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New Physics Questions the Very Nature of Reality + Philosophy in Mexico

#1
C C Offline
New Physics Questions the Very Nature of Reality
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...f-reality/

EXCERPT: It is not at all clear what particles and force fields actually are in the quantum realm. The world may instead consist of bundles of properties, such as color and shape. Physicists routinely describe the universe as being made of tiny subatomic particles that push and pull on one another by means of force fields. They call their subject “particle physics” and their instruments “particle accelerators.” They hew to a Lego-like model of the world. But this view sweeps a little-known fact under the rug: the particle interpretation of quantum physics, as well as the field interpretation, stretches our conventional notions of “particle” and “field” to such an extent that ever more people think the world might be made of something else entirely.... [Purchase to read more]

http://www.revolutionbooksnyc.org/WhatIsReal.pdf

[...] On the basis of these and other insights, one must conclude that “particle physics” is a misnomer: despite the fact that physicists keep talking about particles, there are no such things. One may adopt the phrase “quantum particle,” but what justifies the use of the word “particle” if almost nothing of the classical notion of particles has survived? It is better to bite the bullet and abandon the concept altogether. Some see these difficulties as indirect evidence that quantum field theory describes only fields. By this reasoning, particles are ripples in a field that fills space like an invisible fluid. Yet as we will see now, quantum field theory cannot be readily interpreted in terms of fields, either.

[...] A growing number of people think that what really matters are not things but the relations in which those things stand. Such a view breaks with traditional atomistic or pointillist conceptions of the material world in a more radical way than even the severest modifications of particle and field ontologies could do. Initially this position, known as structural realism, came in a fairly moderate version known as epistemic structural realism. It runs as follows: we may never know the real natures of things but only how they are related to one another. Consider mass. Do you ever see mass itself? No. You see only what it means for other entities or, concretely, how one massive body is related to another massive body through the local gravitational field....

http://www.tokseminars.org/Science_Artic...ality.html



Philosophy in Mexico
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mexico/

EXCERPT: Mexican philosophy has received the influence of different traditions of thought. These sources have been combined and transformed according to the specific problems and circumstances of Mexican life. The result has been a rich and original tradition of thought of over five centuries that, together with Peruvian philosophy, is the oldest of the Americas.

Mexican philosophy has been concerned with all sorts of theoretical questions, however, it could be characterized by its peculiar interest in ethical and political issues. The theme of the nature of man and of reason and its connection to the realms of power and domination has been a central line of thought of Mexican philosophy, from the early reflections about the justification of the Spanish conquest to the recent debates about the demands of a democratic reform or the Indian insurgence in Chiapas. The criticism of philosophical eurocentrism has been another central feature of Mexican philosophy due to its links to some of the main political events of Mexican history, such as the Conquest, the Independence and the Revolution...
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:A growing number of people think that what really matters are not things but the relations in which those things stand. Such a view breaks with traditional atomistic or pointillist conceptions of the material world in a more radical way than even the severest modifications of particle and field ontologies could do. Initially this position, known as structural realism, came in a fairly moderate version known as epistemic structural realism. It runs as follows: we may never know the real natures of things but only how they are related to one another. Consider mass. Do you ever see mass itself? No. You see only what it means for other entities or, concretely, how one massive body is related to another massive body through the local gravitational field....

Essentially these properties like mass and charge and spin then are more abstractions or generalizations based on observed events and relationships. But this begs the question of what a relationship is and how do they become combined into a property or qualia. We see this in the old colored TVs, where relations between colored pixels can assume qualitative "irreducible" colors on the screen. Or how a sonic pulse sped up to a high enough frequency becomes a continuous tone. There is a mergent aspect to time and space such that micro differences coalesce into irreducible properties or abstractions. Reality almost seems to generalize itself into coherent and seamless gestalts, with or without the presence of consciousness to it.


[Image: DSC-S70Pixels.jpg]
[Image: DSC-S70Pixels.jpg]

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#3
C C Offline
(Jan 24, 2016 10:30 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Essentially these properties like mass and charge and spin then are more abstractions or generalizations based on observed events and relationships. But this begs the question of what a relationship is and how do they become combined into a property or qualia. We see this in the old colored TVs, where relations between colored pixels can assume qualitative "irreducible" colors on the screen. Or how a sonic pulse sped up to a high enough frequency becomes a continuous tone. There is a mergent aspect to time and space such that micro differences coalesce into irreducible properties or abstractions. Reality almost seems to generalize itself into coherent and seamless gestalts, with or without the presence of consciousness to it.


If the abstract space of physics isn't fundamental, then alternatives to "relationships" as connections across space might be explored. Not that such alternatives aren't already available. But the quantitative, symbolic work still eventually gets correlated to / converted into our geometries and familiar live and imagined perceptions of extended bridges between things. William James provided a more unconventional example in regard to the phenomenal and temporal transition from one moment to the next -- that this very routine experience of constant change was itself relationships of a non-spatial ilk between different events.

On the flip side: Our perceptual consciousness discriminates objects while also introducing organizational coordination with the others. Which yields its of kind of non-abstract, manifested "space" as each item is kept distinct from the others via the specific area it occupies. There's then no need to infer, theorize, or intellectually conclude that something "is" and disambiguate such reason-wise from the rest of the pack, since it is intuitive or brutely presented. Empirically "there" or sensationally "shown" as distinct without need of conceptual thinking, methodological processes, and eventual graph or mapping language / signs becoming involved to represent it.
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