Timeline for answer to What explanation systems do humans use (not just in philosophy)? by David Gudeman
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| S 7 hours ago | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S 7 hours ago | comment | added | causative♦ | Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Philosophy Meta, or in Philosophy Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. | |
| 10 hours ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | @JimmyJames I am referring to the insight that quantum mechanics is the unitary representation theory of the Poincare group. We start with a (classical) symmetry of empty space and we calculate all equations of motion that are compatible with that symmetry group. We find classical equations like Maxwell, but they don't create stable matter. The only equations that do are the unitary field equations of quantum (field) theory, which are a description of statistically independent ensembles. That's basically a completely interaction free theory that contains all of matter and radiation. | |
| 16 hours ago | comment | added | JimmyJames | @FlatterMann "There is absolutely no Platonism involved in CERN." I agree completely. I guess I'm confused then by "What looks like causation is itself just a lack of change of a few system properties" ... "I am simply repeating what the math says." which seems like a mathematical platonistic argument. Maybe that's not even the right term. I'm referring to the idea that physics is "just math" i.e. mathematics explains reality or physical reality is derived from mathematics. | |
| 18 hours ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | @keshlam Can you give me an example of what "useful-scale answers" relativity and quantum mechanics aren't producing? I am a physicist and I have no idea what you could be referring to by such a claim. We can deduce everything in physics from relativity through a series of specializations and approximations. That we can't calculate everything has practical reasons. The numerical complexity of many calculations its just too high and in some cases, like chaos in Hamiltonian systems, the function that maps initial conditions to final state is too complicated and irregular. | |
| 19 hours ago | comment | added | keshlam | @FlatterMann:CERN is irrelevant to your claim here. Relativity is important. Quantum physics is important. Neither, nor the combination, produces useful - scale answers for everything, even if one accepts that they drive everything; too much is chaotic systems and emergent behaviors. And cognition is, if nothing else, an extremely chaotic system. | |
| 19 hours ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | @JimmyJames Mathematics in physics describes complex physical phenomena (like the global structure of the universe) by using simple physical phenomena (local coordinate systems). It's not an abstract description of a concrete phenomenon but a decomposition of phenomena into easier to understand parts. That's why physics can be tested with experiments: we are realizing the simple parts (e.g. with physical normals like a clock/yard stick) and compare to the complex phenomenon. There is absolutely no Platonism involved in CERN. That's why it's a giant machine with magnets and not just a thought. | |
| 20 hours ago | comment | added | JimmyJames | @FlatterMann "I am simply repeating what the math says." And that's your error. Physics is not a result of mathematics. Mathematics is simply one of the ways we describe physics. The belief in mathematical platonism is surprisingly popular given how flimsy its assertions are. I often wonder if it's somehow related to religious beliefs. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann, I no longer believe that you are arguing in good faith, so I'm done with you. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | FlatterMann | Relativity means that one can not detect anything akin to absolute motion. That's not spatial relativity. That's about systems moving relative to each other. Why does it irk people so much that a late Renaissance guy had the right idea that is basically the foundation for today's best approximation of a theory of everything, anyway? If you don't like it, then you are welcome to look for earlier variations of this insight. I think Copernicus almost had it and I wouldn't be surprised if there are sources from antiquity. That would be fine with me. I am simply looking for proper science history. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann, Galileo only argued for spatial relativity. In modern physics, "relativity" always means space-time relativity unless specified otherwise. I think you know this and are just bickering because you can't admit you were wrong. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Scott Rowe | But are they QUALITATIVE as well? That's what people are looking for here. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | @JD We can't derive anything from Kant and Hume's ideas. We can derive special relativity in about a dozen lines of high school algebra from the relativity principle. We can then derive quantum mechanics in approx. a dozen pages of barely above high school level algebra and calculus from special relativity. It doesn't take much more than that to derive general relativity as well. Quantum field theory takes a couple hundred to a couple thousand pages, depending on how much detail you are after. These are all, up to coupling constants, QUANTITATIVE results, not speculative ones. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | J D | @FlatterMann You needn't argue from mathematical explanation about the illusion of casualty. Philosophy came to that conclusion long before physics. Kant made a convincing argument using the a priori: plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | Relativity in physics means that there is no preferred coordinate system. Galileo's ship is the description of a physical experiment that proves that there is, indeed, no such system. Physics on a moving ship is the same as on land. What Galileo didn't come up with are the false coordinate transformations of Newtonian mechanics and he also couldn't know that there is a second solution called "special relativity". He simply didn't have the necessary algebra for that, yet, even though it's barely more than a dozen lines in modern notation. And no, I can't make you read the physics literature. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann, Galileo didn't come up with the modern concept of relativity; he came up with what is called Newtonian relativity which is significantly different from Einstein's relativity. And it would be trivially easy to overcome my beliefs with evidence; you just don't have any. Show me how your theory can account for the motion of a football pass, the strength of a beam, or the eyesight of a cat. It can't be used for any of that. All it's good for is highly artificial, highly constrained lab experiments. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | I am sure a lot of people believe that. Beliefs are almost impossible to overcome with evidence. Curiously the guy who came up with the modern concept of relativity was Galileo. They were making his life miserable with the heliocentrism nonsense, when he actually discovered the theory of everything around 1630. If that's not a joke of history, then I don't know what is. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann, those equations only work for a few arcane experiments and they have known inconsistencies. They are a long way from the final word on how the world works. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | I am simply repeating what the math says. We start with symmetries and conservation laws and then everything else, including matter and even gravitation, follows logically. It's as simple (if you are willing to overlook the gory ten thousand page mathematical details) as it is beautiful. Of course "classical mechanistic causation" is also in there, but it also follows from non-causation as a matter of dynamic symmetry breaking. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann that's nomological causation. And in any case, it is by no means the universal opinion in physics that there is no mechanistic causation. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | When we look at the consequences of special relativity then everything turns out to be the effect of local conservation laws. What looks like causation is itself just a lack of change of a few system properties. Wave propagation, for instance, happens because spacetime is empty and momentum is conserved. That's the reason why we can see basically across the entire visible universe: the energy of faraway sources doesn't get scattered. Lawrence M. Krauss summarized this aptly as "Something from Nothing". It's an utterly fascinating phenomenon. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | David Gudeman | @FlatterMann, I have no idea what you mean. All of physics is based on causation. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | FlatterMann | Curiously everything in physics (and I mean absolutely everything) follows from the lack of causation. How does that fit into your system? | |
| 2 days ago | history | answered | David Gudeman | CC BY-SA 4.0 |