before this boils down to pure math and chemistry imagin this
a person walks into a restaurant and sees a cop there, he has a weapon and he is in his “right” mind, and his weapon is not concealed and is in plain sight. an educated person would guess that the person would not shoot a cop, but he does! i know this is like the scene in Natural Born Killlers but is provides a good example of going against the norm against the 100%ile
BRAVO, BRAVO!!!
I agree that the nature of free will cannot be predicted, but nature can be.
Raistlin,
I do not believe that the charge of an electron is an analytic phrase in the same way the “all bachelors are male”. The reasoning is this:
We didn’t define the word electron before it had been discovered. If we defined electron as “a thing which has charge -1.6 x 10^-19” then my argument still holds. There is no reason why “that thing which has charge -1.6 x 10^-19” won’t change its charge. Granted, we may not call it an electron anymore, if we are to stick to a strict definition, but that is not a law of nature which is staying eternal, it is a definition of a word.
Laws of nature can change, you can’t refute the argument by saying that the definition never changes and therefore the law doesn’t.
There is no proof you can give me to show that the Laws of Nature will just not simply cease to exist from the year 2005. Granted, and I’ll labour this point again, we have a lot of evidence to suggest it will stay the same, but we cannot be 100% certain. There is not evidence that the Universe will be uniform in the future.
Not to interupt this excellent thread, fellas, but I wanted to say a few things.
I think the reason why Raistlin made a reference to a particle during the attempt to show at least one empirical universal entity, was because it is simply the smallest entity that has ever been observed to remain constant. Though this is not to say that those particles consist of indivisible parts of which you would have to assume the same; that they are constant entities. So on and so forth. It shouldn’t seem, then, that ANY object in the world is not proof of any a priori constants.
I don’t think about Being in terms of individual entities, more so as “properties” of a noumenal being. Therefore I wouldn’t get caught in the traps of this infinite divisibility principle.
At a macroscopic level, the universe functions smoothly because microscopic entities are uniform, stable and consistent. But this is the BIG world, not the little world.
Laws can change at the drop of a hat if the little world shifts even the slightest bit.
well it seems that my examples are making this confusing, so I’m going to use an ideal concept…
“every alteration WILL have a cause.”
even if laws of nature somehow cease to exist (right…), it will be caused. whether self-caused or not, it will be caused.
If an electron is defined as an entity with such and such a charge, then the statement, “all electrons have the charge -1.6 x 10-19” is of the same sort as the “all bachelors are married” (or male, whatever) example.
I agree with you on the point about the laws of nature and the problem of induction. However, we can substitute the terms from the bachelor example into what you are doing here:
There is no reason why “that unmarried man” won’t change his marital status. Granted we may not call him a bachelor anymore…
Notice how a man’s changing his marital status has no effect on the truth of “all bachelors are unmarried.” Similarly, an electron’s changing its charge has no effect on the truth of “all electrons have the charge -1.6 x 10-19.” Analytic truths (if they exist) can be thought of as true by definition, and both statements fit this criterion.
Actually, for the philosophers of language who believe in analyticity, a statement cannot be called analytic unless it is shown true through the conventions of language (i.e. through logic or definition). So a contradictory statement is not analytic because it is not true. Sorry to nitpick; I’m writing a paper on Quine right now…
Agreed. However, I don’t believe that the electron is defined in an analytic way. If the object we call an electron were to slightly change its charge tomorrow, science would probably continue to call it an electron. The combined properties define the name, not the other way round. THey wouldn’t go “OHMIGOD…its dropped its charge, we’ll have to call it something else now”. Do you see what I’m saying? I can see how that was made confusing in my original post.
My point is, things in science and physics etc aren’t defined analytically. An electron can still be an electron even if changes its properties very slightly whereas a triangle can only have three sides.
Yes, I see what you’re saying. Maybe this is just a question of essentialism, then. Do objects actually have essential properties or primary attributes? I suppose I lean with you toward a bundle conception–where a thing’s defining characteristics are not really cut-and-dry. However, I do think we can stipulate a thing’s essential properties based on pragmatic considerations. For instance, if you want to define the term “Aristotle” for the purposes of teaching Aristotle’s works in a class, it seems to me that the concept of “philosopher” would be an essential property. The statement, “Aristotle was a philosopher” would thus be necessary, given the constraints of the discussion. If, however, you want to talk about Aristotle the historical individual, then you might have to say that it is not necessary for Aristotle to have been a philosopher; new historical evidence may lead us to believe that the man named Aristotle who we once thought was a philosopher was really a Macedonian general.
Perhaps it’s not the same thing for electrons. I’m pretty ignorant about the science, but clearly if there are other observations we could carry out to determine whether or not a thing is an electron, and if we can still call a particle an electron if it has a charge other than -1.6 x 10^-19, the charge is not an essential property. It does seem that in Science essentialism is a difficult position to sustain.
Raistlin wrote:
That statement is false. Boiling points are empirically derived approximations. Using extraordinary care one might measure the boiling point of sulphur to an accuracy of ten decimal places. Nevertheless, it would still be an approximation, and it’s value would depend, (among other factors) on the ambient pressure (itself which never could be maintained at an exact value). Every measurement is given with a tolerance, otherwise, the tolerance is implied. No physical measurement is exact, thus, your statement is false.
That statement is also flawed. Firstly, pure copper exists only in our dreams. Also, note that copper, pure or not, is an imperfect conductor. In fact, the BCS theory predicts that there is no critical tempurature at which pure copper will become a superconductor (its lattice vibrations are thought to be too small). That’s the current theory. Of course, we might some day discover a way to make copper superconductive; just as we might some day discover a condition under which copper becomes a perfect insulator. But until such time, your universal statement that “pure copper will conduct electricity” will remain a supposition rather than a factual truth.
Raistlin, I’m curious about your signature:
What do you mean, victory?
Michael
Polemarchus:
“the half-life of radium is 1,600 years” which is a shorthand way of saying “in any sample of radium, 50% of the radium atoms will radioactively decay within a period of 1,600 years”. This is an exceptionless law that describes the world.
my point is that it DOES have a certain half-life (whether we know the exact number or not) and it WILL hold in every time and place.
life’s a war for me.
and by the way:
“every alteration will have a cause.”
I’m waiting for some response to that…
I wish I had more time…
Thanks for the reply, Raistlin,
Right off the bat, I can think of 24 exceptions. There are 25 known isotopes of Radium. Your law ascribes the same half-life of Radium 226 to all of these isotopes. Radium 221, for example, has a half-life of roughly 30 seconds. Likewise, if you were to insist that “men have blue eyes” is an exception-less law, I’d merely show you a brown-eyed man.
No, that’s not true, either. Particles colliding in high energy accelerators display radically altered half-lives. You said, “a certain half-life…WILL hold in every time and place.” I’ve just shown you a place where it does not hold.
Raistlin, how is it that you’ve overlooked quantum mechanics? To use the classic double-slit experiment as an example; what caused an electron to travel through one slit rather than the other? Nothing did. There was no cause. Look also at the example you gave of the spontaneous decay of Radium. What causes a given particle to suddenly decay? Nothing does. There is no cause. That’s why radioactive decay is described by Poisson statistics. There is David Bohm’s alternative theory involving hidden variables, pilot-waves and all that. But Bell’s work has indicated that local hidden-variables don’t appear to jive with quantum mechanics. David Hume, among others, correctly observed that we never directly experience causal relations, we infer them. There’s a wonderful quote by Richard Feynman that sums up my current belief about causality:
“A philosopher once said, ‘It is necessary for the very existence of science that the conditions always produce the same results’. Well, they do not.”
Feynman was so damned cool.
So what are your conditions for declaring victory?
Best wishes,
Michael
Nothing can be predicted, eh?
This is sloppy thinking and all the more disheartening from a professor. A more accurate claim is this: not everything can be predicted. These two claims are different and the distinction is important.
If you doubt this, walk into class and approach your teacher. Tell him,
“I have a counterargument to your claim that nothing can be predicted. I predict that within the next five seconds, someone will step on your foot.”
Then step on his foot.
*about quantum mechanics:
Yeah, in Bohmian mechanics, the configuration of a system of particles evolves via a deterministic motion choreographed by the wave function. In particular, when a particle is sent into a two-slit apparatus, the slit through which it passes and where it arrives on the photographic plate are completely determined by its initial position and wave function. Einstein, Podolsky and Nathan (what’s his name?) did show that the wave function does not provide a complete description of the physical reality, but they DID believe that such a theory is possible.
*about statistical laws:
Radium 221 do have a half-life of roughly 30 seconds (the exact time can be calcultated). this law that poses no intellectual or theoretical challenges whatsoever. this is a statistical law and is a description of the world. It is NECESSARY that radium 221 atoms WILL decay in roughly 30 seconds.
*about “war”:
there is no “victory”. it never ends.
*quick question:
define “self caused”.
how do you know that the teacher will not shoot him before he can step on his foot? or may be he will have an heart attack before he can step on his teacher’s foot?
bgause wrote:
Who said that?
A fundamental aspect of science has to do with making predictions.
Michael
Raistlin wrote;
When you embed a verbatim quote in your argument you need to place quotation marks around the quoted passage and also give the source. Here are two examples:
“Thus, in Bohmian mechanics the configuration of a system of particles evolves via a deterministic motion choreographed by the wave function. In particular, when a particle is sent into a two-slit apparatus, the slit through which it passes and where it arrives on the photographic plate are completely determined by its initial position and wave function.” – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/
“vii) Plagiarism; Make sure that your posts are solely your own work. If you do use other people’s work make sure you use quotation marks and cite the reference. Copying other people’s work does not make you look cool.” – Ben, ILP Forum Rules
Raistlin, I don’t have a whole lot more to say to you.
Michael
He is right now, so are you. But he may not be right in the future. You need to see the movie “Matrix” do understand this. Everything is an event, what if we let all mankind plug ourselves into machines, we create a AI-machine to study every event, from when we are plugged in, this machine studys the connections between the events etc. This machine might figure this out, and predict the future.
But the machine needs to reach enlightment and nirvana first. The machine must understand it’s own past and it’s own reasons for studying etc.
I might be missing something, inform me if so.
Raistlin
You don’t, but this is exactly what I mean. If he says this to his teacher and is not shot (or does not have a heart attack), then he steps on his foot…what happened?
Well, he predicted accurately, didn’t he? This means, in a real-world test (if he did this, of course…which I doubt he did; I predicted that, too. ), he predicted what happened.
My point is that things are accurately predicted every day. To say “nothing can be predicted” (although true in any causal universe) leads to generalizing principles which are a mistake of the highest order. At the predictive moment (at least in this universe), you can’t be 100% confident of the prediction. But this does not invalidate true predictions that happen every day.
If you want something more simple, try the sunrise. I predict the sun will rise tomorrow. Easy-peasy…well, sorta. Of course, you never know the future, so you can’t be 100% confident in your prediction (even a sunrise can be stopped if a nuclear holocaust occurs on this planet and no one is here to see it and call it a ‘sunrise’), but to build a theory around this small exception to conceptual reality is a mistake. The nature of this causal universe means you can never know the consequence of an action or, more simply, what will happen next.
So to say that nothing can be predicted is so plainly true as to be nonsensical…from the perspective of the predictive moment. Of course nothing can be predicted, but you sure as hell can predict a great many things with great confidence without disemboweling a causal theory of the universe. If you choose your predictions wisely, you can have high accuracy in something that, on its face, is supposed to be impossible. My disagreement, then, is rather a caution about saying things so obviously true that they hold no meaning at all. Bromides, they’re called. And a great many false idols are built on this very thing.
Good eye, Polemarchus! You a teacher?
Do you guys think that inductive arguments produce only statistical predictions? What I mean is, it seems that there must be some odds that any inductive argument will produce a correct prediction. Also, the arguments usually seem to involve measurements, which can only predict within their own accuracy (not including an accidental prediction). So, like i think Polemarchus said, an “accurate” prediction is a relative thing.
Polemarchus, you said: “No, that’s not true, either. Particles colliding in high energy accelerators display radically altered half-lives. You said, “a certain half-life…WILL hold in every time and place.” I’ve just shown you a place where it does not hold.”
I’m not sure that there is a known place where the half-life odds don’t hold. I think the alterations you speak of are a result of the particles’ high velocities (relative to the measurers) and accelerations. But velocities and accelerations are derived from places and times, anyways.