Jesus, the Foundation of Science

[The_Exodus]

That is, the law of non-contradiction is part of my mental abstraction set – a tool in my mind for making sense of the world around me.

We are here agreed.

touchstone:

But that places the law of contradiction in my mind, not as physical law or some governing natural principle, right?

No, that is not and has never been the traditional stance toward the law. Descartes came along and separated thought and existence (or tried to, rather), but he was wrong.

Just because the law is a concept, does not mean it is automatically “not found” in reality. I’ve always maintained that the law is itself grasped from reality.

The two things - concepts of reality and reality – are not *mutually *contradictory. Perhaps you could show me how they are?

And, supposing you can do this, are you really prepared to go through with it – I mean all the way through? “Color,” “shape,” “size,” “matter,” etc are all concepts. Do they too not exist “outside the mind,” simply because they happen to be in the mind? Where is the mutual exclusion, which pushes one option out of the picture at the expense of the other?

If that followed, all concepts would be separated by an unpassible chasm from what lies “beyond” (whatever that is.) What then could they be concepts of? Solipsism would reign – extreme Idealism – for it is not even rational to conclude there exists *anything *outside the mind, since such a conclusion is necessarily concept dependent.

(And I don’t even mention the obvious problem with the solipsist’s justification of “I”.)

touchstone:

But below, and elsewhere, then again, it seems you are placing the law of non-contradiction “externally” as some kind of physical principle, part of the structure of reality itself, and your intuition (the abstraction in your mind) is somehow metaphysically clairvoyant in “seeing” that physical law, the object of your intuition.

Yes, that is precisely my claim. This is actually a great summary of it, minus a few words.

touchstone:

If we agree that the law of contradiction is a mental abstraction, just the presence of that intuition has NO metaphysical control over reality, right?

Correct. The abstraction as such does not control what is the case, anymore than me being in error about a particular thing – say the resurrection of Jesus – makes such a fact real. But the abstraction, insofar as it is of a universal kind or principle (and not a particular application thereof), is a true penetration into the nature of reality and being.

touchstone:

The abstraction may be wonderfully useful, partly useful, or not useful at all, but in any case, nature itself is not dependent on your and my abstraction we call the “law of non-contradiction”, correct?

Correct. There is no “control-connection” between my mind and nature, whereby nature herself bends under my thinking as such. But this does not mean that there is no connection between nature and my mind at all, nor that that connection is not a true and penetrating one.

touchstone:

I can imagine a contradictory being – a photon. That’s the whole point of the discussion about Young’s experiment above. It “exists” and “not-exists” in the same respect at the same time, and it’s not just semantics.

“A” photon then is no longer “a” any-thing, but two things simultaneously. What you are doing – using a singular term to denote a plurality of mutually exclusive existences – is absurd.

As Aristotle said to the sophists of his day: what a man says, needs not be what he thinks.

touchstone:

The mathematical formalisms of QM are the grounds for that assessment, backed up by empirical observation.

Evidence requires interpretation – which means it can be interpreted erroneously. I can imagine all sorts of evidence that could be seen as contradictory, and it always is (for that is the nature of confusion, seeing two seemingly contradictory things) until some higher synthesis comes along and puts the facts in the right place.

Any appeal you make to the unassailable god “observation” or “empirical evidence” is a misnomer, and is impotent - void of authority. Observation always requires interpretation and explanation, and I simply deny (on pain of absurdity) that you are accurately interpreting the evidence.

touchstone:

But for all we know it may be a fundamental offense to our macrophysical, human-centric intuitions.

It cannot be. There must “be” some explanatory piece of the puzzle we are missing, and, even supposing it is beyond our ken, it cannot be beyond it in such a way that is contradictory. For the contradictory is what is intrinsically impossible, unrealizable, in-coherent. We could not even denote such a “contradictoy thing” as potentially having being, for having being always implies intelligibility, or some mode of existence. If we did give such a thing being, we would be uttering an empty phrase.

If such things were “true,” all our notions of coherence would be destroyed and backwards. We could not even say such things “may be,” for that phrase would be equivalent to such things “cannot be” in our thought. Reality would be a meaningless term. Or rather it would be equivalent to un-reality, or what is not-real. All our thinking would be not-thinking. Further, there would be no intelligible difference between what is rational and irrational.

If it is not enough to show you that all thoughts (including this one and any one you may have while reading this and any conclusion you may draw or any argument you may fire back) would be incoherent; that what we meant by true would mean false, and that reason and intelligibility would be actually un-reason and un-intelligibility, I’m not sure we can continue dialogue.

 

[The_Exodus]

touchstone:

“Is” is a concept we can and have made good headway on as something we rectify with our maths and experiments, but it’s complex, and it makes Scholastic notions of “is” look child-like, insofar as they were meaningful at all in the first place.

You’re fond of derrogating Scholasticism. I personally think – based on the constant barrage of condescending language you use – that there is some psychological, Freudian insecurity lurking behind all this; or at least some triumphalist looking-down-one’s nose that gives you joy to indulge in. One does not scratch a place often unless there is an itch.

You can continue to use such language when we dialogue. It truly doesn’t bother me. I only say something to point out that an ad hominem doesn’t make an argument, nor does it move me in the least. It seems to me much rather like a child throwing a pebble at the sun

 

[hecd2]

They are extremely old notions. But that doesn’t invalidate them, necessarily.

No - sure, I agree being old does not in itself invalidate them. What invalidates them, as I see it, is the fact that they are not congruous with what we understand of the world now. On the one hand you have Aquinas claiming that one has to posit a governing intelligence to understand the behaviour of specific entities in the world (because they act to an end which is for the best) and having no real understanding of phenomena beyond the most superficial or erroneous (things fall because their natural place is the centre of the world, fire rises because its natural place is the edge of the world, and flowering plants have flowers because its their nature to do so - ‘explanations’ that really tell us nothing or misguide us - the implication and the conclusion of the Fifth Way being that they do these things because an intelligence, God, guides them to do it). On the other hand, we have a method that specifically sets aside explanations involving an intelligence, that is based on explaining phenomena without resorting to intelligent guidance and that has been spectacularly successful in developing detailed insights into how the mechanism of the world works. It seems telling that the one approach (things act for an end and the best result, guided by an intelligence) which is also the major premise in Aquinas’s argument is simply no match in performance terms for the the approach that does not require intelligent guidance for specific phenomena.

Don’t get me wrong - I am not being disrespectful to Aquinas or suggesting that he was stupid or anything silly like that. He was a man of his time, trapped in a view of the world that was of its time, as are we. Other people who I regard as magnificent intelligences and who made major contributions to our store of knowledge were fallible in the same way.

I understand your point. But it seems to me that it is the same idea dressed up in more modern language

.Well, we disagree about this. To my mind they are vastly different ideas. I can’t even see how Aquinas’s ideas about natural phenomena are steps on the road to a modern understanding. They are different in character and in many cases, Aquinas’s are just plumb wrong. Reasonable in his time, but wrong. I understand that you’re not a scientist, so it might be difficult for you to see as plainly as I do how the ideas are different, but they are. Modern science really isn’t Aquinas or Aristotle dressed up in modern language.

I find it impossible to describe the process of a substance, without thinking that process is “going somewhere.” Chemical reactions, evolution, emission of light, etc, are all processes that are acting towards their repsective ends.

Well, this is probably a key point of our disagreement. A natural process goes somewhere dependent on the initial conditions and the conditions during the process - if these are different then the outcome will be different. The process defines the outcome, not the other way round. (On the contrary, a process guided by intelligence starts with the desired outcome which dictates the process). Let me ask you this - what is the end of an equilibrium chemical reaction, evolution or the emission of light?

…]

 

[hecd2]

…]

Now, I do think gravity presents a problem. But I don’t think the answer is to speak of gravity as something “graspable.” It seems to me to describe a relationship. It is nothing physical (in fact, in the past I’ve argued on these forums that we have just as much reason to believe in an Aristotlean God as we do to believe in gravity.) In that sense, I don’t see how we can actually say that gravity (viewed in a relationship way) actually causes anything. Can we say this? It seems to me like a formula which, without variables, won’t ever calculate anything.

I am open to your thoughts and criticisms on this and don’t have any definite intuitions.

I know you are open to other thoughts - thanks. I’m struggling with what you’re saying here but think I have an inkling. You seem to be saying that because gravity is not like a stick or a string holding bodies together then it’s not a cause. It’s merely (you say) a mathematical description of how two bodies affect one another without saying anything about the cause of the effect. A description without explanation.To some extent you are right but that sense exists for ALL physics explanations at some level, because we can always keep asking questions and drill down to a level where the explanation seems like a description and the deeper explanation is not yet available. For example, GR, which is a better model of gravity than Newtonian mechanics, proposes that space-time is curved by massive objects - objects want to follow the equivalent of straight lines in this curved space-time and this leads to the gravitational forces we observe. It’s a very accurate model with a better predictability for the effect of gravitational forces than Newton’s and it gives a real explanation for the gravitational forces rather than just a description. But then we can ask “Dude, how does a massive object curve space-time?” and we’re down to the next level. There are three other fundamental forces that ‘act at a distance’ and that can be represented by vector fields like gravity - the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. The first two have force carriers that have been detected and that we know quite a lot about: the photon, and the w and z bosons. Theories of gravity in development propose analogous particles called gravitons as excitations of the gravitational field and mediators of the force.

All of which is to say that gravity is no different from other scientific theories. The observations that we make throughout the universe are consistent with Newtonian and relativistic gravity and the fundamental relationships are rather simple in both cases. In neither case is any intelligent intervention required. And this is true across the board. Aquinas says that things have to be guided by intelligence to act towards an end and for the best result. Modern science says things just do what they do - no intelligence required, no end in mind, because no mind, just process with outcomes falling as they will according to the process, no such thing as a “best result” - just a result that is a consequence of the process.

I guess I just fail to see how your explanation avoids Thomas’ implications. Such processes, however much more complex he thought them to be, are still processes which “do” something. Now, if what they did was totally unintelligible, or not able to be predicted, that would be one thing. But they’re not. They’re reasonable processes, which we can predict. And this is enough, it seems to me, to justify the claim that “inanimate objects act for an end.”

Well I think that the world is intelligible, at least at some level, and I think that its intelligibility is the best argument for God that I know. However, intelligibility is a much broader and deeper property in my understanding than consistent behaviour, and if consistency is all that Aquinas has, then it fails in my view - consistent behaviour does not require an intelligence to guide it. All it needs is a process that doesn’t care about outcomes. Process is primary and its own end and outcomes are subsidiary. It’s the travelling not the arriving that matters.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

It is odd, is it not, that we look at the same idea, and both think that we understand each idea, and yet come down on different sides of the fense.

'Twas ever thus. That’s what dialogue is about, isn’t it, looking over the fence?

While I have your attention here, I want to say a few words about the Young’s thing (I know it’s OT for this post). You and TS seem to be rubbing each other up the wrong way, which is a great pity because I have a lot of time for the way the both of you think and have learned things from you both. I think, like TS, that QM is a potential challenge to some basic axioms like non-contradiction which is why I introduced it to the thread. Let’s see if my perspective helps to hook you guys up a little. I understand that you think non-contradiction is utterly unassailable and utter chaos and the inability to say anything meaningful results if we let it slip ever so little, but bear with me for a moment. We agree that the axiom arises from our observations of the world, and I agree that at the scale that we have been observing up until recently that’s true. No cases of contradiction. We also agree that the world is as it is - our metaphysics don’t govern it. And I think we also agree that although the world is intelligible, it needn’t be so (intelligibility would not be a reasonable argument for God unless unintelligibility was an option). Now since we acknowledge that bizarre behaviour is possible in another universe, it might be possible in another region of this one, or, as in this case, at another scale. So entertain what we see for a moment.

What we have here is an entity that has, in terms of our macro scale metaphysics, two mutually exclusive properties simultaneously. Believe me, I’ve done this experiment and it defies anyone’s ability to hold in their head what they observe in any sort of logically coherent way.It’s not difficult to do and the interpretation of parts is dead easy, but we run into serious trouble when we try to integrate it all into a single description. Plus there are many other ways in which this experiment and others in QM violate what we think of as basic logic (even the idea of things being in two contrary states of a single variable simultaneously - say spin-up and spin-down - on which we intend to build real computing platforms that exploit that counter-intuitive and reason-violating concept - not to mention the violation of Bell’s inequality and the concept of quantum entanglement). Things at the QM level aren’t chaotic or arbitrary - but it is mind-bending because it does violate many of these intuitive concepts, about the ways we think things should be, based on what we see in the macro world - things that we thought were inviolable. Now I don’t think any of this destroys our ability to reason, or to make meaningful statements (although meaningful statements about quantum phenomena that embrace the full reality of those phenomena do seem to be impossible), but I do think it challenges us to carefully examine what we mean when we say things cannot have two contrary states of the same variable simultaneously or be everywhere and nowhere at once or to instantaneously communicate at an arbitrarily large distance - when we are dealing with scales and conditions and entities that are far away from our normal experience as hunter-gatherers.

Believe me, I share your distress at the suggestion that (some aspects of) non-contradiction might be violated in the real world, but I have studied QM and have done some QM experiments, and I also believe that we have to deal with the reality of what we observe in other ways than merely declaring that the metaphysics that we derived from the macro-scale absolutely trumps all other considerations whether what we see is reconcilable with that or not. I understand you when you declare that it can’t possibly be the way we appear to see it and that we’re deluded somehow, but those of us who have explored it are humble in the face of what we observe. I’m absolutely with you when you say that we have to protect the meaningfulness of statements and propositions but we also have to find a way to (re)align our metaphysics with what we observe reality to be - cautiously and exploring all the options, but ultimately doing what is necessary to reflect a reality which is deeply different at the quantum scale from what we normally observe.

Is the cat in the box dead or alive or bloody furious?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

When I think of “temperature” I mentally picture a thermometer. When I think of “hot” I think of the quality of hotness, as I personally experience it. It is the latter experience which JP2, I think, asked you to imagine. You have experienced different degrees of hotness. Luke-warm, hot, and “holy $#@!.”

That’s temperature. For a given object, the thing about it that makes us perceive it in the ways you describe is temperature. No matter. You are talking about an experience which I interpret as temperature. Same phenomenon. Different words.

Now, think of a being which possessed such an experience in an infinite mode. That is the idea St. Thomas is getting at. Not the *specific *quality, but the *mode *in which the quality can be imagined to exist.

OK, so an entity that has an infinitely high temperature - I can hold the concept in my mind even if it’s not realisable in practice. What follows? A fire is not anything like an infinite temperature, an entity with an infinite temperature need not exist to allow things to be hotter or less hot and the fire as the thing which he says has an infinite temperature (which it hasn’t) isn’t the cause of all hot things. My objections stand, I think, even if we say there is some quality of subjective hotness that is different from temperature.

Because I have no idea how to quantify the quality of hotness, without resorting to “temperature” which makes me think of a thermometer. This may be my subjective bent of mind though.

So it seems, and we can use the term subjective hotness or something like that if it feels better to you, but it doesn’t disarm the falseness of the three claims above.

The point he was driving at doesn’t really rest on thermodynamics. He sees hotness as a certain quality of being.

I find it hard to see how to talk about this without referring to thermodynamics. Aquinas bases his argument’s premises on some observations of things that are hot and those observations are belied by the facts. So the conclusions he draws about the source of other properties do not rest on firm foundations. Or so it seems to me.

At any rate, I don’t have much more to offer on these points than what I’ve said before. I think it better I leave them alone and speak more towards the other points you’ve raised.

Fair enough. Let’s leave it at that and thanks for your patience in trying to explain what Aquinas meant by hotter and hottest and maximum heat. I am sometimes overly severe on people who use the incorrect technical term to describe something quite coherent that’s known in science by a different term. I accept that the fact that he uses terms different from those I would use, does not in itself invalidate his arguments - but understanding with your help what he meant does not resolve my objections - I don’t think it’s terminology where we depart but in the basic concepts.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Touchstone]

You’re fond of derrogating Scholasticism. I personally think – based on the constant barrage of condescending language you use – that there is some psychological, Freudian insecurity lurking behind all this; or at least some triumphalist looking-down-one’s nose that gives you joy to indulge in. One does not scratch a place often unless there is an itch.

You can continue to use such language when we dialogue. It truly doesn’t bother me. I only say something to point out that an ad hominem doesn’t make an argument, nor does it move me in the least. It seems to me much rather like a child throwing a pebble at the sun

Believe me, I share your distress at the suggestion that (some aspects of) non-contradiction might be violated in the real world, but I have studied QM and have done some QM experiments, and I also believe that we have to deal with the reality of what we observe in other ways than merely declaring that the metaphysics that we derived from the macro-scale absolutely trumps all other considerations whether what we see is reconcilable with that or not.** I understand you when you declare that it can’t possibly be the way we appear to see it and that we’re deluded somehow, but those of us who have explored it are humble in the face of what we observe. I’m absolutely with you when you say that we have to protect the meaningfulness of statements and propositions but we also have to find a way to (re)align our metaphysics with what we observe reality to be - cautiously and exploring all the options, but ultimately doing what is necessary to reflect a reality which is deeply different at the quantum scale from what we normally observe.**

(my emphasis)
I think this paragraph hits on the same dynamic The Exodus is castigating me for in his words above yours. The derision, where there is any, for Aquinas, scholasticism, or any here, is sourced in the reaction to the… fundamentalism that grounds that kind of dogmatic rationalism.

This exchange with the Exodus (or Tonyrey, who’s even more extreme in his fundamentalism on this) is chafing in that is so very much like trying to discuss the Bible with Independent Fundamentalist Baptists who get totally wrapped around the axle of sola scriptura.

For my IFB friends, the Bible must simply be the ONLY source of authority, the COMPLETE source of authority, PERFECT in not only its “truth”, but in its perspicacity. When you work against this from the text and from the evidence, you run into the hard wall of fundamentalist dogma: *it simply must be that way, for if the Bible isn’t all that, understand as such by 21st century rich American white folk, THEN ALL IS LOST, utterly lost. Sola Scriptura is simple an axiom and cannot be questioned. Forget the reasons, for they matter not, there is no other option.

*That’s the same kind of dynamic I’m dealing with here, I’m thinking. Either the law of non-contradiction is 100% upheld, as we understand it, unaltered in the semantics we have evolved it, even at fundamentally different scales and context of nature, OR ALL IS LOST, ALL REASON, SENSE AND INTELLIGIBILITY ARE IMPOSSIBLE.

Full Stop.

OK. Well there’s not much to say in the face of that kind of fundamentalism. One just moves on.

On Scholasticism, that really is the rub, the admiration for the sophistry and faux-sophistication of it all. Scholasticism is a kind of dialectic at root, not even so much an epistemology, or a philosophy. It’s a method for resolving contradictions.

That’s a noble goal, but it’s a huge problem when the dialectic isn’t accountable to the real world. Biblical fundamentalism is “scholastic” in the very same sense – it’s a heuristic for forcing resolutions to conundrum and (apparent) contradiction. But like Scholasticism, it happens by brute force, and it runs right over any resistance the real world might put up. The world WILL be made sensible, no matter what hash of the evidence and the influence of the external world has to be made.

So yeah, Biblical fundamentalism I think gets some measure of the criticism and intellectual perjoratives it deserves. Scholasticism mostly seems to be ignored outside its circle of fans, but it’s the same kind of anti-intellectualism in fancy vestments at its core. Fundamentalism of a different stripe, but fundamentalism all the same.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

What invalidates them, as I see it, is the fact that they are not congruous with what we understand of the world now.

I understand this is how you see it, but to me, it is just a bare claim. I keep hearing physicists and scientists saying the same, but I have not heard a single ground which nullifies the (correctly understood) metaphysics which Aquinas posited, built on the Aristotlean notion of potency and actuality.

If you give me a ground I will certainly listen to it. But all that appears to me is a case of the professor appealing to authority when his student asks for an example.

Student: Why do you say such and such? Why not this other?
Teacher: Come now. We *now know *things aren’t quite so silly as that.

I’m not claiming that you are ignorant of such claims, or that you are intentionally side stepping the issue. I’m only describing my honest reaction.
hec:

and having no real understanding of phenomena beyond the most superficial or erroneous…etc

Every Thomist will tell you that Aquinas’ analogies are crude – embarrasingly so at times. But his points can be embedded in the most ridiculous examples and still be valid.

It seems you’re simply falling victim to the age in thinking that we have some exhaustive understanding of phenomena which is incorrigible to new evidence. You can call Aquinas’ scientific understanding old-fashioned (and no doubt it is), and even throw it out because it is so, but you must also remember that one day yours will be too. Hopefully that means you’ve still said something meaningful and intelligible. The key is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. (Which I don’t think you are trying to do. Indeed I think you are trying very hard not to, which I admire.)

Science is an open enterprise. What you learn tomorrow may totally contradict and overthrow what you learn today. Until one is omniscient, no scientist can truly claim to have the type of grasp on nature that would make Aquinas’ example false simply *because *they are “crude.”

We must penetrate beyond the crudeness and see the deeper significance.
hec:

the implication and the conclusion of the Fifth Way being that they do these things because an intelligence, God, guides them to do it.

The observation is that they do these things repeatedly, consistently. And when they don’t, they do something else, and there is a reason they do this something else instead of what they did before, which can also be seen to happen for a reason. All these effects are intelligible, predictable, and show signs of a certain tending toward their goal.
hec:

It seems telling that the one approach (things act for an end and the best result, guided by an intelligence) which is also the major premise in Aquinas’s argument is simply no match in performance terms for the the approach that does not require intelligent guidance for specific phenomena.

See my first point.

I’m just not convinced by such sweeping generalities without any explanation. What are these modern “approaches” that invalidate Aquinas’ metaphysics, specifically?
hec:

They are different in character and in many cases, Aquinas’s are just plumb wrong. Reasonable in his time, but wrong.

See above again. It appears to me – and I mean no disrespect; I’m just calling what I think a spade a spade – that nearly this whole post describes to me how you “feel” about Aquinas’ views. You “feel” they are wrong. I understand that. But I want to know your reasoning. I want to know why and how.
hec:

Let me ask you this - what is the end of an equilibrium chemical reaction, evolution or the emission of light?

I don’t know. I would have to be omniscient to give an adequate explanation, since every interaction in the universe ultimately affects everything else. But I think these are good questions, and probably someone more scientifically-minded could give you more thorough answers than I could.

My point in bringing up these things is that we all experience, or have some rudimentary knowledge of the fact that, these things occur. So much so that we have names for them. Such processess “do something” and “go somewhere.” They “perform” a certain function. That, really, is the point I’m driving at – not necessarily an exhaustive explanation of those functions (for that, I believe, is impossible).

 

[The_Exodus]

OK. Well there’s not much to say in the face of that kind of fundamentalism. One just moves on.

Indeed – on to no where. I won’t apologize for not budging an inch when someone wants me to say reason is unreasonable.

Call that “fundamentalism” if you like. I call it just plain common sense.

 

[hecd2]

I understand this is how you see it, but to me, it is just a bare claim.

I don’t know. I would have to be omniscient to give an adequate explanation, since every interaction in the universe ultimately affects everything else. But I think these are good questions, and probably someone more scientifically-minded could give you more thorough answers than I could.

Well, I think we have extracted as much juice from this as possible. I think I have explained in some detail and given excellent grounds for understanding why I think Aquinas’s thinking about natural processes is different from ours in such a profound way (it’s the character of the thinking rather than the specific beliefs) that it undermines the metaphysical argument. You don’t, and you think I’m making bare assertions. OK.

Let me say that in this case, as in others, although I am not convinced, you have given me a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of what Aquinas was driving at than I had before so I don’t think our exchange at all futile. Thank you.

I also think that certain elements of the Fifth Way, as you lay it out, can be part of an argument from intelligibility for the existence of God (or at least an intelligence behind the universe) that is cogent and quite powerful in my mind … which brings me full circle to where my discussion with JP2A started. Perhaps we’re not so far apart on this one after all.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

I have a few minutes. Some food for thought regarding the discussion that the men have been having about St. Thomas Aquinas, very important to review the document "The law of divine love is the standard for all human actions”. vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010116_thomas-aquinas_en.html.

Also their discussions about St. Augustine brought to my mind Michael Heller:

1. vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/own/documents/hellernew.html

templetonprize.org/previouswinners/heller.html
templetonprize.org/pdfs/93-113.pdf

Setting goals is important to me. It’s always a privilege to be of service to others.

 

[The_Exodus]

What we have here is an entity that has, in terms of our macro scale metaphysics, two mutually exclusive properties simultaneously. Believe me, I’ve done this experiment and it defies anyone’s ability to hold in their head what they observe in any sort of logically coherent way.It’s not difficult to do and the interpretation of parts is dead easy, but we run into serious trouble when we try to integrate it all into a single description. Plus there are many other ways in which this experiment and others in QM violate what we think of as basic logic (even the idea of things being in two contrary states of a single variable simultaneously - say spin-up and spin-down - on which we intend to build real computing platforms that exploit that counter-intuitive and reason-violating concept - not to mention the violation of Bell’s inequality and the concept of quantum entanglement). Things at the QM level aren’t chaotic or arbitrary - but it is mind-bending because it does violate many of these intuitive concepts, about the ways we think things should be, based on what we see in the macro world - things that we thought were inviolable. Now I don’t think any of this destroys our ability to reason, or to make meaningful statements (although meaningful statements about quantum phenomena that embrace the full reality of those phenomena do seem to be impossible), but I do think it challenges us to carefully examine what we mean when we say things cannot have two contrary states of the same variable simultaneously or be everywhere and nowhere at once or to instantaneously communicate at an arbitrarily large distance - when we are dealing with scales and conditions and entities that are far away from our normal experience as hunter-gatherers.

I have no doubt that many experiments that scientists witness leave them speechless as to the nature of what it is they see. They’re baffled by a thing (whatever thing means here) that seems to be doing two contradictory things at once.

So the argument appears to me to be something like, “we cannot currently make sense of these facts; therefore, perhaps the law of contradiction is violated at the micro-scale of reality.”

This is the dividing line in my mind. I simply do not and cannot make that conclusion. I prefer “therefore, our understanding is currently inadequate.” You can say I’m betting on new evidence, but that’s still not the case. There may never be any new evidence, so far as we’re concerned. But I don’t think that means the law of contradiction is violated.

I can think of other, more reasonable explanations - perhaps the photon exists in some dimension of the universe “higher up” or “more fundamental,” and it displays itself in our dimension in such a way. If you look through a bucket of water at an object, it may appear bent, but when you take it out, you realize that it only appeared that way due to the fact that it existed in a different medium. I’m not really a scientist, so I can’t offer plausible explanations. I am only saying that scientists in every age run up against things they do not understand. Years ago they thought spontaneous generation occured. That no doubt seemed contradictory.

When one asks me to think that the law of contradiction breaks down at some level of reality, one is asking me to accept that reality “is” such a way. The word “is” cannot simultaneously mean “is not” without losing meaning. But this is exactly what seems to me to be necessary to do.
hec:

Believe me, I share your distress at the suggestion that (some aspects of) non-contradiction might be violated in the real world, but I have studied QM and have done some QM experiments, and I also believe that we have to deal with the reality of what we observe in other ways than merely declaring that the metaphysics that we derived from the macro-scale absolutely trumps all other considerations whether what we see is reconcilable with that or not.

It’s not that the metaphysics I bring to the table “trump” what we see or make me blind to certain evidence. They just make certain interpretations invalid, because such interpretations are impossible. I know you think such things may not be impossible, but I would then have to ask you, what does the word impossible mean to you?
hec:

I understand you when you declare that it can’t possibly be the way we appear to see it and that we’re deluded somehow, but those of us who have explored it are humble in the face of what we observe.

I am humbled all the time by the things around me. Not even about a photon, but a simply fly makes me go near insane at times. What is it? I sympathize with Pascal’s pense 72, and often recall to mind the words of Kierkegaard: “All of existance intimidates me, from the tiniest fly to the enigmas of incarnation; as a whole it is inexplicable, my own self most of all; all of existence is pestiferous, my own self most of all.”

I just believe there is a difference between mystery and contradiction.
hec:

I’m absolutely with you when you say that we have to protect the meaningfulness of statements and propositions but we also have to find a way to (re)align our metaphysics with what we observe reality to be - cautiously and exploring all the options, but ultimately doing what is necessary to reflect a reality which is deeply different at the quantum scale from what we normally observe.

I am completely with you here. I do think modern metaphysicians have dropped the ball when it comes to modern physics. They have been perhaps too occupied with countering the philosophy of the day, instead of interacting with the science thereof.

I have enjoyed our conversation, and hope we can continue to dialogue in the future. Take care.

 

[The_Exodus]

Touchstone:
That’s the same kind of dynamic I’m dealing with here, I’m thinking. Either the law of non-contradiction is 100% upheld, as we understand it, unaltered in the semantics we have evolved it, even at fundamentally different scales and context of nature, OR ALL IS LOST, ALL REASON, SENSE AND INTELLIGIBILITY ARE IMPOSSIBLE.

Full Stop.

There is no medium between bald absurdity (A is A and not A) and plain sense. If you want to speak about nature, on whatever scale or in whatever context, I think must do so in such a way that your “is” doesn’t simultaneously mean “is not.” That’s all I’m saying. Call me a fundamentalist if you like, but I think I’ve been open and considerate in our dialogue. I’ll let those who are reading decide for themselves if they agree.

I also think you don’t pay enough attention to the difference between mystery and contradiction. These two ideas seem to me quite different, and I have no problem saying that small-scale reality is “mysterious” (but isn’t all reality such?). My problem comes in when you say it is x and not x simultaneously.

 

[Touchstone]

There is no medium between bald absurdity (A is A and not A) and plain sense.

Plain sense won’t get you very far if you want to understand the world around you, as it is, looking at the evidence. That’s, again, the fundamentalism creeping in, the demand for “plain sense”. Why would we demand things fit into our simplistic, brittle little box, from end to end, from any scale to any other scale?

If you want to speak about nature, on whatever scale or in whatever context, I think must do so in such a way that your “is” doesn’t simultaneously mean “is not.” That’s all I’m saying. Call me a fundamentalist if you like, but I think I’ve been open and considerate in our dialogue. I’ll let those who are reading decide for themselves if they agree.

This isn’t an issue of being considerate or open as a matter of discourse. That’s been just fine, and you’re a pleasure to discuss with on that level. As are many of the must dogmatic fundamentalist Baptists I occasionally go 'round and 'round with. Wonderful people in terms of discourse, smart, would be great to have a beer with (maybe Baptists wouldn’t see that as an option!), but that’s neither here nor there. That’s a red herring with respect to what I’m saying. Fundamentalism isn’t a bad attitude or some kind of belligerency in discourse. It’s a form of epistemic closure and intellectual parochialism.

I also think you don’t pay enough attention to the difference between mystery and contradiction.

Perhaps not, although I see those as very different concepts, mystery point toward “unknown” and contradictiction pointing at “mutually exclusive”. They come together in contradictions that we suppose may be merely apparent – the harmonization is yet unknown, and that accounts for the appearance of contradiction. But though they get connected in questions of discovery and knowledge, I don’t think I have them confused.

These two ideas seem to me quite different, and I have no problem saying that small-scale reality is “mysterious” (but isn’t all reality such?). My problem comes in when you say it is x and not x simultaneously.

Right. I’m aware of your objection. It would be easy to find accord by simply saying – oh, it’s sure not a problem, it’s just mysterious, satisfying your fundamentalist commitments.

But the evidence doesn’t warrant such corner cutting. That’s not how the world appears to be, looked at carefully, by many parties, in a rigorous way. It does appear to be contradictory in several respects in precisely the way that apparent would trigger a personal apocalypse for you. I think it need not, should not, but no matter - what matters is that the science in QM forces one to deal in a serious way with what appear, on all examinations to be contradictions. Keeping in mind the distinctions above, not mysteries, but contradictions.

We don’t know what we don’t know, and we should always be corrigible in light of new information. Maybe all of the contradictions will one day be shown to be merely apparent. But a dogmatic demand that it simply must be so, or the world will come crashing down, is no different than the demand that not one esoterica and irrelevant detail of the Bible be shaded with error, lest the stars fall and the sun turn black…

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

Fundamentalism isn’t a bad attitude or some kind of belligerency in discourse. It’s a form of epistemic closure and intellectual parochialism.

An open mind in questions that don’t pertain to ultimate principles is, I think, a good thing. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations of thought is idiocy.

Is your mind open to absolute skepticism or nihilism, or any similar, unprovable “what if” hypothesis conceivable?

And your criticism applies as much to yourself as it does to me, for I could just as easily accuse you of being “fundamentally opposed” to my claim that the contradictory is not only mentally absurd, but physically unrealizable.

My notion has not been disproved by evident reason, nor can it be. Indeed, evident reason is on its side. Your notion, on the other hand, asks me to actually believe that absurdity obtains in reality – an impossible task. I can speak the words, but they are empty of meaning, for there is no way my mind can come to think such a thing occurs.

I know you said you could “imagine” a contradictory being (and yet belief in God is somehow not a live option?), but for the less intelligent (or more?) among us, grant us pardon for not having such an ability.

touchstone:

But the evidence doesn’t warrant such corner cutting. That’s not how the world appears to be, looked at carefully, by many parties, in a rigorous way. It does appear to be contradictory in several respects in precisely the way that apparent would trigger a personal apocalypse for you.

Every confusion, misunderstanding, ignorant conclusion rests on exactly the same sort of thing. I think I started the laundry and go downstairs and see it still soaking wet in the dryer. I suppose I ought to conclude that the law of contradiction is nullified, and that the universe is unintelligible?

Evidence points differently depending on your starting point. Mine is simply that reason is reasonable: that it is nonsense and absurdity to say that the word “is” has two meanings, each of which exclude the other.

touchstone:

I think it need not, should not, but no matter - what matters is that the science in QM forces one to deal in a serious way with what appear, on all examinations to be contradictions. Keeping in mind the distinctions above, not mysteries, but contradictions.

Says every scientist of his own age, until the next comes along and clears up his mess.

 

[Touchstone]

An open mind in questions that don’t pertain to ultimate principles is, I think, a good thing. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations of thought is idiocy.

Yes, fundamentalism. The ultimate answers must be known by intution, and be unassailable, incorrigible, to boot. If we are not open on ultimate questions we are not interested in learning from the world how it is, but in telling the world how it must be. Sola scriptura MUST be true. If you’re open to the errancy of scripture, you have embraced idiocy. Fully. Only a fool has an open mind about sharing the authority of scripture, or – gasp – suborning it to some magisterium. Ultimate authority rests in the Bible, and the Bible alone, all else is craven foolishness.

Right?

Is your mind open to absolute skepticism or nihilism, or any similar, unprovable “what if” hypothesis conceivable?

Yes, provisionally. We can entertain concepts and propositions provisionally. This is the genius of human thinking. We don’t have to adopt an idea or concept to ‘try it on’, to turn it over, analyze it, measure it against various criteria…

Unless I suppose my mind is normative on the whole of reality, that I am truly some kind of cosmic deity, I have to start with what I see and experience, and work outward from there, given the mental faculties I have. None of those, so far as I’m aware, give me a priori warrant to reject nihilism (to pick one from your list). I’m not a nihilist, but not beause I can’t be bothered to consider it, to weigh it, to judge it on the merits of its performance against the evidence, the experience I have available.

And your criticism applies as much to yourself as it does to me, for I could just as easily accuse you of being “fundamentally opposed” to my claim that the contradictory is not only mentally absurd, but physically unrealizable.

I’m not fundamentally opposed to that possibility, or even practically opposed to it. It may be the case. Much of what I learn and read and talk about with guys who study and do research in QM for a living does strike me as quite absurd, surreal. I don’t have any dogma to maintain, there. It may be that such perceived contradictions were never remotely correct as interpretations, and we just were missing the crucial piece.

But then again, perhaps QM is an area of knowledge about the universe that reveals actual problems (and severe ones, if remote) for my notions of “sensible”.

My notion has not been disproved by evident reason, nor can it be. Indeed, evident reason is on its side. Your notion, on the other hand, asks me to actually believe that absurdity obtains in reality – an impossible task. I can speak the words, but they are empty of meaning, for there is no way my mind can come to think such a thing occurs.

Just like the errancy of the scripture! It just CANNOT be done.

I know you said you could “imagine” a contradictory being (and yet belief in God is somehow not a live option?), but for the less intelligent (or more?) among us, grant us pardon for not having such an ability.

Every confusion, misunderstanding, ignorant conclusion rests on exactly the same sort of thing. I think I started the laundry and go downstairs and see it still soaking wet in the dryer. I suppose I ought to conclude that the law of contradiction is nullified, and that the universe is unintelligible?

No, because there’s a plausible explanation readily at hand – you forgot to start the machine, and thought you had started it. Do you think this is what is happening with physicists in QM? Really? They meant to take down the measurements, or record the results of the test, but gosh, they all were being absent minded. Every time?

Which is not to say there’s no room for mistakes or new knowledge. But supposing this is just “keystone scientists” at work is putting one’s head in the sand. The findings aren’t dismissed so easily.

Evidence points differently depending on your starting point. Mine is simply that reason is reasonable: that it is nonsense and absurdity to say that the word “is” has two meanings, each of which exclude the other.

“Is” has lots of different, and mutual exclusive denotations. A person who “is” is not a discrete physical object, like a photon is, but rather a very large and complex pattern of matter arranged as molecules as cells as organs, etc. We can say that both the person and photon “are” (or exist") in a unified and coherent sense – they are both extended in space/time in some measurable/detectable way. But the person and photon rely on different semantics for “is” in how and what is extended, the person being a pattern/ensemble, an aggregation, and the photon being an elementary particle.

Words are tools. They mean whatever we want, as we want, and they are as plastic or rigid as we need them to be. They serve us, rather than the other way around.

-TS

Says every scientist of his own age, until the next comes along and clears up his mess.

 

[JP2Admirer]

(my emphasis)
That’s the same kind of dynamic I’m dealing with here, I’m thinking. Either the law of non-contradiction is 100% upheld, as we understand it, unaltered in the semantics we have evolved it, even at fundamentally different scales and context of nature, OR ALL IS LOST, ALL REASON, SENSE AND INTELLIGIBILITY ARE IMPOSSIBLE.

Full Stop.

-TS

I’m trying to get my head around what you are saying here, so forgive me if I am slow. Are you advocating a kind of middle way? Where non-contradiction is half right so the world is semi-intelligible?

At the very least, we have to uphold that non-contradiction holds good at the level of language, otherwise we would be unable to have this argument right now.

I’d be interested to hear this argument parsed out. The world is semi-intelligible, but because physical phenomena at the quantum level behave in a way that seems to violates the law of contradiction, it is not intelligible at only that level? If it is not intelligible (currently) at that level, then why is it seemingly intelligible at larger scale? I guess, if the world behaves deterministically at the level of sense experience, but in an indeterminate way at the quantum level someone could very well hold this position. But then how do we bridge the gap? Why does it seem intelligible at the sensory level? Or is it really unintelligible at the sensory level?

Given that plains fly, cars go, televisions transport moving pictures to us from thousands of miles away, radio waves and satellites connect our voices to people on the other side of the globe – all suggest that the fabric of existence is in some way understandable. Otherwise there would be no correspondence between the logic in our heads and the deterministic behavior of existence out there. That is, the relation
between the machinations of the electrical impulses in our brains (what I would call thought) should not correspond what is out there, but they do.

So, lets think of the argument another way. If the basis of reality is unintelligible – as modern physics seems to suggest – then why are we still able to discover law-like generalizations in nature itself? Are our minds simply that powerful that they can force external things to behave how they would like? Or are those laws written into nature and we are extracting them?

Does this not force us to ask the question: can reality be both intelligible and unintelligible? At the level of sense experience it is intelligible. At the QM level it is seemingly unintelligible – so why is it not just as much of a “fundamentalist” position to state de facto that nature is unintelligible, when from what I can gather, it seemingly is very intelligible as the very search for answers that science seeks seems to suggest. Why not even ask, “Why the search if all is meaningless?”

When statements are qualified with, “It could some day be proven otherwise, but as of now they challenge our normal way of thinking,” it seems to suggest that it is just as much of a fundamentalist approach to claim de facto the world is unintelligible.

Please, let’s keep the labels out of the argument – it does not serve the discussion to start waving the “your close minded” label out there. Because, as I have just shown, the same thing can be said in the reverse.

I guess I just need to know what you mean when you say it’s not an either, or…please parse this out on the possibility of an intelligible and unintelligible world.

Thanks.

 

[JP2Admirer]

The more I think about this the more questions arise…

I think, in my musings, I may have come across an argument, Touchtone, that says it is all or nothing…that things are intelligible or unintelligible. Let me bounce it off of you and you can respond.

If QM states that the ground of existence is unintelligible, but at the sensory level we state that things are intelligible – science relies on essentially linked causality at the macro level so as to make modern technology possible. So we have an unintelligible intelligible world.

This itself is a contradiction – i.e. at one level of experience the world is intelligible, at another it is unintelligible.

So it is both intelligible and unintelligible.

Therefore, it is unintelligible.

Being both A and not A, makes reality ultimately unintelligible and Nietzsche was right!

So, maybe the ad hominem “fundamentalist” term should not be used at all. Perhaps it is the case that it is all or nothing and it is *perceptive *to recognize this (as the greatest modern philosopher, Nietzsche did – not that I agree with him).

 

[Touchstone]

I’m trying to get my head around what you are saying here, so forgive me if I am slow. Are you advocating a kind of middle way? Where non-contradiction is half right so the world is semi-intelligible?

At the very least, we have to uphold that non-contradiction holds good at the level of language, otherwise we would be unable to have this argument right now.

Yes, certainly. Language is the map, not the territory, here. We can render a description that is physically problematic, but which is not hard to parse linguistically: the photon is particle and not-particle at the same time. We don’t understand how that could possibly work (and I’m not worrying about the physics particulars here with regard to photons being both particle/non-particle at once, here) as a matter of real world physics.

BUT.

The reason we find that physically problematic is because we understand the language used.

It’s only because the semantics are clear that we realize the physical problems that are implicated. So at the communications level, things are rectified. It’s the implications of the understood terms and propositions that make the problem a problem.

I’d be interested to hear this argument parsed out. The world is semi-intelligible, but because physical phenomena at the quantum level behave in a way that seems to violates the law of contradiction, it is not intelligible at only that level?

The law of non-contradiction is not a physical law. It’s a requirement for intelligibilty. The world may be unintelligible in some aspect (random quanta are by definition unintelligible – that’s why we label them ‘random’ – even if as a statistical ensemble they become nicely predictable and intelligible, like a bell curve distribution, for instance) but that is a reflection of our epistemic status, not a positive proposition about the world.

If the world behaves in such a way as to defy our conceptual paradigms (e.g. flaunts the law of non-contradiction, ostensibly), then one of two circumstances obtains: either our conceptual paradigms are inadequate to make sense of that aspect of reality, or an improved physical model of that aspect of reality is required to provide intelligibility under our paradigms.

If it is not intelligible (currently) at that level, then why is it seemingly intelligible at larger scale? I guess, if the world behaves deterministically at the level of sense experience, but in an indeterminate way at the quantum level someone could very well hold this position. But then how do we bridge the gap? Why does it seem intelligible at the sensory level? Or is it really unintelligible at the sensory level?

I can’t think of why we would expect that physical dynamics at our scales would NECESSARILY be intelligible at all scales. I can’t think they would necessarily be unintelligible at different scales either. Basically, we don’t have warrant for such a priori rules either way.

Have you ever looked at a Monet painting up real close, at a museum. At a few centimeters from the canvas, the “water lilies” become unintelligible as water lilies; they are just daubs of paint in various shades of white, yellow and green.

That’s crude pedagogy, but effective, nonetheless, I think.

As for the scales, I think the obvious explanation is that we evolved at “human scales”. We are adapted to our environent, not the other way around. So our minds have evolved to process and “sense make” the percepts and stimuli we see at the scales we operate on. Quantum physics is so far removed from our biological experience (apart from the game-changing innovations of instrumentation and modern science which afford us the ability to “see” at scales and ranges we could not for the first millions of years of our development as a species) that I can’t think why we would expect physics at the Planck scale to be apprehensible for us.

It’s a problem to understand for sure. But I actually lean the other way, and have “intelligent design suspicions” that stem from the realization that we can render quantum physics as intelligible as far as we can. It’s a variation of the observation that the hardest thing to understand about the world is why we can understand it. At our scales, that isn’t a profound wonder. At QM, it’s more thought provoking. But there, the Way Things Work is pretty freaking strange.

-TS

(con’t)

 

[Touchstone]

JP2Admirer:

Given that plains fly, cars go, televisions transport moving pictures to us from thousands of miles away, radio waves and satellites connect our voices to people on the other side of the globe – all suggest that the fabric of existence is in some way understandable. Otherwise there would be no correspondence between the logic in our heads and the deterministic behavior of existence out there. That is, the relation
between the machinations of the electrical impulses in our brains (what I would call thought) should not correspond what is out there, but they do.

I understand the argument, but that is a pre-scientific perspective. Even if you suppose God made the world, the history of man’s evolution is such that we have a answer for that question. We have cognitive patterns and mental abilities that make sense of the world around us based on our sense-(name removed by moderator)uts because those adaptations are superior, advantageous toward the continuing survival and development of our genes.

Why is a puddle flat on top, and shaped exactly like the shape of the hole it fills? Because nature seeks states of least energy and optimized equilibria. We are the “puddle” that is conforming to shape of our ecological niche, and satisfying the imperative toward optimization. Our mental faculties are preserved precisely because they provide correspondence maps to the extramental world, if crude and error-infused ones. A crude map is still a huge advantage over no map.

So, lets think of the argument another way. If the basis of reality is unintelligible – as modern physics seems to suggest – then why are we still able to discover law-like generalizations in nature itself?

Consider that the concept of law itself presumes a kind of uniformity, symmetry and isotropy that can ONLY work in some physical models as statistical aggregates. And in fact, that is what this world of ours looks like, in important respects. The timing of a single decay event for an unstable isotope is completely impenetrable to us – couldn’t be more unintelligible as to the timing – but as a statistical ensemble of decay events, you can set your watch by it.

So you have quantum “froth”, not just unintelligible, but unknowability in principle at work at Planck scales. But it al resolves probabilistically, so at our scales, nature is highly ordered, predictable, intelligible.

Are our minds simply that powerful that they can force external things to behave how they would like? Or are those laws written into nature and we are extracting them?

No to the first question(!), although our eyes and other “observational instruments” do in fact have causal impacts at the quantum level. Observation is causal in terms of decoherence at the quantum level. That’s not what you were getting at, so the answer is no, but again, QM provides some severe weirdness to our understanding, dynamics that throw macro-scale rules right out the window. Looking at a baseball doesn’t “macro-change” the baseball. Capturing which photon goes through which slit in the experiment changes how the photons behave.

We have brains evolved to engage our particular environment at our particular scale. Even that makes them generally powerful enough (meta-representational cognition) that we can apply our reasoning to domains outside of our natural experience. We can use IR goggles to see via infrared parts of the radiation spectrum. We can capture and sense single photons with machines we take pains to build.

But we work outward from our “sensible home” – where the brain/mind has evolved over eons – and see how far we can go. As we get far from our “sensible home”, some of the going gets tough. We aren’t optimized to grapple with the dynamics of quantum physics. It’s alien to us, and we apprehend it with great difficulty, discipline, and the willingness to get beyond the conceits we’ve evolved about our innate god-like intuitions.

-TS