Dear Wihelmus,

Our 'measurements' indeed are 'observations'. As are our 'understandings' measurements! In all such interactions the 'subject' and the 'object' are in 'local equilibrium of self-recognition'. We indeed influence our experiments. But not in a 'spooky way'. But because everything that comes to be known to us gets filtered through our minds.

I am not at this time puzzling over Consciousness in Physics. Quite the opposite, actually. I am arguing that in order to avoid all such metaphysical questions, Physics should be based on 'measurements' and mathematical truisms (not models) applied to measurements. And this I show is possible.

Constantinos

Jonathan, you write

"... there is a need to acknowledge that sometimes the rule we observe through physical measurement actually does arise from mathematical or geometrical rules at work, that dictate the relationship between physical objects and forces."

Indeed! These underlying 'mathematical rules at work' are the mathematical 'truisms' I argue for in my essay. Such Physical Law as, for example, Newton's Laws of Motion I show to be actually mathematical truisms. As is also Planck's Formula for blackbody radiation. Which has long been considered could only be derived as a 'physical law' based on the existence of 'energy quanta'. NOT SO! It is a very simple mathematical truism. No 'energy quanta' need apply!

Thanks for all you do ... I appreciate all your comments.

Constantinos

Hello Jason and thanks for your comment!

I am glad we agree on this and other points. Feels like 'old times' again ... look forward to more discussions.

Constantinos

Dear Daniel,

There are many fundamental assumptions physicists overlook. Their natural aversion to metaphysics is keeping them from realizing this. This is what I mean when I argue, "Ignoring 'The Metaphysics of Physics' may be physicists biggest mistake". And each of us have something very relevant to contribute. As you write, "metaphysical ''first conceptions'' may lead to new physics." Indeed. But why not seek to free Physics from all Metaphysics? I argue in my essay this is possible. I am arguing for a move away from 'physical law' and away from models of 'what is'. Which are metaphysical and we cannot know. But use mathematical truisms which we know are always true and 'measurements of what is' which we do know because we make them.

Thanks for the heads up regarding your essay.

Constantinos

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  • Post #25

"I feel that all we can do is take a particular metaphysical position, develop a physical theory upon it and check it with experiments."

Well written. Without checking assumptions via experiments, we arrive again and again at metaphysics. The experiment is the key of science, consistency is the key to metaphysics and maths - but not sufficient for physics.

Dear Michael,

Certainly checking our hypotheses through experiments is fundamentally important. I agree. But you seem to think that is all we need to do not to "arrive again and again at metaphysics". A central argument in my essay is that the very asking and answering the question 'what is the Universe' is metaphysical in essence! Thus, all mathematical models that seek to describe 'what is the Universe' are metaphysical and doomed to ultimately fail. Knowing 'what is the Universe' is no more possible than knowing truly another person.

As I argue in my essay, we may have reached a stage in our technology and our manipulation of Nature where we are now able to create 'outcomes' we design into our instruments. The Reality some of our instruments reveal may be of our own making!

Constantinos

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  • Post #27

Constantinos,

When you consider some of the ideas and patches put up in recent decades, the spouse is not only intelligent but stark raving crazy.

John, good point!

We wrongfully associate intelligence with wisdom and truth. To the contrary. Too often, the more intelligent and knowledgeable someone is the more theoretic chimeras they are able to create and throw in the path to truth. Then 'ordinary people' are needed to bring us back to our senses!

Constantinos

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  • Post #29

Hi Constantinos,

can you give some explicit examples concerning QM and Special Relativity that "The Reality some of our instruments reveal may be of our own making!"?

Thank you,

Michael

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    • Post #30

    Constantinos,

    I think physics boils down to a cycle of expanding energy and contracting mass and that the intellectual process is a reflection of this. Like flowers in the spring, ideas explode out of possibilities, than a few become centers of attraction, to which others gravitate. Then it quickly becomes a popularity contest and the favorites can do no wrong and become ever less subject to objective scrutiny, as believers circle and add their weight, while skeptics, being of negative attraction, radiate to other interests. Eventually though, they implode and blow off most of the energy, leaving just a dense cinder, like a bankrupt company reduced to its hard assets. Even epicycles produced much that was conceptually useful.

    John,

    You could just as easily be describing the life cycle of metaphysical movements! It's the reason why truth can be revealed through anyone. Furthermore, we can never know before hand who that may be or what that truth is! Yet, physicists in judging do so with a fixed view in mind. The great disadvantage being in the box! When it comes to Modern Physics, physicists are at a disadvantage! Contrary to popular belief.

    Hello Michael,

    I do in my essay! Check the Kate Becker quote in it and my comments to it. Also, I raise the same question in relation to the recent Higgs boson announcement. One final important point. You rightfully quoted me as saying "may be of our own making!". The "may" makes this statement a hypothetical. Important and relevant to be seriously considered, however. But don't expect more than that from me! I am not a physicist. And so my knowledge and expertise is limited. But just because I am not a physicist, I may be bringing into consideration a larger perspective. Clear and not cluttered by the numbing technical and theoretical detail.

    But what really convinces me I MAY be right are the very many paradoxes and unrealities Physics itself is presenting as how "reality is". And how these can be explained by my simple hypothetical observation and the abuse of math in Physics (see my essay). It certainly explains Kate Becker's dilemma that (paraphrasing) "somehow light knows what kind of experiment it enters in and adjusts its behavior to it".

    Constantinos

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    • Post #33

    Constantinos,

    What Tunisian fruit seller, setting himself on fire, will blow up everything else. There is a non-linear logic to this though, because in the latter stages of any system, where corruption is evident(mutiverses, anyone?), but those most invested in it are at the height of their powers and actively quash dissent, so the more evident pressure releases are closed off, or redirected in ways to benefit the system(tea party). So the pressure builds, until some untended little tear or crack goes viral. As I said earlier, history will look back on the hunt for the Higgs as the apogee of this static, math based physics, for the simple reason that it leaves little to nothing for future generations of physicists to do, other then either worship at the alter of twentieth century physics, or pull at its many loose ends. Our only question is whether it will be a long bumpy ride down, or is there some cliff it will fall off of?

    Know any popular writers, with some serious interest in science, but not too dependent on the physics establishment, that would write an entertaining book of the many issues and characters, while keeping it light and directed enough to appeal to a large audience? Well done and it could be a major best seller. Stir up the physics community like a rock through a hornets nest and that would be all the publicity you would need.

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    • Post #34

    Dear Constantinos,

    the Kate Becker quote on the double-slit experiment simplifies the experimental results of those experiments. Of course you can detect interference in double-slit experiments with detectors instead of screens.

    The quote "if you're looking for a wave, light will act like a wave. Seek a particle, and light will be every inch a particle" is also, - Sorry Kate Becker! - nonsense and shows that she hasn't understood recent experiments or needs some publicity. Finding wave-like or particle-like behaviour has nothing to do with the difference between detectors and screens!

    Michael Lee

      Hi Constantinos:

      I enjoyed reading your clear and well-written essay describing the physics' mathematical descriptions as metaphysical and not true representation of reality.

      I agree with some of the thoughts presented in your paper, especially - " ..the elaborate 'math tricks' taken as 'real'" by quantum Magicians, such as 'time travel', 'backward causation', multiverses, multi-dimensions, and 'a dead-alive cat' and so on. These may only be artifacts of mathematical tricks without any real proof of existence or experience by human senses.

      However, you may possibly like to reconsider or reword your statement - "All math models of Physics that seek to describe what is the Universe lead eventually to metaphysical nonsense and unreality" after you read my posted paper -" From Absurd to Elegant Universe". Your statement holds true about QM and GR, because they are not complete universal theories due to the missing physics that leads to singularities, paradoxes, and inconsistencies addressed in my paper. However, a complete theory that is also validated against universal observations could reveal a more accurate picture of reality as described in my paper.

      I would invite you to read my paper and would greatly appreciate your comments.

      Mathematics must be complemented as a tool just as the test data. Either mathematics or experimental results, when used alone without complementing each other, could be erroneously interpreted to provide incomplete and hence false information about reality. Having been involved in carrying out large scientific test programs, the experience shows that most successful test program requires a well-thought pre-test analysis (mathematical) as well as a post-test analysis to make sense. One is incomplete without the other. Hence, your statement - "Physics happens at the point of measurement" represents only half-truth since the measurements may be incomplete or erroneous or misinterpreted without their mathematical verification. I would like to suggest that "Physics happens at the point of both mathematical and measurement validation at a universal scale when no singularities or inconsistencies remain."

      Also, physicists who are "churlish" toward philosophy must remember that the highest degree or academic honor in physics they can earn from a university is - "Doctor of Philosophy or Ph. D."

      Regards

      Avtar

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        • Post #36

        I write to you now from a condensed matter counsel I am told will not have been discovered without the model of quantum mechanics to guide us to its eventual application to let you know I loved the essay. There is a lot for me to comment on, especially your appreciation of what is obvious to your senses and how measurements themselves are presumtptious, but I have to get home to my wife. I will like it if you read my essay and tell me what you think. Geometric and Nongeometric Interaction.

          Dear Michael,

          Let's not singularly pick on Kate Becker! Especially since she is not available to defend herself. The isolated quote by me surely does not tell her whole story. But even the revered Richard Feynman said more or less the same thing, as I recall reading! So this is a belief and an explanation that has been entertained (and entertaining) for sure!

          Your counter argument on "screens vs. detectors" is but a 'smoke screen' and not at all relevant to my main point of contention. Namely, our instruments may be detecting experimental outcomes they are designed by us to detect. Thus, they may be determining the Reality we theorize. For the 'same input', different instruments will detect different outcomes according to our design.

          This is only a suggestion! I can do no more than raise that possibility. But in the backdrop of all the paradoxes of modern physics, it may be well worth considering!

          Constantinos

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          • Post #38

          Dear Constantinos,

          i only picked on Kate Becker because with her article she diffuses the simple observations made in such experiments. Because many people like you, that are not familiar with those experiments, then pick up those quotes as you`ve done with your reference [21] in your essay. I mention this because i feel that it isn't good for discussing the fundamentals of human cognition or physical reality to rely on secondary or third hand sources without proving them and spread news that aren't new nor correct. That was my motivation on this issue and to give you feedback to your essay. I think, concerning the false statements of Mrs. Becker, that you took them for granted because you want to find what you are looking for. Namely "We observe what the apparatus is designed by us to tell us".

          Further you can in no logical way deduce due to her statements that light does not know what kind of experiment it is entering - but surely you also cannot deduce the opposite of it due to her statements. It even could logically be the case that we only see one aspect amongst many from the nature of light in such experiments.

          As you hopefully see, it is a qualitative difference (not a quantitative one) between an interfernce pattern built over time in single-particle double-slit experiments and a pattern that only builts up behind the two slits over time in single-particle double-slit experiments. But both the interference pattern and the slit's pattern can be detected with one and the same instrument. The qualitative difference between both patterns is that in the first case the detector (screen or something else) detects a certain percentage of particles at places where in the second case are constantly only a few or no particles detected.

          Sorry for my harsch critisicm, but that's what i have to say to your considerations despite of any wishfull thinking how nature should be to fit in a certain sheme.

          Michael

          John,

          Are you suggesting I popularize my essay into a book? Intriguing idea! Know of any publishers that would publish me?

          Eric Brunhouse,

          I am glad you loved my essay! We cannot know 'what is' the Universe and any model of 'what is' (whether mathematical or not) is metaphysical and will ultimately fail. In order to save Physics from such fate, I propose Physics should be based on 'measurements of what is' (what we can know) and mathematical truisms applied to measurements (what we know to be logically certain). I show Basic Law of Physics (such as Newton's Laws of Motion, Planck's formula for blackbody, Schroedinger's equations, de Broglie equations, and many others) are mathematical truisms and not universal physical laws describing 'what is' the Universe. Furthermore, I prove the CSL Postulate of SR contradicts the Photon Hypotheses. The proof is in the End Notes of my essay.

          Anticipating misunderstandings, let me try to clear my position. I am not against Physics. Or Math for that matter. While Math only claims 'logical certainty', Physics claims the truth of 'what is' the Universe. Thus making far reaching and consequential claims on our 'belief system' as people and as civilization. When Math talks about infinite dimensional spaces, no one cares. But when Physics talks about the Spacetime continuum, everybody is affected. As this defines our Universe but contradicts our experience of that Universe. I do believe Physics has failed to provide us with a 'physical view' that makes sense. And somebody has to talk about it!

          Constantinos