But in the end, Newton was right.

Not really. Newton's corpuscular theory of light failed (and still fails) to account for the diffraction phenomena that Huygen's wave theory adequately explains. However, if all you mean is that Newton was right insofar as light exhibits particle-like behaviour in certain circumstances, fine, but then so was Huygens if you simply read him as claiming that light exhibits wavelike properties in many circumstances. Typically, in undergraduate physics courses in electromagnetism, it is the wavelike aspects that are focussed on.

Yes, but even if you were an idealist in your fundamental metaphysics you will still find it useful to have a distinction between the physical and the non-physical. You will still need to allow for things that have spatiotemporal locations (objects) and those that don't (e.g. thoughts about objects) even if at some level everything is mind-dependent.

That would be ridiculous. If it is shown that objects only exist in the mind, then why would there be a distinction? Objects would only exist as thoughts. What exists "out there", if anything, wouldn't be space-time with objects. It would be something else entirely - and unexplainable. It would be non-physical, while the mind would be physical.

What is physical is what is causal. Anything that has a causal relationship (which would include God's relationship to the world, soul's interactions with the body, mind's interaction with the body, etc.) would be deemed physical. Everything else would be non-physical and therefore pointless to ponder.

Making a distinction between P and non-P as what is explained vs. what is not is anthropomorphic and subjective. At what point during the explaining process does something go from non-physical to physical? What if the explanation isn't complete or completely proven? What if aliens explained EM energy 1000s of years before humans did?

Everything else would be non-physical and therefore pointless to ponder.

You have strongly held opinions. Where does mathematics and its objects figure in your view of things? Physical and causal? Non-causal, non-physical and pointless to ponder?

Objects would only exist as thoughts.

This betrays a very deep misunderstanding of what idealism is (in all its varieties).
Even Berkeley's pretty brute idealism insists on a distinction between thoughts and the objects of thoughts. Kantian transcendental idealism is even more insistent on the division.

What is physical is what is causal. Anything that has a causal relationship (which would include God's relationship to the world, soul's interactions with the body, mind's interaction with the body, etc.) would be deemed physical. Everything else would be non-physical and therefore pointless to ponder. — Harry Hindu

The laws of physics don't seem to mention causality, anywhere.

I think you are right about Harry Hindu, although Berkeley's connection to the act-object view of perception is quite problematic (on the one hand he seems to need it to account for several people to see one and the same thing, but on the other, the existence of that thing is ultimately an idea in the mind of God, and it's not clear that God's perceptions/conception of the object can be assimilated to the act-object model).

This is right, but also misses the point to some extent. The laws of physics are usually expressed in terms of mathematical equivalences, but those equivalences are often developed on the basis that they model the relations of causes to their effects. No doubt someone is going to shout "but quantum mechanics proves there is no causation". It proves no such thing - if it proves anything at all, it proves at most that we require a probabilistic conception of causality when dealing with some specific kinds of events.

This is right, but also misses the point to some extent. The laws of physics are usually expressed in terms of mathematical equivalences, but those equivalences are often developed on the basis that they model the relations of causes to their effects. — MetaphysicsNow

If that is the case, then how can quantum entanglement be discovered in the theory, 50 years before technology was capable of testing, or observing that prediction?

No doubt someone is going to shout "but quantum mechanics proves there is no causation". It proves no such thing - if it proves anything at all, it proves at most that we require a probabilistic conception of causality when dealing with some specific kinds of events. — MetaphysicsNow

Both quantum mechanics and general relativity are deterministic theories. Deterministic physical theories, being time-invariant, render causality meaningless.

Physicalism seems to admit, in accordance with the 2nd Law, that pattern is real, causal, and as fundamental as matter. — tom

When I said that:

My view is that science doesn’t explain itself; the natural laws and regularities which science assumes and relies on, are not themselves explained by science. — Wayfarer

Aren't 'natural laws and regularities' among the very 'patterns' you're referring to here, but which you then proceed to dismiss as 'inductive principles' which are 'not scientific'?

I don't think I am misrepresenting physicalism too much by describing it as the metaphysical assertion that everything that is instantiated in Reality is physical. This includes everything we have discovered, and everything we have yet to discover. — tom

The problem with this is that including 'everything we have yet to discover' makes it so open-ended as to be meaningless. If you simply re-define the term 'physical' to include 'anything that might be discovered', then it can mean anything; and a term that includes everything, means nothing. Something can only be defined by saying what it is, which implicitly also says what it isn't.

If you press a materialist, you quickly find that the most important constraint on the meaning of the [materialist] Thesis is that it should be compatible with science, whatever science comes up with. This is contrary to what some of them say. If, they say, certain phenomena could not be explained purely in terms of material factors, then the scientific thing to do would be to give up materialism. But, holding the Thesis, they make the bold conjecture that this will never happen. That what would never happen?

If that question cannot be answered with a precise and independent account of what material factors are, there is still one option. That is to nail a completeness claim to science, or to a specific science such as physics. The instructive example here is J.J.C. Smart [another Australian!], who begins his essay "Materialism" with an offer to explain what he means:

By 'materialism' I mean the theory that there is nothing in the world over and above those entities which are postulated by physics (or, or course, those entities which will be postulated by future and more adequate physical theories).

He quickly discusses some older and more recent postulations in actual physics, which make that 'theory' look substantive. But of course the parenthetical qualification makes that discussion completely irrelevant!

Smart may believe, or think that he believes, the 'theory' here formulated; but if he does, he certainly does not know what he believes. For, of course, he has no more idea than you or I of what physics will postulate in the future. It is a truly courageous faith, that believes in an 'I know not what' -- isn't it?

Indeed, in believing this, Smart cannot be certain that he believes anything at all. Suppose science goes on forever, and every theory is eventually succeeded by a better one. That has certainly been the case so far, and always some accepted successor has implied that the previously postulated entities (known, after all, only by description) do not exist. If that is also how it will continue, world without end, then Smart's so-called theory -- as formulated above -- entails that there is nothing. — Bas Van Fraasen

Science, Materialism, and False Consciousness.

Where does mathematics and its objects figure in your view of things? Physical and causal? Non-causal, non-physical and pointless to ponder? — jkg20

I'm not sure what you are asking. What mathematical "objects"? Do you mean numbers? Do numbers cause you to do things? Sure they do. You behave differently when you add or subtract numbers and get values that apply to real life things. Is not the sum the effect of adding numbers together, and the difference the effect of subtracting numbers? This means that numbers are physical.

This betrays a very deep misunderstanding of what idealism is (in all its varieties).
Even Berkeley's pretty brute idealism insists on a distinction between thoughts and the objects of thoughts. Kantian transcendental idealism is even more insistent on the division. — jkg20

I think idealists are the ones that haven't thought things through. What are objects of thought and how are they related to thoughts? Any idealists want to answer that? What are thoughts without objects? What is the substance of thought if not sensory impressions?

The laws of physics don't seem to mention causality, anywhere. — tom

Science implies causality in its explanations. This reaction happens as a result of this combination of chemicals, while using these chemicals causes that reaction. Natural selection is a causal process of organisms evolving over time from previous ancestors, etc.

If that is the case, then how can quantum entanglement be discovered in the theory, 50 years before technology was capable of testing, or observing that prediction?

I don't see the relevance. The fact that in most cases science models causal relations doesn't entail that it always does, nor that it cannot, on the basis of those models, predict as yet unobserved phenomena. After all that is precisely what Maxwell's equations did, and those were very definitely the result of modelling events that were taken to be causally related.

Both quantum mechanics and general relativity are deterministic theories. Deterministic physical theories, being time-invariant, render causality meaningless.

What notion of determinism are you working with here? One very typical one connects it explicity to the idea that each state of a system is ineluctably caused by the previous states of the system, so I don't see how a determinisitc theory in that sense is able to render causality meaningless. You could try stripping out the explicit reference to causation and say that a system is deterministic if (and only if?) the state of that system at time t allows for precisely one next state of the system. The direction of time, though, is embedded into the idea of next state and so if by time-invariant you mean to include the idea of equivalence under time-reversal, it cannot be that sense of determinism in which you take the two theories you are talking about to be deterministic.
But perhaps you have a different notion of determinism that I've yet to be introduced to?

I don't see the relevance. The fact that in most cases science models causal relations doesn't entail that it always does, nor that it cannot, on the basis of those models, predict as yet unobserved phenomena. After all that is precisely what Maxwell's equations did, and those were very definitely the result of modelling events that were taken to be causally related. — MetaphysicsNow

I see. You claim that science merely models causal relations, but somehow manages to model unknown, unexpected, surprising causal relations, even when those relations, as in the case of quantum entanglement, are explicitly not causal?

That makes no sense.

There is actually an impressive list of features of Reality that were discovered theoretically long before technology became advanced enough to test these discoveries:

Quantum Entanglement - 50 years.
Higgs Boson - 50 years.
Gravitational Waves - 100 years.
Cosmic Microwave Background - Can't remember, but maybe 30 years.
Quantum Computer - Discovered in 1980s, still haven't got one.
...

But you claim not to see the relevance.

What notion of determinism are you working with here? One very typical one connects it explicity to the idea that each state of a system is ineluctably caused by the previous states of the system, so I don't see how a determinisitc theory in that sense is able to render causality meaningless. — MetaphysicsNow

The laws of physics are time-invariant. The past no more causes the future than the future causes the past.

Science implies causality in its explanations. This reaction happens as a result of this combination of chemicals, while using these chemicals causes that reaction. Natural selection is a causal process of organisms evolving over time from previous ancestors, etc. — Harry Hindu

How can natural selection cause anything in a deterministic universe?

Aren't 'natural laws and regularities' among the very 'patterns' you're referring to here, but which you then proceed to dismiss as 'inductive principles' which are 'not scientific'? — Wayfarer

The laws of physics that we have discovered do not depend on any inductive principle, and their discovery has nothing to do with the mythical principle of inductive inference.

The laws of physics stand on their own merit.

The problem with this is that including 'everything we have yet to discover' makes it so open-ended as to be meaningless. If you simply re-define the term 'physical' to include 'anything that might be discovered', then it can mean anything; and a term that includes everything, means nothing. Something can only be defined by saying what it is, which implicitly also says what it isn't. — Wayfarer

So, you have no problem with my use of the words "metaphysical" and "instantiated", but great difficulty with the word "physical"? You think "physical" is meaningless, but "metaphysical" is not?

You obviously do not understand the basic concepts of natural selection.

Please explain how extinction events happen without implying causation. Explain how physical traits arise and are propagated or filtered out of a gene pool without implying causation.

What is your concept of the non-physical? — johnpetrovic

Anything that is not within the defintion of the physical, irrelevant to how you define the physical.
Perhaps "what is the most usefull definition of the physical?" would have been a more usefull question to ask.

@tom

I see. You claim that science merely models causal relations, but somehow manages to model unknown, unexpected, surprising causal relations, even when those relations, as in the case of quantum entanglement, are explicitly not causal?

That makes no sense.

Then let me clarify it for you. When you model what you take to be causal relations using mathematical tools, you end up - if you are successful - with a set of equations. Often enough these equations are differential in form, and differential equations can have different solutions. This is precisely the case for Maxwell's equations, developed after years of modelling the causal effects of electricity and magnetism. One of the solutions to those equations was the surprising prediction of electromagnetic radiation, which was subsequently discovered by Hertz several years later. All of the scientists involved with this discovery were modelling nature causally. The same goes for the General Theory of relativity - the prediction of graviational waves falls out of a solution to the field equations for massive binary systems - the waves are caused by the interaction of those masses. Einstein's Special and General Theories are both of them causal models of the universe.

Scientists outside of QM (which is not all of science, just a part of it) continue to model nature causally.

I'm still waiting for your definition of determinism.

Please explain how extinction events happen without implying causation. Explain how physical traits arise and are propagated or filtered out of a gene pool without implying causation. — Harry Hindu

The initial conditions at the big-bang determine, through the laws of physics, the universal wavefunction for all times.

And "all times" means the universe is a static block, the past and future exist.

An alternative formulation would be, the final state of the universe determines, through the laws of physics, the universal wavefunction for all times. And if you play determinism backwards, you get surprising spontaneous creation events.

You obviously do not understand the basic concepts of natural selection. — Harry Hindu

Don't make an ass of yourself.

If you look at the creative process, what exists in the mind of the creator, does not begin as being part of physical reality. It may have a future in reality but not in the present. For example, Einstein's Relativity began as an intuitive abstraction in his mind. It was always real, in essence, but it would only be measurable in the future. It started as metaphysical, before it was physical. Science could not measure it, at its conception in this brain, to know it will someday exist as physical reality.

The problem is we learn science, after the science has become manifest in reality. We don't really teach the creative process, behind the invention, when the ideas exist only in as a hunch in mind. We don't teach about the idea, before it was proved according to the philosophy of science. As the abstraction, it does not yet come under the philosophy of science. However, this starting point is the place all new ideas begin. The current educational approach creates a misunderstanding in the student's mind, where it appears all science starts out tangible and there is only tangible.

I am good at what may be. I used to be good at what already was. Metaphysical has a connection to a future not yet solidified physically in the present. Time is messed up between the two. Therefore, metaphysical appears to have a connection to time potential; potential to exist in the future.

Then let me clarify it for you. When you model what you take to be causal relations using mathematical tools, you end up - if you are successful - with a set of equations. Often enough these equations are differential in form, and differential equations can have different solutions. — MetaphysicsNow

Differential equations you say? You mean the type of equations, that given the state of the system at any time, the states for all other times may be calculated? You mean the very equations by which you may retrodict the future and predict the past?

Bingo!

Could this be the very reason that Russell and others have concluded that the laws of physics do NOT express causal relations?

Yet you still believe that science is about modeling known causal relations mathematically, and thus miraculously capturing unknown causal and acausal relations, without being aware of what you are doing.

The initial conditions at the big-bang determine, through the laws of physics, the universal wavefunction for all times.

And "all times" means the universe is a static block, the past and future exist.

An alternative formulation would be, the final state of the universe determines, through the laws of physics, the universal wavefunction for all times. And if you play determinism backwards, you get surprising spontaneous creation events. — tom

Play determinism backwards? Surprising spontaneous creation events? What are you talking about?

Don't make an ass of yourself. — tom

How about you answer the questions that show you know what you are talking about instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks?

How about you answer the questions that show you know what you are talking about instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks? — Harry Hindu

Sure, I

obviously do not understand the basic concepts of natural selection — Harry Hindu

Says the ass and the hypocrite.

Darwin wrote about this very issue in his most important work. Perhaps he obviously also did not understand the basic concept of natural selection?

The laws of physics that we have discovered do not depend on any inductive principle, and their discovery has nothing to do with the mythical principle of inductive inference.

The laws of physics stand on their own merit. — tom

Indeed. I said nothing about 'inductive inference'. What I said was:

the natural laws and regularities which science assumes and relies on, are not themselves explained by science. That is the sense in which they transcend science. — Wayfarer

You think "physical" is meaningless, but "metaphysical" is not? — tom

Questions about the nature of scientific laws, and the nature of numbers, and whether number is real, and, if so, in what sense, are metaphysical questions. And as such, they're not the kinds of questions which physics can provide an answer to even in principle.

Making an observation that you don't know what you are talking about and that you keep reinforcing every time you post, is not an ad hominem attack.
I'm still waiting on your explanations.

Questions about the nature of scientific laws, and the nature of numbers, and whether number is real, and, if so, in what sense, are metaphysical questions. And as such, they're not the kinds of questions which physics can provide an answer to even in principle. — Wayfarer

Science does not rely on any inductive principle, particularly as such a principle has never been successfully formulated.

Making an observation that you don't know what you are talking about and that you keep reinforcing every time you post, is not an ad hominem attack.
I'm still waiting on your explanations. — Harry Hindu

Read Darwin.

Read my posts.

Science does not rely on any inductive principle, particularly as such a principle has never been successfully formulated. — tom

Actually, it does, and secondly, it has nothing to do with what I'm saying, but long experience tells me this is the end of the discussion.