the principles of Methodological Naturalism and doesn't meet the standards of evidence demanded by science (objectivity/independent verification, Demarcation/ tentative nature etc)and unable to offer Accurate descriptions, testable predictions and technical applications. — Nickolasgaspar
Please do tell.Old fashioned scientists were too innocent to be likened to hardcore physicalists. — theRiddler
... regain our innocence — theRiddler
Sure, but the idea that laws are timeless and universal can be challenged. Which means they weren't necessarily wrong before, but the conclusion that they were built permanently into the fabric of the whole universe could be incorrect.All scientific laws are descriptive...this means that if they stop describing our observations accurately they are challenged by default. — Nickolasgaspar
Our frameworks were never considered as "absolute truths", again science doesn't play the "absolute truth" game. — Nickolasgaspar
What you just presented here is a position that some scientists have (only humans can have biases and positions) but others do not. I'd say I am a kind of Pragmatist so I don't have a problem with your position here, in fact, I would say I agree with it. More than that I think that was what I was saying to Caldwell, though I am not sure exactly what his position is. But it seems to be that QM includes theories (or hypotheses that he considers unjustly accepted) that go against things like clearcut causal laws, so this is decay.Science produces data and offers descriptive law like generalizations based on Naturalistic principles...not because of a philosophical bias but due to Pragmatic Necessity since they are the only testable and objectively falsifiable. — Nickolasgaspar
I'll just say you seem to be assuming things about my beliefs or the position I presented which are not the case. And again, Science can't have goals. Only living organisms can. (with a proviso that future evidence might alter my position on this:joke:)I understand that absolute knowledge or truth as Science's goals are popular beliefs,but they couldn't be further from the truth. — Nickolasgaspar
Ah, OK, I hadn't gotten this far yet. Thanks for the clarification.The above remarks are not necessary in conflict with what you stated, I only included them as additional information in the discussion. — Nickolasgaspar
I claim no expertise about Newton, but it has been presented to me from hundreds of (perhaps weak) sources that he did in fact believe in absolute time and space.-Well to be fair towards Newton, he never included any ontology in his mathematical formulations. To be more precise he never published a theory, his Theory of Gravity is not a theory! Its a law in the form of a mathematical description!. There is even an anecdote informing people to call the phenomenon whatever they want (energy, force etc)...
Others rushed in to ad their narrative on what his equations implied. — Nickolasgaspar
Some going so far, as here, arguing where he got his ideas from and then quoting Newton.Newtonian Time
According to its most famous proponent, Sir Isaac Newton, for example, absolute time (which is also sometimes known as “Newtonian time”) exists independently of any perceiver, progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe, is measurable but imperceptible, and can only be truly understood mathematically. For Newton, absolute time and space were independent and separate aspects of objective reality, and not dependent on physical events or on each other.
Time, in this conception, was external to the universe, and so must be measured independently of the universe. It would continue even if the universe were completely empty of all matter and objects, and essentially represented a kind of container or stage setting within which physical phenomena occur in a completely deterministic way. In Newton’s own words: “absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external”.
Newton’s ideas about absolute time were largely borrowed from Isaac Barrow, his predecessor at Cambridge. Barrow himself described time as a mathematical concept, analogous to a line in that it has length, is similar in all its parts, and can be looked on either as a simple addition of continuous instants, or alternatively as the continuous flow on one instant.
Great. I have to add that I really wish this was the way scientists, in general, acted. You are talking about 'the default position' Science can't have a default position, people have them. And the people I see and interact with do not withold beliefs to unfounded (or even partially founded or even merely mentioned) claims. In fact ironically Caldwell's reaction (which I may be misinterpreting) to QM seems like what I experience in my interaction with the majority of scientists I've met: they don't withhold beliefs. They evaluate intuitively or deductively beliefs that contradict or seem to contradict or might contradict or just seem weird based on their sene of current models, ontologies and theories. And they often rapidly dismiss things that, were your sense of the default in praxis accurate IRL, they should not given what science is. And they do this with peers also. To bring back Newton, there is a lot of inertia when encountering new and 'strange' ideas. Bodies at rest and in motion and all that....So the default position is to accept the ontology we know it is possible and withhold belief to any unfounded claim. — Nickolasgaspar
↪Caldwell
how those standards are challenged? How does "Duality" challenge the scientific standards of evaluation? — Nickolasgaspar
No actual observation -- that's the point. If you believe those who say that the wavelike quantum entities are really gravitons (particles) forced to move like waves due to gravity (cause), then QM needs to explain the role of probability and how absolute space is only a constraint we impose on the description of quantum objects, (as opposed to absolute space is a reality).↪Caldwell
Does it really do that? What is the actual observation that manages that blow to causality? — Nickolasgaspar
Well, if we find evidence that natural mechanism change over time - constants and laws - then they are challenged.I am not sure that we can successfully challenge the regularity or longevity of natural mechanism and properties. — Nickolasgaspar
I think the complaint is that qm is ontologically probablisitic, for example. Also that 'things' can be in different potential states at the same time. Of course the evidence is unbelievably strong or they never would have accepted QM and initial resistance was strong. It's that it points, as does relativity theory, to ontological ideas that went not only against common sense but against assumptions in science in general. I have no problem with this, but some do.-Well that is a misconception. After all QM is science's most successive formulations offering predictions with up to 99,999...up to 14 decimal places....accuracy. — Nickolasgaspar
Sure, though aren't they getting qm effects at larger scales.We shouldn't maintain the same expectations from matter at such an energetic state and we should take in to account the way we make observations at that scale! — Nickolasgaspar
I am not sure what 'our current paradigm would refer to' but it was Caldwell who I think has a problem with QM. I think, but I am not sure, he sees it as having concluded (a little anthropomorphism tossed in) that classical causation does not hold (at least in some processes or at a certain scaleThe only point I don't really get is your position on QM. What observation in QM do you think creates the biggest trouble for our current paradigm? — Nickolasgaspar
No. The statement goes like this, that QM theories are speculative which poses a danger to scientific activities. You live long enough in speculations, you get the dismantling of scientific evidence. (and by long enough, I mean, it could take ages -- I alluded to length of time in my OP, the very first one on this thread). But it seems to be that QM includes theories (or hypotheses that he considers unjustly accepted) that go against things like clearcut causal laws, so this is decay. — Bylaw
Okay.I think the complaint is that qm is ontologically probablisitic, for example. Also that 'things' can be in different potential states at the same time. — Bylaw
No it isn't. Probabilities are put in place of exact measures -- because if we're not relying on absolute space and causality, then what's left to prove one's point? To say QM is ontologically probabilistic is good to include in this discussion. It needs to be discussed. If you claim that it is just the observer that's doing the probabilistic calculation, then do you or do you not support the classical physics?Well probabilities are calculated by thinking agents in their efforts to predict the outcome of a system,so its more of an observer relative term than an intrinsic feature of the ontology of a natural system.
I can not see any meaning in the statement "qm is ontologically probabilistic". We as observers calculate probabilities in order to make a prediction. — Nickolasgaspar
No, I don't think there's a definitive answer to the "wrongness" of quantum theories, I think what the critics are saying is, there shouldn't be multi-ontological theory depending on the size of the world we're investigating. There is just one world.Since classical causation must apply, then at least the conclusions in qm must be wrong. Not the data, but any conclusions and any new ontology. — Bylaw
Quantum mechanics are mathematical formulations that allow us to produce accurate Mechanical descriptions for the "behavior" of quantum elements — Nickolasgaspar
And that behavior is what exactly? What are we measuring? Or are we confined to the descriptions of atomic entities?Quantum mechanics are mathematical formulations that allow us to produce accurate Mechanical descriptions for the "behavior" of quantum elements — Nickolasgaspar
Quantum mechanics deal with subatomic entities and their discrete quantity of energy. — Nickolasgaspar
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