Ontology of Time

Banno

I find it odd that you are insisting on the silly scientism of explaining subjectivity in terms of fields.

An almost complete backflip.

Wayfarer

The magic hand wave of "The subjectivity in me is the same subjectivity in you" contradicts the very use of terms such as "subjective" from which it derives. — Banno

That is also part of the point of the essay I've referred to:

we must... differentiate the subjective from the merely personal. The subjective refers to the structures of experience through which reality is disclosed to consciousness. In an important sense, all sentient beings are subjects of experience. Subjectivity — or perhaps we could coin the term ‘subject-hood’ — encompasses the shared and foundational aspects of perception and understanding, as explored by phenomenology. The personal, by contrast, pertains to the idiosyncratic desires, biases, and attachments of a specific individual. Philosophical detachment requires rising above, or seeing through, these personal inclinations, but not through denying or suppressing the entire category of subjective understanding.

Banno

Dogmatic? Me? — Wayfarer

You are welcome to produce an alternative definition of "field" that does not invovle a value at every point in a space.

But if you do, you will not be able to claim that your field is anything like an electric, gravitational or other physical field.

And your analogy or metaphor or whatever it is will thereby lose any validity.

Wayfarer

You are welcome to produce an alternative definition of "field" that does not invovle a value at every point in a space. — Banno

Already done: morphogenetic fields.

Stop blurting things out, just take a little time to actually think about it. I'll leave it with you.

Banno

morphogenetic fields — Wayfarer

:rofl:

Stop blurting things out, just take a little time to actually think about it. — Wayfarer

Sound advice. Cheers.

Banno

"Morphogenetic fields" cause me some amusement because it suffers much the same issues as "Subjective field". Morphogenetic fields could not specify a value at every point in the space. It commenced with Gurwitsch attempting a mathematical analysis that did involve a vector field, but this fell apart, replaced by a model of differentiation involving gene expression and differentiation by transcription and growth factors - specific proteins.

But at least Gurwitsch understood what a field is.

Wayfarer

↪Banno

We've been through all of this already. Fields in physics specify mathematical values for every point, as physics is quantitative in nature, comprising the measurement of objects and forces. Where 'field' entered the discussion was in a different sense, also discussed, as a 'field of awareness', which is a perfectly legitimate expression, albeit not describing a physical field. The remark that I made that precipitated two days of eye-rolling, was that physicalism (or materialism or what have you) attempts to resolve everything about the mind to the product of physical forces. In times past, this would have been understood atomistically, but since the quantum revolution, 'fields' have replaced atoms as the fundamental ground of physical existence. Hence, the analogy went, if physical fields can be understood as the ground of existence, as physicalists intend, then what of the nature of awareness, consciousness or mind, understood as a qualitative field?

Of course I understand that in the Austin/Davidson/Wittgenstein field of philosophy, no consideration whatever is given to the issue of the nature of the subjective unity of consciousness, and as you never tire of pointing out, hardly anyone in the academic world takes philosophical idealism seriously. Hence the eye-rolling. But the analogy stands as far as I'm concerned.

Banno

↪Wayfarer

...for the whole of existence is reducible to the patterns of excitation of the one universal field of subjectivity. — Wayfarer

That's not an analogy. Not a metaphor.

Wayfarer

↪Banno

Yes, I think you're right. I think it's a fact. Matter of fact, I've got one now. It's called 'irritation' ;-)

Banno

Matter of fact, I've got one now. — Wayfarer

A hard-earned thirst?

Seems to me you are looking for a veneer of scientific credibility, which is odd. But in the end it's the bit where folk want, incoherently, to detail the ineffable, in this case the subjective.

Metaphysician Undercover

You are welcome to produce an alternative definition of "field" that does not invovle a value at every point in a space.

But if you do, you will not be able to claim that your field is anything like an electric, gravitational or other physical field. — Banno

This may not be relevant to your discussion with Wayfarer, but you are still confusing the map with the terrain.

The physical field is represented mathematically in quantum field theory, as having a changing value at every point. The points and values are a representation, of the thing which is known to physicists as a field. The physical field does not consist of points with a value at each point, the representation has points which have values assigned to them. The field appears to be more like a wave action.

The problem with your argument is that as points with values is one way of representing a physical field, but that does not exclude the possibility of representing the very same field in a completely different way. So it may be the case that Wayfarer has a different way of representing physical fields, which does not involve points with values. This simply would not be the conventional way of representing fields, which is commonly used by physicists.

For example, the classical way of representing an electromagnetic field is as an activity of waves. However, since there is no known medium (aether) therefore no way for the wave activity to be represented as interacting with physical objects, many features of the electromagnetic field cannot be accurately represented as wave activity. So quantum field theory uses the representation of points with changing values at each point. Therefore as active waves, and as points with changing values, is two different ways of representing the same electromagnetic field.

PoeticUniverse

waves — Metaphysician Undercover

The two-slit experiment reveals the wave nature of field quanta like electrons and photons.

Janus

So your description of the "field of consciousness" is apt becasue it does not match the definition of "field"...

Others seem to think that this works. But you will have to forgive me if I continue to be sceptical. — Banno

I think it's fair to say that 'field' is used in many contexts: different disciplines in science and the humanities are commonly referred to as fields. The philosopher Markus Gabriel presents an interesting pluralistic philosophy where the central concept is "fields of sense", and he mans by that something like 'fields of sense-making'.

That said a magnetic field, gravitational field, quantum field or grassy field are understood to be real, concrete entities, whereas the metaphorical application of the term 'field' to various disciplines including probably "visual field" or 'the field of consciousness' are kinds of abstractions which are easily reified.

Banno

↪Janus

A field of study is not a mathematical or physical field, yes. Nor is it a field of wheat.
In so far as

...the whole of existence is reducible to the patterns of excitation of the one universal field of subjectivity. — Wayfarer

would pretend to a physical field, not an area of study or a paddock, it is muddled.

PoeticUniverse

if physical fields can be understood as the ground of existence, as physicalists intend, then what of the nature of awareness, consciousness or mind, understood as a qualitative field? — Wayfarer

What’s continuous means a field that waves,
Naught else; ‘Stillness’ is impossible.
A field has a changing value everywhere,
Since the ‘vacuum’ e’er has to fluctuate.

Change, change, change… constant change, as fast as it
Can happen—the speed of light being foremost
The speed of causality—o’er 13 billion years now,
From the simple on up to the more complex.

The ‘vacuum’ has to e’er jitter and sing,
This Base Existent forced as something,
Due to the nonexistence of ‘Nothing’;
When it ‘tries’ to be zero, it cannot.

At the indefinite quantum level,
Zero must be fuzzy, not definite;
So it can’t be zero, but has to be
As that which is ever up to something.

The fields overlap and some interact;
So, there is one overall field as All,
As the basis of all that is possible—
Of energy’s base motion default.

From the field points ever fluctuating,
Quantum field waverings have to result
From points e’er dragging on one another.
Points are bits that may form ‘letter strokes’.

As sums of harmonic oscillators,
Fields can only form their elementaries
At stable quanta energy levels;
Other excitation levels are virtuals.

Reveal

From time’s shores toward oblivion’s worlds,
The quantum ‘vacuum’ fields send forth their whirls,
The sea parting into base discrete swirls,
Unto stars and life—ephemerals pearled.

Quantum fields’ Presence, through transient veins,
Running Quicksilver-like, fuels our gains—
Taking all the temporary shapes as
They change and perish all—but It remains.

Since the quantum fields are everywhere,
The elementaries, like ‘kinks’, can move
To anyplace in the realms of the fields.
As in a rope, only the quanta move.

At each level of organization
Of temporaries in the universe,
New capabilities become available,
And so they take on a life of their own.

The quantum vacuum field waves are the strokes
That write the elementaries’ letters
As the Cosmic alphabet for wording
Of the elements and the forces that

Phrase the molecules’ interactions
Unto the cells’ sentences that make for
The lives’ paragraphs of the species that
Experience the uni-versed story,

In a book from Babel’s Great Library:
The epic tales of the temporaries,
Their glorious triumphs and sad failures,
Amid complexity’s unwinding spring.

The great needle plays, stitches, winds, and paves
As the strands of quantum fields’ webs of waves
That weave the warp, weft, and woof, uni-versed,
Into being’s fabric of Earth’s living braids.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The field quanta with stability
To persist and obtain mobility.

As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
The elementary particles beget,
Combining in words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Atoms then forming the stars’ words whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as the phrases,
On to proteins/cells, as verse sentences,
In to organisms ‘stanza paragraphs,
And to the poem stories of the species.

Of this concordance of literature,
We’re the Cosmos’ poetic adventure,
Sentient poems being unified-verses,
As both the contained and the container.

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling this life’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, through strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.

Janus

↪Banno

I agree; "universal subjective field" is something we can say, but we don't really know what we are talking about, and so it has no explanatory power. It's a kind of confabulation, hand-waving.

↪Tom Storm

Thanks Tom, I appreciate your comment, but I'm afraid I cannot agree that Wayfarer's position or idealism in general is well-argued. The arguments always seem like, as I say above, mere hand-waving.

Wayfarer

It's a kind of confabulation, hand-waving. — Janus

We can test it! I'll wave, and you vibrate.

Janus

↪Wayfarer

Ho Ho Ho, off to fantasyland we go...

Wayfarer

I'm not concerned with questions of 'materialism vs idealism' or 'realism vs antirealism' because I think these questions are not definitively decidable....Science for me offers a far more interesting, rich and complex body of knowledge. — Janus

Probably just as well, as you show little aptitude in philosophy.

Janus

↪Wayfarer

:rofl: Coming from you I'll take that as a compliment.

Wayfarer

↪PoeticUniverse

Sorry PoeticUniverse, whilst I appreciate what you're trying to express, it doesn't capture my interest, as I don't know if poetic meter is really an appropriate medium for exploring ideas of this kind.

↪Janus

You're welcome.

jgill

I think it's fair to say that 'field' is used in many contexts: different disciplines in science and the humanities are commonly referred to as fields — Janus

Even mathematics is a little sloppy in this regard. A vector field is not a mathematical field. The reason I prefer the expression vector space. And if that vector space changes values at each point over time it is a time dependent vector space (or field).

Metaphysician Undercover

I agree; "universal subjective field" is something we can say, but we don't really know what we are talking about, and so it has no explanatory power. It's a kind of confabulation, hand-waving. — Janus

Likewise, we say "quantum field" but it's just "a kind of confabulation, hand-waving". And, because we don't really know what we're talking about, it has little if any explanatory power, as evidenced from the fundamental self-contradictory principle of "wave-particle duality". "Quantum field" is an incoherent description. And, depending on which model is referred to, the total number of fields assumed to be in existence varies dramatically, as described below.

In modern physics theory, one can picture all subatomic particles as beginning with a field. Then the particles we see are just localized vibrations in the field. So, according to quantum field theory, the right way to think of the subatomic world is that everywhere- and I mean everywhere- there are a myriad of fields. Up quark fields, down quark fields, electron fields, etc. And the particles are just localized vibrations of the fields that are moving around. Theoretical physics simply imagines that ordinary space is full of fields for all known subatomic particles and that localized vibrations can be found everywhere. These fields can interact with one another, like two adjacent tuning forks. These interactions explain how particles are created and destroyed – basically the energy of some vibrations move from one field and set up vibrations in another kind of field.
So, here’s a possible tally for the number of quantum fields:

2 (quantum electrodynamics [QED]) – the electron field and the electromagnetic aka photon field
17 (Standard Model [above])
24 (Standard Model including all gluon colors) — 12 fermion fields and 12 boson fields
25 (24 + Graviton)
Even more if include anti-particles?
Even more if include handedness?

https://www.physicssayswhat.com/2019/06/05/qft-how-many-fields-are-there/

Banno

↪Janus

:wink:

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