Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles

1) Bible Prophecy, TV, Changing Subject onto Common Sense - Science, 2) Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles, 3) JL admits he's no physicist, MC gets a reductio ad absurdum when asking "for info" (and I am asked to leave fifth grade behind)

MC

You might have been exact, but that doesn't change that 'senses' are equivocally not 'common sense'.

You were describing how to save the appearances to explain our challenges to common sense.

I maybe be scoring low, but I can use "common sense" and "save the appearances" correctly.

//And pretending to give me language lessons will not help you out with all readers.//

If you want one, remove the "is" of identity from your vocabulary.

HGL

No. I am no Buddhist.

And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.

JL

" Whether you really mean proton or electron, this has - unlike a heavier feather falling slower than a lighter ball - not been observed. "

Not observed, but we know from calculations that it can happen (yes with protons).

" How exactly has it (quantum entanglement) been demonstrated? Has it been conclusively demonstrated?"

Yes quantum entanglement has been demonstrated. We have no idea how it occurs but we know it does. The famous example is from Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen - the EPR experiment. It's also one of the reasons we can't get past the uncertainty principle.

"Like the 10²² times crossing of a nucleus, this (wave-particle duality of light) has not been directly observed."

Well yes, it has, that is what the double-slit experiment is famous for.

[In one slit one directly observes light coming out as waves and in another as particles? OR - more probably on my view - one observes sth in the experiment from which the duality is then deduced? In that case he missed the part of DIRECTLY observed.]

"How do you observe even ONE electron when the smallest microscopy is electronic microscopy?"

We don't observe the electron itself, we observe a dot appearing on the surface behind the double slit, as it reacts with the electron. As we shoot many electrons through, one at a time, a pattern emerges.

HGL

And, no, as having a certain knowledge about history of ideas, you were NOT using "save the appearances" correctly, when you were both hinting it was a wrong method (it is a needed part of any complex method) and basically saying I was doing that while referring (as per a common sense preference) to the senses. This to MC, now to JL ...

"Not observed, but we know from calculations that it can happen (yes with protons)."

I believe that the calculations are as correct as their basic assumptions - i e, if you model atoms like that, this speed very probably will be correctly calculated.

This does not mean your model as such is right.

"The famous example is from Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen - the EPR experiment."

And the experiment can have no other interpretation?

Like for instance limits to our even enhanced possibilities of observation?

MC

//And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.//

Really?

//Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not.//

//Even if eyes are in your terminology one of the "common" - usually referred to as one of the "five" - senses.//

//That scepticism in face of bold claims of "deducing the cigar brand from the ashes" is also common sense, just as the general trust in eyes is.//

Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?*

HGL

"Well yes, it has, that is what the double-slit experiment is famous for."

Well, no. I said "not directly". No doubt you will say the double slit experiment somehow indirectly proves it, but it is still another thing than directly observing it.

"We don't observe the electron itself, we observe a dot appearing on the surface behind the double slit, as it reacts with the electron. As we shoot many electrons through, one at a time, a pattern emerges."

Well, I agree, this is how it is done.

However, that being so, how can you be sure it is an electron?

MC

This is near interesting philosophy, but not science.

Meditation wakes someone up, btw.

It is not just a Buddhist thing. Christians meditate, too.

HGL

Facthood is a question not just of science as a formal exercise.

And I was - philosophically - disputing the claim the formal exercise of science is universally a sure way to ascertain facthood.

"Meditation wakes someone up, btw."

Probably makes you feel that way.

MC

//HGL "Meditation wakes someone up, btw."Just now • Like HGL Probably makes you feel that way.//

Google it. Google scholar it.

[not giving the link he gave]

HGL

"Really?" - Yes, I really think common sense regularly but not exclusively refers to the senses.

"Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?" - No, I was not confusing - unless you mean quotes from me you consider prove me wrong in this assessment.

[The three quotes he had provided were of course not proving that, because he was not correctly assessing what they meant objectively and grammatically. See the footnote* on it.]

MC

//However, that being so, how can you be sure it is an electron?//

Careful observation and definitely not the wisdom you mom taught you growing up (unless she was a physicist)

HGL

Careful observation again refers back to the senses.

A Physicist's logic has to be continuous with that mom taught or I gathered since. Not necessarily coextensive in already mastered methodology, but continuous.

MC

//"Really?" - Yes, I really think common sense regularly but not exclusively refers to the senses.//

This explains what I was reading. I am sorry if I am being too technical, but the senses and common sense are two different realms.

[He STILL thinks I am confused! Or thought while writing this.]

Another name for "common sense" is heuristics. When we call it that we won't confuse our sense of time for our problem solving abilities.

JL

"This does not mean your model as such is right. "

Then find flaws in it.

"And the experiment can have no other interpretation?"

Of course it can, but we're talking about science, we can't just make up wild explanations when we feel like it - it's such a simple observation, with a very simple explanation - that the particles are entangled.

[I missed this one. A philosopher can make up any explanations he likes - and then see where experience or principle of contradiction cancels out certain ones of them. Btw, the criterium he uses refers back to logic or common sense, as he presents it, and as I have not looked up the experiment, I do not know if it is reasonable. Particles not being particles but aether might also be an explanation.]

" but it is still another thing than directly observing it."

So we can't know anything unless we directly observe it? We are able to make inferences you know. If we see a man with a bullet in his head, there's a pretty good chance he was shot.

"how can you be sure it is an electron?"

Because that is what the particle gun is shooting,..

MC

Yes. The senses are the building blocks of experience.

[The most usual ones, there is introspection too.]

//"how can you be sure it is an electron?"
Because that is what the particle gun is shooting,..//

lol

[I agree on the lol]

HGL

"Then find flaws in it."

Would need details of your proof for that, you are making the claims.

MC

I want to shore up this wild use of language. There is a reason we call common sense heuristics while being technical, it is less confusing!

Senses, common sense, I sense something fishy since my senses....AH!

[I sense something Dalai-Lamaish in his harping on mere puns, without backing them up.]

Heuristics. Ah, much better.

[There is a reason why I prefer the phrase "common sense" to the word "heuristics" : GOOD heuristics are heuristics that are COMMON as far as principles applied are concerned. Applications may be uncommon and heuristics still very good, but only if its principles are the common ones. I am for instance not sponging out the "is" of identity.]

In social psychology we call common sense heuristics to better understand what is going on. We do it in philosophy, too.

With this new information, maybe we should reconsider:

Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second?

Is it common sense to imagine quantum entanglement? Or the wave-particle duality of light? Or the effect of observation on the interactions of electrons through a double-slit?

JL

Martin, quick off-topic question, as a Buddhist, do you consider yourself an atheist? Because to my knowledge Buddhism doesn't have any "gods" as such?

MC

I do consider myself an atheist. In some forms of Buddhism they do pay tribute to gods. I have learned other techniques, but I primarily practice Zen.

It gets confusing. We atheistic Buddhists will put up the appropriate gods in different parts of a monastery or your house, but no one takes them as being real. They represent states of mind and different concepts.

[A bit like Late Antiquity would take Mars and Venus for masculine and feminine states of mind, agressive and concuiscent behaviours, erected into personifications. No doubt.]

The popular Buddhism you find in Thailand or Burma sometimes gets into deity worship.

[Not to mention Buddhism on higher levels too in Tibet or China or some non-zen schools of Japan?]

JL

Thanks I thought I was along the right lines. I've always thought that if I was forced to choose a religion, it would be some form of Buddhism, if only because it's a "nice" religion in that it doesn't portray petty, violent gods and I've always found its followers to be really kind, honest etc people.

I can't buy into its "supernatural" claims but I respect Buddhism's teachings so much more than any other major religion!

MC

I became a Buddhist from practicing meditation and learning the Sutras. I didn't really want to become religious.

I liked that we were supposed to test everything and take nothing on someone's word. I don't write off the supernatural claims off hand (as evidence would convince me of their proof).

Powers like telepathy and mind reading are explained by completely naturalistic means.

Maybe you have seen a magic trick where a blindfolded person goes through a crowd to find a hidden object?

Meditating helps you to observe micro-behaviors and other things that are commonly overlooked.

I have never seen someone with a power that couldn't be explained by a natural explanation and learned by someone else.

I really do it because it helps in learning psychology and meditation is good for you.

JL

Yeah, I've meditated a bit a few times, it's good to clear the mind sometimes and completely relax

MC

Anyway, sorry to get too technical about common sense, but I have read the great common sensers. I love them. They are some of the best philosophers.

They take a long time to distinguish the senses from our common sense (my great annoyance). I think you can say more, Hans-Georg, on how much common sense plays into concept formation or how we interpret science, but you cannot take the senses for common sense. You seem like an intelligent, reasonable person. Sometimes we make small mistakes and that's ok.

I make mistakes all the time and appreciate when someone corrects me because I love to believe as many true things as possible.

A person's common sense changes when one becomes specialized. Then their common experience becomes more than that which we hold in common.

Are you trying to say that specialization is really a special construction of "common sense"? A special case of it?

Maybe that is it built of tiny blocks of common sense units to build a giant block we call specialization?

You can see how this may need some explaining because to have a specialization negates the knowledge we hold in common.

HGL

"This explains what I was reading. I am sorry if I am being too technical, but the senses and common sense are two different realms.

Another name for "common sense" is heuristics. When we call it that we won't confuse our sense of time for our problem solving abilities."

You were not being too technical. You were too obtuse.

Common sense = GOOD heuristics. Any GOOD heuristics will refer to sth to be interpreted. I e, it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses.

"In social psychology we call common sense heuristics to better understand what is going on. We do it in philosophy, too."

Disagree. Heuristics would also cover BAD heuristics. For instance heuristics referring to nothing in particular to be interpreted. And overinterpreting it.

"Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second? ETC."

Whether it is good or bad heuristics depend on what sense data it refers to.

"I think you can say more, Hans-Georg, on how much common sense plays into concept formation or how we interpret science, but you cannot take the senses for common sense."

I wasn't.

Meaning that if you interpreted me as doing that, you have bad heuristics, at least when it comes to non-technical (or technical outside your technicalities) language.

Now, I was referring to the question what the proofs are that a proton (I think someone clarified it was really a proton) passes through the nucleus 10²² times per second.

If I were speaking to a ping pong ball passing 10 times per minute between the players back and forth (or twenty times either way), I would refer to ping pong ball passing visibly before my eyes and my counting and in some way either breaking off count after a minute or checking time when they take a pause and averaging.

This is NOT the kind of sense data which will immediately yield 10²² passages over a nucleus per second for a proton.

Proton is too small, nucleus is too small, passage is too fast.

ANY parallel will very certainly involve a parallel to the averaging ... OR being a prioristic about movement occurring and making a limit assumption on how fast it must be in order to make a larger area than proton seem solid to any observation through electronic microscopy OR sth else.

I do not know which it is. But I do know it is not common sense to consider the fact as having been observed as directly even as the passages of a ping pong ball.

JL

I didn't say it did cross the nucleus that many times, I said it CAN.

[Even that came as news to me. The atomic model I had been taught had at least left me with the impression that if electrons passed around nucleus in extreme high speeds, the protons and neutrons in it were as fixed in relation to each other as the legs of a chair or a table.]

HGL

Ah, sorry.

Let me guess - speed in cloud chamber as applied to distance in nucleus?

JL

I'm not sure how they calculated it.

HGL

And as we talk of distance in nucleus, when we observe an atom in electronic microscopy, we observe a globe, which in common model is supposed to be both nucleus AND surround electron shells. How do you prove such a portion is nucleus, and such a portion void between nucleus and electron shells?

Not sure how they calculate that either?

JL

Rephrase the question. Are you asking how we know the structure of an atom?

HGL

I was asking how we know those particular facts about the structure of an atom, like how much space is nucleus, how much void, how much electron shells.

I suppose size of nucleus IS relevant for how many times a proton can pass through it per second.

JL

I believe it was Rutherford who gave us the atomic model, and through refinements in his classic experiment, and other methods, we can determine a lot about the structure of the atom.

LL

JL who cares it doesn't matter all that matters is one day your house and your future will be blown up. Count on it Islam is knocking on your door

HGL

Rutherford experiment can determine how much of the gold foil is impermeable and deflecting (few scarce spots) and how much is permeable. Some way to go on from there before proving the atomic model.

JL

Wow that came out of nowhere LL.

HGL

He might be less interested than I in technicalities of science, like how we know certain things?

JL

Expect we can look at the gold foil under a microscope and see that there aren't any holes in it - do you really think the entire physics community would overlook something like that?

Not to mention that atomic theory is confirmed by chemistry.

HGL

I was very aware there were no holes. All I said was based on it.

Part of atomic theory is confirmed by valencies (known from chemistry and testable under electronic microscopy).

[Though even valencies are an intellectual construct with some dubiousness. Carbon having four means it connects with four other atoms, right? No, there is double bond, triple bond, quadruple bond even possibly - though I don't know any example - unsaturated, lattice structure of graphite not quite corresponding ...]

I said PART OF.

For instance, electronic shells will predict certain valencies, but valencies could have other explanations.

Parallel with positively charged visible objects repelling each other attacting negative ones, and of negatively charged ones repelling each other and attracting positive ones is another possible source for atomic theory as we know it.

Right?

Without that nuclei might be either protons or negative protons, shells either electrons or positrons, but this would contradict, in common sense, what we consider as known about charges from observing objects in visible sizes.

JL

"Parallel with positively charged visible objects repelling each other attacting negative ones, and of negatively charged ones repelling each other and attracting positive ones is another possible source for atomic theory as we know it."

What?

LL

And how would a dumb fisherman like Peter know anything about the elements burning the earth with the fervent Heat

HGL

Ah, that is a good one LL!

@ JL, I was reconstructing part of the intellectual process of constructing the atomic model science today is talking about.

And added "right?" to get corrected if my reconstruction was wrong.

But you seem to know very much about the model and very little on how it was proven or if it was at all proven.

@ JL, shall we get back to the topic while you take a rest from my charge on physics?

You said sth about prophecies not being noticed until after fulfilled.

Wrong, some of these were noticed by sceptics before modern technologies proved arguments of these were hasty.

JL

Just to be clear, is your position that atoms are not how science claims they are?

HGL

"Just to be clear, is your position that atoms are not how science claims they are?"

Have a suspicion some detail may be wrong. Mainly I might consider exchanging electron shells for aether with a charge as a quality.

LL

Atheism has an unbelievable ability to take you away from the subject off on some tangent rabbit trail. The bottom line is a fisherman would not know about the elements of atomic energy 2000 years ago without God warning you

[He is trying to bring us back on topic, see top of previous. We might be getting back there later?]

HGL

True, but I was not being taken on a rabbit trail, I was taking him on it.

It was I who wanted the other subject too.

JL

LL if you had read this thread you would know I didn't lead anyone anywhere.

So do electrons exist?

HGL

I do not know. Cloud chambers seem to indicate there are a thing giving thinner trail than α particles and negatively charged, not sure they belong in atoms

So, you have identified such and such particles in cloud chambers. You can tell how big or small they are in relation to each other. You can tell whether they are charged or not and if yes whether positively or negatively.

• 1) How do you know what you are studying is even just one particle, rather than say a minimal quantum of emittable aether as distinct from aether in [its non-emitted] place or rather than say again a quantum [or a quota] of particles emitted together?
  
  
• 2) Even more importantly, the particles are emitted separately when you study them in cloud chambers. How do you know which of them occur in all atoms and how do you know how they relate to each other in atoms?

[Added last bit after being surprised first paragraph of my answer had stood unanswered for hours. JL might be looking up or intellectually reconstructing the answer before giving it. Will try to update you when it happens.]

MC

//Whether it is good or bad heuristics depend on what sense data it refers to.//

//it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses.//

//you cannot take the senses for common sense."

I wasn't.//

The first two look like they are appealing to the senses.

Let's leave that behind. If you keep telling me you want common sense to be different from the senses, even if you say it depends on what sense data we are referring to, I shouldn't insist too much that you are. I hope you see how I, and probably other people, would easily make that mistake.

I want to celebrate our agreement, Hans-Georg. Heuristic is too general to talk about common sense.

Common sense is a special case heuristic.

We disagree here, "it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses."

We may have "idealized cognitive metaphors" that make up heuristic that makes it count as common sense, but someone who is specialized in a topic like particle physics knows more than the common person.

Humans organize information at a "basic-level categorization". That means it doesn't start from specialization or generalization. Knowledge starts from a "basic-level". This is close to your "common sense".

Eleanor Rosch's research has a wealth of information about how the brain categorizes information. To say we can get out of common sense what you are claiming is a giant task. it goes against this approach and the classical approach (which I have not represented).

If we want to take a more classical view on something like common sense, we would need something like Chomsky's universal grammar and even that is far beyond that which we hold in common.

HGL

"Heuristic is too general to talk about common sense.

Common sense is a special case heuristic."

Disagreed.

Common sense is GOOD heuristics. I e heuristics using common principles (hence name) in the common way (also related to name of common sense), but ideally more consistently so than is commonly done.

"he first two look like they are appealing to the senses."

Appealing to the senses does not equate identifying good heuristics with these. You would have noticed that if your grammatical heuristics had been good

"We may have "idealized cognitive metaphors" that make up heuristic that makes it count as common sense, but someone who is specialized in a topic like particle physics knows more than the common person."

In so far as his knowledge can stand up to scrutiny of the common person's logic when given all the facts. No further than that

And by "given all the facts" I mean not given the "net facts" as usually presented, but given the brute facts, like cloud chambers and how particle emittors emit invisible somethings which will give different traces in it.

The problem is the physicist here (I take Jake for such a one) does not know himself how to work from there on to the full and integral atomic theory he presents as a fact and as daunting and overdaunting common sense

I am actually more eager for his specific answers than for your diatribe, sorry.

[linking to both parts]

MC

//Common sense is GOOD heuristics. I e heuristics using common principles (hence name) in the common way (also related to name of common sense), but ideally more consistently so than is commonly done. //

I agree with this. That is one way I might explain how "common sense is a special case of a heuristic". When I am talking about common sense, I can list what heuristics we use that are in common and that fail to explain higher level concepts:

• authority
• liking
• scarcity
• social proof
• commitment and consistency
• reciprocation

HGL

" we would need something like Chomsky's universal grammar and even that is far beyond that which we hold in common."

I do hold sth similar but very far from identical to be a universal grammar of language Port Royal Grammar is less discredited to me than Chomsky's tree diagram grammar.

There is sth similar for common sense too. It is called logic

MC

Logic is not something that people hold in common.

This is the start of the dispute to refresh our minds and anyone jumping in:

//I have taught junior high school math. One pupil got a problem totally wrong. He made no calculation wrong, he had just put in the realistic variables in the wrong slots for the calculations. When I claim to correct Heliocentrism, it is by common sense argument, not by the equations accessible to and producible by very skilled physicists.//

HGL

"When I am talking about common sense, I can list what heuristics we use that are in common and that fail to explain higher level concepts"

Your list, if it fails to explain correct higher level concepts, is not exhaustive. Or part of it has not been put to proper use.

But in some cases the higher level concepts may be incorrect ones

"Logic is not something that people hold in common."

Yes it is.

Your reminder of the dispute was probably meant to show he had not logic in common with me. He had, he understood my correction perfectly when I explained, he had been inattentive.

MC

Am I adding snarky remarks like:

//You would have noticed that if your grammatical heuristics had been good. //

//I am actually more eager for his specific answers than for your diatribe, sorry.//

?

HGL

Your remarks were deprecating very much beyond snarky when you had gotten into your head I had confused "common sense" with "five senses" when in fact I hadn't. You deserved snarky

Amply.

* Footnote on MC charging me with confusion:

[Here are his quoting three of my words, one of them in truncated form, to prove I had confused what I had not confused:]

//And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.//

Really? [Yes.]

//Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these thingsare proven and correctly proven - or not.//

[What he took for a confusion between the five senses - they - and common sense - it - really contained a clue to my not confusing them. His meditation has not made him sensitive to micro-behaviours in language, which any Classicist would be laughed at for not noticing in reading Plato or Aristotle.]

//Even if eyes are in your terminology one of the "common" - usually referred to as one of the "five" - senses.//

[I was not myself confusing the five senses with common sense, I was accusing his terminology of doing so. If it was his habitual one or his ad hoc one in speaking to me, irrelevant, the confusion was his. As can perhaps be understood in an Atheistic Buddhist but which is very certainly to be expected in such a vile thing as a student of Social Psychology.]

//That scepticism in face of bold claims of "deducing the cigar brand from the ashes" is also common sense, just as the general trust in eyes is.//

[Scepticism in face of bold claims for very fine tuned senses and general trust in eyes (but not in extreme claims of their fine tuning) are not one of the five senses, but are a common piece and a good piece of heuristics. And similarily about bold claims for very fine tuned heuristics.]

Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?*

[Confusion his on all three counts, not mine.]