Re: modern physics

[Judith Rosen <***>]

All of which doesn't change the fact that, at its root, physics is still
based on the original principles, which are what my father said were flawed.
They were flawed by the limited perceptions and the conclusions made based
on those perceptions.

Judith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Pattee" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 9:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] modern physics


> I have the feeling  from the comments that have appeared on this list that
many contributors have simply inherited Rosen's opinions about physics
without really studying the culture of physics that has evolved during the
last 50 years. There have been great changes that I myself have not kept up
with, but fortunately I still have colleagues who do, and there are
excellent popular accounts written by experts.
>
> Let me very briefly outline the "artificial rules that physics sets for
itself" that Judith says Rosen "deplored." That was his emotional response,
but I think that is too strong a word to represent his rational assessment.
Physics is a big field, so I will stick to only the most basic ideas that
are themselves still subject to different interpretations. As I have pointed
out, Rosen thought more as a mathematician than as an experimental physicist
and quite understandably he focused on the formalisms of physics,
specifically on state-determined dynamics that he found, quite correctly, to
be too narrow to cover complex system, especially life. So take note, this
is not a criticism of Rosen's relational biology and his many other ideas.
It is only about his characterization of physics with which most physicists
disagree.
>
> First, formal state-determinism is not one of the "artificial rules"
physicists set for themselves. Physics today begins with a very broad set of
informal "rules" that are better called epistemic principles. They are about
what it means to make contact with those aspects of reality that we cannot
escape, or that appear to be inexorable. They are those aspects of reality
over which we have no control. They support the ideal of objectivity which
simply means that these aspects or laws do not change when the observers
change, nor can they be changed by the observer. These are metaphysical
principles that although they are supported by rational thought, must
ultimately be justified by the results of experiments on specific models
that satisfy these principles.
>
> The most important class were called invariance principles but now are now
called symmetry principles because the term better describes the more formal
and abstract aspects of current models. Symmetry implies many subsidiary
concepts including objectivity, universality, conservation laws, as well as
limitations on the formal expressions in which the laws are expressed.
Einstein was the first to depend primarily on a symmetry principle to derive
a new law.
>
> The one principle remaining of the Newtonian paradigm in modern physics
("Newton's greatest discovery") is the necessary complementary duality of
laws and measurements (of initial conditions). It is important to understand
why individual acts of observation and measurement cannot satisfy these
symmetry conditions. It is because observation and measurement are
individual acts that, except for the result itself, are largely under the
control of the observer and depend explicitly on the time, place, and
intentions of the observer. That is the basic reason why laws cannot
usefully describe the process of measurement (and why we must make an
epistemic cut). In Rosen's terms, coding (measurement) is unentailed by
either causal natural laws or the inferential models.
>
> Physical theory has never been about individual measurements of "parts and
particles," their energy, mass, position, etc., but about those invariant
relations between such observables that do not depend on any actual or
conceivable state of the observer. The fact that these measurements in
themselves have also proved useful knowledge for many applied  technologies
often gives the layperson a distorted concept of physics.
>
> Of course the whole enterprise of science assumes there is an empirical
test of any model. The physicist's symmetry principles do not provide such a
test; they are only the necessary condition for a model to be a candidate
for further tests. The Hertzian  correspondence condition, or its
equivalent, remains the final empirical test of a model. Assuming a model
satisfies these necessary conditions, many more subjective criteria enter
into the choice or acceptance of models such as conceptual clarity, formal
elegance, beauty, unity, simplicity, utility, fecundity, etc.
>
> I have barely scratched the foundations, but I won't bother you with more.
Should anyone be interested in more, these books come to mind:
>
> Max Born, Physics in My Generation, Springer-Verlag, 1969. Esp. the essay,
"Symbol and Reality" pp. 132-146.
>
> Hallem Stevens, Fundamental physics and its justifications, 1945-1993.
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 34(1), 151-197,
2003. A study of the real struggles of physicists, their internal conflicts
about what fields are the most important and how they fight for grants.
>
> Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, Vintage Books, 1999 (paperback) A lot
of fundamentals plus string theory in popular readable form.
>
> Amir Aczel, Entanglement, Plume (Penguin) 2001. All about the bizarre
consequences  quantum theory, delayed-choice and non-locality experiments.
Enough to make you doubt you know anything about reality.
>
> Howard