"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: Mike Ash on 7 Mar 2010 08:34 In article <32815007-fab2-471f-9fc5-420fb33a931f(a)a18g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I've discussed my ideas with (admittedly not world class) astronomers > and physicists, and when we use plain language they end up saying that > they don't know enough to say whether my ideas could be correct. "Plain language" is the key. In science, plain language doesn't mean jack. Precise terminology exists for a reason: if you use plain language, you end up being extremely vague. Vagueness results in not being able to say whether it's correct or not. Surprise! For example: "what goes up, must come down." Is that correct or not? It's hard to say for sure. It's mostly true, but how do you count things like satellites? You end up getting mired in a semantic debate which tells you absolutely nothing about the world. In precise terminology: "the gravitational force between any two point masses is equal to the gravitational constant, multiplied by the product of their masses, and divided by the square of the distance between them". Is this true? Strictly speaking, no, but it's very close in situations where relativistic effects are not important. Close enough that your astronomer and physicist friends learned it early on and use it fairly regularly. This statement gives you an enormous amount of information about how the world works, and even the discussion about where it falls short is extremely informative. To use plain language: if you can't put your ideas in precise terminology, then they aren't worth the electrons they're encoded with. > Admittedly, when we go into math, there are all sorts of ways in which > my ideas are either wrong or inexpressible. However, I choose to > believe that this is because the current theories are too constrained > in their mathematical conventions to be open to the new theoretical > strides that I'm introducing. Properly, who are you to say that that's > not the case? So far, I haven't seen any evidence that you have even the most basic comprehension about the current theories, so who are YOU to say anything about your "new theoretical strides"? To put it another way: please provide at least one historical example of somebody overthrowing the established order of science who did not understand that same established order. > If we are to progress, the existing theories and the > math too must eventually be reinterpreted in order to allow any > possibility for advances. My only option is to work with things I > understand. My understanding tells me that my ideas (which of course > have only been cursorily touched upon here) have something radically > new and improved to offer, and as long as I haven't been persuaded of > the contrary, I'm naturally going to stick with them. Your understanding, as demonstrated so far, doesn't mean squat. If you want us to take you seriously, give us some actual predictions that can be tested, at least in theory. Until and unless you do that, you're just a crackpot, plain and simple. > I'm not a math > person, but I believe the fundamental laws can also be understood by > other forms of logical approaches. So I think outside of the box, > rather than just accepting the current paradigm like most people, > including you. Math is just a tool. The fundamental concept of science is making and then testing predictions. Please make a testable prediction. If you don't, then you're not doing science, you're just wanking. -- Mike Ash Radio Free Earth Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
From: nuny on 7 Mar 2010 17:30 On Mar 6, 3:29 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 6 Mar., 04:40, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > > > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> > > : If QM believes in true randomness, then I disagree with it, along with > > : Albert E. Everything follows laws. Otherwise the universe couldn't work. > > > So... basically you're prejudiced, and impervious to > > evidence and reasoning. Good to know. > > If things don't follow laws, they can't obey principles of reasoning, > either. What do you mean by "reasoning", exactly? You started this thread trying to compare determinism with causality with the apparent aim of reinforcing some of your beliefs about what science should be. Science is definitely about causality, but not necessarily *strict* "B always follows A, exclusively" determinism. Did you get anything from studying up on "decay channels"? In science we *assume* that effects have causes. We do *not* assume that a given specific cause *must always* have the exact same effect. That was a common assumption before Quantum Mechanics was developed, but dropping it isn't a *consequence* of QM being developed, QM was (partly) developed to deal with *experiments* that showed that specific circumstances *do not* always produce the exact same results. IOW strict exclusive (Newtonian) causality was shown to have holes in it. QM can be seen as the current attempt to patch causality by describing those holes, so to speak. Remember science is a Work In Progress. > Evidence is frequently incomplete. It's silliness to believe anything > else. It is foolishness to insist evidence is incomplete when it falsifies a cherished belief. Yes, QM was developed to deal with causal problems at the subatomic scale. You can't just push that under the rug of "but people don't live at that scale, we need physics that describe what our senses tell us"; we *have* that physics (thanks to Newton et. al.) but it *isn't good enough* to describe what we see at smaller scales, and when you get right down to it, if you can't describe, explain, and predict what happens "down there" you can't fully do it for what happens "up here" either. Mark L. Fergerson
From: Tue Sorensen on 7 Mar 2010 18:34 On 7 Mar., 08:18, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> > : But what if the laws of the universe are more like spacegravity and > : activitytime, and not, as in relativity, spacetime at all? > > First, one would have to work on the question of "is your > question relevant in any way whatsoever". > > I mean, c'mon. What if there are pink unicorns that run the universe? > Pffft. Gimmie a break. Wow, you've really got scoffing down to an art. > Though I suppose your question would be more > interesting, even sans evidence as it is, if it were an actua theory > with consequences that can be worked out, rather than just throwing > around random wordsalad. As is indeed the plan. Things Take Time. - Tue
From: Tue Sorensen on 7 Mar 2010 19:07 On 7 Mar., 14:43, Mike Ash <m...(a)mikeash.com> wrote: > In article > <32815007-fab2-471f-9fc5-420fb33a9...(a)a18g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, > Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > I've discussed my ideas with (admittedly not world class) astronomers > > and physicists, and when we use plain language they end up saying that > > they don't know enough to say whether my ideas could be correct. > > "Plain language" is the key. In science, plain language doesn't mean > jack. Precise terminology exists for a reason: if you use plain > language, you end up being extremely vague. Vagueness results in not > being able to say whether it's correct or not. Surprise! No surprise there. Yes, precision is called for. However, sometimes innovations have to come from radically different approaches, because current paradigmatic thinking has painted itself into a corner. One of the things I'm banking on is that I can present some good ideas (not here, of course, but in forthcoming books), and then people who know math can translate the substance of the ideas into a mathematically useful form. I believe we are at a point where this sort of collaboration between different kinds of expertise is necessary for significant progress. At least in the areas I'm interested in. And I also have enough faith in my ideas to believe that they will cause some kind of splash upon publication. But of course I also have grave doubts, considering my ignorance of most matters mathematical. > For example: "what goes up, must come down." Is that correct or not? > It's hard to say for sure. It's mostly true, but how do you count things > like satellites? You end up getting mired in a semantic debate which > tells you absolutely nothing about the world. I don't think that's a very complicated example. It is easily answered: the statement is correct in some cases and not in others. > In precise terminology: "the gravitational force between any two point > masses is equal to the gravitational constant, multiplied by the product > of their masses, and divided by the square of the distance between > them". Is this true? Strictly speaking, no, but it's very close in > situations where relativistic effects are not important. Close enough > that your astronomer and physicist friends learned it early on and use > it fairly regularly. This statement gives you an enormous amount of > information about how the world works, and even the discussion about > where it falls short is extremely informative. Sure. But there are multiple ways of working with logical relationships. If you understand/have discovered certain overarching principles, then it may not be necessary to understand the nitty- gritty details in order to see new patterns that are actually there. My ideas, among other things, strike at the heart of our paradigmatic assumptions, and some of those may be very wrong. For instance, if the laws of nature do not begin on the quantum level, but are in fact based on macrocosmic structural principles - in other words, if they work from the top-down instead of from the bottom-up - then a lot of the alleged foundational, fundamental and basic tenets upon which much of physics is based is not really necessary in order to develop a broad understanding of the major mechanisms of the laws of the universe. Because in that case the quantum world does not give rise to the macrocosmic world, but vice versa. > To use plain language: if you can't put your ideas in precise > terminology, then they aren't worth the electrons they're encoded with. I diasgree vehemently. If it says something new, explains things that have not been explained before, and describe testable experiments, then I don't think that a theory necessarily requires mathematical expression in order to be picked up and developed further by the scientific community (who will naturally mathematicalize it and fit it into whichever parts of the Standard Model it may fit into in that form). But, FYI, precisely because they lack "precision", I have become accustomed to calling my ideas "ideas" instead of "theories", which is the word I would ideally prefer to use. > > Admittedly, when we go into math, there are all sorts of ways in which > > my ideas are either wrong or inexpressible. However, I choose to > > believe that this is because the current theories are too constrained > > in their mathematical conventions to be open to the new theoretical > > strides that I'm introducing. Properly, who are you to say that that's > > not the case? > > So far, I haven't seen any evidence that you have even the most basic > comprehension about the current theories, so who are YOU to say anything > about your "new theoretical strides"? My purpose in being here is to pick your brains. I have a certain (admittedly sometimes vague) understanding of things, and I ask specific questions in order to find out what *your* (and the general) understanding is, for the purpose of both increasing my own knowledge and find ways to formulate my own ideas better. Obviously, what I actually mention about my ideas here is only a few bits and hints. Their proper formulation will require a whole book at least. > To put it another way: please provide at least one historical example of > somebody overthrowing the established order of science who did not > understand that same established order. I think I understand, by and large, very significant parts of the established order. Just not in mathematical terms. Whether it is enough to produce some fertile ideas, well, that remains to be seen. > > If we are to progress, the existing theories and the > > math too must eventually be reinterpreted in order to allow any > > possibility for advances. My only option is to work with things I > > understand. My understanding tells me that my ideas (which of course > > have only been cursorily touched upon here) have something radically > > new and improved to offer, and as long as I haven't been persuaded of > > the contrary, I'm naturally going to stick with them. > > Your understanding, as demonstrated so far, doesn't mean squat. I know. I basically have not demonstrated it. > If you > want us to take you seriously, give us some actual predictions that can > be tested, at least in theory. Working on it. It may not be possible without a lengthy (like 100-200 pages) description which nobody here is going to sit through anyway. > Until and unless you do that, you're just a crackpot, plain and simple. I have met few people here who neglect the opportunity to tell me so. - Tue
From: Wayne Throop on 7 Mar 2010 19:14
: Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> : Yes, precision is called for. However, sometimes innovations have to : come from radically different approaches, because current paradigmatic : thinking has painted itself into a corner. Name three cases where this has been true, historically. Wayne Throop throopw(a)sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw |