1. No location in time and space
2. Electrons have a location in time and space
3. Electrons have more than one location in time and space, or a range of locations in time and space.
Also, you're being quite silly about the word function. There is a function of electrons, just as much as there is a function (or functions) of my liver. It does something. Notice how I didn't have to talk about any divinity or human assigning this function. Things have functions, get over it.
See, this is why we need philosophy, because you're being incredibly sloppy with your use of concepts and language.
On the snark of being sloppy, you do seem to be implicitly assuming that there are individual electrons with individually-attached ranges of locations in time and space.
if not, what does it mean to say "electrons"? what does it mean to distinguish different atoms with different numbers of electrons?
n objects in a bag without any of them being individually distinguishable from each other. I think.
Maybe more, "A bag in which n objects will be, with a probability of n, at a give point in time."
I gotta say, maybe it's a programmer thing, but I have no problem with multiple objects all possessing the same properties. If your interpretation of language complicates the concept you are trying to label, that's your fault, not the concept's.
1. No location in time and space
2. Electrons have a location in time and space
3. Electrons have more than one location in time and space, or a range of locations in time and space.
Also, you're being quite silly about the word function. There is a function of electrons, just as much as there is a function (or functions) of my liver. It does something. Notice how I didn't have to talk about any divinity or human assigning this function. Things have functions, get over it.
See, this is why we need philosophy, because you're being incredibly sloppy with your use of concepts and language.
On the snark of being sloppy, you do seem to be implicitly assuming that there are individual electrons with individually-attached ranges of locations in time and space.
if not, what does it mean to say "electrons"? what does it mean to distinguish different atoms with different numbers of electrons?
n objects in a bag without any of them being individually distinguishable from each other. I think.
Maybe more, "A bag in which n objects will be, with a probability of n, at a give point in time."
"A bag in which non-particle-non-wave-particle-waves will 'be', with a probability of n, at a given temoral unit."
Except time is relative, so it can't be "time" time...
1. No location in time and space
2. Electrons have a location in time and space
3. Electrons have more than one location in time and space, or a range of locations in time and space.
Also, you're being quite silly about the word function. There is a function of electrons, just as much as there is a function (or functions) of my liver. It does something. Notice how I didn't have to talk about any divinity or human assigning this function. Things have functions, get over it.
See, this is why we need philosophy, because you're being incredibly sloppy with your use of concepts and language.
On the snark of being sloppy, you do seem to be implicitly assuming that there are individual electrons with individually-attached ranges of locations in time and space.
if not, what does it mean to say "electrons"? what does it mean to distinguish different atoms with different numbers of electrons?
I do assume that there is more than one electron. Sue me.
Moridin, I get it.
I'm quite alright with not being certain that I have found different electrons. That's fine. If they are different though (so say that I actually have), what is it that makes them so?
It seems that we may be passing from a metaphysical issue (what is it that exists) to an epistemological issue (how can we know).
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I gotta say, maybe it's a programmer thing, but I have no problem with multiple objects all possessing the same properties. If your interpretation of language complicates the concept you are trying to label, that's your fault, not the concept's.
It the objects can be discerned as being "multiple", then all of their predicates cannot be "the same".
The distinction by which one discerns that there is a multiplicity would be the difference between each particular object.
Edit: If one can distinguish "this one" from "that one", then the "this" and the "that" are not the same. Unless one is only pointing to the same thing, but in that case there would only be one thing, not "multiple" things.
I gotta say, maybe it's a programmer thing, but I have no problem with multiple objects all possessing the same properties. If your interpretation of language complicates the concept you are trying to label, that's your fault, not the concept's.
It the objects can be discerned as being "multiple", then all of their predicates cannot be "the same".
The distinction by which one discerns that there is a multiplicity would be the difference between each particular object.
Edit: If one can distinguish "this one" from "that one", then the "this" and the "that" are not the same. Unless one is only pointing to the same thing, but in that case there would only be one thing, not "multiple" things.
This isn't true, even in a wholly classical universe. You don't even need entanglement. Here, I have a bag, which I cannot open. However I can induce its contents to exit the bag, and they always leave in multiples of a fixed quanta, until the bag is empty. The bag has a weight, and the weight decreases in corresponding quanta, until the bag is empty. I find that the exiting contents have different locations despite all their other properties being the same, so I assert identity and multiplicity on those entities. But in the bag, their locations are the same. Therefore, I assert that in the bag there are multiple such identical objects.
yeah i don't think you can blame physicists for that when they're using a language that is most useful because it organizes the world into things, so we can tell people about things with teeth, and how to make sharp things to repel things with teeth
They would have to be so hidden that we could literally never detect them ever--literally outside our ability to detect things.
Which isn't so much a hidden variable as it is a Russell's teapot.
No, hidden variables don't even exist in principle. It's not an assertion about the possibility of measurement, it's an assertion about the nature of what drives entanglement.
I gotta say, maybe it's a programmer thing, but I have no problem with multiple objects all possessing the same properties. If your interpretation of language complicates the concept you are trying to label, that's your fault, not the concept's.
It the objects can be discerned as being "multiple", then all of their predicates cannot be "the same".
The distinction by which one discerns that there is a multiplicity would be the difference between each particular object.
Edit: If one can distinguish "this one" from "that one", then the "this" and the "that" are not the same. Unless one is only pointing to the same thing, but in that case there would only be one thing, not "multiple" things.
This isn't true, even in a wholly classical universe. You don't even need entanglement. Here, I have a bag, which I cannot open. However I can induce its contents to exit the bag, and they always leave in multiples of a fixed quanta, until the bag is empty. I find that the exiting contents have different locations despite all their other properties being the same, so I assert identity and multiplicity on those entities. But in the bag, their locations are the same. Therefore, I assert that in the bag there are multiple such identical objects.
Hey, look! It's the problem of induction.
Edit: All you can speak of, with regard to empirical observation, are the things outside of the bag. Going beyond that to, "here's what had to be the case inside of the bag in order for these things to come out of the bag in this way" places you in the land of nonsense wherein we find Kant's transcendental argumentation.
I gotta say, maybe it's a programmer thing, but I have no problem with multiple objects all possessing the same properties. If your interpretation of language complicates the concept you are trying to label, that's your fault, not the concept's.
It the objects can be discerned as being "multiple", then all of their predicates cannot be "the same".
The distinction by which one discerns that there is a multiplicity would be the difference between each particular object.
Edit: If one can distinguish "this one" from "that one", then the "this" and the "that" are not the same. Unless one is only pointing to the same thing, but in that case there would only be one thing, not "multiple" things.
This isn't true, even in a wholly classical universe. You don't even need entanglement. Here, I have a bag, which I cannot open. However I can induce its contents to exit the bag, and they always leave in multiples of a fixed quanta, until the bag is empty. I find that the exiting contents have different locations despite all their other properties being the same, so I assert identity and multiplicity on those entities. But in the bag, their locations are the same. Therefore, I assert that in the bag there are multiple such identical objects.
Hey, look! It's the problem of induction.
Since it's a thought experiment, feel free to have a hypothetical bag whose properties you can examine in all desired ways simultaneously and be able to assume its non-varying nature.
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
You do realize I took the time to look up the word "function" before posting, right?
1. the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.
Again, I didn't say that was the only definition, or that you were using an incorrect one. However, the implication of a designer is also a perfectly acceptable use of the word "function." So again, you are being quite rude about your own failings of being clear in your word usage, and projecting said failings on the people you are confusing.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I think the issue is that the philosophers who are critiquing Krauss and others don't see themselves as defending anyone. Indeed, most of the responses I've read don't actually seem to disagree that God isn't needed. When asked they'll provide you with a list of philosophical objections to God and gods and whatnot.
Which is nonetheless about as welcome as a guy turning up at evolution debates to talk about Dawkins vs. Gould on the vehicles of selection. One might be making fundamental and deep points but still be a useful idiot for malevolent parties who are much more interested in saying that Evolution Is Not A Scientific Consensus, and it doesn't really matter how earnestly you sputter that you're as diehard a believer in evolution after the fact, you were still a useful idiot.
Yes well that's philosophers for you. I can't believe scientists are surprised about it. They believe it's a field where almost nothing of importance can be said yet they also know that it has existed and thrived for ages and they're infuriated that philosophers would nitpick?
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
"We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does."
"A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object."
The function of a liver is to do X, Y, Z.
A liver does X, Y, Z.
How are those different?
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
Well, they aren't really arguing. They're just screaming, "Stop being morons, you damned idiots!" and then acting surprised when religious persons either ignore them or call them jerks.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
And that debate is harmed by philosophers on blogs? Surely a pedantic objection about the meaning of nothing isn't going to matter the slightest fuck, right?
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
And that debate is harmed by philosophers on blogs? Surely a pedantic objection about the meaning of nothing isn't going to matter the slightest fuck, right?
I think it was the book review in the NYT that kicked it off...?
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
I think that my liver should be able to produce gold 3 feet from my body from thin air.
Is that its function now?
Look, the liver has a function in that it performs certain tasks that help a normally functioning human body to keep on going. It's not a function we assigned to it, it was performing that function in our body even when we thought it governed one of the four humors. Function can possibly be a laden tern, denoting that something was given to it by some designer.
But seriously, do you think that's what J and I are after?
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
In the picture of a battery, the function of electrons is to do electrochemical work. I know everyone wants to outpedant J, but he is correct in his use of function.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
In the picture of a battery, the function of electrons is to do electrochemical work. I know everyone wants to outpedant J, but he is correct in his use of function.
psh, look at the guy trying to talk about god in here!
get a load of this theist piece of shit!
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
I think that my liver should be able to produce gold 3 feet from my body from thin air.
Is that its function now?
Look, the liver has a function in that it performs certain tasks that help a normally functioning human body to keep on going. It's not a function we assigned to it, it was performing that function in our body even when we thought it governed one of the four humors. Function can possibly be a laden tern, denoting that something was given to it by some designer.
But seriously, do you think that's what J and I are after?
Huh? The purpose of our livers is clearly to provide an excellent source of nutrients to any predators that hunt us down and eat us.
They're somewhat vestigial now, of course.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Aside from that, I would say that the guys like Krauss and such are the ones who are turning up at an evolution debate with irrelevant arguments. Krauss' book isn't needed for the debate. The idea of a self-contained universe was already accepted because the other ideas make exactly as much logical sense. You don't need science to tell you that the assertion that something can't come from nothing holds equally true for God. Or that even if the universe has to has a cause that such a thing tells us nothing about that cause.
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
And that debate is harmed by philosophers on blogs? Surely a pedantic objection about the meaning of nothing isn't going to matter the slightest fuck, right?
I think it was the book review in the NYT that kicked it off...?
Well book reviews in the NYT and blogs hold about the same weight in reactionary fundie circles. Left-wing circle jerks and whatnot.
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
I think that my liver should be able to produce gold 3 feet from my body from thin air.
Is that its function now?
Look, the liver has a function in that it performs certain tasks that help a normally functioning human body to keep on going. It's not a function we assigned to it, it was performing that function in our body even when we thought it governed one of the four humors. Function can possibly be a laden tern, denoting that something was given to it by some designer.
But seriously, do you think that's what J and I are after?
Huh? The purpose of our livers is clearly to provide an excellent source of nutrients to any predators that hunt us down and eat us.
Well, one correct definition of "function" would require a designer.
Nope. "Purpose" requires a purposer. "Designed" requires a designer. "Intended" requires an intender.
"Function" simply indicates that the thing does something, has a habit of action. We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does.
Don't try to out pedant me.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
"We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does."
"A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object."
The function of a liver is to do X, Y, Z.
A liver does X, Y, Z.
How are those different?
"To do" implies intent implies intender. Re-write that sentence thus: "The function of a liver is X, Y, Z." Bam. Done.
edit: "x, y, AND z." I am pretty sure that is required for grammatical correctnisity*.
*lolironicality**
**Sleep deprivation makes the dumbest shit funny.
We can make a doing / undergoing distinction that has to do with the internal / external dunamis question. Under this story, we can equate "doing" with "internal dunamis" without having to talk of intention.
Think of a pinewood derby car. Placed atop a ramp it will roll down the ramp. Is that a manifestation of internal power, or external power? Perhaps it begins with the external force of gravity, which then is transferred to an internal manifestation of inertia. Once the force becomes internal, do we say that the pinewood derby car "intends" to roll downhill? Or is gravity intending that the pinewood derby car rolls downhill?
We'd also have to specify what "internal" means. Say we put a battery in one of those mechanical clapping monkey toys. The battery is inside the toy, but would the power of the battery count as an internal or external force to the monkey toy? Do we want to say that the monkey does the clapping, or that the battery does the monkey does the clapping?
Either way, it doesn't seem like either the monkey or the battery is intending.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I think the issue is that the philosophers who are critiquing Krauss and others don't see themselves as defending anyone. Indeed, most of the responses I've read don't actually seem to disagree that God isn't needed. When asked they'll provide you with a list of philosophical objections to God and gods and whatnot.
Which is nonetheless about as welcome as a guy turning up at evolution debates to talk about Dawkins vs. Gould on the vehicles of selection. One might be making fundamental and deep points but still be a useful idiot for malevolent parties who are much more interested in saying that Evolution Is Not A Scientific Consensus, and it doesn't really matter how earnestly you sputter that you're as diehard a believer in evolution after the fact, you were still a useful idiot.
e: and, in fact, Gould did infamously contribute toward this problem by being careless in his rhetoric, e.g. "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change. All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt." has haunted the debate since 1977. It was not his fault. He had, I think, no moral obligation to be circumspect. Nonetheless, portraying punctuated equilibrium as overturning all of evolution was massively convenient for people who just wanted to overturn all of evolution.
This sounds suspiciously like the claim that the academics must all fall silently in line while bad arguments are popularized, because it's Our Team making the bad arguments. First: Kraus is not my team, as he has provided ample evidence for--and this is, in fact, politically relevant when it comes to things like university funding priorities and, more broadly, ethics and public policy (for instance, you certainly do not commonly mistake economics for ethics, but the anti-philosophical crowd does; they ought not be encouraged). And second: this appears to be an invitation to an even less principled and ever more impoverished intellectual culture. Must we all mouth along to Lamarck, because it is, in the short term, socially useful?
This sounds suspiciously like the claim that the academics must all fall silently in line while bad arguments are popularized, because it's Our Team making the bad arguments. First: Kraus is not my team, as he has provided ample evidence for--and this is, in fact, politically relevant when it comes to things like university funding priorities and, more broadly, ethics and public policy (for instance, you certainly do not commonly mistake economics for ethics, but the anti-philosophical crowd does; they ought not be encouraged). And second: this appears to be an invitation to an even less principled and ever more impoverished intellectual culture. Must we all mouth along to Lamarck, because it is, in the short term, socially useful?
It's also slightly weird that advocates of science, of experimentation, of fallibility would at the same time utilize dogmatic rhetoric and refuse to consider alternate explanations, myths, or opinions.
I think the issue is that the philosophers who are critiquing Krauss and others don't see themselves as defending anyone. Indeed, most of the responses I've read don't actually seem to disagree that God isn't needed. When asked they'll provide you with a list of philosophical objections to God and gods and whatnot.
Which is nonetheless about as welcome as a guy turning up at evolution debates to talk about Dawkins vs. Gould on the vehicles of selection. One might be making fundamental and deep points but still be a useful idiot for malevolent parties who are much more interested in saying that Evolution Is Not A Scientific Consensus, and it doesn't really matter how earnestly you sputter that you're as diehard a believer in evolution after the fact, you were still a useful idiot.
e: and, in fact, Gould did infamously contribute toward this problem by being careless in his rhetoric, e.g. "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change. All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt." has haunted the debate since 1977. It was not his fault. He had, I think, no moral obligation to be circumspect. Nonetheless, portraying punctuated equilibrium as overturning all of evolution was massively convenient for people who just wanted to overturn all of evolution.
This sounds suspiciously like the claim that the academics must all fall silently in line while bad arguments are popularized, because it's Our Team making the bad arguments. First: Kraus is not my team, as he has provided ample evidence for--and this is, in fact, politically relevant when it comes to things like university funding priorities and, more broadly, ethics and public policy (you do not commonly mistake economics for ethics, but the anti-philosophical crowd does; they ought not be encouraged). And second: what type of intellectual culture do you want? Must we all mouth along to Lamarck, because the Soviet has so decided?
What "we" should do is a nebulous question with a meaningless answer precisely because there is no Soviet. There's no "we" here. One can write as many platitudes for unity or for purity as one so desires, but there are no edicts that bind anyone and no body that can make such edicts.
As a value-free judgment, if you will, I think that academics do self-censor under perceived external threat and do speak out under perceived groupthink, and the perception either way is generally not consciously decided nor cautiously assessed. It goes easily either way, depending on whether those enforcing the groupthink are seen as doing so to benefit themselves, vs. those speaking out being seen as earning thirty pieces of silver, and like anything else in politics, this depends on how the popular zeitgeist perceives recent history. For example, the New Atheists are particularly hostile to what they perceive as concern trolls due to how Dawkins vs. Gould turned out, I daresay, with Gould's self-aggrandizing aimed 'internally' having unfortunate effects 'externally' (as the NA narrative goes - supporters of Gould would of course disagree, albeit increasingly quietly).
But they don't actually call for self-censorship, explicitly, I think - rather they rabidly tear into people who seem to be splittist for unrelated reasons, holding them to particularly strict standards on what they say and leaping at any instance where they (inevitably) say something careless and get cited as a supporter by The Enemy, whoever it is. The self-censorship follows as a predictable effect.
As a casual speculation on what we are doomed to see (rather than what you or I might prefer), I think the period of popular hard-science writers being non-confrontationally deist is receding and an aggressive anti-conservatism is making itself felt, and this is going to last for as long as the American partisan lines are arranged just so that big science feels nudged to the political left instead of straddling the divide. It's less "our team" versus what teams are assigned to you by wider political forces from well beyond the walls of academe. Once upon a time popular math books were openly disdainful of climate modeling - back in the flurry of chaos-theory, butterfly-effect popsci books? Of course the disdain was wholly unjustified, both then and now, but then the cheap shots were really cheap. Now it is too important an issue to use for aggrandizing your own field. Use it and your own fellow mathematicians will savage you.
I think we do, as a matter of normal daily practice, already choose what issues to speak out on, and if and when the day comes when philosophers start holding their own to unusually high standards for criticizing a careless popular view on the political left, I don't think the change will be realized or even feel unusual. Rather critical effort would be diverted toward attacking careless views on the political right and if the foundations of those criticisms clash horribly with the careless views on your side, well, no need to explicitly point it out, right...? Speaking partially from assessing the recent evolution of my own field here. Krugman doesn't spend his time savaging fans of behavioral economics.
As for what one might want: insofar as we are making wishes on what other people should do, it seems fair to want a discourse that doesn't have to worry about the contents of a popular zeitgeist that absorbs the contents of said discourse in a most alarming way. Other people - you know, hoi polloi - "should" avoid interpreting every academic issue as either a consensus or an undecided battle. But that's neither here or there, I think.
Bell showed in 1964 (via logical deduction, not induction, and involving no 'color patches') that there cannot be any hidden variables. Or, if they are hidden, they apply to physics we are not even aware of (meaning that they have no impact on any currently-observable property). Alternately, they can exist but have no impact on physics that is not identical and strongly-coupled to their non-hidden counterparts. In other words: they either don't exist or are meaningless.
Admittedly the experimental verification of his proof is inductive, being an experiment, but it's not just a matter of "we never saw any so they probably aren't there".
Location as Discriminator
I wrote this several pages ago, but I guess it got missed. You can't fall back on location as a discriminator of identity because not all particles are constrained to not exist in the same place at the same time. Fermions (generally) are, but bosons are not. Not all bosons are massless, so even if you want to relegate massless particles to second-class citizen status in the particle zoo, you're still left with first-class particles who do not obey your notions of exclusive locality. Electrons can be forced to occupy the same place simultaneously, but only under conditions of a singularity. Sodium-23 ions, on the other hand, are significantly larger than electrons yet can co-locate just fine.
The thing about "identical" and "functionally identical" is that the two terms have functionally identical meanings. "Hidden" and "non-existent" are also functionally identical.
(Yar dealt with this quite well, but he failed to get up off the mat and so left it as a "philosophical problem". I'm wanting to go a step further, and state that it's not just a philosophical problem: your statement was factually incorrect since they can be distinguished.)
That's what I meant, though. "Philosophical problem" as in "logic error."
Very good physicists tend to be very good at physics, and I, at least, am inclined to the view that if you want to know what really exists, it's better to ask a scientist than a philosopher. But it's not obvious that even talented physicsts are very smart about other matters, such as those that require conceptual clarity, subtle distinctions, reflectiveness about presuppositions, and the appreciation of logical and inferential entailments of particular propositions. More than anything, I hope Krauss's tantrum and its aftermath will help disabuse the culture of the myth that being good at physics means being good at thought.
Yes, very well said, and exactly my take on it. Particularly, "the appreciation of logical and inferential entailments of particular propositions."
The situation with indistinguishable particles is akin to saying, "What are the odds that I will draw this marble (while holding up one of the ten) from the bag?" then dropping it in and mixing them up. You can't tell them apart, so is that question about probability even a meaningful question?
It isn't really the probability that is meaningless, but rather you've left a gap between a presumption of specifying a particular marble, and actually specifying a particular marble. It would be like saying, "what are the odds that I'll pull X from this bag?" The person answering would naturally want to know what X was, and you haven't told them.
On a more general philosophical take, the issue is that all non-material concepts, such as numbers, probabilities, etc., will ultimately reduce down to their foundations in conscious thought and conscious knowledge, and not a foundation in the material universe. When being asked a question about probability, ultimately the question is about conscious knowledge. From a determinist perspective, for example, there is one and only one marble that will be pulled form the bag, and no possibility of any marble but that one being pulled. Hence probability is not a calculation about material reality, but about quantifying the relationship between what a conscious mind knows vs. what it doesn't know. Or quantifying how much we believe in certain past observations forming a rational argument predicting a certain future observation. In your marble scenario, you simply failed to define any discernible future observation.
The underlying presumption, though, is that there exists something conceivable that could differentiate "this marble." Therein gives rise to the supposed paradox. Even if it isn't apparent to the observers in this scenario, the presumption is that there does in fact exist some level of potential differentiation on some microscopic level that would justify the idea of "this marble" being "this marble" and not others. And thus we believe that there still is a "this marble" at the end, even if we can't say for sure which it is. The big difference with the electron, though, is that, as far as I understand, you're telling me that this kind of underlying presumption theoretically can't exist. By definition, there is no underlying presumption of there being a "this electron," but at the same time you describe the problem as if there is. Or, to state it in a perhaps functionally identitical manner, we know that we have no capability of specifying the particular future observation we're looking to predict with probability, and thus probability isn't usable in that way.
The underlying presumption, though, is that there is something conceivable that does differentiate "this marble." Even if it isn't apparent to the observers in this scenario, the presumption is that there does in fact exist some level of potential differentiation on some microscopic level that would justify the idea of "this marble" being "this marble" and not others. And thus we believe that there still is a "this marble" at the end, even if we can't say for sure which it is. The big difference with the electron, though, is that, as far as I understand, you're telling me that this kind of underlying presumption theoretically can't exist. By definition, there is no underlying presumption of there being a "this electron," but at the same time you describe the problem as if there is.
The electron's distinct identity emerges when you collapse the wavefunction, i.e., interact with it. In the sense of it being certainly non-distinct prior to interaction and all.
The thing about "identical" and "functionally identical" is that the two terms have functionally identical meanings. "Hidden" and "non-existent" are also functionally identical.
"Hidden" and "non-existent" aren't functionally identical, at least not in terms of the meaning of "hidden" used in reference to so-called "hidden variables". The supposed variables are hidden in that we hadn't figured out any way to observe them or predict them, but they were presumably guiding certain aspects of apparently random behavior. So, had they existed, evidence of their existence would have been visible, just not in a way that we could use to any effect.
If a standard incandescent lightbulb is opaque then it has a "hidden variable" tied up in the state of its filament. Either it's burnt out or it isn't. The only way to tell if it's burnt out is to turn on the light; there's no way to predict based on observation of the turned-off state of the bulb whether or not the filament is burnt out. Obviously you could shake it or something so it's not a perfect analogy, but that's basically the idea. The hidden variable of the filament has an obvious impact on the behavior of the bulb, but not one that you can predict ahead of time. Hidden variables were offered as a solution to the strange behavior of quantum-scale phenomena. Subsequently Bell proved that there could be no hidden variables that determined entangled particle behavior without causing other quantum effects to be inconsistent with observations.
The situation with indistinguishable particles is akin to saying, "What are the odds that I will draw this marble (while holding up one of the ten) from the bag?" then dropping it in and mixing them up. You can't tell them apart, so is that question about probability even a meaningful question?
It isn't really the probability that is meaningless, but rather you've left a gap between a presumption of specifying a particular marble, and actually specifying a particular marble. It would be like saying, "what are the odds that I'll pull X from this bag?" The person answering would naturally want to know what X was, and you haven't told them.
On a more general philosophical take, the issue is that all non-material concepts, such as numbers, probabilities, etc., will ultimately reduce down to their foundations in conscious thought and conscious knowledge, and not a foundation in the material universe. When being asked a question about probability, ultimately the question is about conscious knowledge. From a determinist perspective, for example, there is one and only one marble that will be pulled form the bag, and no possibility of any marble but that one being pulled. Hence probability is not a calculation about material reality, but about quantifying the relationship between what a conscious mind knows vs. what it doesn't know. Or quantifying how much we believe in certain past observations forming a rational argument predicting a certain future observation. In your marble scenario, you simply failed to define any discernible future observation.
The underlying presumption, though, is that there exists something conceivable that could differentiate "this marble." Therein gives rise to the supposed paradox. Even if it isn't apparent to the observers in this scenario, the presumption is that there does in fact exist some level of potential differentiation on some microscopic level that would justify the idea of "this marble" being "this marble" and not others. And thus we believe that there still is a "this marble" at the end, even if we can't say for sure which it is. The big difference with the electron, though, is that, as far as I understand, you're telling me that this kind of underlying presumption theoretically can't exist. By definition, there is no underlying presumption of there being a "this electron," but at the same time you describe the problem as if there is. Or, to state it in a perhaps functionally identitical manner, we know that we have no capability of specifying the particular future observation we're looking to predict with probability, and thus probability isn't usable in that way.
Pretty much. The dude that Mr.Mister posted up-thread (Maudlin, I believe his name was) said that there was a philosophical problem with the idea of describing a system as a state vector in configuration space on the basis that the description may be incomplete. My response is that it's true that the description is incomplete if you consider that physical systems which appear trivially distinguishable are actually different systems when they are actually indistinguishable. I don't personally have a problem with the idea of indistinguishability, so I don't consider it a problem, but apparently some people do.
Posts
"warticles" is much better than "paves".
Maybe more, "A bag in which n objects will be, with a probability of n, at a give point in time."
"A bag in which non-particle-non-wave-particle-waves will 'be', with a probability of n, at a given temoral unit."
Except time is relative, so it can't be "time" time...
Edit: Also, time isn't units...shit.
I do assume that there is more than one electron. Sue me.
Moridin, I get it.
I'm quite alright with not being certain that I have found different electrons. That's fine. If they are different though (so say that I actually have), what is it that makes them so?
It seems that we may be passing from a metaphysical issue (what is it that exists) to an epistemological issue (how can we know).
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
It the objects can be discerned as being "multiple", then all of their predicates cannot be "the same".
The distinction by which one discerns that there is a multiplicity would be the difference between each particular object.
Edit: If one can distinguish "this one" from "that one", then the "this" and the "that" are not the same. Unless one is only pointing to the same thing, but in that case there would only be one thing, not "multiple" things.
They can be hidden from us, but they still exist / occur.
Edit: Unless you're george berkeley.
That falls under "hidden".
Which isn't so much a hidden variable as it is a Russell's teapot.
This isn't true, even in a wholly classical universe. You don't even need entanglement. Here, I have a bag, which I cannot open. However I can induce its contents to exit the bag, and they always leave in multiples of a fixed quanta, until the bag is empty. The bag has a weight, and the weight decreases in corresponding quanta, until the bag is empty. I find that the exiting contents have different locations despite all their other properties being the same, so I assert identity and multiplicity on those entities. But in the bag, their locations are the same. Therefore, I assert that in the bag there are multiple such identical objects.
No, hidden variables don't even exist in principle. It's not an assertion about the possibility of measurement, it's an assertion about the nature of what drives entanglement.
Hey, look! It's the problem of induction.
Edit: All you can speak of, with regard to empirical observation, are the things outside of the bag. Going beyond that to, "here's what had to be the case inside of the bag in order for these things to come out of the bag in this way" places you in the land of nonsense wherein we find Kant's transcendental argumentation.
Since it's a thought experiment, feel free to have a hypothetical bag whose properties you can examine in all desired ways simultaneously and be able to assume its non-varying nature.
That's untrue. The 'function' of the liver is dependent on our ideas of what it should do for our bodies. A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object. We consider it to have functions because of our viewpoint.
You need to be a better pedant.
You do realize I took the time to look up the word "function" before posting, right?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/function
1. the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.
Again, I didn't say that was the only definition, or that you were using an incorrect one. However, the implication of a designer is also a perfectly acceptable use of the word "function." So again, you are being quite rude about your own failings of being clear in your word usage, and projecting said failings on the people you are confusing.
Yes well that's philosophers for you. I can't believe scientists are surprised about it. They believe it's a field where almost nothing of importance can be said yet they also know that it has existed and thrived for ages and they're infuriated that philosophers would nitpick?
This is what is:
"We can speak of the function of a liver simply by observing what a liver does."
"A liver does any amount of things, as a physical object."
The function of a liver is to do X, Y, Z.
A liver does X, Y, Z.
How are those different?
And anyone who has paid attention to the discourse over the centuries knows that theologians have already retreated into a position where mere science can't reach them. An universe from nothing isn't a new idea. Any theologian worth his salt is still going to argue that there is a god. It's why whatshisface on rationally speaking brought up the argument from evil. Instead of debating what nothing is we should be debating why this awesome god of theirs seems to love doing bad shit to people.
It (and the New Atheists more generally) are not really arguing with theologians, but rather popular theology, I daresay - which has rather different standards of argument and staked-out positions
Well, they aren't really arguing. They're just screaming, "Stop being morons, you damned idiots!" and then acting surprised when religious persons either ignore them or call them jerks.
And that debate is harmed by philosophers on blogs? Surely a pedantic objection about the meaning of nothing isn't going to matter the slightest fuck, right?
I think it was the book review in the NYT that kicked it off...?
I think that my liver should be able to produce gold 3 feet from my body from thin air.
Is that its function now?
Look, the liver has a function in that it performs certain tasks that help a normally functioning human body to keep on going. It's not a function we assigned to it, it was performing that function in our body even when we thought it governed one of the four humors. Function can possibly be a laden tern, denoting that something was given to it by some designer.
But seriously, do you think that's what J and I are after?
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
physicists gonna physics
authors gonna auth
philosophers gonna get ignored
ye
psh, look at the guy trying to talk about god in here!
get a load of this theist piece of shit!
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Huh? The purpose of our livers is clearly to provide an excellent source of nutrients to any predators that hunt us down and eat us.
They're somewhat vestigial now, of course.
Well book reviews in the NYT and blogs hold about the same weight in reactionary fundie circles. Left-wing circle jerks and whatnot.
"To do" implies intent implies intender. Re-write that sentence thus: "The function of a liver is X, Y, Z." Bam. Done.
edit: "x, y, AND z." I am pretty sure that is required for grammatical correctnisity*.
*lolironicality**
**Sleep deprivation makes the dumbest shit funny.
Not necessarily.
We can make a doing / undergoing distinction that has to do with the internal / external dunamis question. Under this story, we can equate "doing" with "internal dunamis" without having to talk of intention.
Think of a pinewood derby car. Placed atop a ramp it will roll down the ramp. Is that a manifestation of internal power, or external power? Perhaps it begins with the external force of gravity, which then is transferred to an internal manifestation of inertia. Once the force becomes internal, do we say that the pinewood derby car "intends" to roll downhill? Or is gravity intending that the pinewood derby car rolls downhill?
We'd also have to specify what "internal" means. Say we put a battery in one of those mechanical clapping monkey toys. The battery is inside the toy, but would the power of the battery count as an internal or external force to the monkey toy? Do we want to say that the monkey does the clapping, or that the battery does the monkey does the clapping?
Either way, it doesn't seem like either the monkey or the battery is intending.
This sounds suspiciously like the claim that the academics must all fall silently in line while bad arguments are popularized, because it's Our Team making the bad arguments. First: Kraus is not my team, as he has provided ample evidence for--and this is, in fact, politically relevant when it comes to things like university funding priorities and, more broadly, ethics and public policy (for instance, you certainly do not commonly mistake economics for ethics, but the anti-philosophical crowd does; they ought not be encouraged). And second: this appears to be an invitation to an even less principled and ever more impoverished intellectual culture. Must we all mouth along to Lamarck, because it is, in the short term, socially useful?
It's also slightly weird that advocates of science, of experimentation, of fallibility would at the same time utilize dogmatic rhetoric and refuse to consider alternate explanations, myths, or opinions.
This is the problem Feyerabend talks about.
What "we" should do is a nebulous question with a meaningless answer precisely because there is no Soviet. There's no "we" here. One can write as many platitudes for unity or for purity as one so desires, but there are no edicts that bind anyone and no body that can make such edicts.
As a value-free judgment, if you will, I think that academics do self-censor under perceived external threat and do speak out under perceived groupthink, and the perception either way is generally not consciously decided nor cautiously assessed. It goes easily either way, depending on whether those enforcing the groupthink are seen as doing so to benefit themselves, vs. those speaking out being seen as earning thirty pieces of silver, and like anything else in politics, this depends on how the popular zeitgeist perceives recent history. For example, the New Atheists are particularly hostile to what they perceive as concern trolls due to how Dawkins vs. Gould turned out, I daresay, with Gould's self-aggrandizing aimed 'internally' having unfortunate effects 'externally' (as the NA narrative goes - supporters of Gould would of course disagree, albeit increasingly quietly).
But they don't actually call for self-censorship, explicitly, I think - rather they rabidly tear into people who seem to be splittist for unrelated reasons, holding them to particularly strict standards on what they say and leaping at any instance where they (inevitably) say something careless and get cited as a supporter by The Enemy, whoever it is. The self-censorship follows as a predictable effect.
As a casual speculation on what we are doomed to see (rather than what you or I might prefer), I think the period of popular hard-science writers being non-confrontationally deist is receding and an aggressive anti-conservatism is making itself felt, and this is going to last for as long as the American partisan lines are arranged just so that big science feels nudged to the political left instead of straddling the divide. It's less "our team" versus what teams are assigned to you by wider political forces from well beyond the walls of academe. Once upon a time popular math books were openly disdainful of climate modeling - back in the flurry of chaos-theory, butterfly-effect popsci books? Of course the disdain was wholly unjustified, both then and now, but then the cheap shots were really cheap. Now it is too important an issue to use for aggrandizing your own field. Use it and your own fellow mathematicians will savage you.
I think we do, as a matter of normal daily practice, already choose what issues to speak out on, and if and when the day comes when philosophers start holding their own to unusually high standards for criticizing a careless popular view on the political left, I don't think the change will be realized or even feel unusual. Rather critical effort would be diverted toward attacking careless views on the political right and if the foundations of those criticisms clash horribly with the careless views on your side, well, no need to explicitly point it out, right...? Speaking partially from assessing the recent evolution of my own field here. Krugman doesn't spend his time savaging fans of behavioral economics.
As for what one might want: insofar as we are making wishes on what other people should do, it seems fair to want a discourse that doesn't have to worry about the contents of a popular zeitgeist that absorbs the contents of said discourse in a most alarming way. Other people - you know, hoi polloi - "should" avoid interpreting every academic issue as either a consensus or an undecided battle. But that's neither here or there, I think.
Hidden Variables
Bell showed in 1964 (via logical deduction, not induction, and involving no 'color patches') that there cannot be any hidden variables. Or, if they are hidden, they apply to physics we are not even aware of (meaning that they have no impact on any currently-observable property). Alternately, they can exist but have no impact on physics that is not identical and strongly-coupled to their non-hidden counterparts. In other words: they either don't exist or are meaningless.
Admittedly the experimental verification of his proof is inductive, being an experiment, but it's not just a matter of "we never saw any so they probably aren't there".
Location as Discriminator
I wrote this several pages ago, but I guess it got missed. You can't fall back on location as a discriminator of identity because not all particles are constrained to not exist in the same place at the same time. Fermions (generally) are, but bosons are not. Not all bosons are massless, so even if you want to relegate massless particles to second-class citizen status in the particle zoo, you're still left with first-class particles who do not obey your notions of exclusive locality. Electrons can be forced to occupy the same place simultaneously, but only under conditions of a singularity. Sodium-23 ions, on the other hand, are significantly larger than electrons yet can co-locate just fine.
That's what I meant, though. "Philosophical problem" as in "logic error."
Yes, very well said, and exactly my take on it. Particularly, "the appreciation of logical and inferential entailments of particular propositions."
It isn't really the probability that is meaningless, but rather you've left a gap between a presumption of specifying a particular marble, and actually specifying a particular marble. It would be like saying, "what are the odds that I'll pull X from this bag?" The person answering would naturally want to know what X was, and you haven't told them.
On a more general philosophical take, the issue is that all non-material concepts, such as numbers, probabilities, etc., will ultimately reduce down to their foundations in conscious thought and conscious knowledge, and not a foundation in the material universe. When being asked a question about probability, ultimately the question is about conscious knowledge. From a determinist perspective, for example, there is one and only one marble that will be pulled form the bag, and no possibility of any marble but that one being pulled. Hence probability is not a calculation about material reality, but about quantifying the relationship between what a conscious mind knows vs. what it doesn't know. Or quantifying how much we believe in certain past observations forming a rational argument predicting a certain future observation. In your marble scenario, you simply failed to define any discernible future observation.
The underlying presumption, though, is that there exists something conceivable that could differentiate "this marble." Therein gives rise to the supposed paradox. Even if it isn't apparent to the observers in this scenario, the presumption is that there does in fact exist some level of potential differentiation on some microscopic level that would justify the idea of "this marble" being "this marble" and not others. And thus we believe that there still is a "this marble" at the end, even if we can't say for sure which it is. The big difference with the electron, though, is that, as far as I understand, you're telling me that this kind of underlying presumption theoretically can't exist. By definition, there is no underlying presumption of there being a "this electron," but at the same time you describe the problem as if there is. Or, to state it in a perhaps functionally identitical manner, we know that we have no capability of specifying the particular future observation we're looking to predict with probability, and thus probability isn't usable in that way.
The electron's distinct identity emerges when you collapse the wavefunction, i.e., interact with it. In the sense of it being certainly non-distinct prior to interaction and all.
"Hidden" and "non-existent" aren't functionally identical, at least not in terms of the meaning of "hidden" used in reference to so-called "hidden variables". The supposed variables are hidden in that we hadn't figured out any way to observe them or predict them, but they were presumably guiding certain aspects of apparently random behavior. So, had they existed, evidence of their existence would have been visible, just not in a way that we could use to any effect.
If a standard incandescent lightbulb is opaque then it has a "hidden variable" tied up in the state of its filament. Either it's burnt out or it isn't. The only way to tell if it's burnt out is to turn on the light; there's no way to predict based on observation of the turned-off state of the bulb whether or not the filament is burnt out. Obviously you could shake it or something so it's not a perfect analogy, but that's basically the idea. The hidden variable of the filament has an obvious impact on the behavior of the bulb, but not one that you can predict ahead of time. Hidden variables were offered as a solution to the strange behavior of quantum-scale phenomena. Subsequently Bell proved that there could be no hidden variables that determined entangled particle behavior without causing other quantum effects to be inconsistent with observations.
Pretty much. The dude that Mr.Mister posted up-thread (Maudlin, I believe his name was) said that there was a philosophical problem with the idea of describing a system as a state vector in configuration space on the basis that the description may be incomplete. My response is that it's true that the description is incomplete if you consider that physical systems which appear trivially distinguishable are actually different systems when they are actually indistinguishable. I don't personally have a problem with the idea of indistinguishability, so I don't consider it a problem, but apparently some people do.