An Essay Concerning Human Misunderstanding: Why It Cannot Be Inferred From Empirically Acquired Information That The Higgs Boson Has Been Observed by Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet

Marcoen

"Could you explain what you mean by "there is no way in which we can differentiate reality to the level at which it occurs".

The physical existence knowable to us (science is concerned with know, not belief, and know is the function of a physical process, not philosophy) involves physical occurrence and difference (ie there is alteration). Therefore physical existence is existential sequence, as that is the only way to encompass both. That is, there is a sequence of definitive, discrete physically existent states, which means only one (ie a reality) occurs at a time.

We know this because we know things change. But that is where our conception of what is happening goes wrong. We conceive of physical existence in terms of 'things', which then change in some way or other, but that is incorrect. Because we are conceptualising physical existence by virtue of superficial physical attributes, ie at a higher level than what occurs. Following the logic of existence/difference what ultimately occurs at any time is the physically existent state of something. This involves a vanishingly small duration and degree of alteration, which is only calculatable mathematically. Although I am never keen on making such assertions, there really can be no doubt that we cannot actually (ie in experimentation, etc, differentiate this). Or at least anybody who says they have needs to be treated with a substantial degree of scepticism. [Incidentally I do not think this is Planck either, because that is associated with light, remember we receive a light representation of what is actually occurring]. Put simply, chair, dog, etc are not entities which persist in existence in the same format, or with change, which is a contradiction. The superficial physical attributes by which we identify it persist. Chair, etc, is a singular physically existent state a any given time.

Now, if you have followed that you are probably thinking that this covers the ground of QM. Which of course it does, and properly, because there is only one form of physical existence, and existence does not involve any form of indefiniteness, which is what QM presumes. Just precisely how something can exist, but in an indefinite way, needs to be explained! And of course one of the rationalisations of this contradiction is then the role of observation, the problem with that being that what occurred happened before it was observed! The point here is that the logical outcome of physical existence has been misconceived, so it has become tainted as 'classical'/two-dimensional, and overtaken by the 'relative/indefinite' model, which is incorrect. That is, had the former been understood properly, then the latter would never have gained traction. But either way, the 'bottom line' of physical existence is not actually identifiable for real, only conceptually, which is acceptable so long as that is based on a valid model of physical existence.

Paul

Marcoen

I agree with you, but think you are in danger of 'splitting hairs' and 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.

However, see my response above, because the key to this in general, as opposed to any specific manifestation, is what is physical existence and how must it occur.

Paul

Yes, an inductive method can only SUPPORT, not prove or confirm any theory.

Overstatements like this are common in science today.

But what did you mean that we can't know the Higgs particle in itself?

The mind can know what's presented to it by the 5 senses, by which we know the

external properties, characteristics or accidents of objects.

But give us an example of a particle we know intrinsicly, in itself....

or anything we know in itself.

I thought someone would cover the logical contradiction posed by the Higgs claim

to be the source of mass for all particles - the 'God' particle.

If the claim is true, where does the Higgs get its own mass?

Marcoen,

You wrote: "The point of the essay is that the CMS experiment at the LHC has found the Standard Model to be "correct", but it hasn't found the Standard Model to be "complete". The difference is not trivial."

Actually, the LHC results did not prove the Standard Model is *incorrect*. *Complete* is an unachievable ideal since our intellectual capabilities are limited. These differences are not trivial, but are sensible enough that all physicists should know them and appreciate them, especially when they make judgments on theories outside their own belief systems.

Rick

Marcoen,

I suppose this puts you in the class of the "most curmudgeonly." :-)

As you yourself say, though, we never have observed any elementary particle "itself." We know -- even particle physcists know -- that elementary particles may not even exist. The general public? -- most don't know a boson from a boombox. That isn't the fault of scientists or a failure of science.

What we do know exists -- like the tracks of a unicorn -- is the product of physically real events. If one were speaking of cows rather than unicorns, one would be able to compare the hoof of a real cow with an imprint, which need happen only once; cow tracks thereafter imply cows.

Particle physicists, constructing the classes of tracks that make up the standard model, calculated those identities in advance of looking for them. So even even though experimentalists don't "see" the "thing" that leaves a track, nor even if there is a thing, they know when the tracks predicted by theory correspond to the evidence of physically real events.

Neverthless, your point is well taken and well argued.

Tom

Hi Marcoen,

I think that the case of the Higgs boson hiding in the upper range of the energy field is analogous to a unicorn hiding in a nearly impenetrable thicket. If one doubts the existence of a unicorn, one cannot doubt that the tracks we observe leading from the thicket when we set it afire differ from any tracks we have detected from any creature known before. It really doesn't matter whether we call the result a Higgs boson or a unicorn, the theoretical prediction is that a hot enough blaze will produce the signature of a creature that might exist but has never before been seen.

I disagree with Rick that the LHC result is of the logical form modus tollens, rather than the positive modus ponens form you cite above. For this reason: If the LHC experiment failed, one could always say that the fire was not hot enough. The prediction wouldn't change, just the experimental parameters. The same is true of proton decay -- Georgi-Glashow originally predicted proton half life on the order 1 X 10^31 years and it now stands at least four orders of magnitude longer.

Don't misunderstand me -- I'm a theorist and have nothing to do with the experimental culture and I don't really care much for the particle zoo that the standard model has birthed. I just know that formal logic has nothing to do with that culture, either. What you see is what you get, and one only sees evidence of existence, not anything real in the sense of, say -- a hammer that one can put to use, or a physically existing unicorn that can be harnessed and saddled.

All best,

Tom

Tom,

My issue with Marcoen's statement was the lack of scope applied to the word "correct" in its application to the theory. So it is a premise issue and not an application of logic issue. I think there is more agreement here than you claim bringing LC in also, and it is imprecision of language applied rather than fundamental difference.

The premise "if a theory predicts an outcome, and the outcome is found through experimentation, then the theory is correct" is false by such imprecision of language. The theory may have been only able to predict the single outcome experimentally verified yet produce a host of other predictions invalidated by other experiments, making it an incorrect theory. The lack of appreciation for this is the virus creating the pervasive mental defect in many theoretical physicists, a bit of a double edged sword though since it provides necessary motivation. In the Higgs/LHC experiment, there was an opportunity to invalidate the theory which did not come to be, so the true assertion is the theory was not negated, not that it was found to be correct without qualification or narrow scoping like correctly stating the expected collision energy produced the expected decay products and nothing more. As Marceon correctly states, it is difficult to assume the Higgs particle was found if high energy physics is not your thing and you have not taken the leap of faith that the production of the correct byproducts imply the existence of the whole no matter how short lived the whole is in the experimental setting even though the whole is never directly detected.

As for Higgs theory validation, be careful with what you assume, for there is not necessarily group think between theorists and experimentalists even at CERN. I attended the last Robert Hofstadter Memorial Lecture at Stanford this April. I had the good fortune to have Dr. Hofstadter as my Mechanics professor at Stanford, but I digress. The invited speaker was the charming Dr. Fabiola Gianotti. If you are unfamiliar with her, she is a Senior Research Physicist at CERN, and the ATLAS experiment's spokesperson. She is an experimentalist deeply involved with the Higgs search, and made it completely clear in her talk the results found were not a validation of the Higgs theory in its totality even though she is quite certain they found what they set out to look for. This impressive woman is well grounded in reality.

Rick

Hi Rick,

I'll second Marcoen's opinion. Well said. Any disagreement we have ever had is over detail, not principle.

My own worldview, including my view of science and its role in objective knowledge, has taken quite a turn in the last few years -- though I find it as true as ever that no science is objective without strict correspondence between theoretical prediction and physical result, my opinion is softening in favor of that which you and Marcoen share, with a caveat:

You speak often of reality; the implied assumption is that something is "really" there. I don't think experimentalists start with such an assumption. They are working within theoretical limits -- parameters that are adjusted according to experimental evidence -- as the saying goes, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Hence, my comments on adjusting the "unification energy" upward.

You're right, though, this doesn't indicate what "reality" is -- only where certain limits lie. The reality of the question is impossible for any experiment to answer: what happens when an absolutely hot body meets an absolutely cold surface? That's why I'm more comfortable with the degrees of freedom that theory affords to bound those limits.

Where I differ with you and Marcoen, though, is that I don't call that "reality," either. I still maintain that reality has nothing to do with objective knowledge.

All best,

Tom

Sure, Marcoen. Just to recapitulate and expand the points I made in the post that started this thread:

None of us are sure that fundamental particles exist as physically independent, real things (" ... having a physical effect ... not affected by physical conditions.")

The products of physically real things -- what we measure following an event -- only tell us that the event was made of smaller though more energetic things that we cannot say existed "before" we observed the event; i.e., we don't know that those elements whose tracks we record are causal. If we knew that they were, we could say that the unicorn was responsible for creating everything, and the tracks that he left are his signature.

OTOH, if the field is real and causal, the unicorn and his tracks are from one and the same continuous source. Field theoretical predictions apart from the standard model of particle physics, are invested in general relativity, quantum field theory and string theory. If the field is irreducible -- where, how? Our measured values are not good enough to tell us that that they existed before we made a measurement; the objective knowledge that we glean from a measurement, therefore, is independent of the source. Does the wavefunction collapse to a unicorn and the tracks he left, which implies an observer quantum entangled with the unicorn -- or does the wavefunction never collapse, which implies that the observer is continuous with the unicorn's creation?

My bet is on door number two. Wheeler's participatory universe.

Tom