Just realized I forgot to link paper showing the actual hydrodynamic pilot-wave model:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=9134117041907264858&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=16295625758829094935&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1



Its long but its not written at a particularly difficult level I would say. I explain what I mean by stochastic interpretation immediately after anyways. Its realist in the sense that it has particles with real, definite properties all the time.

They are actually closely related. The kind of non-realism Gnomon expresses about position and momentum is the same kind of non-realism as in the non-realism / non-locality issue. I actually think the dichotomy of realism vs locality is a bit of a pointless dichotomy because you cannot really choose the non-realism option without an ontology that basically still looks as non-local as the non-local option... for the intents and purposes of commonsense anyway. You would [still] have to talk about non-separable states that exist over space which I would say is about as bizarre as the non-local option.

Edit: [ ]

They are actually closely related. — Apustimelogist

I checked and you're right. I should be more careful when I pontificate about quantum mechanics. Thanks.

The small and the great aren't two different things. You can never find the large without moving through the small if you imagine knowledge as feeling around inside an object. It really should work like a machine: take a particle out of the object and it acts thusly; connect it with the object again and it'sphysics must align with that of either the other particles or the whole. Or which is it? How does one define what a "thing" is, as if it is a number?

there was already a fine answer to this problem that had been popular for millennia. Aristotle lays it out in the Posterior Analytics and other places. Science deals with per se predications, what is essential to things, not per accidens. This rules out organizing the sciences based on relation (or time/space) because these can involve and infinite number of predications and we cannot consider and infinite number of predicates in a finite time for the same reason that one cannot cross an infinite distance in a finite time at a finite speed. So there can be no science of "biology as studied by men named John" and no "chemistry inside the bodies of cats on the island of Iceland." — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is a biology of humanity since the laws wouldn't exist without that level of intelligence. Without consciousness itself the universe would be a world of a single thing just being, and moving, and being. Pure being. Imagine you lost your eyes. Suddenly youre plunged into darkness, forever. Our organs connect us to pure being, what we would feel is we were stripped of our senses

There is a biology of humanity since the laws wouldn't exist without that level of intelligence. — Gregory

Agree. :up:

Without consciousness itself the universe would be a world of a single thing just being, and moving, — Gregory

But this is not clear. What do you mean by a world of a single thing just being?

and moving, and being. — Gregory

How do you know it is moving?

If the world wasn't in motion there could not be life. I know there is the block universe idea, but that's more on a metà level for me. Space and time can be understood separately. Space is where motion and the organic thrive. Time is what coordinates the future to the past. Say there is a wormhole: that would mean there are other spacial realities other than ours. If there are other time realities there could be backwards causation and time travel effects. That would be less within our emprical experience though. Even the wormhole is. Again, we know there is motion because there is love and life. Asking whether our senses perceive correctly, however, can indeed be a thorny question. To perceive is to "have before you"

It seems to be a positive way to express the uncertainty of quantum physics. A particle can be either located in space (position), or measured for movement (momentum), but not both at the same time. Real things can be measured both ways, so what's wrong with quantum particles? Are they not things? Are they not real? — Gnomon

Well it’s not much of a problem per se because this only applies to very small stuff, not our day to day.

This is something I've wondered about. Is it possible to have a scientific understanding of some aspect of the world without an ontology? Without a story about what is going on? This question comes up in the context of quantum mechanics. Is that the Copenhagen interpretation? Is that enough? If there is no way, even in theory, to verify or falsify the many worlds interpretation, does it even mean anything? — T Clark

The interpretations are just a way to explain the math which is air-tight. The story for science is to assume realism and an external world because otherwise science becomes pointless to perform.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=16295625758829094935&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1#d=gs_qabs&t=1734279682125&u=%23p%3DF6i2K0qxJeIJ

Yeah I couldn’t even understand that much. Like I said you guys overestimate what the knowledge of most people is on this.

What the hell do they mean by surreal there anyway?

Can you give an example(s) of math being used to describe the physical world without using philosophy? That seems impossible to me. The math only measures. What it measures is up to our apparati. Any measurement implies knowledge of space and time, and hence Kant and the whole mess

As I understand it, the question of non-realism vs. non-locality is completely different and completely separate from the question of position vs. momentum, i.e. the uncertainty principle. — T Clark

As I understood it, the question was "how can anything non-local (no measurable position) be real?" I guess it comes down to how you define "real". Some quantum physicists seemed to evade that real-vs-ideal question, by means of the "shut-up and calculate" approach. For example, Quantum Fields are defined as real because they have the potential for producing energy, even though the infinite "points" that make up the field are mathematical instead of material. Is Potential real, or ideal? :smile:


Do Quantum fields describe reality or are reality?
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/769217/do-quantum-fields-describe-reality-or-are-reality

Nevertheless, quantum fields must be considered real, as they carry energy and have both calculable and measurable effects on the light and matter within the Universe.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/quantum-fields-energy/

Well it’s not much of a problem per se because this only applies to very small stuff, not our day to day. — Darkneos

True. Quantum Uncertainty is not a practical problem, it's a philosophical problem. For all practical purposes, the physical world still works the same way under 20th century Randomness, as it did under 17th century Determinism. Now that you know the ground under your feet is 99% empty space, are you afraid to take the next step over the quantum abyss? A stoic philosophical response to quantum scale indeterminism might be : "don't sweat the small stuff". :smile:

They just mean surreal as not typically compatible with classicality.

Yeah I couldn’t even understand that much. Like I said you guys overestimate what the knowledge of most people is on this. — Darkneos

Maybe! Who knows, maybr someone else will!

Can you give an example(s) of math being used to describe the physical world without using philosophy? That seems impossible to me. The math only measures. What it measures is up to our apparati. Any measurement implies knowledge of space and time, and hence Kant and the whole mess — Gregory

It's pretty much done every day, you don't really need philosophy to do that. The fact it pans out and leads to discoveries that we can manipulate and act on sorta implies it doesn't matter what philosophy thinks about it.

They just mean surreal as not typically compatible with classicality. — Apustimelogist

I still don't really understand it.

True. Quantum Uncertainty is not a practical problem, it's a philosophical problem. For all practical purposes, the physical world still works the same way under 20th century Randomness, as it did under 17th century Determinism. Now that you know the ground under your feet is 99% empty space, are you afraid to take the next step over the quantum abyss? A stoic philosophical response to quantum scale indeterminism might be : "don't sweat the small stuff" — Gnomon

The 99% empty space isn't true, and that's also a misunderstanding of what is at work. The spooky stuff of QM isn't something to worry about since it doesn't happen at our level.

The 99% empty space isn't true, and that's also a misunderstanding of what is at work. The spooky stuff of QM isn't something to worry about since it doesn't happen at our level. — Darkneos

I was kidding. But since you challenged the emptiness of matter, here's a couple of links. Does the notion that the "empty space" between and within atoms is full of "vacuum fluctuations of virtual particles" make you feel better about walking on solid ground? :joke:


In quantum mechanics, "empty space" is not truly empty, but instead is filled with fluctuations of virtual particles that constantly appear and disappear, known as "quantum vacuum fluctuations";
___Google AI overview

Yes, indeed nearly everything is empty space including space between the electrons of an atom to its nucleus. 99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space.
https://www.quora.com/If-atoms-are-99-99-empty-space-does-that-mean-we-re-99-99-empty-space-Is-everything-99-99-empty-space

Atoms are not the ultimate particle: they are nearly all empty space.
https://academic.oup.com/book/985/chapter-abstract/137840897?redirectedFrom=fulltext

"The true being of a man is, on the contrary, his act; individuality is real in the deed, and a deed it is which cancels both the aspects of what is 'meant' or 'presumed' to be. In one aspect where what is 'presumed' or 'imagined' takes the form of a passive bodily being, individuality puts itself forward in action as the negative [dynamic] essence which only is so far as it cancels being. Then furthermore the act does away with the inexpressible of what self-conscious individuality really 'means'; in regard to such 'meaning', individuality is endlessly determining and determinable. This false infinite, this endless determining, is abolished in a completed act. The act is [nonetheless] something simply determinate, universal, to be grasped as an abstract, distinctive whole..." Hegel on physiogomy from The phenomenology of Mind 1807

It's pretty much done every day, you don't really need philosophy to do that. The fact it pans out and leads to discoveries that we can manipulate and act on sorta implies it doesn't matter what philosophy thinks about — Darkneos

When they are studying things so small we have to invent maths just to understand how small they are (Plank scale) they truly at that point interacting with an abstraction

What's always funny to me is how the classical Newtonian view is held up as the paradigm of "common sense intuitions."

Is it? It's sometimes claimed that classical mechanics "works perfectly" for medium sized objects, and that problems only show up at very large or very small scales.

Except it doesn't. Right from the beginning gravity was an occult force acting at a distance, which in turn had to make "natural laws" active casual agents in the world "shoving the planets into their places like schoolboys" as Hegel puts it. The deficiencies of such a model of causation are well highlighted by Hume. Then electromagnetism added another occult force that didn't fit into the "everything is little billiard balls model."

Nor could/has the mechanistic model, where the billiard ball is the paradigmatic example of all physical interactions, been able to explain life or consciousness, nor was it able to offer up theories of self-organization, except via a deficient view of organisms as simply intricate "clockwork." Nor, in it's classical forms, can it incorporate information and the successes of information theory. We have suggested a long hangover of "Cartesian anxiety," because the classical model required early modern thinkers to excise consciousness, ideas, and freedom from the "physical realm."

I think the "anti-metaphysical movement's" greatest success has been to keep us stuck, frozen with a defunct 19th century metaphysics as the default, such that it becomes "common sense," to most through our education system. But surely it is cannot be "common sense" in any overarching sense, since it differs dramatically from the more organic-focused physics that dominated for two millennia prior to the creation of the classical model.

." Nor in it's classical forms can it incorporate information and the successes of information theory — Count Timothy von Icarus

Information reminds me of Kant and his spiritual-metaphysical-psychological-physiological take of space and time and how it interacts with the brain.

If something physical has something to offer consciousness this is its information, or "phenomena". If we are dealing with something so small that it makes no sense to ask it to present anything to our senses, then we are clearly dealing with noumena

It's an interesting question for sure. But against the "information requires consciousness," view we might consider the ways in which information theory informs the biology of algae, viruses, and protists, who I am not sure we want to count as "conscious," even if their behavior is certainly "goal-directed," or "teleonomic."

Plus, if one buys into something like computational theory of mind (long the dominant paradigm in cognitive science) or integrated information theory, then it would seem that information has to come prior to consciousness (else we have a circular explanation).

Of course, pancomputationalism is also very popular with physicists, and this would seem to cut the legs out of CTM, in that literally everything is a computer in some sense, making the brain's "being a computer" not much of an explanation of consciousness.

There is another circularity here. Turing comes up with the Turing Machine model with human computers in mind. Back in his day a "computer" was a person you paid to do calculations. The model is based on what that person needs to do to calculate. The "states" of the Turing Machine are "states of mind" originally. So, we end up explaining consciousness (or all of physics) in terms of a concept whose most popular explanation has a sort of Cartesian homunculus right in the middle of its paradigmatic explanation.

The Shannon-Weaver model of communications also (often) has an implicit Cartesian homunculus in the "destination" that understands any signal in many contexts as well.

IDK, it's a tricky area. I think that the solution is likely to involve seeing that life, consciousness, and goal directedness are not binaries, but exist on a sliding scale (contrary opposition, not contradictory) and that semiotic relations need not involved an "interpreter" just an "interpretant" (e.g. a ribosome doesn't "read.")

Which reminds me of a good quote on this sort of issue:

If we could ask the medieval scientist 'Why, then, do
you talk as if [inanimate objects like rocks had desires]?' he might (for he was always a dialectician) retort with the counter-question, 'But do you intend your language about laws and obedience any more literally than I intend mine about kindly enclyning? Do you really believe that a falling stone is aware of a directive issued to it by some legislator and feels either a moral or a prudential obligation to conform?' We should then have to admit that both ways of expressing are metaphorical. The odd thing is that ours is the more anthropomorphic of the two. To talk as if inanimate bodies had a homing instinct is to bring them no nearer to us than the pigeons; to talk as if they could ' obey laws' is to treat them like men and even like citizens.

But though neither statement can be taken literally, it
does not follow that it makes no difference which is used. On the imaginative and emotional level it makes a great difference whether, with the medievals, we project upon the universe our strivings and desires, or with the moderns, our police-system and our traffic regulations. The old language continually suggests a sort of continuity between merely physical events and our most spiritual aspirations.


C.S. Lewis - The Discarded Image

Of course, theology has had a lasting impact on scientism here, because the move from the universe as an organic whole to one defined by "laws" that are inscrutable, and some initial efficient cause, is not what you get when you simply "strip away superstition," but is rather Reformation theology, whose influence remains potent even in the hands of avowed atheists centuries later.

, if one buys into something like computational theory of mind (long the dominant paradigm in cognitive science) or integrated information theory, then it would seem that information has to come prior to consciousness (else we have a circular explanation) — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed, just as the mother comes before the child. But does it make sense to extend backwards humanity, as a thought experiment, and think of it with no origin except the ever intermediate subject. What information gives us is knowledge, but information is what the medievals called phantams, which really is just imagination. Yes it's not circular or linear

If the world wasn't in motion there could not be life. — Gregory

I am not so sure if the world is in motion. Because when you say something is in motion, it is moving from and towards a direction i.e. from a to b, or b to a. The world doesn't seem to be moving in that way or physically in motion.

However, there are changes in the world. The physical objects and life go through changes, and some are in motion. Both change and motion require space and time for their operations. We can see the changes and motions happening in front of us all the time. We can notice also the changes and motions taken place in the past by looking at the history of the world and life.

The universe seems to be just a container for all the objects, life and events taking place, and then vanishing into the void. We don't know how large the universe is, how old it is, and even how it began. It has a few theories, but none seem to be the definite truth. The universe will always remain as the deepest mystery in which we are born, live and perish into. Is it real? What is real?

Your spine is real. Your brain is real. Real is all your organs. At least rest in your flesh and know the psycho-organic as physical, as "there" for others (even the inanimate) to observe. "I think therefore I am". What a silly notion it is to say nothing is real. This is where Kant causes a lot of stumbling for thos who long for something else..

How can science prove an action is random or determined? These seem like philosophical categories to me, not related to science and math

How can science prove an action is random or determined? These seem like philosophical categories to me, not related to science and math — Gregory

They aren't really philosophical categories, they're pretty well defined TBH.

The world doesn't seem to be moving in that way or physically in motion. — Corvus

Except it is.

We don't know how large the universe is, how old it is, and even how it began. — Corvus

Yes we do, yes we do, and we have some solid ideas.

The universe will always remain as the deepest mystery in which we are born, live and perish into. Is it real? What is real? — Corvus

Not really. Some parts of it are mysteries but we know quite a bit about it. It's real for sure, as for asking what is real...that's often a useless and dumb question.

Of course, theology has had a lasting impact on scientism here, because the move from the universe as an organic whole to one defined by "laws" that are inscrutable, and some initial efficient cause, is not what you get when you simply "strip away superstition," but is rather Reformation theology, whose influence remains potent even in the hands of avowed atheists centuries later. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well no, not really. We have evidence and studies for this unlike religion. As for what consciousness is, it's an emergent property of the brain. There is no hard problem to solve here.

Stuff like this kinda makes me question the use of philosophy at times, like trying to complicate matters that are already solved while offering nothing useful to act on. Science may have started off as such but clearly has come far and distinguished itself since then.

Maybe in regards to ethics and morality philosophy helps, anywhere else...meh.

They aren't really philosophical categories, they're pretty well defined TBH — Darkneos

Well then these scientific principles should be explained by science instead of being seen as philosophy. So how would they ever prove sonething is random if they don't know what the mathematical law behind the action is? If the answer is crunched down to numbers 1, 3, 7 and 9 and this is considered random, how do we know 1, 3, 7, and 9 aren't the right answer to the equation according to an overarching mathematical scheme we aren't aware of? So then, in that case, it's not random. Philosophy is overarching; science is the handmaid

They aren't really philosophical categories, — Darkneos

Are you aware that John Bell was a super-determinist? If that is a philosophical position that is legit with observation, the idea of random vs determined can be seen then as philosophical categories. You can't do anything without philosphy in life. The old religious debates on predestination, likewise, had much in common with this random vs determined debate. Finally, Einstein has yet to be dethroned

What a silly notion it is to say nothing is real. — Gregory

I didn't say nothing is real. You said it. Read your own post. :D

I asked what do you mean by real, when you say X is real. Is all that you see real? Is all that you know real? You think something is real, but later it turns out to be something else, or it disappears from your sight.

Is the universe real? What is the universe? Where does it start and end? If you don't know what universe is, then how do you know it is real?

We don't know how large the universe is, how old it is, and even how it began. — Corvus


Yes we do, yes we do, and we have some solid ideas. — Darkneos

The religious folks say the same thing about their Gods.

Not really. Some parts of it are mysteries but we know quite a bit about it. It's real for sure, as for asking what is real...that's often a useless and dumb question. — Darkneos

Instead of thinking about it, and trying to find the answer, just saying that it is a useless and dumb question is a real dumb and useless statement.

You've mentioned you don't really understand this stuff well, and it shows. Might I recommend perhaps letting go of the rigid commitment to what "science says," until you get a lay of the land. Unless this is supposed to be joke?

Well no, not really. We have evidence and studies for this unlike religion. As for what consciousness is, it's an emergent property of the brain. There is no hard problem to solve here.

Stuff like this kinda makes me question the use of philosophy at times, like trying to complicate matters thatare already solved while offering nothing useful to act on. Science may have started off as such but clearly has come far and distinguished itself since then.

Because, of course there is a problem, it's literally called the "Hard Problem of Conciousness," which cognitive scientists bring up all the time. It has not been "solved." Nor has a satisfactory explanation of emergence, or consensus on if it even really exists, been accepted by most scientists and philosophers. You can find entire academic tomes dedicated to emergence, and many (e.g. the Routledge Handbook) will have to spend hundreds of pages on articles dealing with vagaries and contradictory theories precisely because it isn't something that is "solved."

Nor is "x is emergent" particularly explanatory or unproblematic. What does it mean for something to be "emergent?" Weak emergence as mere data compression, or strong emergence? (And does the latter require getting "something from nothing?" Does it make whatever emerges in some way "fundemental?")

These are all questions scientists and philosophers are still exploring. See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

When scientists work on these issues they end up having to do philosophy. There is no hard line between "philosophy of biology," and biology at any rate. "What is life?" or "are plant and animal species 'real?'" are questions biologists try to answer for instance.

Philosophers sometimes err by straying into areas that they don't understand, but this is equally true for people who work in the natural sciences. E.g., Sapolsky put out an entire book on the "science" of free will, which flops back and forth between bigism and smallism as it suits his argument, and he seems to think that action must be "uncaused" to be free or that any self-determining process must break down into self-determining "parts." There are lots of scientific citations in the book (including lots of unreplicatable, highly questionable stuff, such as the "Lady Macbeth effect,") and he's a scientist, but it isn't good scientific/philosophical reasoning, more an ad hoc mashup of datapoints said to fit an unclear thesis.

This is incredibly common in more theoretical scientific works because you often don't get taught about good argument in undergrad or grad programs in the sciences (at least I didn't). So a lot of popular science seems to mistake lining up an avalanche of citations and referring to how they could fit/be explained by theoretical these, for good argument. This is how you end up with multiple different people who claim to have "solved the Hard Problem" pushing incommensurate theories that nonetheless use all the same landmark studies as their datapoints.

My quote had mentioned the language of "laws of nature." There is also a great deal of debate in the empirical sciences about how to think about these or how to think of causation more generally. There is not consensus here, nor any sort of "common sense," unproblematic definition of what the "laws of nature" are and how they work. And, like I said, it's a language inherited from a theological context and a certain vision of God; the early modern scientists who created our model didn't separate religion and science in the same way.