9 ms·

I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ulti

by hansbo 3y ago

I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right?

coldtea 3y ago
Not a physisist, but "consistency with the model" doesn't mean "because that's how some arbitrary model says it should be". It's more like: "Because we have arrived at a model that describes well most other aspect of those particles and their behavior, and has verified predictive power, and given the constrains and calculations based on that model, that's what its charge would be".
- awestroke 3y ago
  Still does not explain "why"
  - ruszki 3y ago
    There are causal links, but we always have axioms for which either there is no reasons, they are just how they are, or we don't know the reasons, we have just experimental evidence for them. At the end, the answer to "why" is always, because they are just how they are.
  - chaxor 3y ago
    I just would like to point out that "why" is not a scientific question. Feynman mentions this quite a lot. The question "why" doesn't have answers in science. A question of "How" has a better chance of being answered in science.
    - foldr 3y ago
      I think that was a fairly idiosyncratic point of view of Feynman's. In actual scientific practice you can find hundreds of examples of published scientific papers that address 'why' questions. Here are a couple of completely random examples: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-009-9338-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-009-9338-5 https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8174/4/3/63 https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8174/4/3/63
      - coldtea 3y ago
        They answer the why's with the same way @hansbo complained about not answering the why, e.g: " We show that the symmetries of this non-commutative space unify the standard model of particle physics with (2) chiral gravity. The algebra of the octonionic space yields spinor states which can be identified with three generations of quarks and leptons. The geometry of the space implies quantisation of electric charge, and leads to a theoretical derivation of the mysterious mass ratios of quarks and the charged leptons. Quantum gravity is quantisation not only of the gravitational field, but also of the point structure of space-time."
        foldr 3y ago
        It's not uncommon for a scientific paper to raise a question without fully answering it (science is hard). The point is that actual scientific practice does not appear to care about any distinction that can usefully be described as a distinction between 'how' and 'why' questions. You can keep asking 'but why?' ad infinitum and never arrive at a fully satisfying explanation. However, the same is also try of 'but how?' We will find no ultimate answers, but the questions that stimulate scientific research certainly seem to include 'why' questions.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    The 'why' is because 'it's what balances' i.e. it's the only combination that works. A proton is a bunch of other particles that, when combined together, balance out an electron. The 'why' is 'because that's a stable configuration' in the same way that water at 25c is liquid not gas because the 'rules' of the local environment dictate that. I mean, why do those particles exist at all? That's really what you're asking. Why do electrons exist, why do protons 'form' from subatomic particles to balance them out? Existential kinda question.
  - ljosifov 3y ago
    "Why" is more of a philosophy question, pre-scientific or a-scientific if you like. Science question would be "How". Maybe not this particular Q, but having in mind that on every A-answer, one can again ask Q-question "Why". That's more philosophy not so much science, imo.
    - hansbo 3y ago
      I don't think it explains "How" either, in this case.
    - deleted 3y ago
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  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- zahllos 3y ago
  Exactly this. Or to put it another way we don't actually know how the rules of the universe work. So we can't follow a process of deductive reasoning that "why" follows from this or that implication. Take quantum mechanics. This came out of observations that particles exhibited wave-like behaviour. Mathematics predicts certain things when you start to apply the wave equation. These are then experimentally verified and the model is shown to be pretty good, although it has some deficiencies like not fully linking up with relativity. There are some doubts in some areas of what it predicts as well from what I understand from talking to researchers. As the article says the original model was that protons were fundamental particles: nothing smaller. This model held up for quite some time but then observational data demonstrated it was insufficient. Same with the three quark model. Knowing the various deficiencies we might go so far as to say "the model that a proton is a +1 charge is good enough" and use that because that works for many situations and that's as much as we need. Although of course, there are always scientists looking to complete the picture. Science is the incremental acquisition of knowledge through observation and experimentation - and there's an awful lot we haven't figured out.
XorNot 3y ago
Isn't the primary experimental argument beta decay from that link? A nucleus can emit a positron, and observably loses nuclear charge equal to one positive electron. So by a pretty simple inferrence you could conclude the proton has a positive in it, hence the charge (it of course isn't literally like this for other reasons though). And since we also observe antiprotons, the opposite can clearly apply.
- hansbo 3y ago
  So a proton can emit a positron. Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton? Does it mean that their wave functions interact in some specific way? Is there another reason? Quantum physics has always bothered me, personally, since I find it difficult to understand reasons. Not philosophical reasons, I am fine with axioms and foundations to models, but rather intuitive reasons why it works a certain way. I know it is an extremely strong theory which makes unexpected, later confirmed, predictions, but there is a frustration that the only explanation to things is "math".
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Sort of? But it's less "there is a particle doing things" and more "there's a probability field which can describe a particle doing something" (alongside a bunch of other probabilities it interacts with). One of the ways you can calculate the probability of nuclear decay for example is to assume that the particle you expect to see is literally existent and trapped inside a potential well defined by the atomic nucleus and then calculate the probability it tunnels out of that to free space. The thing is "why" does get pretty anthropic: protons match electrons because we observe them to, and then on top of that we observe nuclear decay causing the conversion of a proton to a neutron + a positron (within the limits of our instruments) - so our model predicts that these are in fact the same value, and we keep measuring to check that they converge in that direction (it would be a big deal, for example, if we discovered this wasn't the case - every physicist would love to find out that proton charge and electron charge are actually slightly different).
  - Koshkin 3y ago
    > Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton? A photon turns into a (virtual) electron-positron pair. Does it mean that the photon consists of these particles?
bbor 3y ago
“The model does not hold” === “existence wouldn’t be possible”. We found atomic particles, then did some more experiments and found quarks within the atomic particles. The quarks appear to be complex but predictable subsets of the particles. So “why do those subsets add to 1” invites a tautology, because the whole reason we found them in the first place is that they add up to exactly one, and therefor can be part of atoms. It’s like asking why the left engine of an aircraft happens to emit the same amount of thrust as the right engine; if that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a plane to talk about in the first place, just an art piece or a flaming crash.
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Which epistemic foundation in which your "why" question is answered do you consider as acceptable for you?
sullyj3 3y ago
Whenever you're asking for an explanation this deep in the ontology stack, you need to think about what kind of explanation would be satisfying to you, and whether you can reasonably expect intuitive answers in domains that lie far outside of your everyday experience. Human brains aren't built to grasp this stuff intuitively. At a certain point, the reason we like some particular wacky physical model is always going to be "it has the best combination of explanatory power and simplicity"
- tinganho 3y ago
  A thing can be explained with its constituent parts or explained by a parallel analogy. If you don't understand the constituent parts or the analogy or there are neither of these. You won't understand it.
throw0101c 3y ago
> I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Perhaps 'because' if the consistency did not exist then the universe would fail to exist. There was the Big Bang, but we do not know what caused the Big Bang. But the particular Big Bang that started our particular universe may not have been the only one to occur. There could have been multiple previous Big Bangs where the 'properties' of each of those created universes may not have had the same consistency as we experience, and the inconsistency(s) could have resulted in a 'collapse' or 'destruction' of those universes. Whereas it was just a coincidence that our Big Bang got things 'right' for the universe to continue to develop. We could simply be experiencing survivorship bias in/with our universe. As someone who dabbles in philosophy, and to use its language, our existence is contingent (we, and our universe, do not have to exist): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy)
- User23 3y ago
  Which leads to the wonderful question: why are there any contingent things? And: why are the contingent things that there are as complex as they are? I don't know of any plausible naturalist explanation besides Many-Worlds. And that supposes for the sake of discussion that Many-Worlds is in fact naturalist.
  - voldacar 3y ago
    I don't think many worlds is strong enough, since it still doesn't say anything about why anything exists to begin with. You need something like the principle of plenitude.
  - neycoda 3y ago
    I've heard an amusing conjecture that I'm not sure how much to take seriously unless there's a mind underlying the universe (like in simulation theory). The void in its infinite time and endless space (the same as neither existing) became bored with itself, and in its attempt to destroy itself, split and created the universe we have now. Full of endless wonders and anomalies and beauty and travesty. All for the amusement of itself as one that remembers the abyssal void.
xorbax 3y ago
> What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Well, you'd need to ask a question that can be answered with science rather than philosophy, generally.
layer8 3y ago
I would posit that self-consistency is the only possible ultimate reason. Whatever other reason there is, you can always continue asking “why”, like children like to do, and will never come to an end. The only final explanatory is the absence of reduction ad absurdum. Another way to state this is to say that everything logically consistent probably exists, because there cannot be any other ultimate reason why it wouldn’t.

by hansbo 3y ago

I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right?

coldtea 3y ago

Not a physisist, but "consistency with the model" doesn't mean "because that's how some arbitrary model says it should be". It's more like: "Because we have arrived at a model that describes well most other aspect of those particles and their behavior, and has verified predictive power, and given the constrains and calculations based on that model, that's what its charge would be".

awestroke 3y ago
Still does not explain "why"
- ruszki 3y ago
  There are causal links, but we always have axioms for which either there is no reasons, they are just how they are, or we don't know the reasons, we have just experimental evidence for them. At the end, the answer to "why" is always, because they are just how they are.
- chaxor 3y ago
  I just would like to point out that "why" is not a scientific question. Feynman mentions this quite a lot. The question "why" doesn't have answers in science. A question of "How" has a better chance of being answered in science.
  - foldr 3y ago
    I think that was a fairly idiosyncratic point of view of Feynman's. In actual scientific practice you can find hundreds of examples of published scientific papers that address 'why' questions. Here are a couple of completely random examples: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-009-9338-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-009-9338-5 https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8174/4/3/63 https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8174/4/3/63
    - coldtea 3y ago
      They answer the why's with the same way @hansbo complained about not answering the why, e.g: " We show that the symmetries of this non-commutative space unify the standard model of particle physics with (2) chiral gravity. The algebra of the octonionic space yields spinor states which can be identified with three generations of quarks and leptons. The geometry of the space implies quantisation of electric charge, and leads to a theoretical derivation of the mysterious mass ratios of quarks and the charged leptons. Quantum gravity is quantisation not only of the gravitational field, but also of the point structure of space-time."
      - foldr 3y ago
        It's not uncommon for a scientific paper to raise a question without fully answering it (science is hard). The point is that actual scientific practice does not appear to care about any distinction that can usefully be described as a distinction between 'how' and 'why' questions. You can keep asking 'but why?' ad infinitum and never arrive at a fully satisfying explanation. However, the same is also try of 'but how?' We will find no ultimate answers, but the questions that stimulate scientific research certainly seem to include 'why' questions.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  The 'why' is because 'it's what balances' i.e. it's the only combination that works. A proton is a bunch of other particles that, when combined together, balance out an electron. The 'why' is 'because that's a stable configuration' in the same way that water at 25c is liquid not gas because the 'rules' of the local environment dictate that. I mean, why do those particles exist at all? That's really what you're asking. Why do electrons exist, why do protons 'form' from subatomic particles to balance them out? Existential kinda question.
- ljosifov 3y ago
  "Why" is more of a philosophy question, pre-scientific or a-scientific if you like. Science question would be "How". Maybe not this particular Q, but having in mind that on every A-answer, one can again ask Q-question "Why". That's more philosophy not so much science, imo.
  - hansbo 3y ago
    I don't think it explains "How" either, in this case.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
zahllos 3y ago
Exactly this. Or to put it another way we don't actually know how the rules of the universe work. So we can't follow a process of deductive reasoning that "why" follows from this or that implication. Take quantum mechanics. This came out of observations that particles exhibited wave-like behaviour. Mathematics predicts certain things when you start to apply the wave equation. These are then experimentally verified and the model is shown to be pretty good, although it has some deficiencies like not fully linking up with relativity. There are some doubts in some areas of what it predicts as well from what I understand from talking to researchers. As the article says the original model was that protons were fundamental particles: nothing smaller. This model held up for quite some time but then observational data demonstrated it was insufficient. Same with the three quark model. Knowing the various deficiencies we might go so far as to say "the model that a proton is a +1 charge is good enough" and use that because that works for many situations and that's as much as we need. Although of course, there are always scientists looking to complete the picture. Science is the incremental acquisition of knowledge through observation and experimentation - and there's an awful lot we haven't figured out.

XorNot 3y ago

Isn't the primary experimental argument beta decay from that link? A nucleus can emit a positron, and observably loses nuclear charge equal to one positive electron. So by a pretty simple inferrence you could conclude the proton has a positive in it, hence the charge (it of course isn't literally like this for other reasons though). And since we also observe antiprotons, the opposite can clearly apply.

hansbo 3y ago
So a proton can emit a positron. Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton? Does it mean that their wave functions interact in some specific way? Is there another reason? Quantum physics has always bothered me, personally, since I find it difficult to understand reasons. Not philosophical reasons, I am fine with axioms and foundations to models, but rather intuitive reasons why it works a certain way. I know it is an extremely strong theory which makes unexpected, later confirmed, predictions, but there is a frustration that the only explanation to things is "math".
- XorNot 3y ago
  Sort of? But it's less "there is a particle doing things" and more "there's a probability field which can describe a particle doing something" (alongside a bunch of other probabilities it interacts with). One of the ways you can calculate the probability of nuclear decay for example is to assume that the particle you expect to see is literally existent and trapped inside a potential well defined by the atomic nucleus and then calculate the probability it tunnels out of that to free space. The thing is "why" does get pretty anthropic: protons match electrons because we observe them to, and then on top of that we observe nuclear decay causing the conversion of a proton to a neutron + a positron (within the limits of our instruments) - so our model predicts that these are in fact the same value, and we keep measuring to check that they converge in that direction (it would be a big deal, for example, if we discovered this wasn't the case - every physicist would love to find out that proton charge and electron charge are actually slightly different).
- Koshkin 3y ago
  > Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton? A photon turns into a (virtual) electron-positron pair. Does it mean that the photon consists of these particles?

bbor 3y ago

“The model does not hold” === “existence wouldn’t be possible”. We found atomic particles, then did some more experiments and found quarks within the atomic particles. The quarks appear to be complex but predictable subsets of the particles. So “why do those subsets add to 1” invites a tautology, because the whole reason we found them in the first place is that they add up to exactly one, and therefor can be part of atoms. It’s like asking why the left engine of an aircraft happens to emit the same amount of thrust as the right engine; if that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a plane to talk about in the first place, just an art piece or a flaming crash.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Which epistemic foundation in which your "why" question is answered do you consider as acceptable for you?

sullyj3 3y ago

Whenever you're asking for an explanation this deep in the ontology stack, you need to think about what kind of explanation would be satisfying to you, and whether you can reasonably expect intuitive answers in domains that lie far outside of your everyday experience. Human brains aren't built to grasp this stuff intuitively. At a certain point, the reason we like some particular wacky physical model is always going to be "it has the best combination of explanatory power and simplicity"

tinganho 3y ago
A thing can be explained with its constituent parts or explained by a parallel analogy. If you don't understand the constituent parts or the analogy or there are neither of these. You won't understand it.

throw0101c 3y ago

> I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Perhaps 'because' if the consistency did not exist then the universe would fail to exist. There was the Big Bang, but we do not know what caused the Big Bang. But the particular Big Bang that started our particular universe may not have been the only one to occur. There could have been multiple previous Big Bangs where the 'properties' of each of those created universes may not have had the same consistency as we experience, and the inconsistency(s) could have resulted in a 'collapse' or 'destruction' of those universes. Whereas it was just a coincidence that our Big Bang got things 'right' for the universe to continue to develop. We could simply be experiencing survivorship bias in/with our universe. As someone who dabbles in philosophy, and to use its language, our existence is contingent (we, and our universe, do not have to exist): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy)

User23 3y ago
Which leads to the wonderful question: why are there any contingent things? And: why are the contingent things that there are as complex as they are? I don't know of any plausible naturalist explanation besides Many-Worlds. And that supposes for the sake of discussion that Many-Worlds is in fact naturalist.
- voldacar 3y ago
  I don't think many worlds is strong enough, since it still doesn't say anything about why anything exists to begin with. You need something like the principle of plenitude.
- neycoda 3y ago
  I've heard an amusing conjecture that I'm not sure how much to take seriously unless there's a mind underlying the universe (like in simulation theory). The void in its infinite time and endless space (the same as neither existing) became bored with itself, and in its attempt to destroy itself, split and created the universe we have now. Full of endless wonders and anomalies and beauty and travesty. All for the amusement of itself as one that remembers the abyssal void.

xorbax 3y ago

> What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right? Well, you'd need to ask a question that can be answered with science rather than philosophy, generally.

layer8 3y ago

I would posit that self-consistency is the only possible ultimate reason. Whatever other reason there is, you can always continue asking “why”, like children like to do, and will never come to an end. The only final explanatory is the absence of reduction ad absurdum. Another way to state this is to say that everything logically consistent probably exists, because there cannot be any other ultimate reason why it wouldn’t.