Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:

Lawrence Crocker wrote:the idea that order really shouldn't be able to arise out of disorder,

That this proposition is false is a truth first discovered by Anaximander and re-discovered by Charles Darwin. Throughout the 20th century it was elaborated into a formal mathematical framewor called non-linear dynamic systems theory, from which the term "complexity from chaos" derives.

I don't think Charles Darwin actually even thought of this as it is irrelevant to his theory. However, understanding your take on this, you are interpreting him as implicitly supporting your view with regards to Chaos Theory. I'm guessing that you're interpreting Darwin's trees as a sample of how evolution derives towards the future as branches (your "non-linear" interpretation from Chaos Theory). But according to Darwin, he came to his theory by recognizing from Malthus' demographic studies how populations where pressure is greater have both more deaths and more drive to populate in an apparently contradictory way. Malthus showed how populations in the poorest communities of London seemed to irrationally have both more babies per capita as well as more deaths. This seemed odd at the time precisely because it lacked what many might refer to as an 'ordered' rationale. Shouldn't poor people rationally opt to have less babies since they cannot afford to raise them in their impoverished condition?

The stats showed that death was at a higher rate their too. So Darwin extended this reasoning to all animals in nature where struggle exists. To him, he realized that death was the norm, not the exception, to species. He also reasoned that the since populations of species that struggle more would have to require having a higher rate of births to compensate for the deaths that would otherwise kill them off as a species should they NOT have more offspring. And so he reasoned further that it was just the relative 'accident' of those species to reproduce more that enabled them to survive as a species. This goes against our concept of purposeful ordering or some special favoritism of nature itself to decide which species will evolve. Instead, selection is an accidental process of nature that only allows things to evolve if they 'fit' (meaning match, not the interpretation of one having fit = 'good' or better genes) within the given environment.

I understand you completely by thinking that Darwin's idea to supersede spontaneous generation theories as well as the religious ones are akin to your interpretation of Chaos in that the old theories act to "pre-determine" what we follow in a strictly fated line. Yet I disagree that Darwin's theory fits appropriately to back Chaos theory for reasons I already tried to convey before that I don't see you understanding.

I disagreed with Chaos Theory because it still poses each contemporary point in time as a 'source' to which alternative ("non-linear") options exist (by your interpretation of the theory). But if each point in time in any present is allowed to have the ability to move forward from there (supposedly a point of "self-organizing" or self-determining", this is equivalent to accepting each point everywhere on the time line as having at least two options to choose from out of what is possible. But this is precisely what "indeterminism" via nature, not one's personal whims, mean by those arguing for indeterminism mean (like QM). That is the existence of such options to nature are what provides the ability to be both, even though only one can be observed to be true in our particular universe. If such options by nature are only illusive, than whatever anyone or thing appears to 'opt' for must be the ONLY possibility which reduces our given universe to be strictly a linearly determined mechanism.

If and only if Chaos Theory is correct, it is based on a REAL and fixed initial state, not any sets of multiple points in time such as each present moment. As such, the only such point is at some initial condition of a universe that had a beginning. Your universe is infinite though and so cannot even have any such initial state anywhere in time. Thus you can't defend Chaos Theory in your view here.

Darwin was still in a culture that thought of determinism or indeterminism as strictly exclusive realities. We either have free choice everywhere or a fated type of determinism whether it be by nature or by individual humans. This is clearly why he opted to introduce his theory using an 'Artificial' example of Selection as an inferred direct analogy to "Natural" Selection to begin his proof. He saw both as products of equivalent truths in contrast to most who thought both as aspects of "free will".

Chaos Theory is attempting to accept both but requires only one unique initial state of indeterminism for all time at a beginning. The butterfly effect is a bad idea to use because it accidentally made those like yourself think that any point in time is equally a valid "initial" point. It is not possible for a butterfly to have options to flap or not flap in Chaos Theory because it is not a literal initial state but only a relative one.

Lawrence Crocker wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:Lawrence,I can't interpret where you stand. Are you supporting ultimate laws? Against them?

It is possible that there are fundamental laws of physics, i.e. that reality works on a basis that could in principle be described in a way that would seem to us to be explanatory very much as we have traditionally taken scientific laws to be explanatory. Physics seeks such laws, and it might well find them.

The question that interests me is how far reality might fail to be like this, and in what ways. My inclination is that, as a conceptual matter, it might depart pretty far towards the not law-like and that it migh even not be "capturable in finite language." My inclination on this point, however, could be overcome by argument.

Okay, I thought this was the case of your view as my initial response to you assumed the conflict. You are stating that while you believe there are likely laws, it may only remain so (a belief) as we may not actually be able to determine them as certain or not, partially because we may not have an ability to communicate it with closure by the limits of our language to speak only with closure (finitely). Is this correct?

Lawrence Crocker wrote:Could there be no ultimate laws of nature?

It is easy to imagine that there might be no ultimate, general laws of nature. All laws might be local, say to specific galaxies or specific times. Astronomy does not suggest this so far, but there is no conceptual problem.

Could there be no ultimate laws of nature anywhere and at any time? In particular, could there be no ultimate laws of nature here and now?
.

Uniformitarianism seems to have serves us pretty well so far.
It was no so long ago that science accepted sub-lunary and super-lunary laws of nature in an attempt to explain why the Universe beyond earth at and beyond the orbit of the moon seemed to be different from earthy physics.

Science was wrong then. And it was only that assumption of uniform laws throughout the universe that enabled us to make sense of the world around us.

So, thanks for the idle speculation - but no thanks. Been there, done that!

Lawrence Crocker wrote:
This already takes us a step back from the most demanding historical conceptions of what physical law must be like, which required determinism. Now suppose that the deeper science goes the more determinism fails. We already know that things can seem deterministic on a macro level but fail to be on a micro. Physics might well run into more and more indeterminism. .

Determinism is simply not failing.

With each step that science makes, it is inevitable that the boundaries we reach to, continue to ellude us. That is to be expected. We may well reach limits of human cognition, but none of this implies that determinism is wrong. There is a difference between not knowing all the causes, and pretending that there are no causes.
Every step in science (and the steps have been vast over the last 200 years or so) have ALL been achieved by assuming that each effect has a cause or causes, and identifying causes and given us the answers to more clearly describe the universe we live in.

We are not running into 'indeterminsim', but with each new discovery we uncover more of the unknown.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Determinism is simply not failing.

it absolutely isn't and neither should it be. An appeal to indeterminacy is an appeal to the supernatural but such an appeal is necessarily mandated by Newton's physics because the concept of Laws of Nature was built into the methodology he established for his new "science". Modern physics remains inescapably locked into both this creationist assumption and the methodology it mandates.

The so-called "quantum uncertainty" is a good example. The trajectories of sub-atomic particles cannot be precisely predicted and thus can only be modelled probabilistically. So fucking what!! By what convoluted perversion of logic are we then free to assume that these trajectories are causeless? The trajectories of planets and stars cannot be precisely predicted either and they too can only be modelled probabilistically but we don't make the same assumption for them. Does that make fucking sense? How the hell can nature behave according to different definitions of determinism depending on the scale at which we interrogate it?

The sheer stupidity of it all makes me pine for the good old days of ancient Greece. Back in Plato's day all the physicists would have been rounded up and sold into slavery. A year or two pulling an oar in a war galley might make them smarten up their thinking.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Determinism is simply not failing.

it absolutely isn't and neither should it be. An appeal to indeterminacy is an appeal to the supernatural but such an appeal is necessarily mandated by Newton's physics because the concept of Laws of Nature was built into the methodology he established for his new "science". Modern physics remains inescapably locked into both this creationist assumption and the methodology it mandates.

The so-called "quantum uncertainty" is a good example. The trajectories of sub-atomic particles cannot be precisely predicted and thus can only be modelled probabilistically. So fucking what!! By what convoluted perversion of logic are we then free to assume that these trajectories are causeless? The trajectories of planets and stars cannot be precisely predicted either and they too can only be modelled probabilistically but we don't make the same assumption for them. Does that make fucking sense? How the hell can nature behave according to different definitions of determinism depending on the scale at which we interrogate it?

The sheer stupidity of it all makes me pine for the good old days of ancient Greece. Back in Plato's day all the physicists would have been rounded up and sold into slavery. A year or two pulling an oar in a war galley might make them smarten up their thinking.

Indeed. The movement of a billiard ball on baize is not completely predictable. It's not because the universe is faulty, but because the green baize is not 100% uniform. When tiny sub-subatomic particles are not predictable, who knows if there are not unseen smaller particles or the model is just shite?

What makes me laugh is that once a certain type of person has established in his mind that there are causeless action, often they go on to pretend that free will is thus proven. Nothing could be more risible. As if a random will were of any use to a person's volition!

I have to disagree with your thoughts on ancient Greece. It was Plato's pupil, Aristotle, that decided that the moon and every thing beyond it acted to a unique and unworldly set of physical laws. The earth was trapped inside a "sublunary" sphere where things fell to earth. In the heavens there was not gravity, but the stars and planets wound round the heavens inside invisible crystal spheres.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Indeed. The movement of a billiard ball on baize is not completely predictable.

I often use the snooker break as a simply understood example of chaotic motion. It is utterly impossible to predict with certainty where every ball will finish up after the break, even in principle, and yet I've never heard anybody suggest that these motions are RANDOM. Every single ball finishes up where it does because it has been CAUSED to do so. The unpredictability of the snooker break is a function of the dynamic causal complexity of the entire system and has nothing to do with indeterminacy. The motions of cosmological bodies are unpredictable for exactly the same reason and this has been known as an ABSOLUTE FACT for over 300 years. Newton was a certifiable lunatic but he got a few things right and one of the things he got right was that the motion of every single physical entity in the universe will affect the motion of every other because of gravity.

Werner Heisenberg got away with passing off a simple statement of the bloody obvious as a message of profound truth while all the philosophers were asleep at the wheel and failed to point this out to him. Like mindless sheep nobody has ever bothered to examine this ridiculous statement of Heisenberg's ever since.

Free to a good home: One Theory of Everything. Think of the sub-atomic particles as if they were snooker balls and there you have quantum gravity. You'll have to chuck out Minkowski's bullshit first, of course, because spacetime was the cause of all this confusion all along.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Indeed. The movement of a billiard ball on baize is not completely predictable.

I often use the snooker break as a simply understood example of chaotic motion. It is utterly impossible to predict with certainty where every ball will finish up after the break, even in principle, and yet I've never heard anybody suggest that these motions are RANDOM. Every single ball finishes up where it does because it has been CAUSED to do so. The unpredictability of the snooker break is a function of the dynamic causal complexity of the entire system and has nothing to do with indeterminacy. The motions of cosmological bodies are unpredictable for exactly the same reason and this has been known as an ABSOLUTE FACT for over 300 years. Newton was a certifiable lunatic but he got a few things right and one of the things he got right was that the motion of every single physical entity in the universe will affect the motion of every other because of gravity.

Werner Heisenberg got away with passing off a simple statement of the bloody obvious as a message of profound truth while all the philosophers were asleep at the wheel and failed to point this out to him. Like mindless sheep nobody has ever bothered to examine this ridiculous statement of Heisenberg's ever since.

Free to a good home: One Theory of Everything. Think of the sub-atomic particles as if they were snooker balls and there you have quantum gravity. You'll have to chuck out Minkowski's bullshit first, of course, because spacetime was the cause of all this confusion all along.

The problem is always more likely to be in the model and the understanding that in the universe itself.
It seems it is common enough, from Aristotle onwards, when understanding fails, is to blame reality!

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It seems it is common enough, from Aristotle onwards, when understanding fails, is to blame reality!

I'm fond of accusing the physicists of attempting to compel the universe to conform to their theories of it by brute mathematical force. This is a rather clever trick first made fashionable by Ptolemy but the modern geeks have elevated it to a high art form. We are now confronted with a mathematical extravaganza of such spectacular virtuosity that nobody in the entire world has a hope in hell of understanding it. Voltaire would make mincemeat of them and Jonathan Swift would give us a good laugh as well.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It seems it is common enough, from Aristotle onwards, when understanding fails, is to blame reality!

I'm fond of accusing the physicists of attempting to compel the universe to conform to their theories of it by brute mathematical force. This is a rather clever trick first made fashionable by Ptolemy but the modern geeks have elevated it to a high art form. We are now confronted with a mathematical extravaganza of such spectacular virtuosity that nobody in the entire world has a hope in hell of understanding it. Voltaire would make mincemeat of them and Jonathan Swift would give us a good laugh as well.

Ptolemy is a good example.

Actually Copernicus is paradoxically a better one. His cosmology was far more clumsy and required the addition of 14 more epicycles. THey both demanded the use of Aristotle's perfect circles for orbits. This made Copernicus, who just copied Aristarchus, far more complex.
It was not until Kepler hit upon elliptical orbits that heliocentricity became complete.

Scientists should know more of their own history. It's a fact that the vast majority of all historical scientific theories are wrong. And we have every right to think that most of what we know know will be swept away by improved ideas. All science students would do well to do a module in intellectual History in the first year. This would given them a much needed humility, and a better critical edge to avoid the rote learning of dogmatic science that is a pox on their house.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Scientists should know more of their own history. It's a fact that the vast majority of all historical scientific theories are wrong. And we have every right to think that most of what we know know will be swept away by improved ideas. All science students would do well to do a module in intellectual History in the first year. This would given them a much needed humility, and a better critical edge to avoid the rote learning of dogmatic science that is a pox on their house.

Amen, brother, go tell it on the mountain. For decades physics has been taught with its central models elevated to the status of canonical doctrine when right from the outset the very people who created these models knew fucking well they were wrong. SR, GR, and QM are all mutually exclusive and thus cannot possibly all be right. In fact most of the serious players in modern physics have willingly conceded that all three of them are fundamentally wrong and almost certainly they are fundamentally wrong for the same reason. The cognitive dissonance of these guys is breathtaking because the only feature that all three of these models have in common is spacetime, a hypothesis which Henri Poincare, the true father of relativity, dismissed as utter bollocks. Poincare thought Minkowski was a dickhead and so in fact did Einstein. The whole fiasco was a comedy of errors from the beginning and it was almost entirely due to the geo-political turmoil in Europe at the time. Spacetime was a very German idea and very well suited to the German logical positivist mindset and its associated overtones of Platonist mysticism and eternal mathematical truths.

Science is a self correcting discipline since evidence can never be absolute. Only proof can be that. So there
shall always be uncertainty. Which is in principle is a good thing for that is the perfect antidote to dogmatism
On the question of determinism : just because some thing cannot be explained does not make it random as such
Because that would violate Newtons Third Law Of Motion : for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

surreptitious57 wrote:Science is a self correcting discipline since evidence can never be absolute. Only proof can be that.

No scientific theory can ever be proven true, even in principle. However a dodgy scientific theory must always be falsifiable and to do this is simply a matter of asking the right question of the theory. This is easier said than done and invariably requires an alternative theory which yields a different answer to the same question. Science is a tough business.

surreptitious57 wrote:: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

Tell it to the shitheads who claim that cosmological bodies follow the trajectory of a geodesic in a 4D hypersphere, colloquially known as a "curved space". Jesus wept!!

surreptitious57 wrote:Science is a self correcting discipline since evidence can never be absolute. Only proof can be that. So there
shall always be uncertainty. Which is in principle is a good thing for that is the perfect antidote to dogmatism
On the question of determinism : just because some thing cannot be explained does not make it random as such
Because that would violate Newtons Third Law Of Motion : for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

Indeed. But what makes life difficult is that for every action there are potentially many more reactions, just so long as the energy equation is preserved. What makes prediction difficult is not knowing existing amounts of potential and kinetic energies that have already in place for any given event.
But all of this assumes the basic principle of cause and effect.

There is a simple device in the London Museum of science. It is a rotating cam upon which is a pivot point with an arm and another pivot point, upon which is another arm. This is enough to make the system impossible to predict.

Obvious Leo wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote:

Because the future is a blank slate, you imbecile. It hasn't been MADE yet and there are NO LAWS to determine what the future will hold otherwise you'd know everything that was going to happen tomorrow. Any half-wit could tell you that even in principle this is utterly impossible. This was told by the most profound metaphysical gurus of the 20th century.

What are you, twelve? You think name-calling makes you look mature in the eyes of your peers? (Well, I suppose that could be the case if your peers are twelve.)

And there you go again: inferring things from something never said or implied. Really, you should be more attentive or visit your local pub less often. Or start taking your meds. I did NOT say there are laws that determine the future.

You said you believe in cause and effect. No one really knows what time is, but I'm pretty sure you think you do. Okay. Fine. Cause and effect are fundamental features of the measurable universe and the passing of time (change) is the effect. But if you don't know why the probabilities of quantum events -- which, by the way, are effected by our "looking" -- can be measured with such incredible precision, you don't know. You don't have to get squirrelly about it.