The Physics of Existence

ashurbanipal said:

Surely you understand that it doesn't really matter what we're talking about, specifically. If electrons aren't made of quarks, what are they? And whatever that is, what is that? And whatever that is, what is that. And so on.

If you prefer to talk about protons, what are they? And whatever your answer, what is that? And whatever your answer, what is that. And so on.

Once again, my point--science allows us to substitute terms. Nothing more.

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I was only trying to be correct re electrons. Would you rather there was no attention to detail ?
This comes down to the philosophical meaning of the phrase 'what are they'.
A proton can be defines in terms of it's nature or in terms of it's components but since it's components can never be seen in isolation it would seem wise to define the proton in terms of it's properties or nature. Same thing really.

Why do you think there has to be something deeper than that, as if protons have to have a soul & a spiritual guide or some metaphysical purpose or controller or quality or something or they are made of ektoplasm or something. You are adding complexity that isn't there.
At the atomic level that stops at some point. You can talk about chocolate at deeper & deeper levels in terms of the compounds. There arrangement, then down at the level of the elements that make the molecules then how those elements are atoms that include protons & electrons & neutrons, but at some point it has to stop. You can't go on forever. Nature sets a limit becuase you can't have quarks in isolation. So there you go nature gives these things a limit but you still can't accept that !

Protons are made of quarks. Protons behave in certain ways in magnetic fields or electric fields. They have one unit of + charge. They have mass about 1800 times more than an electron. That's it. That's the proton. Apart from saying it's made of quarks, the best way to define it is by it's nature. What's wrong with that ?

Incidently I find it rather elegant of nature that quarks cannot be seen in isolation. It means one can't go on forever spliting the universe up into tinier & tinier chunks. Rather like quantum mechanics limits the information within a system. In other words one leads ultimately to graininess rather like in a photograph. Our images are made up of a finite number of photons rather than continuous waves. The limit one hits when trying to reduce X-ray dose to patients is ultimately quantum mottle.
One cannot zoom in for ever to an image, be it a radiograph or a photograph & never run out of detail. One also cannot zoom into objects with an electron microscope & never run out of detail. Even if one wasn't limited by the number of electrons used to make the image, one is limited by the finite number of atoms within the object. It gives systems a finite nature that for me, makes them easier to grasp.

ashurbanipal said:

I didn't mean it to be, but looking back over it, I can see where it might seem a bit snarky. Please accept my apologies.

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I do, thank you

ashurbanipal said:

You mean, a complete catalog of its behavior? Why isn't the fact, say, that swords are generally made of metal important?

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It is relevant & can be used to help explain the nature if the sword. As per when we explain the proton in terms of it's nature... mentioning it has one atomic unit of mass & one of + charge tells us much about what to expect & since how mass & charge behave is the best way to understand them then why not.
Physics becomes nothing more than a rather dry accounting process that leads to little intuitive understanding & visualisation of what is going on in a system, if we understand things solely by what they are made of, as in their contituents, rather than by also intimately knowing how they behave, in other words what is their nature.

ashurbanipal said:

So I don't understand how testosterone or PMT enters into the matter, unless you mean to suggest it as an example that proves your point. If so, how does it do that?

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I only brought in the analogy with humans & PMT & testosterone, to highlight how we can understand the causes of behaviour that lead us to undertand or define humans by their behaviour/nature. If you see a man being aggressive then visualize a testosterone molecule it won't help you understand that aggressive person. Defining that person by their behaviour & visualizing that behaviour is what leads to a clear definition & understanding of the nature of that person.

ashurbanipal said:

What it does not do is tell us what electrons actually are--except by defining them in terms of something else, of which we may ask the same questions.

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They are what they is !
They are constituent parts & they behave in a certain way. That's it. It's that simple !

ashurbanipal said:

That was exactly the point. Are you willing to agree with the statement that there are no natural laws? If not, then you've admitted a metaphysical object.

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There is repeatablity & consistency in the way each particle or system behaves. We find the samwe thing if the same system is running billions of light years away. There are universal phenomenon. It seams reasonable therefore to say by empiricism
alone then that laws. It's doesn't invoke metaphysical nonsense in doing so. It's just seeing the way the world is. Without those empiracle laws we'd have a mushy chaotic universe & we wouldn't be around to hold this discussion :smile:

ashurbanipal said:

Godel and Schlick have nothing to do with each other in this context. Godel was not a positivist, though he probably was the more intelligent of the two.

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I'm not well informed regarding philosophers. I need to read more.

ashurbanipal said:

That's a cop out, and demonstrably false. A sword may never be used to cut someone or inflict violence in any way--does that change the fact that it's a weapon? Its behavior has not reflected its nature--according to your principle, it's not a weapon.

Or, suppose we focus instead on a scalpel. First, I use it to operate on someone, and thus by its behavior, it's an instrument of medicine. But then a crazed maniac breaks into my operating room and I use it to kill him. Now it's a weapon. What about the scalpel actually changed from point A to point B?

Or, we could focus on a class of objects that you acknowledge to exist, but that defy such analysis: behaviors. If we ask what the ultimate nature of a behavior is, we'd have to say (by your logic) that it's nature is how it behaves. How does behavior behave? I'm not sure I can figure that out.

Note that the reverse idea--that the nature of a nature is equally absurd, is not true. The ultimate nature of an electron may be abstract, but the nature of that nature is just the sum total of every aspect of the electron.



You were just saying that a thing is the way it behaves...who cares about all that other stuff? I think electrons are made of bananas--and so long as they continue to behave like electrons, who is to challenge my claim? Certainly not you.



I agree, but why stop there? You said it's made of quarks. What is a quark? Whatever your answer, what is that? And whatever your answer, what is that? So on, ad infinitum.



I wouldn't say I'm looking for a metaphysical explanation per se. But suggesting that metaphysical explanations don't exist (depending on what you mean) is either a ridiculous claim or one that is simply false.

Aristotle coined the notion of the Meta-ta-phusika (sorry, no Greek fonts) to mean those things we must invoke to explain the phusika--the physical world. In this light, there are lots of metaphysical things. A natural law, for instance, qualifies as a metaphysical object. You can't take a picture of a natural law (only how we denote it or how it affects physical things). You can't weigh it. You can't put an ounce of it in the mail and post it to someone. If you think about it, there are all kinds of everyday things that people talk about that fall into the same category. Language, words, numbers, operands, wrath, power, processes, etc. are all metaphysical in that we acknowledge they exist, but we know we'll never bump into them at a train station.



You sound a lot like Mortiz Schlick. There's a reason he's fallen out of favor.

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The nature of a thing, is not limited to one aspect of a thing, but all aspect included also. A sword may be used to cut or stab or slice. But it would also be hard, and strong, or flexible. First actually we have to talk about what sword, or kind of sword. A long sword being idfferent from a scimitar, etc.

So we have this sword, it may never be used as a weapon, so what? it does not mean it's no longer a sword, it still is. A weapon is one part of the nature of the sword, not the only part. A dull rusty sword, could be put in a museum on display, it's stilla sword. Marines sword could be used as a fashion accessory, even though it may never be unseathed again, it's stilla sword. Someone may use a sowrd to hold up a bookself, it's still a sword.

Nearly all technology has numerous uses, nearly all things have numerous properties and "natures." But all those aspects, uses, properties or characteristics are still part of the single thing.

Behaviors are not things, per se, but actions of a thing, and therefor only a characteristic of the thing itself. A human has (noramlly) two eyes, ears, nostrils, legs, feet, hands arms, etc, etc, etc. They also have behaviors, human behaviors or individual human behaviors. rats, same thing. Bahavior is a characteristiuc of a thing, but not the thing itself.

And, by his logic, a things' behavior (may) be part of it's nature. In fact it must be. Human's cannot fly (without mechanical assistance). It is not part of it's behavior to fly, nor Man's Nature. A bird however does fly (assuming a flightful bird, not a penguin, since it's not the nature or behvaior of a penguin to fly), so the sparrow's nature is that it flies for longer than short travels. I CAN walk/hop the distance, but it's behavior, part of it's nature, is to fly. It is also not the nature of a penguin or sparrow to build tools to make it fly, as it is man's, as Man is a tool making animal.

robin said:

PS I just checked. Electrons aren't hadrons so not made of quarks, so imagine I'm talking about protons instead visa vie quarks.

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Right electrons are leptons, and quarks make up hardons.

also re quarks
"Some extensions of the Standard Model begin with the assumption that quarks and leptons have substructure. In other words, these models assume that the elementary particles of the Standard Model are in fact composite particles, made of some other elementary constituents. Such an assumption is open to experimental tests, and these theories are severely constrained by data. At present there is no evidence for such substructure."

These the other posters "what makes up quarks" idea, may be unfounded also.

Yet, since quarks do not seem to exist independant of the hardrons, it means we have reach a functional level of detail, level of resultion, or level of signicance for the function of the universe. Also, since we, mas macroscopic entities, are really only capable of manipulating other pretty bug things, should an actual smaller "particle" exist, it won't matter much to us.

Our tools are like trying to pick up a single grain of sand, on the ocean floor, without distrubing the water or other sand, using the Empire State Building as our shovel. In reality of course, we're using things like electrons and magnetism to do this, and they are just too unwieldy.

libertarian_knight said:

Right electrons are leptons, and quarks make up hardons.

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Freudian slip? They're hadrons, babe.

libertarian_knight said:

Right electrons are leptons, and quarks make up hardons.

also re quarks
"Some extensions of the Standard Model begin with the assumption that quarks and leptons have substructure. In other words, these models assume that the elementary particles of the Standard Model are in fact composite particles, made of some other elementary constituents. Such an assumption is open to experimental tests, and these theories are severely constrained by data. At present there is no evidence for such substructure."

These the other posters "what makes up quarks" idea, may be unfounded also.

Yet, since quarks do not seem to exist independant of the hardrons, it means we have reach a functional level of detail, level of resultion, or level of signicance for the function of the universe. Also, since we, mas macroscopic entities, are really only capable of manipulating other pretty bug things, should an actual smaller "particle" exist, it won't matter much to us.

Our tools are like trying to pick up a single grain of sand, on the ocean floor, without distrubing the water or other sand, using the Empire State Building as our shovel. In reality of course, we're using things like electrons and magnetism to do this, and they are just too unwieldy.

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Nicely put. In the end 'You are what you is & you is what you are', as Frank Zappa said
Even when we look at the ingredients or substructure we then try to understand that substructure in terms of ultimately it's nature or the way it behaves or it's qualities. Unless we do, then again it's just an accounting process. Heck maybe at the most fundamental level that's all physics can be. I think we have an example... as in we'll never know how lone quarks behave becuase we'll never observe them. They can only ever be ingredients of hadrons & can never be more than that, or exhibit qualities or have a nature of their own to observe in isolation.

Yeah Hardons

Engimo said:

Freudian slip? They're hadrons, babe.

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LMAO that gave me my good laugh for the day... hehe yes Hadrons. :rofl

I was only trying to be correct re electrons. Would you rather there was no attention to detail ?

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When the issue under discussion is unaffected by the details, yes. Otherwise, no.

This comes down to the philosophical meaning of the phrase 'what are they'.
A proton can be defines in terms of it's nature or in terms of it's components but since it's components can never be seen in isolation it would seem wise to define the proton in terms of it's properties or nature. Same thing really.

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1) It seems clear to me that a thing's properties are not the same as its components. Not only do the components of something not necessarily share the properties of the whole (I am intelligent, my cells are not), but components and properties in the abstract are clearly not the same. Saying "I am intelligent" and "I am made of cells" are not logically equivalent at all.

2) Is your use of disjunction meant to be inclusive or exclusive? If inclusive, I'd say that's a given. If exclusive, I'd say it seems obviously false.

Why do you think there has to be something deeper than that, as if protons have to have a soul & a spiritual guide or some metaphysical purpose or controller or quality or something or they are made of ektoplasm or something. You are adding complexity that isn't there.

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1) I do happen to think there are metaphysical things, for reasons already rehearsed. I don't know whether electrons have souls or not, and am not so concerned with that here.
2) But that's really got nothing to do with my point, which was about the limits of science. In fact, I predicted very clearly in my reasoning that we'd get to a point where we could not answer. At that point, our lack of ability to answer reflects backward on the whole train of connection that led up to it. Science, therefore, does not tell us what things are. It tells us which phenomena can be taken to be equivalent. Electricity=electrons=quarks=what? The fact that we don't know at the end means we don't really know what electricity is. We know how it behaves, and we know some things it's equivalent to. But finally what it is, we cannot say.

This is important because science and what it shows is very misunderstood, perhaps most especially by scientists.

At the atomic level that stops at some point. You can talk about chocolate at deeper & deeper levels in terms of the compounds. There arrangement, then down at the level of the elements that make the molecules then how those elements are atoms that include protons & electrons & neutrons, but at some point it has to stop. You can't go on forever. Nature sets a limit becuase you can't have quarks in isolation. So there you go nature gives these things a limit but you still can't accept that !

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You're confuting esse and percepe. There's no reason that there isn't something that makes up a quark. In fact it seems there must be, even if we just settle on calling it "quark-stuff", but there is a limit to our ability to observe and to conceptualize--even if that limit is imposed by nature. The existence of that limit proves my point. Science doesn't tell us what anything is; nothing really does. Science tells us how to substitute terms.

Protons are made of quarks. Protons behave in certain ways in magnetic fields or electric fields. They have one unit of + charge. They have mass about 1800 times more than an electron. That's it. That's the proton. Apart from saying it's made of quarks, the best way to define it is by it's nature. What's wrong with that ?

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Nothing's wrong with it (except it contradicts your first reply). If you think I have a problem with it, you're not understanding what I'm saying. In fact, I embrace that fact and deal with it--you're illustrating exactly why science (only) shows us how to substitute terms.

It is relevant & can be used to help explain the nature if the sword. As per when we explain the proton in terms of it's nature... mentioning it has one atomic unit of mass & one of + charge tells us much about what to expect & since how mass & charge behave is the best way to understand them then why not.

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Sure. But understanding the charge only allows us to substitute terms (once again). Going from "proton" to "subatomic particle that is repelled by a positive magnetic field" (or whatever) is simply a substitution of terms.

Physics becomes nothing more than a rather dry accounting process that leads to little intuitive understanding & visualisation of what is going on in a system, if we understand things solely by what they are made of, as in their contituents, rather than by also intimately knowing how they behave, in other words what is their nature.

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Well, you have to be careful to distinguish science and philosophy. All scientists engage, to some degree, in philosophizing about their results. Whenever someone builds a conceptual model to give results context, they're engaging, to some degree, in philosophy. The famous image of an atom that everyone is familiar with is a kind of philosophy--it's only one of many possible models that would have been consistent with the experimental results that led to it. The scientists doing those experiments (I think it was Planck, not sure) chose that model for its elegance. But it famously turns out that the model violates later results, so now we have a new model. But make no mistake--the process of making those models is philosophy, not science.

I only brought in the analogy with humans & PMT & testosterone, to highlight how we can understand the causes of behaviour that lead us to undertand or define humans by their behaviour/nature. If you see a man being aggressive then visualize a testosterone molecule it won't help you understand that aggressive person. Defining that person by their behaviour & visualizing that behaviour is what leads to a clear definition & understanding of the nature of that person.

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I understand what you're saying, but I don't understand how its relevant.

They are what they is !
They are constituent parts & they behave in a certain way. That's it. It's that simple !

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Of course it's that simple. Now develop the consequences of accepting that.

There is repeatablity & consistency in the way each particle or system behaves. We find the samwe thing if the same system is running billions of light years away. There are universal phenomenon. It seams reasonable therefore to say by empiricism
alone then that laws.

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I assume you meant to say that laws exist. See below.

It's doesn't invoke metaphysical nonsense in doing so. It's just seeing the way the world is. Without those empiracle laws we'd have a mushy chaotic universe & we wouldn't be around to hold this discussion.

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1) I don't know why a chaotic universe would preclude this discussion.
2) By "metaphysical nonsense," you presumably mean things like gods, ghosts, ectoplasm, etc. That's not precisely what I'm talking about, but the case against there being such things is weakened by admitting that there are (presumably non-physical) things like laws. Go back and look at how I defined metaphysics.

I'm not well informed regarding philosophers. I need to read more.

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I would ecourage you to do so. You might find a book called "Space, Time, and Spacetime" by Larry Sklar to be of particular interest. I would also encourage you to take a look at a position in Philsophy of Science called "Indeterminism" or, sometimes either the Quine-Duhem thesis or the Quine-Duhem superproblem.

When the issue under discussion is unaffected by the details, yes. Otherwise, no.
1) It seems clear to me that a thing's properties are not the same as its components. Not only do the components of something not necessarily share the properties of the whole (I am intelligent, my cells are not), but components and properties in the abstract are clearly not the same. Saying "I am intelligent" and "I am made of cells" are not logically equivalent at all.

I didn't say they were

2) Is your use of disjunction meant to be inclusive or exclusive? If inclusive, I'd say that's a given. If exclusive, I'd say it seems obviously false.

You're bogged down with big words mate. See Witgenstien

1) I do happen to think there are metaphysical things, for reasons already rehearsed. I don't know whether electrons have souls or not, and am not so concerned with that here.

There we have it. You have to have a quasi religious view of things. You seem to need to believe in hidden or higher forces almost like a creationist. You can't accept nature is self sustaining & does it's own thing according to the properies of it's components. You can't accept there is the material world & that's it. Well you have preconceived ideas then. What can I do to help you. You are in effect stamping your psycological needs on nature.

2) But that's really got nothing to do with my point, which was about the limits of science. In fact, I predicted very clearly in my reasoning that we'd get to a point where we could not answer. At that point, our lack of ability to answer reflects backward on the whole train of connection that led up to it. Science, therefore, does not tell us what things are. It tells us which phenomena can be taken to be equivalent. Electricity=electrons=quarks=what? The fact that we don't know at the end means we don't really know what electricity is. We know how it behaves, and we know some things it's equivalent to. But finally what it is, we cannot say.

How do you know it's the limits of science ?
Maybe it's a limit inherent in nature... not in science. Quarks cannot be in isolation.. period, fin !

This is important because science and what it shows is very misunderstood, perhaps most especially by scientists.

You're confuting esse and percepe. There's no reason that there isn't something that makes up a quark. In fact it seems there must be, even if we just settle on calling it "quark-stuff", but there is a limit to our ability to observe and to conceptualize--even if that limit is imposed by nature. The existence of that limit proves my point. Science doesn't tell us what anything is; nothing really does. Science tells us how to substitute terms.

What is the philosophical meaning of 'something that makes up a quark' ? a quark's a quark's a quark a quark's a quark's a quark a quark's a quark's a quark isn't it ?

Nothing's wrong with it (except it contradicts your first reply). If you think I have a problem with it, you're not understanding what I'm saying. In fact, I embrace that fact and deal with it--you're illustrating exactly why science (only) shows us how to substitute terms.

You belittle science. It has incredible powers of prediction. It has lead to an incredibly enlightened age we live in compared to the dark ages in the past where religion & priests & witchdocotors were a fake means to understand the world whilst men of truth like Galileo & Darwin were supressed by ignorant bigotted religious idiots with their pre conceptions.

Well, you have to be careful to distinguish science and philosophy. All scientists engage, to some degree, in philosophizing about their results. Whenever someone builds a conceptual model to give results context, they're engaging, to some degree, in philosophy. The famous image of an atom that everyone is familiar with is a kind of philosophy--it's only one of many possible models that would have been consistent with the experimental results that led to it. The scientists doing those experiments (I think it was Planck, not sure) chose that model for its elegance. But it famously turns out that the model violates later results, so now we have a new model. But make no mistake--the process of making those models is philosophy, not science.

The boundary between science & philosophy is non existant more or less. The only thing that can be said is the more abstract areas of philosophy seem untestable & as such are 'waffle' to use a technical term. Lets think of a big word & then use other big words to define it

I assume you meant to say that laws exist. See below.

Of Course they do. Wothout them we wouldn't exist for Christ sake.
Try being more down to earth mate will you for christ's sake, you have your head up your butt.

1) I don't know why a chaotic universe would preclude this discussion.

How the **** could life evolve if the universal laws didn't exist in such a way that complexity can come from from chaos ?

2) By "metaphysical nonsense," you presumably mean things like gods, ghosts, ectoplasm, etc. That's not precisely what I'm talking about, but the case against there being such things is weakened by admitting that there are (presumably non-physical) things like laws. Go back and look at how I defined metaphysics.

What's the definition of 'non physical' ? It seems to me to be a meaningless term. Is it something that can never be observed... like the tooth fairy ? If so then it's pure fantasy

I would ecourage you to do so. You might find a book called "Space, Time, and Spacetime" by Larry Sklar to be of particular interest. I would also encourage you to take a look at a position in Philsophy of Science called "Indeterminism" or, sometimes either the Quine-Duhem thesis or the Quine-Duhem superproblem.

Yet more big words & wild speculations :roll:

There we have it. You have to have a quasi religious view of things. You seem to need to believe in hidden or higher forces almost like a creationist. You can't accept nature is self sustaining & does it's own thing according to the properies of it's components. You can't accept there is the material world & that's it. Well you have preconceived ideas then. What can I do to help you. You are in effect stamping your psycological needs on nature.

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You seem to take a dim view of metaphysics. But in just those few sentences, above, you referred to at least 6 things that are not material--forces, nature, self, properties, ideas, psychology. It would seem a simple case to prove--if you can, just go get an ounce of any of those and bottle them up, take a picture, and post it to this thread. If you can't do that, then just tally up all the other ideas of things that you can't put in a bottle and stop believing in them (this would presumably include all verbs and quite a few nouns). If you're not willing to do that, then you must admit to believing in non-material things.

How do you know it's the limits of science ?
Maybe it's a limit inherent in nature... not in science. Quarks cannot be in isolation.. period, fin !

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1) That we can't isolate a quark doesn't remove the onus on trying to determine what it is.
2) If it's a limit of nature, it must also be a limit of science. Science explores the natural world. If the natural world has some limit x, it seems science must stop there as well.

What is the philosophical meaning of 'something that makes up a quark' ? a quark's a quark's a quark a quark's a quark's a quark a quark's a quark's a quark isn't it ?

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I don't know what a "philosophical" meaning is, but the meaning of the phrase is simply to denote the components of a quark. If they have no components, they don't exist. If we don't know those components, my point is sound.

You belittle science. It has incredible powers of prediction. It has lead to an incredibly enlightened age we live in compared to the dark ages in the past where religion & priests & witchdocotors were a fake means to understand the world whilst men of truth like Galileo & Darwin were supressed by ignorant bigotted religious idiots with their pre conceptions.

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I'm not belittling anything. Substitution of terms is exactly responsible for all those powers of prediction and the enlightenment of the age. But you might be surprised at what, for instance, Galileo thought. He certainly didn't practice the abduction that a modern scientist practices.

I agree that people very often do not want to hear the truth, and that this is a terrible thing. But you mistake me greatly if you think I would be among those who persecute or ridicule, for instance, Darwin. That, even though I am not a Darwinist.

The boundary between science & philosophy is non existant more or less. The only thing that can be said is the more abstract areas of philosophy seem untestable & as such are 'waffle' to use a technical term. Lets think of a big word & then use other big words to define it.

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It only seems so to those who don't follow the reasoning in question.

Of Course they do. Wothout them we wouldn't exist for Christ sake.
Try being more down to earth mate will you for christ's sake, you have your head up your butt.

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Weren't you just taking me to task for having an insulting tone? Anyway, there's nothing logically necessary about this universe in particular, or generally any part of it. That I exist happens to depend on physical laws, but no contradiction would be invoked by changing those laws and leaving my existence intact.

How the **** could life evolve if the universal laws didn't exist in such a way that complexity can come from from chaos ?

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Why do universal laws need to exist to do that? Again, there's nothing logically contradictory about the notion of people just popping out of thin air. Not that this is observed to happen, but it's not impossible in the same way that, say, a four-sided triangle is impossible.

What's the definition of 'non physical' ? It seems to me to be a meaningless term. Is it something that can never be observed... like the tooth fairy ? If so then it's pure fantasy

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Then to you, universal laws are pure fantasy. Have you ever seen a universal law? I don't mean a mathematical or linguistic description of it, and I don't mean the effects of it. I mean the thing itself. Do you believe anyone could, even in principle?

Yet more big words & wild speculations

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Hardly. I was just trying to help you out; if you have some interest in physics and especially how we deduce models of the world from the results of science, those tips are well worth checking out.

ashurbanipal said:

You seem to take a dim view of metaphysics. But in just those few sentences, above, you referred to at least 6 things that are not material--forces, nature, self, properties, ideas, psychology. It would seem a simple case to prove--if you can, just go get an ounce of any of those and bottle them up, take a picture, and post it to this thread. If you can't do that, then just tally up all the other ideas of things that you can't put in a bottle and stop believing in them (this would presumably include all verbs and quite a few nouns). If you're not willing to do that, then you must admit to believing in non-material things.

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Metaphysics is a meaningless notion. There is only physics. A distinction is meaningless. For a start... how do you decide somethings are metaphysical & others as coming under the umbrella of physics ?
You are not explaining anything away with metaphysics. You are just making things more complex than they are. 400 years ago Lightning might have been regarded as meta physical. Now we know better. Todays metaphysics is tomorrows physics.
"Forces, nature, self, properties, ideas, psychology" are all described by science & are all a consequence of matter in motion. That includes what goes on in your brain.

ashurbanipal said:

1) That we can't isolate a quark doesn't remove the onus on trying to determine what it is.

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It is what it is !

ashurbanipal said:

2) If it's a limit of nature, it must also be a limit of science. Science explores the natural world. If the natural world has some limit x, it seems science must stop there as well.

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QED you can't go beyond the limit of nature, becuase you can't measure something that's even smaller if it's not there to start with ?

ashurbanipal said:

I don't know what a "philosophical" meaning is, but the meaning of the phrase is simply to denote the components of a quark. If they have no components, they don't exist. If we don't know those components, my point is sound.

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??????

ashurbanipal said:

I'm not belittling anything. Substitution of terms is exactly responsible for all those powers of prediction and the enlightenment of the age. But you might be surprised at what, for instance, Galileo thought. He certainly didn't practice the abduction that a modern scientist practices.

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Abduction ? For sure he was interested in the truth. Maybe 400 years ago he was interested in metaphysics or alchemy. Newton was. We know better now.

ashurbanipal said:

I agree that people very often do not want to hear the truth, and that this is a terrible thing. But you mistake me greatly if you think I would be among those who persecute or ridicule, for instance, Darwin. That, even though I am not a Darwinist.

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Just in your saying you are not a Darwinist, is to ridicule Darwin. Are you a creationist loony ?

ashurbanipal said:

It only seems so to those who don't follow the reasoning in question. Anyway, there's nothing logically necessary about this universe in particular, or generally any part of it. That I exist happens to depend on physical laws, but no contradiction would be invoked by changing those laws and leaving my existence intact.

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f the various physical constants in nature were to change by a tiny amount, life could not exist, so what you are saying is untrue.

ashurbanipal said:

Why do universal laws need to exist to do that? Again, there's nothing logically contradictory about the notion of people just popping out of thin air. Not that this is observed to happen, but it's not impossible in the same way that, say, a four-sided triangle is impossible.

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Yes, quantum mechanics permits in theory some very bizzarre things.

ashurbanipal said:

Then to you, universal laws are pure fantasy.

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You are the one that denys they can be deduced from the behaviour of matter & fields.. not I.

ashurbanipal said:

Have you ever seen a universal law? I don't mean a mathematical or linguistic description of it, and I don't mean the effects of it. I mean the thing itself. Do you believe anyone could, even in principle?

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Yes. everytime I trip over I seem to obey the universal law of gravity & I'm sharply reminded that laws exist :roll:

ashurbanipal said:

Hardly. I was just trying to help you out; if you have some interest in physics and especially how we deduce models of the world from the results of science, those tips are well worth checking out.

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Sorry but I don't think you can help me. You are too bogged down & confused with metaphysical bunkum & big words. It is you that need help, not I.
The title of this topic 'The physics of existence' is absurd to start with.

Metaphysics is a meaningless notion. There is only physics. A distinction is meaningless. For a start... how do you decide somethings are metaphysical & others as coming under the umbrella of physics ?

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1) What do you mean when you use the term "metaphysics?" I'm getting the impression that we're talking about two different things. Metaphysics, to me, is just the study of that class of objects that must be inferred to exist from the natural world. A natural law is a metaphysical object because we don't ever see natural laws, we infer their existence from the behavior of the things we can directly observe. Is this what you claim is meaningless?

2) Given this point, the answer to your question is pretty obvious. If you could never, in principle, hold it in your hand or otherwise observe it directly, then you're talking about something metaphysical.

You are not explaining anything away with metaphysics. You are just making things more complex than they are.

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No--without metaphysics, the natural world becomes completely incomprehensible. We wouldn't have mathematics, chemistry, or physics. The formulations of science are principally metaphysical formulations. You'll never ever ever observe the inverse square law itself--you only observe how it affects objects in the physical world. We're justified in talking about it because it's a very good approximation for how all objects of mass behave under a certain domain. I don't know how I could possibly be more clear than this.

400 years ago Lightning might have been regarded as meta physical. Now we know better. Todays metaphysics is tomorrows physics.

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No, lighting should never have been considered metaphysical since it can be observed directly. Now, it may be (probably is) that people used to think that lightning was generated by some spirit, god, demon, or whatever. I'm pointing out that its arrogance to think that we've really gotten beyond that--we can't say, finally, what generates lightning. We've taken several steps along the chain of subsitution of terms--we know that Thor doesn't ride around and directly generate lightning. But while we might consider the idea quaint, we do not know that Thor isn't at the end of that chain of substitution. We don't know what could be at that end--the end itself is incomprehensible to us.

"Forces, nature, self, properties, ideas, psychology" are all described by science & are all a consequence of matter in motion. That includes what goes on in your brain.

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Yes, all described by science. Why does that make them not metaphysical? Again, an object is a metaphysical object if it can't be observed directly. This is a pretty standard definition.

It (i.e. a quark) is what it is !

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Imagine if we had said that about everything. We'd know nothing. Hence, my point yet again.

QED you can't go beyond the limit of nature, becuase you can't measure something that's even smaller if it's not there to start with ?

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1) QED? I missed it if you just demonstrated something with certainty.
2) Who's talking about measuring something? I'm just talking about finding out what the components are. They're separate issues, even if those components are in principle unmeasurable.

Abduction ? For sure he was interested in the truth. Maybe 400 years ago he was interested in metaphysics or alchemy. Newton was. We know better now.

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1) Abduction was proposed by Charles Pierce as the means by which scientific inquiry ought to proceed, and is generally accepted as one of the assumptions in the standard cannon of scientific method today. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce
2) You'd probably be surprised at the history of science and exactly how we arrived at the attitudes that most scientists have today. It's nothing like the steady certain march towards truth that most people envision.

Just in your saying you are not a Darwinist, is to ridicule Darwin. Are you a creationist loony ?

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1) Why, by disagreeing with Darwinism (as most biologists do today) is it necessarily the case that I'm ridiculing Darwin?
2) I am not a believer in the literal interpretation of Genesis, if that's what you're asking. I probably am a creationist in a remote sense (not in any sense that most people would consider creationist), but I don't know whether that requires an intelligent being or not. In fact, I think probably not.
3) Just to save more back-and-forth: Neodarwinism is the predominant view among evolutionary biologists today. Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" being about as perfect an introduction for the layperson to the cannon of ideas that Neodarwinists subscribe to as one could get. However, there are quite a large number of other positions in evolutionary theory--I happen to support, with modification, Stephen Jay Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium theory. I believe it best fits the evidence available not only from cladistics and the fossil record, but also from histo- and organogenesis and embryology. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould

If the various physical constants in nature were to change by a tiny amount, life could not exist, so what you are saying is untrue.

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1) Life would not exist? How about, life as we know it?
2) Anyway, do you not understand the distinction between necessary and contingent?
3) Finally, your assertion is false. Look, suppose the atomic weight of every element in the universe doubled (without altering the number of protons and neutrons). Suppose that the force of gravity was halved so that twice as much mass weighed half as much. Suppose that a myriad of other such antagonistic adjustments were made so that all kinds of radical changes happened, but balanced each other out. Why is life, even as we know it, not possible under such a scenario?

You are the one that denys they can be deduced from the behaviour of matter & fields.. not I.

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Huh? I deny nothing of the sort. I merely say that the laws so deduced (well, abduced, actually) are not physical things.

Yes. everytime I trip over I seem to obey the universal law of gravity & I'm sharply reminded that laws exist.

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Yeah, but what do you actually observe? Do you see some big hand come out of the center of the earth with the word "gravity" tatooed on its knuckles along with a mathematical description of your exact situation to grab you and jerk you down to the ground? No. You trip. You fall. You hit the ground. That this event can be described more or less rigorously by the same equations that describe a whole class of like events means that there is a law at work. But where, for gosh sakes, do you actually see that law in the event itself? You see your body. You see the fulcrum on which you trip. You see the object you smash into. You abduct to the law, but you never ever ever see the law itself.

Try to imagine, for instance, bumping into the square root of two at a coffee shop. Again, not the number written on a piece of paper, not something that was affected by an application of that number, but that actual number itself. The very idea is absurd. But no one is willing to say that the square root of two doesn't, therefore, exist.

Sorry but I don't think you can help me. You are too bogged down & confused with metaphysical bunkum & big words. It is you that need help, not I.
The title of this topic 'The physics of existence' is absurd to start with.

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As you wish.

ashurbanipal said:

1) What do you mean when you use the term "metaphysics?" I'm getting the impression that we're talking about two different things. Metaphysics, to me, is just the study of that class of objects that must be inferred to exist from the natural world. A natural law is a metaphysical object because we don't ever see natural laws, we infer their existence from the behavior of the things we can directly observe. Is this what you claim is meaningless?

2) Given this point, the answer to your question is pretty obvious. If you could never, in principle, hold it in your hand or otherwise observe it directly, then you're talking about something metaphysical.



No--without metaphysics, the natural world becomes completely incomprehensible. We wouldn't have mathematics, chemistry, or physics. The formulations of science are principally metaphysical formulations. You'll never ever ever observe the inverse square law itself--you only observe how it affects objects in the physical world. We're justified in talking about it because it's a very good approximation for how all objects of mass behave under a certain domain. I don't know how I could possibly be more clear than this.



No, lighting should never have been considered metaphysical since it can be observed directly. Now, it may be (probably is) that people used to think that lightning was generated by some spirit, god, demon, or whatever. I'm pointing out that its arrogance to think that we've really gotten beyond that--we can't say, finally, what generates lightning. We've taken several steps along the chain of subsitution of terms--we know that Thor doesn't ride around and directly generate lightning. But while we might consider the idea quaint, we do not know that Thor isn't at the end of that chain of substitution. We don't know what could be at that end--the end itself is incomprehensible to us.



Yes, all described by science. Why does that make them not metaphysical? Again, an object is a metaphysical object if it can't be observed directly. This is a pretty standard definition.



Imagine if we had said that about everything. We'd know nothing. Hence, my point yet again.



1) QED? I missed it if you just demonstrated something with certainty.
2) Who's talking about measuring something? I'm just talking about finding out what the components are. They're separate issues, even if those components are in principle unmeasurable.



1) Abduction was proposed by Charles Pierce as the means by which scientific inquiry ought to proceed, and is generally accepted as one of the assumptions in the standard cannon of scientific method today. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce
2) You'd probably be surprised at the history of science and exactly how we arrived at the attitudes that most scientists have today. It's nothing like the steady certain march towards truth that most people envision.



1) Why, by disagreeing with Darwinism (as most biologists do today) is it necessarily the case that I'm ridiculing Darwin?
2) I am not a believer in the literal interpretation of Genesis, if that's what you're asking. I probably am a creationist in a remote sense (not in any sense that most people would consider creationist), but I don't know whether that requires an intelligent being or not. In fact, I think probably not.
3) Just to save more back-and-forth: Neodarwinism is the predominant view among evolutionary biologists today. Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" being about as perfect an introduction for the layperson to the cannon of ideas that Neodarwinists subscribe to as one could get. However, there are quite a large number of other positions in evolutionary theory--I happen to support, with modification, Stephen Jay Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium theory. I believe it best fits the evidence available not only from cladistics and the fossil record, but also from histo- and organogenesis and embryology. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould



1) Life would not exist? How about, life as we know it?
2) Anyway, do you not understand the distinction between necessary and contingent?
3) Finally, your assertion is false. Look, suppose the atomic weight of every element in the universe doubled (without altering the number of protons and neutrons). Suppose that the force of gravity was halved so that twice as much mass weighed half as much. Suppose that a myriad of other such antagonistic adjustments were made so that all kinds of radical changes happened, but balanced each other out. Why is life, even as we know it, not possible under such a scenario?



Huh? I deny nothing of the sort. I merely say that the laws so deduced (well, abduced, actually) are not physical things.



Yeah, but what do you actually observe? Do you see some big hand come out of the center of the earth with the word "gravity" tatooed on its knuckles along with a mathematical description of your exact situation to grab you and jerk you down to the ground? No. You trip. You fall. You hit the ground. That this event can be described more or less rigorously by the same equations that describe a whole class of like events means that there is a law at work. But where, for gosh sakes, do you actually see that law in the event itself? You see your body. You see the fulcrum on which you trip. You see the object you smash into. You abduct to the law, but you never ever ever see the law itself.

Try to imagine, for instance, bumping into the square root of two at a coffee shop. Again, not the number written on a piece of paper, not something that was affected by an application of that number, but that actual number itself. The very idea is absurd. But no one is willing to say that the square root of two doesn't, therefore, exist.

As you wish.

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Watch my lips.... Todays so called 'metaphysics' is tomorrow's physics.

Oh one other point I must pick up on

ashurbanipal said:

Huh? I deny nothing of the sort. I merely say that the laws so deduced (well, abduced, actually) are not physical things.

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Like I said, you need to be more down to earth mate. Next time something drops on your head due to the universal law of gravity, try telling me then that law is 'non physical' :lol:
Please tell me what is so 'non physical' about the warping of space time ?
What you are guilty of is saying anything outside of your everyday experience is non physical & somehow meta physical !
What pre conceived ideas you have & what limits you put on things !
I predict you are at risk of becoming 'born again' or doing a Cat Stevens & going over the edge :shock: .
I think you are vulnerable to that.
Incidently if an apple drops on your head & you think the gravity field is non physical, just bear in mind the apple never really touches you. Even the force you feel is the electrostatic repulsion between the electrons in the atoms of the apple & the electrons on the surface of your bonce. The atoms never touch you in the physical sense that you seem to think exists.
So a distinction is meaningless.
You could just as easily think apples touching your head are just as ethereal/non physical as these gravitational laws/forces that you seem to insist are non physical. I think you need to read a little more physics & a little less philosophy. Physicists concern themselves with reality. Philosophers spend too much time pondering their navels :lol:
Long live empiricism.

One of the problems here is terms. The descriptive 'metaphysical' has the common and accepted connotation of something beyond or outside of our physical universe. Simply because something is difficult to define or beyond our current grasp of understanding does not infer that it belongs to the realm of the metaphysical. Language, semantics, and abstract models oftentimes utterly fail to adequately describe our condition. But this transliteration failure does not abandon or negate reality. Thus, the 'unknown' aspects of our condition should not automatically be relegated to the realm of metaphysics. Traditionally, metaphysics is considered a pseudoscience.

Tashah said:

One of the problems here is terms. The descriptive 'metaphysical' has the common and accepted connotation of something beyond or outside of our physical universe. Simply because something is difficult to define or beyond our current grasp of understanding does not infer that it belongs to the realm of the metaphysical. Language, semantics, and abstract models oftentimes utterly fail to adequately describe our condition. But this transliteration failure does not abandon or negate reality. Thus, the 'unknown' aspects of our condition should not automatically be relegated to the realm of metaphysics. Traditionally, metaphysics is considered a pseudoscience.

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Nicely put.

ashurbanipal said:

1) What do you mean when you use the term "metaphysics?" I'm getting the impression that we're talking about two different things. Metaphysics, to me, is just the study of that class of objects that must be inferred to exist from the natural world. A natural law is a metaphysical object because we don't ever see natural laws, we infer their existence from the behavior of the things we can directly observe. Is this what you claim is meaningless?
2) Given this point, the answer to your question is pretty obvious. If you could never, in principle, hold it in your hand or otherwise observe it directly, then you're talking about something metaphysical.

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Laws are just a sign of consistency in the universe. An electron has the same mass & charge here as it does 13 billion light years away. What is metaphysical about that ?
Conservation of energy occurs here as anywhere else in the universe, as if there is a universal accountant. Maybe you thing God's an accountant.
How many things are observed directly ?
None that I know of. Even things you might assume are observed directly aren't as direct as you think. When you see a picture you just see the way some of the photons of light interacted with the paint in the picture & subsequently interacted with your retina. It doesn't stop there. There's the signal down the optic nerve then the interactions between your neurons as you take the picture in & then recall it. It's a continuum. Where does the painting start & your perception of it end ?
It's all a connected series of events. How separate is the observer & the observed.. one wonders :?
An even less direct process at the outset is a radiograph, where x-rays are converted to light for you to see.
Neutrinos are even harder to see becuase they so rarely interact. You can't hold them in your hand, but I don't think that makes them metaphysical.
Dark matter can be inferred to exist from the speed galaxies rotate & but has not been observed in any other way as far as I'm aware. Does that mean dark matter is meta physical ? The answer I think is no.
Like you when I was younger, I believed in the metaphysical as fix really to all the questions such as why are there laws & what makes the universe persist & apparently stay consistent in it's behaviour.
It somehow imbued nature with the mystical. Almost like pantheism, where one believes God is nature. But that's just a definition.
Now I see that the 'metaphysical' as really a rather a pointless & misleading idea/word. It's just a label for things that are not yet explained or fully understood by our 300 year old science in this 13 billion year old universe. Science is still in it's infancy after all !

Next time something drops on your head due to the universal law of gravity, try telling me then that law is 'non physical'

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Regardless of what drops on my head, the law will remain non-physical. It's the object that does the dropping and my head that are physical. Not the law itself.

Please tell me what is so 'non physical' about the warping of space time ?

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You're talking about the object of reference of one theory of gravity. Not the theory itself. Almost as if the word "gravity" and the force, gravity, are one and the same.

What you are guilty of is saying anything outside of your everyday experience is non physical & somehow meta physical !

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If you think that, you've not understood what I said at all.

I predict you are at risk of becoming 'born again' or doing a Cat Stevens & going over the edge.

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You don't know me, so I'm not sure what this prediction is worth.

I think you are vulnerable to that.

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Undoubtedly so. I'd not have it any other way. Many ideas contributed to the success that human beings have had in acquiring knowledge. But the one idea that has helped more than any other, and the one that would seem to be more wise than any other, is to hold as few prejudices as possible. While I do not hold with fundamentalist religions at all, I like to think that if some incontrovertible proof were presented, I would not reject it because I simply couldn't believe it. As things stand right now, I'm not sure what could be presented as incontrovertible proof. But I will forever remain open to the possibility that it might happen.

You could just as easily think apples touching your head are just as ethereal/non physical as these gravitational laws/forces that you seem to insist are non physical.

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The force may be physical (or at least, within the realm of physics--I don't think it's proper to talk of forces as physical in the same way as material objects. But they're no more mysterious than material objects). The law that describes the force is not physical, and will never and can never be, even in principle.

I think you need to read a little more physics & a little less philosophy.

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I derive a great deal of enjoyment from reading physics.

Physicists concern themselves with reality. Philosophers spend too much time pondering their navels.
Long live empiricism.

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1) I don't know of any philosopher that has spent any amount of time pondering his or her navel.
2) You bash philosophy, and then praise empiricism? Do you understand that empiricism is a philosophy, formulated by (among others) such men as John Locke and David Hume? Do you understand that science was born from philosophy, and that philosophy is present in every branch of learning available? There's no escaping philosophy, and there never will be.

Laws are just a sign of consistency in the universe.

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They're more than that. They actually describe the workings of that universe. No one that I know of would feel comfortable with claiming they don't exist, and it's obvious they are not physical.

An electron has the same mass & charge here as it does 13 billion light years away. What is metaphysical about that ?

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About that fact or that statement of fact? They're separate issues. The fact is not metaphysical at all. The statement of the fact is.

How many things are observed directly ?
None that I know of. Even things you might assume are observed directly aren't as direct as you think. When you see a picture you just see the way some of the photons of light interacted with the paint in the picture & subsequently interacted with your retina.

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Picture="the way some of the photons of light interacted with the paint in the picture"

It doesn't stop there. There's the signal down the optic nerve then the interactions between your neurons as you take the picture in & then recall it.

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Seeing="[photons]subsequently interacted with your retina...There's the signal down the optic nerve then the interactions between your neurons as you take the picture in & then recall it."

It's a continuum. Where does the painting start & your perception of it end ?

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Difficult question, and one that I can't yet answer. Why does it impact the point under discussion?

Direct observation doesn't depend on such things. Direct observation (I would say) depend on qualia being present, and consensus about the object observed. If we claim to lay a book on a desk in the middle of a room, then direct observation of the book occurs if and only if observers have experience (presumably visual and tactile) of the book, and most observers report consistent experience.

It's all a connected series of events. How separate is the observer & the observed.. one wonders

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Maybe not at all. This is a fairly mystical point.

An even less direct process at the outset is a radiograph, where x-rays are converted to light for you to see.
Neutrinos are even harder to see becuase they so rarely interact. You can't hold them in your hand, but I don't think that makes them metaphysical.

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Well, perhaps not. But you have to be careful here. The principle reason that people abandoned the notion that ghosts, banshees, gods, and other "discarnate" entities exist was because there was presumed to be a clear distinction between matter, which everyone acknowledged, and those other objects, which not everyone did. Destroy that distinction (I think it turns out to have already been destroyed, but I could be wrong) and you destroy the reason for that original abandonment.

In general, the history of ideas in science is interesting for this reason. You'd probably be surprised at the foundations of some of the ideas that people today take for granted.

Dark matter can be inferred to exist from the speed galaxies rotate & but has not been observed in any other way as far as I'm aware. Does that mean dark matter is meta physical ? The answer I think is no.

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You have to make a distinction between things that aren't observed directly, and those that cannot be observed even in principle. We believe that dark matter could be observed if we could somehow travel to where some dark matter exists and then we captured some of it. We could never do that with laws, numbers, ideas, etc. The very idea of trying to observe a number directly is absurd. But at the same time, we're not willing to say that numbers do not exist. They must exist, else mathematics is just bunk. It isn't bunk. So we have to admit that somehow, numbers consitute a different class of objects than those that are in principle directly observable.

Like you when I was younger, I believed in the metaphysical as fix really to all the questions such as why are there laws & what makes the universe persist & apparently stay consistent in it's behaviour.
It somehow imbued nature with the mystical. Almost like pantheism, where one believes God is nature. But that's just a definition.

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The metaphysics I'm discussing has little, if anything, to do with mysticism, God, or other such things. While it may be the case that eventually we'd need to go back over those ideas, that's not really what we're talking about. Again, metaphysics only concerns those things we need to add in order to make sense of the physical world. Numbers are prime examples of objects that have to be added to our common experiences in order to make sense of what happens in the universe. We can't do without numbers, but we'll never, even in principle, be able to observe a number directly. If, eventually, we come to realize that we have to add 'God' to that class, then we'll have to face that. But none of my claims make that inevitable.

Now I see that the 'metaphysical' as really a rather a pointless & misleading idea/word. It's just a label for things that are not yet explained or fully understood by our 300 year old science in this 13 billion year old universe. Science is still in it's infancy after all !

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I agree. I think if there are such things as souls, spirits, etc. then they won't be mysterious or impenetrable to the methods of science. They will turn out to have non-mysterious explanations. But, again, this isn't what I'm talking about.