Longest Running Thread EVER

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Worse than usual, since I have adapted into a lifestyle predicated on having five-day sprints of activity followed by two days of utter collapse. When the sprint goes an extra day, it isn't clear what will happen.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

... Hey, yeah, it's saturday ... Why at work, Doc?

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

What I said above. And since it starts in 10 minutes, I'd better get over there.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Break a leg in the theater-traditional way!

[lemming]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Break a leg in the theater-traditional way!

 

Ditto. In a non-"jackie chan" theater way

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I don't think Jackie can help himself.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I escaped; they let us out early. Time to go home. WIth 40 pounds of work in my briefcase, but that's something else.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Mmmm, pounds ...

[Bazza]

Presocratics & Physics

 

And what about the reverse? Socrates* teaching modern physics a thing or two?

* or some of the pre-socratics or Plato for that matter/manner...

Why do you immediately assume that those who do know something about modern physics are necessarily ignorant of classical philosophy, its contributions to Western thought, and actively cultivate and maintain that ignorance? That's the implication you make there.

 

I have to agree. As far as I'm aware' date=' all the science degree programs are required to take philosophy. And in my case, my philosophy professor went out of his way to point out the importance of philosophy to modern science. I naturally assume that all scientists have studied philosophy, and arguably, in a classical sense, are still philosophizing to this day by asking questions and getting answers (sometimes ).[/quote']

 

You are correct that that I have ignorance as I have not done any tertiary philosophy and science classes and don’t have the depth of scholastic knowledge they imbue. One benefit I can foresee is that I’m more open to the ideas and the sources of those ideas. In any case my ignorance is a learning exercise, the more I learn the less ignorant I become, hopefully. Also, while I like science, love philosophy, I favour mystical and esoteric perspectives. With both science and philosophy I’m still mostly at the introductory stage as far both subjects is concerned, particularly with my current passion of early Greek philosophy.

 

Modern physics broad aim is to describe reality, right?

And modern physics is the pervading orthodox consensus as the standard view of a description of reality, right?

 

Hopefully these two questions are not strawman, and are my attempt to find a definition that can be used for sake of the below:

 

The following are my findings about things I’ve found that:

1) Connect modern physics to Presocratics / Plato

2) Other areas I believe that modern physics could learn from Presocratics / Plato

3) As 2), but use modern physics to provide a modern conception of. The Presocratics / Plato advanced ideas that modern physics taken and provided much fuller treatment off.

4) Areas where academic science & orthodox scholarship have misunderstood in their study and treatment of Presocratics / Plato.

 

~~~

 

Parmenides

1)

The development of western philosophy was once said by A.N. Whitehead to have consisted in a series of footnotes to Plato. In a similar vein, and with hardly more exaggeration, Plato's own writings might be said to have consisted in footnotes to Parmenides of Elea.'

David Gallop - Parmenides of Elea, p. 3

 

Comment: possibly one of my favourite quotes about Parmenides, though I'm not so sure about the scholastic nature of the book or author. That the quote is approved from a independent book publisher of scholastic books; this one winning 'gold' in a book of the year awards, helps. Also it helps that that book (The Fragments of Parmenides by Allan H. Coxon) is praised highly by his fellow peers, eg "This is probably the most important book on Parmenides to be published in this century" by The Philosophic Review.

 

Further comment: By bringing up the publisher, Parmenides Publishing, I trying to establish the scholarly credentials of them, ergo that it is something for me to trust. That is--it provides a bedrock of orthodoxy to stand on.

 

2) From Opinions on Parmenides page:

'It was, for all I know, the first deductive theory of the world, the first deductive cosmology: One further step led to theoretical physics, and to the atomic theory.'

(Karl R. Popper - The World of Parmenides, p. 143)

 

'Thus the philosophy of Parmenides is a strange blend of mysticism and logic. It is mysticism, for its goal is not the gradual and cumulative correction of empirical knowledge, but deliverance from it through the instantaneous and absolute grasp of 'immovable' truth. This is not the way of techne, but the way of revelation: it lies 'beyond the path of men' (B. 1.27). Yet this revelation is itself addressed to man's reason and must be judged by reason. Its core is pure logic: a rigorous venture in deductive thinking, the first of its kind in European thought. This kind of thinking could be used against the world of the senses ... This projection of the logic of Being upon the alien world of Becoming was Parmenides' most important single contribution to the history of thought, though it is seldom recognized as such. Without it, his doctrine of Being could have remained a speculative curiosity. With it, he laid the foundations for the greatest achievement of the scientific imagination of Greece, the atomic hypothesis.'

(Gregory Vlastos - Studies in Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 16 2)

 

In the 5th century BC' date=' Leucippus and his pupil Democritus proposed that all matter was composed of small indivisible particles called atoms, in order to reconcile two conflicting schools of thought on the nature of reality. On one side was Heraclitus, who believed that the nature of all existence is change. On the other side was Parmenides, who believed instead that all change is illusion.(ref. )

 

Comment: The Atomists being Leucippus and Democritus. Their theory may be primitive by today's standards…so why not merge their work with modern quantum mechanics? That is insert quantum mechanics as the mediating theory between Heraclitus & Parmenides along with how quantum mechanics fits in with modern physics.

 

Probably better would be for 'Philosophy of Physics' to deal with the discussion of merging Leucippus and Democritus with quantum mechanics. The benefit of this would be to keep the philosophical imperatives out of physics, and let physicists do their thing.

 

Further comment: the above two quotes (not the Wikipedia excerpt) are from the Parmenides Publishing website.

 

~~~

Heraclitus

1a) Heraclitus said: "A road up and down is one and the same" 61[F38] (Texts of Early Greek Philosophy by Daniel W Graham, pg157, publisher: Cambridge University Press).

 

Comment: This to me seems similar to physics concept of nonlocality. To me, Heraclitus is restating the esoteric phrase "as above so below, as below so above". Wikipedia further describes the phrase thusly:

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[40]

 

1b) Heraclitus said: "A road up and down is one and the same" 61[F38] (Texts of Early Greek Philosophy by Daniel W Graham, pg157, publisher: Cambridge University Press).

 

Comment: Scientist-philosopher Dr Ervin Laszlo said our universe “is a highly integrated coherent system—a supermacroscopic quantum system (Science and the Akashic Field, p80)”. (see further comment below, for my questioning the book's cred.) I bring this quote up as to me both Laszlo and Heraclitus are saying the same thing but saying it differently.

 

Further comment: One of the people giving an endorsement of the book is László Gazdag, Ph.D, who says: "Laszlo’s book opens the way toward a great synthesis. Whoever reads Laszlo’s book witnesses the greatest awakening of the human spirit. Not since Plato and Democritus has there been such a transformation in the history of thought!” This is important to me as Dr Gazdag László is a professional physicist who has done some noted stuff. A more scholarly look at Dr Ervin Laszlo's book (although a slightly earlier form of his Akashic Field theory is The Connectivity Hypothesis (http://www.scribd.com/doc/20583734/The-Connectivity-Hypothesis).

 

2)

New discoveries show that Heraclitus does have technical interests in scientific questions; yet unlike his predecessors [the Milesians] he combines scientific inquiries with humanist concerns. He is a humanist with scientific interests. Neither an empiricist nor a mystic,…"

Above quote from Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, pg136.

 

The relation of Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 B.C.) to the Mysteries is plainly given us in a saying about him, to the effect that his thoughts "were an impassable road," and that any one, entering upon them without being initiated, found only "dimness and darkness," but that, on the other hand, they were "brighter than the sun" for any one introduced to them by a Mystic. And when it is said of his book, that he deposited it in [41]the temple of Artemis, this only means that initiates alone could understand him. (Edmund Pfleiderer has already collected the historical evidence for the relation of Heraclitus to the Mysteries. Cf. his book Die Philosophie des Heraklit von Ephesus im Lichte der Mysterienidee. Berlin, 1886.) Heraclitus was called "The Obscure," because it was only through the Mysteries that light could be thrown on his intuitive views.

 

Above quote from Christianity as Mystical Fact by Dr Rudolf Steiner, p[41]

 

Comment: Two totally different interpretations about the same person. No wonder Aristotle is said to to refer to him as "The Obscure". :-)

 

~~~

Empedocles

1)

And now let us compare this myth [Osiris-Isis-Horus] with the view which the Greek philosopher, Empedocles (B.C. 490-430) takes of the universe. He assumes that the one original primeval being was once broken up into the four elements, fire, water, earth, and air, or into the multiplicity of being. He represents two opposing forces, which within this world of existence bring about growth and decay, [105] love and strife. Empedocles says of the elements:

They remain ever the same, but yet by combining their forces

Become transformed into men and the numberless beings besides.

These are now joined into one, love binding the many together,

Now once again they are scattered, dispersing through hatred and strife.

What then are the things in the world from Empedocles' point of view? They are the elements in different combinations.

Above quote from Christianity as Mystical Fact by Dr Rudolf Steiner, p[105]

 

Comment: Empedocles poetic use of deities of Love and Strife I take to be similar to the scientific concepts of attraction (protons) and repulsion (electrons) in the elements of matter. There also maybe a perspective of emotions within microcosmic man* that Empedocles raises which could be looked into. (*mysticism combined with quantum biology of humans for a spiritual-scientific unified theory.)

 

The 'decay' mentioned about could also be stretched to include radioactivity -- decay of elements of matter.

 

2) it has been suggested that Empedocles was mystically inclined. The book being published by Oxford University Press being: Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition by Peter Kingsley. Amazon link, OUP link.

 

~~~

Anaxagoras

1) Best remembered for his theory of Universal Mind

Plato and Aristotle see Anaxagoras' appeal to Mind as the power initiating the vortex and the differentiation of the cosmos as his great contribution to the history of ideas (63-64); potentially this insight allows us to explain how the world is rationally organised. Both, however are disappointed at his failure to explain how natural processes are arranged for the best.

taken from Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, p271

 

Comment: maybe physics can fill in those details that Plato and Aristotle were after.

 

“If we do discover a complete theory…it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.”— Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993) by Stephen Hawking

url: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

 

Comment: Hawking echoing Anaxagoras? Ok not the same exactly, but close enough. Also this may also point towards a way of combining consciousness research with physics.

 

Further comment: As the 3rd episode of The Big Bang Theory humourously elucidates neurobiology (or consciousness research by extension) 'conflicts' with physics and an amalgamation or or merging of the two disciplines may come about. This also reminds me of the collaboration of Holonomic brain theory between psychologist/neurosurgeon Dr Karl Pribram and physicist David Bohm. a good reference would be Pribram's essay The Implicate Brain found in Quantum Implications: Essays in Honour of David Bohm (Amazon link. THe back cover of the book has a quote from Nature.

 

2)

- first to take account of meteors

- more generally see heavenly bodies as heavy objects

- He accepted Parmenides account of the moons light as deriving from the sun and by applying that insight was the first thinking in the world, that we know of, to explain eclipses correctly.

- provided a correct explanation for hail

- introduced a theory of the Nile floods that impressed Athenian intellectuals

*taken from Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, p272

 

Comment: I wonder how aware modern scholars are aware of these accomplishments of Anaxagoras, and I also wonder if he gets any credit for them. If the answer is "yes" then that is good.

 

3)

By the theory of minute constituents of things' date=' and his emphasis on mechanical processes in the formation of order, he paved the way for the atomic theory.[/quote'] Another link along the road to atomic theory.

 

4)

Anaxagoras returned to Ionia, where he founded a school. In accordance with [Anaxagoras'] will, the anniversary of his death was kept as a schoolchildren's holiday.

Taken from History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, p69

 

Comment: *chuckle* I like the idea that a scientist-philosopher (Russell calls him a scientist) has a annual holiday to remember him. Others probably wish they could be as lucky.

 

~~~

Melissus

Whereas Parmenides that what-is is neither was nor will be, since it is now, apparently in some timeless way, Melissus argues that it is and was and will be, enjoying a kind of omnitemporal existence.

 

What-is is spatially and temporally infinite, an plenum with no void or boundaries.

 

Both quotes come from Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, p462

 

Comment: The first quote piques my interest for its mention of "omnitemporal existence". It is this kind of terminology that led to my belief that the Presocratics could be useful to modern physics and modern science.

 

The second, surprised me that such a concept, infinite space, could be found 2500 years ago. To my reckoning and educational background, such a concept is modern not from antiquity.

 

ps: Melissus and Melissa would make good names for boy-girl twins.

 

~~~

Pythagoras

Pythagoras, whose influence in ancient and modern times is my subject in this chapter, was one intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived, both when he was wise and unwise. Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative argument, begins with him, and is intimately connected with a peculiar form of mysticism.

Quote from: History of Western Philosophy, p38

 

Comment: How can one be both wise and unwise? This "unwise" wouldn't be due to Pythaoras' penchant for mysticism, would it? When I read this chapter the author's scorn for the mystical aspect of Pythagoreanism is apparent. Russell a member of the Orthodoxy seems delighted that Pythagoreans split into two, the "scientists" and the mystics, Russell favouring the former.

 

It is is also said, from memory, that Pythagoras took initiation into the Greater Mysteries in Egypt.

 

~~~

Plato

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), Pt. II, ch. 1, sec. 1

url: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Plato#On_Plato

 

side comment: even though this book Process and Reality is philosophical not physics I like that ANW was updating Heraclitus to modern sensibilities.

 

With regard to this question modern physics takes a definite stand against the materialism of Democritus and for Plato and the Pythagoreans. The elementary particles are certainly not eternal and indestructible units of matter, they can actually be transformed into each other. ... The elementary particles in Plato's Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms.

Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958)

url: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Plato#On_Plato

 

The Platonic view of the universe sets out to be knowledge which by its very nature is also religion.

Above quote from Christianity as Mystical Fact by Dr Rudolf Steiner, p[86]

 

PLATO is an exponent in the West of the ancient Tradition that goes back to Orpheus, and he is regarded as the father of Western Philosophy. While over the centuries the concept of philosophy has become an exercise of the empirical mind which can offer only opinions, not Truth, Plato's philosophy (love of learning-wisdom-knowledge) is of an initiatory order. It is a conversion to Being, an initiation into the supreme Good.

Quote from Amazon re "Initiation into the Philosophy of Plato" by Raphael.

 

[Raphael's Plato] "is not an academic philosopher concerned with conceptual distinctions, nor an economist, political theorist, logician, or all that Plato has been thought to be. Raphael's Plato is a Magus, a spiritual teacher revealing to us the architecture of reality and a spiritual path to lead us out of suffering… Perhaps, with regard to Plato, we ourselves have been in a cave of sorts (as he described in the Republic) but in this case a cave of the "shadows of Plato." Watching academics and scholars parade their interpretations before us on the cave wall, we have taken these "shadows" to be Platonism…When Plato is seen as an academic philosopher his work falls into the domain of academics. But, if Plato was a spiritual teacher and Platonism a realizative system, then he would best be explained by someone with spiritual insight."

Quote from Amazon re Alan Berkowitz's comment on the book "Initiation into the Philosophy of Plato" by Raphael.

 

Comment: Those academics and scientists to read Plato and interpret him may have failed to grasp that Platonism is much more than "dry academic philosophy" but an expression of The Eternal Wisdom Tradition of which the Greek Mysteries and Osiris-Isis-Horus myth are part.

 

The interpretation of academia may not be the intended interpretation that Plato wished to convey. Steiner posits that with the dialogue Phædo, Plato's Socrates need not provide logic proofs of immortality, but "to lead the friends where they may behold the eternal…then they will need no proofs… Experiences, inner events, Socrates points to them, and first of all to the experience of wisdom itself." To me it is as if Plato, through Socrates is wishing to convey the intended interpretation is internal, of an initiatory nature.

 

Or as Einstein said it pithy: "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24949.html, http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm). And, Alfred North Whitehead: "More than anything else, the future of civilization depends on the way the two most powerful forces of history, science and religion, settle into relationship with each other" (http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/intro.php). (of the ANW quote I can't find where he said it, so I'm taking it is potentially suspect).

 

Further comment: The Eternal Wisdom Tradition aka The Tradition or Perennial Philosophy has seen renewal in the 20th Century with trio René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Frithjof Schuon defined Perennial Philosophy as "The term philosophia perennis…designates the science [knowledge of] of fundamental and universal ontological principles…"*

 

*url: http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/slideshows/view.aspx?SlideShowID=41. exposition: http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/slideshows/view.aspx?SlideShowID=41&SlideDetailID=378

 

It occurs to me that I'm perhaps at cross purposes with my aim of showing value in the Presocratics with modern physics. It may be that my aim is more the philosophy of modern physics, not physics per say. Thus I may have strawmaned myself. If that is indeed the case…oops.

 

~~~

 

more to come. This from another book on Early Greek Philosophy by Jonathan Barnes. It was reading this that i initially got the idea that the Presocratics may be useful to modern physics. The adventure continues...

[Bazza]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Thought I'd better post it now otherwise I probably wouldn't, ergo haven't worked on it for most of the weekend, today being Sunday night.

 

So if you see any formatting errors, typos, please let me know so I can correct. Thank you

 

~~~

Also the above post is not intended to directly come off as defending the Presocratics, although I acknowledge that, but to present things I found where the Presocatic philosophers and modern physics/science overlap. I'm still struck by the modern thinking of these sages of antiquity.

 

Also x2, I'm making a counter argument that who know about modern physics/science/philosophy are likewise ignorant of the inherent mystical underpinnings that only those who have been initiated into the Greek Mysteries et al, would pick up on*. It occurs to me that we, the modern audience, may be ignorant of the intended interpretation; that is it has layers of mystical knowledge embedded within. The strictly literal reading of Orthodoxy may be erroneous**. Yes it has benefit, I'm not dismissing it entirely, as I will still read books published along these lines, just as I will seek out those who offer a more mystical interpretation of the texts.

 

*nod to OUP for publishing a book in this direction

**This goes for most of the Presocratics I've discussed above, but not all of them.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Happy Ultimate Answer Day!

 

10-10-10!

[Bazza]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Happy Ultimate Answer Day!

 

10-10-10!

That was yesterday

[RPMiller]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

That was yesterday

 

It is today for those of us who are a day behind those of you that are a day ahead.

[Bazza]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

It is today for those of us who are a day behind those of you that are a day ahead.

 

Just goes to show that time is relative

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Very few people who were in the racket at the time were happy (in terms of finding the new theoretical developments were fully in tune with their sense of esthetics) with the findings that led into what we call "modern physics". (Relativity is less of an issue than quantum mechanics in that regard, though my experience is that laypeople find relativity more baffling.)

 

All of it is experiment-driven, though. Even among those 19th century physicists whose work established the modern atomic/molecular model there were people who did not believe that molecules existed (they thought the "molecule" idea was a convenient but oversimplified fiction). Similarly, Einstein was (famously) dissatisfied with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics even though his own work helped establish the necessity of that formulation. Though modern philosophers wrestle with the question of what it means to know something when physics seems to show that the underlying nature of the Universe at very small scales is "merely" probabilistic, from the physicist's POV, that model gives us an ability to predict phenomena that we can measure and confirm, while purely classical models fail in some catastrophic ways.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Just goes to show that time is relative

 

Yeah, relative, like a spoiled-brat annoying younger sibling who seems to live only to get you into trouble at infinitesimal intervals, or an overbearing crashing bore of an uncle who corners you at the picnic and makes time come to a standstill.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

... I'm the fun uncle.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I am the uncle who is the south end of a northbound horse.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Sometimes, people need manure.

[RPMiller]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

And sometimes they are.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

On a different subject, we took the litter with the polydactyl kittens to the shelter over the weekend. My wife -- a very good pusher when it comes to kitties -- succeeded in getting two of the four adopted within the hour. I'm hoping the other two find forever homes almost as fast.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

If z = a/b and 1/a + 1/b = 1/(a+, what's z?

[RPMiller]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Mrs. Cancer... pimpin' the kittehs... Mrs. Cancer... findin' the homes for the kittehs... Mrs. Cancer... doin' a good deed...

[RPMiller]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

If z = a/b and 1/a + 1/b = 1/(a+' date=' what's z?[/quote']

 

a/b of course.

[Cancer]

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Heh. Take some mathematical meth and you'll see.

 

(Literally.)

 

z = -1/2 +/- sqrt(3)/2 i, where i is the square root of -1. (Complex numbers.)