Physics doesn't say anything exists

[Speakpigeon]

My point is that Qantum Physics doesn't contain equations proving particles. For example, although it's been assumed by scientists for a while that bubble chambers showed the trajectory of actual particles, physicists now accept that it is merely compatible with this possibility, i.e. it's also very possible that there are no particles at all, only bubbles that pop up along a particular curve merely because that curve is just the most probable location for the bubbles to show up. I understand this is now the standard view. And QM being the general framework for other theories, such as particle physics, whenever physicists in particle physics talk about particles, this is only a matter of speaking for them, a short cut. They know there may be not particle as such. There's no good basis in theory to claim there are particles (although one believes what one believes, but it's no longer science, merely an irrational belief stemming from a Neanderthal brain).
EB

Kind of what I've been trying to say. The problem comes in because we have such a cognitive bias towards a "solid" material reality in our day-to-day existence that it becomes hard to see that a particle is not a "substance". Yes, there are some energetic behaviours and so on, but it's just not a "substance" or a "materiality" so to speak - it's something else. Exactly what it is, QM doesn't really say. What is the fundamental "substance" of reality then like materialism infers? It simply can't be found. Maybe it's more like "energy" that sounds too "spiritual" and then Deepak Chopra wins.

I'm not concerned with materialism. I think the job of science is to find out whatever exists so as to be able to predict events and occurrences, including observations. Maybe it's not even possible. Still, right now QM seems able to predict observations without identifying what it is that really exists. That's what the litterature I've read over the years has said consistently. But maybe somebody here has a different understanding or there's a new perspective on this. For now, all I see is that posters here don't even get the question right. Goose chase perhaps. But I can always go back to books.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

They know there may be not particle as such. There's no good basis in theory to claim there are particles (although one believes what one believes, but it's no longer science, merely an irrational belief stemming from a Neanderthal brain).

The Standard Model is just that--a model; the elementary particles are abstract representations of the phenomena that are observed; they don't exist any more or less than a chair or any other abstraction humans have invented to describe what we observe.

Eventually, physics may develop a more precise and accurate model to describe observed phenomena, at which point the Standard Model will be discarded, and we laypersons will declare that 'particles don't actually exist' simply because scientists chose a different label.

I know what the lay person believes, broadly. I'm one of them. I was trying to gage what QM scientists believe beyond QM if anything.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Physics doesn't say anything exists

Define "exists". I suspect your title and opening statement presuppose naïve realism, the subjective "feeling" you know what you're talking about when you're a ten y.o. boy and you say things like "ball" or "person" or "disappear".

Me I don't need to define anything. Take "exist" as the usual notion, it has to be good enough. I'm asking the question so it's up to you if you want to assert any answer. If you need to produce your own definition of "exist" that's fine with me as long as I can understand it and your conclusion follows.

If it interacts with this world it exists. What exists produces either direct experience or interaction with other things that in turn are related to things that produce experience.

Ok, good try. However, for all we know, some things may be interacting "among themselves" without interacting with us, i.e. without producing experience. Or have you already decided that everything that exists cannot possibly not interact with us? I fail to see on what basis you could know that, save for wishful thinking. So, for now I don't see why existence would imply interaction.

Still, I don't need that you prove that anything that exists interacts with us so that we can know it. Instead, I accept that we can infer that something must exist from the fact that we experience interactions, and I accept that we do. So I think we can assume that there is something that exists that ultimately produce physical observations. But what is it exactly? So my question was: Do you think science has identified any of the particular things that really exist as opposed to merely infering that an unspecified something must exist?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Humans are entirely physical entities; 'observation' is just a particular set of physical interactions that happens to include a human being.

Wavefunctions collapse through decoherence - an irreversible interaction between a system and its environment. That environment need not include any humans, any intelligences, or indeed any lifeforms.

Physics doesn't say anything exists; it starts with the assumption that things exist, and endeavours to describe how those things behave. That it does so extremely well - making predictions that are accurate to within our ability to measure - strongly implies that the a priori assumption is correct; Particularly as all epistemologies so far proposed that do not make this starting assumption fail miserably, either making predictions that fail when tested, or making no testable predictions at all.

Let's keep it close to the question.

We all agree I think that something must exist. And I accept that science does a very good job of predicting the outcome of fiendishly complicated experiments that few people even understand. But the question was about whether science does or doesn't tell us whether any particular thing exists. For example, particle physics obviously assumes particles but physicists don't have to be committed to the actual existence of particles as such. The model seems to work without that physicists have to claim that the particles exist as such. All they need is to say that starting from how things appear to be they can infer what they will appear to be at some point in the future. That's how I understand that the official line stands. But is it what scientists themselves believe?
EB

 

[Juma]

right now QM seems able to predict observations without identifying what it is that really exists.

exact. In fact: i have no idea what an observation of "what it is that really exist" would be about.

That things are made of stuff is just a folkpsychological view of things.

Things are structures of components with specific behaviour.

 

[skepticalbip]

right now QM seems able to predict observations without identifying what it is that really exists.

exact. In fact: i have no idea what an observation of "what it is that really exist" would be about.

That things are made of stuff is just a folkpsychological view of things.

Things are structures of components with specific behaviour.

I think the thing that confuses the psychological minded is that they are conflating two very different concepts. They see mental ideas and concepts as existing (which they do) and attempt to equate that idea with the physical existence (phenomena that has properties of mass/energy and position in space time) of matter that exists independently of humanity's awareness of it. They seem to have difficulty accepting that something can exist unless it is fully modeled it in their minds in a way that it conforms to their understandings - a mental image.

 

[Juma]

exact. In fact: i have no idea what an observation of "what it is that really exist" would be about.

That things are made of stuff is just a folkpsychological view of things.

Things are structures of components with specific behaviour.

I think the thing that confuses the psychological minded is that they are conflating two very different concepts. They see mental ideas and concepts as existing (which they do) and attempt to equate that idea with the physical existence (phenomena that has properties of mass/energy and position in space time) of matter that exists independent of humanity's awareness. They seem to have difficulty imagining that something can exist unless they can fully model it in their minds in a way that it conforms to their understandings.

Yes. They believe that human rationality in some magic way is more real, more basic, than reality.

 

[Bomb#20]

Let's keep it close to the question.

We all agree I think that something must exist. And I accept that science does a very good job of predicting the outcome of fiendishly complicated experiments that few people even understand. But the question was about whether science does or doesn't tell us whether any particular thing exists. For example, particle physics obviously assumes particles but physicists don't have to be committed to the actual existence of particles as such. The model seems to work without that physicists have to claim that the particles exist as such. All they need is to say that starting from how things appear to be they can infer what they will appear to be at some point in the future. That's how I understand that the official line stands. But is it what scientists themselves believe?
EB

Existence is not a predicate; it's a quantifier. To say "P exists", where P is a noun, is to speak loosely. To speak rigorously you have to say "There exists an X such that P(X)", where P is a property, an adjective. If you say "The King of France does not exist", that's vague. Does it mean "Henri d'Orléans is a figment of our imagination."? Or does it mean "Henri d'Orléans' claim to the French monarchy is legally invalid."? One's a scientist question; one's a lawyer question.

Likewise, to rigorously ask if particles really exist is to ask whether there exists an X such that X is particleish. If a scientist says particles don't really exist, she's probably not making a metaphysical claim about trees in forests not really falling; she's probably saying the stuff we observe is pretty waveish and not very particleish. Wave-particle duality is hard to wrap your mind around. So if you want to know whether science tells us particles really exist, first you need to give us a rigorous definition of "particleish". But in general, yes, science tells us any particular thing exists. For instance, science tells us Henri d'Orléans is not a figment of our imagination. Put him next to a torsion balance and his gravitational field will rotate it.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Careful. The situation is asymmetrical. You're right that we can't know it will be there long after humans disappear. Perhaps humans will disappear because the observable universe is about to collide with another brane and the collision will destroy all matter; perhaps humans will disappear because we're simulated and the computer running us is going to crash in a blue screen of death. It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

But the past is a whole other story. Epistemological concerns about simulated worlds or trees falling in forests are no excuse for magical thinking. Yes, before humans arrived there was somebody to measure it. We know this to be true because without that somebody, there couldn't have been any humans. As Darwin put it in one of his notebooks, "Plato says that our 'necessary ideas' arise from the preexistence of the soul, are not derivable from experience -- read monkeys for preexistence." Even if all humans exist only in a Bostrom-style simulation, what of it? That scenario implies less than you may think. You can't make a simulated human unless (a) you already have a real human to copy it from, or (b) you have a simulated monkey to evolve it from, or (c) you wish your computer program into existence by magic. And the same goes for the simulated monkey -- its very existence implies a real or simulated fish, which implies a real or simulated bacterium, which implies real or simulated physical stuff. And even if it's simulation all the way down to the level of quarks, that doesn't mean quarks don't exist. It means the true nature of a quark is to be a data structure in some computer; but a data structure is a real object too. So what's the difference between a universe where quarks are made of bytes and a universe where quarks are made of enough sub-quark-level particles to fulfill Wiechert's wildest dreams? It doesn't make a difference to the conclusion. The fact that we can't ever know we've reached the bottom level of physical reality, and the fact that at any given point in our research we can do nothing but speculate about anything that's more than one level down from what we've discovered so far, do not change the fact that there had to be stuff before humans existed, in order to account for humans existing.

Epistemological limitations are something to map out carefully, not something to wave a white flag at.

Sure. But I think you're still making assumptions about the pre-existence of "matter" in your simulation example. I think it's so fundamentally intuitive for us to think in terms of "a material existence that I can bump into", that this pre-conscious intuition informs all our interpretations of what physics says or what we can possibly imagine philosophically. Practically, yes I agree it makes little difference because science works whether we are in a simulation or in the mind of a supreme being or in a material universe, it still "works". However, where it does make a difference is if we say for example that "thoughts are not real in the way matter is real" because if for example we were in a simulation they would be every bit as "physical" (real) as the "matter" in our simulation. Again, I'm not saying we are in a simulation, I'm suggesting that we become aware of our epistemological limitations - this is really at the heart of skepticism and I'm seeing a lot of dogmatic belief among people who call themselves skeptics. It's fine to say that one is convinced there is an actual material world, but then be honest about the fact that you are making some assumptions and even some faith-based leaps in your rationale.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

I think the thing that confuses the psychological minded is that they are conflating two very different concepts. They see mental ideas and concepts as existing (which they do) and attempt to equate that idea with the physical existence (phenomena that has properties of mass/energy and position in space time) of matter that exists independently of humanity's awareness of it. They seem to have difficulty accepting that something can exist unless it is fully modeled it in their minds in a way that it conforms to their understandings - a mental image.

I have no problem with the idea that we live in an exclusively physical reality. In fact psychologically I find it far more soothing and less anxiety producing than the idea that "thoughts are real" (I mean beyond simply being fundamentally neurological interactions) - the implications of which are actually rather terrifying. However, I maintain that a true skeptical position is one of agnosticism. Practically, science will still work either way.

 

[Speakpigeon]

right now QM seems able to predict observations without identifying what it is that really exists.

exact.

I feel better now.

In fact: i have no idea what an observation of "what it is that really exist" would be about.

I was never talking about observation but about scientific theory.

It's also clear that a very bright scholar at the time of Louis XI would have had no idea what "the collapse of a wave function" would have been about.

That things are made of stuff is just a folkpsychological view of things.

Amen. I knew you were a fount of wisdom one didn't even have to prompt for it splurge its truths.

Things are structures of components with specific behaviour.

Sorry, I don't even begin to understand what that could possibly mean although I have a very versatile imagination.
EB

 

[Juma]

Things are structures of components with specific behaviour.

Sorry, I don't even begin to understand what that could possibly mean although I have a very versatile imagination.
EB

Just that what we can observe is behavior, relations and structure. We cannot observe what an atom "really is" because that isnt a well defined question. Its a type of question that seems to require answers like toffe, fudge or angel dust but all such names of stuff is meaningless, atoms are best explained by their structure.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Let's keep it close to the question.

We all agree I think that something must exist. And I accept that science does a very good job of predicting the outcome of fiendishly complicated experiments that few people even understand. But the question was about whether science does or doesn't tell us whether any particular thing exists. For example, particle physics obviously assumes particles but physicists don't have to be committed to the actual existence of particles as such. The model seems to work without that physicists have to claim that the particles exist as such. All they need is to say that starting from how things appear to be they can infer what they will appear to be at some point in the future. That's how I understand that the official line stands. But is it what scientists themselves believe?
EB

Existence is not a predicate; it's a quantifier. To say "P exists", where P is a noun, is to speak loosely. To speak rigorously you have to say "There exists an X such that P(X)", where P is a property, an adjective. If you say "The King of France does not exist", that's vague. Does it mean "Henri d'Orléans is a figment of our imagination."? Or does it mean "Henri d'Orléans' claim to the French monarchy is legally invalid."? One's a scientist question; one's a lawyer question.

I know this story, thanks.

You should be aware that it is just a story, though. You can trust it's true but you should refrain from pretending it's obviously true. It isn't. I think the real interpretation is somewhat more complicated than that as the long story of all the subsequent logicians, philosophers and linguists who commented on this view of Bertrand Russell shows.

Crucially, it is not even clear what you mean here. Existence is what is but surely it's not a predicate, a quantifier or any such linguistic or mathematical notion. Did you mean "existence", the word, rather than existence, the reference of the word "existence"? If so you should understand that different people mean different thing using the same words.

Russell tried to build a concept of existence that could be handled easily in mathematical or logical propositions. It was essentially a pragmatic move to free himself and logic from the vagaries of the philosophical enquiry at the time. Whether his concept covered what existence really is was never addressed by him, or anything else I've read for that matter.

Personally, I have a different theory, one giving justice to people and the way people speak, something most logicians have never been interested in.

Likewise, to rigorously ask if particles really exist is to ask whether there exists an X such that X is particleish.

If that was what I was asking I would have known the answer and not bothered you on this. I was asking whether you thought the science could be understood a suggesting the existence of any particular things, say, particles, fields, energy etc. as opposed to merely predicting future observations.

I would have thought the OP is clear enough. Are you sure you understood what I said?

If a scientist says particles don't really exist, she's probably not making a metaphysical claim about trees in forests not really falling; she's probably saying the stuff we observe is pretty waveish and not very particleish. Wave-particle duality is hard to wrap your mind around. So if you want to know whether science tells us particles really exist, first you need to give us a rigorous definition of "particleish". But in general, yes, science tells us any particular thing exists. For instance, science tells us Henri d'Orléans is not a figment of our imagination. Put him next to a torsion balance and his gravitational field will rotate it.

As far as I understand it, there not one scientific statement in the whole world that says that Henri d'Orléans "is not a figment of our imagination".

I'm also quite sure that a torsion balance cannot prove the existence of such a thing a Henri d'Orléans.

You are wasting my time. Please read again the OP and my other posts before replying, if you are so minded.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Just so we're on the same page here we all know physics doesn't say anything. Only physicists after applying physical experiments say things. Physicists are human. I dare say their existence is not in doubt.

 

[Bomb#20]

Existence is not a predicate; it's a quantifier. To say "P exists", where P is a noun, is to speak loosely. To speak rigorously you have to say "There exists an X such that P(X)", where P is a property, an adjective. If you say "The King of France does not exist", that's vague. Does it mean "Henri d'Orléans is a figment of our imagination."? Or does it mean "Henri d'Orléans' claim to the French monarchy is legally invalid."? One's a scientist question; one's a lawyer question.

I know this story, thanks.

You should be aware that it is just a story, though. You can trust it's true but you should refrain from pretending it's obviously true. It isn't.

Pretending? If it were obviously true I wouldn't have needed to expound upon it.

I think the real interpretation is somewhat more complicated than that as the long story of all the subsequent logicians, philosophers and linguists who commented on this view of Bertrand Russell shows.

You're probably right -- just about anything is somewhat more complicated than theories of that thing -- besides which, the commentary began long before Russell. Kant used it to refute St. Anselm. But I think that's not really what you're here to debate, so let's refocus.

Likewise, to rigorously ask if particles really exist is to ask whether there exists an X such that X is particleish.

If that was what I was asking I would have known the answer and not bothered you on this. I was asking whether you thought the science could be understood a suggesting the existence of any particular things, say, particles, fields, energy etc. as opposed to merely predicting future observations.

I would have thought the OP is clear enough. Are you sure you understood what I said?

I would have thought " But in general, yes, science tells us any particular thing exists. For instance, science tells us Henri d'Orléans is not a figment of our imagination. Put him next to a torsion balance and his gravitational field will rotate it." would let you know that.

I'm also quite sure that a torsion balance cannot prove the existence of such a thing a Henri d'Orléans.

You are wasting my time. Please read again the OP and my other posts before replying, if you are so minded.
EB

I'm sorry you feel that way; I think you feeling that way indicates that you misunderstand what science is. Science is not theories of particles, fields, energy etc. "Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic." - T.H. Huxley

If you want examples of things science tells us exist, advanced physics is the worst possible place to look, because it lives on the leading edge, the borderland between the known and the unknown. The best place to look is in the myriad scientific conclusions all of us derive every day. Every time you observe something ordinary and form an ordinary hypothesis from it and then make an observation that confirms or refutes it, you're doing science. Every time Henri's wife hears a noise, thinks it's Henri puttering in the kitchen, and then sees him there, she's doing science -- science that says he exists and is not a figment of her imagination.

But if you reject that view and are holding out for evidence of existence claims from reputable professional scientists, no problemo. Check out this link.

"our English sphinxes have probosces as long as their bodies; but in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches" - Charles Darwin

"That such a moth exists in Madagascar may be safely predicted and naturalists who visit that island should search for it with as much confidence as astronomer searched for the planet Neptune, -- and I venture to predict they will be equally successful!" - Alfred Russel Wallace​

Forty years later somebody found one. A hundred years after that somebody proved it wasn't just a lucky guess. Watch the video at the end -- it's only 4 minutes long and it's pretty impressive. Irrespective of whether physics tells us particles, fields and energy really exist, biology tells us that Xanthopan morganii praedicta really exists. So does infrared photography. Those are science too.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Just to add more examples, these from astronomy:

http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/candidates/

They found a lot of planet candidates, and then they managed to confirm plenty of them - i.e., to confirm that those planets exist.
Some astronomers are also trying to figure out whether there is a ninth planet in our Solar System (no, it's not Pluto ).

 

[skepticalbip]

And from the science of zoology: The claim is that 8.7 million eukaryotic species (meaning billions, if not trillions, of individual organisms) are known to exist on Earth and likely a hell of a lot more that hasn't yet been discovered and classified.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110823/full/news.2011.498.html

There are 8.7 million eukaryotic species on our planet — give or take 1.3 million. The latest biodiversity estimate, based on a new method of prediction, dramatically narrows the range of 'best guesses', which was previously between 3 million and 100 million. It means that a staggering 86% of land species and 91% of marine species remain undiscovered.

 

[Juma]

Personally, I have a different theory, one giving justice to people and the way people speak, something most logicians have never been interested in.

Of course not since such theories will be specific for humans, not for all intelligent beings.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sorry, I don't even begin to understand what that could possibly mean although I have a very versatile imagination.
EB

Just that what we can observe is behavior, relations and structure.

You mean "we" as human beings right? That I can understand but I disagree. The notion of structure is operational and it's a fact that it's not what you observe. Rather, you observe what we think are the consequences of there being a particular structure. Look at a human being. Say, yourself in a mirror. You will inevitably believe there's a structure there, say, like bones, muscles and tendons, yet you don't actually see it (or perceive it). Same thing for behaviours and relations. These are extrapolations your brain works out to try to make sense of what you see. As such they are not observation, stricktly speaking.

We cannot observe what an atom "really is" because that isnt a well defined question. Its a type of question that seems to require answers like toffe, fudge or angel dust but all such names of stuff is meaningless, atoms are best explained by their structure.

Blah-blah-blah. People have made science well before you were born to this world on the basis of what they thought was what really was. I don't remember you saying that it wasn't science and that science only started yesterday.

We can't say now what an atom really is because scientists have come to think that what they observe doesn't tell them what actually exists that could explain the observations. That doesn't mean the same scientists wouldn't change their minds and regard observations as what really exists provided they had some good reason to believe so.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Just so we're on the same page here we all know physics doesn't say anything. Only physicists after applying physical experiments say things. Physicists are human. I dare say their existence is not in doubt.

You think as you please but the existence of scientists is not a scientific fact.

It's just a convention: Let's start by assuming we exist blah-blah-blah.

Scientists I think would accept that they are essentially a mental construct. It's what some aspect of the world looks like.

Of course, the question now is: What is it then that does the observing if not the scientists? Well, who knows?

Apparently not the something in question.
EB