Freethought & Rationalism Archive

MOJO-JOJO · 04-01-2002, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by turtonm:
Perhaps Goswami should just stick to physics.....

I think he needs to stop chewing the Lotus Leaf!!

Whether or not he ever noticed the world come into existence has no bearing on whether or not it is really there. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Answerer · 04-01-2002, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt:


You have a penchant for dismissive generalizations.

Another wrong assumption about me, I'm just stating the fact, if you don't believe, open your eyes and see for yourself.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]

Answerer · 04-01-2002, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kctan:


If they don't think that way, where else do you think those fantastic thingies nowadays are coming from ?

Well Kctan, did I say that I opposed their own unique of thinking, I don't think so, given that I'm one of their kind.

YHWH666 · 04-01-2002, 08:27 PM

occam's razor anyone?

i drop a box filled with heavy objects on my foot.
OW! pain!
i remove the box from atop my foot. it doesn't hurt as badly.

materialisim says: the box caused neurological impulses to tell my brain that my foot was being damaged, thus causing pain wich motivates me to remove the box. after i remove the box my foot is no longer being damaged, therefore the neuro impulses cease. the box exists objectively and is independant of my mind.

solipism says: at one point in time my mind (the universe) feels sensations of pain. then i dream about removeing a box from my imaginary foot. the pain ceases. since i really don't have a foot the dream had no impact on wether or not i felt pain sensations. the pain stoping shortly after it was just by chance.

the material view accounts for both the pain and why it stopped. the solipistic view requires that the three events occured in that order just by chance.
i conclude that the material view is a simpler, and therefore more reasonable, hypothisis

lpetrich · 04-01-2002, 09:40 PM

I agree that that's a good reason to conclude that an external world exists; our sense-perceptions have patterns independent of what we choose to consciously think about.

This naturally suggests an outside cause.

And I'd like to criticize some naivete on perception. We don't really perceive objects; we interpret perceptions with the help of some automatically-maintained models that get updated as one keeps perceiving.

HRG · 04-01-2002, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 99Percent:
I also agree that this Amit Goswami should stick with physics. (Name sounds like a joke: Go- Swami!). Science is subset of philosophy. He is trying to equate science with philosophy. He should go back to high school and study Philosophy 101.

lpetrich: Consider a light source, two slits, and a photographic film. The light will travel through both slits, spread outward from each one, and interfere with itself, producing an interference pattern on the film. This is all wavelike behavior.

Now consider what the light does to the film. It causes a chemical reaction in some molecule, like a silver-halide one; the resulting chemical change is then utilized in the photograph-development chemical processes to produce the final photographic image. But the important thing is that this requires the absorption of exactly one quantum of light.

But this quantum had been spead over the entire photographic film! And also the area outside the slits! So it must somehow become collapsed! Which is the whole problem.

Isn't this possible because of the fact that time does not exist for photons, so this allows particles to be waves and particles at the same time?

No. The same experiment can be done with electrons, protons, neutrons ... (particles with rest mass).

Quantum particles are neither particles (in the classical sense) or waves. There are some situations where their behavior can be approximated by a classical particle, and others where it can be approximated by a wave.

"Particle" and "wave" are but labels for behavior type we have found in classical systems. They don't necessarily fit the phenomena on quantum scales.

Regards,
HRG.

Technos · 04-02-2002, 01:51 AM

Funny how they never say which god or how many gods they're speaking in favor of. I find it ironic that people say "a physicist said maybe so it must be true" when so often the physicist in question leaves all material evidence behind and leaps into the realms of the imaginary and supernatural.

Technos · 04-02-2002, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:


I agree. I'm familiar with some of the intricacies of modern physics, and I find a lot of the "mystic physics" theorizing to be nonsensical. They almost seem to be claiming that quantum mechanics indicates that wishing will make it so.

However, I think that there is a serious theoretical issue here, and that is the "collapse of the wavefunction". Here's how it comes about. In quantum mechanics, elementary entities have particle and wave properties; they are sort of like waves with quantized overall intensities.

However, on a macroscopic scale, entities act either as waves or as particles, and the wave-to-particle crossover is the "collapse of the wavefunction". Here's an example.

Consider a light source, two slits, and a photographic film. The light will travel through both slits, spread outward from each one, and interfere with itself, producing an interference pattern on the film. This is all wavelike behavior.

Now consider what the light does to the film. It causes a chemical reaction in some molecule, like a silver-halide one; the resulting chemical change is then utilized in the photograph-development chemical processes to produce the final photographic image. But the important thing is that this requires the absorption of exactly one quantum of light.

But this quantum had been spead over the entire photographic film! And also the area outside the slits! So it must somehow become collapsed! Which is the whole problem.

However, where it collapsed fits the probability distribution calculated from the light-wave intensity, and it faithfully reproduces the wave-behavior interference pattern -- even when the flux of photons is very low.

One common interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen Interpretation, states that it is an act of observation that collapses the wavefunction. But what is "observation"? Any possible theory of observation must take into account the fact that all known observers are subject to quantum mechanics.

The "mystic physics" school of thought takes off from this, and states that it is the presence of consciousness that does the collapse of the wavefunction. And it often implies that, as a result, consciousness can somehow control phenomena at the quantum level.

However, wavefunction collapse shows no signs of following a "wishing will make it so" scenario; as I'd pointed out, it strictly follows the probability distribution found from the original waves.

I really appreciate the fact that you actually know a thing or two about quantum mechanics. Most people stop at the atom, so it's rather refreshing to see someone who acknowledges and takes interest in the quantum universe.

Godless Dave · 04-02-2002, 07:57 AM

I won't speak to Goswami's credentials, but whoever wrote this article didn't make it through fifth-grade science class. Consider the following:

Quote:

Now imagine the history of planet Earth. An amorphous cloud of dust emerging out of that primordial fireball, it slowly coalesced into a solid orb, found its way into gravitational orbit around the sun,[...]

The sun is not a first-generation star, it did not emerge out of the "primordial fireball". It emerged from the material of older collapsed stars. And the earth didn't find its way into gravitational orbit around the sun, it, along with the other planets, formed out of the same disk the sun formed out of. I find that in many theist arguments from incredulity, the scientific facts have been mistated to sound more fantastic than they really are.

lpetrich · 04-02-2002, 09:50 AM

(two-slit quantum-mechanics experiment...)

Quote:

Originally posted by HRG:

... The same experiment can be done with electrons, protons, neutrons ... (particles with rest mass).
... .

I've even found a <a href="http://physicsweb.org/article/news/3/10/12" target="_blank">version done on C60 molecules</a>.

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04-01-2002, 08:27 PM	#14
YHWH666 Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: North America Posts: 457	occam's razor anyone? i drop a box filled with heavy objects on my foot. OW! pain! i remove the box from atop my foot. it doesn't hurt as badly. materialisim says: the box caused neurological impulses to tell my brain that my foot was being damaged, thus causing pain wich motivates me to remove the box. after i remove the box my foot is no longer being damaged, therefore the neuro impulses cease. the box exists objectively and is independant of my mind. solipism says: at one point in time my mind (the universe) feels sensations of pain. then i dream about removeing a box from my imaginary foot. the pain ceases. since i really don't have a foot the dream had no impact on wether or not i felt pain sensations. the pain stoping shortly after it was just by chance. the material view accounts for both the pain and why it stopped. the solipistic view requires that the three events occured in that order just by chance. i conclude that the material view is a simpler, and therefore more reasonable, hypothisis

04-01-2002, 09:40 PM	#15
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I agree that that's a good reason to conclude that an external world exists; our sense-perceptions have patterns independent of what we choose to consciously think about. This naturally suggests an outside cause. And I'd like to criticize some naivete on perception. We don't really perceive objects; we interpret perceptions with the help of some automatically-maintained models that get updated as one keeps perceiving.

04-02-2002, 01:51 AM	#17
Technos Regular Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Nashville, Tennessee Posts: 136	Funny how they never say which god or how many gods they're speaking in favor of. I find it ironic that people say "a physicist said maybe so it must be true" when so often the physicist in question leaves all material evidence behind and leaps into the realms of the imaginary and supernatural.

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