But isn't physics required for empiricism?

As soon as physics is tossed out the window than anything goes. Life becomes an unbounded dream and anything you can imagine goes because without physics there's nothing to constrain philosophy.

Yes, I am a physicist! I am an empiricist and it is precisely my investigations into the physical world that leads me to conclude the pantheistic view.

If I toss out physics, then anything goes. What other constraints would there be without physics?

I'm actually taking empiricism to its final conclusion which must be pantheism,IMHO.

I'm a hard-core empiricist.

If I give that up then I have no clue what to suggest. Anything goes at that point.

Empiricism leads to QM, QM leads to pantheism.

That's where I'm at.

I'm an Empirical Pantheist.

If I give that up then my next suggestion would be the life is a Fantasy Game Written by Smiless, Directed by JB, Music by Abracadabra, Relfections by Mirror Mirror, and Produced by Mingle Cyberworks.


Oh yeah let's not forget the special credits:

Artwork by Artgurl
Love by LAMom
Just being by Jess Lee
Boogiemen by Lurch's Sister
Lighting by LightHouseLover
Time provided by Twilight's Twin
Erotica by S1owhand

http://users.csonline.net/designer/ideas/slowhand.mp3

QM interpretation is philosophy. We are at a limit to measurement, therefore, what comes after is pure philosophy.

To conclude that the universe is illogical or uncertain is unfounded error in thought, even Feynman agrees.

That's not Neils Bohr's position. Quantum complementarity is not due to a limitation of our ability to measure anything. Quantum complementarity is a property of nature.

This is the mistake that so many people make. It's not that we have come to a limit of measurement. It's that the very property of the quantum field is immeasurable due to quantum complementarity.

Also, there are truly only three current interpretations of QM.

1. Copenhagen Interpretation
2. Hidden Variables Interpretation
3. Many Worlds Interpretation

Any other interpretations can ultimate be reduced to one of these three and this is for reasons that AdventureBegins brought up in another thread.

Yet all three of these interpretations accept that everything arises from the quantum field.

The first one, the Copenhagen Interpretation, simply accepts randomness as being an obviouse fact arising from quantum complementarity.

The second one, Hidden Variables Interpretation, merely attemps to escape randomness by suggesting that some 'faster than light' communication is going on (i.e. Pilot Waves which are somehow this "Hidden Variable"). This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to salvage an idea of determinism. But it still accepts that everything arises from the quantum field. All this interpretation attempts to do is claim that the quantum field is not random. But it has to give up "locality" to save determinism.

So the Hidden Variables Interpretation, is actually appealing to magick anyway. It's just saying that somehow things that are far removed can "magically" affect other things without obeying the limiting restriction of the speed of light.

So this interpretation still doesn't escape the fact that everythign is standing waves that arise from the quantum field. In fact, this interpretation would be even MORE pantheistic because it allows for "supernatural" communication (i.e. communication that occurs faster than the speed of light).

The Many Worlds Interpretation is even worse. It too relies on the idea that everything arises as vibrations from the quantum field. However, to desperately preserve determinism it just allows that every possiblity actually HAPPENS. None the less, it falls flat on it's face when it comes time to explain why any particular individual still only experiences one of these timelines!

In other words, to salvage determinism for the universe as a whole it posulates that the universe continually splits into infinity of universes each universe preserving one of the infinitely many possiblities of every possible outcome.

But at what cost? Any given individual would then need to RANDOMLY travel down a timeline into his or her Individual future.

From my point of view Many Worlds Interpretation is not only absurd but in truth it hasn't resolved a thing. All it's done is given the universe as a WHOLE determinism by making it continually spilt into infinitely many futures, but it has RETAINED randomness for each individual consciousness. It seems to me that this interpretation is a logical contradiction unto itself.

To save determinism overall it demands that each unit of consciouness must experience a random life. I never did see why this view is even being considered. It doesn't even stand on its own philosophical feet. It fails at what it's trying to accomplish. It still requires randomness for each individual consciouness.

But none of this has anything to do with any 'limitation' of our ability to measure things. The limitation is not in our measurements. The limitation is innate to the nature of the quantum field.

That is not the way that I understand things James.

"If we have an atom that is in an exited state and so is going to emit a photon, we cannot saywhen it will emit the photon. It has a certain amplitude to emit the photon at any time, and we can predict only a probability for emission; we cannot predict the future exactly. This has given rise to all kinds of nonsense and questions on the meanings of freedom of will, and the idea that the world is uncertain."

Richard Feynman...

No.

Physics came from empiricism.

How do you define empiricism?

The Princeton on-line dictionary has it listed as:

Empiricism - (philosophy) the doctrine that knowledge derives from experience.

Well, what constitutes 'experience'?

I guess from this definition then if it's someone's experience that they've seen fairies then for them fairies are based on empiricism.

All that 'physics' truly amounts to is a majority agreement of what we accept as being valid and repeatable 'experiences' that everyone can have.

If someone claims to see fairies and no one else can see them then we label that person as being schizophrenic and denounce fairies as being based on empiricism.

However, physics is based on repeatable scientific experience that any human can have if they are willing to go into the lab and look.

Therefore empiricism and physics are actaully inseperable. To claim that one is based on the other is meaningless, they are inseperable. They are one in the same thing.

Without physics there can be no empiricism (unless spirit can exist without a physical world). Then empiricism takes on a whole new meaning (i.e. it would then be based on whatever spirit can "experience" when there is no physical world to experience).

To speak about empiricism outside of physics is impossible for a human being, unless they are speaking about their own personal experience (such as seeing fairies), then for them, fairies are empirical because they believe that they experience fairies.

I do not believe that it is that complicated.

Empiricism came before physics in human history.

I think that simplifies it accordingly.

Fine. Dr. Feynman offered his opinion. But even within the this very quote he confessed that we cannot predict the future exactly.

What Neils Bohr is saying that the emission of the photon is indeed random. Bohr is saying that we cannot predict the future exactly because it hasn't yet been determined even by the atom.

Dr. Feynman has not shown Bohr to be wrong here. So where is his grounds for saying that these questions are nonsense?

Feynman also said:

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong."

So he seems to have no problem with uncertainty. I wonder why he would say that it's 'nonsense'.

He certainly could never show that it's nonsense because he also said that following:

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will go down the drain into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." - Dr. Richard P. Feynman

I'm not sure that this is entirely true.

Neils Bohr seemed to accept that complementarity is the explanation. This is how it can be like that.

Randomness is how it can be like that.

I think what Feynman meant to say was, "Nobody knows how it can be like that whilst clinging to ideas of determinism and cause and effect".

Once we give up determinism and accept randomness, then its easy to see how it can be like that. It's just random.

That's how it can be like that.

What are you talking about?

You're just talking about the labels (the words).

So they called thought based on experience "empiricism" before they formalised it into a scientific method and labled it as "physics"?

All you're saying is that they used the word "empiricism" before they formalized the scientific study of "physics".

When I speak of "Physics" I'm speaking about concept of physical experience. I don't care about the etymology of the word. That's just the label for the concept.

I go way beyond the words. I'm thinking in terms of the actual concepts that the words represent.

The physical world existed long before those words were invented.

Cave men were doing physics. They just didn't know it or call it that.

The Greek Philosophers often thought in terms of physics long before they called it that.

Although they thought in terms of non-physical ideas too. Such as spiritual world and supernatural explanations for things as well.

They probably thought of "supernatural" ideas long before that word was invented too.

To say that empiricism came before physics is silly. That's just empty semantics that doesn't even recognize the actual concepts behind the words.

Unless, of course, you're talking about the "Formal Study of Physics".

But that's not what I'm talking about when I say physics.

I'm talking about the actual physicality of the world around us. Physics existed before humans, in that sense. To say that it came after empiricism is meaningless.

I thought we were talking about philosophy...

It does appear to be random. BUT if that was the plan in the first place, then is that still random?

Maybe because of infinite variables and infinite causes, it simply appears to be random.

We can never quantify infinity.

So then what if it is NOT random? Does it make any difference?

Can anyone then, determine future events?

NO. No because of Infinity. There are an infinite number of possibilities (variables) within an infinite multidimensional matrix.

So my conclusion is that it does not matter if it is really random or or not.

As far as we are concerned... it is random simply because we can never prove otherwise.

We are. We're talking about concepts not the etymology of words.

Physics has always existed as a concept. In fact, I would even argue that this is the very concept of empiricism.

So to say that empiricism came before physics would be absurd in that concext.

If anything empiricism arose from the fact that we live in a physical world (i.e. physics)

Like Jeanniebean suggested on serveral occassions, you often speak about "philosophy" as though is is the study of the "History of Philosophers and philosophical thought of humanity".

That's not philosophy.

That's the history of philosophical thought of humans.

Philosophy is the actual thought not the history of thought.

Who thought of what first is totally irrelevant.

Empiriscism is thought based on experience.

Experience is physical.

Unless dreams and visions count.

But if dreams and visions count then empiricism would include anything that anyone can imagine having experienced including hallucinations.

I don't think this is what people normally mean when they talk about philosophy based on empiricism. What they actually mean is philosophy based on physicality (i.e. physics).

Even the early Greeks were often thinking in terms of physics even though they didn't call it that. It's still how they were thinking.

Now that's what I call PIMPIN'

there is the objective and the subjective. physics concerns itself exclusively with the objective.

Well, there's far more to it than meets the eye.

Even within the mathematics of quantum physics the so-called 'randomness' does not go unaffected by the macro environment.

Of course that depends on the event in question. But the point being that the macro environment affects the probabilities. So even though there is randomness, that randomness is not exactly 'happenstance'.

There's more to it than this. Which has already been taken into account by quantum mechanics.

To think that randomness means, "anything goes" is wrong thinking.

That's not what randomness means in QM.

It's like rolling dice. If you roll a pair of dice you have certain probablities of getting 2 though 12 or any whole number in between. That's random but not complete "happenstance". In other words, you're not going to roll a zero, or a 13, or even a 3.5. Those aren't possible. So randomness does not mean, "anything goes".

It's random, not chaos. There's a difference.

Also like rolling dice, if you only roll one die you change the probability of what can come up, now you can only get 1 through 6.

So you have some control over the "randomness" by how many dies you roll.




From a philosophical point of view I feel that it does.

If there is no randomness permitted in the universe and everything is predetermined, and we are a part of this unvierse (which clearly we are). Then we could have no free will choice because are very thoughts and actions would all then need to be predetermined.

This is one point where I feel differently that Feynman.

If there is no randomness allowed in the universe, then no one could be responsible for anything they did because all of their thoughts and actions would necessarily be predetermined too!

Unless they believe that they are some sort of "spirit" that is "Other than this universe". But even if that were true, if the physical universe itself does not allow for randomness then how could they control these physical bodies? Everything would be predetermined. Even they could change that if they are attempting to do it through these physical bodies.

The random element of physicality would be required for them to even manipulate physical bodies in ways that weren't predetermined.

How else could they implement free will actions?

For me it make much more sense to just accept that free randomness is built right into physicality.

This is what makes free will possible, IMHO.

I'm not sure why Feynman would think that this is nonsense. Why should it be nonsense? He was probably annoyed by some "new age" publications when he said that. (ha ha)

If everything is predetermined then no one is responsible for anything because even their behvaior would need to be predetermined.

Even free spirits could not possess bodies in this universe and use them to excute free will because the physical bodies of this universe would be predetermined. They would need to be able to override that predeterminism.

It makes much more sense to me that the universe has a random aspect built right into it. Then the problem is solved.

I don't why everyone is so afraid of randomness. Probably because they confuse it with "chaos".

I agree whole heartedly. In fact, to me, 'random' means free will.

Consciousness imparts free will within certain guidelines. Hence we have both chaos and order in the universe.

I know I have both chaos and order in my life. I am trying to find a balance between these two states of being and mind.

Objective subjectivity?
Or subjective objectivity?
it's all just thought
about the plot
of cosmic creativity

Slowhand's waving in the air
his lightening mind a blinding glare
Pimpin' on the forums bare
in trousers void of underwear

Philosophy is so much fun
all the women come undone
all the thoughts beneath the sun
are food for so much pun

Some take they're thoughts too serious
and try to be imperious
others seem delirious
whist life remains mysterious

Subjective objectivity
poetic expressivity
a quantum fact
of the random act
of radioactivity

Cavemen doing physics says it all.

There is no point in my continuing here.



I agree with Feynman.

FINALLY!

"We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on." - Richard Feynman

I was wondering when you would come around.

So there is no confusion regarding what I am agreeing with...



Indeterminism is not acausal.