The Philosophic Corruption of Physics and Logical Leap

[Mister Mister]

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/david-harriman-interview-the-philosophic-corruption-of-physics-and-the-logical-leap-111/

  I really enjoyed this interview, which was mentioned in Stef's interview with this guy.  You might remember him as the one who insisted that if we back money with gold, evil Babylonian bankers will pour vinegar all over the gold and enslave us all.  Anyway he's not the best interviewer, but David Harriman has some very interesting things to say.

here's a short and amusing lecture he does.

It's a bit long, but I'll try to summarize.  David talks about Newton and Galileo as the founders of a tradition of doing science via the Inductive method, that is making observations, and drawing rules from those observations.  This way of doing science has been gradually undermined.  Teaching science from this perspective would involve beginning with the observations/experiments and trying to reason what is the cause of the strange and wonderful phenomena in nature.  Instead students of science are generally taught the rule and the mathematics first, and taught to deduce conclusions from there.  Not only is this boring but it is contrary to how the Mind works and how real achievements in science have come about.

Philosophers like Descartes, Hume, and finally Kant, played a large part in destroying faith in the senses, and the ability to reason about causality and physical identity.  This camp finally won control of the scientific "establishment" at the advent of quantum physics. There are strange details surrounding the measurement of atoms and light and electricity, and they drew a conclusion from this that they already wanted to draw, namely to reject causality and identity.  In other words, the claim that physical systems at a very small scale, exist in a state of "superposition" or non-contradictory identity, i.e. "wave-particle" duality, then "collapses" into physical form when human beings measure it.  Of course this has led to all kind of New Age quackery and strange speculation about multiple universes (a contradiction in terms).

  He also attacks string theory, the big bang theory, dark matter, dark energy, as similar problems, in the sense that they are ad hoc conclusions, interpreting data to fit a certain philosophical bias.

  The important thing I gather from this, is that sophisticated esoteric mathematics which agree with data do not mean that the concepts are sound.  Science is about determining the Cause of reality for the purpose of improving life.

  Anyway, I would recommend the interview even though it is quite long, and even if you don't listen, I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

 

[TheRobin]

Hehe, actually it was this site/intereviewer that first got me into critical thinking and through whose interviews I came across the ideas of anarchy (and last but certainly not least Stef), so I have some sympathies towards him for that. That being said, he's quite the horrible interviewer unfortunately, as he always tends to interject/interrupt and I get the feeling he kind of wants to "show off" his own knowledge quite a lot, on the other hand he does have a lot of intersting guests who have good material and research, so that somewhat cancels out at least a bit imo. :)But enough tangents. I actually listened to the interview over a year ago and found it quite intersting. Though as of right now, I would comment in the following way (based on my memory of it).First, there must be made a difference between having a working model that provably gives accurate predictions and the claim, that this model somehow represents actual reality. In the case of QM I don't see a problem with using a particle-wave duality or superpositions, since they predict the outcome well. But the moment someone claims that such a thing as a particle in superposition actually exist, they make an unverifiable claim (as observation by defintion causes that particle to stop being in that superposition), so they can't really use that as a way of making claims about reality.As far as my understanding goes, the same is true for the Big Bang theory, and the dark matter/energy. String theory seems to be a fiction by definition that is unporvable according to the theory itself (afaik), as there's no way to ever prove those strings exist or not (again, afaik), so I don't see why he jumbles them together into one pot.

[Metric]

 

It's a bit long, but I'll try to summarize.  David talks about Newton and Galileo as the founders of a tradition of doing science via the Inductive method, that is making observations, and drawing rules from those observations.  This way of doing science has been gradually undermined.  Teaching science from this perspective would involve beginning with the observations/experiments and trying to reason what is the cause of the strange and wonderful phenomena in nature.  Instead students of science are generally taught the rule and the mathematics first, and taught to deduce conclusions from there.  Not only is this boring but it is contrary to how the Mind works and how real achievements in science have come about.

This is purely a matter of efficiency, and the fact that you have limited amount of time in your life.  I do not want to spend the first 60 years of my life reproducing what Newton did from a series of careful experiments, so that I can then begin considering the next step.  Of course, if there is a compelling reason to go back and start again from first principles, it can be an important thing to do -- but it would be a waste to make everyone do that at every single stage of their education, and rob from them the benefit of the intervening discoveries and theoretical construct. 

That said, modern students actually do many, many experiments in the course of their education to keep them grounded in the reality of the science.  However, the main use is that of an illustration -- it is not to force them to re-derive all of physics as it currently exists.  That would be a monumental undertaking no human could complete.

[TheRobin]

 

 

It's a bit long, but I'll try to summarize.  David talks about Newton and Galileo as the founders of a tradition of doing science via the Inductive method, that is making observations, and drawing rules from those observations.  This way of doing science has been gradually undermined.  Teaching science from this perspective would involve beginning with the observations/experiments and trying to reason what is the cause of the strange and wonderful phenomena in nature.  Instead students of science are generally taught the rule and the mathematics first, and taught to deduce conclusions from there.  Not only is this boring but it is contrary to how the Mind works and how real achievements in science have come about.

This is purely a matter of efficiency, and the fact that you have limited amount of time in your life.  I do not want to spend the first 60 years of my life reproducing what Newton did from a series of careful experiments, so that I can then begin considering the next step.  Of course, if there is a compelling reason to go back and start again from first principles, it can be an important thing to do -- but it would be a waste to make everyone do that at every single stage of their education, and rob from them the benefit of the intervening discoveries and theoretical construct. 

That said, modern students actually do many, many experiments in the course of their education to keep them grounded in the reality of the science.  However, the main use is that of an illustration -- it is not to force them to re-derive all of physics as it currently exists.  That would be a monumental undertaking no human could complete.

 

I think you misunderstood RoseCodex (and Harriman) here. The point is not to start physics from scratch, but that, when doing science, one should start with evidence/data/experiments and then try and make a model using those experiments as a foundation. Harriman (as far as I understand him) cirtiques that models/theories are formed without any data backing them up in particular and then having experiments to either try to confirm or reject those models/theories.
An so reversing the process from inductive (generalizing/abstracting a theory from the data at hand) to deductive (trying to find data after a theory has already been proposed).

iirc Harriman tells the story here of Newton and Descartes both trying to come up with a theory/model for how light works. Where Newton experimented first before he even bothered to come up with a theory and Descartes just thought something up and then tried to see if really fits that or not afterwards.

I think String theory would be an excellent showcase for that, as its based in literally nothing as far as I know, so they invent a theory (or rather a theoretical thing and its properties) and now they seem to try and tweak it until it fits the data. Or that's at least my understanding of it.

[Mister Mister]

   Right, he asserts that science must be based on a continuous feedback between observation and inductive reasoning.  Instead, we are taught that the scientific method begins with a question, then a hypothesis, THEN we design experiments to prove or falsify that hypothesis.  This was the position of Descartes and later Kant.  I think there is a larger problem in that this encourages people to have a world-view independent of reason, and to look for facts to support this world-view, rather than observing the world with as little prejudice as possible, and drawing rules from there.  In the case of some of these widely accepted mainstream theories, the history shows that their proponents already had a certain unfalsifiable conclusion they wanted to reach, and adopted the model they already wanted.

  A note about what Robin said about the math and quantum physics.  You can say its fine that a model predicts measurements to some degree, if that is all you think science is good for.  If you care about the truth, however, this is unsatisfactory.  The Ptolemic epicycles were very clever mathematics that predicted the apparent movement of the planets, but were based on a wrong concept.  Some a-hole like me might have come along and said "what if the sun is at the center of the system", and gotten the same kind of responses you get today "what authority do you have to question this established model"  "you just don't understand our sophisticated equations"  "show me a better model that works".  Do you see the problem here?

[TheRobin]

 

     A note about what Robin said about the math and quantum physics.  You can say its fine that a model predicts measurements to some degree, if that is all you think science is good for.  If you care about the truth, however, this is unsatisfactory. 

 

Can you name me a criteria according to which you can verify or falsify "actual" truth then?

I wouldn't say that its "all that science is good for" I'd say that's all you can do anyway (there isn't any more truth than that). If you say there's a truth beyond what you can (directly) know through measurements/observation, then I don't see how you could ever verify that, as it itself requires observation to be verified.

 

The Ptolemic epicycles were very clever mathematics that predicted the apparent movement of the planets, but were based on a wrong concept.  Some a-hole like me might have come along and said "what if the sun is at the center of the system", and gotten the same kind of responses you get today "what authority do you have to question this established model"  "you just don't understand our sophisticated equations"  "show me a better model that works".  Do you see the problem here?

That too is imo not quite correct, the sun "is" not at the center, it's just the most convenient model for calculation, as the gravity center is within the sun anyway, therefor making it the most intuitive representation of the solar system.

Or how can you verify that the sun is "actually" at the center (I don't even know what that would mean to be honest, "actually compared to what?"). Basically the question is about the center relative to what context, which is not an absolute as the word "center" is derived from an (arbitrary) context given by the one making the claim.

I think the problem with the Ptolemic system was, that it wasn't based on any principles of gravity, which lead to simply having to correct the model with every new data point. (Or rather it wasn't really a model to begin with, but a way of describing that was measured by drawing more and more circles), but I know too little about it to be certain here.


I think generally, you use an epistemology where the truth of things (or their identity, as Rand calls it, iirc) is somehow independent of other things, but I don't see how one could logically make that claim or what that would even mean. As every charateristic is derived at by an interraction with other things and doesn't exist independently (or rather, what does exist independently is unknowable by definition, since as soon as you make an observation it's no longer independant, but what you observe is the reaction of one thing with another (which, ultimately, reacts with your sensory organs))

 

[fingolfin]

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q185InpONK4]

Stephen Crothers destroying Einstein's relativity equations and various 'black hole' nonsense. (No particularly advanced understanding of math required).

It's all a load of gibberish! I'd go as far as saying criminal-level fraud.

[fingolfin]

Part 2:

Discusses solar physics at the end and the EU theories.

Although I personally think the Electric Universe stuff is total baloney too.

[Metric]

 

 

 

It's a bit long, but I'll try to summarize.  David talks about Newton and Galileo as the founders of a tradition of doing science via the Inductive method, that is making observations, and drawing rules from those observations.  This way of doing science has been gradually undermined.  Teaching science from this perspective would involve beginning with the observations/experiments and trying to reason what is the cause of the strange and wonderful phenomena in nature.  Instead students of science are generally taught the rule and the mathematics first, and taught to deduce conclusions from there.  Not only is this boring but it is contrary to how the Mind works and how real achievements in science have come about.

This is purely a matter of efficiency, and the fact that you have limited amount of time in your life.  I do not want to spend the first 60 years of my life reproducing what Newton did from a series of careful experiments, so that I can then begin considering the next step.  Of course, if there is a compelling reason to go back and start again from first principles, it can be an important thing to do -- but it would be a waste to make everyone do that at every single stage of their education, and rob from them the benefit of the intervening discoveries and theoretical construct. 

That said, modern students actually do many, many experiments in the course of their education to keep them grounded in the reality of the science.  However, the main use is that of an illustration -- it is not to force them to re-derive all of physics as it currently exists.  That would be a monumental undertaking no human could complete.

 

I think you misunderstood RoseCodex (and Harriman) here. The point is not to start physics from scratch, but that, when doing science, one should start with evidence/data/experiments and then try and make a model using those experiments as a foundation. Harriman (as far as I understand him) cirtiques that models/theories are formed without any data backing them up in particular and then having experiments to either try to confirm or reject those models/theories.
An so reversing the process from inductive (generalizing/abstracting a theory from the data at hand) to deductive (trying to find data after a theory has already been proposed).

iirc Harriman tells the story here of Newton and Descartes both trying to come up with a theory/model for how light works. Where Newton experimented first before he even bothered to come up with a theory and Descartes just thought something up and then tried to see if really fits that or not afterwards.

I think String theory would be an excellent showcase for that, as its based in literally nothing as far as I know, so they invent a theory (or rather a theoretical thing and its properties) and now they seem to try and tweak it until it fits the data. Or that's at least my understanding of it.

 

I was responding to his philsophy of teaching science as it was directly written -- he was pretty clearly saying that theory (equations) shouldn't be taught until you've first "started with" the necessary experiments and thought for a good long bit about what might be the cause.  And I'm saying that's hopelessly inefficient for being brought up to speed on the current status of science.  Of course when you decide to specialize in something, you then connect with the experiments surrounding your specialty in a deep way, but we've only got one lifetime here.

To the more general point you are discussing, of course you want feedback between theory and experiment taking place in the practice of science, and it's a sign of unhealthy science when one or the other is lacking for a very long time -- that's common knowledge.  However, there's nothing in principle wrong with postulating next-generation theories to solve long-standing problems (e.g. what string theorists do) -- it's just that they get increasingly likely to be wrong, the farther they get from experimental feedback.  They're certainly welcome to invest their life in that kind of theoretical field, though, as long as they understand the risks inherent in that kind of research.

[TheRobin]

ah, I missunderstood to what point you were responding then.But in regards to string theory: Isn't it purely fictional? I mean there's no empirical data for strings (and there can be none anyway afaik, or can there?)I mean, to me it seems that at one point a bunch of guys just came up with the idea to describe everything using 1d-strings swinging through n-d-mini-spaces, but I don't quite see, what they used as the basis of that or what they try to solve using this particular approach

[Metric]

 

ah, I missunderstood to what point you were responding then.

But in regards to string theory: Isn't it purely fictional? I mean there's no empirical data for strings (and there can be none anyway afaik, or can there?)
I mean, to me it seems that at one point a bunch of guys just came up with the idea to describe everything using 1d-strings swinging through n-d-mini-spaces, but I don't quite see, what they used as the basis of that or what they try to solve using this particular approach

 

RIght, string theory is not experimentally confirmed, though it's been ongoing research for close to 40 years, now -- plenty of lives of brilliant people have been invested into this thing, and the reality of the situation becomes more uneasy with each passing year.  And there are problems of falsifiability -- it is not clear if it is even possible to do an experiment that would rule out string theory (leading to basic questions of its status as science).  Basically, it's the biggest gamble in the history of theoretical physics -- it might end up with an enormous payoff somewhere down the line, but there's also a good chance that it won't.  Of course, there were good motives for taking a look at this kind of thing -- one thing that is known for sure is that the current "standard model" can't be the end of the story, and string theory seemed a promising way to get to a next generation of understanding.  But now the program appears to be going nowhere fast (from the point of view of a non-specialist like myself).

[TheRobin]

 

 

ah, I missunderstood to what point you were responding then.

But in regards to string theory: Isn't it purely fictional? I mean there's no empirical data for strings (and there can be none anyway afaik, or can there?)
I mean, to me it seems that at one point a bunch of guys just came up with the idea to describe everything using 1d-strings swinging through n-d-mini-spaces, but I don't quite see, what they used as the basis of that or what they try to solve using this particular approach

 

RIght, string theory is not experimentally confirmed, though it's been ongoing research for close to 40 years, now -- plenty of lives of brilliant people have been invested into this thing, and the reality of the situation becomes more uneasy with each passing year.  And there are problems of falsifiability -- it is not clear if it is even possible to do an experiment that would rule out string theory (leading to basic questions of its status as science).  Basically, it's the biggest gamble in the history of theoretical physics -- it might end up with an enormous payoff somewhere down the line, but there's also a good chance that it won't.  Of course, there were good motives for taking a look at this kind of thing -- one thing that is known for sure is that the current "standard model" can't be the end of the story, and string theory seemed a promising way to get to a next generation of understanding.  But now the program appears to be going nowhere fast (from the point of view of a non-specialist like myself).

 

Well my understanding of it is, that it was a try to find a model that can describe black holes (or singularities) without contradictio, as realitvitiy and quantumtheory seem to collide there in a way that is unresolvable by each seperat model.
But if that's true then I understand the reason for the theory even less, as, if GR is true, what goes on inside a black hole can't ever be observed/verfied or analysed anyway, so, why bother if current models don't describe that?
Also I don't see how the word "understanding" would fit into Stringtheory, as to me (as a layman) it seems more like making up a good-sounding (and mathematically accurate)story that fits the data (much like the ptolemic model).
I mean it seems like QM and GR leave this empty shape in the wall and now they use some cardboard and drawing to close it up.
Again, this all comes from a layman understanding/perspective of what's going on and to come back to the OT, it seems rather a problem of metaphysics and epistemology than anythign else.

[Metric]

 

 

 

ah, I missunderstood to what point you were responding then.

But in regards to string theory: Isn't it purely fictional? I mean there's no empirical data for strings (and there can be none anyway afaik, or can there?)
I mean, to me it seems that at one point a bunch of guys just came up with the idea to describe everything using 1d-strings swinging through n-d-mini-spaces, but I don't quite see, what they used as the basis of that or what they try to solve using this particular approach

 

RIght, string theory is not experimentally confirmed, though it's been ongoing research for close to 40 years, now -- plenty of lives of brilliant people have been invested into this thing, and the reality of the situation becomes more uneasy with each passing year.  And there are problems of falsifiability -- it is not clear if it is even possible to do an experiment that would rule out string theory (leading to basic questions of its status as science).  Basically, it's the biggest gamble in the history of theoretical physics -- it might end up with an enormous payoff somewhere down the line, but there's also a good chance that it won't.  Of course, there were good motives for taking a look at this kind of thing -- one thing that is known for sure is that the current "standard model" can't be the end of the story, and string theory seemed a promising way to get to a next generation of understanding.  But now the program appears to be going nowhere fast (from the point of view of a non-specialist like myself).

 

Well my understanding of it is, that it was a try to find a model that can describe black holes (or singularities) without contradictio, as realitvitiy and quantumtheory seem to collide there in a way that is unresolvable by each seperat model.
But if that's true then I understand the reason for the theory even less, as, if GR is true, what goes on inside a black hole can't ever be observed/verfied or analysed anyway, so, why bother if current models don't describe that?
Also I don't see how the word "understanding" would fit into Stringtheory, as to me (as a layman) it seems more like making up a good-sounding (and mathematically accurate)story that fits the data (much like the ptolemic model).
I mean it seems like QM and GR leave this empty shape in the wall and now they use some cardboard and drawing to close it up.
Again, this all comes from a layman understanding/perspective of what's going on and to come back to the OT, it seems rather a problem of metaphysics and epistemology than anythign else.

 

String theory isn't so much about what goes on inside black holes.  You're right that if that were the exclusive domain of the theory, it wouldn't really tell you much of anything at all.

It is supposed to go much further than that -- to basically fix quantum field theory (getting rid of infinities that ordinarily have to be swept under the rug in a process called renormalization), predicting new classes of particles that could be observed, and giving a sensible quantum theory of gravity that can be used everywhere (not just inside black holes).  It was supposed to do this all at once, and indeed it has many good characteristics that suggest it can do this.  The problem is that nothing the theory predicted was unique (giving rise to the non-falsifiability problem), and even the new particles that were supposed to be relatively easy to detect have not shown up in experiments.  Some people are still very committed to it, though, giving rise to the increasingly extreme and unprecedented "gamble" I mentioned before.

 

[TheRobin]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the explanation. It's been a long time since I last read anything about String theory and at that point I was mostly just enjoying how "spaced out" everything seemed to be

[Mcattack]

Thank you so much for posting this![]

[Mister Mister]

  'Can you name me a criteria according to which you can verify or falsify "actual" truth then?'  Hrmm that's a good question.  I guess it's always easier to say what is untrue than what is true, especially in retrospect.  What is your principle for truth? 

 One interesting thing about Inductive Reasoning is that it seems to elude the rules of logic, hence the title of his book "The Logical Leap".  I think this highlights the role of the creative mind in science.  Nowadays it seems that students of science are trained more as lab technicians or engineers who will take orders - not that there is anything wrong with theses roles in and of themselves.  I remember a friend of mine at one of the top engineering schools in the U.S. expressing frustration that they were just being taught to crunch numbers, but not how these equations came aoubt and that his professors were dismissive if he questioned the pillars of modern cosmology, or brought up controversial new findings or theories.

  Right, that is true about the solar system.  Have you heard of the helical or vortex model of the solar system? http://i.imgur.com/Z7FpC.gif

  Someone mentioned the Electric Universe.  I agree it is incomplete but I think it is at least a healthy part of the discussion.  I think it is on the right track in terms of looking for demonstrable connections between natural phenomena at different schools.  I am really interested in looking at definitions of Universal qualities like Motion, Form, Matter, Space, Energy, Attraction, Repulsion, and see how they behave in all systems at all scales.  Notice these are all things we can objectively measure and depict. 

  I think the same phenomena that Stef talks about in politics as far as getting trapped in a prison of words, is going on in physics and maybe many other disciplines.  I love the David Harriman video I posted where he addresses the obvious problem of viewing the Universe from outside the Universe, a logical impossibility.  Alternate dimensions, strings, black holes, virtual particles, are all things we cannot measure. I am SO tired of hearing the word "quantum" stuck on everything - quantum processing, quantum computer, quantum healing, quantum .  Maybe the solution to all our problems is to invent a quantum government to make quantum money and pass quantum laws and create a quantum utopia...
 ...Sorry for the rant.

[JohnDJasper]

 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q185InpONK4]

Stephen Crothers destroying Einstein's relativity equations and various 'black hole' nonsense. (No particularly advanced understanding of math required).

It's all a load of gibberish! I'd go as far as saying criminal-level fraud.

 

 

Stop!  This is way too much.  It was bad enough discovering that I cannot trust religion, politics, mainstream economics, modern medicine, anything that I hear on the news and much of what counts as scientific proof.  But in one YouTube video, to find out that both black holes and what I thought counted as solar physics are just so much nonsense?  I must go lie down for a while...

Do you see any specific holes in the Electric Universe theory?

[JohnDJasper]

 

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/david-harriman-interview-the-philosophic-corruption-of-physics-and-the-logical-leap-111/

  I really enjoyed this interview, which was mentioned in Stef's interview with this guy.  You might remember him as the one who insisted that if we back money with gold, evil Babylonian bankers will pour vinegar all over the gold and enslave us all.  Anyway he's not the best interviewer, but David Harriman has some very interesting things to say.

here's a short and amusing lecture he does.

...

 

 

@RoseCodex, I finally gave up on the gnosticmedia interview as it was too painful to listen to.  Unlike Stef who has definitely got the gift of the gab both as interviewer and interviewee, Jan Irving seemed to be too focussed on his prepared questions.  So many times, Harriman seemed to pause at a "this is starting to get interesting" moment and instead of drawing out the rest of the story, Jan just went to another item on his list of questions.  Harriman didn't seem to be able to carry the conversation on his own and after an hour or more of this, I lost the will to go on.  This means that I probably missed the really useful bits at the end?!!!

However!!!!  I thoroughly enjoyed the YouTube lecture which has inspired me to dig deeper into Harriman's work.  Thanks for posting.

[TheRobin]

 

  'Can you name me a criteria according to which you can verify or falsify "actual" truth then?'  Hrmm that's a good question.  I guess it's always easier to say what is untrue than what is true, especially in retrospect.  What is your principle for truth?

As you certainly know, this is mostly linked to how one defines knowledge and reality, so let me give you a brief summary of how I understand those terms

the characteristic (or identity) of a thing is how it relates and interracts with other things. We can only know of things, because they interract with others (and ultimately with our senses, either directly or indirectly through various instruments used to measure things). And knowledge is ultimately a description of how a thing interracts with another thing. As an example: Calling something "green" is really saying how white light interracts with said thing (and also how your eyes react to the reflected light). It is not a description of the thing itself more than a description of how it relates and interracts with another thing (light in this example). You couldn't ever call anything "green" if there wasn't any light around (cause, what would it even mean?). In the same sense, "reality" the way we experience it, is an interraction of something with our senses and how our brain then translates this input and makes it into our human experience. Objectivity is a word for saying, that more people (or people with the same brain structure and working senses) have basically the same experience of a thing or happenstance.
Like, if I say that a rock falls to the ground, all people involved see the rock and the ground and the movement, therefore making the claim objectively verifiable. But in a way one is more comparing one's senses to the senses of other people than to "reality" here. Or rather one compares the meaning of one's claim (which is based on ones experience of reality) to how the experience changes and verifies it according to that. (In this example, seeing the rock fall down).
This in essence though, tells us nothing of reality in an absolute sense (With that I mean, it doesn't tell you how reality "really" is, cause how could you know in essense, if your experience of it is a product of reality interracting with our senses and our senses with our brain etc.)
Also how could you ever verify "real" reality vs "not quite real" reality? You'd need a standard that is independent of any sensual input and translation, but all the reality you can experience stems from exactly those senses, so I don't see any way you could logically say anything about reality that is independent of your senses (not to confuse with, creating instruments to measure things that is outside the spectrum of our senses, but there again you basically see how the instrument interracts with other things etc.)
And that makes any claim about what reality "really" is comepletely irrelevant. Like our idea of what a "solid" is in reality just a lot of empty space with some atomic dots in them, but that doesn't invalidate our concept of "solidity" as that describes of "solids" interract with other things (and this is still valid, even if in reality the solid is really not that "solid" from a atomic point of view)


So to come to the word "truth". Truth would then simply be a concept of a thing that correctly corresponds to your experience of the thing, given a certain accuracy. Like, if I say "rocks fall to the ground" and I say that, what I hold in my hand is a rock and that which I stand on is the ground and I let the rock go and it falls to the ground, then my statement was true. If the thing I had in my hand would fall towards the sky, then either rocks don't fall to the ground or what I held in my hand wasn't a rock.
So either I change my definition of the characteristics of "rock" or I change my claim about what the thing I held in my hand actually was.

So in essence it's all about having a concept that accurately describes the actions relations and interractions of a thig relative to other things and applying the concept correctly to our experience that's given by our senses.

Hope that made some sense

One interesting thing about Inductive Reasoning is that it seems to elude the rules of logic, hence the title of his book "The Logical Leap".  I think this highlights the role of the creative mind in science.  Nowadays it seems that students of science are trained more as lab technicians or engineers who will take orders - not that there is anything wrong with theses roles in and of themselves.  I remember a friend of mine at one of the top engineering schools in the U.S. expressing frustration that they were just being taught to crunch numbers, but not how these equations came aoubt and that his professors were dismissive if he questioned the pillars of modern cosmology, or brought up controversial new findings or theories.

  Right, that is true about the solar system.  Have you heard of the helical or vortex model of the solar system? http://i.imgur.com/Z7FpC.gif

  Someone mentioned the Electric Universe.  I agree it is incomplete but I think it is at least a healthy part of the discussion.  I think it is on the right track in terms of looking for demonstrable connections between natural phenomena at different schools.  I am really interested in looking at definitions of Universal qualities like Motion, Form, Matter, Space, Energy, Attraction, Repulsion, and see how they behave in all systems at all scales.  Notice these are all things we can objectively measure and depict. 

  I think the same phenomena that Stef talks about in politics as far as getting trapped in a prison of words, is going on in physics and maybe many other disciplines.  I love the David Harriman video I posted where he addresses the obvious problem of viewing the Universe from outside the Universe, a logical impossibility.  Alternate dimensions, strings, black holes, virtual particles, are all things we cannot measure. I am SO tired of hearing the word "quantum" stuck on everything - quantum processing, quantum computer, quantum healing, quantum .  Maybe the solution to all our problems is to invent a quantum government to make quantum money and pass quantum laws and create a quantum utopia...
 ...Sorry for the rant.

 

To skip a few things here. The way I learned it, inductive logic is not aimed at being syllogisticly valid. I'd say it tries to come up with general ideas that make it easier to compare things to other things. (The most general being, mass, location, size, movement). Take mass for instance, under closer scrutiny, no one has any real idea what it is, even though everyone has a good intuitive sense of it. But in essence, all the concpet does is help is relate how things react to other things, when bumped together or move (i.e. things like force, impulse, energy etc.) and to describe how much move towards at each other seemingly without any particular reason at all (i.e. gravity)

In the same sense, I don't have any problem with claims (or models) that describe reality in multidimensional kind of "weird" ways, as, just like the idea of mass or electric charge, this is just another way of inventing a general concept to apply to things that then describes how they interract with other things. Though there's certainly (or can be) a misuse of these concepts, that is, wehn one starts to assert, that, just because the model gives accurate predictions, that it then represents real reality, where it would be more accurate to say that "When we use this concept of behaviour and interractions and movement on this thing, then it gives us a good prediction and seems to work as a whole also with other similar things etc. though we ultimately have no idea what the thing is or why it acts the way it does."
In the same sense you can call the idea of "mass" by that very same way "When we use the concept of mass and ascribe it to these things, it seems to work at giving us accurate predictions and makes sense when applied to this whole category of things, but ultimtately we have no idea what the thing actually is or why it acts the way it does."
 
I'm also not sure what the problem supposedly is with black holes (I thought you can measure it, how else would one know where to find it. I mean, you measure it by it's influence on its surrounding obviously, as by definition, you can't measure what's going on inside the "radius of no return", but how that that invalidate anything?)
I also don't see your issues with the word quantum, but maybe I just don't hear it that often. Granted, it get's tossed around quite a lot nowadays even by New Age and Spiritualism. But the concept afaik is derived at by experiment and isn't pure fiction, so I don't really know what the issue here would be.


Phew, that's a lot of text well, I hope it makes some sense. Let me know if this was helpful to you

[TheRobin]

To add a little something more to that (maybe it makes more sense then in regards to the idea of truth and reality).Let's take the idea of square and circle, both of which are concepts of 2 dimensional things. Since their properties contradict each other, there can't be a 2-d thing which is a square circle. Now let's assume we could only process 2 spacial dimensions, if there'd be a 3-d thing that could leave both circle and square "imprint" on the 2-d surface we can observe, then that'd be really "weird and incomprehensible", but still possible without contradiction. Because a 3-d thing is neither a square nor a circle, but can interract with the 2-d plane in ways that make imprints of either. You also couldn't call it a "square circle" because those terms indicate a 2-d thing, which it is not.So if someone came along and made a model describing this thing in a 3-d way and having good predictions with that model, then I don't see why that wouldn't be used. Of course, since in that example we could never confirm whether the thing is actually 3-d or not (since in the example we only have access to the 2-d plane), we couldn't rightfully go around and claim that the object is truly 3-d (as this is unverifiable). But ultimately it doesn't matter, since, if we have a way of describing how the thing interracts with the 2-d plane, then that's all we need to stick a specfic concept onto it and use that as knowledge about the thing.Basically, what I want to make clear is, that even though we can't say anything about "true" or "real" or "ultimate" (etc.) reality, that doesn't mean that contradictions (or rather contradictory concepts) suddenly become valid, as every concept is not only defined by what postive claims it makes about the characteristics of an object, but also has inherent limits, in the case of the circle, the limit is 2-d-plane, which is why we can say for certain that a square circle can't exist, as the limits of a 2-d plane makes it inherently impossible.

[Mister Mister]

 Thanks Robin (can I call you Robin?) that was very well put.  So do you think just like the people in flatland, there are factors involved in the emergence of reality which we can never experience directly?

  To make a model by Induction and then claim that rule as true is problematic, as you put it.  There is a difference between gravity as a force, and attraction as a phenomenon which we can sense or measure.  To then make deductions from that rule and claim THEY exist is even worse, i.e. black holes, dark matter, strings, etc.  Black holes were not theorized because we measure matter disappearing somewhere in space, they were a conclusion of Einstein's equations.  You could almost say they are a reductio ad absurdum, like the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. It was then deduced that they would emit X-Rays.  Then when x-rays are measured it is concluded that we have found black holes in space.  Dark matter is supposed to exist because the equations used to describe a system at one scale is off by 95% when we look at the galactic scale.  It's one thing to say, "if our equations are Universally applicable, there must be something holding a galaxy together that we can't measure at this point" but instead they say "we know the dark matter is there, we just haven't found it yet".  I see that as a problem.  As far as QM, Harriman was saying that the math seems to be correct, but doesn't absolutely mean that all matter exists in a state of superposition and contradictory identity until it is measured.  This was the Copenhagen interpretation, which was contested by Einstein and others, but has won over as the dominant and unquestionable paradigm.  It's still hard to get good info on what are the actual experiments and data whence the theories come.  As far as I can tell, the whole problem is that, at the moment, we cannot absolutely predict the behavior of these systems, in other words that atomic motion is not absolutely determined, or just a function of momentum from the Big Bang (which I also doubt).  I don't see the need to resort to the crazy "superposition" idea, but rather conlcude that this motion is a function of something we can't measure yet, or can't ever measure.  I think this relates to the idea of Vaccuum fluctuation or Vacuum polarization whereby "particles" spontaneously emerge from and return to "nothing".  I would say another interpretation is that opposite states of motion spontaneously emerge from and return to stillness.  I suspect that this basic variability of motion has something to do with the Universe's ability to self-organize.  This to me is the most fundamental question and mystery of ontology, which especially important if there is no creation event.  Sorry for the rambling nature of this, I'm still working it out.  Does any of that make sense?

[TheRobin]

 

 Thanks Robin (can I call you Robin?)

Yes, please do
the "The" is mostly just there because usually my experience is that the Username "Robin" is already in use, so I didn't even try that one before signing up here. (Also it's kind of a linguistic joke in regards to how names and pronouns work in swiss german, plus that the swiss article is pronounced almost identically..basically in Switzerland one would introduce onesself in a way that has the "the" article before the name)

 So do you think just like the people in flatland, there are factors involved in the emergence of reality which we can never experience directly?

I'm not sure what you mean with "emergence of reality" here. Could you explain what you mean with that?

But to bring the circle/square example from above into it here. If the people in flatland would encounter a thing that would behave in such a way that they could best describe it as a 3d-object interacting with a 2d-plane (as in changing from square to circle), then it doesn't really matter whether that 3d-object really exists or whether the 2d-thing just happens to behave as if the 3d-thing exists, as for the people in flatland it wouldn't be falsifiable and there wouldn't be a difference for them. So basically whether in reality it is a 3d-thing or a 2d-thing is irrelevant and unknowable. (unknowable assuming there isn't any way for them to leave their 2d-plane of existence.)

 

  To make a model by Induction and then claim that rule as true is problematic, as you put it.  There is a difference between gravity as a force, and attraction as a phenomenon which we can sense or measure.  To then make deductions from that rule and claim THEY exist is even worse, i.e. black holes, dark matter, strings, etc.  Black holes were not theorized because we measure matter disappearing somewhere in space, they were a conclusion of Einstein's equations.  You could almost say they are a reductio ad absurdum, like the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. It was then deduced that they would emit X-Rays.  Then when x-rays are measured it is concluded that we have found black holes in space.  Dark matter is supposed to exist because the equations used to describe a system at one scale is off by 95% when we look at the galactic scale.  It's one thing to say, "if our equations are Universally applicable, there must be something holding a galaxy together that we can't measure at this point" but instead they say "we know the dark matter is there, we just haven't found it yet".  I see that as a problem.  As far as QM, Harriman was saying that the math seems to be correct, but doesn't absolutely mean that all matter exists in a state of superposition and contradictory identity until it is measured.  This was the Copenhagen interpretation, which was contested by Einstein and others, but has won over as the dominant and unquestionable paradigm.  It's still hard to get good info on what are the actual experiments and data whence the theories come.  As far as I can tell, the whole problem is that, at the moment, we cannot absolutely predict the behavior of these systems, in other words that atomic motion is not absolutely determined, or just a function of momentum from the Big Bang (which I also doubt).  I don't see the need to resort to the crazy "superposition" idea, but rather conlcude that this motion is a function of something we can't measure yet, or can't ever measure.  I think this relates to the idea of Vaccuum fluctuation or Vacuum polarization whereby "particles" spontaneously emerge from and return to "nothing".  I would say another interpretation is that opposite states of motion spontaneously emerge from and return to stillness.  I suspect that this basic variability of motion has something to do with the Universe's ability to self-organize.  This to me is the most fundamental question and mystery of ontology, which especially important if there is no creation event.  Sorry for the rambling nature of this, I'm still working it out.  Does any of that make sense?

 

I'm not sure I quite understand the issue here. But if you make a model that accurately describes and predicts behaviour of things, then I don't see how it then becomes invalid to assume that deductions based on the model aren't also true.
Like, if Einsteins equations proofed to be correct in all other areas, why not deduct that they lead to black holes and accept that too? Isn't that basically syllogistic reasoning in a way that, if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true?

another question that bumped into my mind was that, if Harriman proposes that all theories need be based on experiment, then by what criteria does he know or decide what kind of experiments should or shouldn't be conducted? I mean wouldn't one need at least a hypothesis before making an experiment?

Btw, nice music, thanks for sharing that in the other thread

p.s. for future rants: could you maybe add paragraphs after you finished typing? It makes it a lot easier to read.

[Pepin]

I was very skeptical about QM, but after a lot of studying, I find that disagreeing with the logical implications of the emperical science is anti-emperical.. Richard Feynman's "Character of Physical Law" and some of Brian Greene's books have really helped me in understanding the field. A good book on the history of physics is also helpful in explaining why the field is so confusing.

What most people argue against are a multitude of quantum theories, which are essentially conceptual models that are needed to understand and interpret the data. To disagree is kind of like saying that no interpretation of the data ought to occur... Which is a little crazy to claim, especially since you need to interpret the data/experiment to disprove the any interpretation of the data. Disproving an interpretation of some set of evidence is far different than actually disproving the evidence, as no conceptual model exists in reality, just as no theory exists in reality.

[dazed and confused]

 

  It was bad enough discovering that I cannot trust religion, politics, mainstream economics, modern medicine, anything that I hear on the news and much of what counts as scientific proof. 

 

 

im really curious to know whats wrong with modern medicine

[JohnDJasper]

 

 

  It was bad enough discovering that I cannot trust religion, politics, mainstream economics, modern medicine, anything that I hear on the news and much of what counts as scientific proof. 

 

 

im really curious to know whats wrong with modern medicine

 

dazed and confused,

For a brief outline but in no specific order:

• Iatrogenic illness (caused by medical treatment or physician) is estimated as being at least the 3rd most fatal disease in the USA. (I'm supplying one relevant link out of many that exist.)  Even if the underlying philosophy and science were sound, the application of modern medicine is killing and maiming people equivalent to a Jumbo Jet crash every day of the year.
• The underlying philosophy and science of modern medicine is unsound. 
  
  
  • Leaving aside trauma and the unfortunate minority born with defects, the human body is naturally healthy and poor health results from an unhealthy lifestyle and/or environment.  A return to health is properly occasioned by avoiding the unhealthy factors and adequately supplying the factors that support health such as clean air, water, wholesome food, rest and sleep, exercise, security, correct temperatures and healthy relationships.  Alternatively, the medical mindset sees poor health as something to be poisoned or surgically removed.  In so doing, they treat the symptoms of the poor health while leaving the cause.
  • The medical mindset also sees the human body as poorly adapted to survive in this world and arrogantly believes that it knows best how to improve the body's chances.  They are so convinced that their vaccinations are saving the world from disease that they easily overlook all evidence to the contrary including the fact that they and the pharmaceutical companies demanded immunity from prosecution for vaccine-related injuries.  So, combined with state-sanctioned mandatory vaccination programs and the threat of jail for refusing to get children vaccinated, parents are too often faced with no choice but to have their children injured by vaccine with no legal recourse. (An example of the suppressed evidence of vaccine injuries: Judicial Watch Seeks Answers to Payouts Made to Victims of HPV Vaccines and Will Merck’s Gardasil HPV Vaccine be its Next Vioxx?)
  • The medical philosophy sees diseases such as colds, flu, measles, etc as an attack by germs on the body and with some diseases such as malaria, this is undisputed.  The germ theory view of disease is, say in the case of influenza, the body presents flu symptoms and a test identifies a flu virus so this is an attack by that virus.  One alternative to germ theory sees both the flu symptoms and the presence of the flu virus all as evidence of the body resolving an internal crisis which requires opening extraordinary paths of elimination to increase efficiency of waste removal and invoking our natural waste-eating microorganisms. If you accept, as I do, that acute diseases are body-initiated, healing mechanisms, the last thing that you want to do is interfere with the body's ability to initiate them nor interrupt them while in progress. (For a reasonable discussion on germ theory and alternatives: Germ Theory by Kate Tietje and another one: A Heretic’s View of Influenza’s Role in Health and Disease by Dr Tenpenny)
  • Modern medicine has long been guilty of turning adults especially the more senior ones into drug addicts and they have now focussed their efforts on addicting our children to anti-psychotics and other behaviour-adjusting medications.  (Perhaps this is to make them less resistant to the vaccination programs?)
• Government-mandated restrictions on competition in both the pharmaceutical industry and medical practice itself results in exhorbitant costs for treatment.  One good case of heart disease or cancer can leave a family homeless and in serious debt even with medical insurance. ("75% of people who filed for bankruptcy because of medical debts had health insurance")
• And much of this expense is on procedures such as angioplasty and cancer treatments that, according to
  , have consistently failed to prove beneficial in research studies.

There's much more that I could say but hopefully this has satisfied some of your curiosity.

[ribuck]

... sophisticated esoteric mathematics which agree with data do not mean that the concepts are sound.  Science is about determining the Cause of reality for the purpose of improving life ...

Scientists like mathematics which agrees with data AND which has predictive value. Then the mathematics can be used to improve life.

Suppose a scientist compares the amount of fertiliser added to a fruit tree, and the yeild of fruit, and gets the following results:

2kg fertiliser = 200 apples
4kg fertiliser = 400 apples
6kg fertiliser = 600 apples

The scientist may propose a formula that "apples equals 100 times kg of fertiliser". That formula agrees with the data.

Furthermore, the formula predicts that 3kg of fertiliser would produce 300 apples. But if it turns out that using 3kg of fertiliser produces (say) 95 apples, the formula has no predictive value and will be discarded or refined.

Even if the formula predicts the correct yield for all values of fertiliser between 2kg and 6kg, we may still need to refine it. You can't get ever-increasing yields by using infinitely-increasing amounts of fertiliser, and once we start measuring yields for amounts of fertiliser above 6kg we will need to use a more complicated formula if we want it to continue to have predictive power.

To take an example from physics, Newton worked out the "laws of motion". These were found to agree with experiment, and to have the ability to accurately predict the result of new experiments. Therefore they were considered to be accurate, and proved to be very useful for designing locomotives, machines, plumbing etc. For "improving life", to use your words.

But when we deal with extremely high speeds we find that the predictions of Newton's formulas don't agree so well with experimental results. However, a more complex refinement of those formulas ("relativistic physics") works extremely well. Relativistic formulas proved to be very useful for designing communications systems, orbiting satellites, the global positioning system, etc. For "improving life".

But when we deal with extremely small sizes we find that Newton's formulas and Einstein's relativity don't agree so well with experimental results. However, the more complex formulas of "quantum mechanics" work extremely well. Quantum mechanics effectively predicts the outcome of a wide range of experiments at very small sizes. The formulas of quantum mechanics are what enable us to design semiconductors for computers, music players, etc. To "improve life", to use your words.

No-one claims that the formulas of quantum mechanics explain the outcome of all experiments. There are some important situations that we can't currently explain. It's clear that there will be further refinement of the fundamental equations of physics in the future. But this is not something we should fear or reject.

[RestoringGuy]

 

Scientists like mathematics which agrees with data AND which has predictive value. Then the mathematics can be used to improve life.

 

Yes that is my view also.  But I go further and ask "what exactly constitutes predictive value"?  There are some who say the objects of mathematics are "unreal", products of human thought, or that at least some mathematics is "useless" or "just conceptual".  I can't grasp that perspective, and I would challenge anyone who holds that view.   It would seem to me, all mathematics has predictive value, because it predicts some physical experiment that can be devised.  I have read once that having more than 200 digits of pi is "useless".  Nonetheless, computers can reproduce let's say the billionth digit of pi reliably and reproducibly.  So in fact, the billionth digit is useful for prediction: that digit tells you what a bunch of atoms in the shape of a laptop computer are going to spit out after running any pi calculating program!  So whether it is Newton's prediction of what path a cannonball will take using calculus, or a billion-digit pi laptop, either way you are just predicting the future by applying a technique that has seemed successful in the past.  For that reason, I have started to see no distinction between mathematics and science.

 

[ribuck]

It would seem to me, all mathematics has predictive value, because it predicts some physical experiment that can be devised.

That's true, but it's only useful if you know which piece of mathematics describes the physical behavior in which you are interested. A scientific theory links the behavior to its mathematical model.

... I have started to see no distinction between mathematics
and science.

Obligatory xkcd comic follows:

 

[Metric]

 

For that reason, I have started to see no distinction between mathematics and science.

 

The distinction is that mathematics alone cannot tell you how the world operates.  As a thought experiment, consider any number of the most brilliant mathematicians, together with any computational resources they ask for.  Without additional information, they will not be able to distinguish between two models of the universe (as long as they are both internally consistent).  The requirement of experimental information sets a hard distinction that cannot be crossed in principle.  Of course, once you have a mathematical model to work with, then "theory" is basically just the mathematics of the model.

[RestoringGuy]

 

The distinction is that mathematics alone cannot tell you how the world operates.  As a thought experiment, consider any number of the most brilliant mathematicians, together with any computational resources they ask for.  Without additional information, they will not be able to distinguish between two models of the universe (as long as they are both internally consistent).  The requirement of experimental information sets a hard distinction that cannot be crossed in principle.  Of course, once you have a mathematical model to work with, then "theory" is basically just the mathematics of the model.

 

That is exactly the paradigm I challenge.  We presuppose that models of mathematics are (or can be) distinct from the world.  I have once believed that there are models that work, and those that fail.  So physics is a subset of mathematics.  But this now seems completely false.

All mathematical objects and conclusions must remain accessible to us, because physical matter (brain or computer) must perform a proof.  Independent mathematicians can confirm the proof, and you mention internal consistency.  To maintain such consistency is objective, there must be a physical model even if it is symbols in chalk.

Mathematics can tell you how the world operates at least as much as physics, because neither is divorced from the senses.  I say this because we demand a physical model (a proof that is reproducible).  The computational resources and experimental information seem very difficult for me to distinguish, and seems only a matter of opinion.  You can have physicists witnessing radioactive decay and extrapolating the results a million years in the future.  But a mathematician can prove 13 whole cookies can only be divided evenly to 1 or 13 people.  Either way, you make a prediction about physical events.

The mathematicians can distinguish between two models because the models make different predictions.  The physicist is perhaps delusional that one of the models has no application.  If the physicist points to a model that "doesn't work", I will put that model into a computer and ask the physicist what the atoms of the computer will do.  When the physicist says "well the atoms of the computer are arranged so that an answer X will result, but that's totally wrong."  Now I ask, "hey you just used that incorrect model to predict what a physical system is going to do, didn't you?"  Therefore, the model does work to predict atomic motion, and I argue that particular physicist is a hypocrite.

[RestoringGuy]

 

It would seem to me, all mathematics has predictive value, because it predicts some physical experiment that can be devised.

That's true, but it's only useful if you know which piece of mathematics describes the physical behavior in which you are interested. A scientific theory links the behavior to its mathematical model.

 

I don't dispute that physics is more interesting.  Physics is my favorite subject.  But if the main idea we have for determining predictive value is that such behavior must interest us, the distinction between mathematics and science now seems extremely subjective.  In that case, science is now just mathematics that "works in those situations I personally like".

[Metric]

 

 

The distinction is that mathematics alone cannot tell you how the world operates.  As a thought experiment, consider any number of the most brilliant mathematicians, together with any computational resources they ask for.  Without additional information, they will not be able to distinguish between two models of the universe (as long as they are both internally consistent).  The requirement of experimental information sets a hard distinction that cannot be crossed in principle.  Of course, once you have a mathematical model to work with, then "theory" is basically just the mathematics of the model.

 

That is exactly the paradigm I challenge.  We presuppose that models of mathematics are (or can be) distinct from the world.  I have once believed that there are models that work, and those that fail.  So physics is a subset of mathematics.  But this now seems completely false.

All mathematical objects and conclusions must remain accessible to us, because physical matter (brain or computer) must perform a proof.  Independent mathematicians can confirm the proof, and you mention internal consistency.  To maintain such consistency is objective, there must be a physical model even if it is symbols in chalk.

Mathematics can tell you how the world operates at least as much as physics, because neither is divorced from the senses.  I say this because we demand a physical model (a proof that is reproducible).  The computational resources and experimental information seem very difficult for me to distinguish, and seems only a matter of opinion.  You can have physicists witnessing radioactive decay and extrapolating the results a million years in the future.  But a mathematician can prove 13 whole cookies can only be divided evenly to 1 or 13 people.  Either way, you make a prediction about physical events.

The mathematicians can distinguish between two models because the models make different predictions.  The physicist is perhaps delusional that one of the models has no application.  If the physicist points to a model that "doesn't work", I will put that model into a computer and ask the physicist what the atoms of the computer will do.  When the physicist says "well the atoms of the computer are arranged so that an answer X will result, but that's totally wrong."  Now I ask, "hey you just used that incorrect model to predict what a physical system is going to do, didn't you?"  Therefore, the model does work to predict atomic motion, and I argue that particular physicist is a hypocrite.

 

If I understand this perspective, and can re-state it in a slightly different way, you're kind of saying that all possible simulated universes (rules on a computer) are in some sense on equal footing with the laws of physics.  For example, that there's no fundamental "scientific" distinction between Conway's Life and quantum mechanics.

My initial objection is that a computer actually has many more degrees of freedom than the "logical degrees of freedom" -- let's call these the "physical degrees of freedom."  You can know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom by knowing the rules of the simulation, but you can also know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom if you know the laws of physics.  But you lose information if you try to guess the evolution of the physical degrees of freedom, knowing only the rules of the simulation.  So, my counter-argument is that physical law is, by definition, that set of rules which are irreducible and universally applicable.

[RestoringGuy]

 

If I understand this perspective, and can re-state it in a slightly different way, you're kind of saying that all possible simulated universes (rules on a computer) are in some sense on equal footing with the laws of physics.  For example, that there's no fundamental "scientific" distinction between Conway's Life and quantum mechanics.

My initial objection is that a computer actually has many more degrees of freedom than the "logical degrees of freedom" -- let's call these the "physical degrees of freedom."  You can know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom by knowing the rules of the simulation, but you can also know the evolution of the logical degrees of freedom if you know the laws of physics.  But you lose information if you try to guess the evolution of the physical degrees of freedom, knowing only the rules of the simulation.  So, my counter-argument is that physical law is, by definition, that set of rules which are irreducible and universally applicable.

 

My perspective is still being formed, but has been something on my mind for a while now.  Not equal footing exactly with laws of physics, but all possible simulated universes are on equal footing with any deterministic rule the physical laws may provide.

Your initial objection makes sense to me.  Two vastly different computers may run the same round of Conway's Life, but the logical degrees of freedom do not capture the fact that only one of them is let's say using NPN transistors.  In that case, I claim the simulation model is not truly an absolute prediction of what the computer will do in every attempt, but an expected behavior of a computer that is so designed.  There will be a statistical dispersion.  Despite the same logical programming, computer design A will fail at a different rate than design B, and fail in a different way with various statistical parameters.  QM guarantees quantum tunnelling and microscopic effects will mean the physical computer is not a perfect entity, but one which runs Conway's Life only as its average long-term behavior.

Although physical designs A and B are predicted in their average by the mathematical model, no information is lost because the physical degrees of freedom manifest themselves as higher order statistics.  Once you sit down and choose a mathematical model, fix a failure rate, fix how often a transistor will fail every odd-numbered Tuesday, etc., you now have a rich set of statistics to go along with your mathematical model.  My perspective is that, to the extent you can specify all these parameters, there will exist exactly one sort of physical entity that does exactly that job.  So physics (eg. the physical universe) builds itself around a mathematical outcome, and reflectively we establish mathematics based only on what physical outcomes we can sense and construct.  My other feeling is that if two distinct physical computational systems have not only the same logical outcome, but exactly the same set of behavior statistics (failure if you want to call it that), it will be quite difficult for the physicist to prove they are in fact different atomic arrangments and physics could become faith-based if such a claim were insisted upon.

[Pepin]

It would seem to me, all mathematics has predictive value, because it predicts some physical experiment that can be devised.  I have read once that having more than 200 digits of pi is "useless".  Nonetheless, computers can reproduce let's say the billionth digit of pi reliably and reproducibly.  So in fact, the billionth digit is useful for prediction.

Not so much the case due to some complex reasons that are difficult for anyone to get. There is always some margin of error of plus or minus some value, and all digits beyond such value can't be known because of the known margin of error. To put that in another way, physicists know what they don't know to some digit of accuracy, and anything beyond that is unknown. Using a more and more precise value of pi in physical computations would not imply a more accurate answer as the extra precision of pi would only affect insignigant digitst that aren't known. As the margin of error descreases and more and more digits become significant, then and only then would a more precise value of pi has meaning.

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

[RestoringGuy]

 

Not so much the case due to some complex reasons that are difficult for anyone to get. There is always some margin of error of plus or minus some value, and all digits beyond such value can't be known because of the known margin of error. To put that in another way, physicists know what they don't know to some digit of accuracy, and anything beyond that is unknown. Using a more and more precise value of pi in physical computations would not imply a more accurate answer as the extra precision of pi would only affect insignigant digitst that aren't known. As the margin of error descreases and more and more digits become significant, then and only then would a more precise value of pi has meaning.

 

That makes sense only if you are comparing things in only one iteration.  For example, 0.3 might be adequate approximation of 1/3 for some experiments.  As a thought experiment, suppose all our instruments are too crude to see more than one significant figure.  If you trisect a line using constructive methods, the significant figures of 0.3 are good enough for such a rough comparison between the trisected segment and our mathematical estimate.  The error is (1/3-0.3)/(1/3)=10%.  But when this step is repeated (0.3*0.3=0.09), the % error becomes larger and more detectable (about (0.09*0.09-1/9)/(1/9)=19%).

Some methods of computing pi, say a continued fraction for example, gives the atoms in the computer a way of magnifying this hidden information in slow steps.  The physicist will say now that the second digit is known, we must perform a more careful experiment.  True the digits of pi will exceed any capacity to build any one-time experiment.  But it does not eliminate our ability to build iterative experiments, much like trisecting a line repeatedly to prove the 0.3 isn't quite 1/3 even if your instruments cannot see the distinction all at once.  I do not feel the predictive power of science is bound by a single all-at-once experiment, but a specific ensemble of small experiments is allowable.

I could use a parabola to estimate where a cannonball will land, which I guess could be life-or-death predictive science.  But if I have a blueprint for a system of pressure pipes and check valves that can open and close many times in well-known way with the digits of pi spit out on some gauge or display, using a continued fraction built into the pipes, releasing nerve gas if I fail to push the right button for the 100th digit, now knowing the 100th digit of pi has more clear practical scientific application.  Because these pipes are an invention more complex than the cannonball, it does not prove to me that physical prediction suddenly becomes "non-scientific" once more than some special number of atoms are involved.  Somewhere between computer-prediction and basic rock-throwing-prediction, i guess there is some arbitrary place where some people call it mathematics and not science.  I challenge that notion, because it seems arbitrary and neglects the sense data we have that reproducible physical things can happen around us that , in specific cases, only the most abstract (and formerly useless) mathematics can predict.