Talk:Particle physics foundation ontology
Please, someone add below "This entry is not required because there can be no conceivable challenge to the particle physics foundation ontology". Go ahead. I dare ya. :-)
Some scientists openly admit there are probably infinite particles, or that political inability to do some experiments skews quantum mechanics as a science rather badly, I'll try to find some of these and add them in... the Yudkowsky quote may also be an extreme example of a PPFO absolutist - who are mostly in the AI field it seems...
This ontology is also called the "particle physics zoo", which is interesting, as a "zoo" is also a place where we try to gather what exists and look at it all at once. Not sure if the "foundation ontology" phrasing has come into common use. But it's handy as "foundation ontology" itself needs definition, and it's not obvious that the 'particle physics zoo' the same thing. Some would say that the 'zoo' represents the stuff we still are looking for, and isn't a foundation in the sense that "proton, neutron, electron" can be considered a foundation for the periodic table of the elements.
Also there is some stuff which attempts to put cognition and chemistry at the foundation level, explaining quantum mechanics as one of many types of bonds that hold up to observer-observed. Not sure if this is very easy to find... it's quite radical and the particle physics boys obviously hate it very much.
weakened the revised statement re: the challenge from cogsci of math... it isn't Lakoff and Nunez suggesting that *physics* is somehow not objective, they are claiming to *prove* that *math* is not *provably* objective, and this throws all claims to universal "true for all cognitive creatures" mathematical models into doubt. But it's a little less of a direct challenge, i.e. L&N are not out picketing to shut down particle accelerators, just questioning the degree to which humans can be sure of their own models - including very very basic ones.
Talk to some mathematicians and physicists -- you might find them to be less arrogant and more concerned with philosophical issues that you think. You may be attacking a straw man here.
----
We're completely in sync here, actually. I wrote this as you wrote that:
"It separates, by definition, radically autonomous particles from the choice-making observers. It assigns all choice, in particular all ethical choices, to the observer or experimenter."
The ethical choices being that to construct the test infrastructure, hire the scientists, and spend money on this field rather than on say competing theory. I think it's fair to say that the immense expense of that is an ethical choice.
However, as a whole, this claim was probably too strong to include - not all PPFO advocates are really saying that their funding is justified, some actually say otherwise, and some say that they think that the particles are actually laughing at us.
This may just prove they are nut cases.
But anyway the paragraph is probably not true "by definition", and should be weakened. It can stay out, as it's not really essential to the definition.
It would be better to try to define 'radically autonomous process' making those points there instead.
--- "no direct ethical consequences -- and no, it does not 'radically separate', it may link them together into a larger system] "
Umm.. if it did, wouldn't that be necessarily an ethical system? That may be a theology versus philosphy issue. But the larger system being another radical autonomous process versus it being a choice made by human values... hard to avoid.
Wigner's raising of the "other species" issue in 1960 was a surprise - I just found that.
I framed the ethical debate, a bit, so that this would be two objections that lead in three directions. It's a bit radical to include in philosophy of science, or philosophy of mathematics, or epistemology, because debate is really focused on this issue around hard-to-verify physics and medical theory.
I'm guessing, but I think the average reader is going to read this, conclude that "ok this is treating particle physics' output like religion, I get it... it happens every time they fund something - but that's life."
The more philosophically inclined, say half of them, mgiht say "these objections aren't so serious - philosophy of science as it stands can resolve them" and read that next.
Maybe 15% of readers will say "this is quite serious and interesting - why do I believe in math anyway?" and go off to philosophy of mathematics - getting into a more general treatment of foundations debates (of which this is one).
Maybe 5% of readers will say "I always thought so" and head off to cognitive science of mathematics or body philosophers.
I'm not sure the Yudkowski quote is that relevant. It's from an article about building an ontology for an AI, and is not meant to imply that that's really all there is or ever will be--only that it is a reasonable foundation for building an AI that can interact with us at our present level of understanding. Besides, he's not a particle physicist, he's an AI researcher (and a friend of mine, which I why I know this). And he's certainly not in the academic mainstream. I like the kid, but let's not make it sound like this is a quote from some real university physicist or something. --Lee Daniel Crocker
I think his quote is important because it shows that more limited AIs and other simulations are going to assume that the PPFO is "real" and perhaps convince people to put them in charge of hot fusion or nuclear weapons or DNA extruders or something. That the *cultural* impact of the PPFO is very real, and it guides funding decisions, and huge amounts of human effort one way or another...
Yudkowsky is like Lakoff, an extremist who lays out the simplest assumption... I agree he's more useful to illustrate the point about the impact of the PPFO than he is as a physicist. But this article is not actually about how physicists see the PPFO - it's more about how it affects everything else in our culture, which of course is what's funding big science itself...
The use of the term "ontology" in theology and computer science is ultimately convergent... theology is more ambitious and is more concerned with "finding" rather than "doing". Also, Yudkowsky is very careful and consistent - his glossaries are impressive - he's probably the best voice for the "particle physics is really really real" view... doesn't he intend to hand over all technology to a "Friendly AI" which would more or less become a sort of god?
That takes big-T Trust... :-)
It's fair then to put Yudkowsky and Pope John Paul II and Lakoff in the same article... and Monty Python too. Shows the extreme breadth of the debate...
Thanks also to whoever added the point about the anti-reductionist solid state physicists, it makes the link to the 'hard' scientists concerned about this, which is important, for physicists who happen to read this article...
...not that I think they're the main audience.
This is plain wrong. Anti-reductionist physicists don't object particle physics foundation ontology on experimental or epistemological grounds.
- Objections to these assumptions arise mostly in the "soft" sciences, but are increasingly heard in "hard" science:
- A number of physicists, particularly in solid state physics, question the notion of particle physics as the foundation for all other understanding. Their objections fit into a continuum of issues with experimental methods, with human cognitive bias, with falsifiability, and with reductionism.
This is also amazingly bad non-sense. The person who wrote this has no clue as to what the actual debate is. There was a really good article in the New York Times on the reductionist/anti-reductionist debate and it pops up as a topic on Physics Today. The debate is *NOT* about the nature of truth, the validity of mathematics, or the philosophical foundations of science.
- === it's only a model? ===
- The reaction of such physicists to mathematical abstractions that fully predict physical phenomena may be characterized in the same terms as the fictional knights in Monty Python And The Holy Grail, encountering (the simulated) Camelot for the first time: "It's only a model."
- Most practicing scientists would agree with that sentiment, rejecting reductionism as a philosophy, even if they must appeal to it for grant money. A common objection of scientists to "anti-reductionist" views is that scientific method itself requires constant investigation and challenge - and that it is computer science, simulation, artificial intelligence, other technology and the funding process that assume or require any kind of "foundation ontology". In other words, then: "It's only a model."
There are several debates going on.
The reductionist/anti-reductionist debate (physicists versus physicists)
The nature of truth debate (theologians, mathematical foundationists)
The validity of mathematics debate (cognitive scientists, linguists, postmodernists),
The philosophical foundations of science (all of the above minus physicists).
If you want to claim that the physicists' family squabble with each other is categorically different than the other objections, fine, but I call that differentiation a bias of yours.
That said, I have no objection to separating their specific objection, and taking it out of the "continuum"... fair enough?
The "it's only a model" section is an attempt to debunk the idea that scientists themselves believe in their models. Maybe it fails at doing that, but it was an attempt to argue that scientists themselves don't see the "zoo" as an "ontology"... any more than zookeepers see a zoo as a full unbiased representation of the ecology the animals and plants come from.
If you claim to understand the reductionist/anti-reductionist debate better than I, fair enough, likely true, but this article is about *all* currently debated issues re: the zoo as ontology.
It would be ideal to get Yudkowsky, Lakoff, the Pope, you, David Bohm, Monty Python, and a few of us in the room for a debate.
But, failing that, please do not say that several debates which exist, don't.
Instead, please fix the characterization of the anti/reductionist debate, CITING SOURCES.
If the original explanation of the debate was wrong, I'm sorry, I didn't write it, I wrote the stuff about all the other debates, and just included that anti/reductionist stuff which someone else had jammed in. So I have no conceivable objection to your fixing it or characterizing it as different from the other debates. No promises about relating it to those debates once you've fixed what it "actually is..."
Why not cite the Times article itself?
Also, if you read the objectionable passages, neither of them say that the 'hard' scientists objection is ON THE SAME GROUND AS the 'soft' ones... only that they question some of the same *assumptions*... different thing.
If this isn't clear, it can be fixed.
OK, a quick read establishes that the article reads better without those "bridging" passages you deleted - I added them so that non-scientists would understand this better, but if you claim they're not correct, fine... two different debates on reductionism on two different grounds.
I'd like to know if this section as I modified it is accurate:
anti-reductionist physicists
Some solid state physicists more deeply question the notion of particle physics as the foundation for all other understanding. They point out that large numbers of objects can undergo statistical behavior and have properties that are indepedent of the properties of the particles themselves.
Furthermore, they note, there are systems with radically different components that can undergo very similar behavior, and it has been argued that the similarities in behavior can best be understood through universal rules which are independent of the properties of the components of the systems themselves. These rules or methods or processes would then be "more real than matter" in that they would determine how observers shared an understanding of matter, and would set limits on investigative feasibility.
If so, then I'm very clued out, since a rules-based universe is exactly what the other objections also seem to point to...