Comments

  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Between t= 1.6 and t= 3.9 seconds. The curved broken line has a min at approx 0.52 joules and a max of approx 0.58 joules. A difference of 0.06 joules. Quite a difference from your 15% claim.universeness

    As I said, after the first collision, at approximately 1.5 seconds, they started with the "arbitrary" figure for potential energy. Please reread the experiment, so that you might understand what they did. This replaces the gravitational formula for potential energy (mgh) with an inversion of the measured kinetic energy, i.e begging the question by assuming that all the energy is conserved.. You still haven't grasped this, after days of discussion. Or have you, and you're playing dumb? But why?

    Look at the first 1.5 seconds please, where a true value for "h", height was provided, and the potential energy was figured from mgh, rather than from the assumption of a total energy of zero, and potential energy figured as the inverse of kinetic energy.

    The rest of your post, concerning "tiny losses" is irrelevant, because it is based in your misunderstanding of how they used the "arbitrary" method to figure potential energy in the rebounds. This gave them no real indication of the amount of total energy actually lost during the up and down motion of the glider

    Firstly even given quite astute and accurate explanations, he does not reconsider his position. Secondly drawing attention to his comments leads some folk into considering his arguments seriously, which is corrosive. This became clear in discussions of limits and instantaneous velocity, where clear arguments refuting his position had him doubling down, as he did here, while attracting more support than was healthy - mostly from those who, while not agreeing with him, wanted to support his right to be wrong.Banno

    Do you think that explaining to me some conventional principles of mathematics, which I obviously already have an understanding of, as I am arguing against them, gives me reason to accept them? I am sorry if it disappoints you, but you'll have to do better than this. Try giving me reasons to accept these principles, rather than just assertions that these are the accepted principles, and implying that because they are the accepted principles they must be true.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy

    Right, you're talking about some sort of "occult" energy loss, universeness is trying to claim that scientific experiments have proven that all energy is conserved, and Banno is rambling some nonsense about instantaneous velocity. It's no wonder I haven't the faintest idea what you guys are talking about.

    Maybe one of you could step forward and at least try to say something reasonable for a change?
  • The ineffable
    I like to take ponderous metaphors like this, and bring them home: here I am, cat on sofa, clouds and trees and houses outside. Now, what IS the Good? It is here, in the actuality of the lived event that this question has its authenticity, I hold. To your point: If the good makes the intelligible, intelligible, then the good is logic and language, something Kantian? Plato is called a rational realist, and so I always thought along these lines. But the affectivity, this is happiness, joy, love, bliss, ecstasy, rapture, and other words that mean essentially the same thing. How does this "Good" effect knowledge, I want to ask. Not that it doesn't, but to characterize somehow is a worthy question.Constance

    I think "the good", in the Platonic tradition, is what is desired, or wanted, described by Aristotle as "the end", or final cause. It is the cause of knowledge in the sense that when something is wanted we learn the means to get it. So all knowledge is produced in this way, as the means to an end, even if that end is the quest for truth.

    But the good, in itself, always presents itself as this or that particular thing, which is wanted, and in this way the good seems to be well known, I know what I want for dinner for example. However, like Aristotle explained, particular goods always end up being desired for the sake of something else, the means to a further end, so the true good escapes our grasp. And when we look for the meaning of "the good" in the general sense, as final cause, it escapes our grasp completely.

    I agree with this, but there one has to get by the difficulties. One is this: Consider states of affairs as a temporal dynamic, and not as a spatial one.Constance

    This is exactly where the difficulty lies, in the attempt to give states of affairs a temporal dynamic, in order to make them something real. Temporal dynamic, as active change, is fundamentally incompatible with a "state" which is static. So it's really impossible to consider states of affairs as a temporal dynamic, because of this inconsistency. And this is the same inconsistency I talked about, between the general principles, and the particular. General principles tend to state "what is", as a static principle, a truth, but in the particular situation, things are changing continuously.

    Thus, what it means to have an encounter in the world at all has a temporal model to work out, for when we talk about general principles' failure to grasp the palpable realities before us, the "before us" is a "presence" in time, in which the past and the future are a unity where recollection (history) offers the basic existence conditions out of which a future is constructed, and this occurs as a spontaneous production of our Being There. In this, the present vanishes. All that lies before me is bound to this past-future dynamic.Constance

    This may be the case, that the present vanishes into a unity of past and future, as you say, but the analysis must be continued further. We call them by different names, "past" and "future", because they surely are different. And if they are different, then there must be something that separates them, so we are back to the logical conclusion of a present. Again, we have the same inconsistency rearing its head, from the one perspective the temporal model has the present disappear into a unity of past and future, but that very premise, that there is a past and future to be united, necessitates the conclusion of a present which allows them to be distinct in the first place.

    I say, true, yet put a spear in my kidney and the is not an historical event. Or listen to music, fall in love,, and all of the affective spontaneities that are always already there as well, and THIS declares the present., the Real with a capital 'R'. I defend a kind of value-ontology: the determination as to what is Real lies in the felt sense, and this sense of not epistemic; rather, the "raw feels" of the world are aesthetic. The "features of the particular circumstances" you speak of have their ineffability in the desire, the interest, the satisfaction, the gratification, and so on, that saturate experience.Constance

    This is the same conclusion I described, the present is the Real, and I derived this as a logical necessity. But then, what becomes of this unity of the past and future, which seems to make the present vanish? It is not just an illusion, the fact that past and future are unified in being, this is equally Real. So where does this leave us? The past and future are necessarily separated, due to the vast and substantial difference between the two. Yet equally, the past and future are united as one in the existence of what has being at the present. So it's a conundrum, how two things which are necessarily separated also exist together as a unity all at the same time, the present..
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    How can you be so obtuse, MU, confusing the "lack of 100% efficiency" in thermodynamic processes with occult "energy loss"?180 Proof

    I never said anything about occult energy loss and I haven't the fainted idea what you are talking about. I've never before heard of "occult energy loss". Let;s stick to the facts. There is energy loss, as all experiments demonstrate. Do you or do you not agree with this conclusion derived from observation?

    TAre you basing this on something like 0.9 (the initial total energy shown on the graph at t=0) minus 0.75 (your guestimate of the total energy read from graph 3 at t = 1.5 sec) to arrive at your 0.15 joules drop? If that's your basis for the 0.15 joules drop, then it is probably quite inaccurate.universeness

    Call it a "guesstimate" if you want, it's taken straight from the numbers on the graph. There is a drop of energy of approximately .15 joules prior to any collision, which is roughly 15 percent of the total energy of .9 joules. That the graph is unclear is the fault of the experimenters, not me. Whether the actual drop calculated by the experimenters was .13 joules, or .17 joules (hard to read on the graph) is irrelevant to the fact that the loss of energy prior to any collision was significant.

    The shapes created by each of the 5 graph sections are pretty close to identical. They just reduce in height each time, due to the collisions. The symmetry is obvious.universeness

    The symmetry in the shape of the total energy after the collisions is produced from their way of figuring potential energy from that point onward. As we discussed already, this, what they call "arbitrary" way of figuring potential energy replaces the formula mgh with an inversion of the calculated kinetic energy. Because of this way of figuring the potential energy, it is impossible to distinguish energy loss due to inelasticity in the collision, and energy loss during movement of the glider. And, as is evident from the first 1.5 seconds, there is actually significant energy loss, just in the movement of the glider.

    he does not reconsider his position.Banno

    This is false, I am always adapting and changing my position, depending on what is brought to my attention. It is the case though, that many people, such as universeness is this thread, never bring anything worthwhile to my attention and so I have nothing new to base a reconsideration on.
  • The ineffable
    Of course, in his Lecture on Ethics, he was clear, talk of the nature of ethics was nonsense. Yet, the Good is at the very center of ethics. The implicit question was this, How is it that Wittgenstein was capable of, at once, a flat out denial of the possibility of talk about ethics; yet confessing this about the Good? Keep in mind that in the Tractatus ethics was transcendental. "The Good lies outside the space of facts."Constance

    This is consistent with how Plato originally explained "the good" in "The Republic". It is in a strange way, always outside of knowledge, therefore not truly knowable, making virtue something other than knowledge. But the good has a profound effect on knowledge, as what makes the intelligible objects intelligible, in a way analogous to the way that the sun makes visible objects visible.

    You should see where this is going. Witt was struggling with the contradiction inherent in the confrontation with the world that one the one hand possessed logical delimitations, and on the other, intimated with such insistence that ethics and value were embedded in the intuitive presence of things (putting aside his own language limitation here, just to discuss) that he broke off with Russell on account of the latter failing to see that the essential point of the Tractatus was not what was revealed to be affirmed within the "state of affairs" of discourse, but rather just what it was that could not be said at all. This was the major thrust of the work.Constance

    This is the difference between the general principles which we apply, and the particular things or particular circumstances which we find ourselves engaged with, and requiring the application of general principles. This difference often creates a conundrum for decision making because the general principles often do not readily fit the particular circumstances.

    The problem with "states of affairs" is that this terminology creates the appearance that a particular situation can be represented by general principles, and expressed as a state of affairs. The issue, with what cannot be said, is that there is a fundamental inconsistency between how we represent general principles, and how we represent particular situations. There are features of the particular circumstances, which by our definition of "particular" and the uniqueness assigned to "particular", which makes it so that the particular cannot be represented by descriptive terms, which we employ as general principles.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    You are also making a complete assertion. Where is your exemplar experimental evidence from an experiment that proves any energy loss cannot be attributed to energy which has changed form?universeness

    As I said, the quantity of energy is the product of a calculation derived from measurement and the application of formulae. In all experiments there is energy loss which cannot be accounted for with measurements and application of the formulae. Therefore we cannot conclude that this energy loss is the result of energy changing forms. That is an invalid conclusion. If the experimenters cannot show all the forms that all the energy exists in, they cannot conclude that it still exists in some form. The observations made simply do not support that conclusion.

    You assert that the experiments performed by physicists to demonstrate conservation of energy and confirm that conclusion in their published results are false. So, prove it, using compelling counter evidence that any tiny energy loss is NOT converted to another form, that's your burden, just like it's the burden of theists to prove their god fantasies actually have real existents (or at least 1).universeness

    The experiment you referenced clearly shows energy loss which is not accounted for. If the experimenters claim that there was not any energy loss, when their data shows that there was, then they are lying and are not honest scientists.

    There is no burden on me to show that there is energy loss which is not existing in another form, that is nonsensical. If I showed you where the energy loss existed, then it would be representable as a form of energy. I am not arguing that I can show you energy which does not exist as a form of energy. I am arguing that there is energy loss which the experimenters cannot account for as existing in another form. And, I am arguing that since "energy" is a product of human measurement and calculation, we have no premise whereby it can be concluded that the lost energy still exists as energy.

    You don't get to sit back in your armchair, pretending to be a warrior. Your task should be the easy one.
    Reference just one experiment that shows that any energy loss CANNOT be attributed to a change of energy form. Surely any fully qualified undercover meta has access to many such proofs!
    universeness

    The proof has been presented to you, you just haven't taken the time required to assess it. Go back to that graph in your referenced experiment. There is an energy loss of .15 joules in the first 1.5 seconds of the experiment which CANNOT be attributed to a change of energy form. To assign some other form to this energy would be purely conjecture, completely unsupported by the experiment. Therefore it CANNOT be validly attributed to a change of energy form.

    Of course you can insist that you CAN attribute this to a change in form, but that's simply an unsupported claim by someone who knows nothing about energy. And I will ignore such nonsensical claims.
  • The ineffable

    That's why I use "the ineffable" rather than "some things are ineffable". It's the difference between the general and the particular. We can talk about "the ineffable" as a general principle without mentioning which things are ineffable, therefore without negating the property of "ineffable" from those things which have that property. But to talk about the things which are ineffable is self-defeating, nonsense, because you identify particulars and say that they are ineffable. Likewise, it would be self-defeating to demonstrate ineffable things.

    So you've just loaded the requirement so that it would be impossible to do what you ask for. 'Show me the things which are ineffable, so we can talk about them'.
  • The ineffable
    That there are things unsaid does not imply that there are things that cannot be said.Banno

    You are changing the subject Banno. Your statement was:
    that there is always more that can be said..Banno

    Can you see how "there is always more that can be said" implies necessarily that not all can be said?
  • The ineffable
    Cheers, Meta. The more that can be said, by that very fact, can be said, and hence is not ineffable.Banno

    You are looking at the general principle you stated, as if it only applies to one particular case. In that one instance, more can be said, and that which can be said is not ineffable. But if the general principle you stated is true, that there is always more which can be said, then it is impossible that all can be said. Therefore there is something ineffable.

    That's the example Banno needs to look at. The fact that we can always say more, implies that not all can be said, therefore the ineffable.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Energy loss is energy changing form. The total energy in the universe remains unchanged.universeness

    The point is that this is just an assertion, which is contrary to experimental evidence. The evidence shows that all the energy can never be accounted for, even when all known energy loss is added up. So it is just an unsupported claim, that all the energy loss is energy changing form, along with the claim that the amount of energy in the universe actually stays the same.

    There is no evidence of an 'outside' of the universe for any energy form to leak into or act as a new source of energy that this universe can tap into.universeness

    The issue is that the entropy of the universe increases. Universal entropy is said to be energy which is not accessible to us human beings. However, as I explained already, "energy" refers to what is calculated by us human beings, from our formulas. Therefore, to say that there is energy which is not accessible to us, having been transformed to entropy, is oxymoronic, self-contradicting.

    It is only by insisting that the law of conservation must be true, that people get forced into strange conclusions, like your suggestion that there is energy which has escaped the universe.

    But just like I can't prove god/ the immaterial/ the supernatural does not exist, I cannot prove the total energy in the universe remains constant.universeness

    The problem is that if the total energy actually did remain constant, it could be proven. It could be shown exactly what happens to all the energy, in experimental transactions. But this cannot be done. The reason why it cannot be proven is because it is false.

    The burden of proof that it is a false law, remains with those, like you, who claim it is false.universeness

    I don't think so universeness. If you make an assertion such as "the total energy in the universe remains unchanged", then the burden of proof is on you. Furthermore, since every experiment which has ever been carried out indicates that energy is always lost, this is very strong evidence that the assertion is false.

    You have so far, provided no compelling evidence whatsoever.universeness

    You have provided two experiments. Each has shown energy loss. My claim is that every experiment shows energy loss, and I am not about to give reference to every experiment. But your task is easy, if what you say (that total energy is conserved) is true, just show me one experiment which demonstrates this. Doing this will disprove my claim. That's why I suggested we move along to look at experiments carried out in a vacuum condition.
  • The ineffable
    We have three: duck, rabbit and dick-rabbit.Banno

    I'll choose the dick-rabbit myself, therefore the option that there's always more options.

    There was more that can be said. Because it can be said, it is not ineffable.Banno

    But, what I explained, the difference between "there is something left unsaid", and "there is always more that can be said" presents us with an inconsistency, which also necessitates the ineffable.

    Your reply here indicates that because there is always more that can be said, what is referred to necessarily can be said, therefore nothing ineffable. However, since the phrase "there is always more that can be said" also implies that everything cannot be said, the ineffable is also implied.

    That is the manifestation of the inconsistency I explained. If you look at it from the point of view of the particular, we have your conclusion, each and every instance has more to be said, but it can be said, therefore your conclusion. But from the point of view of a general principle, your statement says there will always be more to be said, therefore not everything can be said.
    .
  • The ineffable
    It's not that there is something left unsaid, but that there is always more that can be said...Banno

    I like that, two different ways of saying the same thing, used to demonstrate that you cannot say the same thing in two different ways, simply with the assertion of "it's not".

    Unless you explain the "not" by giving reasons for it, then you are just begging the question by asserting something without demonstrating its truth. So how is it that "there is something left unsaid" says something different from "there is always more that can be said"?

    Is it the case that "there is always more that can be said" is a statement of a general principle, and "there is something left unsaid" is a reference to a particular instance? So the difference between these two, which makes them not the same, is not a difference at all, it is the fact that there is a relation between them. That there is a relation between them is what makes them distinct, and this implies that that "no relation" means the same. A relation is a statement of difference, so by the identity of indiscernibles, the proposal of two things without relations is actual a proposal of one and the same thing. Then "different" means having a relation, which implies being part of a larger whole, so that being different means being part of one and the same whole.

    But all that is a distraction from the real issue, which is the relation you've proposed between "there is always more that can be said", and the ineffable. How do you propose that this statement "there is always more that can be said" does not imply that the ineffable is real? "Always" implies that every particular situation will have the same general feature of "something left unsaid".

    So the real issue is in the way that we understand the relationship between the general principle, and the particular situation. The general principle must always imply an "always" in relation to particular instances, or else it loses its credibility. But the particular must always have unique properties or else it cannot be said to be a particular. These two general principles establish that the particular is always in some way incompatible with the general. This is not an incompleteness, it is an inconsistency between these two general principles, one describing the general principle, and the other describing the particular..

    Therefore we have accepted and employed general principles which establish that the particular is inconsistent with the general, through inconsistent descriptions of these two. That is the relationship between these, which we know and understand, a relationship of inconsistency. Furthermore, there is more than one way to deal with this problem of inconsistency, because we could designate a problem with our description of the particular, or we could designate a problem with our description of the general, or both.

    The common, current, solution is to assign the problem to our description of the general, and adapt our understanding of the general in an attempt to make it consistent with our description of the uniqueness of the particular. To do this, we allow the general to lose some of its credibility, and replace "always" with a degree of possibility of "not always", thereby moving into an understanding of reality which consists of probabilities. The general principle has been adapted to replace "always" with a numerical value representing probability.
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need

    The incoherency is quite clear, and I'll explain it to you. You can deny that it exists, and call me whatever name you like, but that doesn't address the problem.

    In simple terms, counting is a task. To be "counted" implies that the task is completed. To be "countable" implies that the task may be completed. In such common terms, no infinite number is countable, because the task to count an infinite number can never be completed.

    Now, it may be possible to define "countable" in a way such that completion of the task would not be required as a criterion for being countable. If mathematicians have successfully done this, then an infinite number would be countable.

    However, mathematicians have not successfully done this. They have defined "countable" in relation to another task, bijection, and proper bijection would also require completion of the task, just like counting. Since bijection is a task which cannot be completed in the case of an infinite number, they have not defined "countable" in a way such that an infinite number can be truthfully said to be countable.

    So mathematicians pretend that an infinite number, the cardinality of the set of natural numbers, is countable when it really is not. "Countable" as defined by mathematicians is not consistent with "infinite" as commonly used in reference to the natural numbers, so the idea that an infinite set is countable is a pretense.

    This pretense produces a new meaning for "infinite", one which is consistent with the pretense. However, this meaning of "infinite" is not consistent with how "infinite" is commonly used by mathematicians, hence the word "transfinite" is sometimes employed. I will call this concept of "infinite" a phantom infinite because it's a completely imaginary concept, totally distinct from actual usage, created solely for the purpose of making it appear like it is possible to do the impossible task, count the infinite natural numbers. The phantom infinite concept is a product of that pretense.

    Now we have a concept, the phantom infinite, which hides the inconsistency between "countable" and "the natural numbers". The natural numbers are not really countable, (being infinite as implying a task which cannot be completed), but the phantom infinite makes it appear like they are by changing the meaning of "infinite". The phantom infinite is a false concept because this sense of "infinite" is not consistent with how "infinite" is actually used in relation to the natural numbers. We do not allow that one can actually complete the task of counting the natural numbers. The result being a false representation of the natural numbers, having been created by the phantom concept of infinite. The pretense requires a false representation of the natural numbers, for its support. So the phantom infinite is imposed onto the natural numbers, as if this is the real way that "infinite" is used in relation to the natural numbers, but this is not a true representation of how the natural numbers are actually used, and how they are said to be "infinite".

    Keeping all that in mind, the problem with the continuum hypothesis ought to become crystal clear to you. The idea that an infinite set is countable, or has a specifiable cardinality, is a product of the phantom infinite concept. This is not consistent with "infinite" as used by mathematicians. Therefore there is an inconsistency between the concepts of "infinite set", and "countable" inherent within the continuum hypothesis. The "infinite set" of natural numbers takes the traditional meaning of "infinite" (implying not countable as the task cannot be completed), and the designation that such a set is "countable" uses the phantom infinite concept which is inconsistent with the traditional concept.

    The inconsistency between the traditional concept "infinite", and the phantom concept of infinite makes the two completely incompatible. Because of this, any attempt to establish commensurability between the two fails.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Your musings seem to jump around in very bizarre ways, from small gliders on small ramps to carts and now big cars travelling on big roads against 100km/h winds.
    Come back when you can better control your mad jumps towards extreme exaggerations and then perhaps you will begin to understand when variables such as air resistance and friction can become negligible when they are tiny, compared to the other variables involved in the experiment.
    universeness

    The point is that energy loss is very real, whether you are looking at the Planck scale or at a scale of the entire universe. It is never "negligible" unless you are denying reality in support of a false principle
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    The cardinality of the set of real numbers is aleph_1TonesInDeepFreeze

    it's easy to give a name to an infinite cardinality (aleph_1 for example), just like we might name it "an infinity", but naming it in no way demonstrates that it is countable.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Yeah, neither do physicists who do physics experiments, according to you.universeness

    The problem with your referenced experiment remains. There is an initial energy loss of fifteen percent, which the experimenters refer to at one point as almost no energy loss, and at another point, no energy loss. You can call these experimenters "physicists" if it pleases you.

    No, you have killed our exchange.universeness

    You have killed the exchange through denial of reality. I'll let you go off and build your car now, which requires virtually no energy input because friction and air resistance are negligible. Come back when you're ready to share the profit.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    I think I understand physics far better than you do!
    You type an insult like:
    universeness

    The so-called "insult" was warranted in response to this:

    No the concerns you raise are again, exaggerated. There were no 100 km/h winds during the experiment and friction from (within the wheel??) and/or the axle will be negligible.universeness

    Come on universeness, if you think that air resistance and friction are negligible to a moving cart, you do not even have the most basic education in physics to even start discussing the law of conservation of energy.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    and then you ask me to consider another of your 'interpretations,' of what the experiment shows. :lol:
    We have reached impasse!
    universeness

    Look at the graph, and tell me how you would interpret that first 1.5 seconds in any other way than a total energy loss of approximately .15 joules, prior to any collision.
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    card(reals) = aleph_1 is the continuum hypothesis. It is not provable in ZFC. It is thought to be true by some mathematicians and false by other mathematicians - an unsettled question.TonesInDeepFreeze

    It's unsettled because there's a problem with what constitutes a "countable" cardinality. As soon as we define "countable" such that an infinite set might be "countable", we create incoherency.
  • The ineffable
    This ineffable thread surely is effing along nicelyHeracloitus

    Canada coach John Herdman wasn’t trying to be disrespectful when he said the next mission for his squad was to “eff Croatia", he was just setting the tone for the F match.

    https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-coach-john-herdman-eff-croatia-comment

    And so the Croatian coach replied with everyone has their own communication style. I'm not sure it's a nice thing to say but that's his right.

    If "eff" was hate speech, the right to use it would be denied, and "eff" would be officially ineffable.
  • The ineffable
    …..and when we accept the natural limitations of a given system, we don’t need to lament what it can’t do.Mww

    For a philosopher with the desire to know, the idea that there might be things which are impossible to know is cause for lament.

    ….but can never evolve out of the kind of system it is. (Remember….dialectical consistency)Mww

    As I said, this is a semantic issue. How would you define "the kind of system it is"? Remember, it is common knowledge that human beings evolved from single celled organisms. So if it is the case, as you say, that the system which comprises the human capacity to understand has natural limitations as to how far it can evolve, you must bear in mind how far it has already evolved. It appears to me that thus "kind of system", one which has evolved from a single celled organism to the extremely complex reasoning human being, doesn't have a whole lot of natural limitations.

    ….an unjustified assertion, insofar as it is impossible to know all the things there are. The very best to be said is the mind has the capacity to know all things presented to it.Mww

    Sure, this is my "unjustified assertion", that the human intellect has the capacity to know all things. And your "unjustified assertion" is that there are things which can never be apprehended by the mind because they will never appear to it. The difference is that my unjustified assertion provides a good healthy inspiration for human beings to seek out and try to understand all aspects of the universe. Your unjustified assertion is like a degenerative disease of the human being, because it inclines the reasoning being to think that everything which is hidden from it at the present time will always be hidden from it, thereby extinguishing the human being's motivation to learn.

    ….it is absurd to suppose understanding of all things. The occasions in which some things are misunderstood verifies limits. Nothing ever being misunderstood is the only sufficient ground for the possibility of understanding all things.Mww

    I can't see why you think that this is an absurd goal. Yes, it is a lofty goal, but why dismiss lofty goals as absurd? If a youngster comes to you and says my goal is to some day win the World Cup, would you tell the child that this is absurd, and send them home crying by shattering their dreams? I don't think you would, because the proper action is to encourage the child who has lofty goals. Philosophy is similar, except that we are grown up, so we make goals which are not personal but communal. We have very lofty goals which a philosopher knows will likely never be fulfilled in his or her lifetime. But each small step taken is a step toward that lofty goal, which would only be a step taken in vain, therefore not inspired to be taken at all, if the goal was designated to be absurd.

    On and on it goes. Give it up and go have a turkey leg or something.Mww

    There you go, making your defeatist attitude explicit.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy

    I see it is pointless discussing this with you. You are in complete denial, and refuse to even attempt to understand some simple physics.

    However, I will ask you just to take a quick look at one thing in the article. Look at the graph where they plot potential energy, kinetic energy, and total energy altogether on one graph. Now look at the plotted total energy over the first 1.5 seconds of time. This time period represents the first drop of the glider, prior to any collisions. You'll see that the total energy drops from approximately .9 joules to approximately .75 joules, over this time period. This is a loss of total energy of more than 15 percent, over a time period of 1.5 seconds, and that was prior to any collision.

    No the concerns you raise are again, exaggerated. There were no 100 km/h winds during the experiment and friction from (within the wheel??) and/or the axle will be negligible.universeness

    Do you consider a total energy loss of 15 percent, in a 1.5 second time period to be negligible? That's ten percent per second of time! I really can't see how you would say that this is negligible.
  • The ineffable
    I was advocating the truly ineffable, which manifests as a certain impossibility of the mind.Mww

    OK, so here's the difference which led me to think you were being inconsistent. I suggested the possibility of something which is completely inapprehensible to the mind. So I thought you were advocating this as a possibility. Now I see that you advocate it as an actuality, a reality that there are things which are completely inapprehensible to the human mind, due to the deficiencies of the human mind.

    Your position then, if it is as I state above, is the position which I dismiss as self-defeating, counterproductive, and unphilosophical, as intellectually repugnant, because it accepts the reality of something fundamentally unintelligible (like infinite regress for example), and this assumption discourages the philosophical mind which seeks to know.

    To believe in THE ineffable is to believe in things that are ineffable. If truly ineffable is only the condition of the mind for the reception of certain things, what point is there in believing in the very things the mind could never receive?Mww

    OK, this is interesting. We premise that the human mind (I'm trying to be careful to qualify "mind" with "human" because you have deemed this to be a problem with the human mind while allowing for the possibility of other minds to which it wouldn't be a problem) is deficient therefore there are some very real things which the human mind cannot grasp.

    It appears to me, that it is the premise, that the human mind is deficient, which forces the conclusion that there are real things which are inapprehensible. It cannot be the other way around, because these things can be in no way apprehended, so the existence of them in the mind cannot force the conclusion that the mind is deficient. Therefore, it is a logical conclusion produced from the premise of human deficiency, that there are things which are inapprehensible, and because it is necessitated by logic, we must believe in the things which the mind cannot receive. This is to say, that as soon as you accept this premise, that the human mind has this deficiency, it is logically necessary that you believe in the things which cannot be received by the human mind. So it is not a matter of "what point is there" in believing in these things, as you state, it is a matter of it being logically necessary that we believe in such things. When we accept that premise of human deficiency it is necessary that we believe in things which cannot be grasped by the mind.

    So this is where my notion that this perspective is unphilosophical, and intellectually repugnant comes from. If the philosophical mindset is the desire to know, and understand all things, then what is the point to accepting a premise (human deficiency) which forces the necessary conclusion that there are things which cannot be known? This premise is directly incompatible with the goal of philosophy which is to seek out and understand all aspects of reality.

    To state the existent of a thing as not impossible, is not to advocate that it is. There’s no logic in positing a possible existence when it is absolutely impossible to form a judgement with respect to it. How could we ever say a thing is possible if it has absolutely no chance of ever being an object met with our intelligence? What could be said about a thing for which we couldn’t even begin to speculate? To say such is not impossible carries more truth value than to merely say such thing may be possible.Mww

    As we have been discussing, "possible" must refer to the idea that there are things which cannot be apprehended, in the sense of logically possible, this is a logical possibility. In this context, "possible" does not refer to the thing itself, as if it were a possible thing, because that would imply that the thing necessarily has existence, and calling it a possible thing would be contradictory. So we cannot assume that these inapprehensible things exist, and speak of them as possible things, we can only assume a logical possibility that they may exist.

    From here, we can take your premise, that the human mind is deficient, and conclude that they necessarily exist, and give up on the enterprise of increasing human knowledge whenever it appears like something is unknowable, concluding that it is unknowable, or we can maintain the premise that the human mind can potentially know all things, and continue with the effort to know all things.

    We DO know we can never understand the unintelligible exclusively from the reality of that which IS intelligible. Pretty simple really. If intelligibility is this, anything not this is unintelligible. Besides…doesn’t “unintelligible” factually denote a non-understanding? Absurd to posit the unintelligible, then turn right around and say maybe we just don’t understand it. There may be a veritable plethora of reasons for not understanding, but the irreducible, primary reason must necessarily be because it was unintelligible to begin with.

    THAT is what the ineffable is all about. Hasn’t a gawddamn thing to do with things, but only with the limitations on the system that comprehends things.
    Mww

    You are completely neglecting my use of "appears" in relation to unintelligible. I was talking about things which appear to be unintelligible. If, whenever something appears like it is unintelligible, we designate it as actually being unintelligible, then we will never make the effort required to understand it, and prove that the unintelligibility which appeared, was just an appearance. Therefore, I clearly did not "posit the unintelligible" in that context, as your misrepresentation indicates, I posited a situation in which something appears to be unintelligible. And this is completely consistent with what I've been discussing, the possibility of something which is inapprehensible.

    The appearance that something is unintelligible presents us with the possibility that there is something inapprehensible to the mind. From there we can adopt what I would call the philosophical premise, that the human mind has the capacity to know all things, and proceed toward understanding, and proving that this is just an appearance, or, we can adopt the premise that the human mind is deficient, and this appearance of something unintelligible is proof that there really is things inapprehensible to the human mind.

    I believe that the key to unravelling this little problem is to understand what is meant by "the system that comprehends things". This, the human mind is a continually evolving system. So if we propose to put a limit on "the mind", by qualifying it with "human mind", how do we allow for evolution of the human mind? At what point in the evolutionary process is the mind definitively a "human" mind? And if the definition of "human mind" is produced so as the thing called "human mind" is allowed to evolve in the future to a point where it might apprehend things which are currently inapprehensible, and still be called the "human mind", then the problem is simply semantic. You might argue that this mind no longer qualifies as a "human mind", seeking to separate the "human mind" which is deficient, from these future minds which do not have the same deficiency. Then the philosophical mindset, which is the desire to know becomes an effort to evolve the mind so as to understand things which appear as if they are unintelligible.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    So, the PE is the same at a height of 80cm as it would be if it were at height = 0, so, mgh becomes 0 at the start and becomes negative as the glider travels down the slope.universeness

    This is where the begging of the question occurs, in how the mgh (mass x gravitational constant x height) is set to zero. It is done by defining total energy (E) as KE-PE, and stipulating that E must be 0 at any height. This necessitates logically, that there is always a perfect conversion between PE and KE according to the law of conservation.

    That makes the true value for PE ("true" meaning produced from the formula mgh) completely irrelevant, as PE can be set to zero for any height, simply by making it the inverse of the KE. Then, through the process you described, PE is made to be a function of the KE, as the negation of it in the statement of total energy, E=1/2mv(squared)-mgh. Therefore it is simply assumed that the PE is the direct inverse, (negation), of the KE, and vice versa, as per the law of conservation, regardless of any "true" determination of the PE according to the formula mgh. So the PE is calculated as a direct function of the KE, its inverse, in the formula used instead of mgh, and this is simply begging the question. The energy is necessarily conserved in the conversion of PE to KE, because the PE is calculated as the direct inverse of the KE.

    Furthermore, this renders the entire experiment invalid because there is no way to separate, distinguish, energy loss during the conversion of PE to KE in the fall (and KE to PE in the rebound) from energy loss due to the inelasticity of the objects.
    You might find the references section of the article helpful as well, especially:
    2. Energy Conservation on an Incline. Available from: [Online]
    http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/energy/ie.cfm
    universeness

    You do not produce high quality references universes. The experiment is completely invalid, and this one is even worse. Notice that they say this :
    The force of friction does not do work upon the cart because it acts upon the wheels of the cart and actually does not serve to displace either the cart nor the wheels. The friction force only serves to help the wheels turn as the cart rolls down the hill. Friction only does work upon a skidding wheel.
    They completely neglect the fact that there is considerable friction within the wheel or axle bearing, no matter how well built or lubricated it may be.

    Furthermore, they dismiss energy loss due to air resistance as "a small amount of energy loss". Have you ever seen the physical damage that a 100kmh wind can cause? You can assure yourself that air resistance is not "a small amount of energy loss".

    So we have two significant sources of energy loss in the cart example, friction and air resistance. These two can be reduced to one, in a free fall. We can say that air resistance is a type of friction. Further, we can say that this friction is a type of collision, the object collides with air molecules. Now, we might move on to more professional experiments, where the collision with air molecules is controlled for with vacuum.

    Experimentation has been done within a vacuum for a long time now, and there is much discussion as to energy loss when a collision occurs in a vacuum. But, as in the simple experiment with the glider and the bumper, it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish energy loss in the simple motion of the object in its conversion of PE to KE, from energy loss due to the inelasticity of the colliding objects. The tendency is to assume that one is ideal, and attribute the energy loss to the other, as in the experiment, the conversion of PE to KE in the movement of the glider is assumed to be ideal, and energy loss is attributed to inelasticity. So the experiment can teach us something, that assuming the ideal can often produce misleading conclusions.
  • The ineffable
    Yep. What I’ve been advocating. There’s even an example of what something like that would be. Those cannot be named as existents, simply from the thesis that our manner of naming things could not possibly be applied to them. It is tacit acknowledgement that we have no warrant to claim our intelligence is the only possible kind of intelligence there is, from which follows that we cannot declare such things are impossible in themselves but only that they are absolutely impossible for our kind of intelligence. And it isn’t because we don’t know how, but that we are not even equipped for it.

    What would be the point in believing in the ineffable then?
    — Metaphysician Undercover

    I can’t think of one. If a thing is already impossible, what’s the point in calling the same thing something else?
    Mww

    Wait, you seem to be showing inconsistency here Mww. Let's say that it is possible that there are things which could never be brought into the mind, cannot be known by human intelligence. And lets respect this as simply a possibility. Now here's the tricky part. You say that you've been advocating this possibility, yet you then say that you see no point to "believing in" it.

    We have three important terms here which we need to know the meaning of and how they relate to each other, "possibility", "advocating", and "believing in". So, it appears like you have stated that you are advocating something you don't believe in. But the thing you are advocating is a possibility. Are you advocating that we respect this as a possibility, rather than being impossible, yet you don't actually believe in it because you think that this possibility is not likely? Or what?

    Here's the issue I raised. It might be the case (it is possible) that there are things which could never be known to the human intellect. But if we assume this possibility, we might be inclined not to reach our minds into the dark corners of reality, assuming that the things there simply cannot be known, and therefore this would be a waste of time. But the things there might actually be knowable, just requiring effort. Furthermore, we will never know whether we can actually understand things where it appears like they might possibly be unintelligible to us, unless we try. So why would anyone advocate for the possibility of the existence of something which the human mind cannot apprehend? Isn't it better just to assume that everything is potentially intelligible to the human mind, and keep us trying to figure it all out? What is the point to believing in the possibility that somethings can never be grasped? Maybe it's better to believe that everything can potentially be grasped.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    The underlined section in your above quote appears in the section titled 'Abstract,' not Introduction.
    In the introduction, the words are "For the first task, we simply observed that during the first downward motion of the glider the total energy remained constant throughout the motion." In the Results and conclusions section the words "For task 1: we have found that total energy remains constant during the motion of the glider until the collision occurs". are used.
    universeness

    The main point though, is that the conservation of energy in the conversion of PE to KE in the downward motion, is simply manufactured by designating the original PE as equal to the maximum KE. The experimenters even admit this by referring to the arbitrariness in the value of PE. So there is no proof made, just a begging of the question. The original PE is stipulated as equal to the KE when the glider reaches the bottom, and low and behold, all the PE is converted to KE when the glider reaches the bottom, according to what the stipulation necessitates.

    So, it seems to me, the COR is only relevant to the issue of the collisions being elastic or inelastic.universeness

    All I can say, is reread the article. The value of PE is simply stipulated to match the kinetic energy at the bottom of the drop. This sets the balance between potential energy and kinetic energy at zero. There is no experiment to prove that there is no energy loss in the drop, the value of PE is simply stipulated to match the value of KE (so there is no energy loss by the stipulated value of PE) Here's what's stated in the conclusion. "Also, we showed that by using the arbitrariness of the value of PE we can set the total energy of a sliding object to be zero". And here's what's stated in the section called Data and Analysis: "PE was defined to be zero on ground level."
  • The ineffable
    Yes, just as we do for every single word ever. Which leads inevitably to….under what conditions is it impossible for a word to be invented, such that the object the word would represent, remains impossible to talk about. Then and only then, does the notion of ineffability attain its logical validity.Mww

    Having gotten that (this false ineffable) out of the way, we can now approach the true ineffable, with the issue of conception. If something never comes to your mind, you cannot put a word to it. So, let's assume the possibility, that there is a huge part of reality which is completely undisclosed to our senses, and never comes to anyone's mind in any conception, sense image, or anything like that. Would you agree that this logical possibility validates the notion of ineffability?

    Further, we have mathematics which produces evidence of this large part of reality which is not sensed, nor has it entered into human minds, concepts like spatial expansion, dark energy and dark matter. Except, now we have an issue, the use of mathematics has allowed some of these ineffable things, those just mentioned, to enter the mind. Now they are no longer ineffable, because we see that although they were ineffable at one time, they no longer are now, they have some conception and words for them. So all we've done is produced another sense of false ineffable. It's not truly ineffable because for everything which hasn't yet entered the mind there is a possibility that it may.

    One false ineffable was the things which no one has a word for, and that was rectified by creating a word for them. The other false ineffable was the things which have never entered into the mind, so they could not have a word for them, nor could we produce a word for them, because they were not there in the mind. However, we see that the application of mathematics and speculation bring some of these things into the mind, so they are not really ineffable in a true sense either. Is it possible, that there are such things which could never be brought into the mind, not even though the use of mathematics? This would imply that there are limitations to the mind, to the use of mathematics, and human knowledge in general, which would make it so that there are things out there, aspects of reality which cannot ever be brought into the mind. It would be absolutely impossible for the mind to apprehend them, by any means. That might be the true ineffable.

    What would be the point in believing in the ineffable then? If the human inclination is to learn, advance knowledge, toward knowing all that there is to know, what would be the point in positing somethings which are impossible to know? That would be self-defeating. It would kill the desire to know, because we would quit the enterprise, believing that it is impossible to know these things. So I belief that the ineffable is a logically valid concept, but it is unphilosophical. Classically, it's said to be repugnant to the mind, because it validates unintelligibility, like infinite regress. It is contrary to the philosophical mindset, which is the desire to know, and therefore it is an unphilosophical concept. In reality, it amounts to an intellectual laziness; there are aspects of reality which we do not know about, but since we cannot ever know about them, there is no point to trying to understand them. This is the issue which Aristotle pointed to with the proposed apeiron, or prime matter. This is the proposal of a fundamental unintelligible base, upon which all the universe is supported. It is an unphilosophical principle which is self-defeating to philosophy because it stipulates that the foundation of the universe is unintelligible, thereby discouraging any attempt to understand the foundation of the universe. That is an unphilosophical metaphysics, to simply say that the universe is based in some fundamental randomness which is impossible for the human mind to grasp, or understand in any way, therefore forget about it and think about something else.

    On the other hand, if I already know what “box” means, I also understand it isn’t a universal conception, because I know it is a particular thing and the Principle of Complementarity tells me the one can never be the other.Mww

    The point though, was that you know I am referring to a particular called "the box", not because I have not pointed out this particular and given it that name, but because you know the type of thing which is called a box. So in order for the word to do its job, you need to respect both, that "box" refers to a universal, and that it refers to a particular. And the need to know both is required for one specific instance of use.

    And if I do know what the word “box” stands for, which means your signification and mine are congruent, I know what I’m expected to get.Mww

    But the congruency in many cases is a feature of the conception, rather than pointing out a particular, and the conception is what allows you to identify the individual. Maybe that example wasn't clear, so here's another. I pass you my car keys, and tell you to get my car, it is the black Civic at the far corner of the lot. I am referring to a particular, my car, but I lead you to it through an understanding of the conceptions, "black", "Civic", "far corner of the lot", not by physically pointing out the particular. So the words really have a conceptual reference in your mind, but through that conceptual reference you are able to pick out the particular which is the 'real' referent.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    It might be better for you to start a new thread on a physics forum, which employs the detailed results, from an actual conservation of energy experiment. You can challenge physicists, based on your interpretation of the results from the experiment. There are some straight forward examples available online, such as:
    https://www.ukessays.com/essays/physics/experiment-study-conservation-energy-8335.php
    universeness

    I'm not a physicist, and do not pretend to be one. However, anyone can read the reported experiment, and attempt to understand what was carried out. I have read it from the point of view of a philosopher, and I will report my findings here, in a philosophy forum.

    The experiment verifies very clearly what I have written. First, even with simple downward motion where the potential energy is simply converted to kinetic energy, through the acceleration caused by gravity, there is a loss of energy, as stated in the introduction: " For first task, we found that kinetic energy increases as potential energy decreases during downward motion of the glider but the total energy remains almost constant". Notice the experimenters state "almost constant", in the introduction and "remains constant" in the conclusion which you've quoted, It appears like they contradict themselves. So what happened here?

    The first task is an indication of the theory of gravity. Potential energy is calculated through the measured mass of the glider and the theoretical force of gravity which has the capacity to accelerate the glider as it falls from a height. We know that as things fall, acceleration rapidly decreases due to things like air resistance, so there is a substantial loss of energy occurring with a falling object. There is no indication that the experiment was carried out in a vacuum, or any means were employed to measure all the different losses of energy which might occur. How did the experimenters account for all this loss of energy, which actually occurs in practise?

    Of course, they applied a "coefficient of restitution", and this coefficient varies according to the measured parameters, height and mass. That is demonstrated in task two. There is an arbitrariness to the setting of this coefficient, and this is what allows them to make the total energy equal zero, by adjusting this coefficient. In other words, that there is a perfect balance between potential energy and kinetic energy, and this is reported as remaining constant, is simply a product of the coefficient of restitution, which is a manifestation of "the arbitrariness of the value of PE": as stated. Notice that the coefficient of restitution which was required varied according to mass and height, but in this experiment it was very significant, between .63, and .77. In other words, the theoretical potential energy, which would be directly produced from the theory of gravity, needed to be reduced by about a quarter or a third, to match the determined kinetic energy in the falling glider. That's a significant loss of energy.

    Furthermore, in task 2, where the energy is actually transferred from one object to another, through collision, there is a further loss of energy, which needs to be accounted for by something other than the coefficient of restitution. The coefficient of restitution just accounts for the loss of energy within the falling object by arbitrarily adjusting the potential energy of gravity, but now there is a further loss when there is a collision of the object. Here, the bumper is said to be "inelastic". This means that the movement of the bumper, and the rebound of the glider, cannot account for all the kinetic energy of the falling glider. There is much energy that is lost. They account for this loss through the "inelasticity". We might assume that the bumper absorbs some as heat or something like that. Nevertheless, energy is lost, which cannot be accounted for, and this is written off as "inelasticity".

    Notice the use of terms, elastic, and inelastic. An elastic object would demonstrate one hundred percent transferal of energy in its movement. But again, this is an ideal, like Banno's closed system. There is no such thing as an absolutely perfectly elastic body, just like there is no such thing as an absolutely closed system, and no such thing as a perfect eternal circular motion. The field of physics is rife with such fictitious ideals. We could consider also the use of the "blackbody", and the "symmetry". And so the experiment showed a loss of energy which they attribute to inelasticity, the bumper could not demonstrate an ideal conservation of energy.

    In conclusion, the experiment showed significant loss of energy in the falling glider which was accounted for with the coefficient of restitution, and it also showed significant loss of energy in the collision which was accounted for by inelasticity. Do you agree that the experiment completely supports what I've been arguing?
  • The ineffable
    Sure there’s a difference, but there’s nothing ineffable about it. The word representing a universal conception won’t refer to a particular example of it.Mww

    The issue though is why, or how. Suppose I write here, the word "box", and I tell you that this word signifies something, it stands for something. How do you know whether it signifies a particular which I have named, or whether it is a concept which the word refers to. You say it can't be both, but why not? I think that in most common usage it actually would refer to both. If I say "get me the box", I refer to a particular, but you know what thing to get me because of the concept. So I must be using the word to signify both. Now we have no dichotomy of one or the other, we have both. The word actually signifies a sort of unity of particular and universal. How can we describe this unity? Is it even correct to call it a unity?

    True enough. Herein is the limit of metaphysical reductionism. Conceptions represent thoughts….but there is no justifiable hypothesis for the origin of thoughts. If one wishes to call the origin of thought ineffable, insofar as there are no words to describe it, that’s fine, but we’ve already understood we just have no idea from whence come thoughts, so why bother with overburdening the impossibility with ineffability?Mww

    The issue was that there is a difference between the representation and the thing represented. But this led me into a problem with boundaries, so perhaps "difference" was not the right word. In the above paragraph I described a "unity", and this is probably a better word than "difference". Now it's not a difference between the representation and the thing represented, but a unity of the two. The issue of "ineffability" is evident because I can use these words freely, "difference", "unity", "boundary", or whatever, and it really doesn't matter. I'm just choosing a word to talk about something which doesn't already have a word for it. That's common in philosophy. But some would say that if there is no word for it, we cannot talk about it. That's not true though, we just get a more free choice in our words when we approach the supposed ineffable. There aren't any words for the thing to be talked about, making people think that it can't be talked about, but really we're just free to make the words up.

    Truth be told, I don’t agree that’s what we’re doing. You say the problem is we try to do this thing we can’t do, I say we can’t even do, in any way, shape or form, what you say we’re trying to do, so the problem itself you say we have, should just disappear and along with it, the very notion of ineffability.Mww

    Sure, trying to do something I can't do is a problem, but it can be overcome. That's the point with learning, advancement of knowledge, and practise. So, I can often do at a later time what I could not do at an earlier time. And this is an issue with the concept of the ineffable. What is ineffable at one time may not be at a later time. But some people do not see that language evolves, and we learn to overcome problems, and that's how knowledge advances. For them, the ineffable might appear like a wall which we cannot get past, or a problem which cannot be overcome. I see it as a temporary inconvenience, and a good reason to use words very freely.

    This is just as much fun as trying to fathom why some of us are right-handed and some are left. Why some of us like spinach and some of us gag on it. Only product there can be is fun; we ain’t gonna solve anything here, are we.Mww

    For some of us, using words freely is fun, so the ineffable presents us with a good source of entertainment.

    This from a gentleman who questions 1+1=2 is a surprise.jgill

    Yes, I do question this phrase, "1+1=2". And I just state the obvious, that "1+1" does not say the same thing as "2" does. So those who claim that "=" means the same as, are mistaken.

    This sign, "=", actually gives us a lot of freedom of expression. We are allowed to, arbitrarily point to two distinct things, assign them the same value as each being "one", and make the conclusion that each, as one, is equal to the other. Of course they are not the same as one another, but by designating them as equal to each other, we can perform all sorts of magic tricks of transposition. I don't practise math, but I bet that's fun.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    In the context of your link, the term Energy Loss refers to the energy that "is converted to a different form".EricH

    Look at the first sentence in the article: "When energy is transformed from one form to another, or moved from one place to another, or from one system to another there is energy loss." So, any time there is an interaction of things (energy is moved from one place to another) there is a loss of energy. In other words there is a continual loss of energy.

    I am not making any claim about the truth or falsehood of the Law of Conservation here. I am simply pointing out that your example does not lead to your conclusion.EricH

    I think it states exactly my conclusion, contrary to the law of conservation, there is always energy loss.

    No measurement of a quantity is ever 100% correct. distance, time, density, none are 100% correct.
    Is the distance actually 1cm or 0.999999999999999999999999912.......... cm.
    You are over burdening the word LAW.
    universeness

    This is not a matter of .0000000000000000000001 per cent, or something miniscule like that. The energy loss in any transaction is significant. If you can show me a system with an efficiency which is considerably higher than ninety nine percent, I will take your point. I'm very confident you will not though. Efficiency rates are much lower.

    The problem is that we tend to think a certain percentage is lost to friction, some to heat, some to this, some to that, but is we try to measure all the losses we can never measure it all. That would imply that we had a system which captured all the energy, one hundred percent efficiency. But we know this is impossible. So we just write off the losses as inefficiencies.

    No, that's why science uses error bars! It is not a falsity, it just does not claim 100% accuracy.universeness

    Error bars are irrelevant. We are not talking about error in the measurements, we are talking about error in the law itself. The law of conservation is an ideal principle which does not correspond with reality. Therefore it is a false principle, just like my example, the ancient ideal that the planetary orbits are eternal circular motions. These are both equally false principles.

    The principle was not false, it was just that some of the assumptions and projections were wrong. Many planets do orbit on a path which is 'almost' circular.universeness

    It is very obviously false. The planetary orbits are not perfect circles. Therefore they are not eternal. That ideal was false. Likewise, the ideal that energy is conserved as time passes is also false. And all that follows from this false premise is also unsound.

    No, physicists are fully aware, that the language used to describe the structure and workings of the universe is not IDEAL, not perfect.universeness

    The law of conservation of energy is very clearly IDEAL. It states that energy cannot be destroyed, it only converts from one form to another. Therefore "energy", by this law exists in an eternal and unchanging quantity. That is a perfect, unchanging quantity. If this is not IDEAL, then what is IDEAL?

    A system has an energy equivalence of 50 joules. It then goes though energy transformations, and the resultant system has an energy equivalence of 50 joulesuniverseness

    Show me this system which has 50 joules, and maintains 50 joules after energy transformations. That's 100 percent efficiency. No system has 100 percent efficiency, according to the article I linked, so I think you are just making things up, to support what you believe.

    By definition a closed system is one in which energy is conserved.Banno

    Yes, this is the Ideal, the closed system. In reality there is no such thing as a closed system, by this definition, there is no existing system in which energy is conserved.

    We can look at the consequences, or conclusion, of this reality (that there is no such thing as a closed system) in two different ways. We can conclude that it is physically possible to have a closed system, therefore the definition actually describes something real, a situation in which energy would be conserved, accepting this as a real possibility, and this seems to be the way that everyone here, other than me looks at the law of conservation. They think that a system in which energy is conserved is a real possibility.

    Or, we can conclude as I do, that it is physically impossible to have a closed system, a system in which energy is conserved, and look at this as a feature of the universe, that there is no such thing as a closed system, and there cannot be such a thing as a closed system, and energy is not ever conserved. With this comes the conclusion that the law of conservation is a falsity. This is just like my example of the ancients who believed in the Ideal, that the planetary orbits were eternal circular motions. It wasn't until Aristotle demonstrated that an eternal circular motion is physically impossible, due to the role of matter in any circular motion, that this ideal (eternal circular motion of the planets) was finally rejected. Likewise, we need to reject this idea of a closed system, to understand the true nature of the universe.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Okay, then cite some of those "experiments" (or the relevant literature) to which you're referring.180 Proof

    Why are you so helpless 180?
    https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_loss#:~:text=When%20energy%20is%20transformed%20from,form%20of%20energy%2C%20like%20heat.

    Notice, there is always energy loss, and "Energy losses are what prevent processes from ever being 100% efficient." Hence the inductive conclusion I made, the law of conservation has been proven to be false.

    I think this is the main difference between us. I choose not to try to fill in gaps in our knowledge, with unnecessary terms like god(I am not suggesting YOU have employed this term), immaterial or dualism. The 'perfect' measure of the speed of light in unattainable. So is achieving human omniscience. To me, if we ever achieve the omnis, then our existence would become as ridiculous and pointless as any conception of god.
    Let's continue to debate and confirm what we know and where we can go from here. Let's resist any temptation to plug gaps or incompletions in our scientific knowledge, with useless (imo) concepts, such as immaterialism, dualism or god. The conservation of energy is not false it is just imperfect.
    universeness

    I can't agree to this framework you've proposed here, because we cannot designate the law of conservation as "imperfect". The problem is that it is exactly opposite to this. The law is an ideal, a statement of perfection in the conservation of energy. In reality, in practise, there is no perfect or ideal conservation of energy. Yet we keep talking about this law, of a perfect or ideal conservation, as if it is a true representation, and we are led to believe that the reason why there is no perfect conservation in our practise is because we are no able to perfect our practise apparatus.

    So here is the problem. Instead of recognizing that the principle itself is false (an ideal representation of an imperfect world), and recognizing that the world is simply not a type of world where "energy" as we conceive of it, is conserved, we delude ourselves into thinking that in the world energy actually is conserved, and our practises are just not capable of detecting what happens to all the energy. Therefore we are engaged in self-deception. We have a conception of "energy" whereby it is stipulated that in the world, energy is conserved, when we know that it is not conserved in the imperfect world. We then attribute this latter fact, that energy is actually not conserved, to our observational capacities and practises, as being "imperfect", rather than attributing the imperfection to the whole world itself.

    So I suggest to you, that the imperfection here involves the way that our concept of "energy" corresponds with the reality of the world. And this type of imperfection (misrepresentation) is most properly called a falsity. We disguise this falsity, this fact that our conception of energy is false, with the self-deception described above, by saying that this ideal, perfect, conception really is a true representation, and only our practises are less than perfect. But in reality the conception is a perfect, ideal, and the whole world itself is less than perfect. There is no ideal conservation in the world. So the energy loss which is evidenced by the fact that we cannot obtain perfect efficiency is a real feature of the world, there is not one hundred percent conservation anywhere, and our conception of energy is simply a misunderstanding. But we delude ourselves by saying that the concept is true and only our practises are imperfect, while the rest of the universe behaves in that perfect ideal way.

    Here's an example by analogy. In ancient philosophy, idealists like the Pythagoreans held on to the idea of a perfect circular motion. An object moving in a perfect circle retraces the same path over and over again without any wavering and therefore has no beginning or end, and this constitutes an eternal motion. This idea came to Aristotle through Plato, and it was used to justify the idea of an eternal immortal soul. Only a soul, or mind, could be said to be the cause of the eternal circular orbits of the planets, and so this soul was therefore itself eternal and immortal.

    So Aristotle exposed the problem with this idea in his book "On the Heavens". Yes, he said that eternal circular motion is possible, and, it is true that if there is perfect circular motion it would be eternal. But, he said that the orbits of the planets are not like this, and the planets are not eternal in their motions. The planets are material and as such have a beginning and ending, therefore it is impossible that the orbits are eternal circular motions.

    Please take note now, of the lesson to be learned here. It was only by determining the falsity of the principle, the ideal, eternal circular motion, that astronomers could move forward, and model the orbits as other than circular, which led to the modern understanding of the solar system. It was imperative for them to recognize the falsity of the principle, that the perfection of the ideal did not exist in the real universe, for them to be able to move toward a true understanding of these motions. Now we have a very similar situation with the concept of energy. We have a similar false principle, an ideal, eternal energy conservation. Only by recognizing that this perfect ideal is false, that energy is not actually conserved in reality, in the true motions of things, that we will be able to move forward with a true understanding of time, motion, and all the real things involved in the concept of energy.

    In his book 'The Biggest Ideas In The Universe (space, time and motion,)' Sean Carroll writes about the conservation of energy.
    "Both momentum and energy are conserved in classical mechanics, but kinetic energy by itself is not, since it can be converted into (or created from) other kinds of energy."
    "Noether's theorem states that every smooth, continuous symmetry transformation of a system is associated with the conservation of some quantity."
    "Our universe is expanding; faraway galaxies are gradually moving away from one another as time passes. Consequently, there is a sense in which energy is not conserved in an expanding universe."

    I think Sean demonstrates some of the imperfection present in the conservation laws.
    universeness

    This is good example, as a starting place. But notice the mentioned "symmetry transformation". "Symmetry" is such a perfect ideal which is actually false. So we have a whole class of these ideals, which are actually false, which have emerged out of this false ideal of energy conservation, which are simply misunderstandings, but can be very misleading to undisciplined metaphysicians.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Yoi claim there have been many experiments that falsify these "laws", so cite one. :chin:180 Proof

    My claim is not that any particular experiment has falsified the law of conservation. My claim is that all experiments, each and every one of them has demonstrated that not all the energy conserved. There is always some lost. So the reasoning is inductive. Each and every experiment demonstrates that some energy is lost, and we believe that this will always be the case. Therefore the law which states that all the energy is conserved has been proven, through inductive reasoning, to be false. You might want to dispute the value of inductive logic, but then what would be the point to experimentation?

    You do not need a standard for comparison that is universal with regard to speed and time. Everyone going at whatever velocity will have their own experience of time which differs from people going slower or faster then them. Just as there is no universal standard of size, there is none for time. An elephant is bigger than a mouse because of the environment it's in; if there was no space, but only an elephant next to a mouse, they would have the same size. As for moving in an instant, the instant represents the point that is covered which is yes zero. But these sum to a positive. This is something Aristotle never understood. Motion has a forward momentum. Air doesn't move an arrow as he thought. Motion is dynamicGregory

    How is this relevant to determining a quantity of energy?
  • The ineffable
    Does it not follow, if all that’s needed is sufficient context, rather than entire context, that the claim “ineffable” is invalid?Mww

    No, I don't think so, because the part of the context which is not reachable, is still real. So it's like you are saying that we never need the ideal, we don't need perfection, and so we should settle on whatever is sufficient. That's fine, but settling on sufficiency instead of the absolute does not make the difference between these two disappear. And we can live very well without ever even thinking about the ineffable, but that doesn't mean that it's not there. Nor does it make the claim of ineffable invalid.

    If it is the case that all thoughts are conceptions, and all conceptions are represented by the word(s) that refer to them…..how can any conception be too great to be described? The representation just is the description. How can any conception, then, be ineffable?Mww

    It's not the conception that's ineffable, nor any part of the conception. It is the difference between the conception of what the word refers to, and what the word really refers to in a particular instance of use, which is ineffable. There is a number of ways to look at this. If the conception is a universal, and what the word refers to is a particular, there is a difference between these. If the conception is a representation, and there is something represented, then there is a difference between these. Those are examples. If we use categories, there is a difference between one category and another. To produce more categories in an attempt to describe the difference between categories, still leaves us with an unexplained difference between the new categories. We might try to say this difference consists of boundaries, but it isn't really boundaries between things, because things overlap.

    So that which is ineffable has no word by which it is referred. For that of which there is no word, there is no conception that is the necessary presupposition for it, for otherwise, there must be conceptions without representation, which is self-contradictory, hence, unintelligible.Mww

    Yes, I would agree. And because of this, even to put the name "ineffable" to it, is to refer to something, and it's either a particular or a conception. So this is really a self-contradicting thing to do. It's better just to recognize the reality of this problem, and understand that no matter how far we proceed toward perfection in our understanding, toward the ideal, there will always be a deficiency.

    Imagination is that which presents objects without there actually being one. Imagination can present any thinkable object, which makes explicit imagination can present any thing that can be conceived, can be represented by words, can never be too great to be talked about.Mww

    But the matter is not an issue of what can be conceived but not talked about, it is an issue of what cannot be conceived, and because of this it cannot be talked about. We avoid the problem to a great extent by talking about possibilities, and probabilities, as this allows for the reality of whatever it is which we are uncertain about. But the usefulness of possibility and probability is just evidence of the reality of whatever it is that we cannot conceive of, and therefore cannot talk about. It really skirts the issue because we pretend to have conceptions of the unknown, by showing off prediction skills, but these are just mathematical skills, and there are no hidden concepts here, just applied math.

    neffable: a useless euphemism intended to obfuscate the fact it is impossible to conceive anything too great to be talked about.Mww

    I think you may have this backward. The problem is that we try to talk about things which we cannot conceptualize. That is the ineffable, we try to talk about something which we cannot talk about, due to a lack of conceptualization. The lack of conceptualization is what makes it so we cannot talk about it.

    This is evident with the application of mathematics in the sciences. Through math we, in a way, talk about things, but it's only really an attempt to talk about them. The things supposedly talked about are not conceptualized, it is just a matter of applying general mathematical principles. So the talk is really about the mathematical principles. Thus mathematics creates the illusion that we are talking about things. But these are really things which we cannot conceptualize, those things which the mathematics is supposedly talking about, so we're not really talking about anything, just applying mathematics to the unknown.

    Through this procedure though, applying mathematics to the unknown, I believe we can bring the unknown around to being known, therefore conceptualized, talked about, and properly described. That's why I said earlier in the thread, that we apply mathematics to the ineffable (what we cannot talk about because we have no conception of). Then through the application of math we produce an understanding, conceptualize, and start being able to talk about what was prior to this, ineffable.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Its relevant only in that I am able to distinguish between a big force/explosion and a small one.
    I can also use sensory info to be able to perceive quite a range between big and small, without having to employ actual measured, unitised, accuracy via formulae. I can therefore perceive and detect 'material' aspects of 'energy' or force using something as simplistic as my own sensory input and without application of formulae.
    universeness

    This is in no way a case of measuring energy.

    So, if we can't detect every Planck sized unit of energy, to confirm that the original hot/cold area has the exact same amount of energy as the area now in thermal balance, then this does not mean we have to start to employ words like immaterial or dualism.universeness

    We can never detect all the energy. We never have and we know we never will, you seem to agree with this. And this effective disproves the law of conservation, as a falsity. If energy was actually conserved we'd be able to, at least in principle, detect it all. We cannot, and we know we cannot, so it is not even detectable in principle, therefore not even conserved in principle. We need dualism if we want to assume that the conservation law is true, to account for the energy which we know can never be detected by us.

    To me, it's akin to the accuracy of pi or the speed of light in a Vaccuum. We will never get 100% accuracy, will we? That doesn't make pi or the speed of light or the conservation of energy laws, wrong in any way.universeness

    Right, it does not make these laws wrong, it makes them false. They can still be correct, as long as we invoke some sort of dualism or something like that, to account for the incommensurability between our principles for measuring the world, and the reality of the world.
  • The ineffable
    Since when has the popularity of beliefs become an accurate indicator of their truth-value?javra

    No one said it was.Banno

    Banno seems to have a very big problem with this, continually insisting that it is unreasonable to reject or be skeptical of the foundational conventions of mathematics, physics, and other sciences. But the only reason Banno can give for accepting these principles is that they are the accepted principles, and they work, even though some are demonstrably inconsistent, therefore necessarily false. Then Banno will turn around and say something like this, above, demonstrating complete hypocrisy. The hypocrisy displayed is the reason why I am repeatedly inclined toward the charge of dishonesty against Banno.

    First, I think you can show me the experience. If you prick your finger with a pin, you can show me the experience by pricking me with a pin. Are the experiences the same? Well, there’s no numerical identity, but there’s some level of qualitative identity. There can’t be total qualitative identity because that would be equivalent to numerical identity, and that would require that I experience the pinprick as you, which is just to be you. I don’t think it’s right to describe this as ineffability.Jamal

    But what is this difference, the difference between your pinprick and my pinprick? Isn't it the difference between these two, the difference which makes them not numerically identical, yet still qualitatively identical, what is supposed to be ineffable? We know what it means to be one and the same (numerically identical), and that is to exist in the same context, no difference. And we know what it means to be of the same type (qualitatively identical), similar in some way, yet still separate, or different.

    Now, in the case of the two pinpricks, the separation, or difference is a matter of context. The two things are called the same, "pinprick", yet the difference is that they each have a distinct context. This, "context" is where the ineffable is supposed to lie, it is what makes the two different. And it is what gives each particular instance of word usage its own unique meaning. If we attempt to bring the context into the statement, by describing it, we simply reformulate the context as part of the content, thereby making it not context any more, but content. However, there is always a part of the context which is missing from any such description or transformation, no matter how hard we try to include the entire context into our description of the difference between the two particular pinpricks. This inability to account for the entirety of the context is what validates the claim of an "ineffable".
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Do you ascribe to QFT then? If you accept a photon as a field disturbance/excitation/vibration, you still have the result that the excitation travels at a constant speed with no initial acceleration.
    This is backed up by the fact that the property of mass prevents light speed motion.
    Electrons don't travel at light speed as they have some mass.
    universeness

    I think QFT has obvious problems. And, as I said to Banno, I believe that potential energy and kinetic energy, are fundamentally incommensurable, hence your problem with "initial acceleration". It is a problem inherent within our conception of mass.

    If you consider something like maxwells demon, when it opens the massless door between the two chambers based on the speed of each particle it observes, would you still insist it would be applying a formula, to make its measurements? Is it not just basing it on 'fast,' 'slow.' How about when you touch something to decide on its temperature? are you applying a formula or taking a sensor reading?
    Is sensing the presence of a property of something like relative position, the application of a formula?
    Ignoring a measure of actual distance for a moment, simply observing the position of an object as north, south, east, west etc, is the gathering of such information formula based?
    universeness

    I went through this already. "Energy" has a very specific definition, the capacity to do work. In no way is touching something and feeling its heat, a case of measuring its capacity to do work. Even if you determine, with your senses that a particular object is moving, and you construe this as taking a measurement of its motion, you do not produce a determination of a quantity of energy without applying a formula to your measurements. This would convert your measurements of motion, to a quantity of energy. Then there's potential energy, which is not even motion itself, but the potential for motion. This is what I mean when I say that any determination of a quantity of energy is dependent on a formula. It's not simply measurements, it's measurements plus an application of a formula. This is because the concept of energy relates the thing measured to other things, and therefore requires a formula for the comparison.

    I would suggest that base sensory information is not based on formula. I see, touch, taste, hear, smell and even think before I apply any formulae to measure scalar (magnitude) quantity or vector (magnitude and direction). Is information such as 'I see there is a car there' not just based on me comparing stored images with what I see? I would not call such 'shape/pattern recognition,' a formula application, would you?universeness

    I agree, sensing cannot be described as applying a formula. But in no way is such activity (simple sensing) a case of measuring the energy of something. I don't see how you think this is relevant to "energy".

    I think we can observe a property of a motion as relatively fast or slow, enough to be able to know when to jump out of the way for example, and there is no formula-based calculation, involved, just a use of instinct and sensors.universeness

    Again, how is this relevant? "Energy" has a very specific definition. In no way is looking at the motion of something, and making the judgement to jump out of the way, a case of measuring the energy of the thing.

    Furthermore, look at your use of "relatively fast or slow". Such a judgement would require a comparison, fast or slow compared to what? And this would require that we posit a standard for comparison. Therefore such a judgement actually would be formula based. But this is just the result of your faulty description. We do not need to make such a comparison when deciding to jump out of the way of a moving object, there need not be any formula based judgement at all.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    When you see your physicists again, explain to them how energy disappears and how 0.9˙≠10.9˙≠1. They will be so grateful.Banno

    Unlike you, reasonable people recognize these useful mathematical fictions as fictions, so these explanations are not even needed. Some of the mathematicians on this forum, who being quite reasonable themselves, recognize that such propositions are not true, like to deny the true/false dichotomy which is commonly applied to propositions, claiming mathematical axioms are neither. In that case we might conclude that the axioms prove to be useful, but neither fact nor fiction. You, I've noticed, seem to like the utility of bivalence, so you don't have the same recourse unless you release that conviction. Maintaining bivalence, and not wanting to admit that falsity enters into physics by way of mathematical axioms, you deny the obvious.

    So are you claiming that this:
    Since a photon is a particle of light, this means that it does not need to accelerate to light speed, as it is already travelling at the speed of light when it is created. A photon does not rest and then reach the speed of light at a certain length of time, or even instantly. A photon is always travelling at the speed of light, from the moment of creation.

    From a website called Ask an Astronomer, is wrong? In electron, positron annihilation, when two photons are created, there is no acceleration to light speed.
    universeness

    I can't say I agree with that because i do not really believe there is such a thing (meaning a real object) as a photon. So it really makes no sense to talk about a fictional particle (photon) speeding up and slowing down. However, if there is such a thing as a photon, then I would agree, that it must always be travelling at the speed of light, by definition.

    If you see what I wrote earlier, I believe that there is no such object as a photon. The photon, being a unit of energy, is like all instances of energy, the product of measurement. We measure certain spatial-temporal aspects (motions), apply calculations using various principles, and conclude a quantity of energy. So "the energy" which is said to constitute a photon, is a product of those measurements with the required calculations. In simple terms, we do not ever measure energy directly, we apply a formula to calculate "energy", so energy is calculated, not a property of the movement itself. And since a photon is nothing more than a quantity of energy associated with a specific type of activity, the photon has no real existence, it is the product of a calculation. This is what I wrote earlier in this thread:

    This is the mistaken interpretation which I referred to above. The sensor registers a physical change, and through the principles employed, it is calculated that this change is equivalent to a quantity of energy represent by "a photon". The photoelectric sensor does not actually detect a photon, it just undergoes a change, an effect which we calculate as the effect of a photon's worth of force. That the sensor detects a photon is a common misinterpretation.Metaphysician Undercover
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    Metaphysician Undercover doesn't believe in instantaneous velocity. Hence it is not wise to spend time considering his views on matters involving physics.Banno

    Ha, ha. It's very obvious that Instantaneous velocity is really an oxymoron. No time passes at an instant, and velocity requires a period of time, so velocity at an instant is impossible.. I've spoken to more than one physicist about this, and they clearly recognize this fact, but accept "instantaneous velocity" as a useful principle provided by mathematics. In philosophy some call this a useful fiction. However, some inept philosophers like you Banno, don't seem to recognize these useful fictions as fictions, and can't get beyond the idea that if physicists use the principle it must be a truth. But that's simply the influence of mathematics on physics, mathematics has no respect for truth or falsity.
  • Dualism and the conservation of energy
    asically, if spirit does anything, what it does would be measurable.Banno

    Just like in the other (ineffable) thread, what spirit does, is what is taken for granted. Newton's first law of motion for example. That a body will continue moving in the same way that it has in the past, onward into the future, is something taken for granted. But the universe doesn't necessarily have to be this way, there could be randomness in the movement of bodies. So Newton said his first law is dependent on the will of God.

    That's an instance of Spirit causing what is taken for granted. But since Newton's first law is taken for granted we do not apprehend this activity described by it as requiring a cause, that activity is taken for granted. Newton saw it as requiring a cause though, and he attributed that cause to God.

    That's the downfall of dualism, you can't insist that there are two distinct incommensurable substances and then say that one can move the other.Banno

    There is no such problem. That the two are incommensurable does not mean that they cannot interact. It just means that the interactions cannot be properly measured, because the activity of the one cannot be measured with the same form of measurement as the activity of the other.

    The difference between potential energy and kinetic energy may actually demonstrate the interaction of incommensurables. The two, potential and kinetic energy, affect each other. But that they are most likely incommensurable is evident from the fact that when one is said to convert to the other, there is always some energy missing, as per the second law of thermodynamics. This makes the claimed conversion a fiction, and demonstrates that the two must be in some way incommensurable. That's why the law of conservation is not true, it tries to establish commensurability between two incommensurables, potential energy and kinetic energy, and this just can't be done.

Metaphysician Undercover

Start FollowingSend a Message