"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 20:53 On 5 Mar., 23:35, Erik Max Francis <m...(a)alcyone.com> wrote: > Tue Sorensen wrote: > > Isn't that exactly what EMR is, though? Superpositional lightspeed > > waves that only rarely, under certain circumstances, act as particles? > > Um, no. Presuming by "EMR" you mean electromagnetic radiation, it just > consists of photons, which are elementary particles which always travel > at c. > > > I think EMR qualifies as "energy" too. I know it's difficult to put > > into equations, but essentially I think we have to operate with such a > > thing as free-floating energy, and electromagnetic radiation is the > > main form of it. After all, perhaps the most cental process in all the > > universe - stellar fusion - concerns vast quantities of matter being > > transformed into energy (and hence comprises a major illustration of E > > = mc2). I think the proper way of comprehending the universe is to > > understand how matter and energy behave in relation to each other, not > > just in Einstein's equation but concretely in the physical universe. > > It's not clear what you're confused about here, but it's clearly something. I doubt not that! :-) > Photons contain energy, yes. (They're very simple particles; they don't > contain much else.) Other particles also contain energy, and > arrangements of particles, given certain fields, can also contain energy > within them. This is all well-known; you're acting like we don't > understand how fusion works. What I guess I am getting at is that, since matter is something concrete, energy should be, too, rather than just being potential, kinetic, momentum, Joules, etc. I am searching for an "energy medium" of sorts - a carrier medium of pure energy. And I think we have it in EM waves. I realize that "pure energy" in the spatial universe as we know it will most often turn into particles, and that the quantum/ superpositionality properties of energy prevents it from being concrete like matter, but I will still claim that electromagnetic radiation in itself, in its wave form, when the wave function is maintained/uncollapsed, must correspond to "energy" (and only after the collapse of the wave function do we get particles, because that's when the given quantum of energy "shrinks"/collapses into material definition). After all, going by E = mc2, what takes place in stars is the fusion of hydrogen into helium (etc.), leading to a massive release of energy, i.e. EMR; light in diverse wavelengths being emitted from the star, i.e. matter having turned into energy. Correct? I think there is a reluctance in current science to define energy properly, and acknowledge its nature in the form of EMR. It is as if we refuse to accept "energy" as an extant and real phenomenon in itself (the way we see matter), preferring to look at it only as particles or kinetic momentum. And this seems to be because of the way energy is treated in the equations and the math. To me, this way of treating energy is obsolescent. We need a better way of talking about and defining energy, also in the math. That is my impression, at least. - Tue
From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 21:10 On 5 Mar., 23:45, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> > : I believe in determinism and also in free will. > > Interesting trick. Most phi losophers would say it's self-contradictory. > I myselves try to pull it off by redefining what I mean by "free" and "will". > You seem more to be redefining what determinism is. > > : The rules of determinism are just different at the quantum level, and > : it's the interaction between the material determinism and the quantum > : determinism that makes free will possible. > > Well... basically, this seems to be more evidence that you're > using "determinism" in a very peculiar, ideosyncratic way. I'm just using it in the most overarching way possible; the way it should be used. > The very notion that "material determinism" and something you're > calling "quantum determinism" are distinct things is bizarre at best. Well, you know, it's going to be my little contribution to the scientific terminology one day! I believe that quantum physics has only scratched the surface of an underlying "quantum determinism" that is yet to be discovered (and which makes free will possible within the frames of determinism, partly because conscious creatures like ourselves become determinants, capable of controlling our choices). And most people, when mentioning determinism, only mean material determinism, like when blocks of matter hit each other, and don't take the "counter-intuitive" quantum effects properly into account (because, in their minds, things based on probabilities can't be deterministic. But they can, if we understand them more in-depth). In my view, it is essential for our further understanding of the universe and for the progression of the Standard Model that we look at matter and energy as the two all-important great phenomena of the universe, the interaction between which is crucial for the fundamental nature and overall development of the universe. E = mc2 has made people focus so much on the matter/energy *equivalence* that they almost completely forget that matter and energy also can and do act pretty much as polar opposites; as a kind of enemies. We need to understand that cosmic balance in a more, well, balanced way. - Tue
From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 21:26 On 5 Mar., 20:59, Luke Campbell <lwc...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Mar 5, 11:17 am, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Which is precisely why I claim that QM is bad science. It has just > > decided that the rabbit hole doesn't go any deeper, and stopped trying > > to go further. It's more philosophy and mysticism than science. > > This makes no sense. In science, you come up with a hypothesis to > explain an observation, devise a way to test the hypothesis, and if > the hypothesis fits the facts, you advance the hypothesis to a > tentative theory. After the theory is confirmed by several more > experiments, it becomes accepted as a good model of the way the > universe works. If the experimental facts disagree with the > hypothesis (or theory), it is discarded. Yes, but before you do this you need a broader idea of what science is and which basic assumptions the current scientific paradigm is built on. To be scientific is to *always* remain open to deeper levels of reality. If QM doesn't do that, then it's bad science. > Quantum mechanics follows exactly this pattern. It is a model that > describes our observations of how the universe works. It has been > confirmed by experiment to very high degrees of accuracy. There are > no credible experiments that disagree with quantum mechanics. But it can still be incomplete, and very much so. > Attempts to come up with theories that "make more sense" than quantum > mechanics (such as local hidden variable theories) have been shown not > to agree with experiment. What, now you're rejecting the possibility of fruitful future theories? > Thus, quantum mechanics is good science. It is confirmed science. It > works. It is a very successful model of the world we live in. It's a simplistic model. Science is more than "what works". What works is just mechanics. Science is, ultimately, an entire world view, culled from and defined by reality as our scientific inquiries discover it to be. It cannot, ultimately, co-exist with non-scientific world views. > Attempts to come up with "theories" that seem to make more sense, but > which are not based on observable evidence, are, to use your terms, > philosophy and mysticism. They are not science. On the contrary. We have largely forgotten how to theorize, perhaps because of overreliance on math. A proper theory includes a lot of speculation, which can eventually be whittled away by experimentation. Today we balk at larger theories, and this means that our projected range of meaningful experimentation is impoverished accordingly. We absolutely need a new paradigm that offers new answers and new questions, and the faster the better. - Tue
From: Greg Goss on 5 Mar 2010 21:28 Luke Campbell <lwcamp(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Our best description of the way the universe works has that all Inertial >frames of reference are equivalent. (We like to turn around and come back from trips, we live on rotating gravity wells, etc. If you leave out "inertial", I'll start talking about centrifugal forces again. grin) -- Tomorrow is today already. Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 21:34
On 5 Mar., 21:27, Remus Shepherd <re...(a)panix.com> wrote: > In rec.arts.sf.science Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > I'm still having difficulty telling them apart. Surely both causality > > and determinism are essentially saying that everything that happens in > > the universe is deterministically causal (and causally deterministic)? > > Let's try this: Determinism says that everything happens for a > reason. Causality says that every reason causes something to happen -- > but that doesn't mean some things can't happen without reason. Hm, I think I'll stick with determinism, then. No dice-playing for me! > > >?In QM, the assertion is that > > > there's no additional information to be had; no "hidden variables". > > Which is precisely why I claim that QM is bad science. It has just > > decided that the rabbit hole doesn't go any deeper, and stopped trying > > to go further. > > I don't know how you can support that statement. If QM believes in true randomness, then I disagree with it, along with Albert E. Everything follows laws. Otherwise the universe couldn't work. > The 'hidden variable' > rule is a mathematic statement, it's not claming that we know everything. > QM theorists *don't* know everything, and they'll be the first to admit it. > There are literally hundreds of extensions of QM that are trying to delve > deeper into that rabbit hole. We just don't know which one is the best, > yet. Look up string theory and Lie group algebra for glimpses of how > deep and dark that rabbit hole seems to be. I've seen them. They are heresy. Barking down the wrong holes. Well, I'm being facetious. I hope, of course, that some of them will come to something one day. Meanwhile, my own ideas seem to me (and my matchlessly mathless understanding) the better alternative. - Tue |