Philosophy Now Forum

What you're saying is hardly breaking news to a philosopher, UA, since the notion of Absolute Truth has never been regarded as a valid construct in the philosophical discourse. Only priests deal in Truths and the rest of us simply have to content ourselves with knowledge, which as you say is an ever-moving feast. However this is not to say that the evolution of knowledge is not drawing us closer to a deeper understanding of the nature of reality. I reckon it is, but the evolution of knowledge is rather like our personal journey through life. Its meaning lies in the journey itself and not in the destination.

Obvious Leo wrote:With all due respect you reveal a vast chasm in your understanding of non-linear dynamic systems theory.

I defer to you in your knowledge of non-linear dynamics. Nevertheless a degree of logic can still be applied without being as proficient in the subject.

Processes are self-causal

Self-causal would imply that there are no derivatives. Each process would be independent from every other process beginning with the very moment of it's incipience. Such autonomy is not likely to spin any webs of creation. Again, this is a philosophic statement going back to the Ancients. To physicists it would hardly be of any interest whether processes are self causal or not. Their function is to inquire into the fundamentals of what's happening without prematurely anchoring themselves to preconceived conclusions like philosophers usually do. Of course they have this in common with philosophers based on how humans respond; preconceptions are bound to creep in.

Nature is the authority. Philosophers are not. The message here is not unlike that given by Bohr to Einstein when he told him don't tell God what god do.

The first instant following the big bang was the highest possible entropy state in the current universe. In the first Planck instants it was just an unimaginably hot ball of pure energy and even matter had yet to form, whereas now we have all manner of complex structures within it, including you and me. If the second law of thermodynamics were applicable on the cosmological scale then this hot ball should have been getting hotter and you and I could never have come into existence. This is not a trivial flaw in the paradigm.

There is nothing I read that would prevent complexity from arising due to any gradual increase of entropy in the universe. That inference was made in the statement:

Entropy can decrease somewhere, provided it increases somewhere else by at least as much. The entropy of a system decreases only when it interacts with some other system whose entropy increases in the process.

The point was that entropy will not diminish due to the reasons given in the articles posted...of which there are dozens. But to think of entropy as directly related to complexity simply due to its order/disorder paradigm loses sight of the greater complexity entropy denotes.

It surprises me to think that even a mediocre physicist wouldn't be aware of the arguments you make and yet the laws of thermodynamics do not negate the rise of complexity due to any gradual increase in entropy leading to eventual heat death in a trillion years. The significance of that scenario is a universe in equilibrium, it's 'voltage' drained; it's energy content virtually isotropic meaning hardly any force available for further creative deeds.

Dubious wrote:I defer to you in your knowledge of non-linear dynamics. Nevertheless a degree of logic can still be applied without being as proficient in the subject.

That rather depends on what it is that the logic is being applied to. The science of physics was founded on the Newtonian predicate assumption that the order in the universe derives from a suite of laws which we know as the "laws of physics". In a non-Newtonian universe this assumption is false because non-linear dynamic systems are completely self-organising according to only the meta-law that all effects must be preceded by causes. Such self-organising systems evolve from the simple to the complex for the sole reason that they cannot do otherwise. Thus if we adopt the Aristotelian universal doctrine of causality as a metaphysical first principle and then apply it to a non-Newtonian universe we have a complete and adequate explanation for why the total entropy of the cosmos is decreasing as well as a complete and adequate explanation for the existence of life and mind within it. This is what constitutes a logical argument in process philosophy and if you reckon you can lay a glove on it then knock yourself out.

Dubious wrote:Self-causal would imply that there are no derivatives. Each process would be independent from every other process beginning with the very moment of it's incipience.

No. This is a complete misunderstanding of chaotic determinism. You commit the same logical fallacy as physicists do in QM by conflating unpredictability with randomness. Self-causal systems are completely deterministic and yet utterly unpredictable, just like reality.

Dubious wrote:To physicists it would hardly be of any interest whether processes are self causal or not.

Alas this statement is true and it is the entire reason why the models of physics make no sense.

Dubious wrote:Their function is to inquire into the fundamentals of what's happening without prematurely anchoring themselves to preconceived conclusions like philosophers usually do.

This is impossible. Empirical evidence is simply raw data and such data cannot be interpreted without a preconceived narrative within which to structure it. As Heisenberg said, it is impossible to model reality until after it has been filtered through the prism of our own consciousness. This is what he understood by the term "collapsing a wave function" and he was dead right.

Dubious wrote:Nature is the authority. Philosophers are not.

I can't argue with this because this is the very point I'm making.

Dubious wrote: It surprises me to think that even a mediocre physicist wouldn't be aware of the arguments you make

It doesn't surprise me because I've worked in this field all my life. Neurons that wire together fire together and very few physicists have the flexibility of thought to question their foundational assumptions. However a few hardy renegades are questioning these very assumptions and this number is steadily growing.

Dubious wrote:There is nothing I read that would prevent complexity from arising due to any gradual increase of entropy in the universe

In that case you have more reading to do. Keep in mind that that which is applicable to subsystems of the universe is clearly not applicable to the universe as a whole. Read up on Onsager's principle of reciprocal relations, sometimes known as the 4th law of thermodynamics, and you'll see that on the cosmological scale the 4th law trumps the 2nd while both are beholden to the 1st. The first law of thermodynamics is not a law of physics at all, by the way, but a statement of metaphysical first principle.

Dubious wrote:gradual increase in entropy leading to eventual heat death in a trillion years.

There is not a scintilla of empirical evidence to support the "heat death" hypothesis and very few of today's physicists continue to support it.

Obvious Leo wrote:The science of physics was founded on the Newtonian predicate assumption that the order in the universe derives from a suite of laws which we know as the "laws of physics". In a non-Newtonian universe this assumption is false because non-linear dynamic systems are completely self-organising according to only the meta-law that all effects must be preceded by causes.

What physics was 'founded' on and what it is now are two very different stories. Newtonian physics is now considered old hat high school physics but still perfectly valid within the parameters of local prediction. You seem to be forever on Newton's case as if nothing has changed since then condemning physics in the process. The investigations of contemporary physics leaves Newtonian physics at the opposite end of the galaxy. Modern physicists concern themselves very little with Newton or his great nemesis Leibniz. Even Einstein couldn't have considered all of what modern science is now in consideration of.

Thus if we adopt the Aristotelian universal doctrine of causality as a metaphysical first principle and then apply it to a non-Newtonian universe we have a complete and adequate explanation for why the total entropy of the cosmos is decreasing as well as a complete and adequate explanation for the existence of life and mind within it. This is what constitutes a logical argument in process philosophy and if you reckon you can lay a glove on it then knock yourself out.

You seem to think that all you need is a logical argument and voila! there's your proof. This statement is a masterpiece of simplicity. If that's your scientific explanation as to why total entropy is decreasing, I don't have to knock it out! It knocked itself out. It would be interesting to know how Lee Smolin or any physicist would react to statement like this...but only from a distance. It explains absolutely nothing and frankly is reminiscent of medieval scholastic philosophy.

Empirical evidence is simply raw data and such data cannot be interpreted without a preconceived narrative within which to structure it. As Heisenberg said, it is impossible to model reality until after it has been filtered through the prism of our own consciousness.

What you say here is undeniably true and Heisenberg is right on. What it implies however is that consciousness is transformed by what enters into it which means we model reality by input and not by opinion or preconceived notions of what reality is "supposed' to be as philosophers are forever prone to do.

When data presents itself you have to know where to put it and how to apply within the existing paradigm as compared to philosophers who manufacture whatever opinion seems viable to close the gaps in THEIR theories. Assertions without any derived probability status accomplishes nothing which once again begs the question what has philosophy discovered in the last 150 years! Evidently there is only silence after this question!

Dubious wrote:There is nothing I read that would prevent complexity from arising due to any gradual increase of entropy in the universe

Obvious Leo wrote:Keep in mind that that which is applicable to subsystems of the universe is clearly not applicable to the universe as a whole.

...which is one reason why complexity may still assert itself since there's plenty of time left.

Obvious Leo wrote:Read up on Onsager's principle of reciprocal relations, sometimes known as the 4th law of thermodynamics, and you'll see that on the cosmological scale the 4th law trumps the 2nd while both are beholden to the 1st. The first law of thermodynamics is not a law of physics at all, by the way, but a statement of metaphysical first principle.

Onsager's principle of reciprocal relations is a refinement and extension of the Laws of thermodynamics NOT a replacement of the second especially on the cosmological scale. Onsager won the Nobel Prize in 1968 for a theory published in 1931. One would think that at least from 1968 on there would have been sufficient time for Onsager's "4th" law to trump the 2nd but clearly that hasn't happened.

Onsager's purpose was to "make possible a complete theoretical description of irreversible processes". However, I could have missed something. Since you're obviously read-up on it, would you mind explaining how it ties in with the massively slow torque of increasing entropy in the universe preempting the creation of complexity? Suns, Planets are still being created with the probability of some eventually hosting intelligent life within a universe of increasing entropy. This is such an immensely slow process which hasn't yet diminished its ability to create complexity. The Universe is not an ON/OFF phenomenon.

Dubious wrote:gradual increase in entropy leading to eventual heat death in a trillion years.

Obvious Leo wrote:There is not a scintilla of empirical evidence to support the "heat death" hypothesis and very few of today's physicists continue to support it.

Wrong...unless it turns out the universe is not an 'enclosed' thermodynamic system, physicists have no choice but to support it. But it can also be that gravity supervenes and reverses the expansion. If it turns out in 100 years that the universe is not an enclosed system as previously supposed subject to the jurisdiction of thermodynamics in what greater system is it contained to 'unclose' it? Rhetorical question only.

Quote from link below:

We’re looking at a continual expansion of the universe, according to readings of the Cosmic Microwave Background, but at a decreasing rate and it looks likely that the cosmos will end in a Heat Death.

http://www.spaceanswers.com/deep-space/ ... eat-death/

...and this is interesting:
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/20 ... verse.html

Dubious wrote: What physics was 'founded' on and what it is now are two very different stories.

No they aren't. You're confusing Newtonian mechanics with Newtonian determinism and the determinism in modern physics is just the same as it always was. That the universe conforms to a suite of laws remains an a priori assumption just as it always was. In a non-Newtonian self-causal universe this assumption is false.

Dubious wrote: Modern physicists concern themselves very little with Newton or his great nemesis Leibniz.

This is my very point. Leibniz was right and Newton was WRONG and this makes an entire world of difference.

Dubious wrote: Even Einstein couldn't have considered all of what modern science is now in consideration of.

Einstein was emphatic that his models of relativity were exclusively Newtonian models and I've never heard a physicist contradict this.

Dubious wrote:This statement is a masterpiece of simplicity.

Thank you. "simplex sigillum veri"...the simple is the seal of the true.

Dubious wrote:What it implies however is that consciousness is transformed by what enters into it which means we model reality by input and not by opinion or preconceived notions of what reality is "supposed' to be

Kant says otherwise, as does every philosopher of science in history. The input data is meaningless without a theory.

Dubious wrote:When data presents itself you have to know where to put it and how to apply within the existing paradigm

I think that's what I just said. The data is fitted into the paradigm, a methodology which kept Ptolemy's geocentric cosmology afloat for 1400 years.

Dubious wrote: Onsager's purpose was to "make possible a complete theoretical description of irreversible processes". However, I could have missed something. Since you're obviously read-up on it, would you mind explaining how it ties in with the massively slow torque of increasing entropy in the universe preempting the creation of complexity? Suns, Planets are still being created with the probability of some eventually hosting intelligent life within a universe of increasing entropy. This is such an immensely slow process which hasn't yet diminished its ability to create complexity.

The most magnificent of theories can be brought to its knees by a single inconvenient fact and that the entropy of the universe is decreasing is exactly such a fact. The big bang was DISORDERED and HOT and 13.8 billion years later the universe is now comparatively ORDERED and COLD. The direction of this trend throughout this period has been continuously from the less to the more ordered state, Do you deny this?

Attempting to refute what I'm saying about the heat death by using the model which I'm refuting does not constitute an argument. I don't dispute the fact that the paradigm requires the heat death but rather I'm pointing out that the evidence fails to support the paradigm.

Dubious wrote: But it can also be that gravity supervenes and reverses the expansion.

It's already happening. The Milky Way and Andromeda are getting married and there is every reason to suppose that similar events are occurring all over the cosmos. Humpty Dumpty is putting himself back together again.

Leo, if the universe functioned according to your speculations, we wouldn't be here talking about it. These kind of customizations are rampant on the internet - the ONLY place they'll ever show up. This fictionalizing of physics through philosophy serves no one and only misleads. Every single thought or idea that's posted or linked to is immediately overruled by you when not in conformity with your preconceptions. It seems most of the time you don't even properly read them, least of all give it a second thought.

The universe is all yours to customize as you please. If for any perverse reason I need more variety in fictional physics, there's plenty out there.

You're forgetting that this is also a legitimate scientific hypothesis because it yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify current theory by demonstrating through empirical experiment that the Cartesian space is NOT a physical property of the universe but a property of the consciousness of the observer of it. However I'm not claiming to be the inventor of this hypothesis by any means. The pre-Socratics knew it, the Hindus knew it, the Chinese knew it, the Persians knew it and Leibniz, Spinoza and Kant knew it. Once the current priesthood of physics gets its head out its arse and starts paying proper respect for the tools of human reason then they will know it also and their models will be unified.