THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS: CRITIQUE OF TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
1. Traditional Physical Categories
There have arisen various schools of theories, mainly from within the physics community, theorizing elaborately concerning the ontological foundations of physics. Not till the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century have these notions been clear enough. Two major and common ways of approaching the foundations have been the following:
(1) Physical experiments and theories based on the notions of space, time, matter-energy, and causality. (2) Physical experiments and theories based on the four laws of conservation, namely, those of matter, energy, momentum, and charge. There may be other variations of the foundations, e.g., some include mass in the list. I believe that all such variations are based mostly on the two sets above.
The first set does not seem to be based on anything else from the viewpoints available in the long tradition of classification and the epistemic categories of space and time. The question of deriving one from the others or a few from the others within the list has not occurred. This is the foremost disadvantage of these categories.
But the second list integrates within each category the measuremental aspect of physical (scientific) activity. Interestingly, hence, the second set used to be reduced to symmetries (Hermann Weyl and others). But note that symmetries are measuremental and hence epistemic in nature. A symmetry is not a physical-ontological affair but instead the result of some epistemic operations upon already existent natural processes.
But here the existence of processes is taken for granted, and not included in the categories. That is, the nature of physical processes is not sufficiently taken notice of. This does not mean that the nature of physical processes is left aside from physics. Instead, it is not included in the categories.
Measurements are based on the epistemic concepts of space and time. A symmetry is never the result of merely one epistemic operation. A few measurements together constitute and result in any one sort of symmetry. Hence, the compositional nature of concepts assigned the categorial character in the four conservational categories renders conservational categories into less essential and less grounded for physics.
Moreover, in the above systems, causality is considered (1) either as an addition to the categories behind physical processes and the study of physical processes, (2) or as a notion being brought up in terms of the measuremental concepts of space and time, because until today a universally acceptable manner of defining causality in terms of any other primitive notions has not existed.
Hence, causality as an additional category not based on any other categories and symmetries based merely on composed measurements and not on any other fundamental categories cannot be the foundation for the study of the physical nature of existent processes. The latter needs physical-ontological Categories and these Categories should give rise to the basic notions of physics without reference to ad hoc positing of various basic notions as the foundations of physics.
Moreover, measurement systems like MKS, CGS, and SI are ipso facto mere epistemic systems. They are conventions of measurements, on which the nature of physical processes is based; and conventions of measurements are not based on the most general nature of existence of physical processes. This necessitates finding what underlies both measuremental systems and the resultant symmetries.
In the case of physics and the natural sciences as the general case, the epistemically oriented operations are for the most part measuremental. In the case of many other sciences – say, (1) some applied sciences like medicine, engineering, architecture, etc., (2) some of the human sciences, and (3) especially the fine arts, music, literature, etc. – the status of measurements is different. Exact measurements increasingly take a back seat in these three general types of sciences, although measurements exist in all of them in a more or less evident fashion.
But in the fine arts, music, literature, etc. we have sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. taking prominence over measurements. These procedures too are epistemically oriented procedures in such sciences, which scientists (and of course, all of us) often look down upon as sciences that obtain values calculated as less than those that the humanities obtain. Despite this fact, they too are sciences in some sense, since measurement is ubiquitously present in them at least as a minor procedure in comparison with the physical sciences and mathematics. I would hold even that the applied sciences, although active more often with procedural measurements, indulge also a lot of sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. in the manner of epistemic qualities.
2. Critique of Traditional Physical Categories
Some important details to be noticed in the above-mentioned two major traditional school systems of physical categories are the following:
(1) Firstly, space and time are not existents or ontological attributes of existents. As is clear from above, they are the measurementally epistemic and cognitive aspects of physical existents.
(2) Secondly, matter-energy can be taken as existents provided one does not tend to take the abstract Aristotelian-Thomistic meaning of matter (as the abstract raw material which, when exemplified, is always a material object, although such a raw material is never to be found anywhere) and energy (as an abstract action-at-a-distance with no material counterpart) in order to explain material objects.
(3) Thirdly, it is a false procedure in physics, cosmology and derived physical sciences to accept the measuremental notion of energy and material objects as just the number respectively of the energy emissions and material chunks measured based on measurement conventions (e.g., quanta). Instead, the notion of energy as existent propagation from existent matter, measurable in various conventional ways, is much more tenable.
(4) On the other hand, fourthly, the laws of conservation are not simple attributes of any existent. A detailed meaning-analysis of physicists’ claims may show that many of them have taken the conservation laws as the most fundamental attributes / qualities of theories. But they are principles formulated sententially out of a few notions and verbs, and hence rendered as principles composed of many other simple attributes which then are concatenated using verbal connective notions. I call as universals the simple attributes constituting the sentential principles of symmetries.
Even the verbal notions may be set in the qualitative language and rendered universal attributes. This is because both names and verbs belong to the processes that existents are and define existents as ongoing processes. Universals are the basic contents of all basic principles, definitions, etc. But what we need as most basic sources of physics are physical-ontological Categories that work as the fundamental notions of all universals.
Merely any one or some universals cannot suffice at the foundations of physics. They need to be the direct implications of the most fundamental of all notions, namely, To Be / To Exist. But why should physics follow this manner of thinking? None insists upon this on the physical praxis of a physicist. But the suggestion is that the physicist too deals with existing physical processes, and also the philosopher of physics deals with existent stuff, and not non-existent stuff. Why then should physicists follow those Categories that physical-ontologically justify their work? For the above reasons, I follow the way of searching for the universals of all existents in their equally nominal and verbal aspect, namely, the To Be of Reality-in-total.
Physics cannot be done in a well-justified manner without possibly best-grounded universals that go beyond the above-mentioned two groups of physical-ontologically insufficiently grounded, arbitrarily introduced, and haphazardly variegated categories which are not derivable from the most fundamental ones. The most basic grounding should always be from the To Be of Reality-in-total, and such Categories are absolutely lacking in physics even today – a fact that I have become more and more aware of while discussing matters physical and cosmological on ResearchGate as I attempted to suggest what I found to be the possibly most basic Categories of all science and philosophy.
Some may suggest that the surest possible physical (not physical-ontological) grounding that has been provided by some in the past in terms of defining time, space, mass, and energy measurementally are sufficient for physics, and perhaps it is good to add causality, but we are not sure whether everything is fully causal – and that none needs to intrude into the foundations of physics from other disciplines.
I argue that all such grounds are insufficient due to their classificational and measuremental nature, as mentioned above. Secondly, they are insufficient for physics because they are exclusively and merely from within the ambit of physics. This does not ground physics. Moreover, I shall show that Universal Causality is ubiquitous if a physical existent should exist at all, i.e., from the concept of existence is Universal Causality to be derived in a pre-scientifically ontological manner, and that the instruments of such derivation are themselves the primary Categories of physics.
The two sets of physical categories mentioned above, due to their classificational and measuremental nature, are not derivable from the To Be of all existents. To put the argument in gist, the definitions of all the said merely physical categories use simple universals as ingredients; these ingredients are not final enough; there are two most final ontological universals; and hence, the highest ontological universals should also be at the foundations of physics along with existent matter-energy, so that the classifications and measurements of existent matter-energy within physics be conceptually possible; and further, these two Categories are the very essence of Universal Causality too.
Here you find another type of analysis of basic physical aspects
Preprint What gravitation really is
Isn't that more concrete and doesn't that lead to more tangible results?
Your ontological phantasies are extremely nebulous and opaque.
I am happy to receive such criticisms. They serve to make me think. Not always to convert my thoughts in your direction, but instead, to better my own work. Of course, you are a great physicist. There is no comparison between us. This is why you feel that my work is nebulous and opaque. You have reason in the claim, and assuredly you are really a great physicist and mathematician.... PLEASE BE HAPPY ABOUT THIS....
Raphael Neelamkavil "I am happy to receive such criticisms. They serve to make me think. Not always to convert my thoughts in your direction, but instead, to better my own work"
It is nice to get a reaction on my comment, though it again is of a nebulous kind. In what direction do you intend to better your work?
Up to now you have presented a giant jungle of thoughts within a large number of threads. The ideas presented in those threads seem to be somehow related. At least there must be a reason why in every thread all other threads are cited without any comment.
But as a visitor of this jungle of ideas I miss something like a portal which helps to enter the jungle whithout the danger to get lost.
For you, your ideas may be self explaining. But others only see themselves located in front of an impenetrable bulwark.
What do you want to tell? Is it: "all science is bullshit"?? Or is it: "Look folks, I am the man who has recognized what it is all about science"? Or a third option: "I have an imagination of a new base, appropriate for a better fundament of science"?
The third option looks positive. But an impenetrable jungle is appropriate for nothing.
@ Raphael Neelamkavil
quote: @ Raphael Neelamkavil
“Some may suggest that the surest possible physical (not physical-ontological) grounding that has been provided by some in the past in terms of defining time, space, mass, and energy measurementally are sufficient for physics, and perhaps it is good to add causality, but we are not sure whether everything is fully causal – and that none needs to intrude into the foundations of physics from other disciplines.”
I don't really understand the aim of the contribution.
From the direction of the natural sciences, a measurement of a physical quantity is something fundamental. Even if there are overlaps to other natural sciences. The measurement is classified and assigned with error tolerances. Thus clear limits of the measurement result are recognizable. So far it is something "solid". Only then comes the discussion and interpretation of the results and how they are to be reconciled with other entities.
Helmuth Grötzebauch,
Thanks. I understand your concern. I have been developing a new manner of grounding cosmology and physics, and doing also a new manner of conceiving the object-structures of mathematics. I wrote the above short discussion text in this context. To have a detailed idea of the same, kindly read lead-texts of the following discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Mathematics_and_Causality_A_Systemic_Reconciliation
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Mathematics_an_Exact_Science_If_Yes_and_If_Not_Why
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Source_of_Major_Flaws_in_Cosmological_Theories_Mathematics-to-Physics_Application_Discrepency
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_Unobservable_Physical_Entities_Infinitesimal-Size_or_Near-Infinitesimal-Size
Kindly feel free to criticize my ideas. For example, one person who has written above your intervention used to criticize me a lot. I enjoy his criticisms (although at times too direct), because I profit out of the reflections that these criticisms cause in my mind.
Raphael
(Ich spreche auch Deutsch sehr gut.)
Helmuth Grötzebauch,
I add another important matter here for your consideration. However well we may conceive physics, its foundations must be not only physical but also ontological, since physics deals with existent physical processes (not merely with phenomena), and ontology is the general science of being and beings.
One may say that ontology is all 'mere philosophy'. In my opinion, this is due to an age-old misconception about philosophy, partly caused also by philosophers of the merely imaginative variety with insufficient concern for science (partly but not fully, e.g., philosophers like Nietzsche, Hegel, the existentialists, phenomenologists after Husserl, hermeneuticians, postmodernists, etc. have caused this in later philosophy.
Let us forget them. There exist and have existed fine philosophers of physics. And physical ontology must be at issue while discussing the foundations of physics. This is absolutely necessary in my opinion. You may think differently since you are a physicist.
I want to suggest one fact: the philosophers are physics are not so much philosophers than they are physicists!
Henry Margenau in his article “Einstein’s Conception of Reality” in Paul Schilpp’s collection Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1970) suggests the relationship between physicists and philosophers: “Every discoverer of a new physical principle makes an important contribution to philosophy, even though he may not discuss it in philosophical terms.” (Margenau 1970: 246)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Grounded_Physical-Ontological_Categories_behind_Physics
Grounded (New) Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics
Preprint THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS: CRITIQUE OF TRADITIONAL PHYSICA...
Raphael Neelamkavil
I can well understand that physicists are also philosophers. Two philosophers of modern times, whom I especially respect, are the physicist Georg Picht with his work "Of Time" and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker with "Time and Knowledge".
Thanks. I have not read anything in Picht. But Weizsäcker the physicist is wonderful.
I try to work out a relatively new philosophy of physics and cosmology. The reason why (perhaps) some find my explanations complex is that I try to do a system. As you may have seen, I do not care much when anyone criticizes my works due to lack of simplicity or directness of sentences. Philosophy is so, and physics and math are also so! Why should then anyone isolate systemic thinking in the philosophy of physics and say that it is complex!
Kindly feel free to criticize my reflections for their content. I like it. Please feel free. And of course, other approving comments on any notion/s are naturally welcome. I need not say that specially!
Vielen Dank!
R
A SIMPLE GAME-CHANGER CAUSALITY FOR PHYSICS: Beyond the Two Millennia
https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_SIMPLE_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia
https://www.researchgate.net/post/DEFINITION_OF_THE_ONTOLOGY_BEHIND_PHYSICS_5_Paragraphs
DEFINITION OF THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS (5 Paragraphs)
The present discussion text has prepared the ground for a detailed definition of the requirements of grounding physics on solid but epistemologically (by definition and explanation) flexible foundations.
THE ANOMALY IN MATHEMATICAL / THEORETICAL PHYSICS (Short Text)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_ANOMALY_IN_MATHEMATICAL_THEORETICAL_PHYSICS_Short_Text
This is a serious and somewhat complex matter to discuss:
NON-FOUNDATIONS OF ‘WAVICLES’ IN EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PARADOX: Bases for Quantum Physics to Evolve (Maybe a physical-ontological Breakthrough)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NON-FOUNDATIONS_OF_WAVICLES_IN_EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN_PARADOX_Bases_for_Quantum_Physics_to_Evolve_Maybe_a_physical-ontological_Breakthrough
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https://www.researchgate.net/post/AGAINST_COSMIC_ISOTROPY_CONFORMAL_CYCLIC_COSMOS_ETERNAL_INFLATION_etc_A_Critique_of_Identity_Simultaneity_Cosmic_Repetition_Recycling_etc
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Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted
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Yordan Epitropov,
You mean: "(1) Physical experiments and theories based on the notions of space, time, matter-energy, and causality. (2) Physical experiments and theories based on the four laws of conservation, namely, those of matter, energy, momentum, and charge."
True, I should additionally have mentioned that these two sets are not exclusive of each other.
The typically classical sort of investigations used type 1, and later type 2 have been added. This is based on the history of development of physics. Most of the later additions, e.g., with additional clarity on conservation, spin, etc. too, are all based on these concepts. Most fundamental of these have been those of space and time and space-time.
Any physicist may be asked the question: Do you believe in the existence of space and time or spacetime as an integral matter? Almost all say Yes. But do they exist outside there? No. As you may have experienced, there are some who say that time is unnecessary (but very few), and some who honestly think that since mathematics is the "peak" of physical reasoning, and since space and time are exceptionally necessary for math, most probably these "exist".
But exist in what sense? No answer at all. It is here that my work starts and takes importance. From my very time of Bachelor studies I have been into this, and now, for more than the past 10 or more years, I have been constructing the physical-ontological foundations of space and time.
Interestingly, the traditional discussion on the ubiquity or not of causality may be settled in terms of this discussion, i.e., by showing it as a pre-scientific Law.
Yordan Epitropov,
I thank you for the intellectually honest manner of asking questions. I have never seen you attacking another person. Congratulations and thanks!!!!!
We all try to do whatever we can. And rest assured that the future better take care of the rest, forever!
Yordan Epitropov, Thanks.
You see, I seek ways of further studying math and physics and specializing in mathematical cosmology.
In the various aspects of philosophy, especially of the philosophy of physics and of math, I have some grounding. But this does not suffice for me.
In any case, I try to learn from everyone that I come across.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/ONTOLOGICAL_DIFFERENCES_OF_CHARACTERISTICS_OF_ARTIFICIAL_AND_BIOLOGICAL_INTELLIGENCE_ALGORITHMS_AND_PROCEDURES_Against_Exaggerations
https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHY_EXACTLY_THE_WAVE-PARTICLE_DUALITY_Phenomenal_Ontological_Commitment_POC_as_the_Solution
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