How can science ever hope to explain everything?

[DaveC426913]

Aristotle was a brilliant logician, and an accomplished observer, granted. He put the first piece of the discipline of Science in place.

But he didn't experiment. The second piece, the Scientific Method would not be formulated for centuries.

 

[Mike2]

And if it can only belong in there, then it does not belong in the REST of this forum, but you continue to use it as IF it has been published. It isn't a bait. It was a straightforward question regarding your assertion that such a thing can actually be done. And I am not looking for YOUR derivation, I'm asking for a valid reference source since I presumed you were well aware of the requirements to make such claims. If you think what you are doing has that much of a validity, then you know what I would ask next, don't you? Why haven't you submited it to PRL, etc. already to get it published? Then we can talk about it on here till we're blue.

Zz.

You reject the very notion of physics derived from logic alone as something that is part of science. So how can you even suggest it might be possible to publish in any peer reviewed forum in physics?

 

[Mike2]

Dave took care of the bait and switch part. The other part - what makes your argument "wrong" - has already been covered, but not explicitly stated: all logic depends on it's starting premisies to form correct conclusions. So it should be obvious why Aristotle's idea was wrong: he made little effort to ensure that his starting premisies were correct (he essentially just made assumptions that sounded good in his head) and thus his logic led him in the wrong direction. He was worse than that, but that alone shows unequivocably why even the most impeccable logic cannot possibly lead to scientific knowledge if it is not guided by data.

What you seem to be suggesting is that logic is only useful when we plug contingint facts as premises into logical expressions in order to deduce conclusions. In the process you are stating that objects are something that is completely different than logic. And that seems to be stating that at some level reality is NOT logical. I disagree. I think reality is a tautology, not a contingency.

If reality were a contingency, then an explanation of everything is not possible. You can only bump up against some object that cannot be explained. It cannot be explained because it remains a contingency in your logical equations, and not a derivation of logical equations. To me it sounds like arguing the case for chaos.

 

[ZapperZ]

You reject the very notion of physics derived from logic alone as something that is part of science. So how can you even suggest it might be possible to publish in any peer reviewed forum in physics?

How did I managed to control all of the physics journals of the world? I don't buy the Fleishmann and Pons cold fusion paper, but they still managed to publish it in some electrochemistry journal. Somehow, my rejection of something will block such publication everywhere? This is absurd and one of the lamest excuse I've ever heard.

This is still besides the point. If you can't cite any peer-reviewed journals to back your claim, it doesn't belong here. You knew perfectly well what you were getting into with this forum.

Zz.

 

[LostInSpaceTime]

Aristotle was a brilliant logician, and an accomplished observer, granted. He put the first piece of the discipline of Science in place.

But he didn't experiment. The second piece, the Scientific Method would not be formulated for centuries.

So logic can't exist without observation/experience/experiment. The most logical person would be someone that already knows it all. So you can't use true logical unless you can deduct from all experiences/experiments you've had. So the more facts you know the more logical you can be.

This is how I see it(as someone else mentioned)...if you raise a kid in a box their whole life with no experiences and you take them and show them the sun and you ask them to logically explain how the sun could work...first of all if he don't know anything about light at all he couldn't logically know that it's a big ball of burning gas...because he's never been taught about how light works. ie: heat=light. That's why we have god...I can't prove how the sun works logically so someone who knows how to do this stuff put it there...logically. If you have no facts to make an assumption; all the reasoning in the world won't get you your answer.

 

[DaveC426913]

So logic can't exist without observation/experience/experiment.

No, that is a non sequitur - it does not follow.

Logic can exist perfectly fine without observation and experiment. It's just that it has its limits when trying to explain the natural world.

 

[LostInSpaceTime]

No, that is a non sequitur - it does not follow.

Logic can exist perfectly fine without observation and experiment. It's just that it has its limits when trying to explain the natural world.

So logic is experience put to use then? How we are able to make sense of the world? Like we take the worlds "output" and logically apply it to life?
I don't see how logic would come before understanding.

 

[Mike2]

How did I managed to control all of the physics journals of the world? I don't buy the Fleishmann and Pons cold fusion paper, but they still managed to publish it in some electrochemistry journal. Somehow, my rejection of something will block such publication everywhere? This is absurd and one of the lamest excuse I've ever heard.

This is still besides the point. If you can't cite any peer-reviewed journals to back your claim, it doesn't belong here. You knew perfectly well what you were getting into with this forum.

Zz.

I don't really think Physics Forums have equiped its visitors to do professional research into little explored territory... like you're asking me to do. Do you expect me to actually buy those publications just to prove to myself they don't pubish what would interest me? Maybe Physic Forums should have a link or section to some tutorial on how to do physics research so they know if they are asking about something new and speculative.

I don't know how main stream they are, but I've found a few people doing work on foundational issues that might be relevant.

1) You're probably already aware of the work of Max Tegmark who thinks that the "physical world IS an abstract mathematical structure". See 5 Apr 2007:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646

2) There is also the work of Frank J. Tipler who tries to answer the question, "Can the structure of physical reality be inferred by a pure mathematician?" He goes into some interesting detail between the relation of mathematics and physics in section 1 of this paper at:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276

3) But the work most closely related to my work is that of Ariel Caticha at:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9804012

Caticha deliberately shys away from calling it a derivation of logic. I suspect he would probably have difficulty publishing it as physics if he did. But it talks in the language of logic using terms such as proposition to describe a generic experimental "setup". And using ANDs and ORs to construct more complicated experimentals setups from primitive setups. He distinguishes states with only space-time parameters, as I do. He uses the terms source and detector where I use premise and conclusion. He uses setup, denoted [x_f,x_i], where I use implication, denoted (x_i => x_f). He uses ^ and V for conjunction and disjunction where I use * and + from my engineering background.

His approach is to show that if setups are assigned an imaginary number (for "mysterious reasons"), then the conjunction of subsequent setups and the disjunction of parallel setups results in the multiplication and addition of the imaginary numbers, respectively. However, I start with the multiplication of implications in conjunction and the addition of paths in disjunction simply because it is part of a sample space. So I wonder if this algebra itself determines the imaginary numbers to each implication/setup. Both of us end with a path integral formulation of QM.

Comments welcome. Thanks.

 

[ZapperZ]

Sorry, but none of these things have anything to do with reinforcing the validity of what you are selling. You are not them, nor do you have their credentials. If it is not published, and it is your own pet project, do it in the IR forum.

Your attempts at getting free publicity of your work on here AND in the Philosophy forum, of all places, should cease immediately. This thread has run its course.

Zz.