"Stabilities" are represented as equilibriums which are artificial ideals thathave no real independent existence. So the ideal equilibrium is compared to reality in modeling, and how reality strays from the equilibrium, is known as change. But the reality is that things are changing, whether fast or slow, so the equilibrium is just an artificial tool, and does not represent any thing really independent. It's a fabricated mathematical tool.
I don't see why this should be the case. Protons seem to have beginnings and ends, which is why it seems fair to think of them as underlined by processes. However, they are remarkable stable otherwise. I don't see any reason to think we have "invented" rather than discovered protons, atoms, molecules, etc. Indeed, it's hard to see what we can even say about the world if these are to be considered purely as "inventions." To be sure, we invented ways of talking about them, systems for describing them, etc. But such systems didn't spring out of the ether; rather, they were developed by examining these phenomena. — Count Timothy von Icarus
We might accept G.M D’Ariano's claim that particles are like "the shadows on the walls of Plato's cave," because universal fields and information have the ontological high ground, and still accept that these incredibly robust stabilities have a real ontic existence. The fact is, the "particle zoo" is still not all that big. Our "universal process" is such that it results in a fairly small diversity of stabilities that emerge at small scales - the same sort of thing we see when we play around with the rules of various "toy universe" models. — Count Timothy von Icarus
We tend to understand processes through reference to the things which are actively involved in the processes.
So for example if a molecule is a stability of processes, the things involved in those processes are the atoms. And if an atom is a stability of processes, then the underlying things involved in those processes are the parts of the atoms. Now when we get to fundamental particles, you might say that there are "fundamental fields" which constitute the processes, but fields are mathematical constructs
I'd argue this is getting things backwards. We only understand "things" in terms of what they do. What properties does any thing have when it is interacting with nothing? You can only describe properties in terms of how something interacts with other things or how parts of it interact. Substances without process can't explain anything. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But the particles are mathematical constructs too. As Wilzeck puts it, with quarks the "it is the bit." These particles are entirely defined in mathematical terms. This is what ontic structural realism makes its hay on, the fact that they are defined as nothing but math. So, if being described in terms of mathematical constructs is disqualifying, then fundamental particles are every bit as problematic as fields. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Plato's cave/shadow analogy distinguished between noumenal Ideality and phenomenal Reality, but some philosophers debate which is really real. Personally, I behave as-if the material reality (cave & shadows) is all around me, even as the mental realm (fire & illumination) is within me. Likewise, thanks to my BothAnd philosophy, I have no problem accepting the scientific evidence for an invisible universal mathematical field of potential (fire) that somehow engenders sub-atomic tangible particles of stuff that aggregate into the "real" milieu (cave) that allows me to "grasp" both things and ideas. :smile:We might accept G.M D’Ariano's claim that particles are like "the shadows on the walls of Plato's cave," because universal fields and information have the ontological high ground, and still accept that these incredibly robust stabilities have a real ontic existence. — Count Timothy von Icarus
We might accept G.M D’Ariano's claim that particles are like "the shadows on the walls of Plato's cave," — Count Timothy von Icarus
“And suppose they received certain honours and praises from one another, and there were privileges for whoever discerns the passing shadows most keenly, and is best at remembering which of them usually comes first or last, which are simultaneous, and on that basis is best able to predict what is going to happen next. Do you think he would have any desire for these prizes, or envy those who are honoured by the prisoners and hold power over them? Or would he much prefer the fate described by Homer and ‘work as a serf for a man with no land’, and suffer anything at all, rather than hold their opinions and live as they do?”
“I think it is just as you say. He would accept any fate rather than live as they do.”
“Yes, and think about this,” I said. “If such a person were to go back down, and sit in the same seat, would not his eyes become filled with darkness after this sudden return from the sunlight?”
“Very much so,” he said.
“Now, suppose that he had to compete once more with those perpetual prisoners in recognising these shadows, while his eyesight was still poor, before his eyes had adjusted. Since it would take some time to become accustomed to the dark, would he not become a figure of fun? Would they not say that he went up, but came back down with his eyes ruined, and that it is not worth even trying to go upwards? And if they could somehow get their hands on and kill a person who was trying to free people and lead them upwards, would they not do just that?”
“Definitely,” he said. — Republic, Book 7
Recall Neils Bohr’s often-quoted aphorism, ‘physics concerns what we can say about nature’. — Wayfarer
Can you image the scientific best guess reality 100 years from now? — Metaphyzik
the claim that there’s nothing but physical reality is either false or empty. If ‘physical reality’ means reality as physics describes it, then the assertion that only physical phenomena exist is false. Why? Because physical science – including biology and computational neuroscience – doesn’t include an account of consciousness. This is not to say that consciousness is something unnatural or supernatural. The point is that physical science doesn’t include an account of experience; but we know that experience exists, so the claim that the only things that exist are what physical science tells us is false. On the other hand, if ‘physical reality’ means reality according to some future and complete physics, then the claim that there is nothing else but physical reality is empty, because we have no idea what such a future physics will look like, especially in relation to consciousness.
This problem is known as Hempel’s dilemma, named after the illustrious philosopher of science Carl Gustav Hempel (1905-97). Faced with this quandary, some philosophers argue that we should define ‘physical’ such that it rules out radical emergentism (that life and the mind are emergent from but irreducible to physical reality) and panpsychism (that mind is fundamental and exists everywhere, including at the microphysical level). This move would give physicalism a definite content, but at the cost of trying to legislate in advance what ‘physical’ can mean, instead of leaving its meaning to be determined by physics.
But why would there never be a physical accounting of consciousness? — Metaphyzik
That's really irrelevant, because the point is that we understand that it isthings which are interacting.
The particle is defined by its interaction with the equipment that detects it, which is substance. The fields represent the potential for interaction. So the particles are not "mathematical constructs" in the way that the fields are. "Particles" is an assumption made from, and supported by, sense observation, just like the existence of a table, chair, or any other object is an assumption supported by sense observation.
here is, however, a historical move away from substance models toward process models: almost every science has had an initial phase in which its basic phenomena were conceptualized in terms of some kind of substance — in which the central issues were to determine what kind of substance — but has moved beyond that to a recognition of those phenomena as processes. This shift is manifest in, for example, understanding fire in terms of phlogiston to understanding fire in terms of combustion, heat in terms of random kinetic motion rather than the substance caloric, life in terms of certain kinds of far from thermodynamic equilibrium processes rather than in terms of vital fluid, and so on. Sciences of the mind, arguably, have not yet made this transition
The default for substances and Democritean “atoms” is stability. Change requires explanation, and there are no self-movers. This is reversed in a process view, with change always occurring, and it is the stabilities of organizations or patterns of process, if such should occur, that require explanation.
There are two basic categories of process stability. The first is what might be called energy well stabilities. These are process organizations that will remain stable so long as no above threshold energy impinges on them. Contemporary atoms would be a canonical example: they are constituted as organizations of process that can remain stable for cosmological time periods [but they can be created or destroyed].
The second category of process stability is that of process organizations that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Unlike energy well stabilities, these require ongoing maintenance of their far from equilibrium conditions. Otherwise, they go to equilibrium and cease to exist...
Positing a metaphysical realm of substances or atoms induces a fundamental split in the overall metaphysics of the world. In particular, the realm of substances or atoms is a realm that might be held to involve fact, cause, and other physicalistic properties and phenomena, but it excludes such phenomena as normativity, intentionality, and modality into a second metaphysical realm. It induces a split metaphysics.
quantum physics is incomplete — Wayfarer
The overwhelming majority of scientists will agree that it is matter that will explain things like entanglement and local gravity — Lionino
So, if there are anomolies in the movement of galaxies, they can only be due to matter, even if it is of a kind we have no knowledge of. Because, what else is there? — Wayfarer
Yes, that is the defining claim of a substance-based metaphysics. I fail to see how this is a knock against process-metaphysics. It's saying "if we assume substance metaphysics is true, then process metaphysics isn't." Well obviously.
I will agree that substance metaphysics is more intuitive. However, our understanding of nature has often required us to drop intuitive models for less intuitive ones. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This just seems like question begging. If a particle is defined by "interactions" it seems just as correct to say it is defined by processes. To claim that "detection equipment" is fundamentally substance just assumes the truth of substance metaphysics. — Count Timothy von Icarus
He says it’s Part 2, although part 1 doesn’t seem to be published yet. — Wayfarer
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