The Misguided Basics of Rationality in both the Sciences & Reasoning

Sabine Hossenfelder and how Physics relies on Beauty!

As I have long argued, in prior publications, the principle flaw in the Sciences resides within Physics, as is most certainly revealed in the total subservience of its Theories to Mathematics. The origins of this problem lie in the crucial achievements of the Ancient Greeks, in their brilliant Intellectual Revolution (circa the 5th century BC), and also via their invention of a wholly new kind of Abstraction - both possible and, indeed, necessary in involving Relations to rationally develop the first-ever consistent, coherent and comprehensive Discipline, in history.

For, it was, indeed, an epoch-changing invention, because it delivered the first ever Complete Rationality - enabling the sound establishment, first, of Euclidian Geometry, and, thereafter, of the whole of Mathematics in general! But, this was wholly legitimately achieved ONLY because mathematical relations were always & forever FIXED: they absolutely never changed qualitatively into something else! This kind of messiness was against the rules!

So, what was achieved was only a Purely Mathematical Rationality, which was fairly quickly achieved and extensively and correctly used to ultimately build the Whole Discipline. But, it was only-ever-true for Mathematics, but NOT for either the Sciences or more General Reasoning - for in all of those important Disciplines, as in Life itself - things have Actually Evolved: they had to be changed qualitatively. and hence purely Mathematical Reasoning could NOT ever be legitimately related in that way.

Nevertheless, The Greeks, justifiably enamoured with their New Rationality, illegitimately applied it other Disciplines. And, that was soon literally extended universally throughout Mankind. Indeed, its basic Defining Principles, particularly those within Geometry-and-Symmetry, were re-classified as Beauty, and applied to absolutely Everything as Everywhere-applicable Principles!

Now, I have just finished watching a YouTube Video by the scientist, Sabine Hossenfelder, who was severely criticising the preponderance of Beauty, when used in judging the values of new Theories in Physics: her criticisms were wholly valid, BUT of Mathematical Rationality, and NOT of Beauty!

Indeed, the mistake of the Greeks was never realised, and Mathematics has wrongly and damagingly become a veritable-yet-wholly incorrect Ground in All Rationality. And, this is now so embedded in these Disciplines, that no-one can conceive of their Discipline without it!

For example, in Sciences like Physics, All Investigative Experiments, and All Productive Processes are ALWAYS and necessarily carried out in rigidly Pluralist (i.e. conforming to mathematical rationality) situations, absolutely essential to make their "Laws" work at all! Indeed, by such means Physics, in those areas, has ceased to exist as such, and has been pragmatically replaced by its older relation, namely Technology, and has been theoretically converted to Idealism!

And, "to compound the felony", it is ONLY those illegitimate Pluralist Equations that are exclusively and illegitimately used within "so-called Theory": thus making the consequent construction of an overall Discipline via substitutions between those Equations totally illegitimate, for all those Pluralist Equations are, each and every one, about Different Situations! Indeed, it is now very clear that to resolve this problem permanently, it will undoubtedly require the extensive establishment of a completely-New and Entirely Holist Approach to the Sciences, and, of course, particularly in the most formally-distorted of the Sciences: namely in Physics.

This is already underway in SHAPE Journal, but, as the size of the task is ever more clearly indicated, just how far Physics, in particular, its straying into pure Plurality, has become ever more evident! So, the solution will involve something very different to the artificially achieved and wholly Pluralist constraints upon both Experiments, Productions - and especially on Theory! Instead, a wholly new form of the subject simply MUST be revealed, to effectively deal with Reality-as-is, for the first time: otherwise, there can be no consistent, coherent and comprehensive system - on which to inter-relate the Holistic Real World versions of the Laws, and hence, be capable of producing a real Science!

The Fundamental Error of Quantum Mechanics

A Right Criticism

but 

The Wrong Solution

There is a Stanford "Continuing Education" Lecture, by Leonard Susskind, the purpose of which is supposedly to deliver, to a collection of mature-and-interested general auditors, an interesting Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, and its Foundations in Theory.

But Susskind's Lecture, from its very outset, instead attempts to ground his criticisms of Classical Physics, solely from a Quantum Mechanical (basically a Copenhagen) standpoint, via what seems initially to be a valid revelation of the fundamental-and-debilitating weaknesses of the former. 

He wrongly puts it down to congenital errors, due to actual "inaccuracies-in-measurements", but he does it, by inferring that the blame should be put solely upon the unavoidably inadequate means used in obtaining them, instead of Classical Physics' actually wholly flawed and totally inadequate mathematical rationality, which ever since its inception in Ancient Greece, was wholly incorrectly and damagingly transferred to ALL the Sciences.

Susskind does not even recognise this problem - but he also, in attaching the errors solely to poorly arranged-for experimental means, thereby delivering the blamed evident inaccuracies of the results obtained.

But in that he is doubly wrong: for his criticisms, which still leave him (and his auditors) totally unaware of the real causes, so, both cannot, in any way, deliver a solution, but also, in that wrong attribution, he completely hides the real causes, and, therefore, allows his "purely theoretically-perfected" equations to be the ONLY Ultimate Sources of Truth.

He establishes his position by this as totally idealist.

He establishes it NOT via Reality, but through Mathematical Rationality alone.

Theoretical Physicists have always dealt with all experimentally achieved results and consequently theoretically interpreted them via the mistakenly applied Pluralist Rationality, which sees all extracted relations solely as products of Eternally Fixed Natural Laws. That ONLY come out of the consequently formulated and theoretically confirmed Equations. The data so originally achieved will NOT be the Form that is required, but, on the contrary, that imposed upon the situation by just those constraints that ensure its total conformity to Plurality.

We do not directly measure Reality-as-is, but a Reality so constrained as to reveal more clearly only exactly what is purposely sought! But, unless the data-producing experiments required for the usual Pluralist Approach have been "perfectly applied", both in how the experiments were set-up-and-maintained throughout, they will never deliver the exactly aimed-for data, which is necessary, and will instead only produce data certain to differ from what could be either achieved in such sufficiently-rigidly controlled experiments OR taken directly from prior, "accurate" individual Equations, as all simultaneously-acting Laws are assumed to be wholly independent of one another, and hence arranged to be extracted one-at-a-time - pluralistically!

Whereas, in the actual Real Holist World outside, those could, if done correctly, actually reflect Reality-as-it-actually-is.

The problem is that the Rationality of Mathematics, as fully exemplified in Euclidian Geometry, did indeed define a legitimate Rationality - it works flawlessly - but ONLY in constrained areas. This is solely because Form, unlike almost everything else in Reality, does indeed soundly conform to Plurality's rules: a specific Logic for dealing with a Discipline composed exclusively of separable entires and FIXED relations or Unchanging Laws!

But, the trouble was, that following the universal successes of Pluralist Logic, it was applied to all the sciences, in a way which omitted the richness and dynamism of the material Universe.

In assuming that revealed relations are Eternal Natural Laws, all Real Development is excluded.

And, Susskind, in his Lecture, then proceeds to "Compound the Felony", by marshalling all his arguments, via the same mistaken Rationality. He correctly demonstrates the inability to predict in literally ALL situations, but instead makes it solely due to measured inaccuracies, whereas the most important of them are all due to the total exclusion of handling All Qualitative Change. 

And, he conversely puts down the simple addition of results into more complex situations, as due to the very same reason - rather than the actual reason that classical Pluralist Physics cannot deal with Reality-as-is, and merely substitutes, instead, the additions of multiple Fixed Laws, for the actual totally unknown and unconsidered Real Qualitative Changes that are involved.

He declares that the Double Slit Experiments all totally prove his case, whereas the opposite is true. 

Their paradoxes, on the contrary, and much like those of Zeno, expose the fundamental inadequacies of Pluralist Logic.

[See "The Theory of the Double Slit Experiments" in SHAPE Journal]

And, in a significantly ineffectual following section, he then resorts (as is usual for him) to proving his case using Mathematical Equations alone - the very cause of the major failures, to "prove" the opposite!

NOTE:

A whole series of papers dedicated to a major prior series of lectures by Susskind, has also been published in SHAPE Journal, but give-yourself-time, SHAPE has been publishing for 11 years now, delivering 125 issues with perhaps somewhat more than 1000 individual papers available!

Having spent most of my professional life posing these difficult questions, the importance of this now mature philosophical stance in addressing what is wrong with Modern Physics, is also succesfully employed across many different disciplines, from Politics to Evolutionary Biology. 

The flaws of the dominant Pluralist stance are revealed inadvertently by Susskind himself, for he passionately believes in Pluralistic Theory over-and-above any messy purely Pragmatic Extractions from Reality-as-is. 

When presented with "beautiful", generally consistent-and-coherent elegant Theory, and the messy error-filled "facts" from Nature, he resolutely chooses the Former as "containing the Real Truth". 

However difficult, Reality must be our final arbiter. 

Anything else can only be delusional!

 

Beauty?

Scultpure by Henry Moore - its beauty is nothing to do with symmetry or formal perfection

As an artist (I am primarily a sculptor) as well as both a professional scientist, and a philosopher, I always justifiably jib at sweeping definitions of Beauty, from one or another supposedly fundamental stance! So, when today I was assaulted on YouTube by a series of such declarations, I was impelled to pen this essay.

The most glaringly false declarations, as you might have guessed, were inevitably about Mathematics!

Wilczek swoons at its towering and breath-taking "Beauty", while another is staggered by the importance of Number in the Universe.

But, it is also clear, that neither of these 'prophets' were in any way aware of the fundamental weakness at the very heart of that Mathematics, which makes it totally incapable of dealing with any qualitative developments whatsoever. For, its power resides solely in its artificial simplification of all things to reveal only their superficial Forms or Patterns.

Mathematics is the study of forever-fixed Pure Forms, and as such was, and is, a truly remarkable advance, but certainly NOT the Revealer of all, or even any, Causative Essence. The invention of this formal approach, by the Ancient Greeks, was indeed a major Revolution in intellectual studies: but it wasn't carried out by an omnipotent, all-knowing and all-seeing God - but by mere human beings.

Darwinian Evolution selects for Survival and effective Reproduction only - so our Hominid-Line knapped pieces of flint for literally millions of years, without any significant intellectual development occurring at all. For this 'intelligence' was not congenital, but certainly had-to-be both a solely socially-acquired, and passed-on ability.

Indeed, the undoubted proof is clearly evident, from the revealing studies of Palaeontologists, who also immediately recognised the tremendous significance of the Neolithic Revolution, when Mankind successively changed-over to staying-in-one-place with others of their kind to productively both Farm-the-Land, Domesticate Animals. and discuss with one another. Only then could increasing-social-interactions begin to develop in both the regular Exchanges of things, and revealing Discussions, delivering a consequent development of productive activities and crucially also both Language and indeed Thought itself!

Now, the above short diversion into Human Evolution was absolutely essential, as without it, the inevitably inaccurate initial misconceptions about the Nature of Mathematics would inevitably intervene to prevent any understanding of its accompanying significant weaknesses. So, unavoidably demolishing any promotion of it to a universally fundamental role in the Consciousness of Mankind!

The Ancient Greeks had achieved a remarkable thing conceptually, in their Intellectual Revolution - they invented a wholly new kind of Abstraction - with regard to Forms, that enabled the valid construction of the very first Intellectual Discipline in their History - namely Mathematics!

I call them "Simplifying Relatable Abstractions", and they were a remarkably empowering original invention! They stripped down certain formal conceptions to an absolute minimum content - indeed, so tiny were they, that they were useless in isolation - BUT, as connecting-enablers, they alone legitimately linked certain things together, delivering a sound means that could be legitimately repeated into delivering a substantial complex and coherent spatial Discipline.

But, there was a flaw!

All so-produced-things must be permanently fixed.

They could never change qualitatively into something else!

So, what had actually been inadvertently and unavoidably subscribed-to was the Principle of Plurality, and, most certainly, not everything was legitimately so permanently limited. But, abstract Form most certainly was!

Now, here beginneth the inevitable drift into significant Error, from this initial success. For, immediately, The Greeks, delighted with what they had been able to do with Form, exported the same sort of qualities into both Reasoning and a nascent Science, where they were wholly illegitimate as universal premises!

But, the disaster was, by no means immediately evident, particularly if those so-produced Disciplines were to be only used within naturally Stable and Unchanging Situations.

And also, crucially, in Science, investigators quickly learned how to both achieve-and-maintain such situations, for both relation extractions and also subsequent effective use of extracted eternal Natural Laws. While in Formal Logic, the Reasoning was limited to fixed concepts, which could suffice in most stable situations!

NOTE: But, almost immediately, Zeno of Elea had revealed the unavoidable falsities that emerged from Contradictory Fixed Concepts in his Paradoxes.

Now, as both a competant mathematician and a well-informed philosopher, I have developed these ideas, particularly with respect to the damaging Role of Pluralist Mathematics in Science, wherein I have established it as unavoidably both pluralistic and idealistic, and hence totally inadequate as any sort of assumed General Ground of Concrete Reality, i.e. in Science.

Indeed, all of its many extensions no longer exist within Concrete Reality at all, but are situated solely within Ideality - the realm of Pure Form alone.

Jim Schofield's Theory of Abstraction

So, when Wilczek and his like wax lyrical over the Beauty of Mathematics, he is actually describing situations in Form-Only Ideality!

The breath-taking intricacies and "beauties" of these investigators, are NOT about The Real at all, but, instead, only about the extensions of formal definitions into the infinite, but not concretely existing, features of Pure Form Alone within Ideality.

[It applauds the infinite extendibility and intricacy of Symmetry with Fixed Forms, and totally excludes the Real World Beauty of Creative Development entirely]

It just cannot be Science any longer: for it is, at best, a form of Art, based upon the Real, but artificially extended to extreme limits, outside of Reality, to display their Formal Beauty!

[Remember: Reality also contains properties, qualities and causalities, while Ideality contains only Form!]

But, why then is this unreal World indulged-in so extensively by scientists?

Having shot themselves in the foot via the Universal extension of Plurality to literally everything, they walled themselves off, permanently, from Developing Reality, and the Holistic and Dialectical means of dealing with it, so were forced to permanently give-up Understanding, for mere Prediction, and hence had to look elsewhere, NOT, it must be emphasized for Explanations, but instead, to seek only Descriptions-of-Forms that might possibly then be used as Disembodied Forms, enabling Prediction, without-Explanation or increased Understanding.

It is actually a retreat to an older pragmatism, disguised within sophisticated Abstraction!