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I'm not sure you're on solid ground assuming that there is a "real nature of real things" beyond known time and space and sub-light speeds. As a passage in a re

I'm not sure you're on solid ground assuming that there is a "real nature of real things" beyond known time and space and sub-light speeds. As a passage in a recent piece I read on Schopenhauer pointed out: Thus, for anything to be empirically real, it must be spatial, temporal, and causal. Yet space, time, and causality cannot be proven to be empirically real themselves! If space is thought of as an empirical entity, the insoluble problem arises whether it is finite or infinite. In the first case, there would have to be something 'outside' space, a metaspace, which is an absurd notion; but in the second case it could never be differentiated of anything and would therefore have no identity. If time is finite, there would have to be something 'before' and 'after' it, which again is absurd; but if it is infinite, it would take an eternity to arrive at the present moment, which therefore could never come about. Finite causality would enhance an unimaginable 'first cause' of all events in the universe, while infinite causality poses, mutatis mutandis, the same problem as infinite time. Given that the very foundations of causal logic (cause --> event) assume our ability to differentiate in time and space, it does seem as if the most interesting aspects of physics are operating in areas where open-mindedness helps.

jblow 12y ago
Wow, this Schopenhauer quote is really painful to read. Given basic contemporary abstract thinking, it reads as completely naive. This is not unique; I often feel this way when reading philosophy. So I kind of understand where Hawking / Tyson / et al are coming from. I do think it is a mistake to single-handedly dismiss all of philosophy, and I agree with the sentiment in this article that physicists are following an implicit philosophy that they do not understand, so there's a contradiction there. At the same time, most philosophy is honestly pretty bad.
- why-el 12y ago
  That quote is anything but naive. Its basically a rephrasing of the findings of Kurl Godel, and I am not sure anyone would call that naive.
  - jblow 12y ago
    Which findings of Kurt Godel? Care to explain? Because for example this seems like it has nothing to do with the incompleteness theorems unless one doesn't understand the incompleteness theorems at all and is just hand-waving.
    - why-el 12y ago
      No one is hand-waving. "Yet space, time, and causality cannot be proven to be empirically real themselves". This is akin to mathematical axioms that escape proof within a formal system. Of course one can debate whether the analogy applies for space and time as it does in arithmetic, but this is beside the point. My point was that Schopenhauer's quote was not even remotely close to being naive, especially considering when it was said (i.e. years before Godel and others proved similar conclusions).
      - marcosdumay 12y ago
        You can use Godel's proof to show that a physics model based on space, time and causality can not exmplain those. And that if there is one that explains those, it must be based on some other set of concepts, that it can not explain. Yet, realism is in a completely different level. You can not reason about it using mathematical constructs. (Too bad that's the only tool we have.)
        apalmer 12y ago
        Can you really? Incompleteness doesn't necessarily say this. It makes certain statements about certain types of contradictions in certain types of systems. There is still a lot of work left to be done before you can apply it here. You may be saying this has already been done elsewhere but without references u can't just throw this out there as a given.
      - apalmer 12y ago
        Its a relatively naive statement. What is 'before' and 'after' time is defining time in terms of time. While it does seem ridiculous to say something is 'before' time, it doesnt seem anywhere as ridiculous to say something is unrelated to time, beyond time, or independent from time. The naivete is that a sophisticated philosopher would understand this, and at the very least not push forward a philosophical argument that really hinges on connotations of words instead of logical/philosophical pillars. Anyways if the statement didnt have a famous philosophers name attached to it i doubt it would have gotten any response, its a pretty baseline/naive reaction to a complex scientific idea.
- ambler0 12y ago
  Just focus on the first two sentences. Take the notion of causality. It underlies all of empirical science, yet it is not something that can be proved empirically. It is a given, a built in part of how we perceive things. You can read more about this if you check out the work of David Hume or Immanuel Kant. There is nothing naive about recognizing that human knowledge is limited by our knowing apparatus. What is truly naive is to mistake the models of science with "reality itself" (a nebulous term)
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    IMO philosophers get into trouble because they want to nail down what is "real" or "true". They try to work by pure logic, but alway get tied up by the limitations of spoken or written language. "Infinite" for example is a logically imprecise term; there are different flavors of mathematical infinity. Perhaps a more valid way to phrase the same sentiment would be to say that science, because of its assumptions and methodologies, can only address phenomena that are spatial, temporal, and causal. There might be real things that have none of those attributes; science and philosophers would have difficulty studying them, but that difficulty does not rule out the possibility of their existence. edit: spoken or written
    - ambler0 12y ago
      Sure, a lot of philosophers are so audacious, but not all. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism
- kahirsch 12y ago
  It doesn't appear to be a quote from Schopenhauer, but a quote from an essay "Schopenhauer and Buddhism" by Peter Abelson.[1] [1]http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm
- gglitch 12y ago
  I'm schooled in Plato and Aristotle, and the quote above seems to me very like their way of thinking, and also seems both logical and intuitive. Can you recommend some authors or titles representative of the kind of "basic contemporary abstract thinking" you're referring to?
Paradigma11 12y ago
I didn't know that there are no infinite sequences that have a distinct start. Somebody should inform those pesky natural numbers.
- yequalsx 12y ago
  I'm not a philosopher and may be misinterpreting the quote in question. The philosopher is not claiming that infinite sequences can't have a distinct start. He is claiming that an infinite amount of time could not have elapsed before the present time, t. If it did then it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to time t-1 and thus we'd never have gotten to time t since it'd require an eternity to get to t-1.
  - jchrisa 12y ago
    Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time
  - Paradigma11 12y ago
    Yes, but why would you need an infinite amount of elapsed time to get infinity time?
    - yequalsx 12y ago
      Think of the real number line. We are at some point t that represents our current time. If time goes back forever, that is had no beginning then it means (-∞, t] represents all the time up to t. How did we get to t? I would take an eternity to get to t-1. Indeed, for each moment in time it took an eternity to get there. Hence time must have had a beginning.
  - snupples 12y ago
    I'm no philosopher nor a physicist either, but I don't see why that would even be a problem. We know by now that time is relative. To a photon, all of our infinite time, if it is infinite, "happens" all at once, so why would it matter if it took an infinite amount of it to get here. If you could stop a photon and ask it, it would reply that we were always here. Here we are having philosophical debates about it, but I suspect if we just stuck with the math -- regardless of our intuitions -- most of these kinds of arguments would turn out to be a distraction rather than a solution to the problem. That's kind of the point many empiricists like Krauss are trying to make.
im3w1l 12y ago
If someone random had written this, I would have just dismissed this as yet another pseudoscientific idiot. Now, since it is written by Schopenhaur, I feel it is in order to say that same thing, but with more words. >Thus, for anything to be empirically real, it must be spatial, temporal, and causal. I disagree with this. Entanglement, while not causing a breakdown in causuality, doesn't really obey it either. I would still consider it very real. >Yet space, time, and causality cannot be proven to be empirically real themselves! Well ok, with you definition of "real" they may not be. So? >In the first case, there would have to be something 'outside' space, a metaspace, which is an absurd notion; Ok, first I disagree that there would have to be something outside. And second I disagree that that would be an absurd notion. And third I disagree that it really matters at all. A scientist would switch viewpoint depending on which would be most convinient for the task at hand. Same as people use a coordinate system based that makes a problem the easiest to solve. >but in the second case it could never be differentiated of anything and would therefore have no identity. I'm not really sure what he is saying here, but I note that I could differentiate a metaspace from an apple. I don't really see why the lack of an identity (whatever that means) would be a significant problem. >If time is finite, there would have to be something 'before' and 'after' it, Eh, just no. >but if it is infinite, it would take an eternity to arrive at the present moment, which therefore could never come about. This is a little bit tricky. There are two different notions of infinity we need to distinguish. The first is two points in time with an infinity distance between them. The second is a backwards infinite ray. Ordinary coordinate systems have the second kind of infinity and work just fine. This is the kind Schopenhaur is talking about. The first type of infinity is more uncommon, but there is nothing in principle saying we can't have that either. >Finite causality would enhance an unimaginable 'first cause' That says more about his imagination than the it does about the universe.
- lisper 12y ago
  > Entanglement, while not causing a breakdown in causuality, doesn't really obey it either. If you think this, you don't understand entanglement (which is understandable because the popular press does an abysmal job of explaining it, as do many physicists). Entanglement and measurement are the same phenomenon. Measurement is nothing more than macroscopic entanglement. See: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf

jblow 12y ago

Wow, this Schopenhauer quote is really painful to read. Given basic contemporary abstract thinking, it reads as completely naive. This is not unique; I often feel this way when reading philosophy. So I kind of understand where Hawking / Tyson / et al are coming from. I do think it is a mistake to single-handedly dismiss all of philosophy, and I agree with the sentiment in this article that physicists are following an implicit philosophy that they do not understand, so there's a contradiction there. At the same time, most philosophy is honestly pretty bad.

why-el 12y ago
That quote is anything but naive. Its basically a rephrasing of the findings of Kurl Godel, and I am not sure anyone would call that naive.
- jblow 12y ago
  Which findings of Kurt Godel? Care to explain? Because for example this seems like it has nothing to do with the incompleteness theorems unless one doesn't understand the incompleteness theorems at all and is just hand-waving.
  - why-el 12y ago
    No one is hand-waving. "Yet space, time, and causality cannot be proven to be empirically real themselves". This is akin to mathematical axioms that escape proof within a formal system. Of course one can debate whether the analogy applies for space and time as it does in arithmetic, but this is beside the point. My point was that Schopenhauer's quote was not even remotely close to being naive, especially considering when it was said (i.e. years before Godel and others proved similar conclusions).
    - marcosdumay 12y ago
      You can use Godel's proof to show that a physics model based on space, time and causality can not exmplain those. And that if there is one that explains those, it must be based on some other set of concepts, that it can not explain. Yet, realism is in a completely different level. You can not reason about it using mathematical constructs. (Too bad that's the only tool we have.)
      - apalmer 12y ago
        Can you really? Incompleteness doesn't necessarily say this. It makes certain statements about certain types of contradictions in certain types of systems. There is still a lot of work left to be done before you can apply it here. You may be saying this has already been done elsewhere but without references u can't just throw this out there as a given.
    - apalmer 12y ago
      Its a relatively naive statement. What is 'before' and 'after' time is defining time in terms of time. While it does seem ridiculous to say something is 'before' time, it doesnt seem anywhere as ridiculous to say something is unrelated to time, beyond time, or independent from time. The naivete is that a sophisticated philosopher would understand this, and at the very least not push forward a philosophical argument that really hinges on connotations of words instead of logical/philosophical pillars. Anyways if the statement didnt have a famous philosophers name attached to it i doubt it would have gotten any response, its a pretty baseline/naive reaction to a complex scientific idea.
ambler0 12y ago
Just focus on the first two sentences. Take the notion of causality. It underlies all of empirical science, yet it is not something that can be proved empirically. It is a given, a built in part of how we perceive things. You can read more about this if you check out the work of David Hume or Immanuel Kant. There is nothing naive about recognizing that human knowledge is limited by our knowing apparatus. What is truly naive is to mistake the models of science with "reality itself" (a nebulous term)
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  IMO philosophers get into trouble because they want to nail down what is "real" or "true". They try to work by pure logic, but alway get tied up by the limitations of spoken or written language. "Infinite" for example is a logically imprecise term; there are different flavors of mathematical infinity. Perhaps a more valid way to phrase the same sentiment would be to say that science, because of its assumptions and methodologies, can only address phenomena that are spatial, temporal, and causal. There might be real things that have none of those attributes; science and philosophers would have difficulty studying them, but that difficulty does not rule out the possibility of their existence. edit: spoken or written
  - ambler0 12y ago
    Sure, a lot of philosophers are so audacious, but not all. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism
kahirsch 12y ago
It doesn't appear to be a quote from Schopenhauer, but a quote from an essay "Schopenhauer and Buddhism" by Peter Abelson.[1] [1]http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/peter2.htm
gglitch 12y ago
I'm schooled in Plato and Aristotle, and the quote above seems to me very like their way of thinking, and also seems both logical and intuitive. Can you recommend some authors or titles representative of the kind of "basic contemporary abstract thinking" you're referring to?

Paradigma11 12y ago

I didn't know that there are no infinite sequences that have a distinct start. Somebody should inform those pesky natural numbers.

yequalsx 12y ago
I'm not a philosopher and may be misinterpreting the quote in question. The philosopher is not claiming that infinite sequences can't have a distinct start. He is claiming that an infinite amount of time could not have elapsed before the present time, t. If it did then it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to time t-1 and thus we'd never have gotten to time t since it'd require an eternity to get to t-1.
- jchrisa 12y ago
  Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time
- Paradigma11 12y ago
  Yes, but why would you need an infinite amount of elapsed time to get infinity time?
  - yequalsx 12y ago
    Think of the real number line. We are at some point t that represents our current time. If time goes back forever, that is had no beginning then it means (-∞, t] represents all the time up to t. How did we get to t? I would take an eternity to get to t-1. Indeed, for each moment in time it took an eternity to get there. Hence time must have had a beginning.
- snupples 12y ago
  I'm no philosopher nor a physicist either, but I don't see why that would even be a problem. We know by now that time is relative. To a photon, all of our infinite time, if it is infinite, "happens" all at once, so why would it matter if it took an infinite amount of it to get here. If you could stop a photon and ask it, it would reply that we were always here. Here we are having philosophical debates about it, but I suspect if we just stuck with the math -- regardless of our intuitions -- most of these kinds of arguments would turn out to be a distraction rather than a solution to the problem. That's kind of the point many empiricists like Krauss are trying to make.

im3w1l 12y ago

If someone random had written this, I would have just dismissed this as yet another pseudoscientific idiot. Now, since it is written by Schopenhaur, I feel it is in order to say that same thing, but with more words. >Thus, for anything to be empirically real, it must be spatial, temporal, and causal. I disagree with this. Entanglement, while not causing a breakdown in causuality, doesn't really obey it either. I would still consider it very real. >Yet space, time, and causality cannot be proven to be empirically real themselves! Well ok, with you definition of "real" they may not be. So? >In the first case, there would have to be something 'outside' space, a metaspace, which is an absurd notion; Ok, first I disagree that there would have to be something outside. And second I disagree that that would be an absurd notion. And third I disagree that it really matters at all. A scientist would switch viewpoint depending on which would be most convinient for the task at hand. Same as people use a coordinate system based that makes a problem the easiest to solve. >but in the second case it could never be differentiated of anything and would therefore have no identity. I'm not really sure what he is saying here, but I note that I could differentiate a metaspace from an apple. I don't really see why the lack of an identity (whatever that means) would be a significant problem. >If time is finite, there would have to be something 'before' and 'after' it, Eh, just no. >but if it is infinite, it would take an eternity to arrive at the present moment, which therefore could never come about. This is a little bit tricky. There are two different notions of infinity we need to distinguish. The first is two points in time with an infinity distance between them. The second is a backwards infinite ray. Ordinary coordinate systems have the second kind of infinity and work just fine. This is the kind Schopenhaur is talking about. The first type of infinity is more uncommon, but there is nothing in principle saying we can't have that either. >Finite causality would enhance an unimaginable 'first cause' That says more about his imagination than the it does about the universe.

lisper 12y ago
> Entanglement, while not causing a breakdown in causuality, doesn't really obey it either. If you think this, you don't understand entanglement (which is understandable because the popular press does an abysmal job of explaining it, as do many physicists). Entanglement and measurement are the same phenomenon. Measurement is nothing more than macroscopic entanglement. See: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf