Blarman:

The point is, as dbhalling indicates, both.

One builds one's pyramid of knowledge through understanding - i.e., what one KNOWS to be true; the provable knowledge that comes from the integration of ones senses with reason. One then continually incorporates what one may believe or theorize to be true. consistent with one's previously claimed knowledge.

When (not if) one discovers that which appears to contradict this base of knowledge, one must pursue it further, NEVER ruling out that one or more of one's prior premises (presumed knowledge) is faulty, while rigorously "solving," if possible at that time, apparent contradictions.

Both mathematics and the scientific method serves to determine whether one's knowledge or one's premises - or both(!) turns out to subsequently be in error.

An example of failure in the above regard is the "uncertainty principle." Why is such uncertainty presumed to be certain?

Again, Reason must be Man's only absolute.

What about sound waves? I understand second-hand that designing a concert hall is a challenge because of the dead spaces you get. In fact, is that not how "sound cancelling" headphones work? Pilot loves them.

By "electrons" you also mean positrons, right?

From Wikipedia "Double Slit Experiment" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-...
"An important version of this experiment involves single particles (or waves—for consistency, they are called particles here). Sending particles through a double-slit apparatus one at a time results in single particles appearing on the screen, as expected. Remarkably, however, an interference pattern emerges when these particles are allowed to build up one by one (see the image to the right). This demonstrates the wave-particle duality, which states that all matter exhibits both wave and particle properties: the particle is measured as a single pulse at a single position, while the wave describes the probability of absorbing the particle at a specific place of the detector.[24] This phenomenon has been shown to occur with photons, electrons, atoms and even some molecules, including buckyballs.[25][26][27][28][29] So experiments with electrons add confirmatory evidence to the view that electrons, protons, neutrons, and even larger entities that are ordinarily called particles nevertheless have their own wave nature and even their own specific frequencies."
24. Greene, Brian (2007). The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. Random House LLC. p. 90. ISBN 0-307-42853-2. Extract of page 90
25. Donati, O; Missiroli, G F; Pozzi, G (1973). "An Experiment on Electron Interference". American Journal of Physics 41: 639–644. Bibcode:1973AmJPh..41..639D. doi:10.1119/1.1987321.
26. New Scientist: Quantum wonders: Corpuscles and buckyballs, 2010 (Introduction, subscription needed for full text, quoted in full in [1])
27. Wave Particle Duality of C60
28. Nairz, Olaf; Brezger, Björn; Arndt, Markus; Anton Zeilinger, Abstract (2001). "Diffraction of Complex Molecules by Structures Made of Light". Phys. Rev. Lett. 87: 160401. arXiv:quant-ph/0110012. Bibcode:2001PhRvL..87p0401N. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.160401.
29. Nairz, O; Arndt, M; Zeilinger, A (2003). "Quantum interference experiments with large molecules" (PDF). American Journal of Physics 71: 319–325. Bibcode:2003AmJPh..71..319N. doi:10.1119/1.1531580.

... and of course I believe that existence exists independent of our perceptions. I also accept that if you go looking for something, that is what you are most likely to find: confirmation bias.

Well said.

So the fact that quantum mechanics seems to raise as many questions as it solves is seen as a problem with the philosophy of the scientists? That sounds like someone saying that the only way we can solve racism is to be black.

If science is objective, it has to be able to say "I don't know right now" every now and then. But to dictate that the problem can only be solved by first applying a specific ideology is pretty... ideological, don't you think? Wouldn't that by its very nature dictate that one was undertaking a scientific test for the sole purpose of proving a predisposed notion rather than going where the data leads?

(The point down was not from me.)

Yes. It is heartening that someone is trying to up-
hold thought, truth, and the efficacy of man's mind.
Long ago, somebody told me about something
called "modular arithmetic" in which 2 plus 2 would
not equal 4. But I thought about it, and I realized
that arguing about the numbers involved would
depend on 2 plus 2 equalling 4, and therefore
being contradictory. If you put 2 objects down,
then 2 more, then correctly count them, you are
bound to get 4. "4" is another name for "2 plus
2", and therefore rests on the Law of Identity.
That might not seem exactly relevant to the
article, but I was reminded of it, because some-
times very "learned" people seem to try to be
denying the very base of knowledge.

Objectivism builds, subjectivism destroys.

Since the universe is just a mathematical simulation there is no actual existence of anything. All the strange things that we think might be have no actual type of existence and therefore they are not strange.

So far as anyone knows only photons, electrons, and liquids exhibit the particle/wave diffraction behavior.

Do you agree that existence exists even if there is no observer to observe it?

It is important to realize that scientists "understand" reality in terms of models and that most of these models are behavioral rather than existential. by this I mean that these models describe how things behave not what things are. Newton described the behavior of gravity with extraordinary accuracy and clarity but he admitted that he did not know the true nature of the underlying mechanism. Newtonian dynamics works well enough to enable the navigation of spacecraft from one planet to another so we can conclude that it bears a useful relationship to reality.
Einstein pointed out that Newton's model is incomplete. He showed that under extreme conditions of velocity or matter density Newtonian dynamics becomes increasingly inaccurate. Einstein's formulation of general relativity was an attempt to resolve the inadequacies of Newton. He did this by showing that gravitation can be thought of as a distortion in space and time that is caused by the presence of mass. This model satisfactorily resolved the issue of the anomalous behavior of the orbit of Mercury and was further verified by observations of gravitational bending of light rays during an eclipse. However, Einstein him self realized that his theories were also incomplete and this was the motivation of his quest for a unified field theory. We now realize that special and general relativity have boundaries where, like Newton, they begin to break down. These boundaries are the very small and the very large. Relativity theories, being examples of classical physics models, are difficult to reconcile with quantum mechanics. This is because when things get very small or very large the classical theories fail to predict behavior. Thus the search for a "Theory Of Everything" or TOE, that unifies classical and quantum physics. The problem is that while both theories predict behavior with exceptional accuracy they appear to be in conflict with one another. The key word here is "behavior". These theories describes how reality behaves they shed little light on what reality is! In this sense, there is a barrier between physics and philosophy. It may be that the question "what is that?" is meaningless and the only valid question is "what does it do?"

All an outgrowth of a certain interpretation of the uncertainty principle.

"It is my firm belief that the last seven decades of the twentieth will be characterized in history as the dark ages of theoretical physics." Carver Mead

http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thomps...

Right. The anti-Reason crowd has successfully taken over the Law, Education, Politics, and Arts in the 20th century. The Sciences are just another jewel in their crown. Those of us who point out that Relativity and Quantum Theory are rife with subjectivism must be silenced else-wise we might help spark a new age of Reason.

Yes, I understand that. However, equally formidable big-brains....well I needn't tell you. Physics seems to be in a state of flux with every imaginative premise flying about, each more outrageous than the next. When I was in college and was doing a bit of underage drinking in a nearby showbar, I was questioning my friend who was a very brilliant math guy. After a few Stroh's beer long necks, he looked at the bottle and said, "What if the universe is a bubble in a bottle of beer being drunken by a college Student named Avedon." I figured he was drunk, so I got him home, showered and into bed before his mom found out.

But the Copenhagen gang are just like AGW gang and the anti-enlightenment gang and the Church they do not allow any dissent.

If you treat particles as waves as Schrodinger's equations suggests then you do not have the nonsense of the uncertainty principle, which is the source of the most outrageous claims.

Excellent article.

Is that a double dog dare? I can accept that Heisenberg had incorrect ideas about epistemology. But so did Ernst Mach, whom I have read. Richard Feynman was perhaps more to our liking, but still an adherent of the Karl Popper school. No one of them speaks for the trope (or reification) of "physics" or the anonymous collective of "physicists".

Evidence of the efficacy of Objectivist epistemology in physics could come from a list of patents issued to David Harriman. Again, it might be helpful to ask an actual Objectivist patent holder in electronic engineering how Objectivist epistemology helped them solve problems that otherwise were unsolvable.

Yes. But you've got to give those guys credit. At the beginning of the 20th century Einstein opened a Pandora's Box an ever since then these guys have been trying to make sense of it. I always think in metaphors. It's sort of like building a house of adobe that won't harden.

I understand that electrons diffract. They have a wavelike nature. I understand that water waves diffract; and I know (as well as it can be known) that water is comprised of molecules. I said that have done those experiments myself.

I have also drawn a violin bow across a steel sheet dusted with sand to see standing waves.

I not only took classes, I have lectured at a science museum.

If you take a million marbles and roll them through two gates, do you get a diffraction pattern?

Do you understand that Erwin Schoedinger's parable of the cat was offered as a contradiction to the "Copenhagen interpretation" of Niels Bohr?

I've been reading about and trying to absorb quantum physics from Schroedinger's cat to Nels Bohr. I always seem to get to a point where I say "this can't be. But these guys are smarter than me -- check out all those goofy equations. " And I try to move forward feeling inadequate to the task. After reading this article, I feel that perhaps I'm not so dumb after all. Also, when a physicist stops his investigation because it descends into the realm of the mind, shouldn't he be open to that? Do chemists stop their research when it impinges on physics?
On top of all of that, I read about String Theory, Chaos Theory, Multiple Universes, Wavering Space, etc. All of them working toward trying to understand creation and the Big Bang which created the Universe out of nothing. Sometimes, I look at the universe as being excessive. Its vastness and all the varied stuff it contains reminds me of a tot with finger paints and a large white wall.

There are "mystical elements" to the way everyone understands the universe. We just hold physicists to a higher standard.

We have had unfruitful discussions here about Darwinian evolution. It has a whole raft of problems. People accept it on faith for cultural reasons. They reject religion. Darwin is offered as science. Strict religionists deny Darwinism. Therefore, they endorse Darwinian evolution. Consequently, they refuse to accept contrary evidence offered by new discoveries in genetics.

I think the article should be required reading in every physics department in every university in America.