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Plasmatic

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So, my refusal to provide you with a further defense than what I already have found in Rand's works on your terms, is evidence on your terms, to you, that her philosophy fails to cohere to reality?

 

If that's all the "evidence" you need, I would submit that you already have it.

Edited by dream_weaver
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Andie said:

So as it stands, your 'farewell to Planck' tells us nothing more then we knew going in. My contribution is to demonstrate that your philosophy fails to cohere to any science.

You have done no such thing. You have made ridiculous assertions and then touted them as triumphs. This in spite of repeated requests for substantiation and clarification, all of which you have avoided.

Oism holds Philosophy to be the fundamental science... ITOE demonstrates in detail the scientific process of concept formation. You evade this repeatedly while spouting vague journalistic generalities. The mathematics of QM is sound and Planck's is valid for the actual context the paper details, in black boxes with highly absorptive substances lining the walls.

I'll respond to your blanket statement in kind. Objectivism is compatible with any science that is based on valid concepts.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Here is another paper by one of the same authors applying Prof. Robitaille's knowledge of signal analysis to COBE and WMAP.

http://vixra.org/pdf/1101.0009v1.pdf

"The COBE and WMAP teams model the Earth as a blackbody source of emission at ~ 280 K. But Robitaille points out that "since the oceans are not enclosed" [8] they do not satisfy the requirements for application of Kirchhoff's law of thermal emission, and so the emission profiles of the oceans "do not necessarily correspond to their true temperatures" [8]. By means of scattering in steady-state conditions, Robitaille argues: "Consequently, a mechanism for creating isotropy from an anisotropic ocean signal is indeed present for the oceanic ~3 K Earth Microwave Background" [9].

Misapplication of Kirchhoff's law of thermal emission is far from the only major problem with both COBE and WMAP. Robitaille has shown that both projects are plagued by very serious problems with the performance of satellite onboard instruments and methods of signal processing."

Edited by Plasmatic
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So, my refusal to provide you with a further defense than what I already have found in Rand's works on your terms, is evidence on your terms, to you, that her philosophy fails to cohere to reality?

 

If that's all the "evidence" you need, I would submit that you already have it.

No, the law of identity is you peeples' term. My terms would be to have a discussion w/o its reference.

 

So my claim--again, playing by your rulz-- is simple: since all science violates the LoI in practice, by YOUR terms all science is invalid. 

 

I therefore challenge you to show me one science that doesn't.

 

Specifically then, yes, both Kirchoff and Planck's work  violate said LoI. 

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Andie you have been told many times that you do not understand what the LOI means to Oist. You are attacking a strawman. If you do indeed think that all sciences are based on ontologically objective contradictions then say so, so that we can laugh at and ignore you.

I therefore challenge you to produce a single existent that is not what it is...

You are claiming that Planck and Kirchoff's work applies where is doesnt apply and discovered what it did not discover- facts that were not facts...

Edited by Plasmatic
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Andie said:

You have done no such thing. You have made ridiculous assertions and then touted them as triumphs. This in spite of repeated requests for substantiation and clarification, all of which you have avoided.

Oism holds Philosophy to be the fundamental science... ITOE demonstrates in detail the scientific process of concept formation. You evade this repeatedly while spouting vague journalistic generalities. The mathematics of QM is sound and Planck's is valid for the actual context the paper details, in black boxes with highly absorptive substances lining the walls.

I'll respond to your blanket statement in kind. Objectivism is compatible with any science that is based on valid concepts.

Despite my personal disbelief that "Philosophy is the most fundamental science", i have agreed to play by your rules (absurd as they are!). And yes, since philosophy deals in concepts, if your fundamentality were true, any particular science would be valid only to the extent that it agreed with said concepts.

 

My claim, by examples and explanations given as to why, is that no  science meets your conceptual terms. Must I repeat? Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, the origin of the Periodic Table and its revision by Seaborg....

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Andie said:

My claim, by examples and explanations given as to why, is that no science meets your conceptual terms. Must I repeat? Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, the origin of the Periodic Table and its revision by Seaborg....

Notice the switch from claiming the LOI is violated by the sciences to the contextual nature of concepts here demonstrates that you are equivocating on the LOI. And you have not stated "why" on any of these topics mentioned in spite of requests.

Andie said:

And yes, since philosophy deals in concepts, if your fundamentality were true, any particular science would be valid only to the extent that it agreed with said concepts.

All language is conceptual! Therefore you must have an understanding of what a concept is and how to form them properly.

Edit: Im asking you sincerely to explain why and how any of the sciences you mentioned just now "violate the LOI"....

Edited by Plasmatic
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I therefore challenge you to show me one science that doesn't.

 

Again, picking one semi-relevant point to address, I already did (mathematics), and you simply bushed it aside. This sent me the message that you are not seriously trying to address the matter.

 

Plasmatic is doing a pretty darn good job of identifying your game. I just refuse to play it.

I don't mind learning more about things that I'm interested in, but I do so either on my own, or from those who I deem qualified to learn it from.

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Again, picking one semi-relevant point to address, I already did (mathematics), and you simply bushed it aside. This sent me the message that you are not seriously trying to address the matter.

 

Plasmatic is doing a pretty darn good job of identifying your game. I just refuse to play it.

I don't mind learning more about things that I'm interested in, but I do so either on my own, or from those who I deem qualified to learn it from.

Please re-state your point re mathematics so i might respond accordingly. Other than having stated clearly that no, math did not spring from counting, i'm afraid I've lost that particular thread....

 

AH

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Andie said:

Notice the switch from claiming the LOI is violated by the sciences to the contextual nature of concepts here demonstrates that you are equivocating on the LOI. And you have not stated "why" on any of these topics mentioned in spite of requests.

Andie said:

All language is conceptual! Therefore you must have an understanding of what a concept is and how to form them properly.

Edit: Im asking you sincerely to explain why and how any of the sciences you mentioned just now "violate the LOI"....

Yes, i'm equivocating on the LOI. Another word would be 'obiter dictate'. Yet another would be "trying to make some real sense out of what appears to be a meaningless tautology". 

 

A good example of the LOI gone tautologically  haywire would be that of  Harriman's 'revelation' that QM allows for photons to simultaneously occupy two places. Well... it's been in all of the equations, staring you right in the face, since 1925-- it's The Schrodinger and The Heisenberg.

 

His use of 'fairytale', then, only tells us that to follow the Randian party line you absolutely must choose LOI over 90 years of experimental data that clearly demonstrate that yes, quanta are observed to be in two places at once. The equations predict reality. LOI doesn't.

 

Now to digress a bit, reading through the Einstein/Bohr debates, I find that no where did Al call Niels a purveyor of fairytales, or vice-versa. This, by contrast, makes Harriman a boorish twit.

 

Therefore, to do any science, you must say that the left hand A is what is being identified as equal to its stated properties on the right side. for example: the  of 'solar system') = (stated properties). This BTW is what Aristotle intended as to the relationship between essence and identity.

 

Now as I've stated, in science the right hand-side is unknown, being the subject of inquiry. Furthermore, what makes up A is what is in dispute among the community of arguing researchers, only one of whom will be proven to possess the correct right-sided A. In this sense, again, to state A=A is meaningless because it gives us no understanding of what will be true of in terms of content.

 

Alternatively, you can take the right -hand side of A-ness as a formal fact, and then judge it as either true or false, based upon its truth-content.

 

For example: 

 

* Although the Copernican model is true because it gives a heliocentric solar system, it's false because the planetary orbits are neither circular nor concentric.

 

* Although the Newtonian system is true in giving ellipses as the fundamental planetary orbits, and furthermore makes the orbit correctly non-concentric, his is false because the mechanism by which he explained gravity is proven false. Bodies do not attract. His attraction equation only seems to work when said bodies are so close together that it just seems that way.

 

*Although Einstein's gravity refutes Newtonian attraction for a gravitational force-field model,  it's incomplete because his field equations failed to explain zero mass (deep space) and infinite mass (black holes). The math derived from QM does. 

 

In all three cases, the left- side definition of does not match the true content of as expounded on the right side.

 

Therefore, again, A=A is either a meaningless tautology which says, 'Be it true or false, A is exactly what i say it is at the time that i say it'...

 

....or....

 

...left-side as defined only equals right-side as content if and only if said content is true.

 

Otherwise, you're simply dealing in a world of fantasy in which our hero, Gorth, needs the magic spell of queen-witch Rea in order to slay the fire-breathing dragon. In other words, fantasy is fun because we're seduced into the particular logic that's woven inside of a story whose content is false. Here, A=A because the content of A is not called into question as real.

 

This is called 'pretending'. Doing science is different.

Edited by andie holland
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andie,

You state: "The equations predict reality. [The] LOI doesn't."

 

Barring showing how mathematics contradicts the LOI, if the equation predicts the reality cited, then the mathematics simply substantiates it, unless'ons, of course, the equation is not based on the LOI, which - of course, as of this moment - remains yet for you to demonstrate.

Edited by dream_weaver
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andie,

You state: "The equations predict reality. [The] LOI doesn't."

 

Barring showing how mathematics contradicts the LOI, if the equation predicts the reality cited, then the mathematics simply substantiates it, unless'ons, of course, the equation is not based on the LOI, which - of course, as of this moment - remains yet for you to demonstrate.

i don't have to 'show' you how the math of QM violates LOI. Rather, it's right there, in your face, staring back at you, in all of the equations.

 

For example, take two of the oldest:

 

* The Heisenberg's left hand calculus--change of position against change of time-- is clearly written as a probability. (A probably equals A?).

 

** Because the only limit to measurement is h/2, the photon can travel at speeds approaching infinity, giving it the capacity to be everywhere at once. A is not necessarily in A-sih position, going A-ish fast

 

*** The Born revision to obtain mathematical proof clearly violates the Commutitive Principle of AxB=BxA. Rather, they vary by h which as a Planck unit, isn't a absolute value in Rand-physics, anyway.

 

**** Within the Schrodinger, there's that little 'i' which, in terms of advanced-placement high-school senior math, means 'two solutions'. 

 

And gosh, have i left out the accidental discovery of negative matter by Dirac? 

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Rather, they vary by h which as a Planck unit, isn't a absolute value in Rand-physics, anyway.

I've no idea about QM, who's wrong or right on any particulars, or how even to evaluate the arguments, but I feel the need to interject something here.

There's no such thing as "Rand-physics," or Objectivist physics. Ayn Rand was a philosopher, not a physicist. Neither Objectivism nor the Law of Identity, as such, have anything to say about these sorts of scientific particulars; they cannot decide on a given controversy. The Law of Identity means that a thing is what it is, and is not what it is not, but it does not fill in those blanks. That -- the filling in of the blanks, and coming to understand "what things are" (and what they are not) -- is what science is. But knowledge of the Law of Identity does not do that work, and neither can it interfere with that work being done. Whatever is true is true, and the Objectivist position is that it is our job to discover what is true, with respect to QM or any other scientific subject. So if QM is true, or to whatever extent it is true, rest assured that there is no discrepancy between that portion and Objectivism, qua philosophy.

Physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, biology is biology. And while Objectivists, as individuals, may have opinions on scientific matters, their opinions may be right or wrong with respect to those matters, just like anyone else, and ultimately must be resolved on the same ground as any other scientific debate -- not by pointing to the Law of Identity, but with respect to the extant evidence, hypotheses, testing, and so forth. At the same time, a philosophical conclusion that the Law of Identity somehow does not hold, on the basis of some or other scientific data, is not sensible, is self-contradictory, and is therefore rightly rejected.

Also, if you'd like to respond to any material from this post, as these threads appear to be about the same topic, it would be just as welcome.

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Kirchhoff's Law which this paper challenges is neither a "fundamental assumption ", nor is it an "assumption" of QM.

The use of "fundamental" here, I agree, may have been a poor choice of terminology. As a technical paper, I do not grasp all of it's implications, but this much I do see.

Plank based, in part, his conclusion on Kirchoff's Law. The paper drew into question the validity of Kirchoff's Law as it related to the context Plank applied it. If Kirchoff's Law does not apply in the context Plank applied it, then the conclusion Plank based on it, does not stand on that particular reasoning. How this relates to QM, would require getting, as Paul Harvey used to indicate, the rest of the story.

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i don't have to 'show' you how the math of QM violates LOI. Rather, it's right there, in your face, staring back at you, in all of the equations.

 

Again, taking only this point to respond to: the request was to demonstrate how the science of mathematics violates LOI, not the math of QM. I get the impression that this point is not going to be addressed head-on here. It would be a formidable challenge, and, quite frankly, a futile undertaking, which would fit in with the fact that you continue to evade it here. Until you decide to address it specifically, you will just keep returning to this point.

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Kirchhoff's Law which this paper challenges is neither a "fundamental assumption ", nor is it an "assumption" of QM.

Hi Alex, your input on this topic is welcome. I chose "fundamental assumptions" purposefully for more than one reason. In conceptual hierarchy a concept that is logically presupposed, and to which later concepts and generalizations are predicated, is fundamental to same.

In the paper it is argued that:

Arbitrary cavities do not contain black radiation. Kirchhoff’s formulation is invalid. As a direct consequence, the constants h and k do not have fundamental meaning and along with “Planck length”, “Planck time”, “Planck mass”,and “Planck temperature”, lose the privileged position they once held in physics. [...] Within “The Theory of Heat Radiation” [5] Planck outlined the ideas which gave life both to this revolution and to the concept that fundamental constants existed which had universal significance throughout nature. The pillars which supported his ideas included: 1) Kirchhoff’s Law of thermal emission [6,7] , 2) the irreversability of heat radiation, and 3) the adoption of discrete states. ∗ He utilized Kirchhoff’s Law not only to assist in the derivation of his equation, but to infer universality.

Do you have a argument against the development of these points in the paper? Edited by Plasmatic
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Don, I agree with your last post. I particularly like the point that there is no "Objectivist Physics"...

Physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, biology is biology. And while Objectivists, as individuals, may have opinions on scientific matters, their opinions may be right or wrong with respect to those matters, just like anyone else, and ultimately must be resolved on the same ground as any other scientific debate -- not by pointing to the Law of Identity, but with respect to the extant evidence, hypotheses, testing, and so forth. At the same time, a philosophical conclusion that the Law of Identity somehow does not hold, on the basis of some or other scientific data, is not sensible, is self-contradictory, and is therefore rightly rejected.

Yes, and while the latter is Andie's avowed, philosophically erroneous position, no one here has made the former mistake. Edited by Plasmatic
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I chose "fundamental assumptions" purposefully for more than one reason. In conceptual hierarchy a concept that is logically presupposed, and to which later concepts and generalizations are predicated, is fundamental to same.

I read "fundamental" differently. The term can also be used to indicate something as the most important thing. Taken as you present it here, casts a different light on it.

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... Do you have a argument against the development of these points in the paper?

OK, let's start from the beginning. You wrote:

 

>This paper challenges the very derivation of the fundamental assumptions of QM.

 

The paper challenges the Kirchhoff Law and its derivation by Kirchhoff. Now, even if the derivation and/or the Kirchhoff Law itself were invalid, this would have no impact on the validity of QM. QM is based on completely different assumptions/premises.

 

If you disagree, please show me a mainstream textbook of Quantum Mechanics which develops the theory starting from the Kirchhoff Law. I have checked a dozen and found no mention of Kirchhoff's name, neither in the postulates or otherwise.

 

The above is valid independently of the content of the paper you are pointing to.

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I've no idea about QM, who's wrong or right on any particulars, or how even to evaluate the arguments, but I feel the need to interject something here.

There's no such thing as "Rand-physics," or Objectivist physics. Ayn Rand was a philosopher, not a physicist. Neither Objectivism nor the Law of Identity, as such, have anything to say about these sorts of scientific particulars; they cannot decide on a given controversy. The Law of Identity means that a thing is what it is, and is not what it is not, but it does not fill in those blanks. That -- the filling in of the blanks, and coming to understand "what things are" (and what they are not) -- is what science is. But knowledge of the Law of Identity does not do that work, and neither can it interfere with that work being done. Whatever is true is true, and the Objectivist position is that it is our job to discover what is true, with respect to QM or any other scientific subject. So if QM is true, or to whatever extent it is true, rest assured that there is no discrepancy between that portion and Objectivism, qua philosophy.

Physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, biology is biology. And while Objectivists, as individuals, may have opinions on scientific matters, their opinions may be right or wrong with respect to those matters, just like anyone else, and ultimately must be resolved on the same ground as any other scientific debate -- not by pointing to the Law of Identity, but with respect to the extant evidence, hypotheses, testing, and so forth. At the same time, a philosophical conclusion that the Law of Identity somehow does not hold, on the basis of some or other scientific data, is not sensible, is self-contradictory, and is therefore rightly rejected.

Also, if you'd like to respond to any material from this post, as these threads appear to be about the same topic, it would be just as welcome.

Don,

 

My apologies for not having responded to your last missive in “QM…” as the thread was closed on the day I had intended to write. So thanks for the virtual re-post.

 

First, to dispel a misunderstanding, I never said that LoI was false, or that the scientific method wasn’t logical in terms of its own procedures. If I assign properties to one photon, I assign them to all photons.

 

For example, If all photons exhibit a time/space calculus which is probabilistic, then no photon’s calculation is definite (true in terms of content).

 For example, If General Relativity predicts by its field equations that there exists places of infinite mass, then even photons will not be able to escape these ‘black holes’ (False. For 50 years, physics was seduced by the logic until Hawking proved them wrong in 1976.).

 

My issue, rather, is with certain Objectivists who confuse the formal properties of logic with their own common-sense evaluation of what is reasonably true. “It ain’t logical” really means “It makes no sense in terms of the received wisdom of Hee-Haw County, Middel Amerika.”

 

In other words, logic operates only within the context of a particular discipline. Content-wise, there is no logic that is not ‘inner logic’. Much as there seems to be an inner logic to Rand’s thought in the sense that her use of say, ‘epistemology’, is rather unique, proven photon-behavior is agiven, as well.

 

What I also said, and mean, is that the scientific method of hypotheses formation places all right–side identities into question. In other words, given A= something, this something-ness is a compendium all hypotheses that have been proposed. The logic, as it were, says mutually contradictory hypotheses cannot both be true.

 

I also don’t believe that there is no relationship between science and philosophy. The cross-discipline of ‘philosophy of science’, moreover, is quite exciting.

 

This is because philosophy is the study of ‘meaning’-- which offers questions applicable to all disciplines. For example, to Nancy Cartwright, the most meaningful question for QM concerns phase transitions, or why photons perform untraceable ‘leaps’ to different energy levels.

 

Philosophically, she also inquires as to what science means when using the concepts of ‘cause’ and ‘law’. The book of reference her is her “How the laws of physics lie’.

 

AH

Edited by dream_weaver
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Kirchhoff's Law which this paper challenges is neither a "fundamental assumption ", nor is it an "assumption" of QM.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'assumption' or 'fundamental' (grundrisse, perhaps?).

 

Planck was doing work on and with the Kirkovian 'black box;' His conclusions, following measurement, was that only 'packets' of photons, not behaving as waves, could cause the discrepancy between radiation input and output.

 

Of course, this was 40 years after Kirkhoff, thereby demonstrating ample evidence as to the experiment importance of his black box.

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Don, I agree with your last post. I particularly like the point that there is no "Objectivist Physics"...

Yes, and while the latter is Andie's avowed, philosophically erroneous position, no one here has made the former mistake.

No, I wrote that the LofI is contradicted by the employ of hypotheses formation, central to the practice of science.  Within philosophy, of course it's still valid as a cornerstone of logic.

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My issue, rather, is with certain Objectivists who confuse the formal properties of logic with their own common-sense evaluation of what is reasonably true. “It ain’t logical” really means “It makes no sense in terms of the received wisdom of Hee-Haw County, Middel Amerika.”

Hmm.

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