Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course.
Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave
Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields
are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM
fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you
have no objective reality left to argue about! ;)
Quantum Wave Functions are yet another example of a thing which cannot
be reduced to finite emprical parts. It is in fact an established
fact that QM wave functions cannot be *directly* emprically verified.
Any emprical fact or set of facts you can point to *cannot* fully
capture the QM Wave function! It is something abstract which exists
over and above any empirical facts. This is yet another example of
the failure of reductionism.
I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of
reductionism.
(1) Infinite Sets (2) The Laws of Physics and (3) Quantum Wave
Functions
It is established that all of these concepts are indispensible to our
explanations of reality and they are logically well defined and
supported. But none of these concepts can be reduced to any finite
set of empirical facts.
The only way to evade the conclusion that reductionism is false is (as
shown by Stathis's argument strategy) to deny that any of these
concepts has objective reality. For example to evade a failure of
reductionism as regards 'inifinite sets' one has to argue that
infinite sets are not objectively real, or not physically real. You
might get away with that argument for something as esoteric as
'Inifnite Sets' (after all there is some legitimate doubt that these
things are real), but once you reach a concept which is clearly
fundamental and neccessery for physical reality to exist at all (ie
Quantum Wave Functions), your argument has lapsed to pure solipsism.
Which is more likely: The laws of physics and QM wave functions are
all human fictions, or reductionism is false? It has to be one or the
other.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon May 07 2007 - 23:04:47 PDT