Re: The reality of entity


Haines,

I go into this, not only because it is something that interests me
greatly, but also because of your interest in cosmology, in which the
abductive method is necessarily used. As a person interested in
cosmology, I assume you have some interesting things to say about the
issues I've just raised.

The assumption is that redshift is entirely due to Doppler shift, i.e.
recessional velocity. The problem with applying this is that other
galaxies all appear to be primarily redshifted directly away from us,
with increasing rate of redshift proportional to distance, which makes
us appear to be at the center of the universe. The solution has been
to argue that space itself is expanding and this simply makes every
point appear at the center of the universe. As I've pointed out, it is
difficult to say that space itself is expanding and than use a stable
lightspeed to measure it against. If space truly was expanding,
lightspeed would increase similarly and we wouldn't be able to detect
this expansion. Otherwise it is not expanding space but increasing
distance, if Doppler Effect is the cause of redshift. Which gets us
back to the original problem of appearing to be at the center of the
universe.
According to Einstein, gravity causes space to collapse and would
eventually cause the entire universe to collapse to a point, so he
felt compelled to add the Cosmological Constant to balance the
universe. Hubble observed redshift and proposed that the universe was
actually expanding. According to more recent theory and observation,
these two effects are in basic equilibrium. So my first question has
been that if gravitational collapse and universal expansion are
equivalent, how can the universe as a whole expand, if expansion is
simultaneously cancelled by gravity. My argument has been that since
gravity causes space and matter to collapse to the point the pressure
ignites the radiation and this energy expands back out, it seems
logical to examine how radiation, both as an effect of having to cover
compounding volume with increasing distance, as well as what effect
radiation waves might have on other waves when their paths are
constantly interacting over enormous distances, might have in causing
redshift. In terms of describing space as expanding, an analogy might
be of running up the down escalator, where the distance increases, but
the points of reference are not actually moving apart, because these
points, as well as all other gravity fields, absorb this energy and
the space it is defining. The force of this in-falling radiation would
cause external pressure on gravitational systems that might have the
effect currently explained by the additional attraction of dark
matter. Given that gravity most definitely does have the effect of
contracting the elements we use to measure space and that radiation
does effectively expand, it would seem logical to consider a cycle
where redshift is a consequence of expanding radiation. Especially
when the alternative involves increasingly far-fetched theories and
conclusions. Everything from a universe that is only 13.7 billion
years old, when there are apparently mature galaxies and enormous
galaxy structures as far as we can see. Inflation Theory, which posits
the universe went through a stage of expansion from something the size
of a basketball, to many times the size of the visible universe to
explain why the entire universe appears to be in thermal equilibrium,
to seventy percent of the universe being dark energy to explain why
the rate other galaxies appear to be flying away from us is shaped in
ways better explained by a cosmological constant then the effects of a
singularity. etc. It seems to me that arguing redshift is due to other
galaxies actually moving away from us would be about the same as
saying gravitational lensing actually causes the sources of light to
move around in space because they appear that way to us when a
gravitational body passes in front of them. I could go on but you
probably get my point.

Sorry to be a little critical, but are you not again mixing up two
different things here? One is the difficulty of empirical tests for a
hypothesis regarding a past situation that no longer exists; the other
is the Kuhnian point about paradigms - the institutional reasons why a
particular theory becomes canonical. You really seem more interested in
the first and, if so, shouldn't have clouded the issue by bringing in
institutional conservatism.

Because it's the institutional conservatism I keep running into when
I raise what I feel is a perfectly valid question. One which I would
have been perfectly content with a reasonable explanation for why I
was wrong, but with all the obfuscation and jargon that seems mostly
to avoid the basic question, it seems to me more politics is involved
than is admitted. As someone who was raised around a bunch of horse
traders, I know a run around when I see it.

Another would be the concept of spacetime. As I may have pointed out
previously, we could use the same logic to argue temperature is a
parameter of volume space, as we use to say that time is a dimension
of distance space and the math would be just as precise. If the math
adds up, it's proof the model accurately describes reality and it
becomes canon. If something is off, "renormalizations" are
introduced. Science is infested with humanity.

Not sure I quite follow this. One thing is your reference to
"space-time". Yes, it was once thought that time is a kind of fourth
dimension of things, but today that view seems to have become
problematic.

I'm in agreement with you, but on a fair number of occasions I've
conversed with those who think time does exist as a very real
dimension in which our personal position is as subjective as our
spatial position. My impression was that these people hadn't just
picked this idea up from some books, but had paid significant money to
be taught it.

That is, is time a property of things, analogous to spatial
dimensions, or is it something we cook up for our own convenience. I,
for one, am inclined to adopt a causal theory of time, in which
before/after make sense, but not any flow of time. Is my take on this
the consensus today? No idea.

As a consequence of motion, it could be argued that time has
direction, but not dimension, as all motion is relative, so any
particular motion is cancelled by the larger equilibrium. The point of
reference/hands of the clock, goes clockwise, while the context, face
of the clock, goes counterclockwise. So it has two directions, but no
dimension, since the two directions cancel each other out.



Then you may suggest that successful mathematization offers evidence for
the truth value of a hypothesis, or are you denying that proposition? If
you are suggesting that an adequate mathematization of a phenomenon
implies that the mathematics adequately describes reality, I find that
to be unpersuasive - or better, dangerously tautological. That is, an
adequate mathematization shows that the mathematization is adequate
;-). If "description" here means adequate mathematization, then the
mathematization is a kind of description, but what does that have to do
with its its truth value in relation to the world? For example, I can
accurately describe a mirage in terms of sentences that may be true in
relation to my observations, but not true in relation to the real world
in which the mirage is presumably non-existent by definition: I am
adequately (accurately and fully) describing a fantasy. I suppose I
could express what I in mathematical terms, so we would have an adequate
mathematization of a non-reality.

That's my point about math as well. It's a useful tool, but can
easily be misused. Then again there are those who consider it the
basis of reality, not simply a model of reality. The ultimate Ideal
Form.


Is a theory's becoming "canonical" a bad thing? Canonical I presume
means authoritative or recognized. While we assess positively criticisms
launched at established theories, scientific research would be
impossible to pursue if nothing was authoritative or recognized by a
consensus to begin with - if nothing was canonical. Research always
starts somewhere, usually in relation to received knowlege, and its
foundation consists of facts and theories for which there is a consensus
of their truth. You never start out with a tabula rasa. True, there's a
possibly negative sociological implication that one reason for canons is
that they are attached to social authority and serve to manifest and
perpetuate that authority. But this is surely not the only function of
canons or is it an implication we can function without them.

I have no trouble with canon as models of reality, but then they are
not canon, only theory. Of course then everyone with a bone to pick
thinks they are easily open to question. There is the usual pendulum
swinging between too much order and too much free thinking. Personally
I do have great deal of respect for intellectual authority because we
would still be swinging from trees otherwise. It does occasionally
become corrupted, especially when it's canonized and becomes a cudgel
of some bureaucracy.

As for the contribution of math to canonization, is not math an
expression of the internal logic of a theory, and is not an internal
coherence one factor that makes a theory "robust"? In other words, a
successful mathematization seems part of a justification or a
contribution to the truth value of a theory and hence to its becoming
canonical.

It's not the specific mathematization that makes a theory valid, but
how well it fits into what we already know. Too many loose ends and
something is being missed. Current cosmology has quite a few loose
ends. My observation that gravitational collapse and radioactive
expansion are two sides of the same cycle is a projection of classic
convective cycles and does tie in very well with what we already know.

As for renormalizations, I'm not sure whether or not you are critical of
that procedure. To put it into more broadly philosophical terms, all
theories encounter new embarrassing facts that seems to conflict with
them. That usually does not suffice to cast the theory into the dustbin,
and instead auxiliary hypotheses are cooked up to accommodate the new
fact with the old theory. It is only after there are many such auxiliary
hypotheses that the theoretical ship begins for founder under their
combined weight, and it is time to build a new theory. That is,
renormalizations seem necessary and inevitable, and only become a
problem after a certain point.

To this I agree. There is a momentum to the process which makes each
succeeding patch easier to digest by those in the field, even though
it should be raising more red flags. But the fact is that our very
reality is a consequence of such adaptations and the process of life
has compensated by making us individually mortal in order to
continually improve the model. Suffice to say, the reset button does
need pushing on occasion.

Consciousness isn't exactly understood, physical reality is as much,
if not far more a function of relationships, as any hard and fast
physical beingness/particles, so if you are going to postulate hidden
dimensions, how do you logically limit what might occupy these dark
corners?

Yes, that's the question. A radical empiricist has an easy answer: what
exists is phenomenal; therefore unobservables are not real. The problem
is that scientists have long assumed the reality of unobservables
despite radical empiricism, and that assumption has been necessary in
successful scientific practice (I am aware of Timpanaro's objection to
this line of argument). A radical empiricism seems no longer adequate,
in part because it does not really explain anything (as Rom Harré and
many others have pointed out). It is seriously argued that real
explanation requires the presumption of the reality of unobservables.

So when my aunt died and that puppy I was watching for her drowned in
the swimming pool, it really was her coming back for it?

Not pushing ghosts, but there does seem to be a certain filamentary
nature to consciousness that extends beyond the specific confines of
the individual body.

Your question strikes me as quite legitimate: if there are hidden
dimensions, in the absense of empirical constraints how do we constrain
them so that things don't get out of hand?

Get others to agree with us, so we don't seem completely nuts.
Consensus rules.

Until we all march off the cliff, that is.


a) I suppose that a generic answer is that without calling upon them,
explanation becomes impossible, and so we posit only so much in the
way of unobservables as is necessary for adequate explanation (the
test of Okham's Razor).

But keep in mind that original assumptions can still be revisited.

b) Secondly, these hidden dimensions are not independent of the
observable dimension, but these dimensions are aspects of one process,
and so the constraint of the observables is still present, although
instead of looking at a static state as evidence of it, we are
looking at change in time; the observed dynamic of the system rather
than its empirical qualities.

Of course the observables include conscious beings in this dimension,
so wouldn't the exclusion of consciousness in other dimensions be more
political than logical?

c) Finally, our explanations have to "work for us", either because
they lend themselves to successful Praxis, or because they are
heuristic (lend themselves to new scientific research programs, as
Lakatos put it). That "success" implies some external test of success
that remains unvalidated is an interesting issue, but not one I need
pursue here.

If we want a job in the academic community, or just wish to maintain
our sanity, there are places best not visited.


My point (which seems adventurous because I don't know of of anyone else
who has suggested quite the same thing) is that to make an open system
intelligible, we have to represent it in thought as being isolated or
closed and hope that the result is a sufficient approximation of
reality to serve our purposes. But when we represent all things as
essentially and causally connected with their environment and for the
sake of intelligibility, close that system in thought, then we end up
with a causal relation of one thing ;-). I hazarded the suggestion that
a "causal potency" is simply a name for a causal relation in which only
one end of the relation is known, so that it becomes an indeterminate
source of motion. This may not be quite as useless as it might at first
seem, for often our concern is emergent systems that are driven by
environmental dissipation, and to a degree we can just assume that the
environment is capable of further dissipation (increase in entropy) in a
variety of ways at least for the time being. That is, we can often just
assume an engine of change without worrying too much about its source.

This does get to my point about the relation between form and
content(information and energy) as opposing directions of time. The
closed systems, like the entity of an individual car, is a product
that goes from creation to destruction, beginning to end, in the
future to in the past, but when we open it up as a process, then it is
consuming other units and their energy, like the dollars and gallons
of gas flowing through the gas tank and moving from past units toward
future units.

Picky point: do not models consist of "sentences" (in philosophical
terms) that therefore have truth value? Are not words simply "names" (in
a philosophical sense) by which we index things and which do not have
truth value?

? How can the sentences have truth value and the words/names not?

Picky point; Only the nouns are names.

Not being a cosmologist (or mathematician), I'm sure in no position to
judge string theory or to assess your comment that it's subtle aim is to
construct space, which might otherwise collapse to nothing more than our
illusion. Your comment is interesting. Would you expand a bit upon it
for the non-expert? I've sometimes toyed with the idea that with
probabilistic causality, there could be an infinite array of outcomes,
and if that implies multiple worlds, that time is a way to avoid the
contradiction of having multiple worlds that are not the same, but would
otherwise be in the same place. Are you suggesting something like this
for string theory?

Actually I'm going the other way with that. Absent the dichotomies,
there would only be void. The problem with our current math is that in
order not to validate space as anything more than the measurement of
position, we assume the default absolute is the singular dimensionless
point and from this assumption the Big Bang is a logical projection.
It originates in the monotheistic assumption of the singular absolute,
which is a contradiction, as the universal state is neutral and
effectively zero, while the singular set has serious problems defining
the infinite as finite. Drawing a circle around everything and arguing
nothing remains outside. Hard to prove a negative you have asserted.
As I think I've argued, the true zero in geometry should be the empty
space, not a particular point at the center of the frame. String
theory assumes strings/particles, based on the vibrations/waves, but
what if it is the particle/node/point that is the construct and the
reality is an otherwise measureless analog network?

As for reality being constructed out of opposites, my reaction would be
negative if your comment was meant as metaphysical (forces of
light/forces of darkness; yin/yang; Ahura Mazda/Ahriman, essential
form/matter, etc.) rather than naturalistic. In naturalistic terms I'd
insist (again, siding a bit with David Layzer, _Cosmogenesis_, 1990)
that any "construction" (the emergence of improbable outcomes) is
necessarily the result of a thermodynamic engine (dissipation of the
environment driving the emergence of novel structures), and therefore a
contradictory process, or processes that are opposite with respect to
the direction of their change in entropy. I suspect this is not what you
had in mind by your remark, but offer it only to suggest that what might
be a conventional metaphysical postulate could also have a real and
naturalistic basis in fact.

The problem with physical reality as a linear entropic progression is
that it doesn't explain where it came from in the first place.
Singularity? May as well say God. With a convective cycle, where one
side is expanding energy fueling the other side of collapsing mass,
which eventually ignites and further propels the cycle, you may have
the mythical perpetual motion machine, but at least it's logically
self propelled (but not physically finite, therefore not a closed
set). Order represents a closed system that must consume its own
energy, or absorb outside energy and the additional, potentially
disruptive information defining it, so that either way the original
order/system is eventually consumed/dissipated. This ordered system is
only one side of the larger cycle, like stars first gaining energy as
collapsing gas clouds, then losing it as radiation. It is that
radiation condensing out as gas that physics doesn't consider and
prefers the singularity and its patches.


Still though, they do die and their energy continues toward other
uses, usually further up the food chain.

Still don't understand. When the chicken dies, I assume it has little
free energy. The substances of which the chick was composed to an extent
may be far-from-equilibrium, but these complex hydrocarbon molecules soon
enough break down into heat, water, and more stable compounds. That is,
the potential and free energy represented by the chicken spontaneously
dissipate, and I don't see how any kind of energy bundle is passed along
to the newborn check. Even if we suggest that a decomposed chicken makes
good fertilizer, the energy represented by the plants that will become
chicken feed derives from the sun and is locked up in improbable
structures. I just don't see any significant transfer of the dying
chicken to a newborn chick unless the chick came from her egg, and even
then, the chick in the egg gets energy from nutrients provided by its
mother chicken, not from the mother's energy itself.

No, the chicken processes food into the cellular structure of eggs.
Its own energy content becomes the Colonel's own special recipe.(KFC)
My point about chickens being chicken food derives from how Mad Cow
Disease originated from cow brains and other offal being mixed back
into cow feed and assuming something similar is likely happening in
industrial chicken farming.

The physical reality that is the system of you and the system that is
that tree have gone from May, through all the events which constitute
your particular paths, until you meet again in September. May no
longer exists, but it went from future potential to past circumstance.
It is that "arbitrary frame of reference" which goes from future to
past, because the physical reality creates it and then replaces it. So
if time is only that "arbitrary frame of reference," it doesn't go
from past to future, but the other way around!!!

Of course, my position as noted before, is that times does not "go" at
all. Mellor offers a persuasive discussion of the contradiction of
A-time that I'll not try to reproduce here unless you ask.

I guess we are getting to a discussion of what the word "go" means.
Yes, it doesn't "go" to some future dimension, but effectively shape
shifts within the existing space, but this motion creates series of
events which are dissipated as new events form, so they "go" away. As
opposed to those which haven't "come" yet.

That is why I argue time is a measure of motion, similar to
temperature, rather then the basis for it.

This is is a contentious position. That is, it is in need of defense
against the attacks coming from the opposite position. Your point is not
something that can be taken for granted.

Yet it seems to be very similar to what you are espousing, that time
is that "arbitrary frame of reference" (with change from one to
another due to motion), rather than a real dimension. Temperature
isn't "real," but is a measurement of energy against a prevailing
scale.


The meteor has kinetic energy, I thought.

It's not processing changes. Its kinetic energy is subject to contact
with another body.


My point was that the past does not exist in the present, but only its
traces. Yes, some "traces" may have energy in some form (the firecracker
I purchased at the store), but I'd argue there's no flow of energy from
past to present because there's no flow of time from past to present.

We are in agreement that past and future do not physically exist, but
are consequence of that which does. Time as consequence, rather then
time as basis.

Oops. The "traces" of the past that exist in the present are, of
course, not the past, but mere empirical effects.

You are modeling time as a dimension in which the past is somewhere
back there and the future is somewhere up there.

No. Just the opposite. For some reason you keep getting me wrong on this
point. Not sure why. I'm inclined to _deny_ that there is a time
dimension in that time is a property of things. That is, there _is_ no
past, no present and no future outside of our consciousness. Defending
this point is something else; I'm just trying to tell you where I stand
on the issue.

There is a minor point of contention. I'm basically in agreement with
you, but to take it a little further, the past is those traces, not
what created them, since what created them doesn't exist . We have the
bones, from them we draw conclusions. These conclusions might be
wrong. To the extent time is information, not energy, which is always
what is only present, to the extent that information exists, it is the
past. To the extent it is erased, the past no longer exists. The rope
being woven out of strands pulled from what is already woven. This may
seem a moot point, but our understanding of the past is often woven
together disparate elements that only come together in our own
perspective. The past is every bit as subjective as the present, so
does this mean there is no such thing as an objective past? I'm going
out on a branch here, but trying to explore the consequences of time
as effect, not cause. It's a matter of relating the information coming
into our brains, which is all of the past, by the time we register it.
Otherwise there is only energy and consciousness has nothing to be
conscious of. Only what is present exists. Time is a function of our
brains called the mind. Tying these two points together is a little
more complicated, it seems....


"Narrative structure"? "Hard to escape"? Are you saying that my logic is
inescapable (is compelling) or that my narrative structure is a kind of
prison that entraps the flight of thought?

That thought is a narrative structure which tries to instill order on
chaos.


It tends to be reactive to order. Ordered systems absorb less
information/energy, but tend to lose it and decay. Often as a
consequence of interaction with outside processes.

Gain entropy, loose information, or loose energy? A crystal has an
improbable state of low entropy, high information, but virtually no
energy. Most crystals will probably not "decay" in the foreseeable
future, but if they did, its movement toward an improbable structure
would be manifest as heat and trash (structures that are more probable
than the original crystal).

Presumably a crystal has stable energy, as it has mass. E=mc2.

I'm not sure what it means for a system to
"absorb" information. I'm not sure if I'd be willing to equate energy
and information. Heat, for example, is almost by definition an energy
without information.

Try telling that to a chemist, weather forecaster or other systems
analyst. Economic statistics are effectively a temperature reading of
the economy, as a measure of how much we are moving around. Similarly
heat is due to all the varied molecules moving or vibrating. There is
quite a great deal of information there. It is the process, the verbs,
not the nouns.

It takes energy to create information, but surely
they are different things. A nuclear blast has great energy, but little
information. The printed word is high in information, but has no free
energy, etc.

Basically we are using different definitions of information. I would
describe how you use it as order. To me, information is form, as
opposed to the energy content. As this content is conserved, it
continues and so manifests series of forms, while the forms are
created and dissipated. The nuclear blast is like the morning fog you
described. It may not have clear boundaries, but it definitely has the
ability to affect boundaries. Order on the other hand is a matter of
perspective. What if the printed words were all garbled? Would they
contain just as much information, but less order? What if in fact it
is simply a foreign language? You don't know the order but would you
assume it exists?

Sorry to be so rushed in my last comments. Must head out.

Know the feeling.

Regards,

jbmjr.
.