Does qualitative change come down to quantitative change ?

[theprestige]

'state' it is: 'the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.' not a quality. Furthermore, every state can be characterized quantitatively, which is how it becomes, as it were, a quantity.

Said nobody who ever built it bridge.

 

[Norman Alexander]

'state' it is: 'the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.' not a quality. Furthermore, every state can be characterized quantitatively, which is how it becomes, as it were, a quantity.

Nope. No change in quantity involved in state changes.

 

[wise47]

Marx's social concepts led to disastrous consequences.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Marx's social concepts led to disastrous consequences.

And they also led to a number of very good social consequences. Like all social concepts.

But again, what does that have to do with physical qualities of substances. AFAIK Marx never dabbled in physical sciences. Nor do physical qualities have much to do with social constructs.

 

[catsmate]

A certain quantity of water turns into a certain quantity of steam.

Approximately seven hundred times as much.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Approximately seven hundred times as much.

Mmmm, nope. Seven hundred times the volume, not the quantity. Same number of molecules.

 

[catsmate]

Mmmm, nope. Seven hundred times the volume, not the quantity. Same number of molecules.

True.

 

[JayUtah]

It looks like "quantity" and "quality" are getting a lot of equivocation. If you mean the quantity of matter in a purely fermionic sense, then that quantity remains constant irrespective of its matter phase. But there are other quantitative properties attached to matter, for example kinetic energy among its molecules. The mean molecular kinetic energy of molecules in a liquid state is at the medium level. Increasing molecular kinetic energy eventually results in the nonlinear state change where the liquid becomes a gas. Its mean molecular kinetic energy now exceeds intermolecular bond energy and the matter's behavior changes dramatically, nonlinearly, and in ways that are important to consider qualitatively.

Pressure and compressibility are quantifiable properties of gases. We say liquids are incompressible in general, but this is a quantitative argument too. Liquids (e.g., water) are nearly incompressible, which simply means that the pressure we must impose on the liquid to achieve a measurable increase in mass density is astronomical compared to that for gases. Seawater is measurably denser at the bottom of the Challenger Deep than on the surface because it's under many atmospheres of pressure. Gases are much more responsive to imposed pressurization.

That said, we properly differentiate between compressible flow and incompressible flow because the qualitative differences are not trivial. And we properly differentiate between liquid and gaseous phases of matter because the qualitative differences are not trivial, and relate to their ability to do pressure and volume work either in natural systems or in artificial contrivances. Taking an absurdly reductionist approach to the patent nonlinearities in the behavior of matter as their quantifiable properties change is to miss entirely some important realities. It's useless coffeehouse navel-gazing.

 

[Norman Alexander]

 

[wise47]

Marx's social concepts led to disastrous consequences.

Such as the emergence of totalitarian systems.

 

[Helen]

Such as the emergence of totalitarian systems.

Emergence? They used to be the norm.