"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: Erik Max Francis on 7 Mar 2010 19:46 Tue Sorensen wrote: > On 7 Mar., 14:43, Mike Ash <m...(a)mikeash.com> wrote: >> 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. It's a good example of a simple statement that doesn't have much useful meaning in a scientific sense. The answer "It depends" is correct but _useless_, which means that the question itself wasn't very useful either for discovering something about the natural world. So far all of your commentary has either been of this type, or of the more egregious case of you just stringing together words (whose definitions you admit you don't really yet understand), or giving words new definitions inconsistent with common usage, or just plain making up nonsensical words. >> 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. A theory is not an idea that you throw out, it's a coherent explanation of some piece of the world. It makes predictions. For predictions to be useful at all, they have to quantitative. That means precision, period. Which usually means math. Sorry, but that's how science works. So far your ideas have fallen solidly into the "not even wrong" category. >> 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. Your commentary so far has indicated just the opposite. That's not intended as an insult, it's just a statement of fact. You have a very poor understanding of the underpinnings of relativity and quantum mechanics, and have seemed to admit it on numerous occasions. But you ignored his (very important) question: Can you name an example of someone overthrowing the established scientific order without already understanding it? The answer should be no, because there won't be any. >> 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. You might want to consider for a moment that there might be a good reason for that. When your behavior is indistinguishable to numerous others as that of a crank, perhaps you should consider that the common element to all of those conclusions is you. -- Erik Max Francis && max(a)alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Skype erikmaxfrancis The work of many cannot be done alone. -- (a Bemba proverb)
From: Tue Sorensen on 7 Mar 2010 19:49 On 7 Mar., 23:30, "n...(a)bid.nes" <alien8...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > 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? Reasoning is the logic-based investigation of how things relate to each other. > 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"? Not yet. It doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. I'm interesting in learning, however. > 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. But what if alternative explanations can be found to explain the same results? Explanations which introduce new testable laws and generally explain the entire quantum world in much greater detail? And with a much simpler terminology? I think that would count as a pretty amazing stride. In my view much of the Standard Model (i.e. various aspects of relativity and QM) has tied itself into over-complex mathematical dead- end knots. I believe much simpler explanations, yielding much greater understanding, are possible, and I seem to be glimpsing such explanations, and therefore try to turn these ideas of mine into a theory. > Remember science is a Work In Progress. I'm trying to progress it. What could I possibly have I said that makes you think I am not aware that science is a work in progress? My penchant for determinism should not be misconstrued as some form of conservatism. > > 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. Not necessarily. > 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"; Nor is that what I'm doing. One of my main purposes is to describe a certain set of laws for how energy behaves, a kind of quantum determinism. What we see in nature is the result of the interactions between quantum determinism and material determinism, and this can perhaps be described in simple yet accurate terms (which somebody - not me - can certainly put in mathematical terms). Which would be a much improved alternative to the current model, which in my view does not properly understand how to distinguish between the way matter behaves and the way energy behaves. > we *have* that physics (thanks to Newton et. al.) but it *isn't > good enough* to describe what we see at smaller scales, That much I do understand. > 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. That's where I believe you (and most everybody else) are wrong. Listen to this bright idea: Why should the small-scale give rise to the large- scale rather than vice versa? For no reason except that we have decided to assume so, and because it has always seemed (and been) *easier* to do experiments based on that assumption. Existing in a gravity environment, we naturally believe and assume that what holds up a house is its foundation. In a zero gravity environment, however, that assumption becomes void. I trust you can appreciate the analogy. My ideas proceed from the assumption that the laws of the universe function from the top-down, and *not* from the bottom-up (which conveniently has the built-in fortuity for me that I don't need to understand the "down there" in great detail in order to present and describe this new cosmic order). By this perspective the QM scale is pretty much a kind of dead-end - it is the smoke out the chimney of the house, and by no means its foundation. Everything really depends on the large scale. This is what I believe is going to be the next scientific paradigm. As soon as someone can provide a convincing cosmological theory to that effect. I will not be providing the requisite math, but in a future book I hope to point someone who can in the right direction. - Tue
From: Jenny on 7 Mar 2010 20:03 On Mar 7, 6:14 pm, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(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. Galileo: An object keeps moving at a constant speed in a straight line unless acted upon by a force. Einstein: The speed of light is the same in all inertial frames, De Broglie: Electrons behave like waves. Anonymous: Love, Jenny
From: Tue Sorensen on 7 Mar 2010 20:04 On 7 Mar., 01:42, Darwin123 <drosen0...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Mar 4, 8:37 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote:> I have a few questions that I would like people's expert input on... > > > 1. Don't the terms "causality" and "determinism" actually mean the > > exact same thing? If processes follow the rules of causality, then the > > outcomes are also determined, aren't they? People tend not to like > > determinism, because they see it as negating free will. But wouldn't > > you say that determinism is something quite different from *pre- > > *determinism, which is more a destiny kind of thing? So shouldn't > > science-minded people embrace the term "determinism" just as much as > > we do "causality"? > > I have not read formal definitions of these two words, though I > am a physicist. I can only say how I use the words. There is a fine > difference in meaning the way I use them. > They both refer to the uniqueness of a solution. However, the > direction in time is different. > When I say that everything has a cause, I am saying that history > is unique. One can deduce a unique set of conditions in the past based > on measurements made today. > When I say something is determined, I am saying that the future > is unique. One can predict a unique set of conditions in the future > based on measurements made today. > I usually here the word causality used more often in physics than > determinism. I think that is because in most cases it it easier to > determine the past than the future. History is easier to examine than > the future can be predicted. Right. And it also seems that the probabilities of QM have discredited the term determinism. Personally, I think that a unique future should be labeled "predeterminism", and defined as superstition (like Fate, Providence, etc.). In a universe with intelligent beings, there can be no unique future. And yet I greatly desire to use the term determinism (as very distinct from predeterminism) as a statement to the effect that everything does have causes; everything does follow laws, because a scientific understanding of the world cannot otherwise work. Free will, in my view, can be explained scientifically once we understand the processes in greater detail. Thanks to interactions between the way matter and energy (like the bio-electricity of brain cells) work, we are capable of weighing our behavioral options in such a complex way that the effective result is free will. We have free will the moment we become aware of the concept of free will, and likewise we can, to the degree we can influence our environment, control determinism the moment we become aware of the concept of it. Free will = decision-making = determining outcomes. Hence, human free will makes us determinants. Sort of masters of determinism in a deterministic world. I think this makes a lot of sense. :-) - Tue
From: Wayne Throop on 7 Mar 2010 20:01
: Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> : But what if alternative explanations can be found to explain the same : results? Explanations which introduce new testable laws and generally : explain the entire quantum world in much greater detail? There's not much room for being simpler than special relativity. There's really not much room for being simpler than quantum mecnanics and still explain all the results (see as usual, Bell's inequalities, which pretty much nail down that anything that explains the same results is going to have problems, and rubegoldbergisms). Plus, it's easy to blather on about "what if there's something simpler", but rather difficult to actually *create* something simpler. And most importantly, to *know* if what you propose is actually simpler, you have to understand relativistic quantum mechanics first. Wayne Throop throopw(a)sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw |