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Posted on 12/06/2003 9:14:26 AM PST by John W
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:03:32 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Ha! I guess there that's where "the uncertainty principle" basically comes from... which presumably can only be "tamed" by stochastic methods?
Somehow I suspect there's an analogy between pure mathematics and the way natural phenomena unfold and evolve in your observation. Thank you so very much, Doc, for your analysis. I will definitely study it further. (I mean that.)
So on what is it founded? I mean, we humans trust it (and depend on it for our own survival) A LOT.
Why??? What "validates" logic that we humans should trust it so?
My math prof says Nature prefers square matrices.
What validates logic, the Principle of Contradiction, in our thought processes is merely a high probability of truth, belief, after extensive observations of fact. It's only a probability. Pure logic, Law of Contradiction, would deal with certitude, a different animal intuited without fact.
If logic isn't valid, then it is valid.
Sounds absurd? That's because logic rules out contradictions; but if you rule out logic itself, then contradictions are allowed.
Well, you may ask, what's the big deal about ruling out contradictions? Ah ... that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates. Logic is nothing other than a rigorous method of thinking that is consistent with reality. And for many of us, reality is the ultimate test of all our thinking.
I know that opinions vary; but reality is what it is, and it doesn't care about our opinions.
Still just a touch of psychologism there. Be ruthless. Eliminate all ties between thought and logic.
I'm too conservative. Maybe if I were a democrat ...
Dear PH, you can’t be serious.
If what you say in the immediately foregoing is true, then both thee and me are perfectly superfluous to the Universe, in terms of its order and functioning. (Including the function of self-government.)
It therefore necessarily follows that any of our attempts to understand the Universe is a perfectly futile undertaking. It is absurd for us to think at all, for there is not profit to be gained from thinking: We are foredoomed to existential impecunity -- and therefore intellectual and ontological irrelevance.
But to say that thee and me are “superfluous to the universe” is to contradict the obvious fact that both thee and me are “here” in the universe. And not only as merely “present,” merely taking up space; but as thinkers thinking about things we have experienced, in the light of studies to which we personally resonate.
You cannot seriously believe such things are "futilites": for you invest so much personal thought and time into precisely these kinds of questions.
I merely mean to suggest that, perhaps, you think in a certain way, but you do not live in that way.
It seems that history tells us the course of planetary evolution is clearly responsive to human activities.
I know that opinions vary; but reality is what it is, and it doesn't care about our opinions…. If logic isn't valid, then it is valid.
This is the best prescription I have ever seen for the “how-to manual” on becoming a complete “flotsom and jetsom” item in the great scale of Life.
You write: “Well, you may ask, what's the big deal about ruling out contradictions? Ah ... that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates. Logic is nothing other than a rigorous method of thinking that is consistent with reality.”
Well, I certainly think that logic pertains to natural reality. In fact, to my mind that is logic’s greatest virtue. Having said that, in my observation, natural reality is not usually given to “self-contradiction.”
That seems to be the particular specialty of human beings.
It's our last show of the year,
and we're going out with a bang...
Special Guest
Kenneth Timmerman
will be discussing his latest book!
Radio FreeRepublic is sponsored by the FreeRepublic Network.
I'm serious. And I couldn't follow much of your post. I guess we have a big disagreement here. But I can't figure out where the divergence begins. If you're not sold on logic, and the objective existence of the real world, then I just don't know where we're going to find common ground. Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you.
The uncertainty principle comes from the fact that matrices do not necessarily commute when multiplied. That is, A*B does not equal B*A. For observables that commute (A*B=B*A), there is no "uncertainty principle" but for others, there is.
"Pure" (whatever that means) mathematics describes real phenomena because it was invented to do so. Abstract mathematical entities that don't seem useful are mostly ignored until a use (however tenuous) appears.
Good grief!!! PatrickHenry!!!
I am completely "sold" on the idea that the very structure of logic tells us something "useful" about the structure of the world in which you and I live. (Though I do admit this is yet a speculative idea...at FR at least.)
I know all about the "objective existence" of the "real world": I'm into it up to my eyebrows any/every day I draw breath.
So I put the question to you (meaning you tell me): Why do you and I have such tangled problems with basic (i.e., human-level) communication?
In the sentiment of rationality, as William James styled it. From the essay:
Our mind is so wedded to the process of seeing an other beside every item of its experience, that when the notion of an absolute datum is presented to it, it goes through its usual procedure and remains pointing at the void beyond, as if in that lay further matter for contemplation. In short, it spins for itself the further positive consideration of a nonentity enveloping the being of its datum; and as that leads nowhere, back recoils he the thought toward its datum again. . . The notion of nonentity may thus be called the parent of the philosophic craving in its subtilest and profoundest sense. Absolute existence is absolute mystery, for its relations with the nothing reamin unmediated to our understanding . . . The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us . . .And so he admits there is more in the world than logic, when logic ends its spiel, when courage fuels the will, when conclusions prove impotent.
The absurd abstraction of an intellect verbally formulating all its evidence and carefully estimating the probability thereof by a vulgar fraction by the size of whose denominator and numberator alone it is swayed, is ideally as inept as it is actually ipossible. It is almost incredible that men who are themselves working philosophers should pretend that any philosophy can be, or ever has been, constructed without the help of personal preference, belief, or divination. How have they succeeded in so stultifying their sense for the living facts of human nature as not to perceive that every philospoher or man of science either, whose initiative counts for anything in the evolution of thought, has taken his stand on a sort of dumb conviction tha the truth must lie in one direction rather than another, and a sort of preliminary assurance that his notion can be made to work . . .?. . . The only escape from faith is mental nullity.
That's what inspired my proof that I'm Marilyn Monroe (repeated here by popular demand):
1. All humans are divided into two classes, Marilyn and all others.
2. The number of members of the class of Marilyn is ONE.
3. The number of members of the class of PatrickHenry is ONE.
4. Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
5. One equals one.
6. Ergo ... I am Marilyn Monroe!
Whenever I discover, after a long and passionate argument, that a woman and I have been in agreement all along without realizing it, it usually means we're in love.
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