Comments

  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    Way to illustrate my point behind a lot of the misunderstandings behind QM.Darkneos
    Except those books or lectures don't actually usually address the interpretational issue regarding it. Usually, they actually feel its irrelevant to the mathematical formulation and my textbook from the university makes that expressly clear where the math ends to where the uncertain philosophy begins.

    Which is a key point that I'd like to emphasize.

    But again none of this is relevant nor answers my questions so you’ve effectively said nothing. I don’t even know how this got to quantum physics…Darkneos
    You know, given process philosophy is supposed to be a more faithful interpretation of QM by its adherents its actually really tangential but close to it.

    Also you already made up your mind. . .

    This is why I often take the Buddhas stance on metaphysics in this; it doesn’t matter. Also why I don’t partake in philosophy often.

    I also, agree. Course, I'm bored and I didn't take to heart a previous morbid thread that you had started so I'm left with a good amount of personal free time.
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    @Darkneos You don't need a money or a degree. . . you need an internet connection and the will as well as the desire to dive into this.

    Here is a pdf version of the Griffiths book on quantum mechanics. Get reading!

    I always like watching PBS spacetime as they cover these topics for layman viewers. There are also numerous YouTube channels that cover mathematical background needed for quantum.

    Here is the entirety of the Feynman lectures on quantum.
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    I just ask people who know better, I don’t have the time or money for a degree.Darkneos
    Just reposting this. For reasons.
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    Well there is a “right way” but I’m not versed enough in it to know.Darkneos
    Then challenge yourself to actually figure it out. That way these conversations can go way easier.

    I'm going through the process right now to finish my own physics degree and am learning the basics of Hilbert spaces as well as bra/ket notation right now.

    You want to show some incentive too!
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    Well not really. The level of atoms is so small that most people couldn’t fathom it or what it means, so when you learn atoms are mostly empty space it doesn’t mean much.Darkneos
    Why should that stop physicists from proposing them as lacking intuitive physical properties if they are as un-fathomable as you say they are?

    That would imply that they haven't gone far enough or could go farther. We've already stripped them of emotions, wants, needs, mental states, colors, or other secondary qualities. Why not get rid of solidity as well?

    It’s hard to say one way or the other because at that level it’s just math. Anything philosophical is up in the air. Field theory is just a mathematical model, physics doesn’t tell us what reality is made of, it just uses math to predict it.Darkneos
    Okay. . . so why are physicists so upset about these 'misinterpretations' if they aren't meant to tell us what it's 'really' made of?

    Yes, it is just math. We can agree on that.

    However, there is value in a heuristically and a pedagogical sense to that speculation regardless of whether it's true or can even be shown to be true. Even Bohr's model of the atom served its role at a point in time even if without experimental investigation by naive EM that it clearly is a way the world would not behave if we demand its stability.

    Well it’s more like I’m not sure if the people talking to me really understand it. When I’m asking Punos they just insist that it’s not cold or dehumanizing but can’t really explain why while I have.Darkneos
    To me its completely irrelevant. Whether process philosophy or static object substance philosophies only emphasize different aspects of the same thing.

    You shouldn't be so focused on the material substance of a person because in the end it gives you only a base but not a handle on why you attach yourself to them despite their changes. It also doesn't bode well for illusory characteristic such as consciousness if the 'real' reality lacks those. Their ability to change does not make them some fleeting collection of individuals you can't make out but a process you happily indulge in. It's not like your friend losses a single strain of hair and all of sudden he is someone new to you.

    Not in my experience. Can you give an example?Darkneos
    In a trivial sense there are tons of verbs that are also nouns. Then there are many examples of metaphorical/analogical speech that give things which are abstract a concrete element to them.

    'Time is like a flowing river' - Time isn't really a river here and frequently the word time is treated as a noun that can do things.
    'The past is behind us.' - Common spatialize temporal metaphor that is similar across cultures but also changes from area to area.
    'The wave interacts with the atom.' - Technically, wave can be a verb as well as a noun as in this case. It denotes both the thing doing the waving as well as the action itself.

    All I know is from what other physicists have told me, that a lot of people misunderstand quantum field theory and think it means what it doesn’t.Darkneos
    I get that. . . you won't stop talking about why this is all for nought because of those physicists you have previously read. Specifics as to why seem to be lacking on your part I have to say.

    But as for the bosons I don’t think that means they aren’t solid it just means quantum mechanics is weirder than we thought. But from the answers I’m reading, YES it does mean there are multiple collocated particles.Darkneos
    Solidity is the ability to not be interpenetrated so to allow for interpenetration is what I would not take as them possessing solidity as intrinsic to them.

    Unless you mean by solidity a completely different thing than our intuitions would provide but then you aren't talking about the same thing.

    Everything you’ve mentioned are still particles, it’s just that at the level things are weird.Darkneos
    Oh, okay. . . so as long as the math is correct we can just make up whatever. . . right? Or is there some proper methodology as to how to do this absent the math?

    ____________________________________________________________________________________________

    To say there is a misunderstanding of QM implies there is a right way to do this even if no experiment would showcase any of these interpretations as wrong or that they are consistent with the mathematical models. What is this mysterious philosophical methodology you are appealing to but don't make explicit?

    Is the proper scientific approach to tell the philosophers to, "shut up while we calculate because you can't figure anything out!" Or is it, ". . . you aren't doing this interpretational work correctly, here is how you actually do it. . ."
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    Like…to be blunt: what does this mean and why should one care? You haven’t answered this, just saying that it contradicts current materialist understanding, which tells me nothing. You also didn’t answer my initial questionsDarkneos
    What is the actual problem. Its just a different language choice.

    The Human language is really adept at treating verbs as nouns and nouns as verbs just as easily. There are so many ordinary language analogies/metaphors we use which intermix these things all the time without issue.

    You just need to go a step further and start asking whether the metaphors/analogies you use influence your thinking. You obviously think they do because one of the issues you've had so far with process philosophy has been how it makes you emotionally view other people. Clearly, the language one uses can influence that just as for you its depressing while for @punos its liberating and inspiring.

    Our depictions of materialism aren't conceptually 'objective' and independent of the same kind of metaphorical speech that poets use either as its also filled with strange analogical depictions of things. This is present with analogical models and this is present with speech that talks about quantum 'particles' or 'particle wave states'.

    Well from what I understand it’s particles and matter. The “everything is made of fields” thing is a misunderstanding of it, it makes people foolishly think there is nothing solid.Darkneos
    Solidity whether it be 'from fields' or 'particles' or 'matter' is always going to make itself seem illusory and nonexistent if you think that the reason we don't fall through the floor is not because there is no empty space in objects but because of their repulsive interactions. Regardless of what analogical language you use whether its 'water waves' or 'billiard balls' or 'balls & springs'. Solidity becomes something that may not be a part of the micro-constituent parts of the world around us at least as proposed.

    There are also aspects of it that we've quickly abandoned such as no interpenetration which is what bosons do. Those can occupy the same place at the same time and therefore on a fundamental level lack solidity. However, if we use the strawman 'everything is fields' idea then this weirdness goes away and we can just say the field is more intense there but not that there are multiple collocated particles. The particle analogy doesn't allow you this and would have to accept multi-particle collocation or interpenetration on a fundamental level as interpreting this.

    Further, how is the fields analogy a misunderstanding of this? These 'particles' have to interact with each other some how and the field is just the proposed thing that is meant to do that in rather esoteric quantum interpretations or a version of pilot wave theory. It can also been seen as being the name for the only thing doing the 'physical' work here as you can imagine in a hydrodynamical analogue model of Schrodinger's equation.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I don’t think time can be described through space, but I am open to hearing why you think this.Bob Ross
    It's a common enough notion. It's linguistics such as book linked or here, by psychologists, and of course philosophers who really just point out this usage while choosing not to partake in it such as process philosophers. Its a prominent and cross-cultural notion of time that in fact even changes culture to culture apparently.

    The notion that the 'past is behind us' and 'future in front of us' while the present 'is here' are using spatialized language to talk about time. Most depictions of presentism, possibilism, futurism, the moving spotlight theory time, thick/thin presentism, and eternalism all use similar metaphors to their extreme of depicting the 'timeline' as a 'line' or even a 'whole block'. Then we talk about or bring up the problem of temporal 'parts and whole's' which comes about by thinking of things as three-dimensional or four-dimensional but as 'temporal objects' nonetheless.

    Just as Minkowski we seem to then treat it as some four-dimensional whole.

    It's using static language to talk about what isn't meant to be static so of course we end up with a problem of change such as Zeno's paradoxes or other similar assortments of conundrums. Such as asking how 'fast' does time progress or where do the static moments of time go when they can fly past the pencil thin present. Invoking some strange conception of reality where the world blinks by like a zoetrope machine ex nihilo.

    1. This is only a reification fallacy if anti-realism with respect to the topic is true. E.g., the number 2 is not real IFF mathematical anti-realism is true; and same with love.Bob Ross
    It's irrelevant to whether its realism or anti-realism. Either you are committed to a problem of reification or ascribing incorrect language/metaphysics/physical terms to talk about something which is itself not physical therefore more a language error regarding a mixing of categories or an ontological category mistake.

    2. Assuming things like, e.g., love are not real but exist as emergent-phenomenal processes of our organism, these still have parts. E.g., love is a feeling of strong intimacy, attraction, etc. for another and is composed, at a minimum, of a strong connection between a donor and recipient and all which is subject to time (viz., loving through time).Bob Ross
    You'd need to actually make explicit the kinds of metaphors/language you are using regarding emergentism so as to not make this decay immediately into reductionism.

    Just as process philosophers have this problem of the interconnectedness of language the emergentists have the problem of also making clear their position in terms that don't commit them to the language of their opposite. The reductivism and eliminativism positions.

    Note that process philosophers can just as easily use spatialized language out of pragmatic worth or need just as easily as their static rivals. However, they just happen to take a much more serious look at it and attempt to develop incommensurable terms when needed to better capture what they 'mean' as distinct from the former static meanings.

    3. When I was talking about space and time as substances, I meant it in the realist sense; so that is not a reification fallacy. I was speaking of what it would look like if one believes they are substances.Bob Ross
    Is that because you want them to be substances or is that only a lazy choice of language that talks about them in substantial manners? Clearly, that isn't the only language one can use unless you want to argue such a point nor would it have them remain true independent substances but something new language is required for (emergentism) or a completely new category with incommensurable language to accompany it.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    As an article I found on JSTOR talking about the language problems of process philosophy says,

    Just as, in particle physics, the technique of observation modifies what is observed, philosophic expression runs the serious risk of altering what is expressed because the distortion which the medium introduces into the message.

    For whitehead it would be a conceptual and reality based holistic inseparability but we can reduce the heavy poetic force of this down to looking back carefully at your metaphors. If we aren't defining our terms or even if we do so with the utmost precision to suit any rationalist our figures of speech are not silent actors.

    Your language misleads you astray because it does so by its own hidden intentions,

    This is to say, therefore, that every proposition implies a metaphysics, that syntax, grammatical structure, and the like are disguised metaphysical assertions. Granted: the metaphysics is naive, explicated, and uncriticized; but it is nevertheless a metaphysics. Until that metaphysics is explicated, no proposition can be fully determinate. But the explication can be done only propositionally-and the vicious circle closes, leaving language by its very nature indeterminate, and a precise metaphysical language impossible. The philosopher must therefore maintain a thoroughgoing distrust of any linguistic formulation.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    Extension and temporality are pure intuitions. We get them from our experience of the world; or more accurately they are the forms of our experience.

    You are asking of me, e.g., what does it mean to exist? Well, its a pure intuition. There’s nothing more I can say; nor can you.
    Bob Ross
    Again, there you are not giving any information on the kind of language you use and whether it could influencing your conception.

    You have to use a language to talk about these "pure intuitions" and the second you use that language there is no definite answer that it hasn't already polluted the notion you are trying to explain. So are the conundrums and properties a facet of taking a metaphor too far or are they meaningfully distinct.

    We might be able to say some things about how space and time behave scientifically; but not what they are themselves. Space and time are the a priori intuitions of the sensory data (manifold) of our outer and (some of our) inner senses; and there may be a space and time akin to these a priori modes of intuition which may or may not behave similarly (e.g., Einstein’s special relativity). Our brain represents things which occur in a multiplicity as in space (whether that be material [e.g., my hand] or immaterial [e.g., the feeling of pain in my hand]); and it represents things which change in time (which may or may not include space—e.g., thinking). It is impossible for me to speak of anything without referencing spatiality and temporality because they are pure intuitions a priori in our brains—viz., they are so integral to the human understanding—but it is important to distinguish space and time proper (in the sense of the forms of the understanding) from conceptual space and time: the latter can be used to talk analogically about things which may not be in the former (e.g., Platonic forms, God, a non-spatiotemporal “particle”, etc.).Bob Ross
    If you are to separate conceptual space/time from the understanding you need to understand that split but before that you need to state what metaphors you use. Which is why analogue models in physics have interpretation conditions on what things matter (positive part of the analogy), what things are irrelevant (neutral analogy), and what things intentionally mislead/misconstrue (negative analogy).

    You don't have a pure language to talk about your "pure intuitions" ergo you don't know where your language misleads and the actual "pure intuitions" begin. You have failed again and again to mark clearly that line or at least attempt to.

    You literally cannot describe space and time without using them in language. That’s a waste of time to try and avoid.Bob Ross

    No, spatialized language is the notion of the space metaphor to talk about time. Course, that isn't the only way we talk about time but it has been blamed for enforcing simple philosophical confusions. Bergson and Whitehead thought as much along with in more current times the philosophical perspective of Milic Capek. Who is of the opinion that that the last vestige of Classical thinking to be abandoned for the revolutionary special relativity or quantum theory in a different choice of language.

    One that makes use of non-spatialized language for time but also makes use of other senses other than the visual or mental imagery. One such approach was to use analogies to lived experience and music rather than the psychologically misleading as well as prevalent spatial notions regarding the past as 'behind us' or the future as 'coming towards us'.

    What “substance metaphor”???Bob Ross

    It's a common thing to do, in language, to talk about people having abstractions as if they are themselves substances. Such as, "You have so much love!" Love is an abstract concept here that is treated as a thing that can we have so and so much of. Properties work this way and you even do this with the concept of '2' treating it line with a material analogy acting as if it is a thing 'that has parts'. This shouldn't be the only language one can use to talk about numbers and to presume so is to abandon any other creatively unique direction.

    Especially since the fact that the number '2' is itself mean't to be fairly abstract then it should be seen as being multifaceted in the possible analogies one can use to talk about it. However, those might be mutually inconsistent to each other in certain respects and the boundary of what we take 'seriously' from them becomes rather significant but disagreeable.

    That’s called in inductive case against an absolutely simple being; and it holds no weight against the argument from composition because it demonstrates the need for its existence. Your argument only works as a probabilistic-style argument IF we have no good reasons to believe a simple being exists. All you are saying is “well, we haven’t had any good reasons to believe there are black swans, so we shouldn’t”. Ok. But now we know there are black swans….Bob Ross
    No, it casts doubt on the concept itself having any real counter part as I would presume that philosophy doesn't always have to accept that when something is conceptually possible that it is therefore metaphysically possible or physically possible.

    That is a jump that requires philosophical work to connect the different notions of possibility. Work you have not committed yourself too. Work that requires showcasing where conceptual notions can be transcendental to mere playful philosophical thought experiments into being ascribed some deep referential status.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    What part of space and time being extension and temporality is hard for you to understand? If there's specific concepts of space and time that would be immune to the OP, then please feel free to bring them up: I don't see any.Bob Ross
    What is extended and what is temporal?

    What metaphors/analogies do you use and do you understand their limitations and errors?

    Until you are absolutely clear on this we will not make head way.

    You can go the Einsteinien, Kantian, or literally any other route and it will not matter for the OP since we are talking about ontological parts which could be outside of space and time.Bob Ross
    Outside is spatialized language which I don't choose to indulge in so I don't understand what you mean. Use different language. I don't accept it.

    Second, you keep using this substance metaphor to reify the notion of properties or talk about them if you don't know.

    Is reification always good in your eyes and proper philosophical method?

    Third, going off of moorean intuition. . . everything I've ever experienced and said was ever a 'single piece' or a 'whole' has always been itself composed. I have never in fact met with an un-composed entity and therefore perhaps the notion of an 'un-composed' entity is itself a limiting abstraction that is therefore unreal and un-warranted to postulate. My notion of part/whole comes from these things that have never been wholes and have always been composed.

    If you say something along the lines of, ". . . but I can imagine. . ." Then you need to justify the method or role of imagination in proper philosophical practice.
  • Ontology of Time
    The OP doesn't deny time is real. We use time daily. But when it asks does time exist, it means does it exist as a physical entity in the universe? Space exists in the universe.Corvus
    Can I bump my foot up against it? I can't. . . then it's not exactly material in the traditional sense of the word. This was well versed and known far before my birth.

    Without space, nothing can exist. But space itself is invisible. Could we say something exists, when something is not visible, has no mass and no energy?Corvus
    . . . and yet people have constructed philosophies that don't make use of what you typically call 'space' and things turn out just fine. Don't confuse or define space as 'what is needed for things to exist' otherwise its rather uninteresting and tautological why you think it's needed. Then the word 'space' is just a substitute word for "whatever grounds all physical things".

    Second, energy and mass can be considered mere properties. . . not things. So it's not mysterious to suppose anything doesn't have them or lacks them.

    Mass is either defined, or has been defined, as a measure of how much stuff there is but over time its become more coincident operationally with a measure for the resistance to having ones state of motion changed. It's inertia. . . and if you don't exert a force on something to measure its inertia does it make sense to suppose there is this liquid abstraction 'mass' that such a thing possesses?

    Time has similar properties. It is not visible, not sensible to our senses as an entity. So where is it coming from? When the OP asks does it exist? It means where is it coming from?Corvus
    You're asking the wrong questions. What concepts do WE think are related to it? Of these which can we diminish or rid ourselves of and still get to keep the majority of our time-intuitions?

    The nature of time is an interesting topic, because there are many folks talking about time travel. If time is some sort of shared mental state of humans, then any talk of time travel would be a fantasy.Corvus
    Presentists who use non-spatialized language to talk about time with metaphors that liken it closer to our lived experience would agree as well.

    However, that would mean that any actual 'time-travel' scenarios would have to be heavily re-interpreted perhaps in fashions that make it seem no less peculiar.

    Say, for example, that an individual appears in strangely advanced looking machinery in the heart of New York as if they appeared right out of thin air. They appear Human but analysis of their biology indicates the proper inference that they are rather heavily changed into terms of genetics or physical make up that coincides with possible predictions on future Human evolution. He attests to this and even makes proclamations about the future with the utmost precision as if his knowledge is pure prophecy. However, he only ever says it's because he 'lived' through a time when these event or occurrences became well known.

    We are reasonable people, however, and the future doesn't exist beyond mere mental prediction and the past as mere memory or creative retrodiction. So where did he come from?

    Not from the future, but one possibility is that he is a random statistical fluke of nature which just happened to have the atoms around where he appeared change on a fundamental level in a highly improbable manner. To yield a person with full fledged memories of a past life coming from the future with technology that seems advanced but possible for us to create.

    We can even add in the future part of the 'beginning' of his journey but it wouldn't be so much a great embarkment as it would be him vanishing out of existence the second the time-machine fully energizes instantly vaporizing him.

    To be a presentist is to have to accept such horrifying a reality that may statistically create fully fledged individuals with false memories.

    Does it imply that God, souls and Thing-in-itself are also real as time? Or are they just figments of human imagination? If time is real, why aren't the other abstract concepts real?Corvus
    As far as they may be needed for simple ordinary cognition; they are 'real' to me.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    The idea of it being magical just begs the question; but it is worth noting that your view depends on physical processes for beings to apprehend the forms of things, and we still to this day have no clue how that would work in the brain.Bob Ross
    Nor would a philosopher ever figure it out either if they don't understand, just as many physicists, the difference between talking about something in reference to other things and bare un-interesting direct reference.

    If you directly reference something you are not going to explicate much of anything about it no more than making an undefined utterance without context.

    Just as other philosophers have quibbled with spatialized language to talk about time as possessing numerous intellectual faults so then the only problem really with 'figuring out the brain' is just your personal misgivings about the metaphors/analogies they use. As if you wouldn't also yield metaphors/analogies that themselves may hide further misunderstandings or make precise something that layman or scientists never really disagreed with in the end.

    This is expressly clear in your later continued response below. . .

    We have reason, which is distinct from AI, and we have every reason to believe it could never be facilitated by the brain. Why? Because reason abstracts the universal of a particular—not just pattern-matching given the universal like AI—and this seems to posit yet another hard problem for physicalists: how could an brain processes abstract out the universal from a particular—which is necessarily to go beyond the given data of the particular itself—when nothing about the particular itself entails its universal? AI, on the other hand, is given concepts (universals) and then trained to pattern-match particulars: our minds do not do that.Bob Ross

    . . . which talks of reified abstractions and the possession of these "things" or the manipulation of them.

    If you are going to do that why don't we just all venture into Meinong's jungle and drop the intuitions we have about the words 'exist' or 'real' at the tree line.
  • Ontology of Time
    Time doesn't exist.Corvus
    I don't want to be that kind of person but what does it mean to say it does or doesn't exist? Are you talking about existence as coincident with physicality/material constitution then lots of concepts have more to do with generalizations of real things than a particular real thing that it designates.

    However, we could loosen the word 'real' or 'exist' to mean whatever significant properties or concepts are required for us to make sense of the world around us.

    You may not be able to point to time but all the interconnected concepts that it concerns itself with as such: Physical change, past/future as well as their asymmetry, metrical notions of temporal progression, existence or non-existence, etc.

    Are concepts that I don't think a physicist let alone a laymen could do without as its seemingly rather baked into our cognition.

    Only space and objects exist.Corvus
    Well, what does it mean to say certain objects exist and why space?

    There are void conceptions of space, although not as popular these days, which have been advocated in which the notion of space is understood in purely negative language. So space is a sort of abstraction that one can entertain and can't do away with because whenever you have a positive property we can always add on the word 'not' or negate it to get a perfectly reasonable concept as well. So if you can have things that are colored then clearly there could be un-colored things or if things are charged then they can be uncharged things. You can continue this little game until you are left with only 'pure extension' but while it would be rather peculiar to suppose that there is no space it seems also that this notion is heavily abstracted away from physical things so as to be 'less real'. It's only purpose or property being to separate things and nothing else but because it almost usually approached in such highly negative terms why add it into the 'physical' category?

    An article that I found on JSTOR by John E. Boodin all the way from 1906 advocates for this in his second article talking about space & time.

    When I try to perceive time, the perception is empty.Corvus
    Lots of things lack our ability to imagine them but that doesn't make them unintelligible or nonreferential.

    ___________________________________________________________________________________

    I'd again emphasize that the notion of time is a horrible cluster concept. The notions of past or the future could be subsumed under our psychological proclivities but so could so many other aspects of what people take to be illusory but real physical manifestations in the world.

    The concept of time is usually also includes the notion of the present which is tied up with the notion of existence and clearly there is a difference one could say between change as well as the physical thing that is changed.

    Then there is the designation of metrical measures of time either by extrinsic means (clocks or arbitrary comparative convention) or intrinsic means so the statement 'this process is faster than that one' is a statement that nature would take as meaningful. That there is some physical connection or series of properties that allow for this to make sense. Some who says, as you may, that nature has only extrinsic metrics of time so we 'invent' them so to speak would mean that nature can't actually tell the difference between short or long processes.

    If time doesn't exist then does that mean there is no present and so our intuitions about existing things independent of our perception of them is to be thrown out as well? Are we to also think that nature can't tell the temporal difference between a stars life and our own in terms of temporal length given the past/future are fictions together with the fact that no non-existent thing can ground a measure for things?

    Are willing to stomach those conclusions above? If not, what are you keeping and what intuitions are you choosing to get rid of?
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I already explained why blue cannot be properly defined. Remember Mary’s room thought experiment? Are you just ignoring that?Bob Ross
    Definitions are built on either axiomatic fiat symbolic reference or reference, through symbolization or metaphor, to other base notions/concepts/experiences.

    Everything is trivially not able to be properly defined and you could probably motivate a version of the problem of the criterion to make this concrete by asking what a proper definition is then making it clear how circular or unfounded that criterion is leading us to doubt all definitions. That is, however, trivial and obvious.

    Un-intriguing examples of definitions devolve into mere pointing or gesturing as they by nature DON'T tell us much that we don't already get OR they don't make important aspects clear enough. They are by nature lazy and by nature dangerously uninformative as they leave great uncertainty when one demands SPECIFICATION.

    When one demands specification you point not to that object but in reference to other things. Contrary or similar.

    Time is a complex notion but it has to do with clocks, it supposedly flows, flashes by in frames as if its a movie, it can be slowed or sped up, it is universal or sometimes coincident with physical processes.

    Those are all different notions and metaphors/figures of speech that exemplify either different aspects of the same concept or completely different concepts but that is what is needed. Not this pointless and trivial gesturing you are doing which tells me nothing of what extension is.

    Try at least a via negativa approach for god sake. Make use of the numerous metaphorical figures of speech people have constructed to talk about such things that the internet should allow you access to. TRY AGAIN!

    Nothing I said is an argument from skepticism.Bob Ross
    I know, that wasn't the point as I was just pointing out how philosophical skeptics can miss the point of how normal individuals conduct themselves choosing to devolve into intellectual labyrinths in an attempt to shut down the discussion. The token pessimistic skeptic may ask, "What is the point of discussing this or that if there is no way of knowing?"

    As if the attainment of knowledge as so narrowly and unobtainable that this person defines or sees it as is relevant to why people still indulge in these debates. Perhaps, they have other reasons.

    You are the skeptic in this analogy. Unwilling and seemingly unable to move forward in a constructive manner.

    My argument doesn’t care if you are a realist or not about space and time, ironically, as there will still be ontological parts to things even if they are not in space or time; so I say take your pick! **shrug** (:Bob Ross
    . . . and I say it doesn't make sense to ask how many parts a number has so it wouldn't make sense to ask what an entity devoid of spatiality would even be to possess parts yet not be extended.

    I already described them sufficiently for purposes of the OP. Space is extension; time is temporality.Bob Ross
    Which doesn't make a difference between what others have deemed the 'spatial extension' notion of physicality. . . which is different from the spatial separation of any two physical things. . . which is different from spatial location/place. . . which is different from fundamental physical action at a distance interactions. These are all different notions.

    All of which have been advanced on differing levels to make more precise the concept you refuse to do the same to.

    It also leaves out the esoteric but ever present spatial anti-realists of various idealist varieties which deny that the notion of spatiality is even a coherent mind-independent notion at all. There are also the ontological structural realists of the modern age which may advocate for parts without things. Then there are the process philosophers who may look down upon or see as incoherent in their own sense attempting to ascribe any coherency to the static part of a thing at all amidst the Heraclitan mess of universal processes.

    . . . you know. . . because that spatial anti-realist or that process philosopher might just have different moorean intuitions than you.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I don’t understand what you are really objecting to. I originally was noting that blueness cannot be defined just like temporality and space. You objected that we can and should give proper definitions of these; and I used blueness as an analogous example. You now are agreeing with me that blueness cannot be defined—right? It seems like you are noting that we can describe it to some extent—I wasn’t disputing that.Bob Ross
    Anyone can give a definition of blue its only you who has a problem with certain definitions with blue and may be unhappy with any of them so he throws his hands up in the air saying, "Well you just can't!"

    Except, difficulty to define or find an acceptable definition is not coincident with impossibility as you also agree on. So we are going to try to define blue anyways despite your misgivings and move on.

    So now that we agree that your assertion that its 'undefinable' is just you being lazy and unwilling to enter the discussion into defining other such difficult terms only because its 'hard'. Could you stop gish galloping. . . give a definition!

    It's also impossible to know things because something. . . something. . . skepticism but that doesn't stop ordinary people from using the term knowledge in ignorance of a precise definition or arguing a particular definition for their purposes. Why? This is because skepticism doesn't actually remove this discussion from the intellectual dialectic.

    So I don't want to hear about how 'undefinable' it is and mysterious or perplexing which are substitutes here for not philosophically putting in any work.

    Again, define you terms and no griping this time around. Simple, easy, end of story.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    A scientific definition of blueness is not a valid definition of blueness. I does not account for the phenomenal property of blue: see Mary’s room thought experiment.Bob Ross
    That wasn't a scientific definition of blue. I was just listing what things pop to mind and therefore are related to what people understand the concept of blue as related to it.

    Those have to serve as a part of the conceptual foundation of the concept of blue even if they do not exhaust it.

    THAT IS WHY I LISTED CONSCIOUSNESS after you all those SCARY science terms and left in the phrase ETC!

    It seems your philosophical views are clouding you judgements here.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    They refer to extension and temporality respectively: they are pure intuitions—there is no way to define that properly, no different than defining the color blue.Bob Ross
    Could you not be so vague?

    Blue is difficult to define. . . but it has to do with certain brain states, wavelengths of light, biological/physical interactions, consciousness, etc.

    Time and space are difficult to define because they overlap with numerous unrelated conceptual cousins that you may not be concerned with: Such as operational/instrumental definitions of spacetime, definitions from the phenomenology of experience, metaphysical definitions making use of a plethora of metaphors, physicist definitions of spacetime, casual theories of spacetime, other assortments of constructive definitions of spacetime, etc.

    The literature is deep but your response clearly was not. So try again.

    This is a baseless assertion.Bob Ross
    Its an opinion of mine, sure.

    Philosophy is the objective study of wisdom.Bob Ross
    Define wisdom. . .
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    Moreover, yes, I do not see any contradiction with the idea that a composed being which is spatiotemporal must be infinitely divisible and yet ontologically be comprised ultimately by one singular non-spatiotemporal thing.Bob Ross
    That is because you fail to actually define 'spatial' or 'temporal' so that is part of the problem.

    Think about it: how can a being which has no parts exist as a particular? That would imply that it has some property which is distinct from any others of that particular; and this implies it has parts (for no absolutely simple thing can have properties proper—since it is literally one thing with no distinctions). What I am trying to get you to see, is that this philosophically makes no sense even if we posit it for the sake of science—just as much as the square root of -1 is not a real number but we use it in math anyways.Bob Ross
    As regards 'i', that is how all of philosophy including your own is constructed. You make something up and see if it makes intuitive sense or if its unintuitive how might you still intuitively motivate it.

    Philosophy is about extensive creativity and making stuff up without any requirement that it have anything to do with reality.

    This is why people have invented the notion of haecceitism contrary to your own personal feelings regarding it as unintuitive.

    That is why God is attributed—or more accurately just is—these properties analogically. I am not claiming that God has, e.g., a will the same as ours.

    You seem to be doing a literal equivocation between the usages of these properties when the OP is outlining analogical equivocation—nothing more.
    Bob Ross
    This is another thing lacking from your posts or the OP which is any clarification on the proper metaphysical/philosophical approach to using metaphor and analogy.

    The ability to say that a thing has 'parts' or is a 'whole' only make sense relative to the experiences of things we have in declaring things from birth as 'made of parts' or as 'a continuum'. However, are we actually in fact stretching this experiential analogy too far?

    In fact, whenever I have said something is taken as a 'whole' or as a 'singular thing' I am in fact actually merely admitting my ignorance or mental inability to declare in clear terms all its parts. Not that it doesn't have any parts at all.

    WHOLE - defined as - as assertion meant to regard a multitude of things as a singular thing. Despite the fact that it isn't in fact a singular thing.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    Like I said before, the argument is on ontological parts. That could be in time and space or not; it doesn't matter to me. Some of the OP would have to be adjusted though, but I think most people are realists about space and time (so I'll leave it how it is).Bob Ross
    . . . but the notions of space and time factor into the identity of things and whether the notion of a 'part' is even coherent at all may depend entirely on the definitions one gives to space or to time.

    Further, the notions of part and whole are abstracted from things we acknowledge in no fashion are themselves part-less so the notion of a true 'whole' might not actually be coherent given there are no natural examples one could give it. Same as the notion of space or time which many rightfully acknowledge as mere idealizations. The notion of a part also presumes another thing that it is a part of which many positions also deny level by level such eliminative materialism or mereological nihilism.

    Why don't you give me an example of a REAL THING THAT IS A WHOLE without parts so I can then assess whether nature does or doesn't abhor it. Simple, we can solve this and move on.

    In fact, your arguments seem to be lacking phenomenological definitions or postulates regarding where we get these concepts or how they are formed. As well as further epistemological principles to motivate their coherency and what I presume is an unsupported un-naturalized form of metaphysics that you are indulging in.

    Finally, I feel you'd need to solve the problem of how one can make strong proclamations about a world merely from the arm-chair. Metaphysics as a discipline and its focus on certain methods from a-prior reasoning to thought experiments have gotten their own criticism extensively in recent times.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I didn’t make an argument from change: I didn’t import that part of Thomistic metaphysics. My argument is from the contingency relations of composition.Bob Ross
    It seems however to depend on your metaphysics regarding spacetime, the substantivalism/relationism discussion, as well as the ontological nature of properties so let us discuss that as it seems significant.

    Also, at least under the notion of mereological nihilism along with an extreme form of relationism you can get both fundamental relations which hold between matter particles, not individual properties but relations, and the claim that the notion of a composed being is. . . well. . . nonsense as atoms never compose anything. Its merely our linguistic and mental laziness that we appeal to ordinary language acts talking about 'objects' being composed by others. In fact, there are no such ordinary objects only the fundamental simples together with their external mutually dependent relations.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I don’t see how I’m committing a fallacy. God is real, but non-spatiotemporal. You are saying here that anyone who believes in anything non-spatiotemporal that relates to spatiotemporal things is a reification fallacy. So, I guess time itself existing is a reification fallacy?Bob Ross

    In asserting the above response to another poster you admitted to the coherence of the notion of God being 'non-spatiotemporal'. I.E. he exists in a fashion similar to other platonic abstractions which is without space as if those things are separated by NOTHING. Add in the ability for these abstractions to exert casual action-at-a-distance and you have atoms with the void.

    Extreme forms of eliminative relationism do something similar demanding that fundamentally if space isn't a thing then 'action-at-a-distance' interactions are needed and out of only observable travel times or delays of casual interaction can we say there is a 'distance'.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    That's patently incoherent. You just said that two things exist separately in non-existence (i.e., a void).Bob Ross
    Yes, they are separated by something that isn't stuff. It's not-stuff. It's the void. It's an old and well respected idea because the only response to it is to balloon ones ontology by adding in 'space' which is as metaphysical as platonic entities or insert matter between the matter we can see which may be entirely undetectable/unknowable.

    A shadow is not a thing its the absence of stuff but its still an aspect nature that we can point out while also not declaring it as a new entity. Are a hole or shadow considered 'objects' in your world view?

    If they are then that makes your own viewpoint largely unintuitive when it comes to what people mean by a 'physical thing' and if they are not then its conceptually possible for there to be a significant ontological roles for the mere absence of things.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    The spatiotemporal properties are properties of the part; so it does hold that we distinguish them based off of the parts even if they are identical notwithstanding their occupation of space or place in time.Bob Ross
    Depending on your conception regarding spacetime realism/anti-realism that would then make the argument dependent on spacetime realism or a form of platonic relationism so that these 'spatiotemporal' properties are 'things' that are ontologically real 'parts' of them. Not mere linguistic devices or fictions.

    A part of something should be a 'real' thing. Not a mere conventional or mental artefact.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts.
    10. Two purely simple beings do not have any different parts (since they have none).
    11. Therefore, only one purely simple being can exist.
    Bob Ross

    I assert that its conceptually possible for there to be two distinct extended simples which both lack further proper parts and are numerically distinct being merely separated by the void.

    This
    . . . checks out in my head.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    I feel like every new discovery in the field gets muddled by thousands of people who try to run away with it and draw conclusions that it's not saying. I'm pretty sure physics doesn't really have anything to say about realism, anti-realism, or idealism, but that hasn't stopped folks from trying. I just want to know what it means, because from the little I was able to parse it doesn't seem that disastrousDarkneos
    I agree with your suspicion here that it really isn't as astoundingly world changing as its made out to be and contains some connection in form to other similar discussions surrounding the base assumptions we make along with their implications on local causation.

    It's making me think about the conventionality of simultaneity arguments that people had after Einstein's special theory of relativity. If you happened to detect a tachyon its implied that you are left with two choices either it 'came from the future' and perhaps is showcasing a case of retro-causality, time travel of sorts. That or you claim that whatever speed you've ascribed to the speed of causality, the speed of light, was merely incorrect and the speed of light is actually not our fastest conceivable influence. Retro-causality is a rather astounding physical re-interpretation of what the math implies while the other interpretation, including nonlocal action-at-a-distance, could retain all our commonsensical assumptions at the pain of leaving the core interaction we are concerned with undetectable by first principles.

    Whenever we are met with an influence, interaction, or probabilistic correlation that may seem to go faster than the speed of light we either devolve into rather esoteric notions of 'action-at-a-distance' again or postulate that the fastest possible manner in which something can influence something else (the speed of local causation) isn't actually exhibited by any known signal. Photons are the fastest influence we have access to but there could be physical signals or interactions that violate this in undetectable manners.
    So when they make their presence clear it appears non-locally and all of sudden because we base our operational definitions of simultaneity on the slower signal which we can observe.

    The other horn is in being highly militant about the speed of light being coincident with the speed of causality and therefore having to interpret any apparent 'faster than light' correlations or casual influences as implying some weird form of hyper localism. This is where things would get rather peculiar with regards to the language one uses and I'm curious if it's at all possible to phrase it in intuitive terms that don't relegate it to obvious 'metaphysical nonsense'.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    They haven't discussed it to death, in fact they can't settle on anything. You're just making noise because what you offer has no real value to science, not anymore anyway.Darkneos
    So are you saying that what I linked to has no value? Are you going to submit a paper or opinion piece on your blog about the wasted efforts of each of those authors?

    Even before you've fully read anything by them?

    I'm glad an espoused layman such as yourself can dictate whether their research or speculation mattered at all to the fields they are trying to actively be participants in and are actually a part of.

    You don't need cited sources when it comes to philosophy, it's all just arguments.Darkneos
    However, the point of science is to build on critical thinking skills and the peer review process is built to be argumentative as well as critical for a reason. Not to 'avoid arguments' because its. . . what. . . inconvenient.

    Again, engage with the science, not this philosophy of science noise where they can't agree on anything.Darkneos
    When I engage in science is it the case that there will be no reference to analogies or metaphorical speech regarding interpretations of any theory? Is there fully NO experimental underdetermination and if I wait long enough for the next experiment without inconsistency of debate will this always resolve to the correct interpretation?

    Many of those 'nonsense philosophical discussions' were initiated in honesty with the intent to improve our scientific thinking from well known physicists. How about you forget the label philosophy and we will just start naming authors along with discussing their positions on the matter so you can't play your game of intellectual populism.

    As you said in a previous reply to someone else. . .

    It's pretty much done every day, you don't really need philosophy to do that. The fact it pans out and leads to discoveries that we can manipulate and act on sorta implies it doesn't matter what philosophy thinks about it.Darkneos
    If it doesn't matter what philosophy thinks on it then it also doesn't matter what interpretation you bring to the table or what words you put to the math. All we would need is a mathematical model and a collection of operational/instrumental practices that allow us to 'manipulate' the world or 'act on sorta' but with all that other interpretational fat shaved away.

    Why? That being because the debate you are hypocritically indulging in ON A PHILOSOHPY FORUM doesn't matter to building a bridge that won't fall or semi-conductor based chips in our phones.

    That is the practical, innovate, and experimental aspect of science. Not the interpretational or the purely theoretical. Would you abandon the latter because they don't suit you or provide any immediate or even future practicalities?

    ^--- That right there is the real choice. If you decide to do so then a lot of what physicists have done which they may not have considered philosophical could be thrown in the same bin.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Well that’s what they are. It’s not a matter of belief. That’s is until they interact with anything, at which point they settle.Darkneos
    According to what?

    You have still left this a complete mystery as to how you interpret correctly mathematical models of any given phenomenon. I think the reason why you choose to remain silent on it and cite sources is because either you'd be shown as a dogmatist who can't think beyond his textbooks or your literally start talking about things that philosophers of science have discussed to death already. That or accidently have to bring in other such fields as linguistics and psychology into the fold because if philosophy is dead that doesn't actually mean all its problems go away as they find new homes in more palatably named alternative fields of study.

    I have read some but to use the word analogy means you don’t understand what is going on and what they’re doing.Darkneos
    Explain to me why the word analogy doesn't fit? With a cited source?

    You think the math is the pure data and it has to be translated to language and that’s just not what’s going on.Darkneos
    I've repeatedly made the distinction between the mathematical models one uses to quantify observations or make predictions which is CONSTRASTED with the actual observational statements made or observations performed.

    There are theoretical and then there are generally therefore observational statements/terms. It's really simple. Read the above twice if you have to.

    Again you keep trying to make philosophy valid where it isn’t. This is just noise.Darkneos
    . . . and your trying so hard to not have a discussion about things that confuse laymen all the time. I see tons of questions by such people all the time asking if the statements made by popular pop-cultural depictions of scientific facts or by actual scientists themselves are 'true' or 'mere language games/metaphor'.

    I know you didn’t really these, you literally quoted the first paragraph. Not only do you not understand what science is doing but you link evidence to the contrary, nice work.Darkneos
    You stated that scientist did not do anything related to what I was talking about which implied they worked with nothing involving analogies or metaphors. I showed that this was wrong simply by the fact modern scientists construct and see worth in analogue modeling. It's a common ancient practice. It's literal basic modeling!

    If you wanted a bit of a historical treatment and a deep dive into the prevalence of analogies in scientific work then I'd advocate grabbing yourself the book scientific models in philosophy of science by Bailer-Jones. Someone who has had an extensive interest in the philosophy of science but is also it seems has a masters in astrophysics. If you can't stand the more philosophical chapters at least read the sections showcasing paradigm examples from well known names such as Maxwell or Boltzmann. They both had brief but intriguing perspectives on the roles of modeling or analogy in the sciences.

    I'd also recommend any historical treatment regarding physics concepts such as force, mass, space/time, simultaneity, or the interpretations of quantum mechanics (if you can find a cheap copy) by Max Jammer which are extensive historical treatments far beyond any text book presentation of the common physics notions you are now familiar with. (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=max+jammer&crid=2JUXI96VNZO85&sprefix=max+ja%2Caps%2C567&ref=nb_sb_noss_2)

    The whole "measurement problem" seems like a hoax. If it only settles when we look we have no idea what it would be (or is) if we didn'tGregory
    Are you saying there is un-observational even in principle speculation to be had here? *gasp*
  • Emotional distress and its justified/rational relationship to disconnected moral injustices.
    It seems a little deterministic to say that our moral sensibilities will always give way to action such that all, or a good many, of our personal moral convictions will be manifest.ToothyMaw
    Ergo, it may be rather too strong to rely on knowledge claims regarding whether we will immediately act or most probably will to then dictate our decision to entertain a certain form of self-reflection in whatever manner we deem fit.

    Okay, it sounds like you are asking if we ought to choose a disconnected moral quandary and self-reflect about how we feel about it now based on the fact that it might be possible that the self-reflection could be productive in the future. Is that accurate?ToothyMaw
    Yes, that is what I'm getting from what @T Clark has said which seems to imply some rational decision making to be had probably involving a weighing of certainties and probabilities with respect to future possible actions.

    If so, why wouldn't we just allow these things to arise naturally? Why subject yourself to that kind of thing if you don't even know a good reason for doing it (yet)?ToothyMaw
    Why indulge in moral conundrums or fictional scenarios if they will remain as reality separated as they are?

    Curiosity, self-education, searching for self-wisdom, etc?

    I suppose one could make the case that doing this would lean towards guiding one's actions ethically in general, but that sounds like quite a burden to be forcing oneself to be reflecting that seriously on tons of things that one might not even be able to affect at the moment (or ever).ToothyMaw
    Some would desire to take on that burden while others could be more pragmatically minded and therefore piece-meal about what they choose. While others will see it in a more pessimistic light seeing it as altogether in all cases a pointless endeavor to consider possibilities and not actualities.

    In the world as I understand it, moral judgments are created by humans, so it makes sense to talk about their value. Emotions, on the other hand, are our body's, primarily biological, reactions to events. It does not really make sense to talk about their value. It's just what we do.T Clark
    However, we do actually value ourselves and our self-worth based on the moral maturity or emotional connections one is able to make. Even in fictional scenarios or highly restricted removed parts of our great social environment.

    Yes, this is true. I don't see why that is a concern.T Clark
    Well, some sociologists and psychologists seems to beat a dead horse regarding the modern age that has given rise to extensive desensitization. From video games, to modern entertainment, popular news channels, and the greatest atrocities being accessible from YouTube. That or a quick TOR venture deep enough to find a videos from active war zones or un-blurred beheadings. This emotional separation is what the @Questioner brings up.

    Its natural to do so. . . should we attempt, however, to chart a course towards more sensitive responses or is such a modern and common apathetic response from such overwhelming emotional saturation actually not as worrisome as such headlines make it out to be? Is it in fact a desirable and more morally advantageous state?

    I think you are almost entirely right in this more traditional normative assessment. Regardless, I agree with the OP that it is still true that some amount of moral outrage, even experienced disconnected from events one can influence, be it because of temporal or other factors, can prompt self-reflection that might make one more moral or morally driven. This is kind of a gray area because you are right: it carries serious negative health implications. But it might make one a better moral agent to experience the emotions very strongly at least some of the time. I think that this is as close as the OP's argument can get to being grounded intuitively and rationally. That is, unless, or until, substantivalism offers more insight.ToothyMaw

    When I say "emotional ought" I refer to the act of stimulating one's emotions in a healthy way to encourage self-reflection, which itself should entail some concrete actions. Nonetheless, self-reflection is an action anyways, so it is a non-issue.ToothyMaw

    That is another way of putting it. Is there any point to emotionally stimulating ourselves in forceful manners or are we always to 'go with the flow' and merely bear disconnected witness to the emotions we 'put out' by instinct.

    Only reacting to ourselves when someone else does their social duty to point out a present issue as such with our behavior.

    Emotions themselves are, as I wrote, our natural bodily and mental reactions to events and are, mostly, outside of our direct control. On the other hand, viewing and examining those emotions, which you propose, are human actions and judgments.T Clark
    Which is what the rest of this discussion should concern. The ontology or origin of emotional states is what I'd consider entirely irrelevant.
  • Emotional distress and its justified/rational relationship to disconnected moral injustices.
    What value does moral disapproval have if you aren't going to act? Answer - none. It doesn't mean anything. As ToothyMaw notes, it's emotional reactions that lead us to action. Not so much the ones you mention but empathy, compassion, kindness, a sense of responsibility. Moral outrage is an easy way to act as if you've done something without actually having to do anything.T Clark
    So what worth are emotional reactions then in the absence of objective actions?

    There is no requirement of mine to feel any strong reaction, or desire to, with regards to the newest social media hype regarding new proxy wars, popularized sexual assault cases, or the newest expose of hidden cultish phenomenon.

    So does that relegate it to something of personal risque interest of mine to tease out once and a while out of boredom from various forms of highly fictionalized entertainment? Or succumb to it out of instinctual biological proclivities I have not entirely a full lid on?

    But it is worth noting that the OP is also saying that moral outrage or associated mental events are meaningful insofar as they provide a motive to self-reflect. But I don't think those self-reflections matter too much if they don't themselves entail actions, and I'm pretty certain the OP would agree with that too.ToothyMaw
    It seem a bit vague what it means for them to 'entail' actions as I would presume that some part of the totality of our experiences under guards most actions either out of explicit acknowledgement or implicit thought free reactionary instincts. Even if those are sometimes so far removed temporally from when they finally make themselves actionably present.

    Sort of a casual sorites argument here is what I feel I'm getting at if this is the direction we are going in.

    Perhaps, a knowledge premise could be inserted here asserting current ignorance about any immediate application of a proposed method of self-reflection and still asking if in lieu of that unknown potential future applicability whether it would be worth it to indulge in it now.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Not language games, just that translating the math is hard because quantum physics isn't exactly intuitive.Darkneos
    Your acting as if there is some clear god given manner in which you translate the math into ordinary language. The fact that we do disagree on how to do so means that it isn't so much a revelation to a scientist as much as it is a long drawn out unending debate that has numerous subjective threads.

    Such as appeals to: Empirical adequacy, simplicity, unificationism, counterfactual restriction of physical possibilities, conceptual pragmatic utility, etc. There are many other such subjective meta-criteria that scientists appeal to all the time especially when falsifiability fails to be able to yield any useful or clear answer.

    No they're not. We have data and then determine what that data means. If you put sodium in water and it explodes you can reason that sodium and water create that reaction.Darkneos
    What you just stated is a description NOT an explanation nor is it how this would be explained regardless.

    Where are the talk of atoms? Subatomic or atomic interactions? Fields of force? Quantum fields? Talk of little billiard balls or liquid wave functions?

    I don't see those in the reaction as those are terms and stories meant to refer to something not in the description you just gave. They are meant to REFER to something UNSEEN and what is truly responsible for the reaction that took place. I was talking about EXPLANATIONS and not MERE DESCRIPTIONS.

    Not language games and not what they do.Darkneos
    Then give me an example of how a scientist explains something using quantum mechanics that doesn't make use of math, descriptive language, or uses any form of metaphor/analogical speech. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

    Not fiction.Darkneos
    Is the Rutherford model of an atom meant to be taken as how atoms actually are or merely a useful fiction?

    Easily, we do it every day. Math is part of how we get the result but that's not all physics is. You're just making shit up that scientists don't do to try to justify that philosophy has some use when it's long been obsolete in navigating the world apart from ethics and morality.Darkneos
    Making it up!!

    Read a scientific journal on the topic matter. . . a quick search got me this paper on hydrodynamic analogue modeling for gravitational modeling (https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0511105). Clearly, a hydrodynamical analogy is much more amenable to investigate or wrap your head around than talking about the forest of pure math approaches to quantum gravity along with the unclear, vague, or esoteric language that accompanies it. This is a valid approach.

    Here is an entire 452 page textbook collection of articles on analogue models just for understanding gravitational phenomenon or as it puts it 'analogue gravity phenomenology'. Which is a deeply rich text which can only speak for itself:

    Reasoning by analogies is a natural inclination of the human brain that operates by associating new and unknown situations to a series of known and previously encountered situations. On the basis of these analogies, judgements and decisions are made: associations are the building blocks for predictive thought. It is therefore natural that analogue models are also a constant presence in the world of physics and an invaluable instrument in the progress of our knowledge of the world that surrounds us. It would be impossible to give a comprehensive list of these analogue models but a few recent and relevant examples are optical waveguide analogues of the relativistic Dirac equation (linking optics with quantum mechanics), photonic crystals (linking optical wave propagation in periodic lattices with electron propagation in metals) or, at a more profound level, the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory correspondence (linking quantum systems in D dimensions to gravitational systems in D+1dimensions). The purpose of this book is to give a general overview and introduction to the world of analogue gravity: the simulation or recreation of certain phenomena that are usually attributed to the effects of gravity but that can be shown to naturally emerge in a variety of systems ranging from flowing liquids to nonlinear optics.

    This isn't only limited to gravity as here is a huge plethora of quantum analogue models along with well needed discussions as to the place or importance of them. Happy reading!
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    No it doesn’t. Like I said we have data and it adds up.Darkneos
    To what, it adds up to what? That the mathematical model is predictively successful?

    Wrong again. It’s not really the terms it’s just trying to translate the math to people speak.Darkneos
    So you are trying to find the right terms to interpret a mathematical model. Language games again.

    It does, but in the case of QM you need a degree to understand it.Darkneos
    These mental tools do not need a degree for someone to fully analyze it or get it on first viewing.

    When a scientist has constructed explanations of phenomena they make use of something other than purely descriptive or mathematical terms. They use an assortment of analogies to other phenomenon.

    Usually going along the same lines as saying 'let us treat light as if it were a wave', 'imagine that the electron is small ball and the nucleus is a dense collection', or 'pretend that atoms in lattices are balls connected by springs'.

    These are analogue modeling which is extremely prevalent and a fundamental fiction creating tool which physicists use all the time.

    Analogy creation isn't always so clean nor is it unique among mathematical models. As multiple formal analogies into physical analogies can be created.

    I'd say that is all that the majority of what a scientific interpretation of a theory is composed of.

    How else would you explain to someone what a mathematical model even means when there are no familiar, direct, and meaningful concepts?
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    I don't really care because half of what they have to say isn't worth listening to.Darkneos
    Arrogance is showing a good peak here rivaling mine. Perhaps I should be the adult in the conversation here.

    Or none of that. The whole "world beyond our senses" is just noise from philosophy. What we see is the world and based on the data we have there is no reason to think otherwise. Our senses are fallible but that's what science is for, and it have often shown our intuitions to be mistaken.Darkneos
    What are you even disagreeing with me on?

    I'm not some esoteric solipsist or a poetic nonsense speaking idealist. I'm a pragmatist and a person who sees philosophy as ultimately conventionalized language games. That doesn't mean we shouldn't partake in it or that you don't ALREADY partake in it even if you say 'you don't'.

    no that's not what physics is about.Darkneos
    If its not about manipulating nature, constructing predictive mathematical models, or making new observations then what else?

    Are you talking about how physics is also meant to explain how things actually work beyond the math, observations, or practical engineering applications?

    If its meant to explain why something occurs then your going to need a proper language and collection of metaphors to do so otherwise nobody will think you even understand what your even talking about. They may even consider it nonsense if you literally have no intuitive picture you can draw of how something works without resorting to esoteric cop outs such as 'nature is too strange' or 'nature doesn't need to make sense to us'.

    We have non-philosophical science, it's done every day.Darkneos
    Yes, because you don't need to consider any questions or speculation about how the world actually works or what language one should use to talk about it if all you have is a 'shut up and calculate' mentality.

    Interpretations aren't philosophical dumbass. We know how nature works based on the math and data, trying to put that into regular speak is the issue.Darkneos
    Oh we know how nature works we just can't put into the right words. . . so a language choice is required. . . its as if we need to have a discussion about what terms we use. . . you know. . . indulge in a language game of sorts.

    Results and data...I would think that's obvious. Philosophy ultimately has nothing at the end of the day. I get that people suggest it has value here and how it teaches you how to think but all my experience with it just shows how pointless 80% of the discussions in it are.

    The most worthless question I've heard is "Why is there something rather than nothing"? Who cares? There is something and that's all that matters.
    Darkneos
    Neither does science then if the problem is that IT DOESN'T have any coherent picture or as you put it, '. . . regular speak is the issue.'

    If I ask you what these well supported or empirically adequate mathematical models of any phenomenon even mean or what they are getting at and you can't tell me because its 'difficult to put into words' then you have explained nothing to me. You have only given me a rather successful DESCRIPTION and not what I'd intuitively call an explanation.

    IF YOU WANT to give me a proper language to actually yield an explanation, not a mere description, this requires making use of numerous conventional linguistic choices that are not going to always be as objectively clear as you desire.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Well no, philosophy isn’t required and just kicks up the data since philosophers don’t understand what’s going on.Darkneos
    Define understanding here as I'm curious if you have in mind what scientific philosophers have in mind when they say that we 'understand' something.

    Stuff like this just reinforces my stance that science has advanced beyond philosophy in terms of explanations and knowledge.Darkneos
    In what sense?

    Either science only deals in manipulating nature and observational results with NO speculation on the going on of the world beyond our senses therefore being rather explicitly tautological. That or it still indulges in speculative 'nonsense' separate from any observable foundations even conceivably and therefore it indulges in what I'd consider metaphysics.

    Science is consensus, that’s how it works. It makes perfect sense which is right or wrong because one explains the data and the other doesn’t.Darkneos
    How does a mathematical model 'explain' the data? Given physics specifically is really only concerned with mathematically modeling nature and manipulating it to pre-desired or predicted outcomes.

    A mathematical model fits to the data and possesses what others call empirical adequacy as regard counterfactual predictions but that's it. All these 'interpretations' talking about particle/wave duality, electrons, gluons, quantum fields, or spacetime are philosophical speculation at best or poetic nonsense at worst.

    Ergo, if you wanted non-philosophical science it would be a rather bland one devoid of all speculation and only ever referencing a particular symbol on the black board or a reading on a detector. All other language would have to be interpreted as mental slight of hand to mean the same thing.

    The problem with QM is that while the math and data are iron clad trying to explain it is tough. New discoveries might prove some interpretations and invalidate others, but until then it’s largely unknown.Darkneos
    If its unknown then what is it that science has over philosophy?

    They are both in the same boat being unable to avoid pointless speculation as every popular science journal, documentary, or youtuber showcases on a daily basis.

    But it’s not a purely subjective affair, that’s just stupid. It’s not up to you because you know nothing about the subject. Like…this has to be the dumbest take I’ve heard on the subject so far.Darkneos
    How does a mathematical model which accords with observations get an interpretation?

    YOU SPECULATE ON HOW NATURE WORKS! That is why a SINGLE MATHEMATICAL model can have MULTIPLE inconsistent philosophical interpretations which can all agree on the same observations.

    In fact, your perspective doesn't seem to be able to handle the simple situation in which the accepted observational status of a certain phenomenon and how its mathematically modeled is well 'understood' but the interpretation of it is therefore still left up to disagreement so potentially THOUSANDS can be created. Note that no future observations are going to bolster one over another because we are attempting to ascertain the meaning of the SAME model about what this implies about how reality works.

    Interpretations are entirely subjective and largely pragmatic. YES, science indulges in such nonsense all the time from textbook to textbook as taught to new upcoming physicists on a yearly basis.
  • Emotional distress and its justified/rational relationship to disconnected moral injustices.
    I kind of see the emotional part of it as providing an impetus to act and giving us a bearing kind of like a compass; we know there are many ways of acting, and that some are more correct than others, but without a sense of emotional growth or stimulation we are largely rudderless because it is the emotions that give the narratives that guide us salience in a human sense. So yes, I do think this process of becoming jaded often dilutes moral judgments/sensibilities.ToothyMaw
    If it provides both actionable will and direction then I'd presume it forms a core component of the way in which one views the moral strength/value of themselves.

    Would you also agree that it forms a reflective measure of moral judgement of oneself in a holistic manner?

    I.E. it's not just the case that we view moral injustices as rationally incongruent with how we believe we should act but that its also not uncommon to accompany this with a reflective emotional opinion. One of personal disgust or self-hatred while in cases of correct moral action one could possess happiness in having been coincident with oneself in action as well as belief as they fulfill the principles they hold dear.

    So not only does 'jaded-ness' dilute moral judgements/sensibilities as you put it but it also removes critical self-parental reflection on whether one is as moral as they believe they are. To dull this mirror is to open oneself up to inconsistency and possess an ignorant moral god-complex.

    I would say that sometimes it is a good thing to expose oneself to the realities of others to remind oneself just how awful or good things can be, but I don't think that an entity needs their emotions to be in flux all of the time to be truly moral. Not that you are saying that last part, but I have to qualify what I'm saying. Whether or not there is an emotional, moral ought compelling us to do such a thing is questionable, but I think an argument could be made.ToothyMaw
    Is mere exposure enough?

    I'm not one to advocate for the more extreme approaches many poor souls have taken but there is a morbid discussion to have about internally rearing themselves into the empathetic/sympathetic person they desire to be. Sometimes coupled with emotional patterns of their own creation.

    An example of such extremes are those who self-flagellate. Course, this is usually in the context of rather religious kinds but I can imagine there are others who indulge in such self-harming principles independent of religion in the desire to show to themselves above all that something carries such deep emotional weight.

    Ten cent words, apathetic shrugs, actions which show no clear result, or adherence to transcendent moral principles might not be enough to say to oneself that 'I'm moral'. Sacrificing momentary physical comfort or showing an internal sense of self-shame may seem to some to fulfill this. Its a clear, objective, action that one can take that showcases something beyond mere adherence to moral principles in cases where the fulfillment of such moral desires would seem to be unreachable.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    I don't understand what you mean. We are talking about science here. The whole point is to construct a picture if the world that makes sense and fits to what we observe.Apustimelogist
    Pictures of the world typically do not end up being testable or falsifiable. They are constructed after the fact to fit to the facts themselves as we intuitively see fit.

    It's to yield a sense of what certain scientific philosophers have called 'understanding'. Not to be identified with knowledge or any truth-aptness.

    If all you cared about was concordance with observations then science would devolve into bare observational statements and mathematical modeling. Nothing much else that wouldn't just be considered besides the observational facts would be highly speculative. I.E. philosophical or creative speculation.

    Quantum interpretation is as fair game as any other part of science or knowledge in general. Are you going to make this comment to other fields of science? I doubt it.Apustimelogist
    Those other fields typically aren't complete black boxes.

    I can give a picture of a virus, end of story. I can't of an electron without a tremendous amount of speculative holistic open-ended philosophical interpretation to even analyze the output of said detector.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Well yes but I mean in terms of a consensus on some kind of interpretation which makes sense to people within a scientific context.Apustimelogist
    There doesn't have to be a consensus because it makes no sense to ask which is 'right' or 'wrong'. Nor does it make sense to ask which is 'closer' to how it really is.

    If you want some populist preference to be made clear on a purely subjective affair then sure but otherwise its still entirely up to you as it would be for every person on that ivory tower jury.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Not sure I agree. Someone might only think that because there is no consensus on quantum interpretation, but that doesn't necessarily mean a reasonable one cannot be found eventually and ways of visualizing it.Apustimelogist
    There are already ways of doing so. Documentaries and introductory textbooks make use of billiard balls moving in the void, vague fluid like depictions of collapsing wavefunctions, fluid animations to depict fields, or ball & spring models to talk about field excitations.

    Don't wait for nature to approve your visualization as if nature ever will or that there will be consensus on said 'correct' visualization. You create whatever intuitive picture to talk about nature however you see fit for whatever reason. Nature is a black box and quibbling over the right visualization seems to forget that we have the all the freedom to come up with whatever we want for whatever purposes because its hidden from us.

    Whether that be for aesthetic purposes, computational ones, symbolic understanding, practical applications, etc.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    Is it? It's sometimes claimed that classical mechanics "works perfectly" for medium sized objects, and that problems only show up at very large or very small scales.

    Except it doesn't. Right from the beginning gravity was an occult force acting at a distance, which in turn had to make "natural laws" active casual agents in the world "shoving the planets into their places like schoolboys" as Hegel puts it. The deficiencies of such a model of causation are well highlighted by Hume. Then electromagnetism added another occult force that didn't fit into the "everything is little billiard balls model."
    Count Timothy von Icarus

    Wasn't that just philosophical ambivalence or ignorance however? A lack of creativity on the possible analogue modeling that can be done on such subject matters because a 'billard ball model' of the universe was some strange dogma of the Classical ages?

    Especially since admitting to action at a distance to gravity was not so much a grand philosophical conclusion but an implicit admittance that they creatively gave up or something similar to Newton's, "Hypotheses non fingo."

    Nor could/has the mechanistic model, where the billiard ball is the paradigmatic example of all physical interactions, been able to explain life or consciousness, nor was it able to offer up theories of self-organization, except via a deficient view of organisms as simply intricate "clockwork." Nor, in it's classical forms, can it incorporate information and the successes of information theory. We have suggested a long hangover of "Cartesian anxiety," because the classical model required early modern thinkers to excise consciousness, ideas, and freedom from the "physical realm."Count Timothy von Icarus
    . . . or they just needed new analogies and metaphors which could still retain the age old or common folk intuitions we all possess.

    There are tons of other rigid body analogies one could make regarding how we think creatively about the black box that is nature which doesn't have to pay lip service to Newton. Such as analogies to fluids, solids, changes of state of materials, computational analogies, balls & springs, etc.

    Further, this mental or philosophical anguish over doing away with 'freedom' or consciousness with such useful fantasy is utterly misplaced. As if re-defining the word living to not include viruses suddenly vanishes them out of existence or implies they pose no medical risk that pragmatically minded medical professionals have to contend with.

    It's all semantics. If you desired to create an ontological category that included mental thoughts among physical objects the same as the chair I'm sitting in while I'm writing this you've then technically changed nothing. They may both be physical objects by definition but they still have to remain in intuitively obvious or distinct sub-categories now. Call one ghostly physical objects and the other tangible physical objects or something.

    I think the "anti-metaphysical movement's" greatest success has been to keep us stuck, frozen with a defunct 19th century metaphysics as the default, such that it becomes "common sense," to most through our education system. But surely it is cannot be "common sense" in any overarching sense, since it differs dramatically from the more organic-focused physics that dominated for two millennia prior to the creation of the classical model.Count Timothy von Icarus
    The problem with actually making this more 'Mainstream' is that it has to incorporate itself into a successful economical or result based enterprise in manipulating nature for our ends. This I find difficult given the overly flowery or poetic language that 'pro-metaphysicalist' thinkers could be seen to fall prey to making those adherents of the current establishment lose their minds waiting for practical results of such thinking.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    The basic idea is that particles move along trajectories where at any time they are always in a definite position. The caveat is that their motion is kind of random. Closest analogy in everyday experience is probably something like a dust particle bobbing about in a glass of water, the water molecules pushing it one direction then another.Apustimelogist
    Isn't this just a modern rendition of the notions that the early pre-Socratic atomists had?

    I recall them talking about their atoms as constantly moving potentially in a randomized fashion aside from the perfectly deterministic collisions they had.
  • What is meant by the universe being non locally real?
    It's also a bit strange because Hossenfelder wants "common sense" interpretations of QM, and retro-causality actually achieves this by making the world both local and deterministic.Count Timothy von Icarus
    I would say it doesn't achieve that at all. Retro-causality or 'temporal action at a distance' is a part of a long history of taking the spatialized language we use to talk about time way beyond their metaphorical/psychological origins.

substantivalism

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