Does anything exist?

[Belz...]

Ok, at this point your dishonest argentation must be deliberate.

You're really consumed with "getting back" at the things I say to you, aren't you? You have to mirror perceived slights continually. Take your ego out of the discussion.

Actually you asked multiple different questions. Remember those moving goal post?

You made those goalposts up. I've already explained all that, remember?

Nope, reality (specifically the results of experimentation and/or observations) is what science tries to describe by, well, theoretical conceptions.

That's another phrasing of what I said. We should be agreeing. It does seem like disagreement is for you a feature, not a bug.

Nope, I didn't claim it deals "in real contradictions" I claimed quite specifically and explicitly that it purportedly deals with contradictions as conceptual or philosophical constructs.

You're the one who can't move on. No wonder you think the goalposts are moving because you refuse to accept that we've MOVED ON from that. Let's see if you can follow this:
1) Is the concept of logical contradiction a matter of philosophy?
2) If so, what is it and how does it work?
3) If so, are there real-world applications of this?

I'm at (3) and you're stuck at, somehow, both (1) and (2).

Contradictions are unreal.

Marvelous. We agree on something. So the entire sidetrack with quantum physics was pointless.

Philosophy is a mode of thinking that deals with the unreal.

Making it useless.

Of course I can accept that you don't find the answer "good enough".

Can you accept the reasons I gave you? Let's see if you can remember what they are.

For reflective destructive interference it is continuous, as long as the source is generating, the particle motions act against each other. The particles must always be in such motion just to be able to act against each other. Also, you can vary the phase between the original and reflected wave, changing the interference. Showing that both those particle motions do still exist.

So where's your contradiction? Are you ever going to get there?

 

[Belz...]

Hot tip.

I knew it. I knew it.

As soon as I read Joe's "hot tip" I knew you couldn't resist throwing the same wording back at him. This isn't a rational discussion: you are taking this topic personally and are "getting back" at people who, in your view, are diminishing something you hold as valuable (philosophy).

As I said: let go of that ego part of the discussion. It's not helping you. It's just raising the tone of the thread for no reason.

 

[Steve]

Oh, dang nab it! Guess it must be then.

I insist you actively try to falsify that!!!!



Dang nab it again.

Some days, huh.

 

[IanS]

Einstein also famously said that he probably wouldn't have one up with the special theory of relativity if he hadn't been familiar with the work of David Hume.

Additionally, pure math is basically a type of philosophy. And ironically, pure path often ends up having applications thereby instantly moving from the realm of pure math into that of applied math.

Did you not notice that Einstein quotes have come up before in this thread? And there was some discussion about how accurate any of that might be, or what Einstein or any other scientists might have meant by what they said, or indeed which modern day scientists still say such things and what proportion are they from the total science community as a whole (ie core science ... physics, chemistry, biology, most of maths? We have discussed all of that ... did you see those discussions?

One other thing – when anyone says that Einstein/whoever praised philosophy/or whatever, the first thing should come to any sceptical mind is that it sounds exactly like the theists who name all sorts of scientists who have believed in God (so that scientists A, B & C all believed in God … hence God exists, duh!).

 

[JoeMorgue]

At this rate this thread is one page away from "Scientist so and so renounced science and converted to philosophy on his deathbed, no really" type stories.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I knew it. I knew it.

As soon as I read Joe's "hot tip" I knew you couldn't resist throwing the same wording back at him. This isn't a rational discussion: you are taking this topic personally and are "getting back" at people who, in your view, are diminishing something you hold as valuable (philosophy).

The best way to get an argument from these kinds of people is to use it against them.

They literally can't operate on a level beyond "gotcha."

It's, as you say, not an argument, but a huffy and defensive face save.

I've said it multiple times, nobody here is actually arguing for philosophy, they are just defending its honor.

 

[LarryS]

crikey ... I don't know where to start with that lot... it's completely off the scale of being anywhere near right ... I mean, Larry, come on, really ...

... if your 4th graders can "do science", then they can just a easily do philosophy.

As for philosophy being harder to grasp or to perform than science ... you must have forgotten about 99% of science in that belief. Do you really think it's harder to think of philosophical issues than it is to plan and build a space probe to land on the surface of a comet orbiting past Jupiter? ... which parts of philosophy do you think are more intellectually challenging and more taxing generally than what has been achieved in allowing us now to have the model we have of particle-field theory or descriptions of the Big Bang and how that can be explained to fit with both quantum theory and relativity?

You could name literally a million things that are the result of current science, and for which philosophy is not remotely comparable as a subject or field of study.

Ian (and Belz 1361) - stop with the preachy self-rightous drama - no one is suggesting that cutting edge science is easy or not of great value.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ian (and Belz 1361) - stop with the preachy self-rightous drama - no one is suggesting that cutting edge science is easy or not of great value.

No people are just suggesting over and over and over and over that some point where it stops working and claiming some ill-defined thing that is everything and nothing gets to take over at that point.

 

[Thermal]

The best way to get an argument from these kinds of people is to use it against them.

They literally can't operate on a level beyond "gotcha."

It's, as you say, not an argument, but a huffy and defensive face save.

I've said it multiple times, nobody here is actually arguing for philosophy, they are just defending its honor.

Or maybe...just maybe...posters are arguing that the two are not in opposition or even logically comparable.

Natural philosophy used to encompass what we now call the natural sciences, as a subset of the Thinky Wisdom Stuff. Tis no more. They do not compete, or are even playing the same game anymore. It's just not that complicated.

 

[IanS]

Ian (and Belz 1361) - stop with the preachy self-rightous drama - no one is suggesting that cutting edge science is easy or not of great value.

No! No thank you. Your post above where you say that 4th graders can do science but philosophy is really hard, is just about the most misguided and uninformed post I've ever seen on the internet. Fortunately it's so ridiculous that hardly anyone would take it seriously.

But it does very clearly show how truly awful your knowledge of science is. And that's pretty rich coming from someone (i.e. you!) who repeatedly wrote things like "Sabine and I agree ...", as if you were a colleague of hers working in physics research!

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Did you not notice that Einstein quotes have come up before in this thread? And there was some discussion about how accurate any of that might be, or what Einstein or any other scientists might have meant by what they said, or indeed which modern day scientists still say such things and what proportion are they from the total science community as a whole (ie core science ... physics, chemistry, biology, most of maths? We have discussed all of that ... did you see those discussions?

No. It's a long thread, and many of the posts in this thread are by people whose posts I skip, so I guess i missed it.

One other thing – when anyone says that Einstein/whoever praised philosophy/or whatever, the first thing should come to any sceptical mind is that it sounds exactly like the theists who name all sorts of scientists who have believed in God (so that scientists A, B & C all believed in God … hence God exists, duh!).

But the discussion wasn't about whether or not philosophy exists, but whether anything good or practical has come from it. And there are quotes from Einstein that suggest otherwise.

Incidentally, there are quite a few. I recently read A World without Time (great book), in which Einstein said, among other things, that the only reason he went to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton was so that he could take walks with Kurt Godel and talk about philosophy, and that's what they did nearly every evening.

 

[Thermal]

No. It's a long thread, and many of the posts in this thread are by people whose posts I skip, so I guess i missed it.



But the discussion wasn't about whether or not philosophy exists, but whether anything good or practical has come from it. And there are quotes from Einstein that suggest otherwise.

Incidentally, there are quite a few. I recently read A World without Time (great book), in which Einstein said, among other things, that the only reason he went to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton was so that he could take walks with Kurt Godel and talk about philosophy, and that's what they did nearly every evening.

Which is what some of us have been saying all along. Philosophy is fine for what it Is, and most people use it to differing degrees. It's not the anti-science bogeyman it is being painted as.

Eta: although Godel might be ******* with it a little

 

[IanS]

No. It's a long thread, and many of the posts in this thread are by people whose posts I skip, so I guess i missed it.



But the discussion wasn't about whether or not philosophy exists, but whether anything good or practical has come from it. And there are quotes from Einstein that suggest otherwise.

Incidentally, there are quite a few. I recently read A World without Time (great book), in which Einstein said, among other things, that the only reason he went to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton was so that he could take walks with Kurt Godel and talk about philosophy, and that's what they did nearly every evening.

As I said above there are plenty of scientists who believe God exists (and they pray to him, and believe in his miracles etc. ) especially in the USA. In Einstein's time there were many more scientists who believed in God. So on your logic (I think philosophers would quickly point out that it's a well know type of fallacy by the way), we should now all start believing in a heavenly God (the Christian one of course ... not any of the Indian ones or any of the others) ... oh, and - you do need to go back and see what was said earlier in this thread about such quotes.

 

[Thermal]

I knew it. I knew it.

As soon as I read Joe's "hot tip" I knew you couldn't resist throwing the same wording back at him. This isn't a rational discussion: you are taking this topic personally and are "getting back" at people who, in your view, are diminishing something you hold as valuable (philosophy).

As I said: let go of that ego part of the discussion. It's not helping you. It's just raising the tone of the thread for no reason.

Seriously, man? The level of personalized bile being posted for dozens of pages, and that was the one which needed tone policing?

If you don't respond within 12 hours, I'll take it as a humiliated concession

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

If you don't respond within 12 hours, I'll take it as a humiliated concession

Very well played. I believe Belz is currently banned, so you're sure to get your concession.

 

[The Man]

Sorry, meant to post this yesterday.

Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor

The Google quantum supremacy experiment paper, apparently it is just a draft.


Does anyone know what is up with this ‘language creates reality’ stuff? Seems to be a rather broad strawman brush being painted around.

My only surmise is that it is a misinterpretation or over exaggeration of the fact that both language and our conceptual constructs inform and help shape our opinions, thinking, decisions and ultimately actions. The latter having at least some interaction with, if not impact on, reality. However, that’s still 2 or 3 galaxies far, far away from ‘language creates reality’.

 

[The Man]

And you follow it up with unreal examples. That's marvelous. It seems that you don't understand that having a conversation in the real world doesn't make the thing you're discussing real.

Since I didn’t say “that having a conversation in the real world” does “make the thing you're discussing real.”. The lack of understanding remains entirely yours.

 

[The Man]

You're really consumed with "getting back" at the things I say to you, aren't you? You have to mirror perceived slights continually. Take your ego out of the discussion.

As Joe Friday from “Dragnet” would say “Just that facts ma'am”. I couldn’t give a flying handshake what you say, think or feel about me. I can, will and have (on other threads) said far worse about myself. However, I will call out your (or anyone else’s) misrepresentation, denial of what they have written and deliberate ignorance in any discussion with me. Neither your ego nor mine mean anything to me.

You made those goalposts up. I've already explained all that, remember?

Sure I remember, your questions, your goalposts, simply denying it or contradicting yourself by claiming a follow up question is just the same question. Is not any kind of an ‘explanation’.

That's another phrasing of what I said. We should be agreeing. It does seem like disagreement is for you a feature, not a bug.

Nope, your claim was science is based on reality. Mine was science is based on theoreticals While those theoreticals might be intended to represent reality, they aren’t themselves reality. Heck, they could even be very poor representations of reality in many respects. They just need to accurately predict the results of experiments and observations. So unless you’re claiming those theoreticals create reality. Only then would science being based of thoreticals be, defacto, science based on reality.

You're the one who can't move on. No wonder you think the goalposts are moving because you refuse to accept that we've MOVED ON from that. Let's see if you can follow this:
1) Is the concept of logical contradiction a matter of philosophy?
2) If so, what is it and how does it work?
3) If so, are there real-world applications of this?

I'm at (3) and you're stuck at, somehow, both (1) and (2).

Wait, so you’ve moved on but the goalposts haven’t?!? So which is it, you just simply contradicting yourself, again, or the goalposts have moved?

You still have yet to agree that “the concept of logical contradiction” is “a matter of philosophy”. You’re still at 1) and evidently just want to use your 2) & 3) as a reason to simply not accept the very basic logical conclusion of your own stated position.

Marvelous. We agree on something. So the entire sidetrack with quantum physics was pointless.

No, not entirely, hence the “ sidetrack with quantum physics”. However, whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant. This is about your stated position, so it is only significant that you agree with it.

Premise one held, by you, as TRUE.

Making it useless.

Premise two held, by you, as TRUE.

So what? It doesn’t matter how you categorize both contradictions and Philosophy. Be it unreal, mental masturbation, useless or even dingle-berry thinking. By putting them in that same category you make the logical inference of one to the other valid. Simply changing the name of the category doesn’t change the logical conclusion. So to deny the truth of the assertion that “the concept of logical contradiction” is “a matter of philosophy”. You have to claim either Contradictions aren’t useless, Philosophy is not useless or both. So which is it?

Hint: Philosophy also deals with concepts.

Can you accept the reasons I gave you? Let's see if you can remember what they are.

Can you even accept the logical conclusion of your own stated position? It makes your 'reasons' useless. Hey, wait, that would make them philosophical too.

So where's your contradiction? Are you ever going to get there?

Again that the wave motions exist and don’t exist.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Since I didn’t say “that having a conversation in the real world” does “make the thing you're discussing real.”. The lack of understanding remains entirely yours.

The philosophy fanclub needs to stop saying one then, then arguing something completely different then.

If what you are discussing "isn't real" then what's the point?

We're back to the same God-excuse, trying to prove something is real by trying to argue it's completely pointless and intangible.

We seem to have looped back to "Philosophy is valid because nobody really takes it seriously, they are just playing" which contradicts every argument made to get us here.

Much like the God of Arguments; a God who does nothing, has no actual definition, only does vague things vaguely in a vague way, and could maybe exist only in the sense that he has no definition, this new vague philosophy isn't going to argumentatively fly.

Colleges don't have departments for a methodology that doesn't advance beyond "LOL nothing really."

Same as God nobody defends anything that means this little to them.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again that the wave motions exist and don’t exist.

Please explain how "philosophy" has explained wave-particle duality on a quantum level at all, to say nothing of better than science has.

Again **** the "Philosophy of the Gaps" argument.