Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, Essays on Mind and Matter

[Bacchus]

If it's physically impossible for "quark" and "empty space with a point charge" to exhibit any observable difference in behavior, then those descriptions are equivalent and the objective fundament is equivalently either.

So here's the thing: by the principle of materialism it is physically impossible for "4 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of carbon bonded in a particular way" and "methane" to exhibit any observable difference in behaviour. In fact, if they ever did, we would refine our theories until they didn't. And that was just my point all along -- on this account any level is equivalently "foundational".

A divine miracle could be an example of higher-order causality, that God's will is the fundament exerting causality on the particles.

You are mixing up materialism with reductionism again, I'm not asking for anything so exotic. This now makes a good follow-up to the point immediately above. What experiment at the level of books would prove that for a particular phenomenon it is the bookness that matters? For example: I have some methane and some air, and I decide to burn it. Chemistry gives me a pretty straightforward prediction -- I'll get some water, maybe a tiny amount of soot, lots of CO2, lots of energy, rest of air composition will be mostly untouched. Particle physics will also give some kind of prediction presumably, we start with a soup of particles at various energies, we end with a different soup. Now, if predictions of chemistry systematically bear out better than the predictions of particle physics, would you give more credence to the idea that it's the particle physics that's perhaps an approximation, whilst the chemistry is closer to describing what's really going on?

[TheHumanHydra]

@THH

I wanted to establish an agreed pathway to identifying some non-subjective non-divine kinds of normativity, so that now we are apparently agreed that they exist we have at least a sketch of what such a kind might look like. I also wanted to show how we can bring to an end infinite regresses of the sort "Well, you described A, but why should I care? Oh, B? But why should I care about B? Oh, C? And why should I..." These can be very tempting, so it's good to show that there are some concepts which are just constituted as normative, they are the relevant standard for their domains.

The next question is that there is indeed a separate domain of morality. I don't think we disagree on its existence, but we do need to define its boundaries or its constitution. I think we agree that the whole issue of normativity arises in consequence of the necessity of choice, which in turn is a feature of us being willing beings. Choice of means -- prudence, choice of beliefs -- logic and perception (we haven't talked about this, but I don't think you'll disagree that you ought to discard beliefs in light of contradictory evidence), choice of ends -- morality. This seems to map nicely onto what an action is -- we strive towards ends, which we seek to bring about through a choice of means, having built up some beliefs about their efficacy. To act we need to do just these things, and to act successfully we need the beliefs to be true, and the means to be selected prudently. What do we need the ends to be? Well, I would say we need the ends to be good. Striving towards bad ends is just a mistake, it is to be avoided, just like irrationality or imprudence are.

So, I put that if we can show some ends to be good, and some to be bad, just as we can show a choice of means to be effective or ineffective, we would provide an account of normativity of morality. If we can also show that some ends are good irrespective of anyone's preferences, tastes, inclinations or urges -- then we've given a non-subjective account of normativity of morality.

I think we're broadly agreed (you said you had a disagreement with my stance on objective morality, which I look forward to reading in your next post!).

While the 'why should I's seem tiresome, they're important (as I think you also said in an earlier post). Remember that the why's are on the moral axis (I do take your point that you can say 'you should' on other axes). I think a great many people (out there in the world) stop at 'killing people is just wrong' without considering why that is -- and if you keep pressing you often get to 'because I don't like it'. I think we all in this thread agree that continuing to establish reasons for beliefs is important (and I do believe you already agree, this paragraph is largely for the benefit of some reader, because I don't want that line of questioning to mistakenly be discounted).

[T-hawk]

So here's the thing: by the principle of materialism it is physically impossible for "4 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of carbon bonded in a particular way" and "methane" to exhibit any observable difference in behaviour. In fact, if they ever did, we would refine our theories until they didn't. And that was just my point all along -- on this account any level is equivalently "foundational".

This is true, that any level is equally foundational -- but this is where Occam's razor comes back in.  If you want to define methane as fundamental, then you also have to define ethane and butane and propane and ammonia and every other composite molecule or structure.  You have to describe the behavior of each one, that methane reacts with O2, that ethane reacts with O2, that butane reacts with O2, that ammonia reacts with HCl.  Particle physics gains Occam's benefit as the objectively simplest description of reality, the fewest rules, define the four forces plus a couple dozen particle masses and constants and you've got the results of all reactions.  To describe all those reactions in terms of chemistry requires a rule for every possible pair of molecules.  If you try to invoke an abstraction like "combustion" to group some similarities, you're violating your foundation by dropping back past the molecular level to access the similarities of their constituents.

So I contend that in a sense particle physics is objectively more foundational, because each of its rules possesses more definitional power than any abstraction, which needs more rules to describe the same behavior.  Simplicity as objective primacy also shows where particle physics could lose that distinction: perhaps superstring theory or brane theory can ultimately define the same behaviors with fewer and simpler rules.

Subjectively, sure, chemistry works.  It's simpler for human perception to say "ammonia + HCl = bad gas" than to derive from the four forces all the properties of electron shells and binding energy and everything else.  This simplicity is possible because the human perception is deliberately discarding information, considering the result only in terms of its effects on human respiration rather than in terms of every electron.  But this is all relative to human cognition; any entity with enough processing power can compute everything from the bottom up and skip the abstraction.

This now makes a good follow-up to the point immediately above. What experiment at the level of books would prove that for a particular phenomenon it is the bookness that matters? For example: I have some methane and some air, and I decide to burn it. Chemistry gives me a pretty straightforward prediction -- I'll get some water, maybe a tiny amount of soot, lots of CO2, lots of energy, rest of air composition will be mostly untouched. Particle physics will also give some kind of prediction presumably, we start with a soup of particles at various energies, we end with a different soup. Now, if predictions of chemistry systematically bear out better than the predictions of particle physics, would you give more credence to the idea that it's the particle physics that's perhaps an approximation, whilst the chemistry is closer to describing what's really going on?

You're mixing up experimental physics with the theory.  I'm defining materialism to include accurate values for the particle masses and forces and everything.  Then particle physics is not an approximation, it is completely accurate.  The resulting soup is described perfectly and can define by aggregation any higher-order result.  Same as the previous point, the methane-ness or bookness only matters within the scope of some perception with limited processing power.  Chemistry could only predict anything closer if the particle theory includes inaccurate experimental error.  If chemistry does so, then we made a faulty particle theory and we'll revise it.

You are mixing up materialism with reductionism again, I'm not asking for anything so exotic.

That wasn't the point, I just used the divine as an example of something that would dramatically contrast with reductionism, and it happened to violate materialism too.

[Coeurva]

You're mixing up experimental physics with the theory.  I'm defining materialism to include accurate values for the particle masses and forces and everything.  Then particle physics is not an approximation, it is completely accurate.

Heisenberg's uncertainty is theoretical rather than dependent on the measuring tools. You simply cannot have accurate values for, say, both location and momentum of a particle at a given point of time (and likewise, if you measure either property, you influence the other). How do you resolve that -- hand-wave the inaccuracy as "negligible" to your purpose? Then any inaccuracy in describing particle soups via higher-order models can also be called "negligible" to a given purpose.

Or is that simply not important because such properties still exist at any given point in time, they just cannot be observed simultaneously by anything?

[I want to reply to both ipecac and THH as well, but that'll take more time , possibly in the evening]

[Bacchus]

[I want to reply to both ipecac and THH as well, but that'll take more time wink, possibly in the evening]

With the World Cup efforts having come to a miserable end, the Germans are free to return to their more traditional past-times.

Just couldn't resist. I actually was happy to see you in this thread and really look forward to it.

[T-hawk]

Or is that simply not important because such properties still exist at any given point in time, they just cannot be observed simultaneously by anything?

Yes, that's it.  The properties are not simultaneously observable but they do still exist with specific values and determine the results of the interactions of that matter.

[Coeurva]

What it shows, though, is that subject/object makes for a real distinction in particle physics: no non-empty subset of the totality of particles can completely measure any of its elements. I take this as a clue that subject/object also makes sense in speaking of higher-order abstractions derived from the simple "facts of the matter".

"Truth" is a property of properties of an object (thus, amusingly, a higher-order property): namely that it exists independently of the perceiver. Thus you cannot aim towards a truthful view of the universe without acknowledging the subject/object distinction in the first place. But once subject/object is acknowledged, then your opposition to higher-order thinking, or private property for that matter, both of which arise from how the subject sees itself in relation to its object, makes little sense to me.

Also, I see no strong link between determinism and lack of purpose. Computers are deterministic automata only ever used with a purpose. It's even possible that a deterministic universe would be completely fit to a purpose of computation that unfortunately nothing within can observe. The universe as a giant computer with a finite run-time would overwhelm any computer within it trying to compute the totality of its successive states. But in playing any strategy game, computing all successive game-states is already infeasible and you will have to intuit the process reasonably correctly instead -- from evidence towards a given purpose. If all matter is technically capable of subjectivity inventing purposes according to how the soup happens to have to stir, then it might just be necessary to observe enough of that to guess at a higher purpose.

I would however agree that "objectively" (i.e. in a world without subjects) no purpose could indeed exist.

(ipecac, THH: response continues to be delayed sorry).

[TheHumanHydra]

(ipecac, THH: response continues to be delayed sorry).

No worries!

[ipecac]

Let's resume after the world cup ends.

[Bacchus]

Going back in the thread a bit, a good bit of Einstein on reductionism vs high-level theories from Quora:

We can distinguish various kinds of theories in physics. Most of them are constructive. They attempt to build up a picture of the more complex phenomena out of the materials of a relatively simple formal scheme from which they start out. Thus the kinetic theory of gases seeks to reduce mechanical, thermal, and diffusional processes to movements of molecules—i.e., to build them up out of the hypothesis of molecular motion. When we say that we have succeeded in understanding a group of natural processes, we invariably mean that a constructive theory has been found which covers the processes in question.

Along with this most important class of theories there exists a second, which I will call “principle-theories.” These employ the analytic, not the synthetic, method. The elements which form their basis and starting-point are not hypothetically constructed but empirically discovered ones, general characteristics of natural processes, principles that give rise to mathematically formulated criteria which the separate processes or the theoretical representations of them have to satisfy.

Thus the science of thermodynamics seeks by analytical means to deduce necessary conditions, which separate events have to satisfy, from the universally experienced fact that perpetual motion is impossible. The advantages of the constructive theory are completeness, adaptability, and clearness, those of the principle theory are logical perfection and security of the foundations.

The theory of relativity belongs to the latter class.

And a comment from the posting author:

Einstein’s parallel with Thermodynamics is helpful, because it gives an example of how a principle theory can be hugely powerful, and also remain valid through huge revolutions in the physics around it.

In their construction of thermodynamics, Carnot and Clausius didn’t bother with any microphysical theory of gasses or matter. They remained totally agnostic as to what the microphysics was, and rested their theory from four principles (the three laws plus the so-called zeroth one), which they asked us simply to accept. Given those, they showed how one is able to derive many predictions for any process involving heat, and do so regardless of the microphysics. The justification for these original principles are simply the observational success that these predictions have. And this is a massive advantage, for thermodynamics was able to retain its validity through the creation of the kinetic theory of gasses, atomic theory, the quantum revolution, and is now being applied to exotic objects like black holes. Thermodynamics itself does not care that we can put a statistical mechanical account “underneath” it for many types of matter; it’s interesting that we can, and it’s valuable work to do so, but it’s irrelevant to the logic of the thermodynamics, which remains valid just so long as its principles do.

My underlining. I really liked this account for clarity of a non-technical sort. From it, you can go several ways -- you can say that there is a one true microphysics which makes principle theories like thermodynamics true at an aggregate level; you can say that there is one true macrophysics, or one set of macrophysical principles, and any constructive theory is only good to the extent it conforms to these principles; or you can say that there is no inherent primality in either type of theory. I prefer saying that both are human approaches at working out reality by giving systematic accounts of experiences in terms of abstract and formally related entities, and neither is primary, nor reflective of one true account that the world itself inherently follows.

I also owe an ethical theory, I do remember, but hard to find the time and do justice to it.