There are Physical Concepts that is Left Up To Magic

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

For example the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points. How these numbers are written into space points is left up to magic.

What some don't realize is that there must be a field for each property of a particle. How these fields are unified into the field of a particle is left up to magic.

Since a particle has many properties just one number at a space point won't specify the particle completely. In addition if a space point can only accommodate one number then a particle cannot be specified to be located at a point and how is the space distribution of the particle then going to be defined. There needs to be a grouping together of space points function. How each number links to what property of a particle is left undefined.

What fields are made of is also left undefined.

I may not post my solutions to these problems because I have not yet found a prediction that can be tested.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Willem F Esterhuyse

[studiot]

38 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

For example the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points. How these numbers are written into space points is left up to magic.

What some don't realize is that there must be a field for each property of a particle. How these fields are unified into the field of a particle is left up to magic.

Since a particle has many properties just one number at a space point won't specify the particle completely. In addition if a space point can only accommodate one number then a particle cannot be specified to be located at a point and how is the space distribution of the particle then going to be defined. There needs to be a grouping together of space points function. How each number links to what property of a particle is left undefined.

What fields are made of is also left undefined.

I may not post my solutions to these problems because I have not yet found a prediction that can be tested.

This seems to be a rather mixed up point of view although I would agree that

"the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points. "   

is indeed the beginnings of the way Physics regards a Field, but there is much more to it that that and the definition of a Field can be made much more complete and useful.

 

I also find it interesting that your previous posts have been about formal Logic as in Mathematics.

Here a field has a totally different unrelated definition, mcuh less 'natural' than the Physics idea.

How do you view this ?

[joigus]

Not all fields are scalar fields. You're implying scalar fields.

Fields can be scalar, real, complex, tensor, spinor, vector... They can code fibres, curvature, torsion, topological numbers...

Fields are abstractions, they don't have to be made of anything. They must comply with certain rules though.

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

For example the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points. How these numbers are written into space points is left up to magic.

That you don’t understand doesn’t make it magic. It just seems like it (a corollary to Clarke’s Third Law)

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

14 hours ago, joigus said:

Fields are abstractions, they don't have to be made of anything. They must comply with certain rules though.

They need to be made of something, otherwise shared experience would be impossible and we wouldn't have an agreed upon language. Electrons in a television tube reacts to the field independent of an observer. 

"They must comply with certain rules though" means you acknowledge that they must be made of something. An observer is necessary if the fields are abstract.

8 hours ago, swansont said:

That you don’t understand doesn’t make it magic.

Share your understanding then.

8 hours ago, swansont said:

It just seems like it (a corollary to Clarke’s Third Law)

I don't understand this.

[studiot]

58 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

They need to be made of something, otherwise shared experience would be impossible and we wouldn't have an agreed upon language. Electrons in a television tube reacts to the field independent of an observer. 

"They must comply with certain rules though" means you acknowledge that they must be made of something. An observer is necessary if the fields are abstract.

Since you don't want to talk to me or answer my legitimate question,

have a nice argument with swansont and joigus.

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

"How do you view this ?"

My view is that Physics uses Logic.

[studiot]

2 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

"How do you view this ?"

My view is that Physics uses Logic.

Once again I can partly agree with your statement.

Physics does indeed 'use' logic.

But logic is not the basis or foundation of Physics, nor is it the final arbiter of any proposition in Physics.

 

If you do not understand and appreciate this it may be why you are having conceptual difficulties in Physics.

 

By the way you did not actually answer as to whether you appreciate and understand the difference between a Field in logic and a Field in Physics.

This is fundamental since you startd by insisting that Fields have substance ("they must be made of something").
Nothing in logic has substance.

 

Plase note these points are meant to help and make you think it out for yourself.

 

 

 

[joigus]

3 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

"They must comply with certain rules though" means you acknowledge that they must be made of something. An observer is necessary if the fields are abstract.

No. And @studiot is giving you the answer:

29 minutes ago, studiot said:

This is fundamental since you startd by insisting that Fields have substance ("they must be made of something").
Nothing in logic has substance.

A rock is made of something. A mathematical object doesn't have to be, because it's defined by logic. It's not made of any ingredients.

 

[Sensei]

18 hours ago, joigus said:

Not all fields are scalar fields. You're implying scalar fields.

Vector field can be simulated with three scalar fields.. It is just a matter of adding a couple properties per spot.

13 hours ago, swansont said:

That you don’t understand doesn’t make it magic.

If you don’t understand, it is magic, for you.. Once you know, it is no more magic, but knowledge..

Edited October 28, 2022 by Sensei

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

A mathematical object doesn't have to be, because it's defined by logic. It's not made of any ingredients.

What do you say to my insistence that there wouldn't have been any shared experience if fields was not made of something?

55 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Vector field can be simulated with three scalar fields.. It is just a matter of adding a couple properties per spot.

You forget that one spot can only be encoded with one number by superimposing space points on the spot. How are the three scalar fields grouped together?

1 hour ago, studiot said:

By the way you did not actually answer as to whether you appreciate and understand the difference between a Field in logic and a Field in Physics.

I understand: one exist just on paper, the other in physical space.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Willem F Esterhuyse

[joigus]

57 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Vector field can be simulated with three scalar fields.. It is just a matter of adding a couple properties per spot.

Sure. I'm sure most everything can be approached by algorithms. The missing part here would be the rotation properties of vector fields, but I'm sure that can be done too.

9 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

What do you say to my insistence that there wouldn't have been any shared experience if fields was not made of something?

That you're confusing the map for the territory. A map of the world is not the world.

Edited October 28, 2022 by joigus
minor correction

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Share your understanding then.

You said “the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points. How these numbers are written into space points is left up to magic”

Take an electric field. It’s the force per unit charge a charge would experience at any given point. One can calculate it - it’s math, not magic.

“Since a particle has many properties just one number at a space point won't specify the particle completely”

joigus already addressed this. There are more than scalar fields, and there can be more than one field. 

Fields aren’t made of anything. It’s mathematical modeling. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

I don't understand this.

Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws. The third is “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

 

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

Fields must cause particles to do its thing independently of any observer. If physical fields were just abstract the television would not work on its own. Physical particles would have to access Plato's realm through a mind.

[studiot]

54 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

What do you say to my insistence that there wouldn't have been any shared experience if fields was not made of something?

I'd say this is the key to your misunderstanding

54 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

I understand: one exist just on paper, the other in physical space.

I am taking this as a reference to the mathematical definition of a Field as a set with two binary operations obeying the 10 Field Axioms, F1 - F10.

Two of the axioms refer to algebraic closure with I take to be the formal statement of the words in your quote I have emboldened.

 

I'm sure you can appreciat that this is a far cry from the Physics definition (taken from a book of vector calculus)

 

Quote

A scalar or vector quantity is said to be a function of position

Note the mathematical description of the scalar field may be more or less complicated than the mathematical description of some vector field.

for example (in 2D to make it easy)

Scalar field S(x,y)  where r is a constant such that x² + y² = r²

Vector field u(x,y) = (y,x)      (Note I would be interested to see sensei break this down to two or more scalar fields)

Edited October 28, 2022 by studiot

[TheVat]

34 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Fields must cause particles to do its thing independently of any observer. If physical fields were just abstract the television would not work on its own. Physical particles would have to access Plato's realm through a mind.

Scientific realism is a philosophic position that statements (mathematical or otherwise) correspond to an objective state of affairs in the world.  But that doesn't mean the statement is ontologically complete (that it provides a full account of what something IS in its inmost essence), it only means it corresponds to a measurement (perception) in a consistent way.  A field is a mathematical map of how an area of space contains energy, and how forces are directed and with what strength at a given point - it's no more real than those isobar lines or wind vectors on a weather map.  If it shows high wind that doesn't mean the map will blow all the papers off your desk. 

[John Cuthber]

21 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points.

I have a feeling I have seen that particular word salad elsewhere.
It didn't go down well with scientists.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Fields must cause particles to do its thing independently of any observer.

Yes. Why do you think this is a problem?

1 hour ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

If physical fields were just abstract the television would not work on its own

If fields weren’t abstract you couldn’t design a television.

[joigus]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Scientific realism is a philosophic position that statements (mathematical or otherwise) correspond to an objective state of affairs in the world.  But that doesn't mean the statement is ontologically complete (that it provides a full account of what something IS in its inmost essence), it only means it corresponds to a measurement (perception) in a consistent way. 

Good point. +1

I've come to a point that I even accept the possibility that not only aspects of reality --sensory input organised by patterns-- could be empty of theoretical constructs as conceptual stand-ins for them, but also some theoretical constructs --especially mathematical ones, but not necessarily just those-- could have no sensory-input counterpart for them.

My hope for this possible fly in the ointment of our intellectual satisfaction is that the map could be completed with different patches, very much in the way that cartographers map geographical reality with different patches, and consistency rules for leaping from one to another.

A map that faithfully represents regions around the equator, presents major distorsions of Antarctica.

[Sensei]

8 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

You forget that one spot can only be encoded with one number by superimposing space points on the spot. How are the three scalar fields grouped together?

Where did you get this idea ?

 

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

12 hours ago, Sensei said:

Where did you get this idea ?

It follows from "space = space = space, with space points superimposed on a point of space".

18 hours ago, swansont said:

Why do you think this is a problem?

19 hours ago, TheVat said:

Scientific realism is a philosophic position that statements (mathematical or otherwise) correspond to an objective state of affairs in the world.  But that doesn't mean the statement is ontologically complete (that it provides a full account of what something IS in its inmost essence), it only means it corresponds to a measurement (perception) in a consistent way.

If fields are just abstract in a mind then how are particles going to access it in order to know where to go?

[studiot]

26 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

2)  It follows from "space = space = space, with space points superimposed on a point of space".

1)  If fields are just abstract in a mind then how are particles going to access it in order to know where to go?

1)

I thought the definition of 'space' would need clarifying at some point.

You need to understand something they never teach you at school.

20 hours ago, studiot said:

A scalar or vector quantity is said to be a function of position

The 'space' defined by the position is different from the 'space' that encodes the quantity itself.

When explaining this further I like to illustrate it with a piece of graph paper and the addition of vectors by a vector triangle or parallelogram.

 

2)

This he said-she said argument could go on indefinitely.

So hereare two treatments of how to implement this mathematically.
Both are fully compatible with each other and explain what others have been saying, including sensei's compound scalar fields.

The first come from Marsden and Tromba

Vector Calculus

 

The second from Schwartz, Green and Rutledge

Vector Analysis

 

 

 

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

Space is defined as what numbers relative to a reference position points to.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

If fields are just abstract in a mind then how are particles going to access it in order to know where to go?

The abstraction is in how we understand how particles behave.

 

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

The abstraction is in how we understand how particles behave.

You see: you are removing yourself from the physical reality. Because we understand the particle to behave like "A" the particle behaves as "A". This requires the particle to read our minds. Its absurd.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Willem F Esterhuyse