Are Relativity and Quantum Mechanic theories the best ever descriptions of the ontology of the real?
For sure not the final ones, but are those theories the best ones so far considering their pragmatic consequences as well as philosophical ones.
Comments (38)
Yes, but this impressive feat is the result of rigging the deck to some extent. The method of physics restricts
the criterion of ‘activity of something’ so it can achieve great precision within a limited arena of human functioning. But such precision is useless for making sense of the behavior of phenomena that require different accounts , such as biological and psychological entities. One can use a qm description here , of course, but that would eliminate the subject matter whose activity it is supposed to predict.
I don't know what you mean by restrict, but quantum biology is a field of study on par with many others
It should be considered that strictly speaking 'ontology' refers to the study of being as distinct from phenomena.
I'm led to believe that when launching rockets - Newton's laws of motion are used, because they are simpler that Einstein's relativity; and there's a trade off between accuracy and simplicity. Those are pragmatic consequences. Philosophical implications are something else entirely. Relativity and quantum mechanics are conceived in pursuit of truth. But it's entirely possible, in my view, that QM is looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
I think it's simply assumed that if you keep taking something apart, you'll discover what it's made of. That could be mistaken. It could be that anything we can define as existence, being or reality - is focused at the atomic plus scale - as a consequence of a nexus of forces that confer existential properties, and that the quantum scale just fades into nothing. So, because QM is quite possibly wrong, and because relativity is too complicated for practical use, I vote no.
Your consideration is just an example of your personal preference for a particular unconventional interpretation of the terms. Which is all fine, but you should not imagine that the terms necessarily have the meanings you attribute to them and that conventional meanings are mistaken. If anything the reverse would be the case.You are but one and the conventional is manifold.
Also, how could being be studied if not by analyzing beings to discover what they have in common. The being of a rose is not the same as the being of a firefly, a lizard, a rabbit, a dolphin, or a human. And the being of any individual is not the same as any other being of the same species.
And yet in another sense, since they all alike exist, any being is the same as any other. But where could this analysis even start if there were no beings to compare and contrast? And what could being be if not instantiated in beings?
Existence is a subset of being.
Right, they are not be perfect, they could be wrong. But isn't it true they are the best ones we have? Or do you know about better ones? M theory?... or do you know a metaphysician that has better ones :wink:
My question is not about whether the theories are perfectly right but whether they are the best ones we have.
If anyone is responding NO, he/she should say which one is a better theory than those two.
Right, one thing is to explain the physics of the universe and another thing is to explain the "human". There is a still a disconnect, an epistemic gap. But couldn't it be that gap to be caused by a cultural or philosophical bias?
Millions of people still believe in live after death. Are we sure many of us are not too biased still by our cultural prejudices ? Aren't those theories putting truth in front of us?
I agree all these are open and interesting discussions, I would claim though they have to be tackled from the underestimated but essential perspective of Naturalism (Daniel Andler).
This is the way! (Mandalorian :grin: )
Because one is the basis to explains the very big things, the macro (general relativity). I tis the basis to explain the Big bang for example.
The other one explains the very small, the particles, (QM).
So looks like it makes sense to say those 2 are the best ontological theories we have. Isn't it?
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
That's Relativity and QM. They're contradictory.
So saying that they are both the best descriptions of reality we have is incoherent.
But do agree with you on the general incoherence of the OP. Just chipped in to make an etymological point about the derivation of ‘ontology’.
Quantum mechanics... It's the best ever at predicting experimental outcomes, but it's a statistical theory about measurement outcomes, so there's a built-in phenomenological limit.
you say that, I say they re not contradictory. Where is the judge, we need averedict :grin:
Nevertheless, who tells you that what our limited human intuitions tell us are paradoxes or contradictions are actually hiding the reality? Look at superposition states or quantum state of matter or entanglement. It is intuitively contradicting but we study it because it is how particles behave.
You do not conceive reality as being probabilistic? It could be a scientific certification that ontologically reality is undetermined. Science saying reality is not deterministic! ... isn't this breaking stereotypes of the "materialist reductive" science many think...
Naturalism is the way!
The natural sciences would have to have reached omniscience to ascertain that assertion. Until then we can assume that any undetermined reality is merely a result of the state of being confined to finitude.
My opinion is that it's probably not, but I'm open-minded. However my point above was that QM is phenomenological rather than just probabilistic. There is no theory underlying probabilistic mechanisms: one moves discontinuously from a deterministic description to a statistical, phenomenological one.
If ontology studies "being", as wayfarer says, and being is what is, at the present time, then doesn't relativity, which makes the present an illusion, render "ontologically real" as an oxymoron?
Right! and this is why science will never stop investigating :wink:
Researches do not have the intention of knowing anything. Actually scientists are becoming more and more specialized on very small areas of research. That's where philosophy has to help them to bring all together.
I recognize "ontology" is a metaphysical word but I use it on purpose to provoke a discussion :wink:
Regarding your comment, keep in mind that even metaphysicians are not clear on their definiton of being and even the nature of time. I remind you the different schools of though on presentism.
But you know, I'm one of those that think metaphysics is a philosophical-fever with no epistemic value. Sorry for being too direct, I'm not a diplomat, but it is what I think.
Yes, there is, formulas in QM are probabilistic in the base but can become deterministic depending on the value of the factors.
What makes QM different from the rest of science to say it is phenomenological?
I think QM is phenomenal :grin: ... but phenomenological :roll: ... does it even matter? It is maybe phenomenological for you, so what?
No, that's not correct. The wave equations are completely deterministic. Probabilism enters via the Born rule. The collapse mechanism is unknown, presumed discontinuous.
Quoting Raul
What I mean is that a robust answer to a question like "What is a photon?" is "A click in a photon detector." QM doesn't justify a firmer position than this.
StreetlightX also strongly objected to my account as idiosyncratic, and posted an article, namely, The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being', by Charles Kahn, which he said is an authoritative account of the matter. But I think this paper rather supports my interpretation. He specifically talks about the differentiation between the Greek use of 'einai' and the modern sense of 'existence'. He says that the Greek use of the verb 'einai' was intended to indicate 'what is truly the case', 'what is so', what can be truly spoken of.
The bolded passage is precisely what I meant when I said that 'existence is a subset of being'.
What you say is 'ordinary usage' is precisely what I think needs to be criticized, in a philosophical sense, because, as I say, 'modernity' often comprises a particular sense of relation to the world which is philosophically barren. It assumes a realist point of view without acknowledging that this point of view is in itself a construction, in Schopenhauer's sense, and then judges everything against this common-sense outlook, without being critically aware of itself. It's this very taken-for-grantedness which philosophy must criticise.
Of course I don't expect you to accept it but at least know it is not a mere passing fancy.
This mistake makes clear you haven't studied QM or don't understand it.
You're mixing up Schrodinger equations and wave equations. See wave function description here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function
In QM we use probabilistic everywhere.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
A photon is not a click, but if you go to the laboratories like in the CRN you will see that particles are not clicks but probabilities everywhere, so many wave functions using probabilities to certify that a certain particle passed by a certain electromagnetic field. Go to CRN if you have a chance and take a tour I have friend physicien that showed me how it really works and is so far from what you can imagine.
Phenomenology cannot even grasp all the complexity that is behind.
The problem is that the general question concerning being or existence, as distinct from questions concerning beings or existents, is unanswerable. That is to say the question "What is being" or "what is existence" has no sense because the only possible answer, since being is nothing but existence, and existence is nothing but being, is a mere tautology.
Heidegger tries to answer the question by privileging human being: "dasein" or 'being there' or 'there being' as primary and other modes of being 'present at hand' and 'ready to hand' as secondary and derivative.
I think his asking of the question amounts to asking 'what is it like to be (human) and what modes of (other) being do we experience'. He forgot about the animals and other organisms, though.
I did my PhD in quantum transport theory.
Quoting Raul
The Schrödinger equation is a wave equation.
Quoting Raul
Do you mean CERN? In quantum mechanics, predictions concern experimental outcomes. If your experiment concerns certain photon emissions with certain probabilities, then this equates to the number of "clicks" you'll read at a certain angle of a certain energy across a large number of experiments. Unlike, say, the trajectory of Mercury around the Sun, we can't "see" photons without destroying them. One can model the photon using the wavefunction but cannot conflate the two: the latter is a mathematical encoding of all the information we have, which might be more than that needed. One cannot even speak of the photon existing in space and time between the emission and absorption events: even that is an interpretation. All one can say with surety is that we expect N number of clicks in a photon detector at a certain angle and energy.
Right. And do you insist QM is not probabilistic?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Yes, sorry, CERN.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I insist, it is not about "click", but if you like to think on a "click", up to you.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Right, so when you say QM is phenomenological you refer to phenomenology as understood in physics, not the philosophical one.
Anyway, I think we're losing the point of the question, these theories do not explain everthing but are the closest ones to give an kind of ontological explanations of the real. Would you have other to propose?
In that case philosophers ought to give the game away. :lol:
Heidegger is obviously on the right track, but I'll never get over his association with Nazism. But anyway I'll but out of this thread, as they're not talking philosophy.
Most philosophers have given that game away. I wouldn't say Heidegger wanted to answer the kind of question you are interested in, in any case. His answer is a phenomenological, not an absolute, one. He actually referred derogatorily to the kinds of traditional metaphysical questions you seem to be interested in as "ontotheology".
There are probabilistic (Copenhagen-like) interpretations of QM and deterministic (MWI-like) interpretations of QM so, no, it's not fundamentally probabilistic. The Born rule applies either way, but in MWI is a classical probability, like the probability of pulling a blue marble out of a bag. Further, there is no probabilistic mechanism even in Copenhagen-like interpretations. The Born rule is epistemological.
Quoting Raul
It's the same phenomenology, it's just specific to physical experiment.
Quoting Raul
QM is the best theory we have in terms of its predictive power. How ontological it is... *shrugs* I like pondering it, but in a working capacity I'm a shut up and calculate guy. I suspend judgement largely because we're not technologically advanced enough to jump that phenomenological barrier. It might well be that QM is complete and deterministic, we just can't simulate large enough systems to observe how macroscopic superposition is avoided. Or maybe it's complete and probabilistic. Or maybe it's incomplete, or an approximation to a better theory. No one knows.
I have already written it in another thread:
I think the answer is the Schrödinger-Newton-Equation.
"The regime where the mass is around 10^10 atomic mass units while the width is of the order of micrometers is expected to allow for an experimental test of the Schrödinger–Newton equation in the future."
Wave functions of more heavy parts than 10^10 atomic mass units will catch their own wave function.
Yeah, something like it perhaps. I do lean more towards a general relativistic quantum theory than a quantum theory of gravity. The S-N equation itself has two approximations: it is non-relativistic (a la the Schrödinger equation), and it is essentially a mean-field theory. But it does encode potentially many-body effects.
Environmental decoherence is another factor, but tbh it's not like anyone can simulate measurement using the many-body Dirac equation anyway. We presume it behaves like the many-body Schrödinger equation (which is basically an oscillation between different possible measurement outcomes), but it's not something we can check. There are huge differences between the way solutions to the Schrödinger equation and solutions to the Dirac equation behave (e.g. the phase velocity of Dirac equation solutions is tachyonic, which impacts interference effects).
QM literally has dozens of interpretations all claiming things like multiple realities, nonlocality, and indeterminism. So you have to be more specific as to what kind of ontology you think it's describing.
Same goes for Relativity too since it is also not immune to having multiple interpretations. The predecessor to SR, the Lorentz Ether Theory, was an equivalent theory that had an ether and there are multiple different formulations of GR, such as Shape Dynamics which trades the relativity of time with the relativity of size, which also exist.
There is no such thing as an ontology based purely on science. Sure you can go and try to attach one to the theories we have but then at that point you're no longer doing physics, but metaphysics.