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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 10:03 am
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 10:06 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Quote:If you are going to define ethereal, formless, energetic entities as "matter,"
Who does that?
Quote:then what are we going to call fairies?
...un-evidenced?
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 10:34 am
(September 22, 2015 at 10:03 am)Rhythm Wrote: Quote:If you are going to define ethereal, formless, energetic entities as "matter,"
Who does that?
How else would you define QM particles?
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 12:05 pm
(September 22, 2015 at 10:34 am)bennyboy Wrote: (September 22, 2015 at 10:03 am)Rhythm Wrote: Who does that?
How else would you define QM particles?
The problem with QM is that the very name (mechanics) implies a world of particles and after Feynman released his diagrams on the world, we seem to re-affirm the world from the perspective of mechanincs.
It maybe that our world is not fundamentally particles but fields (both force and matter fields). But fields are real physical entities, where under QFT the propogation of an excitation in the field (which moves as a wave) can condense out to look very particle like (ie when it is absorbed by another quantum system). And at that point all of the excitation and wave in the field is simulataneously aborsbed. These properties are neither formless nor ethereal - but they are energetic of course.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 12:14 pm
I'd say "matter fields" is an oxymoron. But you say QM "particles" aren't formless, which I find interesting; what is their form?
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 12:50 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 12:51 pm by Captain Scarlet.)
(September 22, 2015 at 12:14 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I'd say "matter fields" is an oxymoron. But you say QM "particles" aren't formless, which I find interesting; what is their form?
Why would a "matter field" be oxymoronic, unless you can only envision matter as a "particle" or tiny ball bearing. Maybe matter is condensed energy from an excitation in a field (propogating as a wave). I am open to these ideas and am agnostic on materialism a) because of the baggage it carries implying the world is made of tiny ball bearings b) I do not know what matter really is and neither does QM, QFT, string theory et al. So I am happy to wait for a more comprehensive view. However this doesn't mean realism and naturalism are not true.
In QFT asking what forms do "particles" take? is a malformed question. There are no particles, but the interesting thing to me is that it describes not classical but quantised fields. Quantised fields behave differently in that they come in chunks (much like you can only have the whole sugar lump not the individual grains) but propogate through space as a wave. Once the field interacts with something the whole quanta, chunk of that field crystallises out (to give it a particle look). The form and time evolution of those fields are described in the maths which alas is less penetrable to me, but it is there if you are interested ie the forms exist. There is some information out there on it. Rodney Brooks does a decent summary of it in "Fields of Colour" and explains in laymans terms Julian Schwingers QFT.
That is not to say I am personally committed to it, it is one of many inetresting interpretations.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 5:30 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 5:31 pm by bennyboy.)
As I mentioned to Rhythm, the terminology used in materialism is rooted in billiard balls. If you have a formless field which cannot be represented unambiguously in 3D space, and which seems not to behave deterministically-- then this seems to me not to be a thing, but the idea of a thing.
There's also the issue of photons and time. . . photons seemingly having a broken reference point in which no time passes (for the photon). So now we have not only a field which does not exist in a specific space or volume, we also have one which both does and doesn't exist for a duration, when viewed from our reference and a hypothetical one.
When perspective so vastly changes the nature of a thing, or when a thing is expressible only in math but cannot be modeled even in theory, I'd again argue that the thing may not be a thing at all, but rather an idea.
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 23, 2015 at 1:43 am
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.
-Galileo
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 23, 2015 at 3:31 am
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.
-Galileo
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 23, 2015 at 4:19 am
(September 22, 2015 at 5:30 pm)bennyboy Wrote: As I mentioned to Rhythm, the terminology used in materialism is rooted in billiard balls. If you have a formless field which cannot be represented unambiguously in 3D space, and which seems not to behave deterministically-- then this seems to me not to be a thing, but the idea of a thing.
There's also the issue of photons and time. . . photons seemingly having a broken reference point in which no time passes (for the photon). So now we have not only a field which does not exist in a specific space or volume, we also have one which both does and doesn't exist for a duration, when viewed from our reference and a hypothetical one.
When perspective so vastly changes the nature of a thing, or when a thing is expressible only in math but cannot be modeled even in theory, I'd again argue that the thing may not be a thing at all, but rather an idea.
If fields do not 'seem' to you to represent not represent matter but ideas, this maybe a failure of your imagination but not of materialism or QFT. I agree that the concept of a field is more nebulous than a particle description especically from a Newtonian standpoint. But strip materialism back to its bare metal and it proposes that the world is made of stuff. I see no reason why a world of fields is not stuff. Fields:
- are not formless (you continue to represent that view). Fields have values, eg value x, in spacetime vector y.
- equations govern them and their time evolution and these are deterministic
- really exist
Under QFT a photon is a quantised region of the EM force field, an electron is a quantised region of the Lepton matter field etc. The field explanation does not add mystery to a photon but help explain relativistic anamolies:
- Why do things slow down when we move faster? If space is made of fields then in a moving interaction things need to travel greater distances, much like a relay runner hands over the baton in motion needs a distance to effect the handover
- Why if I push a photon does it not travel faster. A photon does not interact with Higgs field meaning they travel at the limit of the ability of a their fields to oscillate (ie speed of light "c"). This comes out of field equations
- Why do things contract at higher speeds? If space is made of fields then in motion those fields contract, contracting space itself
I find this an interesting and compelling view of nature but it is way beyond my maths skills to comprehend beyond a superficial understanding. It is not the only view that is inetersting however. I am also interested in the view of nature offered by string theory, bohmian mechanics and many worlds. So I repeat I am not wedded to any one interpretation and remain agnostic on materialism as a result.
However, I am not agnostic on either realism and naturalism, both of which I hold to, ie Existence, exists. Suggesting nothing exists but the immaterial, which has no models, interpretations, maths nor definition, to me is incoherent. The only definition I have heard of the immaterial is that it is "not material", which assumes that material things exist in the first place. Therefore the sentence "only the immaterial exists" defeats itself. It is the same as saying "the only things that exist are not the things that can be shown to exist".
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 23, 2015 at 7:04 am
(September 23, 2015 at 4:19 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: But strip materialism back to its bare metal and it proposes that the world is made of stuff. I see no reason why a world of fields is not stuff. Fields:
- are not formless (you continue to represent that view). Fields have values, eg value x, in spacetime vector y.
- equations govern them and their time evolution and these are deterministic
- really exist
You have responded to my insistence that particles are describable not as things but as ideas by enumerating the mathematical ideas by which they are described.
If you want to say that a particle (or a field) isn't formless then fine; show me what form a photon (for example) has.
Are you sure they only exist? I think you mean to say, "They really, really exist ya gotta believe me, cuz everyone knows it's true."
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