How has physics challenged the traditional idea of materialism?

[apeiron]

I am definitely serious about this approach. However, I won't throw out Koch so quickly. It is my goal to be the middle man between the bottom-up and top-down. I won't throw any professional scientists out until I have a better general understanding of neuroscience.

You might have to throw out Koch just because there is so much else better to be reading. There are 30+ other neuroscientists and neural net modellers taking a general anticipation and dynamic hierarchy based approach.

Grossberg I cite as he is the grand-daddy (though Ashby, McCulloch, McKay and others were saying it in the 40s-60s).

Grossberg did a good (if bitter) review of the history of the field...
http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg/Gro1988NN.pdf

Others I particularly respect are...

Karl Friston...

good recent overview
http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/The free-energy principle A unified brain theory.pdf

his webpage
http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/

Bayesian brain is the current vogue idea
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11106

and mirror neurons explained!
http://www.mendeley.com/research/predictive-coding-an-account-of-the-mirror-neuron-system/

Scott Kelso...

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10684&ttype=2

The type of solid paper you should be looking out for...

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dana/nn.pdf

Well, there is actually a stack of stuff out there. Strange thing is that these kinds of guys don't go to consciousness conferences much. Hmm.

 

[Pythagorean]

I haven't had much time to get through those links yet, but I'm still thinking about the ART network.

I assume it's based on the digital aspect of neurons (the action potentials). I was happy to see that ART 3 considers diffusion, perhaps through the expanded Nernst Equation? I wonder why they don't include K+.

Neurotransmitters seem to be very elusive in neuroscience. I'm curious to see how they're incorporated in ART 3 and how to account for the many different flavors of neurotransmitter. Excitatory and Inhibitory, of course, don't seem to be the full story. This is something I might be interested in trying to expand on if I'm able to digest the technical aspects of ART in the first place.

 

[GeorgCantor]

It appears to me that you're confusing macro-materials with micro-materials.

What is a 'micro-material'?

In QM, the materials are the particles and small ensembles of particles in a small range of states. Once you start modeling atoms, many approximations enter in and the system becomes too complex to model without giving up aspects of your model.

Quanta display both particle-like properties and wave-like properties. Particle-like properties aren't sufficient to explain a range of experimentally observed phenomena.

Newtonian physics deals with large ensembles of particles where we study the dynamics of the group as a whole, more so than each little particle. It's a lot like people. It's much easier to make predictions about a larger group of people than it is to make predictions about one person.

The randomness at the micro level is not the same kind of 'randomness' found, say, on a roulette wheel. Agree?

I'm not very familiar with metaphysics, but I'm willing to work at it. Make an argument for why Bell's theorem implies that materialism must be wrong.

Not only Bell's theorem implies this. The whole of QM, QFT, SR and GR lend support to the idea that the materialism of the 5 senses is either very skewed or completely and totally wrong. On a deeper lever, the whole notion of 'matter' is still poorly understood; moreover - there is no interpretation upholding the naive materialism of our 5 senses. We can be liken to a child that grows up and sheds his naive assumptions. It can be painful to understand that Santa Claus does not exist, but you get to know better your environment by being disillusioned. What is 'matter' at a deeper level? I can safely say what it is not - it's not really what we thought it was 100 000 BC till the end of the 19th century. In this sense, Paul Davies is right - materialism is dead.

 

[Pythagorean]

What is a 'micro-material'?

atomic particles

Quanta display both particle-like properties and wave-like properties. Particle-like properties aren't sufficient to explain a range of experimentally observed phenomena.

This is 50 year-old pedantry. Having done plenty of mathematical work in QM, I realize what you're trying to say, but it's more of social construct then you'd think. Quantum Particle behave neither like classical particles nor like waves, they simply behave like quantum particles. A more meaningful difference between the two is that QM particles are indistinguishable.

The randomness at the micro level is not the same kind of 'randomness' found, say, on a roulette wheel. Agree?

Statistical randomness is statistical randomness, no matter what system you're looking at. Both systems have theoretical randomness and both systems encounter real-world noise that lead to more nonlinear situations in the real world. I'm not sure what you mean with this response though, it seems irrelevant to what I said.

Not only Bell's theorem implies this. The whole of QM, QFT, SR and GR lend support to the idea that the materialism of the 5 senses is either very skewed or completely and totally wrong. On a deeper lever, the whole notion of 'matter' is still poorly understood; moreover - there is no interpretation upholding the naive materialism of our 5 senses. We can be liken to a child that grows up and sheds his naive assumptions. It can be painful to understand that Santa Claus does not exist, but you get to know better your environment by being disillusioned. What is 'matter' at a deeper level? I can safely say what it is not - it's not really what we thought it was 100 000 BC till the end of the 19th century. In this sense, Paul Davies is right - materialism is dead.

1) You've cleaved your definition of materialism to support your argument. "Materialism of the five senses" is not materialism. Actually, since studying neuroscience, "the five senses" itself is a misnomer to me. We have a lot more than five "senses". So you've mostly just misrepresented my stance, here. Materialism isn't about what human ability to detect. In fact, the whole point of science is reaching beyond our senses.

2) You're using a lot of ad hominem here "disillusioned", "Santa Claus", "child that grows up". I could easily make these statements about your position. After all, your stance is that there's something besides the physical world occurring... something that we can't measure, yet you can somehow detect. What gives you special access? Have you considered that your imagination may play a large role?

3) You haven't answered my question. I asked you to show how Bell's theorem proves your point, not restate your point and add personal attacks to it. You're basically telling me that you got nothin'.

 

[GeorgCantor]

atomic particles

So basically you are saying there is a border between the quantum and macro world after which quantum effects disappear?

This is 50 year-old pedantry. Having done plenty of mathematical work in QM, I realize what you're trying to say, but it's more of social construct then you'd think.

Of course NOT. This is an essential point that you missed to make - that "stuff" as seen in the old notion of materialism wasn't just made of point-like particles. At some point the particle-like nature of matter proves insufficient.

Quantum Particle behave neither like classical particles nor like waves, they simply behave like quantum particles.

Sure, but where is this border between the micro and macro? I think the latest research says that the border doesn't exist.

Which interpretation of QM supports your ideas of materialism and how?

Statistical randomness is statistical randomness, no matter what system you're looking at. Both systems have theoretical randomness and both systems encounter real-world noise that lead to more nonlinear situations in the real world. I'm not sure what you mean with this response though, it seems irrelevant to what I said.

Has causality ever been questioned in classical physics? When, how?

1) You've cleaved your definition of materialism to support your argument. "Materialism of the five senses" is not materialism. Actually, since studying neuroscience, "the five senses" itself is a misnomer to me. We have a lot more than five "senses". So you've mostly just misrepresented my stance, here. Materialism isn't about what human ability to detect. In fact, the whole point of science is reaching beyond our senses.

What kind of materialism are you supporting? That every phenomenon has a cause that lies in the physical world?

2) You're using a lot of ad hominem here "disillusioned", "Santa Claus", "child that grows up".

These weren't in any way directed at you, at all. It's about us getting to know we were fooled to think we understood how the world works.

I could easily make these statements about your position. After all, your stance is that there's something besides the physical world occurring... something that we can't measure, yet you can somehow detect.

I never implied that. I did however imply that we don't understand how the physical world works. If you think you understand it, you are wrong. The notion of a physical world as we once thought it was(and more than 99% of the human race still thinks it is), is somewhat in a state of coma. If there is such a thing as an objectively existing physical world out there, it's not the way we perceive it.

3) You haven't answered my question. I asked you to show how Bell's theorem proves your point, not restate your point and add personal attacks to it. You're basically telling me that you got nothin'.

I thought you didn't want me to state the obvious, but ok. Bell's theorem mathematically imposes a condition on what physical reality cannot be - it can't be both real(having objective existence in Space and Time) and local. Bell's theorem is a strong blow to the outdated ideas of materialism. If materialism is to live on, it needs to adjusts.

 

[Pythagorean]

So basically you are saying there is a border between the quantum and macro world after which quantum effects disappear?

First off, you have to realize that quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are both models of reality, not to be confused with reality.

Now, try modeling a basketball going through a hoop with quantum mechanics. Try modeling an electron tunneling through a potential barrier with classical mechanics. Yes, there's a divide in the models (at least, for now).

Of course NOT. This is an essential point that you missed to make - that "stuff" as seen in the old notion of materialism wasn't just made of point-like particles. At some point the particle-like nature of matter proves insufficient.

So you admit to seeing the boundary?

We still use the word 'particle' even though the definition has evolved. Google "The Standard Model" for instance.

Sure, but where is this border between the micro and macro? I think the latest research says that the border doesn't exist.

At the least, it's a fuzzy border. It depends on what you're modeling in the end. You can either generalize or specify your model. You either suffer from information loss or information overload.

Which interpretation of QM supports your ideas of materialism and how?

The general pursuits of science support my ideas of materialism. Namely, that we find the physical chain of cause and effect.

There's also philosophical logic behind it:

If something can't interact with the universe, it practically doesn't exist (i.e. it may exist, but it would be a moot point since it isn't affected by and doesn't affect the universe; furthermore, anybody that claimed it exist would be doing so on a whim, since no real interaction with the universe allowed them true knowledge of it).

If it can interact with the universe, it is a physical interaction: if it interacts with the universe, we can find empirical consistencies and discover the chain of cause and effect: that's physics.

Has causality ever been questioned in classical physics? When, how?

I don't know, and I still don't see the relevance. As a guess, I'd say it would have been an unpopular stance.

What kind of materialism are you supporting? That every phenomenon has a cause that lies in the physical world?

More than that. That the phenomenon is physical too.

I never implied that. I did however imply that we don't understand how the physical world works. If you think you understand it, you are wrong. The notion of a physical world as we once thought it was(and more than 99% of the human race still thinks it is), is somewhat in a state of coma. If there is such a thing as an objectively existing physical world out there, it's not the way we perceive it.

I don't think I understand it 100%, but I understand a great deal more about it then I did before a formal science education. The physical world is obviously not the way we perceive it, that's why we need technology and sound philosophical approaches in science. How we perceive the world is whole 'nother interesting discussion.

Bell's theorem mathematically imposes a condition on what physical reality cannot be - it can't be both real(having objective existence in Space and Time) and local. Bell's theorem is a strong blow to the outdated ideas of materialism. If materialism is to live on, it needs to adjusts.

Once again, you've repeated your stance. You still haven't showed how it follows. You have to specifically and explicitly tell me what makes you think something about Bell's theorem is non physical.

 

[Erwins_mat]

Materialism isn't about what human ability to detect. In fact, the whole point of science is reaching beyond our senses.

That's what scientific realists believe, but scientific realism is not so easy to defend. Constructive empiricists will tell you that science is about "saving the phenomena", in other words it is about doing justice to what humans can observed with unaided senses.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

What ramifications?

Anything at all? Flying pigs? I think you are taking his quote too literally.

THAT reality isn't the one we experience. We experience a classical world where there are limits on what happens. Those limits are described by the Newtonian-Einsteinian physical laws and I have no reason to believe they will ever be breached - at least not by any significant margin under "normal conditions" (not right next to a black hole).

I generally agree, but don't rule out flying pigs. I have little doubt we humans could make one, if not now, at least in a few more years.

 

[Pythagorean]

That's what scientific realists believe, but scientific realism is not so easy to defend. Constructive empiricists will tell you that science is about "saving the phenomena", in other words it is about doing justice to what humans can observed with unaided senses.

Realists believe that the world described by science is the real world. I am not saying this. Science relies on models of reality. They shouldn't be confused with reality.

They're also not comppletely off the mark (otherwise they would be useless as science).

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Realists believe that the world described by science is the real world. I am not saying this. Science relies on models of reality. They shouldn't be confused with reality.

They're also not comppletely off the mark (otherwise they would be useless as science).

I would argue that science makes contact with reality by way of experiment and experimental verification (at least in principle) is essential to science. In this sense, all science is "materialistic".

EDIT: Observational verification of theoretical predictions is also an adequate, but generally weaker, form of verification.

 

[Pythagorean]

In deed, we are part of reality, submerged in it, not safely looking at it from behind plexiglass.

 

[GeorgCantor]

First off, you have to realize that quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are both models of reality, not to be confused with reality.

What is reality then? I mean if you can't use your best models to draw conclusions about it, what is left - Scripture, the 6-thousand year old Earth and the Flood?

Now, try modeling a basketball going through a hoop with quantum mechanics. Try modeling an electron tunneling through a potential barrier with classical mechanics. Yes, there's a divide in the models (at least, for now).

You make the mistake of extrapolationg models to realms where they are inapplicable. This in no way means that there is a divide. A future TOE will use both a QM and classical picture of reality and you will in principle be able to derive the properties of a moving ball from its quantum numbers. For this you will need to reach the fundamental ingredients of reality be they strings or loops or something totally different and use their properties in a mathemtaical model that will encompass both the macro and micro realm.

So you admit to seeing the boundary?

Of course not, you misunderstand models with a TOE. Our current models are nowhere near a TOE.

We still use the word 'particle' even though the definition has evolved. Google "The Standard Model" for instance.

You google 'waves' as that is what i was alluding. Matter has a fundamental wave-like nature. The 'particle' picture of matter fails to explain a great number of experiments run in the course of of at least a century.

At the least, it's a fuzzy border. It depends on what you're modeling in the end. You can either generalize or specify your model. You either suffer from information loss or information overload.

I have no idea what you mean by 'information loss' and 'information overload' and since information is strictly related to consciousness, i see no reason for bringing it up.

The general pursuits of science support my ideas of materialism. Namely, that we find the physical chain of cause and effect.

Specify the physical reason for emergent behaviour. Then specify the physical reason for atom decay and the random, unpredictable scattering in quantum collisions in colliders.

There's also philosophical logic behind it:

If something can't interact with the universe, it practically doesn't exist (i.e. it may exist, but it would be a moot point since it isn't affected by and doesn't affect the universe; furthermore, anybody that claimed it exist would be doing so on a whim, since no real interaction with the universe allowed them true knowledge of it).

If it can interact with the universe, it is a physical interaction: if it interacts with the universe, we can find empirical consistencies and discover the chain of cause and effect: that's physics.

OK but you are vague. How exactly is modern physics - namely SR, GR, QM and QFT supportive of physical objects with fixed properties located in space and time?

More than that. That the phenomenon is physical too.

I don't argue that it is not physical, but about the definition of physical. I think the definition is undergoing a minor or major adjustment, depending on where the ontology of SR and QM will take us. It is not clear yet, but what is clear is that there will be a definite departure from the old concepts. There is a general agreement within the physics community on this.

I don't think I understand it 100%, but I understand a great deal more about it then I did before a formal science education. The physical world is obviously not the way we perceive it, that's why we need technology and sound philosophical approaches in science. How we perceive the world is whole 'nother interesting discussion.

I have serious doubts that any human understands more than 30% of the reality we find ourselves in.

Once again, you've repeated your stance. You still haven't showed how it follows. You have to specifically and explicitly tell me what makes you think something about Bell's theorem is non physical.

The fact that the reality you perceive is local realistic, and especially after Bell, if are to continue to uphold inductive reasoning as a valid tool to explore the universe, we have to conclude that the way we perceive reality is skewed. If Bell's theorem is not a blow to the old notions of materialism, then I don't know what is. 'Specifically and explicitly' your materialistic view based on local realism is wrong.

 

[apeiron]

For this you will need to reach the fundamental ingredients of reality be they strings or loops or something totally different and use their properties in a mathemtaical model that will encompass both the macro and micro realm.

But would this really be finding the fundamental ingredients or stepping up to an even finer resolution of modelling?

The two would seem like much the same thing if modelling is the same as "knowing the truth".

But if modelling has other purposes, like getting things done, then highly unreal concepts (way over simplified, very cartoon - like loops and strings) might prove more efficient for that pragmatic purpose.

It is at least conceivable that "better" models lead us further away from "the truth".

I, of course, would say that is what has happened in science. It is the reason why systems approaches (which to me are patently more truthful) have consistently lost out to pragmatic atomism, and the 'shut up and calculate' mindset in general.

Strings, if it had been successful, would have been another step in this pragmatic unrealism. Little wiggly loops. Pleeeze! (But soliton style resonances - more convincing imagery if calculationally intractable probably).

I take your general point. QM indeterminism and non-locality seem like they should re-write how we imagine "reality" - our philosophical ontological concepts of what is really happening out there beyond our perhaps enfeebled modelling.

The systems approach, especially in the tradition of Pierce's semiotics, would seem to offer a good way of doing this. Indeterminism = vagueness. Non-locality = global constraint. To me, this feels closer to the truth of things.

Yet still I think it is essential to accept that we only model. And to recognise - as a collective social enterprise - modelling will generally be done for practical purposes.

Perhaps some "truer" image of reality may also lead to better pragamatic models of the kind that technologists prefer. I see no reason why not. Yet I also feel we have to accept that this is the aspiration rather than a guaranteed fact.

Again, the unrealism of extreme reductionism is a proven, efficient, tool of human society.

If you are aware of this basic tension between the pragmatist and the philosopher in science, then you can waste less time battling it, more time actually discussing the "truth".

 

[GeorgCantor]

But would this really be finding the fundamental ingredients or stepping up to an even finer resolution of modelling?

That's the mainstream view - that there is an actual fundamental ingredient that could be discovered and made sense of when looked at as a system of interacting sub-systems. The trouble is the mainstream view can also be wrong.

The systems approach, especially in the tradition of Pierce's semiotics, would seem to offer a good way of doing this. Indeterminism = vagueness. Non-locality = global constraint. To me, this feels closer to the truth of things.

I agree with this, yet the vagueness-crispness transition still needs a cause - the initial conditions, consciousness, randomness in an eternal universe where anything can take place, an infinite number of universes, god, etc. Seems to me a fundamental prime cause is missing from that model, or you intentionally have not mentioned it yet.

The two would seem like much the same thing if modelling is the same as "knowing the truth".

But if modelling has other purposes, like getting things done, then highly unreal concepts (way over simplified, very cartoon - like loops and strings) might prove more efficient for that pragmatic purpose.

It is at least conceivable that "better" models lead us further away from "the truth".

I, of course, would say that is what has happened in science. It is the reason why systems approaches (which to me are patently more truthful) have consistently lost out to pragmatic atomism, and the 'shut up and calculate' mindset in general.

Strings, if it had been successful, would have been another step in this pragmatic unrealism. Little wiggly loops. Pleeeze! (But soliton style resonances - more convincing imagery if calculationally intractable probably).

I take your general point. QM indeterminism and non-locality seem like they should re-write how we imagine "reality" - our philosophical ontological concepts of what is really happening out there beyond our perhaps enfeebled modelling.

The systems approach, especially in the tradition of Pierce's semiotics, would seem to offer a good way of doing this. Indeterminism = vagueness. Non-locality = global constraint. To me, this feels closer to the truth of things.

Yet still I think it is essential to accept that we only model. And to recognise - as a collective social enterprise - modelling will generally be done for practical purposes.

Perhaps some "truer" image of reality may also lead to better pragamatic models of the kind that technologists prefer. I see no reason why not. Yet I also feel we have to accept that this is the aspiration rather than a guaranteed fact.

Again, the unrealism of extreme reductionism is a proven, efficient, tool of human society.

If you are aware of this basic tension between the pragmatist and the philosopher in science, then you can waste less time battling it, more time actually discussing the "truth".

I know little of the systems approach and will read up on it. However, it always seemed to me like the human mind wasn't wired to understand hard emergence. As for "the truth", to me it has purely religious connotations. We always have faith in what we model and there is certainly no way to escape the way our brains interpret incoming information(we can't get out of our perception and explore the true reality), so even if one day humanity discovers a TOE, we still have to have faith that the way we have interpreted the universe is not only right(subject to experiemental verification), but also the only possible interpretation(the only possible way to the TOE). Even if we can't come up with another, second rival appraoch to a TOE for 100 years, are we certain that future generations would not invent a new approach that would lead to the same mathematical TOE, but with different ontology/interpretation? How would you tell which is right - Bohmian mechanics or QM when they both lead to the same mathematical predictions? These are philosophical questions that will always plague science and scientists looking for "the truth" with the scientific method.

To me, our scientific endeavours are not a substitute for the belief in something like a prime cause(call it god or whatever).

 

[apeiron]

However, it always seemed to me like the human mind wasn't wired to understand hard emergence.

There is some truth in this. The basic engine of consciousness, of brain function, is in fact dichotomisation - a separation into event~context, figure~ground, focus~fringe that then allows an "integrated" awareness of reality (a modelling in neural terms). So that is sort of holistic (although not, as attention goes to some narrow aspect of each moment by suppressing awareness of all that is deemed irrelevant, noise, distraction).

Humans then have language, a serial logic based tool which comes in over the top of the basic brain structure. The habit of grammar trains us to break down reality into sentences - little reductionist cause and effect tales of who did what to whom.

So more and more, our very efficient brain, and even more effective tool of grammatical speech, have led us away from an "everything at once" view of reality.

To me, our scientific endeavours are not a substitute for the belief in something like a prime cause(call it god or whatever).

I see it differently. As I've argued, cause and effect thinking is an engrained habit in human society because it is how speech works. Speech was a socially extremely effective tool (it made humans what we are). But because the subject-verb-object structure of speech is so universal, people become trapped into a belief that there is no choice but to have the something that acts to result in something else.

The issue of the prime mover arises as a natural consequence of the assumptions wired into grammar - we literally cannot think any differently because language is what scaffolds our thought patterns.

Learning a different logic, a different way of conceiving of causal patterns - such as the systems approach - is really going against the grain. It can take many years to become a mental habit. To just have a pair of mental paths where you say right, this is how the thoughts go if they follow standard cause~effect logic, and here is how it all breaks down if you jump tracks to this other model of causality.

 

[GeorgCantor]

I see it differently. As I've argued, cause and effect thinking is an engrained habit in human society because it is how speech works. Speech was a socially extremely effective tool (it made humans what we are). But because the subject-verb-object structure of speech is so universal, people become trapped into a belief that there is no choice but to have the something that acts to result in something else.

The issue of the prime mover arises as a natural consequence of the assumptions wired into grammar - we literally cannot think any differently because language is what scaffolds our thought patterns.

Learning a different logic, a different way of conceiving of causal patterns - such as the systems approach - is really going against the grain. It can take many years to become a mental habit. To just have a pair of mental paths where you say right, this is how the thoughts go if they follow standard cause~effect logic, and here is how it all breaks down if you jump tracks to this other model of causality.

What role does causality play in systems science? Wouldn't any form of causality turn systems science into a reductionist, cause-effect science?

 

[apeiron]

What role does causality play in systems science? Wouldn't any form of causality turn systems science into a reductionist, cause-effect science?

All modelling - systems or otherwise - involves reduction. There is the global scale generalisation (to create laws, equations, concepts, etc) that follows from the shedding of the local particulars (this cat vs that cat, this mass vs that mass).

So reduction is the basis of modelling. The key difference is that reductionist reductionism wants to reduce everything to a single kind of stuff (atoms, information, elements, components, materials) while the systems approach is dichotomistic and involves a reduction to both global and local scale boundaries (so atoms AND void, information AND meaning, substance AND form).

Systems approach also involves causality. Our logic is our model of causality (the reason why something has to happen). Again, ordinary thinking is monadic and so wants to reduce causality to local pushes and pulls only. Newtonian mechanics, computation, atomism, etc.

The systems approach says causality divides to become strongly local and also strongly global. So you have always both the something which stands for the local constructive actions (such as the atomistic collisions, the vector forces, the computational steps), but also equally the causality represented by the system's global constraints (its organisation, its form, its 'emergent' laws and regularities).

So reductionism is good, as that is modelling, but there is the danger of over-reduction.

And systems causality is not really simple linear cause => effect as that is just a local scale description of causality (missing the global scale constraints which are also acting to create what is observed).

Again, Aristotle broke it into four causes, of which two relate to global constraint and two relate to local construction.

Aristotle just took it another step (probably unnecessary) in dichotomising the dichotomies.

He identified the general local and global causes - the material and formal cause in his scheme (the general stuff of which it is made, the general form by which it is bound).

Then he also identified the particular local and global causes.

He asked what was the particular local triggering event which caused something to happen (and this is about the only kind of cause that modern monadic, "cause and effect" modellingis concerned with - the non-system approach).

And Aristotle also asked about the particular global reason, purpose or meaning which also caused that thing to happen - the teleological level explanation.

Modern non-system thinking leads to a rejection of teleology as unscientific. But that is just a silly prejudice of course.

QM should have undermined it by now - cf: transactional interpretations, decoherence, non-locality. But there you go.

 

[GeorgCantor]

All modelling - systems or otherwise - involves reduction. There is the global scale generalisation (to create laws, equations, concepts, etc) that follows from the shedding of the local particulars (this cat vs that cat, this mass vs that mass).

So reduction is the basis of modelling. The key difference is that reductionist reductionism wants to reduce everything to a single kind of stuff (atoms, information, elements, components, materials) while the systems approach is dichotomistic and involves a reduction to both global and local scale boundaries (so atoms AND void, information AND meaning, substance AND form).

Systems approach also involves causality. Our logic is our model of causality (the reason why something has to happen). Again, ordinary thinking is monadic and so wants to reduce causality to local pushes and pulls only. Newtonian mechanics, computation, atomism, etc.

The systems approach says causality divides to become strongly local and also strongly global. So you have always both the something which stands for the local constructive actions (such as the atomistic collisions, the vector forces, the computational steps), but also equally the causality represented by the system's global constraints (its organisation, its form, its 'emergent' laws and regularities).

So reductionism is good, as that is modelling, but there is the danger of over-reduction.

And systems causality is not really simple linear cause => effect as that is just a local scale description of causality (missing the global scale constraints which are also acting to create what is observed).

Again, Aristotle broke it into four causes, of which two relate to global constraint and two relate to local construction.

Aristotle just took it another step (probably unnecessary) in dichotomising the dichotomies.

He identified the general local and global causes - the material and formal cause in his scheme (the general stuff of which it is made, the general form by which it is bound).

Then he also identified the particular local and global causes.

He asked what was the particular local triggering event which caused something to happen (and this is about the only kind of cause that modern monadic, "cause and effect" modellingis concerned with - the non-system approach).

And Aristotle also asked about the particular global reason, purpose or meaning which also caused that thing to happen - the teleological level explanation.

Modern non-system thinking leads to a rejection of teleology as unscientific. But that is just a silly prejudice of course.

QM should have undermined it by now - cf: transactional interpretations, decoherence, non-locality. But there you go.

So is there or is there not, a link between the local and global scale that we can follow according to system science? If there is no such link, systems science will never sufficiently well explain the emergent order in biological systems.

 

[apeiron]

So is there or is there not, a link between the local and global scale that we can follow according to system science? If there is no such link, systems science will never sufficiently well explain the emergent order in biological systems.

Yes, there is a link. Very direct. All the local construction is what makes the global whole - the very whole that is constraining in the ways needed to form those constructing parts.

This is why it is described as synergistic. There are two actions in interaction in a manner that leads to a total persistent system.

With humans for example, our local actions (on the whole) construct the society in which we live. And that society (on the whole) constrains our local actions so that we are the type of people who will perpetuate that society.

 

[qsa]

To me, our scientific endeavours are not a substitute for the belief in something like a prime cause(call it god or whatever).

Why this god or whatever needs to create a universe with laws. I thought he could order thing to move with his will only. Why bother with creating such an intricate and consistant laws that is highly suggestive that the universe is self contained! You may say the laws are his will, well then why electrons bind to protons by electromagnetic forces only, couldn't he make them bind with unseen force and that wouldn't have made a difference and would have increased our faith in him. Or was he forced to.


Oh I see, he wants humans with free will. So he makes matter with no will and humans made of matter subject to its laws, when the food goes into his stomach but not when he talks. So why make them out of matter that has no will, couldn't he make them out of totally different thing or there was no choice. I guess he figured they will not be subject to gravity and they will fly away! So he HAD to make everything perfect.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Why this god or whatever needs to create a universe with laws. I thought he could order thing to move with his will only. Why bother with creating such an intricate and consistant laws that is highly suggestive that the universe is self contained!

But is it self-created? Did the laws of physics create themselves?

You may say the laws are his will, well then why electrons bind to protons by electromagnetic forces only, couldn't he make them bind with unseen force and that wouldn't have made a difference and would have increased our faith in him. Or was he forced to.

This is already too offtopic and any way i have no desire to attach typical human traits to god or some other obscure, still hypothetical entity.

Oh I see, he wants humans with free will. So he makes matter with no will and humans made of matter subject to its laws, when the food goes into his stomach but not when he talks. So why make them out of matter that has no will, couldn't he make them out of totally different thing or there was no choice. I guess he figured they will not be subject to gravity and they will fly away! So he HAD to make everything perfect.

It's not like i see it. I don't put the same meaning when i use the word God as you do. You believe god has to be human-like, whereas my opinion is simply that it should be the fundamental cause for the existence of anything, whether its merely a mental state, or an objectively existing world in time and space. The order and beauty of the physical laws that we find reigning and that let us progress nearly linearly through the last couple of centuries, are the innate structure of the universe. This sophisticated structure that has permited our development to our current level seems to me to require an Architect. Or if it does not, then as apeiron had suggested, we may need a new theory of causality that will not be based solely on reductionism and the principle that every effect must have a cause.

Since we are offtopic, if you are going to reply, please open a new thread.

 

[Pythagorean]

What is reality then? I mean if you can't use your best models to draw conclusions about it, what is left - Scripture, the 6-thousand year old Earth and the Flood?

Strawman. I have no doubts that you can draw conclusions about reality from science. Still, models are not reality. We have to be wary where they breakdown.

You make the mistake of extrapolationg models to realms where they are inapplicable. This in no way means that there is a divide. A future TOE will use both a QM and classical picture of reality and you will in principle be able to derive the properties of a moving ball from its quantum numbers. For this you will need to reach the fundamental ingredients of reality be they strings or loops or something totally different and use their properties in a mathemtaical model that will encompass both the macro and micro realm.

There obviously is a divide if it requires two different models for the different scales. One model doesn't explain everything. You're dreaming of a TOE; that's fine, but you've shifted the argument away from the focus. We aren't talking about the maybe possible future. We're talking about how things are.

Of course not, you misunderstand models with a TOE. Our current models are nowhere near a TOE.

This is the second time you've defended your weak arguments simply by stating that I misunderstand. That's not an argument, it's an evasion. We're not talking about a TOE. I understand exactly what a TOE is. I have huge doubts that there ever will be one.

A caveat often used in science is "there is no panacea". Even if we have a system that can be completely modeled classically, you will always have to give up generalizations in your model if you want to be specific, and vice versa. This is why you have to be wary of models and how you apply them. It's a logistics problem.

You google 'waves' as that is what i was alluding. Matter has a fundamental wave-like nature. The 'particle' picture of matter fails to explain a great number of experiments run in the course of of at least a century.

These statements clearly show a lack of understanding. We do the physics, then we explain it to laymen the best we can in terms of something they already know. Then they take it too far. They mistake the model for the reality. Please do some actual coursework in Quantum Mechanics before you make this kind of statement. It really sounds like something out of a book that tries to explain modern physics to laymen.

Also, there's no 'particle-wave duality' as you seem to imply. This is part of your misunderstanding. If you would like, I could point you to discussions on the subject that have taken place here at PF.

I have no idea what you mean by 'information loss' and 'information overload' and since information is strictly related to consciousness, i see no reason for bringing it up.

We're talking about models. Rocks and trees don't use models. Humans do. We're necessarily bound to our consciousness, even when trying to understand things that aren't about consciousness.

There's also a physical description of information loss that pertains to absorption of energy in a system.

Specify the physical reason for emergent behaviour. Then specify the physical reason for atom decay and the random, unpredictable scattering in quantum collisions in colliders.

The physical reasons for behavior is not something I could type out in a paragraph for you. Start with a cell biology class and learn how the fundamental unit of life (the cell) interacts physically with its environment through chemical and physical reactions.

Then work your way up. Look at the slime mold for instance: a bunch of individual cells that come together and nearly form a multicellular organism through a chain of signals to each other.

In not so many words, we eat because we're hungry, we have sex because we're horny, we sleep because we're tired.

OK but you are vague. How exactly is modern physics - namely SR, GR, QM and QFT supportive of physical objects with fixed properties located in space and time?

Nobody said anything about fixed properties located in space and time. This doesn't seem relevant to the portion of post to which you were responding. You'll have to clarify your question.

I don't argue that it is not physical, but about the definition of physical. I think the definition is undergoing a minor or major adjustment, depending on where the ontology of SR and QM will take us. It is not clear yet, but what is clear is that there will be a definite departure from the old concepts. There is a general agreement within the physics community on this.

And this is similar to my argument. That laymen don't understand what physical means. Most of society seems to be dualist. They use divisions like mental/physical. But mental is really a subset of physical. There's also the idea of religion running rampant that gives people the impression of a whole non-physical world out there somewhere where you **** sorbet if you've been good.

I have serious doubts that any human understands more than 30% of the reality we find ourselves in.

As somebody who academically studies both biology and physics, I can tell you that it's far far less than 30%. Magnitudes less. More like .03%. The more I learn through the university, the more I realize I don't know. It's a pandora's box.

The fact that the reality you perceive is local realistic, and especially after Bell, if are to continue to uphold inductive reasoning as a valid tool to explore the universe, we have to conclude that the way we perceive reality is skewed. If Bell's theorem is not a blow to the old notions of materialism, then I don't know what is. 'Specifically and explicitly' your materialistic view based on local realism is wrong.

This does not confront the materialistic view. This is the same strawmanl; you're misrepresenting the materialistic view and then arguing against your misrepresentation about it. No scientist doubts that the way we perceive reality is skewed. It would be difficult to be scientific with that kind of assumption.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Strawman. I have no doubts that you can draw conclusions about reality from science. Still, models are not reality. We have to be wary where they breakdown.

What does the fact that they break in certain domain have to do with the conclusions we draw from them about reality?

There obviously is a divide if it requires two different models for the different scales. One model doesn't explain everything. You're dreaming of a TOE; that's fine, but you've shifted the argument away from the focus. We aren't talking about the maybe possible future. We're talking about how things are.

And how exactly are things? You do not know! Nobody does. It's a matter of interpretation and interpreting the experiemental results from GR and QM in a sensible manner is extrodinarily difficult, if not outright impossible.

This is the second time you've defended your weak arguments simply by stating that I misunderstand. That's not an argument, it's an evasion. We're not talking about a TOE. I understand exactly what a TOE is. I have huge doubts that there ever will be one.

And this is the 5th time I've challenged you to provide evidence that you know what matter really is. Only a preferred interpretation of QM or a TOE can reveal the true nature of matter which is a cornerstone in the materialistic perspective. You are basing your beliefs on an intuitive worldview of matter that has been under question for a century. In fact, mathematical proofs have shown that that perspective can't be entirely right and is in need of adjustment.

These statements clearly show a lack of understanding. We do the physics, then we explain it to laymen the best we can in terms of something they already know. Then they take it too far. They mistake the model for the reality. Please do some actual coursework in Quantum Mechanics before you make this kind of statement. It really sounds like something out of a book that tries to explain modern physics to laymen.

No, it sounds like you think you have proved your interpretation of qm and reality to be true. This is ridiculous. Even "shut up and calculate" doesn't claim a strict materialistic perspective is right. You ought to provide evidence where in your physics textbooks it was said that modern physics supports the old materialistic notions.

Also, there's no 'particle-wave duality' as you seem to imply. This is part of your misunderstanding. If you would like, I could point you to discussions on the subject that have taken place here at PF.

It's great that you have read those threads, but you have misunderstood what others have stated. The wave-partcile duality is still the closest we can get to establishing some kind of ontology of what matter is. While an electron is neither a wave, nor a particle, the electron shows both particle-like and wave-like behaviour. This is not even debateable. If you want to debate this, first find evidence that the de Broglie equation(λ=h/p) is wrong and that λ does not refer to a wavelength, but to some unknown entity of your imagination.
If you said a physical body was made of particles, you wouldn't be entirely correct. If you said that a physical body was made of waves, you wouldn't be entirely correct either. "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." Take this quote for what it's worth.

The physical reasons for behavior is not something I could type out in a paragraph for you. Start with a cell biology class and learn how the fundamental unit of life (the cell) interacts physically with its environment through chemical and physical reactions.

Then work your way up. Look at the slime mold for instance: a bunch of individual cells that come together and nearly form a multicellular organism through a chain of signals to each other.

In not so many words, we eat because we're hungry, we have sex because we're horny, we sleep because we're tired.

In other words, you have no answer to my question:

"Specify the physical reason for emergent behaviour. Then specify the physical reason for atom decay and the random, unpredictable scattering in quantum collisions in colliders."

Nobody said anything about fixed properties located in space and time. This doesn't seem relevant to the portion of post to which you were responding. You'll have to clarify your question.

I am surprised you call yourself a materialist and you don't believe in objects with fixed properties located in space and time. That's must be a some new kind of materialism.

And this is similar to my argument. That laymen don't understand what physical means. Most of society seems to be dualist. They use divisions like mental/physical. But mental is really a subset of physical. There's also the idea of religion running rampant that gives people the impression of a whole non-physical world out there somewhere where you **** sorbet if you've been good.

I think you are making a very layman statement when you say "laymen don't understand what physical means". Calling yourself scientist and physicist does not in any way justify your making unwarranted claims. You first need to specify what you mean by 'physical' and then state your preferred interpretation. I thought a physicist calling himself a scientist must be aware of the trap - 'i know which interpretation is right'. Being a physicist, you should have known better than that.

As somebody who academically studies both biology and physics, I can tell you that it's far far less than 30%. Magnitudes less. More like .03%. The more I learn through the university, the more I realize I don't know. It's a pandora's box.

Agreed, though i wonder why you made the statement - "we don't understand 100% of reality, but...", since 0.03% is 300 times less than 100%.

This does not confront the materialistic view. This is the same strawmanl; you're misrepresenting the materialistic view and then arguing against your misrepresentation about it. No scientist doubts that the way we perceive reality is skewed. It would be difficult to be scientific with that kind of assumption.

You now seem to be realising that the materialistic view is in change. Judging by that last paragraph, i'd say we are in agreement that the old intuitive notions of materialism can no longer be supported in the way they once were. Ask those who work in the ST and LQG field what they think about intuition and materialism. I am arguing against the intuitive understanding of the outside world, based on our perception(which is what more or less materialism is about), which is not even argueable unless you present evidence that 20th century physics is wrong.


I wonder what your opinion is on the theory that reality is a mathematical structure? Can you offer a materialistic refutation?

Mind you i am not going as far as far as claiming that the world is made of information as some assert(Zeilinger, Tegmark, Wheeler) or that there is no reality as in:

"There is no ghost in the machine, not because there is no ghost, but because there is no machine" - Paul Davies, the Matter Myth

But i am stating that the old notions of material objects in space and time is perhaps a misunderstaning of our senses and how they are structured. Even this mild statement is in stark contrast with materialism.

 

[Pythagorean]

What does the fact that they break in certain domain have to do with the conclusions we draw from them about reality?

It illuminates that certain models only work under certain conditions, largely because of our ignorance of what's "really going on" and the failure of our models to perfectly describe reality.

And how exactly are things? You do not know! Nobody does. It's a matter of interpretation and interpreting the experiemental results from GR and QM in a sensible manner is extrodinarily difficult if not outright impossible.

I'm talking about the state of science. There is no TOE in science. Everything is discombobulated and often require 100 different types of specialists to answer one question. One conclusion we can arrive at from this is that we live in a stochastic universe.

And this is the 5th time I've challenged you to provide evidence that you know what matter really is. Only a preferred interpretation of QM or a TOE can reveal the true nature of matter which is a cornerstone in the materialistic perspective. You are basing your beliefs on an intuitive worldview of matter that has been under question for a century. In fact, mathematical proofs have shown that that perspective can't be exactly right and is in need of adjustment.

Another straw man. I'm not claiming to know what matter is.

I've made the point that I don't know what matter (or it's interactions) is (the whole 100% comment) but I feel that I have a better grasp of it then I did before receiving a formal education in physics.

No, it sounds like you have proved your interpretation of qm and reality to be true. This is ridiculous. Even "shut up and calculate" doesn't claim a strict materialistic perspective is right. You ought to provide evidence where in your physics textbooks it was said that modern physics supports the old materialistic notions.

It's not shut-up and calculate. It's "I can't relate this to you any other way than for you to actually do the work yourself, and every time I try, you misunderstand" Scientists are human; they can't help but make philosophical interpretations. They are largely metaphorical and abstract, though. I spent four years learning physics. It's not something I could convey in a couple of posts. It has altered my thinking a lot (for the better, in my opinion).

It's great that you have read those threads, but the wave-partcile duality is still the closest we can get to establishing some kind of ontology of what matter is.

I would disagree. The ontology starts with "emptying your cup" as the eastern mystics would say. You have to get rid of your preconceptions and say to yourself "wow, this is something totally new".

In other words you have no answer to my question:

No, I don't know how particles spontaneously decay. I would surely have a Nobel prize by now if I did.

I am surprised you call yourself a materialist and you don't believe in objects with fixed properties located in space and time. That's must be a some new kind of materialism.

It's about 50 years new. See special relativity.

I think you are making a very layman statement when you say "laymen don't understand what physical means". Calling yourself scientist and physicist does not in any way justify your making unwarranted claims. You first need to specify what you mean by 'physical' and then state your preferred interpretation. I thought a physicist calling himself a scientist must be aware of the trap - 'i know which interpretation is right'. Being a physicist, you should have known better than that.

I've made lots of examples of what physical is. You must have missed them... I can re-quote them if you like, but I think it's pretty obvious that things like energy and velocity aren't matter, but are still physical.

Agreed, though i wonder why you made the statement - "we don't understand 100% of reality, but...", since 0.03% is 300 times less than 100%.

This must have something to do with your expectations if you are surprised by this. I am not.

You now seem to be realising that the materialistic view is in change.

Actually, I was born in a post-quantum, post-SR, post-GR world and society. The materialistic view, as far as scientists are concerned, changed about a century ago, starting with Planck's discovery of the quantization of energy. I was raised by this society. For me, the materialistic view hasn't changed at all.

I'm trying to catch you up on the last 100 years is all.

Judging by that last paragraph, i'd say we are in agreement that the old intuitive notions of materialism can no longer be supported in the way they once were. Ask those who work in the ST and LQG field what they think about intuition and materialism. I am arguing against the intuitive understanding of the outside world, based on our perception(which is what more or less materialism is about), which is not even argueable unless you present evidence that 20th century physics is wrong.

When I look at the wiki for materialism, it seems pretty up to date to me:

"In philosophy the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance."

Of course "the only thing that exists is matter" is bad wording because the phenomena exist too. But the author obviously recognizes that phenomena exists (and that it arises from interactions in matter).

Also, I don't see any reason why matter can't arise from phenomena either (for instance, if you apply a large enough voltage, even in a vacuum, electron-positron pairs will "come into existence") Of course, it's possible that they always did exist and we've just massaged them into an observable state.

I wonder what your opinion is on the theory that reality is a mathematical structure? Can you offer a materialistic refutation?

I think it's a long shot to make that claim that reality is a mathematical structure. It's hardly falsifiable, but there's a good article on it that was originally posted by ZapperZ here:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

As far as I'm concerned, math is just a language we've developed for highly accurate communication and record keeping. Because math is so dexterous, we can use it to model anything in a logical, correlative manner. I don't think this means the universe is a mathematical structure.

But i am stating that the old notions of material objects in space and time is perhaps a misunderstaning of our senses and how they are structured. Even this mild statement is in stark contrast with materialism.

Not the materialism the wiki or me speak of.

Here's another definition from the university of Aberdeen Philosophy Department:

"The claim that only material (physical) things exist. Often used in PHILOSOPHY OF MIND in contrast to the claim that mental objects and events cannot be reduced to physical objects and events."

I think you may really have invented a strawman to argue against.

 

[apeiron]

"In philosophy the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance."

Of course "the only thing that exists is matter" is bad wording because the phenomena exist too. But the author obviously recognizes that phenomena exists (and that it arises from interactions in matter).

Also, I don't see any reason why matter can't arise from phenomena either (for instance, if you apply a large enough voltage, even in a vacuum, electron-positron pairs will "come into existence") Of course, it's possible that they always did exist and we've just massaged them into an observable state.

The conversation goes round in circles because one side wants to reduce physical description to a monadic story, the other insists that QM changes the game. (Then there is the secondary debate about modelling - are we just approaching truth via models, or does somewhere here claim to have actually arrived at the final truth?)

I'm repeating myself of course, but physical description has always found itself arriving at dualisms - or rather dyads and dichotomies. So somewhere along the line, you would expect people to realize that monadism is simply a mistaken goal. You can never have a this without also having a that.

Pythagorean alludes to this. Materialism says the only thing is substance. But oh, then there are the interactions, the phenomena. Or in fact the spacetime geometry - the void that makes the atoms a good model. And in QM, the void becomes something active and material itself. And then there is mathematics and the question of whether there is a dualistic realm of form or if form is merely an idea constructed in human minds. A bunch of familiar confusions.

At the same time, Georg is protesting that QM demonstrates reality is definitely, proveably, dualistic. You have all the familiar QM divisions such as particle~wave, local~non-local, energy~time uncertainty, position~velocity uncertainty, bra~ket. Something fundamental stares us in the face.

Now the modelling distinction is important here because it frees us to say that we can model reality monadically, dyadically, or any damn way we choose. What we are concerned with primarily is what works. Now we should also expect that what works is what actually cuts with the grain of reality. But a priori, we don't have to rule out one approach over the other. Get away from claims about final truth and a lot of the heat and patch protection should go out of the debate.

Then I say that if you just consider the history of metaphysics and physics, you will see it has always arrived at dualisms (and always tried to continue reducing to force matters to a monadism).

Atomism was the earliest example. It reduced reality to atoms~void. And the void became "the nothing that exists" in that the void was a-causal. It was there as a backdrop but was causally uninvolved, making all causality local - the properties of a collection of particles.

Then you had the Aristole/Plato great debate which instead tried to break reality down into the opposed categories of substance or form. Aristotle attempted to build a model of reality as the interaction of both (and he was pretty successful). And even Plato - who is remembered as concluding that "all is form", matter is only the imperfect shadow of this more fundamental shaping realm - did in the Timeaus (and probably as a late response to his pupil's arguments) accept a dualistic formula where there was also fundamentally the chora, the formless substance, a second necessary realm to take the imprint.

So materialism is a monadic modelling approach in the spirit of atomism where an underlying dualism is accepted - that of atom and void, event and context, matter and vacuum - only one half of the dyad is granted causality. The other is merely the inert, if necessary, backdrop. It is there, but the modelling can ignore it as the model only needs to track what the local particles, the local substances, are up to.

Among things, QM has brought the backdrop alive and so monadic simplicities cannot work. The ether may have been ruled out by Einstein (a huge victory for monadic atomism) but now it is back again (as Wilzcek and others agree, with his comments about condensed matter approaches being the ether on steroids).

So this is the current state of materialism (and its eternal state). Theories always demand a breaking of reality into a this and a that. To have an event, we must imagine its context. But for some reason, there is fixation with reducing dyads to monads. The general way this has been done in science is to follow the trick of atomism - make the context an a-causal void. And this indeed kind of works within limits. But as you step back to see yet more of reality, then again the problem of context intrudes. It again becomes obviously causal, part of what shapes things. The model has to model that part of the story as well - as the QM version of the vacuum tells us.

This is an issue for the whole of science of course. I came at it from the consciousness studies angle originally. The great mental block in that field is the same blind conviction that naturally dichotomistic models must be reduced somehow eventually to simpler monadic models (whether this is saying minds are just material patterns, or matter has some hidden panpsychic conscious dimension).

To me, it is all strangely self-denying. We have this great log-jam in human thought now where everyone is just frustrated that monadic thinking is not delivering in crucial areas - the widest picture questions such as what is the fundamental grain of reality, what is the cosmological context story (pre-bang), and where does consciousness fit?

Yet accept the dyadic (and then triadic, or hierarchical) causality already implicit in all our metaphysics, and so many blocking issues just evaporate.