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[A Poster He or I]

Andlan says,

I agree that objectification means to categorise phenomena principally for pragmatic reasons, using some pre-existing or defined schemata. Why this schemata is always mathematical is something that might concern us - it seems that there must be an underlying regularity that we are tapping into, or at least some rationalising instinct in our possession.

To me, enumerative conceptualization with concomitant operations like addition, subtraction and more, are a natural evolution for a mind that perceives extension and duration (i.e., space-time) and whose sensorimotor activity can be apprehended and subsequently "patterned" in conjunction with spatio-temporal separation. Cognitive experiments strongly suggest certain rats can "count" up to 7 or even 8, which beats human infants who can only "count" to 3 (source: Where Mathematics Comes From by Lakoff & Nunez). "Patterning" is what conceptualization seems to most basically do, and enumeration goes hand in hand with that.

My point is that the "underlying regularity that we are tapping into" may be nothing more than the operative parameters of our senses and cognition in action, which we all hold in common through evolution.

2. Indirect observation robs us of the opportunity to objectify the object, forcing us to settle for a mere cataloguing of its effects. This is good enough for an anti-realist ....

By this do you mean that QM does not objectify phenomena at all? We can only establish what we can directly observe?

I better define how I've meant "objectify" so far. Philosophical realists want objective objects to exist regardless of whether they are observed. Realists ultimately (not in all contexts but in an ultimate or absolute context) want objects objectively identified by innate attributes, irregardless of observation (in short, essences). I think scientific realism doesn't really identify objects this way, but some philsophical realists don't seem to know that. Scientific realism just wants scientific discovery to correlate with a presupposition that we can "reveal the truth about nature." Objectifying something in science seems to just mean isolating--or at least consistently predicting--its behavior.

I've been using "objectify" in the sense of philosophical realism which probably was a mistake, but I've been hypersensitive to the realist/non-realist distinction in this discussion and wanted to disambiguate my own position from any realist interpretation.

So what I mean is that QM does not serve to designate quanta as objectively real. It does serve to establish quanta as legitimate concepts which we can work with as though they were objects, though admittedly damn peculiar little objects!

OK, we cannot go back to prehistoric times to determine if dinosaurs actually existed, but we still feel sure that they did based on fossil evidence.

As a non-realist I don't see significant gains by direct observation over indirect observation so long as the observation is meaningful in some cognitive schema. Fossils fit really well into the model called evolution, and evolution is marvelously consistent with a broad range of other cognitive models such as genetics, unidirectional linear Time, and even circumstantial observation. So I feel very comfortable believing dinosaurs existed within my own cognition so predisposed to believe in time, history and evolution. But I am quite conscious of how time's objective reality is by no means established, and that the ontology of time (whatever it is) subsumes and implicates any reality that the Past may hold, including our metrics and meaning for what is prehistorical.

Presumably you identify indeterminate with unobjectifiable. Although microscopic particles do not have intrinsic properties according to Complementarity, they still have either-or dispositions that are constrained by measurements based on macroscopic properties. Observation per se is not the preserve of the classical or macroscopic domain (Brownian motion comes to mind again), although our observations are limited by the fact that our properties are macroscopically defined.

In macroscopic contexts, yes, indeterminate means unobjectifiable. In the subatomic realm, my mind is open to the possibility that "real" objects could exist, explicable by nonlocal hidden variables, in which case indeterminism at an observational level would be an aspect of our observation, not the object's objectifiable attributes. However, everything I just said presupposes that science will find a means to model hidden variables scientifically. Attempts so far, like Bohm's quantum potential, don't qualify.

Classical physics must satisfy QM (so I agree that the latter is more fundamenatal), but the reason for this need to satisfy is that classical and quantum are part of the same empirical world. In that sense I agree with Maxwell. Nonetheless, a border does exist between the two domains because of our limitations in measuring quantum phenomena. If by some magic we were microscopic and could interract with what was down there, perhaps we could come up with some deterministic theories (although we may need to come up with a new set of properties based on what we could observe there).

The BIG obstacle here, as I see it, is that nonlocality throws objective space-time into jeopardy. If we presume to someday observe beyond the limit of the Uncertainty Principle, we have to all agree on what "observation" even means if it is "outside" of space-time as currently understood. Every aspect of the scientific method in PRACTICAL terms assumes the objectivity of space and time. We acknowledge nonlocality nowadays, but we don't know how to approach it scientifically in any productive way because we have to DETERMINE it in practice even if we don't have a principle to guide any "science" of nonlocal physics.

[Belinda]

Half-Six wrote:

I can see that if you take the Spinozist approach (I don’t know that much about Spinoza, so I’ll trust your reading ) that “mind and matter are two aspects of one overarching reality” then, by definition, there has to be a correlation – although I don’t see you’re justified in saying it’s exact. But this is just your overriding presupposition, it’s your “given”. It’s either accepted or not, you can’t argue about why it might be true or not without taking another basic presupposition. And there’s no need to add other givens, like physical connections.

It seems analogous to Bohr’s complementarity – in order to use QM, you just accept it, you don’t argue why it might be so. Accepting it works; people can work with QM very successfully with it; but if we want to do philosophy – then we have to ask why it might be so.

So accepting a Spinozist approach doesn’t help uncover brain/mind correlations, to do that you have to question it.

A corrrelation doesn't necessarily imply a causal connection. However isn't mathematics an abstract, a model of reality, and isn't any theory of existence also an abstract, a model of reality? QM also is a model of reality. If the mathematical model and some metaphysical model accord with each other, does this not tell us that each is more likely to be the case?

[Xris]

Prismatic. When mathematics is used to support suspect concepts then it is culpable of deceit. Dark matter was invented by mathematicians to give credence to an expanding universe. One supports the other. If the BB is false can we blame the maths or the concept or both? Once again I am not here to defend Gaede in every respect only to use his theory to possibly question the indeterminate nature of the quantum universe. You can not quote him without giving his full views on the subject. Yes if EM ropes, fibres or threads are found to exist then there is no reason to believe in Einstein and his theory of relativity. Men never questioned the concept of god without fear of the stake are you honestly telling me men of science are beyond question unless you join the club? The questions may be muffled and confused but please do make a precedent that they are beyond reproach. Do I need to be a theologian to question god or a professor of art to give my view of an artists work?

[Half-Six]

Half-Six wrote:

I can see that if you take the Spinozist approach (I don’t know that much about Spinoza, so I’ll trust your reading ) that “mind and matter are two aspects of one overarching reality” then, by definition, there has to be a correlation – although I don’t see you’re justified in saying it’s exact. But this is just your overriding presupposition, it’s your “given”. It’s either accepted or not, you can’t argue about why it might be true or not without taking another basic presupposition. And there’s no need to add other givens, like physical connections.

It seems analogous to Bohr’s complementarity – in order to use QM, you just accept it, you don’t argue why it might be so. Accepting it works; people can work with QM very successfully with it; but if we want to do philosophy – then we have to ask why it might be so.

So accepting a Spinozist approach doesn’t help uncover brain/mind correlations, to do that you have to question it.

A corrrelation doesn't necessarily imply a causal connection.

Agreed, as I've said, correlations are part and parcel of what it means to be "two aspects of one overarching reality". That's a logical not a causal connection.

However isn't mathematics an abstract, a model of reality,

Nope, mathematics is a human activity. People count, add, multiply etc.

and isn't any theory of existence also an abstract, a model of reality?

Yes, but as I say, it presupposes humans (a form of life) who can think up theories, and the same form of life, with their particular manner of observation, to corroborate or falsify them through experimental observation.

QM also is a model of reality. If the mathematical model and some metaphysical model accord with each other, does this not tell us that each is more likely to be the case?

Not sure where you're leading with this, but there are different metaphysical models which accord with QM, e.g. Many Worlds, David Bohm's. So which one is more likely?

[Belinda]

Half-Six, Neither do I know where I am leading to with this . I suspected from the start that it was a dead end.

Belinda wrote:

and isn't any theory of existence also an abstract, a model of reality?

Yes, but as I say, it presupposes humans (a form of life) who can think up theories, and the same form of life, with their particular manner of observation, to corroborate or falsify them through experimental observation.




Belinda wrote:

QM also is a model of reality. If the mathematical model and some metaphysical model accord with each other, does this not tell us that each is more likely to be the case?

Not sure where you're leading with this, but there are different metaphysical models which accord with QM, e.g. Many Worlds, David Bohm's. So which one is more likely?

The first bit I quoted from you shows me that I am trying to stop a regress or a paradox and have failed.It's probably a waste of effort to search after absolutes.

The second bit that I quoted from you shows that my knowledge of the nature of physics is insufficient for me to do more than tentatively fly a suggestion while expecting it to be shot down any time. Thanks for paying attention to it.

[Half-Six]

I don’t think your starting point was a dead end, when you asked

If it is the case **that human observers and experimenters are minds/brains/bodies that are themselves made of quanta would this case provide a practical solution to the indeterminacy problem?

My objection is in lumping minds/brains/bodies together. It’s ok to claim brains/bodies are made of quanta, but it’s a category mistake to say minds are. I think the work Penrose/Hameroff have done around quantisation in brains is interesting, but it leads to paradoxes to claim that mind arises because of, or out of, this quantisation. The main point I’m promoting is that science – maths, physics, hypotheses, deductions, experimental observation, QM etc. – presupposes ‘mind’ as much as it presupposes matter, and it can become confused to look in science for an ultimate explanation of mind, or indeed of matter, in the sense of “why is there mind – why is there matter?”

[Prismatic]

Prismatic. When mathematics is used to support suspect concepts then it is culpable of deceit. Dark matter was invented by mathematicians to give credence to an expanding universe.

This is not the case. You are thinking of dark energy. You have confused dark energy and dark matter. Dark matter is hypothesized to account for several distinct phenomena: orbital velocities of stars in galaxies, rotation of spiral galaxies, gravitational lensing of clusters. The origin of the hypothesis goes back to Fritz Swicky in 1933, who found that the gravitation mass of a certain cluster of galaxies would have to be much greater than its luminosity indicated, so that the additional hypothesized mass was dark.

The inference of mass from gravitational phenomena has a long history in physics. Perturbations in the predicted orbit of the planet Uranus were observed as early as 1781. The observations suggested that another planet's gravitation influence was the reason, and the astronomer Adams predicted the orbit, mass, and position of the suspected planet, leading to the discovery of Neptune in 1846. In 1844 Bessel hypothesized the existence of companions for Sirius and Phocyon based on such evidence and they were indeed discovered in 1862.

The important thing to remember about the concepts of dark matter and dark energy is that they are at this point hypotheses which explain observed phenomena and are not fully understood physics, but the basis for further investigation. Sciences uses hypotheses to design new experiments—new tests for theories. The hypotheses are not arbitrary, but need to fit with previously verified physics.

Once again I am not here to defend Gaede in every respect only to use his theory to possibly question the indeterminate nature of the quantum universe. You can not quote him without giving his full views on the subject.

The fact is that you have not been able to defend Gaede in ANY respect. All the questions I have posed have gone unanswered. However, you yourself are privileged to ignore the anomalies in Gaede's full views and restrict yourself to questioning indeterminacy in quantum mechanics without understanding how indeterminacy arises.

Yes if EM ropes, fibres or threads are found to exist then there is no reason to believe in Einstein and his theory of relativity.

Or to believe in Newton and his theory of gravity, Maxwell and his electromagnetic theory, Planck and his quantum theory, or indeed any other physics that uses mathematics and has been verified experimentally. Who is looking for these ropes? Apparently not Gaede himself.

Men never questioned the concept of god without fear of the stake are you honestly telling me men of science are beyond question unless you join the club? The questions may be muffled and confused but please do make a precedent that they are beyond reproach.

No, indeed the questions are not at all beyond reproach.

Do I need to be a theologian to question god or a professor of art to give my view of an artists work?

No, but to formulate questions that are sensible and deserve answers you do need at the very least to understand what the scientists are saying. Before you declare it nonsense because it does not meet the requirements of your intuition, you ought to have the intellectual honesty to find out what it means.

[Xris]

Dark energy, dark mass are result of mathematical reasoning. Mathematics is used to confirm what might be false concepts, so can maths. be held accountable? Is it a tool of deceit to make suspect reasoning valid? You may see no value in the concept of EM ropes but equally I have never been convinced by the concept or the mathematical reasoning that insists particles such as electrons or photons exist. No amount of measuring or observations can convince me photons exist or electrons are capable of being in two places at the same time.EM threads transmitting their energy from atoms or photons created at the speed of light with no mass to indicate their presence? I can see problems with both but you appear convinced to the point of anger. If only quantum science could convince us all it was that clearly stated.

[Steve3007]

Xris and Prismatic: If I were you I'd leave it at that. Prismatic has been crystal clear. Xris, you know you will never be convinced by any arguments or evidence, no matter how clearly or patiently explained. I don't see why you need to continue.

But I do think that the general sense of bafflement and suspicion that you've conveyed about most of modern science represents a good point, and possibly the basis for yet another new topic! I suspect it taps into a sense of bafflement and suspicion that a large part of the population feels. It raises, indirectly, the question of how people assess what is true in the absence of understanding and/or information. If we don't have the time to do our own appropriately thorough research or the ability to understand the arguments, how do we decide which competing theories to believe?

Whenever I read a popular science book aiming to convey physics to a non-specialist audience or watch a TV documentary with the same aim I'm struck by the fact that they usually fail to go into enough depth to make a convincing argument unless you already know something about the underlying history of research and theory. We're left with the inescapable conclusion that, in all kinds of fields, we all have to trust specialists. But there are many many people claiming to be specialists. This website is a very good place to observe this. It naturally tends to attract a relatively large number of people who are convinced that they have discovered something profound about the world (or can post a link to somebody else who has).

If you don't have the powers of reasoning, or the knowledge, or the time, to assess their claims, how do you judge them? Some people simply dismiss the mavericks and believe the specialists who hold the prevailing view. Some others go the other way and believe that we're all being lied to all the time. Obviously the ideal is to actually assess the arguments on their merits. But what if you simply can't?

I think I'll start another topic on it if I have time.

[Prismatic]

If you don't have the powers of reasoning, or the knowledge, or the time, to assess their claims, how do you judge them? Some people simply dismiss the mavericks and believe the specialists who hold the prevailing view. Some others go the other way and believe that we're all being lied to all the time. Obviously the ideal is to actually assess the arguments on their merits. But what if you simply can't?

Most of the time it doesn't make a difference. Bertrand Russell said the happiest people he knew were those who believed things such as the British were the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. A well practiced and thoughtful eccentricity may contribute to overall satisfaction and do no harm.

My college roommate at M.I.T. was brilliant, but he became captive to a mistaken idea—that there must be a luminiferous ether from which unlimited amounts of power can be extracted. He refused to accept modern physics. He built machines to try to tap the power and devoted his entire life to the project. He felt always on the brink of succeeding, but never quite did. He discounted all standard physics in favor of his own explanations. In later years he became paranoid and alcoholic and died at 63 in a foreign country where he had fled to escape the CIA.

Where judgment of expert advice does occasionally make a crucial difference is in religion and medicine. One of my high school friends was a Christian Scientist whose father was a practitioner. The father died of a degenerative muscular disease that progressed over the course of a decade—never diagnosed since he did not see a physician. The son, despite a law degree from Yale, followed him at age 44 with the same kind of harrowing and painful demise, leaving a wife and child in straitened circumstances. Persistence is often a valuable trait, but not this kind. That does not mean that you should always follow medical advice without question, but it does suggest that substituting religious belief for scientific knowledge can be damaging to your health.

The kind of knowledge people have is an important factor in making a judgment. A physician who has practiced a long time may be an excellent diagnostician. Scientists who are respected members of the scientific community are not infallible, but may generally be relied upon. Economists and psychologists are always a bit suspect since one is not sure that their knowledge is secure. Preachers and evangelists ought to be ignored if at all possible. Your mother-in-law is almost never a good source for accurate information and you shouldn't listen to your barber.

-- Updated June 3rd, 2012, 8:52 pm to add the following --

Dark energy, dark mass are result of mathematical reasoning.

Newton's law of gravitation was the result of mathematical reasoning as were his three laws of motion, which he presented as axioms, not proved results. On that scaffolding with the aid of the calculus which he invented for the purpose, he built the world system which explained Kepler's laws and confirmed Copernicus.

I have never been convinced by the concept or the mathematical reasoning that insists particles such as electrons or photons exist. No amount of measuring or observations can convince me photons exist…

Refusal to consider evidence is not a scientific outlook, but what did Millikan measure with his famous oil drop experiment? The Nobel committee thought it was the charge of the electron, what do you think it was?

…or electrons are capable of being in two places at the same time.

I don't believe anyone claims to have observed an electron in two different places at the same time.

[Mcdoodle]

Xris and Prismatic: If I were you I'd leave it at that. Prismatic has been crystal clear. Xris, you know you will never be convinced by any arguments or evidence, no matter how clearly or patiently explained. I don't see why you need to continue.

But I do think that the general sense of bafflement and suspicion that you've conveyed about most of modern science represents a good point, and possibly the basis for yet another new topic! I suspect it taps into a sense of bafflement and suspicion that a large part of the population feels. It raises, indirectly, the question of how people assess what is true in the absence of understanding and/or information. If we don't have the time to do our own appropriately thorough research or the ability to understand the arguments, how do we decide which competing theories to believe?

Whenever I read a popular science book aiming to convey physics to a non-specialist audience or watch a TV documentary with the same aim I'm struck by the fact that they usually fail to go into enough depth to make a convincing argument unless you already know something about the underlying history of research and theory. We're left with the inescapable conclusion that, in all kinds of fields, we all have to trust specialists. But there are many many people claiming to be specialists. This website is a very good place to observe this. It naturally tends to attract a relatively large number of people who are convinced that they have discovered something profound about the world (or can post a link to somebody else who has).

If you don't have the powers of reasoning, or the knowledge, or the time, to assess their claims, how do you judge them? Some people simply dismiss the mavericks and believe the specialists who hold the prevailing view. Some others go the other way and believe that we're all being lied to all the time. Obviously the ideal is to actually assess the arguments on their merits. But what if you simply can't?

I think I'll start another topic on it if I have time.

I watched a few videos by Steven Novella on 'critical thinking', and they were so adamant that they were right, with so little evidence put forward, that I was appalled at the very idea that critical thinking should be presented so uncritically

The topic would be nteresting, Steve. 'Trust' feels to me the basis of much that I think I know. But what are the constituents of that trust? I'm just browsing Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty'. : '253. At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.'

[Belinda]

Half-Six wrote:

My objection is in lumping minds/brains/bodies together. It’s ok to claim brains/bodies are made of quanta, but it’s a category mistake to say minds are.

I thought that thinking in terms of quanta is applying that particular heuristic to all comers. Minds, however, are aspects of existence which may not be amenable to quantification.Is there any add-on ontological hypothesis which could render minds quantifiable? Would the identity theory of minds and bodies serve?

Meantime, I don't quite see why minds are not quantifiable in the same way as we quantify things in space time. To quantify things in space time we first of all have to differentiate things one from another so we can count them.To quantify minds we would have to differentiate one thought from another which I presume would be a matter of social consensus, as is differentiation of one physical object from another.I understand that anthropologists especially those who study linguisitics have evidence of exotic cultures in which people categorise in ways different from ours.

I understand that Half-Six objects that the mind of the scientist is the instrument that would investigate itself. But the scientist is not investigating his own mind, but other minds which presumably can be done objectively .Psychology is not as precise as the natural sciences, but has it not come along a lot since the early days via statistical analysis, and reporting correlated with brain experiments or pathologies?

[Andlan]

To me, enumerative conceptualization with concomitant operations like addition, subtraction and more, are a natural evolution for a mind that perceives extension and duration (i.e., space-time) and whose sensorimotor activity can be apprehended and subsequently "patterned" in conjunction with spatio-temporal separation.

I am very sympathetic to this idea that the concept of number can originate from the way we differentiate all of our experience into spatial and temporal objects. Numbers form patterns and geometrical shapes due simply to their sequential and relational order, such as those found involving pi and prime numbers. Might this even go some way to explaining the origin of the formal complexity that can be found in natural systems, such as the double helix of DNA or harmonics in music?

My point is that the "underlying regularity that we are tapping into" may be nothing more than the operative parameters of our senses and cognition in action, which we all hold in common through evolution.

I'm afraid I can't subscribe to the idea that evolution gives us an adequate description of cognition. If evolution leads to cognition, what leads to evolution besides cognition?

Moreover, all our concepts must have meaning for them to have utility; they must refer to something specific or else they are mere noise. The statement “Washington was the first president” refers to Washington and to the fact that he was president. If the fact is true, then the idea is true; otherwise it is false. But where does this relation come from? In the brain there are only evolved electrochemical processes and these do not seem to have anything to do with Washington.

As a non-realist I don't see significant gains by direct observation over indirect observation so long as the observation is meaningful in some cognitive schema. Fossils fit really well into the model called evolution, and evolution is marvelously consistent with a broad range of other cognitive models such as genetics, unidirectional linear Time, and even circumstantial observation. So I feel very comfortable believing dinosaurs existed within my own cognition so predisposed to believe in time, history and evolution.

For the argument to be true that you are predisposed in cognition to believe in evolution, evolution must be independent of observation. How then could we have ever come up with the idea of evolution? I'm sure you are already aware of the circularity here (hence your use of the word 'circumstantial').

I apologise for getting off the main subject of QM. I guess this all still has relevance to the extent that our difficulties with QM are tied up with our understanding of observation and conceptualisation in science.

[Xris]

I love it, I am to be sent to the dunces corner because I do not believe in the quantum scripture. Prismatic, why did you not answer my question about dark energy and dark mater being a mathematical invention? Steve quantum is not just guilty of its inability to convey its knowledge, it is guilty of not agreeing or even understanding what it is observing. Mathematics have played a part in this deception. Inventing formula to support a particle universe where particles do not exist. Now I am told by Prismatic electrons are not in two places at the same time yet quantum tells me it is so. You can ignore me or walk away but the questions will still remain. Particles are pesky chaps that I prophesy will continue to irritate and create problems.

http://www.mpg.de/511738/pressRelease20051011 Had to give this link to indicate the conclusion from the double split experiment, believing electrons are particles so can be claimed to be in two places at the same time. Gaede and his silly idea of ropes removes this anomaly but I doubt you will consider this as anything other than ignorance of the subject.

[Half-Six]

I don't quite see why minds are not quantifiable in the same way as we quantify things in space time. To quantify things in space time we first of all have to differentiate things one from another so we can count them.

Quantifying mind is the Cartesian approach, which I mentioned in my first post in this thread - the notion that mind is an entity distinct from matter, and v.v. but they are in one way or another correlated with each other. Peter Hacker, in Philosophical Foundation of Neuroscience encourages instead an Aristotelian approach, that psychological attributes are attributes of a person; that it is a category mistake to say they are an entity distinct from that person. From what you’ve said, Spinoza seems quite close to this, though as I say, I don’t know much about Spinoza.

I’m not arguing at all that we can’t have scientific investigations of psychological attributes (mind), both one’s own and other’s, but it needs to be understood what we’re doing if we quantify mind/matter. Hacker seems to feel it’s just confused to do so; I’m not so stern, but it certainly can lead to confusions and paradoxes. A good example is Wittgenstein’s work on mathematics, Victor Rodych, “Wittgenstein on Irrationals and Algorithmic Decidability” is useful in this regard. Wittgenstein railed against the idea that numbers exist as infinite sets of objects; against quantifying them, as Russell, Frege, Cantor were attempting in set theory – it runs into paradoxes, Skolem’s paradox e.g. Rather “mathematics is invented little-by-little-bit”. It’s something we do, as much a psychological attribute of humans, rather than a separate entity from humans. When we count, we’re not mapping onto an infinite set of objects, we’re engaging in an iterative process, that doesn’t have an in-built stop.

So mind isn’t an instrument that can, or can’t, investigate itself. People investigate, and they can investigate human psychological attributes, though they need to use those attributes to do so, they need to think, and to see. But they don’t use them in the same way they would use an instrument, as something separate from them.