Showing posts with label Reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reality. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Schzophrenia and Physics
Attempting to discuss physical phenomena with Atheists leads to many issues which are based in ignorance of what science is capable of telling us, vs. what science is not capable of telling us.
The following video explains why science knows enough to know that it knows very little.
At a minimum, the idea that the existence within a singularity is physical, as defined by either physics, is wrong.
The following video explains why science knows enough to know that it knows very little.
At a minimum, the idea that the existence within a singularity is physical, as defined by either physics, is wrong.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Fred on Details of The First Principles.
I apologize to Fred for the delay in answering his question concrning the Details of the First Principles; it is a timely question, so I will answer it in a post:
The emergence of life is the first anentropic (non-entropic) event, and that has been followed by generations of further anentropic events, all constrained to living systems. The universal law of Cause and Effect fails to account for the increasing order that is found in living systems. So there is some attempt to claim that things like sentience and thought “emerge” from complex systems somehow, yet there is no explanation for why complex systems exist in an entropic universe in the first place.
Cause and Effect as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics are universal and undeniably applicable to every and all physical systems… except living systems. But for Philosophical Materialism to be valid, everything that exists must exist physically and obey the laws of physics. This means that, given the conclusion first and trying to fit premises to it, all life must not be exceptional, all life must also fit into the rules of the physical universe, including Cause and Effect and Entropy.
Now if entropy dictates the degradation of effects within a long chain of causes, how might we account for sentience, thought and rationality? It has to be argued that a) these things are physical, and b) they are not exceptional, so that c) if they seem to be exceptional, that is an illusion or delusion. Even the self and consciousness as well as intentionality and agency are declared illusory or delusory. (If we believe an illusion it becomes a delusion).
Brain activity is given as definitive evidence of this delusion; moreover, damage to the brain shows that no mental activity can be correctly performed without a proper brain, with all segments hooked up and working together as shown under MRI. That physical hardware is exercising software of unknown origin escapes this description, which requires that a hardware brain be hardwired with physical connections, and that these connections fire just right somehow to perform a thought, the results of which are then transferred to the conscious mind – which is a delusion.
So it is the firing of the synapses that create the thought, and the thought is a transient state, existing only in time.
We are deluded into thinking that we somehow control these transient states, even creating sequences of them as would be required for critical thinking. There is no agency in the physical universe according to Philosophical Materialism. There is only response to stimulus (effect from a cause) and the response is lossy at that. So we are locked into our delusions.
I am not making this up, as ridiculously absurd as it appears. It is the necessity of a physical-only, material-only dogmatic philosophy that forces such absurd conclusions. Those who think that these positions are not absurd should pledge to abstain from using the results of intentional, conscious agency, including clothing, buildings of all types, transportation of all types, toilets, water and power utilities, and communications devices; these are concrete products of intentional agency. Denial of agency is dumfoundingly absurd. And so are the claims that we all live in a shared delusion.
The existence of the mind, rationality, agency and self requires a completely separate understanding of our existence within a physical universe. Our existence defies the natural laws, and requires a separate and extended view of reality beyond the Materialist viewpoint. The Materialist viewpoint is not sustainable even using its own standards of empirical knowledge: it cannot prove the limits it self-imposes on reality. But even more damaging is the boatload of absurdities that become necessary to believe, if Materialism is to be preserved.
Again sorry for the delay in answering your question.
Fred:For Cause and Effect to be completely in control of every aspect of human thinking, every thought (which must be material itself) must have a direct physical cause and that cause must be an effect of a prior cause, clear back to the big bang. Now Cause and Effect is ruled by entropy, which means that every effect must be less than its cause, with at least a portion of the cause resulting in disorder such as heat. A relentless trek toward disorder is the fate of the physical universe, and this is a rule that allows no exceptions: there can exist no reversible machines in our physical universe.
”Stan, Thank you for the answers and clarifications. I appreciate your time. In the third-to-last paragraph of your answer (Materialists do in fact claim...) you state Materialists' adherence to Cause and Effect doesn't allow for any human agency which in turn doesn't allow for any "original" - uncaused - thought, since this requires agency. You then say that because of this, reason,... also cannot exist under naturalism. How do you draw this conclusion? Would not a Materialist say that reason does not have to be uncaused (original) for it to exist? Would not a materialist also state that even granting for the non-material transcendent nature of thought one cannot deny the chemical and cellular processes occurring in the material brain in tandem with these thoughts as evidenced by countless scientific experiments; many of which have demonstrated that human behavior (and therefore thoughts) can be altered as a result of material changes through various means to the brain?”
The emergence of life is the first anentropic (non-entropic) event, and that has been followed by generations of further anentropic events, all constrained to living systems. The universal law of Cause and Effect fails to account for the increasing order that is found in living systems. So there is some attempt to claim that things like sentience and thought “emerge” from complex systems somehow, yet there is no explanation for why complex systems exist in an entropic universe in the first place.
Cause and Effect as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics are universal and undeniably applicable to every and all physical systems… except living systems. But for Philosophical Materialism to be valid, everything that exists must exist physically and obey the laws of physics. This means that, given the conclusion first and trying to fit premises to it, all life must not be exceptional, all life must also fit into the rules of the physical universe, including Cause and Effect and Entropy.
Now if entropy dictates the degradation of effects within a long chain of causes, how might we account for sentience, thought and rationality? It has to be argued that a) these things are physical, and b) they are not exceptional, so that c) if they seem to be exceptional, that is an illusion or delusion. Even the self and consciousness as well as intentionality and agency are declared illusory or delusory. (If we believe an illusion it becomes a delusion).
Brain activity is given as definitive evidence of this delusion; moreover, damage to the brain shows that no mental activity can be correctly performed without a proper brain, with all segments hooked up and working together as shown under MRI. That physical hardware is exercising software of unknown origin escapes this description, which requires that a hardware brain be hardwired with physical connections, and that these connections fire just right somehow to perform a thought, the results of which are then transferred to the conscious mind – which is a delusion.
So it is the firing of the synapses that create the thought, and the thought is a transient state, existing only in time.
We are deluded into thinking that we somehow control these transient states, even creating sequences of them as would be required for critical thinking. There is no agency in the physical universe according to Philosophical Materialism. There is only response to stimulus (effect from a cause) and the response is lossy at that. So we are locked into our delusions.
I am not making this up, as ridiculously absurd as it appears. It is the necessity of a physical-only, material-only dogmatic philosophy that forces such absurd conclusions. Those who think that these positions are not absurd should pledge to abstain from using the results of intentional, conscious agency, including clothing, buildings of all types, transportation of all types, toilets, water and power utilities, and communications devices; these are concrete products of intentional agency. Denial of agency is dumfoundingly absurd. And so are the claims that we all live in a shared delusion.
The existence of the mind, rationality, agency and self requires a completely separate understanding of our existence within a physical universe. Our existence defies the natural laws, and requires a separate and extended view of reality beyond the Materialist viewpoint. The Materialist viewpoint is not sustainable even using its own standards of empirical knowledge: it cannot prove the limits it self-imposes on reality. But even more damaging is the boatload of absurdities that become necessary to believe, if Materialism is to be preserved.
“I suppose the question then is whether it is these material processes in the brain which are the material precursors to non-material thought, or vice versa? Or is it that the two are in a circular relationship where one causes the other and back and forth, back and forth, etc. Of course, a Materialist would give the "first/original" cause of all this as being purely material, the big bang. And a theist would give first cause as the "thought" or original act of creation of God. Is this not then an endless argument which can never be resolved since neither claim can be proven?”The Atheist / Materialist claim can be proven false, due to the non-rational absurdities required for all humans to be living in a shared delusion. Theism is an understanding of a non-physical, non-material reality that presumes that, for one thing, a sentient being is required to create sentience in other objects such as humans. This cannot be proven empirically because it is not an empirical hypothesis, but it is not non-coherent nor is it paradoxical nor does it depend on mass or individual delusion.
"Of course, you rightly point out that because of this inability to prove their claims atheists cannot claim to be any more rational than deists. Is this the main, and only, point of your blog: to deny atheists the claim of rationality? Do you go on to make any arguments in favor of the claims of theists? (I suppose I could answer the last question myself by reading your posts further!) Best wishes.”Please do feel free to read the posts, they are categorized by subject for your reading convenience. I do not indulge in theodicies because they are not proof of anything to the materialist mind. There are a great many theological sources but very few logical assaults on the Atheist worldview such as is done here. So that is the focus of this blog. However, I provide an insight into the study and use of real logic, and that can be used to find a coherent theology; that is a particular journey that I feel every seeker must make for himself, not one that I try to influence.
Again sorry for the delay in answering your question.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Non-Intentional Life
There are some constants in the Atheist / Naturalist [1] worldview, some givens that resemble absolute truths at least within the limits of their worldview. One of these is that the only valid path to knowledge, at least reliable knowledge of any value, is through the empirical scientific process. For them, knowledge from any other source is suspect or worse. This position leads directly to another level, which is the reverence for the principle of Cause and Effect as a universal truth, and as the basis for science, which, in turn, somehow leads them to Atheism. If there exists no supernatural ontology, then everything that exists is just as we see it in the universe – that is the basis of Naturalism and Atheism. It is a big “if”.
As a consequence of the dependence of Naturalism and Atheism on the universal validity of principle of Cause and Effect, certain corollaries become necessarily true, in order to support that conclusion. That these corollaries are true cannot be in doubt under this thought process, because the conclusion which they support has been declared true, an exercise in rationalization. Some of these corollaries follow.
First, life is not a definable substance, and is not different in any way from the individual components that comprise the thing that is said to live. “There is no essence of life, unless it is [the existence of ] DNA”: Massimo Pigliucci. Life is not exceptional to purely material existence, and is fully defined by material causality.
Next, in humans as in all material substance based constructs there is no exceptionality from other material substances. Cause and effect applies to all substances, including humans. This means that every aspect of human functioning is a material effect which has a material cause.
This in turn means that the human does not exhibit any action that is not pre-determined by a chain of causes that go back to the Big Bang. So there is no human ability to decide anything, because every action is determinate beyond the ability of any self-agency to modify. And self does not exist either, because for one thing, there is no reason for a non-agent to be an independent entity, a self. A rock is not a self any more than the boulder from which it split was a self. Self is not a material substance; it cannot exist under the materialist decree.
So humans are without self, without agency, and without intentionality in their actions. If humans think that they have – or are – these things, then they are harboring an illusion or delusion. (Delusion occurs if one believes an illusion). If you doubt that this is a consequence of Atheism / Naturalism, then read the sources at the end of this article.
The typical Atheist response to this state of non-Agency is that the delusion of self and agency works just fine, and is a fine way to live, believing that we have agency in the face of being saddled with Fully Causal Determinism. Some Atheists and Naturalists even claim that there is a small bubble of non-determinism which is available to us, even though Causal Determinism is a universal principle; this allows us a small degree of agency within the constraints of our environmental and genetic histories.
If these ideas are valid, what would be the consequences? Are our actions fully predetermined and without recourse for modification? Or conversely, do the laws of Cause and Effect stop at some short-field locus that actually allows us to have some very limited agency?
Living Fully Causal and Without Self, Except for Self-Delusion.
How can we be self-deluded if there is no self to delude? To self-delude a self, requires a self, and the idea is therefore non-coherent. So that can’t be.
But maybe we are deluded, not by ourselves which do not exist, but by circumstances. What is it that gets deluded? There is no self; the conscious mind merely gets informed of the predetermined, fully caused actions of the neural electrochemical discharges. If the conscious mind is only a register of what has already happened deterministically, yet the conscious mind thinks that it performed those actions, then the conscious mind is, in fact, delusional. And that is necessarily true of all conscious minds. Every mind is delusional regarding its self and agency. And by necessary extension, all the products of the self and agency.
But then the question of self arises again. Something has happened that causes non-entopic activities to occur in the wake of the activities of human mental faculties. If there is no core being that causes those non-entropic activities for which living things are known, then how are they caused (or are they delusions too)? And can I not think, consciously, in a manner to design, to create, to cause things to happen that could not otherwise happen without an agent’s causal force? And things which would not have happened without intentionality? Is the existence of these agent-caused intentional products not real (because there is no agency)? Exactly how delusional are we? And why would we be expected to share the same delusions with countless others, say when we board a plane or ride an escalator, or engage with communication devices? How are universally common delusions implemented - what is their cause? Is it more parsimonious to consider that we share a common, universal delusion, or that we share a common, universal reality?
Consider the other claims of Atheists and Naturalists, specifically the claim to be rational. If they claim universal delusion on the one hand, how can they claim rationality on the other? If they have no self, if they have no intentionality or agency, if their actions are fully causal with their conscious minds merely informed post hoc, how can they be rational? Even if the neural electrochemical discharge is declared the source of rationality, that also is fully caused, deterministic, and without any agency or intentionality, and moreover, why should a material mass of molecules have any non-deterministic capability, much less rationality and self-hood? The Atheist / Naturalist argument must apply to the neurons as well as to consciousness.
So unless the Atheists / Naturalists can produce an argument that provides an exception to their primary argument which universalizes determinism, an argument for a non-deterministic haven which endows themselves with agency even while surrounded with a fully caused and deterministic universe, then their argument fails. And paradoxically, if they do provide an argument for excepting themselves from determinism in order to allow their own rationality, then universal determinism cannot be a valid principle. Either way, full causal determinism fails.
Moreover, if we are merely deluded into the belief that any non-deterministic agency exists, then the reality that we think we have created is also a delusion. Therefore, if the principle of delusion of agency is valid, then delusion becomes a constant and consistent necessity, a state which we cannot differentiate from actual reality if there is any actual reality. Once again the Atheist / Naturalist claim of rationality cannot be valid if we all are deluded. The argument from delusion prohibits rationality.
Empiricism and the Question of Self, Agency and Delusion
Empiricism is an intentional activity; it is the sole source of valid knowledge according to the proponents of universal determinism, the Atheists and Naturalists. Yet that pairing of concepts self-contradicts. Again, without agency to design and perform the experimental analysis which characterizes empirical activity, there could be no meaningful knowledge product issuing from empirical activity. Once again there must be an exception to the principle of universal determinism in order for meaningful information or knowledge to come out of empirical activity. And once again, the principle of universal determinism cannot be valid if knowledge or meaning exists due to the exceptionalism of agent driven empirical activity. Unless of course, empiricism and its products are delusions. So either determinism does not apply to empiricism, or empiricism and knowledge are delusions. Either way, Atheism and Naturalism fail as rational worldviews, since they require both fully causal determinism AND empirical knowledge both to be valid simultaneously.
Why is delusion a part of the Atheist / Naturalist worldview? What are the rational (or non-rational) logic steps that produce the necessity of delusion?
The conclusion comes first by decree: There can be no non-material existence. The support for this conclusion is winnowed and selected for those items which do not contradict the conclusion.
For example the basic conclusion, full materiality of existence is decreed, not observed. Under the decree, certain things cannot exist, things which would invalidate the decree. So when those certain things are seen to exist after having been denied, they must be declared to be delusions.
This process is both non-rational and non-empirical. It is the product of a belief system, one that specifically denies parts of reality that conflict with the basic tenet of the belief. Any invalidating observations are thus delusions, especially if they cannot be defeated empirically.
So in this sense, both Atheism and Naturalism are religious-types of non-empirical belief systems, which actually deny certain aspects of observable reality as delusions, and which are based on faith in concepts derived by rationalization rather than valid logical processes. The fundamental concept – all existence is material only - is decreed rather than observed and it is not even observable, yet it is declared both true and the basis for what is called a rational worldview.
The belief in Atheism / Naturalism is not based in empiricism or rational analysis, it is based in something else: a desire for it to be true.
[Note 1] I use the term "naturalism" here, despite its confusing meanings. While I prefer "philosophical materialism", naturalism is commonly used in some of the "mind" literature, so I will use it here, too.
Sources For Further Reading:
Pinker, Steven; “How the Mind Works”; 1997, WW Norton & Co.
Schwartz, Jeffrey and Sharon Begley; “The Mind and The Brain”; 2002, Harper.
Clark, Thos; “Encountering Naturalism”; Center For Naturalism, 2007.
Huemer, Michael; “Skepticism and the Veil of Perception”; Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Martin, Michael; Atheism, A Philosophical Justification; Temple University Press, 1990.
“The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”; Michael Martin Ed.; Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment”; Stuart Brown, Ed.; Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 5; Routledge, 1996.
Reason & Analysis; Bland Blanshard; Paul Carus Lectures Series 12; 1962; Open Court Publishing.
As a consequence of the dependence of Naturalism and Atheism on the universal validity of principle of Cause and Effect, certain corollaries become necessarily true, in order to support that conclusion. That these corollaries are true cannot be in doubt under this thought process, because the conclusion which they support has been declared true, an exercise in rationalization. Some of these corollaries follow.
First, life is not a definable substance, and is not different in any way from the individual components that comprise the thing that is said to live. “There is no essence of life, unless it is [the existence of ] DNA”: Massimo Pigliucci. Life is not exceptional to purely material existence, and is fully defined by material causality.
Next, in humans as in all material substance based constructs there is no exceptionality from other material substances. Cause and effect applies to all substances, including humans. This means that every aspect of human functioning is a material effect which has a material cause.
This in turn means that the human does not exhibit any action that is not pre-determined by a chain of causes that go back to the Big Bang. So there is no human ability to decide anything, because every action is determinate beyond the ability of any self-agency to modify. And self does not exist either, because for one thing, there is no reason for a non-agent to be an independent entity, a self. A rock is not a self any more than the boulder from which it split was a self. Self is not a material substance; it cannot exist under the materialist decree.
So humans are without self, without agency, and without intentionality in their actions. If humans think that they have – or are – these things, then they are harboring an illusion or delusion. (Delusion occurs if one believes an illusion). If you doubt that this is a consequence of Atheism / Naturalism, then read the sources at the end of this article.
The typical Atheist response to this state of non-Agency is that the delusion of self and agency works just fine, and is a fine way to live, believing that we have agency in the face of being saddled with Fully Causal Determinism. Some Atheists and Naturalists even claim that there is a small bubble of non-determinism which is available to us, even though Causal Determinism is a universal principle; this allows us a small degree of agency within the constraints of our environmental and genetic histories.
If these ideas are valid, what would be the consequences? Are our actions fully predetermined and without recourse for modification? Or conversely, do the laws of Cause and Effect stop at some short-field locus that actually allows us to have some very limited agency?
Living Fully Causal and Without Self, Except for Self-Delusion.
How can we be self-deluded if there is no self to delude? To self-delude a self, requires a self, and the idea is therefore non-coherent. So that can’t be.
But maybe we are deluded, not by ourselves which do not exist, but by circumstances. What is it that gets deluded? There is no self; the conscious mind merely gets informed of the predetermined, fully caused actions of the neural electrochemical discharges. If the conscious mind is only a register of what has already happened deterministically, yet the conscious mind thinks that it performed those actions, then the conscious mind is, in fact, delusional. And that is necessarily true of all conscious minds. Every mind is delusional regarding its self and agency. And by necessary extension, all the products of the self and agency.
But then the question of self arises again. Something has happened that causes non-entopic activities to occur in the wake of the activities of human mental faculties. If there is no core being that causes those non-entropic activities for which living things are known, then how are they caused (or are they delusions too)? And can I not think, consciously, in a manner to design, to create, to cause things to happen that could not otherwise happen without an agent’s causal force? And things which would not have happened without intentionality? Is the existence of these agent-caused intentional products not real (because there is no agency)? Exactly how delusional are we? And why would we be expected to share the same delusions with countless others, say when we board a plane or ride an escalator, or engage with communication devices? How are universally common delusions implemented - what is their cause? Is it more parsimonious to consider that we share a common, universal delusion, or that we share a common, universal reality?
Consider the other claims of Atheists and Naturalists, specifically the claim to be rational. If they claim universal delusion on the one hand, how can they claim rationality on the other? If they have no self, if they have no intentionality or agency, if their actions are fully causal with their conscious minds merely informed post hoc, how can they be rational? Even if the neural electrochemical discharge is declared the source of rationality, that also is fully caused, deterministic, and without any agency or intentionality, and moreover, why should a material mass of molecules have any non-deterministic capability, much less rationality and self-hood? The Atheist / Naturalist argument must apply to the neurons as well as to consciousness.
So unless the Atheists / Naturalists can produce an argument that provides an exception to their primary argument which universalizes determinism, an argument for a non-deterministic haven which endows themselves with agency even while surrounded with a fully caused and deterministic universe, then their argument fails. And paradoxically, if they do provide an argument for excepting themselves from determinism in order to allow their own rationality, then universal determinism cannot be a valid principle. Either way, full causal determinism fails.
Moreover, if we are merely deluded into the belief that any non-deterministic agency exists, then the reality that we think we have created is also a delusion. Therefore, if the principle of delusion of agency is valid, then delusion becomes a constant and consistent necessity, a state which we cannot differentiate from actual reality if there is any actual reality. Once again the Atheist / Naturalist claim of rationality cannot be valid if we all are deluded. The argument from delusion prohibits rationality.
Empiricism and the Question of Self, Agency and Delusion
Empiricism is an intentional activity; it is the sole source of valid knowledge according to the proponents of universal determinism, the Atheists and Naturalists. Yet that pairing of concepts self-contradicts. Again, without agency to design and perform the experimental analysis which characterizes empirical activity, there could be no meaningful knowledge product issuing from empirical activity. Once again there must be an exception to the principle of universal determinism in order for meaningful information or knowledge to come out of empirical activity. And once again, the principle of universal determinism cannot be valid if knowledge or meaning exists due to the exceptionalism of agent driven empirical activity. Unless of course, empiricism and its products are delusions. So either determinism does not apply to empiricism, or empiricism and knowledge are delusions. Either way, Atheism and Naturalism fail as rational worldviews, since they require both fully causal determinism AND empirical knowledge both to be valid simultaneously.
Why is delusion a part of the Atheist / Naturalist worldview? What are the rational (or non-rational) logic steps that produce the necessity of delusion?
The conclusion comes first by decree: There can be no non-material existence. The support for this conclusion is winnowed and selected for those items which do not contradict the conclusion.
For example the basic conclusion, full materiality of existence is decreed, not observed. Under the decree, certain things cannot exist, things which would invalidate the decree. So when those certain things are seen to exist after having been denied, they must be declared to be delusions.
This process is both non-rational and non-empirical. It is the product of a belief system, one that specifically denies parts of reality that conflict with the basic tenet of the belief. Any invalidating observations are thus delusions, especially if they cannot be defeated empirically.
So in this sense, both Atheism and Naturalism are religious-types of non-empirical belief systems, which actually deny certain aspects of observable reality as delusions, and which are based on faith in concepts derived by rationalization rather than valid logical processes. The fundamental concept – all existence is material only - is decreed rather than observed and it is not even observable, yet it is declared both true and the basis for what is called a rational worldview.
The belief in Atheism / Naturalism is not based in empiricism or rational analysis, it is based in something else: a desire for it to be true.
[Note 1] I use the term "naturalism" here, despite its confusing meanings. While I prefer "philosophical materialism", naturalism is commonly used in some of the "mind" literature, so I will use it here, too.
Sources For Further Reading:
Pinker, Steven; “How the Mind Works”; 1997, WW Norton & Co.
Schwartz, Jeffrey and Sharon Begley; “The Mind and The Brain”; 2002, Harper.
Clark, Thos; “Encountering Naturalism”; Center For Naturalism, 2007.
Huemer, Michael; “Skepticism and the Veil of Perception”; Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Martin, Michael; Atheism, A Philosophical Justification; Temple University Press, 1990.
“The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”; Michael Martin Ed.; Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment”; Stuart Brown, Ed.; Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 5; Routledge, 1996.
Reason & Analysis; Bland Blanshard; Paul Carus Lectures Series 12; 1962; Open Court Publishing.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Stephen Hawking and the Grand Design
Stephen Hawking has published another popular-culture targeted book of science, this one called “The Grand Design”. Written in collaboration with Leonard Mladinow, it is clear from the cover that Hawking has the spotlight. It is not clear who actually wrote the book. Books intended for the popular market are a special thing. In the introduction to Feynman’s book on quantum electrodynamics, ”QED”, physicist A. Zee wrote that there are three classes of audiences to be addressed by scientists who write books on their specialties: students who might be inspired to continue to study; intelligent, curious laypersons; professionals in the field (note 1). Many authors and publishers, says Zee, wring the meaningfulness from the pages in order not to spook lay readers.
Zee also quotes Steve Weinberg, who claimed that “lay readers only want to learn a few buzzwords to throw around at cocktail parties”. Further Zee quotes Hawking who said that every equation in a book halves the number of readers. Consequently, most books of popular market science contain references such as “given two numbers, the high priests have a way of producing another number”, with implied faith that what the high priests produce is correct, meaningful, and applicable to the topic at hand.
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have produced a popular book of the kind that references the high priests. There are many things that are stated as fact that must be assumed true without much in the way of proof; proof of the ordinary kind is eschewed, and even history is denied (more on that below). Grand Design finally morphs into a faith-based belief system, after reviewing modern physics in its several forms, and stacking some dubious axioms. The narrative starts early on toward that belief system by declaring in the first pages that “philosophy is dead”. Whether either author has an awareness of philosophical issues outside Materialism is immediately in question, especially since nowhere in the ensuing text are any of the basics of ethics, for example, discussed or even acknowledged. The entire point of the book is to stack up the models in a manner that might sift out a source for the universe that could eliminate the need for a First Cause, much less an intelligent one. One supposes that ethics must fall where it may under those conditions.
The case being made here is that, given a series of assumptions, there are some conclusions that can be made. These conclusions are that:
(a) Time had no beginning due to excessive warp of space-time making time just another crunched up physical dimension (completely unlike time as we know it), thereby creating a boundary-less universe; this is compared to the shape of the earth: there is nothing south of the south pole. Without time at the start, it being all bound up tight, there is no “beginning”, no time south of crunched-time.
(b) Applying Feynman’s “sum over histories” to our universe creates a situation where the universe has many histories, not just one, as the model for quantum particles suggests. Sum over histories, or path-integral, is the idea that a particle takes ALL possible paths to a desitination simultaneously, i.e. all histories apply.
(c) Defining life simplistically allows for high probabilities of creating life; denying free will helps.
(d) And finally, given that gravity provides a negative energy which balances positive energy use for creating mass, a universe can spontaneously create itself from nothing, with nothing to restrict it. Given that the energy in a universe must be zero, gravity and mass cancel out.
The ideas that are reached are philosophical – no need for intelligence in order for intelligence to exist; no need for mass-energy in order for mass-energy to exist, and so on – all based on speculation.
The speculation is embedded in assumptions and even the equations themselves, which are mentioned but not shown. For example, the problem of infinities arises throughout. This amazing statement ensues following a discussion of supersymmetry:
Again,
There are also the paradoxes and philosophical presuppositions slipped past:
A paradox: if only the four space dimensions existed in the early universe, and time was a space dimension, not actually time, then how did the expansion progress – given that progress requires time? Motion requires time. It can be argued that physical existence requires time (or there are no measurements possible to confirm or deny it, plus, mass only exists in temporal motion from t(n) to t(n+)).
Another paradox: The no-boundary condition (a presupposition) provides a means to:
A strange tautology: The statement that “the laws of science apply at the beginning of the universe” is a tautology, IFF science understands what happened, perfectly, and documents that understanding. That tautology is in no way a refutation of anything in particular – it is a definition of scientific knowledge. The idea that science, by its existence, refutes a deity is false. Science produces an infinite regress of next questions. This book does not ask those questions. Questions not asked by the authors are discussed below, near the end.
Presupposition: It is presupposed that quantum theory will subsume Newtonian theory, and that means that determinism is guaranteed, even if it is probabilistic. (note 5)
Another presupposition: It is presupposed that quantum theories of particles will apply to the universe when it was quite small; this is not apparent, because the initial universe was infinitely dense, with particles collapsing into who knows what. This presupposition is a giant leap of faith.
And another presupposition: It is presupposed that there is no explanation for free will if we are just a mass of atomic subparticles (This is also known as Darwin's Horrid Doubt). The immediate conclusion is that free will cannot exist because of our composition, which is deterministic. (note 6) This is a Philosophical Materialist conclusion, not a scientific data driven one. And this leads to the bizarre conclusion that follows:
We must be very clear here. They deny free will based on quantum composition; they do admit to the creation of a contingent theory based on observation that models the existence of free will in humans! They choose the quantum compostion as Truth, and ignore the model based on observations of facts!
Zee sets the environment straight for us: ”Theoretical physicists are a notoriously pragmatic lot. They will use whichever method is easiest. There is none of the mathematician’s petulant insistence on rigor and proof. Whatever works, man!” (note 7) One cannot let observations interfere with the pursuit of a faith.
There is an admission up front in the Grand Design. One must abandon all prior knowledge. Period. The universe, if viewed from the many-histories viewpoint, does not have a single history. The universe, like Fenman’s particles, has many, many histories, and must be examined from the present backwards, not from the beginning forwards. If this is the case, then all knowledge, having been historically derived, is null and void.
This necessarily includes logic, which is based in observations of the characteristics of the universe over many human lifetimes and even eons. Logical demands are of no value in the quantum world, and that is now being applied to the universe, in fact to all universes. And along with free will being destroyed by quantum determinism, logic is destroyed by many-histories.
So the logic of canceling infinities, or uncancelled infinities or any other paradoxes is of no concern.
Where exactly does this leave science? Does science still require experimental confirmation and non-falsification? The authors say yes, and yet their conclusions are firm, unyielding faith statements.
Or is experiment and verificaton an artifact of logic in science which is no longer required for believing in The Grand Design?
The Grand Design, taken alone and without the expertise of cosmology, quantum theory, might seduce the unsuspicious who are truly willing to abandon logic-based rationality in order to stack unproven and likely unmathematical speculations into a belief system. In fact, science might some day robustly lead to a new view of the universe and its origin. But that robustness is not available within the parameters of this book.
Also ignored in this book are the subsequent questions not being asked: Whence gravity? If we start with nothing, why would we expect gravity to appear as a balancing entity, a rule out of nowhere? Why gravity? Why not nothing? Whence the laws of science, or rather the order that science describes, even if probabilistically? What about the mind-connection in quantum mechanics, does that apply to the universe too? Whence the origin of the no-boundary existence of four crunched-up dimensions, and if they just exist, how did they get to the point where time became time? Where are these other universes? Why do we not see new universes all the time and everywhere, if there are truly no constraints on spontaneous creation? Why don't neighboring universes create warp in our universe? It goes on and on.
But I am most curious about this: Were these two authors compelled by determinism to write this book? Or did they have free will to stack all these unknowns into their belief system? That’s the question I’d like to see them answer, non-philosophically, of course. I’ll need data and replication; I'm thinking that the "effective theory" holds, and better than the quantum theory of the universe.
Note 1: A. Zee, from Feynman, “QED”; Princeton Univ. Press, pg xii-xiv.
Note 2. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 114-5.
Note 3. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 115.
Note 4. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 135.
Note 5. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 72-3.
Note 6. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 32.
Note 7. A. Zee, from Feynman, “QED”; Princeton Univ. Press, pg xvi.
Zee also quotes Steve Weinberg, who claimed that “lay readers only want to learn a few buzzwords to throw around at cocktail parties”. Further Zee quotes Hawking who said that every equation in a book halves the number of readers. Consequently, most books of popular market science contain references such as “given two numbers, the high priests have a way of producing another number”, with implied faith that what the high priests produce is correct, meaningful, and applicable to the topic at hand.
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have produced a popular book of the kind that references the high priests. There are many things that are stated as fact that must be assumed true without much in the way of proof; proof of the ordinary kind is eschewed, and even history is denied (more on that below). Grand Design finally morphs into a faith-based belief system, after reviewing modern physics in its several forms, and stacking some dubious axioms. The narrative starts early on toward that belief system by declaring in the first pages that “philosophy is dead”. Whether either author has an awareness of philosophical issues outside Materialism is immediately in question, especially since nowhere in the ensuing text are any of the basics of ethics, for example, discussed or even acknowledged. The entire point of the book is to stack up the models in a manner that might sift out a source for the universe that could eliminate the need for a First Cause, much less an intelligent one. One supposes that ethics must fall where it may under those conditions.
The case being made here is that, given a series of assumptions, there are some conclusions that can be made. These conclusions are that:
(a) Time had no beginning due to excessive warp of space-time making time just another crunched up physical dimension (completely unlike time as we know it), thereby creating a boundary-less universe; this is compared to the shape of the earth: there is nothing south of the south pole. Without time at the start, it being all bound up tight, there is no “beginning”, no time south of crunched-time.
(b) Applying Feynman’s “sum over histories” to our universe creates a situation where the universe has many histories, not just one, as the model for quantum particles suggests. Sum over histories, or path-integral, is the idea that a particle takes ALL possible paths to a desitination simultaneously, i.e. all histories apply.
(c) Defining life simplistically allows for high probabilities of creating life; denying free will helps.
(d) And finally, given that gravity provides a negative energy which balances positive energy use for creating mass, a universe can spontaneously create itself from nothing, with nothing to restrict it. Given that the energy in a universe must be zero, gravity and mass cancel out.
The ideas that are reached are philosophical – no need for intelligence in order for intelligence to exist; no need for mass-energy in order for mass-energy to exist, and so on – all based on speculation.
The speculation is embedded in assumptions and even the equations themselves, which are mentioned but not shown. For example, the problem of infinities arises throughout. This amazing statement ensues following a discussion of supersymmetry:
”This [the equivalence of force and matter] has the potential to solve the problem of infinities because it turns out that the infinities from closed loops of force particles are positive while the infinities from the closed loops of matter particles are negative, so the infinities in the theory arising from the force particles and their partner matter tend to cancel out. Unfortunately, the calculations required to find out whether there would be any infinities left uncanceled were so long and difficult and had such potential for error that no one was prepared to undertake them. Most physicists believed, nonetheless, that supergravity was probably the right answer to the problem of unifying gravity with the other forces.” (note 2)Canceling infinities? Unknown possible uncanceled infinities? Such is the state of the scientific knowledge that is used to reach the beliefs being espoused.
Again,
String theories also lead to infinities, but it is believed that in the right version they will all cancel out” (note 3)
There are also the paradoxes and philosophical presuppositions slipped past:
A paradox: if only the four space dimensions existed in the early universe, and time was a space dimension, not actually time, then how did the expansion progress – given that progress requires time? Motion requires time. It can be argued that physical existence requires time (or there are no measurements possible to confirm or deny it, plus, mass only exists in temporal motion from t(n) to t(n+)).
Another paradox: The no-boundary condition (a presupposition) provides a means to:
“remove the age-old objection to the universe having a beginning, but it also means that the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science, and doesn’t need to be set in motion by some god.” (note 4)Declaring that there was no beginning, it always existed in boundary-less and timeless form, and then declaring that in the beginning scientific laws existed… is self-refuting.
A strange tautology: The statement that “the laws of science apply at the beginning of the universe” is a tautology, IFF science understands what happened, perfectly, and documents that understanding. That tautology is in no way a refutation of anything in particular – it is a definition of scientific knowledge. The idea that science, by its existence, refutes a deity is false. Science produces an infinite regress of next questions. This book does not ask those questions. Questions not asked by the authors are discussed below, near the end.
Presupposition: It is presupposed that quantum theory will subsume Newtonian theory, and that means that determinism is guaranteed, even if it is probabilistic. (note 5)
Another presupposition: It is presupposed that quantum theories of particles will apply to the universe when it was quite small; this is not apparent, because the initial universe was infinitely dense, with particles collapsing into who knows what. This presupposition is a giant leap of faith.
And another presupposition: It is presupposed that there is no explanation for free will if we are just a mass of atomic subparticles (This is also known as Darwin's Horrid Doubt). The immediate conclusion is that free will cannot exist because of our composition, which is deterministic. (note 6) This is a Philosophical Materialist conclusion, not a scientific data driven one. And this leads to the bizarre conclusion that follows:
”Because it is so impractical to use the underlying physical laws to predict human behavior, we adopt what is called an effective theory [ OK we admit that free will exists…]. In physics, an effective theory is a framework created to model certain observed phenomena without describing in detail all of the underlying processes…. In the case of people, since we cannot solve the equations that determine our behavior, we use the effective theory that people have free will. The study of our will, and the behavior that arises from it, is the science of psychology.”(note 6 again)
We must be very clear here. They deny free will based on quantum composition; they do admit to the creation of a contingent theory based on observation that models the existence of free will in humans! They choose the quantum compostion as Truth, and ignore the model based on observations of facts!
Zee sets the environment straight for us: ”Theoretical physicists are a notoriously pragmatic lot. They will use whichever method is easiest. There is none of the mathematician’s petulant insistence on rigor and proof. Whatever works, man!” (note 7) One cannot let observations interfere with the pursuit of a faith.
There is an admission up front in the Grand Design. One must abandon all prior knowledge. Period. The universe, if viewed from the many-histories viewpoint, does not have a single history. The universe, like Fenman’s particles, has many, many histories, and must be examined from the present backwards, not from the beginning forwards. If this is the case, then all knowledge, having been historically derived, is null and void.
This necessarily includes logic, which is based in observations of the characteristics of the universe over many human lifetimes and even eons. Logical demands are of no value in the quantum world, and that is now being applied to the universe, in fact to all universes. And along with free will being destroyed by quantum determinism, logic is destroyed by many-histories.
So the logic of canceling infinities, or uncancelled infinities or any other paradoxes is of no concern.
Where exactly does this leave science? Does science still require experimental confirmation and non-falsification? The authors say yes, and yet their conclusions are firm, unyielding faith statements.
Or is experiment and verificaton an artifact of logic in science which is no longer required for believing in The Grand Design?
The Grand Design, taken alone and without the expertise of cosmology, quantum theory, might seduce the unsuspicious who are truly willing to abandon logic-based rationality in order to stack unproven and likely unmathematical speculations into a belief system. In fact, science might some day robustly lead to a new view of the universe and its origin. But that robustness is not available within the parameters of this book.
Also ignored in this book are the subsequent questions not being asked: Whence gravity? If we start with nothing, why would we expect gravity to appear as a balancing entity, a rule out of nowhere? Why gravity? Why not nothing? Whence the laws of science, or rather the order that science describes, even if probabilistically? What about the mind-connection in quantum mechanics, does that apply to the universe too? Whence the origin of the no-boundary existence of four crunched-up dimensions, and if they just exist, how did they get to the point where time became time? Where are these other universes? Why do we not see new universes all the time and everywhere, if there are truly no constraints on spontaneous creation? Why don't neighboring universes create warp in our universe? It goes on and on.
But I am most curious about this: Were these two authors compelled by determinism to write this book? Or did they have free will to stack all these unknowns into their belief system? That’s the question I’d like to see them answer, non-philosophically, of course. I’ll need data and replication; I'm thinking that the "effective theory" holds, and better than the quantum theory of the universe.
Note 1: A. Zee, from Feynman, “QED”; Princeton Univ. Press, pg xii-xiv.
Note 2. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 114-5.
Note 3. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 115.
Note 4. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 135.
Note 5. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 72-3.
Note 6. Hawking/Mladinow; “The Grand Design”; Bantam, NY; pg 32.
Note 7. A. Zee, from Feynman, “QED”; Princeton Univ. Press, pg xvi.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Modeling Reality
In his book, ”God, the Failed Hypothesis”, Victor J. Stenger attempts to model God, based on some faulty assumptions. Because God is not observable, Stenger is constrained to creating his own observations – not empirical observations, but opinions of what characteristics God must have and what God must do, if God is to satisfy Stenger’s conditions. This is destined to futility, of course, because first, none of us can conceive of even basic nature of such a being, and second, that effort to model is not based on empirical observation, it is based on conjecture and opinion.
The purpose of modeling is to accumulate the attributes of a targeted entity in order to describe the entity in an accurate and useful manner. Automobile designers sculpt full-scale clay models of a proposed auto design, then use this not just for visual appreciation but also to test air resistance and manufacturability, etc.
Modeling can be done at several levels. Scientists use models to describe what they observe, and the models serve as aids in visualizing materials or events that are currently beyond direct viewing and are seen only as indirect effects. Models are also used in hypotheses to demonstrate an expected outcome, and are subject to change as experimental data is acquired that verifies or contradicts them. Models can be physical, mathematical or syllogistic. Or they can be lists of expected characteristics.
The best models in terms of accuracy and usefulness might be those that describe visible entities, such as the mathematical model for the moon’s orbit around the earth, or projectile trajectories. Models of observable, sensory characteristics that are continually tested successfully against falsification can become laws in banks of scientific knowledge.
What happens when we try to model something we can and do sense, and about which we can accumulate data, and watch for falsification: Reality? I suggest that this has already been done, and that it has been done across centuries and by some of the world’s most accomplished thinkers. The model of reality comes from observing characteristics of the universe. These are not secret or deeply embedded or too complex for laymen to comprehend. The model of the universe, based on observed characteristics, includes such basic observations as that the physical behavior of mass – energy is consistent enough to conclude that it follows certain principles which can be induced as laws. This can be done with reasonable certainty, having been repeated across centuries and millennia.
There are certain laws that are seen to be universally applicable, and while any law might be found to fail with future observations, these particular laws have not failed across the centuries of observation by humans. If they had failed or were to fail in the future, that failure would impact our view of both the nature of the universe and the ability of our minds to comprehend it. But this falsification has not happened, and the principles are universally valid as far as we can determine.
Such principles include the First Principles as described by Aristotle, which describe the characteristics of matter and existence, the characteristics of truth and falseness, and the relationship of effects to causes. These principles are based on human observations of the attributes of natural characteristics of the universe; they are not derived by assigning laws to personal desires or opinions.[Note 1] They are, as Aristotle points out, metaphysical, since they describe attributes of physical laws, not attributes of physical entities; and they cannot be unequivocally proven experimentally. They are axiomatic in that they are seen intuitively to be the case, where not to be the case is seen intuitively to be against observation of the characteristic attributes of the universe. In other words, they are self-evident universal truths.
Aristotle:
So the model of the attributes of reality, based on human observations of the universe, might look like this:
Non-controversial observations:
The principles above are said to be “self-evident” or a priori; they can neither be proved nor disproved using experimental empiricism, nor by reference to themselves. But it can be seen that neither the universe nor life would exist in their current forms if these principles are not true. So, taken together, these principles can serve as a model for reality, until either reality changes or we observe it to be different than this model shows it to be.
Note 1:
Note 2:
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4, part 3:
Note 3:
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4, part 7:
The purpose of modeling is to accumulate the attributes of a targeted entity in order to describe the entity in an accurate and useful manner. Automobile designers sculpt full-scale clay models of a proposed auto design, then use this not just for visual appreciation but also to test air resistance and manufacturability, etc.
Modeling can be done at several levels. Scientists use models to describe what they observe, and the models serve as aids in visualizing materials or events that are currently beyond direct viewing and are seen only as indirect effects. Models are also used in hypotheses to demonstrate an expected outcome, and are subject to change as experimental data is acquired that verifies or contradicts them. Models can be physical, mathematical or syllogistic. Or they can be lists of expected characteristics.
The best models in terms of accuracy and usefulness might be those that describe visible entities, such as the mathematical model for the moon’s orbit around the earth, or projectile trajectories. Models of observable, sensory characteristics that are continually tested successfully against falsification can become laws in banks of scientific knowledge.
What happens when we try to model something we can and do sense, and about which we can accumulate data, and watch for falsification: Reality? I suggest that this has already been done, and that it has been done across centuries and by some of the world’s most accomplished thinkers. The model of reality comes from observing characteristics of the universe. These are not secret or deeply embedded or too complex for laymen to comprehend. The model of the universe, based on observed characteristics, includes such basic observations as that the physical behavior of mass – energy is consistent enough to conclude that it follows certain principles which can be induced as laws. This can be done with reasonable certainty, having been repeated across centuries and millennia.
There are certain laws that are seen to be universally applicable, and while any law might be found to fail with future observations, these particular laws have not failed across the centuries of observation by humans. If they had failed or were to fail in the future, that failure would impact our view of both the nature of the universe and the ability of our minds to comprehend it. But this falsification has not happened, and the principles are universally valid as far as we can determine.
Such principles include the First Principles as described by Aristotle, which describe the characteristics of matter and existence, the characteristics of truth and falseness, and the relationship of effects to causes. These principles are based on human observations of the attributes of natural characteristics of the universe; they are not derived by assigning laws to personal desires or opinions.[Note 1] They are, as Aristotle points out, metaphysical, since they describe attributes of physical laws, not attributes of physical entities; and they cannot be unequivocally proven experimentally. They are axiomatic in that they are seen intuitively to be the case, where not to be the case is seen intuitively to be against observation of the characteristic attributes of the universe. In other words, they are self-evident universal truths.
Aristotle:
”Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth.”
So the model of the attributes of reality, based on human observations of the universe, might look like this:
Non-controversial observations:
1. If something exists, then it exists. If it is true then it is true. (tautology)More controversial observations:
2. Nothing can simultaneously exist and not exist. Nothing can simultaneously be true and not true. [Note 2]
3. Nothing can partially exist and partially not exist. Nothing can be partially true and partially not true. [Note 3]
4. For every effect there exists a cause, which is necessary and sufficient and greater than the effect, and exists prior to the effect; everything that exists is an effect, nothing causes itself. [Note 4]
5. Universal constituents: mass and energy; framework: space and time. Mass exists in space, relative to time; motion exists in time, relative to space.
6. On a human scale, existence is consistent and persistent, within the constraints of entropy; things don’t appear or disappear for no reason, but they do degrade.It is possible to deny the truth of these principles, just as it is possible to deny that physical reality exists at all. As G.E. Moore is reputed to have said, “here is a hand, and here is another hand”, defying anyone to prove otherwise. And as Bertrand Russell said, “I wish that those philosophers who deny reality would just drive into a tree at full speed, and then we can discuss it”, (paraphrased only slightly).
Material existence is justified by the contradictory possibility of material non-existence; Truth is justified by the contradictory possibility of non-truth (falseness).
7. Attributes are sufficient for functionality; for example, if a thing has all the attributes of a desk, then that is sufficient for the thing to function as a desk, regardless of the internal or base composition or internal granular essence of the thing.
8. Living things are different from non-living things. Living things have an essence (called “life”) which is different from non-living things which do not have this quality, an essential quality which currently cannot be restored after they return to a non-living status. There are two universal categories: life and non-life. The science of life and living things is biology.
9. Living things require nutrients and satisfactory environmental conditions in order to maintain the existence of life; non-living things have no such requirements.
10. In living humans, mental existence includes intentionality, which, as an uncaused causer, is a different category of existence than material, deterministic existence. There are two universal categories: intentional and deterministic.
The principles above are said to be “self-evident” or a priori; they can neither be proved nor disproved using experimental empiricism, nor by reference to themselves. But it can be seen that neither the universe nor life would exist in their current forms if these principles are not true. So, taken together, these principles can serve as a model for reality, until either reality changes or we observe it to be different than this model shows it to be.
Note 1:
”Thus the mere organization of probable opinion will never, by itself, transform into indubitable knowledge”, Bertrand Russell, “The Problems of Philosophy”, pg 140.
Note 2:
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4, part 3:
”Evidently then it belongs to the philosopher, i.e. to him who is studying the nature of all substance, to inquire also into the principles of syllogism. But he who knows best about each genus must be able to state the most certain principles of his subject, so that he whose subject is existing things qua existing must be able to state the most certain principles of all things. This is the philosopher, and the most certain principle of all is that regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken; for such a principle must be both the best known (for all men may be mistaken about things which they do not know), and non-hypothetical. For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect; we must presuppose, to guard against dialectical objections, any further qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be, as some think Heraclitus says. For what a man says, he does not necessarily believe; and if it is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject (the usual qualifications must be presupposed in this premiss too), and if an opinion which contradicts another is contrary to it, obviously it is impossible for the same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be and not to be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he would have contrary opinions at the same time. It is for this reason that all who are carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as an ultimate belief; for this is naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms.”and,
”Again if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, and when this is true, the affirmation is false, it will not be possible to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time.”
Note 3:
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4, part 7:
” Again, there must be an intermediate between all contradictories, if one is not arguing merely for the sake of argument; so that it will be possible for a man to say what is neither true nor untrue, and there will be a middle between that which is and that which is not, so that there will also be a kind of change intermediate between generation and destruction.-Again, in all classes in which the negation of an attribute involves the assertion of its contrary, even in these there will be an intermediate; for instance, in the sphere of numbers there will be number which is neither odd nor not-odd. But this is impossible, as is obvious from the definition.-Again, the process will go on ad infinitum, and the number of realities will be not only half as great again, but even greater. For again it will be possible to deny this intermediate with reference both to its assertion and to its negation, and this new term will be some definite thing; for its essence is something different.-Again, when a man, on being asked whether a thing is white, says 'no', he has denied nothing except that it is; and its not being is a negation.”Note 4:
David Hume famously denied that the "constant conjunction" of an effect to a cause proves that the purported cause actually forces the existence of the effect. [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, pg 49 - 53] Nonetheless, until the conjunction is observed to be broken when a cause is exerted and the effect no longer occurs, the relationship of effect to cause is a valid, observable attribute.
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