the biological, chemical and Physical model of reality with their progressive levels of reality respectively.