what is the difference between metaphysics and quantum physics

[Nagelfar]

And what else, exactly, would there be in addition to the empirically provable? Please provide references to physical evidence.

You realize that you just asked to provide something beyond empiricalism by means of empiricalism, right? a priori rational dialectics are non-empirical, but can't be empirically proven, of course(!)

 

[Dave]

Of course. But the world in which we live is exclusively physical. What else, then, is relevant?

Edit: .... within the scope of the comparison between QM and metaphysics. One describes the world in which we live, the other does not.

 

[Nagelfar]

Of course. But the world in which we live is exclusively physical. What else, then, is relevant?

Edit: .... within the scope of the comparison between QM and metaphysics. One describes the world in which we live, the other does not.

I present idealist metaphysics to your counter: e.g. there is no physical universe.

 

[Dave]

Prove it.

 

[Nagelfar]

Prove it.

Prove otherwise.

EDIT: Materialism itself is a logical fallacy: it maintains that because you have an idea of something (it follows) that it must exist, or, even more absurdly, that something that is not your idea founded solely upon your idea exists as apart from your idea.

Edit: .... within the scope of the comparison between QM and metaphysics. One describes the world in which we live, the other does not.

Metaphysics is more truthful, for it describes only our a priori logic, without presuppositions about an abstract 'external' reality that adheres only to its own laws because we made it do so with our mathematical criteria imposed upon it.

 

[Dave]

I present idealist metaphysics to your counter: e.g. there is no physical universe.

The burden of proof lies upon the claimant. I'm very curious to hear your proof of the non-existence of the world.

While I understand that QM necessarily works within the framework of the physical world, and the existence of said world cannot be proven conclusively (hence solipsism), I find that if it is an illusion then it is an incredibly self-consistent and persistent one. Yes, this may all be a construct of the illusion itself, but such thought tends to just lead in circles. It is convenient and highly useful to assume that the objective world is real and is governed by self-consistent and temporally continuous physical laws, but, sure, it is an assumption I suppose. However, the non-existence of the physical world would have to be taken as an equally likely assumption, without any means of proving said assumption either.

 

[Nagelfar]

The burden of proof lies upon the claimant. I'm very curious to hear your proof of the non-existence of the world.

See my edit on the last page. I am not the claimant, you are claiming what there is, I am saying that it isn't.

 

[Dave]

Physical proof abounds. You're speaking to me through a computer that would not exist without QM. If you would deny your senses, then discussion becomes irrelevant, would it not?

Really though, the question is not whether the world exists, but rather whether the world exists as we perceive it. Or rather, as how it is physically perceivable. Should this all be an illusion, since I am conscious then there must be some other reality which exists. But then, the probability of that reality being false would be identical to the probability of our current reality being false. Continue ad infinitum.

As a brief aside: in relation to another thread, this is why it is good to discuss things with people of opposing viewpoints, is it not? I'm certainly having fun.

Edit: My apologies, I just scanned the last page, but didn't read it in full detail. I'll have to catch up on it tomorrow.

 

[Nagelfar]

Edit: My apologies, I just scanned the last page, but didn't read it in full detail. I'll have to catch up on it tomorrow.

Fair enough.

Physical proof abounds. You're speaking to me through a computer that would not exist without QM. If you would deny your senses, then discussion becomes irrelevant, would it not?

I'm not denying the objectivity of thought as its own object, but that it is an object beyond our thought of it. Nor am I denying the actual ideality of senses. Quantum mechanics do exist as our idea, and our ideas exist, but something to them beyond that is not just an unknowable, but a not existing, because all that could exist is our idea if it did, but it doesn't.

Really though, the question is not whether the world exists, but rather whether the world exists as we perceive it. Or rather, as how it is physically perceivable. Should this all be an illusion, since I am conscious then there must be some other reality which exists. But then, the probability of that reality being false would be identical to the probability of our current reality being false. Continue ad infinitum.

It's not an illusion for it is the measure of what is, but ascribing more to it than there intrinsically is, is an illusory methodology. The commonsense of a physical world comes from a simplification of understanding. Most categorize 'subject as abstract' and 'object as concrete'; but the other way around accounts for more truth; that 'object is abstract', and 'subject is concrete'. This is not solipsism because we can never be our own object and substantiate objects as their subject, and interaction with true others is basic dialectical unity. The opposite of 'not-self' is necessary for there to be a self, and its a freely exercised part of ones self creative process, not a prison restricting and determining ones will as solipsism would be. There is no physical reality and there is no 'other reality' that is "equally probable to being false", it is not just probably false, it is false, and all other realities transcendent from the self are too.

 

[SpunkySkunk347]

How about this quote by Sextus Empiricus who was quoting Gorgias:
"1. Nothing exists
2. Even if something exists, nothing could be known about it.
3. Even if something could be known about it, knowledge of it can't be communicated to others."
Classical sophist metaphysics.

 

[polymath]

Would the physical world exist if there were no one conscious observing it? Talking about bishop Berkeley's philosophy (esse est percipi!).

I'm a graduate student in physics(used to study chemistry first but then changed my major subject), but I find it hard to accept the fully materialistic world-view of most physicists. I don't think that human consciousness, for example, can be fully reduced to physical processes occurring in the brain.

Similarly to the discussion on nihilism in another thread, the materialistic school says that there can be no real 'values', only physical processes. But wanting to know something about physics is a value in itself, which is a kind of a contradiction.

The pre-20th century classical physics was completely deterministic, saying that all phenomena can be exactly predicted. Quantum mechanics isn't like that and often makes only statistical predictions for the outcomes of experiments, leaving some room for the 'mysterious' that idealism requires.

The role of a conscious observer is important in quantum mechanics, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_in_quantum_mechanics . This produces some philosophical difficulties when you try to apply QM to the universe as a whole, someone making an observation of the universe would have to be not contained by the universe, which is impossible by definition.

It's sad that QM is mathemathically too difficalt for the average person to have even a basic understanding of. It easily takes several years of trying to understand all the infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces and hermitian operators before one gets what its about... (I just failed a course on quantum field theory last spring, got to try again next year...)

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

Why can we never be our own object? And what do you mean by "be" and "we"? I don't mean to pull a Bill Clinton on you, but what is exactly "a person"? Do their thoughts count as part of themselves, and therefore their ideas, which most certainly can be objectified?

 

[Nagelfar]

I don't think that human consciousness, for example, can be fully reduced to physical processes occurring in the brain.

I believe it can, as object, for physical empiricalism is fully analogous to the non-physical subjective ideation, but the ideation comes first, and to exist must have its object (there cannot be object without subject or motion without matter), which the materialists have backward as the origin of the ideal and not, as it is, vice versa (material has its origin in the ideal rather material being the origin of ideal). However it can never be grasped in retrospect as fully "known", because to know as a past instance is objectification, and not the perpetually active subject in which it is true.

Why can we never be our own object? And what do you mean by "be" and "we"? I don't mean to pull a Bill Clinton on you, but what is exactly "a person"? Do their thoughts count as part of themselves, and therefore their ideas, which most certainly can be objectified?

We can and do so from the empirical perspective at all times; but we cannot be our own object and reify objects; the dialectic of object is subject; our act of thinking as subject can only work upon our static thought as object. For object to exist subject is needed, we must be self regarded as subject & non-objectified for objects to attain actuality: even ourselves as object.

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

Well that's what I meant, our bodies are objects, and our thoughts are objects within objects, and both "parts" of me reify the other, don't they? Unless my semantics aren't on the level that you're talking about.

 

[Nagelfar]

Well that's what I meant, our bodies are objects, and our thoughts are objects within objects, and both "parts" of me reify the other, don't they? Unless my semantics aren't on the level that you're talking about.

An object cannot do so for an object; it must be so with the subject of its contextual existence. To think of thought's subjectivity as objectively within bodies is a fallacious spacial conception to my system of logic; the body itself is a thought object; to put thought over to the power of objective spaciality, as objective thought within the objective body making the body as thought, is using the objective idea of spaciality to substantiate the objective idea of the thought which is the body. Which is not a logos of concretion, in my reasoning. Thought objects are empirical and of course cannot create the body, but body is created in concrete thought.

 

[knock]

What's also interesting as well as confusing is the correlation between industrialization and advancement in scientific understanding. Certainy, Newton couldn't have formulated calculus if he did not have writing utensils, paper, and plenty of free time set aside from hard labor - all of which had to be provided by industrialization.

I'm not sure what definition of industrialisation you are using, but Newton was around before it happened, and he was born into money and land (like all of these useful shits) as the son of a farmer (and his mum was widowed twice, ching ching). He would have used a quill and ink to write, no mass-produced ball point. It was not industrialisation which set him free from hard labour, it was agriculture and inheritance.