Reality is Simple

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Logic101, Feb 3, 2014.

  1. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Note that no requirement was inserted for the explanations having to be correct, so of course a disciplined enterprise like science could do that as much as others that are outright arbitrary. Human ancestors have been providing explanations since the arising of their speech and storytelling. Such as thunder and lightning being caused by Thor banging his hammer (or whatever). Likewise, scientists can submit answers for any item currently suffering an explicatory vacuum, which applicable textbooks and information resources will then treat the most popular of (among peers) as the solution until the possibility is otherwise discarded.

    For instance, "The Unknown Child" (buried in Nova Scotia) that was discovered after the Titanic sank was initially determined by experts slash widely reported to be a baby boy named Eino Panula. But in 2007-2011 this was disproved; it's now taken to have been the body of Sidney Goodwin.

    This implies that everything hangs together properly in an overarching framework or network of explanation ["nothing strange ... nothing out of place"], that all scientifically accessible phenomena are causally interdependent without a single loose end left dangling. As useful a view as this might be as a driving presupposition or incentive for methodological naturalism (similar to Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason), it's just practical dogma in the end. From the standpoint that it is impossible for researchers to be at every microphysical and macrophysical point throughout space and past/future to verify that it is really the case. To confirm that the world is completely bereft of anomalies or disconnected events lacking causal / relational interdependence with the rest. I.E., Asimov's personal belief below of an infinitely receding process of knowledge production isn't even required to indicate an impossible task for humans, when it comes to either completing such an inventory of nature or verifying a globally perfect network / scheme of explanation.

    Isaac Asimov: "I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with. That, I think, is the secret of the Universe."

    Douglas Burnham: The principle of sufficient reason also accounts for why Leibniz uses the phrase 'completing the whole demonstration' [...] If the complete concept of the subject (that is, all of its true predicates) together constitutes a complete network of explanation, then these explanations can be followed forward and backward, so to speak, at least in principle. That is, working forward, one could deduce that Caesar will cross the Rubicon from a all the predicates that have been true of him; or, working backward, one can deduce from all those predicates true of Caesar at his death the reasons why he won the battle of Pharsalus. The 'whole demonstration,' then, is the revelation of the logical structure of the network of explanations that make Caesar who he is. However, this is clearly not something the average person can do. Human minds are not subtle and capacious enough for a task which may be infinite.
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I submit that there will never be a complete scientific explanation for reality due to a very simple fact: you can never fully explain a system that you yourself are a part of. Your very presence in the system adds an indeterminative element to it that can't be explained. This probably has a mathematical basis along the lines of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, but intuitively it just makes sense. How will science ever explain the explanatory power of science itself? In a reality totally explained, there would still remain the one blind spot that escapes explanation--the possibility of that explanation as also a part of that reality. This implies that every explanation, no matter how all-embracing, will always assume principles and concepts outside of it that are just "given" and unexplained.
     
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  5. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    Can the infinitely complex be contained within the finitely simple? Did the infinitely complex grow out of or found a home in the finitely simple and therefore is only superficial on the surface?

    Also, if reality were infinitely complex then it must by definition also be infinitely simple.
     
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  7. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Well, I don't believe that "endlessness" can be a completed physical or ontological circumstance, anyway, as opposed to a continuing or never-completed process of "adding more". Since that would contradictorily mean it is finite rather than infinite, no matter how mind-bogglingly vast its final tally of spatial distance is or numerous its divisions are. That's all a shape or line with terminating borders is, too, when proclaimed that it is composed of infinite units: Just means it can be divided further according to the needs of a system or approach, not that such a process is literally completed.
     
  8. cornel Registered Senior Member

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    "If they're actually talking about a model they made then they have a model which is correct."
    And umm, models *are* incorrect, which why we call them models and not exact descriptions of reality.

    I'm not sure what the holographic theory is supposed to be, btw, i didn't hear it from any real scientific minds so it is most likely a scientific theory taken out "context".
     
  9. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    By WHAT "definition"?????????????

    That has to be the silliest statement I've ever read! There is NO proclaimed definition and it's self-contradictory right on the face of it. Sheesh!!
     
  10. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    Because if the infinitely complex exists then it would require an infinite reduction to become infinitely simple.
     
  11. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    That's pretty much nonsense also. Your "logic" doesn't exist here and you're WAY in over your head. It would be best for you to just drop this whole thread since it's going nowhere logically. (Shrug)
     
  12. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    I may be in over my head but can you explain why the logic is fallible?
     
  13. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    Sorry, you're right. It is self-contradictory. I was just thinking that if reality were infinitely complex then it needed to exist as something infinitely simple because it can be understood fully by the greatest minds capable of apprehending it. I was going for a yin/ yang argument.
     
  14. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    139

    Reality can be defined and identified independently of the limitations that Godel's Incompleteness encompasses for it only applies to the world of Mathematical Logic (which is independent of reality and exists in the mind).
     
  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    It would be best if instead of always bitch'n about other people's threads if you just start some of your own. Ah..but then trolls like you don't really have the balls to do that do they?<shrug>
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I offered a logical argument for my proposition. Do you have a logical argument supporting your own?
     
  17. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    The best I can do for now is provide a reference backing the title claim of this thread called "Godel's Incompleteness theorem versus Theory of Everything." Hopefully it sheds light on your query:

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread457947/pg1
     
  18. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Just assertions about the TOE. I don't see any logic showing it to be possible, particularly if it is mathematically-based as most physics theories nowadays are.
     
  19. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    Are you saying that Godel's Incompleteness applies to any theory of everything including M-theory (a promising candidate)? In other words, no theory of everything can be complete providing closure? I.e. there is no solution to everything?
     
  20. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    If it's mathematical, then Gödel's theorem applies to it. Are you saying the TOE isn't mathematical?
     
  21. Logic101 Banned Banned

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    Mathematics is interchangeable with words which are symbols. But I believe that reality itself is not subject to mathematical logic alone, but something much simpler that can be expressed in prose. Anything else is overtly complicated.

    Wikipedia has this to say on Godel Incompleteness:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    From the Wiki article:

    "Gödel demonstrated the incompleteness of the theory of Principia Mathematica, a particular theory of arithmetic, but a parallel demonstration could be given for any effective theory of a certain expressiveness. Gödel commented on this fact in the introduction to his paper, but restricted the proof to one system for concreteness. In modern statements of the theorem, it is common to state the effectiveness and expressiveness conditions as hypotheses for the incompleteness theorem, so that it is not limited to any particular formal theory. The terminology used to state these conditions was not yet developed in 1931 when Gödel published his results."

    The TOE will have to back itself up with mathematics if it is to carry the sort of weight previous scientific theories like relativity and quantum mechanics have. Whether they can make that math translate into some intuitively sensible prose remains to be seen. They're still having a hell of a time trying to translate quantum math into some kind of understandable description of the world. Do we really expect the TOE to be any less strange and paradoxical?
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2014
  23. N0THING Registered Senior Member

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    Reality is unknowable and science can't touch it, it can only describe the world and it's behavior as it appears. The true, and ultimate nature of reality is an infinite mystery... it keeps things interesting.

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