you aren't relating what you're saying to anything I said. You aren't even referencing anything I said. How can you possibly explain how these things relate to what I said if you're not referencing what I said?

What? I don't understand what you mean. Could you clarify? Why are you saying such a thing to me without referencing anything I said? I don't understand.


->If you can't remember what you said, go back and read it.

If I reply to someone, and they're asking me how my reply relates to what I said, what I'd do is I'd quote the thing they said specifically, possibly paraphrase it, as in, "because you said this, I interpret that to mean you believe such-and-such", and then go on to explain how what I'm saying is a response to such-and-such.

But you're not quoting me, you're not showing me the thing I said that you're responding to. You're just saying more things about what you think, without relating them to anything I said, so it just seems increasingly random and unrelated to what I said.

Like that kid who says "I like turtles"

In other words, it seems like you think you're disagreeing with some idea or belief of mine. What belief of mine are you disagreeing with specifically? Since you haven't clarified, I don't know.


Maybe you're not even disagreeing with anything I said or believe. I have no idea. You refuse to clarify, so I don't know. You're leaving it up to me to guess, and I'm far from psychic.

Is motion perpetual without limits?

i don't know

Well you're definitely asserting something here:

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment.

The concept of energy doesn't dictate that energy is really lost, if you want to relate entropy to energy, entropy is more about patterns of distribution of energy. — flannel jesus

Sure, I am. I didn't asert anything about whether "motion is perpetual without limits" in that quote.

Or maybe you're interpreting that in a way that means I did, indirectly, assert that. I don't know. Do you think I implicitly asserted something about that statement in that quote?

Certainly implied.

Are you going to clarify what statement is implied? Am I implying agreement or disagreement with "motion is perpetual without limits", and why?

Can you think of a different reason why perpetual motion machines would be impossible? — flannel jesus

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment.

The concept of energy doesn't dictate that energy is really lost, if you want to relate entropy to energy, entropy is more about patterns of distribution of energy. — flannel jesus

this is why you're a lying sack of poop...

why am i a lying sack of poop?

your question and assertion is in reference to perpetual motion. Trying to pretend it's not because I didn't reference it in my assertion is just you being a troll.

I believe perpetual motion machines are impossible. However, I believe it's completely feasible, depending on how you interpret the phrase, that "motion is perpetual". I don't think those two phrases mean the same thing or close to the same thing.

Perhaps I'm mistaken about that.

I dont know the answer either. ALL that I'm getting at is it seems odd to make a very obvious law that says details the definition of limitless is to be without limits.

ALL that I'm getting at is it seems odd to make a very obvious law that says details the definition of limitless is to be without limits. — DifferentiatingEgg

I'm sorry mr Egg, but once again I don't know where this comes from. I don't know what obvious law you're referring to, I don't recall saying anything about limitless without limits or whatever.

Nothing to be sorry about.

The law of conservation of humans

Humans can neither be created or destroyed, but they can change forms.

A baby isn't created, just a changing of forms of matter.

The law of conservation of shit

Shits can neither be created or destroyed, but they can change forms...

"I'm eating this 'shit' so my body transforms it into that shit which I'll shit out as a pile of shit..."

You can sub anyword for energy and it's more or less true.

Better yet, Life is neither created or destroyed...

Or light for that matter...

But wait God does those things?

So apparently energy can be created or destroyed. According to any true Christian perspective.

What I think might be useful is to attend to the fact that waste heat only is 'lost' (unable to do more work) relationally or contextually. — Pierre-Normand

I was thinking that Meta conflated energy and entropy in such a way that he things the energy of a closed system must constantly decrease as the entropy increases. Of course this is he same as the amount of energy being constant while the amount of energy available for work decreases over time. SO I think ChatGPT and I have diagnosed his error in much the same way.

seems to be on a similar path. I wasn't able to make much sense of what @DifferentiatingEgg had to say.

pretty simple, the first law of Thermo Dynamics pretty much says everything can neither be created nor destroyed, but that what is changes form.

Sure. True but irrelevant. Choose whatever conservation principle you want. The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable - they embed one quantification in another so that accepting a basic statement does not show them to be false. — Banno

You wrote that the conservation of energy is unfalsifiable. I pointed out that it has already been falsified. How is that irrelevant?

The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable — Banno

As far as I know, that's not true. Can you point out an instance?

Whereas the conservation laws are metaphysical and true and helpful, determinism is metaphysical and potentially false and not helpful. — Banno

As I understand it, conservation of matter and energy has been established as a valid principle in physics. That doesn't necessarily mean it's correct, but we are justified in using it unless it is falsified in the future. It's not metaphysics, it's science. Determinism is metaphysics and can be useful.

Saying "things have cases" is not the same as saying that physics is deterministic. — Banno

How is saying that all events have causes not describing determinism? To be clear, that statement is also metaphysics, not science.

Otherwise it just looks like the medieval prejudice that every event has a cause - a classic bit of bad metaphysics that is almost certainly wrong. — Banno

It is metaphysics, but it's not medieval and it's not necessarily bad.

I pointed out that it has already been falsified. How is that irrelevant? — T Clark

Just to be sure, I am here relating aspects of Popper's falsification, as elucidated by his student and supporter, Watkins. This is not a rejection of falsificationism but an elaboration on it.
Deciding something is false is different to it's being logically falsifiable.

The issue is that there are parts of science that are logically unfalsifiable — Banno

For Popper, basic statements ("protocol sentences") are unfalsifiable. And they are part of science. They are observations that might be used to falsify a theory - a "theory" here being some universal statement such as "all swans are black".

There are other examples.

As I understand it, conservation of matter and energy has been established as a valid principle in physics. That doesn't necessarily mean it's correct, but we are justified in using it unless it is falsified in the future. It's not metaphysics, it's science. Determinism is metaphysics and can be useful. — T Clark

Science and metaphysics are not mutually exclusive... Following Popper in calling ideas that can be neither falsified nor verified "metaphysical", there are bits of science that have a logical structure that bars them from falsification by a basic statement, and so count as metaphysics. This is the criticism of Popper that Watkins is confronting. Indeed, I suspect that Watkins might well be the source of the very view you are attempting to articulate.

How is saying that all events have causes not describing determinism? — T Clark

"All events have causes" is a different proposition to "events have causes", since the second allows for uncaused events. So saying "things have cases" is not the same as saying that physics is deterministic. Science accepts that things sometimes have causes, not that they always have causes. It allows for events that do not have a cause: Norton's Dome, the three-body problem, Schwarzschild Singularities. Statistical Mechanics is built on this idea.

Of course this is he same as the amount of energy being constant while the amount of energy available for work decreases over time. — Banno

This demonstrates the contradiction I mentioned. Energy is defined as "the capacity to do work". To assume that there is energy within a closed system which is not available to do work, is simple contradiction.

The truth is that the energy would actually be lost to the system. But to create the appearance that the law of conservation is true, the lost energy is said to still exist somehow, but in a form in which it cannot do any work. Of course that's nonsense, because that is just saying that it's energy which exists, but is in no way detectable as energy. So it's energy which does not fulfill the criteria of "energy". Hmm, energy which is not energy, an interesting concept.

What about friction, heat loss, things like that? When a machine loses energy, it doesn't just lose it into the void, it gets transferred to other things in its immediate environment. — flannel jesus

Never has 100% of the energy been all accounted for. You can speculate about where it all goes, but inevitably we have to admit that some simply gets lost "into the void". This poses the question of what does the void consist of, which allows it to swallow up energy without that energy having an effect on the void.

which allows it to swallow up energy without that energy having an effect on the void. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps it does have an effect on the void. Space expands and light loses energy as it travels through expanding space. Maybe space expands proportionally to the energy lost to it

Perhaps it does have an effect on the void. Space expands and light loses energy as it travels through expanding space. Maybe space expands proportionally to the energy lost to it — flannel jesus

That's similar to what I think as well. But do you see what this implies about the concept of energy? In application the concept of energy is applied to movements within a non-expanding space. However, the conception is deficient because it does not account for the true expansion of space. Then some energy must be said to get swallowed up by space, to account for this deficiency in the conception.

Deciding something is false is different to it's being logically falsifiable. — Banno

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. As I see it, if I can determine a proposition is false, it must be logically falsifiable.

For Popper, basic statements ("protocol sentences") are unfalsifiable. — Banno

I had never heard the term "protocol sentence" before, so I looked it up. This is from Britannica.

protocol sentence, in the philosophy of Logical Positivism, a statement that describes immediate experience or perception and as such is held to be the ultimate ground for knowledge... It is thought to be irrefutable and therefore the ultimate justification for other more complex statements, particularly for statements of science. — Britannica

Irrefutable is not the same as unfalsifiable.

there are bits of science that have a logical structure that bars them from falsification by a basic statement, and so count as metaphysics. — Banno

You still haven't given me an example of a "bit of science" that I think demonstrates your point. As I have explained, your example of conservation of energy does not.

"All events have causes" is a different proposition to "events have causes", since the second allows for uncaused events. So saying "things have cases" is not the same as saying that physics is deterministic. — Banno

I agree, but how is this relevant to our discussion. I wasn't talking about the statement "events have causes."

However, the conception is deficient because it does not account for the true expansion of space. Then some energy must be said to get swallowed up by space — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure about that. The potential energy between two objects *increases* with space. A ball 2m above the surface of the earth is said to have more potential energy than a ball 1m up. So perhaps it all adds up.

There would just need to be some kind of counterpart of e=mc2 for space.

I'm not sure about that. The potential energy between two objects *increases* with space. A ball 2m above the surface of the earth is said to have more potential energy than a ball 1m up. So perhaps it all adds up. — flannel jesus

I don't think so, because a ball at 2m will stay at 2m, as time passes, unless forced to change. However if space expands as time passes, the difference due to this expansion is not accounted for in the equations of energy. That is why a difference in distance, which is attributed to spatial expansion, is not classified as "motion".

A quick version of naive falsification. A theory is a universal statement - "all swans are black". basic or protocol sentence would be "Here is a white swan" and "Here is a black swan". "Here is a black swan" is consistent with the theory, but by itself cannot verify it. To verify the theory we would have to check out every swan, not just the one before us. "Here is a white swan" falsifies the theory.

The not-so-naive version of falsification is to note that "Here is a white swan" might be countered - it's not a swan, or it only looks white in this light, or other ad hoc hypothesis that protects the theory from falsification. There is a difference then between a theory being logically falsifiable, and the decision that the theory has indeed been falsified.

Protocol sentences were taken as irrefutable - the idea being that one could not be wrong in thinking "I see a white swan, there, now".

Theories are falsifiable becasue hey have the logical form U(x)(fx⊃gx) - for all things, if they are swans then they are black.

Protocol sentences have the logic structure "f(a) & ~g(a)" - such a sentence falsifies U(x)(fx⊃gx). "This is a swan and this is white {ie, not black)" falsifies "for all things, if they are swans then they are black".

Can you see how protocol sentences do not have structure that is falsifiable?

The above is Popper's own logic, from The Logic of Scientific Discovery.

Sorry, I don't get it. It seems self-evidently goofy. That's a technical philosophical term. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems like a simple issue. We can leave it at that.

Then there is something about Popper and falsification that you have missed, and I have not adequately explained.

Popper draws a clear distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology. The logic of his theory is utterly simple: a universal statement is falsified by a single genuine counter-instance. Methodologically, however, the situation is complex: decisions about whether to accept an apparently falsifying observation as an actual falsification can be problematic, as observational bias and measurement error, for example, can yield results which are only apparently incompatible with the theory under scrutiny. — Popper, from SEP, (my bolding)

There is a difference between being falsifiable and being falsified. Have a read and a think.