Unified Field Theory, Falsifiablity, Religion

Actually, it is a superset of Newtonian mechanics. You can recover the Newtonian equations from the quantum equations by making the masses large.

The late Karl Popper's contribution to epistemology was defining the demarcation between empirical science and metaphysics.

I assume you mean as long as you don't approach the speed of light, and that when the mass is larger the random aspect is essentially of no consequence?

That sums it up very nicely, thanks! In some sense is it an advanced version of the challenge prove to me pigs don't fly?

Neither Newtonian nor non-relativistic quantum mechanics contains any special status for the speed of light. If you take the quantum equations and make the mass large, you get the Newtonian equations. This is actually a requirement for the quantum equations to be valid. Unless this were true, they would be incorrect.

Thanks much for the clarification!

Many of Karl Popper's lectures have been published in various sources. Some are easy to understand. In later lectures, Popper started describing "three worlds of knowledge". This is very difficult to understand but here is how I would describe it:

Popper held that knowledge can be distinguished by three worlds. World 1 is the world of material objects (such as tables, trees, planets, stars). Material objects are autonomous (their existence does not depend on our existence). World 2 is the world of mental states (such as pleasure, pain, love, hate, belief). Mental states are subjective and are dependent on the individual mind that experiences them. World 3 contains things which do not belong in World 1 because they are not material and do not belong in World 2 because they are objective rather than subjective (for example: scientific laws, principles of geometry).

Often these "three worlds of knowledge" interact with each other.

Sort'a kind'a OT but I would be interested:

I would suggest that morals fall into World 2, but some would argue that they can fall into World 3. Does Popper opine on this?

Chumly,

I am not sure how Popper would classify morals. I probably only understand about 45% of what I have read from Popper. He did seem to believe it was possible to analyze the consequences of actions within a society. He especially thought it was important to examine how unintended consequences may arise from good intentions.

Popper may have believed that a "science" of right and wrong is possible.

The fact that he "especially thought it was important to examine how unintended consequences may arise from good intentions" is certainly interesting; what good is moral system if the long term net effects are not assessable?

I've heard of the "The law of unintended consequences".

Like when you get a bite in the pub and end up wrung out after a while.

Popper is analysing himself.

Alcohol induced self indulgent introspection?

bm

Every scientific theory is constantly being tested by observation and mathematics. Weaknesses in a theory are gradually revealed as it is picked over by other mathematicians and scientists. There is a constant search for a scientific theory that better fits the phenomena. Einstein's Relativity Theories didn't make Newtonian physics obsolete, it just provided a better fit with what we know of the Macro-universe. Newtonian Physics works fine at our human scale, but it is incapable of dealing with either the large-scale or the very small scales of the universe. Einstein's theories have been exhaustively tested and found to fit observations very well. Relativity builds upon Newtonian theory, it doesn't negate it. Quantum Theory/Mechanics has also been rigorously tested and found to work well on scales ranging from the atomic down to the Planck. There appear to be major disagreements between the three theories, but they all are valid when applied to the appropriate scale.

At the moment of the Big Bang and in the very early universe, Quantum Mechanics ruled. With universal inflation and about 10 billion years galaxies began to form and stars composed of hydrogen (a lot) and helium (a little). The early galaxies and stars manufactrured heavy elements/atoms (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and others), the building blocks for everything else in our universe. Light and gravity on large scales are better described by Einstein than Quantum Physics, but the difference is really found in the differences of scale. What works at one scale doesn't necessarily work at another. About 4.5 billion years ago, our planetary system formed, and guess what its larger in scale than atoms and quarks, but a lot smaller than the vastness of even our mid-sized galaxy.

Our universe is a continum of orders of magnitude running from about 10 to the minus 30 centimeters (the Planck scale) to 10 to the 30 centimeters. The scale we operate on is in the middle of that range, about 10X-3 to 10X15 (the size of our planetary system).

The Double Dark Theory has been an advancement on the Standard, and explains the now expanding universe, and scaling explains the differences and seeming contradictions between the three theories, but the search goes on for a single (and probably elegant) theory that dots the i's and crosses the t's of our understanding of the universe.

String Theory is a promising candidate for a Unified Field Theory, but when we get down to the Planck Scale observation and testing is not easy, and thats an understatement if ever there was one.

I think the issue is that a Theory of Everything isn't logically possible. The development of a new theory will necessarily introduce new unknowns.

This documentary, featuring many of the foremost people working on the subject, gives a nice explanation of String theory, or as it now is called, M-theory.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

They way I see it, relativity theory and large scale physics is a matter of observation and verification, while QM is a matter of approximation. You can never pinpoint the exact location of a particle(or was it something smaller?...), only calculate the area where it is most likely to be found at any given time.

So QM paints a different picture of the world. A different world, where it isn't neccesarily correct to think of dualism or location, for instance. A world that doesn't join smoothly with the picture painted by Newton and Einstein.