A metaphysical argument against objectivism

[BaalChatzaf]

This is what is missing in scientific accounts of the universe. There is an inner purposefulness that science cannot observe which needs to be accounted for in scientific accounts.

Paul

The general trend in the physical sciences is to purge themselves of teleology.

Look at the cosmos in the large. What you see are fields and particles. Where is the "inner purposefulness" of that. Life in the cosmos is a blip. It is a momentary excursion away from thermodynamic equilibrium. Every living thing in the cosmos ends up dead are at least non-alive which is what most of the cosmos is: non-alive stuff.

The most successful physical theory ever produced is the Standard Model of Fields and Particles. That is what they do at CERN, for example.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

Bob, I didn't expect you to get what I was talking about. I was distinguishing from teleology. You have completely missed the point.

Paul

[Xray]

This is what is missing in scientific accounts of the universe. There is an inner purposefulness that science cannot observe which needs to be accounted for in scientific accounts.

Does this "inner purposefulness" refer to the universe as a whole?

[Paul Mawdsley]

No. The inner purpose of each individual organism is to attain, maintain and increase integration. I'm saying this is a force shaping evolution itself from inside individual organisms. This tendency towards integration can be seen as the opposing force to the second law of thermodynamics.

[Xray]

No. The inner purpose of each individual organism is to attain, maintain and increase integration. I'm saying this is a force shaping evolution itself from inside individual organisms. This tendency towards integration can be seen as the opposing force to the second law of thermodynamics.

But the second law of thermodynamics will prevail in the end.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Nah, I tend more to the plasma physics view of the universe as being cyclical between integration and disintegration.

[Xray]

Nah, I tend more to the plasma physics view of the universe as being cyclical between integration and disintegration.

By "cyclical", are you referring to the model of a universe oscillating ad infinitum between a Big Bang and a Big Crunch?

http://www.physicsof..._bigcrunch.html

However, in the light of recent findings in the 1990s (such as the evidence for an accelerating previously), this is no longer considered the most likely outcome.

This tendency towards integration can be seen as the opposing force to the second law of thermodynamics.

But aren't these only 'pockets of order' which don't have enough force to prevent entropy in the cosmos?

[Paul Mawdsley]

Nah, I tend more to the plasma physics view of the universe as being cyclical between integration and disintegration.

By "cyclical", are you referring to the model of a universe oscillating ad infinitum between a Big Bang and a Big Crunch?

http://www.physicsof..._bigcrunch.html

However, in the light of recent findings in the 1990s (such as the evidence for an accelerating previously), this is no longer considered the most likely outcome.

This tendency towards integration can be seen as the opposing force to the second law of thermodynamics.

But aren't these only 'pockets of order' which don't have enough force to prevent entropy in the cosmos?

Not referring to the Big Bang. It is a theory based on the belief that the observed increasing red shift of more distant galaxies is the result of a Dopplar effect in light. This was somewhat supported by the prediction of the microwave background radiation, from the theory, that was discovered in 1965 (I believe). It is based on a view that the nature of light is dualistic and the view that gravitation is the primary force shaping the larger structures of the universe. Dualism doesn't fit my view of causation so I have sought a model of the nature of light that is not dualistic and found the possibility that light loses energy over large distances, thus accounting for the red shift. Also, I have considered the possibility that plasmas play a more fundamental role in forming the large structures in the universe so electromagnetic forces need to play a more prominent role in our theories. No Big Bang. No Big Crunch. Just an ever evolving cycling universe. I'm open to evidence both ways. It seems most people are only looking for facts that fit the story of the Big Bang.

The tendency towards integration is fundamental to plasma physics. If plasmas play a fundamental role in forming the universe, and electromagnetism is the primary force integrating the universe, then the integrating role of plasmas creates more than just pockets of order. It is the other side of the cycle of birth and death.

Paul

[Xray]

No Big Bang. No Big Crunch. Just an ever evolving cycling universe. I'm open to evidence both ways.

I'm a layperson, but have dug out one of Ba'al past posts because he knows so much about the topic:

He commented on Eric J. Lerner's book The Big Bang Never Happened:

Lerner's book presents a rather bogus version of the Cosmos. He leans heavily on the work of Aalfens, but the verdict is pretty well in. The measurement of the Cosmic Background Radiation initiated by Wilson and Penzias in 1965 gives very heaving evidence in favor of the Big Bang. Apparently, according to the best available evidence, really did happen.

Even Hoyle's theory is better grounded than Lerner's nonsense, and Hoyles theory turned out to be wrong.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Here is an interesting Scientific American article about the Second Law of thermodynamics and the 'pockets of self-organization'

http://www.scientifi...-the-second-law

From the article:

Waste is unavoidable—a sad fact of life quantified by the famous second law of thermodynamics. But if the world is steadily becoming more disordered, how do you explain the self-organization that often occurs in nature? At root, the trouble is that classical thermodynamics assumes systems are in equilibrium, a placid condition seldom truly achieved in the real world.

A new approach closes this loophole and finds that the second law holds far from equilibrium. But the evolution from order to disorder can be unsteady, allowing for pockets of self-organization.

The inner purpose of each individual organism is to attain, maintain and increase integration. I'm saying this is a force shaping evolution itself from inside individual organisms. This tendency towards integration can be seen as the opposing force to the second law of thermodynamics.

But doesn't every act of integration, of 'creating order' - necessarily involve increasing 'disorder'/disintegration/entropy elsewhere?

Example from everyday life: in order to make an omelette, one has to break eggs, which is an act of disintegration.

[Brant Gaede]

Why not a little bang? (Quip.)

--Brant

anyway, it's not nessessaily that we aren't smart enough to comprehend it all--we just can't get our hands on enough observational data--we don't know what if anything is beyond the beyond, we can only speculatively infer off the data we can get our hands on--micro and macro

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What gets to me is the certainty people have when expounding on this--and the certainty with which they ridicule people with different speculations.

Think about this. Is there something around us we know and can observe that works like the way they are saying the universe works?

First you have a start from a bang of some sort. Before there was nothing unique, but suddenly there is something unique. Matter starts expanding from it and generating form after form. And it goes on to gigantic proportions in relation to the initial unique something. And keeps expanding outwards.

Doesn't that sound familiar? Like life, for instance?

A unique being did not exist. Suddenly it does. Then matter starts forming and expanding and keeps doing it on its own.

Well, now we have scientists who have mathematically inferred a big bang for the universe. And they measure an enormous expansion of stars, galaxies and so forth. And they look around and see their math notes. What could all this new expanding stuff mean? It doesn't fit the math.

Hey, I know. It's dark matter and dark energy.

And they make up a concept like that literally out of thin air.

But could the universe be acting in a manner like life? Nah... No way! That's ugu uga crap. This is science, not religion.

My problem with this is that we know the way life develops. And we know that life exists, seeing as how we are alive and all. We have no evidence other than convoluted math that dark matter and dark energy exist. You could call it dark math.

But both explanations make the math work.

At a common sense level, if the math doesn't lie, which explanation seems more plausible?

Michael

[Davy]

What gets to me is the certainty people have when expounding on this--and the certainty with which they ridicule people with different speculations.

Think about this. Is there something around us we know and can observe that works like the way they are saying the universe works?

First you have a start from a bang of some sort. Before there was nothing unique, but suddenly there is something unique. Matter starts expanding from it and generating form after form. And it goes on to gigantic proportions in relation to the initial unique something. And keeps expanding outwards.

Terence McKenna said: "Give us one free miracle and we'll explain everything else" ;-)

Regarding dark matter and energy, I tend to agree. Seems like a fudge to make the equations balance.

[Davy]

The general trend in the physical sciences is to purge themselves of teleology.

And that's their PURPOSE?

Bob, this trend is absurd and self-refuting. I know you won't have any truck with it (word salad!), but I highly recommend reading Ed Feser's "The Last Superstition"

The central contention of the "New Atheism" of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens is that there has for several centuries been a war between science and religion, that religion has been steadily losing that war, and that at this point in human history a completely secular scientific account of the world has been worked out in such thorough and convincing detail that there is no longer any reason why a rational and educated person should find the claims of any religion the least bit worthy of attention.

But as Edward Feser argues in The Last Superstition, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all. There has instead been a conflict between two entirely philosophical conceptions of the natural order: on the one hand, the classical "teleological" vision of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, on which purpose or goal-directedness is as inherent a feature of the physical world as mass or electric charge; and the modern "mechanical" vision of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, according to which the physical world is comprised of nothing more than purposeless, meaningless particles in motion. The modern "mechanical" picture has never been established by science, and cannot be, for it is not a scientific theory in the first place but merely a philosophical interpretation of science.

Not only is this modern philosophical picture rationally unfounded, it is demonstrably false. For the "mechanical" conception of the natural world, when worked out consistently, absurdly entails that rationality, and indeed the human mind itself, are illusory. The so-called "scientific worldview" championed by the New Atheists thus inevitably undermines its own rational foundations; and into the bargain it undermines the foundations of any possible morality as well.

Feser is a Catholic, but even if you're an atheist (as I am) you can't fail to be impressed by the force of the arguments. Of all philosophers, Rand held only Aristotle and Aquinas in high regard, so her admirers should find the account of A-T metaphysics highly readable. A fascinating read IMO.

[anthony]

And how.

Thanks for this, Davy.

[Xray]

But as Edward Feser argues in The Last Superstition, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all.

Then why did e. g. Galileo Galilei run into problems with religious dogmatists?

[BaalChatzaf]

But as Edward Feser argues in The Last Superstition, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all.

Then why did e. g. Galileo Galilei run into problems with religious dogmatists?

That was part of a struggle against the Church, which had a political as well as religious agenda.

What really got Galileo in trouble was that he mocked Pope Urban VIII in his Dialogues Concerning the Two World Systems

"Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or theTychonic system.^[9] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.^[9] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact.^[9][10] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.^[9] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.^[11][12] It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials." (From the Wiki Article)

]

Galileo was buddies with Mafeo Barbarini who later became Pope Urban. Barbarini was a competent Aristotelean but Galileo put his words into the mouth of Simplicio, who was the dunce and the butt of the three way conversations in the Dialogues. This came at a time when Urban VIII was up to his waist in political troubles, particularly fighting off Protestant opposition. In addition, the Jesuits were going after Galileo's ass for criticizing the manner in which the Church used Scripture.

Science and Religion are very different. Science is about the world as it actually is and Religion is about God Knows What. If you want to call that tension and opposition a war, then do so. If it is a war, it is the war between Faith and Reason.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is dark matter and dark energy "God Knows What"?

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Is dark matter and dark energy "God Knows What"?

Michael

A bad name unfortunately. It is about how space itself expends. The dark part is that little is understood within the domain of contemporary physics. But this is not a new situation. When Isaac Newton figured out a nifty descriptor of gravity, little was known about electricity and magnetism. In due course this was figured out, and the science of electrodynamics emerged. William Gilbert who wrote the first major work on magnetism described what we know call the magnetic field, as a "magnetic spirit".

Well, the universe is not only expanding, but expanding faster and faster. Eventually we will either go extinct or figure out how.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Here's something that does exist that expands faster and faster.

A growing organism. One made up of individual living cells and non-living matter, too.

Here's the good news for your worldview, though. It eventually dies.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

Here's something that does exist that expands faster and faster.

A growing organism. One made up of individual living cells and non-living matter, too.

Here's the good news for your worldview, though. It eventually dies.

Michael

When it is replaced by a better view. Right now the physical sciences have the main handle on how the real physical world works. Everything else is hot air and speculation (with the exception of mathematics which is necessary to do physics).

Right now no one knows how or from what cause the cosmos is expanding, but all the observations tell us that it is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Right now no one knows how or from what cause the cosmos is expanding...

Bob,

Sure they do. They call it dark energy and dark matter. And they refuse to look at the life model.

However, we know life exists and acts like they say the universe does. There is absolutely no evidence dark energy and dark matter exists except in their minds--kinda like the accusation they keep leveling at believers in God.

One does not prove the other, but it does expose intellectual hypocrisy,

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Right now no one knows how or from what cause the cosmos is expanding, but all the observations tell us that it is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Actually, right now "observations" tell us that more distant galaxies are measured to have more of a red shift in their colour spectrum. This is the single point Big Bang is based on. Everything else is interpretation, theory and prediction. Apparently, only one interpretation and theory is deemed fit for consideration. Other perspectives are not worthy of serious consideration or exploration other than to look for weakness and fault. It is interesting to see the skew in approach to different stories. Big Bang theory is right til proven wrong. All others are wrong til proven right.

What if we are wrong about the red shift being the result of a Doppler effect? What if there is something in the nature of light that systematically loses energy over vast distances? At the very least, objectivity suggests it's a reason to keep an open mind about other perspectives and treat them all with the openness of innocent til proven guilty from a fit-with-the-evidence point of view. The core of the plasma approach has not been challenged, except from within the Big Bang story. With all the astronomers and physicists working on supporting the Big Bang story, it has still gotten a lot of things wrong along the way. Why do we judge other attempts at alternative theories from a more rigid requirement. Lerner's book didn't get everything right, so lets disregard the whole approach. That's one guy with one book and a handful of supporting physicists who won't ignore the weaknesses of the Big Bang against a whole establishment built to patch all the weaknesses and fight for the story they have identified with.

[BaalChatzaf]

What if we are wrong about the red shift being the result of a Doppler effect? What if there is something in the nature of light that systematically loses energy over vast distances? At the very least, objectivity suggests it's a reason to keep an open mind about other perspectives and treat them all with the openness of innocent til proven guilty from a fit-with-the-evidence point of view. The core of the plasma approach has not been challenged, except from within the Big Bang story. With all the astronomers and physicists working on supporting the Big Bang story, it has still gotten a lot of things wrong along the way. Why do we judge other attempts at alternative theories from a more rigid requirement. Lerner's book didn't get everything right, so lets disregard the whole approach. That's one guy with one book and a handful of supporting physicists who won't ignore the weaknesses of the Big Bang against a whole establishment built to patch all the weaknesses and fight for the story they have identified with.

We would have to go back the drawing board. But there is no evidence against the Doppler Effect. In fact the overwhelming prepoderance of evidence supports it.

What if 1 + 1 didn't = 2. I guess we would have a lot 'splainin' to do.

What is my Grandmother had balls? Then she would be my Grandfather, wouldn't she?:

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Paul Mawdsley]

We would have to go back the drawing board. But there is no evidence against the Doppler Effect. In fact the overwhelming prepoderance of evidence supports it.

What if 1 + 1 didn't = 2. I guess we would have a lot 'splainin' to do.

What is my Grandmother had balls? Then she would be my Grandfather, wouldn't she?:

Ba'al Chatzaf

You made me laugh.

A more appropriate analogy might be: what if the stick protruding from the water isn't really bent? Maybe there is something in the nature of light to account for the appearance of a bent stick rather than just associating it with other bent sticks. All we have to do is pull the stick out of the water...oh, we can't do that on the scale of light years. Guess we just have to assume the stick is bent...and the red shift is due to a Doppler Effect.

What exactly is the evidence connecting the red shift to the Doppler Effect across cosmic distances?

[BaalChatzaf]

We would have to go back the drawing board. But there is no evidence against the Doppler Effect. In fact the overwhelming prepoderance of evidence supports it.

What if 1 + 1 didn't = 2. I guess we would have a lot 'splainin' to do.

What is my Grandmother had balls? Then she would be my Grandfather, wouldn't she?:

Ba'al Chatzaf

You made me laugh.

A more appropriate analogy might be: what if the stick protruding from the water isn't really bent? Maybe there is something in the nature of light to account for the appearance of a bent stick rather than just associating it with other bent sticks. All we have to do is pull the stick out of the water...oh, we can't do that on the scale of light years. Guess we just have to assume the stick is bent...and the red shift is due to a Doppler Effect.

What exactly is the evidence connecting the red shift to the Doppler Effect across cosmic distances?

THe Doppler Shift of light frequency has been verified thousands in not millions of time by careful measurement. There is no reason to doubt the Doppler frequency shift for light. Light doesn't get "tired". People who try to explain away what have been carefully measured by replicated and corroborating experiments get tired.

When we get some evidence that light shifts to red just by traveling along, let me know. Produce an article in a properly refereed scientific journal and it might be worthwhile looking at.

Ba'al Chatzaf