Tom

Thanks for your comments. Mission accomplished. The objective was to write something that was "fun to read" Some responses.

1. I understand Metaphysics to be the study of existence / existents. I recognise two basic forms of existence: the abstract / mental / platoist; and the physical / materialistic / experiential. We study the first form of Metaphysics rationally; the second form of Metaphysics we encounter reasonably - vide my essay. Naively I regard any thing that we can experience as really existing and part of the second form of Metaphysics. I call it Naive Realism. It is the reasonable part of Metaphysics.

It seems to me that your type of Metaphysics is inchoate (and has been for 2500 years), and leads to much of the confusion I encounter in philosophic works. Philosphers, like physicists and mathematicians, need to do better. However, this is not necessarily a philosophic problem; more a linguistic one - syntactical not semantic.

2. I am not sure what you regard as my premise. My implicit reasonable premise in the context of this competition is that any advocacy of "Naive Realism" is inviting rejection from professional physicists, mathematicians, and most philosophers. Other scientists deal with it daily so may be more receptive. It also invites rejection from crazy amateurs with their latest greatest theory that without any empirical support solves all the problems of phsyics, even all of science. Some individuals manage to be both professional and crazy. The worst of these are essays containing lots of fashionable words and phrases but are devoid of other than mystical content. One essay of 9 pages has 3 pages of wordy "Conclusions" but no conclusion.

The anticipated emotional rejection shows up in the evaluations of my essay - which in the context of this competition is unquestionably a first class essay. Half (more than expected) of my ratings are very high and i get corresponding complimentary comments. Half are extremely low - but NO comments. Not one refutation of any of my 10 points. Very interesting but predictable from a psychological and sociological perspective.

There was no expectation that the FQXI community of professional physicists would welcome Naive Realism at all. Why should they ? It is largely irrelevant for them. Hence no such premise. I think you are mistaking some stylistic flourishes of the essay for premises. The only explicit rational premise was that everyone I know, except me, normally confuses the Rational & the Reasonable - even, as i noted, the OED ! Hence the title, which is were the premise always should be.

Edwin

Thanks for the Mermin reference.

Re 4 Colour Maps. The proof of this theorem and of FLT suggest to any reasonable person that there is something wrong with maths; and specifically with our formalisms for maps and simple equations, don't you think ?

  • [deleted]

  • Post #43

Dear Terry Padden,

You wrote what needed to be said and you said it excellently. Congratulations on both counts.

For brevity I will only comment on your point 3. I quote you, and then my comments follow immediately.

"3. Brain & Mind:" The mind is what brains do. Brains do what proteins do (If you have a problem here read the second paragraph in my essays section 2, page 2.). Proteins do what atomic systems do. The law of atomic systems is evidenced by the empirical record of quantum mechanics. I suggest the word brain be used rather than mind because the latter has too much historical baggage within its sweeping philosophical definition.

"Temporary expedients are always reasonable but the absence of Mind [brain] from physics is irrational and unreasonable." This is essentially what I say in my essay's second paragraph.

"The Mind is excluded empirically because physics only accepts physical, i.e. material, entities." The body and brain are one, because they are both made of the same "physical" things, namely proteins, which in turn are made of the "physical" elements of the periodic table. The computational brain is as inseparable from the human body as software is inseparable from hardware. This is because atomic systems inseparably behave as both. I will elaborate on this later.

"The Mind is too difficult for physics and mathematics." This is not true for the brain. On the contrary, it is quantum mechanics that shows why the brain can do what it does at the required level of molecular biology. This is why my paragraph 2, section 2, page 2 is so important, i.e. brains are protein-regulated. Proteins are self-governing electromechanical machines. That is why brains can come from eggs and sperm. Proteins have a lot in common with teletype machines because they know how to read and write to their local environment.

"(3)...the things that produce all our science, our Minds [brains], don't exist for science." I beg to differ. The brain's a priory associative learning method is founded in changing itself by trial and error as science does. In this way science did not come out of the blue. Instead the tools of science have been evolving mutation by mutation for a very long time. Thus, the brain is a good place for science, because it literally grows associatively via gene-expressed proteins throughout adulthood.

As promised above I will now elaborate on how atomic systems behave as both software and hardware. They are hardware because they are made of physical charges. Spectroscopy teaches that atomic systems are software because their electrons only change physical states in highly organized and consistent ways. In other words, atomic systems CONSISTENTLY follow rules. Otherwise, spectroscopic chemical analysis would be impossible. Consistently following rules via a table-of-instructions is the main stay of software. Electrons changing state within a p-n junction register is the main stay of artificial intelligence. It follows that a reasonable model of atoms is the Turing machine.

Once atomic systems are modeled as Turing machines, then a first principle of intelligence is its atomic table-of-instructions. A first principle of memory storage is its present eigenstates. A first principle of active memory storage is to "write" to another atomic system's eigenstates. First principles of memory access and measurement are the "reads" of another's eigenstates. A first principle of information processing (In the sense of its Latin root informare, to form, to shape, to organize.) is to "write" to another atomic system's eigenstates. Please note that all these first principles are what brains do. In other words, brains result from what atoms do and not vice versa.

Understanding the brain is not as big a problem for physics as previously imagined; reasons include. 1) Brains are made and operated by proteins that are atomic systems. 2) Atomic systems are the specialty of quantum mechanics. 3) Atomic systems, brains, and physics are all rooted in computation. 4) The function of science and computation is prediction. 5) Computers combined with mathematics and measurements are doing well predicting complex atomic systems such as the weather, which in scope is as complex as brains.

In summary, both natural brain intelligence and artificial intelligence are enabled by atomic systems, which operate at the level of quantum mechanics.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

George Schoenfelder

Terry,

I'm not sure how exactly to answer your question. Math is so big and so fuzzy,and has gone off in so many directions that I can't keep track of them all. My answer is more to the point that the major problems with physics are not due to any (almost certainly existing) problems with math, but are almost wholly due to misconceptions of physics. If my theory is true, physicists have been missing one of the four most important fields. How have they gotten around this? With the dozens of fields they have invented to solve the problems of new phenomena that have arisen over the last century. They've done heroic work, but they need to have three colors and eight gluons just to hold quarks together. These eleven parameters naturally curve-fit to match (to within a percent or so) the actual physical data, but it predicts nothing and complicates things enormously. Whereas, QED, based on two *real* fields, reaches one dozen place accuracy. And no, it's not because things are just too complicated. For an alternative that not only explains things put makes predictions, see "The Chromodynamics War". It's an unorthodox format, because this is the real world, but it will still make sense long after Higgs and SUSY are long forgotten.

Perhaps, perhaps, when the Higgs fails to show up, and SUSY, etc, then some brave physicist, somewhere, may ask, "have we been going about it all wrong?" Perhaps.

But the problem, I insist, is more in physics than in mathematics.

As for Naive Realism, Jonathan Dickau and I have just placed five or six long comments on my essay page that I think relate to Naive Realism. I would be very interested to have your opinion.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

George

Thanks for your comments.

Re point 3: We differ about Brains and Minds and Computers and QM etc.. That is OK. My essay is only diagnostic as to the cause of problems in science. The conclusions it expresses and judgements it makes are merely my opinions. I make no claims as to having solved any problems; other than trying to clarify what I see as confusion stemming from poor use of language.

I think we need to remember that the essays are (supposed to be) about Ultimate Possibilities - not immediate issues nor already developed answers.

If I understand your comments you believe you have produced a solution. I am not the judge of that, but my view is that producing a solution is one thing; selling your solution is another, and much more difficult. I am not a buyer of solutions. I am still trying to understand.

Edwin

No need to answer the question about maps; it was rhetorical. I am happy for you to define the problem your way, as physical, for you. It would not do for us all to agree. I just see things differently. Vive la difference.

  • [deleted]

  • Post #47

Hi Terry,

You wrote in part "I think you are mistaking some stylistic flourishes of the essay for premises. The only explicit rational premise was that everyone I know, except me, normally confuses the Rational & the Reasonable - even, as i noted, the OED ! Hence the title, which is were the premise always should be."

I appreciate the distinction between reasonable and rational. I agree that it is a distinction with a difference. However, your premise that science has to be reasonable is what I disagree with.

Science is, in fact, a wholly rationalist enterprise.

In your opening paragraph, all the models mentioned that you declared "unreasonable" are quite acceptable to mathematicians and physicists, as you know. We don't operate by the standard of reason; we operate by the standard of correspondence between theory and result. As Von Neumann is reputed to have said, "One doesn't understand (a mathematical method)...one gets used to it!"

Science as a whole does not promise understanding. Science promises knowledge for its own sake. That is not necessarily reasonable (in fact, most of our objective knowledge is counterintuitive); it is, however, rational.

Tom

Tom

I very much appreciate - and enjoy - your response. Another reminder for me that one cannot be too careful when using natural language to express precise notions - which is why lazy minds prefer artificial languages like maths. When communicating I tend to be too spontaneous and end up in all kinds of contradictions.

My reply was on the basis that i thought you were suggesting that my premise was "Naive Realism". In reply to your response:

1. I stated my premise was only rational. I made clear, I think, that it was not reasonable - because reason is (should be ? ) derived from empirically observed reality; and empirically, as my essay noted, the distinction is not recognised or practised, or observed. So it is only an unobservable "virtual" premise as emphasised in the Title by the use of "Shall", the future being another unobservable virtuality.

2. You wrote "..your premise that science has to be reasonable is what I disagree with. Science is, in fact, a wholly rationalist enterprise.' and "We don't operate by the standard of reason; we operate by the standard of correspondence between theory and result.

You are limiting science to facts that correspond to mathematical theory - where empirical Reason and logical Rationality coincide. I have to say this is could not be more wrong. You are limiting yourself to the known explicable sub-space of science.

Are not experiments such as the LHC part of science ? A part where we explore another sub-space, where the maths predicts something that as yet has never been experienced, the Higgs. This may be found, reasonably, NOT to exist (as Michelson found the predicted aether did not exist). In which case the theory will scientifically have to be reworked.

The reasonable validation or otherwise of rationally predicted but as yet unobserved phenomena is the sub-space of science I label "Rational but (as yet) Unreasonable". It is part of science for most scientists I encounter - but not you ?

Science also explores a 3rd sub-space where something that has been empirically observed to actually exist and provisionally labelled (e.g. Dark Energy, Dark Matter) has no theoretical, i.e., rational formulation. This exploration is carried out theoretically by attempts to formulate new theories as was done in the past for Relativity, QM, E-W unification, etc.

The formulation of new effective theories from unexplained phenomena is the sub-space I label "Reasonable but (as yet) Irrational". Most scientists I encounter consider this activity to be part of science - but you do not ?

Science operates, i.e. becomes more scientific, on the basis of these two failures of correspondence sub-spaces. Science is the investigation of "UNKNOWN" correspondences. Not the correspondences you limit it to. (Oops I meant to write "to which you limit them.".)

Incidentally limiting science to the known makes any exercise like this FQXI one about ultimates, or even tomorrows, absolutely pointless - scientifically !

I am aware that many people do limit science to the rational-only standard. I think they are being unscientific. Hence my essay. I hold science to the dual complementary standards of Rationality & Reason. Scientific practice agrees with me. The thinking of scientists may often disagree with me.

I believe that is because their sub-space labeling system is inadequate. I am not the first person to make the distinction I make, but I am the first to effectively label it the way I do in the essay - and have done myself for many years. As the first person to use this terminology to articulate this vital distinction, my essay is an exercise in educating scientists by extending their vocabulary. I don't expect to be thanked - but a few Bravos go a long way.

PS I do limit empirical reality (reason) to scientifically observed and measured facts from scientifically controlled experiments - not any old experience / opinion that someone claims is scientific. Of course thanks to the internet we are now knee deep in the 4th sub-space (not part of science) which is both unreasonable and irrational. Interestingly this can be further subdivided into (a) all words and no maths; (b) all maths and no words

  • [deleted]

  • Post #49

Dear Terry Padden,

You must admit that my reply to your quoted statement below was not that bad.

"(3)...the things that produce all our science, our Minds [brains], don't exist for science." I beg to differ. The brain's a priory associative learning method is founded in changing itself by trial and error as science does. In this way science did not come out of the blue. Instead the tools of science have been evolving mutation by mutation for a very long time. Thus, the brain is a good place for science, because it literally grows associatively via gene-expressed proteins throughout adulthood.

After all, all science results from brain activity. Yes?

As always I look forward to hearing from you.

George Schoenfelder

  • [deleted]

  • Post #50

Terry,

Being of the lazy mind persuasion has its virtues. First, let me make the point that every mathematical statement has a counterpart in natural language, though in most cases it would be exceedingly tedious and impractical to translate.

Second, science is demonstrably rational, not reasonable. (Quantum mechanics is perhaps the most dramatic example.)

You wrote, "You are limiting science to facts that correspond to mathematical theory - where empirical Reason and logical Rationality coincide. I have to say this is could not be more wrong. You are limiting yourself to the known explicable sub-space of science."

In that limit lies objective knowledge. If the facts do not correspond to mathematical theory, to what should they correspond? Your personal belief? Facts have no meaning of themselves; one constructs a theory in order to explain them. An example is the discovery of cosmic background radiation (Penzias and Mitchell). The signals mean nothing in the absence of Big Bang theory. (And in fact, this empirical support for Big Bang helped kill the once equally respected Steady State theory.)

You wrote, "The reasonable validation or otherwise of rationally predicted but as yet unobserved phenomena is the sub-space of science I label "Rational but (as yet) Unreasonable". It is part of science for most scientists I encounter - but not you ?"

What does "rationally predicted" mean? I suppose you are referring to theories, like special and general relativity, that we call "mathematically complete." That is, developed from first principles and closed in their judgments. However, theories do not have to be mathematically complete--particle phenomena were explained a posteriori and quantum mechanics is still not mathematically complete.

Science needs no reason, no justification. See David Miller's Critical Rationalism: a Restatement and Defence. Particularly the cleverly titled chapter 3, "A critique of good reasons." (Critical Rationalism is the formal name for Karl Popper's philosophy.)

Science is all theory and result. It just doesn't matter where the theory comes from--the competition for a "crazy enough" theory to capture the crazy world around us is fierce, and inspiration abounds everywhere one looks. One thing is certain, though: a falsifiable theory does not come from one's belief, philosophy or what just seems reasonable. It comes from those lazy mathematics.

Tom

  • [deleted]

  • Post #51

Mr. Padden,

You wrote, "I am trying to read all essays here and respond to all posts, so I won't have time to read any other stuff for some time, but I'll try to get round to yours. I always ignore ransom notes so there should be no problem."

Not wanting my essay to be ignored, I've spared no time, trouble, or expense to rectify the deplorable technical difficulties which conspired to give it the appearance of a ransom note. Should you ever have a few moments to look at it, you'll find an aesthetically more tolerable version of the essay here. I'd of course welcome your thoughts on it.

Cheers

J.C.N.

In case there is some misunderstanding let me clarify. You used the term"ransom note" in relation to the appearence of your essay. I tried to say that the appearance, whether or not ransom note like or not, did not matter to me - the content does.

Whether I get to reread something is constrained as a simple linear function of time - after all as you know there are no short cuts through time. My first priority is to respond to comments on my essay; my second to any discussions I am engaged in on other essays; my third to some still unread essays. Re reading has a low priority. These priorities are all biased by my own special interests, which are eclectic and dynamic.

I assume all authors have made their best efforts. I am extremely reluctant to go outside the officially published versions (e.g. I refuse to read 3 extra external pages denoted as part of the last entry published.)

  • [deleted]

  • Post #53

Mr. Padden,

We have no disagreement or misunderstanding here; I was simply updating my earlier post about the previous deplorable condition of the essay.

Cheers

  • [deleted]

  • Post #54

Terry,

I liked your essay very much.

Three dimensions and a now are very reasonable.

Don L.

George

In the context of Brains / Minds i narrow the use of "science" to denote the hard sciences (i.e. excluding the behavioural ones). Non behavioural science is materialistic and currently excludes "the MInd" from science as being non physical.

I believe the Mind is real and separate from the Brain. I am a Dualist - but not a Cartesian Dualist.

So I don't agree with you that the Brain produces science. I think the Mind does, as noted in my essay.

The behavioural sciences accept the notion of Mind but tend to relegate it to Brain function. Thus mostly they are monistic materialists. Unlike me.

This takes us into deep philosophical waters that i don't have time to explore .

Tom

The allusion to "lazy" minds was intended as self reference, not a response. I am exceptionally lazy of mind and find even mathematical language laborious. This competition has forced me to try to explain myself - with variable success. Some responses - but i think I am getting repetitive::

1. You wrote "If the facts do not correspond to mathematical theory, to what should they correspond? Your personal belief? Facts have no meaning of themselves; one constructs a theory in order to explain them. An example is the discovery of cosmic background radiation (Penzias and Mitchell). The signals mean nothing in the absence of Big Bang theory. (And in fact, this empirical support for Big Bang helped kill the once equally respected Steady State theory.)"

But there were 2 nows. The first when the experiment was conducted. The second when the better theory was promulgated. Where we seem to disagree is that I consider scientific experiments and the data they produce as being Reasonably part of science. i.e. scientific.

I accept that until a satisfactory theory emerges the explanation/interpretation of the data is subjective - but the data is not. The existence of the data is the scientific fact - not its interpretation.

You do not accept the, or any experiment as being part of science. Except retrospectively ?

Moreover the experimental data persists, e.g the Perihelion of Mercury. Theories don't, e.g Newton replaced by Relativity.

2. also "What does "rationally predicted" mean? I suppose you are referring to theories, like special and general relativity, that we call "mathematically complete."

I know nothing of Mathematically Complete. I mean something like Maxwell's E-M Theory that unifiied Electricity & Magnetism. It rationally predicted E-M waves that had never been envisaged never mind observed. Later the waves were found - again 2 nows. The prediction of them before they were found was for me Rational science.

Again, you do not accept this.

We differ. I have given 10 points supporting my argument. The essays by Norman Cook, and Ted Jacobson, and others provide other points in support. Not one of the specific points has yet been refuted as "unscientific" - except possibly by me where they are both unreasonable and irrational.

And all of them by you on principle ?.

You seem to think I am arguing against mathematics. Not true. I want more mathematics - but more effective mathematics - not less.

I rechecked the math, it's 42 Terry.

I'd like a bit less math, and I think I've proven why.

Do you think a billion Doppler formulaes floating around out in space will manage to effect the Blue Shift we get when the planet is approaching the source?

Do we not think that, althought the math describes it accurately, perhaps some physical process also needs to happen?

If you do, which I think you do Terry, you're half way to working out what's wrong with physics and what the solution is. If you go to http://vixra.org/abs/0909.0047 (via my own essay 'Perfect Symmetry' if you wish) you'll find the other half to ponder on the beach.

I thought your score was a bit too low. It's now a bit better.

Best Wishes

Peter Jackson

Peter

Thanks for your comments and support. The essay was intended to be enjoyable, and therefore interesting - one of the competition criteria, above all else.

You cannot claim priority for your discovery of 42. It was discovered some years ago by a renowned British scientist, Douglas Adams during his experiments on Cosmology - see "A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

I was never happy with his conclusions, so I determined to to find a more satisfactory answer using, as one must in science today, advanced mathematics. I tried to make the universe 43 but my sums never work out. I now have a Theory of Inflation that takes me far beyond 43. I am up to 71 but things are still not quite right. May be if I get to 72 I can get it to work. Then I'll have 2 cubed x 3 squared which is sort of symmetrical - which should please you.

After all, 42 is not a prime number. If he and you were right that would mean the universe is always at sixes and sevens !. Wait a minute, perhaps; oh no !

As for being (only ?) 1/2 right, are you trying to tell me gently that I am 1/2 wrong ? I can't accept that. It is completely out of the question. Surely I can only be 6/13 or 7/13 right / wrong - and that would destroy the symmetry.

  • [deleted]

  • Post #59

Terry,

Thank you for addressing my question.

Despite the fact that the mind--whatever it is here on earth--does not function without physical oxygen, it seems you missed my point that the adult brain in fact physically changes based on what it associatively learns from action and experiment. Likewise, the physical experiments of physics change based on what physics associatively learns from action and experiment. It would seem straightforward that they work in concert, and thus, the brain is indeed a good place for science. Furthermore, physics would be hard pressed without oxygen.

You said, "our Minds, don't exist for science." If not to learn from its mistakes, what in your opinion are mind and brain for? What am I missing?

Sincerely,

George Schoenfelder

George

Remember my essay is written to try to identify what the problem is. It does not presume to offer answers. It is interesting that you bring in Associativity. Some other essays of interest feature non-associative mathematics. The issue of Associativity is very intriguing.

Possibly we are making different distinctions between Mind & Brain. As we don't know what the Mind is, that is highly probable. I am happy for it, whatever it is, to be as dependent on Oxygen etc. as everything else about us. The Brain / Mind issue reminds me of the notorious regress in QM when trying to decide where the boundary should be drawn between evolving quantum states and classical observations.