Physics and philosophy

[merjet]

Physics Needs Philosophy / Philosophy Needs Physics

Scientific American, July 18, 2018

[BaalChatzaf]

21 hours ago, merjet said:

Physics Needs Philosophy / Philosophy Needs Physics

Scientific American, July 18, 2018

No Aristotelian Metaphysics!!!!!   Just about every testable statement Aristotle made about the natural  world is WRONG.   Modern Physics is crypto Platonic.  The physicist Max Tegmark  makes no attempt to hide his Platonism.   

Dumping Aristotle was necessary to progress.  Newton did a near-complete purge of Aristotle  in  "Principia Mathematica..." which even Galileo  did not do. Galileo did not get rid of circular movement of celestial bodies and neither did Copernicus.  That was left to Kepler  who was dragged kicking, screaming and calculating to the hypothesis that planets followed elliptical orbits around the Sun.  Newton provided the mathematical basis which grounded Kepler's   hypothesis.  Newton also established the methodology of  mathematically based physics  which is still in use today, even though the underlying physical theories and hypotheses have changed a great deal.  

 

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

19 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Just about every testable statement Aristotle made about the natural  world is WRONG

If you had lived when Aristotle did, do you believe you would have gotten it as right as Newton did? 

 “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch

[Jonathan]

4 hours ago, merjet said:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch

Sounds like something Ed Gein would say.

[Mark]

Newton didn’t find Aristotle completely worthless.

Sir Isaac Newton’s Note-Book, 1661-65
by A. R. Hall, (Cambridge Historical Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1948)
Footnote 14 on page 242: “At the top of the page [of Newton Fol. 88] in a fainter ink is written the tag ‘Amicus Plato amicus Aristotelis sed magis arnica veritas’.”  

Translation:
“Plato is my buddy, Aristotle is my pal, but my best amigo is truth.”

 

[BaalChatzaf]

On 8/4/2019 at 6:01 AM, merjet said:

If you had lived when Aristotle did, do you believe you would have gotten it as right as Newton did? 

 “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch

some yes. some no.  Aristotle could have easily test his assertion that heavier bodies fall faster than light bodies.  A one pound rock and a two pound rock  dropped off the roof of the nearest temple of Zeus would have settled the matter.  Aristotle  could not have done microscopic or telescopic observations  because lenses had not  yet been invented.

 

[Peter]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

some yes. some no.  Aristotle could have easily test his assertion that heavier bodies fall faster than light bodies.  A one pound rock and a two pound rock  dropped off the roof of the nearest temple of Zeus would have settled the matter.  Aristotle  could not have done microscopic or telescopic observations  because lenses had not  yet been invented.

 

I wonder what would happen if after time travel is discovered we send easily understood textbooks back to Aristotle? And an almanac, and a copy of AS? No. That's too egocentrically nonsensical. And tell them The Gods don't exist?

Jim Beam me up Scotty.  

[Brant Gaede]

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

some yes. some no.  Aristotle could have easily test his assertion that heavier bodies fall faster than light bodies.  A one pound rock and a two pound rock  dropped off the roof of the nearest temple of Zeus would have settled the matter.  Aristotle  could not have done microscopic or telescopic observations  because lenses had not  yet been invented.

 

Most of Aristotle is lost 

You needed precision equipment to measure the difference.

He was pre-science.

There was a fellow in Egypt way back then who used real scientific math calculation to determine the near circumference of the earth. Real science, real results.

Math seems to have preceded science. So we have Archimedes. Newton will always be the greatest and most seminal mathematician and scientist. Nobody built on Archimedes. Civilization went to hell.

You cannot refute Aristotle's value by refuting his scientific credentials. He was much more than that in that philosophy is what undergirds all human free-willed action. There is no refuting philosophy--the operating software of any physiologically normal mind ("brain" to you)--by refuting any or all philosophers and philosophies. But if refutation is your game what would you replace the refuted with? What is your better philosophy?

Oh, didn't Aristotle write about logic? What is your replacement for that?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

On 8/3/2019 at 8:03 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

No Aristotelian Metaphysics!!!!!   Just about every testable statement Aristotle made about the natural  world is WRONG.   Modern Physics is crypto Platonic.  The physicist Max Tegmark  makes no attempt to hide his Platonism.   

Dumping Aristotle was necessary to progress.  Newton did a near-complete purge of Aristotle  in  "Principia Mathematica..." which even Galileo  did not do. Galileo did not get rid of circular movement of celestial bodies and neither did Copernicus.  That was left to Kepler  who was dragged kicking, screaming and calculating to the hypothesis that planets followed elliptical orbits around the Sun.  Newton provided the mathematical basis which grounded Kepler's   hypothesis.  Newton also established the methodology of  mathematically based physics  which is still in use today, even though the underlying physical theories and hypotheses have changed a great deal.  

 

Ba'al Chatzaf

Wrong is the way to right. That makes Aristotle half right. Right?

--Brant 

[BaalChatzaf]

12 hours ago, Peter said:

I wonder what would happen if after time travel is discovered we send easily understood textbooks back to Aristotle? And an almanac, and a copy of AS? No. That's too egocentrically nonsensical. And tell them The Gods don't exist?

Jim Beam me up Scotty.  

Forget about backward time travel.  That would imply contradiction to the law of conservation of energy  and  the second law of thermodynamics.   Existences is irreversible.  Time goes forward. 

[BaalChatzaf]

7 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Wrong is the way to right. That makes Aristotle half right. Right?

--Brant 

Aristotle and his followers were not empiricists.  They did not see testing as necessary.  As long as their arguments made logical sense they were convinced of their correctness.

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

 

There was a fellow in Egypt way back then who used real scientific math calculation to determine the near circumference of the earth. Real science, real results.

Eristothenes of Alexandria.  He curator  of the Great Library of Alexandria.  He calculated the circumference of the earth on the assumption the Earth was spherical (almost right -- the Earth is an oblate spheroid).   See  https://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/myw/w2u_eratosthenes_calc_earth_size.html     to see how he did it.  His imethod was simple and elegant and required only basic geometry and proportions.  It also did not require telescopes.  Eristothenes  got  the circumference to within 5 percent of the modern value.

 

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: Forget about backward time travel.  That would imply contradiction to the law of conservation of energy and the second law of thermodynamics.  Existence is irreversible.  Time goes forward. end quote

Therefor a belief in the existence of time travel is similar to a belief in the Greek Gods? Can consciousness exist without mass? I would assume the unverified sighting of “ghosts” and a belief in "souls" implies existence without substance. Would ghosts need to be emitting light to exist? What could their power source be? Ba’al had that movie “Ghost Busters’ modeled after his theories. It’s a fact.

Notes. Greek gods. Aphrodite: Goddess of love, beauty and desire. Apollo: God of light, healing, music, poetry, plague, prophecy, and more. Ares: God of war and bloodshed. Artemis: Goddess of hunting, wilderness, animals and childbirth. Athena: Goddess of wisdom and skill, warfare and tactics. Demeter: Goddess of farming, the harvest and fertility. Dionysus: God of wine, parties and festivals, madness and ecstasy. Hades: King of the underworld and god of the dead. Rolex, the god of time travel.

[Peter]

Deep Thoughts. Four corners of the world? Can a globe have corners? Two frogs don’t make a right. What is another name for a Bail Bondsman? A Flight Attendant.

I watched an old Johnny Carson tonight from 1975. It had Neal Simon on and a very young comedian named Phil Maher. Phil was actually pretty good. He is half Jewish but grew up going to Catholic church. How did he become so bitter, a Never Trumper, and not funny?

[BaalChatzaf]

On 8/6/2019 at 11:05 PM, Peter said:

Deep Thoughts. Four corners of the world? Can a globe have corners? Two frogs don’t make a right. What is another name for a Bail Bondsman? A Flight Attendant.

 

I watched an old Johnny Carson tonight from 1975. It had Neal Simon on and a very young comedian named Phil Maher. Phil was actually pretty good. He is half Jewish but grew up going to Catholic church. How did he become so bitter, a Never Trumper, and not funny?

No corners for a sphere.  There is no way of flattening a sphere  in the same way one  can flatten a cylinder.  However the surface of a sphere has the property that any local region on the surface can be made topologically equivalent to a plane. 

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: No corners for a sphere.  There is no way of flattening a sphere in the same way one can flatten a cylinder.  However the surface of a sphere has the property that any local region on the surface can be made topologically equivalent to a plane. end quote

Imagine a globe with thousands of dots or pixels equally distant from each other on its surface. In our three dimensional space can a section, piece, or circle be cut out and be reformed, into a smaller globe without losing any of the dots on the piece's surface?

[BaalChatzaf]

On 8/11/2019 at 6:33 PM, Peter said:

Ba’al wrote: No corners for a sphere.  There is no way of flattening a sphere in the same way one can flatten a cylinder.  However the surface of a sphere has the property that any local region on the surface can be made topologically equivalent to a plane. end quote

 

Imagine a globe with thousands of dots or pixels equally distant from each other on its surface. In our three dimensional space can a section, piece, or circle be cut out and be reformed, into a smaller globe without losing any of the dots on the piece's surface?

Yes.   Consider this.  A north pole, Polar Projection map and a sout pole Polar Projection map.  Two planar maps covers every point on the surface of the earth.  If you don't mind losing the poles   a Mercator Map will do you just fine.  Of course sizes and shapes are distorted. Size and shape is faithful  only near the equator  and  vastly distorted (enlarged) near the poles.  The poles themselves are lost. 

 

[Peter]

I hope Merjet isn’t thinking bad thoughts about us for embellishing his thread.

I wrote: Imagine a globe with thousands of dots or pixels equally distant from each other on its surface. In our three dimensional space can a section, piece, or circle be cut out and be reformed, into a smaller globe without losing any of the dots on the piece's surface?

And Ba’al responded: Yes. Consider this.  A north pole, Polar Projection map and a south pole Polar Projection map.  Two planar maps covers every point on the surface of the earth.  If you don't mind losing the poles a Mercator Map will do you just fine.  Of course sizes and shapes are distorted. Size and shape is faithful only near the equator and vastly distorted (enlarged) near the poles.  The poles themselves are lost. end quote

A Mercator Map is a flat representation of a globe which is very handy as a navigational tool, but I was thinking about a true globe. I am trying to imagine a variation of what you suggest, consisting of a globe about three feet high. Would cutting the globe in half and then reattaching it be a successful solution? I think that would work, but it does not satisfy the requirements for a loss of pixel count and smaller size.   

If you cut it in half and then shaved an inch off the largest sections of the two remaining pieces then they would not “fit,” and still be a globe. They would be an ellipse, I think? Of course Earth is not a perfect sphere. If you run your hand over a topographical model of our globe there would be a lot of bumps from mountains, valleys and even skyscrapers. And I think any circular planet changes shape in a minor way as it reacts to gravity.

I see our thunder storms are heading a bit to the north east so New Jersey may get some rain. Peter

Don't Rain on My Parade as sung by BaBa Streisand.

Don't tell me not to fly
I've simply got to
If someone takes a spill
It's me and not you

Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade
Don't tell me not to leave
Just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter

Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade
I'll march my band out
I'll beat my drum
And if I'm fanned out

Your turn at bat, sir
At least I didn't fake it, hat, sir
I guess I didn't make it
But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection

A freckle on the nose of life's complexion
A Cinderella or a shine apple of an eye
I gotta fly once
I gotta try once

Only can die once, right, sir?
Ooh, life is juicy
Juicy and you see
I gotta have my bite, sir

Get ready for me love
'Cause I'm a "comer"
I simply gotta march
My heart's a drummer

Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade
Yes, sir
No, sir
I'm gonna live and live now

Get what I want, I know how
All that the law will allow
One roll for the whole shebang
One throw that bell will go clang
Though I'm alone I'm a gang
Eye on the target and wham
One shot, one gun shot and bam
Hey, world, here I am...
Get ready for me life, 'cause I'm a "comer"
I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer
Nobody, no, nobody, is gonna rain on . . . . fill in the blank.

Answer below.

. . . my parade!

[Max]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

I wrote: Imagine a globe with thousands of dots or pixels equally distant from each other on its surface. In our three dimensional space can a section, piece, or circle be cut out and be reformed, into a smaller globe without losing any of the dots on the piece's surface?

 

And Ba’al responded: Yes. Consider this.  A north pole, Polar Projection map and a south pole Polar Projection map.  Two planar maps covers every point on the surface of the earth.  If you don't mind losing the poles a Mercator Map will do you just fine.  Of course sizes and shapes are distorted. Size and shape is faithful only near the equator and vastly distorted (enlarged) near the poles.  The poles themselves are lost. end quote

 

A Mercator Map is a flat representation of a globe which is very handy as a navigational tool, but I was thinking about a true globe. I am trying to imagine a variation of what you suggest, consisting of a globe about three feet high. Would cutting the globe in half and then reattaching it be a successful solution? I think that would work, but it does not satisfy the requirements for a loss of pixel count and smaller size.   

 

If you cut it in half and then shaved an inch off the largest sections of the two remaining pieces then they would not “fit,” and still be a globe. They would be an ellipse, I think? Of course Earth is not a perfect sphere. If you run your hand over a topographical model of our globe there would be a lot of bumps from mountains, valleys and even skyscrapers. And I think any circular planet changes shape in a minor way as it reacts to gravity.

You could just  shrink the map to a smaller size and project it back onto a smaller globe. After all, you can buy globes in all sizes... Cutting away some pieces will of course not conserve the number of "pixels". The result of reattaching your cut halves wouldn't be an ellipsoid, but a "globe" with a discontinuity in its tangent planes at the "new equator". You could deform this thing to a new spherical globe, that is however missing the pixels around the original equator. Too bad for the people who lived there, they've disappeared.

 

[Peter]

19 hours ago, Max said:

You could just  shrink the map to a smaller size and project it back onto a smaller globe. After all, you can buy globes in all sizes... Cutting away some pieces will of course not conserve the number of "pixels". The result of reattaching your cut halves wouldn't be an ellipsoid, but a "globe" with a discontinuity in its tangent planes at the "new equator". You could deform this thing to a new spherical globe, that is however missing the pixels around the original equator. Too bad for the people who lived there, they've disappeared.

 

I think my though experiment needs more precise constants. Another circular space for living is the space station, which are rotating centrifugal force producing environments that sustain human life. I think vehicles in zero gee will require rotation to keep humans healthy, even for a one year trip to Mars. Otherwise bones will become brittle and muscles will not be strong enough to support the weight of the individual. The Scifi show Deep Space Nine is a great exploration of that idea, where an entire city lives healthily in space.    

From Wikipedia: In classical mechanics, centrifugal force is an outward force associated with curved motion, that is, rotation about some (possibly not stationary) center. Centrifugal force is one of several so-called pseudo-forces (also known as inertial forces), so named because, unlike fundamental forces, they do not originate in interactions with other bodies situated in the environment of the particle upon which they act. Instead, centrifugal force originates in the curved motion of the frame of reference within which observations are made.

From Doctor Seuss. Horton, a thoughtful elephant living in the jungle of Nool, discovers that an entire society, Whoville, rests inside a speck. He gently rests it on a clover flower and searches for a safe place for it. Horton, a thoughtful elephant living in the jungle of Nool, discovers that an entire society, Whoville, rests inside a speck. He gently rests it on a clover flower and searches for a place where it will be safe from the perils of the larger world. Establishing contact with Whoville's befuddled mayor, Horton faces disbelief from his animal friends.

Dennis May wrote: The primary means of averting extinction is niche diversity.  In the case of humans this would mean moving into space [the largest and most diverse niche possible].  The present large numbers of humans is certainly no guarantee.  Passenger pigeons numbered in the billions and would black the sky for days during migrations.

Monart Pons wrote: Why colonize another planet when we could construct our own artificial planets? The gigantic, country-sized vessels envisioned and designed by physicist Gerald O'Neill (author of _The High Frontier_) are not only earth-like in environmental suitability -- but are more in human control as to gravity, solar radiation, climate, location, and locomotion, than being confined to the surface of a planet, even one as hospital as Earth. There are some who promote the colonization of Mars because it's the planet nearest to Earth's conditions, but the Martian conditions are far severe than any area on Earth, worse than a combination of Sahara desert and Antarctica . . . . It's understandable why people today easily think of space settlement in terms of planetary locations, since they were born on and accustomed to living on Earth. But why struggle to escape the gravity-well of a conducive planet like Earth, only to sink down another gravity-well of a nearly airless, waterless, arctic desert like Mars? If we had to live on a planet, we'd  be better off staying on Earth. But staying on Earth or eking out a living on Mars, or crammed into space submarines, are not the only types of alternatives. Living in the high frontier of free space within environmental conditions superior to that of Earth -- that's a far more appealing alternative. 

[BaalChatzaf]

49 minutes ago, Peter said:

I think my thought experiment needs more precise constants. Another circular space for living is the space station, which are rotating centrifugal force producing environments that sustain human life. I think vehicles in zero gee will require rotation to keep humans healthy, even for a one year trip to Mars. Otherwise bones will become brittle and muscles will not be strong enough to support the weight of the individual. The Scifi show Deep Space Nine is a great exploration of that idea, where an entire city lives healthily in space.    

 

correct.  Humans evolved to live in one g of gravitation.  A ten month trip to Mars  even with daily exercise will wreck the bodies of the crew.  Then  a two year stay at 3/5 G  and a zero G ten month return  will make the mission to Mars a suicide mission.  Missions to Mars require an entirely new propulsion system.   Until the happens the only off planet  missions we can handle are trips to the moon (three days or less)   and limited stays on the Moon.   The gravitation problem must be addressed before we earthlings become a space faring race.

 

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: The gravitation problem must be addressed before we earthlings become a space faring race.

Agreed. I don’t think any supplement or vitamin can replace the “constant’ of gravity. A race of zero G humans might become taller or shorter, thinner or fatter, but they would lose much of their musculature and become unhealthy in the long term. They certainly could not return to earth. I think they would die out in a few generations, so a traveling gravity simulating space station is the only way to travel. Could anyone even live on a plane for an extended period?

A train makes more sense. In a way living on a circular space station would be like living on a train. You would walk from car to car, always in an atmosphere of earthlike oxygen and temperature, under the influence of gravity. There is a plan to introduce bacteria and viruses along the way to keep our immune systems active.

Humans would require entertainment, mental exercise, the news, damage control systems, a companion, and “neighbors.” It can be worked out but trial and error will teach us what we didn’t think of initially. There will always be volunteers for adventure but unless you are going on your own you might need to pass some tests first, and not like on TV shows, though the fictional Survivor, Robinson Crusoe, Lost, and Cast Away are starting points.

[Peter]

I am still thinking aloud about what a successful new habitat for humanity would require. We are who we are.

Stimulants and downers. Safe pills, drugs, and alcohol? Star Trek The Next Generation has synthetic alcohol that does not “overly affect” behavior (except in Klingons) while the drugs mentioned on the show are usually contraband brought aboard the Enterprise, or Deep Space Nine. Those darned Ferengi! Perhaps the freedom to smuggle in goods is a human trait too.  

Politics? Granted, the Enterprise is a military vessel but it also travels with intact families and children. The families over generations would become a society with the “crew” becoming much like our military and police. Picard’s Enterprise is a second generational habitat but if it were on a long cruise as with Star Trek Voyager, a group of families would evolve and gradually become the dominant influence on society.

[Peter]

All the sentient beings on Star Trek are similar to humans in very key areas. In fact their differences to humans are very similar to the differences just within human societies. That may be because fictional human writers “must” anthropomorphize alien races, to make sense of a story . . . for humans . . . but I think human traits would be universal traits, unless an alien species was “created.”

Therefore, any naturally occurring sentient beings, evolved through survival of the fittest, will be very much like humans. The significant societal differences might be explained by the History and Stage that an alien or human society is within, as in that old movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” The longer a single human or global society lasts, remembers, learns, and evolves will be equivalent to any alien society observed at that stage.

It has not been long since Germany and Japan almost subjugated the earth, as Islamic countries promise to do now. But I think global nuclear war or manufactured viruses released into the environment, while possible, are not probable. Older is wiser. The DOW goes up and own and if our linked in global society lasts it will continue to become stronger and more rational with each decade because it is in our rational self interest. As Katy Perry sang, “You’re gonna hear me roar!” Peter

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire
'Cause I am a champion
And you're gonna hear me roar

. . . .   You held me down, but I got up

Already brushing off the dust
You hear my voice you hear that sound
Like thunder gonna shake the ground
You held me down but I got up
Get ready 'cause I've had enough
I see it all, I see it now  . . . .    you're gonna hear me roar!

[BaalChatzaf]

22 hours ago, Peter said:

”

 

Therefore, any naturally occurring sentient beings, evolved through survival of the fittest, will be very much like humans.

I

Natural Selection (the principle)  will lead to organisms  tuned the the physical characteristics of their environment.   If physical conditions on another planet are much unlike the conditions on earth (the conditions in which and to which we evolved)   then beings  in such an environment could be very different from us, even if they are intelligent. It so happens that the only livable place we know  is our very own Earth here in our very own solar system, so we have no idea of  what  different sorts of livable environments elsewhere in the cosmos might be like.  

Our   rather cramped and biased  point of view  cannot give us any idea of what life would be like in a place where carbon based life  has evolved.  

 

Ba'al Chatzaf