• Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you are not a serious interlocutor.Kenosha Kid

    Judging by how you refuse to address the issues I point to, and continue to be unwilling to acknowledge any of the problems of the Standard Model, I think the inverse of what you say here, is what is really the case. You are willing only to recite certain specifics of the Standard Model, as if you are a bot programed to do that. It reminds me of a high school kid who has been taught to memorize so-called "facts". You demonstrate absolutely no understanding of the principles. Clearly the Standard Model is your pet theory, whether or not it is the cornerstone of modern physics.

    A serious interlocutor is one who is willing to address the shortcomings of one's professed theory, brought up by the other, rather than ignoring these issues with repetitive assertions.
  • jgill
    3.8k
    There is a shortest period of time, Planck time, during which something can happen.Metaphysician Undercover


    Here's what Lalit Patel, PhD physics had to say in 2017 on Quora:

    "Planck time is an extremely small time duration, which current technologies are not able to access.

    I guess that the following events can occur in the duration of Planck time.

    1. An object feels the effect of gravitational force transmitted from an object.
    2. A particle feels the effect of electromagnetic, weak, or strong force transmitted from a particle.
    3. A photon feels the presence of a surface and decides to retract. (A photon impinging on a surface gets converted into another photon.)
    4. A typical string of the string theory completes one oscillation cycle."

    Am I mistaken that what could happen in Planck time is more a matter of metaphysics than physics itself? If this is a settled issue please provide links. I have very little knowledge of quantum physics.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    Clearly the Standard Model is your pet theory, whether or not it is the cornerstone of modern physics.Metaphysician Undercover

    Not really. I expect it's an approximation, and better approximations will be arrived at. That has tended to be the trajectory of physics.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    Am I mistaken that what could happen in Planck time is more a matter of metaphysics than physics itself? If this is a settled issue please provide links. I have very little knowledge of quantum physics.jgill

    I would say that you're definitely right that this is a matter of metaphysics. But some metaphysics is supported by science while other metaphysics is not. I wonder what you mean when you say "an object feels the effect of...", but does not show any physical change. What does it means to say that a physical object is feeling the effect of something without itself being changed by the thing that it is feeling the effect of?
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    Do you think that an inanimate object has the will power to resist, (even for an extremely short period of time) being changed by the force which it is feeling the effect of?
  • jgill
    3.8k
    I wonder what you mean when you say "an object feels the effect of...", but does not show any physical change.Metaphysician Undercover

    Those were Dr. Patel's words, not mine.

    Do you think that an inanimate object has the will power to resistMetaphysician Undercover

    How amusing. Patel does have a way with words. I know so little of the subject; nevertheless, a particle having will power is a challenging conjecture. You should follow up on this. :cool:
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    Information about Dr. Patel, on the web, is scant. I would assume that the use of "an object feels the effect of..." is not accepted physics, but an expression of some sort of panpsychism, or perhaps based in the Whiteheadian principle of "prehension". This is a term Whitehead used to account for what we observe as the relationship between a moment of time in the past, and a moment of time in the future.

    The reality of the temporal continuity of existence, a form of which is expressed as inertia, which supports the laws of physics and inductive logic in general, is not at all understood by human beings. So there are numerous different metaphysical proposals of how one moment in time can be related to the next moment in time, in a way which provides for the observed continuity of massive existence, but also provides for the capacity of a free willing being to make random changes to that continued existence.

    This is why I mentioned will power in relation to Dr. Patel's expressions. If a substantive thing, (massive object), is inclined toward temporal continuity (as inertia implies), yet "feels" a force which would impel that object to change, then there are two very distinct forces involved, the force to stay the same, and the force to change. If the object stays the same, despite feeling the force which would impel it to change, doesn't this appear to you like the object has made a choice, and exercised will power to prevent the force of change? If not, then what would it mean for an object to be able to "feel" the force of change, yet not change? If the object does not change, then how does the force actually affect the object such that we can truthfully say that it feels the force?
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