Next Paradigm Shift in Physics: Exploring Questions with Steve

[swokrams]

Hello all,

I have just joined this forum and am taking the bold step right off the bat of starting a thread. I am looking for folks who are interested in discussing what the next paradigm shift of physics will look like. I have read a few books in this area such as Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Koestler's The Sleepwalkers.

Let me get a few things out of the way first. I don't believe in evolution (at least parts of it are bogus), I fear God, I don't think science will, in my lifetime, explain the reason for man's being. I do not want to debate or discuss any of this. I am not interested in alternate universes. I do have a keen interest in intelligent design, but "God did it," isn't enough for me. Neither is, "It's all chance."

What I do want to explore are some questions, such as what was so significant about Newton? Why did the scientific community hold on to ether for so long?

Why did Kepler have the answer to elliptical orbits yet struggle with his answer throughout his life? What was he giving up?

What types of problems or dilemma's will the next paradigm shift address? Will it accommodate what we now call intelligent design and make science out of it? What will we give up?

Has physics become too mathematical? If the math shows it, is it necessarily always true?

I'd appreciate any help exploring these questions.

Steve

 

[DaveC426913]

Let me get a few things out of the way first. I don't believe in evolution (at least parts of it are bogus), I fear God,

This is going to get you in a lot of trouble fast.

I don't think science will, in my lifetime, explain the reason for man's being.

Science will never explain man's reason for being. It is outside the scope of science. That is for philosophy.

I do not want to debate or discuss any of this.

Too late.

I do have a keen interest in intelligent design, but "God did it," isn't enough for me. Neither is, "It's all chance."

Who has been telling you it's all chance? This is a serious misunderstanding of evolutionary development, if that's what you're implying.

What I do want to explore are some questions, such as what was so significant about Newton?

Can you be more specific? Do you mean why is he generally considered one of the greatest scientists in history?

Why did the scientific community hold on to ether for so long?

Why did Kepler have the answer to elliptical orbits yet struggle with his answer throughout his life? What was he giving up?

What types of problems or dilemma's will the next paradigm shift address? Will it accommodate what we now call intelligent design and make science out of it? What will we give up?

Has physics become too mathematical? If the math shows it, is it necessarily always true?

I'd appreciate any help exploring these questions.

Steve

The rest of these questions I think you'll have to open individual threads for.

 

[Pengwuino]

Did you read the Terms & Conditions when you signed up for your account?

 

[swokrams]

Dave,

On your question...

Can you be more specific? Do you mean why is he generally considered one of the greatest scientists in history?

Yes. I have read that he said good-bye to ether as the medium for action-at-a-distance and said, not in these exact words, "The math works and we don't need ether. Forget it. It is irrelevant. There are just these forces and they act according to this mathematical way." The math was the proof, not the detection of ether.

When we say that gravity IS the product of the masses over the distance squared, we really mean that gravity IS a mathematical relationship. We haven't really explained what is it, except to say it behaves according to a mathematical formula. Before Newton, the study of the natural world was part of philosophy (which was generally practiced by clergy) and called metaphysics. I understand from my reading that the notion of a force not having ether or something to push with was abhorrent to metaphysical thinking during his time. This was a paradigm shift (and met with some resistance).

Thanks for the response.

Steve

 

[DaveC426913]

Before Newton, the study of the natural world was part of philosophy (which was generally practiced by clergy) and called metaphysics. I understand from my reading that the notion of a force not having ether or something to push with was abhorrent to metaphysical thinking during his time. This was a paradigm shift (and met with some resistance).

The way I look at it - the falling apple myth - is thus:

Prior to Newton, the universe was composed of two elements, the imperfect Earth (with falling apples) and the perfect Heavens (with the dance of the planets), and ne'er the twain shall meet.

When Newton was hit on the head with an apple (not that this part really happened), he realized that the force that pulls the apple to the ground is the same force that holds the planets in the sky.

The significance of this is that, in one fell swoop, he united Heaven and Earth, forever banishing the hold the clergy had on the Heavens, and in doing so, ushered in a new age of discovery where nothing was sacred, nothing was beyond questioning.

 

[swokrams]

David,

The significance of this is that, in one fell swoop, he united Heaven and Earth, forever banishing the hold the clergy had on the Heavens, and in doing so, ushered in a new age of discovery where nothing was sacred, nothing was beyond questioning.

Hmm... A couple of points. Did he unite Heaven and Earth or un-unite the solar system, aka heaven with a small h, from Heaven? I'm not sure we want to discuss this here - beginning to get into religion.

On the "hold" that the clergy had on Heaven, this sounds like the Spanish inquisition. Most "scientists" of the day were religious believers, including Kepler and Galileo. They didn't renounce God, nor did Newton.

On "Nothing was sacred"? Is that what Newton concluded? Nothing was beyond questioning? This sounds more like Sarte and the post-modern mantra. Do you really mean this? I imagine that Newton thought mathematics was not questionable with respect to validating his work.

Time for rest. Catch you later.

-Steve

 

[Born2bwire]

I like how you don't want to debate or discuss your belief in intelligent design and yet ask us whether or not science will accommodate it. Why should science accommodate anything that isn't born out of science?

 

[Lok]

Do not worry swokrams not all people are blessed with intelligent design as u certainly know ... :P

 

[DaveC426913]

Did he unite Heaven and Earth or un-unite the solar system, aka heaven with a small h, from Heaven?

The heavens. Yes, that is what I meant.

On the "hold" that the clergy had on Heaven, this sounds like the Spanish inquisition. Most "scientists" of the day were religious believers, including Kepler and Galileo. They didn't renounce God, nor did Newton.

Did I say that? No, I simply mean the heavens were now within scientific scrutiny.

On "Nothing was sacred"? Is that what Newton concluded? Nothing was beyond questioning? This sounds more like Sarte and the post-modern mantra. Do you really mean this? I imagine that Newton thought mathematics was not questionable with respect to validating his work.

No. It's simply symbolic, and in retrospect, that we see that.

[/QUOTE]

 

[swokrams]

Dave,

Got it. I understand what you are saying. Thanks. - Steve

 

[jwk]

Hello all,
What types of problems or dilemma's will the next paradigm shift address? Will it accommodate what we now call intelligent design and make science out of it? What will we give up?

It is a complete waste of time to guess, since when it happens - the sooner the better - it will be initially be denied and then amazing that no one has thought of it before.

Things like intelligent design will still be around since it is created by non-scientists to put some simple-minded mystery back in.

 

[swokrams]

Born 2 B,

Kepler spent his life trying to rework his ellipses. He did not like them because they were imperfect shapes. They were not perfect circles, would therefore not make celestial music, and did not fit into the Chain of Being (a somewhat older, but not dead concept at the time). Celestial Music was “scientific” at one time.

When I was studying thermodynamics, I was taught that systems tend to even out over time and seek the lowest energy states. Entropy can’t be reversed. If it all started from a big bang, then things have gotten much more complicated since then. If the big bang is real, then what is the thing that made complex things grow from non-complex things?

Intelligent design is popping up in molecular biology. In terms of random chance, cells are not statistically possible. So what can explain their complexity. This is the question that science seems to need an answer to. I.D. accurately describes this issue facing us.

Kepler was a believer in Intelligent Design and struggled with his findings because the planets must be made of clay. Now, completely flipped around, we are struggling with the unfathomable order found in living cells because they do not look like clay at all.

Your use of the term “Born of science” and “Born2b” in your nic are interesting choices. Born suggests creation and a sense of new life and even purpose. What is that about? Scientists uses word like “discovered” and “proved.” Whose side are you on?

Steve

 

[swokrams]

jwk,

I wasn't planning on guessing. Sorry to see you are not up for the quest.

 

[Varnick]

Surely discussing a paradigm shift is mostly futile, as any shift in scientific paradigm will be largely both unexpected and unpredictable. If we use Newton as an example again, could anyone really have predicted and discussed his work on gravity before it happened?

 

[Razzor7]

Surely discussing a paradigm shift is mostly futile, as any shift in scientific paradigm will be largely both unexpected and unpredictable. If we use Newton as an example again, could anyone really have predicted and discussed his work on gravity before it happened?

Maybe they didn't speculate vigorously enough.

 

[DaveC426913]

Intelligent design is popping up in molecular biology. In terms of random chance, cells are not statistically possible. So what can explain their complexity. This is the question that science seems to need an answer to. I.D. accurately describes this issue facing us.

I tell you again:

1] You have a grave ignorance of evolution. Evolution is not equated with random chance. This is ID misinformation that you are falling for. If you wish to discuss evolution, you should know something about it.

2] ID is not a topic open for discussion here. Re-read the Forum Guidelines (the ones you agreed to when you registered) and post within them, or this thread will be locked.

 

[D H]

f it all started from a big bang, then things have gotten much more complicated since then. If the big bang is real, then what is the thing that made complex things grow from non-complex things?

Energy.

You are parroting a dishonest mischaracterization of the second law of thermodynamics. First off, you are equating complexity with entropy. Second off, the second law of thermodynamics pertains to an isolated system. I live in Houston; my air conditioner has been decreasing the entropy in my house for a month now. There is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics. That decrease in entropy requires expenditure of energy.

 

[M Grandin]

Surely discussing a paradigm shift is mostly futile, as any shift in scientific paradigm will be largely both unexpected and unpredictable. If we use Newton as an example again, could anyone really have predicted and discussed his work on gravity before it happened?

But at least I feel certain, a major "paradigm shift" will occur as soon as AI programs have passed a certain point of developement. Maybe only a detail, a new conception, is needed
to make these programs comparable to thinking people equipped with enormeous precise memory and logics.

These AI machines may be like humans equipped with IQ = 1000000 and result of their
processing may resemble nothing we have met earlier in human history. I guess this may happen rather soon and will imply "paradigm shifts" in most known intellectual branches.

 

[jwk]

jwk,

I wasn't planning on guessing. Sorry to see you are not up for the quest.

Hehe, so you think you know the quest before you take the quest. This time travel business has got to go.

 

[swokrams]

Razor 7,

LOL! Good one. :)

Dave,

How intolerant. I wonder what part of the Darwinian gene pool arrogance comes from. It must be nice to know all the true paths. So much for open minds. No paradigm shifts here.

D H,

Yes, it is a mischaracterization, yet this is what I was taught. Back in the day, there was an assumption about the universe being steady state and just continuing to expand and run out of gas someday (I am dating myself, I fear). The notion of complex things coming from simple things is a relatively new concept - to what I was taught anyway.

But to jump into your explanation, the air conditioner is a complex device. Thanks for keeping me straight on the entropy vs. order things.

Steve

 

[OB 50]

What are you getting at here, anyway?

Based on the things you've written so far, you don't seem to have a very thorough understanding of the current "paradigm."

Assuming that a profound shift occurs, how will you tell?

 

[DaveC426913]

Dave,

How intolerant. I wonder what part of the Darwinian gene pool arrogance comes from. It must be nice to know all the true paths. So much for open minds. No paradigm shifts here.

You misunderstand. This is not how I feel, this is simply forum rules.

This forum is explicit about supporting currently-accepted mainstream science, of which ID is not a part.

No one wishes to quash your desire to explore as you see fit. It's just that there are appropriate places for it. This is not one.

I would be happy to direct you to other fora where this kind of topic can be discussed. Just ask. You might even find me there joining the discussion.

 

[apeiron]

I think we need to separate our paradigm shifts here. There is an epistemological tale and then an ontological one perhaps.

The epistemological shift already happened. We went from belief to science, mystery to modelling. So ID would be an undead remnant of the old epistemology. No reason to expect it to replace modern modelling theory based on formal maths-based models and pragmatic approaches to test and measurement.

Could there be a stage that follows belief, then modelling? Depends how "broken" the current *epistemological* paradigm really is.

Then the second discussion would be ontological paradigms. I would argue here that we have had two rival stories (with philosophy and science). The atomiser vs the systematisers, the mechanists and reductionists vs the holists and organicists.

The reductionist/atomist has definitely been the winner, the orthodoxy in recent times. The systems thinker has struggled to be heard. And also struggled to put the meat on the table science-wise. So fair enough in that regard.

However, now that we are moving on to those really big questions - about the very large, the very small AND the very complex - the larger view afforded by systems thinking may be what is required.

So success of theories in that style - and more importantly, in maths in that style - would be a paradigm shift of note.

We have had the little waves breaking on the beach for a century now. There was holism in early 20th century. Systems science in the 1940s. Cybernetics in the 1950s. Hierarchy theory in the 1960s. Chaos theory, fractals and complexity theory into the 1970s/1980s. Neural networks resurgent in the 1990s. Semiotics and condensed matter physics also in the 1990s.

It has not happened yet. But at least we can see that there is a lapping on the shores. There is a genuine candidate for an ontological paradigm shift.

The difference between atoms and systems just has to be framed in a mathematically general enough way to link our descriptions of the small, large and complex. The three scale extremes of the quantum, the comological and the biotic.

 

[Sorry!]

Let me get a few things out of the way first. I don't believe in evolution (at least parts of it are bogus), I fear God, I don't think science will, in my lifetime, explain the reason for man's being. I do not want to debate or discuss any of this. I am not interested in alternate universes. I do have a keen interest in intelligent design, but "God did it," isn't enough for me. Neither is, "It's all chance."
Steve

I didn't even bother reading the responses already here I already wasted my time reading your post and I'm forcing myself to respond.

You have a misunderstanding of evolution I believe. Intelligent design I'm pretty sure is not allowed to be discussed here either... not sure on that though.

As well you have a CLEAR misunderstanding of scientific method and the purpose of using this method. What the outcomes of this method are and how scientific community deals with it etc.

Before you begin posting the presumptuous threads re-read the terms you accepted and take the time to actually gain an accurate understanding of what science and evolution are. If you continue to make posts of this nature you will most likely be met by hostility.

 

[swokrams]

Dave,

So sorry, my bad. Yes I might be interested in other forums. I am picking up this study after about a 35 year hiatus. But so far this forum is about what I expected it would be. I am not necessarily a proponent of Intelligent Design - a term which, unfortunately, brings out adamant atheists swinging.

Apeiron,

I wonder what is meant by modeling. I assume it is based on the scientific method and reproduceability. Please advise if this is accurate. I have an Engineering background, so that is what I am understanding.

I am interested in the ontological questions. Kepler came up with a scheme where the ratios of the planets' orbits to each other could be expressed as a series of platonic solids, in the right sequence, circumscribing each other. When these shapes fell into place, Kepler was besides himself with joy. To him, this was God's hand at work. He later realized that these shapes didn’t quite match the orbits.

The point I am trying to make, is that for Kepler, and others of his time, evidence of the hand of God, as defined in terms of platonic solids, was not only satisfying to Kepler's (and possibly our) sense of order, but proof that the theory must be "right" (in God's eyes, according to Kepler), and proof that God was "right" (in Kepler's eyes) in the orderliness of the spheres. This is a tautology. But even so, the expression of the tautology worked out in the heavens was understood as something profound and extremely meaningful on many levels. (Not unlike survival of the fittest today, imho).

... I have further shown that the regular solids fall into two groups: three in one, and two in the other. To the larger group belongs, first of all, the Cube, then the Pyramid, and finally the Dodecahedron. To the second group belongs, first, the Octahedron, and second, the Icosahedron. That is why the most important portion of the universe, the Earth - where God's image is reflected in man - separates the two groups. For, as I have proved next, the solids of the first group must lie beyond the Earth's orbit, and those of the second group within...Thus I was led to assign the Cube to Saturn, the Tetrahedron to Jupiter, the Dodecahedron to Mars, the Icosahedron to Venus, and Octahedron to Mercury ... -JK

I am wondering if this wasn't the string theory of Kelper's time.

The question I am asking is what do we value as proof in our science today? How do we know when we are right? Where are we starting from? My current understanding is that if something is mathematically proven, then it must be so because math doesn’t lie. I am not weighing the merit of the harmony of the spheres against mathematics. Both were/are the best man could/can do at different times.

Thanks for your response. You have given me a lot to chew on. I need to do some catching up.

Steve

 

[apeiron]

Hi Steve

Afraid to say that for an engineer, you are sounding pretty lightweight. But if you are here to learn, that excuses much.

1) On modelling: the basic idea is that there are two naive views of knowledge. One is based on the idea of looking inwards for the truth - the path of religion, armchair philosophy and Platonic mathematicians. The opposing camp says instead look outwards - so this is empiricism, positivism and all the other stances that claim naked observation is the only path.

Modelling says the real deal is that we cannot nakedly experience the world. Instead it is a matter of theory and test. And we need to do both well.

So we construct theories about reality. Make predictions and measure to see how well the outcomes fit.

Sounds much like the scientific method and it is. Except it is more careful about tieing models to the purposes of modellers. So there is no one truth. Instead there are models that best fit various purposes.

There are some other important wrinkles, but modelling is basically saying that - we cannot know the world directly, but we can attempt to know it systematically.

2) As to Kepler, surely the point of the story is that he came up with one formal model in his nested platonic solids - a good model in that it made precise mathematical predictions. Then seeing the observations did not really fit, had to keep going until he came up with better model of elliptical orbits.

The only reason he is remembered is for his science, not his religiosity.

3) On rightness, again modelling says we only approach truth. So there is no problem just having the best model we've got so far. Especially if it fits out purposes, does the immediate job.

Mathematics did once believe it was based on inner revelation, pure reason. But that is not the modern view. Although you can find dissenters like Penrose.

 

[DaveC426913]

Dave,

So sorry, my bad. Yes I might be interested in other forums.

Check your PM Inbox.