Math doesn't do anything. — creativesoul

What do you mean, 'do'?

Have you ever encountered Eugene Wigner's essay, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences? It was one of the first things I encountered when I started posting on forums. All grist to the Platonist mill, as far as I'm concerned.

How could I be conflating the model with the reality when I am talking about our models of reality? — apokrisis

Incoherency...

Next?

You want to claim that you're not... then draw and maintain the distinction between causality and a report thereof. Then, do the same with QM...

Math doesn't do anything.
— creativesoul

What do you mean, 'do'? — Wayfarer

How many options are there given the context? It has no ability - in and of itself - to do anything.

Have you ever encountered Eugene Wigner's essay, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences? It was one of the first things I encountered when I started posting on forums. All grist to the Platonist mill, as far as I'm concerned. — Wayfarer

I haven't. Math is effective as a result of it's rigid definitions. 2+2=4 and it always will because we will not let it be any different. Math is not real in the sense of existing in it's entirety prior to our inventing it. I'll go check out that essay...

How many options are given the context? [Maths] has no ability - in and of itself - to do anything. — creativesoul

Is mathematics real 'in and of itself'? I would have thought that it is inextricably bound to the act of calculation. I don't presume to present any kind of answer to such conundrums, but I do say, without much equivocation, that maths is powerful and the ability to 'do math' is behind a great deal of human invention and discovery.

Nice essay. I sped read but was left with distinct impression. I like the notion he skirted around throughout the paper...

How our framework will largely determine what things we pay attention to and how.

This bit caught my attention...

A much more difficult and confusing situation would arise if we could, some day, establish a theory of the phenomena of consciousness, or of biology, which would be as coherent and convincing as our present theories of the inanimate world.

Of course you know why....

Is mathematics real 'in and of itself'? I would have thought that it is inextricably bound to the act of calculation. I don't presume to present any kind of answer to such conundrums, but I do say, without much equivocation, that maths is powerful and the ability to 'do math' is behind a great deal of human invention and discovery. — Wayfarer

No doubt. Math is language. Language is powerful.

Incoherency...

Next?

You want to claim that you're not... then draw and maintain the distinction between causality and a report thereof. Then, do the same with QM... — creativesoul

In what way am I failing to distinguish between model and world by drawing close attention to the mediating role played by "the report"?

The sign (or measurement, observation, witness statement, report, fact) is the basis of the semiotic mechanism by which the model and the world are kept apart, and thus why they can then stand in some relation.

So - dealing with your conflations - we have the three elements of the world as it may reveal itself to our inquiries, our conceptions that form the generic basis to our inquiries, then the reports that seem the right kind of particular evidence in favour of some habit of belief we might be forming.

If you keep just talking about the two things of the report and the world, you are collapsing the account of the epistemology to the point it can make no sense. You are going to remain stuck in the usual dualistic confusion of the realists vs the idealists.

Why shouldn't a cause happen after the event?

Because.

If you are talking about efficient causation then it makes no sense to say the cause could happen after the event. The very idea of a sequence of events is parasitic upon the idea of causation, a cause is always before and an effect after; that is what the concepts mean.

In what way am I failing to distinguish between model and world by drawing close attention to the mediating role played by "the report"?

The sign (or measurement, observation, witness statement, report, fact) is the basis of the semiotic mechanism by which the model and the world are kept apart, and thus why they can then stand in some relation. — apokrisis

And my reply is that we did invent a classical model of causality. And now a quantum model would challenge its predictions. — apokrisis

And we already know it must be the more fundamental model, classicality merely being the emergent description. — apokrisis

In those ways...

Causality is not a description. QM is.

Where is the distinction between your report of causality and causality drawn and maintained? It's not there. Failing to draw and maintain that distinction has led you to claim that that which exists prior to something else emerged from that something else... which is utterly impossible.

Causality did not emerge from QM.

QM did not exist - in it's entirety - prior to our discovery. Causality does. QM is existentially dependent upon language. Causality is not. QM is our invention. Causality is not.

:wink:

Hey, we agree upon something!

If an event happens at one time and the cause comes a second later, there is the second where the event is uncaused. How can an event be uncaused and caused again? It doesn't make sense.

Ja, hooda thort? :chin:

QM is our invention. Causality is not. — creativesoul

And so you dumbly repeat something that I never said? I said classical physics might give us one model of causality. QM might give us another.

And I wouldn't call a model an "invention" exactly. It might be a free creation of the mind, but it also has to show itself to work in the real world. It is not yet clear whether you would dispute or agree with this obvious qualification.

Likewise, I would point out that "causality" is a linguistic term. As such - by your own account even - it is a concept, a model, an interpretation of "the world". But you struggle so much with writing clear posts that who knows what you really want to commit to on this score.

QM did not exist - in it's entirety - prior to our discovery. Causality does. — creativesoul

Again you are guilty of conflating epistemology and ontology. Or simply of being utterly confused in your thoughts.

QM didn't exist as a model until we invented it (although for some reason you now say we "discovered" it). But clearly, we have no reason to think that the world wasn't always "QM".

And likewise causality didn't exist before we invented/discovered/modelled it - at least not as an articulated conception. And again clearly, however we understand causality with any clarity, there would be no reason to thing the world wasn't always "that way".

So you have to stick to some consistent epistemic story. Either you are talking about QM as a model of reality, and so causality is also a modelling construct, or you are shifting registers to talk about QM as the putative ontology of reality, just as you seem to be employing the term "causality" as being a noumenal fact of the world.

To try and maintain that QM is just an invention, causality is just a fact, is conflating an epistemic linguistic register with an ontic linguistic register.

It makes no sense. And that incoherence would indeed explain why your posts just seem a confused babble - the sound of naive realism wrestling with its own demons to no useful end.

It might be a free creation of the mind, but it also has to show itself to work in the real world. — apokrisis

Not a free creation of the mind, but a constrained creation of the world, since the mind is also a constrained creation of the world. Poetry might be thought to be "a free creation of the mind", but even there...

QM is our invention. Causality is not.
— creativesoul

And so you dumbly repeat something that I never said? I said classical physics might give us one model of causality. QM might give us another.

And I wouldn't call a model an "invention" exactly. It might be a free creation of the mind, but it also has to show itself to work in the real world. It is not yet clear whether you would dispute or agree with this obvious qualification. — apokrisis

Yes, some models work better than others.

Some models - and this is what I'm pointing out - are of that which exists in it's entirety prior to the model. Causality is one such thing. QM is not. QM is the model...

So, I've never claimed that you said that. I'm pointing out that you need to think about it.

Follow the logic.

QM is math. Math is language. QM is existentially dependent upon language. Causality is not. QM cannot be prior to causality. In order for something to emerge from something else more fundamental, then that something else more fundamental must exist prior to what emerges from it.

Causality cannot emerge from QM.

And likewise causality didn't exist before we invented/discovered/modelled it - at least not as an articulated conception. — apokrisis

There's the conflation... full faced!

we have no reason to think that the world wasn't always "QM". — apokrisis

There it is yet again!

To try and maintain that QM is just an invention, causality is just a fact, is conflating an epistemic linguistic register with an ontic linguistic register.

It makes no sense. And that incoherence would indeed explain why your posts just seem a confused babble - the sound of naive realism wrestling with its own demons to no useful end. — apokrisis

This would be a devastating reply, if it wasn't based upon something other than what I've been arguing. Then, it could even be true. But alas, it was and so it cannot.

It's always easiest to argue against someone else by first misrepresenting what they've said. Looks like this exchange has come to an end...

Til next time apo...

Cheers!

Not a free creation of the mind — Janus

I was just citing Einstein there. I think he knew what he was talking about.

It is basic to pragmatism that you could say absolutely anything about the world as a hypothesis. And that modelling freedom is what Einstein was stressing. It is science because you don't have to start with "the truth", just some reasonable conjecture.

Of course the corollary is that models must be testable. The world does have to be able to constrain the conjecture in some measurable fashion.

This would be a devastating reply, if it wasn't based upon something other than what I've been arguing. Then, it would even be true. But alas, it is and it's not. — creativesoul

Anyone here understand what @creativesoul's position is? Someone care to hazard a guess.

QM undermines classical causality. QM puts forward its own causal story. Experiment determines which story we are inclined to believe. It's really simple. — apokrisis

No, it's not.

How can an experiment using "classical" causation provide evidence of a different kind of causation?

If you perform a experiment in the "classical" causal manner and come up with an "answer" that says that "classical" causation is flawed, then what does that say about your experiment in the first place?

The experiment can contrast the statistics of coherent and decoherent systems.

It is basic to pragmatism that you could say absolutely anything about the world as a hypothesis. And that modelling freedom is what Einstein was stressing. It is science because you don't have to start with "the truth", just some reasonable conjecture. — apokrisis

Sure, and that's the constraint; that conjecture must be rational, sensible, related to experience or else empty, which would mean no real conjecture at all.

But from a philosophical point of view, I still think what is being challenged is indeed the reality of the physical realm. — Wayfarer

What we tend to disregard is that what we know as "the physical realm" is only what our senses present to us as "the physical realm". So "the physical realm" is what is created by sensing beings. That's what Kant pointed to as phenomena. What we call the physical realm is only "real" to the extent that our senses have the capacity to show us what is real.

You should see William Blake's work when he talks of philosophy...

"
I answer’d: ‘All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics; for when you ran away, I found myself on a bank by moonlight hearing a harper. But now we have seen my eternal lot, shall I show you yours?’ He laugh’d at my proposal; but I, by force, suddenly caught him in my arms, and flew westerly thro’ the night, till we were elevated above the earth’s shadow; then I flung myself with him directly into the body of the sun. Here I clothed myself in white, and taking in my hand Swedenborg’s volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed all the planets till we came to Saturn. Here I stay’d to rest, and then leap’d into the void between Saturn and the fixed stars. 140
‘Here,’ said I, ‘is your lot, in this space—if space it may be call’d.’ Soon we saw the stable and the church, and I took him to the altar and open’d the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the Angel before me. Soon we saw seven houses of brick. One we enter’d; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, and all of that species, chain’d by the middle, grinning and snatching at one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains. However, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled with, and then devour’d, by plucking off first one limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless trunk. This, after grinning and kissing it with seeming fondness, they devour’d too; and here and there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail. As the stench terribly annoy’d us both, we went into the mill, and I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics. 141
So the Angel said: ‘Thy phantasy has imposed upon me, and thou oughtest to be ashamed.’ 142
I answer’d: ‘We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.’ 143

I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the Only Wise. This they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning. 144
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; tho’ it is only the Contents or Index of already publish’d books. 145
A man carried a monkey about for a show, and because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conceiv’d himself as much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: he shows the folly of churches, and exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are religious, and himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net. 146
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods. 147
And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all religious, and conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable thro’ his conceited notions. 148
Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime—but no further. 149
Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or Shakespear an infinite number. 150
But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine."

It's not as though there is "the real over there" and our senses show it to us "over here": it's the "showing" itself that is real. The physical realm is not created by sensing beings, sensing beings are created by the physical world, in the sense that they only come to be in the physical world; and in turn the physical world only becomes manifest in sensing beings.

It makes no sense to challenge the reality of the physical world, since physically embodied experience is the very definition of reality.

The scientific hypothesis is whether or not there is knowledge. This is substantiated affirmatively by presenting examples of scientific knowledge. And so, too, you have the tools of science--mathematics, theory, logic and reasoning. Science comes to pass to crystallize into different sorts of knowledge. The knowledge of DNA and its role and function in biology is much different than evolutionary knowledge, but nevertheless the knowledge of evolution is scientific. Further on you get neurology and neuroscience, which function to be knowledge, and these forms of knowledge categorize knowledge itself, and send the intention, will to and meaning of knowledge to its according place of and in classification. And so then you get to a point where 'greater' questions are asked. "What is the purpose of existence?" "Are we to known to be a mere machine? "What then is the purpose of knowledge? Wouldnt this purpose relate intimately with our own purpose for existence?" So you have more questions. Questions to answer the unanswerable. In the seeking of knowledge knowledge becomes less known and becomes superfluous, ridiculous, even completely ignored with regard to its meaning not completely impoverished. All science seems, the further you go into it necessitating more ans more questions, to become a simulacrum... INCAPABLE OF ANSWERING THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, and consequently we know nothing.

Operating machinery is the truth of scientific knowledge...

The physical realm is not created by sensing beings, sensing beings are created by the physical world, in the sense that they only come to be in the physical world; and in turn the physical world only becomes manifest in sensing beings. — Janus

No, it's quite clear that the physical world is created by the sensing beings, not vise versa. It is created by the nervous system. I am a being over here, you are a being over there, and there is a medium of separation between us. Through sensation and conceptualization we create an image of this medium and call it the physical realm. Our terms refer to the various aspect of that image, not the medium itself, so what we refer to as "the physical realm" is the image, not the medium itself..