Impossible Questions...

[EusebioScrib]

Can we answer such questions as:

Where did the universe come from? What created energy and matter? and other seemingly impossible questions.

If so, how do we go about it?

[Si Pinto]

I would guess that from the title of your post that you don't think so, and I would agree.

We have no way of proving a theory about things that happened 2 Billion years ago, we can't even be sure that it was 2 Billion years ago, or 10 or 20 etc.

We can gather evidence, summize, theorize and come up with our interpretation but we can't actually prove it.

It's a lot like law, or criminal investigation to be more precise, they can gather evidence, and theorize about what happened during a particular crime, but they can't prove it, so the case goes to court and a jury is given the responsibility of collating all the evidence and deciding on a verdict, but it is only a verdict based on summize and they can't prove there decision anymore than the detective can.

Scientists are just detectives, after all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Eusebia, it is not so much a question of whether these are impossibly difficult, it is more a question of knowing what would count as an answer to them, or worse, whether they make any sense at all.

For example, I could pose an equally 'impossible' 'question', but one more obviously senseless (to make this very point): how do you score a home run in table tennis?

[The only thing you can do with this is reject it with a: "you can't, there is no such thing!"]

This is an absurd question because (clearly) it mixes language from one area with that of another.

But, the ones you asked did the same: 'come from' language arises in this material world when one thing/event/process arises from another (or set of such others). Its use in relation to everything there is might seem to be OK because people have been asking this sort of thing for thousands of years (mainly, but not exclusively, for religious reasons), but that no more means it makes any sense than do questions relating to 'God' (like, can 'God' remember where 'he' came from? The answer to that question is equally surprising, and not at all obvious).

So, as soon as you locate the cause, or causes, of the sorts of things you mention, the question naturally arises, but where did that/those cone from? This is because such language has its home in such areas, where these further questions have a role to play -- i.e., where things come from other things, etc.

But it is immensely unsatifying (because inapplicable) in the sorts of areas you mention.

This is not to say that it is improper for scientists to ask where this or that came from, but they cannot answer where everything came from either (for the above reasons: whatever they choose, that too can then form the subject of the very same question, endlessly).

So, there is no answer to such questions, not because they are too difficult for our finite minds to comprehend, but because they are not questions to begin with.

[As my 'home run' example showed, not everything with a '?' at the end is a question, any more than a set of symbols with a '.' at the end is a sentence, as in: "dfer$£eyry**^&%.".]

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I would argue that scientific method and philosophical thinking are the way to find such answers, but I am sceptical as to whether or not they will ever (or can ever) be found.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dooga: lose the word 'philosophical' and I think we can agree.

[Faceless]

Can we answer such questions as:

Where did the universe come from? What created energy and matter? and other seemingly impossible questions.

If so, how do we go about it?

Quite simply I think they are the wrong questions, as Rosa pointed out, borne of an incorrect outlook by scientists. The philosophy of scientists is of decisive importance when actually coming up with the "correct" question.


But it is immensely unsatifying (because inapplicable) in the sorts of areas you mention.

This is not to say that it is improper for scientists to ask where this or that came from, but they cannot answer where everything came from either (for the above reasons: whatever they choose, that too can then form the subject of the very same question, endlessly).

So, there is no answer to such questions, not because they are too difficult for our finite minds to comprehend, but because they are not questions to begin with.
You are quite right Rosa that there is an apparent contradiction in the idea of a beginning to time, space, matter and everything.

The point is that the modern astrophysicists who are putting forward the idea of a beginning to space and time and matter and energy have thrown previous good scientific practice out of the window. They have a religious belief that energy and matter must have a beginning. Quite simply it contradicts every single observed fact. Nowhere has energy or matter been perceived to be created. The only evidence that the "big bang" ever happened is the current expansion of the universe which other physicists have proposed other causes for which do not require us to break the laws of conservation, the law that matter can not ever travel faster than light to explain why we can not see the whole universe and otherwise common sense.

The proper philosophy of science ought to start from the assumption that matter and energy are infinitely evolving, we have no reason to believe otherwise except the justification of religion

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Faceless:


Quite simply it contradicts every single observed fact.

People used to say that about the idea that the earth moved and wasn't at the centre of the universe.

Science develops by questioning such dogmas.

And, it is no contradiction to say that time had a beginning -- or, if it is, you need to show that this is so.

And even if it were, you dialecticians should accept this (not reject it) on the grounds that reality is contradictory -- including time -- so it should both have had a beginning and not have had a beginning.

[Or, of course, accept the 'either-or of common sense'....]


The proper philosophy of science ought to start from the assumption that matter and energy are infinitely evolving, we have no reason to believe otherwise

No observation could ever confirm this, so it has to be imposed on nature, contrary to what you DM-fans always say you do.

If nature is finite, you will just have to get used to that fact (if it is one). It would have no theological implications either (for reasoins I won't go into here).

[However, if the universe were infinite, then the sky at night would be 'infinitely' bright. Olber's Paradox.]

By the way, I am not defending the 'Big Bang' only challenging the ideas you seem to have copied from Woods and Grant, somewhat uncritically.

[RebelDog]

Have you heard of the anthropic principle;

http://www.answers.com/topic/anthropic-principle

If the universe didn't come from somewhere and matter didn't exist, you would not exist to ask where the universe came from or why matter exists!

Maybe humans are the universe looking at itself!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Its just the old design argument with some 'gee whiz' science thrown in for good measure.

[Faceless]

hehe, you are a surly one Rosa. I didn't mention dialectics though I have in the past and it seems you have a bitter taste in your mouth still. The fact is though that I did not bring up dialectical materialism which deals with the evolution of matter and leaves no room for that which is outside the materially existant. The contradiction I brought up was the contradiction between the fact that scientists are positing theorys about the nature of matter which contradict every single observed fact. This is not a dialectical contradiction. Dialectical contradictions, whether you accept them or not, are not contradictions external to each but refer to the self-motion of bodies by their internal contradiction. Here we have the scientific community contradicting the reality of the laws of physics. If any dialectical contradiction exists it is within the scientific community and it may yet lead to the overcoming of this contradiction whilst maintaining what is correct about big bang theory (an expanding universe?).

Of course I could just as well apply the philosophy of "occams razor" that if there are multiple competing theories the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be considered preferentially. The assumptions of big bang theory increase exponentially as our knowledge of astrophysics develops.


People used to say that about the idea that the earth moved and wasn't at the centre of the universe.

Science develops by questioning such dogmas.

Of course science questions such dogmas. However the success of taking the Earth out of the holy position of the centre of the universe was that it did not contradict observed reality, whatever people may have said. Indeed, it was the narrow view of people unable to shake off the fact that the earth itself was their reference frame of "rest". Indeed, Big Bang makes a mistake of similar proportions when it suggests that because we see the universe expanding to the eye's limit and at all times, it must therefore have always been expanding and is expanding in every direction and everywhere. That it is expanding locally is self evident however, that it is expanding everywhere and at all times makes assumptions similar to the earth being at the centre of the universe. It is upon the limitations of our current field of view that we base these assumptions, much as the earch-centric view of the past that led to their assumptions. If we can learn anything from dialectics it is that empiricism tends to lead to these mistakes.

Grant and Woods take a far from "dogmatic" view of science.


No observation could ever confirm this, so it has to be imposed on nature, contrary to what you DM-fans always say you do.
Every observation illustrates a universe where matter and energy are undestroyed. Just one instance to the contrary is needed to discount this idea, none is observed. Every observation confirms it more though our understanding will always remain an approximation to actual reality. You are correct in that we will never know EVERYTHING about matter, necessary to confirm beyond all doubt the truth of this statement, but seeing phantoms of matter appearing out of nothing on scant evidence is not justified by this alone.


If nature is finite, you will just have to get used to that fact (if it is one). It would have no theological implications either (for reasoins I won't go into here).

I would like you to go into it actually as I find it less tiresome than the debate around dialectics. If nature is shown to be finite I will accept it. However, imposing limits on nature which are infact limits on our understanding of nature, and extending over billions of years of unknown history inadequate theories I do not accept. If this thread teaches anything then maybe it is that a return to the actual study of nature, a turn aways from mere contemplation, is needed.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Faceless:


hehe, you are a surly one Rosa. I didn't mention dialectics though I have in the past and it seems you have a bitter taste in your mouth still.

Surly, maybe; correct: definitely.


The contradiction I brought up was the contradiction between the fact that scientists are positing theorys about the nature of matter which contradict every single observed fact.

Already dealt wi


Of course I could just as well apply the philosophy of "occams razor" that if there are multiple competing theories the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be considered preferentially.

This is not a safe methodological rule, and it would eliminate dialectical materialism anyway.


However the success of taking the Earth out of the holy position of the centre of the universe was that it did not contradict observed reality, whatever people may have said.

I cannot figure out why you would say that; it contradicts what you see every morning: the sun rising.

More formally, until 1832 it contradicted the fact that no stellar parallax had been observed -- which the Copernican system implied. So, until then there was good reason to reject this new theory.


Every observation illustrates a universe where matter and energy are undestroyed.

Well, this is not so.

Watch a ball fly into the air; it loses kinetic energy at the top of its flight. Do you actually see any potential energy in the ball? Can it be measured? Except as 'regained' kinetic energy?

That was a concept invented to 'solve' that observational 'contradiction'.

Physicists do this all the time, since the law of the conservation of energy is not so much a law as a belief that is imposed on nature.

Now I am not rejecting this law, just pointing out that one day, they will change their minds (as they always do), and your 'rock solid' reason for rejecting the Big Bang will go out of the window.

And even independently of that, your argument is uncannily reminiscent of the 'argument' creationists use to reject Darwin: no one has actually seen, say, a new Phylum evolve.

So that 'contradicts' every known observation....

But unique events in the past (like the Big Bang) you'd expect to 'contradict' some things.

And as for your attempt to defend my challenge as to why you DM-fans do not accept this contradiction:


The contradiction I brought up was the contradiction between the fact that scientists are positing theorys about the nature of matter which contradict every single observed fact. This is not a dialectical contradiction. Dialectical contradictions, whether you accept them or not, are not contradictions external to each but refer to the self-motion of bodies by their internal contradiction.

Well, you already accept one such: the wave/particle duality of light. That does not help it move, in fact, it is a dialectically useless contradiction, based in a clash of observations, and the conclusions drawn form them. Just like this case.

So once again, in view of the fact that nature is fundamaentally contradictiory, why don't you accept the contradiction between the observations that energy is conserved and the Big Bang that says it is not (in the disatant past)?


However, imposing limits on nature which are infact limits on our understanding of nature, and extending over billions of years of unknown history inadequate theories I do not accept. If this thread teaches anything then maybe it is that a return to the actual study of nature, a turn aways from mere contemplation, is needed.

No imposition if it is a fact.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Faceless
Of course I could just as well apply the philosophy of "occams razor" that if there are multiple competing theories the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be considered preferentially. The assumptions of big bang theory increase exponentially as our knowledge of astrophysics develops. Just because you call it an assumption don't make it so, F.

By such logic, everything is reducible to an infinite number of assumptions; then Occams razor tells us everything is equally wrong. :lol:

Quite frankly, there is no suitable model for a replacement of the "Big Bang"; probably because there is so much evidence for it.

Though skeptics (such as yourself) laugh it off as "rubbish"; this same "rubbish" sort of evidence is the kind you need to work with when you are working with: the really really big (astrophysics), the really really small (QM), or the really really fast(relativity).

By such thought, we'd still be using the Newtonian system :lol: (maybe I shouldn't joke about that, as it appears that you seriously propose something similiar).


Indeed, Big Bang makes a mistake of similar proportions when it suggests that because we see the universe expanding to the eye's limit and at all times, it must therefore have always been expanding and is expanding in every direction and everywhere. That it is expanding locally is self evident however, that it is expanding everywhere and at all times makes assumptions similar to the earth being at the centre of the universe. It is upon the limitations of our current field of view that we base these assumptions, much as the earch-centric view of the past that led to their assumptions. If we can learn anything from dialectics it is that empiricism tends to lead to these mistakes. You aren't following relativity, you're just making up dialectical nonsense.

There is no "center"; why? Because you decouple yourself from the universe, where are you if not in the universe to see the center of it?

:huh:

You are but aren't in the universe? Don't be Newtonian, and don't call it "dialectics".

It's simply a contradiction, in the sense of "wrong by contradiction".


I would like you to go into it actually as I find it less tiresome than the debate around dialectics. If nature is shown to be finite I will accept it. However, imposing limits on nature which are infact limits on our understanding of nature, and extending over billions of years of unknown history inadequate theories I do not accept. If this thread teaches anything then maybe it is that a return to the actual study of nature, a turn aways from mere contemplation, is needed. So you propose that the universe is infinite, and refuse to accept it otherwise until proven? :huh:

Isn't it one of those dialectical things to say that "Everything that exists has a begining"? Pray tell, how is the universe exhempt?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Though skeptics (such as yourself) laugh it off as "rubbish"; this same "rubbish" sort of evidence is the kind you need to work with when you are working with: the really really big (astrophysics),

Surely you mean cosmology?

[ComradeRed]

Cosmology is, for the most part, a component of astrophysics (nowadays); but yeah, cosmos, sure :P

[Faceless]

This is not a safe methodological rule, and it would eliminate dialectical materialism anyway.
lol, my point was that I didn't bring up dialectics in my original post. Even so I am intrigued to know how it would eliminate dialectics.


Well, this is not so.

Watch a ball fly into the air; it loses kinetic energy at the top of its flight. Do you actually see any potential energy in the ball? Can it be measured? Except as 'regained' kinetic energy?

Lol, all you are putting your finger on is the rather difficult nature of energy to pinpoint. One might also suggest that that you can not you can't actually touch kinetic energy, indeed if you are blindfolded and moving at high velocity but not accelerating you would not know the difference to if you were staying still. Energy is the ability to do work, an airy-fairy definition if you like.
However you choose to define energy is irrelevant,

That was a concept invented to 'solve' that observational 'contradiction'.
Indeed, their is a contradiction between observed reality and "conservation of energy" if you choose to narrow the definition of energy to purely kinetic energy. What is your point?


Physicists do this all the time, since the law of the conservation of energy is not so much a law as a belief that is imposed on nature.

Within the definition of what energy actually "is", observation has always confirmed the conservation of energy, although if relativity has anything to do with this conversation should I say energy-matter is always conserved.


Now I am not rejecting this law, just pointing out that one day, they will change their minds (as they always do), and your 'rock solid' reason for rejecting the Big Bang will go out of the window.
I am sorry, I am not entirely sure what you are talking about here. Do you mean scientists WILL confirm that energy can be created/destroyed? If anyone can observe that then indeed, I will change my position entirely.


Well, you already accept one such: the wave/particle duality of light. That does not help it move, in fact, it is a dialectically useless contradiction, based in a clash of observations, and the conclusions drawn form them. Just like this case.
sorry? I would suggest that the wave/particle duality of light is very much a matter which belongs to this domain. This field is particularly riddled with misguided philosophical approaches. For instance Heienberg I believe it was who suggested that the path of a particle does not exist until we observe it and "collapse the wave function". An example of idealism in modern physics! However, that the contradiction depicts numerous elements of dialectics (however useful you believe the term) is, again, self-evident! Not only do the wave element and the particle element represent a unity which leads to terrible contradiction and a headache when people try to seperate them, but here we have an example of the transformation of quantity into quality. That one photon appears to be detected at a certain point, appears to be a simple particle. Even two, three or a hundred may appear to be randomly scattered particles. However quantity transforms into quality and at several thousand photons we detect a wave pattern and the particle form of light appears to have changed into a wave form. Again, when the size a slit impeding photons transcends the wavelength we see a further transformation of quantity into quality as this beam of light with a relatively small wavelength approximates to a ray of particles.

By suggesting that I can not describe the motion of the wave-particle I know very well that you are trying to cleverly exploit the fact that here we meet the limit of human knowledge! It is very hard to describe the paths of individual photons since we are unable to observe them.


No imposition if it is a fact.
the word being IF, but what are facts to a splendidly constructed theory?

ComradeRed:


Quite frankly, there is no suitable model for a replacement of the "Big Bang"; probably because there is so much evidence for it.

Though skeptics (such as yourself) laugh it off as "rubbish"; this same "rubbish" sort of evidence is the kind you need to work with when you are working with: the really really big (astrophysics), the really really small (QM), or the really really fast(relativity).

By such thought, we'd still be using the Newtonian system (maybe I shouldn't joke about that, as it appears that you seriously propose something similiar).

Whilst Big Bang theory aims to explain some "evidence", it chucks out other theories with its other hand. However, I have not denied that to the limit of our view of the universe, the universe is expanding. I have not rubbished the evidence, whatever you want to charge me with do so , but this is not something I have done!


You aren't following relativity, you're just making up dialectical nonsense.

There is no "center"; why? Because you decouple yourself from the universe, where are you if not in the universe to see the center of it?



You are but aren't in the universe? Don't be Newtonian, and don't call it "dialectics".

It's simply a contradiction, in the sense of "wrong by contradiction".
I am not "decoupling myself from the universe", rather I am trying to illustrate how previous scientists made the mistake of thinking of the universe as revolving around them. What I am suggesting is that they made the totality of the universe identical with their current level of perception of the universe. That the sun appeared to revolve around the Earth, their perspective, lead them to put the earth in the centre of the universe. I am not saying we should be transcending the universe. I am saying we should not be expanding our theories to envelope the whole universe when we can not even observe the whole universe.



Honestly I don't know why you call me "Newtonian" because I don't think I brought Newton into this. I don't even know why you brought relativity into this either. Personally I haven't got any problem with you up until now. Rosa always treats me in a manner which is spiteful and condescending. You think I am not here to debate? I am! So why do you use an authoritarian tone with me and spitting out one line replys at me? Honestly you leave me very little by way of content to play with in your replys


Isn't it one of those dialectical things to say that "Everything that exists has a begining"? Pray tell, how is the universe exhempt?
I would have thought it obvious that dialecticians would suggest that although everything that exists had a beginning, its "beginning" was an evolution, a qualitative advance, on what went before. If the same applies to the universe, and I leave myself open to being proven otherwise, the "beginning" of this universe would have been an evolutionary development from the universe as it was before our universe "began". However, because the universe is everything, irrespective of level of development, irrespective of time or place, you have to question the usefulness of considering it as a "thing" and maybe consider it as "everything". The arguement that the universe needs a beginning because everything else has a "beginning" is pure semantics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Faceless (thankyou for a thoughtful reply, but I can do without the 'lol's'):


Even so I am intrigued to know how it would eliminate dialectics.

Well, it was originally introduced by William of Occam to get rid of all abstract objects (since he was a nominalist): so out would go all the 'abstractions' that say Lenin talks about, and along with that would go Engels's three 'laws'.

And that is just for starters.


all you are putting your finger on is the rather difficult nature of energy to pinpoint

Potential energy is not simply difficult to pinpoint, it does not exist (except as a calculating device).

If you think otherwise, tell me where and what it exists as?

And what is 'energy'?

No good saying it a 'capacity to do work' -- that is a calculating device too. [Matter is not made of a 'capacity to do work'....]


However you choose to define energy is irrelevant,

So if I defined it as a 'coffee grinder' that would be irrelevant?


Indeed, their is a contradiction between observed reality and "conservation of energy" if you choose to narrow the definition of energy to purely kinetic energy. What is your point?

Well there would be such a 'contradiction' if 'observed reality' were a proposition. Since it is not, there is no such contradiction. [Reality is not linguistic.] I put this differently, as you will note (I used 'contradiction').


I am sorry, I am not entirely sure what you are talking about here. Do you mean scientists WILL confirm that energy can be created/destroyed? If anyone can observe that then indeed, I will change my position entirely.

Well they used to say that matter cannot be created or destroyed; then they altered that. So, my guess is that they will alter this too; but we will see.

[However, since they have changed their minds countless times, and over everything and anything about the nature of the universe, there is a high probability that it won't be long before this goes out of the window, too. Again, just a guess.]

With respect to wave-particle duality:


However, that the contradiction depicts numerous elements of dialectics (however useful you believe the term) is, again, self-evident!

The point was that you accept this to help make sense of apparently incompatible observations -- so you are quite happy to accept contradictions when it suits you.

[Anyway I deny it is a contradiction. And there are scientists who agree with me - namely David Bohm (or rather he 'solves' it). Others reckon that this is a bogus contradiction; I do not even think the classical version is a contradiction.]



That one photon appears to be detected at a certain point, appears to be a simple particle. Even two, three or a hundred may appear to be randomly scattered particles. However quantity transforms into quality and at several thousand photons we detect a wave pattern and the particle form of light appears to have changed into a wave form. Again, when the size a slit impeding photons transcends the wavelength we see a further transformation of quantity into quality as this beam of light with a relatively small wavelength approximates to a ray of particles.

Well this is to misdescribe the experiments in which this is alleged to occur, but even if it were a correct description, there is no change of 'quantity into quality'.

Photons are wave/particle duals howsoever many are implicated -- if you accept this fable. One photon observed in certain ways will behave in a manner that can be accounted for if it were a 'particle'. And one photon, if put under different conditions, behaves as if it were a wave, given that way of picturing things (if you go along with this).


By suggesting that I can not describe the motion of the wave-particle I know very well that you are trying to cleverly exploit the fact that here we meet the limit of human knowledge!

Not so; I am exploiting (if that is the right word) the fact that you can only do so much with human language.

[ComradeRed]

Whilst Big Bang theory aims to explain some "evidence", it chucks out other theories with its other hand. Irrelevant, if those other theories cannot explain the same phenomena, then the "Big Bang" has the "right of way" to "chuck" those theories.

That's science, afterall.


However, I have not denied that to the limit of our view of the universe, the universe is expanding. Not necessarily, the proposal from Hubble's evidence could also suggest that the universe is moving. The way Hubble "discovered" the universe to be expanding is the same way that if you close one eye and point to an object, then switch the closed eye to be open and vice versa the finger points to two different relative positions.

So it seems anyways. But when certain relations between the two observations change, it indicates stuff is moving.

Can we say that the universe is expanding? Possibly, we could also possibly say that gravity is causing these bodies to clump together.


I have not rubbished the evidence, whatever you want to charge me with do so , but this is not something I have done! No, but there is no absolute spacetime; first and foremost, this is the most important to admit.

That said, there can't be any center to the universe unless to forgo the aforementioned proposition.

That's why I call you Newtonian, because to assert there to be a center of the universe means that you are trying to decouple yourself from the universe (literally, walk outside of it) whilst being in it and observing it. You can't do that, no one can.


I would have thought it obvious that dialecticians would suggest that although everything that exists had a beginning, its "beginning" was an evolution, a qualitative advance, on what went before. If the same applies to the universe, and I leave myself open to being proven otherwise, the "beginning" of this universe would have been an evolutionary development from the universe as it was before our universe "began". Doesn't it logically follow that this evolution is this proposed inflation?


However, because the universe is everything, irrespective of level of development, irrespective of time or place, you have to question the usefulness of considering it as a "thing" and maybe consider it as "everything". The arguement that the universe needs a beginning because everything else has a "beginning" is pure semantics. No, the universe is NOT a collection of things...that's a (gasp) Newtonian idea!

From relativity, one could argue it's a collection of causal relations (via lightcones)...what may be dubbed by some as "processes".

So in this sense, it's more like a tennis game rather than a tennis court...it's defined by what goes on within it rather than what it is.

It's not semantics inasmuch as there is a beginning to a game, or for that matter the universe.

And if there is, then that makes an arguement against it moot.

[Faceless]

Faceless (thankyou for a thoughtful reply, but I can do without the 'lol's'):

I'm off to London in the next few days to go to Marxism2006 (though I'm not an SWPer) so I won't have much time to reply but I'll try and get back to making replys. I remember you are from London aren't you Rosa? Maybe I'll see you there, I'm the one with the blonde/pink mohwak. Sorry about the lol's, a habit.



Potential energy is not simply difficult to pinpoint, it does not exist (except as a calculating device).

If you think otherwise, tell me where and what it exists as?

And what is 'energy'?

No good saying it a 'capacity to do work' -- that is a calculating device too. [Matter is not made of a 'capacity to do work'....]

Indeed, every one of these concept is not tangible. They are very much abstractions used for calculating position and velocity etc. Gravitational potential energy can only be expressed as the relative distances of masses and their masses. Masses reflect an inertial property of matter which tends to stop it accelerating. Kinetic energy too is entirely relativistic. Work refers to the integral over a distance of a Force. And again the force is the acceleration produced in a body multiplied by its inertial property, mass. Thus you are correct, all these things are elements which help to explain why certain things move in certain ways. That laws pertaining to them adequately explain how something can not simply cease to move or move of its own accord without first changing the form of this energy into kinetic energy and that this is limited by the amount of energy available is observable. I am not trying to say these laws came out of nowhere, they are derived from our observations. However, as a caluculating device, it is useful. And if I saw a cup move against gravity for instance with no rockets attached to it I would begin to question first my sanity and secondly the laws of conservation of momentum and energy. I would say that it is very possible to observe these laws being broken, not in the form of tangible "energy" but as the motions which we perceive and from which such calculating devices are derived and take their meaning. After such an observation these devices would be rendered obsolete and some other theory would have to be put up in its palce.


So if I defined it as a 'coffee grinder' that would be irrelevant?

Ok, I am wrong to say irrelevant, rather as defined as a tool for calculating it has always appeared to observers to obey the laws of conservation as modified by relativity. Maybe it will be observed to be broken and may have to be modified to take into account furth considerations. However, to infer it on the evidence of the "Big Bang" theory is to me abhorent.



The point was that you accept this to help make sense of apparently incompatible observations -- so you are quite happy to accept contradictions when it suits you.

[Anyway I deny it is a contradiction. And there are scientists who agree with me - namely David Bohm (or rather he 'solves' it). Others reckon that this is a bogus contradiction; I do not even think the classical version is a contradiction.]

I would deny it is a contradiction in the sense of an absurdity which takes place by rules of "probability" with no underlying causality. That is the domain of idealism. I would suggest that there is an underlying causality which remains beyond the horizon. I am not familiar with David Bohm and I will make an attempt to familiarise myself. I would suggest that in the above quotation you are correct in a manner of speaking. I use dialectics to make sense of apparently incompatible observations. However, the observation is only incompatible when one take the opposing view to dialectics, that something is either a wave OR a particle. That the wave nature is entirely dependent upon the behavior of the individual particle-like photon wave-packets and that the Newtonians mocked Heuygens for considering light to travel as a wave when it could not be perceived to diffract (and thus being perceived within the Newtonian climate of the time as many, many particles) although the particle-beam like nature of the light depended entirely upon visible light's tiny wavelength. By contadiction dialecticians in no way that the two tendencies can not co-exist. Dialectics is a cognitive tool, a weapon, in that I would agree with you, but a tool which is applied to real phenomenon and one which like the calculating tools of energy and work, is based upon physically existant phenomenon.

Personally I would also deny that I only accept contradictions when it suits me. Of course some contradictions are entirely external to each other, some contradictions are "absurd" and not dialectical, referring to things which are mutually exclusive in reality, unobservable contradictions formed only in the mind.


Photons are wave/particle duals howsoever many are implicated -- if you accept this fable. One photon observed in certain ways will behave in a manner that can be accounted for if it were a 'particle'. And one photon, if put under different conditions, behaves as if it were a wave, given that way of picturing things (if you go along with this).

I am curious about what you mean by suggesting it to be a fable, personally my knowledge of wave-particle duality is somewhat limited to a bunch of really cool diagrams and the little quantum mechanics I've done at university. I agree that one wave/particle would act under the same influence as another. However, I was also under the impression that scientists can only determine the probability of finding the particle in a certain place.

Incidentally this is the cool diagram illustrating the diffraction pattern of light with firstly few photons then building more.

http://www.marxist.com/images/science/quantum-photons.jpg

Here is a similar one for electrons:

http://www.marxist.com/images/science/quantum-electrons.jpg

Here photons and electrons act both as particles and waves. However, if you are referring to the wave-packets which cause the photo-electric effect I would agree that energy is transferred like a particle in discreet packets. I am curious about the experiments which show the individual light-partical to act as a wave though, I'm thought there was one but I can't for the life of me think what it is.

I have to go to bed now but I do want to reply to you comradered, I think we've being misunderstanding eachother because I in no way defend the idea of an absolute space-time or a definite centre to the universe. Later

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Faceless:


I remember you are from London aren't you Rosa? Maybe I'll see you there,

I used to go (my last time was in 1990), but I do not like it -- for reasons I won't air here.

Hope you like it though.


They are very much abstractions used for calculating position and velocity etc

Well, like Occam, I deny there are such things, except for different reasons.


Thus you are correct, all these things are elements which help to explain why certain things move in certain ways.

I agree, but that makes these things rules, not abstractions.


By contadiction dialecticians in no way that the two tendencies can not co-exist. Dialectics is a cognitive tool, a weapon, in that I would agree with you, but a tool which is applied to real phenomenon and one which like the calculating tools of energy and work, is based upon physically existant phenomenon.

Well, I have heard this more times than you have ever said 'lol', but I have yet to see the details,

This constant refrain I hear strikes me as a sort of empty war cry -- sounds good, but that is all.

Except, I do not think it sounds good.


Personally I would also deny that I only accept contradictions when it suits me. Of course some contradictions are entirely external to each other, some contradictions are "absurd" and not dialectical, referring to things which are mutually exclusive in reality, unobservable contradictions formed only in the mind.

Check out an earlier post of mine called the 'dialectician's dilemma':

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46027


I am curious about what you mean by suggesting it to be a fable, personally my knowledge of wave-particle duality is somewhat limited to a bunch of really cool diagrams and the little quantum mechanics I've done at university. I agree that one wave/particle would act under the same influence as another. However, I was also under the impression that scientists can only determine the probability of finding the particle in a certain place.

I was not really referring to that, just the classic experiment, which if performed one way, a single photon can be made to behave like a particle, but if performed another, like a wave.

No increase in quantity, but a change in quality (if you accept that these vague terms acually mean anything).

The 'fable' referred to the metaphorical use of the words 'wave' and 'particle', which, when spelt out, are not what they seem.

I'll post a link tomorrow explaining this experiment.