Things to Reject in 21st Century Physics
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From: PD on 6 Jul 2010 18:39 On Jul 3, 11:27 pm, "Robert L. Oldershaw" <rlolders...(a)amherst.edu> wrote: > (1) Acausality - everything in nature obeys causality, except bad > mathematical physics. > > (2) Reversibility - an unacceptable Platonic over-idealization. > > (3) Strict reductionism - nature is multi-scaled and fundamentality > occurs throughout the hierarchy, which has no upper or lower bounds. > > (4) Absolute scale - within any given cosmological Scale there is > quasi-"absolute" scale, but the entire cosmological hierarchy of > Scales only has relative scale. > > (5) Non-deterministic modeling - real physical systems are fully > deterministic; it is our obsession with our mundane observational > limitations that confuses the issue, as well as the false assumption > that predictability limits mean indeterminism. > > A manifesto for the 21st century. > > RLOwww.mherst.edu/~rloldershaw First things first: No one writes a manifesto for theories. We do not *create* laws of nature, we *discover* them. As such, nature is what it is, and we do not dictate to it, it dictates to us. If there is something in our mental structure of the world that conflicts with observation, especially independently confirmed observation, then it is our mental structure of the world that adapts. Now then, it's probably important to clarify what you mean by "causality". Some people mean by this strictly time-ordered, wholly deterministic causality. By "wholly deterministic", some people mean that every measurable physical parameter of a final state can be strictly determined as some function of the measurable physical initial state. By "strictly time-ordered", some people mean that only changes in parameters preceding in time can influence a change in parameters succeeding in time. Neither of these statements are supportable by the experimental evidence. PD
From: Robert L. Oldershaw on 6 Jul 2010 22:20 On Jul 6, 6:39 pm, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > If there is something in our mental structure of the > world that conflicts with observation, > especially independently confirmed observation, then > it is our mental structure of the world that adapts. > > Now then, it's probably important to clarify > what you mean by "causality". Some people mean > by this strictly time-ordered, wholly deterministic > causality. By "wholly deterministic", some people > mean that every measurable physical parameter of > a final state can be strictly determined as some > function of the measurable physical initial state. > By "strictly time-ordered", some people mean that only > changes in parameters preceding in time can > influence a change in parameters succeeding in time. > > Neither of these statements are supportable > by the experimental evidence. ------------------------------------- You raise some good points. I agree that empirical evidence strictly trumps theory. I am not talking about strict naive determinism. I am talking about the determinism of nonlinear dynamical systems and deterministic chaos. By causality, I mean that any physical event (X) is necessarily caused by other physical events (X-n) that strictly took place before (X). I am not talking about naive linear causality. I am talking about the event's past light cone as an incredibly rich and interconnected tapestry of causal threads. You can have a lack of predictability even with a a model that is causal and deterministic. The question might be: does time order causality, or does causality order time? Perhaps they cannot be separated? By the way, while theories do not need manifestos, cosmological paradigms [a completely different way of viewing and understanding the cosmos] certainly do. RLO www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
From: PD on 7 Jul 2010 09:57 On Jul 6, 9:20 pm, "Robert L. Oldershaw" <rlolders...(a)amherst.edu> wrote: > On Jul 6, 6:39 pm, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > If there is something in our mental structure of the > > world that conflicts with observation, > > especially independently confirmed observation, then > > it is our mental structure of the world that adapts. > > > Now then, it's probably important to clarify > > what you mean by "causality". Some people mean > > by this strictly time-ordered, wholly deterministic > > causality. By "wholly deterministic", some people > > mean that every measurable physical parameter of > > a final state can be strictly determined as some > > function of the measurable physical initial state. > > By "strictly time-ordered", some people mean that only > > changes in parameters preceding in time can > > influence a change in parameters succeeding in time. > > > Neither of these statements are supportable > > by the experimental evidence. > > ------------------------------------- > > You raise some good points. > > I agree that empirical evidence strictly trumps theory. > > I am not talking about strict naive determinism. > > I am talking about the determinism of nonlinear > dynamical systems and deterministic chaos. > > By causality, I mean that any physical event (X) > is necessarily caused by other physical events (X-n) > that strictly took place before (X). Again, I don't know what you mean by "event". You MIGHT mean a system in a particular state that is completely characterized by a set of physical parameters {P1, P2, ... , PN). In this case, it is not experimentally supported that all of those parameters can be strictly determined by the values of the same parameters in an earlier state. > > I am not talking about naive linear causality. > > I am talking about the event's past light cone as an > incredibly rich and interconnected tapestry of > causal threads. > > You can have a lack of predictability even with a > a model that is causal and deterministic. > > The question might be: does time order causality, > or does causality order time? Perhaps they cannot > be separated? > > By the way, while theories do not need manifestos, > cosmological paradigms [a completely different way of > viewing and understanding the cosmos] certainly do. I have no idea what you mean by a "cosmological paradigm". It may mean something similar to what I referred to as a "mental structure" of the universe. If so, then see my previous comment. > > RLOwww.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
From: Robert L. Oldershaw on 7 Jul 2010 13:21 On Jul 7, 9:57 am, PD <thedraperfam...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Again, I don't know what you mean by "event". > You MIGHT mean a system in a particular state > that is completely characterized by a set of > physical parameters {P1, P2, ... , PN). In this > case, it is not experimentally supported that > all of those parameters can be strictly determined > by the values of the same parameters in an earlier state. ------------------------------------ In relativistic physics one deals with spacetime events and light- cones. Anything whatsoever that happens in the real physical world is directly due to, and totally the result of, completely causal phenomena in the relevant light-cone. Show me any NON-theoretical example,i.e., wherein actual physical phenomena occur, that violates this form of universal causality. ------------------------------------------------- > > I have no idea what you mean by a "cosmological paradigm". > It may mean something similar to what I referred to as a > "mental structure" of the universe. -------------------------------------- The Ptolemaic paradigm was a cosmological paradigm, as was the Galilean-Newtonian paradigm. They are completely different ways of thinking about the cosmos. Discrete Scale Relativity would involve a change in cosmological paradigms that is as radical and fundamental as the change from the Ptolemaic to the Galilean-Newtonian paradigm. RLO www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
From: Androcles on 7 Jul 2010 13:34
"Benj" <bjacoby(a)iwaynet.net> wrote in message news:46c4b4fa-ad4d-4db9-b163-cb8e6b723f72(a)c33g2000yqm.googlegroups.com... On Jul 4, 2:34 pm, Hayek <haye...(a)nospam.xs4all.nl> wrote: > Sam Wormley wrote: > > On 7/4/10 11:37 AM, Hayek wrote: > >> Suppose we have an object traveling at an infinite speed. > > > Suppose you consider things that can happen in the universe. > > You seem to know what happens at uncertainty ! > > Share ! > > Uwe Hayek. Well, I have to admit that defending "Wormley" is about as scary as being on the same side as Andro in a discussion, ========================================== Doesn't matter how hard you try, Binge, you can't help being right some of the time. |