Re: OT: science alone cannot explain "ultimate reality"

Howard Duck wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:35:29 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"
<faminiter@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This, by the way, is a better link to the article I quoted in my last post.
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:DuOxbMFlga0J:www.unil.ch/webdav/site/philo/shared/DocsPerso/EsfeldMichael/2007/Espagnat-SHPMP07.pdf+%22Bernard+d%27Espagnat%22&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

I had hoped you would read on about the critique of d'Espagnat's work, in particular, the following:

-------------------------
However, all these types of
interpretations – and all their various versions – are proposals about what nature is in itself.
On the no collapse interpretations, nature simply is a huge entangled quantum system; on the
Bohm interpretation, nature consists in a dualism of quantum potential and particles; and on
the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber interpretation, nature in itself is characterized by entanglement,
but there subsequently are processes of spontaneous localization that dissolve the
entanglement. In none of these 991 interpretations is any link from nonseparability and
holism to our ignorance of what nature is in itself.
--------------------------

and

-------------------------
There are of course serious arguments for some version of anti-realism or other in the
literature. But given the state of the art reached in the discussion on nonseparability and
holism and the interpretation of quantum physics in general, it is simply conceptual confusion
to take one particular physical theory – i.e., quantum physics – in distinction to other physical
theories – i.e., classical physics including general relativity – to imply anti-realism.
------------------------

As I implied before, statements such as he makes are premature, and are more deeply motivated by his Catholicism than they are by his scientific brain. They are premature because we are still learning more and more about nature every year, every month, every day. To declare the project futile now is ridiculous.

I read the whole article. But here we have minds of secondary
creative abilities critiquing a mind of superior abilities. They very
likely do not have nearly the intuitive insights that he possesses.


Well, then, read Stephen Hawking's books. No one will argue his is not one of the finest minds of the 20th C. He would disagree with d'Espagnat.


Turning to your comment about the ability of the human mind to know its own origins only if it has an immaterial source, I think that has to be wrong. First of all, recent experiments have shown that humans are not the only animals with self-consciousness. See http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RQDSPTQ
Elephants especially have demonstrated this trait. So, unless you are going to claim that elephants, chimpanzees and dolphins are all endowed by a supernatural source with this faculty, I think we can infer that it has natural origins. Second, there is a logical gap in your jump to the conclusion that there must be a supernatural source. Your premise that an evolved mind could never know its own origins is highly suspect. There is no a priori reason why a conscious animal cannot evolve to become self-conscious and then go on to inquire, logically and in accordance with scientific principles, about that evolution. Why must you assert a supernatural reason at all?

My own intuitive persuasion. It's kind of like the proposition where
infinite sets are defined by a finite number of axioms - one may never
know whether there exist logical paradoxes within the set.

If the set is denumerably infinite and well-ordered, where is the problem?

Mathematicians who only want to play mind games with logic, continue
to define more propositions (like the well-ordering "theorem" which
states that every set may be well-ordered)

Whoa. The Well-Ordered Theorem is not one set by some unknown mathematician who "continues to define more propositions". It was Cantor himself, the founder of Set Theory, who proclaimed it in the 1870s, 1880s. While designated a theorem, it has not ever been proven, though an attempt to disprove it was also flawed.

because they cannot prove
otherwise. This is in spite of the fact that no one has ever produced
a well-ordering of the real numbers, and no one ever will.

If the Well-Ordered Theorem were applied only to sets containing ordinal or cardinal numbers, the proof of it would be trivial. This is like the prime number problem that bugged mathematicians for 200 years or more. It may be too early to say whether it can or cannot be applied to real numbers. Perhaps, a proof of its non-applicability is what will eventually come.

But I do agree that conceiving of a proof that it does apply to reals is difficult. One thought: Do you think that the number of reals between any two reals is the same?

Intuition
says "NO" to that idea. Abstract mathematicians will laugh at you for
saying so because they don't deal with realities.
--
Howard

I am not sure what you mean by that. It is hard to say, for instance, that π is not real when you cannot do physics without it.

--
Francis A. Miniter

Oscuramente
libros, laminas, llaves
siguen mi suerte.

Jorge Luis Borges, La Cifra Haiku, 6
.

Relevant Pages