Particles and waves are no longer fundamental to our understanding, fields are. Particles and waves are both specific solutions to the underlying quantum field theory equations, just like electromagnetic radiation such as light is a solution to Maxwell's equations. The whole particle vs wave stuff is from the 20s and 30s before QFT was developed and came to dominate or understanding of physics at a fundamental level.

It's not just that, though. Even a single electron (or photon, or ...) can exhibit wave-like properties under specific conditions, e.g. in the double-slit experiment.

I think d2's point is just that "wave-like" and "particle-like" are kind of metaphors here, rather than ontological absolutes. The terms convey an analogy to something more familiar in human experience, but the analogy only works so far. Whatever electrons are, they are neither particles nor waves in the simple sense the analogy conveys. But they are similar in some respects.

Yes, that is pretty much exactly my point - thanks. Also that we shouldn't underpin philosophy on these metaphors and interpretations of subatomic level wave/particle/string/field behaviours, which is what Luckbox was doing when he said "materialism is dead", IMO.

I'm now quite a bit out of my depth with the introduction of quantum field theory to this thread.
Materialism is still dead though.

There does seem to be quite a few people that are getting into simulation theory but are firmly against any kind of religious or spiritual ideas. I like to point out that thinking of the simulation admin or designer or whatever as God causes you to end up with something pretty similar at least in terms of the basic construct of reality.

You end up with something like: "My consciousness is linked temporarily to a simulated reality until time of my bodily death."

Instead of something like: "My soul is linked to a human body within God's creation until time of my bodily death."

Me too, tbh.

Nobody is suggesting you should subscribe to some philosophy you don't want to subscribe to. I'm just saying that using interpretations of QM to inform your decision is probably misguided, and claiming that science and religion are "equally crazy" based on QM interpretations is just absurdly out of line.

https://youtu.be/wM0IKLv7KrE
This video is actually quite good and discussss a number of things that have been brought up already and introduces some new ones as well.

A theory such as this, which has no predictive value, is a fun intellectual exercise, but it doesn't help us advance our understanding of the world around us. Much like religion would be a fun intellectual exercise, if its adherents treated it as such instead of using it as a guiding principle.

I'm not going to watch some 20 minute video which from the first 30 second reminds me of "Loose Change". Summarise it in your own words please!

It's basically everything I've said, but from someone who has a better grasp of the lines of evidence than me. Hard to summarize that without just repeating myself-- video is called "quantum physics debunks materialism".
The additional part is the experimental evidence that gets cited.

The bolded is ESSENTIAL to understand.

Philosophy encompasses ALL disciplines.

Courses in "Political Philosophy", "Philosophy of Science", and "Philosophy of Religion" are all offered in most Philosophy Departments.

Last week I attempted to engage in an Ethics thread in SMP, and was told by a mod there (Zeno) that I couldn't introduce God into the conversation.

Rather curious that Augustine, Aquinas and "The Divine Command"Theory of Ethics" is off-limits in a "Philosophy" forum.

I strongly agree with the last sentence. I even actively wish there were more open-minded multi-faith discussions by people throughout the world. Unfortunately so many people have a strong emotional conviction that one in particular is the obvious truth of the universe.

I do think you're a bit too dismissive of "fun intellectual exercises" though. I believe the problems of religion can be relieved not only through abolition of religious thought but also through evolution of thought and new ideas. I can't prove it, though I feel pretty strongly that simulation theory for instance has entered the mind of a person which then caused them to distance themselves from a more harmful ideology. I see that as a win for humanity regardless of whether or not anything has been empirically proven.

Any of the Ten Commandments could have been contemplated before.

For the Christian or the Religious Jew, the Ten Commandments are binding because God Himself is the One "commanding" our obedience to them.

Since (from a Biblical perspective) God created all persons, He could certainly provide sufficient intelligence and moral discernment to certain individuals who can "discover" the correctness of the Commandments prior to God Himself codifying them on stone tablets that He gave to Moses.

Just to clarify - I don't mean that theories such as religion and simulation have no predictive value because they haven't been proven, I mean they have no predictive value by construction. If simulation theory were ever definitively shown to be true, nothing in it would help advance our knowledge of the world around us: we would still need to conduct science exactly as we were before, now with the knowledge that we are living in a simulation. Same goes for an omnipotent creator. Unless, of course, our overlord(s) choose to switch things up once they've been busted.

ETA: I suppose there is that whole "life after death" thing in religion which doesn't exactly neatly fit into the above. That could be huge if true.

One correction that should be made here is that it isn't just using interpretations of QM to inform beliefs-- it is also using interpretations of the experiments themselves-- like the double slit or quantum eraser stuff-- to inform them. And experimental evidence should be considered quite a bit stronger than theoretical musings, however strong the math is there as well.

Fun fact - if you go to a random Wiki page, and click the first non-parenthesised (i.e. etymology/pronunciation) link and repeat, you will get to the "Philosophy" page within an average of something like 10-15 clicks.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Interpretations of the double slit experiment and interpretations of QM are the same thing. I think maybe what you mean is that you can "see" these interpretations in action via experiment?

I tried it with "topicalization", which is one of my favorite linguistics topics. 6.
Topicalization-> Syntax -> Linguistics --> Science -> Knowledge-> Experience -> Philosophy.
Fun.

Source? Don't say the Book some old guys made up on their own.

Yeah, you chose a fairly "academic" page, so it won't take as long. If you look up a movie or something, or just use "Random Page", it'll take a bit longer. The cycle of the last 4 (Science --> Knowledge --> Experience --> Philosophy) appears pretty often too, obviously.

"Veeeeery interesting."

(Old people like me will recognize the quote.)

I get what you're saying about how science still needs to be conducted regardless.

What I view as preferable religious thought would result in a belief system that embraces science.

If you can imagine a hypothetical society with only extreme fundamentalists of whichever anti-science religion sect, simulation theory, and agnosticism. Then imagine that the fundamentalists are not interested in science, but the other 2 groups are. In this hypothetical, if simulation theory existing results in 5% less fundamentalists over time then the pro-science population has increased. And presumably over time some of that population will make a scientific contribution they would not have otherwise.

I wonder though if all experimental results can be inferred from the theories. You'd likely say "yes, duh, the math is 100% correct". But I'm not sure that is the case. When the double slit experiment was first done, for example, would it have been hypothesized that a detector at the slit would eliminate the interference pattern? Idk. Regardless, the results are stronger evidence.
Your line has basically been "the math works so don't worry about the crazy results". But I don't see a justification for that.

That's not my line at all. My line is more that you consider the results crazy, because of your pre-conceived notions of how "matter" and "energy" behave from observations at macroscopic scales. But those macroscopic scale behaviours are emergent properties of those counter-intuitive subatomic scale particle/wave/field/string interactions. Much like the concept of "temperature" is an emergent property of the average kinetic energy of a large number of particles - you can't take the "temperature" of a single particle - the concept simply doesn't exist. The fact that matter doesn't simultaneously exhibit particle-like and a wave-like behaviours at scales accessible to the human senses has inhibited our imagination - we are primarily experiential learners, after all.

I mean sure, if your argument is that it would be beneficial to convert fundamentalist religionists to a less societally harmful belief system, I'm all for it. I don't think that is at odds with anything I've said ITT.