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The Physics Book.

Eddington 1927: Volition

September 19, 2018 – 8:42 PM
Volition

Reference: The Nature of the Physical World

This paper presents Chapter XIV (section 7) from the book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD by A. S. EDDINGTON. The contents of this book are based on the lectures that Eddington delivered at the University of Edinburgh in January to March 1927.

The paragraphs of original material are accompanied by brief comments in color, based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below links to the original materials.

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Volition

From the philosophic point of view it is of deep interest to consider how this affects the freedom of the human mind and spirit. A complete determinism of the material universe cannot be divorced from determinism of the mind. Take, for example, the prediction of the weather this time next year. The prediction is not likely ever to become practicable, but “orthodox” physicists are not yet convinced that it is theoretically impossible; they hold that next year’s weather is already predetermined. We should require extremely detailed knowledge of present conditions, since a small local deviation can exert an ever-expanding influence. We must examine the state of the sun so as to predict the fluctuations in the heat and corpuscular radiation which it sends us. We must dive into the bowels of the earth to be forewarned of volcanic eruptions which may spread a dust screen over the atmosphere as Mt. Katmai did some years ago. But further we must penetrate into the recesses of the human mind. A coal strike, a great war, may directly change the conditions of the atmosphere; a lighted match idly thrown away may cause deforestation which will change the rainfall and climate. There can be no fully deterministic control of inorganic phenomena unless the determinism governs mind itself. Conversely if we wish to emancipate mind we must to some extent emancipate the material world also. There appears to be no longer any obstacle to this emancipation.

The thought-substance is the pattern that establishes the continuum of material and field substance. Such pattern may not be clearly perceived by the human mind because of thought-filters due to ignorance and preconceived notions.

The human mind has the ability to dissolve such thought-filters by resolving anomalies (inconsistencies, disharmonies and discontinuities). This ability of the human mind to manipulate thought-substance as above is called FREE-WILL.

Let us look more closely into the problem of how the mind gets a grip on material atoms so that movements of the body and limbs can be controlled by its volition. I think we may now feel quite satisfied that the volition is genuine. The materialist view was that the motions which appear to be caused by our volition are really reflex actions controlled by the material processes in the brain, the act of will being an inessential side phenomenon occurring simultaneously with the physical phenomena. But this assumes that the result of applying physical laws to the brain is fully determinate. It is meaningless to say that the behaviour of a conscious brain is precisely the same as that of a mechanical brain if the behaviour of a mechanical brain is left undetermined. If the laws of physics are not strictly causal the most that can be said is that the behaviour of the conscious brain is one of the possible behaviours of a mechanical brain. Precisely so; and the decision between the possible behaviours is what we call volition.

There is no need to know all the laws if the human mind can simply the anomalies as it comes across them. In this process the laws may be discovered as needed.

Perhaps you will say, When the decision of an atom is made between its possible quantum jumps, is that also “volition”? Scarcely; the analogy is altogether too remote. The position is that both for the brain and the atom there is nothing in the physical world, i.e. the world of pointer readings, to predetermine the decision; the decision is a fact of the physical world with consequences in the future but not causally connected to the past. In the case of the brain we have an insight into a mental world behind the world of pointer readings and in that world we get a new picture of the fact of decision which must be taken as revealing its real nature—if the words real nature have any meaning. For the atom we have no such insight into what is behind the pointer readings. We believe that behind all pointer readings there is a background continuous with the background of the brain; but there is no more ground for calling the background of the spontaneous behaviour of the atom “volition” than for calling the background of its causal behaviour “reason”. It should be understood that we are not attempting to reintroduce in the background the strict causality banished from the pointer readings. In the one case in which we have any insight—the background of the brain—we have no intention of giving up the freedom of the mind and will. Similarly we do not suggest that the marks of predestination of the atom, not found in the pointer readings, exist undetectable in the unknown background. To the question whether I would admit that the cause of the decision of the atom has something in common with the cause of the decision of the brain, I would simply answer that there is no cause. In the case of the brain I have a deeper insight into the decision; this insight exhibits it as volition, i.e. something outside causality.

What is outside causality is unknown. But we may gradually come to know about the unknown by resolving anomalies. Will we ever come to know the unknown fully with no more anomalies to be resolved—we don’t know.

A mental decision to turn right or turn left starts one of two alternative sets of impulses along the nerves to the feet. At some brain centre the course of behaviour of certain atoms or elements of the physical world is directly determined for them by the mental decision— or, one may say, the scientific description of that behaviour is the metrical aspect of the decision. It would be a possible though difficult hypothesis to assume that very few atoms (or possibly only one atom) have this direct contact with the conscious decision, and that these few atoms serve as a switch to deflect the material world from one course to the other. But it is physically improbable that each atom has its duty in the brain so precisely allotted that the control of its behaviour would prevail over all possible irregularities of the other atoms. If I have at all rightly understood the processes of my own mind, there is no finicking with individual atoms.

The confusion in science seems to be coming from not differentiating the thought-substance from material substance. Similar confusion we see in quantum theory from not fully differentiating field-substance from material substance.

I do not think that our decisions are precisely balanced on the conduct of certain key-atoms. Could we pick out one atom in Einstein’s brain and say that if it had made the wrong quantum jump there would have been a corresponding flaw in the theory of relativity? Having regard to the physical influences of temperature and promiscuous collision it is impossible to maintain this. It seems that we must attribute to the mind power not only to decide the behaviour of atoms individually but to affect systematically large groups— in fact to tamper with the odds on atomic behaviour. This has always been one of the most dubious points in the theory of the interaction of mind and matter.

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Eddington 1927: Natural and Supernatural

September 19, 2018 – 7:06 PM

Reference: The Nature of the Physical World

This paper presents Chapter XIV (section 6) from the book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD by A. S. EDDINGTON. The contents of this book are based on the lectures that Eddington delivered at the University of Edinburgh in January to March 1927.

The paragraphs of original material are accompanied by brief comments in color, based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below links to the original materials.

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Natural and Supernatural

A rather serious consequence of dropping causality in the external world is that it leaves us with no clear distinction between the Natural and the Supernatural. In an earlier chapter I compared the invisible agent invented to account for the tug of gravitation to a “demon”. Is a view of the world which admits such an agent any more scientific than that of a savage who attributes all that he finds mysterious in Nature to the work of invisible demons? The Newtonian physicist had a valid defence. He could point out that his demon Gravitation was supposed to act according to fixed causal laws and was therefore not to be compared with the irresponsible demons of the savage. Once a deviation from strict causality is admitted the distinction melts away. I suppose that the savage would admit that his demon was to some extent a creature of habit and that it would be possible to make a fair guess as to what he would do in the future; but that sometimes he would show a will of his own. It is that imperfect consistency which formerly disqualified him from admission as an entity of physics along with his brother Gravitation.

Any inconsistency means that some truth is missing. Discovery of that truth requires resolution of that inconsistency.

That is largely why there has been so much bother about “me”; because I have, or am persuaded that I have, “a will of my own”. Either the physicist must leave his causal scheme at the mercy of supernatural interference from me, or he must explain away my supernatural qualities. In self-defence the materialist favoured the latter course; he decided that I was not supernatural—only complicated. We on the other hand have concluded that there is no strict causal behaviour anywhere. We can scarcely deny the charge that in abolishing the criterion of causality we are opening the door to the savage’s demons. It is a serious step, but I do not think it means the end of all true science. After all if they try to enter we can pitch them out again, as Einstein pitched out the respectable causal demon who called himself Gravitation. It is a privation to be no longer able to stigmatise certain views as unscientific superstition; but we are still allowed, if the circumstances justify it, to reject them as bad science.

Bad science results from accepting inconsistencies, disharmonies and discontinuities.

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Eddington 1927: The Principle of Indeterminacy

September 19, 2018 – 4:34 PM
Indeterminacy

Reference: The Nature of the Physical World

This paper presents Chapter XIV (section 5) from the book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD by A. S. EDDINGTON. The contents of this book are based on the lectures that Eddington delivered at the University of Edinburgh in January to March 1927.

The paragraphs of original material are accompanied by brief comments in color, based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below links to the original materials.

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The Principle of Indeterminacy

Thus far we have shown that modern physics is drifting away from the postulate that the future is predetermined, ignoring it rather than deliberately rejecting it. With the discovery of the Principle of Indeterminacy (p. 220) its attitude has become more definitely hostile.

Let us take the simplest case in which we think we can predict the future. Suppose that we have a particle with known position and velocity at the present instant. Assuming that nothing interferes with it we can predict the position at a subsequent instant. (Strictly the non- interference would be a subject for another prediction, but to simplify matters we shall concede it.) It is just this simple prediction which the principle of indeterminacy expressly forbids. It states that we cannot know accurately both the velocity and position of a particle at the present instant.

The principle of indeterminacy does not take quantization into account.

At first sight there seems to be an inconsistency. There is no limit to the accuracy with which we may know the position, provided that we do not want to know the velocity also. Very well; let us make a highly accurate determination of position now, and after waiting a moment make another highly accurate determination of position. Comparing the two accurate positions we compute the accurate velocity—and snap our fingers at the principle of indeterminacy. This velocity, however, is of no use for prediction, because in making the second accurate determination of position we have rough-handled the particle so much that it no longer has the velocity we calculated. It is a purely retrospective velocity. The velocity does not exist in the present tense but in the future perfect; it never exists, it never will exist, but a time may come when it will have existed. There is no room for it in Fig. 4 which contains an Absolute Future and an Absolute Past but not an Absolute Future Perfect.

The velocity which we attribute to a particle now can be regarded as an anticipation of its future positions. To say that it is unknowable (except with a certain degree of inaccuracy) is to say that the future cannot be anticipated. Immediately the future is accomplished, so that it is no longer an anticipation, the velocity becomes knowable.

The classical view that a particle necessarily has a definite (but not necessarily knowable) velocity now, amounts to disguising a piece of the unknown future as an unknowable element of the present. Classical physics foists a deterministic scheme on us by a trick; it smuggles the unknown future into the present, trusting that we shall not press an inquiry as to whether it has become any more knowable that way.

The same principle extends to every kind of phenomenon that we attempt to predict, so long as the need for accuracy is not buried under a mass of averages. To every co-ordinate there corresponds a momentum, and by the principle of indeterminacy the more accurately the co-ordinate is known the less accurately the momentum is known. Nature thus provides that knowledge of one-half of the world will ensure ignorance of the other half—ignorance which, we have seen, may be remedied later when the same part of the world is contemplated retrospectively. We can scarcely rest content with a picture of the world which includes so much that cannot be known. We have been trying to get rid of unknowable things, i.e. all conceptions which have no causal connection with our experience. We have eliminated velocity through aether, “right” frames of space, etc., for this reason. This vast new unknowable element must likewise be swept out of the Present. Its proper place is in the Future because then it will no longer be unknowable. It has been put in prematurely as an anticipation of that which cannot be anticipated.

In assessing whether the symbols which the physicist has scattered through the external world are adequate to predetermine the future, we must be on our guard against retrospective symbols. It is easy to prophesy after the event.

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Eddington 1927: The New Epistemological Outlook

September 19, 2018 – 1:35 PM
meet12

Reference: The Nature of the Physical World

This paper presents Chapter XIV (section 4) from the book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD by A. S. EDDINGTON. The contents of this book are based on the lectures that Eddington delivered at the University of Edinburgh in January to March 1927.

The paragraphs of original material are accompanied by brief comments in color, based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below links to the original materials.

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The New Epistemological Outlook

Scientific investigation does not lead to knowledge of the intrinsic nature of things. “Whenever we state the properties of a body in terms of physical quantities we are imparting knowledge of the response of various metrical indicators to its presence and nothing more” (p. 257). But if a body is not acting according to strict causality, if there is an element of uncertainty as to the response of the indicators, we seem to have cut away the ground for this kind of knowledge. It is not predetermined what will be the reading of the weighing-machine if the body is placed on it, therefore the body has no definite mass; nor where it will be found an instant hence, therefore it has no definite velocity; nor where the rays now being reflected from it will converge in the microscope, therefore it has no definite position; and so on. It is no use answering that the body really has a definite mass, velocity, position, etc., which we are unaware of; that statement, if it means anything, refers to an intrinsic nature of things outside the scope of scientific knowledge. We cannot infer these properties with precision from anything that we can be aware of, because the breach of causality has broken the chain of inference. Thus our knowledge of the response of indicators to the presence of the body is non-existent; therefore we cannot assert knowledge of it at all. So what is the use of talking about it? The body which was to be the abstraction of all these (as yet unsettled) pointer readings has become superfluous in the physical world. That is the dilemma into which the old epistemology leads us as soon as we begin to doubt strict causality.

Substance is what we become aware of underlying all the properties. The substance is intuitively grasped by its substantialness, which is governed by the law of quantization. This law of quantization is yet to be determined by science. There is no reason why this law cannot be determined with certainty.

In phenomena on a gross scale this difficulty can be got round. A body may have no definite position but yet have within close limits an extremely probable position. When the probabilities are large the substitution of probability for certainty makes little difference; it adds only a negligible haziness to the world. But though the practical change is unimportant there are fundamental theoretical consequences. All probabilities rest on a basis of a priori probability, and we cannot say whether probabilities are large or small without having assumed such a basis. In agreeing to accept those of our calculated probabilities which are very high as virtually equivalent to certainties on the old scheme, we are as it were making our adopted basis of a priori probability a constituent of the world-structure—adding to the world a kind of symbolic texture that cannot be expressed on the old scheme.

Classical physics has no concept of field-substance or quantization. Quantum physics uses probability to account for the effects of quantization.

On the atomic scale of phenomena the probabilities are in general well-balanced, and there are no “naps” for the scientific punter to put his shirt on. If a body is still defined as a bundle of pointer readings (or highly probable pointer readings) there are no “bodies” on the atomic scale. All that we can extract is a bundle of probabilities. That is in fact just how Schrodinger tries to picture the atom—as a wave centre of his probability entity ψ.

The atom is made of layers of quantization of field-substance.

We commonly have had to deal with probabilities which arise through ignorance. With fuller knowledge we should sweep away the references to probability and substitute the exact facts. But it appears to be a fundamental point in Schrodinger’s theory that his probabilities are not to be replaced in that way. When his ψ is sufficiently concentrated it indicates the point where the electron is; when it is diffused it gives only a vague indication of the position. But this vague indication is not something which ideally ought to be replaced by exact knowledge; it is ψ itself which acts as the source of the light emitted from the atom, the period of the light being that of the beats of ψ. I think this means that the spread of ψ is not a symbol for uncertainty arising through lack of information; it is a symbol for causal failure—an indeterminacy of behaviour which is part of the character of the atom.

Schrodinger’s wave-function ψ may indicate the degree of quantization.

We have two chief ways of learning about the interior of the atom. We can observe electrons entering or leaving, and we can observe light entering or leaving. Bohr has assumed a structure connected by strictly causal law with the first phenomenon, Heisenberg and his followers with the second. If the two structures were identifiable then the atom would involve a complete causal connection of the two types of phenomena. But apparently no such causal linkage exists. Therefore we have to be content with a correlation in which the entities of the one model represent probabilities in the second model. There are perhaps details in the two theories which do not quite square with this; but it seems to express the ideal to be aimed at in describing the laws of an incompletely causal world, viz. that the causal source of one phenomenon shall represent the probability of causal source of another phenomenon. Schrodinger’s theory has given at least a strong hint that the actual world is controlled on this plan.

The electron and light may get transformed into quantized field-substance after entering the atom. Bohr’s atom maintains the electron inside the atom, which is very unlikely. How the light quanta configures itself inside the atom is not quite known.

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An Outlook on Science

September 19, 2018 – 10:01 AM
science1
Reference: Disturbance Theory

Comments added on 7/27/2019.

The current outlook in science is based on the perspective of “Particles in Void”. In this perspective the substance is identified as made up of discrete solid particles that move in a void made up of empty space. In the 17th century, it was applied by Newton to his mechanics with great success. However, this perspective was unable to explain “action at a distance” in Newton’s theory of gravitation. Newton recognized this shortcoming himself.

An atomic substance can move through a non-atomic substance.

A century and half later, Faraday applied the perspective of “Continuum of Substance” to the problem of “action at a distance”. He proposed that invisible force, such as, the electromagnetic phenomena constituted a new substance. The void was actually made up of lines of force that connected material particles, which were really the “centers of force”.

The low density non-atomic substances connect the high density atomic substances. The common “substance” was line of force.

Thus, substance is more than just made up of particles. To Faraday, invisible force underlay the very concept of substance. Newtonian properties like mass and energy belonged to substance. The law of conservation ultimately applied to conservation of substance. To Faraday this meant conservation of force.

The basis of all substance is force.

From this perspective the empty space was essentially made up of force. This supported the assertion by Descartes that space is the characteristic of extension of substance, and that there is no space in the absence of substance.

Space defines the volume of force.

Maxwell, in his effort to give a mathematical form to Faraday’s ideas, came up with the theory of electromagnetism. This theory pointed out that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon. This revelation was soon followed by the discovery and identification of radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, light, ultraviolet radiation, x-rays and gamma radiation as electromagnetic phenomena. All this phenomena  could then be presented as the electromagnetic spectrum of increasing frequency.

The Electromagnetic spectrum is non-atomic substance of varying density.

But the electromagnetic phenomena was not immediately recognised as the foreshadowing of a new field-substance that was anticipated by Faraday*. The first inkling of this field-substance came with the discovery of quantization by Einstein in 1905, which showed that the wave-like electromagnetic radiation became more particle-like with increasing frequency**.

* The field-substance is considered in the current Quantum Field Theory.
** Einstein got a Nobel Prize for the discovery of quantization.

It only takes some projection from this point to realize that the quantization of field-substance would ultimately lead to the material-substance . The smallest particle of material-substance is atom, but that atom is made up of field-substance. The current science is, however, still wedded to the “Particles in Void” perspective, and not quite ready to make this projection.

The connection between field and matter is yet to be made.

In the gamma range of the electromagnetic spectrum we find all the sub-atomic “particles”, which range from electron to neutron. These are field-particles, which do not have a definite structure of mass like that of material-particles. But the current science of particle physics views these field-particles as if they are completely discrete material-particles with mass. It takes the “Continuum of Substance” perspective to make the jump from material-substance to field-substance.

Particles are viewed as discrete and not continuous. Center of mass enters the picture with nuclear particles, which makes them really discrete.

The broader perspective is “Continuum of Substance”. A material particle is the result of ultimate quantization of the field-substance. The material-particle maintains a continuum with the surrounding field-substance. The field-substance is invisible and appears as “empty space”. The “empty space” is empty of material substance, but it is the extension of the field-substance.

Continuity between field and material particles is yet to be worked out.

Beyond the “empty space” there may be “emptiness” that is devoid of space even. But that is a consideration that is best left to philosophers to ponder upon.

In my view we are at the verge of a revolution in the science of physics. This revolution requires the recognition of the far-reaching affects of quantization—that the “Particles in Void” perspective is a special case of the “Continuum of Substance” perspective at higher quantization.

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