Towards a Scientific Definition of an "Action"

Reply to Sir Philo Sophia
I find the definition is difficult to understand because your use of undefined ambiguous terms like "piece of matter", and "free energy". So it appears like you have something like "free energy which...transfers some kind of energy...which...results in a change...".

Wouldn't your definition for "action" be a lot simpler, and say essentially the same thing if it was worded something like this: "anything which results in a change"?

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Quoting Sir Philo Sophia

Under my below definitions, for example, a virus is alive and takes actions towards a goal. So, if you do not regard a virus as a living being making intentional actions then you have to point out exactly where/how my definition is flawed, and argue why a virus is inanimate matter, not making selective decisions to make an action or not.

Virus is considered non-living(although not completely) totally on a biological basis. It is because the lack of cytoplasm, lack of cell division etc.. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life".

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

undefined ambiguous terms like "piece of matter", and "free energy". So it appears like you have something like "free energy which...transfers some kind of energy...which...results in a change...".

those are very defined in physics. yet, you might be right re simplification. I can always simplify later. BTW, I added 'free energy' b/c pure quantum systems (like pure energy photons) also take 'actions' which have to also collapse to classical actions that follow PLA. So, my def has to cover all to be fundamental to any 'action' taken in the universe.

Quoting philosopher004

It is because the lack of cytoplasm, lack of cell division etc.. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life".

that is a false general definition of life. It is purely anthropomorphic. See my factual arguments made in comments in my last post for more exactly why and how, which are currently spread out on page 2 here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9733/scientific-definition-of-living-vs-inanimate-matter/p2

if you have any technical counterpoints to any of those arguments, I'm all ears. Yet, if you are just repeating 'common wisdom', I'm not so interested. thx.

Quoting tim wood

All thinking is based in presuppositions, and sorting them out and sometimes even being aware of what they are is not-so-easy.

my definition does not require any thinking, so your comment does not seem to be an on-topic, valid critique. please quote specific parts and why you find it false or imperfect. thx.

Quoting tim wood

In this case leaving only the word "cause" to be either more fully explicated or itself accepted as definitional.

I would tend to disagree with that. I'd say that there is no "cause" unless you observed and effect, so you cannot separate the two, they come as a pair. a 'cause' that made no observable 'change', was not a 'cause' of anything...

Quoting tim wood

The ideas behind the emphasis on definitional being of course only that as a definition, it is not the naming of something found, but instead the establishment of a meaning in a context, a term of art - how well it works to be determined.

I am not (yet) proposing a theory here. Often, before theories can be created, we must first come up with broad definitions which set the metes and bounds and framework from which theories may be motivated and formulated.

I am a scientist, and I think you are misunderstanding meaning and purpose of "definition". I think you are missing the fact that definitions do much more than just being a semantic term of art, and should please focus on the merits, or not, of my black & white classification definitions. Nor is it meant here to be a causal theory, law or formula.

Please keep clear in mind that my proposed definition of 'Action' is not meant to measure the degree or causal dynamics of any system, only whether an 'Action' was made or not. So, your concern here is moot, as the goal here is not to create a 'term of art'. Instead, as I'm sure you know, the first job of scientific inquiry is to accurately define terms, at least to the binary (B/W) level to define the minimum observable properties of the class, and how to categorize something as belonging to that class or not. In that way, my definition has closure, in that if the matter/system has/performs the properties/dynamics which I call for then it has made an 'action'.

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Quoting tim wood

I believe that with this you have said everything anyone needs to know about your purposes and understanding.

Correct. I am not limiting to human "action" as you seem to be, which, BTW, in many instances, may not require thinking either. inanimate objects make 'actions' as well. So, you should broaden your philo horizons...

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Wouldn't your definition for "action" be a lot simpler, and say essentially the same thing if it was worded something like this: "anything which results in a change"?

I agree.

Quoting Sir Philo Sophia

I am a scientist

Having made that statement you are obliged to supply details.

Quoting Sir Philo Sophia

my definition does not require any thinking

Another gem from this forum. :grin:

Quoting jgill

I agree.

Yes, well I think that a definition should be the starting point for a scientific inquisition, not the final say. The next step would be to inquire into the two aspects of that simple definition, what is "change", and what does "results in..." entail (maybe cause).

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
excellent. now, you are the first here to be going in a constructive, potentially fruitful, direction... I'm all ears...
esp. on any problematic counter-examples or if logical flaws are made, esp. in the nature and implications of the definition if it were assumed to be true...

cheers.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
also, as I mention above, everyone here should make sure that any analysis/critique considers the fact that inanimate objects make 'actions' too. So, you have to be very careful to not limit your self/mind only to intentional acts of 'action'...

Reply to Sir Philo Sophia Full disclosure: I don't much care how you, or someone else, defines "action". However, as a confessed uninterested party, I would make this suggestion: Simplify.

Why?

The longer, more elaborate, and maybe rococo the definition, the more opportunities for misunderstanding, misconstrual, definitions of the words used to define the term under discussion, unproductive quibbling, and so on.

At some point the lengthy definition departed the road and ended up in the weeds.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Wouldn't your definition for "action" be a lot simpler, and say essentially the same thing if it was worded something like this: "anything which results in a change"?

I like MU's definition better than yours. His may not be the best definition possible, but with a glance I can entertain his definition and think about it.

Practice prudent parsimony.

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Reply to tim wood read the Wiki on PLA. all inanimate mater takes actions that are dictated by the principle of least action. So, in that realm, actions are defined by physics, including pure quantum systems that explore all potential actions they could make.

I should point out that in pure quantum state systems there is no entropy change so they make no 'action' (incl. in my definition) until they collapse to make an observable 'result' according to the classical PLA path (per QED).

Hope that helps make more sense of what I mean there.

I am not going to comment on the "definition," but for those who are actually interested in science, action can be defined in any theory that admits a Lagrangian formulation. Lagrangian dynamics applies to a very important class of theories in physics and other sciences. Invariances of the action integral under continuous transformation were the subject of the famous theorems of Emmy Noether, who related them to symmetries and conservation principles, such as conservation of energy.

Because Lagrangian dynamics is a general mathematical model that is applicable in multiple contexts, action cannot be given a single physical definition that will cover all applications. This is a feature, not a bug. A general definition could be something like "the integral with respect to time, along a possible history or trajectory in configuration space of the system, of a quantity with the dimension of energy" (Butterfield).

A classic introduction to the concept in physics is Feynman's lecture on the principle of least action.

Quoting SophistiCat

action can be defined in any theory that admits a Lagrangian formulation. Lagrangian dynamics applies to a very important class of theories in physics and other sciences.

excellent and keen comment! Thanks! However, it, unfortunately does not apply at all to any actions performed by a sentient being, so not useful for Sentient actions. Only good for inanimate matter actions (because inanimate matter has no free will so must succumb to give up its PE and/or negentropy according to Lagrangian formulations).

Quoting SophistiCat

Because Lagrangian dynamics is a general mathematical model that is applicable in multiple contexts, action cannot be given a single physical definition that will cover all applications. This is a feature, not a bug.

what would you say is the form the Lagrangian takes in describing the mental action path a Sentient being does on its own mental state (e.g., a mental simulation, decisions, change of emotive states, imagination paths, etc)? under my definition those mental acts are all actions that have to violate PLA at least once, thus have no general Lagrangian formulation under my definition.

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Quoting tim wood

By - using - what metric can you tell the difference?

as stated in the def., violating the PLA at least once.

Quoting tim wood

I also think you have not entirely understood your own project. Definition and description are two different things. Are you describing or defining?

both generally, but mostly defining initially. the goal of all these formative scientific definitions is to apply in any context and only be based upon external observables irrespective of the means the entity employs to achieve the observable functional behavior or expressed property required by my definition. Think of the goal like categorizing a bin of unknown objects as one kind or another (apples or oranges) according to the most simple observable definition that works and is practical to implement.

see this part of my OP:
"So, one aspect of this approach is to tie an "Action" to energy and certain types of work that may result. This will support a much broader theory and other definitions to come."

Descriptions are just means to enable the various limitations in my claimed distinguishing definitions of each class and categories of matter/beings/behavior, which I do have as well, yet not to post at this time.

hope this helps you for context.

Seems to me nearly anything we'd experience here can be grouped into two or three categories.

Forward action (negentropy?): mixing vinegar and baking soda, a volcanic eruption, water turning into steam, a generator slowly reaching peak production, working out, etc.

Stagnation (plateau, static positioning [which I've heard doesn't truly exist absolutely. it can appear as so for thousands of years or more, like a mountain, but in some tiny way it's either getting bigger/gaining energy or losing it]: like the concept of a still image or fossil frozen in subzero temperatures.

Backward action (entropy): steam turning back into water, losing muscle mass, an active turbine slowing down after being turned off, etc.

Any thoughts on this? Technically one can argue both entropy and negentropy are both actions just in opposite directions whereas true stagnation is obviously the only true non-action, which again some say doesn't truly exist. Basically, to define something, you have to define what it's opposite is first, or at least be aware of it when validating your own, ie. what is and what isn't.

Quoting Outlander

Basically, to define something, you have to define what it's opposite is first, or at least be aware of it when validating your own, ie. what is and what isn't.

you make some very interesting points! thanks.

no doubt, physics forces everything to make actions on a global basis, yet not at every moment in time or local place. For an imperfect/simple example, when you shoot a bullet up into the air, at the very top of the bullet's maximum PE there is a moment, however brief, when the bullet stalls and stays in place w/o any macro KE and is pure PE, at that point and moment it makes no "action" even if in its next moment it will make a downward KE action. Just like 2nd law does not mean that there cannot be local pockets and moments of negentropy, just that they cannot last long unless you continually input energy (and intelligence!) to keep them that way; e.g., trapping an atom with lasers/mag field suspends and freezes it in a vacuum at near absolute zero Temp, thus no motion or action can be made by the Atom.

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Quoting tim wood

Here's a place to start:
as stated in the def., violating the PLA at least once.
— Sir Philo Sophia
How do you know? And in case you do not understand the question, which seems to me likely, my point is that you don't know, but rather presuppose and define, and confuse that with description and knowledge.

thanks for your vague attempts to be helpful and constructive here. As I pointed out to philosopher004 above, see my factual arguments made in comments in my last post for more exactly why and how, which are currently spread out on page 2 here, search for "virus":
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9733/scientific-definition-of-living-vs-inanimate-matter/p2

In that prior posts I gave a virus as an example of clearly violating PLA by observables. I suggest you fully read my comments and explanations on that page of that thread

then reframe your critiques/concerns with any intelligent counterpoints you can muster to mine made there.

thx.

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Quoting tim wood

One must conclude from this you do not know what you're talking about. Viruses, at the edge on the border between what is considered alive v. not alive, do not decide, do not select, certainly do not make selective decisions, certainly do not think or do anything like thinking, do not "make" anything,

Clearly you did not read my comments on the cited page re virus. Or, you are unable to understand that they are simply highly contextual, molecular state-machine programs. Obviously, that molecular program makes countless selective state-machine, algorithmic decisions to execute the entry and hijacking of cells. So, clearly, you do not know what you are talking about here. Not too different than computer programs, which we all know can make goal directed (i.e., intentional) decisions to take real actions in the real world. wake up!

Quoting tim wood

certainly do not think

who said thinking is required to make an 'action'??? clearly, you do not understand what an 'action' means. I warned you against this fallacious thinking in my OP. See:
"NOTE: everyone commenting here should make sure that any analysis/critique considers the fact that inanimate objects make 'actions' too. So, you have to be very careful to not limit your self/mind only to intentional acts of 'action'."

and you obviously are clueless what 'action' means in physics, as I tried to school you on in my OP, here:
"My definitions are based on the physics "principle of least action" to distinguish/categorize the types of 'actions' performed by Living vs inanimate matter. For those unfamiliar with it, here is the Wiki primer on that:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action
"

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Quoting tim wood

And that's not going to happen with the language you're using and how you use it. But here I leave you to it.

so, why don't you be constructive, and propose language fixes that keep the spirit of my approach in tact? otherwise, you are not helpful, and just rhetoric.. like any art critique who cannot make their own art.

Quoting tim wood

Amen, and a small point. Anything can be defined by anyone anyway they choose to define it - whether any good a different topic. Insofar as the definition is a text intended to convey a definite meaning, wrt to that text the language matters, is in fact the first and arguably only thing that matters.

In literature is the concern for le mot juste, the right word. I imagine in the sciences as well, perhaps as the correct word. And do the sciences have their own phrase for that?

My point wasn't that you can define action however you want. It was rather the opposite: action has an established definition in Lagrangian dynamics. But Lagrangian dynamics is just a mathematical framework that is applied differently in different contexts. Once you define your Lagrangian (a mathematical object), then the definition of action follows straightforwardly from that. But how the Lagrangian is cached out in physical terms is going to vary from one theory to another. It is one thing in non-relativistic classical mechanics, another - in relativistic classical mechanics, yet another in quantum mechanics, etc.

Here is a random example from the literature:

Quoting Cognitive Action Laws: The Case of Visual Features

This paper proposes a theory for understanding perceptual learning processes within the general framework of laws of nature. Neural networks are regarded as systems whose connections are Lagrangian variables, namely functions depending on time. They are used to minimize the cognitive action, an appropriate functional index that measures the agent interactions with the environment. The cognitive action contains a potential and a kinetic term that nicely resemble the classic formulation of regularization in machine learning. A special choice of the functional index, which leads to forth-order differential equations---Cognitive Action Laws (CAL)---exhibits a structure that mirrors classic formulation of machine learning. In particular, unlike the action of mechanics, the stationarity condition corresponds with the global minimum. Moreover, it is proven that typical asymptotic learning conditions on the weights can coexist with the initialization provided that the system dynamics is driven under a policy referred to as information overloading control. Finally, the theory is experimented for the problem of feature extraction in computer vision.

Here the Lagrangian formulation is given to a mathematical model of a perceptual learning process. The action here doesn't even have the units of energy x time, as it usually does in physics. But given the context of the model, it is unambiguously defined.

I am not going to comment on the OP "theory" with regard to animate vs. inanimate matter, which he somehow wants to cram into the definition of action. I was just giving some context on how action is actually defined in mainstream science for those who may have chanced on this thread.

Quoting jgill

I am a scientist — Sir Philo Sophia

Having made that statement you are obliged to supply details.

???

Guess you may not be a professional scientist. No big deal. :roll:

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Quoting SophistiCat

Once you define your Lagrangian (a mathematical object), then the definition of action follows straightforwardly from that. But how the Lagrangian is cached out in physical terms is going to vary from one theory to another. It is one thing in non-relativistic classical mechanics, another - in relativistic classical mechanics, yet another in quantum mechanics, etc.

I disagree with you on that.

PLA simply does not always apply. So, it is wrong as a universal principle as it can never apply to predicting or modeling "intelligent control" situations. PLA prescribes the exact path the object has to take if you know the starting and ending locations and a constant force field that acts on it. So, I'll give you a simpler example: You can never predict where a human piloted glider will end up landing, even though it expends no KE beyond that which PLA proscribes and is motion is completely determined by PLA at each moment, but PLA does not apply (i.e., becomes useless as a predictive equation) when the matter purposefully reconfigures itself to change forces acting on it (e.g., changing glider control surfaces) towards its goal (e.g., gaining more PE or choosing where to land), hence no Lagrangian dynamics equation is possible, so no PLA application is possible. Moreover, it is impossible to know the path the piloted glider took even if you knew the starting and ending locations and every molecule of air flow information, b/c the configuration and "intelligent" program control and configuration of the control surfaces at every point along the true path are never knowable ex-post facto. Thus, PLA can never apply to modeling such "intelligent control" situation.

So, please propose the type of Lagrangian mathematical object that would model such "intelligent control" situations which otherwise render the PLA useless in those situations?

Let me make it more simple for you: there are no laws of motion which govern the motion of a particle under contextual algorithmic/programmatic (i.e., "intelligent") control. So, it is nonsense to say PLA (or any physics laws of motion) describes the path which any living matter must take. Hence, the soundness of my definition!!!

In more detail, that is, I say there are no Lagrangian mathematical descriptors that are possible b/c Lagrangian mechanics requires variables that are functions depending on time and requires a constraint equation and only applies be applied to systems whose constraints are all holonomic. Clearly, there are no holonomic constraint equations possible for particles under "intelligent control" as I've explained it (e.g., when the matter purposefully reconfigures itself to contextually change forces and KE acting on it), which means their equations of motion are not functions depending of time, but functions of context. Hence, PLA can never apply to modeling such systems under "intelligent control". Seems obvious to me, but if you can evidence otherwise, I'm all ears...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_mechanics
One or more of the particles may each be subject to one or more holonomic constraints; such a constraint is described by an equation of the form f(r, t) = 0. If the number of constraints in the system is C, then each constraint has an equation, f1(r, t) = 0, f2(r, t) = 0, ... fC(r, t) = 0, each of which could apply to any of the particles. If particle k is subject to constraint i, then fi(rk, t) = 0. At any instant of time, the coordinates of a constrained particle are linked together and not independent. The constraint equations determine the allowed paths the particles can move along, but not where they are or how fast they go at every instant of time. Nonholonomic constraints depend on the particle velocities, accelerations, or higher derivatives of position. Lagrangian mechanics can only be applied to systems whose constraints, if any, are all holonomic. Three examples of nonholonomic constraints are:[11]when the constraint equations are nonintegrable, when the constraints have inequalities, or with complicated non-conservative forces like friction. Nonholonomic constraints require special treatment, and one may have to revert to Newtonian mechanics, or use other methods.

Quoting SophistiCat

Here is a random example from the literature:

This paper proposes a theory for understanding perceptual learning processes within the general framework of laws of nature

Nice reference, however, that approach only works with a Lagrangian b/c it is a pure function of time and the dynamics of their learning processes are only applicable to those have stochastic gradients, which does not apply to the general (e.g., Genetic) algorithm programs/learning behavior control systems, such as a molecular program of a virus.

Quoting Sir Philo Sophia

Clearly, there are no holonomic constraint equations possible for particles under "intelligent control"

Quoting Sir Philo Sophia

Seems obvious to me

I am curious, is this your personal theory about animate matter, or did you read it somewhere?

Reply to tim wood I should note that of course there are other senses of "action," and one can also come up with their own definition for some purpose. I only insisted on this particular definition from physics because that was the context set by the OP (although he then wanders from it a bit).

Quoting SophistiCat

I am curious, is this your personal theory about animate matter, or did you read it somewhere?

my personal one, part of building a much grander theory of sentience.