RE: Contra Metaphysical Idealism
April 20, 2014 at 12:50 am
(This post was last modified: April 20, 2014 at 1:00 am by bennyboy.)
(April 18, 2014 at 7:03 am)archangle Wrote: "Idea": to have an "idea" something has to be exchanged. Some type of "information" stored in a state of a "particle" and then exchanged with another "particle" in A meaningful pattern. There is, because of Heisenberg, particles that can live very short lives. They violate the conservation laws, that's why they call them "virtual". ITS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE ... BUT THEY DO IT".I don't think that's why virtual particles are called virtual: they are "virtual" because they behave like particles without actually being them. Nor do they violate the law of conservation. Instead, they force us to a more metaphorical understanding of what, exactly, is being conserved.
Quote:When I use the words "thing", "something", or "substance" I mean a "particle", " gauge boson, Or a combination of both. Or something unknown, like "space", dark matter", and "dark energy". "space seems to be something, like a rubber matt. They don't know what it is yet. But they took a gyroscope in space and it was deflected off of "center" by the warping of space due to the earth's mass as predicted by Einstein's equations.When you can ONLY describe the building blocks of the universe using metaphors and math, and cannot directly interact with any of them, then it might be time to consider the possibility that you're not talking about "things" in a sense that means anything.
I'd further add that when you start speaking metaphorically due to lack of understanding or words for what you're talking about, and you're talking about the most advanced science available, you might want to consider one more idea. "Physical science," for all its poetry and math, is starting to sound very much like the mythologies and metaphors of other cultures. "Oh, see, there's this emptiness which isn't empty at all-- in fact it's more infinitely packed with potential than all the stars in the skies. So how stuff gets created is this-- this empty thing-which-isn't-a-thing starts vibrating-- shhh don't ask why it just does-- and those vibrations interact with each other, and where they intersect, a particle is created. Now, you can't ever see or interact with such a particle, but we know it's there because if it isn't, our mathematical models for reality wouldn't work."
You are pretty sure that bosons exist. But what does a boson look like? What shape is it? How much volume does it occupy?
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012...appearance
Sounds like the beginnings of a new mythology to me.