My bias is that physics, especially QM, is too often grist used in the nonsense mill - some of it interesting nonsense, but still nonsense! If it's a nonsense game, then let play who will, keeping in mind it's entertainment.

I do not find the book on Amazon - why not? Where/how did you read it?

which category people feel ... if people feel t — Gary Enfield

Never mind feelings. Can you serve here any tempting morsel of the author's thinking, or evidence that he's not in the entertainment business? Any of its substance?

You/he mentions Bell's theorem. By reference or does he explain it and work it out? If the latter and he did a good job, then you ought to have a decent understanding of it, especially the "loophole free" phrase, its meaning and significance.

Is there another possibility to add to the list? — Gary Enfield

I think you should add Chaos theory to the list:

Systems have three modes of operation: - predictable (linear) - chaotic (nonlinear) - random (random)

Chaos appears between the predictable mode and the random mode. In a sense, chaos provides a wider envelope of motion for a system where we can't predict the motion but we know the motion won't go outside the envelope either. Also in chaotic systems we may see patterns that appear for a time and then new patterns emerge. Buildings sway in any wind. For small winds, the sway is pretty linear, pretty predictable. For larger winds, the sway becomes chaotic, not predictable but within the engineering limits (envelope of motion) of the building. For really large winds, the building may be driven beyond chaotic to random and then failure occurs and the building collapses.

Source https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-chaos-not-random.929608/


Just a practical question though. In your OP when you use the word 'Thought' (concept), are you speaking of phenomena relative to cognition and what is in our stream of consciousness? In other words, part of the Mind-Body problem involves Intentionality.

Perceptions, beliefs, desires and intentions and many other “propositional attitudes” are mental states with intentionality. They are about or represent objects and states of affairs under a particular psychological mode or format. Those perceptions, beliefs, desires and intentions provide for a basic duality of the intentionality of the mental: the duality between mind-to-world and world-to-mind.

Bell theorem / hidden variable - is a mix of misinterpretations about the theory, what experiments are measuring, and how to read and interpret results.

It’s not easy to find what the actual experiment looks like, everyone is theorising from their armchair, relying on a story which itself relies on a few experimental reports from fifty or more years ago. What is really going on in the experiment, what is the data readout, and how it has to be sorted, adjusted, and interpreted in a certain way... that's apparently not the kind of stuff that goes into Wikipedia.

Hi Tim

I live in the UK normally, but I'm visiting the US at the moment.
The book is certainly on Amazon UK, and I also see it on Kindle.

There is a lot of substance to the book, but my reference to 'feelings' concerns the readership here, not the arguments presented by the author... and I think that's fairly clear in my words.

There seem to be plenty of references to scientific source material - so yes, it is a serious work, but it presents a different take on things.

I am not a top scientist, so I can only go by what the author says about Bell's Theorem, but it does seem to be borne-out by articles I've seen on Wikipedia etc. The key things which the author is testing, are potential examples of 'true' spontaneity or randomness (without cause) to see which of the old philosophical concepts have merit.

Hi 3017amen

The underlying nature of 'chaos' theory is our inability to predict something.

In terms of traditional philosophy, Determinism says that we cannot predict things accurately as we don't necessarily know all of the factors which are influencing a given situation - but if we did, we would see that the underlying nature of things was that Matter/Energy produces inevitable outcomes. The mathematics in science follows deterministic lines (except QM's use of probabilities - which is an admission that there is no deterministic explanation for the multiple outcomes).

The counter-view was 'Idealism' which argued (on the basis of Free Will and non-inevitability) that it was possible to have true spontaneity and randomness (without cause) and that this was most evidently displayed in our thoughts, (which would otherwise be entirely governed by the strict causality of matter/energy).

For these reasons, I can't see now 'non-linear' is a different concept.

Hi Zelebg

Reading the Wikipedia articles, or indeed reading the book I referred-to, you don't see the underlying maths. But there is lots of evidence to suggest that the experiments and results were peer-reviewed and therefore the conclusions were valid.

In essence, as I understand it, these experiments used 'paired particles' (ie. split photons or electrons which retain an unknown communication between them - referred-to as entanglement), to show whether results are deterministic or have an additional (unknown or random) influence on them. The theorem uses Game theory, that is explained in the book far better than I can do it here.

There are different ways in which the experiments have been conducted, but they always have a numerical result that should never be exceeded. On one UK programme that I watched (presented by a top scientist - Jim Al-Khalili - called the Secrets of Quantum Mechanics), the number was '2' but the results were always significantly beyond that - proving that the world was not entirely deterministic - at least, not within the known parameters of Matter/Energy as we know them.

At the end of the experiment there are two streams of zeros and ones on two tapes and first you have to pair them to calculate the result or “correlation”, but you can’t be sure which numbers are actual pairs because sometimes numbers on one tape don’t have corresponding pair, or have more than one pair on the other tape. So this “matching” process is a whole new kind of science on its own, or magic rather, depending on what you do here entirely determines the result and conclusion.

It’s a joke, a farce. Having seen this kind of nonsense, how it’s reinterpreted and “hidden” from common knowledge, how most people don’t know about it, I not only have no confidence in any peer-review system, to me it looks like some kind of conspiracy.

Bell published a paper in 1963. In it he modeled two ways of mathematically accounting for a particular phenomenon. One model deterministic, the other probabilistic. One reasonable, the other outrageous. Since that paper a series of experiments have been done, all in accord with the outrageous model, and contra the reasonable. And over the decades, refinements in the experiments have been made and added to test whether there might be so-called hidden variables or "loop holes" that would account for and make the results reasonable. To date, QM remains unreasonable.

The issue is Bell's inequality, which is violated. In the deterministic model, the number of times you get one result, must be less than or equal to the sum of the number of times you get two different sets results at two alternate settings. (The math is straightforward and not too difficult, though tedious.)

So what? An experiment doesn't agree with a reasonable model. Happens all the time. The problem is that the presuppositions for the reasonable, deterministic model are logic, reality, and the speed of light. Take your pick on which to overthrow.

A very crude example of what's happening would be if your sister had ten kids, her family being twelve in all, her, her husband and children. They're coming to visit, but were not specific as to how many were coming. Could be any from one to twelve. But not more than twelve. That would be Bell's inequality in this crude example: less than or equal to twelve. Trouble is, fourteen show up.

No woo-woo, no mystery, except in trying to understand, no conspiracies. The fourteen is a fact. But the fact blows-up the state of your knowledge ante. What you thought was so and that must be so, simply isn't. Not a big deal in the example, but a big deal in Bell's work.

*

If compatabilism is true, than determinism can be victorious. There could never be a random selection of anything. Philosophy, victorious over science (at that point)

Tim - taking your analogy, you either have to admit that there were 2 more children in your sister's family than you ever knew of; or that she had suddenly acquired a couple more out of nowhere; or that there are a couple of impostors.

Philosophically, the question is : which of these applies?

Bell's theorem is not the only bit of evidence from the book. The author points us to the results from various 'double slit' experiments, plus the accelerating expansion of the universe - which points us towards the possibility that truly spontaneous acts (without cause) may occur.

Cosmologically, this is because any change to a previously eternal sequence (such as bang-crunch) must logically come from a spontaneous or external influence.

If traditional maths is essentially Determinism, as it produces single inevitable outcomes, (other than when probabilities are deployed), then how should we interpret the multiple outcomes? — Gary Enfield

Mathematics and physics are interwoven, but basically they are separate disciplines. Normally in physics when existing math seems inadequate physicists search for or create new mathematics that might apply, I.e., has predictive qualities. Feynman, following Dirac's work, developed a "path integral" which is not entirely kosher in math departments' faculty lounges, but has predictive value. It can be interpreted as a kind of functional integral. :cool:

Hi jgill

Yes, I agree that if one formula doesn't produce the right outcome, another is required. But the point made in the book, (and I think it is correct), is that each formula (other than those applying probabilities), will only lead to one inevitable outcome from any specific start point. That is Determinism.

All formulae are there to enable 'Prediction' as that is the factor which establishes our faith in science. However 'Prediction' is limited by what you know, compared to the underlying reality which might be 'inevitable'.

The use of probabilities means that science can effectively describe a range of outcomes, but it can't explain them causally.

As far as I can see, QM uses probabilities because it cannot directly see what is going on below the level of an atom, and while multiple outcomes would suggest other hidden causal factors, we do not know what they might be. That is the old Determinist explanation for such experimental results. However the philosophy then argues that if we did know all of the factors, everything based in Matter/Energy would produce 'inevitability'.

The only way to break that possibility is to suggest that some effects, (whether random or spontaneous), have no cause. So which of the 3 options do you believe explains the multiple outcomes?

I don't know if you've read the book but it makes a number of other points too - suggesting other potential instances of effects without cause, and suggesting that this may be due to a different 2nd type of 'stuff' underpinning reailty.

I have an idea, a concept that I believe can solve this problem. The wave particle duality of nature and the mystery of mind over matter. It’s a specific shape! This shape represents a human. The human Logo. It’s the shape of the lens we perceive through. A shape that all of us agree with. The shape of common ground. The most basic and the average of all shapes from all our perspectives combined.
I believe the universe is a mysterious energy field and when we ask it a question, it reveals itself according to what it is and what we are. We create the particle as an image of ourselves.
I have no math to describe this shape.
It’s basically the shape that represents gravity, warped space time fabric on each of the 3 axis of our perception. When all these are combined, the entire shape displays attributes of many theoretical physics theories. The shape is to me so simple, I’m amazed no one has thought of it before.
Look up spyroe theory online for images.

Hi Spyroe

I can't tell if you're being serious or not by your post, as 'shape' isn't a thing in itself - it's an outcome or consequence from something else. The term 'shape' is therefore not helpful to people reading your post.

However, if I try to interpret your words, I'm afraid that the underlying notions do seem to have been well explored in philosophy already.

The concept/philosophy that everything is in the mind, and that the mind is infinitely variable etc. is known as 'Idealism' (in its different forms) and it represents the polar opposite of Materialism/Determinism in philosophy. It says that we generate a mental picture of stability by putting rules around our mental operations, but beyond those rules everything and anything is possible.

To argue that we achieve a collective/common perception of what reality is by 'mentally syncing' our collective experience is part of Gaia theory.

Finipolscie's books explain this in their early chapters, to set the scene for the science he explains later. That's why I was intrigued by it, and to ask for everyone else's perceptions.

Hello Gary

The shape does mean something. If we had 5 eyes maybe we would see shapes different, a circle may appear to look more like a triangle. Who knows. The point is how we are built as humans has a lot to do with how we interpret our reality.
To answer your initial question from the start of this post, it’s our position, our physical position in space, that gives us this outcome. Having two variables, both a probability or/and a determined state exist because of our physical position. We are bigger than an atom so we see probabilities when we look in and we are smaller than the whole universe so we predict outcomes easily when we look out. If we had the ability to shrink ourselves smaller than an atomic nucleus and looked out pass an atom and out to the universe we would see the same determined state for both. If we made ourselves bigger than the universe and looked in we would see probabilities for atoms and planetary movements.
Back to my shape, we are physically built to see our surroundings through a specific shape. How we see an atom having a nucleus and electrons has more to do with how we are built than what we are measuring.
To see the image I’m suggesting we see through; search google for Spyroe Theory.

I think you should add Chaos theory to the list:
Systems have three modes of operation: - predictable (linear) - chaotic (nonlinear) - random (random) — 3017amen

Amen, brother! In my worldview, our space-time existence is due neither to A> random spontaneity, nor to B> linear divine command & response, but to a combination of law & disorder*1. My hypothetical First Cause is not a humanoid superman who creates via magic, but a universal Principle of EnFormAction that is inherently creative. The Prime Cause of space-time Reality is also not a cosmic accident of pulling itself up by its own non-existent bootstraps. Instead, it's more like the ancient notion of eternal Chaos, with Potential for en-form-ation (creating new forms), from which actual space-time forms (material things) emerge. The typical concept of Chaos is of much-ado-about-nothing : completely feckless random buzzing. But the scientific version of Chaos theory is based on the discovery that even directionless disorderly systems (such as genetic mutations) have the Potential to create some pockets of logical (linear) order that may prove functional.

Plato's Chaos Theory : For Plato the primeval chaotic stuff of the universe has no inherent preexisting form that governs some course of natural development toward the achievement of some goal, and so the explanatory cause of its orderliness must be external to any features that such stuff may possess.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/

Those perceptions, beliefs, desires and intentions provide for a basic duality of the intentionality of the mental: the duality between mind-to-world and world-to-mind. — 3017amen

I haven't read the referenced book, so I'm not sure why it limits the reason-for-being to "Spontaneity" and "Randomness", in which the cause of any novelty is unknown or irrational, perhaps a mysterious "hidden variable". In my theory, the hidden variable is Intention. Plato's Chaos is not a "cloud of un-being", but the Source of all existence, which I call "BEING" to distinguish it from created beings. It's equivalent to a creator god, except that it is totally abstract and mathematical, with no human characteristics. And yet, its Eternal Potential obviously included all of the concrete stuff of reality, and the emergent human characteristics. The power of Intention is a necessary inference from the observation of creative teleological progress in evolution. But,no, I don't know what the Omega Point will be.

*1 Law & Disorder : the mechanism of Evolution -- random change and evaluated selection.

My bias is that physics, especially QM, is too often grist used in the nonsense mill - some of it interesting nonsense, but still nonsense! If it's a nonsense game, then let play who will, keeping in mind it's entertainment.

I do not find the book on Amazon - why not? Where/how did you read it?

which category people feel ... if people feel t
— Gary Enfield

Never mind feelings. Can you serve here any tempting morsel of the author's thinking, or evidence that he's not in the entertainment business? Any of its substance?

You/he mentions Bell's theorem. By reference or does he explain it and work it out? If the latter and he did a good job, then you ought to have a decent understanding of it, especially the "loophole free" phrase, its meaning and significance. — tim wood

Finally we agree on something. I find that many QM experts (not all) like to play games with us by saying QM proves post modernism. Perhaps Post modernism is a good doctrine, i don't think you can prove it necessarily with QM (atleast at this point). I find many (not all) interpretations to be essentially cop out explanations that our just though processes that approach the threshold of medieval banality (just magic). Not all QM physicists agree on the whole post modern interpretation. There could be a rational explanation for QM, its just the solution is to complex to the point it will take 200 years for a good model that fits the lab results.

Not all QM physicists agree on the whole post modern interpretation. — christian2017

Question: why should any of them care? I do not understand the connection of QM with PoMoism. What connection could there be? Please educate.

It initially puts a lot of store on the issue of causality vs perceived randomness & spontaneity, as indicated by many findings from Quantum Mechanics.

If traditional maths is essentially Determinism, as it produces single inevitable outcomes, (other than when probabilities are deployed), then how should we interpret the multiple outcomes?
The author suggests only 3 possibilities:-
the above is from the OP

Alot of people mistakenly argue for PoMoism because of certain test results from QM. My assumption was that you have watched some (not all) of those trite QM youtube videos that make that connection.

It initially puts a lot of store on the issue of causality vs perceived randomness & spontaneity, as indicated by many findings from Quantum Mechanics. — christian2017

The author suggests only 3 possibilities:-...
1. A hidden variable/cause
2. True Spontaneity – something happens without a cause
3. True Randomness - different outcomes for no reason – ie. without a cause. — christian2017

These three are language's - philosophy's - attempt to corral the real, in this case QM, and QM doesn't yet corral. Bell experiments to date rule out #1 - that being what the later tests were testing. #s 2 and 3 are objectionable for "without a cause." The word "cause" itself requiring exhaustive definition before sense can be made of it. In a sense we're on a drunkard's search wrt QM. That leaves us nowhere, but the nowhere is, for now, a fact.

In any case and not just this one, I accept that science and philosophy are connected by "silken ties.., And only by one's going slightly taut... Is of the slightest bondage made aware." (pace, Robert. Frost). But that otherwise are different. Feynman on this, "If you think you understand QM, then you don't."

Your author is trying. That puts him into the category of entertainment - and selling books - but not science or philosophy.

It initially puts a lot of store on the issue of causality vs perceived randomness & spontaneity, as indicated by many findings from Quantum Mechanics.
— christian2017

The author suggests only 3 possibilities:-...
1. A hidden variable/cause
2. True Spontaneity – something happens without a cause
3. True Randomness - different outcomes for no reason – ie. without a cause.
— christian2017

These three are language's - philosophy's - attempt to corral the real, in this case QM, and QM doesn't yet corral. Bell experiments to date rule out #1 - that being what the later tests were testing. #s 2 and 3 are objectionable for "without a cause." The word "cause" itself requiring exhaustive definition before sense can be made of it. In a sense we're on a drunkard's search wrt QM. That leaves us nowhere, but the nowhere is, for now, a fact.

In any case and not just this one, I accept that science and philosophy are connected by "silken ties.., And only by one's going slightly taut... Is of the slightest bondage made aware." (pace, Robert. Frost). But that otherwise are different. Feynman on this, "If you think you understand QM, then you don't."

Your author is trying. That puts him into the category of entertainment - and selling books - but not science or philosophy. — tim wood

I don't know how those quotes got attached to my name. Perhaps you can restate what you were saying unpacked more.

I do agree alot of physics books are more entertainment than accurate information.

Based on what you wrote above as far as what i understand that you wrote, i agree. My initial confusion started with the quotes you posted that were attached to what i said.

The only book i mentioned recently (and i don't know if it was this forum topic) is "A brief history of time" by stephen hawkings. I am very familiar with Newtonian physics.

I don't know how those quotes got attached to my name. — christian2017

Two ways, I think both at work here. 1) The quote function quotes verbatim; if you want to correctly attribute a quote in a TPF quote, then you have to edit it. And 2) I messed up by putting two different quotes together and editing out the two middle quote parameters, inadvertently associating the two - my bad.

Perhaps you can restate what you were saying unpacked more. — christian2017

I think you got it. Some topics cannot be properly represented - or understood - in some kinds of discussions.

But the point made in the book, (and I think it is correct), is that each formula (other than those applying probabilities), will only lead to one inevitable outcome from any specific start point. That is Determinism. — Gary Enfield

Of course. But who knows what lies beyond mathematical horizons? Certainly in my modest experience mathematical research strongly favors determinism, except for conjectures that currently lie beyond proof. I've reached stages arising from the study of parabolic fixed points in the complex plane where I suspect a conclusion, but cannot reach it logically. This doesn't mean the problem can't be solved, but work stops at a point beyond which two possibilities seem to exist, although computer experiments strongly favor one.

This isn't exactly what you are getting at, and is not the quandary in QM, but it illustrates subtleties in the use of the word "inevitable."

Provability not-so-simple. Excepting Godelian-like propositions and propositions unsolvable as a practical matter, are there any mathematical propositions that are known to be unprovable? I'm surprised if there are.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1052299/what-is-a-simple-example-of-an-unprovable-statement

Some mathematicians love this sort of thing. Not me.