What happened to physics?

[minkwe]

The atom of modern physics can only be symbolized by a partial differential equation in an abstract multidimensional space. Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a colour and a quantity of heat. All the qualities of the atom of modern physics are derived, it has no immediate and direct physical properties at all, i.e. every type of visual conception we might wish to design is, eo ipso, faulty.
...
The conception of objective reality ... has thus evaporated ... into the transparent clarity of mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior.

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality."

Nikola could easily have been writing about today.

With its hindsight-free clarity, which cannot be attained without arbitrariness, one has merely insured that a fully determined hypothesis can be tested for its consequences, without admitting further arbitrariness during the tedious calculations required for deriving those consequences. Here one has explicit marching orders and actually works out only what a clever fellow could have told directly from the data! At least one then knows where the arbitrariness lies and where improvement must be made in case of disagreement with experience: in the initial hypothesis or model. For this one must always be prepared. If in many various experiments the natural object behaves like the model, one is happy and thinks that the image fits the reality in essential features. If it fails to agree, under novel experiments or with refined measuring techniques, it is not said that one should not be happy. For basically this is the means of gradually bringing our picture, i.e., our thinking, closer to the realities.
...
The rejection of realism has logical consequences. In general, if a variable has no definite value before I measure it; then measuring it does not mean ascertaining the value that it has. But then what does it mean?

What is the way out of this rot. Or maybe you disagree that there there is a problem. Is there any mechanics left in Quantum "Mechanics"?

[Yablon]

What is the way out of this rot. Or maybe you disagree that there there is a problem. Is there any mechanics left in Quantum "Mechanics"?

Excellent question!

It is a very serious problem, because the whole purpose of physics is the explain why things are they way they are. Today, many (and I am not one of them) hold to the view that there are things which occur that cannot even in principle be explained on the basis of casual principles in the sense of the occurrence of A being connected to the occurrence of B. Not only can we not explain in principle why some things are the way they are: we have the epistemological problem that we can't even say that "things are", much less that "they are, because."

I believe that this is a transient period in the history of physics, and there will come a time when this is understood to have been an unwarranted and unwise abandonment of the essential object of physics which to to draw linkages between "A"and "B" with more than superstition, providence, or magic. Not only do we live in a time when some will maintain that physics can't link A to B, but will maintain that physics cannot even regard A or B as existing with any reality. But this too will pass.

Stay tuned, I plan to discuss these questions in my upcoming posts.

Jay

[friend]

I suppose you can keep asking questions about why this or that thing exists. And you may find that it is made of other things, and you ask why that exists. So either you satisfy yourself that it simply is, or you eventually have to derive reasons for things from reason itself.

I don't suppose that you could ever experimentally prove that some object is necessarily fundamental. You could only state that you have not yet found any more fundamental objects of which it is made. That leaves no room for explaining why those objects exist in the first place.

However, up to now, there has been no serious effort to derive physics from logic. That has always seem to be too ambitious a project with no clear way to proceed. Logic has always been seen as too general to derive something as specific as physics. It applies to unicorns as well as cannon balls; it could just as easily apply to fantasy as to reality.

But now, I've made some direct contact between logic and the laws of physics. I've managed to derive at lease quantum theory from logic alone. This is presented at my website at http://www.logictophysics.com. This was done a few years back, and now it's beginning to open possible ways of deriving relativity theory as well.

[RArvay]

Not being a physicist, I restrict my comments to the layman perspective.
First, allow me to say that this thread got me to thinking deeply about
the core foundations of a science in which I have a keen interest.

Here is part of a letter I wrote to a friend with related interests.
You may or may not find it useful in your thinking.

Science continues to unfold in very dramatic ways, not only producing new answers, but more importantly, producing new questions.

Because scientific knowledge results in so many technological applications, it is seen as the king of human endeavor, the foundation of human thought, and the pinnacle of human achievement.

As with all kings, however, its reign must eventually come to an end. The technology which has validated science for so many centuries has been a blessing, making life longer, more pleasant, and more productive than it has ever been. Now, however, technology is becoming less and less a faithful servant, and is beginning to show signs of becoming the cruel master that we somehow always feared it would.

While this is happening, the most fundamental theories of science are beginning to show early signs of disarray. Scientists themselves disagree, seem unsure, and even contradict each other. The epitome of all this is the relativity-versus-quantum dichotomy, but there are many mundane examples as well.

Moreover, the gap between scientists and nonscientists is swiftly widening. Our familiar everyday experiences of reality are bearing less and less resemblance to the formulas of physics. Indeed, matters have become so unsettled that some physicists have actually gone so far as to ask, do we exist?

Finally, the formulas of physics have become inaccessible to the vast majority of humans. We cannot hope to understand them. The intricate squiggles and symbols that fill up the chalk board of the physics classroom are beyond my intellect, and utterly beyond the ken of most people. Even people of great intellect may have other interests that fill their time. Even they simply cannot put in the decade or more of years required for a PhD in physics, and cannot spend the thousands of dollars it costs.

According to a physicist who posted at sci.physicsforums.com,

Nikola Tesla wrote: “Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality."

Finally, the grand priests of physics do not even agree among themselves on many important aspects of what physics teaches us about the universe. Is science unraveling?

Science cannot answer questions which it cannot ask, and we may be inherently incapable of asking the most important questions.

How could it be otherwise? If humans are the products of nature, then how can the subset comprehend the whole?

In my self-published book, The God Paradigm, I maintain that, until science explains consciousness, it has explained nothing.

I also maintain that the explanation of consciousness may be beyond physics altogether. Even the atheist evolutionist JBS Haldane conceded that the answer is not material. He said, “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For 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. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”

Haldane probably meant “mind,” rather than “brain,” but his insight is important. His statement, whether he intended the inference or not, strongly suggests that the nature of consciousness is fundamental, not phenomenal. If so, then consciousness is not a physical emanation of atoms, but rather a spiritual property, a realm that is forever beyond the domain of material science.

[Joy Christian]

In my self-published book, The God Paradigm, I maintain that, until science explains consciousness, it has explained nothing.

I would not say science has explained "nothing", but consciousness is certainly one of the most important open problems. That is why eminent scientists like Sir Roger Penrose have spent decades trying to explain consciousness using scientific method.

I also maintain that the explanation of consciousness may be beyond physics altogether. Even the atheist evolutionist JBS Haldane conceded that the answer is not material. He said, “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For 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. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”

Haldane probably meant “mind,” rather than “brain,” but his insight is important. His statement, whether he intended the inference or not, strongly suggests that the nature of consciousness is fundamental, not phenomenal. If so, then consciousness is not a physical emanation of atoms, but rather a spiritual property, a realm that is forever beyond the domain of material science.

Well, the question can be easily settled. If consciousness is not a by-product of matter, then we should be able to find it outside a material body. Find consciousness outside a material body, and the question will be settled once and for all. Until then your contention is a pure speculation, if not just a wishful thinking.

[RArvay]

Sir Roger Penrose has an interesting comment regarding an explanation for consciousness.
He mentioned (in an online video) that he suspects the answer to the problem lies in the gap between
relativity and quantum mechanics.
I think of the two theories as pieces of the cosmic jigsaw puzzle, pieces that will not fit, but a third piece
will fill in the gap, making the bigger picture more clear.

The internal experience of consciousness is ineffable, which is why it seems that physics alone is
insufficient to describe it. Physics can describe color in terms of photons and wavelength.
But to a person blind from birth, those do not impart an understanding of what we consciously
see and experience as colors.

The external evidences of consciousness are a different matter. We could in principle
construct a computer that seems convincingly conscious when viewed from the outside.
But we have no instrument, no formula, no theory, that detects the actual internal experience of it.
We must rely on "cogito ergo sum."
Thus, physics may be incapable of studying internal consciousness.
It may be a case of the eye attempting to see itself.

If consciousness is not a product of atoms, then that does not mean that atoms are not a necessary vehicle for it,
especially for the outward manifestation.
The controversy then revolves around whether certain arrangements of atoms give rise to consciousness.

If consciousness does indeed exist apart from atoms, how would we detect it?
How could we set up a falsifiable hypothesis?
I don't think the process of physics lends itself to that.

If consciousness is as fundamental as are quarks, then it is in a category by itself.
This could be a reason why quantum physics is subject to so many competing interpretations,
for example concerning whether or how conscious (or unconscious) measurements collapse the probability clouds of matter.

It may not be a case of matter producing mind, or vice versa, but rather,
an interaction between the two.

I cannot of course resolve the controversy, but only explore it.
It is probably useful to physics for the issue to be discussed
openly. Even speculations can be useful as a beginning point.
.

[Joy Christian]

If consciousness does indeed exist apart from atoms, how would we detect it?

This is not a problem for physics. It is a problem for someone who believes that consciousness is not a by-product of matter. Within physics consciousness is indeed a by-product of matter, just as life is---albeit it has not been fully understood or explained as yet. Many things in science are not yet fully understood or explained. It takes a great deal of time and effort to do so. That does not mean that they cannot be understood or explained within science. Eventually we shall understand them.

[RArvay]

I agree that it may not be a problem for physics.
There may not be a physical explanation that lies within the present
paradigm of physics, which is that of natural-materialism.

When it comes to questions involving ultimates and absolutes, physics perhaps embarks on a course of
infinite regression toward explaining the final basis of all reality.

If in fact it's "turtles all the way down," (or an infinite variety of fundamental properties of reality) physics and/or the human brain may
eventually reach a limit beyond which it cannot answer any questions, somewhat like the way a computer runs out of memory.
Indeed, even the universe itself contains a finite amount of information, and that amount may be insufficient
to explain consciousness.

Therefore, to assert that physics will eventually explain consciousness as an emergent material phenomenon may be,
please forgive the expression, an act of faith.

I do not mean to be argumentative, just to explore the subject matter ,
as your posts are very cogent.

[Joy Christian]

Therefore, to assert that physics will eventually explain consciousness as an emergent material phenomenon may be,
please forgive the expression, an act of faith.

I agree with your sentiment. But as a physicist I would use different words to say the same thing. I would say that it is an act of optimism. For the alternative is mysticism. I do not deplore mysticism, or the mystics. I simply do not find mysticism intellectually attractive. Optimism is the only way forward for a scientist.

[RArvay]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... _yWukjD6dM

The above link is, either by coincidence or an act of cosmic intent (LOL) a report on a new advance in the neurological basis for consciousness.
A good friend sent it to me.

Here is part of my reply:

While the neurological data seem at first to support a physical explanation for consciousness,
what they support is what we already knew about the external measurements of consciousness.

Having been under general anesthesia myself, I can testify that the time between going under
and coming out seems to be zero, since no memories are accumulated during anesthesia,
even if the surgery lasts hours.

The problem faced by physics is not the external manifestations of consciousness.
Medical science has a good grip on that topic.

What is ineffable is the personal experience of experience,
our inability to describe color to a person who has been blind since birth.

Some neurologists have compared the brain to a computer, a comparison that seems
valid in many respects except one:

. . . the computer produces outputs for a user, and that user is not the computer itself.

Who is the user who is external to the brain?