From: "Chris Lofting" <ddiamond@ozemail.com.au>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Statistics, wave/particles and 'lies'
Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 10:56:33 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Agassi <agassi@erols.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>;
owner-critical-cafe@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie
<owner-critical-cafe@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie>
Date: Sunday, 4 July 1999 6:26
Subject: Statistics is a red herring
>We don't need Statistics to see light behaving like a wave. Objects cast
>shadows. Even objects that are light sources cast shadows when standing in
>the beam from the light sources. But it is surprising that light itself
>casts shadows. When a light source is split, and recombined, all that
should
>happen is for the original luminance to be recovered. But a dark spot can
be
>produced. Light can cast shadows. How can this be? If light is a wave, that
>would explain it.
The 'trick' is in the recombination, you are trying to put two things back
into the same space and that requires reintegration process that is not the
same as sticking two parts back together since you can still see the
original 'break'; your reintegration attempts are too gross, you are missing
something and as such will 'get' interference. (it is a bit like trying to
put a neutron back together with just the proton and electron -- you are
missing the 'glue'.)
>
>But we don't even need to confirm interference patterns for evidence of
>light being a wave. There is still the Doppler effect. We can hear the
>Doppler effect in the changing the pitch of sound emanating from passing
>vehicles. We can see the Doppler effect observing a moving wave source on
>the surface of a body of liquid. And we can also measure Red Shift and Blue
>Shift. If light is a wave, then interference patterns are predicted. That
is
>why the experiments where ever performed. It was first suggested and
>forgotten, as a Reductio Ad Absudum. It was carried out, later on, in hopes
>of finding the evidence.
>
>Of course, it's not true, or at best not fully understood, that light is a
>wave. Because in other experiments it behaves as a particle.
>
Depends on the experiment, the INTENT of the experiment and that includes a
statistical bias that will generate wave patterns since you are viewing
things GENERALLY rather than in PARTICULAR and the instruments/experiment
are set up to detect this; they emulate dichotomous thinking and as I showed
in the Wave/Particle Duality post a wave pattern emerges from this process
regardless of scale or what you are measuring.
(BTW, you seem to have found difficulty in responding to the W/P post in
particular ... all the posts I have received today do not mention those
findings at all..perhaps it is all too hard for you?.)
Aspect's experiments delt with thing dichotomously as have all the laser
interferometer experiments. My point is that the results can be obtained at
ANY scale using dichotomous processes, the patterns are 'in' the method and
so no neccessarily 'out there' (and I have repeatedly emphasised the 'not
necessarily'...)
>Now, this may have all began, conjecturally. And such conjecture arose, in
>some part, from Neural structure. And Neural structure evolved for
survival.
>But conjecture is testable. Alas, tests are also Memetically conceived.
They
>are also, however, Empirical. And as Memetic structure has evolved, it
>continues to do so. Yes, any explanatory scheme may tend to be self
>reinforcing. But we deliberately push them until, like all analogies save
>Tautology, they break down. Thus we squeeze new clues from reality, and
then
>struggle with them.
>
>Chris Lofting has not shown a new breakdown. Wave/particle duality is
>already known. All he has done is to harp upon bias and the limits of
>imagination. Something which has already long been under consideration. But
>he tries to make it look both new and fatal. He certainly offers no new
>reason to consider it fatal.
>
You still have not addressed the W/P duality post that DOES raise the issue
as to whether the *observed* results reflect properties of the METHOD rather
than the 'things' under analysis.
Until you can address that particular post *in detail* there is no more to
be said since all the other posts I have received today attempt to reassert
your agenda (by 'starting from the beginning') and so attempt to gloss over
the explicit findings I have presented in that post.
In simple terms, all statistical analysis based on dichotomies will generate
a normal distribution curve. Add in indeterminate (or equivalent) states and
what emerges is an an implied wave interference pattern. This will happen at
ALL scales and is a property of the method. Being such you must be wary of
the temptation to 'project' this property onto 'out there'.
All waves can be traced back to the interaction of objects; they are not
fundamental but can be seen to be by us since we can objectify them.
Recursive dichotomisations will create them 'naturally'.
BTW some of your comments in the other posts suggest you have not gone
through my website. Perhaps you should (as well as my archived texts (a lot
more recent than some of my web stuff) for the Psychology Karl Jaspers Forum
at
http://www.mcgill.ca/douglas/fdg/kjf
as well as Quantum Mind at
http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/quantum-mind.html
Chris.
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
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