being good modern empiricists, we have no need for potency. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps the "have no need" is the key factor rathet than observability?

I'm no mathmatician, but it seems to me that in a practical sense we need at least the mathematical ideas of infinity and continuums. I'm not seeing a similar need for potency.

Well, the concept of potential is used all the time in practical matters, e.g. the counterfactual analysis that makes up a great bulk of the work done in the sciences, engineering problems, "potential energy," potential growth in economics, attracting "potential mates" in biology, etc.

It's really more in the realm of metaphysics or something like the amorphous "metaphysics of science" that the prohibition on talking about potentialities seems to hold.

Say you have a 12V battery with infinite resistance across the terminals. What's the current? If you say zero, then Ohms Law (which relates potential to kinetic) will tell you that you've multiplied zero times infinity and ended up with 12.

Well, the concept of potential is used all the time in practical matters, e.g. the counterfactual analysis that makes up a great bulk of the work done in the sciences, engineering problems, "potential energy," potential growth in economics, attracting "potential mates" in biology, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say the word "potential" used in such cases is useful way of talking about emergent properties, but drops out when looking at the subvenient details. For example, the potential energy of a bowling ball on a shelf...

PEgrav = m • g • h

...doesnt have a potency term, and adding a potency term would seem like a matter of unneeded overdetermination.

It's really more in the realm of metaphysics or something like the amorphous "metaphysics of science" that the prohibition on talking about potentialities seems to hold. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd think it is because (regardless of the usefulness of "potential" when discussing things in terms of emergent properties) there is no need for "potency" when things are considered at more fundamental levels.

Say you have a 12V battery with infinite resistance across the terminals. What's the current? If you say zero, then Ohms Law (which relates potential to kinetic) will tell you that you've multiplied zero times infinity and ended up with 12. — frank

Perhaps better to think of it as "Ohm's rule of thumb". It is not a fundamental physical law, but more of a useful way of looking at emergent properties in some cases.

Perhaps better to think of it as "Ohm's rule of thumb". It is not a fundamental physical law, but more of a useful way of looking at emergent properties in some cases. — wonderer1

That's one way to address the problem. There are others.

That's one way to address the problem. There are others. — frank

What is your favorite?

What is your favorite? — wonderer1

Another way is to say that we never have infinite resistance. There are always electrons bouncing around the terminals, so the resistance can be really large, practically infinite. But I think the best answer is that infinite resistance is a way of saying that no event is possible. If the resistance is infinite, there is no voltage, or potential.

What I really think is that potential, resistance, and kinetic are the results of pulling an event apart so that we better understand it. The three don't exist separately in the wild.

If the resistance is infinite, there is no voltage, or potential. — frank

I'd say something more like "infinite resistance" is kind of meaningless in absolute terms, and in practical terms "infinite resistance" is used to indicate something along the lines of "such a high resistance that I can ignore it".

I wouldn't say there is no voltage between the terminals though. The voltage differential between the terminals of a battery is there regardless of whether there is any current flow from the positive terminal to the negative terminal. To say otherwise would be analogous to saying there is no gravity well, unless something is falling into it. I'm not seeing any good reason to look at things that way.

I have observed more than a few people argue that potency/potential is best left out of natural philosophy because it is, in principle, not empirically observable. Only act can be observable, hence, being good modern empiricists, we have no need for potency. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Who are you thinking of? I have a hard time believing that someone who understands potency/potential could leave it out, at least on the basis of empirical grounds.

So what's the difference? Or is the "observability" thing really just a red herring?

The question is one I've been thinking about too... for me I ask 'what is the difference between a 'power' and a 'mind'?' Does it really make sense to categorize as strictly separate something that is on it's way to being and something that is? For instance, an acorn falls off an oak tree as a result of the oak tree and its internal intention to form another tree. It begins as part of the oak tree, but only as a path to another oak tree once it acts in nature, or is planted and receives nutrients. So it acts without intention of becoming the oak tree, but through action it becomes the original intention. This extends beyond oak trees, obviously.

Scientists must take things as they occur empirically and as they are in mind as separate by convention, but it would be foolish to believe this was their true definitiveness. A theory without physical proof is not adequate, just as empirical reality alone is not enough to establish the essence of a scientific phenomena. But the falsification comes in when believing that explanatory essence or 'theory' exists in itself apart from real being. However, in the modern world the essence in mind (potential) is the true power, because it is the science in rationality. In an R & D company, an overall authority determines the final rationality of cause and effect, just as a father determines who is at fault when their two sons are fighting with each other.

That rationality is not just an act of power, but becomes the power itself, its 'potential.' The role of science in the business world is thought of as a mechanism to perform an economic function, to produce short term commercial gains and efficiency while increasing our collective quality of life. It is the utilitarian mission, and is performed within a scientific-commercial ideology with aims to improve the world. We practice this ideology much like the acorn on its path to becoming an oak tree, of utility that leads physicists to think of themselves as starting with problems in the physical world and developing into abstract concepts and potentials (oak trees).

Well, the concept of potential is used all the time in practical matters, e.g. the counterfactual analysis that makes up a great bulk of the work done in the sciences, engineering problems, "potential energy," potential growth in economics, attracting "potential mates" in biology, etc.
It's really more in the realm of metaphysics or something like the amorphous "metaphysics of science" that the prohibition on talking about potentialities seems to hold. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you have hit upon the prohibitive problem with the word "potential" : Metaphysics. It implies the creation of something new that does not yet exist in physical form : Counterfactual.

As you noted, materialistic Science is OK with the notion of Potential in cases where the before & after can be measured, in theory. For example, a AA battery is rated for 1.5 volts, but that future current is imaginary in the sense that it cannot be measured until a hypothetical circuit is completed by some external Cause. So, what is rated is unreal Potential*1 instead of real Actual voltage.

Ironically, the Potential of a physical battery refers to something physically non-existent, hence literally Metaphysical : knowable only by Reason, not by Senses*2. When defined mathematically, as in Quantum Field Energy*3, it's a statistical scientific notion. Although the storage medium (empty space) is immaterial, the math makes sense. But when defined philosophically, it's a taboo religious concept, in which the storage medium is presumed to be supernatural. :nerd:


1. Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential volatage is inert until actualized by some causal trigger.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

2. Metaphysical :
an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. In modern philosophical terminology, metaphysics refers to the studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality. . . . Thus, metaphysical claims stand today between the absolutist claims of science (scientism) and the complete relativism of postmodernism and deconstructionism.
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/metaph-body.html

*3. Quantum potential energy and non-locality :
It is a form of energy which cannot be localized in space. It represent the energy associated with the spatial curvature of the square-root . . . . The quantum potential energy has the units of energy but it does not share the characteristic properties of neither potential nor kinetic energies as understood in classical physics.
https://hal.science › file › quantumpotentialenergy

As you noted, materialistic Science is OK with the notion of Potential in cases where the before & after can be measured, in theory. For example, a AA battery is rated for 1.5 volts, but that future current is imaginary in the sense that it cannot be measured until a hypothetical circuit is completed by some external Cause. So, what is rated is unreal Potential*1 instead of real Actual voltage. — Gnomon

You are once again demonstrating that you don't understand the things you are making claims about. You seemingly don't understand the distinction between electrical voltage and electrical current.

Ironically, the Potential of a physical battery refers to something physically non-existent, hence literally Metaphysical : knowable only by Reason, not by Senses*2. — Gnomon

Umm, we call the sensors used to measure Voltage... ...wait for it... ..."Voltmeters".

I have observed more than a few people argue that potency/potential is best left out of natural philosophy because it is, in principle, not empirically observable. Only act can be observable, hence, being good modern empiricists, we have no need for potency. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Could you perhaps unpack what you mean by potency/potential in this context? Perhaps this is a well-trod ground for some, but I, for one, am not sure what exactly we are talking about. Is it specifically a question about Aristotelian philosophy and its applicability to modern science? Or something less historically and exegetically constrained?

If it is potentiality in the most general sense, I would think that force or energy fields - concepts that became very central in physics and other physical sciences after Newton - are all about potentiality*. The field concept is philosophically interesting indeed, but I don't see it being seriously attacked by empiricists.

* I am not talking specifically about potential fields. Though the term is suggestive in this context, its meaning is more constrained than what I had in mind.

Consider the operational meaning of "infinity" that refers to circular control flow that lacks a termination condition. That is what the lemniscate symbol represents. So there is at least a pictorial, operational and geometric meaning of infinity. Such flows generate infinite processes that often produce observable data on each iteration, so there is also empirical meaning with regards to the execution of an infinite process. And the controllers of the execution of the process get to decide when to terminate it once it has served its purpose, and so the ability to control such a process, as well as it's forced termination by the user, gives controlled infinite processes empirical meaning.

Karl Popper's principle of falsification refers to the case in which an observer hypothesizes that an infinite process that the observer does not control, is responsible for producing a stream of observations.

For example, suppose that an investigator conjectures that all swans are white and that he will terminate his investigation upon observing the first non-white swan. Here, the only empirical meaning that the investigator can be ascribe to his conjecture are the conditions under which his infinite process conjecture is refuted by observation of a counter-example. For Popper, such potential refutation is enough for the investigators hypothesis to be considered as scientifically meaningful. However, suppose that the investigator considered his infinite process hypothesis to be true. As a true hypothesis, it would have no empirical implications, since if it were true then the investigator will never exhaust his stream of observations so as to know that it is true. So I interpret Popper's falsification criteria as implying that infinite process hypotheses are empirically and scientifically meaningful in the sense of the criteria that falsify them, but that such hypotheses cannot be interpreted as true hypotheses, since such interpretations are meaningless.

Such flows generate infinite processes that often produce observable data on each iteration, so there is also empirical meaning with regards to the execution of an infinite process. — sime

But all of that data is finite, isn't it? I guess I'm thinking of finitism. If we set a spaceship (that somehow has an odometer) in one direction and it goes eternally, the reading on the odometer will always be finite. I think this is what Aristotle was thinking. Infinity can only be in potential. When we use the infinity symbol in engineering, we always mean that the variable is infinite for all practical purposes. In reality, it's just really big.

I think this is primarily a result of taking things that determine results and saying “there are not measurable, therefore they cannot have determined the result.”
This is often directly true.
Indirectly is another matter.
Oftentimes something you can’t measure (such as potency) influences not only the result of such an experiment to find something but also the process by which the other factors influence the result.

In the infinity example, you could easily make a case to say “x physical equation isn’t dependent on infinity” and then dispute any contrary idea because its impossible to measure infinity as the input or output variable. Despite this, we still use the concept of infinity in the physical sciences because it’s a useful tool for theoretical calculations and it is necessary to make our equations work because a mathematical system where infinity doesn’t exist wouldn’t be as accurate in portraying our universe.

It all depends on where it’s useful, I think.

It’s easier to discard potency in natural philosophy because we only have to get rid of a few applications, while if we discarded infinity we would also have to ignore the gaping hole in our calculation system and we would have to ask ourselves if any of our non-basic mathematics even makes sense without infinity.

So, empiricism has its flaws, and this is one of them.
While we can’t prove them the way we would want to, we still need to retain some concepts because they are essential to understanding the other progress we have made. And where we can discard concepts and not lose a night’s sleep about it, we do, because we are trying to be as accurate as possible.

I have observed more than a few people argue that potency/potential is best left out of natural philosophy because it is, in principle, not empirically observable. Only act can be observable, hence, being good modern empiricists, we have no need for potency. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm no mathmatician, but it seems to me that in a practical sense we need at least the mathematical ideas of infinity and continuums. I'm not seeing a similar need for potency. — wonderer1

As you said, "only acts can be observed", but Potential for a future Act can be imagined, and even calculated mathematically. Ironically, Wonderer1 sees no need for spooky spiritual Potency, because he has a Mathematical term for the before/after relationship of Causation : Difference*1. He seems to think that mathematics is empirical, hence more real than metaphysical Potential. So, he asserts that Voltage can exist in the absence of Current flow*2. Which is true in the metaphysical sense of a calculated, but not measured, Difference. In Aristotelian terms, Voltage is a Formal (theoretical) Cause, not a Material (empirical) Cause*3.

In a storage battery the Voltage is not measured empirically, but calculated mathematically*2. You can hold a AA battery in your hand without getting shocked, because your skin is too resistive for such a small Potential to flow*2. Hence, you can have Potential (metaphysical ; ideal) Voltage without any (physical ; real) current flow. Voltage, as a mathematical definition, is a theoretical Cause without material Effect.

In what sense does Potential exist : space-time or infinity ; reality or ideality ; actual or theoretical? In what sense does Mathematics exist : material or metaphysical?*4 :smile:


*1. How to find voltage without current?
How to Calculate Voltage Across a Resistor (with Pictures)
With basic algebra, we can change Ohm's Law to solve for voltage instead of current: I = V / IR = VR / IR = V.
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Voltage-Across-a-Resistor

*2. Voltage without Current :
Voltage can exist without current, as it is the cause of flowing charge. Current does not exist without voltage, as voltage is the main cause to flow current except theoretical superconductor.
https://www.toppr.com/guides/physics/difference-between-voltage-and-current/

*3. What is a voltage source with no current?
Voltage sources provide an almost-constant output voltage as long as the current drawn from the source is within the source's capabilities. An ideal voltage source loaded by an open circuit (i.e., an infinite impedance) will provide no current (and hence no power).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_source

*4. Mathematics is Metaphysics :
Whereas the natural sciences investigate entities that are located in space and time, it is not at all obvious that this is also the case for the objects that are studied in mathematics.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/

Those questions are interesting to me as a reader of Aristotle because of the emphasis Aristotle put upon only being able to speak of potential by means of analogy. He expressed more confidence about other things.

Ah Gnomon, have you no sources of narcissistic supply outside of TPF?

Anyway, here's an article on pseudo philosophy:
https://psyche.co/ideas/pseudophilosophy-encourages-confused-self-indulgent-thinking:

An excerpt:

Epistemic unconscientiousness is an essential but not exhaustive component of pseudoscience. To count as pseudoscientific, a belief must also be about some scientific issue, and this is precisely where pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy differ. Just like pseudoscience, pseudophilosophy is defined by a lack of epistemic conscientiousness, but its subject matter is philosophical rather than scientific.

[Emphasis added]

I have observed more than a few people argue that potency/potential is best left out of natural philosophy because it is, in principle, not empirically observable. Only act can be observable, hence, being good modern empiricists, we have no need for potency.
Well, I can understand this argument, even if I don't agree with it. However, it seems to me that the same exact sort of argument can be made against the infinite/continuous. After all, the infinite is, in principle, unobservable. We cannot have measurements consisting of an infinite number of decimals for instance.
Yet modern empirical thinking does not seem to have the same attitude on the infinite. Certainly, there are arguments for finitism, and it seems to be an idea that is getting more popular in physics, but no one says that it must be the case because the infinite is unobservable.
Indeed, that continuous mathematics is useful is often taken to simply imply an unobservable continuum. But this sort of reasoning seems to work just as well for potency, no?
So what's the difference?
Or is the "observability" thing really just a red herring? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I suspect that an "observability" argument against Potential is indeed a "red herring" to disguise the metaphysical worldview of Materialism*1 as a matter of Fact instead of Faith. A response to my discussion of Voltage as Potential (not yet real) current, elicited, not a counterargument, but an ad hominem accusation of heresy : "pseudophilosophy is defined by a lack of epistemic conscientiousness"*2. Ironically, all my links to definitions of electrical Potential were to scientific sites, not philosophical or pseudoscientific sites.

Therefore, I'm guessing that the motivation behind that accusation of was in defense of the Materialism belief system*3*4, that you seem to be questioning. As you noted, "Potential" is similar to "Infinite", in that both scientific concepts are based, not on empirical observation, but on rational inference. Although those terms refer to something that is not observable or measurable, they are used frequently in scientific documents refering to "things" that are not-yet-real, or observable.

So, what's the difference between Empirical Observable here & now facts, and Rational Imaginative placeless & timeless theories? Potential is like Infinity, in that it is not observable via the physical senses, but inferable by means of mental (immaterial ; mathematical) Reasoning. Infinity is not Real or Physical, but Ideal and Meta-Physical. Likewise, Materialism is not observable, but must be taken on faith. :smile:


*1. Materialism is the view that, because only physical matter and its properties exist, minds are merely manifestations of matter and are reducible to physical features. Metaphysical materialists claim that all things except minds or ideas are ultimately physical or bodily.
http://people.tamu.edu/~sdaniel/quest4.html

*2. Pseudophilosophy : Analogous to pseudoscience, can there be such a thing as pseudophilosophy, in which one makes claims with philosophical pretensions which on closer inspection turn out to be bullshit?
https://psyche.co/ideas/pseudophilosophy-encourages-confused-self-indulgent-thinking

*3. Materialism is Metaphysical :
# To say that materialism is a form of ontological monism means that it identifies what is real in terms of the practical (pragmatic) value of things.
#" Metaphysical dualists (e.g., Descartes) argue that the two kinds of things in the world—namely, spiritual things (minds, ideas) and material things (bodies)—cannot be explained in terms of one another".
# "Philosophical dualists like Descartes argue that mind and matter are fundamentally two different aspects of the same non-mental and non-physical substance."
http://people.tamu.edu/~sdaniel/quest4.html

*4.Materialistic Monism :
Materialistic monists believe that the physical, material world (not the mental world) is primary. They believe that consciousness is essentially part of the material world too, because it arises through our interaction with the material world.

*5. Materialism in academia is a fundamentalist belief system :
The metaphysics of materialism is a belief system held in large swathes of academia in the same manner, and often for the same reasons, that religious beliefs are held in fundamentalist organizations,
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/materialism-in-academia-is-a-fundamentalist-belief-system/reading/

A response to my discussion of Voltage as Potential (not yet real) current, elicited, not a counterargument, but an ad hominem accusation of heresy : "pseudophilosophy is defined by a lack of epistemic conscientiousness" — Gnomon

I was just pointing out a fact, that you are once again demonstrating.

You don't care enough about knowing what you are talking about, to investigate what you are talking about to the point that you do know what you are talking about. How long did it take you to realize what a bit is?

If you had wanted to understand you could ask me. I think I've said on TPF enough times, that I'm an electrical engineer. Maybe I could have conveyed to you a way of thinking about the subject that is not nearly as nonsenical as what you are presenting. But you don't want to be seen as a student. You want to be seen as a teacher. Right?

Could you perhaps unpack what you mean by potency/potential in this context?

Well, I wrote and lost a long reply to this, but to keep things short, I would say the denial of potentialities related to form are most important. E.g. a toddler potentially can speak Spanish, a rock can not. A rock would need to undergo substantial change, becoming something different from a rock (something with the potential to speak Spanish) in order to speak Spanish.

But I wouldn't want to limit the question to this. There is also Aristotle's ideas of space and time being potentially infinitely divisible but not actually so, which seems to have application for contemporary conversations about finitism in physics (or the application of intuitionist mathematics to physics, which at first glance seems more in line with Aristotle).

Well, I wrote and lost a long reply to this — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's a shame...

There is a cluster of concepts closely related to potential: possibility in all its forms, probability, powers, dispositions. All of them have reasonable applications in thought. But where is the actual tension with empiricism? It would take an unreasonably austerer form of empiricism to deny all of that.

In regard to observations, I know of no empiricists who would deny being to all but observed instances (sense-impressions)? That's as good as (or as bad as) solipsism. Empiricism goes hand-in-hand with inference, and why not infer towards potential, etc.? There can be particular objections, but I don't see a path from empiricism to denying potential and the like tout court.

From the desk of an old mathematician.

For me potency means a function I design that when implemented by choosing a point from its domain produces a really big number.

For me potential means infinity as simply an unbounded process as in "goes to infinity".

For other math people infinity may be a term described by an axiom.

Indeed, that continuous mathematics is useful is often taken to simply imply an unobservable continuum. But this sort of reasoning seems to work just as well for potency, no?

So what's the difference?

Or is the "observability" thing really just a red herring? — Count Timothy von Icarus

We simply don't understand the logic behind infinity and hence continuity. It's the really big thing missing. The math is already there with calculus. We just don't have a beautiful philosophical answer to this part of mathematics, even if we already know the math.