The science against metaphysical materialism

[skepticalbip]

Oops! Apologies for the mis-attribution. Too many late nights...will fix this in the next post.

You are still using special pleading (a logical fallacy) for spacetime. How do we know anything actually exists (even your desk chair, stars, the moon, etc.) other than through our sense/cognition? You seem to be asking how we know it exists other than by our sensing and understanding it but you don't ask that of your desk chair, stars, the moon. etc This is why I asked you for your criteria for knowing anything exists - but you still refuse to tell me. So I don't know what would convince you that we know spacetime exists as well as we know that anything else exists.

Well, you still haven't answered my question. But ok, I'll answer yours. There is no fool proof way of deciding on a criteria for what "exists" and avoiding solipsism completely so the best we can do is rely on inter-subjective consensus (between several or many individuals) via sense-perception and cognition, which I see as the basis of empiricism. I see a chair. My friend sits in the chair and so we both acknowledge that the chair "exists" (as an object of sense and cognition). I don't see where you are seeing a logical fallacy...can you try to point it out more clearly?

Thanks. That makes your acceptance of reality a little clearer. So, for you, it is personal experiencing and a democratic agreement of those you trust.

Now, could you answer my question: Is 3 dimensionality a property of spacetime (independent of human sense and cognition) or a property of the representation of space time as it appears to humans through sense and cognition. A simple boolean answer would suffice and keep it simple so we can take this step by step.

Spacetime has at least three dimensions. Einstein described four. We have measured the bending of this "fabric" in a hell of a lot of tests. The twisting and dragging of this "fabric" has been measured. The fact that this "fabric" is a medium that supports the propagation of gravity waves has been shown.

But then since you haven't sensed it yourself and probably none of those you trust will vote for it existing, you will be unlikely accept the scientific necessity, scientific understanding, scientific testing, and scientific detection of spacetime. Never mind that the satellite GPS system wouldn't work without our accounting for the effects of spacetime - you can just consider that to be magic.

But then you apparently accept that particles and atoms exist even though you have never experienced them yourself so have to trust the understanding of science. You apparently accept that stars exist but can only detect points yourself so have to depend on science to explain their reality as physical objects that are gigantic balls of plasma undergoing ans sustained by nuclear fusion. There is a hell of a lot that you must rely on science to understand that it exists since you can not sense it yourself. No one has ever "seen" a radio wave so any understanding we have of their existence can only come from science's understanding of reality.

ETA:
Maybe an understanding of what you define as existing would settle the whole confusion. Is your definition of "existing" such that only Fermionic matter exists? If so then you are missing the overwhelming majority of the universe. By this weird definition, spacetime wouldn't exist. Earth's magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar radiation wouldn't exist. Much of the solar radiation wouldn't exist. The principle that drives electric motors wouldn't exist. Gravity itself wouldn't exist. etc. etc.

 

[ronburgundy]

Well he gives analogies like the dekstop analogy and the example about being fine-tuned for the right amount of water. Sure, it's not a paper but it's fairly logical that we're adapted for survival rather than for reality.

.

Just stop and think about the underlined statement you made. First, the idea that we evolved for survival inherently presumes that there is an external objective reality that impacts our survival, which directly contradicts why you and this idiot Hoffman claim is implied by Quantum Physics. If there is no reality, then their is nothing to adapt to and nothing that will impact our survival.
The evolutionary psychology that Hoffman is misrepresenting completely supports materialism and the reality of objective properties in the external world that no matter what we believe about them, have reliable causal impacts upon us. All that such a theory says is that being perfectly accurate in our beliefs is not necessary for survival, and sometimes taking the time to figure it out would be maladaptive.
However, having views that are the opposite or completely irrelevant to reality would harm survival more often than not. So, adapting to survive requires an information processing system that inputs some external information about reality and organizes it in ways that have some degree of accurate correspondence to the external world that we must predict and manipulate in order to survive.
Being able to accurately infer which organisms you can eat, and which creatures are likely to eat you first is vital to survival, despite not needing to know everything about reality in order to make such an assessment at better than random chance accuracy.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Oops! Apologies for the mis-attribution. Too many late nights...will fix this in the next post.



Well, you still haven't answered my question. But ok, I'll answer yours. There is no fool proof way of deciding on a criteria for what "exists" and avoiding solipsism completely so the best we can do is rely on inter-subjective consensus (between several or many individuals) via sense-perception and cognition, which I see as the basis of empiricism. I see a chair. My friend sits in the chair and so we both acknowledge that the chair "exists" (as an object of sense and cognition). I don't see where you are seeing a logical fallacy...can you try to point it out more clearly?

Thanks. That makes your acceptance of reality a little clearer. So, for you, it is personal experiencing and a democratic agreement of those you trust.

Now, could you answer my question: Is 3 dimensionality a property of spacetime (independent of human sense and cognition) or a property of the representation of space time as it appears to humans through sense and cognition. A simple boolean answer would suffice and keep it simple so we can take this step by step.

Spacetime has at least three dimensions. Einstein described four. We have measured the bending of this "fabric" in a hell of a lot of tests. The twisting and dragging of this "fabric" has been measured. The fact that this "fabric" is a medium that supports the propagation of gravity waves has been shown.

But then since you haven't sensed it yourself and probably none of those you trust will vote for it existing, you will be unlikely accept the scientific necessity, scientific understanding, scientific testing, and scientific detection of spacetime. Never mind that the satellite GPS system wouldn't work without our accounting for the effects of spacetime - you can just consider that to be magic.

But then you apparently accept that particles and atoms exist even though you have never experienced them yourself so have to trust the understanding of science. You apparently accept that stars exist but can only detect points yourself so have to depend on science to explain their reality as physical objects that are gigantic balls of plasma undergoing ans sustained by nuclear fusion. There is a hell of a lot that you must rely on science to understand that it exists since you can not sense it yourself. No one has ever "seen" a radio wave so any understanding we have of their existence can only come from science's understanding of reality.

ETA:
Maybe an understanding of what you define as existing would settle the whole confusion. Is your definition of "existing" such that only Fermionic matter exists? If so then you are missing the overwhelming majority of the universe. By this weird definition, spacetime wouldn't exist. Earth's magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar radiation wouldn't exist. Much of the solar radiation wouldn't exist. The principle that drives electric motors wouldn't exist. Gravity itself wouldn't exist. etc. etc.

Apologies for not being around lately to engage but I've had a ton of work to do and tight deadlines.

What I'm suggesting is more subtle than how you have framed this. I'm not disputing the existence of what we perceive as particles or space-time or matter. What I'm questioning is whether the way they appear to us (or how they are represented to us through our sense and cognition) may be related more to properties of sense and cognition than to these things as they are independent of human sense and cognition (in themselves). So yes, certainly there are effects that we can measure but we can't say if the model we have accurately represents space-time. Rather we have to say that our model represents how we perceive spacetime.

For arguments sake if we pretended that space was actually only 1 dimensional but that somehow as humans we have the faculty of perceiving it holographically in 3 dimensions then it would change our assumptions about spacetime dramatically. We would then argue that this is completely illogical because if we cut a human open and take out his / her brain we cannot conceive of how such a brain could only occupy 1 dimensional space, since it appears to have 3 dimensions. But in such a case it once again exposes our assumption. We are merely perceiving a human brain in 3 dimensions as a property of a holographic projection rather than as a property of space / matter. So, in such a case something like quantum non-locality would become logical because we know that in the underlying reality the 2 particles actually occupy the same space and are perhaps actually still only a single particle, it's just that we have perceived and measured this non-locality as part of a holographic projection of the 1 dimension of spacetime. Bringing instrumentation into the equation doesn't help us either because we don't know if the instruments themselves are part of the holographic projection or part of spacetime independent of it projected appearance to us.

Now of course I'm not suggesting that spacetime actually is only one dimensional (as it is in itself and beyond human perception), I'm saying that fundamentally we can't really know. So yes, I absolutely agree that practically empiricism work and is effective in telling us about how we perceive the world but epistemoogically we have to be careful about the assumptions we make and whether we can honestly say that the percieved properties of a thing belong to the thing as it is in itself or whether they belong to how the thing is represented to us.

Does this make sense?

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Well he gives analogies like the dekstop analogy and the example about being fine-tuned for the right amount of water. Sure, it's not a paper but it's fairly logical that we're adapted for survival rather than for reality.

.

Just stop and think about the underlined statement you made. First, the idea that we evolved for survival inherently presumes that there is an external objective reality that impacts our survival...

1) How so?
2) How can you actually know?

 

[Juma]

Thanks. That makes your acceptance of reality a little clearer. So, for you, it is personal experiencing and a democratic agreement of those you trust.

Now, could you answer my question: Is 3 dimensionality a property of spacetime (independent of human sense and cognition) or a property of the representation of space time as it appears to humans through sense and cognition. A simple boolean answer would suffice and keep it simple so we can take this step by step.

Spacetime has at least three dimensions. Einstein described four. We have measured the bending of this "fabric" in a hell of a lot of tests. The twisting and dragging of this "fabric" has been measured. The fact that this "fabric" is a medium that supports the propagation of gravity waves has been shown.

But then since you haven't sensed it yourself and probably none of those you trust will vote for it existing, you will be unlikely accept the scientific necessity, scientific understanding, scientific testing, and scientific detection of spacetime. Never mind that the satellite GPS system wouldn't work without our accounting for the effects of spacetime - you can just consider that to be magic.

But then you apparently accept that particles and atoms exist even though you have never experienced them yourself so have to trust the understanding of science. You apparently accept that stars exist but can only detect points yourself so have to depend on science to explain their reality as physical objects that are gigantic balls of plasma undergoing ans sustained by nuclear fusion. There is a hell of a lot that you must rely on science to understand that it exists since you can not sense it yourself. No one has ever "seen" a radio wave so any understanding we have of their existence can only come from science's understanding of reality.

ETA:
Maybe an understanding of what you define as existing would settle the whole confusion. Is your definition of "existing" such that only Fermionic matter exists? If so then you are missing the overwhelming majority of the universe. By this weird definition, spacetime wouldn't exist. Earth's magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar radiation wouldn't exist. Much of the solar radiation wouldn't exist. The principle that drives electric motors wouldn't exist. Gravity itself wouldn't exist. etc. etc.

Apologies for not being around lately to engage but I've had a ton of work to do and tight deadlines.

What I'm suggesting is more subtle than how you have framed this. I'm not disputing the existence of what we perceive as particles or space-time or matter. What I'm questioning is whether the way they appear to us (or how they are represented to us through our sense and cognition) may be related more to properties of sense and cognition than to these things as they are independent of human sense and cognition (in themselves). So yes, certainly there are effects that we can measure but we can't say if the model we have accurately represents space-time. Rather we have to say that our model represents how we perceive spacetime.

For arguments sake if we pretended that space was actually only 1 dimensional but that somehow as humans we have the faculty of perceiving it holographically in 3 dimensions then it would change our assumptions about spacetime dramatically. We would then argue that this is completely illogical because if we cut a human open and take out his / her brain we cannot conceive of how such a brain could only occupy 1 dimensional space, since it appears to have 3 dimensions. But in such a case it once again exposes our assumption. We are merely perceiving a human brain in 3 dimensions as a property of a holographic projection rather than as a property of space / matter. So, in such a case something like quantum non-locality would become logical because we know that in the underlying reality the 2 particles actually occupy the same space and are perhaps actually still only a single particle, it's just that we have perceived and measured this non-locality as part of a holographic projection of the 1 dimension of spacetime. Bringing instrumentation into the equation doesn't help us either because we don't know if the instruments themselves are part of the holographic projection or part of spacetime independent of it projected appearance to us.

Now of course I'm not suggesting that spacetime actually is only one dimensional (as it is in itself and beyond human perception), I'm saying that fundamentally we can't really know. So yes, I absolutely agree that practically empiricism work and is effective in telling us about how we perceive the world but epistemoogically we have to be careful about the assumptions we make and whether we can honestly say that the percieved properties of a thing belong to the thing as it is in itself or whether they belong to how the thing is represented to us.

Does this make sense?

Not really. You are still believing in the "thing in itself". The concept of "the thing in itself" is just a projection. It is a result of folk psychology (just like the macro concept "substance").

 

[fromderinside]

Yeah think of it this way. The thing itself is the thing . Ask now what is a thing thing but a thing thing itself, etc.

 

[skepticalbip]

Thanks. That makes your acceptance of reality a little clearer. So, for you, it is personal experiencing and a democratic agreement of those you trust.

Now, could you answer my question: Is 3 dimensionality a property of spacetime (independent of human sense and cognition) or a property of the representation of space time as it appears to humans through sense and cognition. A simple boolean answer would suffice and keep it simple so we can take this step by step.

Spacetime has at least three dimensions. Einstein described four. We have measured the bending of this "fabric" in a hell of a lot of tests. The twisting and dragging of this "fabric" has been measured. The fact that this "fabric" is a medium that supports the propagation of gravity waves has been shown.

But then since you haven't sensed it yourself and probably none of those you trust will vote for it existing, you will be unlikely accept the scientific necessity, scientific understanding, scientific testing, and scientific detection of spacetime. Never mind that the satellite GPS system wouldn't work without our accounting for the effects of spacetime - you can just consider that to be magic.

But then you apparently accept that particles and atoms exist even though you have never experienced them yourself so have to trust the understanding of science. You apparently accept that stars exist but can only detect points yourself so have to depend on science to explain their reality as physical objects that are gigantic balls of plasma undergoing ans sustained by nuclear fusion. There is a hell of a lot that you must rely on science to understand that it exists since you can not sense it yourself. No one has ever "seen" a radio wave so any understanding we have of their existence can only come from science's understanding of reality.

ETA:
Maybe an understanding of what you define as existing would settle the whole confusion. Is your definition of "existing" such that only Fermionic matter exists? If so then you are missing the overwhelming majority of the universe. By this weird definition, spacetime wouldn't exist. Earth's magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar radiation wouldn't exist. Much of the solar radiation wouldn't exist. The principle that drives electric motors wouldn't exist. Gravity itself wouldn't exist. etc. etc.

Apologies for not being around lately to engage but I've had a ton of work to do and tight deadlines.

What I'm suggesting is more subtle than how you have framed this. I'm not disputing the existence of what we perceive as particles or space-time or matter. What I'm questioning is whether the way they appear to us (or how they are represented to us through our sense and cognition) may be related more to properties of sense and cognition than to these things as they are independent of human sense and cognition (in themselves). So yes, certainly there are effects that we can measure but we can't say if the model we have accurately represents space-time. Rather we have to say that our model represents how we perceive spacetime.

For arguments sake if we pretended that space was actually only 1 dimensional but that somehow as humans we have the faculty of perceiving it holographically in 3 dimensions then it would change our assumptions about spacetime dramatically. We would then argue that this is completely illogical because if we cut a human open and take out his / her brain we cannot conceive of how such a brain could only occupy 1 dimensional space, since it appears to have 3 dimensions. But in such a case it once again exposes our assumption. We are merely perceiving a human brain in 3 dimensions as a property of a holographic projection rather than as a property of space / matter. So, in such a case something like quantum non-locality would become logical because we know that in the underlying reality the 2 particles actually occupy the same space and are perhaps actually still only a single particle, it's just that we have perceived and measured this non-locality as part of a holographic projection of the 1 dimension of spacetime. Bringing instrumentation into the equation doesn't help us either because we don't know if the instruments themselves are part of the holographic projection or part of spacetime independent of it projected appearance to us.

Now of course I'm not suggesting that spacetime actually is only one dimensional (as it is in itself and beyond human perception), I'm saying that fundamentally we can't really know. So yes, I absolutely agree that practically empiricism work and is effective in telling us about how we perceive the world but epistemoogically we have to be careful about the assumptions we make and whether we can honestly say that the percieved properties of a thing belong to the thing as it is in itself or whether they belong to how the thing is represented to us.

Does this make sense?

It doesn't seem that we have disagreement then except for your insistence that we can't "know-a-thing-as-it-is-in-itself" which no one I know claims to. Why you have only been applying this to spacetime and not your desk chair remains a mystery.

We know everything in the universe only by how it interacts with and effects other things in the universe. We create "maps" of the thingies we study which describes those interactions and effects (the properties of the thingies). A map of a country is not the "country-as-it-is-in-itself" but it tells us much about the country. You know your desk chair by the fact that it occupies space so you bump into it or it supports you when sit in it, it reflects light so you can see it, it is attracted by gravity so you can feel its weight, etc. but you can't know your "desk chair-as-it-is-in-itself". You only have a mental map of it that describes how it interacts with and effects other things.

Your knowing a "thing-as-it-is-in-itself" is a strawman since no one thinks humans are omniscient, that is unless you are trying to argue solipsism which you don't seem to be doing since you agree that we can know some things.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

It doesn't seem that we have disagreement then except for your insistence that we can't "know-a-thing-as-it-is-in-itself" which no one I know claims to. Why you have only been applying this to spacetime and not your desk chair remains a mystery.

We know everything in the universe only by how it interacts with and effects other things in the universe. We create "maps" of the thingies we study which describes those interactions and effects (the properties of the thingies). A map of a country is not the "country-as-it-is-in-itself" but it tells us much about the country. You know your desk chair by the fact that it occupies space so you bump into it or it supports you when sit in it, it reflects light so you can see it, it is attracted by gravity so you can feel its weight, etc. but you can't know your "desk chair-as-it-is-in-itself". You only have a mental map of it that describes how it interacts with and effects other things.

Your knowing a "thing-as-it-is-in-itself" is a strawman since no one thinks humans are omniscient, that is unless you are trying to argue solipsism which you don't seem to be doing since you agree that we can know some things.

Yes, I thought we were more in agreement than in disagreement once we drill down to the core of the issue. It's more than just creating "maps" though because that tends to be a reference to our intellectual models and it goes a hell of a lot deeper into the underlying pre-conscious cognitive perception of space-time and I think a lot of people miss that. You don't have to be thinking about a model of space to experience the 3-dimensionality of it (for example) - it's a pre-conscious cognition. Generally materialist agree that we are perceiving something of a cognitive distortion but I don't think they realize that it's perhaps more of a cognitive construction or that we can't actually know the difference between these. This undermines the assumptions we make about it.

Yes, I agree we can't know the thing-in-itself. Empiricism is still entirely practical, but it's meaning shifts in light of Transcendental Idealism from producing statements about the world as it is in itself to producing statements about the world as it is represented to us through our pre-conscious cognition of it. I also think that exploring the extremes of empiricism will begin to challenge our cognitive bias and I think QM demonstrates this nicely.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

Not really. You are still believing in the "thing in itself". The concept of "the thing in itself" is just a projection. It is a result of folk psychology (just like the macro concept "substance").

There is either a thing-in-itself or there is not. Space-time either exists as a thing-in-itself (independent of human perception) or it does not. If you say that there is no thing-in-itself then you are invoking classical idealism where we all exist as a thought form in the mind of a supreme being but you previous posts indicate a belief in materialism. So is there space-time as a thing independent of human perception (a thing in itself) or is there not?

Why don't you answer my questions I asked in reply to your previous post?

 

[Juma]

My post 3 posts above was incorrectly attributed to skepticalbip, so I'm fixing that in this post....although Juma asked me not to speak to him / her anymore some time back. Apparently he / she wants to continue conversing, so I will respond here:



String theory will get wild in this discussion and the number of dimensions are theoretical and undecided by the various models. Can we keep it simple for now and use classical physic's model of Euclidean / Minkowski space, 3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension (I just wanted to keep it simple and relate it to space only, but we can add time if you want)?

And yes, these dimensions are not a fidgment of our imagination.

Bear in mind that I never used the term "imagination", rather I said "sense and cognition". But ok, I'll take that as a "yes" to my question. Then the next question must necessarily be: how do you know?

They are confirmed by effects that are completely disconnected with our sense of space and movement. (How the energy of electromagnetic fields are radiated from pointsources, how sound is radiated in air. Temperature dustribution (from statistical mechanics) etc. The dimensions have a major inpact on physics as a whole.

But how can you know this since it is human scientists (who are necessarily subject to their sense and cognition of space-time) making these observations?

1) scientific method
2) indirect measurements (if there wasnt 3 the intensity of radiated light from a lightsource wouldnt follow the 1/r2 formula etc)

 

[modernPrimitive2]

My post 3 posts above was incorrectly attributed to skepticalbip, so I'm fixing that in this post....although Juma asked me not to speak to him / her anymore some time back. Apparently he / she wants to continue conversing, so I will respond here:



String theory will get wild in this discussion and the number of dimensions are theoretical and undecided by the various models. Can we keep it simple for now and use classical physic's model of Euclidean / Minkowski space, 3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension (I just wanted to keep it simple and relate it to space only, but we can add time if you want)?



Bear in mind that I never used the term "imagination", rather I said "sense and cognition". But ok, I'll take that as a "yes" to my question. Then the next question must necessarily be: how do you know?

They are confirmed by effects that are completely disconnected with our sense of space and movement. (How the energy of electromagnetic fields are radiated from pointsources, how sound is radiated in air. Temperature dustribution (from statistical mechanics) etc. The dimensions have a major inpact on physics as a whole.

But how can you know this since it is human scientists (who are necessarily subject to their sense and cognition of space-time) making these observations?

1) scientific method
2) indirect measurements (if there wasnt 3 the intensity of radiated light from a lightsource wouldnt follow the 1/r2 formula etc)

LOL. Is it 3 or 12, because earlier you were saying it's 12 dimensions?

Let me put it this way. If your cognition and sense could only perceive 2 dimensions then you would perceive all effects in the world via 2 dimensions even if the world had more dimensions. For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.



So my question remains unanswered. How do you know that 3 dimensionality is a property of space and not of human cognition?

 

[Juma]

My post 3 posts above was incorrectly attributed to skepticalbip, so I'm fixing that in this post....although Juma asked me not to speak to him / her anymore some time back. Apparently he / she wants to continue conversing, so I will respond here:



String theory will get wild in this discussion and the number of dimensions are theoretical and undecided by the various models. Can we keep it simple for now and use classical physic's model of Euclidean / Minkowski space, 3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension (I just wanted to keep it simple and relate it to space only, but we can add time if you want)?



Bear in mind that I never used the term "imagination", rather I said "sense and cognition". But ok, I'll take that as a "yes" to my question. Then the next question must necessarily be: how do you know?

They are confirmed by effects that are completely disconnected with our sense of space and movement. (How the energy of electromagnetic fields are radiated from pointsources, how sound is radiated in air. Temperature dustribution (from statistical mechanics) etc. The dimensions have a major inpact on physics as a whole.

But how can you know this since it is human scientists (who are necessarily subject to their sense and cognition of space-time) making these observations?

1) scientific method
2) indirect measurements (if there wasnt 3 the intensity of radiated light from a lightsource wouldnt follow the 1/r2 formula etc)

LOL. Is it 3 or 12, because earlier you were saying it's 12 dimensions?

Let me put it this way. If your cognition and sense could only perceive 2 dimensions then you would perceive all effects in the world via 2 dimensions even if the world had more dimensions. For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.

View attachment 6900

So my question remains unanswered. How do you know that 3 dimensionality is a property of space and not of human cognition?

Yiou should read up on physics and think about what living in a world witout volume would really mean.

 

[Kharakov]

Yiou should read up on physics and think about what living in a world witout volume would really mean.

You wouldn't hear anything.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

My post 3 posts above was incorrectly attributed to skepticalbip, so I'm fixing that in this post....although Juma asked me not to speak to him / her anymore some time back. Apparently he / she wants to continue conversing, so I will respond here:



String theory will get wild in this discussion and the number of dimensions are theoretical and undecided by the various models. Can we keep it simple for now and use classical physic's model of Euclidean / Minkowski space, 3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension (I just wanted to keep it simple and relate it to space only, but we can add time if you want)?



Bear in mind that I never used the term "imagination", rather I said "sense and cognition". But ok, I'll take that as a "yes" to my question. Then the next question must necessarily be: how do you know?

They are confirmed by effects that are completely disconnected with our sense of space and movement. (How the energy of electromagnetic fields are radiated from pointsources, how sound is radiated in air. Temperature dustribution (from statistical mechanics) etc. The dimensions have a major inpact on physics as a whole.

But how can you know this since it is human scientists (who are necessarily subject to their sense and cognition of space-time) making these observations?

1) scientific method
2) indirect measurements (if there wasnt 3 the intensity of radiated light from a lightsource wouldnt follow the 1/r2 formula etc)

LOL. Is it 3 or 12, because earlier you were saying it's 12 dimensions?

Let me put it this way. If your cognition and sense could only perceive 2 dimensions then you would perceive all effects in the world via 2 dimensions even if the world had more dimensions. For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.

View attachment 6900

So my question remains unanswered. How do you know that 3 dimensionality is a property of space and not of human cognition?

Yiou should read up on physics and think about what living in a world witout volume would really mean.

That's funny because when we play a 3D game we are immersed in a 3D environment (with sound) and yet it's all "virtual", none if it is actually a "real world", it's like a simulation. My point is not that the world is actually 2 dimensional, or that it's a simulation. I'm making no claims about it - unlike you that is buying in to the naive assumption that it is 3-dimensional when you have no way of actually knowing.

 

[Juma]

My post 3 posts above was incorrectly attributed to skepticalbip, so I'm fixing that in this post....although Juma asked me not to speak to him / her anymore some time back. Apparently he / she wants to continue conversing, so I will respond here:



String theory will get wild in this discussion and the number of dimensions are theoretical and undecided by the various models. Can we keep it simple for now and use classical physic's model of Euclidean / Minkowski space, 3 spacial dimensions and one time dimension (I just wanted to keep it simple and relate it to space only, but we can add time if you want)?



Bear in mind that I never used the term "imagination", rather I said "sense and cognition". But ok, I'll take that as a "yes" to my question. Then the next question must necessarily be: how do you know?

They are confirmed by effects that are completely disconnected with our sense of space and movement. (How the energy of electromagnetic fields are radiated from pointsources, how sound is radiated in air. Temperature dustribution (from statistical mechanics) etc. The dimensions have a major inpact on physics as a whole.

But how can you know this since it is human scientists (who are necessarily subject to their sense and cognition of space-time) making these observations?

1) scientific method
2) indirect measurements (if there wasnt 3 the intensity of radiated light from a lightsource wouldnt follow the 1/r2 formula etc)

LOL. Is it 3 or 12, because earlier you were saying it's 12 dimensions?

Let me put it this way. If your cognition and sense could only perceive 2 dimensions then you would perceive all effects in the world via 2 dimensions even if the world had more dimensions. For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.

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So my question remains unanswered. How do you know that 3 dimensionality is a property of space and not of human cognition?

Yiou should read up on physics and think about what living in a world witout volume would really mean.

That's funny because when we play a 3D game we are immersed in a 3D environment (with sound) and yet it's all "virtual", none if it is actually a "real world", it's like a simulation. My point is not that the world is actually 2 dimensional, or that it's a simulation. I'm making no claims about it - unlike you that is buying in to the naive assumption that it is 3-dimensional when you have no way of actually knowing.

Sigh.as i said teach yourself some real science... As for ex what happens when we send electricomagnetic waves trough space. How much energy per volume do we ger? Etc. The maxwell equations wouldnt look the same if there were more or less macroscopic dimensions. Statistical mechanics should collapse (due to wrong number of degress of freedom) etc. The reason we today are sure that there are 3 macroscopic dimensions has nothing to do with our senses.

 

[bigfield]

That's funny because when we play a 3D game we are immersed in a 3D environment (with sound) and yet it's all "virtual", none if it is actually a "real world", it's like a simulation. My point is not that the world is actually 2 dimensional, or that it's a simulation. I'm making no claims about it - unlike you that is buying in to the naive assumption that it is 3-dimensional when you have no way of actually knowing.

The only two-dimensional aspect of video gaming is the visual interface. Video game sound is not two-dimensional; it's stereophonic.

Similarly, other senses are not two-dimensional: Touch, nociception (pain), thermoception, proprioception, kinaesthesia, and balance are three-dimensional.

Suddenly your video game analogy does not work so well.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

That's funny because when we play a 3D game we are immersed in a 3D environment (with sound) and yet it's all "virtual", none if it is actually a "real world", it's like a simulation. My point is not that the world is actually 2 dimensional, or that it's a simulation. I'm making no claims about it - unlike you that is buying in to the naive assumption that it is 3-dimensional when you have no way of actually knowing.

The only two-dimensional aspect of video gaming is the visual interface. Video game sound is not two-dimensional; it's stereophonic.

Similarly, other senses are not two-dimensional: Touch, nociception (pain), thermoception, proprioception, kinaesthesia, and balance are three-dimensional.

Suddenly your video game analogy does not work so well.

Ehm, I'm not saying it's 2-dimensional. I'm saying that how something appears to humans through our cognition is not to be mistaken for how the thing is in itself.

 

[bigfield]

Ehm, I'm not saying it's 2-dimensional. I'm saying that how something appears to humans through our cognition is not to be mistaken for how the thing is in itself.

You underestimate human cognitive abilities.

From your example above:

For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.

The scientists in your hypothetical would discover the third dimension and incorporate it into their model of the universe.

You just need to look at actual physics to see that science has advanced far beyond human intuition.

 

[modernPrimitive2]

You underestimate human cognitive abilities.

From your example above:

For example if your sense organs was 2-dimensional like a flat piece of paper and a sphere passes through the piece of paper you would experience the sphere as concentric circles growing from a 1 dimensional point as the sphere touches the paper to a large circle when the sphere reaches it's widest diameter and then back down to a 1-dimensional point when the sphere goes out the piece of paper. So you would still perceive all the effects of "reality" but they would be constrained to two dimensions because of your limitations. You would then build all your models of physics based on 2 dimensions and you would assume, at least initially, that space is 2-dimensional when in fact, in our example it is actually 3 dimensional. In this example, measuring radiated light from a source would still have an associated 2-dimensional calculation so it would still make sense to your psychics models but you wouldn't comprehend that you live in a 3 dimensional reality.

The scientists in your hypothetical would discover the third dimension and incorporate it into their model of the universe.

You just need to look at actual physics to see that science has advanced far beyond human intuition.

Yes, I agree that it's possible to come to understand the limitations of a system by exhausting that system. That's why I'm saying QM challenges our intuition because, not because space is 3-dimensional and QM is just strange but rather because our pre-conceived notions of space being 3-dimensional are a limitation of our perception. Obviously I can't prove that but it seems more likely than "QM is just strange".

 

[skepticalbip]

You underestimate human cognitive abilities.

From your example above:

The scientists in your hypothetical would discover the third dimension and incorporate it into their model of the universe.

You just need to look at actual physics to see that science has advanced far beyond human intuition.

Yes, I agree that it's possible to come to understand the limitations of a system by exhausting that system. That's why I'm saying QM challenges our intuition because, not because space is 3-dimensional and QM is just strange but rather because our pre-conceived notions of space being 3-dimensional are a limitation of our perception. Obviously I can't prove that but it seems more likely than "QM is just strange".

You seem to be judging what science understands by what you understand at the intuitive level. What is understood by science is well beyond human intuition on scales well beyond our human scale experience in both the micro and macro directions. QM is “strange” because it deals with events far outside human scale experience in the micro direction so can not be described in our normal language that handles human scale events so well. However, the language of science, mathematics, describes events in the micro world quite well.

I think that your insistence on “knowing-a-thing-as-it-is-in-itself” is where you depart from science. That isn’t what science deals with. Science is concerned with gaining an understanding of how the universe works – how “stuff-that-is” matter, energy, fields, forces, etc. effects and interacts with other “stuff-that-is” matter, energy, fields, forces etc.