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Boydstun

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I don’t see any advance assurance that we can always find such unifying dynamics as we pursue, for I don’t see any advance assurance that such a thing is there. We are gambling.

This is why I mentioned Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in post #22.  The resolution of this issue will not be found in the (necessarily closed) domain of Physics.  The answer can only come from outside the domain i.e. Philosophy.  Scrutinizing the output of SuperColliders will never answer this question.

 

I would argue that, per Objectivist epistemology, the answer is: No, there is no "unifying dynamic", and that the very nature of abstraction leads to many, varied cul-de-sacs of knowledge.  This is why there are umpteem specialist in Medicine.  And no, not even Theoretical Physicist are exempt.....

 

I don't mean to belittle your statement/question.  Just the opposite.  In my opinion, you are one of the few persons on this forum that are even capable of forming the question in the first place.

Edited by New Buddha
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To be released on Bastille Day:

 

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

Frank Wilczek

 

A Beautiful Question is a compelling introduction to the triumphs and challenges of modern physics . . . . This is indeed a beautiful book, one I recommend to anyone interested in where science is going, written by someone who, by his many lasting contributions to science, has earned our attention.” --Lee Smolin

 

"A beautiful treatise on a beautiful universe, this delightful series of meditations on the nature of beauty and the physical universe roams from music, to color vision, to fundamental ideas at the very forefront of physics today. In lesser hands such a romp could easily degenerate into a kind of new age mystical mumbo jumbo. However, Frank Wilczek is one of the deepest, most creative, and most knowledgeable theoretical physicists alive today. Read him or listen to him and you will never think about the universe the same way again. And if your experience is like mine over the years, you will definitely be the better for it.” --Lawrence Krauss

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A five-particle bound state of quarks and anti-quark, which was predicted in the 1960’s, has now been detected at the Large Hadron Collider.

 

Pentaquark Discovered – BBC

 

Observation of the Resonances – CERN

 

About Charmonium

 

Resonance and Uncertainty Principle

Cahn and Goldhaber*

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  • 2 years later...
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  • 8 months later...
Quote

Using data collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, scientists have now determined the particle’s mass with a precision of 0.01% — twice as precise as the previous best measurement. It corresponds to measuring the weight of an 800-pound gorilla to 1.5 ounces.

Tolerance, or precision of 0.01%, or in terms of the 800 lb gorilla (ha!) to 1.5 oz. Is that 800 lb ±1.5 oz, or 800 lb ±0.75 oz for a total range of 1.5 oz? 

And while investigating the more easily relatable example of precision, a quick check of 800 lbs equates to 12,800 ounces of which 0.01% is 1.28 ounces. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 6/23/2015 at 7:56 PM, New Buddha said:

Here's what I'm trying to suggest.   Correct me if I'm wrong or if it's not relevant to this post.

 

Suppose we created a new type of metal and shaped it into a wide-flange beam.  We would use one type of instrument/test to determine it's tensile capacity, another type of instrument/test to determine it's compresssive capacity and so on too for modulus of elasticity, moment, shear, deflection, thermal expansion, buckling, etc.

 

Each test and, and our mathematical formulation of each property, essentially stands alone from all others.  There is no one, unified formulation for every possible property of the metal.

 

Would this (or does this) not also apply to our description of the different parts of an atom?

Wouldn't it be possible, at least in principle, to give a unified description of all the properties using quantum mechanics?

 

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On 7/5/2015 at 1:34 AM, New Buddha said:

I would argue that, per Objectivist epistemology, the answer is: No, there is no "unifying dynamic", and that the very nature of abstraction leads to many, varied cul-de-sacs of knowledge.  This is why there are umpteem specialist in Medicine.

Aren't all the cul-de-sacs related to one another and to basic principles about such things as cells, DNA, evolution, and the reason for the existence of the whole thing being that it sustains life?

 

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On 8/12/2023 at 11:03 AM, Doug Morris said:

Wouldn't it be possible, at least in principle, to give a unified description of all the properties using quantum mechanics?

 

No. One has to use the principles of Quantum Gravity, including things like holography, the concept of the multiverse of multiverses, black hole physics, quantum data processing, etc, combined cohesively and in a completely non-contradictory manner to describe the full nature of the Universe as such. There is a way to do this and the mathematics of Split Fibonacci and Lucas Octonions which describes how to do that while conforming perfectly with reality and and every accurate theory in physics including the fact that ER=EPR.

As "proof" of the above statement I used the full version of the theory that I created to (privately) predict the existence of the gravitational background radiation that was recently discovered as a result of the formation of our "local" universe's event horizon creation when the black hole that contains our "local" "universe" was created in the parent "universe" of our own. In a proper just society this fact would win me the Nobel Prize.

Edited by EC
Added the last part
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16 hours ago, EC said:

One has to use the principles of Quantum Gravity... holography... multiverse of multiverses, black hole... quantum data processing, etc, combined cohesively and in a completely non-contradictory manner ... In a proper just society this fact would win me the Nobel Prize.

Why don't you publish it in a serious, peer reviewed, journal?

Contrary to an entrenched prejudice, physicist/scientists are extremely eager to welcome a new paradigm, both out of intellectual curiosity and out of their interest in getting the inevitable golden rain of grants.

And you could even win your Nobel Price.

Edited by AlexL
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  • 2 months later...

Electron Half-Life * 

Ayn Rand introduces her principle of identity and its exclusionary character with examples of physical entities being themselves not each other and examples of physical entities capable of contrary traits at different times, but not at the same time: “A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time” (1957, 1016). From the pervasiveness of such exclusionary identities in any existents, Rand proposed them as basis for non-contradiction being a pervasive right rule for us in identifying things. And she proposed the fact of exclusionary identities in all alterations as basis for the causal, lawful character of all alterations. ”The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action” (1037).

Aristotle would continue: A leaf changing from not frozen to frozen requires a leaf continuing to be a leaf across the alteration. Likewise a frozen leaf undergoing changes from being a frozen leaf to being a burning leaf has a leaf continuing to be a leaf across those alterations. When it comes to a leaf becoming ashes or a leaf becoming the impression of a leaf in sedimentary stone, there is no continuing leaf. There must be rather a stuff shared by both a leaf and its ashes or its stone impression. There must be a stuff undergoing alteration from leaf to ashes or stone. Let us have that stuff the same in all such alterations of one kind of thing into another, let us call such a stuff Prime Matter. A leaf may consist of veins and webbing, a man of bones and flesh, but both leaf and man most basically consist of Prime Matter. By this postulation, we can avoid the absurdity that materials can come from nothing or pass into nothing  (Phys. 191a23–b17).

Change of a leaf to ashes is a change from one kind of thing to a profoundly different kind of thing. As Aristotle casts it, this is a change from one substance to another substance (in his sense of substance). Call such change “substantial change.” In the transformation of leaf to ashes, Prime Matter has changed from one form to another. Call such forms of Prime Matter: Substantial Forms. All natural things are a composite of Prime Matter and Substantial Form on this view.

A man, a hand, a neuron, or an electron: each are a composite of Prime Matter and Substantial Form to an Aristotelian metaphysician. So far as we have indirectly measured, an electron has an infinite half-life. An electron will not spontaneously disintegrate into the pure energy of electromagnetic radiation or particles having mass. Of itself an electron is evidently an eternal thing. It can, however, be annihilated—transformed into pure energy—by interaction with an anti-electron. The Aristotelian metaphysician can breath a sigh of relief. And the Aquinas set also, for facts of electrons do not contradict the argument of Thomas to the result that only something not matter could be eternal. Saved by the anti-electron!

Here’s the deal from modern eyes, including mine. Conserved quantities such as mass-energy and electric charge fill the role of Aristotle’s Prime Matter as underlying creation-annihilation transformations of matter. Drop Prime Matter from physics. Drop that part of metaphysics from physics. In place of Substantial Form put the Identity from "Existence is Identity." Drop metaphysical essences in the identities of things. Physical characteristics and relationships suffice. The world stands before us without being a composition of Prime Matter and Substantial Form. It stands before us and with its definite character, physical and metaphysical, without a supporting, more fundamental immaterial being.

Edited by Boydstun
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Everything at it's core is quantum data on the event horizon of our "local universe's" containing blackhole, and "physical reality" is it's holographic projection. This sounds "Platonic" until one understands the actual details.

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