No ultimate laws of nature?

[Hobbes' Choice]

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.

Time is that by which change is measured. I don't think it makes sense to call time the effect.
I think what Leo was doing is rejecting your claim that determinism means knowing the future, or the idea that the future is set to some plan. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The point about determinism against, say, fatalism, is the the future is continually made, not known. Not unavoidable, just not avoidable. Knowing possible outcomes can enable us to avoid them. The knowlege itself is still part of the causal picture. SO were it not for the knowledge, the future would turn out differently.

With QM, we do not yet know the causes. That is not to say that causes can never be known, or regardless of them being known; it is not to say that QM effects are not caused at all. QM does not imply that the universe is not deterministic.

It was once thought that fruit would spontaneously rot, or that mice would spontaneously be generated from the dried mud of the Nile. We know know better. But were we to remain ignorant about the organisms of decay; rotting fruit would not imply that there are causeless effects.

[The Inglorious One]

Time is that by which change is measured. I don't think it makes sense to call time the effect.

I can go along with that, though I think it is more accurate to say their respective meanings are interdependent.

I think what Leo was doing is rejecting your claim that determinism means knowing the future, or the idea that the future is set to some plan. Nothing could be further from the truth.

That's just it: I made no such claim. In fact, I said just the opposite. Leo has the habit of making inferences from things never said or implied. I'm just asking why the probabilistic constraints are so exacting.

With QM, we do not yet know the causes. That is not to say that causes can never be known, or regardless of them being known; it is not to say that QM effects are not caused at all. QM does not imply that the universe is not deterministic.

When it comes to the probabilities of quantum events, the cause IS unknowable, even in principle. There is nothing on the horizon to even remotely suggest the possibility of it ever being otherwise.

It was once thought that fruit would spontaneously rot, or that mice would spontaneously be generated from the dried mud of the Nile. We know know better. But were we to remain ignorant about the organisms of decay; rotting fruit would not imply that there are causeless effects.

What has that got to do with the most successful and most tested theory in the history of science and the world? "Promissory determinism" is an act of sheer faith. Or, given what we know now, superstition.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Time is that by which change is measured. I don't think it makes sense to call time the effect.

I can go along with that, though I think it is more accurate to say their respective meanings are interdependent.

I think what Leo was doing is rejecting your claim that determinism means knowing the future, or the idea that the future is set to some plan. Nothing could be further from the truth.

That's just it: I made no such claim. In fact, I said just the opposite. Leo has the habit of making inferences from things never said or implied. I'm just asking why the probabilistic constraints are so exacting.

With QM, we do not yet know the causes. That is not to say that causes can never be known, or regardless of them being known; it is not to say that QM effects are not caused at all. QM does not imply that the universe is not deterministic.

When it comes to the probabilities of quantum events, the cause IS unknowable, even in principle. There is nothing on the horizon to even remotely suggest the possibility of it ever being otherwise.

It was once thought that fruit would spontaneously rot, or that mice would spontaneously be generated from the dried mud of the Nile. We know know better. But were we to remain ignorant about the organisms of decay; rotting fruit would not imply that there are causeless effects.

What has that got to do with the most successful and most tested theory in the history of science and the world? "Promissory determinism" is an act of sheer faith. Or, given what we know now, superstition.

The fact is that for thousands of years, scientific paradigms have come and gone. With each step they have improved. QM is simply another example where the model does not fit - yet. But with all these paradigm changes the only constant throughout is ALL the models and cosmologies have respected determinism. Wtihout determinism QM will remain a mystery.
If we are smart enough the model with accomodate QM.
But pretending that determinism is wrong would have to involve the complete jettisoning of all physics, as there can be no reason why QM is a special case. And with the jettisoning of determinism will also jettsion the only means we have to make QM coherent.

That would make no sense.

[Obvious Leo]

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.

This mechanism is known as the hinged pendulum and it is the simplest possible example of a chaotic system. It is completely and utterly impossible to predict how this pendulum will move, even in principle, and yet its motion is entirely deterministic, so it is perfectly true to say that it's motion is obeying no physical law beyond the meta-law of cause and effect. The pendulum both ACTS and is ACTED UPON and it is this which determines both it's motion and the unpredictability of this motion. The motion of every physical entity in the universe is bound by the same principle because of gravity and this has been known since the time of Newton. It is a completely uncontroversial TRUTH and yet it is completely ignored in sub-atomic physics and replaced with the notion of causeless events. This is why QM makes no sense.

Time is that by which change is measured. I don't think it makes sense to call time the effect.

Yes. There has only ever been one useful definition of time in physics and unsurprisingly it comes from Einstein.

"Time is what clocks measure"

Clocks measure the rate of change in physical systems and this rate of change is variable all the way down to the Planck scale. It is utterly impossible to synchronise two clocks anywhere in the universe because of gravity. The clock at your head ticks faster than the one at your feet. The clock on the carpet ticks faster than the one on the bare floorboards beside it. The clock on the electron ticks faster than the clock on the nucleus it orbits. Etc, etc, etc. We can all be grateful of these facts because it is this which holds us to the surface of the planet and stops atoms from flying apart. This is the mechanism of gravity, the holy grail of physics.

the future is continually made,

Bingo. The universe is a reality MAKER. It MAKES reality at the speed of light.

When it comes to the probabilities of quantum events, the cause IS unknowable, even in principle. There is nothing on the horizon to even remotely suggest the possibility of it ever being otherwise.

Nobody is disputing this but just because a cause is unknowable doesn't give us the right to assume there is no cause. Think of the snooker break and the causal dynamics of THE ENTIRE SYSTEM rather than a single linear causal chain, as in Newtonian reductionism. Causes operate in NETWORKS.

What has that got to do with the most successful and most tested theory in the history of science and the world?

Only its predictions have been tested because only its predictions are testable. The explanatory narrative which underpins these predictions is not testable. This is simply a question of epistemology vs ontology. The explanatory narrative must be derived by logical deduction from metaphysical first principles in such a way that it conforms with the inductive interpretation of the evidence. This has not been done. What physics has done is allow the equations to dictate the story instead of the other way around. They have ontologised their toolbox by saying that mathematics is the only language in which the universe can be understood. This is utter bullshit which no philosopher could countenance.

But pretending that determinism is wrong would have to involve the complete jettisoning of all physics, as there can be no reason why QM is a special case. And with the jettisoning of determinism will also jettsion the only means we have to make QM coherent.

There hasn't been a single major physicist in the past 20 years who wouldn't agree with this. All the serious theorists agree that no progress in physics can be made until QM can be modified into a deterministic model. I have done this.

[The Inglorious One]

But pretending that determinism is wrong would have to involve the complete jettisoning of all physics, as there can be no reason why QM is a special case. And with the jettisoning of determinism will also jettsion the only means we have to make QM coherent.

That would make no sense.

Yup. Ironic, isn't it? Scientific determinism discovering that scientific determinism is incomplete at best. It is unsettling. A lot of physicists don't like it, either, so they try to get around it by inventing things like undetectable dimensions and multiple universes. It's called "scientism" for a reason.

That some things are simply out of the reach of science is, indeed, a very hard pill to swallow.

[The Inglorious One]

When it comes to the probabilities of quantum events, the cause IS unknowable, even in principle. There is nothing on the horizon to even remotely suggest the possibility of it ever being otherwise.

Nobody is disputing this but just because a cause is unknowable doesn't give us the right to assume there is no cause.

Neither does it give us the right to assume there is. What, for example, caused the "quantum field"? Why does it behave the way it does? Why are constraints put on probabilities so precise?

[The Inglorious One]

Only its predictions have been tested because only its predictions are testable. The explanatory narrative which underpins these predictions is not testable. This is simply a question of epistemology vs ontology. The explanatory narrative must be derived by logical deduction from metaphysical first principles in such a way that it conforms with the inductive interpretation of the evidence. This has not been done. What physics has done is allow the equations to dictate the story instead of the other way around. They have ontologised their toolbox by saying that mathematics is the only language in which the universe can be understood. This is utter bullshit which no philosopher could countenance.

You're right, But I don't see the difference between you and the physicists you detest.

Nothing is definite, not even causation.

[Obvious Leo]

Yup. Ironic, isn't it? Scientific determinism discovering that scientific determinism is incomplete at best.

This is not quite what science has discovered with QM. If you examine the model more closely you'll discover that what it shows is that determinism is not synonymous with PRE-determinism, which brings us back to the OP. An assumption of ultimate laws of nature is an assumption of PRE-determinism and this is the Platonist view that Newton adopted via Descartes and Aquinas.

A lot of physicists don't like it, either, so they try to get around it by inventing things like undetectable dimensions and multiple universes. It's called "scientism" for a reason

Our positions are much closer than you think and if we stopped calling each other names we might both be able to see it. I'm willing to abide by a truce if you are because the multiple universes and the hidden dimensions are indeed scientism. They are an attempt to salvage Newton's creationist assumption at all costs because they attempt to make the universe comply with the theory rather than the theory comply with the universe. Dark matter and dark energy are derived from exactly the same a priori assumption but they simply vanish if the assumption is abandoned.

That some things are simply out of the reach of science is, indeed, a very hard pill to swallow.

By the scientists it is but that's only because they sacked the philosophers, and not without good reason. The philosophers were asleep at the wheel in the early part of the 20th century and allowed the logical positivists to take over and claim that the map was synonymous with the territory. However most of the true geniuses of this era knew bloody well that this was a fatally false step and this includes most particularly Einstein and Bohr. Incidentally Einstein himself declared that physics only had one true genius in this period and that was Max Planck.

"Science alone cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature because man is a part of nature and thus a part of the mystery that science is trying to solve"...Max Planck.

What Planck clearly meant and stated often in his writings is that science without philosophy is like a ship without a rudder.

Neither does it give us the right to assume there is.

We always have the right to assume that there is no such thing as a causeless effect because if this were so then the universe would have no order, which contradicts the evidence. How we choose to model this order will always be a matter of conceptual taste but if we deny that such an order exists then we assume the absurd.

What, for example, caused the "quantum field"? Why does it behave the way it does?

There's no such thing as a "quantum field". This is an example of an epistemic tool that we use to model an observed pattern of behaviour and that's ALL it is. In due course the quantum field will go the way of phlogiston, the luminiferous aether and every other epistemic tool that science has ever devised. It makes no sense to simply freeze our knowledge at an arbitrary moment in time and declare it as the TRUTH. The same goes for all the other particles, fields and forces which physics has invented. These are constructs of the human mind and nothing more. They will outlive their usefulness once our minds are able to devise more effective constructs.

Incidentally this is the mainstream stance of almost everybody who works in the field of theoretical physics and I'd easily be able to provide you with a list of the major players who have made statements along these lines within the past decade.

Why are constraints put on probabilities so precise?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here so I'll just have a guess. If you're asking why the predictions of the Standard Model are so accurate this is easily answered. The SM is easily the most sophisticated mathematical tool ever devised in the history of science but it is entirely derived from observation. it includes over 100 mathematical constants which are inserted into the model by hand and then changed whenever they need to be to satisfy future observations. These are the most inconstant constants imaginable but this continuous refinement of their values ensures that the future predictions become increasingly more precise. It is a completely tautologous method because of this circularity but this by no means makes the SM useless. It has led to the development of remarkable new technologies which would have been impossible without it. However all the particle geeks know bloody well that they are cheating and that the SM has no explanatory authority for physics whatsoever. They even know why. The SM has no explanatory authority because it ignores gravity. This problem currently still remains in the too hard basket and I decided many years ago that as a philosopher of physics this could be a job for me.

[Obvious Leo]

You're right, But I don't see the difference between you and the physicists you detest.

Don't read too much into my personal taste for hyperbole. I don't hate physicists at all and hold almost all of them in very high regard, although there are a few I exclude from this more general category, such as Hawking and Krauss. What I hate about modern academic physics is the group-think which binds them to such a blinkered approach to their work. The spacetime paradigm is assumed to be unassailable and yet for an entire century it has been shown to be false. The guys who invented it knew fucking well it was false and said so repeatedly throughout their lives and yet modern physics proceeds as if it were true. Physics is offering humanity an AS IF picture of our universe and I don't think this is good enough. They turn their backs on every science except their own and they willfully ignore millennia of human wisdom by declaring philosophy to be obsolete.

I don't detest them, Inglorious, but philosophy has been my life's work and I reserve the right to be resentful of those who choose to define this work as meaningless.

[The Inglorious One]

This is not quite what science has discovered with QM. If you examine the model more closely you'll discover that what it shows is that determinism is not synonymous with PRE-determinism, which brings us back to the OP. An assumption of ultimate laws of nature is an assumption of PRE-determinism and this is the Platonist view that Newton adopted via Descartes and Aquinas.

I think you are under the impression that I'm arguing that there are ultimate "laws of nature." I am not. I'm saying there is an ultimate "indefiniteness of nature" and that our perceptions are of the average, neither determinate or indeterminate, but effected by by our interaction with it nevertheless.

Our positions are much closer than you think and if we stopped calling each other names we might both be able to see it.

What me to go back and find where I said that very thing? You were probably too caught-up in your hyperbole to notice.

By the scientists it is but that's only because they sacked the philosophers, and not without good reason. The philosophers were asleep at the wheel in the early part of the 20th century and allowed the logical positivists to take over and claim that the map was synonymous with the territory. However most of the true geniuses of this era knew bloody well that this was a fatally false step and this includes most particularly Einstein and Bohr. Incidentally Einstein himself declared that physics only had one true genius in this period and that was Max Planck.

"Science alone cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature because man is a part of nature and thus a part of the mystery that science is trying to solve"...Max Planck.

What Planck clearly meant and stated often in his writings is that science without philosophy is like a ship without a rudder.

You mean the same Max Planck who said, "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter"?

We always have the right to assume that there is no such thing as a causeless effect because if this were so then the universe would have no order, which contradicts the evidence. How we choose to model this order will always be a matter of conceptual taste but if we deny that such an order exists then we assume the absurd.

I didn't say there was a "causeless effect." What I implied (rather indirectly) was that cause and effect are the same thing.

There's no such thing as a "quantum field". This is an example of an epistemic tool that we use to model an observed pattern of behaviour and that's ALL it is. In due course the quantum field will go the way of phlogiston, the luminiferous aether and every other epistemic tool that science has ever devised. It makes no sense to simply freeze our knowledge at an arbitrary moment in time and declare it as the TRUTH. The same goes for all the other particles, fields and forces which physics has invented. These are constructs of the human mind and nothing more. They will outlive their usefulness once our minds are able to devise more effective constructs.

Incidentally this is the mainstream stance of almost everybody who works in the field of theoretical physics and I'd easily be able to provide you with a list of the major players who have made statements along these lines within the past decade.

So the Casimer Effect is some kind of conspiracy?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here so I'll just have a guess. If you're asking why the predictions of the Standard Model are so accurate this is easily answered. The SM is easily the most sophisticated mathematical tool ever devised in the history of science but it is entirely derived from observation.

Yes. So either Max Planck was right about a consciousness and intelligent Mind being the matrix of all matter, or Einstein was a fool to call him a genius.

It includes over 100 mathematical constants which are inserted into the model by hand and then changed whenever they need to be to satisfy future observations. These are the most inconstant constants imaginable but this continuous refinement of their values ensures that the future predictions become increasingly more precise. It is a completely tautologous method because of this circularity but this by no means makes the SM useless. It has led to the development of remarkable new technologies which would have been impossible without it. However all the particle geeks know bloody well that they are cheating and that the SM has no explanatory authority for physics whatsoever. They even know why. The SM has no explanatory authority because it ignores gravity. This problem currently still remains in the too hard basket and I decided many years ago that as a philosopher of physics this could be a job for me.

The don't ignore gravity, they just can't make it fit with the SM -- and not from a lack of trying. Personally, I think it's because they don't want to acknowledge the role of Mind and non-locality.

[Obvious Leo]

I'm saying there is an ultimate "indefiniteness of nature"

In that case all you're saying is exactly what I'm saying and what any of my mates down the pub could tell you. The future is unknowable because it hasn't been made yet. THIS IS SOMETHING WHICH SPACETIME PHYSICS EMPHATICALLY DENIES.

What I implied (rather indirectly) was that cause and effect are the same thing.

Are you saying that (A) the effect causes itself, or are you saying that (B) after being caused the effect in turn becomes a cause. A makes no sense and B is self-evident.

So the Casimer Effect is some kind of conspiracy?

What does the Casimir effect have to do with anything we're discussing here? What red herring are you chasing now?

Yes. So either Max Planck was right about a consciousness and intelligent Mind being the matrix of all matter, or Einstein was was a fool to call him a genius.

Planck was wrong and Einstein was right. Einstein was also wrong about spacetime but being wrong is no impediment to genius. Every single scientist in human history has ultimately been proven wrong because science is merely a quest for knowledge. If you're looking for Truth you should try a priest.

The don't ignore gravity, they just can't make it fit with the SM -- and not from a lack of trying.

Kindly tell me which theorists are trying to incorporate gravity into the standard model because I know of none. Every single theoretical physicist in the business that I know of acknowledges that this will NEVER be possible because the SM is predicated on SR and not GR. SR is a model which ignores gravity so all the particle geeks know perfectly well that they're are looking for a model which will take them beyond the SM altogether. Thomas Kuhn called this a paradigm shift and you will find it here!!!

https://austintorney.wordpress.com/2015 ... n-de-jong/

[The Inglorious One]

Are you saying that (A) the effect causes itself, or are you saying that (B) after being caused the effect in turn becomes a cause. A makes no sense and B is self-evident.

I'm saying cause and effect are constructs of Mind.

What does the Casimir effect have to do with anything we're discussing here? What red herring are you chasing now?

We know energy causes it; what causes the energy? does it have a prior cause? is it possible for said energy not to exist? If not, then cause and effect as a theory is incomplete: you have a "first cause."

Planck was wrong and Einstein was right. Einstein was also wrong about spacetime but being wrong is no impediment to genius. Every single scientist in human history has ultimately been proven wrong because science is merely a quest for knowledge. If you're looking for Truth you should try a priest.

I don't think there's a "Truth" to be had: I'm simply looking for coherence and consistency that corresponds with my life-experience -- even if that includes an unprovable theory of Consciousness and Mind.

Having read some of your rather lengthy blog, all I will say is that although there are parts that resemble my own ideas, overall it is a confusion of disconnected ideas from a vulgar and egotistical (and hence immature) writer that make Hegel's writings look like a third-grade reader.

[Obvious Leo]

I'm saying cause and effect are constructs of Mind.

Are you suggesting that therefore causality is illusory? The principle of causality has underpinned all of science and philosophy since the dawn of time. It is the most intuitively obvious principle accessible to the human experience. if effects were not preceded by causes then the universe would have no order. What are you trying to imply by the above statement?

What does the Casimir effect have to do with anything we're discussing here? What red herring are you chasing now?

We know energy causes it; what causes the energy? does it have a prior cause? is it possible for said energy not to exist? If not, then cause and effect as a theory is incomplete: you have a "first cause."

There are a large number of different possible explanations for the Casimir effect, all of which are contingent on the QM assumptions of indeterminacy. Since I reject QM and the paradigm on which it is founded I have no preference for one explanation over the other. As far as I'm concerned they are all nonsense and a far simpler explanation will be developed in due course. I have such an explanation in my own model but at this stage it remains a work in progress which I have not included in my synopsis. Are you suggesting that only an appeal to the invisible hand of the supernatural can explain this phenomenon?

-- even if that includes an unprovable theory of Consciousness and Mind.

Many people seek solace in unprovable theories founded on beliefs in the supernatural. I don't begrudge you yours but as a philosopher of physics they do not fall within my domain of concern.

[Cerveny]

There is possible to see our physical space as an analogy to (elastic) crystal of chemical substance, where elementary particles act as various atoms. Such substance can change own structure (phase) or it can even decay depending on the temperature of Universe. So our physical laws can depend on the temperature of universe.. The essential structure of the physical laws follows from very basic math-logical principle: statistics, dimension of space, needs of keeping together, elasticity... For example, after very deep logical analysis, we can find out that there are no many other possibilities to create consistent, rich (not trivial) structure of physical laws for stable world enough, then our universe uses...

[Hobbes' Choice]

But pretending that determinism is wrong would have to involve the complete jettisoning of all physics, as there can be no reason why QM is a special case. And with the jettisoning of determinism will also jettsion the only means we have to make QM coherent.

There hasn't been a single major physicist in the past 20 years who wouldn't agree with this. All the serious theorists agree that no progress in physics can be made until QM can be modified into a deterministic model. I have done this.

I can't speak fo every physicist. But for sure there is a massive body of nut-cases from ~Deprak Chopra (how ever you spell hsi fucking name), down to a million Internet mystics chaffing at the bit to show how "truly random" events, can give you free will. Well duh.
Sometimes the stupidity really hurts.