On Tuesday 15 January 2008 08:00, Pat Hayes wrote:
> At 3:57 PM -0800 1/14/08, Duane Nickull wrote:
> >...
> >
> >As a long time Kawakami fan, I have to both admire his work but find
> > this list raises bigger issues. Our universe, for example, is a
> > paradox of logic. According to most logic, nothing can go on
> > eternally
>
> Wha? Where did you get that notion from? Most
> logics say nothing at all about eternity or
> otherwise, but those that do address temporal
> continuity allow for eternal entities. (01)
Is it not impossible in FOL to finitely axiomatize finiteness? (Does
that count as a paradox??) (02)
> >yet both time and space apparently must.
>
> Again, why must they? There are solutions to
> Einstein's general relativity equations in which
> the universe is finite in all dimensions
> (including time.)
>
> > Quantum physics and human perception seem to be
> >irreconcilable (my opinion)
>
> In what sense irreconcileable? QT can be used to
> help explain why the world at our scale looks the
> way it does, eg why foliage looks green rather
> than, say, orange. (03)
No physical phenomenon is irreconcilable with the nature of physical
reality! Our perceptual systems are quantum mechanical systems built of
matter and operating by ongoing transfers of energy largely for the
purpose of processing information derived from patterns of energy
transfer in the individual's surroundings. (04)
Everything is quantum mechanical and relativistic (*). Everything obeys
all the applicable "laws" of physics. The fact that we have an
imprecise and incomplete knowledge of those laws doesn't change that. (05)
(*) Presumably we must hold open the possibility that the phenomena
known colloquially as "dark matter" and "dark energy" (owing to our
near-total ignorance of what underpins the observations to which those
terms are attached) might involve new physics that is outside what we
now think of as QM. The simplicity and continuity of GR makes it seem
less likely that it needs elaboration, but presumably that's a personal
bias of mine (quite probably shared by Einstein during his life, as
well). (06)
Here's a fun one: Recent research (based on modeling and simulation, I
believe) suggests that there may have been enormous aggregations of
dark matter in the very early galaxy. Aggregations thousands of times
larger than our own solar system! (07)
The mathematics of the current formulation of QM have not been
reconciled with the mathematics of the current formulation of GR. There
is no reason to believe the physical world is irreconcilable with
itself, so we rightly expect to someday find out what is off or missing
in our formulations of those theories and to remove the apparent (but
unreal) incompatibilities they suggest. (08)
> > perhaps due to the fact our own brains are too
> >limited to comprehend the larger realm in which we exist. (09)
Unlikely. Our brains did not evolve over all those millions of years to
comprehend things far beyond the range of our bodies' perceptual
mechanisms, yet we have far exceeded those limits in just a few
thousand years. There is little to no intuition that helps a physicist
understand QM, yet it is successfully applied in an ever-expanding
range of technologies and the field itself continues to yield new (to
us) phenomena and knowledge. (010)
> >The question that arises out of this is "how can we define
> > ontologies based on logic in a universe that apparently exists in
> > contradiction of that logic"?
>
> That might be an interesting question if it made sense. (011)
It might be a nice inspiration for a poem, at least. Poets never have to
make any kind of sense. (012)
> Pat
>
> >Duane (013)
Randall Schulz (014)
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