Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:48 am**

It helps if you look at fashion.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 12:12 pm**

Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Except that all matter seems to have an affinity to other matter and tends to congregate. I know you don't like the idea of "Laws", but they tend to call that gravity.
It does this until black holes start to appear. Well that's the story anyway.
That's the story and it's a pretty hard story to find a flaw with on the basis of the evidence. However it's been known since Newton that gravity is not something which can be modelled as a "force" but must instead be regarded as a fundamental property of the universe. This was confirmed by Einstein in GR when he showed that gravity was actually an alternative expression for time, or the rate of change in a physical system, and this interwoven relationship between gravity and the rate of physical change has been empirically validated many times over.

This is a typical Kantian turn. Don't like the text, it must be the paper, don't like the paper it must be the ink. speed is actually time; no? time is actually distance. I think what is going on is that we are doomed to see reality through our own gogles, but when it comes down to it we are further from the noumenon than we'd like to admit.
FORCE< SHMORCE. When is a force NOT a "property of the universe"?, A: when you don't like the way it fits in your new paradigm. DOn't like "property" then use "force". There is no difference but semantics.

It is the inversely logarithmic relationship between gravity and time which causes matter to cohere with other matter and this gives rise to emergent properties in the more complex matter thus encoded for.

tut tut. Looks like you have posited a unilinear causality here? Shame on you.

These emergent properties in turn then allow the more complex matter forms to form yet more complex structures in a hierarchy of informational complexity which eventually leads to complex molecules, to molecular evolution and ultimately to life. It is in this way that evolution from the simple to the complex must be regarded as the fundamental self-organising principle of reality and ONLY chaotically determined systems are capable of generating complexity in this way. It is for this reason that modern biology is seen as an information theory and no modern biologist makes a metaphysical distinction between "life" and "non-life". What we generically call "life" is nothing more than inanimate matter which has evolved to a certain level of informational complexity and there is simply no meaningful line in the sand at which this occurs. This is a fundamental truth of reality which is not further reducible, as any complexity theorist will confirm.

Seriously I think you want to replace god by finding a new one.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 7:07 pm**

Yeah, what is the difference between force in the universe and property of the universe?

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:44 pm**

Jaded Sage wrote:Yeah, what is the difference between force in the universe and property of the universe?

A force is a heuristic devised by the observer to model the consequences of a property. In a self-organising system the patterns of order in nature arise spontaneously at the fundamental level and not as a result of forces. However at the emergent level which is accessible to the senses of the observer it becomes possible to model these self-organising patterns in terms of forces, fields, particles etc. Thus we could loosely say that reality is not determined by the laws of physics but that what we choose to describe as the laws of physics are determined by reality.

This is the essential difference between the Platonist and the Kantian metaphysics.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:01 pm**

Obvious Leo wrote:
Jaded Sage wrote:Yeah, what is the difference between force in the universe and property of the universe?
A force is a heuristic devised by the observer to model the consequences of a property. In a self-organising system the patterns of order in nature arise spontaneously at the fundamental level and not as a result of forces. However at the emergent level which is accessible to the senses of the observer it becomes possible to model these self-organising patterns in terms of forces, fields, particles etc. Thus we could loosely say that reality is not determined by the laws of physics but that what we choose to describe as the laws of physics are determined by reality.

This is the essential difference between the Platonist and the Kantian metaphysics.

Meh!

I'm perfectly capable of expressing the view that the Universe can be described using laws, and insist that they are not determined by them as Platonic realities under the surface, as it were - or directed by the hands of god AND, also, describe as those laws as forces. In fact there are very good reasons to make distinctions about aspect of such "properties" as forces and energies, etc...
There is even a danger of using the language of properties to suggest the hand of god, bestowing these properties on matter, and space etc. God owns the property of the celestial real estate.

But we get it, you prefer Kant to Plato - don't we all.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:25 pm**

Hobbes' Choice wrote:But we get it, you prefer Kant to Plato - don't we all.

If only it were so but alas this is not the case. Physics is exclusively Platonist in the nature of its enquiry and it is for this reason that it is forced to confront such meaningless questions as: "Why does the universe conform to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws?" In the Platonist metaphysic this question has no answer because the laws are conferred on the universe by a "higher realm" of reality, so this is where all the multiverse bullshit comes from. However in the Kantian metaphysic this question has a perfectly logical answer. The reason why the universe conforms to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws is because if it didn't we'd change the fucking things.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:54 pm**

Try to understand that the vogue is a cage in which you are to be held. The leaders of the vogue define your world. This is problematic as they see you as the enemy to be destroyed or rather like a power to be tapped. The vogue incorporates critique and grows but struggles and withers with non participation and neglection. It is the machine which maintains participation through saturation and a void of anything higher.

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:06 am**

Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:But we get it, you prefer Kant to Plato - don't we all.
If only it were so but alas this is not the case. Physics is exclusively Platonist in the nature of its enquiry and it is for this reason that it is forced to confront such meaningless questions as: "Why does the universe conform to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws?" In the Platonist metaphysic this question has no answer because the laws are conferred on the universe by a "higher realm" of reality, so this is where all the multiverse bullshit comes from. However in the Kantian metaphysic this question has a perfectly logical answer. The reason why the universe conforms to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws is because if it didn't we'd change the fucking things.

I'm pretty post-modern humanities, brought up on Derrida, Foucault, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. My historical lens is anthropological. I tend to see the history of science in terms of Thomas Kuhn. Science is not about nuance; its about describing the universe and tested with getting results. I don't think philosophy matters, as long as the car drives and the computer works. Crack-pot speculations about the origin of the universe is about as reliable as economic prediction: wait another 50 years and the paradigm will have changed beyond recognition.
But as long as the description helps us with the technological goodies, and medicaments, then it will persist science and the funding on which it relies.
I think the real danger with science is they reliance they place on it. Faith is rampant.

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:25 am**

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:But we get it, you prefer Kant to Plato - don't we all.
If only it were so but alas this is not the case. Physics is exclusively Platonist in the nature of its enquiry and it is for this reason that it is forced to confront such meaningless questions as: "Why does the universe conform to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws?" In the Platonist metaphysic this question has no answer because the laws are conferred on the universe by a "higher realm" of reality, so this is where all the multiverse bullshit comes from. However in the Kantian metaphysic this question has a perfectly logical answer. The reason why the universe conforms to the particular suite of laws that it does rather than to some other laws is because if it didn't we'd change the fucking things.
I'm pretty post-modern humanities, brought up on Derrida, Foucault, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. My historical lens is anthropological. I tend to see the history of science in terms of Thomas Kuhn. Science is not about nuance; its about describing the universe and tested with getting results. I don't think philosophy matters, as long as the car drives and the computer works. Crack-pot speculations about the origin of the universe is about as reliable as economic prediction: wait another 50 years and the paradigm will have changed beyond recognition.
But as long as the description helps us with the technological goodies, and medicaments, then it will persist science and the funding on which it relies.
I think the real danger with science is they reliance they place on it. Faith is rampant.

I don't actually disagree with any of this except for the bit that philosophy doesn't matter. In the case of physics they've been working for a century with models which are mutually exclusive and collectively describe a universe which is riddled with metaphysical absurdities. This hasn't detracted from their utility as epistemic tools but it clearly indicates that they are predicated on a false a priori assumption about the ontologies of space and time. It was Kuhn who pointed out that the model-building methodology of physics was inherently tautologous and that it was thus impossible to proceed beyond a certain point with a flawed paradigm and that the detection of such a flaw would be impossible from within the paradigm itself. Ptolemy's cosmology is an obvious example. He used the Copernican revolution as an example of where physics had reached a point from which it could proceed no further and there are a growing number of theorists who are now convinced that physics has arrived at a similar logjam with the spacetime paradigm. Essentially what I'm saying is that this logjam is being caused not so much by the fact that physics is wrong but by the fact that the way we think about physics is wrong.

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:05 pm**

Obvious Leo wrote:. Ptolemy's cosmology is an obvious example. He used the Copernican revolution as an example of where physics had reached a point from which it could proceed no further and there are a growing number of theorists who are now convinced that physics has arrived at a similar logjam with the spacetime paradigm. Essentially what I'm saying is that this logjam is being caused not so much by the fact that physics is wrong but by the fact that the way we think about physics is wrong.

I think this bit is somewhat confused. Ptolemy was over 1000 years before Copernicus and so could not have used his model.

But let's say you just made a mistake.
Ptolemy's model was far more robust than Copernicus. Copernicus knew Ptolemy was clumsy, but the most important thing that was wrong with it on a practical level was not that the earth was in the centre; it was that the planets and the sun went "ROUND". And I mean by that, that they described circles.
Due to this Aristotelean assumption Copernicus had to add a further 14 epicycles to the Ptolemaic model, making it far more clumsy, and it was not till Kepler imagined Elliptical orbits that the problem was solved and the full case for the heliocentric hypothesis made.

Paradigms can take time to flip.

Science is naive when it comes to the finer points of philosophy. Hawkins' claim about the end of philosophy is about as blind as Fukimama's pronouncements on history and both betray and almost wilful arrogance and stupidity.
You might be right about science needed to grasp Kant's epistemological nettle, but your claim that you might have the answer just under the surface is likely to be soon overturned, and seems hopelessly optimistic.
I think we have more traction keeping to the human metric, and it is more urgent trying to understand ourselves rather than dreaming about the stars. We are stuck to the planet, we ain't going nowhere.

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2016 9:06 pm**

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I think this bit is somewhat confused. Ptolemy was over 1000 years before Copernicus and so could not have used his model.

As always, this rather depends on which narrative the theorist finds compelling. Ptolemy could have decided that the narrative of Aristarchus of Samos was more persuasive than the one of Aristotle. Aristarchus had followed the heliocentric lead of Philolaus and Anaxagoras but these ideas had been superseded by Aristotelian geocentric philosophy under the early Roman empire. He was merely working with the ideas which were in vogue rather than attempting a more coherent interpretation of the evidence, and this was no different from the way physics works today. Ptolemy simply compelled the evidence to conform to his narrative by brute mathematical force.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:it was not till Kepler imagined Elliptical orbits that the problem was solved and the full case for the heliocentric hypothesis made.

This is not quite the way it happened. Kepler himself was convinced of the circular orbits and he was looking for a way to model these orbits in terms of the embedded Platonic solids. However he couldn't make this work because he was a true scientist who was working off actual data which he had previously stolen from Tycho de Brahe. This data had been meticulously compiled and was quite unambiguous in its implication that the planetary orbits were ellipses. All Kepler actually did was to devise the mathematical tools to model this. Kepler was more than a little bit crazy but he is to be admired as a true scientist because even though his research proved his own theory wrong he went ahead and published it anyway. Nowadays any scientific journal would reject his paper out of hand because it didn't conform to the existing model. (The same goes for Einstein if it comes to that.) Incidentally Galileo never accepted Kepler's elliptical orbits until his dying day and they didn't become a part of the official story until Newton.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Science is naive when it comes to the finer points of philosophy. Hawkins' claim about the end of philosophy is about as blind as Fukimama's pronouncements on history and both betray and almost wilful arrogance and stupidity.

I think it's one of the stupidest comments ever made by such an influential figure in the scientific community, but he has quite a track record for such moronic pronouncements. He also described the existence of life in the universe as a "random chemical scum", whilst accepting like most scientists that it is almost certainly likely to be ubiquitous in the universe. Randomness and ubiquity are not compatible constructs. Regrettably Hawking's unfortunate illness has elevated him onto a pedestal in the eyes of the lay community but this adulation is not shared by his colleagues in the scientific community, most of whom would prefer it if he kept his private speculations to himself.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:You might be right about science needed to grasp Kant's epistemological nettle, but your claim that you might have the answer just under the surface is likely to be soon overturned, and seems hopelessly optimistic.

Any theory can be overturned by a better one at any time but the model I propose yields a prediction which differs from that of the spacetime paradigm. No theory can ever be proven true but a dodgy theory can always be falsified if the right question is asked of it. The gravity/time continuum offers at least one such question and I am in no doubt that it would offer many more to a laterally thinking particle theorist. I have no shortage of ideas about the form of such questions but particle physics is a fiendishly intricate mathematical work and I don't have the mathematical fluency to compose such questions with the right sort of clarity.

I'm not a physicist, Hobbesy, I'm just an ideas man.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: it is more urgent trying to understand ourselves rather than dreaming about the stars.

I agree with this but understanding the nature of physical reality is more than just about the stars. It's also about how life and mind are a mandated outcome of the evolutionary process and this awareness can make humanity better understand that his role in the cosmic journey is by no means unique but it is in every sense remarkable. In an evolving universe the future is always unknowable because the future is that which is continuously being MADE, but a process model of reality defines mankind as a future-maker. There's no such thing as a pre-ordained cosmic destiny but our species can define a destiny for itself if it so chooses.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2016 11:39 am**

Leo: Gracias for the explanation, good sir.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2016 8:19 pm**

Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: I think this bit is somewhat confused. Ptolemy was over 1000 years before Copernicus and so could not have used his model.
As always, this rather depends on which narrative the theorist finds compelling. Ptolemy could have decided that the narrative of Aristarchus of Samos was more persuasive than the one of Aristotle. Aristarchus had followed the heliocentric lead of Philolaus and Anaxagoras but these ideas had been superseded by Aristotelian geocentric philosophy under the early Roman empire. He was merely working with the ideas which were in vogue rather than attempting a more coherent interpretation of the evidence, and this was no different from the way physics works today. Ptolemy simply compelled the evidence to conform to his narrative by brute mathematical force.

Sadly Copernicus' Model was NOT the same one as Aristarchus' Model. So just admit your mistake.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:it was not till Kepler imagined Elliptical orbits that the problem was solved and the full case for the heliocentric hypothesis made.
This is not quite the way it happened. Kepler himself was convinced of the circular orbits and he was looking for a way to model these orbits in terms of the embedded Platonic solids. However he couldn't make this work because he was a true scientist who was working off actual data which he had previously stolen from Tycho de Brahe.

I know all this. But since you make a mistake I was cutting to the chase, and ignoring Tycho Brahe(bronze nose and pet Mouse too), and skipped Giordano Bruno who lost his life for suggesting a compromise, which was superior to Copurnicus, and Kepler's crazy Platonic fantasy.

This data had been meticulously compiled and was quite unambiguous in its implication that the planetary orbits were ellipses. All Kepler actually did was to devise the mathematical tools to model this. Kepler was more than a little bit crazy but he is to be admired as a true scientist because even though his research proved his own theory wrong he went ahead and published it anyway. Nowadays any scientific journal would reject his paper out of hand because it didn't conform to the existing model. (The same goes for Einstein if it comes to that.) Incidentally Galileo never accepted Kepler's elliptical orbits until his dying day and they didn't become a part of the official story until Newton.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Science is naive when it comes to the finer points of philosophy. Hawkins' claim about the end of philosophy is about as blind as Fukimama's pronouncements on history and both betray and almost wilful arrogance and stupidity.
I think it's one of the stupidest comments ever made by such an influential figure in the scientific community, but he has quite a track record for such moronic pronouncements. He also described the existence of life in the universe as a "random chemical scum", whilst accepting like most scientists that it is almost certainly likely to be ubiquitous in the universe. Randomness and ubiquity are not compatible constructs. Regrettably Hawking's unfortunate illness has elevated him onto a pedestal in the eyes of the lay community but this adulation is not shared by his colleagues in the scientific community, most of whom would prefer it if he kept his private speculations to himself.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:You might be right about science needed to grasp Kant's epistemological nettle, but your claim that you might have the answer just under the surface is likely to be soon overturned, and seems hopelessly optimistic.
Any theory can be overturned by a better one at any time but the model I propose yields a prediction which differs from that of the spacetime paradigm. No theory can ever be proven true but a dodgy theory can always be falsified if the right question is asked of it. The gravity/time continuum offers at least one such question and I am in no doubt that it would offer many more to a laterally thinking particle theorist. I have no shortage of ideas about the form of such questions but particle physics is a fiendishly intricate mathematical work and I don't have the mathematical fluency to compose such questions with the right sort of clarity.

I'm not a physicist, Hobbesy, I'm just an ideas man.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: it is more urgent trying to understand ourselves rather than dreaming about the stars.
I agree with this but understanding the nature of physical reality is more than just about the stars. It's also about how life and mind are a mandated outcome of the evolutionary process and this awareness can make humanity better understand that his role in the cosmic journey is by no means unique but it is in every sense remarkable. In an evolving universe the future is always unknowable because the future is that which is continuously being MADE, but a process model of reality defines mankind as a future-maker. There's no such thing as a pre-ordained cosmic destiny but our species can define a destiny for itself if it so chooses.

As I've said before the model we used for living systems is not applicable to non animate systems. I don't see how we are going to reconcile this difference between us, because you are simply failing to apply a vital distinction between the two things.
On a cosmic perspective living systems are a chemical scum and are organised with specific reference to a very unique set of temperature and chemical conditions. The likelyhood that we shall ever escape this planet are remote to non existence, as every thing we should ever need is right here on planet earth and even the simplest easiest destinations are ridiculously remote and well beyond the dreams of a life time. The fact that a minor celestial event could wipe out all life on earth in a breath and nothing in the universe would change underlines our insignificance.
SO "cosmic destiny"? Nah.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2016 11:07 pm**

Hobbes' Choice wrote: As I've said before the model we used for living systems is not applicable to non animate systems. I don't see how we are going to reconcile this difference between us, because you are simply failing to apply a vital distinction between the two things.

Vitalism is no longer regarded as a valid construct in biology. The biologist draws no line in the sand between "living" and "non-living" matter and energy but rather regards what we commonly call "life" as a spectrum phenomenon which relates solely to the organisational complexity of inanimate matter itself. In other words life is not a fundamental property of the matter and energy which comprise it but rather an emergent property of the way such matter and energy behaves within its external environment. To try and make a distinction between the "living" world and the "non-living" world is an ancient component of our intellectual history but it is one which has no basis in either formal philosophical logic or established scientific fact.

"All things come from one another and vanish into one another according to necessity and in conformity with the order of time".....Anaximander... On Nature

The point which Anaximander seeks to make is that matter and energy are eternal but that the form in which matter and energy self-organises is both emergent and constrained by a use-by date. Einstein subsequently showed that even matter itself is not immortal, being itself nothing more than an emergent form of energy which is configured in a particular way. Modern biology is exclusively an information science in which energy and information are regarded as entirely synonymous terms so what we generically describe as "life" is nothing more than a metric used to define the informational complexity of a self-organising system.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:On a cosmic perspective living systems are a chemical scum and are organised with specific reference to a very unique set of temperature and chemical conditions. The likelyhood that we shall ever escape this planet are remote to non existence, as every thing we should ever need is right here on planet earth and even the simplest easiest destinations are ridiculously remote and well beyond the dreams of a life time. The fact that a minor celestial event could wipe out all life on earth in a breath and nothing in the universe would change underlines our insignificance.
SO "cosmic destiny"? Nah.

On the balance of probabilities I tend to agree with you but in a process model of reality the universe is non-teleological. Therefore the future of the universe lies in the minds of the sentient beings which the mechanism of evolution has brought forth. Whether or not homo sapiens becomes an ongoing part of this evolving story is up to homo sapiens to determine but he's also going to need the dumb good luck to keep running his way. Either way it's a stone cold certainty that you and I won't be around to see how the story unfolds.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2016 11:20 pm**

Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: As I've said before the model we used for living systems is not applicable to non animate systems. I don't see how we are going to reconcile this difference between us, because you are simply failing to apply a vital distinction between the two things.
Vitalism is no longer regarded as a valid construct in biology. The biologist draws no line in the sand between "living" and "non-living" matter and energy but rather regards what we commonly call "life" as a spectrum phenomenon which relates solely to the organisational complexity of inanimate matter itself.

Crock of it

Biologist are concerned with the one in preference to the other. It's why they are called biologists.
Mention of vitalism is not only a childish straw man, but a significant insult. You should be ashamed of yourself.

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