Re: Prove that hydrogen atoms exist in the universe

From: Gerry Quinn (gerryq_at_DELETETHISindigo.ie)
Date: 08/12/04 

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:23:35 +0100

In article <844a1b64.0408120558.7b0b002d@posting.google.com>,
reany@asu.edu says...
> Gerry Quinn <gerryq@DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b844c43943e26fc989875@news.indigo.ie>...

> > I'm just going by the usual meanings. I see no point in starting some
> > more or less infinitely regressive thread in which you pointlessly
> > challenge the meaning of every term I use. You asked about hydrogen,
> > and I answered. You can work out the answers to the above questions,
> > which are of much the same form, by yourself.
>
> Your pointless is my pointed. You miss the fact that what I am
> questioning is precisely the "usual meaning."

No, you demonstrate an intention of asking for definitions endlessly
whatever I answer. To which I could give answers endlessly, and so on.
I don't see how any conclusions can be drawn from that except that
physics is not math (similar questions about math would terminate in a
set of axioms).

> > That's very interesting. By what arguments do you prove the existence
> > of phlogiston?
>
> I put the term "proof" in quotes. I was being facetious to some
> degree, yet, people can accept any standard of "proof" they want.

Well, there's nothing more to be said about phlogiston, so. I don't
have any problem with the notion of phlogiston per se, the question of
whether phlogiston exists is merely the question of whether the set of
properties that we refer to using the word 'phlogiston' correspond to
properties of the universe.

> > > Exactly how far away can this electron and proton be from each other
> > > until this hydrogen atom "system" is no longer a hydrogen atom?
> >
> > We usually refer to 'Rydberg atoms' when we are close to the ionisation
> > limit. It's an interesting study in itself.
>
> Philosophically, too. Let's refer to your defining distance, the
> Rydberg distance, as R. Let the distance between the electron-proton
> pair be given as d(e,p). Then are you saying that whenever d(e,p) > R,
> the hydrogen atom no longer exists? We can also ask if whenever d(e,p)
> <= R the proton-electron pair always consitutes a hydrogen atom.

Hang on, I never claimed that such a distance R exists! A Rydberg atom
is still an atom, and in any case there is no universally defined radius
beyond which an atom becomes a non-atom. The term 'atom' is a little
vague, like all words. Some things exist that might be described as
atoms in some contexts and not in others, while other things exist that
would be defined as atoms in any context.

> > I am familiar with the sorites paradox, and your reasoning is invalid.
> > Nobody makes an arbitrary decision by fiat on how many grains is a heap.
>
> Yet YOU made an arbitrary fixing of the hydrogen atom to exist
> whenever d(e,p) <= R.

No I did not make any such fixing. Every term in that equation was
introduced by you. I just mentioned that atoms near the ionisation
limit are often called Rydberg atoms.

> > I've never heard of such a thing being done. Instead, we use the term
> > 'heap' when we consider it appropriate, and remain aware of the limits
> > of language. We know the word 'heap' is vague, but that this vagueness
> > does not contaminate the reality of our sandpile.
>
> There is no damn invalid reasoning on my part. I have gone to quite a
> bit of trouble simply to prove that the term "heap" IS vague. The

You needn't have bothered - I knew that. The word atom is imprecise
too. The imprecision of our words hardly controls whether their
referents exist or not, though, does it? If the town has been stalked
last night by a vampire and I mistakenly think a werewolf has been
active, the corpses do not thereby disappear. The vampire existed. And
the thing that I think of as a werewolf existed. My vagueness has no
impact on whether the thing I am talking about exists.

> point is that we frequently use vague terms as though they are NOT
> vague, without even realizing we do so. The notion of an atom is a
> vague term; the notion of "it's raining" is vague.

These terms are imprecise, I will grant you - 'vague' is overegging the
cake.

> The notion that the
> universe comes prepackaged into bits called atoms is a pure human
> invention.

How do you mean "prepackaged"? I've never said that! The universe
doesn't care what words we use to describe it. Rain exists, and atoms
exist - that is to say that the things we refer to when we use those
words exist (which is the meaning of the sentence "X exists").

All *notions* are human inventions. But atoms and rain aren't.

> If we arbitrarily choose the minimum number of drops of water per
> second per acre to be 1000, then there is no rational reason why it
> couldn't also be set at 1001 or 999. The point being that the
> condition that it is really, truly, objectively raining ouside is
> vague.

But I have never suggested otherwise! The question was whether rain, or
atoms, exist. It may certainly be a difficult call as to whether rain
exists at point X on such and such a date, but that is a different
question from the one you asked.
 
> > > Where is absolute truth there? And if not there, where? Maybe the
> > > whole notion of a heap of sand is arbitrary. Maybe the whole notion of
> > > an atom is arbitrary too, except for its utility to the invention of
> > > theories that work. Fuzzy sets at work here, which includes the set of
> > > "nonmaterial physical boundaries in space" to ostensibly physical
> > > material things, such as hydrogen atoms. See
> > > http://www.ee.vt.edu/~dadone/fuzzyIntro/intro_to_fuzzy_sets.pdf
> >
> > I've never heard of any physical theory that invokes the notion of a
> > fuzzy set.
>
> Sure you have: atomic theory, just to name one. Physics should say a
> lot more about it at the introductory level.
>
> http://aurora.phys.utk.edu/p641/21stcent.html
>
> http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/marchives/fuzzy-mail96/0702.html

Well the first looks like philosophy - the second is certainly a list of
some papers. Well, if somebody has found a use for fuzzy logic in
modelling quantum theory, good luck to them, although from what I know
of quantum logic the enterprise seems dodgy. Decoherent states don't,
except maybe in the classical limit, obey the simple statistics on which
fuzzy logic is based.

> > > Tell us how you know when it's raining. What's the minimum number N of
> > > rain drops per second per square acre? Why isn't N-1 rain drops per
> > > second per square acre also called "rain"? Just because?
> >
> > I looked up just an hour ago because I heard sounds I associate with
> > rain, and indeed it was raining heavily. Had it been raining less
> > heavily I mightn't have noticed. For the record, I don't use or have a
> > definition of rain based on drops per second per unit area. So
> > obviously I don't determine whether it is raining by making such a
> > measuremnent.
>
> The point is that whatever minimum number you might choose to define
> rain would be arbitrary. In other words, you have used a vague term as
> though it is not vague, without even knowing that you were doing so.

But I don't define such a number. And I never claimed the term was
precise. The question was "does rain exist", not "is the word 'rain'
precisely defined"? The answer to the first is yes, the answer to the
second is no.

> > No, the epistemology of physics is not subject to the limitations of
> > language.
>
> I just gave you a clear example proving the opposite. Explain why the
> justification of statements made in a language is NOT dependent on the
> vagueness of terms used in the language. Let the statement S be: "I
> know it's not raining outside." S is twice vulernable,
> epistemologically speaking, to vagueness. First, the vaguness of where
> to fix the minimum number of drops, and second, on measuring
> accurately the number of drops per unit time per unit area. Just
> change the standard by which one defines rain and the S's truth value
> can go from true to false or from false to true.

But the question was whether rain exists. There are many situations in
which its existence is beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, we learn the
word 'rain' by experience of such situations. Why do you think the word
exists at all if it doesn't refer to something real?

> > The universe doesn't give names to the entities in it -
>
> Then what justifies our giving names to special subsets of the
> universe? If the point of science is supposedly to say true things
> about the external world, then why do we justify inventing 'objects'
> and naming them which the universe itself does not do?

We don't < invent 'objects' >. We < invent names for objects >. The
justification is that it helps us talk about them. I can talk to you
about rain, but rain would still exist if language didn't.

> Even the term "entities" is admitting to the existence of arbitrary
> objective subsets of the universe. You see, we can't even begin to
> discuss the universe at all unless we anthropomorphize it to include
> entities.

Introducing entites is not anthromorphism, unless the entities are
anthropomorphic. But in any case, we do introduce words when we want to
discuss things. But things are not words, and if the words are vague it
doesn't make the things vague, or non-existent.
 
> > if it did there
> > might me some relevance in your going on about the limitations of
> > language, because those limitations would then be physical.
>
> What's important is that the limitations are epistemological, not
> physical per se. Although there are also limitations imposed on our
> ability to decide the truth values of some statements about the
> microscopic world even when our concepts seem clear. There are also
> limits to accurately say that it is or isn't raining outside.

I don't see any serious epistemological problems with the statement
"rain exists" or "it rains". Accurately defining when it rains is a
different problem. Likely enough we'd take a temporary formula, thus,
"For the purposes of this study, 'rainy days' will be defined as days in
which 2.5 mm or more of rain was recorded at Dublin Airport".

> > The sorites
> > paradox would cause problems every time sand piled up, as the universe
> > would not know whether it had a heap or not. This may be considered
> > proof that language paradoxes have no relevance to the subjects of
> > physics.
>
> Maybe the universe doesn't know about atoms. It's not my point to
> prove that the universe does or doesn't know about atoms. My only
> point is that we not insist that they are objective entities whose
> objectivity is not dependent on human conceptualizations.

Of course the universe doesn't know about atoms, any more than it knows
about heaps. The words "atom" and "heap" are words we use to describe
aspects of the universe. But we describe them because they are real;
they are not real as a result of our describing them. The limitations
of our descriptions have no impact on their reality.

> If you would quit confusing what "is" with our human-invented
> conceptualizations of what "is" (i.e., the map is not the territory),
> maybe you could follow my reasoning for a change. We don't literally
> think in terms of real things; we think in terms of our concepts of
> what "is" or what could be or what is just convenient to think in
> terms of but aren't--things I refer to as "chimera," such as mass
> continuums.

I'm not making any such confusion - you are the one doing that. You are
confusing the word "rain" with the aspect of the universe that the word
refers to. As to how we think, that's a whole other question. Sparks
fly through our brains, and some of the sparks are initiated when
atmospheric precipitation drips off the end of our noses.
 
> > I'm not sure what distinction you are making between hydrogen
> > "existing" and "existing objectively" - could you elaborate?
>
> Simple, it is absurd to believe that a thing objectively exists though
> its definition depends on an arbitrarily fixed parameter of some sort.
> It's ludicrous to believe that hydrogen comes into existence as r goes
> less than R and goes out of existence as r goes larger than R.

Well then, you'll be glad to know I don't believe anything of the sort!
But are you accepting that it exists?

- Gerry Quinn

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