Seeing red

[bennyboy]

QM is thoroughly and necessarily materialistic.  If it suggests or leads a person to idealism, they haven't understood QM. A honeycomb is alot of empty space as well, and it doesn't seem to elicit the same sort of wonder as the "empty" desk.

It would elicit wonder if all our senses had always indicated that the honeycomb was a flat, continuous surface.

Let me ask you this.  What's the volume of a QM particle?  How much space does this stuff of yours occupy?

[The Grand Nudger]

It won't matter, those explanations are insufficient. I should be the one asking you, you've got the the sufficient explanations for these questions, not I.

[Angrboda]

We use math to describe material interactions.  It's a useful and precise language...it helps us avoid common pitfalls of natural language, such as equivocation or interpretation.

That's not what Jörmungandr said:

Materialism is a reduction of all phenomenon to a small set of mathematical principles, with some metaphysics thrown in for good measure.

Maybe this was just an imprecise description, because it's not that different than my past descriptions of Idealism: that the most essential components of reality are reducible only to ideas-- like math functions.  Not that they are DESCRIBED by them, but that they ARE them.  I believe that under the hood, you won't find anything BUT math and other abstracts.  Do you believe that the math, at the most essential level of reality, is still descriptive of things?

I don't get what you're expecting to find here. Because we think in abstractions, our model of the world consists of a set of regularities defined by mathematical principles. It's the language in which we define how touch, sight, and feeling of the materia operate. You will never get down to anything else because at bottom it's a description of the behavior of reality, and descriptions by their nature are abstract. Do you think that if we drill the map down far enough we will suddenly encounter territory? All you will find is map and more map until the map can no longer be further refined. It will still be map.

So our difference is not in what we think the bottom layer will be like. At bottom, by its nature, there is only mathematics and abstracts. The question is whether those abstracts refer to something concrete or not, and you can't look to the abstracts to decide that question because doing so is uninformative. So the real question is why you have inferred that these abstracts don't point to something concrete? It can't be motivated by the fact that it's abstracts all the way down, that's just how models of reality work. So what is your motivation for denying that these abstracts refer to something concrete, when all our experience gives the impression of something concrete?

[bennyboy]

It won't matter, those explanations are insufficient.  I should be the one asking you, you've got the the sufficient explanations for these questions, not I.

Yeah, but just for fun.  What's the volume of an elemental particle?  I want to know how big these "things" you are so sure about are.

[bennyboy]

So our difference is not in what we think the bottom layer will be like.  At bottom, by its nature, there is only mathematics and abstracts.  The question is whether those abstracts refer to something concrete or not, and you can't look to the abstracts to decide that question because doing so is uninformative.  So the real question is why you have inferred that these abstracts don't point to something concrete?

Because something concrete must be able to be expressed unambiguously. If it is paradoxical or ambiguous in nature, it cannot be said to be a thing.

It can't be motivated by the fact that it's abstracts all the way down, that's just how models of reality work.  So what is your motivation for denying that these abstracts refer to something concrete, when all our experience gives the impression of something concrete?

Because all our experience does NOT give the impression of something concrete. QM particles, despite Rhythm's protestations to the contrary, are squirrelly little fucks. A photon, which is indivisible (quanta and all that) takes two paths. This is a paradox, and where there is paradox, a "thing" cannot be said to be concrete. Instead it is abstract, literally: ab + stract. Thus sayeth the Quantum: "I am that which, being indivisible, taketh two paths upon my journey. I am that which, being called 'stuff,' has no volume. I am that, which while being describable only in abstract statistical terms, establishes the foundation for a belief in a reality which is concrete, and is naught but concrete."

I guarantee that if you explain QM to a child, he's going to see through the Emperor's New Clothes right away.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'll do you one better than giving you a number.  Don't know how useful it would be, as an insufficient explanation...we'd merely be arguing over fantasy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_particle

In quantum mechanics, there is a distinction between an elementary particle (also called "point particle") and a composite particle. An elementary particle, such as an electron, quark, or photon, is a particle with no internal structure, whereas a composite particle, such as a proton or neutron, has an internal structure (see figure). However, neither elementary nor composite particles are spatially localized, because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The particle wavepacket always occupies a nonzero volume. For example, see : The electron is an elementary particle, but its quantum states form three-dimensional patterns.

b-mine.

This, however, is an irrelevance, because your criticisms do not arise from any misunderstandings of qm that you clearly have.  It's a bit farther down that that.....right at the very bottom, you might say.  Isn't it?  

Lay aside the claim that materialism is insufficient and subsumed by idealism.  Then we'll be able to refer to these explanations coherently.  We could merely suggest that stuff exists....and is made out of ideas.  Couldn't we?  That we're currently doing research at the layer of "stuff"...and have only, possibly, glimpsed at the layer of "existence".In fact I'm certain that you have suggested this, albeit it your own chosen words, and the only reason it was an unproductive line of inquiry was in relation to it's incoherence in light of the aforementioned claim.


Or, you can stick to your guns and continue having a dispute with me over what -must-, then, be fantasy..............................you are essentially attempting to get to some truth of the matter,on the issue of whether or not a giant spigot accounts for rain.   Even the base idiocy of such a position, if it could be shown(and I;m sure it could be), would not be informative.....because it is fantasy and thusly completely uninformative with regards to any underlying reality.  Why then, would you refer to it yourself?  Why would you take it be be informative? Why subsume it?  We've got it dead wrong from the bottom to top - this isn't how stuff works, no matter what's it made of.

[emjay]

But to be honest I can't understand how you can 'subsume' materialism either, given that where theories of psychology and neuroscience are concerned, they directly affect the content and nature of your experience - you can rely on them to make predictions about your experience, but they rely on materialistic assumptions.

They rely on objective assumptions more than material ones-- that is, that there is something outside your own mind, and that you are interacting with it.  However, let's say we're in the Matrix or the Mind of God.  Given that our experiences are consistent, and that there are some experiences which are so consistent across time that we consider them to represent "objects," would this now be a material universe, or wouldn't it?

I'd argue that however compelling our experiences are, without knowing where they come from or why, Matrix denizens or Mind of God denizens would infer from experiential consistency that there was a "material" reality, though really there is not guaranteed to be anything of the sort.  So while their beliefs represent a pragmatic organization of their experiences, they are STILL ideas, as is everything they experience.

Okay, I get that.

I know you say later that they don't have anything to say about the actual existence of subjective experience - why or how it exists - but nonetheless they still do have a lot to say about what you experience given that you can experience. It seems to me that if you accept the findings of materialistic theories of psychology and neuroscience - to whatever extent you do - then you have to be relying on materialism to some extent, and therefore to deny materialism seems like circular logic.

Not really.  The brain, a microscope, an fMRI machine. . . they are all so far as any of us knows, just highly consistent experiences.  Whatever is "out there" or not, it's not really disputed by anyone, even the staunchest materialist, that the universe at the point of experience is a mental representation.  So while you might feel that you're using things to establish rules about the physical universe, when you forget that the use of things is ALWAYS an experience, you are missing out on the real circle-- using mind to establish a system by which to validate its own source.  This is a nasty circle indeed, not really that different than that of the Bible and God mutually establishing each other's veracity.

Okay, I'm getting that It reminds me of an argument CS Lewis put forward in the book Miracles, which I didn't get then either:

Thus a strict materialism refutes itself for the reason given long ago by Professor Haldane: 'If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.' (Possible Worlds)

Is it that argument, or similar, that you're putting forward here? I'm really sorry but I have trouble understanding these sorts of logical arguments, even if that does make me as thick as a plank. I just can't get my head around what we call in Mafia games, WIFOMs: Wine In Front Of Me, and that's what these sorts of arguments seem like to me.

[bennyboy]

This, however, is an irrelevance, because your criticisms do not arise from any misunderstandings of qm that you clearly have.  It's a bit farther down that that.....right at the very bottom, you might say.  Isn't it?  

I asked you for the size of the particle itself, and you know that what you just quoted isn't what I'm getting at. You can talk about the size of a wave packet or an orbital, or the field of influence, etc. etc. But you and I both know that in the article you just linked, there's a reason why elementary particles are called "point" particles. Gotta be careful quoting sources that ultimately give away the game, no?

Lay aside the claim that materialism is insufficient and subsumed by idealism.  Then we'll be able to refer to these explanations coherently.  We could merely suggest that stuff exists....and is made out of ideas.  Couldn't we?  That we're currently doing research at the layer of "stuff"...and have only, possibly, glimpsed at the layer of "existence".In fact I'm certain that you have suggested this, albeit it your own chosen words, and the only reason it was an unproductive line of inquiry was in relation to it's incoherence in light of the aforementioned claim.

If you want to say, as Jorg once seemed to, that "stuff" is ideas at its most elemental level, then we can all shake hands and /thread. But let me say this, "we" are not all scientists, and there are many aspects of human life to which scientific ideas don't very usefully contribute either to our experience of things or to our understanding of it. So I'd say that one of the scopes in which we operate is that of those shared experiences consistent enough to categorize, manipulate, and talk about-- "stuff." And I've never disputed the pragmatism of doing so. As I said, if I want a bridge that stands up, I'll go with the science.

[bennyboy]

Is it that argument, or similar, that you're putting forward here? I'm really sorry but I have trouble understanding these sorts of logical arguments, even if that does make me as thick as a plank. I just can't get my head around what we call in Mafia games, WIFOMs: Wine In Front Of Me, and that's what these sorts of arguments seem like to me.

No, it's not quite the same, though certainly I find Lewis' argument interesting.

When it comes to attempts to establish truth at a foundational level, the brain-mind thread of thinking leads to a nasty circle, or at least a question-begging assumption.

• My brain creates mind.
  
• My mind perceives a brain.
  
• Therefore I know that the brain is real, and that mind comes from it.
  

This is similar to:

• God created the Bible.
  
• The Bible says God is real.
  
• Since God created the Bible, we know it's accurate, and guess what? It says God is real.
  

In the latter, you must take AS GIVEN either that God exists, or that the Bible is correct.

The problem with the former is that you must take AS GIVEN either that the brain creates mind, or that the perceptions of the mind represent an objective reality.  But they are mutually self-supporting.  So any materialist view which attempts to use brain science to establish the truth about what mind is is really doing this:


In the scope of everyday human life, this doesn't matter: you do your brain science, you develop your drugs, you live your life-- much the same as you don't need to understand QM (or possibly even what framework might underlie QM) to know that your desk is solid and it's safe to put your dinner on it.  It's only when you start looking for "truth" that you have to challenge those things we are so sure we "know."

[The Grand Nudger]

This, however, is an irrelevance, because your criticisms do not arise from any misunderstandings of qm that you clearly have.  It's a bit farther down that that.....right at the very bottom, you might say.  Isn't it?  

I asked you for the size of the particle itself, and you know that what you just quoted isn't what I'm getting at.  You can talk about the size of a wave packet or an orbital, or the field of influence, etc. etc.  But you and I both know that in the article you just linked, there's a reason why elementary particles are called "point" particles.  Gotta be careful quoting sources that ultimately give away the game, no?

You're asking for what the theory does not predict or provide.  Volume is described by relation to the wave packet, as are the those particles you don't understand.  Find the field, find the particle. You're asking me for the mathematical equivalent of a crocoduck, what's worse, you seem to think it's a clever and informative question.

If you want to say, as Jorg once seemed to, that "stuff" is ideas at its most elemental level, then we can all shake hands and /thread.  But let me say this, "we" are not all scientists, and there are many aspects of human life to which scientific ideas don't very usefully contribute either to our experience of things or to our understanding of it.  So I'd say that one of the scopes in which we operate is that of those shared experiences consistent enough to categorize, manipulate, and talk about-- "stuff."  And I've never disputed the pragmatism of doing so.  As I said, if I want a bridge that stands up, I'll go with the science.

But science isn't why the bridge stands up, it's insufficient.  We're not discussing pragmatism. We're discussing the stolen concept which prevents further inquiry. You have accepted as sufficient what you have declared to be insufficient. You'll have to make up your mind. Do ideas (such as the idea of a car, gears, or pistons) actually behave -as though- they were material objects? If they do, then materialism is sufficient. If they do......but something else does not.......say, the idea of mind, then why do those two types of ideas behave so differently, why would what is sufficient for one type, be insufficient for the other?