No no not the right, but the left okay!


Immanuel Kant thought long and hard about a dispute between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebniz. I did post something on Liebniz, which had not even received one reply! Amazing. Anyway not to be off topic we shall continue.

Newton claimed that space was a king of theater (he called it "God's sensorium) in which locations are absolute. It followed that, had God placed all the particles in the Uinverse 100 miles (161 kilometers) - yes I calculated this - thank you very much. from their present locations while keeping their distances the same, he would have made a different universe.

Leibniz thought this was absurd!

Is it?

We shall see what you think.

Leibniz said that God would have no reason to put the particles in one place rather than another. Instead, he said that space is not a place, but rather that space consists of relations of distance between particles.

Immanuel Kant thought he could prove Newton right and Leibniz wrong with a thought experiment. He imagined a universe in which there existed nothing but a left hand, and a different universe in which there was nothing but a right hand. All of the relations between all of the particles that made up the hand were exactly the same in the two cases.

They were mirror images so to say. Kant argued that since the two situations were obviously different, space was more than distance relations between particles.

So it was thought that Leibniz is wrong and Newton was right.

Who is right? Who is wrong? Or neither are right? Or both are right?

What do you believe to be true?


Here is more to think about -

The debate between absolutists and relationists about space continues to this very day as you probably already know. Relationists reply to Kant that his thought experiment is misleading. He is really imagining a universe with more than a left (or right) hand in it. He is imaginging himself in the universe looking at the hand, and that is enough for the relationist to find distance realtions that distinguish left from right.

Some physicists claim that the laws of nature themselves require an absolute distinction between left and right to account for the decays of certain particles.

Well I thought it was interesting to share.

My current suspicion (I hate to use the word belief because that sounds like I actually think I know something), so my suspicion is that they were both wrong. They were both starting with the premise that the universe is actually 'physically' made up of hard-ball 'particles' at some level.

It's my understanding that modern science no longer supports that view. So I would just suggest that neither of these men were right because their ideas were based on a premise that we have since experimentally discovered to be false.

So both of their arguments would be irrelevant based on today's observations of the nature of the "physical" world.



No I wasn't aware that such debates are still ongoing. I was taught that a gentleman by the name of Albert Einstein had settled that debate with his discover of the mathematical relationships of Relativity. The mathematical relationships of Relativity describe space and time to be a single fabric of spacetime and that space and time are "relative" property of this fabric. His mathematical relationships predict that time and space malleable this has been observationally confirmed by experiment the time dilate actually does occur in this universe.

Einstein also predicted mathematically and energy and matter are merely relative aspects of a single 'substance' or 'stuff' and they two are malleable relative to each other. Unfortunately, proof that Albert Einstein was correct in this was demonstrated on two cities in Japan named Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So it seems to me that anyone today who is still arguing for any kind of "absolutism" is simply not paying attention.

I would side with the opponents of Kant. In order for there to be any "difference" between the LH universe and the RH unverse, the two universes must be compared. Thus, there is a "relationship" between the two, and so "relativity" enters the picture.

(Yes, that has already been covered, pretty much. I'm just bored. Blame it on itchy typing fingers. )

Immanuel Kant couldn't have you bored could he Skyhook? Well maybe his philosophy can get someone bored.

I am just playing. I hope your weekend served you well.

How did I miss your post on Leibniz? I was just reading "Reflections on the Common Concept of Justice."

Methinks . . . you haven't . . . the right grasp, but you're on the right track in your posts (not for romance, of course, unless you hope to date Lilith from "Frazier") for intellectual freedom. My piddlin' mind's opinion.

Grace & Peace,

Country

Here is the post I put up for Leibniz! No replies, but again maybe not worthy of one either. I wouldn't know of course

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/244574

May the peace and grace serve you will in your country.

There are several very important steps missing in this argument, maybe? I don't follow it. I mean I follow it and don't see its point.

How were the two situations obviously different? Other than being mirror images? If there were no movements within the RH and LH universes, then there were no differences. Only visual differences to an outside observer. If there were movements in the universes, and a spin was rotating Leftwardly in the RH universe, and the corresponding spin was rotating Rightwardly in the LH universe, ther would be still no difference between the universes. None that I could see. Two corresponing observers could not take an equal path differently, if they observed their own universe's handedness. If they both knew of an "outside" handedness, like someone here said, they would not be confined to their own respective universes so the thought experiment loses one of its premisses on which Kant's argument was based.

Yes, you Kan argue with Kant.

Good one!

I'm blushing.

There is more. "The little philosopher that could." "Snowhite and the seven philosophers." "The philosopher and the bean-stalk." "The philosopher who cried 'Categorical imperative!'"