Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

QM - Fact or Fantasy

Rate this topic


andie holland

Recommended Posts

OOps,

My mistake.  Where above I refer to Heidegger, please edit to Heisenberg.

 

Comments Andie?

NB,

 

As for most facets of this assumed direct interchange, I'm afraid you'll have to furnish me with references. Otherwise:

 

* While all three philosophers agreed that science is a process of objectification from a metaphysical whole-ness, only Ponty took the view that this is as normal to human capacities as the ability to form metaphysics. This, i believe, is Rand's position, and mine, too.

 

Heidegger simply denounced this process of alienation (vergegenstanlich) as a technological nightmare. Husserl, OHT, rather insisted that the direction of science was human/subject-based by virtue of the questions asked.

 

Schrodinger's post-cat explanations insist upon a rather strict instrumentalism: QM results depend upon the rigging of the experiment--wave vs particle in particular. For a modern update, see Cartwright's 'How the laws of Physics lie".

 

 

Please also remember that while his equation dates to 1925-7, the 'cat' dates to 1935, and the ensuing discussion. It's therefore an interesting point as to how Schrodinger, Heidegger, and Husserl might have dialogued. Ponty, of course, comes later....

 

Yet as for the influence of this interesting philosophy on the practice of QM itself? Absolutely none.

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not very familiar with what you are talking about, but if you mean to say that somewhere in the probability distribution there is something that can cause the Universe, then that is merely an assertion of the existence of a cause without specifying what the cause is. QM is different: in addition to not specifying what the cause of a particular outcome is, it does not even assert/propose the existence of such a cause. Besides, asserting the existence of a cause is equivalent to saying something like: "one of the three things in {C,D,E} must cause F". This does not mean that a "sense of cause" is applicable to all of C,D and E. Just because you don't specify what the cause is does not mean causality can be applied to the entire distribution: it is only applicable to specific member(s), whether you know which ones they are or not. You cannot regard the entire distribution as having some "potential" to act as a cause just because you don't know which part of the distribution acts as the cause.

What meaning of the word 'cause' are you using anyway? When I say A causes B, I mean that, within a particular context, all happenings of A imply the occurence of B. But when you say there are also some instances of A (within the same context) that does not imply B, then A cannot be a cause, a contradiction.

What seems to be true in a historical sense is that the definition of 'cause' has expanded to accommodate the contradictions associated with QM. All i can say is that by the old, classical definition of cause to which you adhere, QM is admittedly nonsense.

 

To wit:

 

* 'Distribution potential' is the best we have for the study of elementary particles.

** All happenings of A imply a strong probability of B's occurrence.

*** Therefore, in some instances within the same context, A does not imply B.

 

My personal belief is that given the fact that QM is here to stay, how might philosophy make meaningful statements regarding its practice? Here, my point is that philosophy is about creating meaning, ostensibly not to serve as an uber-legislator of metaphysical truth.

 

In other words, the assertion that QM is nonsense by virtue of contradiction of cause is not necessarily wrong, but rather meaningless. And in passing, yes, I believe that meta-physics,or what lies beyond the physical world that we study, is our sense of meaning.

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Several points:

 

* The antics of the QM gang date back to 1920--ish. Yet Postmodernist philosophy is said to have begun with late Heidegger, 1952. Perhaps, then,  the writer intends the Phenomenology of Husserl and the ensuing movement of Existentialism?

 

** Again, Bohr's Kantianism was refuted by his student, Heisenberg, in 1927. Quanta are objective, not mind-dependent.

 

*** Regrettably, many Physicists --Feynmasn and Sokal, for example, return the garbage remark back to Philosophy. To this end, my own pov is each to his own domain.

 

**** In any case, calling the standard view of QMers of their own practice "garbage" is to presuppose the right of Philosophy as the alleged 'queen of the sciences' to make that judgment. Not.

 

***** I'll be happy to comment on your comments, but not those made in the video. So feel free to adopt a 'Harriman sez' approach.

 

AH

I believe Andie was responding to my comments and misattributed to DW.

 

*Its no wonder that folks cant agree on the dates associated with the origin of postmodernism because scholars don't even agree on what the definition of post modernism is:

 

The SEP said:

 

That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.

The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

 

Even here you and SEP have differing starting dates...

 

Notice, I attributed "postmodern" to your criticisms, not the players in the quantum fairytale...

 

What I mean by postmodernism is the post-anti-positivist historicism that seeks to deflate and reject the above mentioned categories along with and most generally foundationalism. In particular I include the reprehensible "social constructivist" in this category but don't intend to impute this to your comments....(yet, we'll see. you did use "more constructive" but its not clear yet how you meant that) 

 

I do affirm though what Zammito says in A Nice Derangement of Epistemes on Pg. 5 and 7, that postmodernist in general have a :

 

[...] tendency to lump anything associated with empirical enquiry with a global and pejorative sense of the term positivism [...]

Hyberbolic postmodern "theory", whether in the vein of the philosophy of language or in the vein of constructivism "all the way down". requires deflation...

 

The Kuhnian style attempt to use historical interpretations of science to repudiate foundational philosophical premises is another way of stating this. The attempt to denigrate and otherwise debunk the role of reason in scientific progress.

 

I am arguing, and Harriman's lectures prove, that It was philosophical premises that led the irrationalism in physics to its current state and it is only the lack of a valid philosophical foundation the keeps this fairytale going.

 

We don't need to debate the special science activities whatever to discuss and debate the foundational nature of philosophy as the science at the foundation of all the other sciences. The entire enterprise of this historicism is a stolen concept! 

 

You have used language in general and in particular "prove", "truth", and other positive "success words" (in Stove's terminology) and neglected to lay out what you think constitutes your own view of justification and why your using language at all as the vehicle for said enterprise.  Both the general and special science use language as the vehicle. Math is just another language.

 

 

I don't have enough time to address more till tonight.

.

Edited by Plasmatic
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe Andie was responding to my comments and misattributed to DW.

 

*Its no wonder that folks cant agree on the dates associated with the origin of postmodernism because scholars don't even agree on what the definition of post modernism is:

 

The SEP said:

 

 

Even here you and SEP have differing starting dates...

 

Notice, I attributed "postmodern" to your criticisms, not the players in the quantum fairytale...

 

What I mean by postmodernism is the post-anti-positivist historicism that seeks to deflate and reject the above mentioned categories along with and most generally foundationalism. In particular I include the reprehensible "social constructivist" in this category but don't intend to impute this to your comments....(yet, we'll see. you did use "more constructive" but its not clear yet how you meant that) 

 

I do affirm though what Zammito says in A Nice Derangement of Epistemes on Pg. 5 and 7, that postmodernist in general have a :

 

 

The Kuhnian style attempt to use historical interpretations of science to repudiate foundational philosophical premises is another way of stating this. The attempt to denigrate and otherwise debunk the role of reason in scientific progress.

 

I am arguing, and Harriman's lectures prove, that It was philosophical premises that led the irrationalism in physics to its current state and it is only the lack of a valid philosophical foundation the keeps this fairytale going.

 

We don't need to debate the special science activities whatever to discuss and debate The entire enterprise of this historicism is a stolen concept! 

 

You have used language in general and in particular "prove", "truth", and other positive "success words" (in Stove's terminology) and neglected to lay out what you think constitutes your own view of justification and why your using language at all as the vehicle for said enterprise.  Both the general and special science use language as the vehicle. Math is just another language.

 

 

I don't have enough time to address more till tonight.

 

Yes, Lyotard (1979) is a must-read for those interested in the new French stuff. He was also the first to use the term for a movement whose members seem to have despised each other-- Foucault on Derrida, for example, or Badiou's constant nagging of Deleuze who, in turn, simply ignored him.

 

My point is that the origin can be traced back to Derrida;s reading of Heidegger's Metaphysics around 1952. 

 

But in general, yes, the movement's general point is that Modernism in Philosophy, as defined by Kant's opening the door to epistemology, is dead. All truth-justifications are only coherent in the sense that we're better off with than without any particular. There are no foundations .

 

A good example of this would be Deleuze's "Difference and Repetition" . Thematically,  the whole point of doing Philosophy is to establish a meaningful difference in relation to science's drive for sameness via repetition. Therefore, while science asserts A=A by means of classifying data, Philosophy seeks to effectuate a rupture.

 

Here, Deleuze is establishing the role of Philosophy as something radically different than your "the foundational nature of philosophy as the science at the foundation of all the other sciences."  

 

In this particular, I side with Deleuze. The QM experience has demonstrated, moreover, that scientific practice demonstrates how weak philosophy's claim is to be the 'Queen of science". Calling QM a 'fairytale' simply emphasizes the irrelevancy of your position. 

 

For the sake of argument, one can agree that all modern science has been burdened with truth-justification issues since the time of Hume shaking Kant out of his dogmatic slumber. This is why, for example, that we use the term ab-duction to describe a basic deductive method that's tweaked with educated guessing and deductive assumptions. 

 

So basically what we have from your pov is pre-kantian, 1740-ish Rationalism serving as 'foundational' judgment for science that's practiced in the 20th century onwards. Bizarre. You position also ignores the fact that the historical practice of science has influenced philosophy itself. 

 

Rather, you seem to insist that the practitioners of science are somehow under the spell of anti-foundationalist, social-constructivist, post-modern, whatever. the real truth, however, is that they return your 'fairytale' jibe in spades. 

go check out Sokal's book on 'Philosophical imposture' or read his 'hoax' online. You can also find some juicy comments by Feynman.

 

My solution is that of two distinct worlds. Science gives us functions, Philosophy gives us meaning.

 

AH

Edited by dream_weaver
/quote formatting
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andie, as you pointed out to human_murda earlier, "All i can say is that by the old, classical definition of cause to which you adhere, QM is admittedly nonsense."

Until the law of identity is repealed, the law of causality is one of its inseparable corollaries.

 

In the meantime, thanks for being such a ardent supporter for the law of identity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andie said:

My solution is that of two distinct worlds. Science gives us functions, Philosophy gives us meaning.

let's try this for a moment. Will you stay on point long enough to define these terms in such a way that allows us to see the similarities and differences buried in your premises? Serious question. What differentiates the use of language to create the category function from the use of language to create the category meaning?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andie said:

let's try this for a moment. Will you stay on point long enough to define these terms in such a way that allows us to see the similarities and differences buried in your premises? Serious question. What differentiates the use of language to create the category function from the use of language to create the category meaning?

Science, being about function, seeks to quantify. In a reflexive sense, this creates the Law of Identity de facto. To the researcher, this means simply that he/she finds sufficient likeness to aggregate data and make a normative statement.

 

For example: "The likeness between today's great apes indicates a common ancestry". Gorilla=chimp=h.sapiens because in the evolutionary scheme of things, they're all really A's.

 

Here. it's obvious that Philosophy tries to create meaningful differences outside the purview of evolution. For example, Nagel's great article on bats emphasizes the consciousness particular to a particular species, or their differences, in terms of "What's it like to be....?"

 

Here, of course, the language reverts to qualitativeness.

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Science, being about function, seeks to quantify. In a reflexive sense, this creates the Law of Identity de facto. To the researcher, this means simply that he/she finds sufficient likeness to aggregate data and make a normative statement.

 

For example: "The likeness between today's great apes indicates a common ancestry". Gorilla=chimp=h.sapiens because in the evolutionary scheme of things, they're all really A's.

 

Here. it's obvious that Philosophy tries to create meaningful differences outside the purview of evolution. For example, Nagel's great article on bats emphasizes the consciousness particular to a particular species, or their differences, in terms of "What's it like to be....?"

 

Here, of course, the language reverts to qualitativeness.

 

AH

 Clear as mud. Quantitative and qualitative are both species of the genus language. And what do you mean by "likeness" if not a qualitative similarity? And why does this qualitative evaluation enable one to prescribe normative standards in science?

 

Andie said:

 

Precisely. So if no one in science supports post modernism even to the extent of outright denunciation, why would Harriman have suggested the tie-in?

 

 

Hehe, lets regain context.

1). I didn't say anything about Harriman categorizing the quantum mystics as postmodern.

 

2).You are the one who lumped Sokal in with your defense of postmodernism. I did not say anything like that and have no reason to think he supports your views.

 

3). In the very book in question on pg.7 Part 1 THE STRANGE WORLD OF POSTMODERNIST SCIENCE STUDIES:

 

 

[...] In the 1992 draft of the National Science Education Standards claimed to be based on a "contemporary approach, called postmodernism, [that] questions the objectivity of observation and the truth of scientific knowledge". [...] And in a recent book review in Science, Paul Forman, a historian of science at the Smithsonian, speaks approvingly of "our postmodern works" with its social constructionist epistemologyans a "morality-based rather than truth based Weltgefuehl"

 

 

Looks like you have some homework to do. Wouldnt want to drop the wrong names in defense of your anti-foundationalist concept stealing now, would you?...

Edited by Plasmatic
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Clear as mud. Quantitative and qualitative are both species of the genus language. And what do you mean by "likeness" if not a qualitative similarity? And why does this qualitative evaluation enable one to prescribe normative standards in science?

 

Andie said:

 

 

Hehe, lets regain context.

1). I didn't say anything about Harriman categorizing the quantum mystics as postmodern.

 

2).You are the one who lumped Sokal in with your defense of postmodernism. I did not say anything like that and have no reason to think he supports your views.

 

3). In the very book in question on pg.7 Part 1 THE STRANGE WORLD OF POSTMODERNIST SCIENCE STUDIES:

 

 

 

Looks like you have some homework to do. Wouldnt want to drop the wrong names in defense of your anti-foundationalist concept stealing now, would you?...

Your suggestion that qualitative and quantitative thought are like two species within a genus is turgid, at best. Species are set by nature, while humans choose to be either qualitative or quantitative, depending on the situation. That science calls for quantitative behavior is self-evident to anyone who has actually attended a class where science is taught.

 

Ditto that literature is descriptive; leave your math skills at the door.

 

And speaking as a lit-chick who taught the freshman last year as a GA, I'm informing you that metaphors don't cross the divide of objective nature and subjective volition. Use of language is not 'like' the classification schemes in natural sciences. You get an F. 

 

Establishing normativity in science doe not rely upon foundationalist epistemology set by philosophers. They're simply ignoring you. Try to say something interesting as for meaning and perhaps they'll listen.

 

Per header of this thread, Harriman calls QM a 'fairytale'. My understanding is that he was also offering a Post-Mod tie-in as to why QM rejects what he feels is the correct philosophy.

 

For this reason, Sokal was cited as a Physicist who makes fun of Post Mod stuff. Look up 'Sokal hoax' and read for yourself. Your citation is therefore incorrect: he was simply quoting someone else's pov whith whom he disagreed. 

 

Yet perhaps Harriman has other arguments against QM that don't concern Post Mod. If you post them, i'll be happy to comment. That Harriman somehow 'represents' Oism's position re QM really inst that interesting, as I have already gleaned that with a quick Googleup. 

 

So does your talking horse have anything interesting to say?

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andie,

 

If you truly find nothing of interest here, you might consider pursuing other venues.

 

Far from being ignored, Objectivism continues to garner criticism, that is: attention, from many detractors. Why you choose to post yours here is somewhat of an enigma.

 

If you are interested in what Harriman has to say on the matters you raise, the information is available for you to acquire. Your disparaging remark suggests otherwise.

If you are interested in what Objectivism has to offer, that information too, is widely available.

 

In short, you have to do your own epistemological housecleaning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll address this and stop wasting my time.

Andie-frank-eva said:

"For this reason, Sokal was cited as a Physicist who makes fun of Post Mod stuff. Look up 'Sokal hoax' and read for yourself. Your citation is therefore incorrect: he was simply quoting someone else's pov whith whom he disagreed. "

Thats funny because it wasn't a quote from Sokal and I never said it was. It is a quote establishing your claim that no scientist takes POMO seriously is completely false given that the National Science Education standards claims it is based on POMO. Again you are completely off base.

Harriman takes a step by step walk through the historical developments in physics and places the players side by side with their own professed philosophical beliefs and demonstrates in their own words that the official fairytale view that experiment and observations led to the current state in physics. You can avail yourself of that and come back and post your refutations if you have any.

Your responses are very continental in style so naturally they are nearly incomprehensible so initiating responses to you is a waste of my time generally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nothing is disparaging of Harriman. My quick googleup indicates that he’s serious and sincere. So my point, again, is that because you should be able to summarize Harriman, I refuse to chew through two of his ninety-minute lectures.
 
In any case, what I’ve found was this: he opposes both QM and Relativity. His reasoning is that both violate the Law of Identity—and I agree.
 
He furthermore seems to locate this slide away from identity with Kant’s neumenal/phenomenal distinction. This is because saying that we can never now the essential ‘it’ violates the reason why Aristotle spoke of identity in the first place. In other words, if all we have are phenomenal appearances and no essentiality, there is only many perspectives, not one, singular, identity. 
 
This, of course, is Bohr’s ‘Copenhagen position. 
 
From here there seems to be a long slide into the post-modern condition in which truth cannot be based upon any foundation because neither truth nor foundations exist. Here, too, I agree with his analysis. 
 
By questioning the basis of knowledge to begin with, Kant let the cat out of the bag which then drifted over to Nietzsche: metaphysics is as imaginary as the cloud formations of Sils Maria.
 
Now here, I’m not versed in how Harriman would counter the argument that he’s presented as a polemic. Perhaps you might elaborate?
 
Notwithstanding, here’s where I disagree with Harriman’s history: 
 
*  Today, Copenhagen is irrelevant. QM is not in the mind or perspective of the beholder. So although Harriman is free to say that QM probabalism violates identity, he would be in error to say that today’s practice of QM is somehow subject-dependent in any way.
 
Here, again, I’m not familiar as to how he would develop this pov; perhaps, again, you might elaborate? After all, what we call ‘statistics has been around suince the 1840’s, and used accordingly by practicing scientists.
 
**The real turn against Aristotelian identity began with Bacon’s New Method. This is because Aristotelian identity is based, again, on essences. If we know the essential it-ness of something (nominally expressed as telos) we can deduct to discover this particular thing-ness in other objects. Classically, if fire burns in Persia, it will burn in Athens, as well.
 
In a parallel sense, if we define horses with one horn as a species known as ‘unicorn’, then we might deduct that one-horned horses everywhere possess that essential unicorn-ness. Of course, this example comes from the written testimony of medieval students who were a bit fed up, and wanted to learn ‘the new method’!
 
Bacon’s method said that because we know of no essences prior to investigating, both deduction and identity is the goal, not the method. In other words, by using both induction and the prescribed scientific method, we can possibly arrive at rational deductive statements. 
 
This is tantamount to saying that what’s at stake is finding the A-ness in a propositional A. Therefore, declaring that A=A is therefore either confusing a hypotheses with a result, or simply expressing the tautological, ‘We’ve found what we’ve found’.
 
For example, essentially speaking, is Pluto a planet? All we know by which to make our assessment are the phenomena as inductively observed. What is essentially Pluto is beside the point. 
 
According to Bacon, then, all deductions are based upon the prior labor of induction. The is-ness of A is only what we find it to be.
 
Now Harriman simply skips over this chestnut because standard Objectivism teaches the importance of induction. But having neglected to see the glaring contradiction between induction and identity (again, the basis of deduction!) constitutes a grave error. To use her own expression, Rand wanted to have her cake and eat it, too.
 
AH
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll address this and stop wasting my time.

Andie-frank-eva said:

"For this reason, Sokal was cited as a Physicist who makes fun of Post Mod stuff. Look up 'Sokal hoax' and read for yourself. Your citation is therefore incorrect: he was simply quoting someone else's pov whith whom he disagreed. "

Thats funny because it wasn't a quote from Sokal and I never said it was. It is a quote establishing your claim that no scientist takes POMO seriously is completely false given that the National Science Education standards claims it is based on POMO. Again you are completely off base.

Harriman takes a step by step walk through the historical developments in physics and places the players side by side with their own professed philosophical beliefs and demonstrates in their own words that the official fairytale view that experiment and observations led to the current state in physics. You can avail yourself of that and come back and post your refutations if you have any.

Your responses are very continental in style so naturally they are nearly incomprehensible so initiating responses to you is a waste of my time generally.

Yes, it's true that NSES gives an adequately true description of Post Modernism. 

No, Forman as a historian does not speak for the community of practicing Physicists.

 

And no, i do not speak for my dear friend Eva, nor old family friend Dr Frank Harley, who both encouraged and tutored both Eva and me to round out our lit and psych-based education with hard science. 

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding the disparaging remark, I found your "Does your talking horse have anything interesting to say?" less than coherent then.

 

Regarding Harriman's two part, ninety plus minute each, interview - I mentioned they were a teaser for his book and 6 hour ARI presentation. The links to both the book and presentation have been provided, both contain a brief synopsis as to what they are about.

 

You state that you agree that aspects of QM and Relativity violate the Law of Identity. For some of us, this is sufficient grounds to acknowledge that a contradiction exist. If you want to get to the basis or grounds of the contradiction, you have to learn to identify and check your premises.

 

Just to consider two aspects from the perspective of relativity: What do you consider time to be? What do you consider space to be? Are those considerations consonant with identity?

 

Depending on how your assessments of how time and space align with identity, you may either agree that there may be something to philosophy holding veto power, or continue to contend that philosophy is merely a bauble of the intellect (OPAR, opening paragraph). The choice is yours.

 

The rest of your post is pretty much superfluous to me with regards to this.

 

Edited: Added.

Edited by dream_weaver
citation referenced
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding the disparaging remark, I found your "Does your talking horse have anything interesting to say?" less than coherent then.

 

Regarding Harriman's two part, ninety plus minute each, interview - I mentioned they were a teaser for his book and 6 hour ARI presentation. The links to both the book and presentation have been provided, both contain a brief synopsis as to what they are about.

 

You state that you agree that aspects of QM and Relativity violate the Law of Identity. For some of us, this is sufficient grounds to acknowledge that a contradiction exist. If you want to get to the basis or grounds of the contradiction, you have to learn to identify and check your premises.

 

Just to consider two aspects from the perspective of relativity: What do you consider time to be? What do you consider space to be? Are those considerations consonant with identity?

 

Depending on how your assessments of how time and space align with identity, you may either agree that there may be something to philosophy holding veto power, or continue to contend that philosophy is merely a bauble of the intellect (OPAR, opening paragraph). The choice is yours.

 

The rest of your post is pretty much superfluous to me with regards to this.

 

Edited: Added.

Per #40, we all agree that both Relativity and QM violate the Law of Identity. This means that, in the terms that Aristotle set for science, both relativity and QM are nonsense.

 

Per #40, I also  explained that the first violation of identity came with the advent of induction, in Bacon's 'New Method'. Now unless, of course you find anything that directly contradicts Randian doxology to be 'superfluous', you might consider ...(?!).

 

That you pose the issue of philosophy as as either having  'veto power' or 'bauble' begs far more questions than it answers. Again, you make the endeavor no more than a talking horse with nothing to say.

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neigh, neigh, neigh.

 

We agree that both Relativity and QM violate the Law of Identity. This means, in the terms that Aristotle discovered and conceptually organized regarding logic, both Relativity and QM have contradictions.

 

Nonsense is more along the lines of "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". It consists of perfectly good concepts, in and of themselves, but as strung together lack cohesive thought.

 

Randian doxology? Is that one of Ayn Rand's unpublished works?

 

Merry Christmas.

Edited by dream_weaver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neigh, neigh, neigh.

 

We agree that both Relativity and QM violate the Law of Identity. This means, in the terms that Aristotle discovered and conceptually organized regarding logic, both Relativity and QM have contradictions.

 

Nonsense is more along the lines of "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". It consists of perfectly good concepts, in and of themselves, but as strung together lack cohesive thought.

 

Randian doxology? Is that one of Ayn Rand's unpublished works?

 

Merry Christmas.

I derived the 'talking horse' expression from my Philo prof who intended it to mean 'beliefs without either foundation  or coherence'. In other words, those beliefs that are 'epistemologically-challenged', to use another of his expressions.

 

Now to digress a bit, 'coherence' means, 'better with than without' in the sense that some of our beliefs simply seem to stick to experienced reality better than others...

 

In this respect, i suppose that a rather orthodox Randian has every right to denounce both Modernism and Post-Modernism. While the former basically argues that one must find a basis for beliefs --a simple declaration of reason being insufficient-- the later has undermined said bases. 

 

Perhaps the best example is that of Aristotelian/Leibnitzian 'Identity', which  has been killed several times over.   

 

* First, Bacon's Induction demonstrates that A only equals A when A-ness is discovered by the scientific method. Otherwise, 'null hypotheses' is said to cancel out Aristotelian essences and telos.

 

** kant, following Hume, demonstrated that induction was insufficient; inherent mental frames of reference also play a part. Therefore, ab-duction.

 

*** Beginning with Nietzsche, A-ness becomes a matter of perspective and intent. How we want to look at nature will give our expected results, or define what A is, so to speak.

 

**** Godel's incompleteness theorems, while intended for arithmetic in a narrow sense, resonates through to math, then to logic. This is because the history of logic has always concerned itself with establishing a foundational base. Perhaps the best example of this is 'Logical Positivism'. 

 

So in the sense that Philosophy has developed since Bacon, the Law of Identity is shown to lack any foundation whatsoever. It is merely an article of faith.

 

So although followers of Rand can therefore say, 'I believe', calling modern science 'contradictory' without having a foundational basis for what is contradicted sounds like nothing better than Marxism in reverse, or perhaps even a theosophy by way of the closest ashram. 

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I've read a little Aristotle, I've only heard the name Leibnitzian.

There are few sayings of Bacon I'm familiar with.

Kant and Hume, I've listened to PeIkoff discuss on his History of Philosophy. While both have influenced philosophy, it has primarily been for the negative,

Nietzsche is a pretty much all things to all people kind of guy.

I've only read a few aspects of Godel's incompleteness theorem. I'd be more interested in understanding how Cantor mis-integrated his set theory.

 

Pretty much since Aristotle identified the Law of Identity, it has either been adhered to, or it has been shunned. Aristotle demonstrated its validity and augmented it with the reaffirmation through denial - so for you to tell me it is merely an article of faith is without basis or foundation. You're merely demonstrating that you don't get it.

Edited by dream_weaver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, I feel that Rand got the Plato/Aristotle dis-connection right. Whereas academia more or less places Aristotle within his teacher’s school, Rand emphasizes the serious nature of the rupture.

 

In other words, it’s very important that Aristotle located the essences within the material world whereas, of course, Plato located them within the world of ‘spirits’.

 

Much later, Kant re-located this ‘spiritual word’ to the realm of human imagination—the numenal world within. That Rand missed the boat here is somewhat irrelevant to the subject at hand—so I’ll move on….

 

For Aristotle, grasping the essences of things enables us to form a deductive system. For example, today we might take the Periodic Table and test various substances to see where they fit in to the deductive system of chemistry. Likewise, we can pull a Darwin and observe similarities and differences of, say, birds and reptiles to fit them in on the Great Chart of the Animal Kingdom.

 

Aristotle also wrote that understanding anything means understanding cause, from which we derive the notion of ‘adequate knowledge’. Here, telos, or final cause is important. Something ‘is’ what its final purpose is said to be: rose-ness, for example, is the rose in full bloom.

 

To this end, Aristotle understood the importance as to how we speak of essences and cause. Therefore, he developed formal properties of ‘logos’, which is Greek for ‘words’.

 

First and foremost is the Law of Identity which obliges the observer to adhere to the descriptors of the essences of any particular object. For example, to say that A=A in regards to rocks means that all rocks have common properties, so defined.

 

Now his ‘logic’ is an incredibly important discovery because it serves as the mental glue that obliges us to hold fast to the subject at hand. Given any deductive system, logic serves as our ‘word-navigator’.

 

But the problem arises when the essences of things aren’t self-evident: yes, all fire burns, but does gravity involve attraction? Here, perhaps, is the weak point of Aristotelian science which was seized upon by Bacon although, again, the example cited was unicorns.

 

Briefly, because induction assumes no essences, the logical identity of such simply gets in the way. In other words, what something ‘is’ needs to be determined. The essential A-ness of a given A is yet to be determined.

 

In other words, whereas deduction must affirm that A=A, for induction to work it must affirm that A=??.

 

As for QM and relativity, you now have two deductive systems that are internally consistent with respect to generating correct predictive results. This, I submit, was all that Aristotle himself demanded.

 

The essentiality of QM is based upon the probabilities of maths unknown to Aristotle. The essentiality of  G-Relativity states that gravity is a spacetime equation that acts like an invisible net, or rubber sheet.

 

In other words, for Aristotle, the meta-physics of words (logos) exist to help us understand the world of real things. Only later, during the scholastic period was philosophy assigned the role of queen-legislator and judge s to the real-ness of things (Nominalism, etc….).This unfortunate tendency has been carried over into the present by academia.

 

Fortunately, one of the outcomes of Post-Modernism is to deflate the claims within philosophy by demonstrating its own internal inconsistencies and false assumptions, particularly with respect to math as a basis for formal logic.

 

My proposal, then, is for objectivists to tweak a bit, which means nothing more serious than returning to the essential Aristotle. To be truly objective is to find means of discovering the material world.

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All I can really say to all of this is that I'm glad that I took my education into my own hands when I did.

 

My martial arts instructor was old school. He had the rare opportunity (as an American) to be a live-in student (in Japan under a Japanese instructor.). He was well versed in the history of the art. He spoke several languages. "Shut up and sweat." was one of his favorite training lines. The man who introduced him to me (indirectly) hosted a daily three hour radio show. I called into the show for my first time. I was going to share with him how a ham sandwich is better than complete happiness.

 

The synopsis of this argument went as follows.

Premise 1. Nothing is better than complete happiness.

Premise 2. A ham sandwich is better than nothing.

Conclusion: A ham sandwich is better than complete happiness.

 

I never got past the first premise. The gentleman (the host) often identified himself as a Jeffersonian liberal. After I stated that nothing is better than complete happiness, he stopped just short of Patrick Henry's "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?".

 

I do recall, both the talk show host and my instructor used the aphorism "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." on occasion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'While 'void' is a literary term, 'vacuum' refers to the ground-state of quantum activity moving through space. it's so low as impossible to be measured--hence 'nothing'. It's flux is a mathematical model, much like the occasional liquid 'pop' of sauce within a casserole.

 

Any 'model'--yours or whomever-- has to be supported by data. Read Krauss' book to fish out his.

 

Dark energy is not the Quantum Vacuum as far as far as we can know.

 

Otherwise, yes, QM contradicts Aristotelian and Kantian models of time and space. Please refer to the QM discussion 'reality vs fantasy' for more. 

 

AH

 

What you call vacuum I now prefer to call (zero-point) Energy, so there is no confusion of quantum scale vacuum with cosmic scale vacuum, which is called dark energy and supervoids. The latter I chose to call Plenum. Again, the different names are to avoid confusing different scales. I think the confusion was started by Hawking, to be honest. To say that the Universe was a particle is the ultimate jumping of scales. After Hawking, Krauss's "nothing" is a simplistic follow-up. What's a metaphysical difference between quantum "nothing" and cosmic "nothing"? None. Problem solved, right? That "solution" of false connections of Being is what contradicts Aristotelian clear and non-contradictory logic.

 

Einstein's genius was that he realized that empty space is not nothingness. This, of course, is completely ignored by his follower Krauss.

 

As for all the quibbles about QM and your defense of QM on this thread: I had been a believer in QM until I found out that quantum physicists pretty much are only colliding hydrogen ions. They have their entire standard model based on a single, incomplete, and most basic element of the periodic table. Come on, until scientists will be able to directly play around with fundamental particles, we won't truly know whether QM is right.

 

As for my Model, my elaboration of it is on my blog (work-in-progress). Therein you will also find a way of "returning to the essential Aristotle."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What you call vacuum I now prefer to call (zero-point) Energy, so there is no confusion of quantum scale vacuum with cosmic scale vacuum, which is called dark energy and supervoids. The latter I chose to call Plenum. Again, the different names are to avoid confusing different scales. I think the confusion was started by Hawking, to be honest. To say that the Universe was a particle is the ultimate jumping of scales. After Hawking, Krauss's "nothing" is a simplistic follow-up. What's a metaphysical difference between quantum "nothing" and cosmic "nothing"? None. Problem solved, right? That "solution" of false connections of Being is what contradicts Aristotelian clear and non-contradictory logic.

 

Einstein's genius was that he realized that empty space is not nothingness. This, of course, is completely ignored by his follower Krauss.

 

As for all the quibbles about QM and your defense of QM on this thread: I had been a believer in QM until I found out that quantum physicists pretty much are only colliding hydrogen ions. They have their entire standard model based on a single, incomplete, and most basic element of the periodic table. Come on, until scientists will be able to directly play around with fundamental particles, we won't truly know whether QM is right.

 

As for my Model, my elaboration of it is on my blog (work-in-progress). Therein you will also find a way of "returning to the essential Aristotle."

Quantum Vacuum means 'zero measured level of energy with positive measured effects'. This has been experimentally confirmed as true since the 1930's and considerably updated by Feynman. 

 

Moreover, the 1930's model of QM used hydrogen in a representational sense as 'reductionist', particularly by Gamow. Again, the results are measured as  accurate: all shells and orbitals of all elements conform to basic energy-rules discovered with hydrogen. This, btw, is why we can use 'spectral lines', etc.

 

Hawking's 1970-ish theory postulated that QM allowed for energy (radiation to escape from a black hole.

This contradicts the relativistic model as developed by Swarzchild, yet proven to be true when measured in the 1980's.

 

Hawking was also the scientist who proposed Red Shift measurement of galaxies, also proven to be true.

 

My theme here is that QM, as a science, uses definitions and terms by virtue of these having been tested. To this end, used terms designate meaningful categories as to how things happen. So where, then, is the proof that your terms have been established as true by virtue of experiment or measurement?

 

AH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...