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QM - Fact or Fantasy

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andie holland

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As long as we are name-dropping here, let's add: Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science by Halton Arp, from my Amazon wishlist.

 

I particularly like D. Sinclair's review [with spelling corrections]:

Arp argues convincingly that the holy grail of cosmology, the [Hubble] flow, exists only in the minds of astronomers. There are abundant examples of high-redshift quasars which are physically connected to low-redshift galaxies. There is convincing evidence that redshift is quantized, which is inexplicable in the conventional picture where redshift is caused by recession speed. Big bang cosmology has been overthrown, and the evidence against it is getting stronger with new observations.


Mainstream astronomy, unfortunately, does not want to recognize this evidence. Scientists who have built whole careers on a flawed theory are not ready to admit that they have been totally, completely wrong. Instead, they have chosen a much easier way to deal with this unpleasant evidence, one that has been [successfully] employed in many other fields of science: they suppress, ignore & ridicule, while they keep adding epicycles to their ever more complicated theory of the big bang.


Arp's account of the utterly unscientific behavior of the scientific establishment is sobering. It reveals once more how the great human endeavor of science, which should be an unbiased and objective search for the truth, has been corrupted by the vested interests of individuals and academic institutions, blind belief in authority and by herd mentality, and thus turned into something that is eerily reminiscent of the medieval Catholic Church. Then, as today, observations and new theories were [suppressed] by those in power for contradicting what was considered the truth.

 

Although this book is a bit technical in nature, it is accessible to any layperson with some basic knowledge of astronomy. If that describes you, or if you are interested in great case material for a study of the sociology of science, I can unconditionally recommend it.

 

Claiming that something has been proven to be true is an simply appeal to authority, as I've done in the aforementioned reference.

 

Harriman even writes in his book, The Logical Leap, pg 248:

As a mathematical formalism, quantum theory has been enormously successful. It makes quantitative predictions of impressive accuracy fro a vast range of phenomena, providing the basis for modern chemistry, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and optics. It also made possible some of the greatest technological innovations of the twentieth century, including computers, and lasers.

 

But why does he ask, a page earlier:

What happens to physics when it is abandoned by rational philosophy, as it has been during the past century? The answer can be found by examining three fundamental theories of contemporary physics: quantum mechanics, big bang cosmology, and string theory.

 

Investigating physics as a stand alone, or compartmentalized field will not answer that question.

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Andie said: 

 

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?

 

What experiments does one run to "develop" the concepts entity, existence, identity, consciousness, causality...... (Let's start there) without already having the concepts in the first place????

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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

 

First of all, hydrogen is not all there is to the universe. To see why it's not enough, read Sheldrake's The Science Delusion or watch his TedX presentation.

 

My terms are based on non-metaphorical reasoning. You seem to accept the term "vacuum" as a void with positive measurement. Do you imply that (virtual) particles are (such) energy? If so, you remind me of Lenin, who also based his definitions on "tested" and "meaningful" results and metaphorically compared society to nature (on page 167 in Volume 1/50 of his Complete Works [in Russian], 1967). Lenin's conceptual metaphor Society Is Nature, when taken literally, leads to technocracy. Where does your metaphorical thinking lead?

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Sheldrake is a pseudo scientific, medieval revivalist who wants to return to a romanticist view of science. Listen to him here talk of the time he drank a guru's piss:

He has basically taken his theory of morphogenic fields straight from one of the leading energeticist and doesn't even mention it. I plan to explain this in detail elsewhere.

Sheldrake is the very antithesis of what I would call scientific. For him the onus of proof principle is an unscientific "delusion" apparently...He is a part of a band of mystics who are trying to systematically return civilization to the dark ages.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Sheldrake is a pseudo scientific, medieval revivalist who wants to return to a romanticist view of science. Listen to him here talk of the time he drank a guru's piss:

He has basically taken his theory of morphogenic fields straight from one of the leading energeticist and doesn't even mention it. I plan to explain this in detail elsewhere.

Sheldrake is the very antithesis of what I would call scientific. For him the onus of proof principle is an unscientific "delusion" apparently...He is a part of a band of mystics who are trying to systematically return civilization to the dark ages.

 

Oh, really? You know, I have communicated personally with Dr. Sheldrake and I've convinced him that his morphogenetic fields are really electromagnetic in nature. All the factual evidence he provides fits the view we have on electromagnetic phenomena, especially in this book by a prominent Russian scientist.

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As long as we are name-dropping here, let's add: Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science by Halton Arp, from my Amazon wishlist.

 

I particularly like D. Sinclair's review [with spelling corrections]:

Arp argues convincingly that the holy grail of cosmology, the [Hubble] flow, exists only in the minds of astronomers. There are abundant examples of high-redshift quasars which are physically connected to low-redshift galaxies. There is convincing evidence that redshift is quantized, which is inexplicable in the conventional picture where redshift is caused by recession speed. Big bang cosmology has been overthrown, and the evidence against it is getting stronger with new observations.

Mainstream astronomy, unfortunately, does not want to recognize this evidence. Scientists who have built whole careers on a flawed theory are not ready to admit that they have been totally, completely wrong. Instead, they have chosen a much easier way to deal with this unpleasant evidence, one that has been [successfully] employed in many other fields of science: they suppress, ignore & ridicule, while they keep adding epicycles to their ever more complicated theory of the big bang.

Arp's account of the utterly unscientific behavior of the scientific establishment is sobering. It reveals once more how the great human endeavor of science, which should be an unbiased and objective search for the truth, has been corrupted by the vested interests of individuals and academic institutions, blind belief in authority and by herd mentality, and thus turned into something that is eerily reminiscent of the medieval Catholic Church. Then, as today, observations and new theories were [suppressed] by those in power for contradicting what was considered the truth.

 

Although this book is a bit technical in nature, it is accessible to any layperson with some basic knowledge of astronomy. If that describes you, or if you are interested in great case material for a study of the sociology of science, I can unconditionally recommend it.

 

Claiming that something has been proven to be true is an simply appeal to authority, as I've done in the aforementioned reference.

 

Harriman even writes in his book, The Logical Leap, pg 248:

As a mathematical formalism, quantum theory has been enormously successful. It makes quantitative predictions of impressive accuracy fro a vast range of phenomena, providing the basis for modern chemistry, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and optics. It also made possible some of the greatest technological innovations of the twentieth century, including computers, and lasers.

 

But why does he ask, a page earlier:

What happens to physics when it is abandoned by rational philosophy, as it has been during the past century? The answer can be found by examining three fundamental theories of contemporary physics: quantum mechanics, big bang cosmology, and string theory.

 

Investigating physics as a stand alone, or compartmentalized field will not answer that question.

First, we need to dispense with this name-dropping thing...

 

People within science acknowledge the accomplishments of others by referring to important contributions in the personal. For example, Pauli Principle, Bell's inequality, Lamb Shift, 'The' Dirac, etc. These honorable referents are not cocktail party chit-chat. Now if you take a class or two, like i did, you'll get used to it.

 

Next, one can easily google-up marginal figures within any science who've cast themselves out of the mainstream: AIDS /HIV deniers, Human-caused global warming deniers, etc...

 

Now my solution is that when I lack personal expertise, it's far better to go with mainstream. For example, my own PhD will show a parallel development between the Persian gazul and the Andalusian ballad from a common source. Although this is totally within accepted norms ( as the origin of 'Spanish poetry is clearly Moorish!), I can cite marginalists who insist upon Gothico-Roman origins, Keltic, and even 'root less, auto-spontaneous. As hopeless as these theories are, they have people's manes attached, too.

 

So in your own case, quite honestly, citing an Amazon review by a nobody doesn't qualify for the expertise sufficient to overturn received wisdom.

 

Now for the case at hand:

 

When Arp measured red-shits of quasars, he took them to be renegade stars that were approximately the same distance from Earth as the nearest galaxy--ostensibly its 'home'. Hence the huge discrepancy in the measurements of the shift of the two infrared spectra. 

 

So although Arp's assumption that quasars were imploding stars met the standards of his day, deep space 'Hubbles' clearly indicate that they're really imploding galaxies far in the distance. Therefore, calculating the spectral shift (to red) with the correct. far-longer  distance does give the same consistency accepted  by mainstream astrophysics by way of Hawking.

 

In fact, this whole episode is rather well-known within the field as an example of an individual sticking to his guns long after his opponent has shot off all of his legs and arms. His last resort, predictably was to whine that he was 'ignored'. Well, duh! It's even told to goofy lit/linguistic chicks such as me who took Astro on a bet.

 

Lastly, i might mention that quasars emit those violent energy streams thanks to QM predictions, again by Hawking. Oth, standard Relativity (Schwartzchild) says not.

 

So what happened to all sciences when they abandoned first-principle rationalism, again with Bacon?

They adopt second-philosophy principles based upon 'new method'.

 

AH

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First of all, hydrogen is not all there is to the universe. To see why it's not enough, read Sheldrake's The Science Delusion or watch his TedX presentation.

 

My terms are based on non-metaphorical reasoning. You seem to accept the term "vacuum" as a void with positive measurement. Do you imply that (virtual) particles are (such) energy? If so, you remind me of Lenin, who also based his definitions on "tested" and "meaningful" results and metaphorically compared society to nature (on page 167 in Volume 1/50 of his Complete Works [in Russian], 1967). Lenin's conceptual metaphor Society Is Nature, when taken literally, leads to technocracy. Where does your metaphorical thinking lead?

No one ever said that hydrogen was all there was. You've either misunderstood me or trying to put words in my mouth! 

 

Hydrogen is used as a QM model because, in this case, reductionism works. All electrons carry the same ground state and potentials, regardless of how otherwise complex the element is. Said 'complexities' in other ways is what constitutes the science of 'Chemistry'.

 

Quantum Vacuum is a common operative term within the field. i believe that I've sufficiently tried to describe what it means to the users.

 

To the best of my knowledge, i'm not familiar with a Physicist named "Lenin". Yet because the words mean 'man of iron' in Russian, perhaps I'm not sufficiently aware of what's going on at Karkov U or Moskva State. After all, i'm a lit/linguistic chick, remember?

 

Yet it's arguably bizarre that he/she would take on the name of that old Bolshevik dictator/murderer who, incidentally, tried to dictate first-principle physics in a horrid rag named 'empirio-criticism': "Unlike dekkadent bourgeois science that studies phenomena, veliky geroi-science of Kommunist proletariat study materialist thingkz dah!!

 

Pervy blinh lyog NARkomom, and all that.

 

AH

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<snip>

People within science acknowledge the accomplishments of others by referring to important contributions in the personal. For example, Pauli Principle, Bell's inequality, Lamb Shift, 'The' Dirac, etc. These honorable referents are not cocktail party chit-chat. Now if you take a class or two, like i did, you'll get used to it.

 

<snip>

So what happened to all sciences when they abandoned first-principle rationalism, again with Bacon?

They adopt second-philosophy principles based upon 'new method'.

 

AH

Thanks. but I'll stick with the classes I elect to take. I prefer instructors who take the painstaking effort to adhere to the law of identity.

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Thanks. but I'll stick with the classes I elect to take. I prefer instructors who take the painstaking effort to adhere to the law of identity.

'Aristotelian/Cartesian first-Philosophy asserts principles such as 'law of identity' to enable deduction from 'reason'. One establishes 'essences', and everything else naturaly, reasonably falls into deductive place.

 

OTH, Baconian Second-Philosophy does not assert. Rather,it questions in the way of creating testable hypotheses. How, if at all, and to what extent is A =A ? here, Law of Identity  is less than useless, as it merely affirms what needs to be demonstrated, or 'proven'.

 

QM is simply the most obvious example of this--which holds true for all science!--by virtue of the youngish QM-gang having openly having mocked first-principle, reason-based philosophy--Einstein in particular.

 

I might also note that contrary to Harriman, the epistemic influence seem to have flowed from QM back into Philosophy. All practice of science is founded upon a radical break with first-principle reason.

 

So good luck with your pre-class interrogation. Your level of science will be restricted to 350BC,  Athens, 'Academy School'.

 

AH

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I'll stick with what I know, and continue to add to it with information shown to be derived by a method adhering to the art non-contradictory identification.

 

QM-gang (sounds like thuggish terminology to me) openly mocking first-principle, reason-based philosophy. Practically an open admission to an 'argument' based on the appeal to laughter fallacy. Essentially an open admission that reasoning is to be denied as a valid methodology.

Edited by dream_weaver
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No one ever said that hydrogen was all there was. You've either misunderstood me or trying to put words in my mouth! 

 

Hydrogen is used as a QM model because, in this case, reductionism works. All electrons carry the same ground state and potentials, regardless of how otherwise complex the element is. Said 'complexities' in other ways is what constitutes the science of 'Chemistry'.

 

<snip>

 

"In this case, reductionism works." Hence reduce the universe to hydrogen and forget about all the rest, right? Andie, what is electron made of? Please, don't tell me that rationalist math says it's fundamental without any experimental evidence!

 

As for the rest, I am glad you know some Russian.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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"In this case, reductionism works." Hence reduce the universe to hydrogen and forget about all the rest, right? Andie, what is electron made of? Please, don't tell me that rationalist math says it's fundamental without any experimental evidence!

 

As for the rest, I am glad you know some Russian.

I'm afraid that you don't understand what 'reductionism' means, and I'm not going to try to explain it again. 

 

Electrons are said to be a 'fundamental particle' because they're not made of anything else, and cannot be broken down.

 

AH

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I'll stick with what I know, and continue to add to it with information shown to be derived by a method adhering to the art non-contradictory identification.

 

QM-gang (sounds like thuggish terminology to me) openly mocking first-principle, reason-based philosophy. Practically an open admission to an 'argument' based on the appeal to laughter fallacy. Essentially an open admission that reasoning is to be denied as a valid methodology.

Adhering to the art of non-contradictory Identification will put your science back into the 16th century. So so you live like an Amish, too? Or rather, do you take advantage of all the goodies that non first-principle science has created in the last three hundred plus years?

 

On a philosophical level, my understanding of O-ism is that it accepts both Aristotelian Identity and Baconian induction, or what is commonly called 'second philosophy'. 

 

Now to Ms rand's credit, she always said that you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Sometimes we are confronted with un-resolvable contradictions, and must choose. So might i assume that O-ism, rejects science, or is this your personal take on the issue?

 

AH

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Sometimes we are confronted with un-resolvable contradictions, and must choose.

I know that I'm a sucker for posting this to a name-dropping, quote-troll like you Andie, but....

 

....are the "un-resolvable contradictions" ontological or epistemological?

 

And, while I know that it's futile to ask this, can you answer without name-dropping 12 other philosophers, and actually answer in your own words?  Can you demonstrate to this forum that you are not a Turing Machine, or IBM's Watson merely cut'n-N-paste'n what others think?  Can you actually express your own thoughts?

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Adhering to the art of non-contradictory Identification will put your science back into the 16th century. So so you live like an Amish, too? Or rather, do you take advantage of all the goodies that non first-principle science has created in the last three hundred plus years?

 

On a philosophical level, my understanding of O-ism is that it accepts both Aristotelian Identity and Baconian induction, or what is commonly called 'second philosophy'. 

 

Now to Ms rand's credit, she always said that you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Sometimes we are confronted with un-resolvable contradictions, and must choose. So might i assume that O-ism, rejects science, or is this your personal take on the issue?

 

AH

Do the Amish use electricity? Last I checked, some do.

As far as I'm concerned though, the currency of the land currently contains the phrase "In God We Trust", so as far as I'm concerned, all others pay cash.

 

I was not aware that Rand identified a method of induction with which she sympathized.

 

Metaphysically, contradictions do not exist.

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I'm afraid that you don't understand what 'reductionism' means, and I'm not going to try to explain it again. 

 

Electrons are said to be a 'fundamental particle' because they're not made of anything else, and cannot be broken down.

 

AH

 

Your sufficiency-mindedness is boring, Andie. Next!

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Funny. Wasn't the word "atom" selected to refer the entities assembled into the periodic chart of the elements? Wasn't it the Greek term for "indivisible", i.e., they could not be divided any further?

The designation a-toma (indivisable) is wrong. Atoms are not fundamental.

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I know that I'm a sucker for posting this to a name-dropping, quote-troll like you Andie, but....

 

....are the "un-resolvable contradictions" ontological or epistemological?

 

And, while I know that it's futile to ask this, can you answer without name-dropping 12 other philosophers, and actually answer in your own words?  Can you demonstrate to this forum that you are not a Turing Machine, or IBM's Watson merely cut'n-N-paste'n what others think?  Can you actually express your own thoughts?

See post #64, first sentence.

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Do the Amish use electricity? Last I checked, some do.

As far as I'm concerned though, the currency of the land currently contains the phrase "In God We Trust", so as far as I'm concerned, all others pay cash.

 

I was not aware that Rand identified a method of induction with which she sympathized.

 

Metaphysically, contradictions do not exist.

From a quick Google-search, here's a link and citation to Rand's view on Bacon and induction, in her 'epistemology':

 

http://www.johnmccaskey.com/Induction%20and%20Concepts%20in%20Bacon%20and%20Whewell.pdf

 

Yes, metaphysics is a working out of apparent contradictions. In this respect, I'd say that Objectivism has a serious problem to work out, metaphysically speaking. Again: Induction, by its procedure of the scientific method, denies Identity, which is the conceptual corner stone of its opposite, deduction.

 

I'll try to do a bit of research and reply accordingly; otherwise, kindly advise as to who might be of assistance.

 

In passing, much of Philosophy that began with Nietzsche calls into question the use and validity of metaphysics as such. That I don't agree with the deniers is actually what attracts me to Rand, who insisted otherwise, that metaphysics is what Philosophy is really about. 

 

AH

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From a quick Google-search, here's a link and citation to Rand's view on Bacon and induction, in her 'epistemology':

 

http://www.johnmccaskey.com/Induction%20and%20Concepts%20in%20Bacon%20and%20Whewell.pdf

This is a link to McCaskey's view on Bacon and Whewell's takes on induction, referencing Rand on concept formation, deferring his audience to Peikoff's talk on induction (which culminated in Harriman's book, The Logical Leap).

Yes, metaphysics is a working out of apparent contradictions. In this respect, I'd say that Objectivism has a serious problem to work out, metaphysically speaking. Again: Induction, by its procedure of the scientific method, denies Identity, which is the conceptual corner stone of its opposite, deduction.

Deduction presupposes both induction and the law of identity. If this is a citation from McCaskey's article, I missed it in the in the article.

I'll try to do a bit of research and reply accordingly; otherwise, kindly advise as to who might be of assistance.

 

In passing, much of Philosophy that began with Nietzsche calls into question the use and validity of metaphysics as such. That I don't agree with the deniers is actually what attracts me to Rand, who insisted otherwise, that metaphysics is what Philosophy is really about. 

 

AH

A person's view of metaphysics shapes their philosophy. Objectivism holds identity as one of three self-evident, axiomatic concepts which serve as the fundamental starting point of knowledge.

 

A quick search of most of the Objectivist core books returns 1 mention of Francis Bacon's 'knowledge is power' by Rand, which Peikoff also included in his book on Objectivism. Neither delved into induction with regard to the reference.

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Prof. McCaskey has written specifically that it was the rejection of Socratic-Baconian induction that led to Mill and his acolytes creating the "hypothetical deductive method".

That is a link but not a quote of Prof. McCaskey.

Andie hilariously said:

"Yes, metaphysics is a working out of apparent contradictions. In this respect, I'd say that Objectivism has a serious problem to work out, metaphysically speaking. Again: Induction, by its procedure of the scientific method, denies Identity, which is the conceptual corner stone of its opposite, deduction."

That is the exact opposite of what historically led to the HDM you tout! Mill claimed that inductions were tautologies that did nothing ampliative.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Andie said:

OTH, Baconian Second-Philosophy does not assert. Rather,it questions in the way of creating testable hypotheses. How, if at all, and to what extent is A =A ? here, Law of Identity is less than useless, as it merely affirms what needs to be demonstrated, or 'proven'.

Lol! Every concept used to "question" any "hypothesis" asserts an induction that ascribes a range of measurements to every member of an open ended class!

"The concepts are here. How did they get here?... Blank out"

Edited by Plasmatic
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