Category Archives: physics

On the defense of ‘Evolutionary and Newtonian Forces’











On Matthen’s Intelligibility Argument

Mohan Matthen’s post Teleology in Big Systems brought up two options explaining how someone — Tom Nagel in Mind and Cosmos — would choose a teleological explanation over a naturalistic one. The first, below, got me thinking:

First, he might be saying that though it is physically possible (by a fluke series of mutations, for example) for mentality to have come about, it would be better explained by teleology. (Let’s call this the “intelligibility” argument.)

Though Matthen was referring to doubts about Darwinism being sufficient to lead to consciousness, there is another way to understand this intelligibility argument. If we grant that consciousness is something very special, though not unphysical, someone might consider the laws of physics to be constructed, teleologically, to permit consciousness. This is to say that our physics is teleogically directed to account for consciousness. The claim is not that consciousness was necessitated by our physics, but that our physics must conform to allow the possibility of consciousness. What is one philosopher’s Nature is another’s Teleology.

Now, I can’t see any philosophical motivation for this outside of a very deep belief that consciousness is exceptionally special. But if we grant exceptional status to consciousness, then it wouldn’t be ridiculous to consider that our physics must somehow be subject to the requirements of consciousness instead of the other way around. Whereas there may be infinite other possible physics that do not allow for the possibility of consciousness, we live under a physics that does.

My immediate, knee jerk response to this sort of move is that it is just a semantic shift about the meanings of teleology and nature, nothing deeper. If what the teleologist means by teleology is what others mean by nature, then there is no difference of opinion, only word use.

However, this semantic response does not engage the motivation for the teleological argument. The motivation is that consciousness is exceptional. So, if the naturalist believes that consciousness is exceptional and entirely natural, then the naturalist is left with no natural explanation for why it is so exceptional. However the teleologist may say that consciousness is exceptional, subject to the laws of physics, but unsurprising, since the laws of physics itself are directed to allow for consciousness. Since the teleological account does a better job at explaining something as special as consciousness, it is preferable.

This conclusion about preferring the teleological explanation to the naturalistic one is based on the absolute assumption that consciousness is exceptional. But how exceptional must it be? Since we are making physics, and presumably the rest of science, subject to our assumption, then the reasons for our assumptions must then be ontologically more basic and more certain than our entire scientific understanding of the world.

Personally I do not have any basis for thinking consciousness is so special that all of science must be made to account for it. From my perspective, claiming that science must conform to consciousness is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, since I’d have to arbitrarily assume consciousness to be a fundamental substance and science to be constructed to allow for it.

However, there could be people who do have beliefs that strong. For them, they would not be arbitrarily assuming consciousness to be the more fundamental substance in the universe and hence it would follow that science should conform to it. Instead it would be a direct causal link: consciousness, therefore science that teleologically allows for consciousness. This kind of teleological naturalism is special in that it does not appeal to the unlikelihood or complexity of consciousness evolving, as is wont to happen nowadays, but is based on an ontological claim about consciousness. I don’t know if this is more defensible than the Intelligibility Argument based on likelihood, but, as it is different, perhaps it has a chance to fair better.

Posted in biology, design, evolution, ontology, philosophy, physics, science. Tagged with , , , .

Aether Discontinuity

Assume space-time is quantized.  This would mean that space-time is broken up into discrete bits.  It then follows that time is broken up into discrete bits.

This disagrees with basic experience: we can start counting time at any arbitrary point.  “Now” could be any time whatsoever.  Moreover, we run our physical experiments at any given point; we don’t have to wait to start our clocks.

But what if our ability to run experiments at any given point is just an illusion of our universe being broken up into such tiny bits that we just don’t notice the breaks?

Could we design an experiment to test when we can run experiments?

If time is continuous, we would never find any point at which we could not run an experiment.  If time is not continuous, though, we would likewise never find any point at which we could not run an experiment, since all experiments would use clocks that start within that lockstep quantized time.

Hence we are unable to tell the difference between quantized and continuous time such that it always appears continuous.

However, even if time is continuous in this fashion, measurement of time is not.  Since there is a lower limit to what we can distinguish between two different times, even if we are free to start measuring whenever we want, all subsequent measurements are physically dependent upon that initial fixed point.  The second measurement must be outside the uncertainty associated with the initial measurement (the clock start) and the third must be outside the second, etc.  Therefore all physically useful measurements of time (counting past zero, that is) are inherently physically quantized by their dependence upon the instantiation of measurement and limits of uncertainty.

If time is both continuous and discontinuous in this fashion, then so is all space-time.

This leads to the question of which is ontologically prior: if you hold that our reality is defined by what we can measure, then the universe is quantized and our experience pigeonholed; if you hold that our reality is defined by our phenomenal experience, then the universe is continuous and measurement is pigeonholing.

Either way it is a question of the metaphysics — not physics —  of space-time.  And without a way to distinguish between these options, no physical experiment will be able to settle the debate either, since we could always be chasing our metaphysical tails.

I’ve mulled over this issue concerning the logical limits of what can be measured by physics for years, but I never developed any conclusions.  However, there has recently been discussion of the feasibility of a tabletop search for Planck scale signals.  This nifty experiment seems deviously simple with the potential for novel results, so go check it out if you haven’t heard of it yet, for example in this discussion.  One issue that the experiment bears upon is the continuity of space-time at the Planck Scale.  My worry is that the above metaphysical distinction between counting zero and counting past zero may trip up the physicists’ search for the continuity or discontinuity at the fundamental levels of matter.

Posted in measurement, metaphysics, philosophy, physics, Relativity, science, time.

The Rationality Cone





Rationality Cone Diagram




Posted in metaphysics, mind, philosophy, physics.

Working Hard on Special Biological Relativity



E ∝ f


E = fd2

Or something.


Occam’s Razor and Entropy







Posted in economics, ontology, philosophy, physics, science.

Special Relativistic Fitness, Preliminary Thought Experiment










—– the analogs —–


Deriving Natural Selection = Fitness × Acceleration





Rewrite of Evolution

New theory of evolution!  Hooray!

Patched a bunch of things together to make a nice story.  Fixed the little issue about fitness being circular.  Expanded natural selection to apply more generally.  Causal structure.  Epistemological foundations.  ooOoOO0Ooooooo.

And it’s good fun.  I swear.  Epistemology, history of physics, evolution… makes me happy.  You should really read it.

Download here. [pdf, 304kb]

Posted in biology, epistemology, evolution, fitness, General Relativity, measurement, philosophy, physics, Relativity, science. Tagged with , , , , , , , .

… Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh

via BackRe(Action)

Posted in fun, General Relativity, measurement, physics, Relativity, science, Special Relativity. Tagged with .