Dear Aditya,

thanks for the comments; they are interesting, indeed.

I think you have quite well understood our essay. The issue you point out it is an actual one, namely how to discriminate the philosophical prejudice from the rest of the theory. This is in fact, the diffcult part. However, there a re ways to do it, by means of a clear falsifiable formulation of the "prejudice". If you read the section about quantum physics, you can see what I mean by this. Kochen-Specker and Bell's theorems are two pivotal instances of this process. They found a way to put to the test some ideas which were considered a prioori assumptions in the philosophical background. What I assert, is also that if we assumer a "pre-falsificationist" methodology, namely an empiricist one, it is virtually impossible to achieve this. It it the theory which guides our experiment to test theories.

Your essay surely provide also interesting views (I have very positively commented and rated it!), yet I am concerned with the actual practice of scientists, as also Popper partly was.

Thank you again for your contribution.

Good luck,

Flavio

Dear Flavio,

Aristarchus' heliocentric world model was refuted on empirical grounds, namely, that the involved rotation of the Earth would cause a permanent eastern storm - which was not observed, however. Empirical observations make sense only in the widest context of theories (and this is what Kantian experience (Erfahrung) is all about). Hence Popper's dictum that sentences can only be falsified by sentences - never by (empirical) observations (see LHC, LIGO, etc.)

Heinrich

Flavio,

Thanks, yes Aspect, Weihs, (with Anton Z) etc etc of course, but I'm referring to a classical violation >2, shocking & quite unbelievable I know, which is why I'd like you to check it out. My essay includes the experimental protocol (and photographs), and I identify how it corresponds to John Bells 'guess' on how it would one day be achieved.

It doesn't actually 'falsify QM' in toto but does falsify the interpretation that only 'weirdness' can produce the correlations, and offers classical physical explanations for EVERY phenomena within QM including 'superposed states,' apparent non-locality, non-integer spin etc. You appreciate it really would cause major ructions if it's correct so needs rigorous falsification! I promise it's worth the time to look.

Also see Declan Trails code, giving the same results as my (cheaply repeatable) experiment and ontology.

You may wish to also check out my (top community placed) 'Red/Green Sock trick' essay 2yrs ago.

Very best and thanks in anticipation

Peter

Chiara and Flavio

Thanks for a very good article. It is very well in agreement to mine. I have described that there were many errors before Lorentz and these have been covered by more and more errors, and therefore the method of correcting errors cannot longer work.

This means that we should instead focus on finding the FIRST error. I think you would be interested if you took a look at my article.

Good luck and regards from _____________ John-Erik Persson

    Hi Flavio, I found your essay very readable and sensible.i do agree with you that the falsification of science is extremely important. You have focused on experimental falsification by comparison of hypothesis to the'real world'. There are many other important ways science can be evaluated and potentially falsified. On logic, on mathematical correctness, on methodology, (such as using appropriate controls and replication), on statistical correctness and statistical significance.

    Example: Einstein's light clock thought experiment is built on an incorrect assumption about light. Light is a periodic phenomenon and it is a mathematical fact that periodic motion is invariant under translation. So the conclusion moving clocks run slow can not be made from that experiment, as set out.

    (Although the moving clock will be seen to run slow because light must travel further from the clock to the stationary observer over the duration of a tick to be seen.That is the important difference in what is happening rather than the incorrect longer path between mirrors.)

    The clock itself is not affected by how it is seen and a co-moving observer could see the not slowed tick just the same as when the clock is stationary.This leads to a strange situation where a real life experiment is carries out purporting to support the moving clocks run slow conclusion, based on the incorrect assumption about light. I don't think the number of replications has been sufficient. Also since it should not have been slowed because of the fact about periodic motion perhaps there have been some unaccounted for factors affecting the frequency matching timing. This may seem irrelevant but I'm trying to show that reliance on experimental falsification alone may not be adequate, and it may bot be necessary if other kinds of analysis have been done, identifying error.

    Another issue is that there is reward for publishing and not for identifying own errors or omissions delaying or halting work, and for negative findings not considered worth publishing. There is also the problem of what happens when work is falsified or discredited by others. It can affect credibility of science as a whole, reputations and livelihoods. So the best part, that allows true progress is also not without problems.

    Kind regards Georgina

      Hi Flavio, actually the mistake I wrote about is probably better described as a physics error that leads to the wrong calculation, rather than a mathematical error (Which would be just getting the maths wrong.) I think the fact that the thought experiment involves mathematics, gives the false impression that the conclusion must be correct because the calculation is correct. There being a kind o bias in physics in favour of mathematics because of its precision and objectivity. However that precision and objectivity does not make its use infallible.There can be correct mathematics for an incorrect theory, hypothesis, thought experiment or model.I thought that an interesting bias worth mentioning.As in your essay you talk about bias, such as in favour of reductionism.

      Hi Flavio:

      I highly appreciate Your statement "Commonly accepted views on foundations of science, of fundamental entities are here rejected" see also my proposals in my introduction:

      Neil Turok said recently: "And so we have to go back and question those founding principles and find whatever it is, whatever new principle will replace them.". Cheers Leo

        Hi Leo,

        Flavio wrote: "I am limiting myself to a review of important results, by now very well established, on the fundamental difference between quantum and classical physics."

        Doesn't this admission contradict to your quotation of Neil Turok?

        I don't see it my business to advocate for or against Alan Kadin, Declan Traill, Robert McEachern, and Joy Christian. However, don't they deserve getting proved either correct or wrong?

        Cheers,

        Eckard

        Dear Georgina,

        many thanks for your valuable comments. After your second message, I think I see your point. Surely interpretations are at the core of science, and this notion is fortunately coming (back) a bit more often also in orthodox science. Correct calculations per se have nothing more than an easthetic value (please, see the part of my essay dealing with conventionalism).

        Also, following your example, and the ideas behind it, we surely have to think of the epistemological power of Gedankenexperimenten, which are an essential theoretical tool. This, however, allows no more than to test the internal consistency of theories.

        When it comes to put forward statements that claim to be about natural sciences, one necessarily has to interact with the "world out there". So, as I quote in my essay, I agree with Feynman's words: "[scientific] method is based on the principle that observation is the judge of whether something is so or not. [...] Observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea".

        Otherwise, any beautiful, consistent, simple collection of statements could be considered a scientific theory, don't you agree?

        Anyway, I think we pretty much agree, it was just a clarification of my thoughs.

        Thank you again, and all the best,

        Flavio

        Hi Leo,

        many thanks for your appreciative words.

        Contrarily to what was replied by Mr. Blumschein, who he feels apparently entitled to interpret my words out of their context, I obviously agree with Turok's quotation. Questioning the foundations is for me one of the prime aims of science, and I glad that you, Leo, saw a strong connection with the approach I showed in my essay and this ideas.

        Thank you again for your contribution.

        Best wishes,

        Flavio

        Dear Mr. Persson,

        thanks for your appreciative words.

        We will gladly look at your article and comment in the dedicated discussion thread.

        Good luck, and best wishes,

        CHiara and Flavio

        Dear Flavio Del Santo and Dr Chiara Cardelli

        You wrote: "Tackling the question of "what is fundamental?" seems to boil down, in one way or another, to the long-lasting problem of reductionism."

        I have concluded from my deep research that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

        Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

        Flavio, whether interpretation is at the core of science is debatable. I agree with you. I think it is our explanatory frameworks that let us make sense of the world, whether true or not -and science is about (or at least in my opinion should be about) understanding not just data collection and calculation. Mathematics in physics seems to be elevated in importance in contrast to your view, as mere aesthetics. I think its place is somewhere in between. A theory should be able to be represented with mathematics, which as well possible utility allows another kind of evaluation. Gedanken experiments also help convey ideas and can provide check-able mathematics.

        Re. Using observation as "the ultimate judge of the truth of an idea" (as you say). It does not work for Relativity because the error is in the a priori structure used to evaluate the results. What is being investigated is already assumed as causal and not consequence of what has happened to the EM signals. An example: Gravity probe B (operational 2004-11.) Testing " 1) the geodetic effect--the amount by which the Earth warps the local spacetime in which it resides; and 2) the frame-dragging effect--the amount by which the rotating Earth drags its local spacetime around with it." NASA, Gravity probe B in a nutshell, Nasa.gov pdf. Predictions of the theory confirmed. Though the predictions are confirmed it does not mean the spacetime explanatory construct is correct. The effects on the signals received by the telescopes can appear to corroborate external spacetime curvature, Yet the apparent spacetime is the consequence of what has happened to the light and not cause of the effect. Observation is not in this case the ultimate judge of truth. It is unintentionally deceptive.

        Which is to make my point that, in a way, to emphasize experimentation over all other kinds of evaluation is also another kind of bias. Re pretty statements... to be science they must be scrutable and vulnerable to disproof in some way, not necessarily by experiment. Self consistent but irrefutable statements are not in themselves science but an explanatory framework may require some philosophical foundations that are accepted as necessary for comprehension.

        This is just meant as food for thought. Not in any way as a disrespect for the views expressed or the devaluation of the essay. Kind regards Georgina

        Flavio,

        Given, critical arguments by Alan Kadin, Declan Traill, Peter Jackson, Robert McEachern, Joy Christian, and perhaps others too are not entirely wrong altogether, shouldn't you then be ready to go back and question "those important results, so far very well established, on the fundamental difference between quantum and classical physics" and find whatever it is, whatever alternative insight will replace them?"

        I doubt that Schulman was correct when he localized the border between micro and classical physics in terms of a length.

        Again, did you try 1609.0129 instead of 16009.0129?

        Still courious,

        Eckard

        Dear Flavio Del Santo and Dr. Chiara Cardelli,

        In qualifying the aim of the 'What is Fundamental?' essay contest, Dr. Brendan Foster, the FQXi.org Science Projects Consultant wrote: "We invite interesting and compelling explorations, from detailed worked examples through thoughtful rumination, of the different levels at which nature can be described, and the relations between them.

        Real Nature has never had any abstract finite levels.

        I have concluded from my deep research that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

        Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

        I'd like to thank Chiara Cardelli and Flavio Del Santo for their very interesting paper, which, in spite of the narrow limits imposed by the rules of the contest, made me think about the delicate problems concerning the foundations of scientific knowledge.

        My score is 'only' 9, because I would not take for granted the definitive failure of reductionism.

        As a matter of fact, in the History of Scienze, great processes of unification - and then ultimately of reduction - are rare, but revolutionary: Newton's apple, which 'downgraded' heavens to the Earth and promoted the Earth to heavens, and the atomic theory, which reduced (in the strongest sense which physicism attributes to this word) the entire chemistry to the physics, are not processes of reduction?

        Leopoldo Tansa

          • [deleted]

          • Post #41

          Dear Flavio Del Santo and Chiara Cardelli,

          In qualifying the aim of the 'What is Fundamental?' essay contest, Dr. Brendan Foster, the FQXi.org Science Projects Consultant wrote: "We invite interesting and compelling explorations, from detailed worked examples through thoughtful rumination, of the different levels at which nature can be described, and the relations between them.

          Real Nature has never had any abstract finite levels.

          I have concluded from my deep research that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

          Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

          Dear Flavio Del Santo and Chiara Cardelli,

          In qualifying the aim of the 'What is Fundamental?' essay contest, Dr. Brendan Foster, the FQXi.org Science Projects Consultant wrote: "We invite interesting and compelling explorations, from detailed worked examples through thoughtful rumination, of the different levels at which nature can be described, and the relations between them.

          Real Nature has never had any abstract finite levels.

          I have concluded from my deep research that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

          Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

          Dear Flavio Del Santo and Chiara Cardelli,

          In qualifying the aim of the 'What is Fundamental?' essay contest, Dr. Brendan Foster, the FQXi.org Science Projects Consultant wrote: "We invite interesting and compelling explorations, from detailed worked examples through thoughtful rumination, of the different levels at which nature can be described, and the relations between them.

          Real Nature has never had any abstract finite levels.

          I have concluded from my deep research that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

          Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated