:roll: I don't think so.

... much of the metaphysics within physics is fundamentally muddled because physicists are unused to thinking outside this particular box. — apokrisis

:up:

Quantum physics says something more, that the real-unreal dichotomy is old, outdated, and useless. — Agent Smith

Not really.

More what if nonsense.

... and yet still agreeing that if they swapped places then they would also swap observations. The one would see the spoon, the other the fork.

Ok, you missed the point. Not my problem. — Banno

Again, no. that's not what's being said here. You're just not getting it. We are TALKING ABOUT a SPOON being seen by one person while ANOTHER PERSON is looking at the same object but seeing a FORK and BOTH being RIGHT. That's the analogy. You're making this harder than it has to be.

So quantum tunnelling ain't quantum physics. You learn something new everyday. :roll: — apokrisis

Biological processes take place at a level above that which quantum physics operates hence quantum physics has nothing to offer in the realm of biology. Even googling biophysics shows it doesn't deal with quantum physics.

Also that paper you cited doesn't mention tunneling. It just thinks there is evidence for it but doesn't prove it.

Like I said, not sure what you're smoking.

Same page as the first guy though I think his was taken down.

You’re talking out your uniformed arse. Confidence isn’t masking the stench of ignorance.

Many may see the job of philosophy is to be anti-science - its challenger rather than its supporter. — apokrisis

Ick.

But I have sometimes thought there might be a role for philosophy if rigorous inquiry is possible for some domain that for some reason is not quite amenable to natural science. Mathematics and logic are bit like this, and in old books, but not newer, were often labeled sciences. And I have entertained the possibility that phenomenology could have such a character.

Quine had this idea that philosophy is the handmaid of science, and I never found that convincing either.

Drawing a hard line between domains of human inquiry seems a mistake. — apokrisis

Agree, it's just hard to explain in what sense philosophy is a type of inquiry, lacking candidates with wide support for what its domain is. Inquiry into what? <insert crappy answer, handwaving optional>

we can say we are natural philosophers — apokrisis

That's an appealing suggestion.

Quine had this idea that philosophy is the handmaid of science, — Srap Tasmaner

Really? I can't seem to find a reference. Do you have one handy?

Gosh, in so many words? I dunno. I'm tempted just to say "everything."

Once epistemology is naturalized, and ontology defined as identifying what entities your theory commits you to, it seems the role of philosophy is to tidy up logical issues that might get in the way of, if not the practice of science, then the understanding of science.

The nature of mathematics and logic, for instance, are things that mathematicians and scientists are not to be bothered about; we philosophers will deal with that on their behalf. If mathematicians need sets, for example, even if we're not happy about it, we'll deal with the philosophers who say they can't have them.

I honestly think there are statements almost directly to this effect, early and late, but it's the whole tenor of his work, to my mind. Plenty of philosophers ignore aesthetics, for instance, or ethics, but I always thought Quine didn't so much ignore them as exclude them. Do you read him differently?

Agree, it's just hard to explain in what sense philosophy is a type of inquiry, lacking candidates with wide support for what its domain is. Inquiry into what? <insert crappy answer, handwaving optional> — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. But surely that is because what it has in common is the skill we call critical thinking. So it is inquiry’s general best method. And that allows its domain to be … anything and everything.

Check the history of metaphysics as it became natural philosophy and then science, we can see that it was based on the dialectal pincer movement of mathematical structure and observational evidence. Critical thinking is forming the general theory that accounts for the particular evidence.

So there is a method of inquiry. And we would then want to freely explore its every possible application.

That is why I see pragmatism as the core of the philosophical project - the right balance between the logicist and empirical tendencies.

AP can get too lost in wonder at the power of predicate logic, for example. Ironically that means it must set itself against dialectical logic as being “too metaphysical” as a boundary-policing activity.

PoMo can get lost in the observational wonder of phenomenology, affect and existential being. So it must ironically “other” even the structuralism which was its pragmatic departure point. It employs dialectics, but only to wring contradiction paradox from the resulting metaphysics.

One is the free play of syntax, the other is the free play of semantics. My usual point in any philosophy thread is that you need semiotics as a theory of meaningful utterances where syntax and semantics are in an enactive modelling relation with whatever world is under discussion.

We don't know the first thing about reality.

You're making this harder than it has to be. — Darkneos

No I.

One [AP] is the free play of syntax, the other [p0m0] is the free play of semantics. My usual point in any philosophy thread is that you need semiotics as a theory of meaningful utterances where syntax and semantics are in an enactive modelling relation with whatever world is under discussion. — apokrisis

Well said, sir! :100: :fire:

That is why I see pragmatism as the core of the philosophical project - the right balance between the logicist and empirical tendencies. — apokrisis

I think that's what we all want, and maybe why the mid-century titans of analytic philosophy, Quine and Sellars, each claimed the mantle of pragmatism at some point.

AP can get to lost in wonder at the power of predicate logic, for example. Ironic that is must set itself against dialectical logic as being “too metaphysical” for this boundary-policing reason. — apokrisis

There's history there, not all of it pleasant. But it is a simple fact that it is the analytic crowd that took modern science seriously, from Russell onwards. The more Hegelian continental tradition (at least because more Marxist) turned its back on science, or arrogated to itself the task of fixing science, rebuilding it as something else.

The generally pro-science sympathies of analytic philosophy, on the other hand, never fit comfortably with the linguistic turn, so there's a longish period when science is not particularly welcome in either camp. That seems to be all over now. I'm not convinced the continental tradition can find its way back, but analytic philosophy has changed a lot from the mid-20th.

Maybe it will embrace your dialectic yet. Maybe it already has, but it's hard to recognize in those funny clothes.

:chin:

And presumably he would see far more clearly than others what the actual gaps in QM are likely to be, where the science 'runs out' and the point where the metaphysical interpretations can begin. — Tom Storm

I'd say that "where the science 'runs out' and the point where the metaphysical interpretations can begin" is precisely the point where scientific expertise also runs out. In any case my point was only that the question as to whether QM has metaphysical implications is not a scientific question, but a philosophical one.

Feynman, if I remember correctly, reportedly said "if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don;t understand quantum mechanics" which I take to mean that no one understands what is really going on, but obviously not that no one understands the math.

Understanding the math, though, is just understanding the math, and a similar question to the QM/ metaphysics question has been around for thousands of years: the question as to whether mathematics has any metaphysical implications, and that question remains controversial to this day, with mathematicians and philosophers on both sides of the debate. I don't think it is a question that mathematics expertise can help to answer.

So, a non-epistemic "true or false"? :chin: — 180 Proof

I had thought that the existence of unknowable truths is uncontroversial.

:up:

I think that's what we all want, and maybe why the mid-century titans of analytic philosophy, Quine and Sellars, each claimed the mantle of pragmatism at some point. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. Pragmatism is essentially AP. It aims at univocal truth claims by employing logic. But Peirce enlarged that logic (as well as laying foundations for predicate logic as well).

So I always find value in AP. At least it states it’s arguments clearly and provides examples that can substantiate its points.

Also, as Cheryl Misak recounts, Peirce had a subterranean influence on AP, even if one of limited fruitfulness in the end.

The standard story of the reception of American pragmatism in England is that Russell and Moore savaged James's theory, and that pragmatism has never fully recovered. An alternative, and underappreciated, story is told here. The brilliant Cambridge mathematician, philosopher and economist, Frank Ramsey, was in the mid-1920s heavily influenced by the almost-unheard-of Peirce and was developing a pragmatist position of great promise. He then transmitted that pragmatism to his friend Wittgenstein, although had Ramsey lived past the age of 26 to see what Wittgenstein did with that position, Ramsey would not have liked what he saw.

The more Hegelian continental tradition (at least because more Marxist) turned its back on science, or arrogated to itself the task of fixing science, rebuilding it as something else. — Srap Tasmaner

Sure. Dichotomies are meant to lead on to trichotomies in Peircean logic. Division paves the way for the holistic unity of opposites.

But in PoMo hands, dialectics became just about the paradox that every definite thing has its definite “other” … hence all truths are relative and fluid.

The generally pro-science sympathies of analytic philosophy, on the other hand, never fit comfortably with the linguistic turn, — Srap Tasmaner

And what was the linguistic turn but a caricature of semiotics?

Maybe it will embrace your dialectic yet. Maybe it already has, but it's hard to recognize in those funny clothes. — Srap Tasmaner

I’ve not seen that as yet. And besides, I am not a Hegelian so I only used “dialectics” as it is what folk are more familiar with. To be a Peircean requires fixing all Hegel’s misteps. Or at least the long messy trail of confusion left by his disciples and interpreters.

And even Peirce has to be detached from his theistic and mystical leanings. My Peirce is the one know to sciences like biosemiotics. :smile:

I'd say that "where the science 'runs out' and the point where the metaphysical interpretations can begin" is precisely the point where scientific expertise also runs out. — Janus

Not so, especially with QM where what is being metaphysically interpreted are mathematically expressed statements.

Some things just can’t be put into words or pictures and only said as math. Quantum field theory in particular.

Of course they were going to find uncertainty at the quantum level. I don't trust anyone who doesn't realize the world, as man knows it, is a phantasm.

Some things just can’t be put into words or pictures and only said as math. Quantum field theory in particular. — apokrisis

Yes, that was just what I had in mind. So, how is it then possible to interpret it metaphysically (semantically)?

On my reading of the current situation in anglophone philosophy, which is admittedly limited, Ramsey cuts a wider swath than Wittgenstein. For what that's worth.

[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws.
[4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature.
[5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times.
[6] The behaviors of substances are caused.
[7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else.
[8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point. — T Clark

[9] Space and time are separate and absolute.
[10] Something can not be created from nothing.[/quote]

These reflect my world view almost completely.

I would add 2.1. that entities can be made up based on physical substances, but being entities of... what? emotions, the "I" (eye) feeling, the senses, sensations... these are definitely based on physical substances, but they create motions of physical substances that can't be explained by rules that govern physical substances alone; they can't be explained by the laws of the physical universe. Such movements are a man approaching a woman to make love to her. A dead man will not approach a woman to make lover to her. Or a crab approaching a food item to eat it. A dead crab will not approach the food item. In these instances there is motivation that is not possible to explain by the laws of the physical universe alone, while at the same time the motivations are not supernatural, and they are not supernaturally originated. They don't have substance, but they have a presence. Go figure.

I could not call these points [1] through [10] metaphysics, rather, points of belief.

My points are not good reasons to start a discussion over. That you call them "metaphysics" and I call them "points of belief" is a minor, very minor difference.

2.1. could be discussed or argued, but I won't be so military about it as I was when we talked about "metaphysical statements have no truth value".

So, how is it then possible to interpret it metaphysically (semantically)? — Janus

Excellent question. If maths doesn’t take its semantics with it, then yes, it isn’t equiped with its own interpretive machinery. You seem to be back into mental pictures and constraining formulae of words.

When it comes to physics, the maths is a “mechanics”. So there is, in fact, the necessary inbuilt ontology. Speak in differential equations and the meaning of that can be understood in terms of the kind of machines that result.

Engineering became humanity’s great new metaphysical project!

It’s truth was comprehended in the equations thus made flesh - or at least metal and rubber. Who needs words and pictures when a Ford Mustang or Omega watch tells you … something.

But to be serious about QFT maths, you are now talking about differential equations that speak to the observational properties of a stack of particle fields in infinite Hilbert space. Just a dialectical calculus of creation and annihilation operators acting on some vacuum expectation.

Time and space are absent. So are particles. You are reduced to talking about ripples of excitation by which an electron field might produce its disturbances in a photon field. And trying to picture this is what you are told not to do as that is how you fall down rookie potholes. It will stunt your progress when it comes to using the QFT maths to dream up new kinds of particles that might be discovered at the LHC.

But of course, you still have to have intuitions to do even that. And even more so if you can’t content yourself with the idea that “shut up and calculate” at least still produces spectacular engineering from QFTs esoteric equations.

The best I’ve come across for trying to give a lay account without screwing the maths is Matt Strassler’s site - here is a post on virtual particles for example…

https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

But definitely that is a deep question. If we are to be able to reject QM’s overly mechanical metaphysics, then it would have to speak to us in ways that get beyond the production of technology.

This is why I draw attention to the quantum biology that is indeed showing us how QM manifests in terms of biosemiosis. Living things might make for more convincing semantic objects than mechanical hardware.

On my reading of the current situation in anglophone philosophy, which is admittedly limited, Ramsey cuts a wider swath than Wittgenstein. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. His star has risen rapidly. But is it for his work or his biopic potential - lost young genius and all that?

However, it is a good thing.

Feynman, if I remember correctly, reportedly said "if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don;t understand quantum mechanics" which I take to mean that no one understands what is really going on, but obviously not that no one understands the math. — Janus

Indeed, but I'll venture there are many ways of not understanding something - ignorance is not all equal, take Socrates.

the question as to whether mathematics has any metaphysical implications, and that question remains controversial to this day, with mathematicians and philosophers on both sides of the debate. I don't think it is a question that mathematics expertise can help to answer. — Janus

Don't disagree and you're probably right, but I think ignorance can come in theorised and untheorized forms and this is likely to make a significant difference in the steps you take in overcoming that ignorance.

If mathematicians need sets, for example, even if we're not happy about it, we'll deal with the philosophers who say they can't have them. — Srap Tasmaner

Bless you, young man! :fear:

Plenty of philosophers ignore aesthetics, for instance, or ethics, but I always thought Quine didn't so much ignore them as exclude them. Do you read him differently? — Srap Tasmaner

I only meant I could not find where he might have said this. Nit picking. :wink:

It's an interesting moment. Quine had very strong nominalist leanings, did not want to allow sets into his ontology, but "To be is to be the value of a bound variable." We quantify over sets in our theories (i.e., models), so to accept that we are committed to their existence is a *pragmatic* decision par excellence.

But is it for his work or his biopic potential — apokrisis

The work. Deflation about truth. Subjective probability. Ramsey sentences. Other odd bits here and there.

A quick google search literally shows you wrong.