Plato: Misconceptions and attempts at clarification...

nobody and nothing
Arrogant ignorance is a pretty common sight, but John Walker74 has managed to shatter every single ceiling ever set on this forum. It’s not just that she out-philosophizes Plato, it’s that her grasp of physics makes the likes of Pauli or Heisenberg look like amateurs.
Since everything else she’s written is absolute nonsense—and I’ve already dismantled most of it—I’ll only address this specific point. This isn't even about her; it’s about addressing a fairly widespread delusion (which is exactly what we’re here to fix).
John Walker74-
It’s not my arrogant ignorance that’s getting under your skin, it’s my arrogant knowledge. And honestly, I wouldn't be acting this arrogant if you hadn't decided to try and prove the superiority of some Platonic way of thinking to me. Why on earth did you even need to start this thread? You could have at least picked a more appropriate victim.

Look, just calm down; I don't claim to philosophize better than Plato, nor do I know physics better than Heisenberg, but I certainly know Plato much better than you do, and when it comes to physics, you're basically a total amateur compared to Heisenberg. You’re a mediocre philosopher and an even worse physicist.🙂

In my last post, I told you—and showed you—that you seriously need to go back and refresh that physics degree of yours, because you clearly haven't a clue about the core ideas of modern physics, and this latest post proves you don't understand physics at all. So, take that degree, toss it straight into the toilet, let it flush away—wooooosh...—and leave physics alone. Maybe try picking up metaphysics instead, just like your big hero did. You can philosophize to your heart's content about "forms" existing in some incomprehensible realm, and nobody will be able to disprove you. But physics is dangerous territory; it requires actual hard work and grit to truly grasp anything, where everything has to be proven and calculated, and you won't get far just surfing the web and scavenging articles like you do.
nobody anything
Since everything she’s written aside from this is pure garbage—and I’ve already explained most of it—I’m only going to respond to this. This isn't about her personally, it's about correcting a relatively widespread misconception (which is precisely why we exist here).
John Walker74-
You haven't explained or proved a single thing. You didn't even dare to mention the massive amount of quotes I cited, let alone attempt to refute the conclusions drawn from them.As for delusions, we've thoroughly debunked them—both regarding Plato and regarding you.😂

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Nothing at all
Anyone who has actually bothered to try and replicate such an experiment knows perfectly well that those two stones aren't going to hit the ground at the exact same time.
Sure, they’d drop simultaneously in a vacuum, but they won't in open air, and Galileo didn't have access to a vacuum.
John Walker74
And where on Earth was poor Galileo supposed to find a vacuum? You were claiming in previous posts that empty space doesn't even exist, so why don't you just pick a side and stick to it for once? But fine, that's not really the point right now.

The real issue here is that you, being the stubborn Platonic follower that you are, have clearly never actually attempted this experiment yourself. Your Great Teacher taught you to disregard any form of empirical evidence, didn't he? The impact of air resistance on stones falling at low speeds is so negligible that you wouldn't need some incredibly complex laboratory setup like you seem to imagine.

Just take two stones of different weights, hold one in your left hand and one in your right, release them at the same moment, and you'll see they fall almost simultaneously; the difference would be so microscopic that you wouldn't even notice they weren't perfectly synced.

You don't need to be a genius, or a philosopher, or engage in abstract theorizing or daydreaming; you simply need to trust your own eyes to see that Aristotle's claim—that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones—is fundamentally flawed. It was largely based on that incorrect conclusion that Aristotle built a completely wrong model of the universe, placing a stationary Earth at the center, a view that would persist for the next 2,000 years.

And look, he was brilliant, incredibly logical, perhaps even too much so. If he had possessed a shred of common sense, he probably would have occasionally thought to check his conclusions against practical reality. But no, Aristotle relied entirely on the power of his own intellect and abstract reasoning. And of course, he was a student of Plato.🙂

That is precisely where the strength of that simple experiment conducted on the Leaning Tower of Pisa lies; by performing it, Galileo challenged the absolute authority of Aristotle and knocked him right off the pedestal the Church had placed him on. What vacuum? What nonsense.

Because of this approach to physics, because he insisted that the Bible shouldn't be used to dictate science, and because he claimed that the Earth moves around the sun rather than remaining stationary at the center of the universe as was believed for two millennia, the Church eventually branded him a heretic, placing him under house arrest for the rest of his life and forbidding him from spreading his ideas under threat of death by burning at the stake.

They managed to burn his books, but they couldn't burn his ideas. Galileo remains the ultimate symbol of the struggle for scientific independence. It wasn't until 1992 that Pope John Paul II finally admitted that Vatican City had been wrong. Sorry, Galileo, we messed up a little bit. What's 400 years to an eternal Church? A millennium up, a millennium down, 400 years more, 400 years less—it's a tiny detail.👎

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absolutely nothing
This conclusion from Galileo is just a direct result of his thoughts on the principle of inertia, which he was actually the first to formulate. It states that an object upon which no force acts continues to move at a constant velocity. Did he figure this out through some grand experiment? Please, nobody has ever actually seen an object that isn't being acted upon by some kind of force.
John Walker74
I honestly thought the law was stated this way: an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion will continue moving at a constant velocity, provided that the vector sum of all forces acting on the object equals zero. You don't even seem to grasp the first Newtonian law, yet here you are trying to lecture me on quantum mechanics? 🙂Good grief… what an absolute amateur. But go ahead, keep talking to him if you want.

Right this second, I am looking at an object where the vector sum of the forces equals zero. This mysterious item, "which nobody has ever seen," is the book sitting right here on my desk. Gravity is pulling the book toward the floor, but the molecular forces within my desk are neutralizing that gravitational pull. So the book stays still, and I am witnessing the law of inertia in action; experimental verification has proven the law is true. In the exact same way, it’s possible to experimentally verify the other half of the definition, but I won't bore you with that right now, since this is clearly way over your head.😁😁

Are you asking me if Galileo arrived at the law of inertia through experimentation? No, he didn't reach it through experiments, but rather because his eternal soul, which just happens to be temporarily inhabiting his body, revealed a secret he learned from Plato.🤣

Oh, give me a break. If the poor guy Galileo hadn't spent years rolling spheres down inclined planes, he never would have stumbled upon the law of inertia, no matter if he had sat there abstracting and meditating on his own head for a million years like his predecessors did.

What would even happen to the inertia of a body if no actual force were acting upon it? Nobody knows. You can only speculate, but you can't claim anything as fact precisely because there is no experimental verification. Then again, a discussion on this topic is probably far too heavy for someone like you.😬 😬

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nobody and nothing
An experiment proves something is true, but you don't actually reach a meaningful understanding just by running trials. A complete idiot could collect thousands of pieces of empirical data and still fail to grasp a single thing.
John Walker74
If you're applying the rules of Aristotelian logic here, then you're basically calling Aristotle a total moron. He had thousands of empirical observations regarding nature, plants, and animals—all carefully selected—yet he failed to draw any significant conclusions in biology or physics. Now, of course, he wasn't stupid; he was a genius, but he simply lacked the scientific method. Plus, he had a terrible teacher whose influence he never quite managed to shake off.

nobody and nothing
The idea that physical knowledge moves linearly from experiments to laws is fundamentally flawed; the path actually works the other way around.
John Walker74
I didn't specify which direction physical knowledge travels, but let's be real: an unexpected experimental result often pushes a theory in the right direction. So, the path can absolutely be a two-way street.

Take the famous Michelson–Morley experiment, for instance; it left everyone completely baffled, and a new theory had to be constructed specifically to account for those results. Philosophers could have spent another hundred years just theorizing, and not one of them would have realized that time is relative. If that experiment hadn't happened, we might never have gotten there, because the theory of relativity flies so wildly in the face of our everyday experience. But honestly, why even bother discussing Einstein with someone who hasn't even mastered the first Newtonian law they learned in middle school?😛😛😛

nothing at all
Modern physics is fundamentally built on a foundation of experimentation and mathematics—and the reason I focused solely on the math was purely due to the context of my previous point regarding Platonism and science.
John Walker74
Stupidity is stupidity, regardless of what kind of context you wrap it in. And honestly, your little attempt to frame modern physics as nothing more than mathematical physics is transparent at best. You want to claim Plato inspired Kepler? Well, Plato dealt with mathematics, so by your twisted logic, does that make him a great physicist? It’s absolutely ridiculous to proclaim someone a great physicist when they essentially stabbed the entire field in the back by teaching us to rely exclusively on pure reason while completely tossing empirical evidence out the window.

🙂

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Nobody and Nothing
That whole statement about how "particles remain particles" is completely meaningless.
Richard Feynman actually suggested the term wavicles just to prevent people from picturing these "particles" as little solid balls.

John Walker74
Ha, ha, ha 😂..... Honestly, I’m practically wetting myself laughing here. Look, Nobody and Nothing, just stop it already, for crying out loud..... What exactly is going on in your head instead of a brain? Is it just a piece of wire used to keep your ears from falling off?
🙂

Let me lay this out clearly for you: your claim that light acts as a wave in one instance and a particle in another is outdated thinking from before the era of quantum physics; the entire point of quantum physics was to develop a single, unified theory that remains consistent across every experiment, rather than us having to switch between using wave equations in one scenario and treating light as swarms of particles in another.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with physics can see from this conversation just how deeply you misunderstand the principles of modern physics. Of course, you don't have a clue, and since you can't actually disprove any of this, you just sit there without a comment.

After I took the time to explain how things actually work—specifically how particles in quantum physics, unlike those in classical mechanics, possess an associated wave function that we use to calculate the probability of finding a specific particle at a certain location in space—you have the audacity to "wisely" point out that Feynman suggested calling them wawecle.

And then what? He was simply trying to emphasize that particles behave exactly the way I just described. And by the way, he didn't call them wawecle, he called them wavicles. You know, in English, the word for wave isn't "wawe," it's "wave." Honestly, have some shame; you don't even know English.😛. And you clearly can't even translate a quote:

In order to save ourselves from inventing new words such as wavicles, we have chosen to call these objects “particles.” R. Feynman
So, he wasn't suggesting we call them wavicles; he was saying there was absolutely no need to go through the trouble of inventing new terms like wavicles.

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Your whole issue is that you just don't get that this wave function isn't some tangible, physical thing; it's nothing more than a mathematical probability function we had to cook up specifically because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You seem to think light is just flipping back and forth between being a wave and a particle, and then you start picturing particles as little little pyramids or tiny cubes—you know, exactly the kind of nonsense Plato used to dream up. He identified five regular polyhedrons and foolishly assigned four of them to represent water, fire, air, and Earth. Since he couldn't figure out what to do with the fifth one, Aristotle just dubbed it ether and claimed there was no such thing as empty space because objects move through the ether in the heavens. If you take a bit of water, a bit of air, a bit of Earth, and a bit of fire, mix them in certain proportions, and you suddenly get gold? Just add a stationary Earth at the center of the universe and voilà—you’ve got Plato-Aristotle physics, chemistry, and astronomy all wrapped up in one.Isn't it just the ultimate scam to feed humanity such a moronic vision of the world and actually manage to prevent anyone from questioning it for two thousand years?!👎

The next time I hear a physicist rambling on about spin, angular momentum, or the radius of an electron, I might just start imagining electrons as little cubes just to make N&N feel better—or better yet, let's go with pyramids. After all, Plato was aaaayy much obsessed with Egypt. 😛

Absolutely nothing
Democritus didn't hand down some grand law regarding the conservation of energy; that was formulated way back in the 19th century. So, you've managed to fail spectacularly for two and a half millennia.
John Walker74
Oh, please. You know, sometimes while I'm scrolling through your posts, I actually start to regret ever telling you that your head is completely empty. Honestly, it’s more like your skull is just filled to the brim with helium. Otherwise, there's no way you could even manage to walk upright down a sidewalk without tripping over your own feet. And sure, let's not forget that single little piece of wire running from your left ear to your right; heaven forbid that wire snaps, because then your ears might actually fall off. That's pretty much how I picture your brain's anatomy.😬😬

So, why don't you be a sweetheart and write out exactly what this "law" looks like for us? Maybe if you try hard enough, you'll win a Nobel Prize. You seem to think that because people identified certain forces and types of energy in the 19th century, the whole thing is wrapped up in a neat little bow. But that's not how science works, is it? As new forces and energies were discovered in physics, the law of conservation of energy evolved through various different forms.

Thermodynamics has its own laws for the conservation of energy, mechanics has its own, electromagnetism has its own, and nuclear physics has its own. The one thing they all share is a single principle: energy can change from one form to another, but it can never be destroyed. And so far, nobody has been able to prove that wrong.

Now, let's talk a bit about Democritus's understanding of physics and the conservation of energy. I really don't feel like typing this all out myself, so I'm just going to copy and paste this from a serious source:

”Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace. He wrote extensively, but only fragments of his works remain. According to his exposition of the atomic theory of matter, all things are composed of minute, invisible, indestructible particles of pure matter (atoma, “indivisibles”), which move about eternally in infinite empty space (kenon, “the void”). Although atoms are made up of precisely the same matter, they differ in shape, size, weight, sequence, and position. Qualitative differences in what the senses perceive and the birth, decay, and disappearance of things are the results not of characteristics inherent in atoms but of quantitative arrangements of atoms. Democritus viewed The creation of Worlds as The Natural consequence of The ceaseless whirling motion of atoms in space. Atoms collide and spin, forming larger aggregations of matter.”

his atomic theory anticipated The modern principles of The conservation of Energy and The irreducibility of matter.

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Don't you see just how much this mirrors modern chemistry and physics, and honestly, isn't it a massive leap forward compared to those rigid little squares and pyramids from the Plato-Aristotle's era? We aren't stuck with some unmoving prime mover or these incomprehensible eternal forms floating in an abstract realm; instead, we have atoms and empty space locked in constant motion. Just look at these Democritus's core concepts:

1. Matter can't be created; you can't just pull something out of thin air.
2. Matter cannot be destroyed.
3. The universe is composed of solid bodies and empty space, and there are likely countless other worlds just like ours.
4. These cosmic solid bodies are built from simple or complex arrangements.
5. You can't divide matter infinitely.
6. The smallest particle of a substance that can't be split any further is called an atom.
7. There is an infinite number of atoms existing independently throughout the universe or clustering together to form solid objects.
8. Empty space stretches out infinitely.
9. Atoms are in constant, restless motion.
10. In empty space, atoms move linearly, but within solid bodies, they vibrate.
11. Atoms possess three fundamental properties: shape, size, and weight.
12. It is the combination of shape, size, and weight that dictates the chemical properties of an element.
13. The variety of different types of atoms isn't infinite, but it is incredibly vast.
14. Solid celestial bodies, including stars and planets, were formed through the grouping and collision of atoms.
15. Life on Earth emerged through that same process—atoms colliding and bonding, evolving from simple organisms to more complex ones, starting with plants, then animals, and finally humans, which hits right at the heart of evolutionary theory.
16. The Milky Way is essentially a collection of stars similar to our Sun.
17. There are many worlds out there like ours, and they probably host intelligent beings too.

By establishing that matter is indestructible, that atoms are in perpetual motion, and that nothing comes from nothing, Democritus actually anticipated the modern principles of The conservation of Energy.

I realize it’s absolutely mind-blowing to someone as clueless as you that these kinds of ideas were actually floating around 2,500 years ago. And don't worry, you aren't the only one struggling to wrap your head around this; most people fall into the same trap. You're just another sheep following the herd instead of using your own brain. 🙂

So, here we are: you're totally enamored with Plato, yet you have the nerve to nitpick Democritus because his concept of particles doesn't perfectly align with how we understand quantum physics today. Let's be clear, Democritus's physics was inherently deterministic, much like Newton's classical physics (and keep in mind that Newton was well aware of Democritus's atomism, just as Galileo was, both of whom were undoubtedly influenced by him).

However, it wasn't long before Epicurus, a follower of Democritus, introduced one crucial modification. He suggested that an atom could suddenly and spontaneously swerve from its straight path—its behavior becomes unpredictable, which is strikingly similar to the modern uncertainty principle we deal with now.

When you take these stances from Democritus and Epicurus and add Aristarchus's heliocentric model into the mix, you start to see that 300 years before Christ, the very foundations of modern science—modern chemistry, astronomy, and physics—were already being laid down. Sure, if you tried to build an atomic bomb using nothing but these atomistic theories, someone like Saddam Hussein wouldn't have stood a chance, but we have to remember these were philosophical theories rather than hard sciences. They were full of errors and flaws—it's obvious Epicurus had his fair share of brilliant moments and total blunders—but the facts I've listed above served as the fundamental starting points and ideas from which the science we recognize today could eventually evolve over the last 2,000 years.

mistyfox812
It's common practice to assume that anything "real" has to have mass. But photons aren't little marbles (and if they were marbles, why wouldn't they be pyramids or cubes?). Marbles can't undergo interference.
John Walker74
A pyramid won't work, you mean a cube instead, because a pyramid isn't a polyhedron—Plato will come after you if you mention that again....😁

Will you please just stop thrashing around? The more you struggle, the deeper you sink into the swamp of your own ignorance. The water is already up to your neck, and the only thing keeping your head above the surface is your hollow skull🙂filled with helium. The sheer desperation of your position is proven by the fact that you’re calling upon Feynman to defend Plato. That would be like a lamb hiring a wolf to be its lawyer. After all, Feynman had no patience for philosophers who tried to theorize about the material world, let alone those trying to lecture him on the immaterial.

I can, I absolutely can; marbles, electrons, protons, cubes, pyramids, apples, pears, planets—everything that exists can interfere. It's just that with macro-sized objects, the effects are so infinitesimally small that nobody notices them. Go find Feynman's explanation of the double-slit experiment; it's an absolute classic, and nobody explained that experiment better than he did. Maybe then you'll finally grasp that marbles actually can interfere.

But let's look at whatFeynman says about light. Since you brought him up first, I assume you hold his opinion in high regard. As it happens, I have about a dozen of his books sitting on my shelf at home, including the famousLectures on Physics.

I want to emphasize that light comes in this form – particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I’m telling you the way it does behave – like particles. R. Feynman / QED

If you don't trust the lawyer you called yourself, who else are you going to turn to? Let's see what else your legal counsel has to say about photons, which you seem to think are nothing more than figments of the imagination.

…… Thus we see immediately that the energy of a photon must be momentum times c, or if c = 1, the energy and momentum are equal. That is to say, the rest mass is zero…. If it is a particle of zero rest mass, what happens when it stops? It never stops! It always goes at the speed c. ………the photon really can (and does) have energy even though it has no rest mass, but this it possesses by perpetual going at the speed of light.
Six Easy Pieces – Richard P. Feynman

So, from the evidence, you can see that even your own lawyer is against you, and that everything I stated in my last post was spot on. Much to your disappointment, light isn't some kind of world spirit; it consists of particles—photons—that possess their own energy and momentum, just like any other physical particle. The material world is comprised of everything we can measure with our physical instruments, and light is no exception.

My dear mistyfox812, this is pointless now. I would love to keep giving you private tutoring sessions in physics, math, philosophy, and history over the internet, but quite frankly, I don't have the time anymore. We've debunked plenty of myths regarding Plato, and almost everything regarding you.

I hope that after this lesson, you won't be so blindly idealizing Plato. Be open to all ideas, but never so open that you lose your common sense. Otherwise, you'll spend your whole life blindly following things you can't understand and can't even wrap your head around.

Cheers!

👋

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Anyone who’s actually tried to replicate that experiment knows those two rocks aren't hitting the ground at the exact same time.
They’d drop simultaneously in a vacuum, sure, but not in air. And Galileo didn't have access to a vacuum.
John Walker-
And where on earth was poor Galileo supposed to get a vacuum? You were literally claiming in previous posts that empty space doesn't even exist—man, just pick a side already! But whatever, that's not even the point right now.

The point is, since you're such a hardcore follower of Plato, you've clearly never even attempted the actual experiment. That Great Teacher of yours taught you to just toss empirical evidence out the window, didn't he? Honestly, the air resistance on small stones falling at low speeds is so negligible that you don't need some crazy, high-tech setup like you're imagining just to see what happens.

Just grab two rocks of different weights, hold one in each hand, and let go at the same time. You'll see they hit almost perfectly together. The difference is so tiny you won't even notice they weren't simultaneous.

So, "the difference will be so tiny"—meaning they *won't* fall at the same time. There will be a difference. And you can actually see it with the naked eye; it's super subtle, but you can tell one object always hits just a hair before the other. Galileo only concluded that there'd be no difference in a vacuum through pure reasoning. He couldn't actually demonstrate it himself. It's kind of like what Pauli said: ''Contrary to the purely empirical view that natural laws can be rightfully derived only from experimental material, many physicists have recently re-emphasized the fact that intuition and directed attention play an important role in developing concepts and ideas, usually far surpassing mere experience, and that they are necessary for constructing a system of natural laws (i.e., scientific theories).''

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
This conclusion from Galileo comes straight from how he thought about the principle of inertia, which he actually laid down first. It basically says: an object with no net force acting on it just keeps moving at a constant velocity. Did he figure this out through some experiment? Please. Nobody has ever actually seen an object with absolutely zero forces acting on it.
John Walker74-
So, I totally thought the law went like this: an object at rest wants to stay at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion at a constant velocity, provided the vector sum of all forces acting on it equals zero. Like, you don't even get the first Newton's law right, yet here you are trying to lecture me on quantum mechanics. 🙂Ugh... such a total amateur. Good luck talking to him now.

Right this second, I am looking at an object where the vector sum of the forces is zero. This mysterious item "that nobody has ever seen" is the book sitting on my desk. Gravity is pulling the book toward the floor, but the molecular forces in my desk are canceling out that gravitational pull. So the book stays still, and I’m seeing the law of inertia in action—experimental proof that the law is legit. You could technically test the other half of the definition too, but I won't bore you with that since it's probably way over your head anyway.😁 😁

You seem to have some serious issues with historical timelines. And honestly, with reading, too. Galileo wrote it clearly. And I wrote 'on which no force acts' perfectly fine, because that's exactly how Galileo formulated it.
And then you go bringing up Newton, who lived later on.
Next time, if you don't get what I'm saying, just ask.

You seem to think there's some massive difference between moving at a constant velocity and just sitting still. Honestly, it's not surprising—it's the classic mistake people make when they haven't studied physics. A velocity of zero is still a constant velocity. Galileo's principle of relativity basically wipes out that distinction between being at rest and moving at a steady pace that you seem to think is such a big deal (just like Aristotle did).
And, since you're so obsessed with perfect wording, Newton's first law doesn't even mention a vector sum; it just says: '...unless an external force changes that state.'

Yeah, maybe there's a bit of arrogance involved, but mostly it's just plain old ignorance.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
The idea that physical insight moves from experiments toward laws is wrong—it actually works the other way around.
John Walker74-
I didn't specify which direction the insight travels, but honestly, an unexpected experimental result can totally pivot a theory in the right direction. So yeah, the path can definitely go both ways.

Take the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, for instance. It left everyone completely baffled, and we basically had to build a whole new theory just to make sense of what happened. Philosophers could've spent another thousand years just theorizing, and nobody would've even dreamed that time is relative. If they hadn't run that experiment, we might still be lost, because relativity flies in the face of everything we experience in our daily lives. But hey, there's no point talking about Einstein with someone who doesn't even know Newton's first law from middle school.😛 😛😛

That’s exactly the thing—it clicked for Einstein while he was still just a kid, long before he even knew about the Michelson-Morley experiment (that famous hypothetical setup where you try to outrun light). And that’s precisely why Einstein could wrap his head around the Michelson-Morley results when someone like Lorentz—who clearly had it all laid out in front of him—couldn't.

Arrogance is everywhere; actual knowledge? Not so much.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Modern physics is totally built on experimentation and math—the only reason I just brought up math is because of the context I was writing in, you know, the whole Platonism vs. science thing.
John Walker74-
Stupidity is stupidity, no matter what context you wrap it in. And honestly, your little excuse about why modern physics is "just" mathematical physics is so transparent. Look, Plato inspired Kepler, and since Plato dealt with math, sure, call him a great physicist if you want. But claiming someone is a great physicist when they basically stabbed science in the back by teaching us to rely solely on pure reason while ignoring empirical evidence? That’s just ridiculous.

🙂

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And you still haven't learned how to read. I was clearly talking about Platonism and science, not freaking Plato himself. And don't even get me started on that fake thesis of yours about how Plato's teachings set science back.

You're still being arrogant, still lying, and still twisting things.
It's bad for your health, man. No wonder you're feeling sick to your stomach.

John Walker74 said:In order to save ourselves from inventing new words such as wavicles, we have chosen to call these objects “particles”. R. Feynman
So, he wasn't actually suggesting we call them wavicles; he just thought there was zero point in us busting our humps trying to cook up new names like "wavicles."

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That’s exactly my point! We kept the label "particle"—just to avoid making up new words—but that name doesn't actually describe what used to be called a particle. We're stuck with the old terminology, but the whole idea that a particle is some kind of solid little ball? That's totally wrong.
That's why I asked you earlier, "why a sphere instead of a pyramid"—because both ideas are equally messed up.
You've got the wrong idea about what these "elementary particles" actually are.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Look, Democritus didn't actually come up with the law of conservation of energy. That wasn't even formulated until the 19th century. Talk about missing the mark by like two and a half thousand years... total fail.
John Walker74
Oh my god, stop. Seriously. You know, sometimes when I’m scrolling through your posts, I actually feel bad for ever saying your head was empty. I was totally wrong about that. Your brain isn't empty—it's clearly just packed full of helium. Honestly, if it weren't for that one tiny little wire running from your left ear to your right, you probably wouldn't even be able to walk straight without tripping over your own feet. Just... please, pray that wire doesn't snap, because then your ears might actually fall off. That's basically how I picture your brain anatomy working.😬😬

So, you're asking me to actually write out how that conservation law works? Hey, if I pull it off, maybe I'll snag a Nobel Prize or something! Haha. Look, there are all sorts of different forces and energy types out there. You might think this whole thing was just hashed out back in the 19th century and we were done for good, but that's not how it goes. Just like how we kept discovering brand new forces and energies in physics, the law of conservation of energy has kept evolving and popping up in all kinds of different forms. It’s a moving target, really.

Thermodynamics has its laws about energy conservation, mechanics has its own thing, electromagnetism does its own thing, and nuclear physics? Yeah, that’s got its own set too. But they all share this one single principle: you can flip energy from one form to another, but you can't just delete it. And honestly, nobody has ever managed to break that rule yet.

Anyway, just a quick thought on how Democritus understood physics and that whole energy conservation thing. I’m feeling way too lazy to type this all out myself, so I’m just gonna copy-paste from a legit source:

So, Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace. The guy was a prolific writer, but honestly, we’re left with basically nothing but scraps and fragments of what he actually said. Still, his take on atomic theory was wild for the time. He argued that everything in existence is just made of these tiny, invisible, indestructible little bits of pure matter—atoms, or "indivisibles"—just bouncing around forever in an infinite void. Here’s the kicker: even though all these atoms are made of the exact same stuff, they vary in their shape, size, weight, order, and position. It's like... the reason we see different things, or why things grow and die, isn't because the atoms themselves change, but because of how they’re all clumped together. Democritus viewed The creation of Worlds as The Natural consequence of The ceaseless whirling motion of atoms in space. Basically, atoms just smash into each other and spin around until they form bigger chunks of matter. Pretty heavy stuff, right?

Man, it’s wild to think about, but his atomic theory actually anticipated the modern principles of the conservation of energy and the irreducibility of matter. Just crazy how ahead of his time he was.

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So, like... okay. Basically, this whole idea of energy? It traces back to Aristotle, which means it actually comes after Democritus. But honestly, the way we talk about it in physics today is totally different from how Aristotle saw it. It wasn't until the 19th century that we finally figured out that all these different types of energy can actually be boiled down to one single physical value. Crazy, right?
Man, you missed the mark by like two thousand years. Seriously, you're way off on the whole concept too.

So, saying someone "anticipated" something? Please. You could argue Parmenides anticipated it too, or some other random guy for all I care. But look, what we’re actually talking about here is the heavy lifting—finding the serious, rigorous work required to actually formulate that law.

Essence said:mistyfox812
This Galilean conclusion basically comes from his thoughts on inertia—you know, that principle he actually pioneered. It’s the idea that an object keeps moving at a constant speed unless some force hits it. Did he figure this out through experiments? Please. No one has ever actually seen an object with zero forces acting on it.
So you're asking if Galileo reached the law of inertia via experimentation? Nah, he didn't. He got there because his eternal soul, which just happens to be temporarily chilling in his body, revealed the secret he picked up from Plato.🤣

Oh, come on, stop talking nonsense. If poor Galileo hadn't spent years rolling balls down inclined planes, he never would've stumbled onto the law of inertia—even if he'd sat around abstracting and meditating on it for a million years like all those guys before him.

And honestly, what even is "body inertia" if there isn't actually a force acting on it? Nobody knows. You can guess, sure, but you can't claim anything for certain because there's zero experimental proof. But hey, this conversation is probably way too heavy for you anyway.😬 😬
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Then Einstein starts rambling too—and I'm quoting him again since it clearly didn't sink in the first time: ''Only theory determines what we measure.'' If poor Galileo hadn't already had a hunch about it, he wouldn't have bothered rolling those balls. Hundreds of other people could've rolled the exact same balls and never realized what was actually happening.

Still, Einstein is just talking trash. Arrogant ignorance, if you ask me.

Essence said:mistyfox812
Saying "particles stay particles" is basically a total nothingburger.
Feynman actually suggested using the term "wavicles" just so people wouldn't get stuck thinking these "particles" are some kind of tiny little marbles.

Essence-
Haha, wow 😂..... I am literally laughing my ass off over here. Seriously, mistyfox812, knock it off, man... What do you even have in your head instead of a brain? Just a piece of wire
to keep your ears from falling off? 🙂

Let me break this down for you: your whole argument about light being a wave in one case and a particle in another is straight out of the pre-quantum era. Quantum physics actually exists because we needed a single theory that works across the board for every experiment—not so we can switch between wave equations and treating light like a swarm of bullets depending on how we feel like doing the math.

Anyone who actually knows anything about physics can see just how much you're struggling with modern principles. But hey, you clearly don't have a clue, and since you can't prove me wrong, you just stay quiet.

After I went through the trouble of explaining that, unlike classical physics, particles in quantum mechanics have an associated wave function used to calculate the probability of finding a particle in a specific spot...

Honestly, I was gonna skip this because talking to you felt totally pointless.
But since a philosopher's job is basically calling out people who think they’re geniuses when they actually know nothing, I guess I have to deal with your arrogant ignorance. And honestly? As long as you're this cocky, there's no hope for you to ever actually learn anything.
So, here’s a question for you: how is probability linked to a WAVE function?
Why is that function called a wave function specifically?
Is there anything in probability theory that suggests probability should be described by a wave function?
And is there anything in classical mechanics regarding collisions between billiard balls that suggests those probabilities should be handled by some kind of WAVE function?

If you can actually wrap your head around what those questions are asking, maybe then you'll realize why "elementary particles" aren't just little tiny balls.

Essence said:mistyfox812
It’s just common sense to assume that if something exists, it’s got mass, right? But photons? They aren't some little tiny marbles—I mean, even if they were, why stop at spheres? Why couldn't they be pyramids or cubes or something else entirely? Besides, you can't get interference from a bunch of little balls. It just doesn't work like that.
Essence
But seriously, let's take a look at what we're actually dealing with here.Feynman So, he's talking about light. Since you brought him up first, I'm guessing you've got some serious respect for his take on things. Honestly, lucky you—I actually happen to have about ten of his books sitting on my shelf right now, including those famous ones.Lectures on Physics.

I really want to... I mean, seriously... just look at it. You really have to emphasize how much this matters. It's not just some small thing you can brush off, you know? It's huge. Like, massive. I'm being totally for real here. It hits different when you actually sit down and wrap your head around the scale of it all. It’s everything. So, that's how the light hits us—just like that. Particles... man, where do you even start? It's wild to think about. Everything we see, everything we touch—it's all just these tiny, frantic little bits of energy dancing around. It feels almost impossible to wrap your head around, right? Like, how can something so small be the foundation for everything so massive? Just makes you feel pretty small sometimes, honestly. But also kind of incredible.Look, you’ve gotta get this: light acts like a particle. Seriously. Especially if you actually paid attention in school—you probably spent half your time being lectured about how light is just some wavy thing. But forget that for a second. You need to understand the particle side of things. I'm serious, man—the way it actually acts? It’s totally behaving like particles.. R. Feynman / QED

Man, Feynman just loved to joke around.
Like, in that book of his, he does such an awesome job breaking down wave optics—you know, where light basically acts just like a wave? It’s super cool.
Of course he gets it—he knows light acts like a wave and also plays by the particle rules. He’s basically trying to mash both models together under this new idea of a "particle" that somehow covers all the bases.
But look, this whole new idea of what a particle actually is? It’s definitely not just some Democritus-style little hard ball rolling around. That's old school. We're talking about a whole complex set of symmetries and quantum numbers instead. Totally different beast.

Essence said:I mean, seriously? If you don't trust a lawyer you actually went out and hired yourself, who else are you gonna turn to? Like, really? Let’s see what else your legal counsel has to say about photons being nothing more than total figments of our imagination. Unbelievable.

So, get this: it’s pretty obvious right off the bat that a photon's energy is just its momentum multiplied by *c*. Or, if you're playing around with units where *c* equals 1, then energy and momentum are basically the same thing. Which totally means the rest mass is zero... but wait, if we're talking about a particle with zero rest mass, what actually happens if it stops? Well, it doesn't! It can't! It's stuck cruising at the speed of light forever. It's wild, but a photon actually carries energy despite having no rest mass—it just gets that energy from constantly, perpetually ripping through space at the speed of light.
Man, I just started diving into Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman. Honestly? It’s kind of blowing my mind. Like, I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this guy just writes differently. He makes the heavy stuff feel... I don't know, reachable? It's definitely not some dry, soul-crushing textbook you'd find at a university library. It feels more like sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle, grabbing a latte, and having this absolute genius explain the universe to you without making you feel like an idiot. Seriously, if you haven't picked this up yet, you're missing out. Total game changer.

Look, from what you just said, it’s pretty obvious even your own lawyer isn't backing you up. Everything I laid out in my last post? Spot on. And honestly, much as it pains you to hear it, light isn't some mystical "world spirit" or whatever. It's just particles—photons—carrying their own energy and momentum just like any other physical particle out there. At the end of the day, the material world is just everything we can actually measure with our instruments, and yeah, that includes light too.

Look, I never said a photon was a ghost, and I definitely didn't say it lacks energy or momentum. You’re seriously twisting my words and making stuff up now. Honestly, man, you're gonna end up regretting this kind of behavior.
So, I was saying there’s basically zero reason to assume a photon is shaped like a little sphere—what's your take on that? And honestly, when people toss around the word "matter," they usually aren't talking about stuff without mass, like light. It’s just standard practice to draw a line between "matter" and "radiation," kind of like how we look at the conditions in the early universe.
Look, if you just go ahead and swap out the actual meaning of a word, sure—you're "right." But that's a total cop-out. You could just redefine every single term on the fly and technically never be wrong, but that kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?