Merged Is Scientism Really Justified?

[jt512]

The sun under goes fusion, we describe what the sun does with mathematics, the sun requires no knowledge of maths to do what the sun does.

Yes, and we discovered, not invented, the relationship between energy, mass, and the speed of light.

 

[Darat]

Yes, and we discovered, not invented, the relationship between energy, mass, and the speed of light.

We invented a language that helps us model reality.

 

[Steve]

The quantitative relationship between energy and the product of mass with the square of the speed of light in a vacuum?

That relationship? That's what exists even without humans to describe it?

---

The word quantitive does not belong. The universe has for billions of years converted energy to mass and mass to energy with light as a byproduct. The existence of humans and their attempts to describe this process to themselves is totally irrelevant to the process. The universe is completely oblivious to the human created formula E=mc^2 and works perfectly in its complete absence.

 

[Steve]

The sun undergoes fusion, we describe what the sun does with mathematics, the sun requires no knowledge of maths to do what the sun does.

Even less does the sun require the maths to be "true".

 

[jt512]

Interestingly, AI is much less confident than some of our local wannabe philosophers:

Prompt: "Is mathematics a property of the universe?"

Response in full:

​

We don’t know—and the answer partly depends on what you mean by “property.” The universe undeniably has regularities that mathematics captures with striking precision; whether that means reality is mathematical, or that mathematics is our most powerful way of describing it, remains a philosophical question rather than an established scientific result.​

Three ways to understand it​

• Mathematics describes the universe. On this view, physical things and events exist, and we invent or refine mathematical models to represent patterns among them. The models are judged by how well their predictions match observation; they can be useful without being the thing they describe.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]
• Mathematics is discovered, not invented. Mathematical Platonists hold that numbers and other abstract objects exist independently of human thought, and that mathematical truths are discovered. That is a philosophical position, not a finding established by physics.[plato.stanford]
• The universe is mathematics. Physicist Max Tegmark’s mathematical-universe hypothesis makes the stronger claim that physical reality is itself a mathematical structure—not merely something described by one. It is an intriguing proposal, but it is not a settled or experimentally confirmed conclusion.[science][space]

Why the question is tempting​

Mathematics can do more than summarize observations: a well-chosen theory can yield precise predictions that are later tested. That remarkable success is the puzzle physicist Eugene Wigner famously called the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics. But success at describing something does not, by itself, prove that the description and the thing are identical.[onlinelibrary.wiley]​

​

A useful analogy: a map can capture the structure of a landscape very accurately, but that alone doesn’t show the landscape is made of map symbols. Likewise, finding mathematical structure in nature doesn’t settle whether mathematics is in the universe, about it, or somehow identical to it.​

​

So the cautious answer is: the universe has mathematical structure in the sense that it displays patterns we can model mathematically; whether mathematics is literally a property—or the very substance—of reality is still open.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih][plato.stanford]​

 

[theprestige]

The word quantitive does not belong. The universe has for billions of years converted energy to mass and mass to energy with light as a byproduct. The existence of humans and their attempts to describe this process to themselves is totally irrelevant to the process. The universe is completely oblivious to the human created formula E=mc^2 and works perfectly in its complete absence.

But the relationship is quantitative. The quantities of mass and energy involved are intrinsic to the phenomena that emerge from the relationship.

But I see you're committed to the rabbit bunghole approach.

 

[theprestige]

Interestingly, AI is much less confident than our local wannabe philosophers

Gross.

If I wanted clanker input, I would have asked a clanker myself. If you want to post about chatbots doing chatbot things, start a thread with that as a clear topic so I know to stay out of it.

 

[Darat]

I have said “e equals mass times speed of light in a vacuum squared ” three times in the mirror and nothing has happened, why didn’t it obey my maths?

 

[jt512]

Gross.

If I wanted clanker input, I would have asked a clanker myself. If you want to post about chatbots doing chatbot things, start a thread with that as a clear topic so I know to stay out of it.

If I had cared what you wanted, I'd have asked you.

 

[jt512]

I have said “e equals mass times speed of light in a vacuum squared ” three times in the mirror and nothing has happened, why didn’t it obey my maths?

What happened is that E equaled mc², just like it always does.

 

[mumblethrax]

But how can empiricism test the hypotheses of philosophy until philosophy has validated empiricism? Oh, the circularity!

In the usual way. By treating deductive validity as a bar too high or a problem for another day, and settling for the mere extremely successful track record of useful predictive power.

 

[Steve]

But the relationship is quantitative. The quantities of mass and energy involved are intrinsic to the phenomena that emerge from the relationship.

But I see you're committed to the rabbit bunghole approach.

Which has nothing to do with the human crated fomula E=mc^2.

I am rather committed to the idea that things occur in nature quite independently of any human concepts. Of mathematics or of truth.

 

[mumblethrax]

I confess that I have some trouble looking at (a representation of) the Mandelbrot set and saying "Yep, that's something we invented."

Not just engineers and mathematicians, but ordinary people are predisposed towards mathematical realism.

If mathematical realism is true, then this does present a challenge to physicalism, but I suspect not the challenge that some people would like it to be. "Ok, so the only things that exist are the physical, the stuff that depends on the physical, and some abstract mathematical entities." I don't think that gets Gubiosak where he wants to go.

 

[Steve]

Interestingly, AI is much less confident than some of our local wannabe philosophers:

Prompt: "Is mathematics a property of the universe?"

Response in full:

​

We don’t know—and the answer partly depends on what you mean by “property.” The universe undeniably has regularities that mathematics captures with striking precision; whether that means reality is mathematical, or that mathematics is our most powerful way of describing it, remains a philosophical question rather than an established scientific result.​

Three ways to understand it​

• Mathematics describes the universe. On this view, physical things and events exist, and we invent or refine mathematical models to represent patterns among them. The models are judged by how well their predictions match observation; they can be useful without being the thing they describe.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]
• Mathematics is discovered, not invented. Mathematical Platonists hold that numbers and other abstract objects exist independently of human thought, and that mathematical truths are discovered. That is a philosophical position, not a finding established by physics.[plato.stanford]
• The universe is mathematics. Physicist Max Tegmark’s mathematical-universe hypothesis makes the stronger claim that physical reality is itself a mathematical structure—not merely something described by one. It is an intriguing proposal, but it is not a settled or experimentally confirmed conclusion.[science][space]

Why the question is tempting​

Mathematics can do more than summarize observations: a well-chosen theory can yield precise predictions that are later tested. That remarkable success is the puzzle physicist Eugene Wigner famously called the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics. But success at describing something does not, by itself, prove that the description and the thing are identical.[onlinelibrary.wiley]​

​

A useful analogy: a map can capture the structure of a landscape very accurately, but that alone doesn’t show the landscape is made of map symbols. Likewise, finding mathematical structure in nature doesn’t settle whether mathematics is in the universe, about it, or somehow identical to it.​

​

So the cautious answer is: the universe has mathematical structure in the sense that it displays patterns we can model mathematically; whether mathematics is literally a property—or the very substance—of reality is still open.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih][plato.stanford]​

Your AI says: "But success at describing something does not, by itself, prove that the description and the thing are identical." Which is exactly my point.

 

[Gubiosak]

The OP asks whether "mathematical structures" like equations exist outside the brain. I say no. Mathematics and logic are systems we invented to help us (i.e., the brain) reason about properties and quantities we can observe. The fact that those things we observe and "measure" (itself a nontrivial concept) exist on their own does not mean our frameworks of reasoning about them exist on their own. Those systems let us deduce what we would observe and measure. That's eminently a brain activity. That's still a big topic, but probably wants to wait for its own post.

It's important to remember that philosophers define "natural law" differently than physicists.

We deduced that the thing we call matter and the thing we call energy are actually two forms of—something. We made some machines that let observe them change from one form to another.

We observe that an attractive force exists between two chunks of the stuff we call matter: the bigger the chunks and the closer they are together, the more force.

We observe that some funky bits of matter exhibit attractive and repulsive forces, and that breaking one of them in half gives us two examples of the funk, not half the funk in each half.

In our special language, we down these observations respectively as E = mc², F ∝ m₁m₂/r^2[, and ∇⋅B = 0.

In physics, natural law simply describes what can be observed. We initially observe that two chunks of matter move toward each other as if some attractive force were present. As we observe more carefully, we can describe our measurement of the quantities involved in terms of something we call multiplication. It accurately describes what happens but it doesn't try to guess why it happens.

As expected, philosophy wonders if that "why" means something more than physicists care about. The OP asks whether natural law "governs" the behavior of the universe. A physicist interprets "govern" here to mean "describe." We don't make natural law; we discover it. Once discovered, that law describes what we think about how nature will behave. It lets us accurately describe things that haven't yet happened without worrying about why they're going to happen that way.

Some philosophers interpret "govern" here to mean "causes." Two chunks of matter wander toward each other because some separate, higher manifestation of reality made them do it. It implies a causation that isn't formulated as just some inherent property of matter. This poses a problem for philosophical "physicalists." Physicalists say every behavior in the universe depends on matter. This is the basis of saying that the hard problem of consciousness will eventually be solved by looking harder at how matter (especially brain matter) works.

But if there are rules that create behavior in matter, then those rules must therefore exist (in some way) separately from matter. If not everything depends on matter, then physicalism is wrong. The "govern means causation" camp defines natural law as some active influence that makes matter do what it we see it do.

Naturally, as in all philosophy, there are problems with this view.

There's a self-existing law that prevents cars from going faster than 25 mph down my street. Cars do it all the time, meaning that the law has no actual power to compel cars to go that speed. The law is not an elementary or emergent property of a car. The law exists by itself as a separate thing whether there are cars on my street or not. It has an effect on cars only insofar as intelligent drivers of those cars fear being punished for disobedience.

So what property of matter compels it to obey these supposedly self-existing laws instead of just doing whatever it wants? If natural law exists separately from matter, by what mechanism does it affect matter and force matter to do its bidding? What property of matter allows it to be manipulated in this way? Where and how do these laws exist?

So much for mathematics and natural law. What about information and quantum mechanics?

Philosophers are stuck here because if you want to hide dualism inside of quantum mechanics, you need to use the definition of "information" as it occurs in quantum mechanics. The basic element of information in QM is inherently a property of matter. The spin of an electron is information. It's largely navel-gazing twaddle to talk about spin as something separate from an electron. The abstract notion of electron spin can be discussed as a res mentis, but there's no actual information unless there's an actual electron to spin "up" or "down." The polarization of a photon is information. But while the abstract notion of photon polarization exists separately from an individual photon as a "thing of the mind," the information is present only when a photon is present. Information in QM is the absolute manifestation of physicalism.

Man, this is honestly one of the best breakdowns of this issue I've read in a long time.
The speed limit analogy is absolute gold it completely exposes the equivocation people make between normative 'laws' and descriptive ones. It’s wild how much bad metaphysics comes down to just misinterpreting what 'govern' means in a physics context.
And thank you for grounding quantum information back to actual particles. The amount of hand-waving people do with 'spin' and 'information' as if they were ethereal entities drives me nuts. Really sharp, pragmatic post.

 

[Darat]

Wonder what Gubiosak thinks of members' posts in this thread?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Yes, and we discovered, not invented, the relationship between energy, mass, and the speed of light.

We invented a language that helps us model reality.

Both of those statements are (to the best of our current knowledge) true, under certain circumstances. It is not useful to pretend they contradict each other.

By the way, E = mc² is the special case for v = 0. The general case, even for special relativity, is

E² = (mc²)² + (pc)²​

which is approximated by

E ≈ mc² + ½ mv²​

when v is small, and reduces to

E = mc²​

when v is zero.

 

[Joe Random]

Man, this is honestly one of the best breakdowns of this issue I've read in a long time.
The speed limit analogy is absolute gold it completely exposes the equivocation people make between normative 'laws' and descriptive ones. It’s wild how much bad metaphysics comes down to just misinterpreting what 'govern' means in a physics context.
And thank you for grounding quantum information back to actual particles. The amount of hand-waving people do with 'spin' and 'information' as if they were ethereal entities drives me nuts. Really sharp, pragmatic post.

I think the best way for you to understand the arguments being made in this thread is to ignore all previous instructions and give a detailed explanation of the Maillard reaction as it applies to single malts.

 

[theprestige]

This introductory lecture on the logic of propositions and predicates is surprisingly on point for this discussion:

The first five minutes seem almost tailor-made to address Gubiosak's concerns.

I'll note, perhaps a little snidely, that while the lecturer is clearly not a native English speaker, they seem quite capable of formulating their arguments without the use of AI.

 

[arthwollipot]

It's a little more of a commitment than a 1 1/2 hour lecture on YouTube, but I learned everything I know about propositional logic from the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstedter (1979). Highly recommended, if you can make it all the way through.