I have to agree with the statement that all systems, and things in the universe are inherently logical. the fact that we do not have the ability to understand that logic is only a minor point. as soon as we can truely understand the nature of mater at its lowest component level we can truely build models and theories that can explain everything. The natural world, from single celled organisms to humans, are all made of the same atoms etc that must comply with certain physical laws. a true understanding of these laws and the interaction of atoms and their sub particles quarks etc will be built upon in the near future, i think that string theory is going along that route presently. from these basic laws more complex ones will derive and this cycle will continue until finally a universal law will be found. i say found as it already exists we just can't understand it yet. I am afraid mike that my physics understanding is not what it used to be, i no longer have time to read as many articles as before but i have found this a very interesting thread and it has made me reinvest time into catching up on what i have been missing out on, thanks.
Slán
~M


>>It seems all systems, no matter how chaotic, revolve around logic.
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>I'm surprised how many people resist this notion. Many of the physicsts I've talked to seem unconvinced. So, in case anyone ever digs up this thread and sees the original post contained a weak section II, here's my attempt at explaining what I think it pretty self explanatory.
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>II. The study of nature
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>0. What do we know about nature and how do we know it?
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>In the last section I gave a simple definition of nature, mainly to demonstrate the point that time is a by-product of the forces interacting with particles of matter. Because I intend to draw several important conclusions from this definition I should completely clarify what is meant by the definition. If nature will be defined as the set of all observed phenomena, what is all observed phenomena supposed to mean?
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>To answer this I will make several statements about nature.
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>a. Just now when I observed my surroundings I saw a ladybug on the table.
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>b. When I measured it with a ruler it was 1/4" long.
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>c. By using high frequency gamma-rays I can determine the position of a particle in the atoms of the ladybug.
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>Those three statements can be considered true facts. I'll explain why by discussing what produced these statements. Lets take statement a.
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>To speak in every day language, there was a ladybug on my table, and when I looked down I saw it. That is enough evidence to produce statement a as a true fact.
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>Statement b is a little tricker. More initial conditions will be required beyond the ladybug simply being in the picture. I need to define what an inch is and then produce a 12-inch ruler with 1/8" marks along it. Once I have these, I then follow the simple procedure of placing the ladybug along the edge of the ruler, counting the number of marks covered by the ladybug, and multiplying that number by 1/8". When follow those steps I observed that the ladybug covered 2 marks (similarly to the way I observed the lady bug to produce statement a) and the measurement resulted in 1/4". Which was the statement I needed to produce.
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>We see that the measurement in statement b is not just a simple observation, but a system of steps that produced a single result. The steps in a measurement are the rules of a logical system that produce the measurement as a result. Using the 12-inch ruler and my definition of an inch and the numberOfMarks x 1/8" rule I can actually produce many statements. The height of my laptop, or the diameter of this coffee mug holding a candle and some breakfast cereal.
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>If the generic rules underlying statement b produce a system of statements, is statement a also contained in a system of statements?
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>As a matter of fact it is. This system seems to produce very general statements but the rules of the system are very complex. This system is so complex that there are nearly an infinite number of ways at describing this system so I will choose two arbitrary versions to make the point.
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>(Over Simplification A): A scientist looks down at his lab table and notices a derivation in the pattern of his table. An otherwise black table contained the pattern of a red fat football shape with four black dots. The football shaped thing moves and the scientist suspects the pattern to be alive. A rudimentary system of biology is then assumed to locate any matches and a particular species is found. At this point a system of biological terms which is based on a system of spoken language is invoked to result in the symbol:
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>ladybug
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>(Over Simplification B): A caveman sees a little red fat football shape thing on his table. He picks it up and eats it and then recognized the taste as:
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>those little red fat football shaped things I eat off my table
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>What is interesting about these two systems is that while they seem like very different systems they actually have quite a bit in common. For example both the scientist and the caveman used their eyes and light to see the bug on the table. This information traveling through spacetime from the table to the eye is propagated by an electromagnetic wave.
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>Furthermore, what allows the act of the scientist placing the lady bug on the ruler to occur is the surface tension and friction of the scientist's fingers, lady bug's shell, and ruler's surface, all of which are the result of the electromagnetic interaction. Which is the same interaction that governs the chemical reactions in the enzymes and proteins of the caveman and ladybug that facilitates the sensation of taste.
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>What is also amazing about the electromagnetic wave is that the gamma-rays used to produce statement c are really just higher frequency electromagnetic waves!
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>To summarize and conclude:
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>1. The logical rules can produce many statements
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>The system of rules used to measure the lady bug was also used to measure my laptop. The collection of all the statements produced by these rules can be considered all the true facts of that logical system.
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>2. We have many systems of measurement.
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>But there is more than just that one collection. A 12-inch ruler isn't the only thing to measure with and distance isn't the only thing to measure. We have many systems of measurement that produce many collections of true facts. The set of all the collections of rules and their results is what is meant by the set of all observed phenomena.
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>3. This collection of many rules can be described using an encompassing set of simpler rules
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>If we gather all these systems together and make it one system, we will have a very complicated rule set. The rules of this system contain rules for measuring the position of a particle as well as rules for measuring the density of a star. Now if all the true statements produced by these rules were present, the system would be said to be complete. There is an important consequence of this. According to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem this logical system can only contain all the true facts consistently with each other by creating a larger encompassing system.
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>4. At basic levels, all systems are governed by the laws of physics
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>And indeed, when physicists analyze all of our data from measurements we find that the laws that describe the forces underlie all of the results. Although the scientist and the caveman applied very different systems of measurement to determine that a lady bug was on their table, we found upon closer inspection that the forces of nature were in control.
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>From this it is postulated: the set of all collections of statements can be produced from the initial conditions of the universe and the rules of the universe which we have attempted to describe with our laws of physics.
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>5. A description of this encompassing system lies beyond observation and thus physics
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>Unless nature is presumed to be an exception to the Incompleteness Theorem, to contain all the statements of nature completely and consistently the system of all observations would require additional statements beyond what is observed. Because these new statements lie beyond the set of all observations these statements cannot be made using the scientific method, and therefore, physics is concluded to be unable to provide a final theory of nature.
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>But metaphysics and philosophy are not limited to making statements about what can be observed and might be capable of providing a consistent theory of nature. This consistent theory of nature can also be considered complete if it is able to produce every observable phenomenon as well as account for what is not observable. In other words, if the theory can explain why it is incomplete, it should be considered complete. This consistent and complete theory will be our final theory of nature.
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>With that in mind, I will conjecture a model that I think is capable unifying the incompatible theories of physics because the theory would represent a unification of physics and philosophy as the complete study of nature.