Which is why a ToE has to be inclusive of infinite possibility, or at least an inability to ‘know’ everything. Physics will fail at this as long as it brackets out qualitative uncertainty and feeling. It isn’t just about how falling and force work together, but also how they don’t work together. How they work independently of each other - ie. how they work on the observer, distorting how we think they work. What is the observer independent of falling and force?

it seems any theory of everything would be about "falling" — Gregory

Interesting! Do you realize though that such an interpretation is rather parochial? "Geocentric" is the right word I suppose.

So the powder using its force in a way that is different from gravity, — Gregory

This makes no sense. A gunpowder explosion is a chemical reaction that's perfectly well understood. You might as well say that fire violates the law of gravity. Or that cooking violates the law of gravity. The world is full of chemical reactions that have nothing to do with gravity. I don't follow your thesis at all. Chemistry operates at a level above the fundamental forces of physics.

Hm. Perhaps Gregory has been mislead by talk of fundamental forces. "A force that is unique to gunpowder"; Perhaps such is the difficulty of reading popular science without a background in basic science.

So the answer to his quandary may be that the chemical energy in the gunpowder is an example of electro-magnetic force, that the ToE is a mooted theory that explains in one set of equations Gravity, electro-magnetism and the strong and weak interactions, and that hence the ToE will explain how gunpowder works.

Or he might go of on an eccentric rant about how science is all wrong, the usual response to puzzlement in those threads that have their basis in physics.

Let me just clarify that my point was that a theory of everything would have to account for the energy signature of every substance in the universe. I'll get to your guys responses in a little while

Are you saying that infinite possibilities can for certain be coordinated in equations that explain how that have and how they will act in the future? Apart from the uncertainty principle, there is also the potentially infinite integral paths that particles can follow, so it doesn't seem clear to me that infinite possibility combined with uncertainty can be explained even if chemistry can be reduced to physics

Is it clear that a field of study can ever be fully understood by reducing it to another?



I am not saying that consciousness is primary in this regard or that earth is special. I'm questioning if biology can be reduced chemistry and chemistry to physics



Emergence is an important phenomena which a ToE would have to take into account

Does gun powder refute a ToE? — Gregory

It definitely does but it's got to be in a bullet, the bullet in the firing chamber of a gun, the gun's muzzle pressed against the temple (right/left, your choice) of the person who proves the ToE. Your index finger should be on the trigger.

Argumentum ad baculum - very persuasive in the right hands.

This is what I expected this thread to be about! Something about pragmatic concerns trumping reason or some such.

Is it clear that a field of study can ever be fully understood by reducing it to another? — Gregory

Provisionally yes, meaning yes but I could probably think of counterexamples if I tried. I guess I didn't understand your post.

ps -- Did @Banno's response to me above address your concerns? He explained what I said better than I did.

I am not saying that consciousness is primary in this regard or that earth is special. I'm questioning if biology can be reduced chemistry and chemistry to physics — Gregory

The standard answer to this question from those who don't hold with reductionism is that the laws of biology must conform to all the laws of physics and chemistry, but cannot be derived from them.

Let's suppose they find the algorithm that, in a quantum computer, can predict all that that happened infinitely in the past and into the infinite future with as much accuracy as is possible considering there is randomness in the universe. This equation would essentially reduce biology and chemistry to itself and those fields would then be, what? Philosophy? That doesnt sound right. Knowing the components does not mean we understand the emergence. It seems to me a ToE replaces knowledge with predictability

Hmmm. Seems you've simply misunderstood what a ToE would be.

A ToE would explain, in one set of equations, Gravity, electro-magnetism and the strong and weak interactions.

You seem now to think A ToE would enable us to actually predict the future. It wouldn't.

If your target was physicalism - the notion that all truth resides in the study of physics - then you have missed.

A gun is a branch of a tree that we metaphorically snapped off.

When regarding technology as such, we do so in category and not all categories belong to one another. Given that guns are separate to trees as I imply, the effect of guns would be in it's own jest. Therefore, I argue that no, gunpowder does not refute a theory of everything.

All truth does not reside in physics, which is why a theory of everything can not be a theory of everything. There would be much it would not explain about matter and those other aspects of science are not philosophy but fields of science. Using the term "theory of everything" makes people limit their thinking to physics alone and then they have problems like the "hard problem of consciousness". Different fields may try to reduce others to themselves, but I see this as harmful and physics is a main culprit. Reading Teilhard's book The Phenomenon of Man opened my eyes to biology but certain physicists would resist it and try to understand man by gravity. Scientific ideas have a true essence, each one of them

Sure, I agree. But the arguemtn in the OP tries to use physics against itself, and fails.

So while I agree with your intent, I think the actual argument faulty.

I used gunpowder exploding to illustrate how objects can't fully be understood through reduction. But I think we are on the same page

But I think we are on the same page — Gregory

I don't.

While our conclusions agree, the path is the important bit.

For the reader:

The reason I use the musket as the example is to put the substance of gunpowder in a historical setting, apart from all the equations. This is similar to Heidegger trying to explain in various ways how phenomena comes in various shapes and sizes. Relativity combined with quantum wave theory makes people think all is process and illusion when I think philosophy can say a lot, on the other hand, about how objects differ in their essences. Several scientific fields aid in this understanding, keeping phenomena as phenomena but without being a complete blur

Substance is not easily defined. Is a pool a substance? A desk? A lamp? Ice with soda? The world is both process and substance, not either-or

There's too much here for a professional physicist to deal with. No wonder they have left the premises. :sad:

I am not saying that consciousness is primary in this regard or that earth is special. I'm questioning if biology can be reduced chemistry and chemistry to physics — Gregory

A question that's been bothering many great minds for centuries I presume. All I can say is biology is chemistry (organic chemistry) and this has been true since quite some time I believe. However, there definitely are huge gaps in our understanding. The situation, to my knowledge, is like someone who knows what a CPU is, what a RAM is, what a hard disk is, what a mouse is, what a keyboard is but is unable to figure out how to build a functional PC.

My point is very simple. If we explain a flower with biology terms and understandings, we use concepts that are scientific and much closer to reality than if we explain the flower with quantum physics

When scientists explain the emergence of mind from brain /spine action, they speak with terms that help conceptualize the concept. Using more basic atomic terms don't do it. But sometimes speaking of this with QM does get the point across! So we shouldn't sacrifice other fields of study to a desire to understand the world in one equation. That is not true knowledge and each field has its place

My point is very simple. If we explain a flower with biology terms and understandings, we use concepts that are scientific and much closer to reality than if we explain the flower with quantum physics — Gregory

That's what you think but, like it or not, we can tell the story of a flower or anything else for that matter in terms of the physics of something. I recall listening to a lecture once in which the speaker reduces all life to a particular chemical property (I forget which) of water.

That's looking at one aspect life when there are infinite ways of seeing it

Many scientific ways of thinking about it

That's looking at one aspect life when there are infinite ways of seeing it — Gregory

Of course, perspectives - many - are available but you were asking whether biology could be reduced to physics/chemistry and it can be. That's the point, no?

The fact the "ideas of physics" are not the same as "ideas of biology and chemistry " means we cannot reduce the latter to the former. Ideas are the only way we understand things