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 Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 4:52 am
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:54 pm
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Actually, first of all I was careful in my last post that I did not call them stupid people in general (I don't think they are in all things,) just in some specific things (and I wasn't referring to all physicists either, just quantum physicists.) I am glad they are still looking for other, better explanations too. After I made my last post last night I looked up some stuff trying to see where the idea came from about there needing to be an observer last night. I'm still reading something fairly long which addresses my questions and objections, but so far it sounds like the problem came from the wording used to set forth the basic foundations quantum physics is building off of. The word "measurement" is used (which is not the best choice of wording, I'm still reading about that part) and that is the source of all the confusion and absurd stuff that followed. And I think your statement about "why does the universe exist? Because we can observe it" is improperly formatted. First of all it assumes there is a reason why the universe exists, you've already thrown out the option that it could have always existed (even if it existed in different forms, that still count as existing, no matter how radically different. To ask why the universe - everything as a whole - exists is asking why existence exists. If anything exists, then something exists, then existence exists.) Second, "because we can observe it" is not an explanation of why it exists, it would much more be an answer to the question "how do we know it exists?" If you wanted to say not "because we can," but instead "because we do" then that would be an answer to the question posed, but the problem with that is that we are PART OF the universe itself.
Unless you are trying to assert that something other than and apart from the "universe" (we really need to clarify what each of us means when we use the term "universe" to avoid a long time spent on problems caused by equivocations, each of us arguing on a different meaning. I'm going to throw in a dictionary definition here.
UNIVERSE:
u·ni·verse [ynə vùrss]
n
1. all matter and energy in space: the totality of all matter and energy that exists in the vastness of space, whether known to human beings or not
2. the Earth and humanity: the Earth along with the human race and the totality of human experience
3. sphere of person or thing: a sphere of activity that is centered on and includes everything associated with a person, place, or thing
4. in logic Same as universe of discourse
5. in statistics Same as population (sense 6)
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I'm using that first definition there. From there though perhaps I should define "space" to avoid further confusion.
space [spayss]
n (plural spac·es)
1. interval of time: a period or interval of time
In the space of two hours the situation was resolved.
2. enough room: room to fit or accommodate something or somebody
There isn't space for the table.
3. area set apart: an area set apart or available for use
floor space
4. region beyond Earth's atmosphere: the region that lies beyond the Earth's atmosphere, and all that it contains
space travel
5. region between all astronomical objects: the region, usually of negligible density, between all astronomical objects in the universe
6. three-dimensional expanse where matter exists: the unbounded three-dimensional expanse in which all matter exists
7. printing blank area between type: a blank area between characters, words, or lines of type, or an interval the width of a single character
8. music interval between lines of musical staff: an interval between the lines of the musical staff
9. communication time or area available for advertising: broadcast time or an area in a publication available for specific use, e.g. by advertisers
10. mathematics set of points governed by axioms: in mathematics, a collection of points that have geometric properties in that they obey set rules axioms, e.g. a Euclidean space that is governed by Euclidean geometry.
Each non-Euclidean geometry, having its own axioms, has its own non-Euclidean space containing a collection of points governed by those axioms.
11. printing piece of type to create blank: a piece of type used to create a blank interval in printing
12. freedom to assert identity: the freedom or opportunity to assert a personal identity or fulfill personal needs (informal)
I need my own personal space.
13. communication interval in telegraphic transmission: an interval during the transmission of a telegraphic message when the key is not in contact
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Definition six is the closest to what I mean and think the dictionary means by "space" in the definition of "universe." ) exists, then I don't see why it would follow that after lives must exist. (Are you saying or saying quantum physics says that you need something apart from the universe to sustain it, keep it from falling into kind of undefined and chaotic messes, and thus you need after lives to make sure even if all conscious beings died there would still be something to sustain the universe by continuing to measure it? If this is the case, first I think it would be making an appeal to consequences fallacy, second I would think if you are capable of effecting the universe, or at least as long as you are effecting the universe, you must interact with it and thus can not, at least for that time, be entirely "separate" from it. I say this because going back to the definition of universe I am using it includes all the matter and energy in the universe as part of and making up what is the universe, so I would think to interact with and effect the universe you must use matter and/or energy within the universe (how can you effect something without any contact of any form with it, remaining entirely apart from it in every way?) to effect it and thus become part of it. If you want to say something about consciousness being a force of some sort that is entirely different from matter and energy and so not counting as part of the universe by the definition I gave, well I think consciousness may require by its nature matter and energy and so on, so it couldn't really exist entirely separate from the universe - if need be later I can go into that more - and you'd also have to go back to what I said earlier about the tree falling and if it made a sound and how it would seem to me that it would ultimately be self defeating and everything would have to be capable of fulfilling the role of observer anyway and thus those requirements of observation are an inherent part of the nature of the universe itself and thus you can't say there is anything special about and separate in people from the rest of the universe that you could say an after-life must exist for people by the nature of the universe. confused )
As for your last paragraph, is that entirely grammatically how you intended it to be? Because the way it is worded I don't what you meant. Could you rephrase/clarify please? |
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:34 am
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This definition of universe and space seems fairly good, in this sense we can look at alternate universes and distinct possibilities for future universes.
I personally think that existence is relative, mostly because I really can't think of a better way to define it. If we go ahead and assume the infinite possibilities as actual things as suggested by quantum physics then it seems to me that absolutely everything imaginable "exists" in at least one of those possibilities. I would much rather use a definition of "exist" that means something that can somehow affect me. Anything that doesn't affect me in anyway at all does not exist relative to what I observe.
With this definition we start at, "I think therefore I am" (this part is ok even though almost all the rest of Descartes is B.S.). Next, "since I exist, my observations exist". And finally we state "what caused my observations also exists" and we define the cause as the universe and all things that exist in addition to I and my observations.
When I say that the universe exists because we can observe it, I do mean exactly that. It is equivalent to the statement, we cannot observe a universe because it does not exist. (if P implies Q, then not Q implies not P). Its a little complicated but I did not discount that the universe has always existed. Both statements could be true. There might be a reason that the universe has always existed or even multiple reasons. It seems to me that it would always be true that what we can observe must occur in a universe that contains us. I think the confusion with the satement is that i'm streatching my defintion of "exists" to the limit.
Now consider some fact of mathematics P which requires no assumptions. Does this fact "exist"? Would it exist even if it had never been discovered? Even if it were not possible for it to be discovered? If you decide to say yes, then consider instead of P, "that given the conditions necessary for an entire universe there will be little people in it who can think and make observations". Now even if that universe does not exist in the usual sense, would what would happen in those conditions exist as a fact? Would they be able to think? If they think, they are. So their observations exist, so what caused those observations exists. But now you see they have caused their own universe to exist simply because they could observe it. Well it at least exists relative to them and what they observe. This is why observing our universe causes it to exist. Its a little weird but if you consider their thoughts, then they seem to exist.
I think that this is the true nature of the universe, nothing "exists" in some sense of the word but the possibility of our thoughts exist and that causes us to exist and our universe to exist. And this is my interpretation of observation causing existence.
I'm not saying that the universe would fall apart if you stopped observing it, rather that you cannot "stop" observing it. Even when I go to sleep it appears to be as one continuous moment even if i did not observe anything while sleeping. The universe was still there while i slept. If Schrödinger's cat went to sleep inside its box. Then relative to what the cat observes, it is alive when the box is opened. Since the cat can think after it wakes up, it exists and relative to the cat dieing was not possible since it cannot observe its own death.
As for the last paragraph of my last post im trying to say that putting for example Schrödinger's cat into one definite state before it has been observed would be a logical fallacy.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:39 pm
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angelatheist This definition of universe and space seems fairly good, in this sense we can look at alternate universes and distinct possibilities for future universes.
This assumes such alternate universes exist to be looked at and treats the merely "possible" like the already "actual." I'm willing to give you the possibility of such left open for now as that is part of the question we're discussing, but as much as for the sake of the discussion I can't straight out say "they don't exist/'you're doing it wrong,'" you can't ask that I assume this to be true for your argument from here on because it would just be begging the question. If the rest of your argument holds up from that point on out, then that's all fine and dandy, but just know you have to support these statements too or you haven't really proven yourself correct yet.
angelatheist I personally think that existence is relative, mostly because I really can't think of a better way to define it. If we go ahead and assume the infinite possibilities as actual things as suggested by quantum physics
angelatheist then it seems to me that absolutely everything imaginable "exists" in at least one of those possibilities. I would much rather use a definition of "exist" that means something that can somehow affect me. Anything that doesn't affect me in anyway at all does not exist relative to what I observe.
Your last sentence though here may have implied something I already said about that not really being a criteria for existence by definition, but just a matter of the limit of your current knowledge. Which reminds me as another point of why existence depending upon an individual observer is kind of at the least hard to give a logical explanation for -- there are tons of things that affect you and you don't even realize it. Heck, I have to wonder if you need an "observer" for something to work/settle/whatever what would this say for where AIDS came from for example? We observed an effect of such a thing before we knew what the cause was. If we hadn't observed the cause for it to really "exist" with a solid identity to have a stable, defined nature and actions it performs yet in accordance with such, then how could it have caused the same effects that it did that we did observe? How do we get the effects before there is a cause?
angelatheist This definition of universe and space seems fairly good, in this sense we can look at alternate universes and distinct possibilities for future universes.
This assumes such alternate universes exist to be looked at and treats the merely "possible" like the already "actual." I'm willing to give you the possibility of such left open for now as that is part of the question we're discussing, but as much as for the sake of the discussion I can't straight out say "they don't exist/'you're doing it wrong,'" you can't ask that I assume this to be true for your argument from here on because it would just be begging the question. If the rest of your argument holds up from that point on out, then that's all fine and dandy, but just know you have to support these statements too or you haven't really proven yourself correct yet.
angelatheist I personally think that existence is relative, mostly because I really can't think of a better way to define it. If we go ahead and assume the infinite possibilities as actual things as suggested by quantum physics
angelatheist then it seems to me that absolutely everything imaginable "exists" in at least one of those possibilities. I would much rather use a definition of "exist" that means something that can somehow affect me. Anything that doesn't affect me in anyway at all does not exist relative to what I observe.
Your last sentence though here may have implied something I already said about that not really being a criteria for existence by definition, but just a matter of the limit of your current knowledge. Which reminds me as another point of why existence depending upon an individual observer is kind of at the least hard to give a logical explanation for -- there are tons of things that affect you and you don't even realize it. Heck, I have to wonder if you need an "observer" for something to work/settle/whatever what would this say for where AIDS came from for example? We observed an effect of such a thing before we knew what the cause was. If we hadn't observed the cause for it to really "exist" with a solid identity to have a stable, defined nature and actions it performs yet in accordance with such, then how could it have caused the same effects that it did that we did observe? How do we get the effects before there is a cause?
angelatheist With this definition we start at, "I think therefore I am" (this part is ok even though almost all the rest of Descartes is B.S.).
angelatheist Next, "since I exist, my observations exist".
angelatheist And finally we state "what caused my observations also exists" and we define the cause as the universe and all things that exist in addition to I and my observations.
angelatheist When I say that the universe exists because we can observe it, I do mean exactly that. It is equivalent to the statement, we cannot observe a universe because it does not exist. (if P implies Q, then not Q implies not P).
angelatheist Its a little complicated but I did not discount that the universe has always existed. Both statements could be true. There might be a reason that the universe has always existed or even multiple reasons. It seems to me that it would always be true that what we can observe must occur in a universe that contains us. I think the confusion with the satement is that i'm streatching my defintion of "exists" to the limit.
angelatheist Now consider some fact of mathematics P which requires no assumptions.
angelatheist Does this fact "exist"? Would it exist even if it had never been discovered? Even if it were not possible for it to be discovered?
angelatheist If you decide to say yes, then consider instead of P, "that given the conditions necessary for an entire universe there will be little people in it who can think and make observations".
angelatheist Now even if that universe does not exist in the usual sense,
ex·ist [ig zíst]
(past and past participle ex·ist·ed, present participle ex·ist·ing, 3rd person present singular ex·ists)
vi
1. be: to be, especially to be a real, actual, or current thing, not merely something imagined or written about
Does life exist on other planets?
2. live: to be alive, or continue to live
Humans need water and food to exist.
3. occur: to be present or found in a particular place or situation
Shortages exist on products in high demand.
4. survive: to manage to survive or stay alive
The lost hikers existed for two days on berries.
5. live an unsatisfactory life: to live an unsatisfactory, joyless, or humdrum life, as opposed to an exciting or meaningful one
simply existing from day to day
[Early 17th century. Probably back-formation < existence ]
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
angelatheist would what would happen in those conditions exist as a fact? Would they be able to think? If they think, they are. So their observations exist, so what caused those observations exists. But now you see they have caused their own universe to exist simply because they could observe it. Well it at least exists relative to them and what they observe. This is why observing our universe causes it to exist. Its a little weird but if you consider their thoughts, then they seem to exist.
Uh, by definition sir as long as we are speaking assuming hypothetically that the world is true, then the conditions of such world must also, hypothetically, be true. If they hypothetically do exist and hypothetically can think, then yes, hypothetically, they can think (as long as the logic of our world, that a thing equals itself, is still true such that “they can think, therefore, they can think” is true.) So long as their hypothetical world doesn’t lack our laws of logic that world follow, but you know I’m not really sure yet if such a universe would be able to exist while avoiding violating the logic of our universe. And as for “so their observations exist,” again see the “as long as our logic applies” and “keeping in mind not everything you ever think is always correct” clauses. And now, I’ll say it again and make it as clear as I can this time: NO, OBSERVATION ONLY PROVES THERE IS SOMETHING THAT EXISTS TO BE OBSERVED (though that may only be the observation of the effects of say, hallucinogens on your brain in some cases and there’s really just a vacuum in through the glass of that tube you’re looking at, not Mario and Luigi) NOT THAT THEIR OBSERVATIONS BY EXISTING CREATED THEMSELVES. Not to mention, you started off with a hypothetical, not an actual, situation where we already had to assume in the premises for this to work that the conclusion was true -- for these little people to be able to create their own universe by observing it, first their universe has to exist and second it has to require people who can observe existing in it. Circular reasoning even if we did agree upon observation creating the things it observes in their universe.
angelatheist I think that this is the true nature of the universe, nothing "exists" in some sense of the word but the possibility of our thoughts exist and that causes us to exist and our universe to exist. And this is my interpretation of observation causing existence. I'm not saying that the universe would fall apart if you stopped observing it, rather that you cannot "stop" observing it. Even when I go to sleep it appears to be as one continuous moment even if i did not observe anything while sleeping. The universe was still there while i slept. If Schrödinger's cat went to sleep inside its box. Then relative to what the cat observes, it is alive when the box is opened. Since the cat can think after it wakes up, it exists and relative to the cat dieing was not possible since it cannot observe its own death. As for the last paragraph of my last post im trying to say that putting for example Schrödinger's cat into one definite state before it has been observed would be a logical fallacy.
Actually, what I’ve been trying to say is not that you have to necessarily know for sure before you open the box if the cat is alive or dead, just I advocate saying “I don’t know if the cat is alive or dead yet” as opposed to being dead set on being able to make a conclusive (at least, conclusive sounding) statement about the state of the cat before you open the box and see confirmation of the cat’s state and so saying “it is both alive and dead before we observe it and it becomes only one or the other.” This thing I propose is not a logical fallacy -- it is not putting the cat into one statement or the other before the conclusive observation, it is refusing to put the cat in any state at all, including a contradictory “alive and not alive at once” one.
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The Name of the Rose Crew
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:22 pm
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Quantum mechanics.
Let me offer an analogy.
Casinos make money. Do they always win? No, however, in the bulk, on the average, casinos make money. The problem whenever people start talking about QM being BS is that they do not understand that things do not work the same at the level of the atom as they do in the bulk.
Can you walk through a wall? No, however, if you go smack into a wall, there's a definite possibility that one of your atoms actually did go through it. Just like a room full of gamblers, most are losing, but over there is someone shouting JACKPOT!
Schroedinger's cat (which engineer-of-doom is currently wearing on her avatar) was his idea for bringing the atomic scale to the macroscopic so that it could be observed at our level. A radioactive atom is put in a sensitive detector so that when it decays it would release poison gas for the cat. Note that it is a single atom decaying... when we speak of a half-life, we are talking about half the bulk material decaying into another element... the thing is, we have NO way of knowing about any individual atom... whether it is going to be one which decays or not. Hence the uncertainty of whether the cat will be alive or dead. I'm sure you agree that we won't know until we look, right?
QM is most definitely not wrong. It is the philosophical implications, which are much debated. The science is quite inescapable. It is enormously successful at predicting things which were previously completely inaccessible. And in the bulk, the macroscopic world we are familiar with, it always yields the classical answer... i.e. casinos make money, and you don't walk through walls.
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Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:07 am
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The Name of the Rose Schroedinger's cat (which engineer-of-doom is currently wearing on her avatar)
Oh so that's what the kiki on the block head is for. rofl I was wondering about that.
While I don't contest that some atoms may get through when you bang against a wall you can't just walk through, I find the assertion and/or suggestion that this has anything to do with a need for "observers" or that physics at any level is something that for no other reason, just sometimes does and sometimes doesn't work one way or another highly suspicious (it's like the claims some people make for the inaccuracy of supposed "psychics" that their mistakes are due to psychic abilities not being something that works clearly and 100% of the time.) As for the atoms that get through a wall, it sounds like the same thing in an experiment (I don't recall who by right now and admittedly some of the details are hazy to me by now too, but the general point is the important part and that I remember) that was mentioned in an old science text book for a class I had in high school where they concluded atoms were mostly empty space by shooting stuff at a thin sheet of metal I believe (there may or may not have been gold and/or anything radioactive involved) and some went through while some bounced back. I think they were shooting maybe only single atoms at a very thin sheet of the metal and most went through, but every so often some bounced back, hence the conclusion that they were mostly, but not entirely, empty pace. So with this in mind, yes, some atoms could conceivably get through.
And yes, that's exactly what I've been saying: The cat is not "both alive and dead" truly, the cat is alive OR dead and we just don't know which. Perhaps eventually though we'll find a way to better figure out on the scale of a single atom the likelihood of decaying and when. I don't say that what quantum physics studies and experiments may have seen are wrong - quite to the contrary - just as I said, I think they may have made some mistakes in their interpretations of why they got the results they did. I've said a couple times in my past posts already that I think the "observer" requirement thing could be a problem that came from just the wording used for some things and not related to what actually happened and/or there could be something else that is related to/came with the observing/measuring thing that is where the difference is really coming from, not the observing/measuring itself. As for the casinos as an example, I don't think that that is the best justification for quantum physics since, for example slots we'll say, is not really a matter of total unpredictable chance occurrences -- it is just based on people having insufficient knowledge at the time of what is actually going on that, if they had the information and were quick enough, they could have accurately predicated if they would have won or not. It did not depend on anything like an observer measuring or totally unpredictable luck or what have you. |
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Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:48 pm
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I'm using observation as a necessary and sufficient condition for existence. With this definition since everything in space is at least indirectly observable, everything in all of space exists. I'd also like to count observing in the past and observing in the future as the same thing, so can observe and do observe are effectively the same. If something could be observed somehow it also exists. The definition is not quite as clear when looking into the future. The main point of existence being something observed is that alternate universes do not exist relative to us since they are impossible to observe (if we could observe them they would be part of our universe). This also means that if there are two distinct possibilities for the future and then one of them happens, then the other one does not exist relative to us since we cannot actually observe it (we can guess though). It is also true that it is impossible for us to directly observe the cause of anything, we can only infer that we are observing it indirectly. We might be right or wrong about what it is but what is important is that no matter what it is, it exists relative to us.
I'm going to use the verb "to be" for things we cannot ever observe, like there are other possibilities for this universe but they do not exist. Exists is a bad choice of words for alternate universe, its better to say that every possible universe is.
For the descartes based logic we follow "I think therefore I exist"(I observe myself) to "My thoughts are part of me" and "my observations are part of my thoughts" so "my observations exist". We do make an assumption in that "if there is no cause, my observations would not exist" which implies that some cause exists. It does not matter what my thoughts are, what my observations are or the causes are or whether any of them are right or wrong or how nice they are so long as they exist.
the reason for the universe always existing could have always existed as well, one can think of fundamental mathematical principles as always existing, and some of those might somehow give a reason the universe always existed. I never said something had to exist before the universe. (in the extreme possibilities there could even be something that existed before our universe but in a different time dimension, so relative to us it always existed but relative to their time it did not).
As for simple logic still applying I would say that it does apply but you have to be extremely selective in what logic you pick. (you must include all assumptions that the logic is based on within the statement). A=A(reflexivity) and A=B,B=C => A=C(trasitivity) better be true since everything is based on it, but with quantum physics it seems like it is possible to have both A and not A considering Schrödinger's cat so you would need some assumptions which if those are true then you can't have both A and not A. You must be very very careful with what you determine to be true, you do need some assumptions for adding nothing to something. A working statement might be "if the axiom of choice and anything + 0 = itself are both true then 1 + 0 = 1"
Theres this one theorem of mathematics that states that "there are true things which are impossible to prove", some guy proved it was true too whenever you have numbers, i think its called the incompleteness theorem. So actually there MUST be undiscovered/unproven facts. But that isn't entirely the point here. For considering the universe instead of P i mean that you should think about the new universe in the same way you did about P, the scale will be different but the same rules apply. This universe does not "exist" as in the above definition especially if the conditions for it are not true. (to attempt to fix some of the issues we can add in the condition that they follow the same basic logic as us, we can also assume that what they see and think is correct enough). The little people do exist relative to their universe. What I'm trying to say is that its possible that we are no better, that we only exist relative to our universe which is a hypothetical situation with a bunch of conditions.
In quantum physics there is an experiment where two entwined particles are measured separately (so that information cannot pass between them since nothing can go faster than light). The method of observation used on one particles effects how the second particle will be observed. (there is still no actual information passed between the particles). When it is then observed it will be seen to have always been that way. (this is not a great explanation so there will be problems but this is the general reason as to why you cannot pick one state.)
In addition to passing though walls made of empty space, quantum particles have the ability to pass though solid barriers like fields that they would not normally have the energy to cross.
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:26 pm
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Schroedinger's cat reporting for duty!
bluecherry
While I don't contest that some atoms may get through when you bang against a wall you can't just walk through, I find the assertion and/or suggestion that this has anything to do with a need for "observers" or that physics at any level is something that for no other reason, just sometimes does and sometimes doesn't work one way or another highly suspicious (it's like the claims some people make for the inaccuracy of supposed "psychics" that their mistakes are due to psychic abilities not being something that works clearly and 100% of the time.)
As a side note, if psychics are capable of predicting the future, then that is exactly how it would work for them. When I took control systems theory, it was clearly in the mathematics that one could build a 'predictor' circuit... so why not do so? Because they are inherently unstable... The further in the future one chose to look, the more unstable. How would you test something unstable to see if it's right? Just WAY more trouble than it's worth.
Perhaps you have heard about some of the planes the Air Force uses which have to be computer controlled rather than the pilot directly controlling them... They are built with the control systems right on the edge of instability, which is why a computer with faster 'reflexes' is required to operate them. But enough of control systems theory...
bluecherry As for the atoms that get through a wall, it sounds like the same thing in an experiment (I don't recall who by right now and admittedly some of the details are hazy to me by now too, but the general point is the important part and that I remember) that was mentioned in an old science text book for a class I had in high school where they concluded atoms were mostly empty space by shooting stuff at a thin sheet of metal I believe (there may or may not have been gold and/or anything radioactive involved) and some went through while some bounced back. I think they were shooting maybe only single atoms at a very thin sheet of the metal and most went through, but every so often some bounced back, hence the conclusion that they were mostly, but not entirely, empty pace. So with this in mind, yes, some atoms could conceivably get through.
That would be the Geiger-Marsden Experiment which Rutherford gets all the credit for, and yes, that's a good starting place for understanding things. Once one sees this experiment (and others) as establishing that an atom has a massive center containing the protons and neutrons, and that the electrons are much lighter and are not located in the nucleus, another problem arises. Why don't the electrons simply slam into the nucleus and annihilate themselves on the positive charge there? Clearly, they don't, otherwise, at best, all matter would be neutron stars or somesuch thing. But if you have played with magnets at all, you know opposite poles attract, and the closer they are, the more they attract... charges behave the same way, and it's pretty hard to get closer than the radius of an atom... If you would just play around with that and give me your thoughts, that would be quite fine.
Now about the casino analogy... the only point I'm making there is that you can't impose the behavior of the whole on the individual... but the individuals must add up to the whole.
I hope we can have a nice long discussion on this. I'm quite sick to death of being considered a pariah amongst Objectivists for 'believing' in quantum mechanics. Considering the fact that the computer I'm using to write this is the product of QM, I find it very distasteful.
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:56 pm
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These are long, dense posts, so I'm doing one at a time. I've been busy, hence why I haven't gotten back to this sooner, though I would have liked to have been able to.
angelatheist 1) I'm using observation as a necessary and sufficient condition for existence. With this definition since 2)everything in space is at least indirectly observable, everything in all of space exists. 3)I'd also like to count observing in the past and observing in the future as the same thing, so can observe and do observe are effectively the same.
First off, the first thing you say would be begging the question again, however for the moment I'll treat it as a hypothetical proposition being tested to get on with the rest of the post and give you the chance to back this statement up later as you go. Second, this is true so long as your first condition is true, yes, however you haven't addressed if everything in space could possibly be observed without that first condition you gave, but to get to the third point, I took the time to write out what I think is a decent explanation for why it kind of is possible theoretically still, even without that first condition, for the second point to hold true, however, that gets to the third point, my explanation for the support of your second thing here holds up as long as things COULD potentially be observed theoretically if there was a conscious being around with all the time in the world to go out finding everything and anything and they were there at the time, nowhere did it ever come up that they actually had to be observed at any time, just that the potential was there, it was something POSSIBLE to be done is all, so yes, please stop unnecessarily messing up the definitions of time and mushing it all together like one and the same thing, like all there is is right now, and there is no difference between "did", "is/are/am", and "will" and acting as if all potentials must necessarily be achieved at least at some point or they were never really possible ("If it happens, it has to be possible" is true, however assuming the reverse must be true, "If it is possible, is has to happen" is a logical fallacy.)
To show you the condensed version of my reasoning out for what I think is reason enough to go on for why things that are by their nature inherently impossible to ever even potentially be observed/verified in any way shape or form, whether directly or indirectly can't be aid to truly exist:
I proposition: A “blarkent” exists. So, it is a thing, it must be “something,” it needs an identity; we can’t go giving names to divisions and entities of “nothing” -- nothing by definition doesn’t exist -- it is the absence of existents, so there is nothing to divide up and name different parts of. (Seriously, you type anything divided by zero in a calculator it will back me up on this. wink )Any thing’s identity is made up of and acts in accordance with its nature, its nature is made up of the qualities it possesses. It has to have qualities aside from existence, because existence is not a primary quality, it is what you tag onto things after identifying its other qualities. This is necessary because sometimes something exists directly like, say, an apple sitting in front of you. Other things exist only in so far as say, unicorns exist in the capacity of characters, stories, ideas -- they exist as imagined hypotheticals, but they do not exist directly “as such” like the apple I suggested would. In other words, that you can propose the existence of something makes it exist and be real, at least, in the capacity of a real idea and proposition, it was an idea that somebody actually had and they actually made a proposition based on such. However, conceiving of something has not yet been shown so far to mean something comes into or already existed directly as such like the proposed apple would. (The unicorn -- horse-like animal with a single horn coming out of its forehead is what I‘m limiting my definition of it to here -- in this case is conceivable even though it doesn’t, to our knowledge at least, really exist because people have the ability to take existing things they’ve seen or heard of along with reason and so on and think of recombining elements in their mind to result in things that they’ve never come across anything exactly like that before and maybe even never could.) So all in all, existence can’t be the only attribute a thing has and thus things need other properties first to exist as a real thing, more than just a secondary indirect existence as existing only as something which has actually been imagined. Existence can’t give something a defining nature, an identity. So other than existing, what could these “inherently unprovable” things have as their actual defining qualities of their metaphysical existence, what they actually are (meaning, relational attributes and what they are not is not going to cut it) ? You may say you just can’t come up with anything right now that would fit the requirements of the properties, aside from existence, of a thing entirely separate from all possible verifiable existence and by its nature doesn’t effect anything which could conceivably even possibly be verified or proven but isn’t contradictory, but until some actual suggestions of such thing are made, I don’t think such things could even possibly be made. I don’t think it is possible to even begin to think up what actual metaphysical, positive, and non-contradictory properties (positive and metaphysical as opposed to negative and relational qualities like “not visible” or “inside a cat”) a thing could have that would in no way connect it to and make it effect other things which would make it ultimately at least potentially verifiable. As long as it can have no properties, no nature, no identity, ultimately it is nothing. A “blarkent” is an impossible and absurd proposition which defeats itself because it doesn’t meet the prerequisites to be a thing that exists, yet it is being said to be so, while ultimately it can only be nothing, nothing being the absence of existents.
angelatheist If something could be observed somehow it also exists. The definition is not quite as clear when looking into the future. The main point of existence being something observed is that alternate universes do not exist relative to us since they are impossible to observe (if we could observe them they would be part of our universe). This also means that if there are two distinct possibilities for the future and then one of them happens, then the other one does not exist relative to us since we cannot actually observe it (we can guess though). It is also true that it is impossible for us to directly observe the cause of anything,
Unless mean to say for some stupid reason that you want everything you observe to come with reality itself directly feeding into your brain stuff like "yes, an object in motion DOES stay in motion unless acted upon by another force, so pushing that rock in space, if it never comes into contact with anything else again, it would go on forever" ** I think this statement you just made is bull considering if one leaf bumps another drifting on the surface of a pond, that impact of the first leaf is pretty clearly the cause if you ask why the second leaf then moves a bit (assuming it is an otherwise undisturbed pond, not a really windy day or something.)
** if that is what you mean, my objection to that would be pretty much summed up here:
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology pg 106 “The motive of all the attacks on man's rational faculty—from any quarter, in any of the endless variations, under the verbal dust of all the murky volumes—is a single, hidden premise: the desire to exempt consciousness from the law of identity. The hallmark of a mystic is the savagely stubborn refusal to accept the fact that consciousness, like any other existent, possesses identity, that it is a faculty of a specific nature, functioning through specific means. While the advance of civilization has been eliminating one area of magic after another, the last stand of the believers in the miraculous consists of their frantic attempts to regard identity as the disqualifying element of consciousness. The implicit, but unadmitted premise of the neo-mystics of modern philosophy, is the notion that only an ineffable consciousness can acquire a valid knowledge of reality, that "true" knowledge has to be causeless, i.e., acquired without any means of cognition. The entire apparatus of Kant's system, like a hippopotamus engaged in belly-dancing, goes through its gyrations while resting on a single point: that man's knowledge is not valid because his consciousness possesses identity … This is a negation, not only of man's consciousness, but of any consciousness, of consciousness as such, whether man's, insect's or God's. (If one supposed the existence of God, the negation would still apply: either God perceives through no means whatever, in which case he possesses no identity—or he perceives by some divine means and no others, in which case his perception is not valid.) As Berkeley negated existence by claiming that "to be, is to be perceived," so Kant negates consciousness by implying that to be perceived, is not to be … From primordial mysticism to this, its climax, the attack on man's consciousness and particularly on his conceptual faculty has rested on the unchallenged premise that any knowledge acquired by a process of consciousness is necessarily subjective and cannot correspond to the facts of reality, since it is "processed knowledge." . . . All knowledge is processed knowledge—whether on the sensory, perceptual or conceptual level. An "unprocessed" knowledge would be a knowledge acquired without means of cognition. Consciousness … is not a passive state, but an active process. And more: the satisfaction of every need of a living organism requires an act of processing by that organism, be it the need of air, of food or of knowledge.”
angelatheist we can only infer that we are observing it indirectly. We might be right or wrong about what it is but what is important is that no matter what it is, it exists relative to us. I'm going to use the verb "to be" for things we cannot ever observe, like there are other possibilities for this universe but they do not exist. Exists is a bad choice of words for alternate universe, its better to say that every possible universe is.
I find this to be a pointless thing to try to do, since “is” and “being” cannot be separated from “existence.” What “is” exists, what exists “is.” The two words are inseparable in their meanings.
angelatheist For the descartes based logic we follow "I think therefore I exist"(I observe myself)
I think you may have seriously misinterpreted that quote or I have misinterpreted your interpretation. O_o; But to be clear, the saying means “I have thoughts, I have to have them even to be able to question them, that they exist is not possible to refute because I’d have to use them to try to refute them, so if I have thoughts, in some form somehow, “I,” the thing whatever it may be thinking them, must exist.” It doesn’t have anything to do with a need for observation to sustain or create existence. It says it is not possible to logically deny consciousness because denial itself requires consciousness to be done as does any belief or disbelief, they are all processes performed by consciousness and therefore you have to exist somehow, somewhere, in some form to have those thoughts.
angelatheist to "My thoughts are part of me" and "my observations are part of my thoughts" so "my observations exist". We do make an assumption in that "if there is no cause, my observations would not exist" which implies that some cause exists. It does not matter what my thoughts are, what my observations are or the causes are or whether any of them are right or wrong or how nice they are so long as they exist.
I’m not quite following here, are you agreeing with something I wrote farther up, that though your thoughts are not causeless, you may make mistakes in identifying what you observed (for reasons such as bad lighting, blurry vision, muffled sounds, misleading imitations, etc . . . ) or you could have a source of observations which is directly messing with your brain so it is a source inside your body, not an external thing (such as a hallucinogen induced vision of a mushroom in the middle of a bare floor.)
angelatheist The reason for the universe always existing could have always existed as well, one can think of fundamental mathematical principles as always existing, and some of those might somehow give a reason the universe always existed. I never said something had to exist before the universe.
angelatheist (in the extreme possibilities there could even be something that existed before our universe but in a different time dimension, so relative to us it always existed but relative to their time it did not). As for simple logic still applying I would say that it does apply but you have to be extremely selective in what logic you pick. (you must include all assumptions that the logic is based on within the statement). A=A(reflexivity) and A=B,B=C => A=C(trasitivity) better be true since everything is based on it, but with quantum physics it seems like it is possible to have both A and not A considering Schrödinger's cat so you would need some assumptions which if those are true then you can't have both A and not A. You must be very very careful with what you determine to be true, you do need some assumptions for adding nothing to something. A working statement might be "if the axiom of choice and anything + 0 = itself are both true then 1 + 0 = 1" Theres this one theorem of mathematics that states that "there are true things which are impossible to prove", some guy proved it was true too whenever you have numbers, i think its called the incompleteness theorem.
Yeah, that’s my qualm there, the assertion that comes with Schrödinger’s cat is a thing can be “A” and “Not A” at once , a contradiction accepted rather than the admitting of ignorance. It’s like saying Apollo pulls the sun across the sky every day because you don’t know about the orbiting of the Earth around the sun yet. As for incompleteness theorem, I’m not familiar with it. I’ll add it to my long list of wikipedia articles to get to reading when next convenient. Until such time, I find the clams suspicious, but I can’t really say much for sure on them until I’ve looked into them (oh look! I just admitted my ignorance rather than stating incompleteness theorem must be both true and false since I haven’t looked to see for sure for myself yet! OoO I just pulled off the seemingly impossible.)
angelatheist So actually there MUST be undiscovered/unproven facts. But that isn't entirely the point here. For considering the universe instead of P I mean that you should think about the new universe in the same way you did about P, the scale will be different but the same rules apply. This universe does not "exist" as in the above definition especially if the conditions for it are not true. (to attempt to fix some of the issues we can add in the condition that they follow the same basic logic as us, we can also assume that what they see and think is correct enough). The little people do exist relative to their universe. What I'm trying to say is that its possible that we are no better, that we only exist relative to our universe which is a hypothetical situation with a bunch of conditions.
But we know our universe exists, what cause do we have to believe anything other than our universe exists? If we don’t have any substantial reason to believe anything beyond what is part of our universe exists, than effectively we have cause to believe it is all that exists and is the limit of what is existence (right now at least if it is only a question of lack of evidence and not one of for there to be “other things” would require irrational things) and thus we exist relative to ALL of existence, existence as such.
angelatheist In quantum physics there is an experiment where two entwined particles are measured separately (so that information cannot pass between them since nothing can go faster than light). The method of observation used on one particles effects how the second particle will be observed. (there is still no actual information passed between the particles). When it is then observed it will be seen to have always been that way. (this is not a great explanation so there will be problems but this is the general reason as to why you cannot pick one state.) In addition to passing though walls made of empty space, quantum particles have the ability to pass though solid barriers like fields that they would not normally have the energy to cross.
I don’t understand exactly what that all was, I’m confused by how you explained it, however, I NEVER ONCE said I wanted quantum physicists to pick a single state before they were sure. I’ve always said I want them to just stop saying when they don’t know which it is that it is both and just say they don’t know which it is.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 5:27 am
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Yeah theses long posts do take quite a while, its ironic that these messages get posted instantly with the internet when this conversation would probably be just as effective if we used snail mail. (this conversation is probably over 10,000 words in less than 2 pages)
Ok lets start by defining a new term:
A exists relative to B, verb
A exists relative to B if removing B could somehow effect A. (it is indirectly observed if it removing it could make some difference to me). (note that a change of something in the past counts too). Hopefully this is a bit closer to your definition of existence and we can use it in this discussion.
This seems to be a better way of handling things rather then trying to force my own definition onto the word. I'm also going to say A relatively exists if A exists relative to me. For most of my previous use of something existing I mean relative existing.
First note that the entirety of space and our universe relatively exists since I "might" live forever and explore all of it. If theres something that can never possibly ever be observed/make a difference to me then I would consider it not to be in our universe.
as for the nothing not existing part, some people can argue that nothing does exists, in some number systems you can divide by 0, theres is zero-point energy: a non-zero value associated with empty space... But for now i think thats getting a bit off topic.
I think that if something does not happen then it is truly impossible, I'd guess that you think differently about this. I believe there are two possible interpretations of the universe: there is one single timeline thus everything is determined in advance or there are multiple timelines (follows q.m.) and which one you experience is a matter of probability and other factors. You probably think that there is only one timeline which is not determined in advance. That if the universe were to be repeated up to a certain point in time, then something different could happen. Personally I think this idea is silly since it seems odd to me that something could happen differently for absolutely no reason at all.
Albert Einstein god does not play dice with the universe.
ok, I've got a theory to (sorta) explain Schrödinger's cat being in multiple states at once, but it requires that if N different things are possible then they must all happen. Then given that one of them is what you experience each one has a 1/N probability of being what you experience.
0. Lets start with a thought experiment (real experiments are pretty hard to do), put identical balls completely randomly into two baskets. There are 3 possibilities for the result: both in the first basket, one in each basket and both in the second basket.
1. In an ordinary situation the second ball has a 1/2 chance of ending up in a different basket then the first so there is a 1/2 chance of the two baskets being filled and a 1/4 chance for each of the possibilities that one basket has both.
2. Now suppose that there all different possibilities all happen, then all other things being equal each of the three possibilities is equally likely to happen since the two balls are indistinguishable.
3. Suppose the second situation is true and we take a measurement to find out if the second basket is empty, this measurement has a 1/3 chance of success based in the second situation.
4. Suppose that instead of looking at the second basket being empty we measure the location of one of the balls. Now there is a 1/2 chance of it being in the first basket. There are exactly two possibilities for the second ball, it in the first or in the second. Given that both these things happen as is the assumption there is a 1/2 chance of each possible location for the second ball. However if you calculate the probability of the second basket being empty it is 1/2 chance of a ball in the first basket times 1/2 chance of the other in the first basket to make the last basket empty which equals a 1/4 probability.
5.Conclusion: measuring the first way gives a 1/3 chance and the second way gives a 1/4 chance of the second box being empty. The only thing different about these two situations is the way we took the measurements.
You can easily say that the second box is in a certain state but how we take measurements effects what that state is and always has been. This thought experiment is extremely dependent on the two balls being indistinguishable. If they could be distinguished it would be the 1/4, 1/2, 1/4 distribution at all times. I got the inspiration for this from the weirdness of bosons and the three cards problem/Monty hall problem. You probably want to argue that being indistinguishable should not effect the probability, but it does and has been confirmed by experiments. The thing is that it can only be done at very very cold and very very small scale since even a slight difference in energy makes the particles different. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles . the different statistics of identical particles makes things like lasers possible. As for the cat you could say its life is dependent on the state of the second basket. It is indeed in one state or the other but what you do can effect what that state is. So at least for physics it is easier to think about it being in both states at once each with a probability dependent on things that are measured. It makes the math work out better that way.
The assumption of afterlife existence is based on the all possible universes existing (only one relatively exists) and that something that does not relatively exist cannot happen to you. (since a non-afterlife possibility does not relatively exist). You don't have to trust these assumptions but all the evidence I know of supports these ideas.
Regarding objectivist epistemology, while what we believe about the universe may be true, most of it is impossible for us to prove. We could be wrong about just about everything but probably we are not. You may observe something like a leaf as being a very probable cause but since we are not perfect it cannot be known with certainty.
bluecherry "I have thoughts, I have to have them even to be able to question them"
bluecherry to assume the universe has to have a cause...
An simplified example of a true but unprovable statement would be "you cannot prove this statement". All other theorems until they are proven one way or the other might be unprovable. A few things in mathematics have also been proven to have no specific method for solving, like the halting problem for example, but thats not really the same as unprovable. P vs NP was proven to be unprovable using certain methods, but there is no full proof of unprovability.
Another important aspect of quantum physics is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which says that it if you know the position of a particle with certain accuracy it is impossible to know the momentum with more accuracy then h/(position accuracy) where h is like Plank's constant. so when physicists need to they do admit that they really don't know some things.
p.s. I thought the geiger-marsden experiment was more a basis for atomic theory then quantum physics. some basic quantum mechanics experiments might be milikan's oil drop, the Stern-Gerlach experiment and quantum entanglement stuff, for the probability stuff maybe the construction of Bose-Einstein condensate.
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:23 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:40 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:20 am
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Again, sorry it is taking me so long to respond to these things (I haven't even gotten to Engineer-as-Engineer's first post yet) as they are long matters to deal with and come with a lot of background research I have to do on things you keep bringing up to understand what you're saying (like I just tried to look up the Stern-Gerlach experiment on wikipedia, and already I can see this is going to take a while to get through with all the terminology I have to look up too to get through the article) and I don't have a whole lot of spare time at this point in the semester. I do intend to get to all the posts though, don't think I'm abandoning this discussion.
So, to illustrate further why it's taking me so long, here's the kind of stuff I've encountered so far trying to comprehend the arguments being presented to me and why the damn physicists can't just say the cat is alive or dead and they aren't sure yet which:
Now, while I'm willing to bet Engineer will understand what that picture means, I'm an undergrad literature major who has taken only biology classes and one basic chemistry class in highschool and college, so that picture up there and similar kinds of formulas get across any kind of meaning behind them to me about as well as if I was told it in Chinese, and not Mandarin even either, one of the obscure dialects. This is not the kind of stuff I have ever needed to know and it hasn't up until now been obviously and directly involved in any question of interest to me either, so I've got a lot of unfamiliar stuff to familiarize myself with. I'm working on doing so, but so far I'm still trying to get to the root of what this all does to alter my initial simple question about the cat and the box.
I'll edit this post again once I've made some more progress on cutting through this dense reading material.
EDIT 1: For the moment, to answer the first post by Engineer, true about the electron thing. But isn't it already something that they figured not just in the very small scale, but on the huge, grand scale there seems to be a question of what is going on due to an apparent problem of them not finding the right amount of justification for how much gravity seems to exist/be exerted, so not just small scale, but large scale for the same, similar, or different reasons a similar problem at least in a way has been pointed out before, thing hitting or not hitting, drifting or not drifting, staying in place or not staying in place when it seems they shouldn't. So, now I've already forgotten what this, the electrons, had to do with the real subject at hand, though it is true the individual is not always the same as the whole in results, the whole is like the averaged out or summed up result of the individual component cases often depending on the subject.
Also as for "psychics" I wasn't talking about a Hari Seldon's psychohistory type of prediction (that kind of thing I have no problem with,) I meant more like the people who would say they "saw it in a flash, a vision" or were the crystal ball types. The people who claim to see the actual future, like not just a liklihood, but like the actual future is already as real and set as the past is. |
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Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 4:43 pm
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bluecherry
Again, sorry it is taking me so long to respond to these things (I haven't even gotten to Engineer-as-Engineer's first post yet) as they are long matters to deal with and come with a lot of background research I have to do on things you keep bringing up to understand what you're saying (like I just tried to look up the Stern-Gerlach experiment on wikipedia, and already I can see this is going to take a while to get through with all the terminology I have to look up too to get through the article) and I don't have a whole lot of spare time at this point in the semester. I do intend to get to all the posts though, don't think I'm abandoning this discussion.
So, to illustrate further why it's taking me so long, here's the kind of stuff I've encountered so far trying to comprehend the arguments being presented to me and why the damn physicists can't just say the cat is alive or dead and they aren't sure yet which:
Now, while I'm willing to bet Engineer will understand what that picture means, I'm an undergrad literature major who has taken only biology classes and one basic chemistry class in highschool and college, so that picture up there and similar kinds of formulas get across any kind of meaning behind them to me about as well as if I was told it in Chinese, and not Mandarin even either, one of the obscure dialects. This is not the kind of stuff I have ever needed to know and it hasn't up until now been obviously and directly involved in any question of interest to me either, so I've got a lot of unfamiliar stuff to familiarize myself with. I'm working on doing so, but so far I'm still trying to get to the root of what this all does to alter my initial simple question about the cat and the box.
I'll edit this post again once I've made some more progress on cutting through this dense reading material.
EDIT 1: For the moment, to answer the first post by Engineer, true about the electron thing. But isn't it already something that they figured not just in the very small scale, but on the huge, grand scale there seems to be a question of what is going on due to an apparent problem of them not finding the right amount of justification for how much gravity seems to exist/be exerted, so not just small scale, but large scale for the same, similar, or different reasons a similar problem at least in a way has been pointed out before, thing hitting or not hitting, drifting or not drifting, staying in place or not staying in place when it seems they shouldn't. So, now I've already forgotten what this, the electrons, had to do with the real subject at hand, though it is true the individual is not always the same as the whole in results, the whole is like the averaged out or summed up result of the individual component cases often depending on the subject.
Also as for "psychics" I wasn't talking about a Hari Seldon's psychohistory type of prediction (that kind of thing I have no problem with,) I meant more like the people who would say they "saw it in a flash, a vision" or were the crystal ball types. The people who claim to see the actual future, like not just a liklihood, but like the actual future is already as real and set as the past is.
Yes, if you haven't had calculus, the math gets deep very quickly. Furthermore, seeing the imaginary number i in the equation probably makes you wonder about the 'reality' of the answer. Furthermore, the H hat, representing the Hamiltonian changes with the situation since it represents 'energy' and depending on the situation, that can be kinetic and/or potential energy and the potential energy possibilities are myriad.
Oh, well done on the connection to Hari Seldon! I think of him as taking psychology of humans to their future history in the same way as Boltzmann took molecular behavior to the bulk material behavior.
Please, whenever you have questions, do ask. I don't mind answering them at all. For me, the whole point of pursuing this Ph.D. is to be able to teach. So questions are welcome. 3nodding 3nodding 3nodding |
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Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:01 pm
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i = square root of negative one, correct? I've never bothered so far to spend a long time investigating "i" ("I" is a whole different story though razz ) but so far I always figured "i" was the result likely of some difficulty in our number system, not a sign that "oh teh noes! realiteh is brokeded!" much the same as how 1/3 in decimal form is .3..... and if you add the decimal equivalent of three thirds, where three thirds should equal one, you end up with .9.... and you never quite get to one in theory. This is just a sign of why some systems of numbering are better suited to some things than others, like how we have fractions for example to deal with what decimal systems don't handle as well. So in other words, I've figured "i" probably is just a case on the border of what the normal numbering system we use can handle, where it basically can, but the result has some kind of awkward steps involved to get from point A to point B where things sound for a time to be a bit off, but ultimately you come back on track, though perhaps with effort a better number system for this type of thing could be devised that could handle things like square roots of negatives.
bluecherry not only reads her scifi novels, she can take what there is to learn from them too. cool
Oh so that's why you're pursuing that? Interesting. Do you intend to become an actual paid professor? Do you have anything more specific you aim to teach or just general engineering?
For the moment I'd like to be able to talk more on the subject, address more posts, ask more questions, but I've got a midterm project to get back to working on . . . |
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Reply
