the limits of science.
Science, by its very definition, is radically limited in its scope of authority.
Science can only report observations, but can never assume to know anything about when, what, where, and why.
Without the ability to make any meaningful differentiation between the value of any given object, location, time, or reason.... science is left with dry observation.
CAUSATION is entirely outside the realm of science. Even immediate causation can only be stated in terms of "we see this, and then we see that. it seems to always happen in this order."
Science is educated guess work. And as valuable as it may be when applied to engineering (medical and mechanical), no human being should ever place their faith in it.
The things of meaning in the life are outside the realm of science.
Science can only report observations, but can never assume to know anything about when, what, where, and why.
Without the ability to make any meaningful differentiation between the value of any given object, location, time, or reason.... science is left with dry observation.
CAUSATION is entirely outside the realm of science. Even immediate causation can only be stated in terms of "we see this, and then we see that. it seems to always happen in this order."
Science is educated guess work. And as valuable as it may be when applied to engineering (medical and mechanical), no human being should ever place their faith in it.
The things of meaning in the life are outside the realm of science.
Comments (117)
Your entire proposition depends upon the validity of your interpretation of the observations of quantum mechanics.
You have yet to witness the new discoveries that will arise.
When "causal" mechanisms are observed for those processes we do not yet understand, you will once again be trapped by the truth of metaphysics.
I do not mean to be offensive. But long ago we did not understand the mechanics that precede lightning bolts. You very may well go back to the stone age and tell the people that lightening is "acausal" simply because they have not yet advanced in their observations.
What scientists claim to know now, they will repudiate in the future upon new discoveries.
The essential nature of science will never change.
You can keep kicking the can down the road further. But that road leads no where.
Of course, academics are so filled with hubris that they resist the idea and find nothing humorous about their work. That's a cultural problem that, of course, they will investigate thoroughly all in good time now that the first quantifiable theory of humor has established that it revolves around anything low entropy.
So you find the authority of science offensive. Should we care about that?
This is patently false. Science is not just observation, otherwise it would never have gotten off the ground. Science is a systematic method of obtaining data and forming a model or theory that best represents this data, which includes these circumstantial questions.
I have to agree. In the circumstances, it's doing a brilliant job. How else could we be here, on the Internet, talking to each other? Living our lives of comfort and banality? Unless some of those guesses turn out 100% right, too?
You sound like you're arguing for some better basis for public knowledge than 'educated guesswork'. How would that go? I'm thinking it's the best we've got.
Good point.
So do you suggest you have a better non-fallacious basis that works better? Why would anyone ever come up with questions like "meaning of life" without empirical basis? Science or not, it does not make a difference that we can only come up with questions that are based on what we can experience and interpret from it. Arguments like existence of God is still based on experience because the concept arises from the fact that most of what we experience seemingly have a beginning and our attempt to explain this.
The limits of stupidity, dysfunction, and ignorance, on the other hand, are the boundaries we push the rest of the time.
You seem to be asserting scientific instrumentalism so on that view it wouldn't make sense to call science educated guesswork because a guess is the type of thing which is either true or false.
Or you might be saying that, "because all/most of our previous scientific theories have turned out to be false, repeatedly, we are not justified in believing our present ones to be true". ?
I'd agree that there's a limit to science, but I don't agree with either of the statements from you that I quoted.
Its limitations are rather things like the fact that it has to employ a third-person perspective, it assumes uniformity/replicability, so that unusual one off events are difficult if not impossible to address scientifically, and so on.
Yes we do. For details see "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" by Karl Popper.
I sure don't agree with that, and I doubt many others would, either.
That is, unless it's still the first half of the 1500s or earlier.
Whether many others agree is irrelevant. That is simply pleading to the majority and we all know that the majority of people who thought the Earth was flat and the center of the universe were just wrong, and to prove them all wrong took making an observation that no one else ever made (like traveling to the other side of the world and going out in space and observing all the stuff). If you have something to point to show that I'm in error, other than "I and many others wouldn't agree with that", then do so. Why don't you agree?
Apparently you misread my comment as implying that you're mistaken because others and I disagree. I said nothing like that.
Then you were wasting your time telling me something I already know - that others disagree. Great post. :-\
Apparently, I'm not going to receive a reason why you don't agree.
There was an allusion to why I disagree in the rest of the comment. Why did I mention the date (range) that I did?
Aside from that, by the way, my aim in participating in message boards like this is to have a friendly, casual conversation with people who have an interest in academic philosophy, because I have a background in that milieu and my interest in it has never waned, but it's been decades since I've regularly interacted with many people who have such an interest. In a friendly conversational setting, I say things like "I don't agree with that" and so on.
Of course, my aim is often frustrated because most folks just seem to want to attend Monty Python's Argument Clinic, but I'm an "irrational optimist" with an incredible amount of patience and persistence, so I keep trying. ;-)
So, you claim that the method of science does not impose any limits, but rather it is human frailty that does.
Why not employ tools to help us, such as paper, pencils, universities, computers?
The ultimate limit of science would be truth, the absolute. Science will one day join hands spiritually and philosophically with just is, unity at last.
The spirit hovered over the silent night of the deep and the moment of creation was not remarked in light or sound. Neither did light appear on the first day, nor in the first year. Not in the first century, even. 400 millennia passed before light illuminated the cosmos.
So you're saying that my statement is outdated? You've gone from pleading to the majority to the genetic fallacy. When someone on these forums mentions quotes from Plato, Socrates, or 16th century philosophers, do you have to check your calendar?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm simply trying to get you to explain why you disagree.
I'm not doing either. What happened in the 16th century that has some importance in the history of science?
Really? You're answering a question with a question? Why is it so difficult for you to back up your position of disagreement? The conversation can continue when you clarify your position. If you don't then that shows that you aren't interested.
I'm interesting in you thinking about particular things. That's my aim. I don't expect to be able to achieve my aim, because I've been interacting with people in contexts like this online for over a couple decades now, but nevertheless, I give it a shot. I have a lot of patience and persistence, aided by being an "irrational optimist."
Nope. That wouldn't achieve what I'm interested in. Again, it's not as if I'm unexperienced at this. Also, it should be obvious--if part of what I'm trying to do is to get you to think through something on your own, holding you by the hand and babying you through it woudln't work.
The book is too long to read for a little given time I have.
Do you have some short summary of what this new method is?
I'm not unexperienced at interacting with people either and it's easy to tell when someone makes a statement and then doesn't have the balls to back it up.
No tactic like that will make me change my tactics.
If you thought that was my tactic then you aren't as experienced as you think.
So there's a possibility that I'm mistaken that I've been interacting with people in venues like this pretty much daily for 20+ years?
That is what makes Science so great, it recognizes limits.
Religion/philosophy on the other hand, have very few limits and any yahoo can make up almost any silly nonsense they want and declare it true.
Limits are not a bad things, and only once we recognize our limits can we move past them.
Science uses empirical evidence with relational methodology, and you can try to debase that with subjectivity all you want, but it is still far more credible than what religion is offering.
If you can precisely model it in terms of mathematics or mechanistic causal process then you have something that is a matter for science. Anything that cannot be so modeled falls outside its ambit. However, that seemingly obvious fact doesn't seem to penetrate the minds of the wide-eyed, ever-hopeful scientists (in the sense of 'proponents of scientism') or prevent them from issuing an endless stream of futile promissory notes.
False. Radioactive decay isn't a mechanistic causal process.
It's modeled in mathematical (statistical) terms, no?
Yes what's the "mechanistic causal process" needed for? Science has no addiction to mechanistic causal processes at all. Do you live in Descartes' time? :P
Radioactive decay is a nondeterministic (hence non-mechanical) causal process. The mechanistic part of the definition is irrelevant because it doesn't matter for science today anymore. It's about quantification and mathematical description, that is its essence.
The natural sciences and engineering are mostly modeled in terms of mechanistic (or in Aristotelian terms, efficient causation). There are some moves today in science towards wholism, towards thinking in terms of formal and final causality, but how are the 'operations' of those understandable to the human mind? They are modeled in the terms of efficient causation. Can you give an explanation of how any causal process works (of its mechanism) without giving it in terms of efficient causation?
The need of the human mind to reduce elements of causal processes to discrete units in order to grasp them is exemplified by the use of calculus to model change.
What does the calculus of Evolution look like?
Natural sciences, the way they have developed, unfortunately, do not have an Aristotelian understanding of efficient causality. Aristotle understood efficient causation as being applied to things, which bring about the motion (change) of another thing's potency to actuality. Natural science understands efficient causality to be applied to events - event one being followed by event two in time according to the dictates of law X.
So Aristotle understands ingested opium as the efficient cause of induced sleep. Notice that efficient and final cause are inseparable to Aristotle - all efficient causes are directed towards the final cause. This explains why ingesting opium always induces sleep - because it is directed towards that final cause. Hence, there is no problem of induction on the Aristotelian worldview, since all efficient causes are directed towards final causes. Furthermore - since it's a thing that is the efficient cause - in this case the opium - there is no case of the cause and the effect being loose and separate. Rather the cause and its effect are simultaneous on the Aristotelian worldview, and hence there is no gap that Hume needs in order to run his problem of induction. Ingested opium is a state of sleep - just like an artist moving his pencil on paper is the line drawn. There is no gap between the efficient cause and the effect, and hence no room for Hume's doubts.
Quoting John
The way science understands efficient causality is muddled up. Science thinks that event one, ingesting opium, is followed by event two, feeling sleepy, in time, according to some set of laws. And therefore science is under the confusion that there is no necessary link between event one and event two, since they are separated in time, and it is conceivable, because of such separation, that event one could be followed by feeling energised (for example), instead of feeling sleepy in some possible world.
To give an example of how the causal process works, then you need all four causes. You need the material cause - what the thing that changes is made of (the nature of the material), you need the formal cause - what the nature of the thing that changes is (the nature of its structure), you need the efficient cause - the external mover which brings about the required motion (change), and you need the final cause - the end towards which the causal process is directed. If you remove any of these, you cannot explain anything.
Quoting John
One has doubts that the mind can grasp infinitesimals, which are infinitely small, and yet non-zero discrete units.
Quoting John
The operation of final causality isn't understood via efficient causality - it's the other way around, efficient causality is understood via final causality.
Furthermore, natural sciences are not - in practice, not in theory - mechanistic. Biological systems aren't mechanistic. Evolution isn't mechanistic. Quantum Mechanics isn't mechanistic. Newtonian science is mechanistic - but that's about it I'm afraid. That's what I mean when I say that you're stuck in Descartes' age. Science has changed a lot since then.
I remember watching a cartoon as a kid about the conflict between science and religion. Some people on these boards remind me of that cartoon. Some of you still live thinking about mechanistic science, and non-mechanistic religion, and other stuff like that. That stuff is long gone. Nobody believes that anymore.
Quoting John
Engineering is purely pragmatic. It's modelled based on what works, it doesn't care at all about why it works, except in-so-far as why it works may help to ensure that it works. Understanding isn't the final cause of engineering - building is ;)
Science, as compared to other methods, works.
That is to say it is the most reliable method for producing applicable knowledge about the world.
This is why, when people become injured or ill they go to the hospital to be treated with science, rather than to some religious institution to be treated with mysticism.
One method produces reliable results, the other does not.
You are served well to put your faith in science.
Yes of course it works. Science was created to dominate and control the natural world - so man would become its master. I would be very surprised if it failed to work after so many years aimed at doing precisely that. However, what you discredit, namely mysticism and religion, they were never aimed at controlling the natural world. They were always aimed at preparing oneself for the afterlife - spiritual development. They didn't care (much) about this life. So to say that science has defeated religion is vacuous - that's only according to the criteria that science itself has imposed - namely worldly success. But religion never aimed to win based on this criteria. So the comparison is vacuous and stupid.
Slow and steady wins the race - that's what Jeb Bush told his supporters after he gifted them with a turtle when he was losing >:O
This brings up an interesting point, if religion has nothing to do with the natural world, then they should stay out of the classroom.
Religion has no place in a science class.
You said religion is not about the natural world, science is.
Religion has no place then, if what you say is true, trying to tell people facts about the natural world.
Be it physics or biology or chemistry or what have you.
As you agreed, religious methods are not suited for producing knowledge about the natural world, so as far as I am concerned it has no business trying to do this in any area.
I simply said religion isn't interested in this life so much as it is interested in the life of the soul which doesn't end with this life. So religion does have a place in telling facts to people in metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and natural theology.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Pragmatism is a perfectly respectable school of philosophy. :D
Quoting Agustino
Engineering may not care, but at least some engineers do. I care!
Quoting Agustino
I advocate viewing the final cause of engineering as enhancing the material well-being of all people; at least, that is what it should be, its proper purpose from an ethical standpoint.
I haven't suggested that the natural sciences operate in an Aristotelian paradigm; so, there is no need to state the obvious. Modern science is atomistic, efficient causation is understood in terms of particular action: the action of chemical elements and compound on cells, the actions of molecules, the actions of atoms; in general the action of particles, and the accumulations of those actions to form mineral and organic wholes.
So, no need for the somewhat presumptuous kindergarten lesson on Aristotle, because Aristotle is not the relevant topic, modern science and its understanding of efficient causation (the only really mainstream notion of causation in Science Town) is.
Quoting Agustino
Of course the mind cannot grasp infinitesimals. Infinitesimal and integral calculus are employed to model changes of various kinds. Large numbers of discrete values are used to model continua, in order to make calculations that are accurate enough for practical purposes in other words.
Quoting Agustino
This is nonsense. Efficient causality is understood in terms of forces, mechanical, chemical and electrical actions. Science generally denies that there is any final causation (telos). Final causation, whether it is understood to be in the form of entropy or God, is not understandable at all, unless it can be modeled in terms of efficient causation. I am not denying that science might posit that there are events at subatomic scales that are not brought about by the efficient actions of any agent, but are uncaused (truly random) events. Such events cannot be modeled; they remain incomprehensible, unless they are modeled statistically, which is what I originally said; that science consists in what can be modeled either mathematically or in terms of efficient causation.
Quoting Agustino
Here we see exemplified the characteristic problem that shows up with many of your responses, they are presumptuously based on poor reading and comprehension and thus often consist in jumping to simple-minded erroneous conclusions.
I haven't anywhere said that calculus is used to model all kinds of change. Evolution is understood in terms of the interactions between the structural and functional changes caused by genetic mutations, and the physical conditions of environments, the physical constraints they impose on action and the combined effects these have on breeding populations. All of these entirely physical effects and actions are modeled and understood in terms of the physical characteristics of materials; which is reducible to their interactions at cellular and molecular scales.
:-} No, you have just said that the natural sciences are mostly modelled in terms of mechanistic (Aristotelian efficient causation) - which is false in more than one way. Firstly, no they're not modelled in mechanistic terms. Secondly, their understanding of efficient causation isn't Aristotelian, precisely because they don't admit of final causes. This means that they don't have the same conception as Aristotle, because Aristotle showed, that given his conception, final causes are necessary to make sense of efficient causes.
Quoting John
This is again false. The behaviour of gas isn't understood in atomistic ways, but rather the gas laws are statistic. Again you impose your own prejudices of the way science functions.
Quoting John
>:O And those forces aren't directed towards producing certain kinds of effects? If they are, then efficient causality is understood via final causality, although they, like you, won't admit to it. And if they aren't, then how come they consistently produce the specific kinds of effects they do? Chance, is this random, they magically produce such effects for no reason at all?
Quoting John
Denies it but uses it all the time.
Quoting John
Your notion of efficient causality is muddled up. Aristotle showed that efficient causality cannot be understood without final causality, which is what I'm showing you.
Quoting John
Something being uncaused means it is random... Great. That's a new one. Radioactive decay and other subatomic phenomena are uncaused... That too is a new one. Radioactive decay can be understood very simply once we apply Aristotelian notions to it. It has
1. Material cause - the constituents the atom is made of
2. Formal cause - the structure given by the atom's constituents
3. Efficient cause - whatever process/thing creates the unstable atom in the first place
4. And final cause - decay.
Radioactive decay DOES have a cause. It's not a deterministic cause, but causes don't need to be deterministic in order to be causes - that's only a prejudice. Neither is it a random cause - but rather a probabilistic one. What happens is that given its formal cause - in other words its nature - the atom has a certain probability of decay. It's simply what being that kind of atom is - having a certain probability of decay. So the phenomenon is far from being incomprehensible and impossible to model. Furthermore, given N atoms, we can predict how many of them will be left off after time t very accurately. It seems our understanding is quite good and solid.
This doesn't follow because engineering isn't in the business of enhancing the material well-being of people. If it was, then why doesn't it also engage in actions such as giving food, giving vaccines, etc? So the final cause of engineering is building things. Someone who builds a tank for example, which is aimed at killing people, is still doing engineering.
Quoting aletheist
The final cause of ethics is well-being. So ethical engineering aims at building in order to enhance well-being.
Quoting aletheist
Not at all - I spoke of pragmatic not necessarily in the philosophical sense, but in the practical one.
Address what I have actually said if you want a response.
I did. You said:
Quoting John
So I addressed it. It's not efficient causation in the manner the Aristotelian conceives it. So there is no "or in Aristotelian terms, efficient causation".
You said:
Quoting John
In order to counter the point that efficient causality requires final causality to be understood. So I addressed it, and showed that merely positing forces, mechanical, chemical or otherwise does nothing to change the fact that efficient causality requires final causality to be understood.
And so forth. So don't hide.
Look at this John. See - the view I'm talking about as the scientific view. Causation as applied to events, not things. A pattern of events governed by a set of laws. This is not the Aristotelian idea of EFFICIENT causality in any sense of it.
This is simply not the case. Evolution is explained in terms of replicators undergoing variation and selection. Nowhere is a particular physical vehicle specified. Indeed, Evolution was understood before the mechanism by which it is instantiated on earth was known.
You might expect a theory of the generality of (neo-)Darwinism to have applications beyond biology, and it does. Darwinism has application in fields as diverse as Culture and Quantum Mechanics.
Molecular Biology is the theory of how Evolution is implemented by Life, but Evolution is a theory of how a certain class of abstractions give rise to complexity.
In fact, to understand that evolution happens, one only needs an inquisitive mind and knowledge of the existence of inheritance. If inheritance exists - features are transmitted to offspring - and if the environment favours the survival of individuals with certain traits - then the species, over time, will be formed solely of those who hold those traits, because in the long-run, only they will survive and reproduce, and hence pass those traits on. It's almost something you don't even need to prove...
However, John has a point that, ultimately, according to the scientific worldview, biology and chemistry have to be reducible to physics, and hence to quantification and mathematical description.
Being uncaused means more than randomness. The Free Will Theorem goes into this in some detail, but basically Kochen and Conway demonstrate that randomness is not sufficient to explain their result.
Yes most definitely. There's also conceptual problems regarding how something that is uncaused can even be conceived to begin with. When most people think of uncaused, they think of a certain empty scene followed by the empty scene holding some object N which popped into existence there. But this train of imagination could equally describe a situation of something which popped there with an unknown cause, or something which popped there after having been transported there, or something which popped there after having been created there by something. How can such scenarios be differentiated? And if they can't, to what extent is it possible to even imagine something coming into being uncaused?
In Aristotelian science there is only one uncaused cause - the Prime Mover. And uncaused in this case simply means eternal and unchangeable. Not something which pops into being, but something which cannot be conceived as non-existent.
And interestingly enough, when theists say God exists, they don't really understand what God exists means - negative theology. What they really mean by God exists is that God cannot be conceived of as non-existent.
But I've just given an example of a fundamental theory, which is a theory of abstractions and emergence, that cannot be reduced - the hallmark of a FUNDAMENTAL theory.
I suspect that all fundamental theories of emergent properties of reality may be irreducible: theories of life, computation, information, knowledge, probability, ...
Reductionism has been an extremely successful method in physics (and science in general), and may indeed lead us to a "Theory of Everything", but we effectively already have that. There is no known phenomenon, despite the attempts of the LHC, that renders our physical theories problematic in any way. I am not aware of any research program trying to reduce Life to the Standard Model!
So, it seems to me that the claim that the "scientific world-view" is *essentially* reductionist, is a misrepresentation. There are just too many interesting autonomous emergent phenomena to explain!
Going a little beyond the "scientific world-view", to what I've just decided to call the "rational world-view", I'm not convinced that, given two theories which are logically related, it is logically possible to infer which one determines the other. Why can't the laws of biology determine the laws of physics?
The Free Will Theorem falsifies the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The behaviour of the particles has no cause.
It cannot yet be reduced, but according to the scientific worldview it is in principle reducible.
Quoting tom
Because physics studies the building blocks of the world. Physics was there before biology, and physics gave rise to biology. Thus causality must go from physics towards biology, not the other way around. Something that isn't in the cause cannot be in the effect.
Quoting tom
No it doesn't. You're making the same mistake of assuming that a cause has to be deterministic to be a cause at all. But what about non-deterministic causes? Are they not also causes? Is it not part of the particle's nature, and the nature of our measurements, that their behaviour cannot be predicted deterministically?
You are conflating its proper purpose with how it is actually (instrumentally) employed in most cases. My suggestion is that enhancing the material well-being of all people is the ideal for which all engineers should strive, from an ethical standpoint.
Quoting Agustino
I understood that - hence the smiley in my response.
There is no question of purpose here. There is a question of what is its final cause - what is it directed towards. The question isn't what SHOULD it be directed towards, but what is it actually directed towards, in both the ethical and the unethical cases? Final causality is objective, not subjective.
You have diverted this into a side issue about Aristotle's understanding of causation. I never claimed that modern science's understanding of causation is the same as Aristotle's, so you're really not arguing with me, but with yourself.
The idea of efficient causation (and material cause) is the idea of 'how' it is concerned with the mechanisms of change. The ideas of formal and final cause are ideas of 'why'. Modern science does not concern itself with those kinds of questions, for modern science there is no 'why' in nature.
Wrong. Formal cause is still "how". The atom's structure is its formal cause, and it is part of the how with regards to radioactive decay. Your notions are very muddled up, as I've said before.
I took you to be referring to biological evolution.
Have you forgotten you wrote this?
Quoting John
So science mostly models in terms of mechanistic [causes] (or in Aristotelian terms, efficient causation). This sentence means and implies that mechanistic [causes] = Aristotelian efficient causation
You claim that an abstract replicator will be reduced to the Standard Model, or perhaps String Theory given enough time. If that were possible in principle, it should be possible now to give an in-principle argument of how that reduction can be achieved. One thing is for sure - no new knowledge of fundamental particles is going to affect the argument in any way.
So how do you reduce a theory of abstract replicators undergoing variation and selection to a physical theory?
According to the "scientific world-view" (neo-)Darwinism is a fundamental theory with applications to Life, Culture and Quantum Mechanics.
Quoting Agustino
But there is no notion of causality in fundamental physics. Given the state of the universe at any time, the state at any other time may be calculated. Now, is as good as the Big-Bang for determining the past or the future.
That's because you, like other physicists, are using muddled up notions of causality. I've explained for example, how radioactive decay, a phenomenon widely taken to be uncaused in physics is actually caused, and can be explained and understood perfectly by Aristotle's fourfold causality metaphysics.
Quoting tom
Ask a scientist.
Quoting tom
Not according to Lawrence Krauss - for example.
But spin 1 bosons, with no internal structure, exhibit uncaused interactions.
No it just means that modern people sometimes use the Aristotelian term (or more accurately the modern English translation of the Aristotelian term) when referring to physical causation general.
In other words you're misinterpreting what was intended by what I wrote and insisting upon your own interpretation as if you think you know better than I do what I meant; which is annoying to say the least. I'm not interested in discussing issues that you have fabricated and then insist on attributing to me; why would I? It seems just a waste of time.
Give a specific example.
Maybe you intended something different than you wrote, or maybe I don't know how to understand English expressions - doesn't really matter to be honest. Stop complaining so much :P
Atomic structure is probably better thought of as a material cause because it is understood to determine the different kinds of material or elements. But this is obviously beyond anything Aristotle intended, because he didn't entertain any modern microphysical conceptions. The ways form and material are now thought about is very different than the ancient ways and are still extremely equivocal. This one point could lead to an extensive and very ambivalent inquiry which would be way beyond the scope of the OP.
The salient point is that modern science does not concern itself with 'why'.
If atomic structure is the material cause, then what is the formal cause? Material cause is the raw element something is made of. Formal cause is the structure of the raw element, its form.
At bottom there does not seem to be any coherent and unequivocal distinction between form and matter. But, again, this question has really nothing to do with the OP.
It all depends on what you mean by 'random' I suppose. From Wikipedia:
Radioactive decay is a stochastic (i.e. random) process at the level of single atoms, in that, according to quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay,
I think there is. In Plato/Aristotle, matter is the raw underlying material, and form is its structure, whether this structure is given by its shape, etc. So for an atom, the constituent parts - the protons, neutrons and electrons are its material cause (and each of these particles have certain properties which influence the behaviour of the atom, such as charge). Then there is the formal cause - the form of the atom - which are all the properties given by the specific association and number of protons/electrons/neutrons - which are the properties of the different substances, etc.
But, as far as I know, (and I don't know that much about quantum physics) the "particles" themselves are today considered to be energetic configurations (i.e. forms) of a field. Anyway it seems to me that there is no unambiguous way of talking about the relation between form, force and matter at fundamental levels. If you are sufficiently interested, why not start a thread and ask the question of those who are more physics-literate?
For example earlier you said this:
Quoting Agustino
which may be true enough from one perspective. But then how is the pressure of a gas in a container and the force it exerts on the container generally modeled? In terms of movements of particles, no?
Yes but in reference to different things. For example, in reference to radioactive decay, since the atom is the main actor, we take the constituents of the atom as material cause, and their structure as the formal cause. If we take the proton as main actor, instead of the atom, and talk about the proton and its behaviour, then we take the material cause as the up up down quarks and the formal cause as their structure/relationship with each other. It's all with regard to how deep the explanation needs to go. To explain radioactive decay for example, the fact that protons are made up of quarks is irrelevant. So protons can be treated as fundamentals for the purposes of such an explanation. Of course if one wants to be really exact and detailed, they would treat quarks, bosons and so forth as fundamentals and go with everything up from there. But such an analysis isn't required for an explanation, the same way that the genetic mechanism isn't required to explain evolution. The idea of evolution can be explained merely through the idea of inheritance, and natural selection.
Yes and no. The theory behind it is modelled as particles, but the behaviour of each individual particle isn't used to determine the behaviour of the whole gas. So the behaviour of the whole gas isn't mathematically modelled in terms of the behaviour of each individual particle. Rather the behaviour of the whole gas is determined with reference to temperature, volume, pressure, number of molecules and universal gas constant. So the behaviour of the gas in terms of particles isn't actually tractable. It's only the statistic behaviour of gas, as all the particles combined, that is tractable and modelled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_laws
All these particle models assume conservation of kinetic energy (elastic collisions), conservation of momentum and transfer of forces along the line of impact. So the behaviour of gas that we know statistically is taken for granted to emerge out of the behaviour of the particles assuming those assumptions I listed. Recently in fact I've been playing around with some programming to model Brownian motion, and the assumptions used in that particle model are basically the same (so my program can model gas, just as well as Brownian motion - all that one has to do is keep the particles the same size/mass).
All that's fine, as far as it goes. But in science these days the dominant paradigm says that ultimately biology and geology, for example, are reducible to organic and inorganic chemistry which are reducible to physics. For example heat, friction, erosion and even growth, metabolism and digestion are all understand to consist, ultimately, in actions by particles on other particles. Certainly coherency of whole theories can be eroded by reduction to mechanistic explanations of action on micro-physical levels, but I think it's fair to say that it is generally presumed to be the case by modern scientists that macro processes are ultimately and exhaustively constituted by energetic, efficient microphysical processes, even if observable macrolevel interactions, for example fluctuations of animal populations in some ecosystem, cannot be coherently modeled in those terms
This is irrelevant because I never said it was. It is obviously modeled as the energetic interactions of all the particles, including the interactions of the gas particles with the particles that make up the container.
The point is it is understood in terms of energy, in terms of the directly efficient effects of particles upon one another. What is (purportedly) being understood is the mechanism of the effect of pressure the gas exerts on the container.
The gas laws model the behaviour of the gas as a whole. To model it as composed of particles is to be able to take into account what each particle does and what effect those actions have. But this is precisely what isn't done. Furthermore, interaction with the walls of the container is assumed to be equivalent to interaction with other particles (except that the wall is given infinite mass - so effectively the particle that hits the wall is deflected at the opposite angle it hits at, at the same velocity it hit - this wouldn't be the case with a particle hitting another particle, because then there would be transfer of velocities across the line of impact, taking into account the masses of the two particles). Same assumptions as I said in my previous comment.
However, it is difficult to go from individual particles to pressure for example. Pressure is something that arises out of the behaviour of all the particles together, not of one single particle. Technically and theoretically this is equivalent to adding effects from each individual particle, but this has never been tested :P Furthermore, the ideal gas law applies to all gases (or so they say), regardless of the particles which make up the gas. So theoretically, two gases which have different particles which compose them, but have the same number of particles, will behave the same. Practically obviously they don't, because some of the gases have more massive particles for example, and thus behave differently in the same conditions. (but the differences are slight)
Quoting John
True, but what I mean to say is that this "detailed analysis" is never actually done. It's always presupposed that it is possible to do it though. It's presupposed that it's possible to go from physics and develop out of it the whole of chemistry/biology and everything else. And there are reasons for holding onto such presuppositions, but they're never actually tested.
Again you're not disagreeing with what I said because I didn't claim that all the interactions of all the individual particles could be modeled. Obviously they cannot. But the behavior of the gas is understood to be the result of the interactions of the particles that constitute it.
On a theoretical level sure. But on the practical level no. We don't calculate as if the behaviour of individual particles mattered. We deal with global level variables - pressure, temperature, etc. which we claim/assume to arise from the behaviour of the particles. That's why my initial answer was yes and no. I didn't say I disagree with what you're saying. What you're saying isn't wrong, just not the full story.
Maybe you are familiar with the philosophers Bertrand Russell and David Hume? They, and many philosophers have noticed that the fundamental physical laws do not contain, or refer to causation, and that in particular, their time-symmetry indicates that causation is not a part of Reality.
The Free Will Theorem goes a bit further and refutes the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
What about the second law of thermodynamics, the only theory in physics that has never been questioned - the so called arrow of time? :)
Any spin-1 boson will suffice. For details, consult the Free Will Theorem.
What about it?
The gas laws model describe interactions of gas as we have observed. In effect, it does model interactions of individual particles, just only to a specific level-- to the impact of many individual gas particles together in the world we have observed so far.
Nothing about this relationship is necessarily to the world though. At any point, gas might behave differently or cease to exist at all. The gas laws are not a constraint on the world, but rather than expression of the world as we've found it.
As such, there is no "final cause." Gas that behaves to the gas model laws is not necessary at all. It's only so when gas behaves in that way. No doubt gas that is modelled by the gas laws necessarily behaves in that way, but that is an expression, an instance of being, rather than a cause.
Alright, but from the beginning of this discussion I have consistently interpreted the question in the OP to be about the limits of science as theory, not the limits of science as practice.
If it is as you claim, that "it all depends on what you mean by 'random' ", then why not explain what you mean.
Well, all that the free-will theorem proves, if anything, is that quantum mechanics is indeterministic. That isn't to say that it is acausal. Science views indeterminism with something being uncaused, but this isn't true at all. With regard to the spin-1 boson. Taking QFT as true, the material cause is the field, the formal cause is the boson, the efficient cause is whatever gave energy to the field to move into the higher state and produce the boson, and the final cause is whatever interaction the boson has (which may indeed be an indeterminate interaction - because it is in the nature of the boson to interact, even randomly if you want, with other particles).
Yeeeees >:O just like at any point I may become Bishop of Rome!
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No, they are necessary. The world couldn't be otherwise. This world couldn't. Maybe some other world could.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Look to what mumbo-jumbo crazy assumptions you have to resort to just because you're worried about the consequences of final causality with regards to God. You have to accept that the laws governing this universe could entirely change tomorrow, and be completely different! Gravity could start repelling us from the Earth rather than attracting us! So crazy...
I was using it in the ordinary sense as it is used in that Wikipedia article. If you are doubtful about what sense a term is being used in you can always ask, instead of assuming it is being used in some other sense you intend; and without giving any explanation of your own usage. :-}
Second law of thermodynamics is partly metaphysical. The arrow of time isn't just a distinction of one state of existence from another, but a identification of a logical difference between the past and future.
The perpetual motion machine, for example, isn't logically impossible because a machine cannot run indefinitely (that might happen, so long as their is a finite state of energy to draw-- practically, the effect of a perpetual motion machine is logically possible. If there was an endless series of finite states to draw on, and doing so had no impact on anything else, the machine would run "perpetually"almost as imagined ), but rather because even a machine that keeps on running is a finite state drawing on other finite states. Time and difference keep moving, even for the machine that runs constantly.
Maybe... I'm reluctant to say it is metaphysical.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Practically it seems impossible.
Nope, the response of the particle is un-caused and randomness is insufficient to establish the theorem. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is false.
BSing really doesn't help your cause by the way.
You don't understand what uncaused means. Uncaused means that there is no particle there even. If there is a particle there, then that particle has a certain nature, a certain way of behaving. That way of behaving may be indeterministic in nature. It may be random, it may be spontaneous. All that doesn't mean there isn't a cause. It means there is a cause - that cause is the nature of the particle. It's in the nature of the particle to move, for example, spontaneously. It's in its nature - it's what it means to be that kind of particle.
And a metaphysical principle cannot be falsified by a physical theory.
Nope, the response of the particle - more precisely the Reality in the proximity of the particle - is not a function of the past. The particle is free - nothing causes, or can possibly cause its response. All loopholes are closed.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the particle has options, and exercises them.
That's pre-determinism-- not only are is there such gas, but no other outcome was possible. Or in other words, there are no worlds in which gas could be otherwise.
When we say the world "could be otherwise" we are always speaking about some "other world." A possible world, not the actual one. "Could be" doesn't describe the world as it happens. This is why freedom/contingency doesn't clash with the determinism of causality. The necessarily outcome at any moment (the event that occurs) happens not in opposition to freedom, but rather because of it.
The behaviour of gas particles is caused not by an necessary destiny ("final cause"), but in the emergence of new states which amount to the causal outcome. Gas particles moving to increases pressure in a container, for example, only occurs if that outcome emerges. If we happened to reduce the space in a container, only to find the gas stayed where it was or didn't exert any more force, a different possible outcome would occur and the gas model (at least for that interaction would be different). For any causal relationship, the world has to perform it. It cannot be given by a model. Models are expressions, not constraints.
This world could be otherwise. The fact that something happens doesn't mean an alternative is not possible. If someone acts to kills someone else, it doesn't mean they couldn't have acted otherwise. The killing wasn't necessary to this world. It's just what happened. Possibilities aren't touched by this.
They could change though. This is basic logic-- one cannot say what must happen in the future based on the knowledge of the present. It's entirely possible the universe could be different tomorrow.
Such a possibility doesn't mean the world will be different though. Possibility is not what's actual. To say it possible the universe could work completely differently doesn't commit to a position to saying that it does. It's not really "crazy" at all. Accepting that gravity might start repelling us from Earth tomorrow is not to think that it will. Indeed, that idea might be rejected entirely. A person may think that although such an event is possible, it will never occur-- a frequent position people hold about what the world does.
Yeah the particle behaves spontaneously. So what? That doesn't mean that it's uncaused. It is caused, because something, namely a field, produces that particle, for once, and secondly because that particle has a certain nature, a nature which causes it to be spontaneous. In other words, doesn't its nature cause its free response? Its nature is such that it has a free response. Nothing uncaused about that. So no - sorry to burst your bubble. There's nothing uncaused about indeterminism :D
It seems that you are advocating stochastic processes in Nature. There is no such thing!
That's a contradiction: a particle does not pre-exist itself such that it's there with a "nature" that determines its own form.
For sure. Such a machine would require world different from the one we've observed. With respect to our understanding of "energy," it would effectively break the laws of thermodynamics as we understand them. An endless series of finite states of energy that don't impact on the wider world is effectively an endless internal battery for the machine.
Although it doesn't break what is logically possible, and is consistent with thermodynamics in the metaphysical sense, it utterly contradicts our understanding of thermodynamics as an expression of interacting states. In practical terms, it would effectively mean creating energy out of nothing-- to build this machine would mean granting access to an endless well of energy that otherwise did nothing. With respect to the interactions of the world, it adding an endless supply of energy from nothing more than building the machine itself.
This is quite funny. You are simply denying a mathematical result - a proof - based on QM given by two of the smartest mathematicians alive.
Your appeal to "a field" is tragic in its irrelevance. Then you appeal to the nature of the particle "a nature which causes it to be spontaneous". Sure, why not impute emotions while your at it.
Then you ask, "doesn't its nature cause its free response?". Which of the possible responses do you think is caused by "its nature"?
Well, it seems clear that is your opinion, for whatever it's worth.
I don't have an opinion on that and I was merely referring to the way 'random' is thought.
No i don't appeal to a "field". Have you studied quantum field theory? What we call particles are really the fields moving to a higher energy level at a certain location. This is actually science bruv - you should read up on it.
Evidently ALL of its responses, are in part due to its nature. It's simply what being a boson is - behaving that way.
That is not true at all.
"The scope of any inference is constrained based on whether there is a random sample (RS) and/or random assignment (RA). [...] Random assignment allows for causal inferences for the differences that are observed - the difference in treatment levels causes differences in the mean responses. Random sampling (or at least some sort of representative sample) allows for inferences to be made to the population of interest. If we do no have RA, then causal inferences cannot be made. If we do not have a representative sample, then our inferences are limited to the sampled subjects. "
Greenwood, M., & Banner, K. (2016). A Second Semester Statistics Course with R (3rd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Creative Commons. Page. 50
You can still have a statistical model with out RA, you just cannot make causal inferences. .
How does the metaphysical principle, nihil fit ex nihilo[3], account for that in this context?
It doesn't really; the principle isn't unconditional to begin with; a task of inquirers is to delineate such principles.
Quoting taylordonbarrett
We know lots about causation.
Say, causation as uni-directional interaction[4], or uni-directional aspects thereof — what we find as related, temporally ordered events.
Causes and effects are events, and events are subsets of changes (contextual) — they occur.
Conversely, not all events are necessarily effects (exemplified by micro-chaos[5][6][7][8]).
Eventually we get to processes (as ontologically distinct from objects, for example).
It seems spatiotemporality is a prerequisite for mentioned micro-chaos.
________
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law#Exact_laws
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_comes_from_nothing
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
The idea of the self has always been an idea with infinite possibility, as well as,
a subject in science without evidence to deduce its existence. There have been many scientists spending their entire lives studying neurology, and they still haven’t found a link to a self from past the mechanisms in the brain in your head, that run consciousness. The scientific discovery that the cognitive self has never been doesn’t mean there is no such thing--or maybe this only means that the self is more vast--and we haven’t been able to find its limit. The philosophical contemplation of the self is endless, and generally we become part of what we do in life from things like our jobs or hobbies within society to our dreams of the future, we notice our self apart from the rest. Doctors are called doctors, if someone earns a prestigious title it means they have spent their time becoming something.
And this is traceable, observable, and identifiable in our every day-to-day movement. When we exercise our body changes, there are signs that we can see showing the self in action. While the self is still a mystery to science as far as we can understand it, there are many other ways of finding yourself. We have a self, and it isn’t clear exactly what
that is, but what is clear is that we can accomplish anything. People will spend their
whole lives studying material in hopes that they will one day be seen as something like
a doctor, lawyer, or something else that takes a lifetime to study to be.
The supernatural is an option that would explain what is happening, now we don’t ever fully grasp the supernatural which is why this may just be the kind of answer that exists: there may be something out of our control which is affecting our life. This answer appeals to those who see rational behavior as something that supports the self’s ability to make every movement seem important. Many theories of the self are put together from a wide variety of collections hoping to catch its meaning somewhere in the whole scheme of things. This theory stems from the idea that there is a direct causal relationship between the nature of our daily lives, and consciousness, which could be a link to finding out about the self. Some claim the self isn’t real, and that we are a cog in the rest of the machinery.
We are seen as a network of feelings that flow from our environment, and from the brain in cognitive, emotional, and social ways. But when this is shown as evidently the case, there is still more room to invent a larger scale idea, rather than focusing on yourself take everything into account something so large that you become engulfed by it, eventually leading to it influencing who you are. There is the microscopic level and the macroscopic level, we operate on both, and this contrast gives life to the self. This seems to shed light on the subject, but the brain itself is not entirely predictable from only its underlying activities--from an organ we still don’t completely understand. We are a unified singular being, and so we branch out into our environment and all that it has to offer.
As we live, we grow, when we spend our time focused in on something these two phenomena come together. Depending on the individual person the self may manifest in an incredibly large amount of strange and different ways. According to social psychology, a couple of ways in which we can model the behavior we accept is with ideas such as self-concept, self-awareness, self-esteem, and positive self-image. These are all invaluable to our ability to maneuver through the environment. People interact with each other and
identify by these psychological topics.
To say that the idea of a self is fantasy drawn up by something too large to control doesn’t fit with realistic impressions from experiences in life, as confusing as it may seem, it is always fluid enough to show your individuality. Behavior is almost the foundation for any clue we have to finding the self. And although our general behavior is influenced by reinforcement that doesn’t mean that we have to leave it at that. There are many reasons behind why we choose the reinforcers that we do, and this helps provide us with an image of a self, and one that is more adaptable.
We are ever changing even when we are defined in ultimately finite roles. The ability to think is what can keep us in a category separate from other more objective roles that we fill. We are products of the environment, that think about ourselves subjectively to
control how we grow. This is a necessary survival skill that both moderates our behavior, as well as, the behavior of what we grow from. And to continue to grow we must maintain our perception of what we are.
This plays into the social aspect of life, and that is where we come from. An aspect of life that is there for our every attentive need. The self needs to be seen as a factor when it is reflecting from our every experience. Find out why we have myelin sheaths on our nerve cells. We create these so we can keep our skill level at certain repetitious tasks.
Lit Review
After reviewing all of the sources I have found them to be helpful in discovering more about the phenomenon known as the self. These different sources provide substitutes for what could be seen as the self because there are still some things we don’t know or haven’t discovered--exactly how the brain works along with the extent of consciousness is still one of the world’s mysteries. Although cognitive science describes us as a vast number of networks connected to a larger consciousness, we are still one enigma of day-to-day stimuli. Over eighty phenomena related to what we know as the self is described in my source from Psychology Today on the medically accurate and more scientific side of things, and on the philosophical standpoint I have both Stanford.edu displaying Kant’s take on the mind along with consciousness and Hume’s take on the matter, as well. We are a brain interacting with its environment, whatever that means, but what becomes of it is clear for us to experience as we see what there is in store.
From the website Livescience.com, I have looked over many different conceptual ideas that encapsulate what one would call themselves. A self Landscape is described as containing a continuum of what could be, categorizing an array of complicated concepts to articulate the possibility of the self-compartmentalized. Then more supernatural answers are included, for unsolved mysteries, and a look at unexplainable connections. There are illusions that could yet still be undiscovered. Artificial competition may be inherent, but tricks of the brain provide us with more information.
Individual chemical balance is pointed to on Livescience.com as the reason for our being acting in the uniquely colorful ways that it does. This theory is due to the rate at which neuro and brain science is currently moving. According to a theory on Livescience, put forth by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, as a way of idealizing the notion of the self in a weak emergence theory, he says, ”The self is the product of interacting brain mechanisms, both at the microscopic neuronal level and at the macroscopic brain systems level. Given future neuroscience, eventually the self will be predictable from the brain alone; in other words, brain activity alone could still explain the self entirely.” (Kuhn, Robert Lawrence. “What Is a ‘Self’? Here Are All the Possibilities.” Livescience, December 7, 2016,https://www.livescience.com/57126-what-is-a-self-all-possibilities.html)
The author of the article then gives an interesting counter theory, stating that the self is a product of the before mentioned brain mechanisms, only we will never be able to fully recognize its true maxims or their further widespread acts.
When we are curious about the noise at the end of the hall, or why we keep hearing a faint voice whispering sweet nothings in our ear, people will sometimes turn to the supernatural. How society effects us is as great as how anything would, my source about the psychology of society and its effects on us in covers a range of personal systems that run what we see as reality. Cognitive self along with how we self-conceptualize is bulleted into objectives for searching different regions that would contain most any answer you would hope to discover about yourself in the context of psychology. The Psychological mapping is helpful, in that it mixes what we know as the sensations of who we are, and the actual medical phenomena that would be the source of our actions as we live them out. This edition covers everything from indications about self-esteem to cognition, to social media and online lives.