Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[bohm2]

With the notion of vagueness, we can not only subtract away all things, we can also dissolve away any idea of space and time - so get rid of both the contents and the container to have less than an "empty world".

But isn't a relational or antisubstantivalist interpretation of spacetime capable of doing just that? I thought Mach favoured this approach but that's not important:

According to the relational theory…what we call “space” is simply the totality of actual (and perhaps possible) spatial relations between material objects and/or concrete material events. If there were no material objects and concrete material events, space would not exist, for the relata of the relations constitutive of space would not exist, just as a family tree cannot exist without there being people to bear the family relations to each other that are constitutive of the tree.

de Broglie waves as the “Bridge of Becoming” between quantum theory and relativity
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1107/1107.1678.pdf

 

[apeiron]

Great post!

This is a murky area and probably a very difficult question but have you thought on how to introduce time in this model, especially after SR and its blockworld view(the blockworld view seems to nullify all attempts at understanding).

Yes, indeed that is something I've put a lot of effort into. But it would have to have its own thread.

Suffice to say, I think a thermodynamic approach to time is the key - seeing it as a gradient of change which gets dissipated. So a phase transition model in which we go from one kind of equilbrium (the instability of vagueness) to the more stable one (of a heat death universe).

There is a lot of thinking in this direction. For example, Prigogine's The End of Certainty is a stimulating read here. As the Nobellist father of dissipative structure theory, that should be no surprise.

But you also have loop quantum gravity theorists going in the same direction, because they must also make time (and space) emerge from vagueness (their quantum foam). And people like Rovelli are coming out with thermal time models.

So there is certainly a literature to ground speculation here.

SR leads to a blockworld in the same way that QM leads to MWI. They are models that have no constraints to break their internal symmetries. Yet clearly, the world as we experience it is not like these models. Those claimed symmetries are in fact broken.

This does not falsify SR or QM - so long as the models do not make a claim to be complete. The something missing (the further contraints) may get put in by hand, but it is not that difficult in practice to do that. So the models don't get us into trouble. SR and QM are fine in themselves.

However, when doing metaphysics, that is when we have to talk about what the models omit, as well as what they include, and so what kinds of further deductions would be valid.

Blockworld is one of the false pathways of thought that arise if you "believe" some particular model too religiously. At least, IMO.

 

[apeiron]

But isn't a relational or antisubstantivalist interpretation of spacetime capable of doing just that? I thought Mach favoured this approach but that's not important:

Yes it should. That is what I said about loop approaches - they presume some kind of vagueness as their ground. The unoriented roil of a spin-foam, or whatever. Then space and time emerge from this via the evolution of constraints - a network of concrete relationships that solidify the generality of possibility into something specific and actual, with a definite history, and so a definite future.

This is also Peircean. It is all about self-creation via relationships. Contraints must arise as the "sum over histories" or least mean path. The least action principle is also the basis of dissipative structure theory and so a thermodynamic approach.

So Mach, Peirce, Rovelli, Chew. Many see the essential story. But science picks the low hanging fruit first (a further example of the least action principle, hey? ).

 

[Maui]

SR leads to a blockworld in the same way that QM leads to MWI. They are models that have no constraints to break their internal symmetries. Yet clearly, the world as we experience it is not like these models. Those claimed symmetries are in fact broken.

Philosophically, I agree somewhat with your point, that it's always good to keep an open-mind and be aware that we are discussing models, yet, when discussing reality we only have our models to rest upon(it's been a tradition to regard everything else as empty talk). Yet, if we don't believe what they strongly suggest, it would seem that absolutely everyone on PF is talking mumbo-jumbo when they refer to reality. There is some truth, as far as it's attainable, that reality is relative to a frame of reference, as evidenced by clocks on the satellites orbiting the Earth and the experiments run at CERN which rely on the veracity of SR. So even if truths don't exist, it's more of a fact that reality is relative(and time is relative which lead to a blockworld), than it's a fact that reality is split at every quantum interaction(this is more of phantasy than a fact). I am far from dogmatic on it, but i'd put my money on the blockworld than on MWI any day of the week(even if it doesn't tell the whole story because no model is complete).

Time holds the key to most troubles in fundamental physics(that's Smolin's opinion in "The trouble with physics", as my own opinion is hardly worth much)

 

[Albuquerque]

The vague is a notion of a fundamental state that admits to development - the vague can always become something. As a state of pure potential, it is not a nothing (that is a possibility it excludes). But it is also as near a nothing as possible. Likewise, a pure potential can become anything. So it is also as near an everythingness as possible. It is an infinity of degrees of freedom as yet unconstrained, but by the same token, unformed.

Somethingness then becomes the emergence of constraints, of limits, of form. And the cause of this emergence employs all four of Aristotle's causes (whereas the "something from nothing" kinds of argument usually just appeal to some kind of local effective cause - a triggering event).

With the notion of vagueness, we can not only subtract away all things, we can also dissolve away any idea of space and time - so get rid of both the contents and the container to have less than an "empty world".

All sorts of things flow from this view. For instance, when now asking the question "why anything", the only alternative is that things might have remained forever vague. But this is illogical, forbidden, because constraints could also exist. The question can now be answered in terms of the inevitabilty of constraints.

Of course, you still have to construct that model. And people like Peirce, or Geoffrey Chew with his bootstrap approach to particle physics, have attempted such models. But at least the metaphysics gives a clear idea of what the model needs to be about - the development of global systems constraints.

So the Why Anything? argument is useful because it reveals the inadequacy of nothingness as a global concept (no-things can only be localised particulars of some crisply actual world). And even of effective causes as the way to get everything started (again, effective causes are only local and particular).

As a layman I confess to be strongly stuck with the hard deterministic approach and with the concept of a block Universe as far as what I do understand these concepts intend to refer to which in itself is formally vague...
It follows I have trouble in conceptualising vagueness in any other way then the one who merely reports to the epistemological problem...thus vague for me refers to the temporary lack of awareness on the decision making constrains or good reasons that I might have towards some goal or some form of inquiry and not so much as reporting to a state in itself...in that sense I see it more as an "illusory effect" upon consciousness then an actual thing with its own "property´s"...I have trouble in imagining a true random process in motion without any sort of precise constrains as I understand motion itself as a form of means to ends, functions to systems and can´t conceive on any form of "behaviour" as being truly loose, although I wilfully admit complexity might strongly build that impression...
In the face of an interacting "indecision effect" from a system to another which is "alien" to its nature I am conceptually grounded with imagining lack of process/motion rather then an open ended form of process with no guidance...I don´t even know what it means motion with no guidance...as I am left wondering, what propels it ("its beingness") ? what vector goes nowhere in particular, or aims no goal ?
...again I hope the language barrier and the layman approach on the problem are not strong enough to prevent a fruitful exchange of ideas on such a hard problem...

Regards>Albuquerque

 

[Albuquerque]

Post Scriptum -
...a block multiverse where all possibility´s of being are deterministically covered does not require any kind of intelligent designer with a volitional intention to justify the process of change...in fact "intention" and "volition" as I understand them, rather refer to the search for completion (first person perspective) then being the result of completion (holistic perspective, Being with no mind)...thus as I see it the need for "minds" is more the product of incomplete beings unfolding their process of completion then a final process where awareness is required...hope that settles the problem raised above !

 

[Albuquerque]

...one interesting exercise is to relate what has been said with Godel´s incompleteness as an argument against the mind of all minds (and any kind of mind for that purpose) who cannot justify its own volition or wilful intentional process from within itself, thus ending up being more then an argument just against computation or mathematics but also against free will, against conscience and against Gods at large...

 

[bohm2]

I am far from dogmatic on it, but i'd put my money on the blockworld than on MWI any day of the week(even if it doesn't tell the whole story because no model is complete).

I wouldn’t put my money on either model. Until we can answer such questions as below:

Russell held that there are “three grades of certainty. The highest grade belongs to my own percepts; the second grade to the percepts of other people; the third to events which are not percepts of anybody, “constructions of the mind established in the course of efforts to make sense of what we perceive.” “A piece of matter is a logical structure composed of [such] events,” he therefore concluded. We know nothing of the “intrinsic character” of such mentally constructed entities, so there is “no ground for the view that percepts cannot be physical events.” For science to be informative, it cannot be restricted to structural knowledge of such logical properties. Rather, “the world of physics [that we construct] must be, in some sense, continuous with the world of our perceptions, since it is the latter which supplies the evidence for the laws of physics.” The percepts that are required for this task—perhaps just meter-readings, Eddington had argued shortly before—“are not known to have any intrinsic character which physical events cannot have, since we do not know of any intrinsic character which could be incompatible with the logical properties that physics assigns to physical events.” Accordingly, “What are called ‘mental’ events…are part of the material of the physical world.” Physics itself seeks only to discover “the causal skeleton of the world, [while studying] percepts only in their cognitive aspect; their other aspects lie outside its purview”—though we recognize their existence, at the highest grade of certainty in fact. The basic conundrum recalls a classical dialogue between the intellect and the senses, in which the intellect says that color, sweetness, and the like are only convention while in reality there are only atoms and the void, and the senses reply: “Wretched mind, from us you are taking the evidence by which you would overthrow us? Your victory is your own fall."

THE MYSTERIES OF NATURE: HOW DEEPLY HIDDEN?
The journal of Philosophy, April 2009. P.181.

Unfortunately we will likely never have the answers to such questions. One can’t expect much from a cognitively-limited, arrogant, linguistic ground chimp like ourselves.

Edit: I'm starting to hate reading/writing my posts. They're too pessimistic/negative/misanthropic. I need to change my attitude.

 

[Albuquerque]

...if anything my case is not against what has been labelled as naive realism but against minds as independent self justified willing systems...if minds cannot justify their own circumstances by which they would came to be what they are and thus through it the product of their will, then it reasons their so said free willing comes as an illusion from the process by which they circumstance is brought to existence in the specific way it is brought up...I decompose mind as an independent volitional entity and reduce it to a reactive deterministic necessary interacting process from reality with reality itself, whatever is reality..."subjectivity" in here translates to local perspectivism, and "observer" to am interacting system within the System who acknowledges and processes information accordingly with the conditions that such System provides, and which itself could not chose...a World without a mind, which cannot reason itself, or to repeat itself within itself...

 

[apeiron]

Unfortunately we will likely never have the answers to such questions. One can’t expect much from a cognitively-limited, arrogant, linguistic ground chimp like ourselves.

Edit: I'm starting to hate reading/writing my posts. They're too pessimistic/negative/misanthropic. I need to change my attitude.

LOL, yes, be a glass half full guy instead.

The complaint in your extract is that we are just modellers of reality. Even our perceptions, our impressions, our measurements, are shaped by our ideas, our theories. We are cut off from the source of our impressions~ideas in some radical way.

But you can flip this around and see it as the crucial fact. It is because we are epistemically separated from reality that we can model it! You have to have mental distance to be able to imagine that reality could be other than what it appears, and thus see it more truly for what it is.

All this "ground chimp" stuff misses the glorious fact that our language ability does create a completely new realm of modelling for us. A chimp has to take its reality as brute fact. We get to stand back and wonder at it. Consider the other possibilities that put our actuality in its full context.

Our separation from reality is not an error to be deplored but a fortunate development that we should exploit to the full.

 

[Deveno]

as a direct consequence of reading this thread, i started looking about for related stuff, which lead me to various places.

one of those places was the introduction to a book called "The Master and his Emissary." while i have not read it in depth, it occurs to me that there is a partial answer of sorts to bohm2's pessimism, which is:

only half of our brain is concerned with the "dissection" of reality into a self-consistent model. the other half sees things on a more holistic level, is perfectly happy with ambiguity, and non-linguistic apprehension. the resolution of reality into its constituent parts, can only take us so far, either our devices cannot extend our senses far enough, or our ability to logically deconstruct can only produce models which "make sense" to us. the nature of the beast is probably beyond such a reductionist approach, but that doesn't leave us with nothing. we have our intuitions, and our imaginations with which to transcend such limitations.

if i understand the implications of this (and perhaps i do not), it means that we have an entire set of separate tools with which to select the theories our analysis devises. we can leverage our innate "dualness" to our advantage. one sees this in the joy of discovery the experimentalist makes: his mind conjures up a possible reality, and his experience either validates this, or invalidates this. we can "dissassociate" but we can also "connect", and the very nature we have allows us to do either/or.

it may be that we never know exactly "why" we are here. but i believe we may yet gain some insight into "how". and this, in itself, will be a satisfaction of sorts, because we know how deeply interrelated form and function are.

there is good reason, given how fruitful it has been, to regard the "inside" and "outside" of "us" as distinct, it gives us a flexibility in reacting to our world that many creatures simply do not have. but i feel we should not forget, that in many ways, this is our own construct, a way we seek to understand, and as such, is somewhat less than the totality of what is actually transpiring. we are the observed, as well as the observers, such a distinction is (for lack of a better word) theoretical.

apeiron's conception of "the vague" sounds very reminiscent to me of the zen concept of the void: it is not something, it is not nothing, everything exists "in" it, but not like the wall i frequently bang my head against. it is what you get when you lose the quality of distinction, which (the act of distinguishing is what i am referring to) creates (amongst other things) dualities, logical structures, and (more pertinently for us) the sense of identity.

i consider it likely that this "vague" is, and always has been with us, that time itself, is a kind of "something" like space and sub-atomic particles are. mathematically, it's sort of like the null set: the null set doesn't have any members (so it's unique), but on the other hand, has every single property and quality that anything can possibly have. the only thing you need to get from the null set to something that has some definite quality is..."not". you draw a line, a boundary, and then you have opposition. you divide an indivisible whole, and then many things are possible. as soon as we put a bracket around the null set, like so:

{Ø}, then boom! out comes most of mathematics. if the universe (multi-verse) is indeed some sort of structure which has discernable underlying principles (a view espoused by max tegmark, for example, but which certainly has its detractors), then this is all you need to "explain" all this stuff going on around us. one tiny pair of brackets. one slash. and then there was two.

and such an event(?) could certainly rapidly seek to organize itself, as a dynamical system. sort of like a match burning, drawing on context (available energy) until its all used up (heat death). if this is true (and who knows, i could be very wrong), and humanity survives long enough, we will probably witness some fantastic acts of creation going on in the galaxies around us. should be quite a show.

 

[apeiron]

apeiron's conception of "the vague" sounds very reminiscent to me of the zen concept of the void: it is not something, it is not nothing, everything exists "in" it, but not like the wall i frequently bang my head against. it is what you get when you lose the quality of distinction, which (the act of distinguishing is what i am referring to) creates (amongst other things) dualities, logical structures, and (more pertinently for us) the sense of identity.

All early attempts at metaphysics started with the idea of the vague forming itself dichotomously to become the crisply something. So you find it in both East and West thought circa 6th century BC. It is there in the I Ching, Taoism and Buddhism (dependent co-arising). Zen is a later echo.

To the first thinkers, this was the obvious way realities develop. But it was the Christian tradition in particular that invented the idea of "something from nothing", creation ab initio. And then modern science got going with the rediscovery of atomist philosophy - a doctrine also dependent on the idea of nothingness, of a true void.

We can say that the original conception of nature was organic - realities developed from vague states of potential by a dichotomous separation into complementary definite things. And the modern conception is mechanical - realities are manufacture by construction, the lumping of parts into arrangements that make functional wholes.

It is this mechanical view that McGilchrist bemoans as "left brain thinking".

And he is sort of right. The brain itself has an organic logic. Relax your mind (as in meditation) and it goes vague. It is not a nothingness but a state of humming potential. Then use your mind and it becomes brightly about something when it separates experience into figure and ground, event and context. There is the something we are definitely attending, and the penumbra of all that situates it, gives it meaning - because it has with equal definiteness been suppressed.

And this dichotomous style of processing is basic to brain architecture. The left/right divide is just one of them.

So material reality, our minds, and our logic, can all work the same way - organically. But the Western tradition has chosen a mechanical conception of all three instead. It kind of works. It is certainly simpler. But ultimately it is a frustrating and limiting view of life - McGilchrist's argument.

 

[bohm2]

I don't think the concept of "vagueness" really helps. It seems one could still ask "Why vagueness rather than nothing"?

 

[apeiron]

I don't think the concept of "vagueness" really helps. It seems one could still ask "Why vagueness rather than nothing"?

Again, we know there is a something - our reality - and so that is a strong constraint on any speculation. Whatever gave rise to our somethingness, or stands in some other way as its contextual other, has to be able to satisfy this constraint.

Somethingness has no coherent connection to nothingness. Well, you can subtract away a lot of things, but you are still going to be left with something (the world that has been made empty). And you can't do any better trying to come the other way either - imagining a nothingness suddenly bursting forth with a somethingness (even a QM fluctuation needs to take place in something).

Vagueness on the other hand has a natural connection to the crisp. As things become less crisply developed, they become more vague. And out of a vague potential, something could always crisply develop.

So two ontologies. Only one of which can carry the causal relationship which we seek, already knowing that something does indeed exist.

Perhaps it is not an ultimate answer. There still seems to be the possible question of why anything - even a vagueness? But then can we really wish away naked possibility, the "existence" of raw potential, in the final analysis? Is it not in fact the limit on not existing? If there is nothing else, there is still always possibility.

So the fact that things exist, logically implies that things were always possible. It also logically implies that things were never impossible.

So we can say a generalised state of possibility must have existed. And a generalised state of impossibility - an actual state of nothingness - cannot exist.

Then vagueness is our label for that generalised state of possibility. We no longer have to worry about nothingness as a rival ontic primitive.

Impossibilities - the definite absence of things - can only arise as a later development, the emergence of crisp constraints on what is otherwise rawly possible.

 

[Albuquerque]

I believe your last approach clarify´s the problem in a more tangible way regarding what you meant with vagueness...

My perspective upon the very meaning on a why, concerning any matter to which we can remark a final why, brings me to think that absolute why´s never ask what they seam to ask...they are a projection ad infinitum towards complexity but not a projection to a final justification, as a final justification cannot itself be justified...
Thus asking for the purpose of a spatio temporal process where time itself cannot come out of nothingness once time is the justification on any transition renders the question invalid of any meaning...
In that light my best answer to a final Why it is very simply a just Because...and Reality as the LAW ends up being very much about that...it strikes me as the profound meaning of Truth itself...That, which is the case, and that cannot be put into question.

 

[bohm2]

Thus asking for the purpose of a spatio temporal process where time itself cannot come out of nothingness once time is the justification on any transition renders the question invalid of any meaning...

Some physicists have argued that entaglement, non-locality, etc. may be interpreted in this way. Gisin argues:

Yet, amazingly, quantum physics predicts entirely different kinds of correlations, called non-local correlations for reasons described below. Physics has a word for the cause of these non-local correlations: entanglement. But physics offers no story in space and time to explain or describe how these correlations happen. Hence, somehow, nonlocal correlations emerge from outside space-time (for an explanation of this provocative terminology see appendix A).

From Appendix A:

What could it mean that nonlocal correlations emerge from outside space-time?

Who has ever started a physics course with equation and not with a story? Clearly, in physics we need stories as much as equations. For this purpose we have a catalogue of possible tools to tell our stories. Until recently, all stories took place in space-time. But, this story-toolbox evolves as our theories evolve in parallel with our mathematics toolbox; see for example the tools used today to talk about the deformation of space-time in general relativity. However, as we have seen in section II no story in space-time can describe nonlocal correlations: we have no tool in our story-toolbox to talk about nonlocal correlations. Hence, we usually say things like "event A influences event B", or "event A has a spooky action at a distance on event B" or "event A causes a collapse of the wave-function at location B". But we know that this is all wrong: there is no time ordering between the events A and B; hence no story in time is appropriate. Moreover, the distance between A and B is irrelevant; hence the distance should not occur in our story. The usual reaction to this situation is to give up the search for any story, i.e. in some sense to give up the very possibility to make sense of nonlocal correlations, i.e. to understand them. Some physicists simply claim that the maths are too complicated, hence we can't complement the equations by good stories. But we have seen that the maths are trivial: this can't be an excuse to give up! Admittedly we need to enlarge our story-toolbox. A difficulty is that the new tool must include some strange features that can't be described within space-time.

Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds"
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1011/1011.3440v1.pdf

Video summary (this French guy has a really good sense of humour):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WnV7zUR9UA

But I'm not sure if this non-locality and its implications really solves anything with respect to this question of "Why something rather than nothing". Even a purely Tegmarkian position (Platonic view) that stuff like mathematical objects are "real" (even though they don't exist in space-time) and are necessarily true and that's what our science is actually discovering, seems incapable of solving this problem, I think?

 

[Albuquerque]

Even if true, I don´t think our "angular" description of reality is exclusive once what reality objectively refers to in the first place is to the very relation itself between subject and object, observer and observed, and not to the thing "per si", which on its own is not only devoid of any potential but equally devoid of any justification and meaning...that said my position is no more in favour of "minds" as complex (maybe complicated) observers then it is on atoms as more linear "observers", as interacting agents, who process information around them on their own particular and limited way, say through electromagnetism and so on...as I see it to "observe" stands for getting affected by something more then "aware" of something which strikes me as a very obscure term...in resume, as long as I keep believing in causality for all its convenience, I am not particularly inclined to make minds a special and unique miraculous form of relation, although I believe its entertaining to have one...
Being is not about observers about time or about Why, and thus not even about reason...if anything, LAW which is the expression of Being, is the very prime condition of what "reason" stands for in its being there...Why ? Because !

 

[bohm2]

Now, I'm confused as I always thought that with respect to the ontolgy of space-time there were only two options:

1. Relationist: space and time could not exist without matter.
2. Dualist substantivalist ("container/bucket"): spacetime is the container/bucket and material objects are the contained (objects in the container).

With (1), if you remove matter there's "nothing" left. With (2), if you remove the objects the bucket/container/empty set still remains. But apparently there's a third option:

3. Monist substantivalist: There is no need for the dualism of the container and the contained (or for fundamental containment relations):

Spacetime is substance enough. There is no need for the dualism of the containe(r?) and the contained (or for fundamental containment relations). When God makes the world, she need only create spacetime. Then she can pin the fundamental properties directly to spacetime.

Spacetime the one substance
http://www.jonathanschaffer.org/spacetime.pdf

So I'm guessing that in this third ontology, if one removes that "one" stuff, nothing should remain? But what about stuff that may not be described as propagating in space-time like quantum correlations? Gisin has argued that:

quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe how they occur.

Quantum nonlocality based on finite-speed causal influences leads to superluminal signaling
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1110/1110.3795v1.pdf

Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds"
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1011/1011.3440v1.pdf

I mean, if stuff like these quantum correlations defy spatio-temporal descriptions, it seems that all 3 views are somehow flawed? Although I'm guessing the relationist view would still be safe?

 

[Maui]

Now, I'm confused as I always thought that with respect to the ontolgy of space-time there were only two options:

1. Relationist: space and time could not exist without matter.
2. Dualist substantivalist ("container/bucket"): spacetime is the container/bucket and material objects are the contained (objects in the container).

With (1), if you remove matter there's "nothing" left. With (2), if you remove the objects the bucket/container/empty set still remains. But apparently there's a third option:

3. Monist substantivalist: There is no need for the dualism of the container and the contained (or for fundamental containment relations):



Spacetime the one substance
http://www.jonathanschaffer.org/spacetime.pdf

So I'm guessing that in this third ontology, if one removes that "one" stuff, nothing should remain? But what about stuff that may not be described as propagating in space-time like quantum correlations? Gisin has argued that:



Quantum nonlocality based on finite-speed causal influences leads to superluminal signaling
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1110/1110.3795v1.pdf

Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds"
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1011/1011.3440v1.pdf

I mean, if stuff like these quantum correlations defy spatio-temporal descriptions, it seems that all 3 views are somehow flawed? Although I'm guessing the relationist view would still be safe?

Classical concepts like matter, space and time are linked together by motion. DO you understand what motion is? I don't. I don't think anybody does(i haven't seen anyone who does and certainly haven't seen anyone who understands quantum motion). We have a description, classical in nature that is deeply flawed. It implies that objects cease to exist at point X and reappear at Y a moment later. A quantum description would imply that we don't know what happens to object when in transition from X to Y, or if it moved at all. It would appear to require a measurement(a specific conscious inquiry), thus a strong point can be made for Wheeler's participatory universe, which imo is a better and more consistent ontology than the ones you listed.

 

[apeiron]

So I'm guessing that in this third ontology, if one removes that "one" stuff, nothing should remain?

To motivate his arguments, Schaffer presumes substance as irreducible, fundamental, non-derivative, etc. So already many other possible ontologies are ruled out. He then is examining whether substantivism itself is monistic or dual.

In the context of the "why anything" question, Schaffer would still face the challenge of why substance and not an absence of substance.

A broader view of possible ontologies would be this...

http://www.wylieb.com/Philosophy/Teaching/ActualTeaching/PHIL2109/Metaphysics10.htm

Is there such a thing as space? If so, what kind of thing is it?...Here are two views:

A bottom-up view. Space is composed from its points, much as a record collection is composed from its records...

A top-down view. The parts of space are ontologically dependent on space itself, just like...

And I would then add the third ontic possibility of holism - space is a result of the hierarchical interaction of these two directions of causality, of local construction and global constraint.

With the further developmental ontology that adds then a notion of time, the gradient of change made available as the vague becomes crisp.

So broadly speaking, I would agree with Schaffer that fundamentally all would be one, and duality would arise out of this. But the fundamental is not the one-ness of substance but the one-ness of naked potentiality.

I mean, if stuff like these quantum correlations defy spatio-temporal descriptions, it seems that all 3 views are somehow flawed? Although I'm guessing the relationist view would still be safe?

So QM is incompatible with substantivism? Yes, it is amusing Schaffer employs QFT to argue for monistic substance, yet fails to mention the little issue of non-locality. Locality is of course built into the substance view axiomatically.

The relational view, by constrast, is based on an ontology of form, or global, downward acting, constraints. And clearly, non-locality fits quite nicely with the idea of global constraints.

But again, a complete view would have to marry both aspects of causality, the substantial and the formal. It is not a case of either/or, but the interactionist story of both. Then to unite these two things under one monism, we have to step back to somewhere. So both must emerge from something like raw potential via a process of mutal development.

 

[bohm2]

Then to unite these two things under one monism, we have to step back to somewhere. So both must emerge from something like raw potential via a process of mutal development.

I agree. I'm not sure what to call it though but it seems to have some properties similar to the same "stuff" that gave birth to our universe, in that it defies spatio-temporal explanation. I mean there must be some remnant of this pre big-bang stuff somewhere? Maybe it's this quantum correlations that seem to defy space-time descriptions? I've always felt the same about our mental/phenomenal stuff/qualia (as per McGinn's argument) but I'm sure I will be accused of being a mystic and I really hate being associated with anything like that. I still like Kastner's paper I posted previously. I just realized he's posted on this forum and I didn't even know about it until today. Interestingly, Schaffer does try to bring forth a complete monist model in a later paper:

Monism: The Priority of the Whole
http://www.jonathanschaffer.org/monism.pdf

I'm actually sympathetic to his "priority monist" view. It seems more reasonable than "existence monism" and also more in line with relationism than substantivalist ontology but maybe I'm confused. I'm guessing you would argue that neither has priority and both the macro and micro should be equal?

 

[apeiron]

Interestingly, Schaffer does try to bring forth a complete monist model in a later paper:

Yes, and note how Schaffer again waves away the issue of possiblia. So this is not a "complete" approach, or only complete within a carefully chosen reference frame that is based on the crisply existing and excludes the vaguely possible.

In particular I will assume that there is a world and that it has proper
parts. More precisely, I assume that there is a maximal actual concrete
object—the cosmos—of which all actual concrete objects are parts. I should
stress that I am only concerned with actual concrete objects. Possibilia,
abstracta, and actual concreta in categories other than object are not my
concern...

I'm guessing you would argue that neither has priority and both the macro and micro should be equal?

Yes. At least neither would have causal priority, even though one might be granted temporal or developmental priority.

Among philosophers who take vagueness/potential seriously, like Anaximander, Aristotle and Peirce, you do have something perhaps coming first - some kind of "substantial" act, a spontaneous fluctuation, that gets things going. And then after this comes the revealed possibility of substantial action being met by the countering force of emergent constraints.

With Peirce, this is his doctrine of firstness, secondness and thirdness - the spontaneous acts, the possibility thence of dyadic interactions, followed by the "taking of habits" or regularisation of physical laws, which is the emergence of form/constraints.

But while a temporal progression can be projected on to the issue of development, at the level of causality, neither the local nor the global would be prior, in the sense of being more important, more fundamental, carrying more weight in the scheme of things.

 

[Albuquerque]

...how come speaking on potential can be related with not having constrains ? How come increasing the spectrum from set to power set is said to be related with vagueness ? Either there is causality in place and mechanic relation from the beginning or the whole foundation goes down the drain as magic, no matter what direction you choose to approach the problem be it holistic or not...
...as for time, one can easily extend the concept from the "classical" relativist perspective of space time and apply it to any kind of change process who proves to be more fundamental...motion does n´t appeal to me either, but such is beside the point of what time ends up standing for in practical terms which again is change...one must be careful on how one stacks words together or we end up creating words to address the same phenomena needlessly...as I see it time cannot be removed out of the equation nor some sort of meta space call it what you will...there must exist an axis of order for whatever meta substance there is with a simple rule as simple as present not present relating the discrete bits of such axis...("not present" would stand for null rather then absent...meaning null as being countered by an opposite direction of a mirrored nature or something similar...absence is more a matter of ilusion then a matter of fact the way I see it...)

 

[Albuquerque]

If you find the time and the appeal, I would like you to clarify as most as possible your notion of "vagueness" as I may be missing some fundamental idea in your view which would be unfortunate...maybe you could start by defining some model for freedom at large...my dull imagination cannot wrap my head around any concept of pure freedom no matter how much I try...in that sense your wise input would be greatly appreciated !

 

[apeiron]

If you find the time and the appeal, I would like you to clarify as most as possible your notion of "vagueness"...

I collected some grounding ideas and literature references in this thread...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=301514

 

[Maui]

I agree. I'm not sure what to call it though but it seems to have some properties similar to the same "stuff" that gave birth to our universe, in that it defies spatio-temporal explanation.

Space, matter(chairs, cars, etc.), time and motion are classical concepts, they are derivative(and secondary) and comprized of the momentary excitation of the respective field(this - the field ontology - is by far the single and only ontology that stands all evidence thrown at it). There is no other ontology and there are no particles('particles' are the classical momentary state of the field - sorry, language fails me here). Matter is a state of the field, why reality is like that, would be a very good question for philosophers to answer. Perhaps fields have a mind of their own(joking ).

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet - N. Bohr

 

[apeiron]

Matter is a state of the field, why reality is like that, would be a very good question for philosophers to answer.

Fields are just another modelling concept. They have the advantage in that they are both local and global, so do offer a holistic approach.

A field can define a space by filling it, while locally specifying its material content. Local particles can be described as excitations and so given a contextual definition. Etc.

So if reality is holistic and systematic in its causality, we should expect a field ontology to be good at capturing that essential local~global organisation.

Of course, like any analogy, there are then shortcomings. Fields have no memory, no persistence. All is flux. So it is hard to represent history or gradients.

So classical wave mechanics has been a useful mental concept for modelling material reality. But note that soliton modelling and superconductor modelling from condensed matter physics are now also common mental concepts being employed in fundamental physics, along with network theory (as in loop quantum gravity).

And also, the essence of a "field" in any of these descriptions is that it preserves locality. Whereas QM creates a problem in that regard.

 

[Maui]

Fields are just another modelling concept. They have the advantage in that they are both local and global, so do offer a holistic approach.

They are the only consistent model of reality there is.

A field can define a space by filling it, while locally specifying its material content. Local particles can be described as excitations and so given a contextual definition. Etc.

No, a field doesn't fill space, space is relative and e.g. the gravitational field defines space-time as per GR. Fields define and make up spacetime

So if reality is holistic and systematic in its causality, we should expect a field ontology to be good at capturing that essential local~global organisation.

My long standing gripe with causality has always been that it's a secondary(derivative) concept(like matter, space and time). You are looking for the organizing principles where they don't exist.

Of course, like any analogy, there are then shortcomings. Fields have no memory, no persistence. All is flux. So it is hard to represent history or gradients.

Memory is a secondary, emergent concept as well(a property of the field?). Classical realism of objects as a fundamental characteristic of reality has been dead for a while.

And also, the essence of a "field" in any of these descriptions is that it preserves locality. Whereas QM creates a problem in that regard.

QFT doesn't pressupose realism, so no problem in that respect with QM.

 

[apeiron]

Classical wave mechanics had some success in mimicing reality. But it's still a spectacular failure at high speeds, energies and small scales. Philosophically, it's dead.

QFT doesn't pressupose realism, so no problem in that respect with QM.

But what is a "relativistic quantum field" then? We have various formal descriptions for making calculations, but no single mental image of what we are talking about.

If you are talking classically, then you can claim that particles are just local excitations. But what you are talking about with QFT is precisely what people complain they cannot imagine in terms of "just waves", or "just particles" either.

So your use of the word "field" here is a placeholder for that hoped-for deeper appreciation of what may be the ontological reality. And as such, it does not actually rule out a more particle-based approach as you want to claim.

For example this is a good discussion of the problems for both camps: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/#Ont

Many of the creators of QFT can be found in one of the two camps regarding the question whether particles or fields should be given priority in understanding QFT. While Dirac, the later Heisenberg, Feynman, and Wheeler opted in favor of particles, Pauli, the early Heisenberg, Tomonaga and Schwinger put fields first (see Landsman 1996). Today, there are a number of arguments which prepare the ground for a proper discussion beyond mere preferences...

So even quantum field theory is not with any certainty a "field theory".

And then there is the issue of what a quantum gravity theory would be. Would it look even less like a classical notion of a field (as with a spin foam, or a string condensate, or whatever)?

So OK, you can call the ultimate concept of reality "a field". But how are you actually now defining a field? What does the word mean concretely here?

If we cannot spell this out, then the concept is simply a placeholder and carries no ontological weight. It becomes another way of saying "we don't know". Or perhaps, we don't know, but we are sure it means particles are not real, locality isn't fundamental, etc.

 

[Maui]

But what is a "relativistic quantum field" then? We have various formal descriptions for making calculations, but no single mental image of what we are talking about.

If we leave physics and return to philosophy - fields would be the Ultimate Reality as far as we know(and probably can know). That which exists and is real in the sense that it's the substrate of being.

If you are talking classically, then you can claim that particles are just local excitations. But what you are talking about with QFT is precisely what people complain they cannot imagine in terms of "just waves", or "just particles" either.

So your use of the word "field" here is a placeholder for that hoped-for deeper appreciation of what may be the ontological reality. And as such, it does not actually rule out a more particle-based approach as you want to claim.

For example this is a good discussion of the problems for both camps: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/#Ont

That is a good article and it very well portraits why a particle explnation of QFT is untenable.

And then there is the issue of what a quantum gravity theory would be. Would it look even less like a classical notion of a field (as with a spin foam, or a string condensate, or whatever)?

To my knowledge - all appraoches of QG involve a variant of emergence/symmetry breaking.

So OK, you can call the ultimate concept of reality "a field". But how are you actually now defining a field? What does the word mean concretely here?

If we cannot spell this out, then the concept is simply a placeholder and carries no ontological weight. It becomes another way of saying "we don't know". Or perhaps, we don't know, but we are sure it means particles are not real, locality isn't fundamental, etc.

I won't let you push me off the cliff on this (there's literature about Wheeler's beliefs, Bohm's beliefs, etc. on this issue in particular, they wrote extensively and would be more appropriate for a forum with more relaxed rules, i'd rather keep my points at their maximum). Otherwise, the field ontology is the triumph of human thought over reality(don\t ask if they are different, i don't know)

 

[apeiron]

If we leave physics and return to philosophy - fields would be the Ultimate Reality as far as we know(and probably can know). That which exists and is real in the sense that it's the substrate of being.

My argument here is that when examined closely, the notion of a "field" has long become a notion about a simple potential - ie: a vagueness.

The substrate of being now has properties such as "infinite degrees of freedom", which then get "collapsed" due to the emergence of global constraints.

To my knowledge - all appraoches of QG involve a variant of emergence/symmetry breaking.

Precisely. They presume a fundamental unoriented potential, a vagueness, and then the actual world emerges via symmetry breaking.

So this is no longer a "field" concept, because fields are what emerge. But an unlimited potential of infinite dimensions is perhaps a little "field-like" when we try to imagine it. It is an uber-field possibly.

But by definition, a vagueness lacks locality and other definite features. These actual properties of fields have to emerge via development, or symmetry breaking.

 

[bohm2]

I think a lot of this hinges on what the wave function means. Given Bell's and now PBR, it seems that our best model of "reality" at least at the microscale can no longer be directly interpretable as a local beable. If one wants to use some dualistic "cut" as in Copenhagen, there are difficulties as Maudlin points out:

The reason that this problem does not come up in practice is because the ‘standard’ interpretation is a legacy of the Copenhagen view, and the Copenhagen view does not postulate wavefunction monism. Copenhagenism insisted on the necessity of having a classical description somewhere, the description of the ‘measurement situation’: the infamous Copenhagen ‘cut’ was exactly between a quantum realm and a classical realm. And the classical description would, of course, be in terms of local beables, so there is no problem applying a spacetime transformation to it. Within this sort of a dualistic picture the problem of spacetime transformations of the wavefunction can be approached. The problem, of course, is that this sort of dualistic ontology is impossible to take seriously: no one ever thought that there were really two different sorts of physical systems, the classical and the quantum, that somehow interact. If that were the view, then the ‘cut’ would be a matter of physical fact: somewhere the classical and quantum bits of ontology would actually meet. Furthermore, it is evident that the ‘classical objects’, measuring apparatus and so on, are composed out of ‘quantum stuff’ (electrons, protons, and so on), so this cannot really be a dualistic ontology. In the confused morass of Copenhagenism, the observation that the ‘cut’ could, For All Practical Purposes, be moved about at will within a large range was taken to show that the cut itself corresponded not to a physical fact but to a convention, or something like that. But if the theory can be formulated without a cut at all, let it be so formulated. Having removed the cut and put everything in the quantum ontology, one would evidently remove all the local beables, and all the problems we have been discussing would return.

And the problem is also nobody seems to know the meaning of this larger space (3N dimensions)where the wave function lives. But it is at clearly at odds with the local classical field as Einstein notes:

It is further characteristic of these physical objects that they are thought of as arranged in a space-time continuum. An essential aspect of this arrangement of things in physics is that they lay claim, at a certain time, to an existence independent of one another, provided these objects ‘are situated in different parts of space’. Unless one makes this kind of assumption about the independence of the existence (the ‘being-thus’) of objects which are far apart from one another in space—which stems in the first place from everyday thinking— physical thinking in the familiar sense would not be possible. It is also hard to see any way of formulating and testing the laws of physics unless one makes a clear distinction of this kind. This principle has been carried to extremes in the field theory by localizing the elementary objects on which it is based and which exist independently of each other, as well as the elementary laws which have been postulated for it, in the infinitely small (four-dimensional) elements of space.

Thus, "Einstein notes that in classical field theory all of the beables are local, and local in the strongest sense: the entire physical situation is nothing but the sum of the physical situations in the infinitely small regions of space-time."

 

[apeiron]

I think a lot of this hinges on what the wave function means. Given Bell's and now PBR, it seems that our best model of "reality" at least at the microscale can no longer be directly interpretable as a local beable. If one wants to use some dualistic "cut" as in Copenhagen, there are difficulties as Maudlin points out:

This is again re-stating the fact that locality is not fundamental and at best an emergent feature of reality. So now we move on to consider what is fundamental, and how things like locality might emerge?

Or should we instead keep going back to try to make locality work?

The conversation keeps returning to a point where you are either presuming "something exists fundamentally" or that "everything is emergent".

What is it, in the face of a good understanding of QM, that maintains a faith in the first option?

 

[Maui]

My argument here is that when examined closely, the notion of a "field" has long become a notion about a simple potential - ie: a vagueness.

The substrate of being now has properties such as "infinite degrees of freedom", which then get "collapsed" due to the emergence of global constraints.

Modern physics - turning physicists into philosophers and (at least some) philosophsers into physicists. I'm lovin' it

Precisely. They presume a fundamental unoriented potential, a vagueness, and then the actual world emerges via symmetry breaking.

So this is no longer a "field" concept, because fields are what emerge. But an unlimited potential of infinite dimensions is perhaps a little "field-like" when we try to imagine it. It is an uber-field possibly.

I would not say that it's easy to categorize fields as either real or unreal. There are good arguments that they are both(at the same time). Again, classical baggage(concepts) seem to stand in the way of a better understanding.

But by definition, a vagueness lacks locality and other definite features. These actual properties of fields have to emerge via development, or symmetry breaking.

I applauded you earlier in another thread about introducing ancient thinkers into the discussion with vagueness and potential development(vaguely resembles a wavefunction evolution and 'collapse').

 

[apeiron]

I think a lot of this hinges on what the wave function means.

Further, if you were reading that Kastner paper on a possibilist transactional interpretation of QM, you will have noted that it too takes an "everything emerges from potential" approach to ontology.

Shimony (2009) has similarly suggested that relativistic spacetime can be considered as a domain of actuality emergent from a quantum level of possibilities:

“There may indeed be “peaceful coexistence” between Quantum nonlocality and Relativistic locality, but it may have less to do with signaling than with the ontology of the quantum state. Heisenberg's view of the mode of reality of the quantum state was ... that it is potentiality as contrasted with actuality. This distinction is successful in making a number of features of quantum mechanics intuitively plausible — indefiniteness of properties, complementarity, indeterminacy of measurement outcomes, and objective probability. But now something can be added, at least as a conjecture: that the domain governed by Relativistic locality is the domain of actuality, while potentialities have careers in space-time (if that word is appropriate) which modify and even violate the restrictions that space-time structure imposes upon actual events...” (2009, Section 7, item 2.)

Shimony goes on to note the challenges in providing an account of the emergence of actuality from potentiality, which amounts to ‘collapse.’ PTI suggests that transactions are the vehicle for this process ; and therefore at least part of it must involve processes and entities transcending the spacetime construct.