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WBraun
climber
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The gist is: that IT can ALL be explained without God
through Math, logic, and observation
Never does God come in the equation, nor theory for explanation of reality, for the past, or the future
Math logic and observation are all none other than Gods different energies.
God is the equation itself in his impersonal form.
You failed again .......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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"one of my favorite books as a child..."
Oh, man, I AM getting old! LOL!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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"Philosophy is dead."
To remind some of you: I tried to point this out to Madbolter1 (our resident philosopher Christian) a year or so ago. (Of course, this was AFTER his beyond the pale criticisms and snubbing of Sagan, Dawkins, Dennett and others. And ME.) But he wouldn't have it.
This from the #1 Reviewer of The Grand Design at amazon:
"This book began not with a Bang, but with a shudder. On the first page, I read the phrase (and yes it's a proof so this may be changed in the actual version): "Philosophy is dead". No one can argue that there is a modern day philospher with the influence of Aristotle; but surely, philosophy can't be dead!?
However, reading onward, the authors made their point quite convincingly: philosophy is dead in the sense of answering the most mysterious of life's questions. It is up to science, and scientific theory, to provide clues to the true answers, as philosphy in its most ancient forms has taken a back seat, but modern philosphy, that of scientific philosophy, has taken root."
Looks like a few others besides me and Peter Atkins (a physical chemist known for his broader philosophizing) have come to the same view. In the same sense. But it is academic philosophy's own fault, however, in bed too long over the centuries with Abrahamic theology.
EDIT And even in its contemporary forms, you'll note academic philosophy's taken a back seat to engineering disciplines - the whole of them - when it comes to practical problem solving in the interest of the human condition.
And if you question whether it mucks up the water with needless esoterica (besides meaningless concepts and historical baggage), just look a few pages back on this thread. It's a conversation stopper. Philosophy fiddles while American culture circles the drain. It's time we had a new discipline or two, I think, in addition to science and engineering to round out things - human inquiry, development, what matters, point and purpose, life guidance, etc. -Since academic philosophy like Abrahamic theology on so many counts failed already.
Good riddance.
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Crodog
Social climber
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God is the equation itself in his impersonal form
If you like to think of equations as Gods.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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interesting, rrradam. joan's dad was also a physicist. he worked at harvard for awhile and then for unesco in education projects. he had joined the quakers in the 50s and after that refused to engage in research that would lead to WMDs.
"my father turned down many a job
"just to give us something real
"it's hard to be a scientist in the states
"if you've got ideals ..."
(gulf winds)
her dad eventually became nearly homeless, in spite of his famous daughter, and lived for a time in ramshackle conditions in the sacramento delta country. he must have been doing something right, though, living into his 90s.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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rrrA,
Thanks. Since there is no fixed point in the universe, that is kind of where I was going. If all things are in motion, then the curve is never fixed.....
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Philosphy is dead- physics is picking up where philosphy has stopped
Oh, wow! Just wow! It is to laugh! Can't even spell it correctly! lololol
So, I guess that the above quote is itself a statement of physics? Exactly what physical theory grounds that statement? Physics does philosophy and CALLS it physics. Too hilarious!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Well, HFCS, a reviewer said what you said, so that must make it true. This whole thread has become pure entertainment now.
You are RIGHT! You are RIGHT!
I've finally come to my senses! That reviewer was the final bit of evidence I needed!
Thank you for posting that.
Thank you, thank you! I have seen the light!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Whoooaaahhh... DEEP!
If all fixed are in curves, then the motion is never things!
I get it!
Thank you! Thank you!
Harharharahar
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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It is spooky- but just our very existance in the now makes us all our own gods- we are reality....it is crazy sh#t to ponder.
Wow! Yessss! It IS some crazy sh#t to ponder! Too bad I can't do any more "pondering," because all I can do is physics now!
I'm just DEEP in the PHYSICS of the idea that "we are reality!" That is some crazy sh#t indeed!
Wait! Wait! Am I reality? Just ME? Or are WE ALL reality? ALL of us together? How MANY of us does it take to BE reality?
Wow! Just crazy sh#t!!!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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(1) You're welcome. (2) re: "Philosophy is dead." Re-read. The reviewer didn't say it, Hawking and Mlodinow said it, the reviewer was quoting them. Read more slowly if necessary. (3) A year later, I see you're still as condescending to all as ever, I figured it was just a matter of time, my instinct was right. (4) You're pirating my retorts, same as before, use your own.
Aughh, enough energy spent here on you, later.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Yikes, not sure where this is all going...
Philosophy is not physics, and for vast parts of philosophy, physics has no real part to play...
There are things about physics that are relevant to philosophy, and vice versa, so I am not ready to throw out one or the other. I think it isn't a wise thing to do in either case.
What is being debated, at least between madbolter1 and me, are a set of interesting points ultimately having to do with whether or not everything we can know is empirical. It's a deep question. Largo also has pursued this line in a series of discussions elsewhere on the Taco... and Karl too in his own way, and Jan.
There is no proof that the scientific method works indefinitely, that it doesn't ultimately have a limit. The only empirical way to establish it is to find a problem that is not accessible to solution in that manner. There are a number of ways that this could happen. Falsifiability is probably the place it could happen, that is, you reach a point where a hypothesis cannot be tested, perhaps because it would take all the available energy in the universe to do so... think doing experiments at the Planck Mass, not possible. So this rules out a set of theories that cannot be challenged in a practical manner.
Another area is reproducibility. This is a lot more subtle, but in principle, independent confirmation of empirical results is a necessary condition to accept the outcome of a test. It could be that for various reasons, it is impossible to achieve independence due to some necessary dependence among experiments.
Finally, our ability to calculate may fall short of the needs of a theory to produce testable predictions, that is, while we know what the equations that make the theory, we may not be able to solve them for a physical system we could create in the lab. Another variant of this would be our inability to solve a set of equations analytically for practical situations. It is possible that the impossibility of solution could be shown, so we have a theory, but we can't calculate it...
All of these crises have visited physics in the past... and those crises had passed. However, we have no way of knowing, for sure, whether or not this will continue for all of the things we're considering in physics.
On the other hand, we can also consider much more domain to be examined by physics as we start to understand the structure of the universe at a very fundamental level. Space-time is familiar to us, but we don't know where it comes from. Why 3 space and 1 time dimension? this sort of a question starts to be sensible to ask now, perhaps for the first time... and seeking the answer will likely produce much interesting physics. I think mathematics itself could be wrapped up in this line of investigation, but that's just me...
So if there are things about the universe which exceed our ability to understand them via the scientific method, but that exist, how would we deal with achieving some level of understanding regarding them?
And as far as providing some wisdom on the human condition, I would presume that the view of the physicist may be a bit nihilistic for most people... even if there is no reason for our existence in the universe and no special priority for us there, there is still meaning to our lives derived from our condition. Philosophy certainly addresses that where physics does not.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Well summarized, Ed. Thank you.
I'm off to bed. Too long of a day!
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Thomas Kuhn said almost the exact same thing in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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StahlBro wrote:
If all things are in motion, then the curve is never fixed.....
But madbolter1 interpreted that as:
If all fixed are in curves, then the motion is never things!
I think your decoder ring is malfunctioning.
Then, replying to another:
Can't even spell it correctly! lololol
Can you name that fallacy? Your educational pedigree leads me to believe you can.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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could it be that quantum is the real reality of the universe? Quantum mechanics/theory IS the reality at the quantum level (atomic and below), and General Relativity (Gravity) IS, with few exceptions, reality at the everyday level up to super clusters of galaxies.
Thing is... Thw two do not combine, and that is the 'Holy Grail' of theoretical physics... To find, or discover, a theory of everything (ToE), that successfully has the same results that QM and GR give in their domains. It is also called a quantum theory of gravity.
Note - As far as quantum theory goes, look into Quantum Electrodynamics, what Richard Feynman shared his Nobel in... It is the most accurately tested theory, in terms of detail, today... Precicely prediction many things, and all confirmed. In fact, in the 80's, Feynman compared the accuracy (THEN) to measuring the distance from Los Angeles to New York to within the accuracy of the thickness of a human hair.
More on that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED
Or, you can just read one of the best books ever about quantum physics:
It is VERY accessible, and can be read in a single day if you have the time. It will explain what physically happens in most of the everyday processes we take for granted, or never really think about. (E.g., refraction (optics), difraction, electricity/magnetism, chemistry, etc...) He also doresn't just stop there, as even much more is described by that single theory.
Basically, he has 3 "laws":
1. A photon goes from place to place
2. An electron goes from place to place
3. An electron either absorbs or emits a photon
From understanding that alone, especially 3, much can be explained.
Example... An electron moving at significant velocity gains a lot of energy/mass. If that electron is suddenly stopped, or even significantly deflected by an electromagnetic field, it will give off a high energy photon called an x-ray. This is exactly how x-rays are generated a CRT with negatively charged electrons being 'boiled off' of a filament (like a light bulb), then being accelerated toward the postive current applied to a tungsten target. When those electron colide with it, they give off all that energy, in about 97-98% heat and 2-3% x-rays.
Or, in a particle collider, like Ed gets to play with (I'm jealous), or even in space, electrons moving at velocity spiral around 'electromagnetic fields or are deflected by them, and this gives of x-rays, called synchrotron radiation and cyclotron radiation..
This process is known as Bremsstrahlung:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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silly sully... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Guido_Sarducci
As for the quantum-ness of the universe, it is expected that in the end, everything is describable in quantum mechanical terms, or quantum field theoretic terms. However, gravity has escaped description that way, mostly due to the incurable infinities which pop up when you take a run at the problem of quantization head on... this has been a long standing problem in physics and one that is not quite solved. My guess is that we will solve it but learn something fascinating in the process; the solution will be a surprise. I have no good authority on this, I'm not working in that area of physics, but it has always been something that interested me.
Einstein had a very deep understanding of physics, but this made it difficult for him to accept the apparent contradictions that the quantum mechanics presented. The final analysis, referred to as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox had been published to criticize the idea that you may have heard of: Schrodinger's Cat... the idea that a quantum state exists in all its possible outcomes. Einstein felt that there had to be something "hidden" that predetermined the outcome of the measurement.
John Bell took this idea and developed a series of inequalities which provided the basis of experimental test showing that there are no hidden variables, that quantum mechanics is the way things are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
While what this all means philosophically has yet to be worked out, physicists were not surprised to find that quantum mechanics passed the test... it is a hugely successful theory leading to amazingly precise predictions verified in the lab...
Philosophy and physics have very different aims, and sometimes they intersect but less and less productively. It is because physicists do not need to have a consistent philosophical basis for conducting research, allowing the scientific method to prevail and trusting that the conflicting and paradoxical results will ultimately be resolved. Philosophers seek a set of consistent principles to form a system of thought, logical and "proven."
The reason that physicists do not need such a thing is that they believe that the physical universe provides the ultimate authority, through empirical observation, for the theories. There is no other authority in physics.
Philosophy has no such "ultimate" authority. To a physicist, it is all just arguing and words... no one can be demonstrably right or wrong.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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OT but worth noting given photo of Pope Pius posted above
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Well worded, Ed... Very succinct.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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That's because Descarte was also a mathematician and physicist...
Ever heard of the Descarte (Cartesian) Graphging system?
I'm sure you have:
http://www.mathlife.net/AlgebraI/Functions/BasicGraphing/BasicGraphingNotes.html
And Newton himself initially thought that the eye emitted particles (corpusuls) that bounced off an object and returned to the eye, thus creating a visible image.
Many of the greats believed things back in the day that just weren't so, as they had no reason to believe any different.
Even Einstein profoundly believed in a static universe, thus added the cosmological constant to his equations, as when he solved them initially, it showed a dynamic universe. He even dismissed those who came after him (Freidman, and Lemaitre [the Belgian Priest/Astrophysicist I posted about pages back], and even Hubble), until he himself viewed the plates Hubble had taken on Mt Wilson. And, as Ed pointed out, he had issues fully accepting QM.
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