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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 6, 2015 - 04:13pm PT
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We can play the game Largo would have us play, "descending" to the "bottom" and, when coming up to the boarders of our knowledge, wave our hand over the unknown and proclaim that "no-thing" exits there.
Scientism at work again. This assumes two things: 1), there there is no limit to what measuring might find, and 2), once our measuring (which Ed equates with knowledge) is better focused, the "limits" of our knowledge will be crossed and we will know what is at the bottom and that will be...what, exactly, Ed.
Again, you unwittingly flatter me by assuming reductionism was some "game" all my own, when you know perfectly well that science (especially QM) uses this "game" day and night.
But what do you truly believe? That reality reduces down to some thing? Some stuff? And what stuff? And what IS stuff?
Are you saying that the big ass bang sprang from some stuff? Then it wasn't the creation some believe it was, but a reiteration owing to preexisting stuff.
Are you saying that energy and matter are selfsame?
What are you saying save that once the better measurements are in, the "limits of our understanding" will no longer be limits.
And I'm not waving my hands at what you hope and pray will someday turn up at the limits of your understanding. I'm asking you to provide one shred of evidence that any thing or object will turn up there at all. I contend that there is no universal definition of "matter" because ultimately there is no such thing or object. If you are saying or believe that it all reduces down to some matter, some stuff, some basic object as opposed to energy, I'd love to hear about it.
I think the part that is patented dishonest here is the claim that I am canvassing "holes in our knowledge" and claiming mysteries that are not there. I believe that the biggest woo and flapdoddle is this crazy belief that all of reality rests on a solid foundation. All of these arguments hark back to the big bang - no way around it - and if you can show matter (as yet undefined) springing out of nothing or from energy or potential, I rest my case. If you have other ideas, other sources, or if you are suggesting that energy and matter are selfsame, or that the former EVER gives rise to the later, kindly tell us all about it. I just got an earful of this subject and it ran something like this:
E=MC2 means that matter can be converted into energy. Except this is not true.
It is believed that when an atomic bomb explodes, matter is transformed into enormous amounts of energy. This is not true. After the explosion, all of the original matter still exists. All of the protons, electrons, and neutrons making up the uranium, plutonium, or tritium are still within the mushroom cloud. Elements were transformed, neutrons were split into protons and electrons, and protons and electrons combined into neutrons, but in no case was a single particle of matter converted into energy. All of the original components needed to reconstruct the transformed atoms to their initial nuclear states are speeding away in all directions and could, in principle, be reassembled back into the original nuclei. The same exact number of protons and electrons exists after the explosion as existed before. To reassemble these components would require the same amount of kinetic energy that was released in the explosion. The energy of the explosion comes not from converting matter to energy, but from the kinetic energy released when the light elements combine and when very heavy elements break apart. This energy did not just appear from a miraculous transformation of matter into energy, but was always contained within the internal motions of the electrons and protons making up the structure of the fissioning or fusing atoms. The only transformation that occurred was the conversion of rotational kinetic energy into linear kinetic energy.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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scientism is a belief... I'm talking about science and as we explore the limits of our knowledge we are pushing those boundaries back... what is "no-thing" in the 18th century is "thing" in the 21st century, because of our scientific knowledge.
What was considered "the bottom" to Aristotle?
To Aquinas?
To Bohr?
it seems the bottom is falling out...
Your description of what happens when an atom bomb goes off is rather poor, and incorrect... you might want to review your ideas of "potential energy" and what the "mass" of the a nucleus is.
Not only that, but the number of protons and the number of electrons do change in the explosion...
In 1861 James Clerk Maxwell published a paper laying out what would come to be known as "Maxwell's Equations," the first unification of forces... here the magnetic and the electric. In his 1865 book A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field Maxwell derives the wave equation for Electromagnetism, the velocity of the wave being the speed-of-light, and thus identifies the origin of light, it is an electromagnetic wave.
In that book's introduction, Maxwell states that the program of understanding light awaits the discovery of the "luminiferous aether", the medium through which that wave propagated.
Heinrich Hertz made the experimental demonstration that light was an electromagnetic wave... 1889.
Einstein showed that there was no aether... 1905...
and eventually everyone figured out how a wave can propagate in a "vacuum" (no medium required).
These ideas of a "luminiferous aether" date back to Newton, and the ideas was firmly entrenched in physics for those 200+ years. Yet in the end, the solution is that the aether isn't there, it doesn't need to be...
...wouldn't it be ironic if the "luminiferous aether" were a metaphor for "mind"...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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there are a lot of interesting speculations about new "aethers" but they are not the "luminiferous aether"
you can demonstrate this your self by estimating the coupling constant of the photon to the dark matter, or to the dark energy... the two candidate backgrounds.
String theory, alas, remains a curiosity in physics... as yet, it explains everything we know, but it doesn't seem able to explain things we don't know... it can't predict (yet). Until it can it could be considered in the same league as conspiracy theories (except the mathematics is more elegant).
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 6, 2015 - 06:31pm PT
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Your description of what happens when an atom bomb goes off is rather poor, and incorrect... you might want to review your ideas of "potential energy" and what the "mass" of the a nucleus is.
It wasn't "my" description, it came from josh Schoolcraft at JPL.
And Ed, while you trot out impressive erudition per the history of science, you have ducked the hard questions, implying that one day the measurements will be forthcoming. And the fact that science is largely reductive, as are most qualitative investigations.
The "no-thing" idea was not around when you say it was. No-thing refers to phenomenon that do not fit the standard materialist model of an object or thing or form with mass.
As has been mentioned, a photon is an example of no-thing. Meaning there is no such "thing' or object as a photon, but only the properties/forces/charges. Are you saying that this will prove wrong later on? And what about the big bang? Is the matter and phenomenon we see around us the product of no thing, or what? What the hell are you saying? What caused what? What is matter? When does matter "become" energy? Are you saying that as science progresses, no-thing or that with no definition or rest mass or physical extent will suddenly be found out to be a physical object after all.
The answer to these questions do not open you up to having it both ways - that the universe came from nothing, and that, at bottom, no-thing is some antiquated folk jive like aether and that soon as the measurements are in, he real stuff at bottom will betray itself and materialism will be saved.
Do you consider materialism and creation-from-nothing to be mutually exclusive, and if not, why not? If you cannot destroy energy, can you create it? And from what?
JL
PS: This also from Schoolcraft:
Fallacy # 4:
Perhaps the most widely believed fallacy is: E=MC2 means that all forms of energy have mass except for photons which are massless.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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josh Schoolcraft at JPL
Josh got it wrong... there is a large amount of neutrino production, and he has the nuclear physics wrong.
E=MC2 means that all forms of energy have mass except for photons which are massless
I haven't said this... it just is an equivalence... the rules for how energy is made into mass and vice-versa is what we study in particle physics...
what does Josh study?
here's something to think about...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
...implying that one day the measurements will be forthcoming.
measurements are happening this minute... all around the world... you have some strange problem getting a grip on this.
What will explain the measurements?
don't know, we'll see... but you have to walk the territory to know it...
didn't you say that?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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we don't have to look at something as complicated as Plutonium... we can look at something simple like Deuterium, an isotope of Hydrogen with a nucleus composed of a proton and a neutron.
What is the mass of the proton and the neutron?
Mp = 1.672621898 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
Mn = 1.674927471 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
and the mass of the Deuteron?
Md = 3.343583719 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
now you can sum the mass of the neutron and the mass of the proton and what do you get?
Mn+Mp = 3.347549369x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
and we subtract that from the mass of the deuteron
Md-Mn-Mp = -0.000396565 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
so somehow the mass of the deuteron is smaller than the mass of the two things that it is constituted out of...
how is this possible?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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and we subtract that from the mass of the deuteron.
One wonders the importance of a deutron’s mass when the issue is not the intricacies of measurement but the structure of the mind that entitles the individual to an autonomous experience without definition in the current vocabulary of science. And, I would allow, encourages a “metaphysical” ( a term having more to do with the structure of a library than woo) interpretation.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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One wonders the importance of a deutron’s mass when the issue is not the intricacies of measurement but the structure of the mind that entitles the individual to an autonomous experience without definition in the current vocabulary of science.
Largo's goring the Ox of science by demonstrating, with "simple logic" that there is no matter, there is just "no-thing" except he is misunderstanding and misusing the existing "vocabulary of science."
The lack of a "vocabulary of science" as it pertains to "mind" does not exclude the possibility that there will be a "vocabulary" someday. And as we have seen in other areas of science, the meaning of the vocabulary changes as our understanding changes. This causes a lot of confusion to those not aware, the discussions of quantum mechanics in this thread are an example of this.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The lack of a "vocabulary of science" as it pertains to "mind" does not exclude the possibility that there will be a "vocabulary" someday. And as we have seen in other areas of science, the meaning of the vocabulary changes as our understanding changes. This causes a lot of confusion to those not aware, the discussions of quantum mechanics in this thread are an example of this.
And, of course you realize that's nothing less/more than an act of the very faith you dismiss.
Well Paul when you take the calculation off the chalk board and apply it in the physical universe?
Yes, and that's one of the glory's of science we can be thankful for. We are saved from ourselves through the threat of annihilation. O felix culpa!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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perhaps it is faith, we have a difficult time explaining the scientific process... but the premise is quite simple, so simple one wonders at the reluctance put up against it...
all that there is is physical
(which includes those things sourced by the physical).
Being physical, they are subject to the enquiries of science. So far, that has taken us on quite a good ride...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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The Axiom of Choice is a bitch.
Don't you love it when JL pontificates on QM and other recondite areas of physics as if he had a clue what he's talking about? Good story tellers can challenge themselves to deceive readers by beautifully articulating concepts poorly understood by them and so far out of their wheelhouses it would make your head spin. They do this by creating what is called Literature, in which anything can be said as long as it is said in style and admired by other literati.
It all has to do with what we mean when we say "countably infinite" when we are talking about integer vs. rational values...
Jammer has an alternative to the standard Cantor approach. Perhaps he'll describe it. It's certainly thinking outside the box.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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all that there is is physical
And perhaps a definition of the physical is in order. What is the physical nature of thought? What is the physical nature of experience? Difficult questions that must perplex the ablest of scientific minds. Maybe all that is is not physical. To believe all there is is physical is, after all, to believe in the truest sense of the word.
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WBraun
climber
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all that there is is physical
Another absolute made by the very souls who say there are no absolutes ....
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Difficult questions that must perplex the ablest of scientific minds
I doubt very many of them are perplexed by these questions. You overreach.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Bob Parks stated it succinctly:
"...Everything in the universe is governed by the same natural laws; there is a physical cause behind every event."
this is a way of knowing, there are many things we don't know, and we don't even know what we don't know, yet.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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this is a way of knowing, there are many things we don't know, and we don't even know what we don't know, yet.
If that's the case then a certainty with regard to an undefined "physical" nature of the universe seems a bit problematic. Faith maybe?
I don't see this as a contest between magic and reality; I just think that the notions of mind and what it is and the resulting and remarkable number of mythologies those notions have produced deserve to be seen and understood as efficacious paths to consolation for the human condition. Acts of religious worship or meditation are far from being understood by science and when science dismisses them out of hand as simply untrue/false and fails to see their benefit or their source as metaphor it seems a bit arrogant.
That the brain is the mind goes against what humanity has experienced and understood of itself from the beginning as soul. Soul has always been that separate entity seen as the self, the observer of all sensory input. Its condition is the concern of so many religious or mythological ideas. It's immortality or mortality aside, abandoning the idea of soul, that uniquely individual human element celebrated from Egypt to Plato to Emerson, seems just a little sad for the human race.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jammer it is a relatively simple argument based on energy conservation, (or if you want to invoke relativity, the conservation of energy-momentum).
Interestingly, Largo's retelling of the explanation he got from his car pool misses this too.
For Paul's dismissal of the small difference, the actual uncertainties on the measurements of the masses of the particles involved is much smaller than the difference found in the rather elementary operation of summing up the masses...
Mp = (1.672621898 ± 0.000000021) x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
Mn = (1.674927471 ± 0.000000021) x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
Md = (3.343583719 ± 0.000000041) x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
to estimate the uncertainty of the calculation: Md-Mp-Mn we have to make some assumptions regarding the nature of the uncertainties... we could delve into the CODATA evaluations, but we could also assume that they are either entirely statistical (which is probably incorrect) and calculate the square-root of the sum-of-the-squared values, giving us: ± 0.000000051 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg or assume they are entirely systematic, which allows us to take the maximum combination of the three uncertainties, ± 0.000000083 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
Even taking the larger of these two choices, the difference we see is:
-0.000396565 x 10⁻˛⁷ kg
2,000 times larger... so this difference Md-Mp-Mn is not "just a measurement uncertainty"
It is a real difference with many interesting consequences.
I guess we're waiting for Largo's response...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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"That the brain is the mind goes against what humanity has experienced and understood of itself from the beginning as soul...abandoning the idea of soul ... seems just a little sad for the human race."
it is also the source of a lot of human suffering, this belief in "soul." Part of facing up to reality is morning the loss of some cherished, but false belief.. it happens in science all the time... but the benefit is that you don't have to waste your time worrying about stuff that is not real.
As for a "belief" in science, well science has a way of correcting it's false notions, and even if those are dogma, for instance Newton's ideas on light completely held the sway of British physics for 200 years, the dogmas are toppled by our advances in understanding.
While the institution of science is only about 500 years old, the science has made remarkable changes over that period of time. The rather unclear and oft criticized dogma of the "Scientific Method" is actually pretty much common sense, and viewed in more general terms, is just a system of evolution of ideas, with natural selection being replaced by the falsification of "hypotheses" (at which point, the hypotheses cease to be productive).
These simple foundational concepts may very well be at odds with a long history of human thought, though they are also the product of that thought. But distilled down to the barest essence.
It is even possible that the limitations of science is also something that science itself can demonstrate... it's an open question.
In all these cases, science as a "belief system" is incredibly open to demonstrations of its own fallibility, and this is because it recognizes at the outset the fallibility of the humans doing it...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Is that a fancy way of saying my intuition there was correct?
no, your intuition is incorrect... the deuteron actually involves three different forces, the electromagnetic, the "nuclear" an the "weak" forces... the photon that you are talking about is a manifestation of the electromagnetic forces and its couplings to the other two are too small to be an influence.
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