Newton's Inconsistency
We were trained in the spirit of engineering and we thought of the trigger as the cause of the process. We no longer think of the heart as the cause of the bullet's trajectory (I mean, the heart was hit by the bullet). We live after Newton. When we see a stone that is falling, we perceive it as an object that is under the domain of gravity. We find it difficult to share the perception of the medieval scholar who sees the same phenomenon as caused by the stone's desire to reach the land. This is the final cause, [the final cause of the movement]. Instead, we perceive a force that is pushing the heavy body.
The ancient desiderium naturae, [the natural desire, the desire of nature], which is the natural desire of the stone to reach a state of rest as close as it can to the bosom of the earth has become a myth for us. Even more completely, the idea of ??a first cause or primary end cause, an ultimate motivating reason for all the desires that are hidden in the nature of the stone, or the plant, or the man, has become foreign to our century. Final stage, in the mental universe of the 20th century, has the connotation of death. Entropy is our ultimate destination. We experience reality as monocausal. We only know about efficient causes.
The idea that the stone moves towards the earth because it has a desire, a natural desire, a natural impulse to come into contact with the earth has become strange and almost incomprehensible to us because we live in a Newtonian world.
Newton says that it is not the stone that moves: it is moved from outside by a force he calls gravitation. In saying that matter attracts matter in the direct ratio of the masses and in the inverse ratio of the square of the distances, he is saying that the larger matter attracts the smaller matter. So it is not the stone that is going to land, it is the earth that is pulling the stone.It is as if our view of the physical universe has been inverted in relation to that appearance that nature presented to the scholastics.
Isaac Newton, when observing the behavior of nature and doing math, discovered a certain regularity, things that are repeated. And he says that things are like that. But how long are they repeated? Note that Newton, to substantiate his theory, had to invent something he called absolute time?--?time as a permanent unit of measurement, regardless of what happens. But how long a time where nothing happened would last? It is inconceivable. The idea of ??absolute time contradicts itself. The time that is independent of what happens is the time that is independent of duration; so it's not time at all. Newton also had to invent absolute space, space without things inside; that is, space as pure measure. But if there is nothing within the space, there is also no measure. So, to arrive at a description of the behavior of nature that we consider realistic and within which we live,?-?- and we live within that Newtonian space-time to the point that whatever contradicts it seems unthinkable to us?-?-, Newton conceived two ideas that are absolutely self-contradictory. He recognized that these ideas are mere inventions, but he needed them in order to make the measurements. Then you invent unrealistic comparison plans and based on them you make a series of measurements and declare "Now I have learned the reality". You also don't know if this is true. This means the following: if you try to think of everything in terms of space-time, nothing will be left in your hand. Space and time cannot be sustained and that is what St. Hugo once said, long before Newton and long before quantum physics.
We will see how we can overcome this merely historical approach, which would be a kind of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism gives millions of reasons for you not to understand one thing: "I can no longer understand that because it was out of reality. So, as I am imbued with modern scientific culture and I know how things really are, I cannot completely get over the head of a 13th century guy, because in the 13th century they are to us like a madman to the normal person. I cannot fully enter the universe of a madman. I can see it as a structure, but I cannot participate in it". Let's see if they are crazy.
When Newton says that it is not the stone that moves towards the earth, but the earth that attracts that small piece of matter in the direct ratio of the masses and in the indirect ratio of the square of the distance, you ask yourself: "But what precisely is Earth attracting?" It is a stone. Is a stone nothing? The stone is something, it has its own properties. And if she didn't have them and if she were nothing, the earth would attract her in vain, because she wouldn't come at all. This means that the description of the world that takes place in Newton's mechanics assumes the existence of the various substances of the various beings that are affected by the law of gravity. It does not reason from these substances, but only from the mechanical relationships between them. But in order for mechanical relationships to exist, they must take place between things that exist, and things that exist have substances.
When ancient physics said that the stone has a natural desire to rest in the bosom of the Earth, it said exactly what Galileo will say later: that when an object is not moved by another it remains at rest or in a uniform rectilinear motion. This impulse of rest or uniform rectilinear motion is inherent in the object?--?with the proviso that Galileo said that uniform rectilinear motion is only a unit of measure and does not really exist. Aristotle, in ancient physics, said that when an object is not moved by another it remains at rest. Galileo adds in brackets: "or in a uniform rectilinear movement, which does not really exist"?-?that is, it remains at rest. Now, from the general point of view of the theory of universal gravitation, there is a mysterious force called gravity by which larger matter attracts smaller matter. But from the point of view of another physical law, which is the law of inertia, the impulse to rest is in the object itself. It cannot receive the rest impulse from outside, it can only receive the movement. Although the expression desiderium naturae?-?-desire of nature?--?is a literary expression, it expresses precisely what the law of inertia says.
Confronting what Hugo, or what any other medieval author, is saying with Newton's law, I ask: who said it is Newton's law that he is referring to and not something else? Seen as an expression of Newton's law, of the law of gravitation, the expression desiderium naturae does not make any sense, because it is matter that attracts matter?--?the body does not move, but is moved. But if that body was nothing and had no property, it could not be moved. But the expression desiderium naturae refers not to what happens to the object, but what it is and does?-?that is, its substantial form. This substantial form is what makes it want to be at rest?-?that is, it is the law of inertia.
It is not that there is only an absurdity, an absolutely unacceptable contradiction, but the whole order of pedagogy in which we are being taught is based on the idea of accepting an absurdity in a disciplined way so that we can then understand something else that would never go back on that absurdity and explain it. In Newton's physics: you "swallow" this thing of absolute time, this thing of absolute space (which doesn't exist, that's a nonsense), but by doing this, you will learn to measure the relationship between the masses, etc. Of course, it is a gain as long as it is known that it was absurd (original). You can make an analogy with the business of René Girard:
The community that is born from an original crime that is then hidden: that trauma will always remain, that dirt will stay there
Its original absurdity, even if it leads to spectacular scientific consequences, will always be an error, an absurdity and always a sin of the spirit. If you remain attentive throughout the development of the study you are doing, attentive to the awareness of the original absurdity, and say: "This is just a game rule. We are going to postulate an absurd thing just to see what happens, and then we'll come back here", and if you do this, everything is fine, but most don't.
The ancient desiderium naturae, [the natural desire, the desire of nature], which is the natural desire of the stone to reach a state of rest as close as it can to the bosom of the earth has become a myth for us. Even more completely, the idea of ??a first cause or primary end cause, an ultimate motivating reason for all the desires that are hidden in the nature of the stone, or the plant, or the man, has become foreign to our century. Final stage, in the mental universe of the 20th century, has the connotation of death. Entropy is our ultimate destination. We experience reality as monocausal. We only know about efficient causes.
The idea that the stone moves towards the earth because it has a desire, a natural desire, a natural impulse to come into contact with the earth has become strange and almost incomprehensible to us because we live in a Newtonian world.
Newton says that it is not the stone that moves: it is moved from outside by a force he calls gravitation. In saying that matter attracts matter in the direct ratio of the masses and in the inverse ratio of the square of the distances, he is saying that the larger matter attracts the smaller matter. So it is not the stone that is going to land, it is the earth that is pulling the stone.It is as if our view of the physical universe has been inverted in relation to that appearance that nature presented to the scholastics.
Isaac Newton, when observing the behavior of nature and doing math, discovered a certain regularity, things that are repeated. And he says that things are like that. But how long are they repeated? Note that Newton, to substantiate his theory, had to invent something he called absolute time?--?time as a permanent unit of measurement, regardless of what happens. But how long a time where nothing happened would last? It is inconceivable. The idea of ??absolute time contradicts itself. The time that is independent of what happens is the time that is independent of duration; so it's not time at all. Newton also had to invent absolute space, space without things inside; that is, space as pure measure. But if there is nothing within the space, there is also no measure. So, to arrive at a description of the behavior of nature that we consider realistic and within which we live,?-?- and we live within that Newtonian space-time to the point that whatever contradicts it seems unthinkable to us?-?-, Newton conceived two ideas that are absolutely self-contradictory. He recognized that these ideas are mere inventions, but he needed them in order to make the measurements. Then you invent unrealistic comparison plans and based on them you make a series of measurements and declare "Now I have learned the reality". You also don't know if this is true. This means the following: if you try to think of everything in terms of space-time, nothing will be left in your hand. Space and time cannot be sustained and that is what St. Hugo once said, long before Newton and long before quantum physics.
We will see how we can overcome this merely historical approach, which would be a kind of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism gives millions of reasons for you not to understand one thing: "I can no longer understand that because it was out of reality. So, as I am imbued with modern scientific culture and I know how things really are, I cannot completely get over the head of a 13th century guy, because in the 13th century they are to us like a madman to the normal person. I cannot fully enter the universe of a madman. I can see it as a structure, but I cannot participate in it". Let's see if they are crazy.
When Newton says that it is not the stone that moves towards the earth, but the earth that attracts that small piece of matter in the direct ratio of the masses and in the indirect ratio of the square of the distance, you ask yourself: "But what precisely is Earth attracting?" It is a stone. Is a stone nothing? The stone is something, it has its own properties. And if she didn't have them and if she were nothing, the earth would attract her in vain, because she wouldn't come at all. This means that the description of the world that takes place in Newton's mechanics assumes the existence of the various substances of the various beings that are affected by the law of gravity. It does not reason from these substances, but only from the mechanical relationships between them. But in order for mechanical relationships to exist, they must take place between things that exist, and things that exist have substances.
When ancient physics said that the stone has a natural desire to rest in the bosom of the Earth, it said exactly what Galileo will say later: that when an object is not moved by another it remains at rest or in a uniform rectilinear motion. This impulse of rest or uniform rectilinear motion is inherent in the object?--?with the proviso that Galileo said that uniform rectilinear motion is only a unit of measure and does not really exist. Aristotle, in ancient physics, said that when an object is not moved by another it remains at rest. Galileo adds in brackets: "or in a uniform rectilinear movement, which does not really exist"?-?that is, it remains at rest. Now, from the general point of view of the theory of universal gravitation, there is a mysterious force called gravity by which larger matter attracts smaller matter. But from the point of view of another physical law, which is the law of inertia, the impulse to rest is in the object itself. It cannot receive the rest impulse from outside, it can only receive the movement. Although the expression desiderium naturae?-?-desire of nature?--?is a literary expression, it expresses precisely what the law of inertia says.
Confronting what Hugo, or what any other medieval author, is saying with Newton's law, I ask: who said it is Newton's law that he is referring to and not something else? Seen as an expression of Newton's law, of the law of gravitation, the expression desiderium naturae does not make any sense, because it is matter that attracts matter?--?the body does not move, but is moved. But if that body was nothing and had no property, it could not be moved. But the expression desiderium naturae refers not to what happens to the object, but what it is and does?-?that is, its substantial form. This substantial form is what makes it want to be at rest?-?that is, it is the law of inertia.
It is not that there is only an absurdity, an absolutely unacceptable contradiction, but the whole order of pedagogy in which we are being taught is based on the idea of accepting an absurdity in a disciplined way so that we can then understand something else that would never go back on that absurdity and explain it. In Newton's physics: you "swallow" this thing of absolute time, this thing of absolute space (which doesn't exist, that's a nonsense), but by doing this, you will learn to measure the relationship between the masses, etc. Of course, it is a gain as long as it is known that it was absurd (original). You can make an analogy with the business of René Girard:
The community that is born from an original crime that is then hidden: that trauma will always remain, that dirt will stay there
Its original absurdity, even if it leads to spectacular scientific consequences, will always be an error, an absurdity and always a sin of the spirit. If you remain attentive throughout the development of the study you are doing, attentive to the awareness of the original absurdity, and say: "This is just a game rule. We are going to postulate an absurd thing just to see what happens, and then we'll come back here", and if you do this, everything is fine, but most don't.
Comments (67)
Quoting bcccampello
The idea of absolute time here is not contradictory, it only appears contradictory from your perspective. That's the cultural relativism you refer to, coming into play. What you call "time that is independent of what happens...independent of duration", is really best described as time independent of measurement. The passage of time is measured by human beings through reference to physical change. But since we do not know what the passage of time actually is, we cannot say with absolute certainty that there is no other way to measure the passage of time. If there is another way, then we can conceive of time passing without physical change.
Aristotle distinguished two senses of "time". One is the tool of measurement, and this is the concept "time", and the other is the thing itself which is measured, and this is the actual passage of time. The modern perspective has slipped exclusively toward the former, producing a cultural perspective which excludes the latter. So it is only the cultural relativism which makes absolute time appear to be inconceivable. The apparent inconceivability is based in the idea that time is dependent on physical change, as the concept "time" is derived from change. However, if we look at the passage of time as a real thing going on in the world, we see that change is actually dependent on the passing of time, instead.
The idea of absolute space has a slightly different origin. I believe it's much older, predating any serious understanding of time. Human beings started measuring things a long time ago. But they found that things change and move as time passes, so the measurements do not stay the same. In their primitive attempt to understand change they realized that there must be empty space between things, to allow for things to move independently of each other. If there were no space between things, then the movement of one thing would cause another thing to move, which would cause another to move, etc., ad infinitum. In other words, what they realized is that it would be impossible for a thing to move if there was no empty space for it to move into, because this would require that everything moves when one thing moves. So the concept of empty space was posited long ago, as required to account for the movement of one thing relative to other things. Generally it is still the cultural perspective, but understanding the universe from the precepts of general relativity requires that we rescind this perspective, and it actually becomes very difficult to understand the movement of individual things under the precepts of general relativity, as indicated by quantum mechanics.
Quoting bcccampello
Yes, this is the ancient idea that the world is made up of independent things, the real existence of each thing, being supported by its own underlying substance. The next thing posited is that there is space between each thing, allowing that each thing can move independently of each other. Gravity throws a curve at this perspective, supporting that perspective in the sense that each thing has its own gravity, therefore independent substance, but also undermining the perspective with the fact that the gravity of one thing interacts with another thing, denying true spatial separation. It appears like gravity must act through a medium, not empty space.
Quoting bcccampello
The concept of inertia is key to understanding the passage of time, and the Aristotelian concept of matter. This concept grants a continuity to the passage of time. What it says roughly, is that what has happened in the past, in a consistent manner, will continue in the future. You can see that this idea sits at the very base of inductive reasoning. Without this assumed continuity ("which does not really exist"), all inductive reasoning loses its validity. It doesn't really exist because it relies on the assumption of a continuous passage of time, which isn't properly supported. The continuity of the passage of time is only granted by the will of God, and so it is not necessary, but chosen freely by a free willing being. So this is the cultural perspective which gives rise to those various ideas, that what is described as inertia and temporal continuity, are the expressions of of a desire, or final cause inherent within the substance of the object. Actually, the very existence of the object is a representation of the will of God, the existence of objects being how God's will appears to us.
Quoting bcccampello
Again, this is the cultural relativism at play. It only appears as "an error" to you, because you do not believe in God. If you believed in God, it would appear as the correct description.
Flog it then!
Seconded. The OP is astounding too.
As far as I understand your rhetoric, you claim there is a contradiction between the idea that the intrinsic properties of the stone can give it inertia and the idea that the it is the properties of another, external body -- the Earth -- that give it movement.
This is apparently "absurd". And yet the cup remains at rest on my desk (inertia) until I push it with my hand (external force). Is this mundane phenomenon that everyone is familiar with absurd?
One point of correction. Newton had another law, the second law of motion. It is erroneous to say that the Earth attracts the stone and not vice versa. However the Earth is extremely heavy and the stone extremely light. The force exerted on the Earth is negligibly small, but it is not zero.
It is certainly true that the stone has properties that result in its inertia, but the inertia itself does not lie within the stone. You may recall a few years ago a famous physical experiment and a few Nobel prizes for precisely this fact. Inertia, like gravity, comes from the outside. Naturally this is not in Newton's theory, but then one cannot quarrel with Newton for the sake of dismissing a broader principle.
I nominate this for consideration as the most ridiculous line ever posted to TPF.
It's called the Higgs field. Most people have heard of it.
It is wrong to attribute inertia to the field rather than to the particle. And, the Standard Model indicates that the causal relationship between the field and the particle is unknown. So it is more ridiculous to claim that the particle's inertia comes from outside the particle (what is known to be wrong), than it is to claim that it comes from the will of God (what may or may not be wrong).
Actually I've had to explain this numerous times already. I strongly agree that .999...=1. What I vehemently deny is that the two are the same thing. After all this time, have you not yet grasped the difference between equality and identity, which I have been trying to explain to you? Or, are you like some of the others at this forum, who deny that there is such a difference, insisting that two equal things are necessarily the same thing.
I don't understand your extraordinary concern with that statement. Clearly there are statements which from the theist perspective are correct, but are incorrect from the atheist perspective, such as "God exists". Likewise, to say that God is responsible for matter, inertia, and mass, is correct from the theist perspective, but incorrect from the atheist perspective. That is what BC referred to as "cultural relativism". So tell me please, what do you think is so ridiculous about the statement?
It's all explained in that post. It appears like you just read the last paragraph, or were incapable of understanding the metaphysical problem of temporal continuity..
Quoting tim wood
What are you talking about? If a person believes that God exists, then the statement "God exists" is warranted by that belief, just like the statement "Trump is an asshole" is warranted by that belief. Whether or not you happen to agree with the statement, or whether you think it is "stupid ignorance speaking" is irrelevant.
Quoting tim wood
This is the second most ridiculous statement I've ever seen at TPF (KK's idea that inertia comes from a field being the most ridiculous). Since the reason for assuming God is to account for the reality of material existence, as Creator, it's utterly ridiculous to say that the presupposition of God has nothing to do with existence whatsoever.
Inertia in the Standard Model has always arisen from the external influence of the Higgs field, from way before the existence of the Higgs was experimentally verified. The nature of the interaction has also been extremely well understood for decades. The difficulty in finding the Higgs boson had nothing to do with unknowns in the interactions between massive particles and the field, but between excitations of the field and the field itself.
There are numerous reasons to dismiss this theory as ridiculous, beginning with the inability to establish a necessary relationship between gravity and mass, as required by observation. This is known as the incompatibility between general relativity (by which gravity is explained) and the Standard Model (by which mass is explained). Instead of recognizing that the incompatibility represents a fundamental failure in the theoretical structure, physicists and cosmologists employ mathematics to make exceptions to the rules, and give these exceptions dark names, like dark matter and dark energy.
The theory has been verified by observation already, fulfilling the criteria of good science. 'The way I'd like things to be' does not. It is not necessary to have a ToE to have good theories of bits of everything. The Industrial Revolution and the Digital Revolution did not apparently require a ToE to hold good.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's amazing how quickly you went from citing the Standard Model when you thought it supported your argument to dismissing it as inconsistent with GR now you think it doesn't. While much progress has been made in formulating QFT in a GR framework, pragmatically the calculations are intractable and the expansions plagued with infinities, which is a problem for us, not nature. Our technological inability to calculate exact solutions to difficult equations should not be confused with the universe's inability to cope with the same equations. Both theories have been experimentally verified countless times to high precision. The Universe appears quite happy with both.
As I explained there is no need to prove what I stated. Your obsession with proof seems a little unhealthy to me. Have you ever come across the word "opinion"? Wouldn't it be contradictory if an opinion could be proven? It would then not be an opinion, but a proven fact. When one person's opinion differs from another's it's ridiculous to ask for proof because we just accept the fact that different people have different opinions, concerning the same issues, and opinions are not the type of things which can be proven. They can sometimes be explained though. But that requires effort from both sides.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I mostly agree with what you say here, but I believe that "experimentally verified" means very little in this context, because as you say, the theories just refer to "bits", and are therefore verified in relation to the relevant bits. A major difference between Newton's gravity and Einstein's gravity, is that the latter has a wider application, more relevant bits. But obviously, it still falls short and therefore needs to be replaced, because it's still only applicable to bits, as you say, so it doesn't provide a wide perspective on the reality of the thing described.
Inertia and gravity are supposed to be properties of all material things. So are you suggesting that there are "bits" of reality which are immaterial, and this is why the theories of gravitation are incompatible with the theories of inertia? Or do you think that there are inconsistencies in our conceptions of space and time, as BC implied in the op?
They attract each other. It is not true according to the gravity theory, that only the larger mass attracts the smaller mass.
No, you don't ask yourself that question. You are mixing up the gravitational effect by Newton, and the Newtonean theory of spacial kinetic geometry, which states that it does not matter whether you consider the Earth stagnant and the stone moving, or if you consider the stone stagnant and the Earth moving.You are mixing two completely different concepts Newton established and which are irrelevant to each other.
Interesting question. But only applicable to a world where nothing happens. Is our world that, or is our world in constant change and motion? You decide whether your objection is valid or not in OUR world.
In light of the abovve, you have to prove that yet. You can't say your claim is necessarily true.
Newton invented absolute space to illustrate his theory. His other theory, the gravitational theory, does not need infinite empty space. It is only used as an illustration.
IN my opinion you are mixing up too many concepts to make a comprehensive, cohesive analitycal criticism. You can't say "Newton said this" or "Newton said that" when yu take the utterances out of context and you lay them down in YOUR context of them. Your context and Newton's in this case are always different. So you are not proving anything that disproves Newton's theory, because the things you disprove are contextually not applicable to what Newton claimed. This is called the Strawman fallacy what you are committing here, and it is a classic case of it. You claim that your opponent said "A", whereas your opponent said "B", then you prove that "A" is false, and you claim (falsely) that your opponent was wrong. Whereas you did not even touch his claim, since you proved "A" wrong, not "B", which is his or her point.
It has not been unrepeated yet. Are you claiming something with that question, or are you simply making a journalistic inroad to discredit your opponent? I think more like the latter.
I suspect you are the guy who has been long trolling philosophy sites. You make interesting yet absurd claims all over the place. I normally shun you, because you are mostly obstinate (if you are really the person I think of), and this similarity I don't claim as fact, but as a suspicion, therefore it is only my opinion.
Here's something to consider. In "OUR" world, we talk about very short periods of time, Planck length for example. At some very short period of time it becomes impossible to detect an physical change during that short period. Isn't this, therefore, a period of time in which no physical change occurs? So it really does make sense to ask how long would a time when nothing happens last, because there clearly is a short period of time when nothing happens, and it would be helpful to know exactly how long that period of time is.
Suppose physical change consists of discrete increments of change which occur every so often (an extremely short period of time apart). Wouldn't it be beneficial to know how long these increments of time are, so that we can start to look behind the scenes to understand what is going on in there, in this time between the increments of physical change? It's not physical change going on in this time period, but the cause of it.
Right, so reconsider my statement:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That was a statement concerning belief, obviously. Now where's the problem? What makes it a ridiculous statement?
Let's say you are right. So how do YOU know it's a short period of time? If the time does not exist, you wouldn't know that would you. Yet you, yourself stated it's a SHORT period of time, so you measured it, or have knowledge of its duration. So effectively you have proved that when nothing happens, time still can be measured.
Right, we know that we can divide any period of time into a shorter period of time, just like we can divide numbers. So when nothing happens (meaning no physical change), time can still be measured it's just not measured by physical change, it's measured by numbers.
Okay, I give you a number. You tell me how long a time it denotes.
5.
How long time is 5?
If that's too difficult, here's an easier one:
44.
How long time is 44?
Since we only refer to physical change in our descriptions of temporal duration, we haven't yet developed the means for describing temporal duration through reference to non-physical things, like numbers. That was the point of my description, to demonstrate that we need to develop a way to measure time in relation to something other than physical change, because we know that time passes when no physical change occurs. I didn't mean to imply that this way of measuring time had already been developed.
Neither, rather that inertia is one of the 'bits' we didn't used to know and now know with some degree of confidence through experimental verification. What we 'know' might yet be shown to reduce to something else, or be an approximation to something else that held well in historical experiments but fails in edge cases, like Newton's laws RE Mercury or Maxwell's equations RE atoms. But the experimental evidence to date suggests that massive particles gain their inertial mass by being subject to external fields.
Talking with someone who insists we know with confidence what inertia is, it is what is produced by the Higgs field, makes boring conversation, in my opinion. It would be much more helpful if you would explain to me how the Higgs field creates mass. Let's say for example that there are particles with insignificant mass, related to other fields, how would the Higgs field interact with these other fields/particles to create something with mass?
And yet your entire objection was that inertia is not accepted as what you insist it is, namely an inherent property of the body in question. And while you may find science boring, I assure you that more people are bored by ignorant recourse to scientific ideas to promote anti-scientific hogwash. So if you expect me to be moved by your intolerance toward facts, you're doubly deluded.
You really haven't explained how the Higgs field produces inertia. You've just asserted that this is a fact. What I'm intolerant toward, is opinion presented as fact. So either get on with your explanation, or quit pretending that you know something which you don't. Tell me how the Higgs field is responsible for the mass and inertia of a proton. Of course you can't because your so-called "facts" are pure bull shit.
Try this KK. The "strong interaction" (gluons) is responsible for the mass of protons and neutrons, and it acts from within the nucleus of the atom, not externally to it.
But external to the quarks that comprise that nucleus.
The protons and neutrons, hadrons, have mass, and therefore account for the inertia of a molecule. Quarks only make up a very tiny portion of this mass, so in this context of providing mass and inertia, it is incorrect to say that a hadron, as massive, is comprised of quarks. The mass, and inertia, only exist as a hadron, and the source of the mass is internal to the hadron. Furthermore, you cannot even separate one quark from another quark to demonstrate that the mass is external to that quark, because the force which binds the quarks internally within the hadron, as massive, prevents this from happening.
Your claim that inertia comes from "the outside" is completely unsupported, and contradictory to what is known by physicists. .
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which ought to give you a clue, since gluons are massless. Therefore what you call the intrinsic inertia of the massive particles in a hadron -- the rest masses of the quarks -- cannot actually account for the hadron's inertia.
Quarks couple to the Higgs field: the higher the energy of the quark, the greater the strength of the interaction. You cannot have a bare quark, but if you could it would be extremely light compared to one in a hadron.
There's no difference really between this and electrostatics in atoms. A hydrogen atom in its ground state weighs less than a bare proton and electron at rest. This is because the electric forces between them reduce their total energy (hence photons can be released as electrons move to closer orbits). Lowering the energy of each particle in the atom lowers the strength of its interaction with the Higgs, leading to a lowering of the inertial mass.
Same goes for the strong interaction except that, instead of lowering the energy of each, the interaction increases it. This increases the strength of the interaction with the Higgs field and thus the inertial mass.
(Technically it is not the mass of each quark individual. In QM, systems of N interacting particles are described by a single wavefunction. You cannot really speak of the properties of a single quark in a hadron.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You say things like this an awful lot while demonstrating a proclivity towards making strong statements about things you know nothing of. It's funny.
Exactly, neither quarks nor gluons have substantial mass in relation to hadrons. That's why your claim to know that inertia comes from an external source, is an absurdity. Mass, as the source of inertia, is known to be an internal property of an object, and until it is demonstrated that the mass is derived from someplace outside the object, such claims are baseless. Neither the quark not the gluon brings the mass to the object, as an independent, external source of the mass, rather the mass is a product of the interaction internal to the hadron.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Only a very small portion of the mass of a hadron comes from the quarks, less than one percent. So if this is the "bit" you're talking about, I'd say it's an insignificant bit, and really quite irrelevant to the inertia of the object.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
The quarks' interaction with gluons, as gauge bosons, is responsible for the strong interaction, consequently the substantial mass of the hadron, not the Higgs field. We need to address the gluon fields to understand the mass and inertia of an object. Your claim that the electroweak interaction of the Higgs field is responsible for the strong interaction of the gluons, is absurd. Notice that the force required for the mass of the hadron, and its inertia, is provided by the gluons, not the quarks (which you relate to the Higgs).
One doesn't expect much from you, MU, but even so... To acknowledge on the one hand that the mass of the hadron cannot be due to the intrinsic masses of the quarks or gluons but still maintain that all inertial masses are intrinsic properties of the massive particles themselves is not even trying.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is made up of quarks and *massless* gluons. Also... interaction... You grasp the idea then that contingent properties of particles are due to external fields, then? The idea isn't 'ridiculous' or 'absurd' to you in general, just for inertial mass is particular?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Precisely the point. I'd say well done for following it, but you seem to be restating the argument as if it were a counterargument, so I'll defer the celebration.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No one has claimed this. I know you're religious but try not to rely on making up utter tosh.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That is false. Gluons add energy, not mass, to the system of quarks, which increases the coupling strength of the quarks with the Higgs field, which in turn increases its mass. There is no mechanism by which gluons can add mass directly. Any force field lowers or increases the *potential* energy of a system: that is how it enters the wave equation in first quantisation (e.g. H = T + V in non-SR).
The mass is intrinsic to the hadron. But, there is something called mass-energy equivalence, made famous by Einstein. Nuclear energy is produced by the conversion of mass to energy. It makes no sense to talk about the mass as being external to quark, because the mass is no longer mass when it is converted to energy, it is energy. The mass only exists as an internal property of the hadron. Furthermore, the energy which accounts for the mass of the hadron is represented as gluons. Since energy is equivalent to mass, and not the same as mass, the gluons cannot exist as energy when the hadron has mass.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Ah, now your starting to catch on. Remember, energy is equivalent to mass; not the same, but equivalent. The energy of the gluons accounts for the mass of the hadrons through this principle of equivalence. But this has nothing to do with the Higgs field, the energy is the property of the gluon fields, and it only becomes representable as mass if that energy is tied up in the hadron, as an internal property of the hadron. In which case it does not exist as energy, but as mass.
If it is represented as non-internal, it is not represented as mass, but as energy. You can insist that energy is non-internal, but the problem is that "energy", by its very conception is necessarily a property of something. If motion has energy, there is necessarily something which is moving. That moving thing is the thing which has energy, and the energy must be represented as an internal feature of that thing. Therefore the energy which is tied up as the mass of the hadron (potential energy), must be represented as something moving (kinetic energy), if it is released, and that is the activity of the gluons.
There is actually a huge deficiency with this conception, because if energy is equivalent to mass, then when mass is annihilated to produce energy we are left with motion, to account for the energy, but no mass to account for the thing moving. We now have a model of massless particles (immaterial things) which are moving around with lots of energy, in the physical world, and that's simply nonsense. The massless energy is represented by fields, but the fields have no substance, no medium to account for the supposed waves in the fields. Because the waves have no substantial existence, massless particles are proposed to mitigate this problem. But this is nonsense, leaving such particles as impossible to locate and identify.
Therefore the whole idea that mass is equivalent to energy is misguided metaphysics. It renders both of these, mass and energy as impossible to understand, unintelligible, through this false representation. It is false for the very reason of what you are arguing today, the idea that internal relations can be represented as equivalent to external relations. External relations are objects moving relative to each other. Internal relations are parts held in unity. These two are very different from each other, as evident from the asymptotic nature of the strong force. This is why it is a mistake to represent mass (internal relations) as equivalent to energy (external relations)
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Oh come on Kenosha, I know you're smarter than that. You say that gluons add energy. You know that energy is equivalent to mass. Yet you say that "there is no mechanism by which gluons can add mass directly". Obviously there is such a mechanism, it's called "mass-energy equivalence". Of course this "mechanism" is just a slight of hand, smoke and mirrors trick of sophistry, which ought to be exposed for what it is, a faulty principle of magical thinking. But try to tell a physicist that this principle is really a deep misunderstanding! The reply will be that the principle has demonstrated itself to be extremely useful, and therefore empirically validated. This is despite the fact that the principle makes the vast majority of material existence incomprehensible to us. I'd say that this is very clear evidence that being empirically validated as useful does not constitute being truthful. But we already all know this principle, that usefulness does not equate with truthfulness.
The hadron is a system. You would say the mass of a bowl of fruit is intrinsic to the bowl of fruit: it is derived from the masses of its constituents.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, if you're speaking of quarks and gluons, you speak of the standard model in which mass is conferred by interaction with the external Higgs field. This interaction is, in terms of energy-mass equivalence, more fundamental, since rest masses are not theoretically added by hand as they are in SR. (In other respects, SR is more fundamental than QFT.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Thanks for the encouragement, but I derive more from my education.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Rest mass is not conferred by virtue of having energy, else the photon would have one. Kinetic and potential energy increase/decrease the coupling to the Higgs field, but to have a rest mass requires that coupling.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It isn't a misunderstanding. The Higgs field explains why modified masses occur. Mass-energy equivalence is not a mechanism. I do not need to tell physicists this: we already know it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
True, likely the Higgs mechanism will turn out to be an approximation to something else. But a) one could dismiss any scientific theory this way, including SR and its mass-energy equivalence, and b) this does not support the claim that empirically-verified theory is 'ridiculous' or'absurd'.
No, you cannot say that the mass of a hadron is equivalent to the sum of the mass of the parts, that's exactly the fact that I've been trying to impress upon you. This is because some of the parts, the gluons, are gauge bosons, and are therefore carriers of force which are represented by fields rather than as mass.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
No, I'm not talking about the mass of quarks and gluons. Gluons are massless, and the mass of quarks is insignificant. I'm talking about significant mass, the mass of a hadron, real substance. As I've already explained to you, the mass of all the quarks of a hadron is very, very small, insignificant in relation to the mass of a hadron. Will you acknowledge this fact, or will you continue to play dumb? And, we agree that gluons are massless. Therefore, unlike your fruit bowl analogy we cannot sum up the mass of the quarks and gluons to make the mass of a hadron, because that sum is quite insignificant compared to the actual mass of the hadron.
Do you understand that the vast majority of the mass of a hadron is not derived from the Higgs field? The Higgs field only provides a very insignificant portion of that mass. Why do you keep insisting on directing the conversation toward some particles with a very miniscule, insignificant portion of mass, when we are discussing "mass" in general, and therefore need to first understand where the majority of the mass of an object comes from?
To use your fruit bowl analogy, it's like the contents of the fruit bowl has a total mass value of 1000, and the only massive objects in the bowl are three apples each with a mass value of 10. You seem to think that we can account for the mass of the fruit bowl by explaining where the mass of the three apples comes from. How can you not see how absurd this is?
I don't think MU is a celebrated scientist. But I could be wrong. :wink:
How do we know that time passes when nothing happens? How do we know that time passes when things happen?
If we accept that time passes when nothing happens, then we can equally claim that time never passes, and motion and change are increments piled on top of each other, so to speak, without time getting involved at all.
Because that's what we call what we experience as time passing, "time passing". How do we know that water is water? It's what we call it. If you want to be skeptical about it, maybe we don't really know that water is water, or that time passing is time passing.
Quoting god must be atheist
I don't see how you relate these two. The reason why we must accept that time passes when nothing happens is because it has been proven by science, through the discrete (non-continuous) existence of quantum particles. There is a shortest period of time, Planck time, during which something can happen. So there is a state at t1, then a state at t2, and nothing can happen between t1 and t2 because it is too short of a period of time. Yet time passes during this period of time. It must, in order to get the difference between t1 and t2. Therefore there is time passing when nothing happens.
I do not see how this is related to you proposal that time never passes. We experience time passing, as what was, is not now, it's in the past. We remember it, but it's gone, in the past. Also we anticipate future states, like if a car is driving toward you, you expect it to get to you, then it does. You might propose that time never passes, but I don't see how you would support that. Furthermore, I don't see how you relate this idea to the proof that time passes when nothing happens. I can see that if you could support this notion, that time doesn't pass, justify it somehow, then the whole scientific enterprise which is built on the fundamental assumption that we can measure the passing of time, would be undermined.
A photon travels at the speed of light over a Planck length during this "time". Therefore, something happens as time progresses.
A photon appears at one place and then another. We cannot say that anything happens to it in between because we cannot confirm that it even exists in between. Its presumed existence is represented as a wave function. But wave functions don't represent the actual existence of photons. All we can do is make statements about where it might appear, and what causes it to appear here and there.
You seem to be concluding that if there is an appearance of a photon somewhere at t1, then somewhere else at t2, there is a continuity of existence of a photon between t1 and t2, during which time the photon "travels", as you or I would walk down the street. But scientific observation does not support this conclusion. So the continuous existence of the photon is nothing but an unsupported assumption, which the scientific principles demonstrate is actually false. Therefore we cannot truthfully say that something happens to the photon in that duration, because it doesn't even exist.
(1) The main purpose of his studies was to found a new Christianity without the Trinity - a kind of "absolute unity" in the Islamic style. Failed.
(2) He had tantrums and started hitting people for no reason.
And not merely be non-measurable? Very well. :sad:
This fact has been acknowledged by us both, and has been the starting point for a few of our posts in this exchange, so pretending that I'm denying it IS dumb, a really dumb play.
Going back to where this started:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You now seem to accept that the mass of the quark comes from its interaction with an external field, which is a retraction the above. I'm sufficiently satisfied with this general reversal that I don't particularly feel the need to argue individual cases. If you now consider it uncontroversial that quarks and leptons individually get their inertia from interaction with the Higgs field, that's good enough to lay your original argument to rest. If you specifically want to how gluons contribute to the hadron mass, either refer to my description of atomic binding energy for the gist or begin a thread on it; we should not derail @bcccampello further.
Quoting bcccampello
That was later in life, I think, after he had more or less left physics behind for a job torturing people for the Royal Mint and devising new coinage. He also believed that the Bible contained a code that unlocked all of the laws of nature. He also tried to become an alchemist. Genius, but nuts.
If that's your trump card in support of your confused OP, I think you should quit while you're ahead.
Aristotle taught that ALL scientific evidence is based on some pre-scientific knowledge, which it only perfects IN CERTAIN ASPECTS. The typical modern university jerk wants to invalidate ALL pre-scientific knowledge and exchange it for some scientific proof. He will only risk taking an woman to bed when he is scientifically certain that his dick will rise.
There's no retraction. "Comes from", as in "the cause of" is not the same thing as the attribute itself. This is why I emphasized the fact that energy is equivalent to mass by convention equations, but is not the same thing as mass. And, as I indicated this equivalence is a failure in the modeling, which incapacitates our ability to distinguish between internal and external.
The quarks do not provide the mass of the hadron.. Nor do the gluons have mass. The mass is attributed to the hadron, and it is internal to it. In theory, and perhaps in practice to an extent, the gluons and quarks are separable. If they are separated, the mass no longer exists, it is substituted by energy.
So it is incorrect to use the spatial references of internal/external (as you do) in describing the relationship between these particles and the mass at this time, when they are separated, because the mass has no no spatial existence, It's gone, in the past. We can only use those spatial terms, when the mass has actual spatial existence, and that is as a hadron. And the mass is internal. Therefore the proper terms of reference of mass in relation to those other particles (quarks and gluons) are temporal, past and future. The mass only exists at the time when those particles have that relationship, but at that time the particles exist as a hadron and the mass is internal to the hadron.. We can say that the hadron has mass, and that mass is an internal feature, but if we talk about mass in relation to those proposed parts of the hadron (quarks and gluons), we need to concern ourselves with a temporal relation to the mass (before/after) rather than a spatial relation (internal/external).
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't know whether it's controversial or not, but I agree that this is the case within The Model. But as I've indicated, I consider this mass to be insignificant, and I don't agree with The Model. So the existence of such insignificant mass more likely a symptom of the deficiency of the model than anything else. I think that Einsteinian principles provide a faulty representation of the relation between space and time. The evidence I gave why I believe this, is that these principles lead to the incoherent ideas of waves without a medium, and particles without mass. Each of these ideas, in itself is incoherent, and sufficient evidence that the whole Standard Model, along with the Einsteinian relativity, ought to be rejected as misrepresentation, regardless of its utility.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't think that this is a derail of the thread. The inconsistencies which bccampello referred to in the op involve the way that Newton represented space and time. And this problem has not been resolved by Einsteinian relativity, only made more complex. Look at gravity for example. It is represented as external to everything, a property of space-time, with the existence of objects being affected by it. This makes space-time an absolute. So instead of two distinct absolutes, space and time, there is one complex absolute, space-time.
The problem with this representation of gravity is exactly the problem that you and I are discussing. With this model there is no way to represent gravity as acting from within (internal to) an object, as property of the object. This is a problem because evidence demonstrates that objects have a center of gravity, and therefore gravity is best modeled as a property of the object itself. As a result of this misrepresentation (gravity represented as a property of the surrounding space-time rather than the object itself) objects get reduced to dimensionless points (such as point particles) with gravity as an external force, which is clearly a misrepresentation of an object, convenient but not true.
What is evident is that physicists have lost the capacity to distinguish between internal and external sources of activity. Once we allow for dimensionless and massless particles we have no means to represent activity internal to that particle. So all the internal forces must be inverted and represented as external, producing a misrepresentation as the real difference between internal and external is not a matter of simple inversion. What is needed is a model of a real, substantial space, one with a distinction between internal and external, such that a proper relationship with time can be established. I believe that the only way to properly represent internal and external is to conceive of space as consisting of separate particles which themselves are active and relate to each other through a wave activity.
I think it's been demonstrated that the position of the photon is non-measurable because it's simply not in any place when its position cannot be determined.
You're not obliged to, but you've spent most of this conversation making out like it was my pet theory, born from my ignorance, absurd and ridiculous. Now you agree it's what the cornerstone of modern physics says. Like you'd know. I could have said literally the opposite and got you to agree that's what the standard model says. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you are not a serious interlocutor.
Judging by how you refuse to address the issues I point to, and continue to be unwilling to acknowledge any of the problems of the Standard Model, I think the inverse of what you say here, is what is really the case. You are willing only to recite certain specifics of the Standard Model, as if you are a bot programed to do that. It reminds me of a high school kid who has been taught to memorize so-called "facts". You demonstrate absolutely no understanding of the principles. Clearly the Standard Model is your pet theory, whether or not it is the cornerstone of modern physics.
A serious interlocutor is one who is willing to address the shortcomings of one's professed theory, brought up by the other, rather than ignoring these issues with repetitive assertions.
Here's what Lalit Patel, PhD physics had to say in 2017 on Quora:
"Planck time is an extremely small time duration, which current technologies are not able to access.
I guess that the following events can occur in the duration of Planck time.
1. An object feels the effect of gravitational force transmitted from an object.
2. A particle feels the effect of electromagnetic, weak, or strong force transmitted from a particle.
3. A photon feels the presence of a surface and decides to retract. (A photon impinging on a surface gets converted into another photon.)
4. A typical string of the string theory completes one oscillation cycle."
Am I mistaken that what could happen in Planck time is more a matter of metaphysics than physics itself? If this is a settled issue please provide links. I have very little knowledge of quantum physics.
Not really. I expect it's an approximation, and better approximations will be arrived at. That has tended to be the trajectory of physics.
I would say that you're definitely right that this is a matter of metaphysics. But some metaphysics is supported by science while other metaphysics is not. I wonder what you mean when you say "an object feels the effect of...", but does not show any physical change. What does it means to say that a physical object is feeling the effect of something without itself being changed by the thing that it is feeling the effect of?
Do you think that an inanimate object has the will power to resist, (even for an extremely short period of time) being changed by the force which it is feeling the effect of?
Those were Dr. Patel's words, not mine.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How amusing. Patel does have a way with words. I know so little of the subject; nevertheless, a particle having will power is a challenging conjecture. You should follow up on this. :cool:
Information about Dr. Patel, on the web, is scant. I would assume that the use of "an object feels the effect of..." is not accepted physics, but an expression of some sort of panpsychism, or perhaps based in the Whiteheadian principle of "prehension". This is a term Whitehead used to account for what we observe as the relationship between a moment of time in the past, and a moment of time in the future.
The reality of the temporal continuity of existence, a form of which is expressed as inertia, which supports the laws of physics and inductive logic in general, is not at all understood by human beings. So there are numerous different metaphysical proposals of how one moment in time can be related to the next moment in time, in a way which provides for the observed continuity of massive existence, but also provides for the capacity of a free willing being to make random changes to that continued existence.
This is why I mentioned will power in relation to Dr. Patel's expressions. If a substantive thing, (massive object), is inclined toward temporal continuity (as inertia implies), yet "feels" a force which would impel that object to change, then there are two very distinct forces involved, the force to stay the same, and the force to change. If the object stays the same, despite feeling the force which would impel it to change, doesn't this appear to you like the object has made a choice, and exercised will power to prevent the force of change? If not, then what would it mean for an object to be able to "feel" the force of change, yet not change? If the object does not change, then how does the force actually affect the object such that we can truthfully say that it feels the force?