TPF : Quantum Philosophy

[Gnomon]

If we started allowing metaphysics into quantum physics we will get the same thing that metaphysics has yielded for the past thousand years, nothing. — Darkneos

I'm not proposing that philosophers start meddling in Physics, but that they stick to their specialty : Metaphysics. Besides, if it's "nothing, why are we still debating Metaphysics after all these millennia? Is it possible that there is more to reality than Physics? What does modern philosophy do, if not Meta-physics? If it's useless, why are you posting on a Philosophy forum, instead of a Physics forum? Apparently, some philosophers on this forum are motivated by Physics Envy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy

Could it be because Physics, after 5 centuries, still has not found the key relationship between Mind & Matter, or between Quantitative Substance & Qualitative Attributes, or between the Potentiality of Invisible fields & the Actuality of tangible objects? Could it be because Physics has atomized the world down to sub-atomic "particles" that are described as a "virtual" essence or simulation? Maybe it's because Physics has found that the foundation of the world is Mathematical instead of Material? Or that Gravity is no longer a physical Force, but a metaphysical mathematical "curvature" of empty space? If Quantum Physics, only statistically real, is not downright "spooky", as Einstein called it, it is literally Meta-Physical : beyond the scope of classical Physics. Yet, it remains within the scope of modern Philosophy.

Metaphysics : Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Virtual :
1.The adjective "virtual" is used to describe something that exists in essence but not in actuality.
2. Computer science : a simulation of reality.
3. Physics : a virtual particle is a transient quantum fluctuation that exhibits some of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, while having its existence limited by the uncertainty principle.

Physics : relating to things perceived through the senses as opposed to the mind; tangible or concrete.
Note : Quantum Physics is neither concrete, nor perceivable by the five senses. It is conceivable only in the Mind, and describable only in mathematical language.

Does Science Need Metaphysics? : Science is anti-metaphysical. It doesn't care about the ultimate nature of what it is observing and measuring. Its models, its particles, forces, and fields, are not models of fundamental reality. They are useful abstractions that provide a common language for discussing relationships and measurements nothing more.
https://broadspeculations.com/2020/04/0 ... taphysics/

"Where our scientific knowledge is insufficient and where theological answers fail to compel
and convince us, philosophy remains a useful endeavor."
___Ethan Siegel, astrophysicist,

[Gnomon]

Mind does not exist, neuroscience killed dualism there. Qualia from what I have heard is a meaningless attribute that caries no real worth. — Darkneos

I'm sorry you feel that way. It's difficult to have a dialog with a mindless zombie. :joke:

If you are a practicing Physicist, Chemist, or Biologist, you may have no practical need for Qualia, or Mind. If you are non-empirical Psychiatrist or Sociologist, you do need the concept of "Qualia", although you might call it by a different name. If you are any of the above though, why are you posting on a worthless Philosophy forum? Do you enjoy wasting your time on meaningless drivel? Or, do you "feel" duty-bound to set us errant "Mystics" straight?

For the record, I am not a Mystic in any sense. I have no Religion, and belong to no Cult. I don't believe in spooky ghosts or disembodied spirits, or mindless zombies. But I do believe that the immaterial Mind is the Function of the material Brain. It's what brains do. Brain functions are defined in terms of Qualia : what it feels-like to experience the world. If the Mind does not exist, then Brains are useless lumps of meat. I assume that you have a Brain, but based on your comments, I'll have to take you at your word, that you don't have a Mind.

Mind : the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

The mind is the set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as non-cognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct. ___Wikipedia
Note : is this what you believe does not exist? Or is the spiritual Soul that you deny? If the latter, I'd have to agree with you. In place of the ancient notion of "Soul", I prefer the concept of "Self-image", which exists as an immaterial pattern of neural activity. What substance are Faculties & Functions made of? In what sense do such non-entities exist?

Faculty : A faculty refers to any of your mental or physical abilities. If you lose your faculties, you are powerless.

Function :
1. the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.
2. Function, in mathematics, an expression, rule, or law that defines a relationship between one variable (the independent variable) and another variable (the dependent variable).

[Gnomon]

Waves, particles, fields - how they can be consolidated in the mind, now there's a challenge for metaphysics. — jgill

There's no metaphysical mystery to such immaterial notions : they are all imaginary.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." ___Einstein

Imagination : the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

PS__"not present to the senses" = non-empirical; theoretical; meta-physical

[Gnomon]

So how would you visualize them being one (imaginary) thing? — jgill

Sorry. I don't understand the question. Unless you are inadvertently referring to my Enformationism hypothesis. From that perspective, "waves, particles, fields" are various forms of fundamental Information : the power to enform; to create and to change. Moreover, everything in the natural world is a specific form of that general enforming power -- which you may be more familiar with in the form of Energy : the power to cause change.

For the science behind that theory, you can refer to the website & blog. Mental Information is indeed imaginary : images & meanings created by the brain in the form of abstract mental patterns. But physical Information is what we call Matter : concrete enformed stuff. These notions may sound far-out, but they are integral to the cutting-edge science of Information Theory.

Information Realism : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... y-to-mind/

Energy :
Scientists define “energy” as the ability to do work, but don't know what energy is. They assume it's an eternal causative force that existed prior to the Big Bang, along with mathematical laws. Energy is a positive or negative relationship between things, and physical Laws are limitations on the push & pull of those forces. So, all they know is what Energy does, which is to transform material objects in various ways. Energy itself is amorphous & immaterial. So if you reduce energy to its essence of information, it seems more akin to mind than matter. I call that creative energy : EnFormAction.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of "aboutness" , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Note : Regarding the existence of imaginary things : Photons are the closest to bits of physical energy we know of. But on Quora, someone asked : "do photons actually exist?', and a physicist replied :
"Well, on the one hand, photons most certainly produce observable effects, and that would seem to indicate that they exist. . . . On the other hand, photons cannot be associated with certain fundamental properties that we would expect any physically existing object to possess."
https://www.quora.com/Do-photons-actual ... srid=ozk3M

[Gnomon]

"Waves, particles, fields - how they can be consolidated in the mind, now there's a challenge for metaphysics."
Think of this as a secular counterpart to The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - all are one and there may be Christian mystics who can envision the three as one imaginary entity. — jgill

Some scientists and philosophers think that "The Holy Trinity" of quantum phenomena are reducible to pure Mathematics. And some think that Mathematics is Metaphysics. Personally, I think that they all boil down to Ideal Platonic Information (Forms). That is a Metaphysical concept, but not necessarily a Mystical notion. Regarding Metaphysics, I am like the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges : "Attracted by metaphysics, but accepting no system as true . . ."

"Bohr regarded the "duality paradox" as a fundamental or metaphysical fact of nature."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%8 ... le_duality

Mathematical Metaphysics : https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plat ... thematics/

Waves, Particles and Fields : https://www.amazon.com/Waves-Particles- ... 0367198789

[Gnomon]

Your posts are like someone who doesn't understand Quantum physics trying to explain what it is. — Darkneos

Ha! I could match your snarky remark with : "your posts are like someone who doesn't understand Philosophy . . ." But I won't.

I know enough about philosophy to know that you are essentially trying to argue for solipsism. — Darkneos

Sorry Darkness. I don't believe in extreme philosophical Solipsism, as you imply. But then, Descartes' radical skepticism began from that starting position. He concluded that all else is uncertain to some degree. So, the point of his philosophy was to determine -- via reasoning from that foundation of certainty -- what was believable. Once underway though, most philosophers abandon that radical attitude and adopt a more pragmatic view.

Apparently, from previous comments, you doubt that even You have a Mind! But, you seem to act as-if you are certain of your own mental/brain powers -- whatever you call them. Do you believe that other people have similar faculties? On what empirical basis? Do you know anything for sure, outside the direct experience of your own mind/brain/senses? On what empirical basis? Have you directly experienced all the "facts" of Science, or do you accept the testimony of those who have personal (solipsistic) experience with the pertinent experiments?

Do you believe that a few of the posters on this forum have reasoning abilities equivalent to your own? Are you sure of that? Or is it just an inference based on your own solipsistic experience? Speaking of Empiricism, do you believe in the "Uncertainty Principle" of the Quantum foundation of Reality?

Solipsism : Solipsism, in philosophy, an extreme form of subjective idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself.

Uncertainty Principle : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
Note -- Does the "Observer Effect" imply Solipsism?

The Philosophical Uncertainty Principle : The PUP establishes that: “It is impossible to know if some observation, measure or perception corresponds in fact to reality”.
http://www.genismo.com/englishtext_07.htm

Of Superposition and Solipsism : https://prizedwriting.ucdavis.edu/super ... m%E2%80%9D

Radical Empiricism : a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations. In concrete terms: Any philosophical worldview is flawed if it stops at the physical level and fails to explain how meaning, values and intentionality can arise from that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

If you are trying to cast doubt on senses and empiricism then you don't have any grounds for trying to tie quantum physics with metaphysics — Darkneos

Never Mind. Sorry my philosophizing got your scientific rigor riled-up. But your topic sounded like it was right down my metaphysical alley.

[Gnomon]

I'm not trying to shut the conversation down, I was replying specifically to posts about what physicists say and how physics is taught. — Mijin

That's OK. I get the "Physics is Truth" treatment a lot, when I discuss Metaphysical topics. I'm familiar with the Materialist worldview of most Physicists. And that's OK, as long as they are doing Empirical Science. But when physicists cross-over into Metaphysics, they become speculative Philosophers.

For example, Einstein's early theories of "curved space" sounded like nonsense. But eventually, physicists were forced by the evidence to accept the weird notion of space-time imagined metaphorically as an immaterial "fabric". Idealistic Metaphysics is necessarily discussed in metaphors & analogies of "real" (i.e. concrete) objects. That's because abstract notions have no matter for the 5 senses to relate to. Only the sixth sense of Reason can imagine such "unreal" (i.e. metaphysical) things as ideas & concepts.

Einstein's Metaphysics : A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering.
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/metaphys ... nstein.htm

Fabric of Space-Time : The mass has got to curve spacetime, but it isn't actually a fabric: it's simply the nothingness that makes up the empty Universe itself.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... 47c36097fc

I can't parse this question. Seems you are saying both groups are aware of wave particle duality but tend to have a preferred description. Even assuming you're right about that...I don't see any conflict or inconsistency. — Mijin

Don't worry about it. The remark was directed to those who think of Mathematical Fields as-if they are clouds, or oceans, of minuscule material particles, rather than of statistical mathematical "points", or "excited states" in "state space". Those abstract immaterial "points" are metaphorical, not physical.

State : State is a general word, often with no concrete implications or material relationships:

Fields : QFT treats particles as excited states (also called quanta) of their underlying quantum fields, which are more fundamental than the particles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory

What Are Quasiparticles? : The Real “Fake” Particles of the Universe : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC8Qym570m8

[Gnomon]

I just don't see doubting as a valid form of argument because the same thing can be done right back to you to the point that no one really gets anywhere. Once you start doubting the senses then you don't really get to claim science for support for whatever claim you have. — Darkneos

I never said that I doubt the physical senses or the physical world. That notion is in your imagination. My arguments have nothing to do with doubting the validity of physical sciences. Your prejudice against Metaphysics seems to be the source of your erroneous attributions.

I enjoy discussing both Physics (science) and Metaphysics (philosophy). But we seem to be speaking different languages. I am especially interested in the topic of this thread : Quantum Physics and Philosophy. I'm not qualified to discuss the technical or mathematical topics of Quantum Theory, but I am generally familiar with the philosophical issues, such as Quantum Information, Ontology of quantum states, quantum state realism, the Measurement Problem, Entanglement-nonlocality-nonseparability. These are Metaphysical questions. As the quote below says, I see these issues as "a resource to be developed", not a problem to wish away.


Quantum Philosophy : Quantum mechanics has not only given rise to interpretational conundrums; it has given rise to new concepts in computing and in information theory. Quantum information theory is the study of the possibilities for information processing and transmission opened up by quantum theory. This has given rise to a different perspective on quantum theory, one on which, as Bub (2000, 597) put it, “the puzzling features of quantum mechanics are seen as a resource to be developed rather than a problem to be solved”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-issues/

[Gnomon]

So...is gravity meta-physics? It is very real to me. And yet it is not something you can see, touch, smell or taste. — god must be atheist

Yes. As indicated in some my links above, modern Quantum Physics has crossed the line between absolute Newtonian physics, and relative Einsteinian physics. Your confusion is understandable, because the traditional definition of "Metaphysics" referred to "spiritual" concepts instead of physical percepts. Now, that formerly-clear distinction is blurred. For example, a quantum particle is believed to do something only ghosts could do before : pass through solid objects (quantum tunneling).

Moreover, the notion of "Superposition" would have been characterized as "Supernatural" by Newton. The current ambiguity of the distinction between Physics & Metaphysics, is why I chose to define them in a new way in my thesis : "Physics is what you perceive with your physical senses, and Metaphysics is what you conceive with your non-physical Mind" (mind is an immaterial process, not a material object). There's more discussion of that notion in my blog.

Quantum Metaphysics : The line between metaphysics and physics is often blurry, but as a rough guide, one can think of a theory's metaphysics as those foundational assumptions made in its interpretation that are not usually directly tested in experiment.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10 ... 0626-7_119

Particles Walk Through Walls While Physicists Watch : https://www.livescience.com/20380-parti ... iming.html

Supernatural Entanglement : https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/bleow001/sup ... anglement/

I am not saying metaphysics is nonsense. I say that the definition given renders it nonsense.
I have no clue what metaphysics is. It is not defined unambiguously. I can't deal with that. — god must be atheist

I'll try to disambiguate it for you. Are abstract ideas in the mind physical? If not, what are they? Is gravity a physical object, or a geometric warping of empty space? Is "Geometry" physical & empirical. or an abstract & mental concept? Ideas & concepts are literally meta-(beyond)-physics.

Abstractions : something which exists only as an idea --- Ideal.

Metaphysics : the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

Is Math Metaphysical? : Math is not physical (composed of matter/energy), though all physical things seem to conform to it.
http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/24527

Metaphysical Geometry : Thus, we believe and we can show that metaphysical truths, which are entirely independent of the concepts of god, creation, divine, etc. ... In other words, geometry is the reflection of intelligible truths in the plane of human mind which can understand things only in terms of the conditions of time and space.
https://tomajjavidtash.com/2016/03/13/m ... -geometry/

[Gnomon]

Is this how everyone understands what metaphysics is? — god must be atheist

No. The common vernacular definition of "metaphysics" is "supernatural". But that is not the philosophical definition, nor how I use the term in my thesis. The metaphysical Mind is a product of natural evolution, but it is not an empirical object, or a tangle of neurons. Instead, the Mind is the function of the brain. It's what brains do --- a goal-directed activity. It can't be studied under a microscope, only by rational inference from behavior. The metaphysical Mind is not physical, but it is Real and Natural.


Metaphysics : Derived from the Greek meta ta physika ("after the things of nature"); referring to an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. As such, it is concerned with explaining the features of reality that exist beyond the physical world and our immediate senses. ...
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/geng ... -body.html

Function : kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.

Physics & Metaphysics :
Two sides of the same coin we call Reality. When we look for matters of fact, we see physics. But when we search for meaning, we find meta-physics. A mental flip is required to view the other side. And imagination is necessary to see both at the same time.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html