Next Meeting: January 29

Sign up with the yahoo group mentioned in the links section for time and location details.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opar/

More on quantum mechanics

This is some additional thinking on Quantum Mechanics by
our resident philosopher-physicist, who originaly posted
this response to a reader's question about Quantum Mechanics as
it related to my
posting
discussing, in part, the hierarchical nature of knowledge.
*************************************************************
Tom M. Wrote:
I think one reason why some scientists want to fight against the
idea that quantum particles jump from one position to another
(at least under certain circumstances) is that they tend to
think such particles as not being surrounded by anything (say in
the absence of fields or in the absence of being directly
influenced by other particles colliding with them).

But existence is a full plenum -- there is no nothing anywhere.
And, again, the reason for this is that existence is identity.
For there to be an actual bubble of nothing (or even a large
amount of it) surrounding elementary particles would be to say
that nothing is something, and that this
existent-which-has-no-identity could influence particles in any
way would also violate the law of causality. To be is to be
something specific, which also means it would act or change
according to its identity.

So, a further implication that the surrounded-by-nothing
advocates are claiming is that nothing can become something --
i.e. a given point in the nothing can suddenly become
transformed into a particle, as the particles moves from point A
to point B, with nothing in between; say at points A1 and A2,
those "points in space" go from having no quality to suddenly
having the quality of the particle as the particles passes
through them. And some physicists don't even mind saying that
something can come from nothing! Now, I'll grant you that some
of them don't mean it literally, but some of them do (as in the
Big Bang theory). And some of these physicists claim that a
particle that does jump does not pass through any point in
between. I think it "passes through" the sub-points A1 and A2,
but given the nature of that-which-is-in-between, it just can't
stop at those points.

Having a conception that there is something there can account
for some of the weird effects observed in quantum mechanics.
Whoever discovers its properties would have the right to name
it, but I like to call it the aether, and I've written a poem
about it on my website in the aesthetics section:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~philosophic-essays/esthetics.htm

The aether, or whatever it gets named, would have certain
specific properties and would act accordingly. So, instead of
having the conception that particles "pass through empty space"
the conception would be that such particles interact with
that-which-is-in-between and both the particle and the aether
would act according to their own identities -- which would then
be the answer to many of the weird effects investigated in
quantum mechanics (and probably Relativity as well).
©2006 Tom Miovas
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~philosophic-essays/

A Question From A Reader

One of The Readers of

"volition" as one of the "roots" of the concept "proof",
posted here on Thursday, January 5, 2006, Asks:

How does one (or, does one?) reach a 'that makes sense' level
dealing with Quantum Mechanics?
****************************************************
From Tom Miovas:

Unfortunately, many aspects of modern quantum mechanics are
not readily reducible to the perceptually self-evident, primarily
because many of its concepts are not grounded in reality by the
physicists who practice it -- and I say this as a physics and
philosophy major. In fact, many of the current quantum
physicists actually take glee in the fact that "it just doesn't
make sense," and you can hear them say this on popular science
shows. I'm not against the idea of quantization, but the way it
is represented in both physics class and popular science shows
leaves understanding to be desired. Physics, more than any other
actual science these days, needs a good philosophic washing.

However, some of the key concepts of quantization can be
reduced to the perceptually self-evident, and some of this was actually
done thousands of years ago by the Ancient Greeks. One of those
philosopher-physicists was Democritus, who came up with the
theory of atoms (yes, over two thousand years ago!).

While cutting up an apple one day, he realized that the apple
could be cut up into smaller and smaller pieces, and he wondered
just how small of a piece of apple one could get. Since the
rational Ancient Greek philosophers knew that the universe was
finite (something specific in *all* respects, existence is
identity to quote Ayn Rand), they also knew that there was no
such thing as the infinite or the infinitesimal. In other words,
one would have to reach a point at which one had the smallest
piece of apple that was possible -- it couldn't be made of an
infinite number of pieces because the apple is something finite
and specific.

Democritus called these smallest bits "atomos," which is where
we get the modern word "atom." So, if one starts cutting up an
apple, one can perceive that the bits get smaller and smaller,
and applying further reasoning, conclude that at some point one
will have the smallest bit of apple. Of course, we can't see
atoms, because they are so small, but this is one way of
grounding the idea of quantization of matter to the self-evident.

Where quantum mechanics seems to get weird is the idea that
energy, as well as matter, is quantized. But using the same
reasoning as Democritus, one can also conclude that there might
be a smallest distance one can travel or a smallest energy one
can exert. In fact, some of those same Ancient Greeks (possibly
Aristotle) gave that as an answer to Xeno's paradox.

Xeno's paradox has to do with moving in a straight line from one
position to another, always moving only half the distance
remaining. In other words, let's say one wanted to move from
point A to point B, which are twelve feet apart. The first move
is six feet, the second move is three feet, the third move is
one and a half feet, and so on. The question was: Would one
ever reach point B?

Relying on the idea of there being no infinitesimal anything and
no infinite amount of anything, one would have to conclude that
at some point of moving there would be a smallest distance one
could travel -- thus the last distance from point A to point B
would be covered in one leap at the end, so to speak.

And if one translates moving into a conceptualization of energy
(something acting or changing), then one can go from that idea
to the idea that at some point there is a smallest energy that
one could exert -- the universe cannot be comprised of either an
infinite amount of matter nor an infinite amount of possible
acting or changing (energy). In other words, at that
next-to-the-last point before taking that last smallest
movement, the energy required to move that smallest distance
would require some finite small amount of energy imparted to the
thing moving from point A to point B.

There are other aspects of quantum mechanics that I won't go
into here, but basically some of the physicists conclusions do
make sense, if one realizes that we live in a finite universe.

© 2006, T. Miovas
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~philosophic-essays/

Next Meeting:January 15, 2006

Our next meeting is January 15, 2006. We will be starting on Chapter 3, titled "Concept-Formation".

To quote the first paragraph of Chapter 3:
"For man, sensory material is only the first step of knowledge, the basic source of information. Until he has conceptualized this information, man cannot do anything with it cognitively, nor can he act on it. Human knowledge and human action are conceptual phenomena."
(Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff)

Peikoff notes in this chapter that it is basically just an "introduction" to Ayn Rand's own book: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (ITOE). For that reason, if you have the time, I recommend that you also read ITOE by Ayn Rand, in addition to reading Chapter 3 of OPAR. This is only if you have the time, and it is not a precondition to group participation. Even if you can't read ITOE right now, I recommend that you put it on your reading list and get to it whenever you can.

For meeting time and details, please sign up for the OPAR yahoo group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opar/

"volition" as one of the "roots" of the concept "proof"

Dean Wrote:

This is in regard to Chapter 2, "Volition as Axiomatic", of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR), by Leonard Peikoff, which was discussed last night (1/1/2006) at the Plano OPAR meeting. I wanted to go over my reasoning regarding the statement by Peikoff that:

"The concept of "volition" is one of the roots of the concept of "validation" (and of its subdivisions, such as "proof")."


What Peikoff means by saying that volition is one of the "roots" of the concept of validation has to do with the Objectivist recognition that knowledge is hierarchical. (The hierarchical nature of knowledge is discussed in OPAR, in Chapter 4.) In chapter 4, Peikoff uses the example of the concept "organism", which is a "higher-level concept", with underlying , "lower-level concepts" serving as its "roots". Some of these "lower level concepts would include "plant" and "animal". These two concepts, in turn, have "lower-level" concepts serving as their "roots". For instance, the concept "animal" includes the lower-level concepts of "dog", "cat", "fish", "bird", and "man". Concepts like "dog", "cat", and "man", would be regarded as "perceptual-level" or "first-level" concepts. "First level concepts" are concepts formed directly from perceptual data, without the need of prior conceptualization.

So, basically, what Peikoff means when he says that "volition" is one of the roots of "validation" or "proof" is that volition is a "higher-level concept", that is hierarchically dependent on the underlying concept of "volition". “Volition” is, in fact, a “First-level concept”, since it is directly perceivable, through introspection.

The fact that concepts are hierarchical like this means that an important part of the Objectivist logic is the need to “reduce” your abstract, “higher-level concepts” back to “first level”, perceptual concepts. Basically to learn a new, high-level concept, Objectivism says you must trace the logical chain of that high-level concept all the way back to first-level concepts. In the case of learning a concept like “organism”, this means you would take that concept, and look to what are the underlying concepts that make it up. So, you would see that, for instance, the concept “organism” includes underlying concepts like “animal”, “plant” and “fungus”. Then you would see that the concept “animal” includes underlying concepts like “dog”, “fish”, and “man”. You would also see that the concept “plant” includes underlying concepts like “tree”, “flower”, and “grass”. (You’d go through the same process with the concept “fungus”, but I’ll leave that to the biologists.) When you’ve reached concepts like “tree”, “flower”, “dog”, “man”, and “grass”, the “reduction” is complete. You have reached “first-level”, “perceptual”, concepts. At that point you have demonstrated to your mind that the abstract, “higher-level” concept “organism” has a relation to the sensory-perceptual world that you observe with your own eyes and ears. (I like to think that this is what is meant by the expression: “That makes sense”. In other words, at least what I mean when I say that something “makes sense” is that I have reduced a higher-level concept back to the perceptual level….I don’t know if this is the origin of the expression, but it’s what I mean when I say it.) With regard to invalid concepts like “god”, you can see that they are invalid by noting that you cannot “reduce” this concept back to anything that you can see or hear, to the perceptual level.

The same “reduction” can be done with the concept of “proof”. However, going straight from the concept of “proof” to the concept of “volition” is a pretty large leap. It would be like going directly from the concept “organism” to the concept “tree” in your mind, with nothing in-between to tie the two together. So, I will outline my own attempt to “reduce” the concept of “proof”.

First, I think it helps to discuss some of the ways that we use the concept “proof”. This actually helps to establish “context”, which is another important part of the Objectivist methodology of learning new concepts. (See Chapter 4 of OPAR regarding “context”.) But, “context” and “hierarchy” are actually interrelated, so you can’t really have one without the other, I think. Three uses of the concept “proof” came to my mind when I started thinking about this. First is the old “Socrates syllogism”: “All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.” Second was what happens at a criminal trial: The State must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused is guilty. The third example I thought of is a little bit more silly, but I think it is still a valid use of the concept. Sometimes, in movies and literature, the female protagonist will ask the male protagonist to prove his love to her by undertaking some task, usually one that involves a great struggle by the male protagonist. For instance, in the movie, “A Knights Tale”, which came out a couple of years ago, the female protagonist asks the hero to deliberately loose a jousting tournament to prove how much he loves her. Whether it is right for a woman to ask a man to do this, just to show that he loves her, is a separate issue. The point is, the female protagonist wanted the hero to manifest in some perceivable way that his feelings for her were sincere, and that she wasn’t just a sexual conquest to him. Similarly, with respect to a criminal trial, when we say that the State must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused is guilty, what we mean is that the State must present enough facts to show to people who did not witness the event, namely the jurors and the judge, that the defendant did in fact commit the crime. In other words, the prosecution must, in some way, convince the judge and jury that although they didn’t see the defendant commit the crime, the facts that they present to them will lead to only one logical conclusion: that the defendant did commit the crime. So, a criminal prosecution is an attempt to demonstrate something, namely a crime, that isn’t observable directly in perceptual reality, in a way that makes it as good as if the judge and jury had been there to observe it directly. Once again, we are trying to relate the unobservable (or the unobserved) back to what we do observe in perceptual reality.

Now let me go back to the first example of the common use of the concept “proof”: the “Socrates syllogism”. You are attempting do demonstrate that “Socrates is mortal”. To do this, you take knowledge that you already have. First you already know, hopefully through induction, performed at an earlier time, that “All men are mortal”. Second, you can see that “Socrates is a man”. However, you cannot directly perceive that “Socrates is mortal.” To directly observe Socrates’ mortality, you would have to actually observe him be born, grow old, and then die. You have other things you’d like to do with your life, so you’d like to be able to conclude that Socrates is mortal without waiting 80+ years to find out. So, you use prior observations and knowledge about other men, and then use logical deduction to conclude that Socrates is mortal. Like the other two examples of “proof”, I think that you are trying to relate, in your mind, the unobserved, or what is not perceivable, to what is perceivable and observable.

So, based on what I’ve said so far, relating the unobserved to the observed seems to be an essential, “lower-level concept” of the “higher level concept” of proof. Furthermore, all three examples point out something else important. In all three instances, you are engaging in this process of “proof” in order to change or conform your actions to your conclusions. In the case of the criminal trial, the jurors and judge, representing “the people”, are deciding whether they need to change their appraisal of the accused defendant. They must decide if they want to change their belief that he should be free to live and interact with others in society, which is the “presumption” given to all men who haven’t been shown to have violated individual rights. If they change their minds regarding the accused, then it will become necessary to restrict the defendant’s freedom in some way in order to ensure that he doesn’t violate other’s rights again. (This usually means the defendant will be sent to jail.) In the case of the “Socrates Syllogism”, your conclusion that “Socrates is mortal” means that you must treat Socrates in a certain way. You cannot feed him poison and expect him to continue living. Furthermore, you can expect Socrates to need things like a will for when he dies, which means, in the case of a lawyer like myself, that he is a potential customer and that I should advertise to Socrates the fact that I could write him a will, in exchange for money. With regard to the case of the female protagonist in literature, who demands that the hero “prove his love” to her, it means that if the hero fails the test, she should spurn his advances towards her, because he doesn’t love her, and merely regards her as a sexual conquest. But, if the hero does “prove his love” to her satisfaction, then she should,…well…you know the rest.

So, I think that there are at least two underlying concepts that seem essential to understanding the “higher-level concept” of “proof”. First is the need to relate the unobserved, or the unobservable, to the observable by means of certain methods of thinking (logic). Second, is the fact that we can choose to conform our thought and action to our proofs. The fact that we can make these choices, i.e., that we have volition, is therefore one of the epistemological “roots” of the concepts of “validation” and “proof”.

New Plano OPAR Group Announcement Board

If you only want to receive meeting announcements regarding the Plano OPAR group, then sign up for this secondary yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opar-announce/

I will continue to post meeting announcements to both groups, but this one will only have meeting announcements on it, so you can eliminate the chatter on the regular yahoo group from your e-mail box, if you aren't interested in that.