Essay Abstract

From a formal point of view many so called unsolvable problems can be traced back to a common source, namely the category mistake, that is, the turning of an answer into a scientific question. A category mistake is committed, when categories are affirmatively associated beyond their virtual connectedness, i.e. when their sacrosanct borders are made the subject of scientific investigation. The result of doing so, I shall argue, is Time.

Author Bio

H.H.J. Luediger holds a degree in telecommunication science. His interests include the theories of language and science with emphasis on 'space' and 'time'.

Download Essay PDF File

11 days later

Addendum: I've been wondering whether, in case Kepler and Newton had never been born, we would have agreed on whether the universe is Ptolemaic or Coperincan. I doubt that this question would have been resolved, because both 'theories' were, despite the genius-stroke of Copernicus, mere empirical narratives supplemented by complex algorithmic mathematics. Much of today's discussion in theoretical physics is in a much worse position; there are not even empirical narratives - just overhyped forward-looking-statements and artist's views of the day before the Big Bang.

The difference classical mechanics made was that it brought 'motion' from the heavens down to earth by resolving the millennia-old problem of motion. And everyone equipped with a yardstick and a clock was invited to prove it wrong or turn it into business. Today's theoretical physics has withdrawn to beyond the seven mathematical mountains, where the original ideas of physics have long drowned in the too-big-to-fail of LHCs, LIGOs, computational brains, etc. pp. However, as one contestant conspicuously phrased it: "who knows what else it [the math] might be good for?"... One is tempted to think (with Shakespeare): Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

    Your essay makes a very thought-provoking and philosophical read. You question many assumptions as category errors, and you may be right. Your conclusion is Philosophical presentism, only the present is real.

    I think this is certainly a defensible position. Why do we need to think of the past as real when all we know about it are our memories and deductions in the "fossil" record that exist in our present knowledge of information, and as for the future, it has not happened yet? All we know of what is to come is uncertain predictions that we can make with our present information. If our experience is everything then it is formed from only the information that we possess now.

    If we accept this presentism then what should we say about places that are far away? Do they also not matter because it is only the information we have now that matters to our experience? Information transfer is limited by the speed of light so if time is stationary then we have no real access to places beyond our own mind.

    Dear Philip,

    Presentism (at least usually) includes acceptance that the past has existed and that the future will exist. Hence presentism is not per se objecting Time, it just holds that only the present is real. So, what I fundamentally deny is Time as such, i.e. that there is anything like Becoming or change (which Aristotle against Parmenides unfortunately associated with Time). And if the future cannot become, there is no way that there has been a past. What then remains is i) a time-less domain in which we know what we are doing (knowledge) and ii) failure (deviation from expectation, i.e. future). What we call past is a reconstruction of the failure by logically=temporally connecting knowledge elements such that the faulty present results (modernity has become addicted to the failure, which euphemistically we call progress). Also in quantum mechanics this 'error path' is misinterpreted as a real process in time. However, the analysis of the failure cannot but lead to that very failure. Then it remains only to drape the failure in myth and ideology.

    From here (I believe) it is easy to see that things happening in remote spaces are unproblematic (for us!). The invention of writing required the objectification of the phenomena, which cannot be put in symbolic form as such. In order to make writing effective there had to be rules as to how objects can be 'moved' in space such that the reader can reconstruct a phenomenal experience from the symbols (this is why we can 'disappear' into books). These rules are called grammar and extend beyond the overt to what B. L. Whorf called crypto types. Does a falling tree make a noise when no one is around to hear it? YES! - FOR US! There are, however, unwritten tribal languages with comparatively restricted grammars (e.g. without or with only rudimentary tempus system). The speakers of such language cannot think the 'world' much beyond their visual fields. Linguist D.L. Everett called the resulting worldview 'immediacy'.

    Is science the method to make the 'world' bigger?

    best,

    Heinz

    P.S. As regards e.g. the animate and inanimate the grammars of all natural languages provide the crypto types to keep these categories nicely apart. Also, most languages distinguish between many and much and we don't need to think twice to pick the right word. As regards the validity range of e.g. complex numbers or the Fourier Transform, which are not (yet?) elements of natural language, scientists need to be very careful what they apply it to, in which sense, and to what extent. Like the animate and the inanimate also natural and complex numbers or FTs and even geometrical space are not out-there - they are only for us. So - Everything Goes! - provided it is Absolutely Additive. Unfortunately we're all children of the revolution...

    11 days later

    Hi,

    Thank you for commenting on my essay. I am not sure I understand all of your essay. In my essay I talk of mistakes in understanding objects within

    infinitesimal time slices ("Now").

    All the best,

    Noson Yanofsky

      Noson,

      'Theseus Ship' is the subject of psychology and thus asking questions that have no answers. Basically it clearly demonstrates that 'things' have no existence in 'time'. This is the quintessence of my essay, namely, that the world exists in time-less knowledge and nowhere else.

      Heinz

      Hi Heinz, I have read through your essay several times. It is densely packed with ideas and I found it difficult to grasp all that you wished to convey. your reply to Noson ". This is the quintessence of my essay, namely, that the world exists in time-less knowledge and nowhere else." is helpful.

      You start by using what you call metaphor and claim there is category error in that. Your example containing "like (as if) is a simile. Likeness is not identity with. Like, as if, but not actually. The fighting man became a lion or the fighter was a lion, are metaphors and category error ensues if taken literally rather than as 'poetic' description to convey strength/power/fearsome-ness.

      "light' (EM radiation' is not the semblance of objects that can be generated from using it, nor the source of the radiation. I think we agree on that. When Feynman talks about steak he points out that there must actually be (material) steak . Saying words to the effect -the philosophers who haven't worked that out have fallen by the wayside due to hunger. He calls it a"dopey philosophical thing". Whereas the differentiation and categorization is very important. You claim that only the present knowledge exists. Bodies are not sustained by light or knowledge alone but by chemical substances.

      I consider there to be a causal chain of events leading to visual experiences. I don't think it a slice of the geometry of space-time. EM radiation is emitted or reflected from material objects. It is transmitted and some may be received by observers. The observers can use the input to generate a semblance of the sources at emission or reflection of the radiation. The conscious awareness of the generated semblance is something new.

      Non simultaneity off observed presents is also relevant. An observation product, pertaining to a particular event, may not yet have been produced by one observer but be part of the present of another observer closer to the material event. Absence from one of the observers presents does it make that event false. Just not yet known by him /her/it.

      Despite not being in agreement with your premise I do think that categorization and time are problems in mainstream physics and it is good that you have identified them as problematic.

      Kind regards Georgina

      a month later

      Heinz,

      Having re-read your essay, I now better understand your comment.

      You conclude your essay: "The only reality there is, is a timeless present."

      I won't say that you are wrong. Back in the day I got very excited about Marshall McLuhan, Hayakawa, and languages. I certainly like your relation of Absolute non-contradiction to orthogonality.

      But, aside from cocktail conversation, I'm not sure where one goes with this. Using metaphor, it's as if your universe is somewhere between the all encompassing connectedness of a cross between an LSD experience and solipsism.

      I'm all for both, but on normal days I have numerous 747's fly over my ranch on the VOR radial descending into SFO, and I don't think that happens under LSD or designed by solipsists.

      My essay pushes (3+1)D-ontology, also called presentism, and it is a functional model that approximates the reality you describe, but far more useful, in my opinion, than going overboard about the reality of time. I do thing category errors are worthwhile indicators of heretofore unseen error, and I believe you have applied it well toward QM, but I'm not sure categories are good for much else.

      My two cents.

      Thanks again for reading my essay and commenting. I did enjoy your essay.

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman,

      all you say above is at least somehow arguable, except one thing, namely that my ideas "are the all encompassing connectedness of a cross between an LSD experience and solipsism". And I would even be prepared to argue for solipsism - but not the LSD thing.

      LSD leads to the fusion of categories (objects, forms, colors, sounds, odors...etc.) and thus destroys the 'world' as we know it by dissolving the metaphors that allow us to recognize and verbally combine these categories. LSD is a speech-killer, what it leaves behind is chaotic sensations! And this is precisely what happens in pseudo-science: the a posteriori 'empirical' connection of things which have a priori been taken apart - post-modernity in its purest form. Hence my swipe on artists in the introduction of my essay.

      Thanks for the parole, otherwise this brilliant analogy would have never crossed my mind!

      Heinz Luediger

      Dear Heinz

      Short essay but a lot of well-written philosophical reflections. It seems that you have a great background on philosophical matters. Although I have studied some philosophy, it is formally not my field, so I have no criticisms on your work.

      Good luck in the contest!

      Israel

      8 days later

      Dear Heinz

      You have presented a very deep analytical and philosophical essay with important conclusions for the scientific community ... I think that Pavel Florensky is right: "We repeat: worldunderstanding is spaceunderstanding". Fundamental science "rested" in the understanding of matter, understanding of space. The result is an understanding of the phenomenon of time and consciousness. To understand is to "grasp structure" (G. Gutner "Ontology of mathematical discourse"). What kind of structure? Primordial, the same for physicists, mathematicians, biologists, information workers, poets and composers . Big philosophical naivety when physicists instill the hypothesis of the Big Bang into society. The problems of modern science have their roots in the cognitive attitudes of modern science: "Physics, fear metaphysics!" The 20th century has shown that it is necessary to "dig" deeper to the most remote meaning-distinguishable depths. Now, I hope, many theoretical physicists will support the appeal of Carlo Rovelli Physics Needs Philosophy / Philosophy Needs Physics K.Rovelli poses the ontological questions first: "What is space?", and then - "What is time7" ... The idea of ​​the need for the most profound metaphysics the doctor of physical and mathematical sciences Y.Vladimirov, the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Metaphysics , has long approved and holds in his concept. Obviously, it's time to enter the board with the philosophical precept of John Archibald Wheeler at the entrance to many research physics institutes:"Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers"...  I am scoring your essay the highest rating and wish you success.

      Best regards

      Vladimir

        Dear Vladimir

        thanks for your benevolent review and rating of my essay! The tempus forms in ancient languages (e.g. Greek of the classical period) were not only inferior to aspect and Aktionsart, but just related the narration relativ to its content. Only the modern concept of there being universal time (and hence universal history) led to the association of grammatical tempus with TIME. So, yes, space is the dimension in which understanding (note the '...standing') takes place.

        I will read your essay and comment it.

        Heinz

        Hello Heinz

        Yes, one must dig into the etymology of many languages well in the categories of "space" and "time" in order to get to the bottom of their nature ... The mystery of time 竊' in the mystery of rhythm. The mystery of rhythm 竊' in the mystery of space. The mystery of space 竊' in the mystery of matter. The mystery of matter 竊' in the mystery of the "Logos". The mystery of the "Logos" 竊' in the mystery of the dialectic of the "coincidence of opposites", the absolute forms of the existence of matter: absolute rest and absolute motion. The mystery of the dialectic of the absolute rest and absolute motion 竊' in the mystery of the primordial generating structure. The mystery of the primordial generating structure 竊' in the mystery of the ontological (cosmic, structural) memory 竊'... Big stop for thinking. Finding the way 竊' ...

        I look forward to your questions and critical comments of my ideas on my forum.

        Vladimir

        11 days later

        category mistake maybe a description of ourmodels of describing reality .very true. I was musing on How these inherent problems may be a product of human bias. old read my take here https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3525.all the best

        16 days later

        Dear Heinz

        Glad to read your work again.

        I greatly appreciated your work and discussion. I am very glad that you are not thinking in abstract patterns.

        "Today's theoretical physics has withdrawn to beyond the seven mathematical mountains, where the original ideas of physics have long drowned in the too-big-to-fail of LHCs, LIGOs, computational brains, etc. pp."

        While the discussion lasted, I wrote an article: "Practical guidance on calculating resonant frequencies at four levels of diagnosis and inactivation of COVID-19 coronavirus", due to the high relevance of this topic. The work is based on the practical solution of problems in quantum mechanics, presented in the essay FQXi 2019-2020 "Universal quantum laws of the universe to solve the problems of unsolvability, computability and unpredictability".

        I hope that my modest results of work will provide you with information for thought.

        Warm Regards, `

        Vladimir

        Write a Reply...