Does anybody really support mind-independent reality?
Your basic mind-independent model is typically some kind of physicalism.
There exists but one world. It is physical and has stuff, and the stuff eventually and incidentally produced us among other observers. All but the last part would be true even had say Earth abiogenesis not occurred.
This sort of (what I find naive) reasoning worked fine a couple centuries ago, but sort of falls apart on analysis given things we've learned since then. Part of what has been learned is the incredible unlikelihood of our universe's fundamental constants being what they are. This was first noted and became a foundation of the ID argument for God.
There is one world. The tunings are unlikely by hundreds of orders of magnitude, thus we have a gap that God can fill.
Weak Anthropic Principle
But a more reasonable answer is to ditch the 'one world; premise and instead posit an awful lot of worlds with random tunings (like worlds with only radiation and 3 dimensions of time and such). The weak anthropic principle (wAP) says that only worlds tuned for complexity will evolve observers. To say 'the universe exists' is actually to say 'this universe exists' and not the others. Why? Because we observe it.
The word 'exists' has its origins to mean 'stands out' which often implies that there is something to which it stands out. Hence it stands out to humans of course, making the world all that is particularly relevant to humans. That makes any asserted existence seemingly pretty mind dependent.
Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? I am not positing idealism, where there is no distinction between a concept and the ding-an-sich. I'm just noting that human biases tend to slap on the 'real' label to that which is perceived, and resists slapping that label on other things, making it dependent on that perception.
Eleatic Principle
Another principle that dates back to the Greeks is the Eleatic Principle (EP). I could not find any page on it, but it is mentioned in wiki (without hotlink), and there's a couple articles on it.
I found ctepbj.pdf by Colyvan who notes arguments for and against the principle. Some noteworthy quotes from near the top:
"Principle 1 (The Eleatic Principle) An entity is to be counted as real if and only if it is capable of participating in causal processes"
This wording of the principle is almost mind independent except for the 'counted as' part, and I've seen it worded without that. The principle implies that ontology is only meaningful regarding causal structures. It implies that say the 'objects' in a simple cellular automation (the actual structure, not a simulation of it) are real, but perhaps integers are not real (I could argue otherwise).
"The Eleatic Principle or causal criterion is a causal test that entities must pass in order to gain admission to some philosophers ontology. This principle justifies belief in only those entities to which causal power can be attributed, that is, to those entities which can bring about changesin the world"
Now the tone changes. Gone is 'considered real', which gets replaced by "to gain admission to some philosophers ontology". This highlights that ontology itself might not be fundamental, but rather the opposite: that it is merely an ideal, a mind-dependent concept corresponding to nothing in itself.
Secondly, the phrase 'the world' is introduced, implying only one world being real and not the others. A completely mind-independent definition is mutilated to a completely mind dependent one within a couple paragraphs of each other. Being 'real' means being relevant to us, standing out to us.
Colyvan quotes Keith Campbell in his paper, who notes a similar thing:
"[i]This search for a criterion for the real must be understood as a search for a criterion for us to count something as real ...
There need not be, and probably cannot be, any critical mark of the real itself; the real is what is, period[/i]."
My prior topic attempted to illustrate the lack of justification of mind-independent reality. Campbell here seems to imply that it is a strong human need to find one, but in the end, as my other topic poorly found out, it cannot be justified. It is what it is, and what it is is apparently what we say it is.
Quantum Mechanics
All the above is classical reasoning. Quantum mechanics also contributed to the demise of a nice neat singular classical reality. A third principle to consider is one that QM definitely brings into question.
The Principle of Counterfactual Definiteness (PCD) asserts "the ability to assume the existence of objects, and properties of objects, even when they have not been measured". Efforts have been made to demonstrate say the existence of a photon 'in flight', only to come up empty. Photons only exist in the past of the event at which they are measured. This is true for the state of any system. Sure, the moon exists 1 second ago and the probability of it going 'out of existence' (whatever that means) in one second is absurdly low, so it has a classical existence 'now'. But the exact 'current' state of the moon is not in any way fact.
Bohmian mechanics takes that principle as a premise. Almost no other interpretation does.
What do we take away from all this? Perhaps that ontology runs backwards. The existence of a causal thing is not objective, but rather works backwards from the arrow of time. Future measurements cause past measured events to come into existence, at least relative to the measurement done. And by 'measurement', I mean any physical interaction, not a mind-dependent experiment does with intention. Such a definition would be quite consistent with the Eleatic Principle, no?
There exists but one world. It is physical and has stuff, and the stuff eventually and incidentally produced us among other observers. All but the last part would be true even had say Earth abiogenesis not occurred.
This sort of (what I find naive) reasoning worked fine a couple centuries ago, but sort of falls apart on analysis given things we've learned since then. Part of what has been learned is the incredible unlikelihood of our universe's fundamental constants being what they are. This was first noted and became a foundation of the ID argument for God.
There is one world. The tunings are unlikely by hundreds of orders of magnitude, thus we have a gap that God can fill.
Weak Anthropic Principle
But a more reasonable answer is to ditch the 'one world; premise and instead posit an awful lot of worlds with random tunings (like worlds with only radiation and 3 dimensions of time and such). The weak anthropic principle (wAP) says that only worlds tuned for complexity will evolve observers. To say 'the universe exists' is actually to say 'this universe exists' and not the others. Why? Because we observe it.
The word 'exists' has its origins to mean 'stands out' which often implies that there is something to which it stands out. Hence it stands out to humans of course, making the world all that is particularly relevant to humans. That makes any asserted existence seemingly pretty mind dependent.
Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? I am not positing idealism, where there is no distinction between a concept and the ding-an-sich. I'm just noting that human biases tend to slap on the 'real' label to that which is perceived, and resists slapping that label on other things, making it dependent on that perception.
Eleatic Principle
Another principle that dates back to the Greeks is the Eleatic Principle (EP). I could not find any page on it, but it is mentioned in wiki (without hotlink), and there's a couple articles on it.
I found ctepbj.pdf by Colyvan who notes arguments for and against the principle. Some noteworthy quotes from near the top:
"Principle 1 (The Eleatic Principle) An entity is to be counted as real if and only if it is capable of participating in causal processes"
This wording of the principle is almost mind independent except for the 'counted as' part, and I've seen it worded without that. The principle implies that ontology is only meaningful regarding causal structures. It implies that say the 'objects' in a simple cellular automation (the actual structure, not a simulation of it) are real, but perhaps integers are not real (I could argue otherwise).
"The Eleatic Principle or causal criterion is a causal test that entities must pass in order to gain admission to some philosophers ontology. This principle justifies belief in only those entities to which causal power can be attributed, that is, to those entities which can bring about changesin the world"
Now the tone changes. Gone is 'considered real', which gets replaced by "to gain admission to some philosophers ontology". This highlights that ontology itself might not be fundamental, but rather the opposite: that it is merely an ideal, a mind-dependent concept corresponding to nothing in itself.
Secondly, the phrase 'the world' is introduced, implying only one world being real and not the others. A completely mind-independent definition is mutilated to a completely mind dependent one within a couple paragraphs of each other. Being 'real' means being relevant to us, standing out to us.
Colyvan quotes Keith Campbell in his paper, who notes a similar thing:
"[i]This search for a criterion for the real must be understood as a search for a criterion for us to count something as real ...
There need not be, and probably cannot be, any critical mark of the real itself; the real is what is, period[/i]."
My prior topic attempted to illustrate the lack of justification of mind-independent reality. Campbell here seems to imply that it is a strong human need to find one, but in the end, as my other topic poorly found out, it cannot be justified. It is what it is, and what it is is apparently what we say it is.
Quantum Mechanics
All the above is classical reasoning. Quantum mechanics also contributed to the demise of a nice neat singular classical reality. A third principle to consider is one that QM definitely brings into question.
The Principle of Counterfactual Definiteness (PCD) asserts "the ability to assume the existence of objects, and properties of objects, even when they have not been measured". Efforts have been made to demonstrate say the existence of a photon 'in flight', only to come up empty. Photons only exist in the past of the event at which they are measured. This is true for the state of any system. Sure, the moon exists 1 second ago and the probability of it going 'out of existence' (whatever that means) in one second is absurdly low, so it has a classical existence 'now'. But the exact 'current' state of the moon is not in any way fact.
Bohmian mechanics takes that principle as a premise. Almost no other interpretation does.
What do we take away from all this? Perhaps that ontology runs backwards. The existence of a causal thing is not objective, but rather works backwards from the arrow of time. Future measurements cause past measured events to come into existence, at least relative to the measurement done. And by 'measurement', I mean any physical interaction, not a mind-dependent experiment does with intention. Such a definition would be quite consistent with the Eleatic Principle, no?
Comments (595)
I have no problem at least holding to a mind-independent view or notion or idea, of reality, given a particular set of presuppositions, those in turn given from the kind of intelligence supposed as immediately in play.
Perhaps the key to the inevitable circularity of human reason, is not to get spun out by it.
If it isn't idealism then it must be some form of panpsychism. Minds are not fundamental. Information is. Minds are one of those complexities that arise from exponential information processing. Brains are mental models of other minds and brains are one of the most complex things we know. We understand that complex things arise from an interaction of less complex things.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure, but what about your mind? Is your mind in the past? Based on what you are saying, another's observation of your brain would be in the past, but your mind, for you, is in the present. One might say it is the present, and the past and future are processed information in the mind. The past and future would actually be in the present. Solipsism seems to logically follow from this.
If you're going to make an argument for causal systems being real, but the world is not mind-independent, then what are the causes of your experiences, if not mind-independent? I just don't see how you can say, "mind-independent" and not mean idealism, panpsychism or solipsism.
If you're saying it's backwards then you are saying that complexity is fundamental and simplicity arises from complexity, not the other way around. Is this what you are saying?
If ideas are real then how can you say that they do not independently exist? Do ideas exist independent of rocks? If rocks do not need ideas to exist, do ideas need rocks to exist? You might say that ideas of rocks need rocks to exist, but what about ideas of things that do not exist in the world, like leprechauns? Are ideas of leprechauns independent of rocks?
Is saying that some thing exists independently saying that it can exist without interacting with anything else causally, or that it is a property of one thing and not another (ideas are properties of minds and not properties of rocks so ideas exist independently of rocks), or something else?
Yes. I would defend the following, more or less from Frege (and paraphrased by Michael H. McCarthy):
1. There is an objective reality, independent of, but accessible to human knowledge.
2. Though human error is abundant, and it's often hard to discriminate between mind-independent and mind-dependent reality, we do in fact possess much genuine knowledge of this reality, including the standard parts of mathematics.
3. Not only the natural sciences, but logic and mathematics have objective truths as their subject matter.
Frege wrote:
I think this is too strong. I would replace "grasps" with "interacts with and displays," to allow for the role of human cognition in this process.
Here's what I would not defend:
1. A use of the term "objective" to mean "out there in a timeless, changeless way that is not only independent of how human consciousness pictures it, but also somehow identical to it." (Frege probably did believe this.)
2. A meta-vocabulary in which human knowledge is itself defended as knowably objective and certain. We don't have any such knowledge or certainty. My beliefs -- and yours -- about mind-independent reality are not verifiable in the way that statements in science are.
3. An either/or conception of objectivity and subjectivity, leading to the view that if mind-independent reality is apprehended by a subject, it has therefore been transformed into non-mind-independent reality, and is hence "only subjective."
Hi,
The problem here, in my opinion, is that if every physical object is taken to qualify as an 'observer' (which seems to be implied by your assertion that any physical interaction is a measurement), then the number of 'perspective' is probably to high.
If QM could be in principle be applied at all scales, if you consider, say, the fall of a pen on a table, the 'perspectives' are incredibly many.
The impact between the pen and the table could be described with respect to the whole pen, the tip, the cap, the pen casing and so on. Yes, the advantage here might be that the 'mind' has no special role, but there is an explosion in the number of 'perspectives'.
Personally, I prefer to interpret QM epistemically, in which case there is no 'causal' role of the observer. However, it might mean that there is a limit of that we can know about mind-independent physical reality. I do believe that positing a mind-independent reality is simply necessary to do science, however.It seems the best explanation for the regularities in the world we experience, intersubjective agreement and so on. But maybe an accurate 'picture' of it is beyond our capabilities.
Anyway, I also believe that we now have no problems to interpret epistemically classical mechanics. We do not take literally the existence of 'forces' and so on. We now have no problems as interpreting the entities in classical theories as useful abstractions. So why we should take QM as a faithful 'picture' of reality?
Your dog comes over, making you happy: world ? mind
So no, not independent.
And even if an apparently dogmatic realist insists upon the former interpretation, should we nevertheless interpret him to be a semantic realist? For can we really entertain the idea that the realist is conceiving the world as existing independently of his senses?
Let's say you have a compact disk of Mozart pieces. In a mindless universe, that disk is just a collection of particles assembled in a disk with a bunch of tiny pits. There's no musical information, right? But the CD also obviously contains musical information. Mind is fundamental viz a viz the musical information.
Or take a book about Sherlock Holmes. In a mindless universe, that book is just a collection of inks and pages. There's no Sherlock Holmes there. But that book also contains information about Sherlock Holmes which only a universe with minds could detect.
What about numbers?
I agree but mathematical platonism is very popular.
This is good. I don't know what @noAxioms has in mind, but I take "mind-independence" to express the former, existential thesis. The semantic proposal would follow.
Quoting sime
(I think the realist can be one without being dogmatic!) Not sure what seems un-entertainable about that idea. Could you expand? As best I can tell, the sort of nuanced realism I was laying out earlier does allow me to conceive a world independent of my senses, if by this we mean "existing independently but not necessarily known independently." In the case of math and logic, I would say it's also known independently of the senses, though we may need the senses as a jumping-off place for noetic investigation.
Suppose a realist insists "Metaphysical realism is true". If we understand the realist's beliefs as having a causal explanation in terms of the realist's psychological conditioning and sensory input, then we cannot interpret the realist's assertion "metaphysical realism is true" as representing metaphysical realism. Instead we must interpret his assertion as meaning what we might prefer to express by saying "metaphysical realism is false".
But why need we do this? I myself don't view realism as a fancy sort of physicalism. There are all kinds of ways to get reasons, ideas, intentions, propositions, what have you, into realism. (Which of these might be mind-independent is a different, and complicated, question.) But now I understand what you meant. If the metaphysical realist doesn't countenance reasons, as opposed to psychological and physical causes, then their case is much harder to make. A typical self-referential paradox would seem to result.
As if causal processes were clearer than the chair on which I sit.
The Eleatic Principle looks pretty useless.
Quoting tim woodSo do I, to the point where at any point I want to reference the idea, I will say 'perception of X', 'concept of X', or whatever.
Quoting Harry HinduNot independent at least of the process via which they are implemented.
Quoting Harry HinduNah... My ideas of unicorns exist despite the typical assertion of the nonexistence of the unicorns.
Quoting MwwCannot parse this. Are you speaking of the intelligence making the presuppositions? Would that be you? Is reality dependent on your suppositions?
How is a presupposition distinct from a supposition?
Quoting Harry Hindu
You seem to misunderstand the OP. I'm not suggesting that mind causes the existence of things, but rather that the minds cause the concept of existence of things. Whether that concept corresponds to objective fact is an open issue. People tend to assert the existence of things perceived. (They're presumed to exist) because they are perceived, but I think you're reading it more as They're presumed to (exist because they are perceived). The latter is the idealism I'm not talking about.
Quoting Harry Hindu:up:
Quoting Harry HinduMore to the point, are 'you' in the past, and per the reasoning quoted above, the answer is yes. A relational view is described there, and Rovelli (from Relational Quantum Mechanics) says that a system at a moment in time does not exist since it hasn't measured itself. It can only measure the past, so only prior events exist relative to a measuring event.
Quoting Harry HinduWell, not being a presentist, I would word such comments more in B-series. Any particular brain state includes observation of past states, binding those states into a meaningful identity. I (some arbitrary noAxioms state event) have but one causal past (a worldline terminating at said event), but no causal future since no subsequent state is measured.
This is quite different from a more classical presentist view where only current state exists (all unmeasured, all counterfactual), and the past is but a memory, not real.
Quoting Harry HinduEleatic Principle says that all causal states are real. The principle has an objective wording, not the weird backwards-arrow causal ontology described by the paragraph quoted.
BTW, minds do not come into play with either definition. Your example involved a mind, but it didn't need to.
No, no complexity required at all. Just causal interactions.
Quoting JQuite agree with this. Grasping what is objective truth. Does it being fact imply that 'it is already there'? Do the phrases mean the same thing?
Not so sure about McCarthy's quotes
Quoting J
If it's objective, there's an incredible lot more of it that the tiny spec accessible to humans. So I cannot agree with this statement, or that it follows from the Frege quote. Natural sciences seem to be only relevant to our world, not objectively relevant as is the case with mathematics.
If reality isn't out there in a timeless way, then it is contained by time, a larger reality than 'all of reality', which seems very contradictory. Time seems very much to be a property of this world (and any other causal structure). Intuition might say otherwise, but truth is not the purpose of intuition.
Quoting boundless
Some clarification then. I use 'observer' to mean something like people, any entity which can gather information and attempt to glean its own nature. 'Measure' on the other hand comes from quantum mechanics, the most simple interaction between two 'physical' states, say a rock measuring rain by getting wet and getting a jolt of momentum from the drop. That's a measurement, but not an observation.
Quoting boundlessYes, hence there being an incomprehensible quantity of worlds under something like MWI. You list a classical interaction, but the tiny ones are far more frequent.
Quoting boundlessGo Copenhagen then. It's the point of that interpretation. There's no causal role of the observer in any interpretation except the Wigner interpretation, which Wigner himself abandoned due to it leading to solipsism.
Quoting boundlessI'm not too worried about not knowing about it. But positing that only the parts that we know are all that exists is what makes such a premise in an observer-dependent definition of existence.
Quoting boundlessPositing that the stuff we see is mind independent is indeed necessary to do science. But positing that all of reality is confined to the stuff we see is what I typically see in assertions of what exists. It's a very pragmatic way of looking at it, but not an objective way of looking at it at all.
Quoting simeYou see the distinction then, articulating it in a different way than I had.
Quoting RogueAI
A CD player will still produce the air vibrations of the music. Nothing will be around to interpret those patterns as music though. Tree falls in forest. Ground shakes, as does air, but it that making a sound?
Quoting tim wood
I think there is a thing in itself behind the idea. Sure, isolated minds can independently come up with the same mathematics (unlike any God story), so that's pretty hard evidence of it having more existence than just a shared idea.
Quoting Banno
I think they are clearer. OK, the chair affects you personally, but I cannot conceive of any observer sans some sort of causality being involved. For as old as the definition is, I find it to be elegant and still applicable.
When we talk about things being real, the paradigmatic cases are chairs and rocks and the screen on which you are reading this text. Or "This is a hand".
So set out what "causal processes" are in a way that is clearer than the hand you hold up in front of us.
The Eleatic Principle often gets treated like a clean-cut ontological razorreal only if causally efficaciousbut it does so by assuming that "causal processes" are more intelligible than the very things were trying to assess as real.
Yes, that's utilizing the pragmatic definition, but such a definition is necessarily confined to the entity finding utility in the definition, illustrating my point that such definitions are dependent on said entity, which presumably has something that qualifies as mental processes.
To reach for objectivity, one has to abandon the mind-dependent paradigm. The suggestion of a causal entities is floated as one way to go about it. I tend to go for examples not too close to what most of use would choose, so an example of a causal structure is Conway's Game of Life (GoL). It describes a 2D space+1D time structure where each 2D state is determined from application of its 'laws of physics' to the prior state. That makes it a causal structure. So an 'object' like a glider exists by such a causal definition, and yet you won't find one on your coffee table.
Quoting tim wooda something, not a someone. Yes, it is a relation, and there can be no necessity of a 'someone' if it is to be mind independent. So yes, presuming such a relational definition, you get this:
The question is meaningless with the relational definition, so a different meaning is implied by that usage. Does it exist? Does it matter? Would 2+2 not equal 4 if the 2's lacked existence? Must fire be breathed into the equation for it to be fact?
Which sucks because what little I know of Kant is his idealism, which seems off topic for a discussion of mind-independence, but what do I know of what Kant might contribute?
That practical usage is a relational one, despite most missing that there's a relation implied. I'm trying to go well beyond that practicality. I don't thing the existence of the stone is any sort of illusion. The true nature of it is hardly classical like it's treated, but classical treatment is quite pragmatic. The stone relates to me, and typically that is simplified to objectivity. Why not?
Quoting tim woodPhysics being causal and there being 'a cause' are different things. Got some examples? I mean, a butterfly yawns in Brazil and a hurricane happens 3 months later. Had the butterfly not yawned (like they even can, I know...), the hurricane would not be, but other ones would Is the butterfly the cause of it? Heck no, but it contributed. Is there one cause of the storm? Is there one cause of the murder? Of course not. Does that mean that the guy that shoved in the knife isn't responsible? Probably not.
Maybe I'm off track and your example can let me know what is mean by their being no such thing as a cause.
What does that argue? That becasue this hand is only recognised as such by someone, that therefore there is no real hand? That the rock is not real except when used by someone?
So we have the chair, and an ill- defined notion of one even following another. Which is more real? Which, more intelligible?
What are major causes of infant mortality?
Does polio virus cause paralysis?
Does increased atmospheric CO2 cause global warming?
The list could be extended indefinitely.
Yet none of these are considered in terms of causal relationships?
in fundamental physics causality might not be a basic term in the equations. But in biology, medicine, and climate science, etc causal inference is the basis of explanation, prediction, and intervention. We may not always know the deep metaphysical nature of causality, but we know enough to act on it.
@noAxioms - Kant primer
Yeah, the CD example wasn't that good. I think the Sherlock Holmes one is better. So what do you think of that? Isn't there information in the book about Sherlock Holmes? Can that information still exist in a mindless universe? I don't see how.
[I]For pragmatic purposes [/I] it is what enables the effectiveness of applied science. The difficulty of discerning the precise nature of causality notwithstanding.
Phenomena, by definition, are what appears what shows up in experience and measurement. Causal explanation belongs to that domain. It may not tell us what things are in themselves, but its how science works in practice. Calling causality a convenient fiction overlooks its indispensable role in navigating and understanding the world as it appears.
Yes. Determining what is and is not caused by what is as fraught a question as what is real. Just passing the buck.
(Ill say more later, not able to write more now.)
The polio virus initiates the causal chain that leads to paralysis. That chain includes events like: the virus enters the body ? the immune system fails to contain it ? it infects motor neurons ? tissue damage occurs ? paralysis results. In that sense, the virus is both a necessary condition and the starting point of the process.
Isnt that what we mean by "cause"? If we claim X causes Y, and consistently find through rigorous testing that removing X reliably prevents Y, then were justified in saying X causes Y pending better evidence. Are you arguing for radical skepticism about causes?
Ok, I can appreciate that. But in QM the 'collapse' of the wavefunction happens during measurements. If any physical object can cause a 'measurement' by interacting with any other physical object, then my point of the perspectives remain.
Quoting noAxioms
Absolutely. MWI and RQM share IMO the same problem. They try recover a 'realism' of sorts at the questionable price of implying an explosion of the number of perspectives (though I believe that RQM actually isn't realistic if it doesn't postulate a 'veiled reality' that 'grounds' all the perspectives).
Quoting noAxioms
Well, I do not generally use 'Copenaghen' as a term to describe my views, due to the fact that there are many flavors of 'Copenaghen'. Some of them are not even epistemic as they go too close to abscribing a causal role to mind/consciousness.
I am sympathetic to QBism and d'Espagnat's view of 'veiled reality'. But sometimes it seems to me that even these authors go too far. To me, the lesson we learned from QM is that we should be careful to take physical theories literally. In fact, there is a trend in physical theories since at least the formulation of special relativity. The mathematics becoming more and more abstract, the fact that if we interpret them as a faithful picture of physical reality it becomes stranger and stranger and so on.
On the other hand, this doesn't mean that now we don't know better the physical world. I like the expression 'veiled reality' because it suggests that we can know something but we cannot know the precise relation of our knowledge and 'how the world really is' and, of course, that our knowledge will probably forever be limited.
Anyway, I believe that even in newtonian mechanics the question of perspective was present, with the notion of reference frames. It's clear what that notion means when one thinks about an observer which is at rest with respect to some kind of object. But the problem is: are these reference frames a way of talking about what an observer would observe/experience in a given situation? Or are reference frames the perspectives of physical object themselves ? And what a 'perspective' of a pen might be?
And what about the reality behind these reference frames? Is it describable by the physical concepts we made by trying to make a picture of our own observations? What remains when one 'takes away' everything perspectival (i.e. everyting that is perspective-dependent)?
IMO QM just made these questions more apparent and more pressing. But an analogous interpretative problem was even present in newtonian mechanics, in fact.
Growing up, I heard so many Christians insist "nobody is really an atheist". I even once heard an atheist say "nobody really believes in any gods". Both of those statements are equally absurd.
Yes, people out there really believe in a reality that isn't dependent on minds. Yes, other people out there disagree with that. Yes, people really do disagree with each other. The question shouldn't be, "do people really disagree with me?", obviously they do, the question should be "why do they?"
Don't be so arrogant to think only your beliefs are the ones that anybody truly believes. People believe all sorts of things.
You asked for a defense of a strictly metaphysical condition, re: the mind-independence of reality, which cannot be justified without sufficient criteria for the relation of the conceptions involved to each other.
By stipulating the kind of intelligence involved .you know, in this case, the human kind .and iff it is the case logic is the necessary determining condition for it, the relations determinable by that condition suffice as ground for the presuppositions upon which such intelligence operates and from which all else follows.
On the one hand, then, by saying I hold with a mind-independent view of reality, the only relation I need is apprehending the distinction between me and not me, which in itself doesnt need any defense, insofar as the negation of it, is impossible.
Publicly defending the judgement (yes, reality is mind-independent), on the other hand, which is not the same as the constructing of it, which is merely my private thinking, requires I define the conceptions involved in order to validate their relation to each other, which Im not inclined to do, for the simple reason no one is obliged to agree with them, in which case, and absent such agreement, my defense must fail.
Hardness and porosity do not exist independently of the rock either. So what is the point? Properties do not exist independently of the thing they are part of.
If we were to instead define being independent as being causally separated, then jorndoe provided the simple answer to that question:Quoting jorndoe
So it appears that "independence" in the context of minds, their ideas and the world are not independent at all, in any sense of the word.
Quoting RogueAI
Are you saying that CDs, books and watches can come to be without their being a mind with intent to create them? If a mind went into creating them then these things cannot exist in a mindless universe, so your examples are unrealistic.
Take natural phenomenon, like tree rings in a tree stump. Is a mind necessary for the tree rings to mean the age of the tree, or are the tree rings representative of the age of the tree because of the causal process of how the tree grows throughout the year?
If some mass of molecules absorbed the light reflected off the rings and made some marks somewhere equal to the number of rings and then erased those marks for each ring in another stump, you'd have the age of the first tree when the second one began its life, no mind necessary.
The distinction with minds is that they possess intent, or are goal-directed. Information is everywhere but what information is relevant is dependent upon the present goal in the mind. It's not that there isn't information there. It's just that it is irrelevant to the current goal.
CDs and books contain information more than just the music and stories. They contain information about how and where they were constructed, their authors, the language they are written in and the level of understanding the authors have of the English language, the author's intentions, etc., all causal processes, that are there and ripe for the pickings if your goals were different than to just listen to music or read a story. What if you were a collector of CDs and books? You might organize them based on different types of information contained within them, not just the story or music, like the author, printings, publisher, etc.
You can say that about anything, not just minds and their ideas. Rocks are not independent of the processes that makes them rocks.
Quoting noAxioms
I wonder if you could have the idea of a unicorn without having experienced the existence of horses and horns prior.
Your idea of a unicorn caused you to write the scribble, "unicorn" on the screen, and you can draw a picture of one too - all causal processes. Can your drawing (the paper with the ink marks) exist independently of your idea of the unicorn? I mean would that drawing come to exist if there if you had no ideas of unicorns?
Quoting noAxioms
Then you're talking about solipsism if you are emphasizing the uncertainty of an external world.
I'm not sure if the mind causes concepts. The mind is composed of concepts. Minds certainly do cause the existence of things, like books, CDs and rockets to space.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure. It takes time for the light signals that enter my eye and interpreted by my visual cortex. Everything we see is in the past and the further away it is the further in the past it appears (other stars and galaxies). Classical physics seems to do better at explaining the time difference. How does a system that doesn't exist measure itself?
Quoting noAxioms
Yet memories define present and future interpretations of sensory data. They are what allow us to make predictions. In a deterministic universe, which you seem to be describing, the past, present and future are all informative of each other. We can determine the past by observing present facts and predict the future by observing present facts and integrating past facts. You would need to explain how we are so successful at making predictions (much better than random chance) and implementing them in the world.
Quoting noAxioms
Sure. Minds are but one kind of process in the world. When talking about any process we are talking about causation and information. Minds are not necessary for either, but can be part of both. It just depends on what process we want to talk about.
Then what is the rock? Just another idea?
Yeah, something there that has the properties of hardness and porosity, among others that allow us to distinguish it as a rock instead of a chicken feather.
It's contradictory to assert that we can claim that ideas can be of rocks, but not of the properties that make the thing distinguishable from other things. Are the differences between a rock and chicken feather an idea of something independent of your mind?
Yes, one can distinguish a rock from a chicken, but how can one assert that the rock is an 'individual entity'?
With living beings, I suppose that one can consider them as distinct entities, but with inanimate composite objects the distinction seems more difficult to make. So, in a sense, no, the rock isn't an idea. But in an important sense, I would say that it probably is an idea, indeed. The way we 'carve' the world into physical objects seems to be in part mind-dependent.
Is a chair an unique entity? Are the parts of the chair distinct entities from the chair? Or is the identification of the chair or its parts as different 'things' a mind-dependent construct?
There's a small possibility of that, yes. Boltzmann Brains and whatnot.
Existentially dependent? The mind is doing the conceiving; self-reference; solipsism. Admit it. ;)
Quoting Harry Hindu
It's just because our minds are parts of the world. Partaking in the world means dependencies of sorts.
Quoting RogueAI
This is what I mean by it being typically expressed as a linear chain instead of just part of a network. Yes, the virus plays a critical role in this bit of causation, despite the fact that not all polio victims (such as my mother) get paralyzed. Benefit to it is that when I contracted a disease with similar symptoms (viral meningitis), she got me to a hospital pronto, preventing most complications.
Quoting tim woodYou're asserting that the concept of a cause has no corresponding thing in itself? Sounds like the way I treat objective ontology, but I have a hard time agreeing with this one outside of straight idealism.
Quoting tim woodShowing the faultiness of claiming one 'the cause'. Maybe not ice, which tends to prevent a car from rolling over.
Or from the same book, a man uses dynamite to remove a tree stump (possible, once upon a time). What, exactly, caused the dynamite to explode?
Quoting tim woodThat seems weird. Cannot laws be a cause? What causes water to bond like it does?
Anyway, your objection seems to be semantics. The simplest causal structure applicable to our world is simply that an isolated system described by a wave function, that system evolves according to the Schrodinger equation. That's pretty solid, and covers all the examples you've given.
The example I gave (GoL) had no Schrodinger equation, but the same rule applies: Any closed system evolves according to a different rule.
A cellular automation (CA, not to be confused by a simulation of same) is a classical example of causality, with each state being a function of the immediate prior state. Unlike classical Newtonian physics, the prior state of the CA cannot be determined from a given state. But the structure is causal, even if there is nothing fueling the progression from one state to the the next.
Quoting BannoA definition is only a definition and doesn't argue anything. But one can escalate a definition to a premise. Then it becomes an assertion, something subject to disagreement.
So 'exists' meaning 'a relation between a thing and that which is causally relevant to the thing' is a definition of how a word is used. But then without justification, one tends to presume that only things that exist relative to us via the relational definition above, have objective (and mind independent) existence, which in the case of this example, is self contradictory, and is a good deal of what I am trying to point out in this topic.
Likewise, 'my hand' expresses a relation, and that expression in no way confirms or denies the hand being 'real' or not, especially when 'being real' is obviously meant to leverage a different meaning than the relation of 'real to me'.
Quoting RogueAI
This comes from a comment about information being fundamental, but I don't think information deliberately put in place as communication between minds is what is being suggested as being fundamental.
Quoting Wayfarer
I was actually thinking of quoting the OP of that topic in here since I disagree with the forced perspective you use in your example attempting to discredit a 'view from nowhere', something that actually can be done, but doesn't work well at all with a QM structure lacking counterfactual state.
Quoting boundlessGiven an interpretation with collapse upon measurement, yes. QM theory doesn't say anything about it, and some interpretations don't require any measurement, such as ensemble interpretation.
Agree.
Agree and disagree. Sure, lots of perspectives, and I don't mean just hundreds. RQM says 'real' is a relation to any one perspective event, none of which is itself real. That makes a lot of sense to me. MWI says there is but the one closed wave function, and it is real, not in relation to anything. That's a lot of real perspectives (more than just the infinite perspectives of the Newtonian world where there is no bound to the number of places/events from which an observation can be made.
The big part with which I don't agree is any of that being a problem. OK, I have an issue with how one might explain the reality of whatever one considers to be objectively real, but that problem is one of any sort of realism, including idealism and 'God made it'.
Quoting boundlessThat's because some have tried to rewrite it as an ontic interpretation from its roots as an epistemic one. So I urged going with the epistemic roots and not what came later. All of science, and the theory itself, can be expressed as what we can know and predict, and to hell with how it actually works under the covers.
Which is true for epistemology, no? Don't see that isn't mind dependent.
Quoting boundlessFine then. I am pretty in the dark about those.
Quoting boundlessMaybe it's just showing us that our intuitions are what's being shown to be stranger and stranger. How it really works has no obligation to be something we're comfortable with.
Quoting boundlessCareful. A reference frame is just a coordinate system, an abstraction, and requires neither any object nor observer to be stationary in it in order to be valid. No coordinate system foliates all of spacetime (it can under Newtonian), so any theory that posits an frame that is physical (and not just abstract) necessarily must choose which parts of spacetime are not part of the universe at all.
No. The experience of any observer is not dependent on an abstraction, and is identical from frame to frame, even under non-relativistic theories. These different frames only cause different calculations of coordinates to be made.
Quoting boundlessDon't get you. You mean why does my house look different from the back than it does from the front? Should it not?
Quoting WayfarerMaybe. If all causal structures are based on mathematics, and mathematics is based partly on numbers and their inherent relations, then it can be argued that numbers have the causal properties required to meet the criteria of the principle.
Maybe not, in which case one might find the principle unsatisfactory.
I cannot disagree with this.
Quoting flannel jesusNo, but in discussing ontology in my prior thread, I found not one contributor that put forth something that wasn't essentially 'what exists is what we see', which is too close to 'because we see it'. I was looking for something more objective than that, so the topic title here was specifically worded to push the buttons of those who wanted to suggest otherwise.
I know that, but is it a rational belief, or only a rationalized one? I got few who attempted to justify the position before, so I'm trying to pry it out here by explicitly challenging the claim. I want a discussion. I'm not asserting that the position is necessarily wrong.
That is the question, but had I worded the title that way (instead of a veiled claim), would I get an answer? Didn't work last time when deliberately poked my stick at something else (said EPP) that I felt to be unjustified.
The answer to 'why do they?" seems most often to be 'didn't think that hard about it'. Belief seems synonymous with faith. I don't care about what position one holds, but interrogation of any mind-independent belief seems almost always to turn up to be in fact a belief in something mind dependent.
Quoting MwwWhat I'm looking for is justification for calling the belief to be one of mind-independence. Of course, being a metaphysical opinion, one cannot demonstrate that opinion to be the case. I am just looking for an opinion of mind-independent existence of something that actually holds up to the claim of being mind-independent, and that means something other than "what I see is what exists".
The closest I can get is a full multiverse theory. All possible worlds exist, not just this one. Perhaps not just ones based on quantum mechanics, opening the doors to other structures. This tends to over-bloat the 'exists' list to the point where it isn't distinct from its lack, and it has real problems that need solving, such as why our universe is 'interesting' if there's so many more existing universes that are not interesting, but still contain you.
Quoting RogueAI
Utterly relevant to what I just said, and yes, to the drawing as well. Certain models of reality cannot be the case and simultaneously justified with any empirical evidence due to that problem.
Quoting Mww
I'm not questioning that distinction. I'm questioning where you draw the line between the existing not-you thing and the non-existing things. That's a different distinction than the one you seem to be referencing.
The remainder of your post got into that, rendering it a matter only of opinion, which seems consistent with my findings.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting tim wood
Hardness is not a physical trait, only a concept? I would not concur.
Quoting Harry HinduA matter of a level of creativity I think, to imagine something not based on the parts immediately at hand. Yea, a unicorn is hardly a stretch.
Unlikely but possible, a drawing (or even paper) existing sans intent.
Not at all. That world relates to you as much as it does to me. But confining our declaration of reality to that mutually shared world is what I'm bringing into question.
I'm not sure if the mind causes concepts. The mind is composed of concepts. Minds certainly do cause the existence of things, like books, CDs and rockets to space.
A system state does not measure itself. Subsequent system states measure it, yes, true even under Newtonian physics, although I don't think this relational spinning of ontology was seriously considered back then.
Causal, yes. Deterministic? If all that exists relative to X is in the past of X, then it is fixed history, so yea, I suppose the word ;deterministic' can be used to describe that. Ditto for eternalism where all states exist, even if one state does not uniquely determine the subsequent one (which is what most mean by 'deterministic').
That's what brains and memory is for, as you indicated. All that works without need of a preferred moment in time.
To exist might well be to stand in a relation to something else - perhaps this would be one way to understand Quine, for example. But to restrict the relevant relation to causation is overstretch. You are beginning to mix two distinct ideas of what it might be to exist.
Again, the argument is that "here is a hand" is much clearer, and more direct, than any notion of causation.
What we see an emergent artifact of what exists, not *actually* the same thing as what exists. But even if it was what we see, it seems like YOU are making the logical leap of "because we see it", not the people who you are talking to.
Perhaps so. I had at least two ideas involving causation, one objective (Eleatic principle) and one relational (the ontology by measurement) that only works in a entangle/collapse model like QM offers, and a few really weird examples, with GoL not being one of them.
I had listed 6 ideas of what it means to exist in my other topic, and Eleatic wasn't even one of them.
What do you offer instead? Where is the limit of what exists? Where is the line drawn? Is your line in any way based on empirical input? Is your chosen line open to the sort of critique described in the OP?
"Here is a hand" works, but doesn't utilize a mind-independent notion of ontology.
Quoting flannel jesusConsistent with the view I'm querying, yes. But most that I've interacted with seem to take the 'same thing' assumption, and while that isn't "because we see it", it gets awfully close.
Same questions as above. Where is your line? What puts something on your list of 'probably doesn't exist' besides human fictions? Maybe I am overstepping my assumption that even those that professionally think about such things fail to come up with a description of a mind-independent distinction between real and not.
Quoting tim woodA vast majority of events in the past light cone of the explosion contributes to the cause of the explosion. You question makes it sound like there is one cause. A somewhat immediate cause might be the chemical nature of the dynamite stick, but all such sticks have that nature, and not all of them explode. So it is a necessary cause but not a sufficient one.
Given no change to the prior state (of everything, not just this 'one cause') and given hard determinism, yes the effect in question will happen inevitably from that state. But few interpretations of physics support such determinism.
Quoting tim woodAgree, sort of. The dynamite would probably not be used to remove the stump if there was never a description of how dynamite could be used in that way. A description after the fact cannot be part of the cause of the described event because it's not part of the causal history of the effect event.
Knowledge of causes and the actual causes are rarely aligned. Remember, the causal definition has nothing to do with epistemology, it has to do with causal power (in the case of the eleatic principle) of something, and not which specific causes were instrumental in a particular effect.
Quoting tim woodNope. Time seems not to be a 'thing', yet time inevitably causes our death.
Effected by, yes. 'Controlled by' makes it sound like a deliberate outcome was achieved by said sacrifices, in which case I have no idea how you get that from what I've said.
I'm talking about actual causes, not claimed causes, the difference between territory and map respectively. You seem to be talking about only the claims, the map.
There cannot be for instance any practical prediction of subsequent events in the absence of causality in the universe containing the predictor. Can you think of a counterexample?
:rofl:
Some of what I offer instead.
I don't understand what that has to do with anything
Ok for the ensemble. And yes, many interpretations do not involve collapse. I had to be more precise. Anyway, I would say that 'standard QM' has collapse but it is completely silent on how to interpret it.
Quoting noAxioms
The problem I see in RQM is that it doesn't seem to have a 'unifying' ground for these perspectives. Each physical object defines its own perspective and there is nothing in the theory that is assumed to be beyond that. To say that there is nothing outside these perspectives is, in fact, inconsistent with the RQM claim that the world can be described only by assuming a certain perpsective. In other words, one of my problem with RQM is that it seems to make a claim that goes against its own epistemology.
Regarding MWI, it is in fact more consistent on this than RQM IMO. There is the universal wavefunction which is the unifying element (and in a sense the only real 'physical entity').
Quoting noAxioms
I think that Heisenberg himself actually had an ontic interpretation of Copenaghen. At least, he talks a lot about interpreting the collapse as a way to actualize potentialities. And yes the act of observation 'actualizes' these potentialities. Not sure how this isn't a causal explanation of the collapse and how can it be interpreted epistemically. Bohr was more careful. I guess that 'Copenaghen' was a quite diverse field of interpetations even in the earliest days (which is of course normal).
Not that I am against metaphysics tout court, but it goes beyond what QM says.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't disagree with that. It might well be that our intuitions are completely wrong. In fact, I find the 'trend' of physical theories as becoming 'more and more counter-intuitive' as fascinating: that is the physical reality looks more and more mysterious. While this can be frustrating, it is also awe-inspiring for me.
I have developed a quite 'pragmatic' or even 'phenomenological' view of physical theories, where I think that interpreting them as attempts to make a 'literal description' of 'how the world is' can be a problem. I tend to think that they are first and foremost very powerful tools for predicting observations and describing the regularities in phenomena (and also incredibly useful for practical applications). 'How the world is beyond the curtain' is probably something that physics cannot 'reveal' to us. It's a reason for awe to me as I said before: even physical reality is 'richer', in a sense, than what we can imagine.
Quoting noAxioms
I had newtonian mechanics in mind. But IMO even in relativity a similar point can be made IMO. The entire spacetime cannot be foliated in a unique way. But still, the world we see with its frame-dependent values of physical quantities is perspectival, frame-dependent, yes?
And I am not sure that reference frames are 'just' coordinate systems. For instance, it can be a way of trying to describe "how the world would look like to an observer in such and such situation". They can also have a clear practical, phenomenological meaning (although I believe that some coordinate systems in relativity can't be interpreted in this way).
Quoting noAxioms
Yes and no. To make a trivial example. Let's say that Alice is in a train that moves at constant velocity and Bob sees her from the station. The velocities that are relative to the 'reference frame at rest with the train' are actually the velocities that Alice would observe. With respect to the station, velocities are different from the ones that those observed by Alice. Yes, you can calculate them even from the station's reference frame, but to me the reference frames here have also a clear phenomenological interpretation.
Quoting noAxioms
No, that's not my point. My point is more like asking: how your house look irrespective of any perspective?
Physical languages are de-dicto not phenomenological; otherwise their meaning would become relativized to the thoughts and judgements of a particular speaker which would hinder their ability to function as universal protocols. Hence the semantics of physical languages are realist and this semantic characteristic of physical languages is often mistaken for a metaphysical assumption, or worse a "hard problem" of consciousness, for the phemonenological independence of physical language is in fact a hard feature of any useful communication protocol.
On the opposite extreme, a purely phenomenological language is analogous to a bespoke machine code language that is only recognized by a unique CPU with an unknown architecture. In both cases such private languages might be reverse engineered into the common parlance of physical language or a high level programming language respectively, but it should be born in mind that the assertability conditions of such private languages are not publicly known in advance, nor publicly controlled - unless such languages and the hardware they are executed on are publicly conditioned. This situation is of course the case for designed machine code running on a manufactured CPU, but much less true of the psychological dialects that people think in, since psychological conditioning is only crudely and sparsely conditioned by public input.
Ordinary "common" language is in fact an aggregate of semi-conditioned but generally divergent psychological dialects; compare the "optical redness" of physical language - whose assertibility conditions are strictly public and non-phenomenological, to ordinary "redness" whose assertibility conditions are an open-ended mixture of public and privately decided rules that vary somewhat from speaker to speaker.
With this start, I didn't think I was going to be impressed with where you were going with this. You surprised me though, and I'm now a step towards agreeing with you. Extremely interesting perspective.
How, then, do you hope to persuade a listener? Presumably you are hoping to convey something are you not?
What he's saying is kind of why it's so hard to persuade people.
Like I think back to how much trouble Corvus had (and still has) understanding why denying the antecedent doesn't work as a logical operation. In his mind, no doubt, it makes perfect sense, because the meaning he's assigning to logical operations themselves are not the meanings everyone else is assigning.
And even though the meanings everyone else is assigning are more in tune with each other, they are still not identical.
That opinion, while apodeitically certain, again, insofar as its negation is a contradiction, re: what I see is not what exists, or, what I see does not exist, has to do with that which exists without regard for whether such existent is mind-independent. To satisfy that condition, what I see must be isolated from the mind in order to be independent of it, from which follows the necessity for proving the mind absolutely cannot itself be sufficient existential causality for what I see.
And thats pretty easy ..just close my eyes and I see nothing, so if the mind is itself sufficient causality for what I see, I cannot explain why it is I no longer see anything when my eyes are closed while there remains no indication whatsoever my mind is not still fully functional. Which it must be the case because I am quite aware Im no longer seeing anything and that directly and immediately related to the closing of my eyes. The other senses are, of course, somewhat more difficult to exemplify, but the principle holds throughout.
All of which kinda begs the question ..why seek an opinion regarding mind-independence of existents in general, that isnt covered by the opinion that human perception alone, by which the existence of anything at all is already provable by the LNC, is itself mind-independent?
And if the question concerns mind-independence of existence, in and of itself, as a stand-alone pure conception in general, then the notion of what I see becomes immediately irrelevant. I see things that exist; I can say I see existences, but I never see existence itself. From which follows, a valid opinion would be that existence itself cannot be mind-independent iff it is the case the mind requires it as a condition by which things are given to my senses.
But anyway, the thread title asks about the mind-independence of reality, which presupposes the existence of what I see, that being the initial condition I supported.
How does this apply to rocks "as-it-is-in-itself" and the atoms they are composed of "as-they-are-in-themselves" and the structural arrangement of the atoms that gives the rick the property of hardness and porosity?
The problem with invoking Kant here is that Kant had no knowledge of modern atomic theory and quantum mechanics. Is the "thing-in-itself" a state of superposition, or a wave function?
Quoting boundless
Good point. The problem though is why are living beings distinct entities but rocks and chairs are not. If perceive living beings the same way I perceive rocks and chairs then why make a special case for living beings?
I think that the boundaries are defined based on our goals. It is useful to distinguish humans from other animals and inanimate objects. It is sometimes useful to distinguish individual objects or group them together. Which cause or which effect one focuses on is dependent upon the goal, or intent, in the mind.
Possibility is a projection of our ignorance of the facts. Either CDs and books can randomly spawn into existence or they cannot. Even if they did. The information would be the causal relation between their existence in the present moment and the causes that preceded their existence. If there was no cause then there is no information.
Yes. The map is part of the territory.
But you are only aware of me in the same way you are aware of anything. I don't understand how you can question the nature of everything except other people when you access the nature of people the same way you access the nature of everything else. I mean, I could be a bot. Others could be p-zombies or androids, or aliens in disguise. Even then, they would be something tangible (a bot, android or alien), like stars and planets, chairs and tables, rocks and mountains, and CDs and books. So the question doesn't seem to be "DO they exist" rather "HOW do they exist". Are they ideas, physical, information, process, relationships, or what? And the answer seems to be intricately related to our present goal in the mind.
Quoting noAxioms
But that is what you said,
Quoting noAxioms
The issue now is what measured the first system to get it all going, or is it measurements all the way down? Is this different than saying it is information, or relationships all the way down? Is measuring a process?
In my opinion, we need to understand other aspect of consciousness. One must understand how consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level. And consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level as present and immediate time. Thanks to Husserl's analysis we understand that consciousness is constituted at this level by protentions and retentions. This implies that there is always a non-present side with which consciousness is continually in contact. This non-present is precisely the form of the world, as a thing not given in consciousness. In that sense one can maintain the existence of the world as a distinct other with which consciousness is related. But even more, it is consciousness itself that is constituted by non-presents, with which it can be said that consciousness is constituted by what is proper to the world as non-present. Consciousness is part of the world and the world is part of consciousness. To deny the world we must deny the existence of the non-present. But this non-present is fundamental for consciousness and for its functioning.
Who are we all talking to if not something independent of our minds? What do I think can or will respond to my question? Why do I bother to ask, if I cant see anything independent of my own mind to be an answer?
But, no I cant defend my view that there is mind independent reality any better than Moore or Aristotle.
I just cant defend speaking without mind-independent reality either, so, by speaking to you, I reveal my belief in your independence and my ability to reach through the world from me to you, and for you to hurl something mind-independent back towards me.
If no one responds to my post I will probably give up on the mind-independent facts I think Ive gleaned and go try walking on my unique concept of water. (Ill tell you how it goes in case you are really there.)
Living beings, even the simplest ones, behave quite differently from non-living things. They demarcate the 'outer' and the 'inner' space, they have a metabolism, they strive for self-preservation and so on.
So, I would say that in their case, it seems reasonable to assert that they are distinct entities (instead of, say, distinct patterns, emergent features or whatever).
Quoting Harry Hindu
Is this true in all cases, though? I don't think so. In the case of living beings as I said before, it seems that we can treat them as individual entities.
In the case of a chair, we can of course distinguish it from a table. But maybe they aren't distinct entities as much distinct emergent features that appear to be distinct entities. But is this true for all non-living things (at least if they are composite)? I'm not sure. But I do believe that it is more difficult for inanimate objects to have a level of differentiation from the environment to be considered separately existing things.
Anyway, as an aside, probably the main reason why Albert Einstein was dissatisfied by QM (even by the realistic non-local interpetations like de Broglie-Bohm interpretation) is that the non-locality in QM to him meant that the division of the world into sub-systems (i.e. distinct physical objects) become arbitrary. In a 1948 letter to Born he said:
(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/)
That is spatiotemporal separation could not anymore be taken as a way to 'carve' the world into separate objects (maybe, ironically, he took the idea by the 'idealist' Schopenhauer who called the principle 'principium individuationis'). I sympathize with him. At least in the case of non-living things, it seems to me that spatiotemporal separation would be a reasonable way to distinguish a thing from another.
I get the issue. Kant is fundamental. Mind-independent reality is provisionally acknowledged. But what could distinguish the ontology of "theory" from the ontology of "thing itself", if not some thing in itself? How to draw lines without a knife to carve them?
It's as if the question of mind-independence can't be asked without mind-independence.
Kant clarified that we can't know things in themselves. But this epistemological/methodological observation of our constructing limitations is distinct from the notion that mind independent reality (thing in itself) is not even there (in some unknowable manner) independently of our minds.
We must see mind-independent reality in order to say we see any change. We may not see causation itself, or things as they "are" apart from our constitution of those things, but we see there are things apart from any constitution in order to wonder about causation or an act of constituting.
And if we see two things, distinct from each other, like the sun and the sky, we have learned about "independent reality" - identity, unique from other identifiably unique things in themselves.
We just can't explain or justify this wondering. But that doesn't mean we cannot really be smacked in the face. It can't mean that, because I've been smacked in the face. My mind is unable to explain how or why, but does not need to wonder whether[/i] "smacking things" exist, because I became one of them, despite my lone dependence on myself to define what "smacking" is, in response to being smacked in the "face".
Exactly. Without mind-independence, "explanation" itself has no explanation.
But surely this is nothing to do with the reality outside our heads which is mind-independent, and only about our beliefs about the world and how we should attach labels to it which trivially come under the umbrella of 'mind'. I think there must be a mind-independent reality but obviously any attempt to describe it necessarily is an act inside your head. At the same time, just because you cannot 'access' reality without a purview from inside your head doesn't mean you cannot navigate it accurately in principle; and I think the very consistency in how different people see the world implies mind-independence. I think there is a sense in which we are directly aquainted with information about the world in our perceptions even if it is inherently perspectival, just in the sense that the information you get from the world depends on your position within it and relation to it - but this is non-arbitrary because how you relate to the world is mediated by how the mind-independent world behaves (e.g. you see things because of the laws of physics and the physical structure of your nervous system and body). I do agree we can very easily disagree on what things are "real" - and there may not be a substantial definition - but I believe these discussions are usually so abstract they do not have much interesting implication.
I do subscribe to a perspective where you can basically deflate everything in regards to our minds and what minds are doing - beliefs, concepts, etc - which could be interpreted in terms of a kind og anti-realism. But what is left after such deflation? I don't think such deflation even makes sense without a mind-independent reality that scaffolds what is left post-deflation, and everyday experience and scientific observation tells me that it is there beyond experience. Again, we cannot describe mind-independent reality in a perspective-free way (non-threatening to the notion of mind-independent reality though) which leaves us in a kind of strange loop - there are inherent logical difficulties in self-description, self-reflexivity to the extent that I simply don't think minds ... or brains ... or whatever ... can do it, and we are simply stuck with accepting a limit to what we can talk about regarding fundamental reality, the nature of one's own consciousness, our descriptions and explanations (which can be deflated to acts). But this limit is about us and doesn't extend to reality itself as say someone who supports a relational quantum mechanics might think. Maybe what I am saying is still quite close to what some people are thinking about when they dismiss a mind-independent reality though; but I think describing it using that specific phrase would be misleading, personally.
Quoting noAxioms
I have personally never understood the fascination with this topic. I has never bothered me that extremely unlikely things can happen. I have never felt the need to explain it. I am not entirely sure reality warrants an explanations, a priori, and even thinking about a posteriori, I don't think we know enough about reality to be confident that we can narrow down a reasonably accurate explanation and not miss out on some plausible explanation that relies on information we simply don't have yet. However I look at it, it doesn't seem like an interesting topic to me - one that can wait and shouldn't be used to inform beliefs about metaphysics of the universe.
Quoting noAxioms
For me, I advocate this kind of counterfactual definiteness so this segment I don't think is powerful to me.
It's hard to think it matters that most interpretations don't advocate counterfactual definiteness is you son't subscribe to them, ha.
I think there is a subtle conflation here between an attribute and it's notation.
That we notate something as existing depends on a mind to do the notation. With the weak anthropic principle, this means that worlds conducive to minds are liable to be notated, and worlds not conducive will not be notated. This absolutely biases the notation towards only those worlds that can support it.
But this doesn't have a logical connection to mind independent reality, itself. Both types of worlds may exist independently of minds, regardless of the fact that only one may be so notated.
But in another, deeper sense the very idea of a mind-independent world is something the mind itself constructs. This is where Kant comes in. For him, the mind-independent world is not an observable object, but a regulative idea a necessary conceptual limit. Its not something we experience, but something we must presuppose in order to make experience coherent. The notion of a world in itself, existing independently of all observation, is not something we encounter its something we must presuppose in order to have coherent experience at all. And yet, we can never know what that world is in itself, only how it appears under the conditions of our sensibility and understanding. So paradoxically, even the idea of what is independent of mind is an idea we arrive at only through thinking about it. That's why he makes the paradoxical remark, 'take away the thinking subject, and the whole world must vanish'.
Scientific realism tends to treat what is really there as that which exists independently of any observer that is, what would still be the case even if no minds were around to perceive or theorize about it. On this view, reality is objective in the most literal sense: it's out there, unaffected by how we think about it.
You can see that in Einstein's ruminations provided by @boundless above:
Notice the strong assumption that mind-independence is the criterion of what is real.
Kant's is not that radical a claim, but it requires a shift in perspective - an awareness of how the mind constructs what we take to be the objective world. This is something that nowadays has considerable support from cognitive science (indeed, scholar Andrew Brook has called Kant 'the godfather of cognitive science'. ) And for all Einstein's impassioned polemic, the experiments which validated 'spooky action at a distance', and which were the basis for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, undermine the premises of scientific realism.
(For anyone interested, a blog post of mine, Spooky Action in Action, about how entanglement is being used for secure comms technology.)
Well, I believe that some properties we assign to 'external objects' are not mind-independent even in this sense. I am thinking about colours, sounds, smells etc in the way we percieve them.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yep! Aye, there's the rub...
We tend to think that the 'physical world' is divided into discrete, separately existent physical objects. But how we 'carve' the world and divide it into separate objects does seem to be at least in part a mental construct.
A chair is of course an individual object... except that when you think more deeply it's not clear that it should be considered that. It is certainly a composite object which seems to be reducible to its parts. In that case, does it make sense to consider it as a 'entity'? Furthermore, when one takes into account, for instance, the fact that it is composed of atoms and so on, the 'boundaries' between the chair and 'what isn't a chair' become fuzzier and fuzzier.
I believe that a chair is more like an emergent pattern, an emergent feature. It's a bit like a whirpool in a current of water or a vortex in the air. Their status as 'entities' is questionable. There is an appearance of a separately existent entity, but not a true entity.
Our minds certainly pre-reflexively seem to percieve discrete objects even when there aren't. It certainly helps us to navigate in an otherwise chaotic world, but we shouldn't take everything literally.
But what about living beings? In this case, it would seem that they are, indeed, individual entities. After all, as I said in another post, they behave as wholes, they strive for self-preservation etc. So, maybe, in their cases their 'distinctivness' isn't a perceptual, but convenient mistake.
Quoting Wayfarer
I do see this more as an aporia. How we can establish what is 'mind-dependent' from what is 'mind-independent' in the more 'deep' sense, if our knowledge is of course given by a particular cognitive perspective?
Furthermore, when I asked to noAxioms "how does your house look irrespective of any perspective?" that question was a way to ponder about the possibility to make descriptions independent for any perspective ? (although in that post 'perspective' had a different meaning that in this post, I believe the question is pertinent)
BTW, Good Easter to everybody.
Quoting boundless
Or an antinomy of reason. I thought of a philosophical joke:
Q: Whats the difference between an aporia and an antinomy?
A: Its a conundrum ;-)
Very nice joke! :lol:
Then what actions are you attempting to coordinate with this assertion? It appears to me that you are attempting to inform others something about the world - about the nature of physical language.
Quoting tim wood
Well, yeah. That could be possible. It is also possible that the problem is theirs. How do we find out who has the problem if not by getting at language as a thing in itself - the scribbles on the screen as the things in themselves?
What is so strange are these philosophers that cast doubt on our understanding of things in themselves yet fail to make the same case for people, their minds and their actions (language-use), when they are accessed by the same apparatus that we access everything else. It's no different than how physicists have ignored having to account for consciousness in the grand-scheme of things, as if minds either do not exist, are an illusion, or not susceptible to the same laws or rules that govern everything else.
Solipsism logically follows from doubting the existence of things in the external world, including other minds, because they are all apprehended by our senses and reason in the same way.
Quoting tim wood
The study of atomic structures, the calculus of QM and its predictive power as well as the conflicting interpretations of QM and the current problem of trying to reconcile the quantum with the macro.
The point is that Kant is a product of his time and times have changed.
Would Kant have said the same things if he were alive today?
Quoting tim wood
What Feynman meant was that we do not have an adequate interpretation of the calculus of QM and why it is so useful at making predictions.
Is a theory a thing in itself? Is knowledge a thing in itself? Are scribbles on the page things in themselves? Are minds things in themselves?
I agree with Kant that knowledge is an amalgam of experience and reason. Beliefs would be having just one or the other. Knowledge as justified belief is reasoning justified by observations or observations justified by reason. For instance, religions typically try to explain experience (the existence of the universe, suffering, etc.) without reasoning (many arguments made are illogical and contradictory). Logic independent of confirmation by observation would be hypotheses unconfirmed by observation.
I would go further to say that logic is symbolic relations - symbols which require the senses to perceive. All thoughts are composed of empirical data - visuals, sounds, etc. If not, then what are you thoughts composed of if not shaped colors, sounds, etc.? How would you know you are even thinking at any given moment? What are you pointing to when you assert that you are thinking, if not the various sensory data and the relationship between them in your mind?
Every thing behaves differently than other things. This does not make living beings special. We are merely talking about degrees of complexity, or causes, of some behavior of some thing. There is an "inner" and "outer" to everything. Open an box to see what is inside. Peel an orange to get at what is inside. Open a skull, and well you get at what is inside - a brain, not a mind. It would seem to me that you, as a living being, would subjectively think of yourself as special, which is a projection of your self-preservation.
Quoting boundless
Yes, it is true in all cases that whether we treat organisms as individuals or parts of a larger group, it depends on our goals. This can be said of individual atoms of individual molecules of individual cells of individual organs of individual organisms of individual species, of individual genus and families, of individual planets, star systems, galaxies and universes.[
quote="boundless;983469"]In the case of a chair, we can of course distinguish it from a table. But maybe they aren't distinct entities as much distinct emergent features that appear to be distinct entities. But is this true for all non-living things (at least if they are composite)? I'm not sure. But I do believe that it is more difficult for inanimate objects to have a level of differentiation from the environment to be considered separately existing things.[/quote]
Can you distinguish a chair from the class, "furniture"? No, because it is a type of furniture. Change your goals and you change which information is relevant at any given moment.
Organisms are composed of organs, which are composed of cells. Are cells living things? Organisms evolve based on changes in the environment (natural selection). Organisms are even participants in the selective process of other organisms (prey vs predator).
Quoting boundless
This seems to coincide exactly with what I am saying. Any individual entity or system it is part of is dependent upon arbitrary goals in the mind. One simply changes one's view by either looking through a telescope or microscope, or by changing one's position relative to the object being talking about. When on the surface of the Earth, you are part of it. You are part of the environment of the Earth and actively participate in it. Move yourself out into space and the Earth becomes an individual entity because you cannot perceive all the small parts and processes happening. They are all merged together into an individual entity, but only if you ignore that the Earth is itself influenced by the Sun and the Moon. The question is, which view is relevant to the current goal in your mind?
I think they do capture mind-independent information though. When you see red, it is generally related to actual structure in the world that is being communicated to. Same with sound or smell, albeit there is probably a lot of nuance. And if toy think about it, all I see is color, or "shades" so in some ways I think color an't be any more remarkable subjectivity-wise than anything else we see. Its more difficult to articulate a deacription about color though, which I think may be part of why it often gets special attention philosophically as a kind of paradigmatic example of qualia.
Quoting simeSo saying that the moon causes tides is not an example of physical language then.
This whole topic must use common language then.
They are relativized becasue one speaker might intend different meaning than another for a specific word. This is not true of computer languages, which allows (almost) no ambiguity. You speak of physical language as distinct from common language, and perhaps my assessment is only true of the latter.
Quoting MwwOnly in a relational sense, and the opinion wasn't worded as a relation, so I very much question it.
You cite LNC in defending this. How is the apple not having objective existence contradictory?
Or 'what I see is only part of what exists'. None of those are contradictory without some assumptions in need of explicit identification.
If the list of what exists is confined to that which is perceived, then it is perception dependent. To say 'what I see exists' is fine, but to say 'only what I see exists' is another story. Which is why I ask where the line is drawn between existing things and not.
Quoting flannel jesus
See just above.
Quoting MwwOnly some extreme forms of idealism support things going out of existence when out of sight. I'm not talking about actual sight, but any form of measurement at any time, not just 'in view by me, now', which is both solipsistic and presentist, neither of which is relevant to the topic.
Quoting boundlessFunny, but I find that to be the solving of a problem, not the creating of a problem.
It has epistemology? The view doesn't assign meaning to there being something sans relation, so saying "there is nothing outside these perspectives" is not meaningful.
Correct. It says what is, and maybe what isn't. It kind of says that everything is, or at least everything QM, which begs the question, why just that?
Quoting boundlessThere could be other entities. Calling them 'physical' might be assigning a property meaningful only to our structure.
Quoting boundlessAgree, that sounds like an ontic assertion on said interpretation. I certainly don't know my history enough to suggest who posited what back then. You seem to be more informed of the opinions of these pioneers.
Quoting boundlessNot in any way at all. It can under SR, but not GR.
No. What we see is physical and thus frame independent. A frame is but an abstraction after all. A location or a speed are not physical quantities, but abtract ones, so those are frame dependent. So my perspective doesn't change just because I happen to choose a different one, something I do effortlessly from moment to moment, from one context to another.
Quoting boundlessUnder an absolutist theory, they're not. One coordinate system is the correct one, and the rest are simply wrong. It ceases to be an abstraction as it is under relativity.
A different perspective, so yes, a different way it looks. That would be frame independent.
Yes, and if Alice changed her frame choice to that of the platform, she'd still observe nothing different, but she'd compute something different. Your opinion is otherwise, and I'm fine with that. You interpret the words differently than do I.
I can show a floor plan, which is sort of a view without a perspective.
Most of this discussion is getting off topic, going on about frame dependency instead of mind-dependency of ontology.
Quoting Harry HinduSo what? I presume we share the same ontology, but none of that matters to the question of 1) what that ontology is, and 2) what else (unperceived) also shared that ontology.
'What you are' is irrelevant to the question at hand 'what all is?'.
That's actually different than what I asked, but well put. I didn't see anything on that list that implied objective. 'Physical' is not much different than 'is part of this universe', but the word 'physical' probably can be used in other contexts.
Quoting Harry HinduNo, the subsequent states do the measuring. Nothing needs to be 'got going'. That's one of the advantages of the view is that it doesn't demand anything objective. Yea, it's measurements all the way down (and not up).
Different than saying it, yes. Does not imply that it isn't all just information.
Quoting Harry HinduI could spin it both ways. System state Y (a 'beable' if you want the term used for an event with extension) is a function of prior state X, which means that Y has measured X and X exists relative to Y. There is definitely a causal relationship between the two and evolution of system states is a process. The intervening states are therefore a process and the 'measuring' involves those processes. But Y is a state and isn't doing anything at all, so Y isn't 'measuring' or doing any other process. It's just in a state of having measured X.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Quoting Fire OlogistI'm not questioning that. I'm questioning what is typically on our list of what exists and what doesn't. I'm not asking if the reality is mind-independent, but if our choice of ontology is one of mind independence.
I'm presuming the part of realism that says that the ontology of the apple isn't altered by any absence of perception. But my topic is about assertions of other worlds not existing because they're not perceived.
Quoting tim woodThere is no 'the cause'.
Wrong. It's to say that no one of them is the cause.
Influences, which is in no way control, despite claims to the contrary.
Quoting tim woodThat's like saying that because I have a concept of you, if follows that you don't exist. Non sequitur. Yes, we have a concept of cause, and it very much might correspond to real connections between states. Such is the assumption of pretty much any non-idealist.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Roll a 10000 dice. Any outcome that comes up is just as extremely unlikely as the next. So no, that's not the problem. The problem is that it came up 6's on all dice, first try. That is a problem. Not being bothered by it is the choice made by most, but that doesn't make it a problem not in need of solving if one wants a valid answer to 'why is reality like this?'.
Quoting hypericinAgree to all, and I suggested something along these lines in my OP. Saying something exists (even saying it exists in a mind-independent way) is a notation being made by a mind.
No argument. Would you go so far as to say that there is no correspondence at all between the notation and the actuality of the situation?
Quoting Wayfarer
But we're talking a realist view here where there are actually things in themselves, and not just ideas of them. You speak only of ideas, concepts, suppositions, notions.
Quoting Wayfarer
Are we talking about an observerless world now, or just this world, but absent any observation? Sure, we don't encounter it, but for the reasons in the OP, we must posit them anyway, and for the reason you give: to make experience coherent.
I find no paradox in that at all.
Yes, that's a pragmatic assumption that allows the science to work. But science knows at least enough to extend that treatment to far more than this world. On the other hand, it has no requirement to extend the treatment to things that are in no way related to our world.
Spooky action has never been demonstrated. That prize was for showing the universe to not be locally real, but you're presuming it to show that the universe is not local.
BTW, Bell showed exactly that 60 years prior, and this latest effort was just better resolution, and for refinement of some very useful techniques.
Entaglement is very much used for secure communications, but no spooky action is ever utilized. No messages or assurances of security are received at superluminal speeds.
But this is part of my point. Like you've started using analogies like this when it isn't really clear if this is even a fitting analogy because we just don't know enough.
And even then, I still don't think the analogy is necessarily saying much. The fact that 6's came on all dice came up first try doesn't necessarily warrant an explanation because its perfectly possible.
You can keep asking 'why, why, why... ' but these aren't interesting questions unless there is a kind of reasonable potentiality of an intelligible solution. You may ask why anything exists at all... clearly an example of a question where at least with what we know now does not have a reasonable, even conceovable solution.
I think some people are sometimes too eager to make everything fit into a neat box right this moment. To me, trying to answer these kinds of ultimate questions is just very premature.
I do understand that there's no 'action' as such, like a force that operates between the two particles. 'Spooky action at a distance' was, however, Einstein's expression.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I have to remind myself that you're not defending scientific realism.
I think that goes too far. Minds are adept at formulating concepts, and matching instances to these concepts. For something to be notated a member instance of a concept biases toward the fact that the thing does indeed match the concept. And while the relationship between concept and reality is not simple, it similarly goes too far to say there is no relationship at all.
A cause does not necessarily cause a change. I mean, hairspray is intended to cause a hairdo to not change as much. I also don't like using a word in its own definition/description. I might hazzard: "AC is something that has influence over the effect state", but we seem to be using different definitions.
I've been wording it as "effect state is a function of the cause-state" which seems to be the same thing. Whether a mind is aware of this relationship between these two system states or not seems irrelevant.
Humans want more direct correlation: They want to answer "How do I cause the weather to be what I intend" rather than "How do I cause the weather", the latter of which has a trivial answer: Impossible not to if you're old enough to not still be in the womb.
Hard to parse that, but you seem to say that a cause is something necessary for the effect state to be. That is not too far from the way I worded it. You also seem to indicate "one only" (my bold), which perhaps indicates that only one factor meets this definition. I certainly cannot agree with that, yet you seem to rely on this assertion when attempting to demonstrate that ACs don't exist.
I'm not sure why this distinction is important. Is not everything in our universe part of a causal network? Can you name one thing that isn't? Something supernatural perhaps, but even something like an epiphenomenal mind is affected by the universe, even it it cannot cause anything. It meets the criteria of the Eleatic principle, but not of the relational definition.
How about luminiferous aether? That seems to be a valid physical example.
Quoting WayfarerI don't think Einstein had yet abandoned counterfactuals at that point yet, so FTL action was the only alternative, and it defied the premises of special relativity. So yea, he described it in those terms.
It's too bad that he wasn't around for some of the more modern interpretations. I wonder what he'd say to something radical like MWI, radical at the time, accepted by some only decades later. But Einstein liked simplicity and symmetry, and MWI certainly is those.
Quoting ApustimelogistWe do know enough that it is on the order of many thousands of dice. It being possible is not the same as it being plausible.
There is an intelligible solution. Read the OP.
There is a solution... but the solution has its own problems, and some of those are just as bad. I don't claim to have an answer here. I have weird ideas, but I know that there are holes in them just like the holes I see in the typically held views.
Quoting hypericinAgree, but a more rational approach would be to match concepts to evidence instead of the other way around.
In this case I will also agree, but my suspicions in this case are that while there is some correspondence, there's not a lot of it.
:rofl:
Let me ask you, if MWI is the solution, then what is the problem?
And there may be others but imo we don't know enough about the universe to give any a substantial construction. There are some cases with theories or ideas where I think there is good enough reason to put it out there and advocate it with reasoned arguments or evidence. For me, I don't think this is one of them. For this particular case I much prefer being conservative; albeit, it is also conforming to my intuition that I don't think unikely events inherently need an explanation. In some contexts maybe they do, but there is no context here for me to make that judgement imo.
I disagree. Yes, things behave differently. But how they behave is important.
A washing-machine certainly has a behavior different from a car. But neither of them seem to me to be 'more' than their parts, at least when you consider the interactions.
A hurricane is certainly an impressive feature that is 'identifiable' for various days, can cause a lot of damage and so on. But it's an emergent feature in the atmosphere.
Striving (with awareness of not) for self-preservation implies that there is a meaningful distinction between the 'living being' and 'what is different from it' and that the living being behaves like a separate entity from the outside in a way that a hurricane doesn't.
To me living beings are the best candidates to be individual entities. They are certainly composite objects but their overall behavior suggest to me that they are 'more than the sum of their parts'.
Living and especially conscious beings do not seem to be reducible to their components in a way that other emergent phenomena are. With conscious beings you also have the fact that each conscious being has its own private experience, which strongly suggest that there is a real difference between 'it' and 'everything else'.
In both cases, they do not seem to be 'weakly emergent', to use the usual philosophical jargon.
Quoting Harry Hindu
But if this is true then I do not see any solution outside an ontological monism in the sense that there is one real entity and distinctions are ultimately illusory or that there is no 'entity' at all (there are only appearances of beings, distinctions etc but ultimately, there are entities). In both cases, all distinctions are cognitive illusions.
While I can concede that this might be true for non-living objects, I think that living beings are not completely reducible to their components.
Yes, 'qualia' might well be about mind-dependent objects but they are certainly not mind-independent objects.
Anyway, there is still the second sense of 'mind-dependence' which we are discussing here. In your example, are we to consider the toy as a distinct entity? Or is it an emergent feature which appears to be an entity on its own?
If it's just an emergent feature, completely understandable in terms of its parts and its interactions, separating the 'toy' from 'what is not toy' is a convenient fabrication of the mind. After all, it this is true, why positing a 'toy' at all? Ultimately, there is no 'toy'.
So, in a sense, objects can be as 'subjective' as 'qualia' are and in a sense, they are qualia.
Sorry, that wasn't my intention but I realize that I took the discussion too far. However, I do believe that discussing about 'what is perspective-dependent' and 'what isn't perspective-dependent' can be useful to the main topic of the discussion. The reason being that I actually don't believe it is meaningful to assign a perspective outside the mind. I won't answer to all your points in order to not go too off-topic.
As a starting point, consider how we define and conceptualize physical quantities. Even those which seem an intrinsic property of a physical object is defined in relational terms. Inertial mass, for instance, is defined as a measure of the resistence to be accelerated. Electric charge is a measure of how an object 'contributes' to an electrical interaction and so on. Certainly, you can make all these definitions more subtle. But IMO the point remains. All physical quantities are measurable and this means that they are about how a physical object interacts with other physical objects.
If the above is true, then, this means that all physical quantities are relational, defined in a particular context and, ultimately, are not properties of only the given physical object. In a sense they are properties of the context in which the object is found, interacts and so on (I believe that one of the merits of RQM is actually to point this out in a very explicit way...). Change the measurement context and you change the description (I think I am in full agreement with RQM here...).
But now, consider. We have said that physical quantities are defined when a determinate context is specified. This means that they are perspectival. RQM asserts that any physical object defines a 'perspective', a context in which it is meaningful to make a description of 'the physical world' according to its perspective. And it also asserts that, after all, there is nothing beyond these 'perspectives'. I find both claims problematic TBH.
The second one implies that we can actually 'go outside' the perspectives, and 'check', so to speak, that there is nothing beyond. This would IMO contradict what RQM actually says. Denying something implies that it would be possible to affirm that thing. So, if according to RQM we have to define a perspective to make a description, we can't go 'outside' of it. RQM should be silent on what can or can't be beyond the perspectives (or even asking the question...). MWI hasn't this problem because it explicitly says that the universal wavefunction is what is beyond 'perspectives' from the start (it has its own problems IMO other than the explosion of perspectives, but let's not diverge...).
Regarding the first problem. Note two things here. I concur with Bohr that our physical concepts are way we try to describe our own experience. And, furthermore, while have direct access to our own 'mental' perspective, we can't have the same access to the perspective of, say, a pen or a proton (assuming that they have one). Furthermore, if physical concepts, physical quantities are actually concepts that we have introduced to order our own experience (i.e. our 'perspectival world'), there is no guarantee that they are valid outside our experience.
To make clearer what I am saying here. Consider a hurricane. It certainly seems a separately existing entity. But, in fact, it's more like an emergent feature, completely reducible to its parts. We might certainly say that 'the hurricane is moving from east to west at 15 knots' but in an important sense this is a useful way of describing our experience.
Is the hurricane a real 'object' or the 'hurricane' is more like a construct (or a 'model', if you like) that we use to make sense of what we are observing.
The division of the world in discrete physical objects, the assignment of physical quantities to those objects and so on seems to me something valid to order our cognitive experience. But it's not necessarily something we can safely assume that is valid outside of our cognitive perspective. So when, say, RQM claims that we can speak maningfully of the 'state of a physical system with respect to a pen' I don't think that it is a straightforward move.
Well, I believe that the point made here is that in MWI there is only one physical object which evolves deterministically. In a sense no interpretation of QM enjoys a similar simplicity at least here.
I believe that MWI has its own problems, though. For instance, one can well argue that yes the above simplicity is true, but at the same time the universal wavefunction is an extremely complex object and most of its 'structure' is completely inaccessible to us. The same goes for the incredible number of versions of 'us' that are of course inaccessible. To me this erases the 'simplicity' of MWI but I do understand why others may see the theory as simple. I do disagree with them, though.
Indeed - but the question was, if MWI is a solution, what is the problem it is addressing? Put another way, if it turned out that MWI couldnt be the case, then it would have to be admitted that .
Fill in the blank!
Ah ok, I think I see. But there are alternative realistic interpretations other than MWI (I doubt that any of them would satisfy Einstein, however)
So - whats the problem?
(I was just writing this post...so I include it as an aswer to your question)
In general, I think that it should be noted that I don't think here anybody is questioning the existence of a mind-independent reality. The issue here is if we can describe something that is completely independent of our cognitive perspective with concepts, models and so on that were made to understand our experience ('our' in both the individual and in the collective sense).
That's why I keep asking about if, say, a hurricane, a chair etc is really a true physical object, i.e. a separately existing entity that truly is a part of a 'mind-independent physical world'. If these things are more like emergent features rather than objects, this would mean that the division of the 'world' into them is more like a conceptual construct that should not be taken literally. Assuming that it actually 'corresponds' to 'how the physical world' is 'in itself' is a strong assumption - a very useful one but it is questionable. It's very useful to us to make distinctions, divide the world in distinct entities and then assume that is 'truly so' but epistemically it isn't truly justified, I believe.
It's seems obvious to me that this 'assumption' or 'move' is something that is not obvious.
On the other hand, also assuming that we have no access to a mind-independent world seems wrong. After all, what grounds the intersubjective agreement if there is nothing outside our perspectives that is 'somehow' connected to the world as-experienced-by-us?
So, maybe, we are encountering an antinomy here: on the one hand, positing a mind-independent world seems necessary to make sense of our experineces. On the other hand, however, there is no epistemic guarantee that our cognitive faculties can step outside from our perspective and give us a non-mediated knowledge of the mind-independent world. So, it seems that we are stuck in an antinomy here.
So, I guess that the question is: can we really assume that we can make a description of a mind-independent world when we are 'inside' our own perspective and it is not obvious we can really step outside of it?
Which is tantamount to asking if anything is truly physical.
Let's see what the original poster has to say.
The opinion in question is relational, re: what I see is what exits, and it is apodeitically true, from the LNC. But that is not to say what I see is only what exits. Or, is all that exists. And it isnt that what I dont see doesnt exist.
Quoting noAxioms
If an apple didn't have objective existence it wouldnt be an apple. Without descending into abysmal nonsense, we must grant that for a thing to be give a name presupposes at least that there is a thing, or at the very least a possible thing, to which a name can be given.
Quoting noAxioms
Another story indeed, in that I am not authorized to say what I dont see doesnt exist, while it being perfectly legitimate to say what I dont see I dont experience.
Perhaps experience is the line to be drawn, then. For any subject, any experience is necessarily of an existence, and for that subject, without experience is the same as without its object. Still, this is epistemological, that of which a subject knows as existing or not, rather than ontological, that of which the subject merely infers as possibly existing or not.
All that being said, it must be the case that whatever the line is, it relates exclusively to, and is derivable only from, the subject inquiring about its establishment. Me, I opine it doesnt much matter what doesn't exist, that being nothing but an exception to the rule for what does. And ..YEA!!!! ..again, for me, the establishment for the rule for what does exist is already given by the LNC.
Easy-peasy.
We can meaningfully talk about experiences of "things" and the possible reality in which those "things" don't "exist".
The bald white guy eats a steak in the matrix, and talks about how he knows it's not "real". So most people can conceptually distinguish between real things, and experiences that seem like they're experiences of real things but in fact aren't. Right?
For communication to occur (the primary function of language-use) it would do the speaker or writer good to understand the language understood by their listeners and readers, as well as the level of understanding of the language. What would you hope to accomplish in talking about quantum physics to a 4 year old, or publishing a book written in Spanish in Russia? The relativized nature of language disappears when it is actually used to successfully communicate. You could say that the relativized nature of language only appears when miscommunication occurs.
Quoting noAxioms
And you have been using the parts as examples of what all is while appearing to fail to account for the mind as part of the whole as well.
The point is that minds are part of what all is. If you are going to go for the "Hail Mary" to explain what all is, your explanation is going to inherently define what its parts are as well and their relations to each other, and what all is should not contradict nature of its parts.
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Sure. Everydayman wont have a problem with that, but the philosopher might.
While it is necessarily the case, e.g., Neytiri, is subjected to the exact same cognitive system as, e.g., a basketball, hence manifests as an experience in exactly the same way, the philosopher understands the object initially subjected to the system is already nothing more than a representation, while the vulgar understanding treats that same object, not as a representation but as a first-order real existence.
All that being given, Id say it is by reason one distinguishes between the real and the seemingly real, not conceptually.
Again, the importance of some behavior is a projection of your mind and some goal you have. Importance is a value judgement and the universe does not make value judgements precisely because the universe does not have a goal. The importance you speak of does not exist apart from your mind and its goals.
Quoting boundless
How is a human more than its parts? Is not a human an emergent feature of its organs and how they work together? Is not a society and culture an emergent feature of a large group of humans and their interactions? You're not making any real distinction between these things. The distinction of "importance" only exists in your mind as a value judgement.
Quoting boundless
It seems to me that the ability to strive for self-preservation is an emergent property of the entity's parts. The problem is that your need for self-preservation, and your behavior to preserve yourself is dictated by the environment you find yourself in, no different than how the hurricane feeds off the heat and low pressure, but when it moves into a cooler zone with higher pressure it begins to fall apart, no different than how your self-preservation is limited by the state of the environment you are in and can change. If you behavior is predictable (people that know you can predict your behavior, but I can still predict that you will run if a lion is chasing you even without knowing you), just like everything else.
Quoting boundless
What is a "private experience" and is it part of a living entity, or is it emergent from all the working parts of a living entity? To say that one's private experience dictates one's actions seems to me that the actions are emergent properties of the private experience and one's physiology, not the other way around. Where is the "private experience" relative to the the living being itself as seen from the "outside"?
Quoting boundless
The point is that while everything is interconnected via time and space, there are areas of transition, some transitions being faster or slower, or smaller or larger in scope relative ourselves. We are part of the world and part of this interconnectedness. We typically focus on the easily discernable distinctions apart from the transitionary states. But when we focus on the transitionary states we see how interconnected everything is and and those grey areas where the transition occurs is what makes us question our understanding of discrete objects.
The distinctions are not illusory, they are either relevant or not depending on its integration with goals. The distinctions are there, whether we observe them or not, but which ones are relevant (the ones we focus our attention on) at any given moment is dependent upon the goal.
Quoting boundless
For me, i think one might be able to say that even though we view the universe from different perspectives, they arguably all procure information about the world that is still mind-independent. If I view a tree from one angle then another, then through a microscope or through infrared goggles, through the echolocation of a bat, through the chemoreception of an insect on the bark; all of these perspectives produce information that maps onto the world consistently due to the way the external world is. It just happens there is a plurality of ways one can engage with the world and extract consistent information about it.
There's no mind at the JWST, yet it has a perspective that no human has, especially given its far wider range of light sensitivity than our paltry 3 frequencies.
Yes, any selection of units implies a relation to a standard. Physics seems to work without units, so unit selection would qualify as an abstraction. Charge is quantized, so the units there are arguably physical.
Quoting boundlessI'll accept that.
Quoting boundlessI want to say no to this, but cannot, so excellent point. A property of an object would be a counterfactual.
Also think Heisenberg.
Quoting boundlessOK, point taken on the perspective thing. My retorts to that are classical, and we're not discussing a classical universe.
Quoting boundless
Nothing beyond seems worded as a positive claim about a counterfactual: it being empty, as opposed to simply unmeasured. I don't approve of that wording.
Does it? Maybe you're saying what I'm saying. Q being unmeasured is not the same as a measured not-Q. Going outside requires a different perspective Z, and sure, from that other perspective, there are things available that were not relative to the first perspective Y. Findings of the new perspective in no way alters what exists relative to Y, and to say 'relative to Y there is something beyond' constitutes a counterfactual.
Y measures Mars, 20 minutes ago. While [the current state of the space where Mars should be, simultaneous with Y] is unmeasured, it does not imply that there's a reasonable probability that some subsequent measurement Z 30 minutes hence, that includes a measurement of Y, would find Mars to not be there. RQM has to support predictions in a way since predictability is something measurable.
I personally have no problem with a pen state as something defining a perspective.
Concerning the MWI thing (and no, I'm not an MWI proponent)
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting boundlessThat's one answer.
Quoting boundlessComplex, yes, but that's only a problem if something more fundamental is being posited to be driving its evolution, a simulation being run or some such. As a pure mathematical object, no such problem is there. As for the restrictions to subjectivity, that's true even without MWI where we have access to only a tiny visible universe out of an otherwise infinite classical universe. We only have access to a well-tuned world and not all the other ones which lack sufficient complexity to be observed. Complexity is your friend here, without which there's be nothing to know anything.
Quoting boundlessA problem why? Bugs your intuitions? Again, even a classical universe has said 'incredible number of versions of 'us' that are of course inaccessible'. MWI didn't invent this, it just put some of them spatially very nearby.
Many humans have a natural aversion to their world getting bigger. Wayfarer especially has this bias, which is why I can push his buttons by mentioning MWI. Apparently you also feel this aversion, being uncomfortable with other worlds, many of which are not observed at all, despite your assertion of a belief in mind-independent reality.
Think of when it was first suggested that those stars in the sky were actually other suns and distant solar systems. Ours was not the only one. The pushback on that was incredible, rendering extraordinary evidence to justify what was at the time an extraordinary claim. Much of the arguments against this finding are the very ones being expressed by both of you here. Intuition doesn't like big, but intuition is pretty much the last thing I listen to for philosophical topics. It's all lies that serve a very different purpose.
Quoting WayfarerWell for one, it would have to be admitted that the universe cannot be locally deterministic. No other interpretation allows that. They're either non-deterministic or they allow something like retrocausality.
Quoting boundlessMaybe. He didn't have Bell's proof, restricting what can be demanded of a satisfactory interpretation. He definitely expressed a preference for locality (relativity leans on it so hard) and determinism (the 'God does not roll dice' quip), but he probably didn't want to let go of his counterfactuals either, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Einstein might not have known that.
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
I find 'separately existing entity' to be only an ideal, not anything physical. Discussed here if you're interested.
I would say that said division is a conceptual construct. It being that does not make the world mind dependent, on the division into objects is so dependent.
Quoting boundlessNo, talking about a weaker assumption, that it corresponds to something in the physical world, not that the concept is an accurate portrayal of the thing in itself.
Quoting boundlessI see no antinomy identified, no contradiction in this description. That there is a mind independent world, and a description of the nature of it (however poorly matching) seem not to be mutually contradictory.
Quoting MwwExists, sure. Objectively? Non-sequitur. It was of course discussed in my prior topic, so I won't go further here.
Positing unseen existence has explanatory power, but technically if it's only part of explaining what is seen, it doesn't shake off the mind dependency altogether.
Not if it's not based on said subject's subjectivity.
Quoting flannel jesus
But the steak has properties. Its existence is due to common consensus. Hence it has properties, predication, and all that. But this case is declared to be one of nonexistence, only because the mathematics of the situation ironically is being implemented by something more fundamental, as opposed to real things which are not implemented at all. No fire being breathed into the equations.
Somehow the ontology got backwards from what some people assert. Anyway, matrix is weird because it isn't actually a simulation, it is a VR, an artificial sensory stream fed into something not simulated, so in that scenario, the experiencer is more real than that which the artificial experience feed leads you to believe. What about an actual simulation? Is a simulated steak being eaten by a simulated bald guy not real?
Quoting Harry HinduWhich is why definitions are so important on these forums. For example:
How are you using 'mind' here?
Not attempting that, lacking a ground of meaning for the question. All I see is relations, so all I ask is 'what is relative to X or to Y?' My claim in the OP might be expressed as everybody starting out with 'what exists relative to me', but somewhere while concluding that the 'me' isn't required for something to exist relative to something else, it is forgotten that it's still only a relation being considered.
Quoting ApustimelogistThere are indeed others, but are there others that fall under methodological naturalism?
The problem is considered real in the scientific community, despite your expressed apathy on the subject.
Is that so? I don't think I would say that. Is a real steak not implemented in the physics of the situation?
Again, my point is that this issue is so abstract and we know comparatively little about thr universe works that I don't trust anyone's reliability in offering an explanation which is even close to correct.
At the same time, the problem is not an actual technical problem or one of errors in predictions. The problem is subjective personal incredulity which I don't really share because I have no inherent problem with the issue of very unlikely events occurring, especially in scenarios where we have no context to reliably and assess the issue, like with the question of "why is there anything at all?"
Nothing to do with bias, but a considered judgement. I'm one of (apparently quite a few people) who simply think that Everett's metaphysics (as this is what it was) is absurd.
There's an interesting account of the genesis of Everett's ideas in a Scientific American article The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III:
(The 'slosh or two of sherry' became more than that, as he died an alcoholic, emotionally estranged from all around him, with instructions that his cremated ashes be put in the household trash, which they were, having long since left theoretical physics for a career charting the re-entry paths for ICBM warheads.)
Isn't it obvious that 'bifurcation' and 'branching' are in effect metaphysical postulates? And that they're postulated in order to avoid the scientifically-embarrasing implications of the so-called 'Copenhagen interpretation', which Everett sought to challenge?
What Everett avoids is wavefunction collapse but what he adds is a multiplying ontology of parallel, and forever unknowable, worlds. Thats not an empirical discovery, but a philosophical wager one many find less compelling than the problem it was designed to solve.
Philip Ball also has a critical chapter on Many Worlds in his book Beyond Weird, which can be reviewed here:
Perhaps, but it's one of the cases that the difference is actually relevant.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Unless you can conclusively show that you can explain consciousness in virtue of the physical parts of our brain in a way that is analogous to how we explain, for instance, the liquid state in terms of how particles move, interact and so on, yes, I believe that there is a difference here.
Regarding human society, I actually believe it is more like the 'weak emergence' of the states of matter (for example).
Quoting Harry Hindu
The point is that the hurricane, as far as we know, doesn't strive for self-preservation as a living being does. The way that living beings behave are suggestive of some degree of 'intentionality'. I am not claiming that bacteria are conscious but maybe do have intentionality in some rudimentary forms.
In the current philosophical jargon, I believe that hurricanes, chairs etc are 'weakly emergent'. To me being 'weakly emergent' means that they are actually more like features rather than entities. On the other hand, the degree of differentiation that a human being or even a bacteria has suggests to me that they are not 'features' (yes, I know that this is a controversial claim, but seriously I don't think one can reduce biology to the 'hard sciences').
Quoting Harry Hindu
This question is IMO problematic. Private experience is an undeniable fact and since it is private it is to be expected that is not 'seen' from the outiside (one can infer, for instance, that someone is in pain by observing the behavior, but it is an inference we can make because we ourselves are conscious or we suspect that that person is conscious). Also, I am not sure how qualitative experience can be explained in purely physical terms. The properties we encounter in physics do not seem remotely like what we know about our conscious experience.
Quoting Harry Hindu
They might no be 'illusory' in the sense that can be discerned by a mind. But these distinctions can still be called 'illusory' because they do not exist in the way they appear to exist, i.e. as separately existing entities. A chair is a mental construct ultimately. This doesn't mean that if I hit its leg with my toe I don't feel pain, of course. But the 'chair' is not an entity - as an 'individual object' seems to exist only as a mental imputation.
I see what you mean, but IMO isn't enough to reject what I am saying.
Consider, say, a chair. A chair certainly appears to us to be a distinct individual phyiscal object. I can look at it from various angles, I can measure its geometrical properties and so on. Those views and measurements are certainly compatible with my mental construct of the chair as a unified object.
Of course, it can be broken and we know that the chair is, in fact, a composite object and as we study it more deeply we do find that its boundaries are not even well-defined and so on. Furthermore, its properties can be explained by studying the properties of its parts and their interactions.
On analysis, the 'chair' seems to be a 'weakly emergent' feature. Labeling it as a chair and considering it as a 'unified thing' seems to be a cognitive mistake. In an important sense, the chair's existence is imputed, a mental construct (note, I am not denying that I can feel pain if my toe hits it...).
This is to say that having a consistent map of different views doesn't necessarily imply that the objects in which we divide reality are 'truly there'.
I don't doubt that, and intuition probably plays a significant roles for most. The view makes a hash of personal identity for instance, and that's a lot to ask some people to give up.
Quoting WayfarerThanks then for the snips because it wanted my soul to read it. Not money at least.
Which follows directly from the premise of the dissertation.
Hence personal identity bearing no resemblance to one's personal experience of identity.
Really? Did Everett call them 'copies'? You never know how much liberty these SA columnists take in writing these articles. I'm just wondering what terminology was Everett's and what came from DeWitt (such as 'multiple worlds').
Quote from the Bell article says otherwise: "This is why we shouldnt, strictly speaking, talk of the splitting of worlds (even though Everett did), as though two have been produced from one.". OK, 'splitting' is in quotes but 'worlds' is not. So yea, he used the word 'split'.
Another Bell quote:
"The many-worlds interpretation is distinct from the multiverse hypothesis, which envisions other universes, born in separate Big Bangs, that have always been physically disconnected from our own"
This is Tegmark's type II multiverse, as opposed to type III for MWI. Type II is the consensus solution to the fine tuning problem spoken of in the OP.
Bell apparently quotes Tegmark:
The act of making a decision, says Tegmark a decision here counting as a measurement, generating a particular outcome from the various possibilities causes a person to split into multiple copies.
Ouch. A decision has nothing to do with it since decisions are largely deterministic processes. Sure, quantum uncertainlty might eventually influence a choice, but then it was the quantum event, not the decision, that split the worlds. I like Tegmark, but man, he can make some really dumb things.
The graphics all over the Bell article page emphasizes exact this: A decision, not a measurement, splitting worlds.
[Citation needed]. The worlds can interact. If they are sufficiently decoherent, they can be treated as independent entities, but they never fully separate. The whole point of superposition is different worlds interacting with each other, but any measurement of such superposition states entangles the measurer with the system measured.
Hence the cat measuring the decay of sample and getting entangled with that system despite the fact that the lab device outside the box is not thus entangled with the radioactive system. He can in principle measure superposition of the cat state, which is the two worlds interacting. This has been done, just not with cats, but still with macroscopic objects.
Bottom line, I don't take SA's word for that statement.
As would be expected from a metaphysical interpretation of any theory.
Do interpretations have scientific implications? They have metaphysical implications, sure.
What Everett avoids is wavefunction collapse but what he adds is a multiplying ontology of parallel, and forever unknowable, worlds. Thats not an empirical discovery, but a philosophical wager one many find less compelling than the problem it was designed to solve. Everett's view does solve the collapse issue, but so do others. Ensemble interpretation (Bohr, probably the oldest one) does not conclude collapse, but I don't know enough about it to see how that is the case. Maybe it just isn't measurement that causes collapse. Yes, Copenhagen had issues solved by MWI, but at the expense of a unique history, something which you apparently find important.
That article is open to read.
There is a universal wave function. It evolves by specific rules. In our spacetime, it evolves per some specific constants, but that's a local rule, not a fact. The rest are facts, but nothing like "Earth has a big moon", which seems to be what Ball doesn't like.
Facts become relative to the observers entangled with them. Break my heart, since that's what I've been saying all along.
Bell makes mistakes in his critique such as 'infinity of universes', conflating universe with worlds. It's one wave function, one universe.
"But Bohr and colleagues didnt bring wave function collapse into the picture just to make things difficult. They did it because thats what seems to happen. When we make a measurement, we really do get just one result out of the many that quantum mechanics offers. Wave function collapse seemed to be demanded in order to connect quantum theory to reality."
Everett did not in any way change what one expects to observe, yet this statement seems to imply otherwise. The interpretation would not have got off the ground if there was an empirical difference.
Non-sequitur. It eliminates no such thing except a coherent 'we' doing the experiencing since, as I said, it does make a hash of personal identity. If he means that, then he should say it instead of saying something wrong.
I didn't read it all, but I'd like to. I think I've commented enough for noew.
I don't buy into MWI, but I don't find it absurd at all. It just bucks intuition, which is a known liar anyway.
Interestingly, RQM is listed as having collapsing wave functions, but the version I support does not. I guess my philosophical take on relationalism isn't exactly how Rovelli sees it. For one, he seems to harp needlessly on terminal states of worldlines, with no identity given to intermediate states. I don't take that approach.
Quoting ApustimelogistIgnoring the issue is an option, sure. There are solutions (at least two), and some problems still have no solution, room for further study.
The goal isn't to 'know' how the universe works, but rather to find some valid ways that it might work.
Quoting flannel jesus
The comment was about the substrate on which the existence of a thing rests. Suppose for the sake of argument that our universe is mathematical and doesn't just appear that way. That means it could be simulated. Any mathematical causal structure (anything that evolves over some notion of time) can be simulated, drawing a distinction between the structure itself (real?) and the simulation of it (not real?).
So we have a simplified mathematical structure that includes a person and a dining room with a steak. The simulated steak is not real, but the steak in the actual mathematical structure is by definition just as real as a steak in this world which also happens to be running that simulation. A simulation being run somewhere else, but of this world, would include a steak which is designated as not real. The person eating the steak, simulated by anything or not, would not have any empirical way of telling if he's real or not.
I'm not suggesting that we're a simulation. I'm suggesting that since one cannot have access to a test of reality, does it really matter?
Quoting boundless
Looking fwd to it. Your answers have at least got me thinking and re-assessing.
Quoting Banno
Anyone can grep a word from your posts. You see your hand and perhaps don't think about the rest enough to see the problems I tried to identity. Good pragmatic policy, but not one that holds water.
And yes, that identifies me as a Linux person.
I don't think so, because I didn't make any assumptions about labelling other than inadvertantly in order to convey the point about perspective. Regardless of whether or how you label things, there is an image there on your retina or other sensory epithelia that is in some sense can be said to be carrying information about the world. I don't think you need to stipulate boundaries for this to make sense, and in any case, I don't think people really view the world like this anyway. Sure people talk about objects like televisions and cars, but when push comes to shove I think the way people engage with reality is far more fluid and flexible than the idea that we uphold some fixed ontology with lists of well-defined objects. Now you can say this is kind of an anti-realism about objects, which couls be true to some extent, but its also kind of vacuous in a way because ultimately we are talking about different ways to effectively point at arguably veridical information about the world.
I wouldn't say its necessarily ignoring an issue but expressing skepticism that anyone can sensibly tackle this topic without more context and knowledge about the universe. All the options I have heard are extremely speculative shots in the dark, sometimes bordering on nonsense (e.g. God did it). And again, I think this issue is not really a technical problem but one of subjective incredulity unless there is an actual physical contradiction here whoch is not just about rarity. Obviously we will just have to agree to disagree; from my subjectove perspective the issue is borderline close to "why is there anything at all?", just leading to my skepticism of a sensible answer.
Yes, but you are still thinking within a conceptual framework which has been devised to explain the phenomena of our perspective. For instance, can we truly speak of the JWST as a separate object from its environment? Maybe individuating the JWST as 'a thing' is a mental imputation.
Quoting noAxioms
Note that my point is that physical quantities are defined in a relational way from the start.
Charge serves as a measure of how much a given charged object interacts with others. Hence, I am not really sure that it can be considered as an intrinsic property of a given object. The same is true for mass.
Both inertial mass and gravitational mass (which appear to be the same) are defined in a relational way. This seems to be the case for all physical quantities.
Hence, a 'particle' (or really any purely physical object) seems not to be understood 'in itself'. You need to consider 'something else' to understand it. And this might imply that the 'division' of the 'external world' into truly existing physical objects is conceptual, not 'real'.
Quoting noAxioms
Also Boh'r 'indivisiblity of the quantum of action' (note that David Bohm admired the 'relational' aspect of Bohr's interpretation. In fact, when one looks at it, even in the deBroglie-Bohm interpretation relations are very important. Also, Bohm himself abandoned a too 'literal' approach of his own interpretation.).
Quoting noAxioms
I am not sure if I am following you, here.
Let's consider the Wigner's friend scenario, where the Friend makes an experiment in a lab which is locked from the outside. Wigner asks to his friend if he saw a definite result and the Friend says 'yes'. According to Wigner, the Friend and the physical system are in a superposition and knows that when he will enter the lab, the Friend will report the same result as he can observe.
Note that this a very weak 'intersubjective' agreement between the Friend and Wigner. When Wigner asks his Friend (who we assume is not a liar) which result he obtained, Wigner can check his claim and verify that, indeed, the result is the same. But all of this happens in Wigner's perspective. Wigner is not 'entilted' to go outside of it and ask himself what the Friend, in the Friend's perspective is seeing.
Assuming that the Friend also has his 'perspective', he would find out that Wigner agrees with him about the experimental result.
Still both of them do not actually know what the other truly observed. Only that, in their own perspective, there are no logical inconsistencies. For Wigner it is as if the Friend sees the same as he sees. But it cannot say what is truly seen by the Friend. This also means that under RQM (and, really, QBism and similar) Wigner can't even say that there are 'perspectives' other than his own with certainty.
Only positing something beyond the 'perspectives' can ground intersubjective agreement.
This implies that one cannot know what is 'beyond' one's perspective. Quoting noAxioms
As I see it, there is nothing in RQM (and, really, also in QBism and similar) that 'Mars in the perspective of Y' and 'Mars in the perspective of Z' are the same thing. Y will never find inconsistencies.
Quoting noAxioms
The problem with this IMO it is that we are 'anthropomorphizing' the pen. In our own perspective, of course, the conceptual frameworks we use to make sense of our experiences make sense. But how the world appears to a pen is something we have no possibility to know. Even assuming that it makes sense to attribute a perspective to a pen is questionable.
Regarding MWI, I see what you mean. And yes, I share (at least some of) @Wayfarer's qualms about it. To me the idea that at each interaction the universal wavefunction truly 'splits' into two or many 'branches' seems to weird to accept (all these 'branches' being 'worlds' or 'timelines'). Also, I am not sure if the 'preferred basis problem' (i.e. how to explain in MWI that the wavefunction can be decomposed in a way to explain the appearance of the 'classical world') has been solved and, also, it's not clear to me how the Born Rule is explained in this interpretation.
But, yes, in a way the first 'objection' is not perhaps 'scientific' but simply philosophical. I believe that I need more evidence to accept the picture of the world MWI gives us.
Still, I have to say that it is often mis-represented. Oddly enough, it is actually the closest physical theory to a 'ontological monism' that has been proposed (the universal wavefunction being only 'real thing' and subsystems being like appearances...a bit how the Substance and the modes relate in Spinoza's philosophy if you are familiar). Also, I find interesting MWI if it is taken as a way to speak about 'possible alternative histories', i.e. an useful way to reflect on the meaning of 'possibility' (but MWI claims that all possibilities are actual...).
Quoting noAxioms
Probably, yes.
Quoting noAxioms
If the division into physical objects is conceptual and doesn't reflect faithfully the structure of mind-independent world, how can we claim that we do have knowledge of the 'world beyond' our perspective?
Quoting noAxioms
But this still is based on some assumptions you make about the 'world in itself'. Assumptions that do not seem to be justified in light of scientific knowledge only.
Quoting noAxioms
How can you check that the description of the 'mind-independent world' actually matches its structure? It seems a reasonable inference, yes, but can we have compelling reasons to assert that there is this correspondence?
Quoting noAxioms
Many thanks for this. I hope that this post didn't change your mind:yikes: I also find your anwers very useful
A problem here, I believe, is that you are assuming that there must be some kind of correspondence of our mental constructs of the world and the world in itself. The structure of the model must somehow reflect the structure of the world. But how can we verify this assumption?
If the assumption here were false, then we would not have knowledge about the structure of the 'mind-independent world', but only of phenomena. In fact, we would not have just ignorance but, in fact, we would be mistaken.
I don't think that scientific knowledge alone can give us a definite answer about this question. This would imply that we have to 'suspend judgment' about how our models can 'reflect' the structure of the world and admit that, in fact, we have no way to make sure claims about our own cognitive perspective.
Well, my reply would be that if this were not the case, then it would suggest a picture of the world and metaphysics which is much more inflated than I currently believe, where there is some kind of conspiratorial aspect of nature that deceives our senses. Even though this could be the case, I don't see any positive evidence to believe this over a simpler story of how the world works and how we relate to it like the one that has been built up through physics, biochemistry, neuroscience, etc.
I think Wittgensteins Tractatus may offer a solution here. That is in order for us to make sense of the world, that is to avoid speaking non sense, our language, mental construct, and the world must be isomorphic. This is not an outcome of empirical verification but of logical analysis.
Again agree. While there are some objective constants, physical quantities and units don't seem to be among them.
Quoting boundlessLock is unimportant. The hypothetical lab needs to be a box from which zero information can escape. We presume this, but in reality, such box would kill its occupants.
The friend, as described here, seems to serve no purpose since he simply reports what the device does, and the device alone would have sufficed. The friend perhaps only serves a significant role in the 'consciousness causes collapse' interpretations.
So Wigner observes a superposition state until the box is opened, at which point the wave function (relative to Wigner) collapses. Pretty straight forward.
You can always put another observer outside, perhaps outside a box containing Wigner and the inner box. What is demonstrated by doing this?
As does the device measuring the (say) spin of some particle. The wave function collapses for both almost immediately upon this measurement. Wigner has to wait for his wave function (of the box) to collapse.
Wigner knows when the box is opened. The friend might know everything right away. The box cannot let information out, but letting information in is allowed.
I don't know what you mean by 'truly' here. This is a relational view. There is no objective truth going on anywhere. Nobody notices anything weird.
The friend who notices spin up has a perspective, as does the friend noticing spin down. Those are two perspectives in superposition (relative to Wigner). Wigner knows this. What he doesn't know is which state things will collapse to relative to him when the box is opened. That part is a counterfactual.
Where do you get this? Wigner subjectively sees up once box is opened. Friend sees up earlier than that, but it isn't intersubjective until they compare findings, so none of it is beyond anybody's perspectives. The agreement is grounded in empirical perspectives.
That I will agree with. It is an epistemological statement, not worded in an ontic manner. RQM is not about epistemology.
Agree with the last statement, but not that the two perspectives (at different times, same place) are the same thing. Lots of changes can occur during those 20 minutes, lots of wave function collapses.
I'm not. The pen has no awareness of that which it measures. The interaction definition has nothing to do with consciousness or people at all.
The world does not 'appear' at all to the pen. It just exists in some state relative to the pen. That's what I mean by a perspective. It's just a system state at a moment in time, a system capable of being affected by past events, so a vacuum state won't do.
Quoting boundlessThose are straight out of wiki. The former has arguably been solved. The latter as well, but arguably less so. Copenhagen doesn't derive it: It is just postulated up front. MWI could have done that.
Objective collapse interpretations also seem to do this. I can't think of one that derives it.
Apparently any counterfactual definition like Bohmian just postulates an initial state compatible with the Born rule, and from there it has foundational principles that preserve this distribution property.
That's a valid reason to prefer some other interpretation, but not a valid critique of it. The critique I quoted just above are valid critiques, and are or are not solved, depending who you ask.
Funny, but that's the part that makes me prefer another interpretation, not the stuff you listed above. See my response to Apu below.
Quoting boundlessWe always build internal models, and while my model in some ways has correspondence to states in my world, I don't call my model 'knowledge' like it is some kind of accurate representation.
There is matter near me in my world and I cordon off a subset of that matter and designate it 'chair' despite the fact nothing in the physical world is a function of that subset.
Look at a person, which changes its component parts every second. Nevertheless, I designate a boundary to what I consider to be that person
Everything (not just humans) does this. It has pragmatic utility. This twig for my nest. My offspring as opposed to that of another. A molecule is about as close of a physical thing to an 'object' as I can think of. It has defined boundaries (most of the time) and has emergent properties that are not properties of the primitives which compose it.
Indeed. Even science makes such designations, again, finding it useful to do so.
There's no exact match, and there's no check if by insane chance you got one actually right. The purpose of the model is not to be accurate. The purpose is to be useful, and to be useful, it merely needs to be accurate enough to predict what will actually be observed.
The intersubjective agreement seems compelling enough.
Quoting Apustimelogist
And lack of a rational answer to that question makes me ask a different question instead.
But again, why assume that such a vague, abstract, distal question can be given a coherent answer? Doesn't make sense to me, and you're never going to be able to replace it with a surrogate question which is simultaneously near equivalent but less vague and detached from the current capabilities of our knowledge.
Actually the conspirational nature is not to be invoked here. One might still assume that our cognitive functions are useful, i.e. have a pragmatic goal. Practical usefulness does not lead to accuracy.
The problem I see here is that one can't claim knowledge about the 'mind-independent world' if one doesn't make some assumptions that can't be proven empirically.
I don't think that anyone believes that newtonian mechanics gives us a literal picture of the world nowadays. Still, it is still immensely useful and in a sense a source of valid knowledge, if knowledge is interpreted in a pragmatic way.
Quoting Richard B
Ironically, Wittgenstein's Tractatus can also be invoked to support the view that one can't go outside one's perspective (see TLP 5.6-5.641...here a link). And in fact, one can cite the later Wittgenstein's view that sense can be pragmatic in nature. Even if my picture is wrong, then, if it still has pragmatic use, I don't see why it would be 'nonsense'.
You think it can be useful without having any correspondence to reality at all? Note that correspondence isn't like direct realism (naive realism?). You can say "my experience corresponds to things in reality" without saying "I'm experiencing reality raw, as it truly is, without any intermediary processing".
For example the experience of hearing music. The emotions I feel in response aren't out there in reality, but when I hear sounds they correspond to real frequencies and amplitudes in differential air pressure. You're suggesting that not even that kind of correspondence exists?
I disagree, from my immediate experience I recognize that I have a private experience. Having a private experience strongly suggests to me that I am differentiated from the environment enough to be considered a distinct entity. I still do not see convincing arguments that refute this immediate phenomenological intuition.
Quoting noAxioms
Note that constants are objective because their values are valid in all perspectives. They are not 'beyond' them.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, point taken.
Quoting noAxioms
'Consciousness causes collapse' is to be interpreted as a phrase though. If collapse is merely an epistemic oupdate of a conscious agent, I don't see anything controversial. Of course, if consciousness causes a physical change, then things are different. So, let's not confuse these two distinct interpretations.
Quoting noAxioms
That according to the external observer, let's call her Alice there is a superposition of Wigner, the Friend, the experimental device and the physical system. Not sure why you made this point however.
Quoting noAxioms
I think that this view is problematic, however. For instance, the relational view expressed here still has to make the assumption that the 'perspective-bearers' have their existence independent from the perspectives. Also, it makes the assumption that its truth is perspective-independent. If my knowledge is restricted to what I can know from my own perspective, how can I know that?
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. But what about the ontological status of the two Friends? Also, he can't go outside his perspective, so what he can know is that he will never find inconsistencies. He can't in any way know that the Friend has his own perspective.
Quoting noAxioms
I agree with the first part. I do believe that RQM leads implicitly to an epistemology that is in tension with its ontology (I am not sure it is a contradiction, but still I am not sure it isn't for the reasons stated above).
Quoting noAxioms
But you are still treating the pen as a 'perspective-bearer', i.e. something differentiated and something relative to which one can define a state of 'everything else'. And the state of 'everything else' is described via concepts that have practical usefulness in our perspective. Both these assumptions are not 'obvious'. Futhermore, if one adopts a relational standpoint, one can't never know that they are valid.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, good point. But I am not sure that the 'preferred basis' is truly solved in a non 'for all practical purposes' way. Just like decoherence IMO isn't enough to explain collapse. But anyway the problem is tangential.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok! I can agree with that!
Quoting noAxioms
A person is differentiated in a way that a chair isn't. I, as a conscious human being, have a private conscious experience that strongly suggests to me that I am differentiated enought to be a distinct entity. I would say that other humans are like me in this respect. This is also probably true for animals, assuming that they are conscious beings.
A chair, however, doesn't seem to have a degree of differentiation to be considered a distinct entity.
Quoting noAxioms
I am not sure everything builds internal models.
Quoting noAxioms
Agreed.
Quoting noAxioms
Bernard D'Espagnat distinguished two senses of objective. 'Strongly objective' is something that is independent from any cognitive perspective (a property of the 'world in itself'). 'Weakly objective' is something that every cognitive agent can agree upon. Nothing weakly objective can be assumed to be strongly objective.
I do believe however that intersubjective agreement leads to the assumption that, indeed, there is a world-in-itself.
Probably there is correspondence, but I don't think that we can know how the correspondence is. So, if the indirect realism you are positing is true (which I have no problem with), I am still in no position to know how the world appears to me relates with how the world is in itself.
If we can't go outside our perspective, we can't know how the world seen in my perspective relates to how the world is independent from it.
Yet, I also believe that there are good grounds to posit an independent reality as I explained in my posts. What I am questioning is how we can make claims of knowledge about it.
We can only do our best to figure out the stuff we have access to. If that's not knowledge then nothing is.
I think, yes, of course we could in the end be brains in vats, but I don't think that level of Skepticism is worth thinking about much (at best it's worth occasionally acknowledging), and then we just move on with the human endeavour of trying to figure out what we can about our world.
Part of what I sense is that there's a reluctance to allow for "knowledge" of non-fundamental things. Can I have knowledge that water is made of H2O even though I know that neither water nor H2O are fundamental? I think I can.
You don't really need to think about the brain in a vat scenario. You just need to concede the possibility that the 'independent reality' might not be be describable by using our conceptual frameworks, mathematical structure and so on. The structure of our mental models might not 'mirror' that of reality, even in principle.
On the other hand, yes, I can agree with you that pragmatic knowledge is knowledge. But it's not a knowledge that most realists would consider as 'true knowledge of the world'.
An idea qua idea is made in the mind and exists as an idea based on the existence of the mind in which it exists. There is the ontology of ideas.
But what is an idea, but an idea of something. Like a word, an idea, sitting in the mind, is about something "already there" before the idea of it was formed.
So we have to juggle both the subjective ontology of idea formation, and the objective metaphysics of what is thereby formed.
We set our ideas free and independent by holding them in our minds.
This is demonstrated when two people see the same idea. When one person conceives of the idea of mathematical addition and testifies to such subjective experience by asserting "2+2=4" and then a second person says, "Yes, like 3+17=20", the subjective ontology of addition as it is formed and exists in each subject, is simultaneously objective (independent and "already there"), as they both agree the idea of addition also must exist in each other's minds; it's the same addition each sees separately, in each other's minds, in 2+2 and in 3+17. This is both mind-independent (shared between two different subjects), and only there because of the minds that know addition.
I think the disagreement is that what you are attacking is some kind of unique objective description of the universe (e.g. Newtonian mechanics, falsely speaking). However, from the beginning of the conversation, I have just been talking about information about the world we gain from perception or observation. And we may put boundaries around objects in perception in different ways if we really want to; but, nonetheless, what appears on our retinas and other sensory boundaries are patterns that map to events or structures out in the world, mostly in a consistent manner. And this kind of consistent mapping (at least in some restricted relevant context) I think is actually the minimal requirement for pragmatism and use.
All of reality is a reaction to what is. All things are a matter of cause and effect.
What the heck is a mind-independent reality other than a lack of awareness of the interactions of all things?
Yes, that was the distinction Frege drew between psychologism and logic.
Quoting Fire Ologist
OK, but mind-independent only in the sense of "not confined to my mind." It doesn't tell us whether these intersubjective sharings are mind-independent in the sense of "about something that exists regardless of whether either of us has the idea of it."
Quoting boundless
Agree that your discussion about Wigner's friend was framed in epistemic term. So the friend sort of fills a role in that respect, even if a simple printer would have also served.
OK, I think I worked it out. You're talking about Wigner's opinion of what the friend has measured while the friend is still in the box. That's a clear counterfactual, and unless an interpretation is used that posits counterfactuals, there is no 'truly' about it. RQM does not posit counterfactuals.
Quoting boundlessNo, not at all. Existence of anything is relative to that which has measured the thing, and so far, our 'perspective bearers' have not been measured. They will momentarily, but then they're not the perspective bearers anymore, they're the observed.
Quite the opposite. Where are you getting all this?
That seems tautological. Perhaps I'm missing the question.
According to RQM, their ontology relative to Wigner is a superposition of states. According to other interpretations, the ontology is different. Ontology seems to be a mental construct, a function of say one's choice of interpretation, but it also might be a physical mind-independent status, depending on which (if any) interpretation is actually the case.
That statement is on-topic, it being kind of why I brought this up. I do agree that the title didn't convey it well, but I couldn't think of a title that did a better job.
Are you suggesting that Wigner isn't sure that the friend is like himself? That Wigner cannot discard solipsism? I suppose that's correct, but it's not considered a valid quantum interpretation since it leads to zero knowledge of anything. Ditto with superdeterminism, a loophole in Bell's proof, but you still don't see it included in the interpretations list.
Quoting boundlessYes. I am not using any of those words as something requiring a human or other 'observer' to be involved.
Logical analysis is enough to know they're valid. You can't know that they're sound of course.
Concerning MWI:
Quoting boundlessI don't understand that problem enough to have an opinion about how problematic it is or to critique any solution proposed or counter-critique.
I said I don't buy it for different reasons than it offending my delicate sensibilities (the argument put forth in the Bell paper linked by the most recent post by @Wayfarer.
Quoting boundlessTerminology granted, but both seem to contrast 'objective' with 'subjective', as opposed to objective vs relational.
The first means it relates despite not being seen (like say the far side of the moon, at least until the 60's). The latter is more of a property: It's there period vs it's there relative to something else. 37 exists, vs 37 is a member of the set of integers. That's different than 'we both can count to 37'.
I kind of irks me that 'objective' has two distinct meanings here, both quite relevant.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Often, yes, but sometimes and idea is of something not already there. Any fiction for instance.
Quoting AthenaAs I said above, the title is poorly worded. My focus is on those that posit a mind-independent reality (which is almost everybody except idealists), they tend to restrict their idea of what exists to 'this universe', calling 'the universe' instead of just one of many. Why is this one special? Because it is observed (by us) of course, which makes it pretty mind-dependent in my book.
Now how to convey that in a short title?
Reality is defined as 'what is' (or not), so not sure how reality is a reaction to itself.
The number 17 doesn't seem to be a matter of cause & effect. It's just a member of the set of integers. You might say it is but an abstraction, but I think it is far more fundamental than that.
I think these sections are serving the purpose of putting the implications of Wittgenstein view of language and how we make sense of the world, deciding on what can be said and what can be shown. In these sections, solipsism is not something that can be said, but only shown.
5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
In H.O Mounces Wittgensteins Tractatus An Introduction, puts it nicely when he says, For the solipsist in wishing to deny the independent reality of the world, in maintaining that only he and his ideas are real, has the idea of his self as an object standing, as it were, over and against an unreal world. But when he realizes the confusion in this, when he sees that there can be no such object as he takes his self to be, the world reappears as the only reality in which his self can manifest itself.
Still, yes, Wittgenstein says that solipsism comes to coincide with 'pure realism'... but the 'world' in the Tractatus is the purely empirical world of fact, which is 'seen' in a particular perspective, which means that it is perspectival. So, I am not sure that the 'realism' LW had in mind is the realism most philosophers had in mind.
IIRC, if I recall correctly, the later Wittgenstein rejected the early Wittgenstein's assumptions that (1) meaningful propositions must have an empirical content, (2) there is a structural correspondence between the structure of (ideal) language and the structure of the world and (3) there are atomic propositions, which correspond to the 'atomic' facts. Also it is the later Wittgenstein that rejected solipsism by alluding that language can't be private. He also arrived to an interesting notion of 'certainty' which seem to very different from the earliest views, i.e. the notion that certain 'hinge propositions' can't be doubted if we want to function. We do not doubt them becuase, if not, we could not make sense of our experience and we could not function (for instance, when I go to sleep, I do not have the doubt that I wake up on the other side of the world) even if strictly speaking we can't have a 'indubitable certainty' about them (in my example, I could be kidnapped while sleeping and taken to other side of the world... still, I don't doubt that I'll wake up in my bed. If I did, I could not think about my future in a functional way).
The later Wittgenstein notion of certainty, however, doesn't seem to be what most earlies philosophers had in mind when they thought about certainty and knowledge. It's a provisional kind of certainty.
IMHO philosophical realists assume that we can describe the 'mind-independent world'. For instance, Galieleo and Descartes assumed that while the 'secondary qualities' of the objects (colours, sounds, tastes etc) are mind-dependent, the 'first qualities' are intrinsic properties of the physical objects.
If you say that even in principle, we can't have a 'faithful description' of the 'mind-independent world', then, one can't be a 'realist' in most meanings of the term*. Bernard d'Espagnat used the term 'open realism' to denote the minmal position where a mind-independent reality is assumed but without any claim of descriptive knowledge. Not just pragmatic one.
*Generally the term realism refers to the views in which we have at least the possibility to make a description of the world.
Some time ago, I mentioned the distinction of the 'two truths', which is prevalent in Indian philosophies but actually also appears in western philosophy.
On one hand, we can talk about 'provisional truths', which are pragmatic. For instance, "The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west" is true in a provisional sense. But it also isn't true, right? We know that it is not a correct description of what 'really happens'. It's certainly useful and it correctly describe our observations. But we can't take literally this statement.
On the other hand, 'ultimate truths' would be correct statements that in some ways describe how the world is 'in itself'.
So, if we allow that the knowledge of pragmatic truths is indeed 'knowledge' then of course we can talk about knowledge. But if by 'knowledge' we mean unmistaken knowledge, or the knowledge of how the world truly is in itself, I am not sure that we can have this second kind of knowledge.
No, I was thinking also about what the Friend measured after he exited the box. Rovelli actually brilliantly paraphrased his views like this: "More precisely: everybody hears everybody else stating
that they see the same elephant they see. This, after all,
is a sound definition of objectivity." (source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604064, pag. 7). Wigner hears his Friend stating he saw the same thing Wigner observed. But this is not a way, for Wigner, to go outside Wigner's perspective.
Quoting noAxioms
Not sure if I understand you. When Wigner and the Friend meet, their interaction is (also) a measurement. So, the state of the Friend is 'measured' by Wigner. Does this mean that the Friend loses his status as a 'perspective bearer'? You can't define a perspective of the Friend?
Quoting noAxioms
If I say that my knowledge is restricted to my own perspective, how can I claim there are other perspectives and there are no perspective-independent things?
Quoting noAxioms
Ok
Quoting noAxioms
More or less, yes. Note that my point isn't about only RQM. But all models who claim that knowledge is perspectival.
But also note that our knowledge seems to be perspectival. Wigner can't 'see' the world from the Friend's perspective in order to confirm his belief that, indeed, the Friend is, as you put it, like him. This is so precisely becuase Wigner's knowledge is limited by his perspective. So any claims that he makes about anything outside his perspective can't be confirmed. And yet, as you say here, this 'epistemic solipsism' seems to be self-refuting for various reasons. So, he has good reasons to believe that there is something outside his perspective, that there is a real intersubjective agreement (in a sense we do really see the same elephant albeit possibly in a distorted way, and we don't merely hear others say that they see the same elephant) and so on. But IMHO this 'certainty' is IMHO grounded if we assume that there is a 'mind-indepedent reality' or, in general, 'a reality independent of any perspectives'. But we can't verify this assumption.
I see this as an antinomy.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok! Don't think my points would change much anyway.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, thanks!
Quoting noAxioms
Why?
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, both terms contrasted objectivity with subjectivity. Not sure about the distinction you make here. Are you saying that a better distinction would be between "what is independent from any relation" vs "what is relation-dependent"?
1 ) Physical != preceded by an event, the timing of beta decay events is random, they only have a cause in an abstract sense rather than a preceding event sense.
2) Preceded by an event != caused, even in how we use cause in explanations. People want to say things like "the tendency of a system towards its ground state causes...", even when that's not talking about a precedent event, it's talking about a "law" {an abstract generality} causing an event {a concrete particular}
3 ) Mathematised != determined, compare Norton's Dome in Newtonian mechanics {arbitrary rolling point} and any quantity associated with a distribution {anything that can be represented with a wavefunction has a wavefunction squared...}
5 ) Measurement != thought, OP grants this, so already undermines the premise in the title. This already means measurement dependence does not negate mind independence.
6 ) Physical != part of a mathematical model, like bouncing balls' amplitudes following a geometric decline only stopping in the limit.
7 ) Physical != part of a physical theory - maths objects are parts of physical theories, but not physical in the same way as quarks and chairs. The way in which an integral transform is part of a physical theory is different from the way in which an electron is, and it's this latter difference in sense that determines what is physical and what is not.
8 ) Relational != causal - come on you lot, an electron's trajectory through space is related to is charge, but its charge doesn't count as an event, so doesn't count as a cause. In the specific context of a measurement fixing an entire history of what's measured, it fixes the history of interactions, and you're going to need to equate interaction with relation with causality through some other set of arguments if you want to say relational = causal on this basis.
Indeed, and one should take seriously the point of the whole book. That is to distinguish between what has sense and what is nonsense, what can be said and what is shown. To draw the limits of language and remain silent, to say nothing except what can be said.
6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural sciencei.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophyand then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other personhe would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophythis method would be the only strictly correct
So solipsist asserting they alone exist in the world or any other such permutation, asserts nothing all at.
As for later Wittgenstein, while his approach differs from his earlier work, would be equally dubious of the solipsists assertions, This was done by showing how the solipsist abuses our ordinary use of language.
What is first order is perception itself, which reflects real information about the world directly in your perceptual experiences, without having to put a boundary around or label something. I don't need words to catch a ball, I don't necessarily need the concept of a ball to catch a ball; nonetheless, I am engaging with real information about and mapping to the world. It just happens to be information through a limited purview.
I would argue that a big reason why there are different purviews - that is not strictly about mind-dependence - is simply because we have physical structures that relate to other structures in the world in specific ways (e.g. the structure of our eyes and how they interact with light which interacts with other objects). Obviously though, even with physical similar capabilities, different animals may be better at abstracting patterns from sensory information. Is this a kind of mind-dependent confabulation or a detection of actual statistical structures in the world which are captured in our perceptual tools? Or some animals just cannot abstract certain kinds of relationships between percepts from the world.
Now, I would say that obviously, a brain dping statistics depends on the brain's capabilities, so it is mind-dependent in that sense. But, if there are some kind of criteria where one can evaluate through perception a correctness in detecting or mis-detecting higher-order patterns, and some kind of consistency in which one can react and behave and which they relate to other parts of the world, then surely these actually reflect some kind of meaningful structure out in the world that makes a difference, even if this structure is inherently fuzzy and perhaps convoluted.
What I would say is that we can make valid distinctions about the world which are meaningful in terms of consistent relational structures; but at the same time uphold a pluralism. There are many different ways we can partition the world statistically - infinitely many, perhaps. But surely, if one can engage with and distinguish these structures in a way that is consistent, then these cannot be arbitrary. The only reason I can make arbitrary boundaries around objects in my perception is because I can actually distinguish structural information about the world in my perception in order to draw those boundaries. And I don't think we even draw strong boundaries anyway really - the idea that we kind of have this rigid repertoire of concepts which we apply to the world is an idealization imo. Anyone tomorrow could invent an entirely new conceot or objects which is physically meaningful and catches on for one reason or another.
Yes, one could say conceptual pluralism is just anti-realism; at the same time, our engagement with the world is arguably real - or at least, if I were to tell a story about how we do that, it would have to be in some sense "real" - and putting into use these concepts may be enacted in some real engagement with the world, or the structure that comes at us directly in perception that maps to the world.
I guess question is about how apt a description being "mind-dependent" can be if it is clearly non-arbitrary. You could call the drawing of a boundary itself arbitrary, but if I can repeatedly identify this bounded "thing" in perception that comes up again and again due to information from the world at my sensory membranes, then is this really non-arbitrary?
If uniqueness of description is a criteria for realism then sure these things are very problematic. But why does uniqueness have to be a criteria for realism? You can say describe theories in multiple different ways or formulations which are deemed as equivalent in a way that people would just say its multiple descriptions of the same thing. Thats not to say that you couldn't argue there are non-trivial differences that distinguish them, but maybe there is no definite boundary of when different formulations are part of the same theory or different theories. Someone could arbitrarily decide formulations are different based on what others deem a small trivial difference. Like in the description of bounded objects then, perhaps the boundaries between saying "different" vs. "the same" are complicated graded structures of difference and similarity over different scales. Once there is this arbitrariness in saying some things are "different" or "the same", then its not clear there is a definitive way of sying whether a plurality of descriptions should be deemed indicativeness of real or non-realness. The whole issue might be deflated. "real" is a second-order description we apply to structures that we come across in percepts, make inferences about.
Yes, you could use indeterministic pluralities to say things are not real. Perfectly valid if you have your own criteria for saying something is real or not - i.e.it must be unique.
What is interesting to me though is why these arguments have little or no effect on realists often. It seems from reading that realists actually have moved their goalposts, based on anti-realist arguments like underdeterminacy and the potential prospect of things like scientific theories being wrong. But then you have to ask what it is that realists cling to - and I think it is this very fact that, regardless of the kinds of pluralities and indeterminacies and fuzziness, there is still this kind of non-arbitrary nature of our perceptions that map to some structure in the world and we engage with. You could say our descriptions are not real but it seems superficial when we can still engage with the world perfectly well. Obviously some descriptions are obviously wrong - which then occurs when our engagement with the world results in errors. But I would say errors is not so interesting to arguments on realism. Everyone can plausibly be wrong; anto-realists can probabilistocally be vindicated in the beliefs that there is more to learn, that theories are idealizations ans incomplete, that some past theories are outright wrong. Maybe some current theories too if we find new predictions. But then again, unless they make additional metaphysical claims someone can still claim a theory is still valid in some purview even if it does not capture the world uniquely - Classical physics is still widely used because it captures and describes relational structures we can engage with in the world without needing to make excess metaphysical assumptions. The question is whether it is impossible in principle to have a meaningful, consistent engagement with the external world, which we can do from various purviews without comong up with errors. If we have a plurality of ways of describing the world that don't come up with wrong predictions, does that mean none of these things capture real structure in the world?
But at the end of the day, from my perspective, yes this perceptual thing may be a bit too minimalist for realism from the perspective of anti-realists. But I think the issue of pluralities could come under attack for being weak by realists and at the same time if you are something like Van Fraasens form of anti-realism then this issue comes up for empirical perception not just theories - e.g. theory ladenness. But then, how can we engage with the world so well when even perceptual categories are idealizations and theory-dependent and even wrong.
I think the whole issue should be deflated maybe since the coarse distinction of real vs non-real doesn't adequately reflect the subtlety and nuance when it comes tothe balance between arbitrary boundaries and yet our very real, skillful engagement with the world regardless of such boundaries. Descriptions are red-herrings if we inflate them because really all there is is perceptual experiences in flux - we engage with structural information from the world in our senses constantly and we instrumentally, enactively use that information to guide our actions. Even a description may just be indicative of a metacognitive ability to make higher-order inferences about our own epistemic actions - the behaviors of thought and perception. We are extremely complicated machines that far outstrip literal words and descriptions in our epistemic activities and perceptual abilities. In some sense then all descriptions are "not real" because they can be deflated in this sense. Yet there is a mins-independent world and we engage with it to prosuce the useful behaviors that constitute knowledge, even when our abilities actually outstrip our descriptions. My ability for instance to distinguish different faces far outstrips any use of words I could make up to classify them - apart from the use of proper names which don't even have a description attached (i.e. they are effectively just pointing).
Maybe though the realist is just moving the goalposts for "intrinsicness" but then I guess the realist would also say that standards of intrinsicness that are too high are vacuous. We could plausibly say nothing is real because no descriptions, not even perceptions satisfy some ultimate criteria of intrinsicness (e.g. vision would have to be independent from any perspective, any brain, any intermediate physical process)
But then what is the outcome of saying nothing is real? The paradox that a world where nothing is real often seems perfectly coherent.
There is even a pragmatic limit to anti-realism in some sense.
But even then that depends on intuition since some people just don't have that intuition and they think some notion of anti-realism intuitive makes sense. The issue is we can gerrymander these borders of realism and anti-realism very easily without them having strong, consistent empirical consequences everyone can agree on like in everyday life or sciences or archaeology. And obviously this is graded. Maybe discussions about realism and anti-realism are just naturally inclined to kinds of contextual paradoxes almost - at least, if nothing is real, then "anti-realism" is also a false label. The problem is that usually when we sraw boundaries around objects, they aren't usually mutually inconsistent; but we have decided such for realism and anti-realism even though what is more apt may be some kind of gradation. Is "real" a label for a certain kind of abstract consistency in our experiences, in contrast to misapprehension? Its about intrinsicness? But maybe only kind of intrinsic things about fundamental reality that are intelligible are structures in some weak sense - and there is nothing more from the perspective of intelligibility or meaningfulness. But that is a significantly weaker sense of intrinsicness given the structure is weak and has a perspectival aspect. But neither would I say it is viewing the same thing from different ways (in a subjective sense). Rather we can view overlapping structures within reality on our sensory boundaries. Maybe those two statements can be seen as equivalent though.
Maybe what I have done is shifted something that an anti-realist would not view as intrinsic (i.e. perceptual, empirical observation - perceptual, empirical structure) and upgraded it to something that mediates intrinsic information.
I think my perspective is similarish too Otavio Bueno's structural empiricism masquerading as a very weak ontic structural realism... so weak that they are interchangeable. This comes from my anti-realist inclinations to deflate thingsbut the desire to acknowledge mind-independent reality in a way that is not divorced from what we do and think - realism should be in the story, at least for a person that wants to assert things about the world, or have theoretical preferences, even if they may be incorrect.
A lack of observational support does not stop people from constructing further models which are in principle unfalsifiable, practically unfalsifiable, or ones with adjustable parameters which only grow more indistinguishable from the accepted with every new observation.
Which makes the 'unlikelihood' of our universe arising from random chance depend on the current models one may adopt or might come about within a hundred years or so of empirical stagnation.
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There is a danger here because you need to distinguish between what things that you could potentially 'inter-translate' between the language used in idealism or realism and what is incommensurable.
I can always create an uninteresting rival to a particular idealism or realism by simply renaming terms and redefining meanings. You say 'idea' and I say 'physical'. You say 'inter-subjective' and I say 'objective'.
Following the lines of reasoning from deflationist you could then see this as merely semantic pontification. However, if there is a some term which either side agrees is not so easily inter-translated that could then imply some kind of substantive disagreement or discussion. That doesn't mean that one side gets the ball but rather there is a debate to be had here about how, in their own respective languages, they should expand the concepts they use and also how to translate them to each other.
Quoting noAxioms It's like how a skeptic will always find holes in the arguments I give to not drink bleach. . . alas. . . I still decide not to.
Quoting Harry Hindu Ergo, we should all be deflationist about philosophy as much as we can until we can't and diagnose the translation issue. It's no longer the era of idealism vs realism but rather a debate about what terms in each respective philosophy are incommensurable and which are not.
So when an idealist blabs in your ear is what they are saying uninteresting and intuitively obvious to you or is it conceptually new. I.E. something that under your notion of a respectable realist position they could not reformulate in their words/concepts/meanings the same notion.
Quoting boundless . . . BUT despite that skepticism. . . despite that under-determination. . . despite that lack of truthful absolute justification. . . you and I will probably retain many of these biases of the manifest image out of mental inertia, bias, dogmatism, apriorism, and moorean intuitionism.
That is because realism is a mental perspective which cannot be proven or disproven. . . only HELD or NOT HELD. Whether you hold to a particular form of realism or idealism will probably not impact much of anything as the direct nuts and bolts pragmatism of advancing science requires.
However, perhaps they are then not to be seen as such grand ontological positions but as political positions which can influence the mind in what kinds of connections you can make conceptually. Who is to say that the obscure idealism might be able to make some abstract connection that some form of realism would have not found out for a long while or as easily. Again, that isn't to say that other form of realism would have eventually come to the same conclusion but if its a question of efficiency in generation of novel ideas then. . .
Quoting Richard B Yes. . . but that is easier said than done.
Quoting Richard B
That actually speaks to me, even though I think I'm interpreting these words in a different light than was intended.
Quoting boundlessI reference something like that all the time, separating pragmatic truths from the rational ones.
In the right reference frame, it is what happens, but it's still a provisional truth in that frame. I don't think what you call 'ultimate truths' are frame or perspective dependent.
The bolded bit is such a perspective reference, and illustrates the point of this topic.
Quoting boundlessThe friend is almost immediately entangled with the spin-measurement device, so he's going to match that every time, whether or not Wigner has measured the friend yet or not.
Interesting that Rovelli phrased it that way, but if it were not true, the view would be falsified. The statement is true of quantum mechanics and not just any subset of interpretations.
Note a definition of objectivity which isn't 'relation independent' nor is it 'not subjective', but rather it is objectivity defined in terms of intersubjective agreement. In the case of RQM/MWI, objectivity is being defined as mutual entanglement.
Using such a definition, I yield the factualness of the objective existence of the apple.
No, it just means that the friend event that Wigner measures is a different perspective than the Wigner event doing the measuring. That friend perspetive event cannot measure the Wigner event in question since said Wigner event doesn't exist relative to the friend event in question.
Note my use of 'event' here since each event on one's worldline is a different perspecitve.
Quoting boundless
Knowledge is not the same as truth. Sure, knowledge seems perspective dependent, which is why we don't know where the nearest alien intelligence is.
Maybe you define truth in a relational sort of way: It's true that the moon orbits Earth each 27 days. That's a relational fact, but not a fact.
More or less, yes. Note that my point isn't about only RQM. But all models who claim that knowledge is perspectival.[/quote]RQM (like almost all ontic interpretations) doesn't treat any person different than another. It doesn't even treat pens differently than people.
This is philosophy of mind, which of course has no resolution. Sure, but we're presuming sufficient mind-independence to suspect one person's experience is functionally similar to any other.
The syntax suggests that this world exists to the exclusion of any other, all because it's the one we see. A far less mind-dependent wording would be 'a world' which doesn't carry any implication of being the preferred world.
My whole topic contrasts 'the world' with 'this world, among others', with the former implying mind-dependence.
Different, not necessarily better. Best to define how the word is being used up front when wielding it.
Quoting fdrakeAlmost all events are preceded by prior events. Not sure what that has to do with uncaused occurrences like beta decay. A few interpretations have it being a caused (determined) thing.
OK, This seems to say that 'laws' don't count as causes.
Agree. The Dome thing is a wonderful example of an uncaused occurrence in Newtonian mechanics (which demonstrates that it isn't deterministic as claimed).
Title is poorly worded, mostly due to lack of being able to express a correct one in a short line.
Sorry Zeno :(
But the quarks possibly supervene on maths objects. That doesn't make said maths physical in the same way, I agree.
An electron trajectory though space is a counterfactual.
You seem to be using 'event' differently than I. I use it to mean a point in spacetime, or possibly (more informally) a system state at a moment in time, also known as a beable.
The relational ontology I've been discussing is pretty dang causal in definition.
Not sure what problems you think were solved by these numbered assertions.
Quoting substantivalismSure. Some models have good odds, and others have really low odds.
Quoting substantivalismBut the bleach thing at least has an argument, even if the argument isn't perfect.
Quoting noAxiomsI don't know what to make of this. I can talk about the fork I used at dinner without meaning it's the only, or the preferred, fork. If it was my turn at bat, I wouldn't ask the ball boy for a bat, because he needs to knows which one. There are many, but I need to specify. And I'll be in all kinds of troubles if someone asks what I'm doing this weekend, and I say, "I'll have to ask a wife."
The universe I'm in may or may not be the only universe. But it's the only one I have any experience of. If I start talking about "a" universe, people will be confused. They'll probably stop me and ask what I mean by "a".
New theory of entanglement - Persistence Theory, Bill Gianokopoulos (Profile)
Spooky Action at a Distance, Reversed: Entanglement as Collapse of Mutual Information (via Medium).
// for anyone interested, an AI chat about this article and its implications - comparisons with Peirce's pan-semiosis and Wheeler's 'it from bit'.//
What Wittgenstein seemed to argue in the 5.6s sections is that while the 'world' is presented in a particular perspective, the 'self' doesn't appear 'in the world' and so anything we say about the self would be nonsensical. To me, the early Wittgenstein had a very idiosyncratic idea of what realism means.
To put in another way, the 'world' for Wittgenstein is the totality of what can be known. The knower would be outside 'what can be known' and, being outside, the knower can't be known and, therefore, nothing can be said about the knower, because anything we could say would be meaningless.
Given that Wittgenstein speaks about the world in empirical terms, can what he is saying help us to understand 'how the world is outside experience'. I don't think so. For him it would be what can be known/said.
Quoting noAxioms
Right! Can we talk about a 'realism' without 'ultimate truths' or the possibility to know them?
Quoting noAxioms
Sorry, I am not trying to be dense. But I'm not sure about what you are getting at. I would say that usually realism involves that the world can be known, at least in priciple, as it is independently of any perspective of any subject.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes. But this doesn't deny the fact that Wigner and the Friend's perspective are different. And neither can actually 'take the other's perspective'.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes. Some interpertations however claim that they are 'ontologically interpretable' (to use a phrase by d'Espagnat), in the sense that they can be read as providing a correct description about the world as it is in itself.
Rovelli is saying that each 'observer' can't go outside 'his' own perspective. 'He' will never find any inconsistencies because all data 'he' will be able to find will be consistent 'for him'. But if 'his' knowledge is limited by 'his' own perspective, then, he can't actually know what 'others' observe. He just can verify that when 'he' asks 'them' what 'they' did 'observe', 'he' finds no inconsistency. (I am using the scare quotes because I want to allow the possibility here that the observer might be a physical system).
Quoting noAxioms
Fine. My point above would still stand.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. But oddly enough I would say that if there are 'as may worlds as perspectives' then the presence 'mind-independent reality' is more difficult to defend.
Sorry, but I'll respond to you in the next few days.
Thanks for the links.
Number 17 is not matter. Therefore, number 17 or the word "blue" can not be caused nor effect anything.
I would like to gracefully withdraw from this thread. I do not understand what anyone is saying.
Aha, I actually removed the reference to your post on purpose because what originally was going to be just a reply to your post ended up as just complicated train of thought that I couldn't be bothered to edit into something more comprehensible. Sometimes I like just posting those trains of thoughts about some complicated topic as they come to me but I don't expect them to be easily comprehensible for others so I decided to not ask for a reply, as it were, because I would need to excessively edit and re-think the post in order to do so. But I think one of the last quotes of that post gives a summary of my perspective:
Quoting Apustimelogist
Link to structural empiricism
e.g.
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=14237184630099891718&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1
At the very least, when I create stories about the world - that may end up being erroneous - these stories are about real things, or supposed to be. That may be wrong.
I do uphold all of the anti-realist arguments against realism though regarding indeterminacy of our models - leading to the conclusion that models are nothing above how they are manifested or used within our own cognitive behaviors (e.g. a physics textbook is just squiggles on paper; it means nothing unless someone is engaging with it and comprehending it and then able to perform acts or calculations utilizing it - physical and cognitive events).
But then there is an interesting loophole in that this applies equally well to the use of words like "truth" or "real". They are indeterminate. They are manifest in use when I say things like "truth is what is the case; what is true is the case; that thing is true if and only if it is the case" and acts of identification of things "as the case", whether there is any deeper, profound, intrinsic, unique to that sense or reference - or not at all. And when the anti-realist says things are not real, that is equally indeterminate in the same sense which they use skeptical arguments to attack realism.
So then the question is: if truth and reality is in use, Why do I need to change my use of those words?
They work very well and coherently most of the time. I am sure almost every anti-realist maintains their use of those terms at least in some contexts within everyday life. I may want to change the use in some contexts, but not in any radical way - e.g. "the quantum wavefunction isn't real"; "I just discovered yesterday that ghosts are not real"; "Harry Potter isn't real".
Are scientific theories true?
Well, unlike some of the easier cases above I just gave, I think this is much more ambiguous and the answer appears different from different angles. Is Newtonian mechanics true as a unique metaphysical theory? No. Does Newtonian mechanics capture actual structure of the world in terms of empirical structure that satisfy predictions? I would say arguably yes. Is Newtonian physics as appears in those empirically verified events an idealization of fine-grained eventa? Arguably yes. Is that coarse-grained structure real though? Maybe, if you think of realism in terms of overlapping structure rather than unique objects. Are there many different formulations of classical physics with the same predictions? Yes. Are the differences non-trivial? Maybe, because some involve dynamical causality, some are about least action with fixed final boundary conditions, some describe classical mechanics as waves, some describe classical mechanics with complex numbers using a Hilbert space analogous to quantum theory.
We can say there are different ways of enacting the same empirical structures that we can distinguish non-uniquely through our sensory apparati but nonetheless map onto the world beyond those boundaries.
At least, that needs to be the story for my models about the universe to seem coherent.
I think there is a kind of Wittgensteinian aspect here in relation to his famous quote about "throwing away the ladder" or something like that. Once I have deflated all meaning to use, I can throw away the ladder and just use those words how I normally do, because my meaning of the words didn't depend on some kind of intrinsic magical ontology in the first place. There is nothing to be changed, just the acknowledgement of how meaning is nothing above use - and we cannot step outside of that as it were regardless of how much we try.
But in that use there is still some engagement with a real world, even if in a minimal sense. Something like active inference in the sense of Friston's free energy principle. To model the world entails a statistical coupling between the internal states of a system and some external states across its Markov Blanket from which there is a conditional independence. And from this perspective or story, any useful model implies some real meaningful interaction with the external world, even if in a limited, perspectival sense - even if I want to deflate representations, I could consider them in some sense real if there is a meaningful sense of a consistent statistical mapping (maybe only approximately, and idealized) in some context where information is being communicated between the external and internal states via the senses. This may not be unique, but then that would imply a very very thin kind of realism which is about empirical structure which anti-realists may not generally disagree with. Maybe they won't say what they see are real intrinsic objects of the world in a direct aquaintance; but maybe they would agree it is real information about the world that is consistent, albeit the plurality of ways we can extract consistent information is potentially huge.
Yes, I don't think a fundamental metaphysics of the universe is intelligible; but it doesn't mean the structures we perceive are not genuine information, even if there is always something a bit ineffable about that and we can artifically draw boundaries in various ways.
And there the tangent went, again!
But I think maybe that was describing how my position is kind of a structural empiricism masquerading as a weak ontic structural realism.... or rather maybe it is in fact a kind of very weak epistemic structural realism that I am espousing where I am embracing the kinds of trivialities you get from Newman's objection, whilst thinking about truth and realism and structure itself in this thin deflationary way related to use within a context, and perhaps ambiguous in a multi-scale reality within which our ability to engage with information is also intractable, convoluted (in the sense of a literal convolution), context-dependent and fuzzy (ambiguous even to ourselves often, think Quine jungle gavigai and Kripkenstein quus, but also very effective). Things can be the case in that their empirical consequences follow, counterfactually speaking. Things can also be the case even if "things" do not reflect rigid cookie-cutter boundaries. Even something like the self is like that - completely illusionary if we want to go down the road of deconstruction and deflation. Yet my holistic experiences must be an actual occuring structure of the universe (without implying anything deeper about what experience means - its just a thin word, a label).
I think I sit on the fence between preferring an epistemic or ontic structural view given that I would be more inclined to say that not just a notion of intrinsic fundamental reality is epistemically unintelligible but also that in some sense there is nothing more to know about reality than structure - an intrinsic aspect completely distinct and separate from structure seems kind of redundant, even nonsensical to me. The closest we could get to that is conscious experience. But the thing is that from my perspective, I am inclined to say that the only intelligible description of conscious experience is as informational structure. Like, without defining information in any kind of profound metaphysical or ontological way, it seems completely coherent to me to say that my visual experiences can be equated to some informational structure originating from my retina due to light hitting it. At the same time, the fact that all world structure we can engage with is contingent on a perspective is more in line with the epistemic view, even though I would say that this perspectival structure may have a consistent mapping to whatever is outside our sensory boundaries and so is veridical in some sense, albeit a weaker sense of veridical than someone who believes that perceptions have to capture some unique way the world purportedly is. Similar to as Banno sometimes says, I like conceptualizing our engagement with a real world in terms of kinds of "views from anywhere" as opposed to a kind of "view from nowhere" (god).
Still, I'll respond to this:Quoting AthenaI don't think they spring from nothing, for no reason.
What I am getting at is the contradiction in your statement there. Yes, realism usually involves the world relative to which we interact. But that relation is precisely what makes its preferred existence mind dependent. Yes, an identical world except without any observers would arguably be more mind independent, but there would be nothing, even in another world, to label it 'the world' instead of just 'a world'. It's the preferredness of this world that makes it mind dependent. Take away that preference and it becomes mind independent, but it also drops the barrier to all those other worlds from equally existing, leaving open the question if there is still a barrier at all distinguishing what exists from what doesn't.
To exist means to stand out. This world stands out to us, making it a mind-dependent standing out. From what do these other worlds stand out?
Only if a perspective requires a mind, which I often emphasize to the contrary.
Quoting boundlessTall claim, but I suppose most interpretations (maybe not copenhagen) can be read this way.
I'm not sure what it would mean to go outside one's own perspective. I have a lot of perspectives (any moment along my worldline), but those are all mine. Nothing prevents anybody from imagining what another observes, which is exactly what's being done here with Wigner's friend. Almost all thought experiments leverage imagined perspectives.
As you quoted Rovelli saying, he knows the other observes the same elephant.
If the friend is in superposition in the box, then the friend is in superposition of having observed up and down. There's no funny experience to that. It's perfectly normal to the friend and we are in such superposition at all times relative to anything that hasn't currently measured us. All this is very different than the friend observing his own superposition, which nobody does.
Quoting PatternerBut you've measured many forks, but measured only one world. This leads some (not all) to conclude there is but 'the' one world, and if 'what there is' is defined as what is observed, then there is indeed but the one world, but that definition isn't a mind-independent one.
So says the Mormon.
In a topic such as this one, I think not. Pragmatically from day to day interactions, yea, we all know what is meant by it, and few ponder how our observation of it makes it preferred to us, but not preferred.
Quoting Patterner
'Spring from' implies a time when the 'real thing' wasn't yet real, but time is there, so if it sprang, then it wasn't from nothing. I don't think our universe is contained by time.
The question I find unanswerable concerning realism is: "how does one explain the reality of whatever it is you consider to be real?". If a relational definition is used for 'being real', then the answer is simply 'because I relate to it'.
Do I relate to all those worlds I don't see? I think I do, because they're necessary for explaining what I see. That point is debatable of course.
Quoting Athena
I didn't say either 'caused or was affected by anything. I said that some consider 17 to be something that exists (see platonic realism), and some don't. It existing due to being causal seems to leverage that Eleatic Principle discussed in the OP. 17 is part of mathematics, and some theories (Tegmark's MUH for instance) posit that universes supervene on mathematics, which would give 17 causal powers.
No problem. Thank you for your questions and contributions.
Quoting Wayfarer
Spent quite some time looking at it. There must be a more formal paper somewhere since this seems to be more a pop article written for the likes of me. Has a scientific paper been submitted and peer reviewed?
I notice the author seems to have little respect for relativity of simultaneity the way he describes 'instant' change of wave function at the other end of the pair from the measurement taken. He also very explicitly denies counterfactuals, which is weird considering this instant state change sounding like one.
Anyway, haven't real too far yet and I've no strong opinion if it warrants inclusion in a list of interpretations. Thanks for the link, and for one that isn't blocked.
You're welcome. Note the link to the author profile. He has many published scientific papers in his speciality, rheumatology. I don't know if he published a peer-reviewed article on persistence theory. I would view this more as a philosophical framework for understanding the phenomenon of entanglement rather than physics as such. I am drawn to it, because it converges in many ways with the kind of informational dynamics approach that I've learned about from Apokrisis and others on this forum (which is after all a philosophy forum).
Quoting noAxioms
One thing I've picked up reading your posts over the years, is that you're basically nihilist - kind of a 'soft nihilism', not harsh or cynical. 'Nobody knows for sure that anything is real.' It provides a kind of ultimate get-out-of-jail card for any argument or model, which can be nullified with a shrug, and 'who knows'?
Quoting noAxiomsAgain, i really don't know what you mean. In what way is any world you don't see explaining what you do see?
Quoting noAxiomsIf two minds that don't know each other, and don't know what the other is doing, independently go to the same place, and described it the same way, does that not mean there is something independent of either mind?
It's true that that particular integer has no special significance, but the role of integers is significant in the overall scheme of quantum mechanics:
[quote=Kumar, Manjit. Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality (pp. 98-99).]An object moving in a straight line has momentum. It is nothing more than the objects mass times its velocity. An object moving in a circle possesses a property called angular momentum. An electron moving in a circular orbit has an angular momentum, labelled L, that is just the mass of the electron multiplied by its velocity multiplied by the radius of its orbit, or simply L=mvr. There were no limits in classical physics on the angular momentum of an electron or any other object moving in a circle.
When Bohr read Nicholsons paper, he found his former Cambridge colleague arguing that the angular momentum of a ring of electrons could change only by multiples of h/2?, where h is Plancks constant and ? (pi) is the well-known numerical constant from mathematics, 3.14 . . Nicholson showed that the angular momentum of a rotating electron ring could only be h/2? or 2(h/2?) or 3(h/2?) or 4(h/2?) all the way to n(h/2?) where n is an integer, a whole number. For Bohr it was the missing clue that underpinned his stationary states. Only those orbits were permitted in which the angular momentum of the electron was an integer n multiplied by h and then divided by 2?. Letting n=1, 2, 3 and so on generated the stationary states of the atom in which an electron did not emit radiation and could therefore orbit the nucleus indefinitely. All other orbits, the non-stationary states, were forbidden. Inside an atom, angular momentum was quantised. It could only have the values L=nh/2? and no others.[/quote]
So, while it is true that integers lack causal powers, they nevertheless constrain the space of possible causal relations in quantum systems by defining the allowed states of the system. In this way, mathematics and whole numbers specifically shape the possibilities of physical reality. Don't overlook the fact that the quanta in quantum physics refers to the fact that physical properties are constrained to discrete, numerical (often integer-based) values. Even if integers arent causal forces, they govern the structure of whats physically possible ('other values were forbidden')
As Deacon says in Incomplete Nature, causal powers in nature are not exhausted by interactions of forces; constraints are also formative. Mathematical structures like quantized angular momentum states do not act on physical systems, but they fundamentally determine the organization of possibilities, and thus are indispensable to explaining physical outcomes.
That would be evidence of not-solipsism, but the fact said place is said to exist because it is being described by one or more observers makes its designation as such pretty dependent on the observation.
I am searching for a rule that defines objective existence in some way that doesn't depend on any observation of anything. The EP discussed in the OP is one way to do that, but surely there are others.
My relational definition is more restrictive than straight-EP, but it also works, and it doesn't require any explanation of how anything came to exist.
Quoting WayfarerYes, quantum theory seems to have a special relation with integers and not just real numbers like Newtonian physics.
The quote you gave seems to be pretty old, referencing the Bohr model of orbiting electrons like little satellites, deprecated a century ago for the more modern orbital model which still uses those integers, but doesn't suggest electrons going around in cute orbits with nice clean angular momentum like that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well this made me dig a shallow pit into the nihilism thing since there's so many variations of it and some of it probably does apply to me. Yes, I see no use for non-relational existence. I see that in a Russell's teapot sort of light, posited by many but lacking any predictive power, also similar to the premise of a preferred moment in time, another very intuitive but empirically empty proposition.
So quoting wiki-nihilism page we get:
"There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, and that knowledge is impossible. "
This seems totally wrong. Life has meaning, moral values and knowledge. It just isn't absolute, it's all relative. I've not discussed it much, but morals seem to be a social contract, valid only within the society where the contract is valid. Being immoral means going against society and bearing their social consequences. Best example is it being immoral to shoot a German soldier surrendering, but not immoral to shoot a Japanese one. That one is a written contract, but often the rules are not written.
As for knowledge, 2+2 adding up to 4 seems to be pretty objective knowledge. Knowledge is not all relative.
Closer to home is this quote:
"In the field of epistemology, relativistic versions of nihilism assert that knowledge, truth, or meaning are relative to the perspectives of specific individuals or cultural contexts, implying that there is no independent framework to assess which opinion is ultimately correct. "
This is under epistemology, suggesting that what I know is relative to my perspective, to which I can only agree. But being an 'observer', it makes any knowledge of mind pretty observer dependent, and when querying ontology, all I see is relations, no absolutes at all. X exists relative to Y, but there seems to be no meaning to 'X exists'. My prior topic tried to address (question) the claim that X cannot be whatever it is unless it first exists, that 'being' depends on ontology. Perhaps that's the answer. Instead of stubbornly insisting that X can be itself regardless of its ontic status, maybe that very existence simply is X being itself. That's totally circular, but ultimately, everything is I suspect.
Another quote from the page:
"Mereological nihilism asserts that there are only simple objects, like elementary particles, but no composite objects, like tables."
That's totally my assertion, two topics ago
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15297/is-there-any-physical-basis-for-what-constitutes-a-thing-or-object
I didn't know there was a term for what I was observing (demonstrating) in that topic.
Comments on this post are encouraged because I'm trying to fit my relativism into more than just an epistemological stance. I don't care what I know, I care about a model of what is that doesn't depend on mind, which makes empirical evidence take a secondary role.
Quoting noAxiomsI say it does [I]not[/I] exist because it is being observed. I say observing it is the means by which we know it exists, but it would exist if it was never observed.
Regarding the casual power of integers, 7 + 3. What caused "10" to exist in the mind of probably everybody who read that sentence?
But the point about integers remains. I'm sure a better-educated Platonist physicist than myself could make something profound out of it.
Re nihilism, I meant 'soft nihilism'. Not the bitter 'everything is meaningless' type, but the 'shrug, whatever' type. Bart Simpson rather than Friedrich Neitszche. (Not that it really matters ;-) )
Quoting noAxioms
Which is moral relativism, generally contrasted with moral realism. Tractatus Logic-Philosophicus 6.41:
Whatever he means by that, it emphatically could not be a matter of 'social contract'.
Quoting noAxioms
But models are clearly mind-dependent in some fundamental sense. Einstein said once, in dialogue with Tagore, 'I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.' But this overlooks the point that it is something only man can know. It's not a sense object, but an intelligible relationship that can only be discerned by a rational intellect. Like all of physics. The problem with today's understanding is, that it generally forgets to take into account the mind that knows it.
:grin:
I really don't understand what you're after. You want a way to prove that there is a reality that doesn't depend on mind. But the mind can't know what that model is, because that defeats the purpose. Is that right?
I agree that taking into account the knowing mind is essential, and that too much physicalist or scientistic thinking refuses to see this.
But actually, it makes a difference whether "the knowing mind" is limited to a human mind. Let's go with your other term, "a rational intellect," instead. What might this include? Other intelligent ET species, certainly. But also the sort of cosmic mind that is often posited in religion. Is there an argument you'd want to make that such a mind is impossible, or hopelessly unlikely? If not, and positing such a mind, then the existence of all intellectual objects of knowledge doesn't require human minds at all. Isn't that exactly the sort of independence we're looking for?
And if you want to get really Western-theistic, not only does this cosmic mind know intellectual objects, but they created them in the first place, arguing for even more independence from human thought.
But . . . even if all this were true, we're still left with the gap between how we represent this relationship of intellectual objects to ourselves, and how the cosmic mind did or does. Any sort of mind-independence calls into question the accuracy of what we can know. It requires further premises and arguments to conclude that the Pythagorean theorem looks the same to you, me, ET, and God.
OK, I took that from the evidence that each has language, something one doesn't have without interactions with others.
That's the standard line, yes. The OP is full of challenges to not so much that, but our presumed nonexistence of stuff not observed.
Typically, the realist presumes (if not explicitly posits) a classical reality:
P1 There is one (mind-independent) reality, and we happen to observe it, there being no other reality to observe
Maybe that's an unfair strawman because I totally take that apart in the OP.
There need to be more mind-independent worlds, and not just worlds like this one but without people, but funny worlds with say multiple dimensions of time or something. We observe this one because this one is tuned for observation, and the vast majority of them are not.
So this brings up the problem of which worlds/things exist and which don't, and why?
I came up with some alternatives:
1) Existence is a mental construct only. There is no existence in itself, only the idea of it. Hence it can be applied at the whim of whoever uses the word, and the presumer of this existence is fooled into thinking it actually corresponds to something actual, like things are actually divided into existing ones and nonexisting ones.
2) Existence is not based on empirical evidence at all, but on some logical reasoning. Trick is to come up with that reasoning, and a few have been suggested in my prior post an in the OP.
Probably the symbols and their meaning as taught to said readers. Good question though. Suppose integers don't exist. Not saying they don't exist somewhere in our universe, but that they don't exist at all. Can 7+3 really add up to 10, or must they be instantiated somewhere first, like 7 oranges and 3 grapefruits in a basket of 10 citrus fruits.
This is an important question. Can 7 be itself (can it be say an odd number) if it doesn't exist? If 7+3 need not exist to add up to 10, then similarly, objective existence seems unnecessary for anything to be whatever it is.
I've asked this before, and many actually say that 7+3 do not add up to 10 unless the integers exist (and not just if 3,7,10 are all members of the set of otherwise nonexistent integers). I don't answer that way, and I say that the sum is 10 regardless of the ontological status of the integers involved.
We're talking about what seems to be objective truth here, and no some property of our universe.
Quoting PatternerI want a plausible model, even if I cannot know the correctness of it. Nobody can know if their interpretation of anything is the correct interpretation. That's true by definition.
I don't think so since the model would not require itself to be known, but neither does it forbid it.
That didn't come out right. The way that it actually is, does not require (nor forbid) a mental model to, by chance or good reasoning, correspond to this actuality.
Quoting Janus
If existence is but an ideal (described in alternative (1) just above), then yes, the above suggestion would be true. Also, the universe seems to contain time, not be contained by it, so all of it exists equally, meaning the universe is self-observed, period. There's no before/after about it. Yes, the parts prior to the observation are the ones observed. Its the events after the observation that are not observed, so maybe it's those that don't exist under some mind-dependent position.
All that said, this topic is not about if the apple has mind-independent existence, its about what exists besides the stuff observed. If the answer is 'not much', then it sounds pretty observation dependent to me.
Quoting WayfarerYes, I tried to convey that the point still stood.
I don't think so. I really care, and I want a model that lacks fundamental problems, but I'm getting nowhere. The relational thing works nice on paper, but it has problems of vanishing probability of the relations I perceive being actual perceived things instead of illusions, a sort of Boltzmann Brain problem. That's a hard one to get around, and it must be solved for the view to be rational.
The model itself is of course, but I mean that which it is modelled.
You assert that no alien intelligence is capable of coming up with that theorem? If not, what are you saying? It seems discoverable even by an intelligence in a universe with completely different physical rules.
Not at all, but there is no evidence of such. I mean rational intelligence. And theres also no grounds to entertain the idea of a universe with different physical rules. This is where your relativism/nihilism shows through. It underwrites the idea that there are no necessary truths.
Quoting J
As I said above, I meant rational intelligence. To all intents and purposes, that refers to our minds, although I'm open to the possibility of other intelligent species in the Universe. But the point is, that while Einstein says that the Pythagorean theorem is true independently of man I think he overlooks the fact that, at least in our world, it is something only knowable to a rational intelligence that is capable of abstract thought and symbolic representation. So in one sense it is independent of us - does not depend on our assent for it to be true - but in another sense it is mind-dependent, in only being perceptible to the rational intellect (nous.)
As to whether there is 'one mind' or 'cosmic intelligence' or 'divine intellect' - the way I put it is that mind is 'some mind' or 'mind, generally.' While individual minds have their own idiosyncracies and proclivities, the mind also possesses universal characteristics and attributes, which are what is described by logical principles (Frege's 'laws of thought'), among other things. I think that's what Bernardo Kastrup means (or should mean!) by 'mind at large'.
What do you mean "the universe is self-observed"? Do you think observation occurs in the absence of observers? You say the universe contains time, which I take to mean that the universe is temporal, so how do you get to "there's no before/ after about it"?
The question boils down to whether "if nothing is observed then nothing exists" is true. If you believe that then would you believe that the fossil record didn't exist until we observed it?
Why is the question not about if the apple has mind-independent existence? If the question is about what exists besides the stuff observed, how could the answer be "not much", given that we observe only the tiniest fraction of the universe? And even if it were "not much" (speaking of the apple now) why should that lead to the conclusion that the apple is observer-dependent? The reason I switched to the Universe from the apple is that if there is much there to be observed which has not been observed then that would entail mind-independent existence, no?
OK, so you're open to there being others, but you don't see evidence of such, which just means that they're sufficiently separated to not notice each other. An that's just this universe, never mind other ones
So I outline, in first paragraphs of the OP, grounds to entertain the idea of worlds/universes with different rules. By the relational definitions I've given, those worlds (like any other world) do not exist relative to us by definition, but neither do we exist relative to them.
By the EP, worlds with say 2 dimensions of time exist. Worlds with zero dimensions of time don't exist. EP is not a relational definition.
Quoting JanusI mean that this world has evolved observers.
That means that time is part of the universe, one dimension of 4D spacetime, consisting of all events including the ones with us in it. This is an opinion.
Some say that the universe is contained by time (they don't use that wording), in which case the universe becomes an object, created, just like any other object, and there's something larger that better deserves the term 'universe'. In this model, there was a time before which this universe was not observed from within. As an object, it is subject to being externally observed if you can find any consistency in that.
It's true under any observation-dependent definition of existence. I'm exploring alternate definitions.
Because the apple is observed. No, I'm not talking about something merely unseen, say the nearest star to our exact position, but on the opposite side of the galaxy. Most assume that exists.
The test should probe the boundaries, such as the live cat when the box opened turns up the dead one.
Instead, how about 'the nearest star 50 GLY away in the exact current direction of North'? That's a complete counterfactual and 'is not real' by most interpretations of quantum theory. And as always, how about the number 17? That's also one of my frequent examples.
In which case, they're completely irrelevant in any sense other than providing rhetorical elbow-room in which any claim whatever can be accomodated. It's a way of avoiding admission of necessary truths, which suits your relativist arguments.
You also seem to agree that there are things independent of minds. In which case you would appear to be one the "anybodies" who support mind-independent reality.
Quoting noAxioms
We have no relation to such worlds, but they have some relation to us (if they exist) insofar as we think about them. The MWI is a possible one in QM. It is criticized for being unfalsifiable, but then so are the other interpretations as far as we can tell. How could we ever demonstrate that consciousness collapses the wave function, for example, or that there really are hidden variables?
Up to a certian point, I'll agree. From a pragmatic perspective, in fact, realism is probably preferable than 'idealism', if by the latter we mean that anything outside the mind(s) doesn't exist. But conversely, a broadly 'idealistic' perspective actually helps in a practical sense.
For instance, even the most consistent physicalist nowadays is ready to admit that reality is not like it appears to us. That is, a suspension of disbelief about 'common sense' is needed to accept the counterintuitive facts that scientific theories sometimes require us to accept. The common sense view that we have about the world is, indeed, for a large part mind-dependent. So, I would say that even if 'idealisms' are wrong they are still useful pragmatically.
Well, thanks for your thoughts. Unfortunately, I am not well-versed to that philosophical perspectives, so I am sorry if my answer isn't satisfying.
I believe that in these kind of discussions we have to remember the historical meanings of terms like 'realism' and 'idealism'. I believe that realism is more like an epistemic position rather than an ontic one. If by 'realism' one means that there is a 'mind-independent reality' outside minds, it is pretty rare to find 'idealists' that flatly deny that (Plato or Kant for instance would be realist in this sense). But realism is more a claim that we can have knowledge of that 'mind-independent reality' and it's where things get murkier.
If I am not mistaken, ontic structural realism is the position that, while we can't know the intrinsic properties of mind-independent reality, we can, at least in principle, know some structural aspects of it. For instance, conservation laws, symmetries in physics and so on are probably the most general laws we can discover. Probably it's the least 'speculative' form of realism there is. It doesn'r require that we can describe 'faithfully' the world but just that, in principle at least, the mathematical/logical structures of our theories might mirror the structure of the mind-independent reality. In other words, it's merely the claim that mind-independent reality is partially intelligible by us.
I would say that it is a reasonable stance to hold. After all, the assumption of the existence of a mind-independent reality has much more explanatory powers than the denial of it. So, it would also seem reasonable to assert that we can have some knowledge of it. But then, if we accept that 'mind-independent reality' is intelligible, we might ask ourselves how is that possible. That is, why that mind-independent reality is intelligible in the first place. To me this is a strong argument to some kind of 'platonism' about mathematics, logic and so on: after all, if mathematical, logical truths and so on are not merely creations of our minds but in some way properties of mind-independent realities, then the partial intelligibility is easily explained. Paradoxically, then, the 'mind-independent' reality would be something that is not wholly 'different' from the mind, in a sense.
Can we have certainty of this, however? I would not say so. After all, if our knowledge is inductive it can't be certain. On the other hand, though, as you say it would absurd to deny that, say, newtonian mechanics makes correct predictions. The empirical knowledge that science gives us is undeniable. But, in a sense, we can't 'prove' in any way that this means that we do know the structure of 'reality as it is'. So, here we are in an antinomy. On the other hand, basically everything seems to tell us that we can know something about a mind-independent reality. On the other hand, however, there is no logical compelling argument that we can. It is a fascinating mystery IMHO. And what is even more interesting is that if we do accept that we can know (part of) the mind-independent reality it is because it shares something with our own mental categories. So, it would imply that, say, mathematical platonists are in some sense right to say that mathematical truths are mind-independent, eternal and so on.
Do you think that '2+2 = 4' is a mind-independent truth? I actually think it is. But I can't be sure of it. That's why I lean toward some form of matematical platonism. It seems that mathematical truths are discovered, not 'invented', at least in part. But I guess that I can't give compelling arguments about it.
Quoting noAxioms
I think I see what you mean. But then all the worlds would be mind-dependent. Not dependent on a particular mind. So we would have a pluarality of worlds that depend on their respective 'minds'.
Quoting noAxioms
Either to other minds or, if RQM is correct, they stand out to physical objects.
Quoting noAxioms
Correct. I disagree, in the sense that I don't see convincing reasons to say that. It would be quite a coincidence that the world 'in the perspective of a pen' is describable in the same terms as it is 'as it appears to me'. But, I think we can discuss about this forever without convince either of us of the opposite :smile:
Quoting noAxioms
I am not sure that Rovelli meant that. I think he meant that each observer when asks "what did you see?" to another will get an answer which is coherent with his observations. I don't think that Rovelli meant anything more than this.
Quoting noAxioms
That's a good point, indeed. I need to think about this to give you a proper response. Hope you don't mind.
Right. I don't know a whole lot about mathematical Platonism, being unsure about the arguments for each side, and why 2+2=4 perhaps necessitates it or not.
Well, a plurality of worlds that don't depend on minds at all. A great deal of them would be unfathomable to us, but what, do they all exist? I came up with a world from Conway's Game of Life (GoL), which is very crude, 3D (2 space, 1 time), and arguable has 'objects'. Does an evolution of a given initial GoL state exist? It certainly is a world. That's what I mean by questioning where the line should be drawn (from what does it stand out?) Nobody has answered the question. I have only vague answers, none supported by logic. That's a great deal of the reason I'm not a realist.
I'm not comparing it to how things appear to you. The pen is not conscious and nothing appears to it at all. But the pen has a causal history and thus measures (interacts with) that history, just as you do. So not as things appear to you, but how your entire causal history relates to you. Your mental processing of a fraction of those measurements has nothing to do with this causal relation, thus the pen and a random meat-wad are on ontological level ground.
So I'm using 'perspective' here in the same was as 'measure', just meaning physical interaction with environment. I confine 'observer' to something with mental interaction. I'm not asserting that a perspective is that, I'm just using the word that way.
Quoting boundlessBut that's my take on that comment as well.
Quoting boundlessThinking about stuff rather than giving a quick knee-jerk response is always a good thing. I'm often delayed in replying precisely because I'm looking up sites relevant to the response. It's not like I think I have all the answers already. I certainly don't.
Quoting Wayfarer
If you equate 'irrelevance to us' as 'nonexistent to us', then sure, but those other worlds are relevant to the only viable models that explain certain things. I notice you don't have a solution yourself to say the fine tuning problem, perhaps waving it away as being somehow necessary, but without saying how it is necessary.
How do you explain the reality of whatever you consider to be fundamentally real (mind?)? Or is it 'it just is'? I ask because I think the relational view solves that problem, but only if you take it on its own ground and not mix it in with a contradictory view.
I think I proposed 2+2=4 as a sort of necessary truth. A whole lot of stuff falls apart if that isn't accepted.
Quoting JanusPretty good summary, yes. To say 'there was nothing, and then there was something' implies that there was time in which more stuff besides time suddenly 'happened'. It seems a category error to consider the universe to be something that 'happened'. Again, opinion, but the opposite opinion is to posit the existence of something (a preferred moment in time) for which there is no empirical evidence, only intuition, and I rank intuition extremely low on my list of viable references.
Except for the 'reality' part, sure. Mind-independent, sure. Relation-independent, no. I think in terms of relations, but I don't necessarily assert it to be so. I proposed other models that are not relational and yet are entirely mind-independent. See OP.
Sure we do. It's just a different relation than 'part of the causal history of system state X', more like a cousin relation instead of a grandparent relation. The grandparent is an ancestor. The cousin is not. The cousin world is necessary to explain things like the fine tuning of this world, even if the cousin world has no direct causal impact on us.
That interpretation can be shown to lead to solipsism, which isn't a falsification, but it was enough to have its author (Wigner) abandon support of the interpretation.
By definition, those can neither be demonstrated nor falsified.
They have proven that certain phenomena cannot be explained by any local hidden variable theory, but that just means that hidden variable proposals are necessarily non-local.
Wow, that sounds pretty serious, if 2+2=4 is not a necessary truth a whole lot if stuff falls apart. What exactly do you have it mind? Maybe, for example, I am a kid at school learning arithmetic and I learn that addition and say to myself, that is nice, it is true today but maybe tomorrow it will be false, or that is nice but maybe the teacher is mistaken and it is really false, and the kid decides to give up learning addition. Maybe if they were taught it was a necessary truth this unfortunate situation might not occur.
There are no empirical issues with realism or idealism, nor logical issues, or immediately obvious metaphysical objections which can bury all such alternatives from either camp. However, that leaves it up to us to choose one without the baggage of those former concerns and I think most would sooner pick the most intuitive than the least.
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Forms of idealism might be more unified in covering certain aspects of quantum mechanics or QFT but they most definitely do not make such notions more easily dwelt with.
Forms of realism require tons of fine tuning to get them to fit and leave lots of free variables but once those issues are settled in our eyes we can quickly move one. Foundations are set and we can start building from something that our consciousness can work with amenably.
Unified and esoteric VS. dis-unified and immediately manipulable?
Might it not be along the lines that necessary truths dont have further explanation? The epistemological buck has to stop somewhere. (I'm not at all referring to the crude idea of so-called 'brute facts'. )
One way I've thought about the anthropic principle is simply to observe that it puts paid to the argument that the origin of life is a consequence of the fortuitous combination of elements, the 'warm little pond' theory of abiogenesis. And that's because the causal sequence that gave rise to those circumstances can be traced back past the formation of the planet, to the stellar transformations that gave rise to those complex elements, which in turn can be traced back to some specific characteristics of matter-energy that seem to have existed from the earliest moments of the cosmos. It is perfectly understandable that theologically-inclined philosophers will regard that as evidence for a higher intelligence, although I don't personally hold to that, and also that this will of course be contested by atheists. But I think the argument that there might be uncountable further unknown universes doesn't amount to saying anything whatever. We'll never know. Ironic that anti-theological philosophers use this blatantly metaphysical argument to argue against religious metaphysics.
I believe that formalists and, in general, mathematical anti-realists would say that "2+2=5" would not be correct because it would be coherent with the system of definitions, rules of argumentation and so on in which the operation "2+2" is found. But for them, mathematics is like, say, the game of chess. It's an invention where you can establish 'objective' rules (i.e. rules valid for all), but it's still an inevention.
On the other hand, if you invent a different 'game' where "2+2=5", that would be just fine.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, the general term is matheamtical 'realism'. There are different variants. Platonists assert that mathematical truths are both independent from our minds and also from the world. The main argument is that mathematical truths do not seem to rely on any kind of contingency. So they seem to be eternal and independent.
Opponents of platonism question the possibility that such a 'realm of truths' can be known by us.
I personally lean towards platonism. But I don't think I can make compelling arguments about it.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, they might not depend upon minds. But if each of them is dependent on a 'perspective'.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, to me it would be a subset of 'our world', wouldn't it?
Quoting noAxioms
Ok! Sorry for the equivocation. In fact, you have already said that and I insisted to use the word 'perspective' in a way that would be compatible with both the cases. It inevitably lead to confusion.
Anyway, the point I am making would be that the division into 'objects' might be a conceptual division, i.e. something that makes sense in the context of an 'observation'. There is no guarantee IMO that outside the 'observations' it is indeed possible to speak of such a division. The relationality of physical propoerties for instance suggest to me that the way we carve the world into objects is in large part a mental construct. So, describing the world outside the context of observations with concepts that are being introduced to make sense of observations would be a leap that might have to be justified.
Quoting noAxioms
Thanks! Here's an idea. Maybe the 'change' of my perspective is just an useful abstraction. 'My' 'observing perspective' is the same even when the description changes because I moved in my worldline. So, maybe any kind of perspective that physics tells about is an useful abstraction, which doesn't necessarily connect to something truly real.
Quoting substantivalism
Interesting point. That would seem an antinomy to me. There seems no way to decide one over the other with purely rational motives. Note that I say so because I don't know how you can explain consciousness by something totally unconscious.
Well I agree with that, and so does @Richard B given his last post.
Being objectively true (and not just true of at least this universe) does not imply inaccessibility. The question comes down to if a rational intelligence in any universe can discover the same mathematics, and that leads to circular reasoning.
Quoting boundlessOnly a simulation of it. The things in themselves (all different seed states) are their own universes.
Funny thing is that our universe can be simulated in a GoL world, so it works both ways.
Quoting boundlessTotally agree here.
A perspective seems to be a sort of 5 dimensional thing, 4 to identify an event (point in spacetime), and one to identify a sort of point in Hilbert space, identifying that which has been measured from that event. All these seem to be quite 'real' (relative to our universe)
So for instance, two perspectives of our friend in the box, one having measured up, and one down. Same event, different states with which the perspective is entangled, which is the different 'locations' in Hilbert space. I put that in scare quotes because it isn't a linear dimension like distance or something.
Quoting WayfarerThat's one way. An extremely unlikely event, but no end of places and time for it it occur. Plenty of dice being rolled, so abiogenesis doesn't seem to be a problem at all.
Most of that has unlimited rolls of the dice, so improbability isn't a problem. The part in bold, if this is 'the one universe', only gets one shot, since those incredibly unlikely characteristics are the same everywhere, and that means you only get one shot at it.
Yes, having a theological conclusion already in mind, this anomaly was eventually used as evidence of design. Before that, it was the 'design' of all living things, but science kind of won out on that issue, so now the goal post has been moved to the 'designed' tuning. I think they're getting tired of conceding points instead of ever winning one.
People finally accepted uncountable further unknown planets. Why is this one so different?
I do agree that throwing up one's arms and saying 'everything exists' seems to dilute the concept into meaninglessness. To exist is to stand out, and nothing can stand out if there's no distinctions.
It seems neither of us has a satisfactory answer. I do my best, but my view very much borders on the one lacking distinctions. The question that kills me: Why does our universe seem so interesting? There are far more structures that are not interesting and yet have identical copies of me in it. If they are 'exist' (whatever that means), I'm probably in one of the uninteresting ones without knowing it. I have no answer to that one. Such is the consequence of not restricting ontology at all.
Surely you can understand how unknown planets and unknown universes are on a different ontological plane? The universe being the totality of what exists. Im open to Penroses idea of the cyclical universe, but really only because it harmonises with my sympathies for Indian mythology, which has always taught that. But the idea of universes, plural in any other sense, I think is completely meaningless - as its obviously not an empirical hypothesis, in the sense of not being able to be refuted empirically, so it must be metaphysical, but without any connection to what the term was devised to mean.
In the past 100 years our knowledge of the universe has expanded by orders of magnitude. I find the notion of a multiverse intriguing - but I'm just an armchair physicist. However, much smarter people than I think it's worth looking into.
https://www.thescienceblog.net/is-there-scientific-evidence-for-the-theory-of-the-multiverse/
https://organicallyhuman.com/googles-quantum-multiverse-exists/
Well, platonism asserts that the mathematical truths are objectively real, so you aren't wrong. The problem is, however, that if mathematical truths are independent from both our minds and all the contingencies of the world, it would seem, indeed, that they are, in some sense, objectively real.
Mind you, not as 'things'. Plato himself for instance argued that they reside in a different level of 'reality', the reality of intelligible objects, accessible only from reason. I believe that many theists would say that mathematical truths are concepts in the mind of God and we are able to understand mathematics because our minds have a structure that is able to understand them. In recent times, Penrose popularized the idea of the 'three worlds', the physical world, the world of consciousness and the 'platonic realm'. All these worlds for him both transcend and relate to each other.
I believe that mathematical platonism is right because it seems to me that mathematical truths are objectively true and independent from both the world(s) and our minds. They can be known, so they are not 'nothing' (or figments of our imagination because they are independent from our minds) - they seem to have some kind of ontological reality.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, yeah, right. And also, this objection seems to miss the problem. The point would be "can a rational intelligence of any kind learn mathematics as we know it?". For instance, I read that some propose that a rational being that lives alone in an undifferentiated environment would not coinceive numbers. But the scenario presented here is made in terms of concepts that accessible to us and, even if that inteliggence could not conceive numbers, our arguments would be still correct.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, you are assuming that our world can be simulated. That's a big assumption. Anyway, if our world were a simulation, I would not consider it a separated world from that which runs the simulation.
Quoting noAxioms
Good!
Quoting noAxioms
Interesting take, thanks. But maybe here the risk is to conflate the 'map' (the mathematical description) and the 'territory'.
But as far as descriptions go, probably one can describe a 'perspective' with a particular division of space time in 3d space, one dimension of time and a point in Hilbert space.
An interesting question would be what is the relation between spacetime and the Hilbert space.
Well, there are infinitely many mathematical truths, so the realm they inhabit is going to be infinitely "large" (if that word even makes sense). Also, is some kind of interaction going on between our mental realm and the platonic realm? When you think 2+2=4, do you interact, in some way, with one of these mathematical truths, and that allows for the grounding of mathematical knowledge? If so, then the interaction between the specific mathematical truth and one of the infinite mathematical truths in this realm...how does that work, exactly? And if there is no interaction, why posit the existence of objective mathematical truths? To avoid contradiction?
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
Yes, very true. Its totally reasonable to have the thought process that: there is a reality out there independent of us even when we are not looking; when we do look, what we see is dependent entirely on out biology had how that biology relates to the world in a specific and non-unique perspectival way (based on the physical interactions mediating the relation between things in the outside world and our brains). It is then fair to say how we see reality and information we gain that can be put to use is dependent on a perspective of a mind.
For me, its acknowledging this fact but also arguing that this exact same situation can be also equally viewed as a brain receiving genuine information about the outside world which depends entirely on whats going on out in the world. I think there is wiggle room in deciding what constitutes mind-independent knowledge, or at the very least knowledge that is in some sense real.
Again, the motivation is that it seems paradoxical to say that all knowledge is false or not real, yet our mastery of the world is very good. And I think taking anti-realism to its logical conclusion, it makes sense to me to say that all knowledge, whether scientific or just your everyday knowledge, is not real in that anti-realist sense. That logical conclusion is why I tend toward a total deflationary attitude toward all knowledge and epistemic activities. However, apart from the fact that deflating knowledge and epistemic behavior actually requires a tentative story of what is objectively happening with regard to minds and brains and consciousness, I think just for the sake of a coherent story, there should be a kind of compromise position accounting for the fact that while knowledge and epistemic activities don't support the most extreme, almost ridiculously naive realist position, the aforementioned paradox makes the notion of anti-realism a bit misleading. The deflation of the anti-realism vs. realism dichotomy itself is part of a solution; we might even say that one can only view the construct of "real" perspectivally in a way that requires adding your own assumptions about what constitutes "real" that are not straightforwardly unambiguous. At the same time, the paradox can only be fully resolved imo by a story about some "real" engagement with the world. Often our engagement is completely erroneous; at the same time, such error is not dichotomous but a continuous, fuzzy gradation.
Quoting boundless
That I believe is actually epistemic structural realism. Ontic structural realism is that there is nothing more than structural properties to reality. I think an ontic structural realist might say there is some objective, uniquely describable set of structures. My view would be considerably weaker than that.
I think part of my view is changing the standard of what constitutes "real" metaphysics and "real" knowledge.
Some say that what is "real" metaphysically is a world of objectively, uniquely defined stuff that kur words and sentences map to. For me, its sufficient just that our words consistently map to stuff in a self-consistent way. I don't need some notion of objective boundaries in the world beyond my senses, just that if I see stuff or say stuff, it always maps to the same part of the world with the same relations to other parts of the world.
Because what is knowledge but the ability to predict what happens next? In that sense, knowledge is entirely about structure. The idea of intelligible intrinsic properties separate from structure then doesn't make sense - there is simply nothing to know about that kind of thing and it doesn't even logically make sense unless it led to some perceptible structural distinguishability. Indistinguishable intrinsic properties are meaningless.
I would say it is this kind of argument which could be used to attack the idea that we cannot knoe about the intrinsic nature of the world mind-independently - it doean't really make any sense the idea that there is anything to know or anything intelligible about that. Everything that is meaningful and makes a difference in the world is about structure that makes a difference - a boulder is meaningful because it has structural relationships to everything else in the world and makes a difference to how things around it behave, whilst other things evince its existence by enacting change upon the boulder; when you push it it moves. If intrinsic properties cannot make a difference structurally then not only are they meaningless but they give no reason for us to even speculate on them. A Bayesian might say we should update out beliefs only as much as required by the evidence. If no difference is made, there is nothing to update.
There is then the possibility of knowledge being mediated by different structures that produce exactly the same predictions counterfactually. Like how Newtonian physics can be formulated dynamically or in terms of least action or complex Hilbert spaces. But then if there is no way of distinguishing what different models say about the world then how do they make a difference to our knowledge? How do they make a difference to our mastery? They don't. It then doesn't make much of a difference that we describe the same thing in different ways; we are still making a consistent mapping to the same world. Our conscious experiences are just that - informational structure about what is going on in the world, albeit form a specific persepctive limited by specific physical interactions with a small contained part of the world - nonetheless, when not going haywire they map to the world in a way that in principle would be vindicated by habitual engagement with the world. Sure we can be wrong or incorrect about how we see our mapping to the world but this is not so interesting if it is possible in principle for us to be errorless (albeit one could also be a radical skeptic about errors).
Ultimately, though we are often wrong and models often do make considerably different predictions. Even in something like quantum interpretations. Different interpretations make the same empirical predictions but clearly they do not make the same predictions, fullstop. Many worlds predicts a completely different universe to Bohmian mechanics or relational mechanica structurally; its just that physics so far has hidden the means from us to actually distinguish those different ontologies.
We are wrong all the time. We make idealizations that are often wrong in some parts, albeit vindicate the important predictions we are intetested in in other aspects.
I think many realists are not interested in the possibility that our theories are mistaken. For many realists, I think it is sufficient that it is in principle possible to have a model or maybe sets of many models that predict everything one could predict about the structure of the universe correctly. They would then say that many theories are wrong now, but the fact that they predict things correctly means some of the structure is correct and that those predictions will get better over time.
At the same time, I think most anti-realists would say this is nothing more than empirical adequacy, or empirical structure, especially if one ditched the idea that "real" requires unique, objective deacriptions.
I guess here it makes salient that my views about the issues of realism in regard to indeterminacy are no different to any anti-realist, and I embrace that anti-realism because I believe all knowledge and epistemic activities can be deflated, albeit deflated under a kind of scientific or scientifically-amenable description of how exactly we perform those activities.
But my concern I guess is that the upholding of predictions via empirical adequacy requires a form of real engagement with the world, albeit one that can be mistaken.
So in that sense many theories are just plain wrong on some level or some aspects; if they make acceptable predictions in some places, that needs elucidating about how it captures empirical structure or if it does so only by luck or too thinly to be interesting.
I guess it could be vacuous when one considers that structure must be scaffolded on other structures and that they could be plausibly scaffolded on many different incompatible ones.
I suspect many attempts at explanations are like this. Flat out wrong.
It is then valid to be truly skeptical of scientific theories that could be flat out wrong. But I think something like classical mechanics actually makes too little metaphysical assumptions to be vacuous in this way. In some ways, Newtonian mechanics is actually just a thin description of behavior we see in empirical structure. Its not like saying that the earth is flat and then finding out it is rouns - which invokes considerable extra metaphysical, structure depth beyond what we see in empirical behavior. Quantum thwory may be the same as Newtonian mechanica in that regard.... but quantum interpretations isn't as it goes metaphysically deeper.
I guess under my view is the idea that maybe there can be nothing more to say about reality than what could be perceived or distinguished in empirical structures counterfactually; albeit ones that can be mistaken and do scaffold on each other in some sense.
Again, I think because of the complicatedness it becomes difficult to unambiguously define real and not real in regard to descriptions and theories that themselves can be deflated in terns of physical activities. Nonetheless there is maybe a fuzzy gradation between consistent mappings, engagements with the world and ones that are erroneous, or at least our predictions of our own knowledge are erroneous
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
From my perspective, all it requires is a mapping so it is sufficient for a physical reality were things behave in consistent ways that structure of some parts of reality can be mapped to the behaviors of other parts (e.g. like say a mirror reflecting the image of the structure of a room). So I disagree about platonism.
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
Yes, I think skepticism is always real and healthy. Knowledge, or rather, beliefs can be and often are outright wrong. They cannot be compelled to be correct. I think maybe this though goes into a question of agnosticism about theories rather than anti-realism. If it were anti-realism then it would be: even if our predictions were correct would it be not real? Now, I have said that I believe all epistemic activities can be deflated as complicated, even instrumentalist, constructions, maybe they all are a bit erroneous too. But again, I have shifted my standard for realism - I think if one views realism in terms of unique mappings to reality then ofcourse there are always many possible descriptions of the world and none of them would be real. That is valid. But I think it is also valid to say that if our epistemic constructs are all deflations and all we have to go on is whether our predictions and mastery are correct, then there is in some sense a realism to it because it reflects some real engagement which - via the purview of the free energy principle - would reflect some genuine statistical coupling between us and reality; at least that is the story, and all we have are stories. But then again, those models can be wrong, they can only be valid in a small part of reality and turn out incorrect when we come across a novel context.
I think my main contention is the status of the connection between pluralism and realism or anti-realism; we may choose to construct different tools for describing reality, nonetheless they are describing or pointing at the same thing given that they are used appropriately. I think this is inherently ambiguous. Maybe this inclines to borderline paradoxical aspects about the relation of theories to reality. Maybe we can deflate all realism and truth but nonetheless still use those words meaningfully in a deflated context. But maybe we should all be scientific agnosticists though justified in choosing theories we believe are either the best of a bad bunch now or that we believe most likely to not become erroneous in the future.
Contrast that with a god, who should very much be independently discoverable, and yet each isolated culture/tribe comes up with their own, none related to any of the others. That's huge evidence that it's all being invented, not discovered.
If a mathematical structure is going to supervene on mathematical truths, then those truths are going to need to be accessible by far more than just reason, which sounds like a mental act or some other construct that instantiates the mathematics (such as a calculator).
Great. 3 worlds on their own instead of each being stacked on the next.
I agree with that bit, and perhaps the ontology can follow since such truth stands out from nonsense.
I'm actually being moved by this reasoning, so yes.
I think not the point. Said intelligence would need to be presented with an environment where such tools would find utility. It need not be 'of any kind' for mathematics to be independently discoverable.
Quoting boundlessAn approximation of it can be, yes. A classical simulation is capable of simulating this world in sufficent detail that the beings thus simulated cannot tell the difference. Another funny thing is that GoL is more capable of doing this than is our universe due to resource limitations that don't exist under GoL.
A world is what it is, and a simulation of it is a different thing, sort of like the difference between X and the concept of X, something apparently many have trouble distinguishing..
I need more of a mathematics background to give an intelligent answer to that.
Quoting WayfarerI sure do. A small fraction of the former are part of our causal past. None of the latter are, which makes a big ontological difference if ontology is based on us.
If it's defined that way, then there's not such thing as other universes by definition, at least not existing ones, and that's presuming that we're part of the universe as thus defined. Per my prior topic, I find no empirical test for that sort of thing.
Do you understand how it works, what the duration of all the prior ones were (as measured by one of our clocks), and how long it will take for the next one to happen? It is a cool idea, I admit.
Quoting EricH
Those are interesting, but pop articles written by people no smarter than you or I, writing about view of people who are indeed smarter in their field.
The blog article speaks of 'the multiverse theory' like it's one theory. It goes on to admit that it's just a blanket term for several unrelated actual theories, but much of the discussion still treats it as one thing.
At least 9 types have been listed by Greene: Brane, Cyclic, Holographic, 2 Inflationary, Landscape, 3 Quantum, 1 Quilted, Simulated, 4 Ultimate.
The ones with numbers correspond to Tegmark's 4 types. Some of the others come from string theory.
The bolded ones are mentioned in the blog.
It has interesting assertions like: "MWI posits that every time a quantum event happens with multiple outcomes, such as a particle being in one state or another, the universe splits, creating a new branch for each outcome."
Well it posits no such thing. The sole premise is this: "All isolated systems evolve according to the
Schrodinger equation". That's it. It posits nothing else. All the rest follows from that one simple premise.
The blog is cute, but I spot several errors, meaning it's either not reviewed or it is written for entertainment rather than accuracy.
The google-chip article is attempting to sensationalize what is essentially: More progress has been made in the effort of realizing quantum computing. What it claims is that it will somehow prove the quantum multiverse (MWI), meaning that a successful quantum computer will somehow falsify all the other interpretations, which is by definition impossible since they all make the same empirical predictions.
Still, it will be interesting to see how proponents of each of the other interpretations choose to spin a functional quantum computer, similar to the wiki page showing how each interpretation spins the Schrodinger's cat scenario:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat#Interpretations
Interestingly, Bohmian mechanics isn't in there, and I thought it used to be. Was it removed? This is a significant hole in the page.
Yes, that's the problem with platonism. If mathematical (and other types of) abastract concepts and truths abide in a separate realm from the physical world and the mental world (including our culture), how can we know them? How the realms 'interact'?
I don't think that there is a fully satisfying answer to this question. That's why I said that I think platonism is right, but I don't think that there are fully compelling arguments for it.
The strongest evidence is the apparent eternity and necessity of these truths. To me platonist positions are the best explanations. But I can't claim knowledge or certainty about this.
The problem is that 'realm' is a metaphorical or allegorical description. It is not some place or ghostly ethereal realm. Here's a book called Thinking Being: Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition, by Eric Perl, which lays out the meaning of the Platonic 'ideas', with a chapter on 'the meaning of separation, from which this is excerpted:
The same general idea applies to all kinds of 'intelligible objects': they don't exist as objects in the phenomenal domain, but are more like principles.
I believe that mathematical truths (and not only them BTW), would still 'exist' even if they were not instantiated. This of course would ask the question: how? What then would be their ontological support?
But such principles as the law of the excluded middle would presumably obtain in any world. That is what 'true in all possible worlds' means - although that is not highly regarded nowadays, because, as we've been seeing, we're prepared to entertain the idea of 'other universes' where such principles may not hold at all, But the question I have about that is, how could a world exist, if such principles didn't hold? In a sense, such principles are like constraints.
In any case, the specific point of the Eric Perl quote is to show that the idea of a 'separate realm' is not referring to a literal place. 'They are thus separate in that they are not additional members of the world of sensible things, but are known by a different mode of awareness.
Well, it depends on the idealist, after all. Some idealists would contend that mathematical truths are concepts. But maybe there is an eternal and necessarily existing mind of some kind that always knows them.
A purely physicalist view, however, is difficult to reconcile with the existence of abstract objects. For instance, logical operations do not seem to be reducible to physical causality, which seems contingent.
Generally physicalists oppose platonism due to the fact that it posits an irreducible non-physical reality.
On the other hand, an idealist that doesn't posit any eternal mind shares the same difficulty.
Quoting noAxioms
It depends on what we call 'reason'. If by reason we mean the mental ability to make deductions, inductions, reasonings and so on, well, at least a good part of mathematical truths are accessible to our finite minds. Complex calculations do not but we do understand them. So, either mathematics transcends reason or reason at least potentially can understand everything in math.
Quoting noAxioms
:up:
Quoting noAxioms
I take this as an agreement. I mean, the potentiality to understand 'our' mathematics would be there. So, at least in principle, that intelligence could understand our mathematics.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, to be honest, I don't think that conscious beings can be understood in purely computational terms. But, I still don't see how it can be considered a separate world from the one where the simulation is run (unless you mean from the 'perspective' of the simulated 'entities', assuming that such a concept makes sense).
Quoting noAxioms
Ok! Yes.
Quoting noAxioms
Don't worry, neither do I. It is an interesting idea nevertheless IMO.
I know that you do not expect a reply but thanks for the thoughts. Something you said is above my level. I'll think about your answer and maybe I'll write some thoughts about some parts of it.
Agreed! The problem with Aristotle's view is IMHO that at least some abstract concepts do seem completely independent from their particulars. Mathematical and logical truths are an excellent example of that. Incidentally, I believe that theistic philosophers mantained that God's mind was actually the 'receptacle' of those forms and we can understand them because we are also rational beings created by God (Christians would say 'created in image and likeness'). A middle way of sorts between Aristotelism and Platonism. So in this latter view ('conceptualism' I think it was called), these forms are neither ontological independent from anything else (as in Platonism*) nor dependent from the particulars (as in Aristotelism**).
*Of course there is the possibility that Platonism actually was closer to conceptualism that is often recognized. After all, there was a hiearchy of the Forms in Plato's thought, with the Form of the Good as the Highest. Neoplatonism, certainly, was close to 'conceptualism' and incorporated some of Aristotle's views.
**Similarly, one wonders how much Aristotle's thought was also far from conceptualism, given that Aristotle was also a theist.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think I agree with that. Mathematics, logic and so on seem 'transcendental' with respect of the world (at least if we assume that the worlds are at least partly intelligible).
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed. It is useful to note that there are various forms of Platonism. Penrose's view seems to be indeed of a separate ontological realm, accessible to our reason, albeit certainly not a 'place'. Probably some platonists have a 'quasi-materialistic' view of the 'world of Forms', but generally do not.
A safe assumption, seeing as how we've been able to successfully exploit those principles through the application of mathematics. (I'd say a bit more about 'conceptualism' but I don't think this is the thread for it.)
Is mathematics abstract? That makes it sound like it's all mental concepts instead of anything objective, but I don't think you're using 'abstract' in that way here.
Of course not. 'Physical' is a reference to our universe. If logical operations were physical, they'd be a property of this universe and not anything objective. Something in a non-physical universe (like GoL) could not discover mathematics.
I'll let @wayfarer comment on that since I don't know Platonism enough to know what they assert.
Being accessible to minds has nothing to do with the truth of them.
For one thing, the vast majority of real numbers are inaccessible to us. We only have access to countably many of them. Actual mathematics would not be thus restrained.
What else might you call 'reason'?
Quoting boundlessMaybe it's us understanding some of theirs.
Good to see that we don't agree on everything then.
Difference of map and territory. There's the thing, and then there's a simulation of that thing. So while we can be simulated, by definition, we are not simulations.
OK, you seem to grok that.
I need more of a mathematics background to give an intelligent answer to that. noAxioms
It's actually a very simple idea: that natural numbers (and other such intelligible objects) are real, but not materially existent. Which, of course, is anathema to materialism, which must insist that anything that exists is matter (or matter-energy). You can say it in a sentence or two, but it is the subject of thousands of volumes of argument. (Incidentally I'm not any kind of authority on Platonic scholarship but I regard this salient point as a matter of common knowledge.)
The other point is that mathematics seems to be true in a way that goes beyond the objective. We usually think of objective as meaning something inherent in the object, or at least independent of our perception. But mathematics is often the means by which we define whats objective in the first placeso in that sense, it seems to transcend the domain of the objective rather than just belong to it.
Im not using abstract to mean just 'mental' or 'subjective'mathematical truths dont seem to depend on individual minds. But its not clear that theyre part of the natural world either. That leaves a kind of philosophical gap: we trust mathematics to describe the real, but were not sure where mathematical truths themselves fit into our picture of reality.
These are by nature very hard arguments to adjuticate but I'm comfortable with the classical or Aristotelian understanding of them being transcendent truths - see this account of Aristotelian realism in mathematics, from which:
I question Wayfarer's distinguishing between "existing" and "real". As a physicalist (more or less), I'd simply say that abstractions do not exist as independent entities in the world. We apply the "way of abstraction" - by considering several objects with some feature(s) in common, and mentally ignore all the other features. This process enables us to consider properties independently of the objects that possess these properties - even though those properties don't actually have independent existence; rather: they have immanent existence (they exist within objects). Example: we can consider several groups of objects, each of which has 3 members - and from this, we abstract "3". 3 is a property possessed by each of these groups.
This process is the basis of abstraction, but we can also conceptualize higher order abstractions by applying logic and extrapolating. That's the foundation of mathematics (from a physicalist perspective).
Thanks for your comments. Needless to say, I will take issue.
First, I think this begs the question. You assume that to be real is to be an independent entityor at least fo be some thing with immanent existence within particulars. But thats the point at issue. For the physicalist, then of course abstractions like numbers cant exist independently. But the philosophical question is whether that assumption is warranted and simply asserting it doesnt settle it.
Second, the idea that numbers are just features abstracted from collectionssay, that we form the concept of 3 by noticing trios in the worldfollows a broadly nominalist and empiricist line (like J S Mill). But this has its own problems. For one, to even perform the act of abstraction, we already need the concept of number. We dont derive the idea of three from objects; rather, we recognize objects as three because we already grasp the concept a priori. In that sense, the number is not a mere feature of things, but something we bring to experience through rational apprehension. (Try explaining 'the concept of prime' to a dog!)
Third, the truths of mathematics dont seem to be empirical at all. The fact that 3 + 2 = 5 holds independently of any particular instanceit would be true even if there were no physical groups of five objects anywhere. This suggests that mathematical truths are not dependent on the world, but structure our ability to make sense of it. Mathematical physics sees the world through the prism of theory, hence is able to discern things about it which could never be seen by an eye not so trained. Thats a very different kind of reality than physical immanence, and its part of what motivates mathematical Platonism.
Nothing's settled in metaphysics, but it does seem unparsimonious to consider them part of the furniture of the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
A priori? That's debatable, but I'll grant that we recognize more stuff vs less stuff, and could probably arrange collections into an order. Once we start counting, we're abstracting- but not until then.
To conceptualize a prime number, we first need to have learned some basics (abstractions).
Quoting Wayfarer
Twoness, threeness (etc) are certainly ontological properties of groups, and there are logical relations between these properties. Is this a truth? Not in my (deflationary) view, because a truth is a proposition. But we can formulate true propostions that correspond to the relations between twoness, threeness etc.
Mathematics is taught (and utilized) in a way that seems to imply platonism, but that doesn't make it so, and I don't think it justifies the belief that it is so. Why make the unparsimonious assumption that they exist?
More evidence of that, is the undeniable fact that man (sorry about the non PC terminology) has the ability to 'peer into the possible' and retrieve from it, many things previously thought impossible. The whole progress of modern science and technology is testimony to that - at the same time that the Armstrongs of this world deny the very basis on which this has been accomplished (as 'the possible' by very definition, does not comprise 'things that exist' but 'things that might exist'!)
[quote=Quantum Mysteries Dissolved;https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-mysteries-dissolve-if-possibilities-are-realities] In (a) new paper, three scientists argue that including potential things on the list of real things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. It is perhaps less of a full-blown interpretation than a new philosophical framework for contemplating those quantum mysteries. At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of reality is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantums mysteries disappear. In particular, real should not be restricted to actual objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or potential realities, that have not yet become actual. These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are ontological that is, real components of existence.
This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility, write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.
Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isnt new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a probability wave, describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotles potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. [/quote]
It sounds like equivocation, or cognitive dissonance.
Quoting Wayfarer
The power of abstraction is present irrespective of the metaphysical interpretations we make of the process.
Quoting Quantum Mysteries Dissolved
This sounds a bit like a presentist who considers as "existing" everything that exists, has existed, or will exist - i.e. a 4-dimensional landscape for identifying existents. We can make predictions about what will exist, but the act of prediction is just an intellectual exercise - epistemoligical. The same seems to apply to the possibilities you reference, but this seems epistemological (educated guesses about possible existents), not ontological.
I do see the utility of having a category for non-actual possibilities, but I don't see how this applies to mathematical abstractions in general. It only seems to apply to abstractions that describe non-actual possible existents- a small subset of all mathematical abstractions.
I agree that this could sound like equivocation if you assume that existence and reality are synonymous. But again that begs the question of the reality of abstracta, which is the point at issue. To say something is real without existing in the spatiotemporal, empirical sense is precisely the point when discussing abstracta, mathematical truths, or modal possibilities. These are not things in the physical world, but they constrain what can be true of that world - hence their designation 'laws'/ The very framework of physics, for example, depends on mathematical structures that don't exist materially.
Quoting Relativist
The capacity for abstraction is one thing, but the ontological status of what is abstracted - logical laws, symmetries etc - is the point at issue. If were to be strict materialists, then where do these structures reside? All in the mind? Just cognitive conveniences? or are they revealing something deeper about reality? Thats the live question, not the utility of abstraction per se.
Quoting Relativist
That is also not relevant to the fact that the ability to see via mathematical abstraction is so instrumental in the progress of science itself.
Bottom line here: the physicalist theory must be supported by some kind of 'brain-mind' identity. Why? Because it is necessary for them to argue that reason itself is somehow physical in nature. Whereas the non-materialist can simply say, look, reason comprises wholly and solely the relationship of ideas. These can be instantiated or realised in many different forms and many different media, so how can they be regarded a physical? The only fallback against that is to try and show that ideas are somehow identical with neural structures - as indeed D M Armstrong and other materialists insist.
The ontological status of a concept is that it is nothing more than a mental "object". You can apply whatever theory of mind you like to that (not just physicalism). I'm arguing that abstract objects are no more than mental objects- irrespective of what mental objects are. The mental objects that are abstractions are descriptions (e.g. detailing some or all the intrinsic properties that might be held by some objects in the world). Some such mental objects will correspond to something that exists - now, in the past, future, or perhaps in an independent universe (if such things exist). Others will correspond to nothing in the world (anywhere/anywhen).
We can also divide these mental objects into subsets: those that are physically possible (which may or may not exist) and those that are physically impossible.
It seems that you're defining as "real" : all the mental objects that are physically possible, irrespective of whether it exists, has existed, or will exist. If that's the extent of it, it's semantics. But I suspect you think it's something more than semantics.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sure, but this just suggests that scientists can extrapolate from what they know, to make good guesses as to what sorts of objects may exist. "Sorts of objects"= universals. Either a universal (or physically possible universal) is instantiated or it is not.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's not really necessary. Hebbian learning doesn't entail a structure being created, it entails patterns of neuron firings facilitated by changes to action potentials.
But that's a broader discussion. Let's focus on abstractions for now. I think they're nothing more than mental objects. If you think they are something more than that, then please describe.
But mathematical structures are effectively tautologies so I don't see any reason for them to be meaningfully instantiated in some realm of their own or something like that where they magically affect the rest of reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
But there is overwhelming evidence that physical structures like brains are sufficient for all our reasoning, including mathematical. Why do you need to invoke anything else?
What is a 'mental object' in the first place? Consider a very basic one, namely equals ('='). Any child with a modicum of education will understand that symbol by age of 5 or 6. But there is no such physical object, is a pure concept, which can be grasped only by reason. You can form a mental image of the equals symbol, but neither the image nor the symbol is itself the concept 'equals'.
Quoting Relativist
The way I put it is that what Greek philosophy describes as universals are ubiquitous constituents of rational thought. I know that D M Armstrong, who you refer to, also defended the idea of universals, but on a materialist basis. Whereas I'm arguing that universals are reals that can only be grasped by reason ('equals' being one example.)
[quote=Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy - The World of Universals]It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.[/quote]
Also:
Quoting Edward Feser
Bolds added. So my argument is, that the coherence of reason depends on universal judgements which are not themselves found in the objective world - they're transcendental in nature. But that, due to the overwhelmingly nominalist and empiricist cast of modern thought, their reality cannot be admitted, as to do so undermines the materialism that it erroneously upholds. However, this also means that materialist arguments are inevitably circular and self-defeating, as they must rely on such non-material principles to even establish the meaning of 'material' and 'physical'. It is a hand that cannot grasp itself.
Quoting Apustimelogist
But then, what's your account of the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner). If they were purely tautological, how could they be exploited to discover things that otherwise would never have been known? The example I often give is Dirac's discovery of anti-particles, which was predicted solely on the basis of mathematics, with no empirical evidence forthcoming till much later. How could tautological statements yield genuinely new observations? Not to forget the many predictions arising from Einstein's theories that took decades to empirically validate ('Einstein Proved Right Again').
Quoting Apustimelogist
What 'overwhelming evidence' is there that the brain is a 'physical structure'? A building is a 'physical structure', as is a machine. Both structures can be accounted for wholly and solely in terms of physical and chemical principles. But even very rudimentary organisms already instantiate order on a different level to that of the physical. Sure, the reductionist view is that living tissue is 'nothing but' physical matter, but that is highly contested and besides not in itself an empirical argument. But when we get to the human brain, which is the most complex naturally-occuring phenomenon known to science, I see no reason to believe that it can be described in terms of, or limited to, physical principles, nor to describe the brain as a physical object. It is an embodied organ, embedded in a body, culture and environment (subject of disciplines such as neuro-anthropology which by no means default to materialism as an explanatory paradigm.)
For the nature of mathematics, there is no reason to believe that this is grounded in or determined by any physical laws or relationships. You simply assume that on the basis of the inborn materialism of the culture we're sorrounded by, but there are plenty who will take issue (see What is Math? Smithsonian Magazine.)
Maths is like writing. Its a language that describes structure. The unreasonable effectiveness of writing is not magic, its that you can invent words to represent anything in the world, anything in imagination you want. Its the same with math. Math is a gigantic field with many many different topics where you can describe many different facets of structure and use math to invent structures that nicely fit things you observe. Its not miraculous at all.
I genuinely have never understood why people find it miraculous that people can invent a model that makes predictions, some of which havn't been observed yet, and they turn out to be the case. I don't understand why people find that miraculous or interesting. I don't need a special explanation of why that sometimes happens. All that maths does is describe structure in terms iof quantities. You observe stuff in the world with a structure and you fit math to it. Its very simple. What about maths that works well is it is flexible and diverse so you can invent math that describes a huge number of things completely disparate.
Quoting Wayfarer
So is a brain.
Quoting Wayfarer
Complexity doesn't make something not physical.
Quoting Wayfarer
Outrageous statement.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, we can describe it in terms of things like statistical inference and machine learning, neither of which assume anything other than the idea that learning is embodied by physicla stuff: i.e. cells, biochemistry, fundamental physics, all of which there is some substantial understanding.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yup, no conflict here.
Quoting Wayfarer
All I am assuming is that a physical structure called a brain or perhaps, another kind of machine, can learn to do math purely in virtue of its physical structure and the kind of learning or inference it can perform as describable via statistical inference and machine learning.
In that case, there's nothing further to discuss. Philosophy begins in wondering about what is usually taken for granted.
Quoting Relativist
I have seen them used thus, as I have: Existing but not real or v-v.
If there are volumes of arguments about [reality of say mathematics], it must be a more important issue than simply one of the words being defined differently.
Quoting Wayfarer
I've been kind of up front about my usage of 'objective' to mean 'not relative', but you're seeming to imply 'not subjective' here. A truth about an object (as if 'object' had any sort of objective meaning) seems to be relative to the object, which is fine for a predicate. Is 2+2 adding up to 4 an objective truth, or is it only relative to this mathematics we seem to have discovered? Maybe there's different mathematics where 2+2 is something else or is meaningless.
I remember going through a good tutorial on law of form, and it doesn't obviously get into numbers quite so fast, being somewhat more foundational than that.
Point taken.
Not sure indeed. The issue of descriptive vs. proscriptive comes to mind.
Quoting RelativistI don't think you need to be a physicalist to agree with that statement.
But what if numbers are more fundamental than the object. They certainly are in say GoL, where '3' definitely has causal powers, and 'objects' only exist if 3 does first. Of course, real numbers play far less of a role than do small integers.
The act of abstraction, sure, but abstract objects (like 3 itself, and not just the concept of 3) doesn't require an act abstracting.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why not? For the materialist, sure, but physicalist? Not sure exactly what defines a physicalist, but i thought it was something like 'mind supervenes on the physical'. It's a stance against mind not being fundamental.
My reply? Fundamental to what? Sure, I think mental processes are physical processes. That makes mind not fundamental, but there are still things that supervene on said mental processes.
Quoting Wayfarer
Be nice to know how it came about. If the concept is already grasped, then the roots of that concept go back further than Relativist's example. Perhaps tokens were grouped to match the count of something, but without knowing that there are 3 tokens. I don't think we'll ever know the early history of being able to count, but humans are not alone in the ability to do so.
Quoting WayfarerThe skeptic in me wants to doubt that, but how can it not be so? Does Platonism follow from it? It seems to come down to the issue of it being true implying its reality.
From your quoted bit:
So the dead/live cat is real, but not actual. The measured dead cat is actual. Cute, but the Wigner's friend experiment seems to challenge this unitary notion of a wave function collapse into 'actual'. I'd like to see their take on that.
Quoting Relativist
There are those that assert this? Seems contradictory for some event to be 'existing' and also 'will exist', which seem to be two different contradictory tenses for the same event, relative to the same 'present' event.
About the posts of @Apustimelogist
Quoting WayfarerDespite there no single tiny bit having been found that doesn't operate under said physical principles. Sure, the complexity might defy unwilling understanding, but that doesn't justify any claim that it does something dependent on more than just physical interactions.
That's exactly what it means, and I spelled it out in my response to him.
Quoting noAxioms
Come on. When you study neuroscience, how much physics are you required to understand? Sure, the brain and other biological structures don't operate in defiance of physics but they instantiate principles which could never be predicted on the basis of physics alone. In biology itself, there is massive disagreement as to whether reductionism ('it's all physics plus chemistry') is adequate to account for the existence of even algae. One of the founders of the neo-darwinian synthesis, Ernst Mayr, certainly no starry-eyed idealist, said ' The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!
[quote=Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, p33 ]The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. [/quote]
Well we agree there when it comes to questioning which of our resources is most likely to lead us to understanding the nature of things.
Why must something be "relation-independent" in order to count as real? Is anything relation-independent? I would say probably not.
We have no physical relation to such worlds. If we did they would be counted as of this world. The fine-tuning argument has never done it for me. I don't believe we can accurately calculate odds when the sample is but one. Even if we could the outcome is still not a zero possibility. That said I'm not against the 'Multiple Universes' idea. It does seem to be impossible to test. though.
I'll take your word for it.
So it would seem.
There is a set of things that existed in the past, a set of things existing in the present, and a set of things that will exist in the future. The union of these three sets comprise the set of existents. This doesn't preclude tensed facts, but one must be careful with wording.
Contrast this with possible objects we might conceive of. The conception may or not correspond to a member of the set of existents.
Concepts/images/qualia - units of thoughts.
[I]Russell: "Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts."[/i]
This seems consistent with Armstrong's view of universals: they are sets of properties that exist where they are instantiated - and they can have multiple instantiations.
This doesn't preclude thinking ABOUT them conceptually. The concept is a mental object that corresponds (as in deflationary truth theory) to the universal. The triangle concept in my mind is distinct from the triangle concept in your mind, but both concepts correspond to the universal.
[I]Feser:"A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once."[/i]
Yes, mental objects are private and subjective, but so is a concept - but as I said above, there is (or can be) a correspondence between each of our "triangle" concepts and the universal that exists in multiple instantiations in the world.
Quoting Wayfarer
Neither Armstrong nor I, is a nominalist. Universals exist, and we can form concepts that correspond to them. As long as we each have "true" concepts of the universals, we can can share additional knowledge with each other and make the same "universal" judgements. I therefore see no need to assume there's something transcendental.
Quoting Relativist
Thanks for the response. But Id like to press on the key issue: in what sense do universals exist?
You claim that universals exist only in particulars. But if our concept of a universal corresponds to something real, as you say, then that universal must be real in some way that is not identical with any of its particular instances, nor reducible to the act of thinking about it. Otherwise, what exactly is it that our distinct concepts are about? What are they referring to?
You say the universal exists in multiple instantiations in the world. But that only accounts for the instances of a universalnot the universal as such. If triangularity, for example, is just the set of all actual triangular things, then:
* How can we grasp it prior to seeing all of those instances?
* How can we know it applies to any triangle, even those weve never encountered?
Thats why I argue that universalsif they are truly universalmust exist in a way not reducible to particulars. And that implies a mode of being not located in space-time, but accessible only to reason. Thats what I mean by transcendental: not supernatural, but ontologically prior to particulars, and necessary for coherent rational thought.
If Armstrongs immanent realism holds that universals are just shared properties instantiated in the physical world, then it seems to fall short of explaining the universality we actually grasp in thoughtwhere we reason about the form itself, not its tokens.
I recall youve previously said that Armstrong doesnt define universals or laws in purely physical terms. So in effect, whats being presented here is a metaphysical theory dressed in the language of scientific realismbut its not empirical and its not testable. In that respect, it looks increasingly like a philosophical commitment to the principle of philosophical naturalism, but not science proper.
But I'll also add, this is because modern philosophy, generally, doesn't provide a conceptual space against which the 'transcendental' can be mapped. After all the keynote of the modern era is the secularisation and 'scientism' of philosophy. So they're averse to anything other than the natural domain, natural sciences, and so on, as it re-opens a question which they would rather believe has been closed.
But so what? This is an epistemic or explanatory point. Its just about complexity. No one you're arguing against finds this an interesting point, it doesn't conflict with anyone with a physicalist viewpoint. Why does it matter the level at whoch you choose to describe these things when at the end of the day they are all undergirded by the behavior of particles in physics. The fact that you need different explanations on different levels is due to human limitations, it doesn't change the fact that a brain which is basically a bunch of synchronous electro-chemical events can do math just in virtue of how its components.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well a Hodgkin-Huxley neuron is basically just physics.
People make up new theories which often make predictions about things that haven't been observed yet. Many fail, some succeed. I don't understand what is special
It's not just about complexity, though. Organisms are fantastically complex, on the one hand - the processes of cellular mitosis, reproduction, evolution, and so on. But they're also simple, in that a single organism is a simple whole, which subordinates and synthesises all that complexity against the ends required to survive and procreate. Nothing in physcis either does that, or accounts for that.
Quoting Apustimelogist
And what makes you think that's a philosophical argument? :brow: Your philosophical position is so baked-in that you can't comprehend how it can be questioned. I mean, no offence intended, but that's how you come across.
Yes, a Hodgkin-Huxley neuron is described by physics. So are sound waves, but that doesnt explain the experience of hearing music. Describing a system in physical terms doesnt explain everything there is about that systemespecially not its qualitative, representational, or rational aspects. Einstein said, 'A theory can be logically perfect and completely unassailable, yet still not represent reality. It would be like trying to understand a symphony by looking at the air pressure waves on a graph. All the information is there, but the music is missing.'
The point at issue isnt whether neurons obey physical laws. Of course they do. The question is whether describing them physically is sufficient to explain how thought, reason, or consciousness arise. Thats not a scientific questionits a philosophical one. Which you continually assume has a physical answer, but for which you're presenting no argument whatever.
Just because we can model a neuron using physics doesnt mean we've accounted for how neurons give rise to meaning, intentionality, or rational inference. Otherwise, you'd have to say a voltmeter has opinions.
I mean, I offered a description of what happens. You haven't offered an argument for why that explanation isn't adequate.
Quoting Wayfarer
So, what? None of this is threatening to someone who has a kind of physicalist world view or the notion that a brain can learn to do math just in virtue of its components behave.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well we give computational descriptions of what neurons do that are nonetheless instantiated physically, its just that the physical functional structure happens to correspond to or be amenable to a computational description. There is no profound mystery.
Consider electrons: each of them has a -1 electric charge. This intrinsic property is identical in every instantiated electron. The charge is real, but it doesn't exist independently of the electrons. The -1 charge is a universal. So is electron: every existing electron has identical intrinsic properties. They are distinguished by extrinsic properties - location, which objects they are bound to, etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
-1 electric charge (a universal) only exists as a property that some objects have. There is no "universal as such" existing in the world.
Strictly speaking, triangles are concepts that don't exist in the world, because they are (conceptually) 2-dimensional. Objects in the world can have triangularity; by that, we're referring to a set of properties (the relations between the sides). There can obviously be 2 or more triangular objects with the same length sides arranged at the same angles.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't understand why you say this. We grasp the properties that objects have, and apply the way of abstraction to consider just the property. Our minds aren't manipulating the actual property that electrons have, it is entertaining ramifications that we learn about- like the fact that electrons will have a repellent force. There is universality if we each hold true concepts of electrons- concepts that we have to learn, and that we may make an error about - if we don't learn all the actual facts correctly.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, he does. Properties and relations (laws are relations) are physical, but they exist immanently. Properties and relations are generally measurable, so there's no issue with empiricism.
BTW. I looked thru Armstrong's book on universals, and he raises a problem with transcendental universals: how do you account for instantiations of the universal? Is there an ontological relation between the universal and its instantiation? What's the tie? What about the -1 charge of a specific electron: is there something that connects the charge to that electron?
Id suggest that the nature of the electron is itself still an open question, particularly in light of quantum mechanics. The whole point of wave-particle duality, superposition, and entanglement is that even at the level of fundamental physics, we're dealing with mathematical structures that aren't neatly reducible to classical particulars (hence the ongoing disputes over interpretations). We describe electrons using the language of field theory and probability amplitudes, not by pointing to discrete things with self-contained identities.
Astrophysicist Adam Frank said
So when we say "all electrons have a charge of -1," we are already operating in a space of idealized structure and abstraction, not simply observing physical things. I'm saying, that what are described as universals are indispensable components of those rational operations. But we're not directly aware of them as they're not, as it were, inherent in the objects of analysis. (That's what is meant by 'the hand can't grasp itself'.)
So when we say that all electrons have a charge of -1, what is it that we're referring to? Its not just a feature observable in any one caseits a lawlike regularity, expressed in abstract terms, that applies to any possible electron, because that's how an electron is defined. But in order to grasp that, were not just detecting physical propertieswere accessing something through reason: namely, an intelligible structure that governs particulars. And whether, or in what sense, that can be designated physical is the point at issue.
Quoting Relativist
Right - which is the unique ability of h.sapiens, so far as we can tell, and the ability which underwrites language, maths and science. We can learn the concepts which enable atomic physics and many other things, but those rational abilities are not something explained by science, and certainly not by physics alone.
Quoting Relativist
The -1 charge of a given electron is not tied to the universal of negative charge by some cord or hook. Rather, the electron is an instance of a kind, and its negative charge is an instantiation of a universal property. We can only think about this because we already operate with concepts that abstract from particular cases. But the concepts dont cause or bind the particularsthey are inherent in the intelligible structure. The universal isnt an entity over here, and the particular over there, waiting to be connected. Rather, the universal is the intelligible content of the particular, grasped by reason. We abstract it in thought, but that doesnt mean its merely mental. Its real in the particular, just not as a separable object - it is how the object appears to the rational intellect.
I actually believe that, often, physicalists equivocate the meaning of 'physical', in order to explain consciousness, abstract objects and so on. If by 'physicalism', we mean that the physical is fundamental and everything else is derived from it, we would like to find a reasonable definition of 'what is physical'.
If we mean 'physical reality' as whatever exists in space-time and space-time itself (a definition that IMO is not without criticism), we have to explain how the apparent eternity and necessity of mathematical and logical truth can be explained by such a system, without falling into equivocity.
One way is to try to explain mathematical and logical truths as 'abstractions' that we derive from particulars. The problem, however, is that mathematics and logic seems to be transcendental, i.e. truths that we have to accept to even construct explanations, models and so on. An explanation, for instance, should be logically consistent. If fundamental reality is, indeed, 'physical' how can we explain the laws of logic in purely physical terms?
The same actually goes for mathematics. Mathematical truths seem to be independent from any particular circumstance. They don't seem to be contigent. We can't 'prove' that "2+2=4" by testing it with experiments, no metter how many time, as induction doesn't give us any 'proof', at least in the way mathematicians use the term.
If they were contingent, we could not even imagine to write physical theories in a consistent way. We would always have the expectation that all the mathematical structures of our theories might someday become unreliable.
A very strong 'empiricist' approach to explain mathematics and logic IMHO fails because, after all, we formulate explanations by assuming that mathematics and logic are correct. The very assumption that physical reality might be at least in part intelligible seems to be based on the idea that, indeed, logical and mathematical truths are not contingent and eternal.
If, however, we do accept that mathematical and logical truths are eternal and not contingent, the next step is to ask about their ontological status. Do they possess some kind of 'reality'? The fact that we assume that we can know them strongly suggests to me that they do have some kind of reality. This would mean that they are either fundamental in themselves (as say Penrose IMO suggests) or depend on something else that is also not contingent and eternal.
Of course, a physicalist might argue that the physical world is not contingent and eternal but the problem here is that this would go against what many physicalists seek in physicalism, i.e. a 'view of reality' where there is no 'Absolute'.
Of course, one might reject the premise that the 'physical world' is at least in part intelligible. But that's hardly a 'physicalism' IMO. It is more likely some kind of radical forms of skepticism (there are more than one) where we have the illusion that 'reality' is intelligible by our reasoning. That it seems like so. But this appearance is a self-deception so to speak and, in fact, the 'ultimate reality' is in fact completely 'beyond knowledge'.
Personally, I find the problem of 'abstract objects' a very difficult for any physicalist worldview, at least if we mean that 'physicalism' means that 'ultimate reality is physical' in a comprehensible meaning of the term. Also, the very assumption that reality is (at least partially) intelligible by our conceptual knowledge is, as I said before, something that suggests that logical and mathematical truths are not contingent etc as they would be the preconditions for any kind of explanations. In other words, physicalism(s) seem to be unable to explain why physical reality is intelligible and at the same time the ultimate level of reality without also introducing the assumption of the non-contigency of logical and mathematical truths. But once that is given, then, how can we call such a philosophical position 'physicalism'?
So IMO physicalists seem to be in a difficult position between some radical forms of skepticism about our conceptual knowledge and, instead, give some ontological status to abstract objects (at least logical and mathematical truths) something that IMO would hinder the physicalist project itself.
Is "only I exist" a logical contradition?
I am not sure about your point, though. Propositions (or even models, theories, philosophical systems etc) can be formally valid (i.e. coherent) but still wrong.
In your previous post you alluded to the existence of mathematical truths, e.g. if "2 + 2 = 4" is true then the truth that 2 + 2 = 4 exists. Presumably, then, you also believe in the existence of propositional truths, e.g. if "bachelors are unmarried men" is true then the truth that bachelors are unmarried men exists?
If so then if "only I exist" is true then this propositional truth exists, and if this propositional truth exists then "only I exist" is false, giving us a contradiction.
So either "only I exist" is a logical contradiction or this notion that truths exist (whether mathematical or other) is mistaken or at least the term "exists" is being used in two different ways, in which case mathematical truths are not prima facie problematic for physicalism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Regardless, I was just using the traditional understanding of an electron to illustrate the nature of universals: a type of thing, which can exist in multiple instantiations. The "type" is based on the intrinsic properties: multiple, distinct objects can have the same exact property. So irrespective of the true nature of electrons, it's uncontroversial that there exist multiple objects with a specific electric charge.
Quoting Wayfarer
I remind you that I'm just explaining what universals are, and defending the reasonableness of the definition. Even if the mind is (wholly or partly) immaterial, I believe Armstrong's model of universals makes sense - and possibly more sense than alternatives.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm struggling to see a difference between Armstrong's view of a universal and yours. Do you agree that all particulars have properties? And that a property may exist in multiple particulars? It sounds like it.
In another discussion, I believe you said that you agree that there exists a mind independent reality. This implies that, whatever it might be, it is not dependent on intelligibility or reason. Is it that our limitations and failures leads you to believe it is futile to consider the nature of mind-independent reality? That's all Armstrong is doing. In your prior questions, you seemed to be questioning whether or not Armstrong's theory gave an adequate account of universals, and questioned their relation to the related mental objects (our concepts of the universal). Do you now acknowledge that I've addressed those questions?
Well, the problem here is that 'bachelor' means 'unmarried man' if I am not mistaken, so here we seem to have a tautology. '2+2=4', however, IMO isn't a tautology.
Quoting Michael
Unless, however, I say that 'only I exist' is wrong. For instance, that statement, if true, would contradict everything I think is true about 'reality'. I do believe that my being is dependent and, therefore, "only I exist" probably is a contradiction because, after all, I can't exist without something else.
The point I am making is that if truths exist then the proposition "only I exist" is a logical contradiction.
Therefore if "only I exist" is not a logical contradiction then truths do not exist.
I think we need to disambiguate the term "exists" and draw a distinction between saying that there are mathematical truths and saying that mathematical truths exist.
That 2 + 2 = 4 is not a problem for physicalism (or solipsism, for that matter).
Furthermore, physicalism(s), if true, can't derive mathamatical truths. And yet, these ontological systems seem to presuppose them. So, if we do not say that 'mathematical truths exist' we still have to explain IMO why they are needed and how we have to understand them in a physicalist ontology.
After all, mathematical and logical laws, truths etc seem to be 'laws of thought'. If thought is derived from physical entities, it would seem that even that that mathematics and logic should somehow derive from physical entities (Edit: in other words, if physical entities form the ultimate reality from which everything is derived, all the properties of thought - reasoning included - must be explained in terms of physical entities. I am not sure how physicalists can explain, say, why mathematical truths are true if physicalism is assumed to be true...).
Yes, physicalism is arguably vacuous as a metaphysical category precisely because all of these fundamental metaphysical categories are somewheat vacuous. All knowledge is functional and structural. Physics, chemistry, biology all effrctively are about describing behavior. Intrinsicness doesn't come into it.
Why is physicalism so intuitive to some? I have thought about this and I think when people are saying physicalist they are effectively upholding the scientific status quo in opposition to scientifically unsubstantiated ideas likethe supernatural, parapsychology, substance dualism, woo-ism and platonic realms. Maybe in some ways it is more of a reactive stance than a proactive stance.
Quoting boundless
From my perspective there is no prpblem because all knowledge is just applying labels and makimg predictions about what happens next. All labels are abstract, all knowledge is abstract; there are no concrete objects of knowledge, only abstract ones. A stone is an abstract object, a particle is an abstract object, a dinosaur is an abstract object, "two" is an abstract object, "truth" is an abstract object. They all share abstractness on some level and we all infer them in the same way from sensory inputs; however, labels can be so abstract they transcend typical "concrete" objects (e.g. "this rock"), but that doesn't mean that they aren't abstracted from the same sensory data. For instance, we might have the concept of identity or sameness coming from indistinguishable perceptual responses or experiences - we just have a label for that called "sameness". You can have multiple iterations of the "same" "thing (another abstract label about our ability to make distinctions)" which is pretty self-evident in the natural world with recurrent structure and where we have perceptual abilities that can pick out and distinguish those structures ... you have quantity... the rest is just tautology; math is talking about how different descriptions are equivalent extrapolating from the idea of identity and quantity. Logic seems actually very much the same but not talking about quantity - we are talking about in what sense different descriptions are equivalent to each other - the premises to the conclusions.
I have no problem with people being skeptical with this description because its obviously not rigorous and comes a lot from my intuition. But I don't feel the need for anything added to explain things about how math or logic works. Once we pre-stipulate conditions for things to be the same or different, we are just extrapolating those properties in tautologous ways. These things can be gotten straight out of reality, or describe reality very well in suspicious ways, purely because reality has structure in which different parts of the reality act in the same way! And so there is nothing special about maths relation to reality if these are just tautologies.
Now based on this, I suppose you could give ontological status to math and logic but not on any kind of mysterious way, *even though they aren't spatially and temporally constrained in our models of the world*, beyond how a sentence like "things exist" is a truth that uses abstract words but a physicalist wouldn't find problematic. I think though, ultimately in this kind of view one has to explicitly acknowledge the use of labels our cognitive apparatus in constructing knowledge - so it is thinner than a more naively realistic conception. At the same time, one could arguably still uphold a kind of realism in regard to the mapping of these constructs to reality in such a way that they can still affirm that "this is the case" in a way that describes what we see in reality in a consistent way. Importantly, none of our knowledge is something that *developed* independently of *our* sensory *history*. *Our sensory inputs* describe a reality that when you zoom in more and more you see is entirely built on microscopic particles (at least the stuff in everyday life we see) and when you unentangle its complicated knots, is ultimately scaffolded on and follows entirely by very general fundamental physical descriptions. *Logic and math imo are still outgrowths of, and play out, our models of the external world beyond our sensory inputs. Our models can just be highly abstract.*
Edited: **
Count two fingers, then another two fingers.
Now count four fingers.
Here's how I address it:
The natural= That which exists (has existed, or will exist) including ourselves, everything that is causally connected to ourselves through laws of nature, and anything not causally connected (such as alternate universes) that may be inferred to exist, to have existed, or that will exist, through analysis of our universe.
It is postulated that everything that is natural, is physical; justified by parsimony.
Although my definition of "the natural" precludes things existing that we can't infer, I don't preclude the possibility of things existing that we can't possibly infer. But if so, they are unknowable and therefore we're unjustified in believing any specifics beyond the basic ackowledgement that are are possibilities.
Quoting boundless
The "laws of logic" are nothing more than a formalized, consistent semantics - for example, the meanings of "if...then...else", "or", "and", "not" - all sharply defined by truth tables.
What does it actually mean to be transcendental? Do transcendental things exist - are they part of the furniture of the world? If so, what's the relation between these existents and the things they are about? What's the relation to the our thoughts? Suppose there were no intelligent minds to grasp them - in what sense do these transcendental objects actually exist?
Quoting boundless
From a physicalist's point of view, if some physical phenomenon is describable with mathematics, it is entirely due to the presence of physical relations among the objects involved in the phenomenon. Example: Newton's formula for the force of gravity is F=G*m1*m2/r^2. This describes a physical relation between an object with mass m1 and an object with mass m2, based on the distance between them. The phenomenon is not contingent on a formula; rather, the formula is descriptive - providing a means of prediction and comparisons to other phenomena. Physical reality (outside of human minds) itself doesn't make predictions and comparisons - it just behaves per laws of nature.
Of course, it turns out that Newton's formula is only valid within specific bounds, and General Relativity is a more accurate description. But is the description eternal? Physicists assume so. Why wouldn't they? There's no empirical evidence that they are NOT, so it's unjustified to assume they're temporary. From time to time, physicists hypothesize that some aspect of a theory may actually not be eternal, and may change over time (consideration of the cosmological constant is an example). Cases like this are based on empirical evidence and/or conflicts between the predictions of theories.
Quoting boundless
I suggest that it is justifiable to believe the physical world is at least partly intelligible - justified by the success of science at making predictions. I don't see how anyone could justify being skeptical of this. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind our limitations. The known laws of physics (which I contrast with the ontological laws of nature) may be special cases that apply in the known universe but are contingent upon some symmetry breaking that occurred prior to, or during, the big bang. If so, it's irrelevant to making predictions within our universe.
Quoting boundless
I don't see a problem with abstractions. The "way of abstraction" (see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/#WayAbst) is a mental exercise associated with pattern recognition. This describes the process by which we isolate our consideration to properties, ignoring all other aspects of the things that have them. The properties don't ACTUALLY exist independently of the things that have them, IMO. And I don't see how one could claim that our abstracting them entails that they exist independently.
Mind-independence has two levels of meaning. At the empirical level, of course the world doesnt depend on my mind or yours for its existence. But at a deeper level, what we take the world to bewhat we can know or even meaningfully say about itis always mediated by the minds structuring activity. In Kants terms, we never experience things in themselves (Ding an sich), but appearances shaped by our forms of intuition (space and time) and the categories of understanding.¹
This doesnt mean the world is a figment it means that what see as a mind-independent world is still the world as it appears to a conscious subject. Even to model a subjectless universe requires that the model is still constructed within the space-time framework our minds impose. Without a subject, there is no point of reference for spatial extension or temporal duration, since those are not properties of things-in-themselves but forms through which we intuit them. Without that framework, we'd be unconscious or in a state of complete dissociation.
Scientific realism typically assumes that the world exists just as science describes it, entirely independently of any subject or perspective. But this overlooks the extent to which the scientific image of the world is grounded in the conditions of our cognition. Kants transcendental idealism accepts the empirical reality of the world but denies that we can know it apart from the way we constitute it in experience.
The idealist criticism of scientific realism is that it forgets or overlooks the role of the subject - as another of the German idealists said, 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets himself'.
¹ Critique of Pure Reason, A369370.
Quoting Relativist
I agreebut intelligibility is grounded in relations among representations. To the extent that things appear to us as structured phenomena, its those mental structures that make intelligibility possible. This insight is echoed not only in Kantian terms but in cognitive science and the constructivist tradition more broadly.
This challenges physicalism, not by denying the success of science, but by questioning the metaphysical leap that treats the physical as something with inherent, mind-independent reality. Scientific models work because of their predictive and explanatory powerbut that success doesn't license the conclusion that the world exists exactly as described in itself, independent of the subjects contribution to its appearance.
The objection I have to materialist theories of mind is that they attempt to ground intelligibility in the physical domain itselfspecifically in neurological processeswithout acknowledging that the meaning and coherence we attribute to neural data are not in the data; they are read into it by the observing scientist ('this means that', 'from this, we can infer that....'). In other words, it is the mind that interprets the brain, not the brain that explains the mind.
This reveals a circularity at the heart of the physicalist account: it presumes that mind is reducible to brain, while relying on the minds interpretive capacities to make sense of the brain in the first place.
Maybe we don't experience the world "as it is", out of perspective, but I would say that all that characterizes a perspective is the incompleteness or partiality of the information that is being seen. So I would say we can keep Kant's phenomenal perspectives but that they don't have any interesting ontological meaning because from my perspective, what I see is just structural information in my sensory inputs that map to causes in the external world, a mapping that in principle can be probed in the functional structure of networks of neuronal activity. So to me the fact that we seee the world frok a perspective can be valid without implying anything fundamentslly mysterious.
Quoting Wayfarer
But what about relativity!? You can do experiments which show the effects of things like time dilation related to clocks without requiring observers or perspectives or anything like that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sure, but this is the natural foibles of science and difficulties studying a complex system. But nonetheless we might produce a coherent story and use models to reproduce the empirical behavior we see to gain some kind of understanding of what brains do. And ofcourse, its difficult to have anywhere near the desired amount of information from the brain to do thid, and people often have different, contrary ideas about how or why certain things happen or what they do.
Quoting Wayfarer
But its not just interpretive because there is empirical data, whether neurobiological or behavioral you can compare models to. And the hard problem of consciousness doesn't factor into most neuroscience. You don't need to assume the mind is descriptively reducible to a brain - but what people have found is that there is an unmistakable causal relationship between experiences and behaviors, and brains - whether you infer that through brain injury, stimulation, neuroimaging, all sorts of things.
I feel your frequent statements of not seeing anything profound or mysterious or needing to be understood indicate a kind of absence of curiosity or insight into specifically philosophical questions. Rather a kind of sanguine acceptance of the scientific worldview. Would that be fair?
Quoting Apustimelogist
Yes. You can or I can or someone else can. But those experiments don't do themselves. In all cases the experimenter is providing the perspective within which the observations are meaningful.
[quote=Bergson-Einstein Debate;https://aeon.co/essays/who-really-won-when-bergson-and-einstein-debated-time] To examine the measurements involved in clock time, Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state the current time is what we call now. Each successive now of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks dont measure time; we do. [/quote]
Quoting Apustimelogist
That's because neuroscience is not philosophy. 'Facing up to the problem of consciousness' was about the fact that the neuroscientific accounts cannot, as a matter of principle, provide an account of the first-person nature of experience. That's where the explanatory gap is found.
In one sense, it does exist just as science describes it -when the science is correct. Granted, the descriptions are in human terms and from a human perspective but what other terms could they be? Do you deny that some scientific propositions are true?
If you simply want everyone to be reminded that our analysis and our language means that science is merely giving a human perspective - that's fine. But a human perspective is the only ones that can be meaningful to humans.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm not convinced that's entirely true, other than in terms of perspective and the need to express science in terms humans understand. But assuming it is true that the role of the subject is completely ignored, how do you propose correcting this?
Quoting Wayfarer
Sure, but how is that a problem?
Quoting Wayfarer
Any metaphysical system would do the same- that's the object of the game. Obviously, none can be verified or falsified. Should we abandon the game? My principle reason for defending physicalism is NOT because I'm committed to it. Rather, it's to counter arguments from ignorance that I see others make, based on supposed metaphysical "truths". I also jump in to explain components of it, when I see questions or misunderstandings - that' what prompted my first post in this thread. I don't care if anyons believes it, but if they're going to dismiss it- it should be based on a correct understanding.
How about Structural Realism?
My issue with your position is that you've only stated negatives- what's wrong with physicalism and/or scientific realism. Do you have something superior in mind? If so, I'm curious how it can be immune from the same problems.
Quoting Wayfarer
Explaining the mind is absolutely physicalism's weakness. Does that necessarily mean physicalism is false?
Yes, the mind is doing all the interpreting- whatever the mind is. Do you have a better account of the mind?
Thanks for this thoughtful and open response.
I agree that any metaphysical frameworks face limitations, and I appreciate your concession that explaining the mind is a weak point for physicalism. Thats where I keep pressingnot because I deny the empirical success of science, but because I question whether empirical models alone can explain intelligibility itself, or the first-person structure of consciousness. And also that this is inherent to the kind of 'scientific theory of mind' that characterises physicalist philosophies.
You're right to ask for a constructive alternative. I dont propose a complete systembut I do think we need an account that puts the subject back into the frame, rather than treating experience as a by-product of unconscious machinery. Thats why Im drawn toward post-Kantian approaches (phenomenology, enactivism, and some forms of idealism), where the focus is on how reality appears to us as structured, meaningful, and knowable.
As for structural realism: yes, it might be a way of moving toward a more modest realism, one that acknowledges that what we know is structure, but perhaps not the intrinsic nature of what instantiates that structure. That could open the door to something more meaningful than bare physicalism.
So no, I dont think physicalism is disproven but I do think it has an inherent blind spot. And the moment we acknowledge that meaning, interpretation, and intelligibility are not themselves physical, weve already moved beyond physicalism in the strict sense.
Quoting Relativist
But in order to even approach a coherent account of mind, a framework is neededsomething more than functional or mechanistic description. Classical Greek philosophy, as Pierre Hadot shows, was precisely an attempt to provide such a framework: not just a proto-scientific theory, but a vision of reality informed by reflection on what it means to live and to know. Similarly, Buddhist thought offers an extraordinarily detailed and multi-layered account of mind and its transformationsyet it does so without treating mind as reducible to brain.
These traditions aren't opposed to observation or analysis, but they dont assume that science alone defines what is real (especially because science in today's sense wasn't even understood in their day). But they remind us that the subjectthe knoweris part of the picture, and that understanding mind means engaging with it from within, not just from the outside.
Quoting Wayfarer
These approaches may be useful in a psychological way (some might say "spriritual")- a potentially helpful way to approach life or reality. But I don't see that it has a superior shot at objective truth. Do you disagree?
I've already gone through in detail the hidden assumptions behind the term 'objective truth', no point doing so again. Thanks for the chat.
Not at all, its the conclusions I come ro exploring those questions.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sure, observations can be interpreted differently, but these are not intended as subjective interpretations, they are speculations about an actual event. You can perceive an observation event or measure it in different ways, but ultimately what you are latching on to is the fact that an event happened, that clocks can run differently due to time dilation. Even if you interpret the observation as having a different cause, you are postulating that you believe an objective event happened. Even if there are different ways of looking at an event, science wants those different ways to agree and be coherent; for instance, different methodlogies of measurement, different mathematical formulations that predict the same things. Obviously, things may not practically gel ideally or even very well, but imo, these kinds of things (e.g. arguments about the irreducibility of chemistry) don't point to some kind of conspiratorial aspect of reality that inherently prevents reducibility ontologically - its about the limits of us as human beings to observe and make sense of things.
Quoting Bergson-Einstein Debate
Tell that to your gps.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, but I don't think an explanatory gap entails some kind of fundamental metaphysical dualism or revisionism. Imo, neuroscience and physics attests to that because there is no evidence for mental substance, afterlife, the supernatural, etc etc. And when people start offering a kind of non-physicalism without any scientific revisionism, its more-or-less like physicalism imo
Outside the awareness and measurement of duration, there is no time.
Quoting Apustimelogist
[quote=David Chalmers, Facing Up...]by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place. But this is the same for any fundamental theory. Nothing in physics tells us why there is matter in the first place, but we do not count this against theories of matter. Certain features of the world need to be taken as fundamental by any scientific theory. A theory of matter can still explain all sorts of facts about matter, by showing how they are consequences of the basic laws. The same goes for a theory of experience.
This position qualifies as a variety of dualism, as it postulates basic properties over and above the properties invoked by physics. But it is an innocent version of dualism, entirely compatible with the scientific view of the world. Nothing in this approach contradicts anything in physical theory; we simply need to add further bridging principles to explain how experience arises from physical processes. [/quote]
Exactly, just because our interpretation of the world is an approximation that is processed from the data we have and how our brain processes it to minimise the use of energy, does not mean that there isn't an independent reality. We have science and equipment to fill in the gaps that we cannot see or hear or smell etc. bats wont see the sky as blue. apparently the ancient Greeks did not have a word for blue.
I disagree. We share the same big bang perhaps. For a star 60 GLY away, they can see the same galaxy the we do, even if we can't see each other. Those are relations, just not direct causal ones.
Not an exact calculation, no, but 'stupid improbable' can very much be shown. Just not exactly how stupid improbable.
Quoting WayfarerProbably not relativity or cosmology, but definitely chemistry and quantum mechanics since quantum effects are critical to nerve operation as much as it is critical to transistor operation.
I disagree with this, but I lack the credentials to deny any claim that any biological primitive operates on non-deterministic physics (and by that, I mean that randomness is not amplified or otherwise leveraged anywhere).
OK, so the algae thing is relevant. I know for instance that photosynthesis is so comples that it requires something like quantum computing to implement, especially to have evolved in the first place. I know that trees talk to each other. They've measured it: A whole forest of veterans calming the younger ones about a scary event coming up in a few hours.
So algae operation has questionable physical explainability. That's a good start. They need to find out where the gaps are. That's pretty hard with chemistry since the intermediate reactions are hard to isolate.
Quoting Wayfarer
Nothing in physics is violated by that either. That physics operates at a more fundamental level than something complex like say 'mitosis' doesn't mean that mitosis necessarily not physical.
Yes, a physical description is much like a graph of air pressure over time. That's a full description. It doesn't explain 'music', (any more than does your take on it), but it very much shows music (as it exists in an auditorium) to be nothing more than physical. Similarly, you admit that biological functionality is physical despite a lack of satisfactory 'explanation', and yet you seem to assert that something non-physical is required to make it all work, despite that also not being explained.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I toyed with bringing up such an example in my prior topic about predication. I am a software engineer. One puts out a functional spec, a document which specifies what the product does. That's a list of predicates of a nonexistent thing, a potential example of existence not being prior to predication..
This of course can be countered by arguing that the functional spec does not have any of the predicates listed, it just lists them.
Your example is about theories making yet-to-be-verified predictions (such as time dilation, which was eventually demonstrated). But before that demonstration, the predicate was already there. Predication does not depend on it being observed.
Quoting boundlessWhat do you mean by 'eternal' here? I have two definitions of that, and neither seems appropriate. I seem to favor the idea of mathematics being fundamental, but not all would agree.
Quoting Relativist
Under presentism, yes. But you called all those 'existing', the tense of which implies 'currently existing'. That's what I was commenting on.
Many (most?) presentists don't consider future events to exist since it interferes with their typical assumption of free will. Far be it from me to put words in their mouths; I'm not a presentist.
Quoting Wayfarer
A point of reference IS a subject, just not one with subjectivity, although a point of reference does not alone define a coordinate system, so coordinate quantities like extension and duration are undefined.
Quoting ApustimelogistThat's just geometry.
Quoting Wayfarer
They do actually. Physics is not something that happens only in labs or when people are watching. Epistemology of physics does, sure, but I don't think Apustimelogist was talking about epistemology.
Strongly disagree.
The problem is that there is no theory of experience; I believe its impossible and you can't access experience empirically. If there is no theory of experience and how it relates to other parts of the world, its propping up an ontology on nothing. That basically leaves it in the exact same place as any kind of framework like physicalism or naturalism or structuralism that doesn't explicitly incorporate phenomena.
Yes, which causes changes to what clocks read in an unambiguous way!
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, exactly!
I agree there's ambiguity in the way I used "exists". Can you suggest a different term? I want to distinguish between the superset of past/present/future existents and hypothetical things that are not in that superset.
I can for sure tell that I exist, by "I" I mean a mind with the ability to experience and cause (I have an argument for substance dualism). I can for sure tell that change exists. Some changes are due to me, and others are not. What causes other changes is subject to discussion; it could be a Demon or it could be real people. So, for sure, we can say that something exists beside me, but I think we cannot tell for sure what that thing is beside me!
No, by definition 'this universe' must contain observers, else it would be this one, but rather another one.
Quantum theory seems to hold no role whatsoever for an observer that is anything more than a system with which an interaction takes place.
If Davies is defining the necessity of observers as is stated, it seems this is begging his conclusion about the necessity of the universe being observed.
The apparent Linde quote is something which I agree, at least in part.
Quantum cosmology is in its infancy since there is no unified theory to date. Time drops out only because the subject deals with the universe before time has separated from the other dimensions, before say gravity separates out from the other 'forces'.
The part with which I agree is the bit about time losing its meaning relative to the universe as a whole. He proposes two separate systems, a clock/observer, and 'the rest of the universe' except 1) there's no meaningful place to put that clock such that it still relates in any way to the universe, and 2) the 'observer' seems to serve zero role except to read the clock aloud to nobody.
Apparently the observer is asserted to serves more of a role than that:
I don't see any of that following at all, but then this tiny context might have snipped out pages of stuff leading to this conclusion.
Funny, I can.
I did some crude research, and Davies apparently suggests that the universe is self-organizing, meaning that certain physical principles naturally lead to complexity and, eventually, life. Life does not cause the universe, but nevertheless something bends the principles to this one optimal tuning.
He also toys with universal teleology, but that seems to require complexity greater than what the universe evolves, leaving unanswered the origin of this even greater complexity.
Complexity must evolve from simplicity, Anything else results in a Ponzi scheme
Thanks for the quote Wayfarer.
Quoting Patterner
The average mass density of the universe sets a sort of fixed curvature. Changes to that curvature, say the formation of a concentration of mass like a star, cannot effect something beyond its event horizon, ever. That would require gravitational waves (the carriers of the changes to the gravitational field) to move locally faster than c. A new star as close as 20 GLY similarly cannot make any gravitational difference to us (ever) compared to if that star had not formed. We will never see it. But it's within the visible universe this time, so the mass from which it is composed has had a causal effect on us, not true of the one 60 GLY away.
Quoting Relativist
Well I use 'measured' vs not, which divides events into two (not three) categories, which is roughly delimited not by a hyperplane of a present, but by the past light cone of the system event doing the measuring. That's a physical (invariant) division, not an abstract frame dependent one.
Quoting MoK
Well those things exist by some definitions/interpretations of 'exists' and of 'I' and not by others.
You didn't reference any quote, so not sure which interpretations you have in mind. Probably not the relational one I often speak of, since what you assert is not true under that. I certainly don't know how you're using 'exists' here, but I'm guessing 'that which I can empirically glean' or some such. Your comment suggests a flirting with solipsism or BiV given the expressed questioning of 'other people'.
I don't define 'exists' in a way that leads to any of the conclusions you draw, but that's just a different definition, not an assertion of the way things are.
Youre welcome - from his book The Goldilocks Enigma (also published as The Cosmic Jackpot). I quoted it in support of my contention that there is no time outside the awareness of it.
Andrei Linde enlarges on this point in an interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn, part of the excellent Closer to Truth series. Linde claims it is necessary to include consciousness in any coherent account of the Universe.
I love this!
By exist, I mean having objective reality or being. I already defined what I mean by "I".
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I can be a brain in a vat, or what I experience could be caused by a Demon. There is no argument to tell whether other people exist.
I agree that physicalism is reactive but it's like a 'half-made reaction' when one wants to have his cake and eat it too. That is, one wants to retain the idea of intelligibility of the physical world and, at the same time, wants to avoid to posit also the necessary conclusion that, in this world picture, the structure of the physical world actually is similar to that of our reason and at the same time trying to affirm that math and logic are the products of our minds. The problem is, of course, that in order to explain anything you have to assume that the explanation and, therefore, logic (and at least some parts of math) must be assumed to be true. In other words, physicalism would like to have a 'physical' explanation of everything and, yet, if it were true there would be no explanation that assumes the very thing it wants to explain as its starting point.
It's seems to me, then, that if one doesn't assume that logic and (at least some part of) math are irreducible, one can't assume that any kind of rational knowledge is possible. If they were simply 'inventions', nothing would be truly intelligible. So, instead of a 'physicalism' we would have an extreme form of skepticism of some sorts.
Quoting Apustimelogist
But note that basic notions like 'oneness', 'plurality', 'same', 'different' seem to be innate and do not seem to be 'fabricated' by us as mere abstractions. They do seem to mirror the 'structure' of the world 'external to us' as far as we can know. So, while we can't 'prove' it (and, therefore, we can't have certainty about it), the physical world seems to be (in part) intelligible and, therefore, knowable.
Furthermore, these 'basic concepts' seem to be the very categories that we use to interpret our perceptions even before we are aware of that. We distinguish different things, we distinguish change, we discern sameness, regularities and so on. If we had not these 'innate categories', how could we be able to make any sense of out experience at all? And, everything suggests that, while they maybe not 'without error', they still give us an approximate picture of reality. Which would then mean that the world is intelligible, which would mean that its structure is like that of our reasoning...
The antinomy I was talking about is this: while it does seem to us that the world is intelligible, we can't verify it from the 'outside' of our perspective. So, we might presume that the structure of our thought mirrors (in part) the structure of the 'external world' but we can't just prove that.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I am surprised that you made this point, actually. 'Two plus two' is a different concept from 'four'. Just because the numerical value is the same it doesn't at all imply that it's a tautology.
Think about 'two times two' being equal to 'two plus two'. Of course the two mathematica operations are not the same. Conceptually they are different. It is an informative truth, not just a tautology.
Time-independent in the case of math and logic.
Don't you think, however, that you are assuming that this 'natural' world is intelligible, though? That is, your model, actually presupposes the validity of inferences, logical explanations and so on?
The orderly structure you are attributing to the world mirrors the structure of rational thought.
Quoting Relativist
Problem is that any explanation presupposes coherence. If an explanation is incoherent we do not think that it can be true, or convincing. So, you can't ground logic without assuming it in the first place. It's just fundamental.
Quoting Relativist
IMO one might say that transcendental objects are in some way connected to the regularities of phenomena. But I would assume that it would be somewhat inconvenient for a physicalist to admit that, say, the 'laws of thoughts' are actually an essential aspect of that physical world which is assumed to be totally 'mindless'.
Quoting Relativist
And yet these 'physical relations' have a structure that can be 'captured' by mathematics. There is unmistakable 'affinity' between physical regularities and 'laws of thought'.
Problem is: can physicalism explain that without assuming that logical and mathematical principles are just an essential part of the world (and therefore, ironically, unexplainable in purely physical terms)?
To repeat: my qualms about physicalism is that it still requires to assume the validity of logical and mathematical principles that it wants to explain. After all, all explanations that we can think of must presuppose the validity of those principles. At the same time, however, physicalists seem to say that logical and mathematical principles are just 'inventions'.
But if are not, how can be they considered in any way as 'physical'?
Quoting Relativist
Ok, I agree with that. But the problem of how to explain (even partial) intelligibility remains.
Quoting Relativist
Note, however, that in order to even recognize a pattern, you need to assume a basic capacity of recognition of 'sameness' and 'different', which actually means that a capacity of interpretation is assumed. So, how abstraction is even possible if we do not assume the validity of certain basic and seemingly fundamental mental categories (which seem to be unexplainable but, in fact, the ground of any explanation)?
Non-eliminativist physicalists don't assume the physical world to be totally mindless of course (unless the minds under discussion are defined as being incompatible with physicalism).
Furthermore, from the perspective of many physicalists, 'laws of thought' of some sort are to be expected. And 'laws of thought' are expected to be consistent with the sort of information processing that occcurs due to the structure of our brains.
I realized the reason you quoted it, and ran more with the title since it had direct application to the issue brought up in the OP.
As for there being no time outside the awareness of it, that depends on your definition of time.
1) Proper time, which is very much physical and supposedly mind independent. This is what clocks measure.
2) Coordinate time, which is arguably abstract and thus mind dependent since coordinate systems are mental constructs. Coordinate time is that which dilates.
3) One's perception of the flow of time, which is very much only a product of awareness, pretty much by anything tasked with making predictions.
As for Davies demonstrating your claim, my comment seems appropriate: I feel that conclusions are being begged by what I read there.
Quoting Patterner
Yes, a galaxy has mass just like a star does, so it can be treated as a body in its proximity, but 60 GLY is not in proximity. The mass of a galaxy makes zero difference at that distance compared to the same mass that didn't form a galaxy, despite the fact that the galaxy masses somewhat less just like our sun masses less than the material from which it was composed. Those local differences in the gravitational field simply cannot propagate FTL.
Quoting boundless
Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism.
I do agree that such an assertion results in circularity. Logic cannot be used to derive logic as an end product instead of something far more fundamental.
Quoting boundless
I do admittedly have trouble denying 2+2=4, but even that assumes some context, as does say the impossibility of a square circle. I can do the latter with non-euclidean geometry, and I can deny the former with say modulus arithmetic, or telling weird stories like 1+1=1 to depict the unity of marriage, or 1+1=3 to depict reproduction. Those aren't counterexamples, but rather examples to show that 2+2=4 requires context, and a context requirement seems like an awful big asterisk to the claim of the objectiveness of its truth.
Quoting boundless
If it's a mental construct, it would seem dependent on time. I don't think it's a mental construct, so I'll agree with your assertion of it being eternal.
Quoting MoKHow can you be certain of that kind of existence when you have no access to an objective viewpoint? There are even some interpretations of our universe (as opposed to objective) that say that 'you' are in superposition of being and not being, but mostly the latter.
Your comment suggests a flirting with solipsism or BiV given the expressed questioning of 'other people'. noAxioms
Same thing essentially.
I go way further than that. There seems to be no empirical test for the sort of existence you define. A thing existing and the same thing not existing would have identical experience, similar to say the experience of a presentist universe vs experience of a block universe. So one is forced to draw conclusions first, and then make up your evidence from there, a process of rationalization.
Well, it seems fairly plausible that the idea of reality derives form our perceptual and somatosensory experiences. But it also seems plausible that the fact that we don't really know what the body experiences prior to cognition gives rise to the idea that there must be a mind-independent reality.
Quoting noAxioms
I was referring to other universes, not remote parts of this universe. Other universes, if they existed, would not share our spacetime, hence no possible relation.
Quoting noAxioms
"Stupid improbable" according to our current understanding perhaps. I wonder just how deep our ignorance is. In any case no matter how "stupid improbable" it might be, it has happened in our case, and thus we are here wondering about it. We find ourselves looking from inside a sample of one.
We seem to have an innate, basic belief that there's an external world that we're perceiving and interacting with. As we develop from infants, we are making sense of the world. The process continues throughout our lives, and underpins our study of nature. Maintaining a basic belief is perfectly rational, unless there's some undercutting facts. It's of course possible that we're wrong, and it's fare to acknowledge that, but possibility alone is not a rational reason to drop a belief.
Quoting boundless
As I said, logic is semantics -a formalization, based on assigning sharply defined definitions to terms. You could question the grounding of our semantics, I suppose. But again, the grounding seems to be basic, innate beliefs. Of course we learn a language, but we have a common understanding that depends on our hardwired mechanism for perceiving the world - and similarly, rational to maintain.
Quoting boundless
I've identified the specific way universals are connnected to reality, and how we manage to perceive them. This seems a better account than saying they are "somehow connected".
Regarding "laws of thought": an orderly world producing orderly thoughts, enabling successful interaction with it.
Quoting boundless
It seems a minor step from pattern recognition, which Artificial Neural Networks can do.
OK, how about no time outside the measurement of time. I refer back to the earlier quote:
The objections to this seem to be that time is obviously objective. But isnt that because, as were all members of the same species and culture, we measure it acording to agreed units?
Imagine some species on another planet, far larger than Earth, with a daily rotation of one of our weeks, and an annual rotation of tens of our decades. Presumably the units they would use for measuring time would be very different to terrestrial units.
Is there an objective time which is independent of these two apparently incommensurable systems of measurement?
No, but they either have to 'derive' them from purely physical things. I think that many physicalists are emergentists. The problem with that view is that it seems impossible to pin down properties of physical things 'in virtue of which' conscious experience - and, I would add, logic - can emerge.
The problem is that, until now, I never encountered a fully satisfying physicalist account of consciousness, logic, math and so on.
Quoting wonderer1
In other words, here there is the hidden assumption of intelligibility of the physical world, i.e. that there are regularities in physical phenomena that are more or less the same as 'laws of thoughts'.
To make an example, it seems to me that you can't derive logical inference from mere physical causality. Or, if you can, you either (1) end up assuming that physical causality is more or less the same thing as inference or (2) we 'invent' inference from our experience but we are mistaken that experience can really be described by our reasoning.
Well, I believe that physicalism posits that the 'physical' is fundamental. It all depends, after all, on what we mean by 'physical'. If we 'stretch' the meaning of that world enough, I guess that a platonic realm of forms can be thought as 'physical'.
But the risk here is equivocation. For instance, if I say that there are really 'physical laws', it seems that we end up with something like 'hylomorphism', i.e. the position that the 'physical' is also something that has a structure that is intrinsically intelligible (at least, in part). Is that 'structure' also 'physical'. I guess one can say so. But note, for instance, that assuming that 'structure' is not merely something we mistakenly impose on 'physcial reality' would imply that something like 'reductionism' is false. After all, reductionism tells us that fundamentally parts are ultimately real. But if one accepts that 'structures' are as fundamental as 'physical things', it certainly implies that wholes are not really reducible to parts (as parts cannot be 'abstracted' from their context).
So, I guess that at the end of the day the problem can be terminological.
Quoting noAxioms
:up:
Quoting noAxioms
I can agree with that. And yes, you need to posit the 'truth' of the whole context.
I do believe that natural numbers ultimately derive from very basic concepts like 'sameness', 'otherness', 'unity', 'plurality' and so on, which can't possibly be 'invented'.
Quoting noAxioms
:up: on the 'eternality' part. Actually, I do think that maybe logic and math are 'mental constructs'/'concepts' (I do have my sympathies with 'idealism'*), but not in the sense that they are conventional.
*By 'idealism' I mean a very broad category that includes epistemic idealism, or whatever position that posits 'mind' as (at least part of) fundamental reality. In fact, I moved towards the second category recently (albeit, I do recognize that epistemic idealism is a very interesting perspective). I do admit however that strictly speaking I can't make any logically compelling argument from that position.
I agree with you here. If we also give credence to the basic belief of the intelligibility of the world would imply that we assume that the world has a 'structure' that can be 'mirrored' by our mental categories.
But note that this does have implications, after all. If we say, for instance, that logical inference derives from physical causality, we are assuming that physical causality has the same character of 'necessity' that logical inference has. So, it would imply that physical processes 'follow' regularities that are the same as the formal structure of coherent reasonings. But this is more or less something close to 'hylomorphism', rather than a physicalism that tries to derive the rules of logical inferences from the 'physical'.
The big question remains in this case: why would the 'physical' follow the same 'rules' that make a coherent reasoning 'coherent'?
Quoting Relativist
Note that I am questioning the 'grounding' here. All explanations we can possibly make must be coherent. If we realize that an explanation is incoherent, we reject it.
Quoting Relativist
If I am not mistaken, however, you are assuming that the world has a structure/order that is amenable to rational description. But here we get the same question that I raised before in the case of causality.
Quoting Relativist
Note that Artificial Neural Networks are still, ultimately, our inventions that are programmed by us. So, I am not sure that this can lead us to the conclusion that the world is 'orderly' in the same way as our thoughts are.
But IMO, assuming that is the case, I just find weird from a physicalist point of view that the order is the same.
Anyway, if one assumes that the 'order' is an intrinsic property of the world this would mean that reductionism is wrong. Parts can't be understood as 'abstracted' from their context of relations. In fact, parts must be understood as, well, being intrinsically 'parts' and, therefore, wholes are not reducible to them.
Id be interested in an elaboration of that. Would that be the minds of animals other than h.sapiens, or mind in a more abstract sense?
Just a quick terminological point. I believe that 'physicalism' and 'naturalism' are treated as synonyms. But, I would say that 'materialism' also can mean the same thing, unless we call 'matter' only a subset of what is 'physical'. But considering that 'matter' etimologically comes from 'mother', i.e. 'Mother Nature', I find odd that physicalists, according to which ultimate reality is 'natural/physical' object to call themselves as 'materialists'. Maybe 'materialism' seems to be somewhat less 'sophisticated' as a term. But IMO, it isn't necessarily the case. After all, saying 'ultimate reality is material' or 'ultimate reality is physical' for me is equivalent.
There are a few reasons. One is that materialism also had a completely unrelated meaning, a materialist is someone who seeks wealth and possessions, who only seeks to own more things. It makes sense to not want your position on the ontology of things to be confused with a shallow value system.
Another is that perhaps not all things that physics is concerned with are strictly "material". A physicalist may believe in quantum fields, but are quantum fields "material" or "matter"?
I don' really follow what you're saying. Knowledge is just predicting things that we see in the world. We then apply a self-consistent description that gives those predictions. We can then apply this to our own brains and minds (cognitive science, neuroscience) interacting with the world and in principle describe how we do this, how we come up with physical models, math and logic as a part of how we make inferences about sensory inputs.
From this standpoint, I don't really see the problem you raise. I don't need to assume rational knowledge for my brain to do stuff... it just does stuff in virtue of how it evolved and developed. And none of what the brain does os strictly arbitrary because it depends on its interactions with the outside world.
Quoting boundless
Look at it this way; our brain is just networks of neuronal connectivity and activity. All our knowledge comes about in the same way and we learn by calibraiting neural connectivity in response to sensory inputs that reverberate through the system. The system as a whole is performing inference on sensory states. Abstract concepts like "same" are just very abstract inferences about sensory information, and they seem trivial because it is an inevitable fact that percepts have overlaps of difference and similarity in how the brain reacts to them. All systems do this... arguably a thermometer does this... but then it takes a more omplicated system to have a higher order awareness of the similarities and differences in its percepts and utilize them to make more abstract predictions. One might call this innate in the sense that every human ends up having this ability. But these abilities come from the same reason we have any abilities, related to neuronal activity and learning.
Anyway, I am not sure I understand your point here. The world is intelligible to us because we have a brain that is designed to model the world.
Quoting boundless
We are not interested in the overall concept of four, only the numerical values and operations on those values.
Two times two is two twos. Thats just two plus two. Its the same. If you are using the notion "equals", you are giving a numerical equivalence, a numerical tautology.
But this is just because you are giving completely differernt things the same representation.
I don't agree. Set physicalism aside and just consider the evolutionary advantage of associating effect with "cause" (something preceding) with "effect" - even in nonverbal animals. This mirrors "if....then", the most basic form of inference. This is instinctual and behavioral, and doesn't depend on a law of nature to make it so; it depends on recognizing a pattern. Humans take it a further step because of our ability to think abstractly.
"Why would the 'physical' follow the same 'rules' that make a coherent reasoning 'coherent'?" I think we're just intellectually tracking the observed regularity, and then abstracting.
Quoting boundless
If the world does have structure/order, then it would be amenable to rational description.
Quoting boundless
My only point here is that the capability of recognizing patterns is consistent with physicalism, so it doesn't require magic.
Quoting boundless
Order is not a property, per se. It is a high-level intellectual judgement. Properties are not parts. "-1 electric charge" is not a part of an electron, it's a property that electrons have. I don't see a problem with identifying an aspect (a property or pseudo-property) that 2 or more distinct objects have and then focusing attention on that aspect. Explain the problem you see.
What is meant by this? Kind of like a rock 10 km deep experiencing heat and pressure, all sans any cognition to mentally experience those things? That was my guess.
Quoting Janus
Of the 9 types of multiverses listed by Greene: Brane, Cyclic, Holographic, Inflationary, Landscape, Quantum, Quilted, Simulated, Ultimate, only Quilted, Quantum, and arguably Brane share the same spacetime as us (the same big bang, same constants). Of the 9, only Ultimate can claim 'no possible relation'. The rest are all related, but by definition of an alternate universe/world, they might have no direct causal effect on us. Exceptions: Holographic and Simulation.
I have very limited knowledge of string theory, so some details (inclusions and exclusions from lists) may be off.
Right. Solutions: Either an awful lot of dice being rolled, or one heavily loaded die. Wayfarer quoted Davies above that apparently favors the latter view.
Quoting WayfarerI would have said that a materialist would assert material to be fundamental, not supervening on something more fundamental, and the physicalism/naturalism do not assert that. That doesn't mean that the physical necessarily supervenes on something also physical.
Your definition makes it sound the same as materialism, an assertion that there isn't anything more fundamental than material, an odd assertion since the closer they look, the less they can find any material.
Quoting flannel jesus
Sure, stretch the definition and call 'fields' physical. You can do that all the way down, which blurs the distinction between the two terms.
Quoting boundlessYes, one can slap on the label or not at one's preference. How it works is unaffected by this. I would look at other worlds like the GoL discussed above. There are objects (spaceships for instance) in that world. Are they considered 'physical'? Answer: Your choice to say yes or no. The definition of 'physical' definitely gets shaky when one steps outside of our own particular universe.
I perhaps am one open to accepting structure as more fundamental than physical.
Quoting boundlessWhich may just bring it back to an objective truth, yes.
Quoting Apustimelogist
How so? In the domain of integers, 2+2=4. but in a different (modulo 3 say) domain, 2+2=1. In Euclidean geometery, square circles are a contradiction. In non-Euclidean geometry, they're not.
What is being given the same representation here?
Quoting boundlessI also hold sympathies to idealism, to the point where ontology may well just be an ideal even if I'm not an idealist (mind being in any way fundamental). All sorts of traps on that road, but I think it is valid. Is there such a thing as ontic idealism?
Epistemic idealism seems to make sense to me. What do you mean by "I can't make any logically compelling argument from that position"?
Quoting Patterner
Yes, it counts. Galaxies form early, so no 'new galaxy' like we did with the star. I picked 60 GLY because GN-Z11 (a record breaker until JWST found plenty further ones) is about 31 GLY away (proper distance along line of constant cosmological time). So let's say all galaxies form at 100 MY. We have galaxy X at 60 GLY comoving distance. The people on GN-z11 at age 13.8 GY can see both us and galaxy X. But they see both when they were super young, and they only see it recently since the effect took that long to get there. So they can't send a picture of say X to us since that light would leave now and would never get here. GN-z11 crossed our event horizon about 10 GY ago, so nothing there since then can ever effect us. Thus galaxy X still has zero causal effect on us.
Its all different things blanketly labelled as 2+2 when really that doesn't actually describe the specifics of each thing and why they are like that.
Its like taking the words minute (time) and minute (size) and trying to call them the same thing because they are spelt the same, and then doing an analysis showing that that isn't really the case and are subjective.
Yes what the body experiences pre-cognitively is unknown to us in vivo. Of course we can study it after the fact so to speak. But the critics will say the knowledge we get via such study is cognition based, which of course it is, and as such cannot tell us anything about what "really" goes on pre-cognitively.
Quoting noAxioms
Okay I had thought that anything posited as another Universe would be by definition another spacetime, but you seem to have explored this more than I have, so I will take your word for it.
My point is that the 'story' you're telling presupposes intelligibility in order to be 'right'. If you admit that the physical world - at least in some features - is intelligible (apparently enought intelligible to be certain of these things), then, at least the most basic concepts that ground describe the order of the physical world, which seem to imply that they are actually also part of the order of physical reality itself.
Also about predictions: unless one adopts a quite skeptical approach (for instance the one about 'perspective' I mentioned earlier), these extremely accurate predictions seem to imply that, indeed, mathematics does describe the 'structure' of reality. But if that is true, mathematics isn't invented (at least, the part that describes the structure of the world).
Quoting Apustimelogist
No, the world is intelligible because it is intelligible (if it is indeed intelligible). On the other hand, I can't exclude the possibility that it isn't really intelligible, in which case we evolved in a quite 'lucky' way that enables us to make useful predictions by using models that are in fact wrong.
The very fact that we speak of evolution - which is indeed intelligible as a concept - to explain why we can have knowledge presupposes that the world is intelligible in some sense (unless, as I said, one wants to embrace skepticism).
Quoting Apustimelogist
If 'equals' is only about the value, ok. But, in fact, the semantic content of the two expression is different. And this IMO shows that mathematics is more than 'tautologies'. It does enable to get access to non-trivial truths.
As I said in my previous post, if one speaks about 'evolution' and 'evolutionary advantage' as an explanation and, indeed, if one thinks that explanation is true, I don't see how one can escape the conclusion that the 'process' considered is intelligible. If it is intelligible, this means that our concepts do mirror the regularities of that which is 'happening'. Of course, if one embraces a quite radical skepticism where this evolutionary explanation is not considered true but 'useful', then, yes, one can avoid to attribute intelligibility to the 'evolutionary story'.
Such a 'skeptic' attitude, however, IMO goes against every 'physicalism' I can think of. Ironically, it's closer to epistemic idealism and some forms of phenomenology.
Quoting Relativist
If it doesn't, then, I doubt that one can have a coherent form of physicalism. After all, a minimal degree of intelligibility is IMO assumed to talk about coherently of a 'physical reality'.
Quoting Relativist
My point stands, however. If the world does have structure/order which is intelligible and amenable to rational description, how we have to understand that 'order'? Is it something 'physical' (in a sense of the word that is not equivocal)? If there is not, how can we speak of 'physical reality'?
I mean even saying "there are objects that interact" assumes basic concepts like 'sameness', 'diversity', 'oneness', 'plurality' and so on. So, I guess that any account of 'physical reality' must be intelligible. Which to me raises the question of how to understand that intelligibility, that order in purely physical terms.
Or, consider the spectatular success of mathematics in predicting physical phenomena. How is that even possible without the assumption that mathematics does indeed enable us to 'capture' the structure of a physcial world (again, let us set skepticism aside)?
Quoting Relativist
IMO you are oscillating between a position that requires some degree of intelligibility (the assumption that there is a physcial reality) and a skeptical position which would require to abandon all attempts to rational understanding of reality.
I would say that the 'order', if we take it seriously, would not be just a 'judgement' but also a property of physcial reality itself.
Yes, properties are not parts.
My point was that, if intelligibility of physical reality is assumed, then, you can't 'conceive' the more elementary parts of physical world independent of anything else. Mine was a criticism of reductionism rather than physicalism in that case, I should have clarified better.
I did some googling and it does seem that you are right, in fact. It does seem that physicalism is used to denote some positions that are not about ontology.
Since this thread is about ontology, however, it would be probably more appropriate to refer to 'materialism', then, without using that term to indicate a specific form of 'materialism' that, say, is equated to ancient atomism or a literal interpretation of newtonian mechanics but it is compatible with modern physical theories.
Still, I am not sure why people would call 'physicalism' a non-ontological view, but that's me.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, that's the problem that I have with using that term. Anyway, personally, I would not call principles, laws and so on as something physical.
In fact, they are more like the transcendental conditions for the existence of something physical. Personally, I would not say that they are 'physical'. To me that leads to an equivocation of the term 'physical' that renders it meaningless, in fact.
A purely 'unstructured' (i.e. intelligible) 'physical reality' is not a 'physical reality' at all. And the structure is more like a 'principle' than an 'object'. To me this means that the mere assumption that 'physical reality' is intelligible (which seems to be in fact necessary to speak about a 'physical reality'), contradicts materialism (and hence 'physicalism' as a metaphysical/ontological position).
Quoting noAxioms
:up: Nice! I am also of the same opinion. An unstructured world is IMO a contradiction in terms. But the structure is more like a 'transcendental' for the world (i.e. a precondition of it).
Quoting noAxioms
Right!
Quoting noAxioms
Well, it is often referred to the position that reality is exclusively mental and, therefore, there are only minds and mental content as we know them (a position that is most often attributed to Berkeley, but I think that he was more sofisticated than how it is often presented). In a sense, however, I would sat that even positions as diverse form that like, say, classical theism, neoplatonism, and other metaphysical positions which accept the existence of a 'material' world (which is not assumed to be fundamental, of course, but intelligible), are 'ontological idealist' because they assume that some kind of 'Mind' is the most fundamental reality (and mathematical/logical truths are concepts in that 'Mind'). But generally, these positions are not included under the label 'idealism'.
Anyway, I was not trying to 'make a case' for any of these 'idealist' positions. I was more like 'making a case' for the 'reality' of 'mathematical and logical truths' by simply assuming that there is an intelligible physical/material reality.
Roger Penrose, for instance, endorsed the existence of a 'platonic realm' which for him is independent from both the material/physical and the mental 'realms' (see this video, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvS2K06dg4). I would distinguish Penrose's positions that the ones mentioned before. Plato himself seemed to me unclear about whether the 'forms' are 'concepts' (and are in some kind of 'eternal Mind') or if they are 'independently real' and, in fact, something ontologically different and independent from either minds/souls and 'matter'. I guess that those mathematicians that are deemed platonists are in both camps (for instance, Kurt Godel was both a platonist and a theist, so I would suspect that he considered mathematical 'forms' as concepts (in the Divine mind). The early Bertrand Russell was an atheist but a platonist, so I would imagine that he held a similar view to Penrose. Also G.H. Hardy mantained a similar view). In any case, if one assumes the 'reality' (and the 'indipendence' from the physical world and our minds) of math and logic, then one cannot be a 'materialist' and possibly even endorse some forms of ontological idealism, for that matter.
I have an argument for the existence of my mind, which is based on the fact that experience exists and is coherent. You can find it here.
Quoting noAxioms
I think the interpretation of Bohmian quantum mechanics is correct since it is anomaly-free.
Quoting noAxioms
Correct.
I don't think so, because I don't explicitly need concepts for the world to be intelligible. I can see the trajectory of a thrown ball, predict where it will end up and catch it without overt need for any concepts. We apply concepts after the fact, mapping them to what we see. Much of the time they are wrong and make false predictions. The ones that happen to be empirically adequate may survive, generally.
On the otherhand, I have said all our concepts are anchored to some extent to sensory reality, just some are far more abstract than others. I think maybe then you could argue that math does capture something about the empirical structure of reality - quantity. It is self-evident quantities exist, and we can identify them; but this isn't really interesting like an independently existing platonic realm. Its almost trivial to observe the world around you and be able to identify that there can be more of something or less of something, bigger things and smaller things.
Quoting boundless
I am not presuming some exclusive dichotomy of invented or discovered. Something can be both. You can invent a system of rules and then discover implications of following those rules that you did not know before.
Again, you don't need any special explanation for the effectiveness of maths. It is just extremely flexible and broad. If math was an extremely small field that entirely described physics exclusively then I would say you have a point but math can describe thing that are physically impossible or physically don't make sense. It describes stuff that have nothing to do with the empirical, physical world. It just explores the logical limits of manipulating quantities, perhaps in some counterfactual sense.
Quoting boundless
I don't think it contradict the idea that the world is intelligible to us because we have a brain that allows us to understand it - i.e. it captures the structure of the world in a way that we can predict what happens next.
Quoting boundless
Even if your models are wrong beyond some limit, the fact that you can construct models that give correct predictions suggests that there is an intelligible structure to that part of reality which is being captured. If reality wasn't intelligible, you wouldn't be able to do that.
Intelligibility is about understanding and comprehension, it isn't about being right or wrong. I would say something is unintelligible when you cannot create any model that gives correct predictions; even then, I am skeptical that such a thing even exists except for say... complete randomness... even paradoxes and contradictions are intelligible and understandable... even the concept of randomness itself to some extent.
Quoting boundless
I think the core issue here is that I just don't agree with how you think intelligibility has some kind of importance here. Like, intelligibility to me seems to just say that the world has structure and we have brains that can capture that. Neither do I need some platonic realm of maths to understand why math can be used to describe that structure. I guess at the most abstract level of description, anything we perceive through our senses can be related to quantities. But again, its just a trivial observation of the world that can be captured abstractly by a sophisticated brain. Why do I need aome special explanation for the fact that I can count things that I see in the world (under the assumption of identifying those counted things as the same)?
Sure, but you said you agreed that's an innate belief, reasonable to maintain:
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
It seems to me that it makes more sense to believe it IS physical, because otherwise we must make some unparsimonious assumptions about what else exists, besides the physical. I just don't get why so many are embracing idealism- it seems to depend on skepticism about the perceived world, and then makes the unsupported assumption that reality is mind-dependent. I see no good justification for believing that. Sure, our perceptions and understandings are mind dependent, but I see no justification to believe that's all there is to reality. The innate, basic belief has not been defeated, and if we merely apply skepticism- we should also be skeptical of the hypothesis of idealism.
Quoting boundless
No, I'm being consistent with physicalism in terms of what a property is: properties are universals that exist immanently where they are instantiated.
Quoting boundless
In the case of properties (universals) - you can recognize that two or more things have it. It's true that we aren't visualizing redness as a thing- we're visualizing a red surface, but we are intellectually just identifying the sameness that red things have.
It's how I use the word, but mostly just to identify 'not dualism', and I prefer to use naturalism to describe that, so I admit that the term needs something else, perhaps said ontological stance.
No, but I don't suggest that I am composed partially of principles and laws either. Those things are the means by which physical stuff interacts.
:up:
Quoting boundless
I am trying to understand all the terms being used here. Some examples would help, perhaps of something unstructured, and how exactly speaking about a physical reality contradicts materialism.
Something unstructured would seem to not stand out to anything, and in that sense it wouldn't be intelligible. Not sure if that's what you mean though.
Quoting boundlessMaybe. As I said, it doesn't stand out, which makes it perhaps not exist, but I don't see it being contradictory.
Quoting boundlessOK, but I've always associated that with just 'idealism'. Perhaps I should ask what non-ontic idealism is then. I mean, epitemic idealism makes sense, but almost in a tautological way. You only know what you know.
Assuming a reality to make a case for a reality?
Agree
Quoting JanusWell that interpretation is not included in my suggestion of you being in superposition.
Not sure what you consider an 'anomaly' to be, but retrocausality seems to be one of them, don't you think?
So its like discussing spelling: m-i-n-u-t-e.
I'm was not familiar with this terminology, so I sought help from the Oracle, who provided some helpful clarifications along these lines, although having read it, I now understand it.
The claim that Planck units (Planck time, Planck length, Planck mass, etc.) are a set of "natural units" derived solely from fundamental physical constants: the speed of light (c), the gravitational constant (G), and the reduced Planck constant (?) is correct. These constants are believed to be universal throughout the cosmos. In this sense, an advanced alien civilization, by studying the laws of physics, could indeed independently arrive at the concept of Planck units and their values. They represent the fundamental scales at which quantum gravity effects are expected to become significant, and they are independent of any specific planet's rotation or orbit. (Remember the Pioneer Plaque? This was attached to a satellite bound for interstellar space, on the basis of the belief that an alien culture capable of intercepting it would know what it meant.)
However the existence of Planck units, while providing a universal and objective scale for duration, does not fundamentally undermine the argument that measurement (or observation from a specific frame of reference) is an essential element of duration, nor does it negate the "subjective" components we discussed.
Even if an event's "true" duration is, say, X Planck units in its own rest frame, an observer moving at a high velocity relative to that event, or an observer in a strong gravitational field, will still measure a different duration for that event due to time dilation. The laws of physics (including those that lead to Planck units) are universal, but the measurement of duration is relative to the observer's frame of reference. So, while Planck time provides a "floor" for how short a meaningful duration can be, and a universal constant to define a second, it doesn't mean all observers will measure the same number of Planck times for a given event. The "objective unit" itself (e.g., one Planck time) still experiences relativistic effects. (Also while Planck units are fundamentally important in theoretical physics, they are incredibly tiny (5.39×10 [sup]?44[/sup]seconds) and are not a practical unit of measurement.)
Quoting boundless
My point that "measurement is an essential element of duration" stands. In a relativistic universe, duration isn't an absolute, pre-existing quantity that merely needs to be "counted" by an observer. In other words, it is not transcendental, but phenomenal. The duration of an event itself is dependent on the observer's frame. Therefore, the act of measurement, by defining the observer's frame of reference, is intrinsically linked to the definition of that particular duration for that observer. You're not just measuring a pre-defined duration; you are, in a sense, participating in the definition of its duration by being in a specific frame.
This is what you asked about. It suggests that such units are not made up, but rather are physical, a mind-independent set of units that is a property of our cosmos.
The Planck unit of time is one of proper time (type 1), not the third type (awareness of) time which you seem to have been referencing. Don't confuse the two. There's little point in utilizing Plank units for measuring a specific species' awareness of time.
Also, you switched your argument here from awareness of time (type 3) to coordinate time (type 2) which is time relative to a frame of reference. That too does not have much utility for Planck units since for instance light does not travel at c except locally. So the 'constants' are no longer constant.
Yes, an alien culture would probably use a different frame of reference, if only a difference in gravitational potential.
Quoting WayfarerI'm not sure if whatever you're referencing would have a true duration. I use the physics definition of 'event', which is a point in spacetime, something without duration. OK, so a different sort of event like the sinking of the Titanic, which took hours, but that sort of duration is coordinate time, not proper time. That duration varies relative to one's choice of reference frame, as is necessarily the case with anything with extension like that. There's no one 'true' duration of something that multiple people are aware of or relative to different frames since it is different for each of them.
That's coordinate time, and yes, it is frame dependent. Proper time is invariant, and Planck units are units of proper time.
That only works for type 3 durations, and I stand by that point. Coordinate time requires awareness to compute, but it otherwise doesn't require being computed to have a coordinate duration.
Quoting WayfarerThis is wrong. Proper duration is invariant in both a relativistic and an absolute interpretation of the universe, and coordinate duration (including 'actual' duration in the absolute universe) is not invariant. Neither kind of time has a requirement to be noticed by any observer. Of course, that's different in any mind-dependent sort of ontology where being noticed is a requirement.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Apustimelogist
Apparently Apustimelogist finds your statement completely ambiguous.
Yea, natural units are at the quantum scale, not anything of particular day to day pragmatic use.
Ironically, the original point I was making there is that you are the one finding such things ambiguous hence why you conflate 2+2 referring to completely different things.
Quoting noAxioms
Quoting noAxioms
Quoting noAxioms
So, you are saying I am conflating different levels of analysis when I discussed Planck units in the context of a species' differing perceptions of time based on their planet's cycles. You are saying that Planck time is a fundamental unit of physical duration (proper time at a very small scale), while my thought experiment is about a species' subjective experience and culturally defined units of time (more akin to "awareness of time"). And I've learned from my research that these different "types" of time, with "type 1" (proper time) being the more fundamental (or "physical") concept, is recognised within the framework of relativity.
However, earlier in the discussion, I had introduced a quote from an essay on Bergson and Einstein's debate about the nature of time, which I present here again:
[quote=Clock Time Contra Lived Time, Evan Thompson, Aeon Magazine;https://aeon.co/essays/who-really-won-when-bergson-and-einstein-debated-time]To examine the measurements involved in clock time, Bergson considers an oscillating pendulum, moving back and forth. At each moment, the pendulum occupies a different position in space, like the points on a line or the moving hands on a clockface. In the case of a clock, the current state the current time is what we call now. Each successive now of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks dont measure time; we do. This is why Bergson believed that clock time presupposes lived time.[/quote]
My bolds. And my claim is that this is true even of so-called 'Type 1', supposedly mind-independent time. Bergson's analysis challenges the idea of a time that exists completely independently of any form of "experiencing" or "measuring" (in the broader sense that includes conscious awareness). Even physical clocks, which we might think of as objective measures, rely on physical processes unfolding in space, which we interpret as temporal intervals.
This suggests that time, insofar as it is meaningful to us, is inherently linked to how we perceive and interpret change and succession. (And if it's not meaningful to us, then what is there to discuss?) Even in the case of physical measurements, we are the ones who interpret the spatial movements as representing the passage of time. Without an observer (human or otherwise) to relate the spatial changes to the concept of time, the clock's movements are just that movements in space. The distinction between the discrete moments measured by a clock and the continuous flow of lived duration aligns with the distinction of "physical" time (like Planck time or proper time) and "awareness of time." However, a Bergson would likely argue that even the "physical" time we measure with clocks is still dependent on a framework of spatial measurement and our interpretation of it which only an observer can provide.
So if we take Bergson's challenge seriously, we might ask: what does Planck time mean in the absence of any system (even a theoretical one) to "observe" or be affected by events at that scale? Is it a fundamental property of spacetime that exists independently of any interaction or measurement, or is its significance tied to its role within our theoretical frameworks of how the universe operates?
Bergson's analysis provides a philosophical argument for the idea that time, as we understand and experience it, is deeply intertwined with the process of observation and interpretation. While Planck time might represent a fundamental unit of physical duration at the smallest scale, Bergson's perspective suggests that even this concept is embedded within our theoretical framework of measurement and understanding. It reinforces the idea that time is not simply a pre-existing entity that we passively record, but something that emerges through our interaction with the world, whether that interaction is through conscious experience or through the construction and interpretation of physical measurements. (This, incidentally, is in keeping with the 'enactivist' philosophy of Evan Thompson who wrote the article being discussed.)
Quoting noAxioms
Ontic or ontological idealism holds that the world is ultimately mental (or spiritual) in nature. I'm arguing for epistemological idealism which argues that whatever we know of the world has an ineliminably subjective pole. Whilst objectivity is pragmatically possible and useful, the objective stance ought not to loose sight of this broader point: reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from.
Ref: Who Really Won when Bergson and Einstein Debated Time, Evan Thompson, Aeon.
About the Bergson Einstein debate, let me try to paraphrase it. Imagine Bergson standing on a highway with a little numbered marker each 0.1km. He's at marker 125.
"To examine the measurements involved in space, Bergson considers himself on a road. At each location, a clearly visible sign indicates the position in space, points on a line or a tape measure. The sign is quite legible, but smaller ones are perceived in the distance with increasing numbers and other observers in the presence of those. In the case of the road, the position at which he is located is what we call here. Each successive here of the road contains nothing of other locations because each location, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience space. Instead, we hold these separate locations together in our memory. We unify them. A physical ruler measures a succession of spatial locations, but only experiencing 'expanse' allows us to recognise these seemingly separate locations as a continuum. Rulers dont measure space; we do. This is why Bergson believed that ruler-distance presupposes lived distance"
It's definitely idealistic leaning, but seems legit, no? Do you agree with it all?
It is true. It does not become a mental construct of proper time until experienced. But type 1 is proper time, not the mental construct of proper time, and the argument seems not to be true at all of the latter.
Based on much of the content of this topic, I can even agree with that, since ontology is potentially a mental construct. What proper time is, is a different issue than what it means to say it exists. OK, by some definitions of 'exists', the word means to 'be' whatever it is, but by other definitions, to exist means to be labeled thus by something that worries about such things.
Bergson believed that time is a continuous flow, something that very much is a conclusion only from perception.
He criticized Einstein's view of time, arguing that it failed to capture the subjective and fluid nature of lived time. That it does, not being in any way a theory about experience. But neither does Einstein's view predict a different experience.
You may choose to interpret these things any way you want. Proper time is still the same (invariant) in any interpretation, and is something meaningful to us.
Not all interpretations represent time as something that passes. Movement may represent time, but not necessarily its passage.
I agree with this.
Lacking a Planck clock, I don't think any clock measures discreet moments in a way that a human doesn't.
Proper time isn't discreet, but quantum time might be.
Perhaps he would argue that, incorrectly. Our interpretation of clocks gives us a sort of epistemic time, but it doesn't create physical time, it only measures it, and physical time, just like physical distance, can (given a sort of mind-independent interpretation) be without any necessity of perception. So OK, Bergson is perhaps not such a realist, and that's not an invalid position. But a choice of premises is very different than an unbacked assertion that those premises are necessarily true. Same goes with Einstein if he makes such an assertion.
That scale being more fundamental, all events at any scale are affected by them, even if what we call classical behavior is more emergent than coming directly from the Planck scale. But then there's the 'what does it mean' part. Absent some kind of awareness, there's nothing to find meaning. If ontology is meaning, then it doesn't even exist. But in a mind-independent view, proper time (at whatever scale) doesn't require itself to be meaningful to anything.
I would say even that proper time might be something emergent I've seen artist depictions of the chaos of what spacetime looks like at quantum scales, and it isn't all nice and flatness and describable in four lousy dimensions. Extension is just another classical emergent thing.
More fundamental than spacetime, but probably not actually 'fundamental' itself.
Our theories are just models, not anything proscriptive.
Of course it is.
Quoting WayfarerNot what I'm talking about then. How is that statement distinct from regular idealism?
I'm talking more about people/experience still supervening on the physical (mind-independent world), yet the designation of this existing and that not existing is purely a mental distinction. Perhaps there's a term for that other than 'ontic idealism'.
I can think of few views (if any) that would disagree with that.
Saw that in my searches. Don't trust such an assessment written by somebody clearly favoring one side over the other. Such debates express two points of view, neither debunked, and thus comes down to who can think faster on their feet. I'm thinking of say the way WL Craig clearly trounced Hitchens despite my opinion of which side is correct and despite my opinion that Craig doesn't even believe what he pitches. He's incredibly good at the pitching, and that's what counts in a debate. Not who's right, and not what one's actual belief's are.
Quoting ApustimelogistYou missed the point then. I was searching for any context where 2+2 might be equal to something other than 4, any reason to not accept 2+2=4 as an absolute truth.
This is the same as what the bit you quoted was describing.
If you have 2 apples in one hand and 2 apples in your other hand you are holding 4 apples. If you have 2 apples in one hand and 2 oranges in the other hand you are holding 4 pieces of fruit. Etc
But once you say 2+2=4 you are now in into the realm of mathematics where different rules apply and 2+2=4 is not an absolute truth. Rather, 2+2=4 is only true within specific mathematical systems - most commonly Peano Arithmetic - where you start of with certain axioms and rules and then you can derive 2+2=4.
I don't pretend to understand them, but there are other mathematical frameworks where 2+2 is not necessarily 4 - e.g Modular Arithmetic and Abstract Algebra..
Yes, I completely agree with it. It highlights the role of the mind in stitching together - synthesising - a set of otherwise disconnected facts into the unitary perception of space-time. You said you haven't read up on Kant, but he says something like this: space and time are not derived from experience (a posteriori), nor are they concepts, but rather they are the necessary, a priori conditions of experience. In other words, we cannot perceive or imagine anything without situating it in space and time. And they are not things or properties in themselves but are the conditions under which appearances are possible. Kant calls them "pure" because they are independent of any particular empirical content, and "intuitions" because they represent a singular, immediate framework for perception, not a general concept or category. Yet, also important to note that Kant is an empirical realist, i.e. he accepts that the objects of analysis are real as phenomena.
Quoting noAxioms
In any interpretation, yes. But again, what it is outside any interpretation can only be inferred.
You asked a rhetorical question in the thread title - 'Does anybody support a mind-independent reailty' - from what I'm seeing, the answer would be that you do. Would that be right?
And yet, on the other hand, probably even in order to 'see' the trajectory, you need to have already some kind of interpretative structure. So which comes before which?
And BTW, you are assuming that the 'world' to be structured but you are not explaining how it can be. If you did, you would use precisely those concepts you think are totally derived from experience.
Quoting Apustimelogist
So, where 'more or less' comes from? Isn't that evidence, then, that concepts do map 'reality' in some way? How is that so?
Quoting Apustimelogist
Fine!
Quoting Apustimelogist
Actually, the history of physics clearly showed us how some 'obscure' mathematical concepts have been used in physical theories. Moreover, I do believe that this property of math as being 'more' than what is actually employed in physics gives more credence to platonism. If math wasn't so 'broad', its truths would be accidental. And, frankly, I am not even sure in a purely physicalist perspective how can we even conceive something that has no relation to '(experienced) reality'. What would even the point of that?
Quoting Apustimelogist
Agreed. More precisely, if reality wasn't intelligible and still we can make successful predictions this would imply that we can do that due to sheer, inexplicable luck. It is sort of possible, I guess. We can't exclude that. But it just doesn't seem 'right'.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Not sure how can you understand something without being 'right'. In a way, one might even say that 'reality isn't intelligible' is self-refuting: in order to be true, it must correctly 'describe' reality. But if it does describe reality, then...
Quoting Apustimelogist
Partly it's psychological...because, well, for me it isn't 'obvious'. It isn't something I would take for granted. BTW, personally I also marvel at 'existence' itself.
And, in fact, I guess these two things are related. Why reality is 'ordered' when it could be otherwise? Is it even conceivable to speak about 'order'/'structure' without assuming some mental categories? Does this have implications?
Viceversa, I just don't understand why many physicalists are so sure that using the term 'physical' is appropriate for the 'structure'/'order'. To me it's just equivocating the term.
Quoting Relativist
Note that unlike an idealist thinks that the 'physical world' is just mental content they also believe that there is something 'outside'. And, in fact, even someone like Berkeley would say that the order is 'mind-dependent' if 'mind' is taken to be the individual mind.
Of course, Berkeley would probably say that mental content and minds are all there is. But 'idealism' includes a much more diverse picture.
That is, only some idealists would claim that the physical world is reduced to perceptions and understandings. They would probably agree with you that, instead, the world is 'external' from the mind and it is intelligible. They would probably contend that its intelligibility is an indication that shares a common structure with the mind and, therefore, it is (for them) an indication that it is ontologically secondary to Mind (I use the capital letter because these types of ontological idealists often believe in a higher 'Mind' as the ground of the physical world).
Then, of course, we have epistemic idealists. These would say that, in fact, we can only know the world as it is represented by our own mental categories. For them, it isn't at all surprising that the world seems intelligible: our experience is structured by our own mental categories. This specific type of idealism, however, makes no claim about how the world is 'outside' of experience.
The metaphysical physicalist, on the other hand, assumes that the physical world is primary and intelligible and mind is derived from it. But how can a purely physical account explain its intelligibility without just assuming it as 'taken for granted'?
And, yes, skepticism works in both ways. But note that I was thinking about the consequences of accepting the assumption that the physical world is intelligible.
Quoting Relativist
Aristotle for instance agreed with this and he wasn't a physicalist.
Anyway, assuming that a 'hylomorphic' physicalism holds (i.e. a Aristotelian picture of reality without the 'super-natural' aspects of his worldview), do you believe that formal causes exist? I mean if there is an 'order' in the physical world, it just seems that the world has a 'form' in a quite Arisotelian way.
Note that this is different from saying that math can be used to make predictions. It assumes that we can truly understand something 'essential' of the world.
Quoting Relativist
Note that this wasn't my point. I said that reductionism cannot explain a structured world because 'structure' is a property (if it even can be considered a 'property') of the whole, not of the parts.
It was something separate from universals.
If I am understanding your question correctly, that 'modern materialism' would be the thesis that fundamental reality is 'physical', 'natural' etc.
Quoting noAxioms
My problem with this is that there are also philosophical models that do not make any 'stance' about whether 'the physical' or 'the mental' is fundamental. Some phenomenological approach conceptualize this by saying that the 'first-person perspective' (the 'mental') and the 'third-person perspective' (the 'physical') are not reducible to one another but you need to take both into account even if it is not possible to make a synthesis of them (think about 'complementarity' in QM). To none of them, however, an ontological status is actually granted. Both are ultimately 'point of views'.
How would you classify this? It is obviously not 'dualistic' in the sense that an ontologiy is not even presumed.
Quoting noAxioms
Sort of agree. They are not 'parts' that we are composed of. That would be a 'materialistic' interpretation of principles and laws. But even saying that they are 'means' is wrong IMO. I would say that they 'manifest' in the way physical stuff interact. If they weren't 'there', there would be no 'way' in which physical stuff would interact.
Quoting noAxioms
Mmm it's difficult to make an example of something unstructured... because making a description would actually assume an intelligible structure!
I am not even sure that it even makes sense to think about an 'unstructured reality'. So, probably, this implies that, after all, intelligibility is sometinh essential to anything real.
Regarding my point about 'physical reality' and materialism, think it this way. If one posits that, say, the fundamental reality is, say, the Platonic 'world of Forms' it's possible to explain why the physical world presents to us regularities. They are, so to speak, 'moving images' of the Forms or 'manifestations' of them. And physical things are instantiations of the forms.
But materialism would simply assume that there is an 'order' in the world without having a conceptual category that explains it. Is being intelligible intrinsic/essential to be material? Is the 'order' material? etc
Quoting noAxioms
I quote my previous post which tries to explain 'epistemic idealism':
Quoting boundless
Quoting noAxioms
Assuming some kind of reality of mathematical and logical principles to make a case for the intelligibility of physical reality.
Well, I guess that one can even say that in order to even think to make a measurement you have to assume that the 'world' is intelligible in terms of mental categories (and 'time' might be one of them). The epistemic idealist would then say that such an assumption of intelligibility is only valid when the world is analysed in the context of experience, i.e. we can't make any claim about how 'the world is' without any kind of reference to experience. So the 'perspectival' character of physical quantities might even be an indication of this.
If duration is quantized, it would still not 'falsify' epistemic idealism IMO. It would simply tell us how 'the world as is presented' is best understood.
Thats it. This is what I believe Kant means by the in itself, as distinct from the phenomenal. The issue is, empiricism tends to take what exists in the absence of any observer as the hallmark of what is real, but that entails an inherent contradiction.
Quoting noAxioms
It's more the case that any theory ultimately depends on perception/measurement of time. And that shouldn't be taken as a 'falsifiable hypothesis', as it is not. The pre-theoretical experience of temporal succession and measurement is logically prior to any theoretical model of time. We could not arrive at any theory of time without already presupposing the ability to observe, record, and compare events in time.
So it's not a 'falsifiable hypothesis', because falsifiable hypotheses are propositions within a theoretical framework that make empirical predictions that could turn out to be incorrect. Rather, this is a meta-theoretical observation a philosophical reflection on what must already be the case for any theory to arise or be tested. It is not as if one could simply 'swap out' this analysis for some alternative: it reflects the conditions of possibility for any empirical theorizing at all.
That dependency is what the 'blind spot of science' (Frank, Gleiser and Thompson) fails to recognise.
I am not sure what this means: the interpretative structure of following a ball and catching it?
Quoting boundless
What kind of answer you want? I don't understand why you want me to explain how the world can be structured. It seems self-evident to most people.
Quoting boundless
Quoting boundless
We have a brain that receives sensory input and abstracts structure that maps onto structure in the world. I can then manipulate that inferred structure. I can then construct a system that describes abstract stuff and discover new implications from it. But this isn't really more interesting than brains doing stuff. I don't need a platonic realm to do this, I just need a brain that can infer quantity in the sensory world and extrapolate.
Quoting boundless
You can have an intelligible model that is incorrect. Like people used to have models of the solar system that were intelligible, gave correct predictions and turned out to be completely wrong.
How do they justify believing this?
Physicalism is epistemically grounded in our perceptions of the world - presumably our senses deliver us a reflection of reality (so there is a bit of distinction between perceived reality and actual reality) and the success of science. It's logically possible for these assumptions to be false, but the grounding beliefs are innate - basic beliefs. Possibility alone doesn't justify abandoning them.
Quoting boundless
This seems to entail denying the reality we experience and interact with, denying the basic beliefs we're born with- and isn't it solely based on the possibility these innate beliefs are wrong?
Quoting boundless
Your view is inconsistent with physicalism. Under the physicalist paradigm, reality has a structure, and physical structures have ontological properties, but the structure (i.e. having structure vs being unstructured) is itself not an ontological property.
Particulars have properties and relations to other particulars. Properties and relations exist immanently. Two (or more) particulars can have the same property and/or relation (or sets of these) - these are universals.
Laws of nature are relations between universals; they are universals. Laws of nature entail necessitation, and they account for causation.
This framework reflects, and accounts for, the structure that we see in the world. It's not a causal account, it's a structural account.
Quoting boundless
No. It doesn't fit into a physicalist paradigm, ontologically.
Quoting boundless
"Physical" is just the label attached to the things that exists that is causally connected to everything else. Causally disconnected things are logically possible, but because of an absence of causal connections, their existence is moot and there is no epistemological justification to believe such things exist.
If you still believe there's an equivocation, please describe it.
Note, however, that there is IMO a problem with Kant's and similar views. So, intelligibility of the world is 'brought into' by the organizing activity of the mind. Of course, epistemic idealists hold that what mind brings in is just order. So, the question becomes: how can we understand this 'ordering'?
It seems in fact to assume that there is, indeed, a mind-independent reality which is then 'represented' by the cognitive faculties of the mind. Hence, it seems that the 'ordered world' of experience arises from the 'interaction' between the mind and 'the mind-independent reality', which is never truly presented 'as it is itself' to the mind. The 'represented' world of exprience is thus like an interface (as Donald Hoffman puts it, but the idea is much older) and for the knowing subject it is impossible to know what the world is like independent from the mental categories.
But even asserting that there is an interaction that, ultimately, is what 'triggers' the interface is to suggest a minimal degree of intelligibility of the 'mind-independent world', other than giving to it an ontological status. So, I wonder if epistemic idealism doesn't in fact necessarily collapse into some variants of either indirect realism or other types of 'idealism' or whatever else, except perhaps strict physicalism. Even, say, Bernard d'Espagnat's view isn't empirical idealism, after all. He believed that we can acquire some knowledge of the mind-independent reality, which he described as 'veiled' (just like, say, by touching a statue hidden by a veil we can know some of its characteristics). Not sure if his view can be called 'epistemic idealism' (of course, he, like others, incorporates some parts of the epistemic idealist thesis, without however fully subscribing to it IMO).
In any case, to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality (let's consider the minds here as those of sentient beings not some 'higher' Mind, which would in fact be, in a certain sense, a mind-indepedent reality, at least from the epistemic idealist point of view)?
More or less. My point is that in order to even think to follow and catch a ball, you need some interpretative mental faculties. Same goes for some basic innate concepts (like a basic notion of 'thing', 'change' and so on).
Quoting Apustimelogist
Well, yes, but my question is how to understand why the physical world is intelligible in the first place. A physcialist might well aswer as you do. It is just a 'brute fact'. But IMO it would be ironic. The very intelligibility of the world is left unexplained (and perhaps unexplainable).
For instance Aristotle mantained that all physical things are composed of matter and form. By 'form' he meant, well, the same as Plato's forms. So concepts for him were an intrinsic part of the 'physical reality'. That would a possible answer to my question. But I doubt that a physicalist might find it congenial. It's difficult, after all, to think about Aristotle's ontology of physical things as 'physicalist'.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Perhaps you don't need a platonic realm. But that intelligibility is left an unexplained 'brute fact'. I am not saying that physicalism is necessarily wrong because of this (even if I believe it would be a reasonable conclusion to make).
Quoting Apustimelogist
Yes, the model is incorrect and intelligible. But I guess that one could then say that if, even in principle, we could not make any correct model, then the world would be in fact intelligible for us.
But, again, the very fact that we can make predictions suggests to me that, at least in principle, we could make a 'correct model'. It might be beyond our reach but still a possibility in principle. Otherwise, it seems to me that our predictions would be completely right for 'luck': that is, we get incredibly good predictions in the absence of an intelligible structure of reality. Weird.
Imagine 'how the world looks like' without any kind of sensations. Here's a quote I found from F.H. Bradley (who BTW wasn't a Berkeleyan idealist but is said to be more like Hegel apparently... I actually don't know Bradley, I just use this quote because I find it a good way to put it and here he looks quite the 'Berkeleyan' or possibly the 'epistemic idealist' - this depends on how you interpret his conclusion):
To the 'Berkeleyan idealist' the fact that we struggle to conceive 'what the world looks like' when all 'mental content' is removed is an evidence for denying the existence of a 'mind-independent matter'.
Quoting Relativist
As I said in my previous post, physicalism seems content to claim that intelligibility (which you assume here) is just a 'brute fact' that doesn't need to be explained. I disagree. So, for me, it isn't enough.
I can actually agree with what you said here, despite not being a physicalist. I do not deny the existence of a 'physical world', independent from our minds (i.e. which is not just mental content), but IMO it isn't ontologically fundamental.
Quoting Relativist
To be honest, I actually think that your view is similar to Aristotle's account of the physical world.
I believe that the structure is intrinsic to physical reality, i.e. there would be no physical reality without structure. But the structure itself, however, is not 'physical'. I do adimit, however, that if there were no physical reality, we might conclude that the structure itself would disappear. However, while I admit that this is true for some of it, the nature of logical and mathematical principles (their seemingly being necessary and eternal) leads me to think that is not wholly 'immanent' in the physical world. That's why I think that the ontological status of math/logic is actually important in this discussion.
Quoting Relativist
And yet, I do find your talk about universals quite close to it. I mean, not the same as it. But similar. The only difference I can think of is that you think that universals are immanent and, therefore, nothing is independent of physical reality. Still, you seem to assume that universals aren't just 'figments of imagination' but they do have an ontic status, independent from us.
I may be wrong but I don't think you are an anti-realist about universals.
Quoting Relativist
Ok. In other words, do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world?
Quoting Relativist
Well, I have my difficulties to label universals as physical for instance. But I think I understand why you would do (I hope I didn't however misunderstood your view).
Not too sure what form the problem is supposed as having, but at first glance:
So if the ordered world of experience arises from the interaction between the mind and representations of the external domain .the problem disappears?
Quoting boundless
That which is mind-independent cannot be represented. With respect to Kants view alone, reality is not mind-independent, by definition hence by methodological necessity, the content of which remains represented not by the cognitive faculties, but sensibility. From which follows the ordered world of experience arises from that which is always truly presented to the mind, and from that, appearances to the senses are not merely assumed, but given.
Quoting boundless
From whence, then, does the interface arise? If the represented world of experience is all with which the human intellect in general has to do, there isnt anything with which to interface externally, interface here taken to indicate an empirical relation. And if the only possible means for human knowledge is the system by which a human knows anything, the interface takes on the implication of merely that relation of that which is known and that which isnt, which is already given from the logical principle of complementarity. Does the interface between that out there, and that in here, inform of anything, when everything is, for all intents and purposes, in here?
Quoting boundless
If by epistemic idealist is meant that purely subjective position holding with a representational system of human intelligence, however speculative such system may be, in which all empirical knowledge of things is predicated on, and thereby resides within, that system alone, he must at the same time posit that to which those representations, hence his knowledge, relates, which cannot be contained within, therefore must be external to, the system itself.
Empirical/experienced world, and the variated iterations thereof, is a conceptual misnomer, though, I must say, a rather conventional way of speaking, not fully integrating the development of the concepts involved. That, and the notion of intelligibility of the world. Which sorta serves to justify why the good philosophy books are so damn long and arduously wordy.
Anyway .just me. Rambling.
Alright, sure. I just think those things come from a brain that has evolved able to infer abstract structure in the information it gets from the environment. There is a kind of pluralism in the sense that depending on how the brain relates to the environment, different information appears on its sensory boundary and so different structures are inferred. Like say if you are looking at an object from different angles and it looks different.
Quoting boundless
For the world to intelligible imo just means that it has structure. To say the world has structureis just to say something like: there is stuff in it and it is different in different places, which is kind of trivial.
Quoting boundless
Yes, this doesn't make sense to me. If we can fit coherent models to reality, even if they turn out to be erroneous after some limit, it would suggest they capture some subset of the intelligible structure (at the very least intelligible empirical structure) of reality. This just happens to be embedded in a model whose wider structure is erroneous.
[Quote=Berkeley]:
Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible...[/quote]
This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work?
[quote=Berkeley]Try to discover any sense in which you can still continue to speak of it, when all perception and feeling have been removed; or point out any fragment of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not derived from and is not still relative to this source. When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning.[/quote]
I can infer something reasonable from this: making sense of the world will necessarily be in our own subjective terms. Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there. Understanding can only be from our perspective (it's like a non-verbal language - a set of concepts tied directly to our perceptions), but that doesn't mean it's a false understanding. And it has proven to be productive
Quoting boundless
It is a necessary fact that survival entails successful interaction with the external world. Our species happened to develop abstract reasoning, which provided a "language" for making sense of the world- a useful adaptation. There may very well be aspects of the world that are not intelligible to us. Quantum mechanics is not entirely intelligible -we have to make some mental leaps to accept it. If there's something deeper, it could worse.
Quoting boundless
Exactly. We can consider a universal by employing the way of abstraction: consider multiple objects with a property in common, and mentally subtract the non-common features. This abstraction is a mental "object", not the universal itself.
[Quote]I do not deny the existence of a 'physical world', independent from our minds (i.e. which is not just mental content), but IMO it isn't ontologically fundamental.[/quote]
What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist.
[Quote]the ontological status of math/logic is actually important in this discussion.[/quote]
A physicalist perspective is that we abstract mathematical relations which exist immanently. There are logical relations between the pseudo-objects (abstractions) in mathematics, and logic itself is nothing more than semantics.
[Quote] I don't think you are an anti-realist about universals....do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world?[/quote]Correct on both points.
My answer would be that the in-itselfthe world as it is entirely apart from any relation to an observercannot be said to be non-existent. Of course something is, independently of our perception of it. But precisely insofar as it is independent of any possible relation to perception or thought, it is beyond all predication - hence, also, not really 'something'! Nothing can truthfully be said of itnot that it is, nor that it is not, for even non-existence is itself a conceptual construction.
In this sense, and somewhat in line with certain strands of Buddhist philosophy, the in-itself is neither existent nor non-existent. Any claim otherwise would overstep what can be justifiably said, since even the concept of "existing" or "not existing" already presupposes a frame of conceptual reference that cannot be meaningfully applied to what is, by definition, outside such reference. (The proper attitude is something like 'shuddup already' ;-) )
Quoting Relativist
The passage that @Boundless quoted was from F H Bradley, not George Berkeley, although as he said, they converge on a similar form of idealism. And as the thread is about the possibility of a mind-independent reality, Bradley is quite relevant. He was highly influential in his lifetime, and had considerable impact on a young Bertrand Russell. However, Russell later abandoned Bradley's 'absolute idealism' for reasons very like your own.
Bradley and Berkeley aside, I will take issue with what you say is 'actually there'. In line with what I've said above, your 'actually there' remains a conceptual construction or a sign. But physicalist philosophy overlooks this by regarding the 'testimony of sense' as indubitable. As another well-known idealist puts it:
Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation
You might protest that the object is not an idea, but an actuality. But this overlooks, or rather, takes for granted, the fact that any object you refer to is identified as such, named and thereby brought into the domain of name and form, otherwise it would not constitute an object. You and I both know what it is - look, it's a hammer. It's a chair. It's a qasar. It's a neuron - but the point stands.
(By the way, the natural reaction to the claim that objects are 'ideas', is to say, 'the object is external to us, but the idea is within the mind'. However, this 'thought-construction' takes place in a context already provided by the mind - that of self-and-world, internal and external. To understand that requires a kind of meta-cognitive insight into the sense in which this too is a form of what Schopenhauer calls 'vorstellung' - a mental construct.)
The appeal to 'brute fact' seems convenient but is ultimately uninformative. Calling something a brute fact doesnt explain itit just brings inquiry to a halt. Its a way of saying "thats just how it is", which might end a conversation but leaves the real philosophical analysis undone.
Likewise, reducing mathematics to abstraction and logic to "nothing more than semantics" risks psychologizing both, as if they are just artifacts of human mental or linguistic activity. But this is self-defeating, since the very theories that physicalism relies onespecially in physicsare themselves mathematically formulated. If mathematics is nothing more than a human abstraction, then so are the mathematical models that physicalism depends on to describe reality. That undermines (or rather subjectivises) the very objectivity that physicalism claims.
I think the mistake that physicalism makes, is to regard objects as mind-independent. That's the whole problem in a nutshell. But atomic physics itself has seriously questioned whether such a mind-independent object will ever be found. After all, the 'standard model' is just that: a model! And where does that model exist, if not in the abstract domain that only mathematical physics can explore? The mathematical structures that describe particles and fields arent themselves particles or fields; they exist in an ideal or formal realm that that we can only access through symbolic reasoning.
This has long been recognized as a serious question, famously raised by Eugene Wigner as "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences." Why should abstract mathematical structures map so well onto physical reality, if they are just inventions of human thought? The fact that they do suggests discovery, not mere invention or mental construction. There have been innummerable such discoveries in the recent history of science. ('Einstein Proved Right Again'.)
So the question isnt just whether there is a "brute fact" about the nature of reality, but whether mathematical and logical structures themselves are ontologically prior the sense in which they are real in a sense beyond the descriptive. Thats a much deeper and more interesting question.
The statement of my you refer to was discussing a physicalist point of view, and acknowledging that perceptions are not identical to reality (what is actually there). My point being that, although I do not buy into idealism, I do not insist we perceive reality as it is.
It's not clear to me what Schopenhauer is addressing here:
"From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea."
He seems to be criticizing physicalism's inadequate account ofthoughts and ideas Is that it?
Quoting Wayfarer
My objection is more basic: what is the big picture of reality under this theory? Does it actually account for anything? Does it just assume it's futile to consider a broad metaphysical theory? Physicalism offers an explanation for almost everything. Does idealism explain ANYTHING?
Peano Arithmetic seems to concern only natural numbers, and is not closed under a lot of operations. A lot more axioms are needed to move into extensions to natural numbers, and it still remains difficult to find a set of numbers which is closed under all operations. Complex numbers are not up to the task, but Octionians are. Problem with Octonians is that so many of the operations lack commutative, associative, and transitive properties.
What obligates a universe to run under these axioms? Perhaps I can answer that by the same reason that our universe is so well tuned: You don't get observers if the rules are otherwise.
Quoting boundlessMost in fact, naturalism being one of them. Pretty much anything except materialism and idealism respectively.
I am aware of this wording, but have never got it. How can a perspective not be first person by the thing having the perspective, even if it's a tree or a radio or whatever? Sure, it might not build a little internal model of the outside world or other similarities with the way we do it, but it's still first person.
An internet intelligence might have thousands of points of view corresponding to widespread input devices. That's not a single perspective (just like our own isn't), but again, it's still first person.
I kind of lost track of the question. Classify the ontology of the first and third person ways of describing what might be classified as an observer?
Quoting boundlessMe too. I struggled to find a more appropriate word and failed.
OK, I can go with that, but it implies that 'stuff' is primary, interaction supervenes on that, and laws manifest from that interaction. I think interaction should be more primary, and only by interaction do the 'things' become meaningful. Where the 'laws' fit into that hierarchy is sketchy.
Depending on one's definition of being real, I don't agree here. A mind-independent definition of reality doesn't rely on describability. By other definitions, it does of course.
Quoting boundlessSounds legit. All of it.
OK, got that.
Quoting WayfarerGood. You're not treating time differently than space. Being consistent goes a long way to being valid.
I can think of counterexamples to that. Certain forms of BiV or simulation reality are not necessarily situated in an actual space that is being perceived. Sure, there is an embedded space and/or time, but that's not the space/time perceived. It might have say a different number of dimensions than the number presented to one's experience.
First of all, I still think my title is poorly worded. I'm not asking if the apple would still be there if you were not. I'm more asking if the line between that which exists and that which doesn't is or is not drawn in some oberver independent way.
As for my stance on the first question, absent a me to observe the apple, it wouldn't exist relative to me, but it would still exist relative to the basket in which it sits.
As for where I draw my lines, it is on causal bounds: Things (events) that have a causal impact on X vs everything else. Yes, all pretty mind independent, but few choose definitions like that. The definition is a sort of relational version of the Eleatic principle.
No. He's saying - and he says it very clearly - that the world, objects, and things, ARE ideas. Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain. Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it. Whatever presents itself to our senses 'has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time.' Space and time likewise are foundational neurological senses which allow us to orient ourselves and move around. They are real, but they also are built on an ineliminably (can't be eliminated) subjective basis. Physicalism attributes to the objects of perception an inherent reality which they don't possess. Hence, Schopenhauer's saying 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets herself.'
Quoting Relativist
it explains why physicalism is based on false premisses.
Quoting noAxioms
So you believe!
Quoting noAxioms
Hey, thanks for clearing that up. :chin:
Appeal? It's an inference. I believe the past is finite, which implies an initial state which exists by brute fact. Likewise, I believe there is a "bottom layer" of reality, not composed of anything simpler. Whatever it may be, it exists by brute fact. I don't see how any comprehensive metaphysics can avoid brute facts (and labeling it "necessary doesn't remove bruteness").
Quoting Wayfarer
That sounds absurd to me. Does he provide some epistemological assumption for this claim?
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed.
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I disagree. Rather, physicalism's account of mental activity is deficient. Even it if justifies rejecting physicalism, it doesn't justify rejecting our innate basic beliefs that there is an external world that we perceive, and interact with. We naturally belief our perceptions of the world are true. What defeats these beliefs?
I don't see a problem. Making sense of the world is necessarily going to be rooted in our nature. If bats were capable of abstract reasoning, the explanations they would generate would be rooted in their unique nature. These are perspectives, not falsehoods.
Set physicalism aside, and focus specifically on what we perceive in the world. We naturally believe what perceive is real, including all the details delivered by our senses (the colors, smells, sounds, shapes, etc). Certainly the qualia are subjective, but they provide true information. A turd's stench is not an objective property of a turd, but it gives the true information that the turd is a turd, not a flower or food.
Materialism is an account of the world that is consistent with our perceptions and with science. What is his account of the world? How does its usefulness compare? Criticizing the deficiencies of materialism is not a justification for an alternative. It's useful only if we're seeking a "best explanation", in which case we need a real alternative to compare it to. If it's starting point is extreme skepticism about the external world, I see no utility to it.
You say that even if physicalisms account of mental activity is deficient, that doesnt defeat our basic belief in an external world that we perceive and interact with. But I think that warrants closer scrutiny, as the question at hand is the sense in which that world is 'mind-independent'.
Cognitive science shows that what we experience as 'the world' is not the world as such - as it is in itself, you might say - but a world-model generated by our perceptual and cognitive processes. So what we take to be "the external world" is already shaped through our cognitive apparatus. This suggests that our belief in the worlds externality is determined by how we are conditioned, biologically, culturally and socially, to model and interpret experience, rather than by direct perception of a mind-independent domain.
I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct.
One does not need to deny the empirical facts of science (indeed, the originator of this kind of philosophy, Immanuel Kant, did not) . But the philosophical question is about the nature of existence, of reality as lived - not the composition and activities of those impersonal objects and forces which science takes as the ground of its analysis. We ourselves are more than objects in it - we are subjects, agents, whose actions and decisions are of fundamental importance. And through critical self-awareness, we can come to understand that world we experience is already a mediated construction, not an unfiltered or unvarnished encounter with reality in itself. Which is what physicialism doesnt see. Scientism is the belief that the human being can be understood solely through the perspective of the physical and chemical sciences, which is inherently 'objectifiying':
[quote=D M Armstrong, The Nature of Mind]What does modern science have to say about the nature of man? There are, of course, all sorts of disagreements and divergencies in the views of individual scientists. But I think it is true to say that one view is steadily gaining ground, so that it bids fair to become established scientific doctrine. This is the view that we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms.[/quote]
That is, as an object.
This doesnt amount to denying the reality of a domain beyond that 'constructed' experience, but it does challenge the pre-critical realism with which it is being understood. Of course we can and do study objects and forces impersonally, and we can and do study human beings objectively, through medicine, anatomy, physiology etc, but being aware of the limitations of objectivity is part of what philosophy brings to the table.
Quoting Relativist
But were not talking about science. Were discussing philosophy, which is crucially concerned with the human condition, with questions of meaning. Schopenhauer, as it happens, was well informed about the science of his day (as was Kant). But theres no conflict between idealism and science: the conflict is between idealism and scientific materialism, which mistakes the empirical and contingent for a kind of philosophical absolute.
Materialism needs to to learn to look at its spectacles, not just through them.
If I may, with apologies to , the gist of the argument resides in the fact nothing comes to the human intellect already named, and from that comes the notion that things become named in accordance with some initial idea in that mind determining what it will be. Classic cases-in-point .quarks, and Slinkies. Donut holes.
The fact kids are informed of names of things from rote instruction, or the familiarity with things otherwise through indirect experience of them as is the case with Everydayman in general, is beside the point.
While it seems superfluous to assert we must first learn what we know, centering on the known disguises the necessarily antecedent priority of how knowledge is possible. Kant set the stage for speculative epistemological metaphysics, which theorizes on how knowledge is possible, Schopenhauer the soonest worthy expansion .or criticism . of it.
Both these philosophical pioneers agreed on this major premise: that which is first given to the senses is undetermined. From there, its off to the races ..
I agree language helps shape how we think about the world, I think there's something more basic in us that is pre-verbal. No one has to be taught there's an external world, and that there are individual objects. The words have to become attached to perceptions. Animals learn things without ever attaching words. Gorillas and chimps can learn to attach words (sign language) to types of things.
I agree. I've referred to this as innate, basic beliefs that are nonverbal. Arguably, these beliefs are PROPERLY basic: a product of the world as it is. If we are the natural product of the world, then of course it would produce beings with cognitive structures that enable successful interaction - so they would at least be FUNCTIONALLY accurate. The more closely this internal image of the world is to the actual world, the more flexible and adaptable the animal. When we compare ourselves to other animals, that's exactly what we see.
I am borrowing the concept of a PROPERLY basic belief from Alvan Plantinga, who uses the term to argue that theism is rational. He suggests that a God who wants to have beings that know him would instill an innate sensus divinitatus into them, by which they would know him and recognize what is true about him. This innate knowledge of God is basic (not learned), and it is basic "in the proper way" - produced by means that would be expected to produce it. This is not a proof of God (that would be circular reasoning), but rather a defense of the reasonableness of theism - that is contingent on there being such a God. If there is such a God, it means it's perfectly rational to believe in him. If there is not such a God, then belief in God is irrational (the alleged sensus divinitatus doesn't actually exist).
Analagously, if there is a world that produces living beings through natural processes, those beings would require a functionally accurate means of interacting with it - and the MORE accurate the internal picture of that world, the more flexible and adaptable the life forms. Similarly to Plantinga, this is not a proof, but it's a consistent and coherent theory that is rational to believe, even though it might be false.
And if I'm right that this is a basic belief (whether PROPER or not), then it's rational to maintain it unless defeated, and irrational to deny based on the mere possibility that it is false. This is irrespective of physicalism, per se.
Quoting Wayfarer
Different starting points: a materialist is seeking to make sense of the world at large, a world that we've mostly learned about through science. You accept that there's an external world, and that science has provided some true information about it; the physicalist metaphysics just proposes a metaphysical framework for this what we know. It seems quite successful at this. However, when extending the model to the minds, there's some problems.
Your starting point seems to be the mind itself. It appears the metaphysics of mind is what you consider of paramount importance. You focus on the deficiencies of physicalism at accounting for the mind, and it seems you therefore dismiss physicalist metaphysics because it inadequately accounts for your area of focus. From my point of view, this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater: you have no general metaphysical framework for accounting for the world at large - despite the fact that you accept the existence of the external world and that science give us some true information about it (in the vein for structural realism). You seem uninterested in such an overall metaphysical framework, whereas that is what I'm most interested in.
I'm not a committed physicalist, but I do think physicalism is the best explanation for the available facts of the world - among metaphysical systems. That doesn't means it can answer every question, but it answer more than others.
Quoting Wayfarer
YOU aren't talking about science, and it's account of the natural world, but I am. The expanse of human existence is a speck in this vast, old universe.
The human condition is worthwhile and interesting to contemplate, and we probably agree that physicalism is a poor vehicle for doing so. But similarly, from what I've seen of idealism, it seems a poor vehicle for understanding the world at large.
Quoting Wayfarer
Much of what I've seen written in this thread suggest there IS a conflict between idealism and science - the disconnect between the perceive world and the actual world. I guess there are varying degrees. The title of the thread suggests a high degree of skepticism about the external world.
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect reality, at least in part? The model formation process does not entail falsehood. If it's a product of natural forces (however one describes this: no necessarily physicalist), I think congruence with reality is likely. If the product of something outside the scope of natural, something with intentionality, why would it produce a false model?
Is there an alternative- with equivalent explanatory power? Most of what I'm seeing, including the above quote, is providing a reason why it might be false. And I raise my objection again: mere possibility is not a defeater.
Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect truth, at least in part? Is its truth not possible? Unlikely? Untrustworthy?
Is there an alternative- with equivalent explanatory power? Most of whay I'm seeing, including the above quote, is providing a reason why it might be false. And I raise my objection again: mere possibility is not a defeater.
Oh absolutely. Couldnt be otherwise. In my opinion, that is.
Yes, but this is a philosophy forum and that is my area of interest. Science - or natural philosophy - has a more limited scope than philosophy proper as philosophy is also concerned with ethics, epistemology and the meaning of existence. There are philosophical questions that will always remain open and learning to be open to them is part of the endeavour. Believing that the methods of science can be applied to the questions of philosophy is what is described as scientism.
Quoting Relativist
My area of focus is philosophy, as Ive outlined above. The problem with physicalism is that it begins with exclusions and abstractions. Classical physics, for example, began by focusing on the movement of bodies, later expanding with the discovery of electromagnetism to include the broader domain of matter-energy.
But physics, as a method, brackets out questions of meaning. Its power lies in its ability to isolate variables and describe systems independently of context, which is why classical (pre-quantum) physics could achieve such precision. Yet among the factors it deliberately excludes is the nature of the observerthe mind that frames, measures, and interprets what is observed. That bifurcation of mind and world is central to this entire debate, and I suggest you're not grasping its implications. Physicalism can't find any mind in the world it studies, because it begins by excluding it, and then tries to patch it back in as a 'result' or 'consequence' of the mindless interactions which are its subject matter and from which it seeks to explain everything about life and mind.
This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality that reigned from Newton to Einstein. Yet that outdated model still holds considerable sway over culture.
As to whether I advocate a metaphysics, its a notoriously difficult subject. The term properly belongs to the Aristotelian tradition in which it originated, which has its own lexicon and scope and in which I am not highly educated (while suspecting that there is considerably more of value in it than we nowadays allow). I say that because the word is often used dismissively, along the lines of positivism, regarding any ideas which cant be validated scientifically ('oh, that's just metaphysics'). So it need to be used carefully. The Kantian insight into the way the mind constructs the world also fundamentally changed metaphysics. I've also been influenced by the study of Buddhism, which eschews speculative metaphysics and emphasises direct awareness of the world-constructing activities of mind ('vikalpa'). In general terms, I'm inclined to the view that the cosmos goes through periods of creation and destruction over vast aeons of time and that this is the background against which these questions are explored. I don't see anything 'anti-scientific' in that (it is similar to Penrose cyclic cosmology.)
As to whether the mind-created world 'reflects' reality, notice the implication - the mind here, internal, and the world, there, external (the 'mirror of the world' paradigm of Richard Rorty.) Obviously scientific powers have vastly expanded our grasp of the natural world - there's no contest regarding that point. But questions of meaning still elude us, all the same. One could be a world-conquering scientific technologist and entreprenuer, and yet still casually destroy programs that provide aid and sustenance to millions of the world's poor, while saying that empathy is a fundamental weakness. If philosophy is indeed the love of wisdom, then such actions certainly denote its lack.
Yes, but I'm not doing that. Metaphysical naturalism (MN) provides a metaphysical context for what we know about the world. Of course, any metaphysical theory should be consistent with what we know, but the strength of naturalism is that it depends the fewest assumptions. The basic assumptions of MN are not derived scientifically (as scientism would require)- they are a product of conceptual analysis - just like any other metaphysical system must do.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed, we have different areas of focus. Mine is to seek to understand reality as a whole. I have not suggested your approach is wrong.
Physicalism doesn't exclude anything we know about the world. It "excludes" some past metaphysical assumptions - hypotheses, not established facts, but provides alternative hypotheses.
Quoting Wayfarer
Don't conflate physics with MN, or physicalism. Physics, as a discipline, does not entail the study of biological organisms, much less the way the brain and mind work.
[Quote]Physicalism can't find any mind in the world it studies, because it begins by excluding it, and then tries to patch it back in as a 'result' or 'consequence' of the mindless interactions which are its subject matter and from which it seeks to explain everything about life and mind.[/quote]
I would characterize it differently. MN/physicalism provides a metaphysical framework for explaining what we know about the world- the relatively secure knowledge that science provides. It subsequently applies the model to the mind. It succeeds to a degree, but it certainly has some explanatory gaps. The methodology and framework are not suitable for examining the philosophical issues most important to you. Its unsuitability is not a falsification, anymore than does the meteorological study of hurricanes falsify fluid dynamics or quantum field theory.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's simply not true. That was a claim some made, based on a basic Copenhagen interpretation. Most today would say that an observation is just one example of an entanglement, and that the entanglement results in a collapse of the wave function (some claim there's no collapse at all, but a world branching - but that's too unparsimonious for me).
Quoting Wayfarer
Fair enough, but bear in mind that I do advocate a metaphysics - defined as "In the rationalist tradition, [in which] metaphysics was seen to be an inquiry conducted by pure reason into the nature of an underlying reality that is beyond perception," (from the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy article on "metaphysics"). As I've said, I'm not a committed physicalist - in that I do not have faith that everything is necessarily reducible to the physical. But I consider it a default assumption because of its parsimonous ontology. Some of the most appealing aspects are: its denial of essentialism, its dispensing with a "third realm" to account for the supposed existence of abstractions, the account of laws of nature, and truthmaker theory of truth. I am interested in knowing the limits of its explanatory scope (e.g. it doesn't seem possible to explain qualia), and for that reason - I like to explore the various issues with theory of mind.
While you distance metaphysical naturalism from scientism, it seems to me that in practice it tends to rely on scientific findings as the principal arbiter of philosophical questionsespecially when appealing to parsimony to set aside questions that science cannot easily address. You acknowledge that physicalism has significant explanatory gaps when it comes to the philosophy of mindgaps that figures like D. M. Armstrong would argue have already been closed. Yet despite recognizing these limitations, you seem prepared to treat the framework as the best available by default. 'Hey, it's a great car! Don't let the fact it doesn't steer bother you! Look at the panel work!'
That strikes me as an unresolved tension: relying on science to ground metaphysics when it appears fruitful, but retreating to a more minimal philosophical stance when its limits are acknowledged. I think thats a structural challenge for naturalism as a philosophical position.
Furthermore, I would question whether the definition you cite from the Blackwell Dictionary straightforwardly supports metaphysical naturalism per se. Framing metaphysics as an inquiry by pure reason into a reality beyond perception seems to align more with rationalist or even idealist traditions than with a naturalism grounded in empirical science. I suspect that if the full entry were consulted, it would acknowledge a broader range of metaphysical approachessome of which explicitly challenge naturalisms reliance on empiricism and its rejection of any such beyond.
But, thanks again, we should let the thread owner get a word in.
Actually I do have to circle back to this. The point at issue was the supposed mind-independence of the objects of classical physics. That is made explicit in Galileo's philosophy of science by the division of the 'primary attributes' (measurable) and 'secondary attributes (sensory).
Furthermore that the laws of physics were understood to be universal and not dependent on the context in which they were applied, operating deterministically in accordance with the mathematical principles discovered by Galileo and Newton (et al).
But with the discoveries of quantum physics, it was found that the experimental context had to be taken into account, because it has a direct bearing on outcome of the observation. One example is the wave-particle duality identified by Neils Bohr, which he called the 'principle of complementarity' and regarded as his most important philosophical discovery.
As for the 'measurement problem', that has never really been resolved to unanimous agreement. The reason for the so-called many worlds theory is precisely because it does away with the so-called 'wave function collapse' - but at the cost of infinitely proliferating worlds.
My interpretation of all this is that the 'modern period' corresponds with the period between the publication of Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) and theFifth Solvay Conference (1927) when the main tenets of quantum mechanics were first made public. The modern period corresponds with the heyday of strong scientific realism. I'm of the view that the Solvay Conference marks the beginning of the post-modern period which appeared to undermine the mind-independent nature of reality (and in a much wider sense than in physics alone). This development was why Einstein felt obliged to ask the rhetorical question, 'Does the moon continue to exist when nobody is looking?' His answer to that question would be an emphatic 'yes'. But the point was, he had to ask! And subsequent science has not been kind to Einstein's scientific realist convictions.
Thats the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realisman assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism youre defending.
Science relies on abductive reasoning , which is a general epistemological approach- not exclusive to science. It's explicitly used by historians, and it is the most common form of rational reasoning we engage in every day (the most obvious problem with conspiracy theories is the failure to consider all available data). There's more to abduction than parsimony, but why should it not be a factor?
Any viable metaphysical theory would need to be consistent with all known facts. Science provides a set of facts, so of course it needs to be consistent with these facts - as well as any other facts. Are there non-scientific facts being overlooked? That would certainly be problematic. But 2000 year old philosophical frameworks (e.g. 4-causes; teleology; essentialism...)are not facts, they are alternative theories to be judged against.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm open to a better framework. You haven't provided one, and indicated it's outside the scope of your interest. But you exaggerate the problems, it seems to me, because none of the problems truly falsify physicalism. Qualia are a problem, but can be rationalized as illusions. Is there a better, comprehensive explanation that is non-physical? Is there a true defeater- something that unequivocally falsifies physicalism?
Quoting Wayfarer
I repeat: a complete metaphysics needs to be consistent with all available facts. Consider how absurd it would be to dismiss a well-supported scientific theory on the basis that it's inconsistent with some prior philosophical commitments (have you ever debated a creationist?) Again: what unequivocal facts are inconsistent with, and thus falsify, physicalism? Explanatory challenges are not defeaters, but they could be taken into account in the abductive reasoning.
Quoting Wayfarer
There's multiple definitions of the term; I just sought a definition consistent with the scope of inquiry I had in mind to describe what I'm interested in, in contrast to your interests.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course I believe objects exist independent of minds- and I've discussed that this seems rooted in innate, non-verbal basic beliefs. Do you truly not believe mind-independent objects? If so, why do you believe that?
Quoting Wayfarer
I see no reason to think the most fundamental laws of nature are context dependent. When we notice a context dependency in a law of physics, it implies there's deeper law than the physics law. E.g. Newton's law of Gravity is true only within a certain context, whereas General Relativity is the deeper law.
Quoting Wayfarer
It doesn't do that, in the least.
Quoting Wayfarer
I believe he asked because, at the time, the so-called observer problem was being debated.
Werner Heisenberg: "Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."
John Bell: "Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"
I think I have provided one, but that you're not interested in it, or think that it's absurd, for calling into question what you think is obvious. Again, philosophy is 'love-wisdom', not an inventory of things that exist in the world, or methods of harnessing nature to our advantage. It is not necessarily in conflict with those activities, but it is also not defined in their terms. Plato thought that the principle task of the philosopher was to prepare themselves for their inevitable death. Has that been superseded by scientific progress? (I'm not referring here to such scientific fantasies as cryogenetics.)
Quoting Relativist
Physicalism is not a falsifiable hypothesis. It's a philosophical view of the nature of reality. The central problem with physicalism is, as Schopenhauer says, that it seeks to explain what is the most immediately apparent fact, namely, the fact of one's own conscious experience, in terms of a hypothetical substance namely matter, the real nature of which is conjectural and uncertain. As we've discussed, and you acnowledge, physicalism doesn't and probably cannot explain the nature of mind or consciousness, yet when we come to this point, that inconvenient fact is disregarded.
Quoting Relativist
This is presented in the OP The Mind Created World, a précis of the first half being as follows.
That post defends a perspectival form of philosophical idealism, arguing that mind is foundational to realitynot in the sense that the world is in the mind, nor that mind is a kind of substance, but that any claim about reality is necessarily shaped by mental processes of judgment, perception, and understanding.
Contrary to the dominant assumptions of physicalism and metaphysical naturalism, which treat the physical world as ontologically basic and knowable through objective science, this essay argues that all knowledge of the world is always already structured by the perspective of a subject. This does not mean denying the empirical reality of a world independent of any particular mind, but rather recognizing that mind is the condition of the intelligibility of any objective claim.
I pose a thought experiment involving an alpine meadow to demonstrate that a scene without perspective is unintelligible and that, therefore, perspective is not incidental but constitutive of reality-as-known. Drawing on phenomenology and non-dualism, the argument is made that 'existence' and 'non-existence' are not a simple binaries, and that treating unperceived objects as straightforwardly existent (or non-existent) misconstrues the nature of experential knowledge.
The essay does not reject science or evolutionary accounts of the cosmos. Rather, it questions the default metaphysical assumption that objectivity is the sole criterion of reality. Instead, it contends that the world as known arises through the unifying activity of consciousness, which science has yet to fully explain and indeed generally tends to ignore.
Ultimately, the essay argues that philosophical (or transcendental) idealism, rightly understood, does not negate the reality of an external world, but sees it as inseparable from the conditions of its being known. What is called 'reality' is not merely physical, but always shaped by mind. So, therefore, mind is truly a fundamental constituent of what we understand as reality, but in a transcendental rather than objective sense.
Mind independence is true on an empirical level as a definite matter of fact. But the problem with methodological naturalism, is that it wishes to extend mind independence to reality as a whole, to make a metaphysic out of it. It tries to make a metaphysical principle out of empirical methodology. (Recommend Bas van Fraasen on this.)
Quoting Relativist
Of course it does! As you've mentioned John Bell, another quote of his:
[quote=John Bell, quoted in Quantum Profiles, by Jeremy Bernstein (Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 84)]The discomfort that I feel is associated with the fact that the observed perfect quantum correlations seem to demand something like the "genetic" hypothesis. For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work.[/quote]
Those 'correlations' were the subject of the 2022 Nobel Prize, awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger, which underscored a pivotal shift in our understanding of reality. Their experiments with entangled photons violated Bell inequalities, challenging the classical notions of local realism, the idea that objects possess definite properties independent of observation and that no influence can travel faster than light (source).
As noted in the Nobel Committee's award statement, their findings suggest that "quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by any local hidden-variable theory," implying that the properties of particles are not predetermined but are defined only upon measurement.
So, question: doesnt the idea that particles lack definite properties prior to observation strike at the very core of mind-independence? And wasn't this one of the reasons why Albert Einstein (and now Roger Penrose) are highly critical of quantum theory, saying it must be incomplete or incorrect? And yet these very awards affirm the success of a theory that defies classical assumptions about the mind-independent nature of reality.
The trouble is that the first statement I've bolded is a stronger claim than the second, whereas you're implying that they say the same thing. Is it the claims about reality (our knowledge) that are shaped by the subject, or reality?
It always feels like you want to be a full-on metaphysical idealist but can't quite bring yourself to do it. :wink:
I'm quite lazily picking an easy target here, but I couldn't resist.
Epistemic idealism - what we know is shaped by how we know. And empirical realist - not saying that the world is all in the mind. But that it has an ineliminably subjective pole, which we're not aware of unless we teach ourselves to be.
OK, sticking with Kant then. Fair enough. But do you agree it's important to make the distinction I made, or do you stand by the conflation of epistemic and metaphysical idealism? Note that I'm not saying that the conflation is necessarily devastating.
EDIT: In fact, blurring that dichotomy might be the way to go.
And yet, more often than not you appeal to empirical cognitive faculties rather than transcendental ones.
But I'm being pedantic now. Carry on!
Play something we can dance to! :rofl:
Ha, that's what I thought :grin:
Personally, Id be inclined to do that, in that for Kant, sensuous physiology is foundational to reality, while, as you say, human intelligence, by whatever name one wishes to identify it, necessarily shapes that given reality, by the empirical faculties prescribed as belonging to it.
As an aside, Id contribute that for mere discussion of presupposed existential reality and experiential shapes thereof, there is no conscious need of transcendental faculties, the discursive empirical cognitive faculties sufficient in themselves for it. Pure a priori, that is to say, transcendental, cognitions being already manifest in a subjects antecedent construction of conceptual relations contained in his part of the discussion.
Everybody dances to the empirical tune of the senses; whether they care whether they look silly or not to the crowd theyre doing it with ..thats determined by their transcendental self-awareness.
Seems like a weak kind of Kantianism. If you're not reducing the a priori to the empirical, why not go straight for the former?
I was rather thinking the mere discussion of presupposed existential reality was Hume-ian, which may be considered half-Kantian.
Only the subject, by and for his conscious thinking self alone, does the full, strong, transcendental Kant.
This sentence doesn't make sense. Otherwise :up: :smile:
Ok. The problem for me, however, is to explain from a purely physicalist point of view why there are these 'structures' in the first place.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Not just that. It also means that the 'stuff' behaves in a certain manner and so on. And this 'order'/'strucure' is such that it can be understood (maybe only in part, but the point remains) by a rational mind.
Furthermore, it seems to me that intelligibility also conveys meaning. And I am not sure meaning is something you can explain in purely physical terms. For instance, the meaning of the word 'word' is difficult to explain just in physical terms. But, again, I assume that if one accepts that intelligibility is just a 'fact', then, also the associated meaning is assumed to be a 'fact'. I don't see both of them as trivial. But I think we have to agree to disagree here.
Quoting Apustimelogist
:up: I guess that the negation of this isn't 'impossible' but it doesn't seem plausible.
No, actually, I meant that from a Kantian perspective it's just difficult to explain, without assuming the intelligibility of the 'external world' (in the thing-in-itself), how the empirical world 'arises'. Of course, one might think to leave this unexplained, as perhaps the most consistent forms of transcendental idealism do.
For instance, Schopenhauer argued that the 'thing in itself' must be 'one' because plurality arises in the empirical world. That is, the will, according to him, as the thing-in-itself wasn't characterized by the properties that categories understand. But IMO this is self-contradictory. First of all, if the thing-in-itself is one, then, it can be understood by the concept of 'unity'. Secondly, he tried to explain how plurality arises by saying that it is 'imposed' on the will by the mind. But the minds are many, not one. So, at the very least Schopenhauer either had to say that plurality was ultimately an illusion (as in Advaita Vedanta, if you are familiar) or that the minds (and, therefore, plurality) are ontologically distinct from the will (while dependent on it). In both cases, however, I would say that Schopenhauer had to resort to 'pre-Kantian metaphysics' (either by denying the reality of plurality or by affirming it one must make a metaphysical statement). I don't think that this is 'bad'. But on this he was inconsistent.
IMO Kant was more careful here. He tried to assert nothing about the 'noumenon'. But, again, it is difficult to me to see transcendental/epistemic idealim as a stable position, especially in practice.
Quoting Mww
I agree that 'reality' for Kant is not mind-indepedent if by reality we mean 'empirical reality'. In my post I didn't make a distinction between cognitive faculties and sensibility, which was wrong in terminology from a Kantian perspective. I do believe, though, that sensibility is also cognition (and IMO 'cognition' as generally understood shares some analogies with 'sensibilities'). If we want to stick to Kant's terminology, however, ok.
Anyway, the point is that within transcendental idealism you have an ordered, intelligible empirical world that is related to a mind. It seems evident - albeit we can't have a 'total certainty' - that this 'empirical world' is the result from an interaction between the subject and the 'external world' and the latter might be unknowable. But even if it is unknowable, the 'best guess' is that it somehow must have a structure/order that allows the 'arising' of the 'empirical world'.
Frankly, I still don't see how transcendental/epistemic idealism avoids the pitfall of 'epistemic solipsism', which might in a sense 'correct', in the sense that we have no 'certain knowledge' of anything outside us and 'the world as it is represented by us'. But I am my misgivings when this is taken to mean that we can't know anything about the 'thing in itself'.
Quoting Mww
I am not sure about the point you make in this paragraph. The interface is the 'empirical world' itself, which is ordained by cognitive and sensitive faculties. The point is that the 'interface' is supposed to be a representation of something 'outside' of our minds which never 'appears' in the interface itself. Can we avoid an epistemic solipsism, however, if we deny that we can say anything about that 'something'.
Quoting Mww
Intelligibility of the world merely means that the world has a structure that can be 'understood' in terms of some conceptual categories, principles and so on. That is, that it has a structure that can be 'mirrored' to some conceptual order.
Not sure however what is your point about empirical/experienced world. It is IMO a somewhat clear concept to me. It is the world as it appears to a given mind.
Not sure if you understood Bradley's argument and similar. The point is: can you conceive a world that has absolutely no relation to 'sentient experience'?
Remember that our knowledge certainly starts from our experience. If we don't experience we don't know. And the point here is that we can't conceive anything except withing the framework of your experience and the mental faculties that 'make sense' of it.
Quoting Relativist
It depends on the 'ontological idealist'. Ontological idealists of this kind, for instance, are generally not solipsists and they would affirm that there is something outside our minds: other minds and their mental contents. So, perhaps, while there is no 'material' world, there is still something external of us and, in fact, there are still other minds with which/whom can interact.
Quoting Relativist
Right but this doesn't undermine neither idealism (epistemic or ontological) nor the argument that Bradley makes. There might be some kinds of sentient experience that we can't know but are in principle knowable.
Ironically, epistemic idealists would actually assert in a rather strong manner that our understanding can only be from our perspective. Certainly, a metaphysical physicalism asserts something 'more' than what empirical idealists claim we can know.
Quoting Relativist
I disagree that QM isn't intelligible. The predictions are certainly intelligible. The problem is with the interpretation. But, after all, even in newtonian mechanics there are various things that are matters of interpretation (such as how to understand 'forces').
Anyway, you are still asserting that there is intelligility without explaining it. That is, the very fact that evolution happened in a way that is intelligible to us means, to me, that the world is intelligible. 'It makes sense' that, say, language and reasoning allow us to adapt in a very flexible way to our environment. And this suggests that the world is intelligible (at least partly). My point is: why is it so? can we understand the 'structure' in purely physical terms?
Quoting Relativist
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I am myself not sure if 'universals' are concepts or not.
Quoting Relativist
Well, at a certain point explanations do stop. Agreed. But IMO physicalism stops before the time. That is, I think that the intelligibility of the physical world has an explanation. Not that we can explain everything.
Quoting Relativist
So, the 'law of non-contradiction' is semantics?
Anyway, I believe that intelligibility also implies meaning ('making sense'). So, that's another reason why I don't understand how to explain (without assuming it from the start and leaving it de fact unexplained) how a purely physical world is intelligible.
I suspect that I don't understand what you mean.
Quoting boundless
Sure, but I don't think that is any novel step from what I just said. To understand that behavior is then effectively just to be able to predict what happens next in some context. There's nothing special about that. A brain can do that in virtur of its physical properties regarding neurons.
Quoting boundless
Yes, meaning is just more prediction. Nothing different, nothing special.
Quoting boundless
The meaning of 'word' just comes from its associations with other aspects of our experiences which become apparent in how we use the word 'word'. Nothing more than prediction.
Quoting boundless
What do you mean?
Naturalism generally explicitly denies anything 'supernatural' (there is nothing outside the 'universe' or the 'multiverse'). Unless it is something like 'methodological naturalism' I don't see how it is metaphysically neutral.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, I believe we would disagree here about what is a 'first-person' perspective (see our discussion about 'perspectives' before). Anyway, the 'third-person perspective' is said to more or less be equivalent to a view from anywhere that makes no reference to any perspective.
I guess that you would say that there can't be any true 'third-person perspective', though.
Quoting noAxioms
I meant: is it dualistic to assume that there is indeed consciousness and 'the material world' and none of them can be reduced to the other with the proviso, however, that any of them are 'ontologically fundamental'?
Quoting noAxioms
I actually agree with that. 'Stuff' requires both interactions and laws/regularities of how these interactions happen. You can't have 'stuff' before interactions and regularities, which both seem more fundamental (after all, every-thing in this world seems to be relational in some way...).
Quoting noAxioms
Well, is it interesting, isn't it? I believe that, say, someone that endorses both materialism and scientism would actually tell you that the world is 'material' and totally describable. It would be ironic for him to admit that this implies that is not 'mind-independent'.
I am open to the possibility that something mental is fundamental also because of this: if the 'physical world' truly has a structure that is describable by concepts and must have such a structure, then, it seems that 'something mental' is fundamental.
Anyway. If, in order to be mind-independent a definition of reality must not rely on describability would not this mean that, in fact, we can't conceive such a definition of reality?
Yes, I would say that this is a possibility and perhaps it is the most consistent one if one accepts epistemic idealism. The 'in itself' is 'beyond concepts'. If this is so, then, it's not nothing because, if it would be nothing then, well, we could not experience anything. It can't be 'something' in the sense that it isn't something that we can conceive.
My problem with this is the following. If the 'in-itself' is so 'beyond concepts' it would imply IMO that, ultimately, the plurality is illusory. Either all reduces to 'one' (as in Advaita) or to 'neither one nor many' (as non-dualism is conceptualized in Buddhist schools). It just seems that we can, say, speak of 'boundless that is writing' but, in fact, there is no 'boundless' and the whole thing is illusion-like. If one wants, instead, to assign some reality to us and the world it seems to me that one must assume that the 'external world' has some intelligible structure. So IMO if one wants to follow the epistemic idealism model to its inevitable conclusions, then, it seems to me that, ultimately, one must say that selves, minds, the external world are illusion-like (not completely equivalent to illusions, perhaps, because when all that is ordered in conceptual representation is removed it's isn't true that nothing remains...). To be fair, some who say that the 'in itself' is beyond concepts accept just these things, so it's not a criticism, I guess. I am just not persuaded by these views.
IMO many empirical/transcendental idealists underestimate the implications of their model (I think that you do not BTW).
Well, I believe that it's simply becuase for you it is a fact that needs no explanation. So, you don't see a problem (perhaps I am the one that sees a problem where there is none. But I am not persuaded by that).
Quoting Apustimelogist
Not sure about this. Let's say you encounter the words "one way" in a traffic sign. How is that 'prediction'? It seems to me that here meaning is not predictive.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Do you believe that, say, fictional stories (like, say, fantasy novels) are still 'predictions'? How is that so? They are certainly meaningful, but I am not sure that we can say that their meaning are instances of predictions.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I meant that if the world is completely devoid of intelligible structure it might still be possible for us to make good predictions. It just doesn't seem plausible. It would seem to me an incredible amount of 'luck'. I can't, however, exclude with certainty that possibility.
Here's where I explained it to Wayfarer:
Quoting Relativist
Quoting boundless
This is unarguably true, but it doesn't imply the framework represents a false account. Consistent with evolution, it's plausible that our mental faculties came into being in order to interact with the world that we perceive and "make sense" of. Were these faculties to deceive us, we wouldn't have survived- so it is reasonable to maintain our innate trust in these faculties. Perfectly fine to keep the truism in mind, and adjust our inferences, but extreme skepticism seems unwarranted.
I acknowledge that I'm being speculative about the role of evolution - so (in isolation) this doesn't undercut idealism. But it does support the coherence of realism.
Quoting boundless
Sounds like unwarranted skepticism- denying our innate sense of the external world on the basis that it's possibly false. Mere possibility is not a defeater of the innate beliefs the idealist was born with!
Quoting boundless
This still relies on mere possibility. This is like a conspiracy theorist who comes up with some wild claim which he clings to because it can't be proven wrong. Only this is worse because there's no evidence to support the hypothesis.
Quoting boundless
Yes, the law of contradictions is semantics: it applies to propositions, not directly to the actual world.
How can it be that the physical world can produce physical beings that make sense of the world? The survival advantage explains the causal context. Can something physical experience meaning? I can't prove that it can, but it seems plausible to me. If you're inclined to think it cannot, then what would you propose to account for it? The problem you have is that you need to make some wild assumptions about what exists to account for it - and then I'd ask if those assumptions are truly more reasonable than physicalism?
I don't understand what you mean by the idea that structure of the world needs explaining. Its like asking why there is anything at all, which is a question not resolved by any perspective.
Quoting boundless
Its entirely prediction. You see the words, you infer the kinds of behaviors you expect to see in that context and act appropriately. Words and meaning is about association which is just what anticipates a word, what comes after a word, what juxtaposes words - that is all I mean by prediction. prediction is just having a model of associations or relations between different things. Like a map that tells you how to get between any two points. Fictional stories are included. Everything we do is included.
You haven't provided an overall metaphysical framework. When I asked, you said: "As to whether I advocate a metaphysics, its a notoriously difficult subject."
Quoting Wayfarer
A word is needed that refers to what actually exists. "Reality" seems the word to use. To claim reality is shaped by the mind, or is a constituent of reality (beyond the beings that have minds) is a rather drastic assumption based on pure conjecture.
Quoting Wayfarer
To me, it seems absurd to refer to matter as a "hypothetical substance", as if it's worth entertaining that it is unreal. Absurd, because it's unwarranted to believe matter to NOT be an actual substance. It seems a futile attempt to wipe our cognitive slate clean.
Any metaphysical theory - any ontology, will necessarily be "conjectural and uncertain" - it's neither verifiable nor falsifiable. That's a good reason to reserve judgement. But if that's what one is going to do, it's inconsistent to then embrace something wild that is even MORE conjectural and detached from anything we know about the world. MN takes the smallest leaps from the things we know.
I said this is like trying to explain hurricane behavior using quantum field theory. There's nothing about hurricane behavior that warrants believing there to be some ontologically emergent properties or features that magically appear somewhere in between QFT and meteorology.
Quoting Wayfarer
As I've said, it makes perfect sense to note that our PERCEPTION of reality (our image of the world) is shaped by these mental processes, but it's an unwarranted leap to claim that REALITY ITSELF is shaped in this way.
Quoting Wayfarer
This sounds more reasonable than the claim that "mind is foundational to reality". But the question remains: where does this lead? I have no problem agreeing with what you said here, but how should that influence our efforts to understand the world? Our understanding will NECESSARILY be from our own perspective.
Quoting Wayfarer
You complained about problems with scienticism, which I pointed out is addressed with metaphysical naturalism. Then you choose to dismiss metaphysical naturalism (MN). MN demonstrates that there is no need to propose magic to explain the world. What would be the warrant to propose some UNnatural component (or foundation) of the world?
Quoting Wayfarer
No, it doesn't. There's nothing empirical about MN. You're conflating scientism with MN.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not knowing the context, it sounds like he's referring to strict determinism as being unviable -contrary to Einstein's insistence on determinism. QM is fully deterministic - it conforms exactly according to a Schroedinger equation. The indeterminism arises when interacting with something beyond the quantum system. This is where multiple interpretations of QM step in to explain what is occurring - and these explanations are essentially metaphysical, with the same problems that any metaphysical theory has: unverifiable and unfalsifiable. No interpretation is really inconsistent with MN, unless you choose to treat consciousness as something special and magical to begin with.
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you conflating determinism with MN? QM is fundamental science; it is telling us something about the material world, not telling us there's something immaterial or magical.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not in the least. It shows that there are complementary properties, and that this complementarity is fundamental. The recognition that there are complementary properties is a testament to our ability to identify aspects of reality that are inconsistent with our natural prespectives - the perspectives that idealists seem to consider too constraining to grasp reality as it is.
Metaphysics is first philosophy, it starts from first principles. Descartes started his famous meditation on Cogito with exactly that 'wiping the slate clean'.
Go back to the passage I was alluding to:
Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation
Now, if you consider any material object - the computer you're looking at now, the desk it's sitting on, the keyboard you're typing on: 'all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time.'
You might explain the sense in which this is mistaken.
Quoting Relativist
You refer to 'facts of science' in defense of metaphysical naturalism, and specifically to reject anything perceived as inconsistent with modern science (teleology, qualia, formal and final causation, to mention a few.) You admit that physicalism doesn't really accomodate or explain the nature of mind. But then, when pressed about that, you say, that metaphysical naturalism is not science, even though it apparently relies on scientific ontology. Pardon me for so saying, but it seems a little disengenuous.
Quoting Relativist
Why the need for 'interpretations' at all? Why has the problem come up? You can't deny that debates over the meaning of quantum mechanics have been boiling ever since it was discovered. If there was a definitive explanation, then what were the arguments about, and why are they ongoing? Why was this thread created? Why does it ask 'does anyone support mind-independent reality'? Why did Einstein feel obliged to ask the question about the moon existing? You're not addressing any of those questions.
Recall the koan, 'first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.' 'First, there is a mountain' refers to before training, before initial awakening, the state of everyday acceptance of appearances. 'Then there is no mountain' refers to the state of realisation of inter-dependence/emptiness and the illusory nature of appearance. 'Then there is' refers to the mature state of recognising that indeed mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers, but with a balanced understanding.
Ahhhh, gotcha.
Quoting boundless
Kants T.I. does just that, to my understanding anyway. As in his statement that the proud name of ontology must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding, which is to say it is useless to inquire of the being of things, or indeed their possible nature, when there is but one a posteriori aspect of any of those things for our intellect to work with, and consequently supplies the rest from itself.
The empirical world doesnt arise; it is given, to the extent its objects are our possible sensations.
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Quoting boundless
Would it be the same to say, within, or under the conditions of, e.g., transcendental idealism, an ordered, intelligible representation of our empirical world is constructed, in relation to our understanding?
I cant get behind the notion of an intelligible world, is all. Just seems tautologically superfluous to call the world intelligible, or to call all that out there an intelligible world, when without our intelligence it would be no more than a mere something. Just because we understand our world doesnt mean the world is intelligible; it, more judiciously, just means our understanding works.
Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. Im kinda done with it, if you are.
You've contradicted yourself. Non-existence may indeed be merely a conceptual construction, but when it comes to existence, it is the idea of existence which is a conceptual construction, not existence itself. This is where you confuse yourself.
Quoting Mww
To say the world is intelligible just is to say that intelligences can make sense of it; which they patently do. Something can be intelligible, even if there are no intelligences to make sense of it, just as something can be visible even if no one sees it.
However, if you drill down, the basis of the 'conceptual analysis' turns out to be scientific. If you discarded scientific cosmology, atomic physics, evolutionary theory, and so on, what would be left of 'metaphysical naturalism'? And, for that matter, isn't 'metaphysical naturalism' oxymoronic insofar as naturalism is generally defined in opposition to metaphysics?
Quoting Relativist
What is at issue inthis rather glib statement? What's hiding behind these words?
'Qualia' is an item of academic jargon intended to denote 'the qualitative aspects of experience' - the 'what it is like'-ness of seeing, smelling, touching, experiencing - of being, in short. So in what sense are qualia 'a problem'? They're a problem for physicalism, because physicalism claims that what is real must be objectively measurable, which these qualitative states are not. Physicalism recognises only atomic, molecular, and chemical reactions that can analysed in quantitative terms within the framework of mathematicized science. 'Qualia', the qualities of existence, are 'a problem' only insofar as they can't be accomodated within that framework. So they need to be 'rationalised as illusions'. Meaning that the qualities of experience, how it feels to be human, need to be rationalised away. But an illusion can only be an artefact of consciousness. One may have delusions about consciousness, but it's not possible that consciousness itself is an illusion.
Quoting Relativist
To do so would require probably another long post, but essentially, I try to combine elements of traditional metaphysics (Christian and Indian) with phenomenology whilst also keeping within the outlines of evolutionary science and cosmology. I see the evolution of life in terms of the manifestation of intelligence, through which the Universe becomes aware of itself. So life and human life in particular, are not the products of chance, but neither necessarily the products of an external 'intelligent designer'. 'What is latent', as one lecturer put it to me, 'becoming patent'.
In Buddhist philosophy, the source of suffering is attachment (or clinging) to what is transient and ephemeral revolving around ego-centred consciousness. The aim of philosophy is release from those attachments, known in Eastern philosophy as liberation or mok?a, whereas the absence of insight into that is to be ignorant of the causal chain that drives existence. Much more could be said, but that's the general drift of the metaphysical framework as I understand it.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Those gawdamn language games, right? All a guys gotta do is open his mouth and hes stuck in one. Or, whats worse, a guy opens his mouth and somebody else accuses him of being stuck in one.
Be that as it may, our intelligence makes sense of things; the manifold of sensible things is conceived as reducible to an intelligible world. All well and good, except the world possibly contains things that make no sense, in which case the reduction to an intelligible world is irrational, or, the intelligible world of sensible things for some members of it, is not the experience of others, in which case the reduction to an intelligible world is merely contingent.
And when you consider the fact that, for us anyway, there is but one world of things .period, and there is only one single method available for making sense of it .period, it seems pretty bold to say the one is intelligible when its exactly the same method in play by which things make sense on the one hand, and, conceives the reduction of the manifold of sensible things to a descriptive world, on the other.
And to nickel-and-dime this even further, what of consciousness, which in the Good Ol Days used to represent the manifold of all sensible things, of all those things of experience. For some reason or other it was seen as fit to extract the internal, subjective, empirical content of experience represented by consciousness, and move it to the external objective empirical content of a logically constructed compendium represented by world.
But, hey, just between you n me n the fence post, the internal subjective, empirical content of consciousness cant be extracted, which makes the conceived reduction to an intelligible world .you know .tautologically superfluous. And furthermore, while both the intelligible world and consciousness contain that of which sense has been or can be made, consciousness cannot contain any of that of which no sense can be made, while it remains impossible to know whether the intelligible world contains such things or not.
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Oh man. Dont even get me started on the visibility of the unperceived. (Grin)
Ok, thanks for the clarification. But note, that, however one can still say that we have been proven wrong in our assumptions many times, even by science itself. It's obvious, for instance, the Sun and the stars revolve around us.
Of course, the existence of a 'physical world' is something more fundamental than the motion of celestial objects but the point is interesting regardless.
Furthermore, note that even the most radical of the ontological idealist often assumes that the minds interact. So, even for them, there is an external world. It's just very, very different from what we tend to think.
So, I'm not sure if your argument here is compelling. But I agree that denying the 'physical' seems to much of a stretch. But this isn't something that all ontological idealist do anyway. Neither neoplatonists nor Hegel nor classical theists (if we consider them as 'idealist') deny the existence of the 'physical'.
Berkeley and Bradley apparently did but ontological idealism is a very wide spectrum.
Quoting Relativist
But note that, however, pragmatism doesn't imply truthfulness. For instance, it is useful for me to 'know' that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west even if, in some sense, it's false. So, even if I believe that the Sun truly revolves around the Earth this can be still an useful belief for me.
That said, of course, unwarranted skepticism can be dangerous. So, the best might be to not claim 'sure knowledge' and be open to revision of one's own beliefs, especially those that we can't have 'direct access' to a verification or falsification.
I would say that, however, the existence of an external, partially intelligible physical world is a reasonable belief to be mantained. But I do not claim certainty about this.
Quoting Relativist
I see what you mean but Bradley's argument is at least different in character. While I don't buy the conclusions it is still interesting. Saying that it's like a conspiracy theory is a disservice to it.
IMO it raises interesting questions also about the nature of the 'physical', even when we assume that it is real.
Quoting Relativist
Again, I can even agree with this. But note, that 'meaning' seems something that relates to mind. So, if meaning is something that relates to the physical too (and, in fact, it is something fundamental), it would seem that the 'physical' is not that different from the 'mental'. In other words, we land to a physicalism that seems not to far from a panpsychism (or at least quite open to the 'mental').
I disagree, unless you think that existence involves intelligibility (which is something that classical metaphysics asserts but I'm not sure physicalists generally would say). In any case, if you assume that the world is intelligible and its existence must be intelligible too, then it would be meaningful to ask if the world is contingent or not contingent and discuss the consequences of such statements.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I'll need to think about this. This is also because it includes things that I would never classify under the term 'prediction'. Not saying that you are wrong in calling that way.
Well, appearances are not negated but they must be recognized as 'mere appearances'. So, the 'mountain' seems to be an entity but, in fact, it isn't. But this doesn't mean that the there is no 'appearance of a mountain'. The mountain is illusion-like. So, I guess that one might attach some ontological status to the 'mountain' but it is very tenuous.
Anyway, as you know, most Buddhist schools regard the 'self' as illusion-like/mere appearance. Of course, there are various strands of Buddhist thought. I believe that Madhyamaka and Yogacara come close to transcendental idealism. But, in both case, both the 'self' and the 'world' (and thus every thing) are illusion-like, mere apperances. When all conceptual constructs are removed, 'what remains' is neither 'something' nor 'nothing' (because, after all, apperances cannot be negated).
In Advaita, the reasoning is similar but Advaitins affirm that recognizing the apperances as 'mere appearances' actually leads one to the conclusion that only Brahman is real. It's no chance that IIRC that both Advaitins and Madhyamikas argue that the when we anlyse the world correctly, we come to the conclusion that no thing ever arose. For the Advaitin this means that there is, ultimately, only the unarisen Brahman. For the Madhyamika, ultimately, both oneness and plurality don't apply - 'Suchness' is not a unity, nor a collection of things but not even nothing. Our concepts do not apply (Kant would IMO say that we can't know if they do not apply or they do...).
Nowadays I am less persuaded by these views even if I am still very fascinated by them. I do believe that multiplicity is real. Even if we and the things in the world are ontologically dependent, it isn't true that we and them are ultimately illusion-like. We maintain our identity as distinct from what is not us. And the distinction is real.
Ok, thanks!
Quoting Mww
But, in fact, it does, right? Before I was born, for instance, the empirical world that I am now cognizing didn't really exist. If there was a point in time that my mind didn't exist, then, given that the empirical world is not 'independent' from it, it would seem that the empirical world arose. So, it seems to me that the question is worth asking.
If there is no answer to that question is either because we can't know it or becuase there is, indeed, no answer because, perhaps, what is 'beyond' the empirical world cannot be known conceptually.
Quoting Mww
The problem is that even asking this question and assuming that we can, indeed, answer it seems to go beyond transcendental idealism. A consistent transcendental idealist IMO would simply say: "I cannot answer this question".
Quoting Mww
I disagree. If we say that the world is intelligible we are saying something non-trivial. That is, it has a structure/order that can be grasped by our faculties of understanding.
The empirical world of transcendental idealism can be grasped because it is constructed by the mind via sensibility and other mental faculties. On the other hand, if the 'external reality' is intelligible, we are saying that it has a structure that is graspable. This structure/order is not imposed by the mind but it's 'there'.
So, I would say that it is an explanation of why our understanding works not just a mere recognition that it does.
Quoting Mww
Thanks to you too! I hope I clarified a bit more.
Sure. It seems to conflate the object (the existent that we naturally believe we are perceiving) with the perception of the object. It's perfectly fine to draw attention to the perception process, but I object to blurring the distinction. It's unclear what is meant by coming "under the forms of space, time and causality". Is this just a reference to our cognitive interpretation? Is there some reason to think space, time, causality, and spatial extension are all imaginary?
I don't understand what is being referred to as "relatively present". Is it the perception? Is the actual object? I can't tell if this is nit-picking what "the present" is (the act of perception takes a bit of time).
In general, the whole quote appears to be applying hyperskepticism to perception - which I think entails hyperskepticism about everything. Am I misinterpreting that?
Quoting Wayfarer
Consider a hypothetical metaphysical theory that was inconsistent with the "facts of science". I feel strongly that such a theory has been falsified by those facts. I use the scare-quotes because all facts of science are tentatitve- because they are falsifiable, but they are nevertheless the best available explanation for the phenomena they concern - and it would be foolish to just assume they're false, in order to embrace the metaphysical theory. A metaphysical theory needs to be consistent with everything we "know" about the world ("know" in the sense that we have a body of well-supported information).
You had claimed Metaphysical Naturalism "tries to make a metaphysical principle out of empirical methodology". Aristotelean 4-causes is not methodology, it's an analytical framework - a paradigm. It's a paradigm that modern science doesn't use - although material and efficient causes are consistent. Modern science uses a different paradigm, and its methodologies are based on this - but the paradigm is not methodology. That's a conflation. Why shouldn't MN start with the modern, successful paradigm? Why assume teleology? Why treat the form of something as a "cause", in a sense similar to an efficient or material cause? Is some fact of the world otherwise left unexplained?
You included qualia in your list. Neither science nor MB denies that qualia are something in need of explanation.
[Quote]You admit that physicalism doesn't really accomodate or explain the nature of mind. ...[/quote]
What I've said is that there are aspects of mind that physicalism doesn't now adequately explain. That honest assessment doesn't entail the existence of something nonphysical, and besides - you admitted physicalism wasn't falsified.
[Quote]But then, when pressed about that, you say, that metaphysical naturalism is not science, even though it apparently relies on scientific ontology. Pardon me for so saying, but it seems a little disengenuous[/quote]
Scientific ontology? Theoretical physics does discover things that exist, and seeks to account for them in terms of something more fundamental, so it's ontology. It's also part of the uncontroversial facts of the world that any metaphysical theory would need to be consistent with (idealist skepticism notwithstanding).
So yes, MN accepts the conclusions of modern science- but it is flexible enough to accommodate the tentative nature of those conclusions. And MN does use a paradigm fully consistent with science. Do you have a better one? I've asked for this, and you've indicated it's both difficult and out of the scope of your interests.
So I don't get why you'd think I was being disingenuous. The space between science and MN is small, but that's a point in its favor - parsimony. You denigrated the relevance of parsimony, but you offered no alternative means of evaluating a metaphysical theory. You seem to be reacting to the fact that MN dispenses with some traditional metaphysics - but this misses the point. That's a main reason why a comprehensive metaphysical theory was needed - much of metaphysical theory was inconsistent with physicalism. That fact is a feature, not a bug.
Quoting Wayfarer
I've never disputed that. You haven't answered my question about this: how should that influence our efforts to understand the world?
Quoting Wayfarer
Physicalism does assume the world is physical, top to bottom - so it fits "ontologically basic". Provide some reason to think this is false, beyond the mere possibility that our cognitive processes are delivering a false picture.
Sure, our knowledge of the world is shaped by our perspective. So what? What are the relevant implications? I've explained why I believe perceptions of any organism would provide a functional view of the world - survival requires it. And I proposed that the more congruent the worldview is to actual reality, the more adaptible it is. There's good evidence we have a more accurate view of the world than other animals, in certain respects.
You seem skeptical of our perceptions, but provided no reason for it other than by noting the processing involved and that there's a distinction between our cognitive image of the world, and the actual world. I assume that you nevertheless trust your perceptions as you drive home and select your meals. You haven't identified a problem with my "properly basic beliefs" account. So please explain why anyone should reject their perceptual world-view.
Quoting Wayfarer
These issues: 1) we have subjective experiences that we label as "qualia". 2) There is no fully satisfactory physical account of them. 3) The absence of a fully satisfactory account of qualia does not falsify physicalism. 4) I have pondered the problem myself, and came up with the idea that qualia (their nature-what they feel like) may simply be mental illusions. Consistent with representationalism, they are still representations of something (e.g. pain represents damage) but the nature of pain- the feeling itself, is otherwise unaccounted for. Their nature seems manufactured by our central nervous system, and manifest as they do in our consciousness. That was my personal hypothesis, and then I later discovered that some physicalist philosophers had developed the same illusionist idea. It's still the best answer I have at present for a physicalist account, and it demonstrates that physicalism is not falsified by qualia. Nevertheless, I doubt any non-physicalist would embrace the theory.
You've now accused me of being "glib" and "disingenuous", both of which are insulting. Please try and be polite.
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you disagree that explanations are metaphysics and unfalsifiable? An interpretation is needed because the ontological implications of QM conflict with our natural world-view. As I said, the fact that we've been able to grapple with this is a testament to our abilities to consider theory that is inconsistent with our perceptual world-view. I assume asked about the moon to highlight a perceived folly with the notion that consciousness is a factor in measurement. You may not think that notion is folly, but I'm with Einstein on this one - even though I do think "God" throws dice. Why are debates ongoing? because the matter hasn't been settled, and probably can't be - it's a philosophical question, and as you know - philosophers can't settle much of anything. Someone who believes reality is fundamentally mind-dependent can interpret it in a manner consistent with that view (I have no objection to doing this)- but doing so doesn't constitute a reason to believe reality actually IS mind-dependent - it's not a reason to think it likely.
Regarding the question posed by the title of this thread: the question seems to imply that we ought to reject the existence of mind-independent reality. Should we all do that? I certainly don't think so. Should anyone do that? I am still waiting for someone to give a good reason for doing it. You've only identified some reasons for a degree of skepticism, but haven't explained how this is more than mere possibility.
*edit* I overlooked this:
Quoting Wayfarer
State-of-affairs ontology, immanent universals, law realism, truthmaker theory, and the entailments of all these. IOW, it would be 100% intact.
[Quote] And, for that matter, isn't 'metaphysical naturalism' oxymoronic insofar as naturalism is generally defined in opposition to metaphysics?[/quote]
I gave you a definition from Blackwell that fits. Other definitions don't fit. If you don't like using the label, we can call it something else, but recognize it stands as a mutually exclusive alternative to theories you would likely label "metaphysics".
This is just going in loops I can't follow
A physicalist would say that you can describe how a brain does what it does in understanding the world virtue of physical processes by which it works and interacts with other physical processes.
Quoting boundless
Don't think about it as prediction then. Its just about models or maps that tells you where things are in relation to others. My use of the word "predict" is clearly an idiosyncracy that comes from its appearance in neuroscience where I would give it a slighlty more general meaning.
Of course, but it's rational to maintain a belief before it's disproven, and its irrational to reject something just because it's logically possible that it's false. This latter is my issue with idealism, per my understanding of it.
Quoting boundless
It wasn't an argument to show idealism is false. I was just showing that it is rational to deny idealism. I'm struggling to find a rational reason to deny mind-independent reality exists. The only reasons I've seen so far is because it's possible. That's not a good reason. There's loads of possibilities - many of which conflict with one another. Surely it's at least POSSIBLE that mind-independent reality exists - so what's the reasoning that tips the scale away from that?
Quoting boundless
I agree that we can't be absolutely certain. And while I also agree that pragmatism doesn't imply truth, my impression is that idealists interact with the world pragmatically (they eat, sleep, piss, work, raise kids...) - and if so, this seems like cognitive dissonance. Why get out of bed, if they truly believe mind-independent reality doesn't exist? If they aren't walking the walk, it makes me think they're just playing an intellectual game (perhaps casting a middle finger at reality, a reality that places relatively little value on a PhD in Philosophy: "F__k you! You don't even exist! Nya Nya!).
Quoting boundless
The issues raised with perception and the role of our cognitive faculties are definitely worth considering. But how should influence our efforts to understand the world beyond acknowledging the role of those cognitive faculties?
Exploring the nature of "meaning" is a worthwhile philosophical endeavor, and it seems to me that it's entirely within the scope of the mind. That's because I see its relation to the external word as a matter for truth-theory: what accounts for "truth"? I'm a fan of truthmaker theory, which is just a formalized correspondence theory: a statement is true if it corresponds to something in reality (what it corresponds to, is the truthmaker).
Right, it's not as though we can claim that the world is absolutely intelligible?to claim that would be to claim that we know everything there is to know about the world. We could never reasonably claim that, given that we could never know that we had got it all.
As to others interpreting things differently, I think that is understandable given that the world of things is more complex than we can imagine, offering an almost infinite variety of things to be noticed and understood. In other words there are many ways to make sense of things, and to make sense of things is to make them intelligible.
I don't buy the idea that that is an arbitrary process entirely governed by the mind? it seems far more reasonable to think that the things constrain our ways of making sense of them as much as the nature of our brains does, and that we are blind to both of these constraining influences. This is what I have referred to as the pre-cognitive conditions that govern our cognitive sense-making.
Quoting Mww
Where do you get the idea that there is only one single method available for making sese of the one world of things? I'm not even sure what that means, but if you can say that there is but one world of things it would seem that you have made sense of it. As to there being but one single method available for making sense of things, I don't think that is supportable. I mean, what is this purported method?
Also, if I understand what you are saying correctly, you seem to be conflating method with world.
Quoting Mww
Do you believe there is an internal, subjective, empirical content of consciousness? I don't know what that even means. How could you know about such a thing?
I don't think it's that complicated?it just seems undeniable that we find ourselves in a world which makes sense to us, by and large?not completely, to be sure?we are not omniscient.
Do you see the difference in that, and this: the world of my cognition. The empirical world you are now cognizing must be the same world I am now cognizing, else there must be as many empirical worlds are there are cognizers, which is absurd. The world of your, or my or anyones, cognition, on the other hand, is singular and private. If you were to say the world of your cognition did not exist before you were born youd be correct without equivocation, but the empirical world of my cognition remains existent and unaffected.
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Quoting boundless
We havent yet agreed the world, or reality, whichever, is mind-independent? I should hope we have, in which case, if in any time your mind didnt exist the existence of a world is irrelevant, and for the time in which your mind does exist ..it doesnt but suffice it to say you have one ..the world was already there awaiting your perception. Or, which is the same thing, the world is given, in order for you to even have perceptions for your mind to work on.
You might say the magnitude of the worlds composition, or maybe the relations between various constituents of it, arises in direct proposition to your experiences.
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Quoting boundless
If a set of conditions is described in a philosophical methodology, he who holds with the rational power of such method damn well better be able to answer any question predicated on it. In fact, T.I does describe a cognitive method in which a construction of this sort does relate to our understanding.
What the T.I. advocate cannot answer, is whether or not the method actually represents the way the human cognitive system works, and indeed, with respect to cognitive science proper, it is far from it.
The gist of the first Critique is, basically, one shouldnt worry so much about the answers he cant get, but more the questions he wouldnt even have asked if only hed thought about it a bit more.
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Quoting boundless
Yeah, but that exact same world is unintelligible to other beings, or has a structure/order grasped differently by other intelligent beings. So where does the structure/order actually come from, when different intelligences grasp the exact same thing in different ways?
The common rejoinder is that it isnt the exact same thing. A bugs world is different from a fishs world. But thats not really the case, is it. The world from a bugs perspective is different than the world from a fishs perspective, but the world itself, is what it is regardless of either. Same with all other beings, I should think, or there comes mass contradictions.
Havin fun yet?
Space and time are not imaginary, but nor are they properties of things in themselves. They are forms of intuitionthat is, they belong to the structure of experience, not to things independently of experience. They're part of the conditions under which anything at all can appear to us as an object. In that sense, they are functions of cognitionnot invented by the mind, but intrinsic to how the mind makes sense of what it receives.
Your objection seems to come from a position that assumes we can somehow stand outside both perception and object, as if we could compare the thing as it is with the thing as it appears. But thats precisely what Schopenhauerand before him, Kantinsists we cannot do. We never encounter the object in itself; we only ever encounter appearancesideas, in Schopenhauers termswhich are already presented in accordance with the structures of mind: space, time, and causality.
Take any object you perceiveyour keyboard, for instance. Its mass, extension, color, and hardness are all sensory qualities that correspond to your perceptual categories of sight, touch, etc. Its function as a tool corresponds to a conceptual framework you've learned and internalized. All of thatsensation plus interpretationis what Schopenhauer means by idea.
The object as such is not separate from the idea; it is the idea, for us. This is not a denial of reality, but a statement about how reality appears, and through what structure it becomes meaningful to us at all. To ask what the object is apart from all that is to ask what the object is apart from any consciousness of it an intelligible question perhaps, but one with no experiential content.
This insightthat every object is already shaped by the structures of perception and understandinglater became a stepping-off point for phenomenology which built on this by exploring how the world is always "given to" consciousness, and how even our sense of objectivity is conditioned by the intentional structures of experience.
And that continues into phenomenologically-informed cognitive science todayespecially in enactivism and embodied cognition. These approaches recognize that perception isnt a passive mirror of a ready-made world, but an active synthesis of sensorimotor patterns, embodied engagement, and context-sensitive understanding. The world, as experienced, is always co-shaped by the organism's mode of being.
So this is not just a metaphysical musingits part of a serious and ongoing philosophical effort to understand how experience, meaning, and cognition are bound up with the structure of appearance itself.
the Dharmakaya is nevertheless real - but never to be made the subject of dogmatic belief. But that is definitely another thread (or forum!)
then it becomes rather difficult to explain knowing things.
Quoting Janus
Yes, the only proofs, the checks and balances, for the sense we make of things, resides in the things.
Quoting Janus
We cant be blind to the one insofar as we are the ones directly engaged with it, but Id agree were at least partially blind to the checks and balances ordained by Nature, at least before the fact. Shell certainly let us know all about it post hoc, though.
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Quoting Janus
Toss-up between parsimony and pure logic? All else being given, all humans have a common cognitive mechanism, whatever that may be, and all humans direct that mechanism in the same general direction concerning the same multiplicity of objects. Everybody starts out ignorant, subsequently thinks for himself and learns through experience.
Quoting Janus
HA!!! Youre lookin for me to say something irrevocably Kantian, huh? Only a dope wouldnt grant transcendental idealism as the singular most powerful explanatory doctrine regarding the human cognitive modus operandi, dammit!!! Get with the program already, jeeeeezz.
Yeah, well that aint right, is it. The single method available to humans in general, is whatever method the human brain uses. All metaphysical theory is speculative gap-filler for the absence of empirical knowledge, the intention of which is to express to oneself a priori, in the least self-contradictory way, that for which he hasnt, and is unlikely to obtain, the slightest empirical clue.
I mean, theres gotta be a reason virtually every human ever, agrees with each other with respect to the most obvious natural conditions. Again, all things considered, no human on Earth ever fell up; no human with sufficient experience ever took a stop sign to mean dont bother stopping, and never mind those trite absurdities like 1 + 1 might not equal 2.
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Quoting Janus
Could just call it memory. Only difference is memory is all and only empirical representational content, re: totality of experience, whereas consciousness is the totality of all our representations, experiential and purely abstract, re: a priori.
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Quoting Janus
Nahhhh, it isnt that complicated. But we humans .some of us .are inclined to make it so, sometimes, for whatever reason. And yeah, it does seem undeniable we understand our environment, at least enough to survive in it and at most enough to learn from it.
So...your view is that space and time are entirely mind-dependent. Is this a premise, or can you provide reasoning that entails this? Needless to say, I don't buy it.
How do you account for the past, before any human-like intelligence existed?
Quoting Wayfarer
My position (which is not what my objection is) is that we are part of the world, that are sensory perceptions deliver a reflection of that world which is interpreted by our cognitive functions in a way that is congruent to reality. From this foundation, our abstract reasoning has enabled us to identify more aspects to reality than our senses deliver (e.g. composition, relations, laws, natural history). We "make sense" of all of this through these cognitive faculties, and this entails casting these derived facts in a fashion congruent to our noetic structure (which is partly innate and partly learned). So we aren't "standing outside" perception, but we can abstractly grasp aspects of reality that are beyond our perceptions.
I would view "the thing as it is" to be the thing's composition, its intrinsic properties, and its relations to other objects. Among those relations is the way it's related to it's material and efficient causes. What I have just outlined is a "state of affairs". Are we missing something? Possibly, but my position is rational to believe unless it's either rationally defeated or an alternative explanation can be shown to be superior.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed, we are encountering appearances - specifically, what our senses deliver to us, and the sense we make of those appearances (e.g. the colors, angles, etc) - but it is the object itself that appears that way to us - so we are indeed encountering the object itself. Why would you, or Schopenhaurer deny that we are actually encountering the actual object? This seems an unwarranted skepticism. My view is that we are PERCEIVING aspects of the actual object, and if this is being denied, I'd like to understand the justification for denying that.
Of course, our perceptions aren't necessarily delivering the object's intrinsic properties, but some of the actual properties are reflected to us in our perceptions. Example: color is not an intrinsic property of an object, it's a quale that gives us the capacity to discriminate, but it's physically accounted for by the wavelengths of light that are reflected from the surface. Through analysis, we are able to identify aspects of the object that do constitute intrinsic properties. Example: we might identify mass as an intrinsic property of an object. Further analysis reveals that mass may not be fully an intrinsic property, but rather - a consequence of interactions with the Higgs field. I only mention this to point out that much of what we know is tentative and subject to revision. But at each stage, we're identifying a best guess at what the object actually is - at least in some respects. A degree of skepticism is appropriate because all scientific "knowledge" (body of accepted facts) is tentative. Feel free to add an element of skepticism on the basis that our foundational starting point (our perceptions and cognitive faculties) is a step removed, but then I ask: what's the value of doing this, other than as an intellectual nod to possibility? Why treat it as tentative, like we do scientific knowledge, when there is zero chance of correcting it?
I agree, and this is 100% consistent with everything I said. It would be absurd to ignore the role of our senses and cognitive apparatus.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, I 100% agree. Did you think I'd disagree? Do you think any of this is inconsistent with state-of-affairs ontology, law realism, immanent universals or truthmaker theory? It's not.
I wouldnt say that space and time are entirely mind-dependent in the sense of being subjective or personal. Im not saying theyre imaginary or arbitrary, nor that they vary from person to person. What Im proposing is in line with the Kantian (and later phenomenological) insight that space and time are conditions of appearancethey are the framework within which any object can appear to us at all, not features of things as they exist independently of experience. That is the sense in which they're not mind-independent.
Why? Because we never encounter any object that is not extended in space and persisting or changing through time. But we never experience space or time themselves apart from the objects and events that are given in them. Time and space are preconditions of experience, but not themselves objects of experience.
Quoting Relativist
Here, Id say the value isnt in treating our foundational perceptual and cognitive framework as "tentative" in the same way we treat scientific hypothesesafter all, as you say, we can't "revise" the basic conditions of human cognition. But acknowledging their conditional or constructed nature serves a different philosophical purpose: it helps us see the limits of objectivity, and opens space for deeper inquiry into the nature of reality and experience.
Kants insightand I think Schopenhauer, Husserl, and even parts of quantum theory echo thisis that the very things we take for granted (space, time, causality, objecthood) are not absolute givens, but conditions for appearance. We cant correct them from the outside, but we can come to understand how they frame everything we think and perceive, and thats not trivial.
Why bother? Because once you see that the world we experience is not the world-in-itself, but the world as it appears under certain cognitive conditions, you begin to notice how easily we mistake models for reality, conceptual constructs for independent facts, and contingent frameworks for absolutes. That has enormous implicationsnot only for metaphysics, but for ethics, consciousness, and our place in the cosmos.
In short, its not about revising cognitionits about cultivating the humility to see that reality might be deeper than what any model or theory can capture. Thats not idle skepticismits philosophical maturity.
What Im ultimately taking issue with is the pretense of objectivity in philosophy, especially where it has been co-opted by scientific materialism or physicalism. This worldview treats the human being as simply another object among objects, to be analyzed in the same terms as stars, stones, or synapses:
[quote= D M Armstrong, The Nature of Mind]What does modern science have to say about the nature of man? There are, of course, all sorts of disagreements and divergencies in the views of individual scientists. But I think it is true to say that one view is steadily gaining ground, so that it bids fair to become established scientific doctrine. This is the view that we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms.[/quote]
That is, as an object.
But philosophy cannot honestly sustain this stance. The human subject is not just an object within the world, but also the condition for any world appearing. Scientific objectivity depends on observation, and observation presupposes a subjecta standpoint, a perspective, a consciousness. To then treat that subject as if it were just another measurable object is to erase the very ground from which all measurement arises.
This is not a rejection of science, but a rejection of a metaphysics that forgets its own conditions. Its requirement to recover the truth that human beings are not reducible to what objective methods can say about them, because those methods themselves emerge from the activity of human understanding.
And physicalism, to put it in the Australian vernacular, has that entirely arse-about :-)
Honestly, I find this time and space stuff meaningless. I don't understand what you actually mean by it or what implication has for anything at all in any possible way.
Contrast it for instance with the quantum stuff about perspective-dependence. That actually has information in it because quantum theory is telling you that system behavior actually depends on measurement in some way which can be demonstrated mathematically and empirically. So there is an actual concrete implication for this; there is a graspable fact of the matter about what this means, even if someone chooses to interpret these empirical facts differently.
I have absolutely no idea what kind of implication or difference to anything with regard to what you are saying about space and time. I want something that is actually tangible like in the quantum case so I know what you mean by this. And I don't think relativity is relevant.either because that has nothing to do with human cognition. The fact that clocks can read different times due to the effects of gravity after having been put on different plane journeys has nothing to do with human cognition. In one post you talked about people using different units of measurement, but I don't really see how these implications either. Some people use inches, aome use cm; so what? 1 inch = 2.5cm.
Have you ever studied any philosophy of scienceKuhn, Polanyi, Feyerabend, that sort of thing?
Yes, some.
I'm talking specifically about your Kantian space and time stuff:
e.g.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that space and times are conditions of appearance, and the framework within which objects appear to us (through our senses), and establishes the cognitive anchor by which we evaluate the object. But that doesn't imply there is no ontology to time or space. I won't make a rash judgement at to what that ontology is, but my sense is that this ontology applies both to ourselves and to the object we're perceiving: we're on the same moving train of time and space that the objects are. Why think otherwise? Why think this has the potential for introducing additional error? And if it does have that potential, how should it affect our analysis?
Quoting Wayfarer
We nevertheless can reason abstractly about this - consider the relation of time to whatever we're analyzing. Once again, my issue is that is that, even though agnosticism about this could be warranted, what's the usefulness - unless it suggests some direction for analysis?
Quoting Wayfarer
This seems like the same tentativeness as any other unverifiable/unfalsifiable aspect of philosophy. That's neither condemnation nor praise. But I agree with everything you said about cultivating humility, but not so much here:
Quoting Wayfarer
What you consider the "pretense of objectivity" is, to me, just applying a consistent perspective from which to evaluate the world. We all have one, with varying degrees of commitment to the assumptions. But because no assumption is necessarily true, we shouldn't apply those assumptions dogmatically - we could be wrong. I think this is close to what you're going for with your call for humility.
Regarding Armstrong suggesting that humans are objects. In his ontology, they are. That doesn't mean they're JUST objects. We value other humans, the artistic creations of humans, and we value animals and the environment - these values don't disappear for those of us who believe humans are objects. (Regarding Armstrong: although he was a committed atheist, he respected religion. He said, "I have the greatest respect for it. I think it may be the thing that many people need, and it enshrines many truths about life. But I do not think it is actually true.")
Just because our methods emerge from our understandings doesn't mean we aren't reducible, but this shouldn't be a threatening proposition - because it doesn't erase our values or the feelings we have.
You are making an unwarranted leap here. The fact that things always appear to us in space and time, that space and time are, in Kantian terms, "pure forms of intuition" does not entail that they are merely forms of intution.
Kant makes this leap when he refers to space and time as "pure" forms of intuition. The tendency of his thinking is shown in the "pure". Why not merely the 'forms of intuition'?
Kant says we perceive things, and that this requires that there be things to be perceived or as he calls them "things in themselves". Why not then space and time in themselves?
But it does. That is exactly what it means. His profession of respect for religion is out of civility. But, he says, understand that it is subjective, comforting for those who believe it, but not true.
Quoting Relativist
A perspective which includes a number of presuppositions, mainly drawn from science (despite your denials) or at least from natural philosophy. Hence why I say 'metaphysical naturalism' is self-contradictory - naturalism has generally defined itself in opposition to metaphysics.
Quoting Relativist
The underlying belief is that mind is the product of physical causes - and Armstrong says it! - which I'm saying forgets or fails to realise that mind is the pre-condition of an analysis of causes. That is why Schopenhauer says 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets himself.' (Why to I keep quoting Schopenhauer? Because he was an articulate advocate of philosophical idealism. There are aspects of his philosophy I don't agree with, but he puts this point with clarity and force.)
Quoting Apustimelogist
It is not my invention. You can find the source text here. Suffice to say, Kant is very difficult to read, and I claim no mastery of his books. But just take the first paragraph in that section:
The other passage that was introduced earlier in this thread was from the Aeon Magazine article on the Einstein-Bergson debate on time, specifically:
Quoting Janus
Why does Kant say that space and time are 'pure intuitions'?
By calling them pure forms of intuition, Kant is emphasizing that space and time are structural features of human sensibility, not features of reality as it is in itself. They are not merely psychological or subjective in the personal sense, but transcendentally subjectiveconditions without which we would have no coherent experience at all. ( You could credibly use the term 'transpersonal' in place of 'transcendental' in this context i.e. 'true for all subjects'.)
Bottom line in all of this is there is no time without mind. If you sputter and gesticulate and point to the 'vast aeons of time that existed before sentient beings came along', there is still mind there.
It's yours.
//and that, for now, is that.//
That space and time are merely structural features of human sensibility does not follow from their being structural forms of sensibility ? it simply does not follow that they are not features of reality in itself. If we define reality as it is in itself as being completely apart from human cognition, then the only valid conclusion is that we can know nothing at all about reality as it is in itself. And that means that we have no warrant to claim that it is the human mind alone which produces space and time.
Your last sentence is nothing more than a tendentious interpretation of the situation. It doesn't follow that what is real can only be what we experience and think, even if we accept that what is real for us can only be what we experience and think. Your reasoning here is invalid.
In any case science shows us beyond reasonable doubt that much existed prior to humans, so the conclusion that without mind there is no time and space (which amounts to saying there is nothing) is an unwarranted and indeed a very implausible claim. You say "there is still mind there"?perhaps you meant there was still mind there because the observation that there is mind there in all our sayings and doings is a trivial truism, and is irrelevant to what we are discussing.
If you are claiming there was still mind there are you suggesting the existence of a universal mind or "mind at large" as Kastrup would have it? If you were suggesting that, then at least your position would be coherent and consistent, if not plausible. Without that it amounts to hand-waving.
Yes, of course there's a number of presuppositions - it's a complete metaphysical system. As I keep telling you, the outline of the system (state of affairs ontology, immanent universals, law realism, truthmaker theory) has no dependency on known science - but it's consistent with science, and indeed it accepts scientific facts as true. How is that a problem, other than the tentative nature of scientific knowledge that scientists and philosophers agree is there? You don't have to accept physicalism. I gather it's because you want there to be more. That's fine. I'm not trying to convince you to settle for it. But personally, I don't need anything more. I'm sufficiently open-minded to know there may very well be more. I expect there IS more to reality than the analyzable portion, but the possibilities are endless -and I see no objective means of picking some to embrace. Phsyicalism is minimalist, but also the most secure BECAUSE it minimizes the speculative leaps. That's its appeal to me. You want more, but accept that not everyone feels that way.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think he was being sincere, but you can think whatever you like. If you're interested, here's the full interview. He says a little more about it, but not much.
Quoting Wayfarer
Armstrong's dead. I'm alive, and I do accept that the mind is a pre-condition for analyzing causes. But that does not falsify the theory that the mind is a product of the physical. You have admitted that physicalism is not falsifiable, so why do you keep treating these notions as if they do falsify it?
Quoting Wayfarer
You've provided no justification for that claim. Here's an unobjectionable alternative: the human perception of time would not exist if there was no mind. It's something of a tautology, but it's unwarranted to claim that our perception of time does not reflect something ontological. Remind me again how youo view the body of knowledge about natural history: the big bang, planet formation, abiogenesis, evolution, etc - the conventional wisdom is that this reflects a past time in which there were no minds. What do you accept, and what do you deny about this? Cast your answer in a way that's consistent with "there is no time without mind".
Your use of 'something ontological' simply means, you believe that time is real in a sense outside of any cognition of it. Even that usage is questionable. 'Ontology' refers to kind of being, or alternatively, a method for categorising types of substance or systems. What I really think you're saying is 'mind-independent'. I might agree that our perception of time reflects something real, but whatever that real is, it might well be outside of time - which we would have no way of knowing without measurement.
Consider this passage from science writer Paul Davies:
'The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that'. Do you know, incidentally, who Andrei Linde is? He's a Russian-American cosmologist and astrophysicist who is one of the authors of 'cosmic inflation' theory. He is interviewed by Robert Lawrence Kuhn of Closer to Truth on this point, which you can review here.
He's making the point that I'm making, and that Bergson makes, and Kant makes - time exists as an inextricable basis of our cognitive apparatus. That doesn't make it 'merely subjective' - from within that apparatus, we are able to measure time objectively and with minute accuracy, but that doesn't negate the necessity of their being a system of measurement nor a mind to measure it.
Physicalist philosophy projects that functionaity outward onto what you think is the existing world, the world as it would be without you are anyone in it, but you're viewing it through the VR headset that is the brain.
This raises an interesting point. If Armstrong says religion is not true, which one is he referring to, or is he referring to all of them? By true do you think Armstrong means literally or objectively true or something else? There are many different metaphysical pictures offered by the different religions?can they all be literally or objectively true?
I don't even claim that none of them are literally or objectively true? for all I know one of them might be, even though it seems most plausible. My claim is merely that religious beliefs cannot be demonstrated to be true, that there is no evidence for the truth of any of them, unless you were to count authority as evidence, and we all know that arguments from authority are invalid in a philosophical context.
Positivism is a philosophical approach that emphasizes the importance of observable, measurable phenomena and empirical evidence in gaining knowledge, generally rejecting claims that cannot be verified by scientific methods. It asserts that true knowledge comes from sensory experience and that knowledge is built through rigorous, objective research, separating the researcher from the subject.
Also, I'm not saying that Armstrong should believe in religion, but I will say that materialist philosophy of mind rejects certain philosophical beliefs or attitudes that are characteristic of religious philosophies, generally - chief amongst them the immaterial nature of mind or the subject. The point about materialist philosophy of mind - Armstrong, Monod, Dennett, etc - is that only what is objectively real is considered real.
I do recognise the conflict between the philosophical outlook I'm trying to understand and convey, and philosophical naturalism, and I'm not shying away from that.
Knowledge claims in general, if sound, are backed by intersubjectively corroborable evidence that the unbiased should be convinced by. I have no problem with people adhering to religions even though they are not being backed by such evidence, provided they have the honesty to admit that they are not backed by such evidence.
I believe that Jackson Pollock is a much better painter than Andy Warhol, but I don't pretend to be able to provide evidence for that. The situation with aesthetics is similar to the situation with metaphysics, and by extension, religion. I believe that the arts are capable of evoking altered states of consciousness, but I have only my own experience to back that belief, so I would never presume to argue for it, because arguments demand evidence and without it they are empty.
I do think that phenomenological analysis carries weight, even though it does not provide strictly observable evidence. We can reflect on our experience and generalize its characteristics, and I see linguistic philosophy as a kind of phenomenology based on reflection and analysis. But I cannot see how any phenomenological analysis provides any evidence for metaphysical claims.
Its not that phenomenology provides evidence for metaphysical claims in the empirical sense, but rather that it reframes the whole question of metaphysics. Kants Critique was a critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but in doing so he introduced a transcendental metaphysicsone concerned with the conditions of the possibility of experience.
Phenomenology continues this line by grounding inquiry in intentionalitythe structure of consciousness as always directed toward somethingand in doing so, it opens a path to exploring meta-physical dimensions of existence without relying on the old ontological categories. It may not use the traditional metaphysical lexicon, but its still engaged in a metaphysical project: clarifying how being, meaning, and world come to presence for consciousness.
So Kant's reflections and analysis concerning the conditions which always accompany experience and without which we cannot imagine experience are again only concerned with human experience and judgement and not with anything beyond that.
Sure, consciousness is always directed at something; that is almost a tautology because to be conscious is to be conscious of something, but again that tells us nothing about any reality beyond consciousness if we deny that what we are conscious of is not what is, and so on that assumption it tells us nothing about metaphysics, since metaphysics has always purported to be about reality as such and not merely reality for us.
As far as I know the truth is that we cannot tell how "being meaning and world" come to consciousness, we can only tell how being, meaning and world seem to us. We have good reason to believe that something is going on which is completely prior to cognition, but we have no way of discovering what is, if we do not allow that the discoveries of science are showing reality, because any discovery would be within cognition not outside it. The only guide we have to such matters is cognitive science?the science of perception, since we are, in vivo, blind to whatever is prior to or happens outside of cognition.
Correct: I think time is mind-independent. From my point of view, calling it "real" is vague. My best guess would be that it's a relation between events, where events are states of affairs. Relations are ontological - constituents of states of affairs. That's why I labelled it ontological. But I didn't want to be this specific because IMO, there's no definitive view I'm willing to even tentatively commit to. But it seems contradictory to think time is "outside of time".
This is consistent with the Page-Wooters mechanism, which I find fascinating (I recommend reading the abstract at the link).
Quoting Wayfarer
Here's an article Linde wrote. He's speculating about a mysterious connection between time and mind. By contrast, the Page-Wooters experiment I linked you to demonstrates an actual passage of time being experienced by the "clock" within the quantum system while externally there's no passage of time. The internal clock isn't conscious, so the passage of time isn't associated with mind - it's just a matter of being within the system.
Who knows where any of this will lead. Linde suggests it's possible some link to consciousness will be found, but that remains to be seen. I understand why his speculation appeals to you and Kuhn.
Given that you would agree that the universe had a history before any organism observed it, this is just meaningless. Absolutely no need to conflate one's subjective sense of time and what clocks measure.
Agree?
Before is a concept. See this explanation..
I referred to his view qua idealist that, really, there was no world per se before the first perceiver, but also that science is correct in investigating ancient history, i.e. the world before perceivers. How could both of these claims be true? This is a general problem that idealism must address.
Again, with the example of quantum observer-dependence, you can point to actual theoretical, empirical consequences. That is what I want to see. I don't see the same kind of tangible consequence here, just someone choosing to use words in an unnecessarily mysterious way: e.g. "that there was no world per se". Imo, the veracity of time might be doubted when there are contradictions, irresolvable disagreements, false predictions. I get the impression that we don't really have those problems regarding what a clock measures; I don't see what is changed by noting 'time' is a concept. A concept is part of a model, and what is being modelled is a world that behaves independently of us.
Yes, but how does this differ from confirmation bia?
Yes! Anyway, I believe that strictly carried through empirical idealism leads either to an Advaita-like system (there is only one Reality) or to a Madhyamaka-like one (there is neither-one-nor-may ultimate realities, but ultimate reality is wholly beyond concepts).
Also, I don't think that it is a chance that these systems posit (at least as provisional truths) a beginningless mental continuum. If that is the case, there is no problem of explaining how the mind and the empirical world 'arose' in the first place.
I agree, we are talking about each other. But IMO this is because we start from different principles.
To you it's 'granted' that physical phenomena have 'regularities'. It's just the way it is. I understand your poisition. To me, however, it isn't granted. It's a mystery that 'cries' for an explanation (which in turn might 'cries' for another and so on).
Quoting Apustimelogist
Ok. I am actually not sure, however, how this isn't going to the assumption that 'meaning' is something fundamental in the physical. If that is the case, it seems to me that the 'mental' is somehow fundamental (at least as a fundamental aspect of physical reality as some panpsychist affirm)
OK. I see your point. But IMO, you are conflating the belief with an 'external world' in generale and a 'physical world' in particular. I would say that abandoning the second is certainly counter-intuitive and probably incorrect but not necessarily 'irrational'. I would say that if one denies the existence any kind of external reality (solipsism) or affirms that, at most, there might be something else but we do not interact in any way with that is irrational.
Quoting Relativist
I honestly believe that you are underestimating Bradley's argument. If knowledge about the 'physical world' is empirical, it is true IMO that, in fact, what is directly known to us are sensations and perceptions (i.e. sensations organised within a conceptual framework). It seems to me that he is right that we can't conceive anything 'physical' with no relation with the 'world of experience'.
Of course, there is a stretch from this observation to flatly deny the existence of the 'physical world'. But, anyway, if you are not a naive realist, you would agree that 'the world we experience' is, in fact, a mental construction of sorts. In which case, an external 'physical' world would be somethin we haven't direct access to and we have no way to verify if it is really 'there' or not (assuming that knowledge at least comes from experience). The (strictly) 'ontological' idealist would say that the 'fact' that we imagine that the 'external physical world' in terms of the 'world of experience' is a reasonable reason to deny that there is something different from either minds and mental contents. The epistemic idealist would say that the same 'fact' leads us to the conclusion that we can't know anything about such a 'world' (note that Kant, in my understanding, rejected traditional metaphysics because he thought that it could not give us true knowledge... not sure about what he would say to someone who asserts that he doesn't claim to have certain knowledge but confident, but not certain, beliefs...).
Personally, I don't think that Bradley's argument is decisive or anything like that. But, certainly, it is not something to be overlooked.
Quoting Relativist
Again, I respectfully disagree. If there is something external from us and we interact with that - even if not physical (and that's the point) - then it is still meaningful to interact with the world pragmatically.
To make a hopefully helpful analogy, let's assume that in the future we will be able to develop a technology that enables us to create a Matrix-like virtual reality or a shared dream, where pleasant and painful sensations are experienced. It would be foolish to, say, cause to oneself painful sensations for no 'higher' reason even if these sensations happpen in that virtual reality or shared dream.
What do you think about this?
(Another possible reason: in my past lucid dreams I would still experience pain even if I was aware of being in a dream. It would be foolish to me to experience pain for no higher reason even in that 'fully internal' experiences, let alone if I a know that I do interact with something and/or someone external)
Quoting Relativist
Sorry, I don't understand your question. Or how it relates of the topic of the discussion we are having.
Quoting Relativist
Ok! As I said in my previous post, however, to me if there is an intelligible and 'meaningful' external physical reality 'cries' for an explanation (which might 'cry' to another one). I really do understand, however, if one doesn't see that 'need for an explanation'.
Anyway, I do respect your view. But IMO assuming that universals inhere to reality lead to at least some form of panpsychism where the 'mental' is an essential aspect of the fundamental physical reality (and, hence, a fundamental, ultimate aspect of reality itself). Personally, this is because I believe that universal are best understood as concepts and I do have difficulties to understand them in other ways.
I am not sure about this. I believe that 'our' empirical worlds are similar. They might have the same structure owing to the fact that, as humans, we share the same sensible and cognitive faculties. But there is a fundamental 'privateness' of my experience that suggests to me that my empirical world is indeed 'mine'. This doesn't imply, of course, that we can have an intersubjective agreement.
Quoting Mww
But if the 'world' is given and is knowable I am not sure how transcendental/epistemic idealism isn't a form of direct realism.
I would say that epistemic idealists do not hold any views about what is 'given'. The empirical world is always constructed, 'given' in a secondary sense. That is, we can analyse and study our empirical world so for empirical knowledge the empirical world is given. But this doesn't negate the point that in transcendental idealism the empirical world is a representation/construct of sensible and congnitive faculties of the mind.
But perhaps I'm not grasping something about transcendental idealism.
Quoting Mww
But aren't these qurstions precisely those relating the world 'in-itself'? That is independent of forms of sensibility and categories (which are both mental)?
Quoting Mww
Well, I guess that this is true if one assumes a transcendental idealist position.
But if one accepts that there is an intelligible external reality which can in principle be known (and we know/understand in part as it is possible to us), then, there are no different 'worlds' here but different understandings of the world, one perhaps more correct than the other.
Quoting Mww
Yup :smile:
Then how are you supposed to convince me of what you say with such confidence if it has no demonstrable consequence for anything. If there is no demonstrable consequence for anything, how am I to be convinced that what you are saying actually means something and not just a bunch of words strung together like:
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"
Sure, I understand all the words. Sure, is grammatical. I can read it...
But am I saying anything ... ?
I put the case as best I can but understand that most people are not going to persuaded by it. The OP asks a rhetorical question, does anyone really support a mind-independent reality? If a mind-independent reality is to be questioned, how could that be made subject to empirical demonstration? Could it?
As do I. I have no reason yet, to think they are not, allowing for differences in experience.
Quoting boundless
Or, they may seem to have the same structure, because they do.
Quoting boundless
Unless it is the case your experiences are of representations of the empirical world, and not the world itself. The representations, then, are indeed your own, born of your own intellect, from which the notion that your experiences are indeed your own receives its justifications.
Fundamental privateness of your experiences, yep; fundamental privateness of the empirical world .nahhhh. Share-sies, dude. This land is your land this land is my land and all that kinda hippie prophetizing, donchaknow.
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Quoting boundless
Transcendental philosophy presupposes direct realism. There is an inescapable duality intrinsic to that method.
Quoting boundless
Im ok with that, although I might quibble regarding the view they would all say that it is given. No views on what is given, but holding with the view that something is given.
Quoting boundless
I disagree. For empirical knowledge, the empirical world is given. To know is to know about something. The analysis and study from which knowledge follows, is of representation of the empirical world, which are constructs of the human cognitive system. A.K.A., experience.
Quoting boundless
The empirical world is a representation, the conception of the totality of real things of possible experience. But the empirical world is not a thing we know; we know only of representations of things in it. And because it is a mere conception, there is no sensibility involved, no intuition hence no phenomenon, which explains why knowledge of it is impossible.
In Kant and the Enlightenmrnt era natural philosophy, the world is a general conception, having all possible existent things subsumed under it. The ancients called such conceptions Universals.
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Quoting boundless
Pretty much what Ive been saying all along. If this is your position as well, perhaps weve just been tangled up in words. And maybe a scattered misplaced principle here and there.
Fair enough. We will just have to agree to disagree.
Quoting boundless
My use of the word physicalism is maybe misleading, but I like using the word because it captures where my side of these arguments leans toward.
I agree with some that the "physical" as a metaphysical category is difficult to make substantial because at the end of the day, we just construct models of things in the world from what we can point out and is plucked out of what we see empirically, which we do through "experience".
Everything we model boils down to (counterfactual) regularities or structures in experience, and I cannot further specify about experience other than the fact that they are informative. I would even say that there is no other property I can draw out of my experiences other than the notion of informativeness - i.e. making distinctions.
But nonetheless, our epistemic activities lead to a hierarchy of models explaining how the world behaves in increasingly general (i.e. fundamental) ways that, in principle, supervene on each other in a way describable in terms of coarse-graining as an epistemic consequence of the resolution of our perceptual / observational / technological apparati. At the end of the day, any models we construct about the world that survive just end up being either subsumed under "physical" or supervening on what is subsumed under "physical", so the physical as a metaphysical category seems vacuous because we just use it to subsume all our successful models.
Obviously, all our epistemic activities and their consequences are embedded and enacted within experience - surely experience is fundamental? But the aforementioned models of the natural world are the only ones we have, and they tell us that experience relates to the events described in those by the same kind of coarse-graining. Experiences are not as fundamental as the things being described by our models of the world at more fine-scaled levels of description, and with more causal generality. There is a kind of dual-nature to this insofar that experiences are structures that both: 1) supervene on brain activity; 2) In virtue of how experiences model the world, we can also say that they are about structures beyond our sensory boundary that supervene on other finer-grained or general structures beyond our sensory boundaries. Structures are just what we can consistently distinguish about the world beyond our boundaries. Perhaps the kind of dual-aspect thing, and other information processing properties elicit the intuition we have for dualism or ontologically separate mental "stuff".
My view of physicalism is more akin to a naturalism that asserts these models as the only ones we have. Because of the hard problem and perhaps other reasons (God? Religion? Spirituality? Supernatural? Parapsychology?), people try to assert additional models. The problem is that reality fails to give persistent indications of these things. But people still assert them, and naturalism (physicalism) is mostly a stance against that.
Human knowledge has not given us models of the mental that do not just relate to more fundamental descriptions through coarse/fine-graining. There is no evidence for mental substance (or similar category) that is separate from what our other physical models describe, and can make a difference to what those things describe. Nothing else is added beyond fine/coarse-graining of information. If the mental and cognitive fits into our hierarchy of scientific models via coarse-fine graining, it is then hard to make sense of them as more fundamental since they are not the most general or fine-grained way of describing what happens in the world. The mental supervenes on interactions at the bio-chemical level. At the same time, bio-chemical models are embedded in and describe or enact structural relations through our "experiences"; all physical models do this and so there is no sense that my physical models are talking about some kind of "substance" inherently incompatible with the nature of experience itself; they just track structural relations through whatever perspectival manifold or space our epistemic activities are furnished on. Experience itself is difficult to articulate anything about other than the property of informativeness or distinguishability (e.g. direct acquaintance), which has structure.
Experience is structure. What physical models pick out about the world is structure. There is no inherent incompatibility when no intrinsic "substance" is attributed to either the experiential or what physical models are about, but we know that the structures of experience cannot be the bottom. And in principle, more elaborate structures (than naive experience) that describe brains, cognition and their relation to the world beyonds their boundaries may be able to better explain why experiential structures are limited in certain ways with regard to information about what they supervene on, and why our own explanations about them are limited. These limitations may be why we seem to have intuitions that there is something more to the mental beyond their place in the hierarchy of models about reality.
But to emphasize, all I have been talking about is this notion of structure. So there is an inherent agnosticism (or even rejection) about fundamental metaphysics, and even a skepticism about there being anything to say about it beyond what our intelligible models of reality say. These intelligible models are just the ones I have been talking about all along, with the physical at the core on which other models supervene or relate through coarse/fine-graining.
So there is nothing more to say about the metaphysics of reality beyond our best scientific models that supervene on the physical.
From this, there is no sense in which the mental can be the most fundamental as a model of how the world works, imo.
I'm just suggesting that we innately believe (intuitively, not deductively or verbally) there is an external world. Classifying it as physical, material etc depends on some later learnings.
[Quote]I would say that if one denies the existence any kind of external reality (solipsism) or affirms that, at most, there might be something else but we do not interact in any way with that is irrational.[/quote]
I agree. That is contradicted by our basic intuitions.
Quoting boundless
I can accept that there is SOME relation to the world of experience. It's iterative: we start with out innate instincts, then have experiences we interpret through the lens of our instincts, creating a revised lens through which the next tier of experiences are interpretted. Rinse. Repeat.
Quoting boundless
Agreed.
Quoting boundless
Based on your description, I'd consider the strict ontological idealist irrational, because he has no rational basis to defeat his innate belief. The reasoning seems to be: I'm possibly wrong therefore I'm wrong.
The epistemic idealist could be rational, but only if he applies that this skepticism consistently - which entails general extreme skepticism.
Quoting boundless
If this just means we should be willing to question everything, I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with jumping to intellectual nihilism.
[Quote] What do you think about this [matrix scenario]?[/quote] Excellent analogy. I see your point- it makes perfect sense.
That sounds close to logical positivismreducing reality to what our best scientific models can express, and treating everything else as non-serious. But positivism has been mainly abandoned due to its internal contradictions. Most notably, the claim that only empirically testable claims are meaningful isnt itself an empirically testable claim so it is, as the saying goes, hoist by its own petard.
And more broadly, the assumption that metaphysics supervenes on physics is itself a metaphysical positionone that treats physical science as a final vocabulary. But thats a philosophical stance, not a scientific result. But as you said before you will only be persuaded by an empirical argument, everything else, you say, is 'empty words'. Part of the same contradiction noted above.
Quoting Apustimelogist
And that's because you look exclusively through the 'objectivist' stance that characterises scientific positivism.
Quoting Relativist
So, you believe that 'idealism' (or in modern terms 'constructivism') is nihilistic, because it denies the external world?
No. It's an implication of mistrusting our basic instincts, our senses and our cognitive structure. If those are denied, no beliefs can be justified- that would be intellectual nihilism. Does anyone take idealism that far? I don't know. I was just identifying what I think would be going too far. My point is better understood in the context I wrote it:
[I]"If this just means we should be willing to question everything, I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with jumping to intellectual nihilism."[/i]
I was bookending it between a innocuous extreme and a noxious one.
Thanks for the post. Not sure if I understood the whole of it (some parts are beyond my grasp...), but I hope to have understand the gist of what you did write.
Anyway, it seems to me that you are saying:
(1) Experience is structured and we have cognitive/perceptual structures that allow us to make intelligible models of the 'world';
(2) Experience is not self-enclosed, i.e. we need to posit something 'outside' of it, which grounds both experience itself and the structure of it;
(3) That 'external world' has its own structure, otherwise we could not get an intelligible 'world of experience';
(4) We can't have access to knowledge about the intrinsic and fundamental properties of that world.
Assuming that I am not misrepresenting you, it boils down for me to how we understand (4). The agnosticism that you refer for me is an indication that your position would be best described with a general label 'realism', rather than naturalism or physicalism (if we understand these two terms in an ontological way). That is, you posit the existence of an external, structured 'reality' about which, however, we can't know very much.
Also, you share with many physicalists the skepticism about something like some claims about consciousness, spirituality, religion and so on. I guess that, if you want to call 'physicalist' your position IMO you are fine doing that. But, again IMO, from a metaphysical 'classification', I would think that your position should be called a form of 'realism'.
Regarding the 'hard problem', I do believe, however, that it is a very profound problem and, like intelligibility, to me suggest that the 'mental' must be in some sense fundamental. I have found no explanation of the propeerites of consicousness in 'physical' terms that have been satisfying. Emergentism, for instance, at a certain point seems like saying "and somehow we get consciosness" due to the fact that there seem no physical properties in virtue of which we can 'derive' consciousness. Other models like epiphenomenalism seems to just contradict experience (consciousness does have an effect on our body). And so on.
But I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
And I'm suggesting that even the ontological idealist actually believes in an external world. It's just a very counterintuitive picture of that world but it's nevertheless true that there is an external world (the other minds).
Quoting Relativist
Ok!
Quoting Relativist
Yes, it seems reasonable. If one believes that there is an external physical world it must have some structural similarities with the 'world of our experience'.
Quoting Relativist
I can see why you are saying that. But I disagree that this is a real problem for the ontological idealist. As I said, the ontological idealist would retort that he's not denying the external world. Rather, he simply asserts that everything is mental and there is a plurality of interacting minds.
Quoting Relativist
Ok! But I would even say more... if the epistemic idealist position is strictly followed it would imply that skepticism or even an 'illusionist' position where nothing that is understandable according to, say, plurality, distinctiveness and so on is ultimately real. After all, if those concepts are valid only in the context of the 'empirical world', then, they might well be unapplicable outside of it. And if one accepts that the 'empirical world' and the associated mind are not ontologically fundamental (which would imply a negation of empirical idealism BTW), then, I see no other conclusions as saying that either fundamental, ultimate reality is a oneness or neither one nor many.
Quoting Relativist
Yes, I would say the first. But, maybe, we can't know 'ultimate reality' or even 'reality as it is'. Not sure if that would be intellectual nihilism for you. I don't. Intellectual knowledge would still have its own merits.
Quoting Relativist
Thanks. BTW, I believe that the 'shared dream' analogy is even better than the 'Matrix' one.
Note that if the dream is shared, then, there is still an external reality. After all, other minds are not mental contents. If you like, ontological idealism is quite similar to this scenario (with the difference of course that the 'shared dream' is not dependent on technology).
Agreed. I have a tendency to use 'might', 'may' far too often even in casual conversations. So, yes, sometimes even if I am sure about something I use the hypotheticals/conditionals.
Quoting Mww
Well, it depends on about we understand the word 'world'. Yes, Kant believed in an external reality but he did believe that we don't have an unmediated knowledge of it. In fact, to us what is 'given' it's an already pre-ordained world, the empirical world, which is already modeled in sensible and intellectual categories (like space, time, pluarality and so on). I wasn't saying that the empirical world is 'private' in the sense that is a creation of our mind. But certainly, it's not either the external reality as it is, otherwise Kant would agree with the naive idealist (a thing that I doubt). If it's not the external reality, then, you must say that it's at best partly internal (private*) and partly external.
Quoting Mww
If that were the case, then, what's the point of transcendental idealism? You might say that it is direct realist in the sense that the empirical world is the external world as is given to us already organised by our mental faculties. But if Kant had said direct access to the external world in itself, then, why a positing a distinction between the empirical world and the world in itself?
Quoting Mww
Ok, I think I agree here.
Quoting Mww
OK, I see. But if the empirical world is a 'representation' then it can't be a 'direct realism', except in the sense that we have direct knowledge of the representation. Direct realism asserts that we have direct knowledge of the 'world in itself'.
Quoting Mww
Well, (some of) the 'ancients' believed that the world was actually mind-independent, except in the case of the Mind of God. In a sense, then, they would agree that the woruld is a 'general conception', only in the sense that it is the creation of the Divine Mind and it is an intelligible structure that reflect that.
However, they would disagree with Kant's skepticism about 'how the world is in itself'.
Quoting Mww
I am not sure if we agree. In fact, I still do not have a 'stable' view on all of this. I am tentatively leaning on something like 'some of the ancients' view' in the past paragraph.
But yes, I believe that we got some misunderestandings because we used (and use) the words differently and from your response it seems to me that we have a similar understanding of what Kant thought, which would be very good for if it is true :smile:
To be fair, probably I am using the words in an imprecise way (after all I do not read anything written by Kant from ages...)
I think this is more or less an acceptable interpretation.
Quoting boundless
Hmm, I think it is compatible with realism and anti-realism, because I am just appealing to our models, claiming that our best models of reality don't point to the mental as fundamental among the things they talk about.
Quoting boundless
My line on this has always been that I think that there will always be things a brain or mind cannot explain, and so arguments like the knowledge argument or inverted qualia or whatever don't need to be construed as having any ontological import. From my perspective, saying that the mental is fundamental is about as informative as saying that structure is fundamental - I don't think these views are distinguishable, and I would rather lean to the latter rather than the former, if just to have a story to tell about things in reality. But it doesn't really say much.
I don't think saying that the mental is fundamental really solves the hard problem either. All resulting metaphysical views have an issue with the problem that our direct experiences seem to look completely irreducible to descriptions that science says are more fundamental because they seem to occupy a higher scale of reality. Panpsychism doesn't solve that, it just reframes the problem in a different way - the combination problem - which requires also something like a strong emergence of macroscopic experiential phenomena, which imo kind of has the same properties as substance dualism. The problem is for me that there is no scientific evidence of something like this strong emergence, which would result in epiphenomenalism also. So I don't think the problems you have with certain views are not necessarily resolved by panpsychism.
Well it is not.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, its just what the body of scientific knowledge looks like, and thereis no evidence to the contrary.
Quoting Wayfarer
Its about not including things in my account of things that don't have any difference. Its fine to say that we view the world from specific perspectives based on our brain machinery and how it interacts with the world, in the sense that there is information about stuff in the world, information for making predictions, that the brain does not have access to or is not able to utilize. In principle someone could have a different brain that can utilize this information, or use technology to gain access to things we ordinarily wouldn't.
But to say that there is a world out there, it is not the same as we perceive, yet there is no way to unveil what we cannot perceive, is meaningless, especially when we perceive the world through physical interactions. Its like saying there is something out there that the mind-independent world is like which has no physical consequences and no mental consequences either since we are talking about the noumena. I don't see a reason to entertain this anymore, its not saying anything. On the otherhand, if something like what a clock measures can find broad agreement, where discrepancies seem to be about our limited access to the physical world rather than the mental, there is no reason to think this is still obscuring some kind of further aspect of time in the mind-independent world which has no way of affecting anything we do anyway.
Quoting Wayfarer
I like LSD and The Doors as much as the next guy, they just don't tell me much about the way the world that I see with my eyes is.
Agreed. So what mediates between the external reality in perception, to empirical knowledge in experience, if not the intelligence directly affected by that reality. Again, that intrinsic dualism pervades the method.
Quoting boundless
Ok, as long as pre-ordained just means the world is what it is, regardless of how it got to be what it is. But the world isnt already modeled, insofar as the mode of our cognitive system is representational, which just is to construct a model, mentally, in conjunction with the effect an object has on the senses, physiologically.
Quoting boundless
Im not a fan of these -isms. Guy doesnt like things the way they are, he just creates another -ism to cover what he thought was missing in the one before it. I take the two words, direct and real, and the only situation where those two go together without contradicting each other, is the relation between things in the world, and our perception of them. We perceive real things directly. What more needs to be said?
Quoting boundless
There are three: establish the validity of synthetic a priori cognitions, which in turn establishes a non-self-contradictory method for acquiring empirical knowledge, contra Hume, which in turn defines the limits of pure reason contra Berkeleys brand of dogmatic, re: purely subjective, idealism.
Quoting boundless
.and I am probably being overly precise.
:100:
(All your posts in this thread.)
Someone doesn't have to be a positivist to disagree with your ideas.
Which meets the description of positivism. (Ive also posted a separate OP on the subject.)
Good!
Quoting Apustimelogist
Ok. Anti-realism about models perhaps, but it seems to me that you are pretty certain that there is an external, independent reality.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Interesting that you too see the similarity here.
Quoting Apustimelogist
I agree that panpsychism by itself doesn't solve the hard problem for the reasons you allude here. It certainly mitigates it, however. If some kind of 'rudimental' mentality is there in the more fundamental level of physical reality, we IMO have a more consciouness-friendly world than the usual 'physicalist' position. One might think that 'consciousness' exists as a 'latent potential' in panpsychist position (which is fully actualized in conscious beings).
And, in fact, I believe that some form of panpsychism are probably the most credible option for a 'naturalist' account of mind which, in turn, however renders the usage of the terminology 'physicalism' dubious, however.
Anyway, since I lean more towards the 'idealist' side of things, I do not endorse panpsychism.
To summarize the position one IMO can also say: there is an external reality but how it appears to us is shaped by the intellectual and sensible faculties of the mind. And it's impossible to 'disentangle' the contribution of the mind to the way the world appears.
Quoting Mww
I wonder how however this is consistent with the larger framework of the transcendental idealist philosophy. I think that causality is also a conceptual category for Kant in which we 'ordain' experience. The world in itself is not the 'cause' of the empirical world.
Quoting Mww
But the way we perceive them is probably not the way they are. Naive realism asserts that we perceive things as they are. Direct realist asserts that our perceptions give us direct access to the external world in itself and we can know how the world is independent on the mental representations.
So probably Kant would agree that we somehow perceive 'real things directly' but we can't know whether they really are as they appear to us.
Quoting Mww
Ok, I see.
Quoting Mww
Well, the advantage of being overly precise is clarity.
Well, as it happens often in philosophy terminology can be confusing.
If by 'realism' one means that our models do have necessarily correspondence with reality if they 'work', I guess that yes your view might be classed as 'anti-realist'.
But 'realism' and 'antirealism' have also an ontological meaning. In the most general sense, 'realism' in this context means that there is an independent reality that is in principle knowable. 'Anti-realism' is the denial of this (and I saw it used as a flat denial of any kind of independent reality).
Well I think any non-positivists, physicalists, naturalism-ists can say that too.
I just wanted more clarity on the meaning of space and time as about in the head, not outside it. Clearly, what we perceive is embedded in what is going on in our heads. Clearly we cannot perceive / experience everything, every event in the physical reality outside our heads that makes a difference that has an effect on other things in reality. But nonetheless, I think what we do experience, or at least a significant amount of it has a broadly consistent mapping to specific things that actually go on. To me, that is enough to say that we see real stuff in a weak sense. I think there is no observable intrinsic fact-of-the-matter about representation, only a dynamic statistical coupling between brains and the world which a scientist or philosopher can cash out as representation. The coupling is enough. If I think of veridicality weakly in terms of a kind of coupling or mapping then there is not really a sense that I could exhaustively couple a system to the rest of reality and have it miss anything about reality. When stuff is missed, it because there are couplings missing that give us novel information. Space and time can also be seen in terms of these kinds of couplings, at least the concepts we have made reasonably precise by measurement (i.e. objective time). My subjective sense of space and especially time may be more fallible or is different for various reasons (e.g. speculatively: because time and space are inferred through informational properties of the brain which can be easily perturbed, e.g. if I close my eyes, I lose some of the information required to specify physical space (at least at some allowable resolution) and become more reliant on say body information than I normally would; if subjective time could plausibly related to information flow (e.g. something like entropic time by ariel caticha, possibly), then information processing in my head may distort my sense of time).
So maybe there are discrepancies between objective time "inside" and "outside" as it were but only in some sense that informative couplings have been missed to some part of reality. Good example is obviously relativity phenomena like time-dilation. Maybe the way brains work or learn over time mean that mappings or couplings can be established or parcelled out in different ways; but nonetheless these are just different mappings to events that actually occur, and they are overlapping or inter-relatable so that even though I may be measuring in inches or centimeters, because they are being mapped to the same stuff in reality, there is no sense that these different perspectives are telling me anything new or different about space. And there is nothing else to know about space beyond my sensory boundaries unless that thing to know about space makes some physical difference (because space is physical) to observations and theories and experiential perceptions.
Yes, I can make sense of the fact that there is stuff about reality that I and no one else can see right now, but that doesn't mean it isn't in principle mappable or coupl-able. Seems what you are saying is that there is some sense in which any kind of coupling misses something about the physical reality of time. But to me, that doesn't make too much sense because it seems to be saying that there are events out there that don't affect anything. In quantum theory, maybe there is an interesting exception in the sense that couplings disturb reality, but from my perspective of quantum theory, this isn't intrinsic to how reality (fundamentally speaking) works but just reflects a kind of very persistent kind of physically confounding effect not in principle different to the kinds of measurement confounds in any other kind of science; for instance, observer or hawthorne effects or demand characteristics in psychology (one might note, for example, that methods like weak measurement and other ways of getting weak values can be seen as approximating information about the undisturbed quantum state, so in some ways this is an example of avoiding measurement disturbance comparable to if one had some kind of technique for avoiding demand charcteristics [like observing someone who doesn't know they are being watched]).
Well, I have come to the conclusion that if we cannot say more about reality than models that in some sense couple to it, there is nothing more to say about the metaphysics than those models themselves, which happen to be the scientific ones. I don't think science is in principle different from the rest of knowledge, so I wouldn't inherently rule out other areas; you can talk about history, anthropology, the study of religions, the analysis of sports as valid areas of knowledge, but its clear they are further away from the topic of metaphysics than physics is - and historical events, human behaviors sit on top of physics.
Well, this seems a given unless you have a more nuanced definition of what you mean by external, independent reality (or the converse).
Quoting boundless
I definitely see this point; but I think doing this unnecessarily specifies the metaphysics without adding anything in return since I don't think the notion of experiential or mental has much in the way of interesting properties to articulate other than the fact that it has structure. Why would I bring along additional connotations that come with "mental" or "qualia". I am trying to say that I cannot say anything further about the fundamental metaphysics; saying it was mental would get in the way of this and arguably would commit me even more to the prospect of strong emergentism which I don't find evidence for.
Quoting boundless
This would make me commit more than I wish and it seems to suggest some kind of ontology that I would like to see scientifically backed-up, which I don't think is the case.
Quoting boundless
How does your panspychism and idealism differ?
I would say I allow realism but in a thinner, looser, more deflationary sense of a consistent mapping or coupling to the outside world without requiring much more than that. When those mappings become systematically erroneous, we might, it then becomes possible to conceptualize them as not real. But I do not think there are systematic, tractable, context-independent nor infallible ways of deciding what is real or not real. And I think people all the time have "knowledge" which is some sense false or not real but persists in how they interact with the world due to ambiguity.
Doesnt matter what they are; our intelligence tells us how they will be for us.
Quoting boundless
I dont favor that position.
Quoting boundless
I agree that our perception gives us direct access to the external world but not in itself, and I reject the rest.
(On second thought .our perception is how the external world has direct access to us. The first makes it seem like we go out to it, when in fact it comes in to us.)
Quoting boundless
Agreed, but without the probably. From the beginning, thats his general introduction to the part on sensibility. Also, appear in his use is mere presence, as in given, and not looks like. So to say they may not really be as they appear, doesnt make any sense. And if you already were aware of that distinction, there remains the further condition that perception has no cognitive power, so to say that which appears may not be as it appears, indicating it may not really be this or that thing, or some thing with this or that set of properties, makes no sense.
In effect, and to make a long story short .we tell things what they are. All they gotta do, is show up.
When @Wayfarer is presented with arguments that refute his ideas and which he has no answers to he resorts to labelling them as "positivist" in an attempt to discredit and dismiss them. If you disagree with his ideas he can only assume that you do not understand them. He is not an intellectually honest interlocutor, I'm sorry to say.
I will say that your posts reflect a positivist attitude when they do. I could, if I was bothered, find any number of examples of that in our discussions in years past - science as the arbiter of what is real, the subjectivity of religious or spiritual maxims, which might have poetic or affective value, but convey no truth. And so on. I'm not the least 'intellectually dishonest', I go to great lengths to explain and defend my views.
Thanks for that, I only just noticed it now, for some reason it wasn't picked up in Mentions.
I think your analysis illustrates the problem Bergson was concerned about. When you say that space and time can be understood as informative couplings or as co-ordinate systems tracking changes, youre describing what clocks and instruments dothey measure intervals between states. Thats fine for physics. But the philosophical point is that this doesnt capture what time is, as in some fundamental way, it is lived. That is the sense in which it is still observer dependent.
Let me again paste in the passage from the Bergson-Einstein debate which I think is the relevant point:
Bergsons insight was that clocks dont measure time; we do. What we call objective time (e.g., seconds, hours, spacetime intervals) depends on our ability to synthesize change into a unified experience. The sequence of tick-tock-tick has no meaning unless it is held together in memory and felt as a flow; there is no time for the clock itself. Otherwise, its just isolated instants. That sense of flowduration, which is fundamental to time cannot be reduced to or captured by measurements alone. As Bergson put it, measurement presupposes duration, but duration eludes measurement.
The point isnt that subjective time is a distortion of the real thing, but that subjective time is the ground of our sense of temporality itself. What you're calling couplings only make sense against the backdrop of a temporally structured awareness. Without someone to whom change occurs as change, your "objective time" is just an uninterpreted sequence of events with no temporal character.
Which, in turn, goes back to the idealist (or constructivist) argument: the subject cannot be subtracted from the equation without also subtracting the very conditions under which space, time, and objects can be said to exist. We can behave as if there is no subjective awareness of time for practical purposes, but this conceals a philosophical sleight of handthe erasure of the subject whose presence is in fact a precondition for the very intelligibility of space, time, and objectivity.
Where this calls realism into question is not by saying the sensed world is illusory or imaginary, but by showing that the subjective pole of experience can't be eliminated, even though it can be forgotten. And that is very much what Evan Thompson, author of the Bergson-Einstein essay, is concerned with, as he says this 'forgetting' of the subjective ground of science constitutes its 'blind spot'.
Anything which raises some difficulties for your standpoint or asks you to present arguments which show that religious or metaphysical, or even aesthetic, ideas can be validated by observation or testing or logic, and you immediately jump to the invocation of the bogeyman "positivism" even though the view you are attempting to dismiss is not unique to positivism at all.
In fact it is usually not so much a view as a request for you to back up your claim that there can be substantive evidence for metaphysical or religious views. It is a request for a descriptive explanation for the kind of evidence you presumably have in mind but apparently cannot articulate.
Positivists say that metaphysical ideas have no value, and I don't, and have never said that. But you apparently have no ear or eye for nuance.
I don't think there is anything more to capture. My view is that mappings or couplings between us and reality are sufficient to pick out "stuff" or ontologies. Time is just a relation we can pick out. And sure, we have subjective sense of time, we may have different time systems, but people have worked together to corroberate these things between them so that we have a time that is "objective", certainly a bit more than intersubjective. And when we look at how relativity changes things, it is not a matter of subjectivity - reference frames are "objective".
From my perspective, "intrinsic properties" of stuff devoid of structure not only are inarticulable but don't really make sense. If something is to be a thing, it out to be a "difference that makes a difference". If it cannot make a difference to other things, and so in principle cannot even be perceived by myself, then its difficult to see in what sense that fits into reality or should be considered as part of reality. To say that there is a fundamental way time is that cannot be captured by any perception then doesn't make sense to me.
Bayesian inference says we should update our models only as much as we need to given the evidence, but if there is no evidence because we are talking about something that cannot make a difference, then why should I change anything about my view?
I can conceptualize the idea that there are things I cannot see right now, but I don't see why there should be a change in properties of objects when I am not looking at them compared to the information I gain were I to measure them in some way, whether through my own perceptions or some experimental device. And one would have to assume there is a change, because it seems to me that you are saying that there is no possible way to perceive the way time or anything else is, so there is no way one could even exhaust the ways of looking at something and find out what it is like fundamentally.
Quoting Wayfarer
Okay, clocks don't measure objective time, they measure schm-ime. I can then do a separate study on actual (subjective) time and the cognition of our perception of it, possible cognitive mechanisms that are undergirded by neural mechanisms which can be related to schm-ime since they are physical. I can integrate time and schm-ime into the same view of the world, neither have to be wrong.
Quoting Wayfarer
Bit schm-ime doesn't have a temporal character because its not time.I don't need time to have a model of the physical world with schm-ime in it. Obviously my model of the physical world is something used and done by person with experiences and who experiences time, and tjeyir direct experiences of the world involve their subjective time. But their subjective time is not the contents of the model of physical time which can be used to make predictions, just as their subjective time has nothing to do with sabermetrics, even though they may be experiencing time when watching a baseball game or doing sabermetric calculations.
The fact that I have a subjective awareneaa doean't necessarily refute what my models do and the fact that they can make predictions which bear fruit. I trivially need experiences to experience that fruit that is beared, but if humans can construct models and ways to examine those models and their empirical consequences in ways that are not changed by subjective experiences (in virtue of experiential subjectivity), then in what sense do they depend on the subjective. I see things through subjective experience, but there are things I see that can be mapped to events that occur can regardless of whether I am there to see them. If there is a fundamental way those things are that cannot ever be known to me in principle then that doesn't make much sense to me.
Quoting Apustimelogist
You say you trivially need experiences to experience the fruit that is beared, but thats actually the core issue. Its not just that we need experience to observe outcomesexperience is the condition for building, interpreting, and validating any model at all.
Scientific models may not change based on individual subjectivity, but their entire frameworkmeasurement, comparison, meaningdepends on the shared structures of cognition. Thats not a scientific claim; its a philosophical one. You cant eliminate the subject without also eliminating the possibility of modeling anything in the first place.
But, if we agree that you do support the idea of a mind-independent reality, then perhaps we can leave it at that.
No, I offered that if we can produce concepts that don't seem to subjectively vary (e.g. the ticking of a clock), then is that not mind-independent?
Dependence means that things co-vary. So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind (withstanding you representing or seeing it). If something does not co-vary with that, then surely it is mind-independent; for instance, the location of Paris. You can see something with your mind, but if it doesn't co-vary with arbitrary states of your mind, then I don't see that as a good definition of mind-dependence. Sure, different animals have different perceptual capabilities, but arguably they are picking up slightly different facets of information in reality; maybe, there could be a case for mind-dependence in some way for some of these things (is a di-chromacy vs trichromacy mind-dependence, or is it more analogous to how some animals have better visual resolution than others and so can pick out more details or fine-grained structure that others cannot?). But I don't think the location of Paris and various other things we can corroborate together satisfy that.
Quoting Wayfarer
To me, this is like saying a photo on a piece of paper doesn't capture information about reality because it is on paper. But surely, regardless of the medium, if the image is faithfully captures or maps to parts of reality, then it doesn't matter.
It depends on mind in a different way to that. A thought-experiment I have posed is: imagine that mountains were consciously aware. A mountain has a life-span of hundreds of millions of years. To a mountain, human beings would be imperceptible, because their life spans are so minute as to be incomprehensible. You wouldn't be aware of a Mallory or a Hillary. Glaciers, you might recognise, as they'd be around long enough to register and carve canyons in your flanks. At the other end of the scale, imagine an intelligent microbe. Its entire lifespan of one human hour might be spent inside the internal organs of a larger creature. Again, it would have no conception of the scale or time-span that constitute that creature's life (like the flea who says 'I don't think I believe there's a dog' :razz: )
As for the photograph, it represents something to you because you know what a likeness is, you know what it means, and what it has captured, and that it is representative. But physically, it is not the reality it represents, it is plastics and polymers. The ability to reproduce the image depends on the technology of inkjet printers but the interpretation is dependent on your mind.
I get how difficult this is. I think this passage from Bryan Magee captures the difficulty many of us have in grasping whats at stake in transcendental idealism. It helps explain why the view seems so implausible at firstbut also why it deserves patient attention:
[Quote=Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy, p106]This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not. Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices.[/quote]
In what way? I am nit sure what the thought experiment conveys.
Quoting Wayfarer
But this is trivial, no one expects that information about something has to be the same as that thing. That doesn't really make sense, it undermines the whole notion of knowledge, belief, epistemics, etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
This should be the point: the image can be reproduced on different mediums. Regardless of these mediums you cna probably get a machine or AI to read the same information off of it because the image is the same on different media. The image needs to be put on a media, but the media doesn't change the image, or it is not necesdarily the case that it does, it seems to me.
You said, 'So if something is mind-dependent, it co-varies with the state of your subjective state of mind.' The 'mountain' thought experiment shows how one's sense of reality is dependent on the kind of mind. Hence, mind-dependent.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Right - one of the points that I often make, which is the symbolic or representational or semantic level is separable from the physical.
I would argue that these reflrct how a system might be sensitive to different information, like how some animals see at greater resolution and detail than others.
Sensory information doesn't really come into it. Clearly we have different cognitive systems to other animals, but the question of the nature of time is not amenable to sensory perception.
Anyway - I can see we're going around in circles at this point, so I will leave it at that. Thanks for your comments.
Also that I have all the understanding etc that I need to do my thinking already in the world I am experiencing already. So all this philosophising about the logic of considering idealism is just a thought experiment, a tongue twister, nothing more.
So I dont think this is an exercise in getting someone to understand the others point of view, necessarily. They may well understand it well enough already, but rather an exercise in explaining away the gap which needs bridging between the two opposing views. To build so many bridges that the gap is imperceptible any more, or that the gap is nothing more than a wrinkle in a whole and that there isnt really a gap.
I like thought experiments and your mountain experiment works well for me. Another way of seeing it is from the standpoint of life as a whole, rather than the mountain, as one unit, all life as one being.
So all life is one entity, or being and in the world we find ourselves in, this being is budded, or cloned into millions of parts, or sub-beings. Which we see as all the living organisms on the planet. Each sub-being experiences the world differently depending on which part, or portion of the being they are. So an ant, experiences the world differently to a bat for example.
Now this being might be the origin of both those sub-beings and all that they experience, indeed the world might be a facet of that being which is experienced as a physical world of experiences through a process of becoming. A process of becoming a mind, which then experiences the world that it is budded into.
The world these sub-beings experience isnt an externally existing world of physical objects, external to the greater being, but a product, or projection of that being, experienced differently by the different classes of sub-being. Mind and the world mind experiences, may be two sides of the one coin of being a being and all part of the one being. Time and extension(space and material), are produced from and by the being.
This thought experiment opens a bridge to understand how the physical world may be a projection of mind, and not external, while appearing to be.
.If, then, we learn nothing more by this critical examination than what we should have practised in the merely empirical use of the understanding, without any such subtle inquiry, the presumption is that the advantage we reap from it is not worth the labour bestowed upon it .
(A237/B296)
How do we know how much we don't know?
Isn't it possible to doubt what we do know even though what we do know is true? Isn't it possible to over-think things? Reality could just as easily be simpler than we think. It is our ignorance and the need to flaunt one's imaginative use of language that allows us to imagine the world as more complex than it could actually be.
When we reach some conclusion we often realize how simple it is. It is only in our ignorance that it seems complex.
I don't really see any merit in what you're saying. At the end of the day, we have clocks. At the end of the day, things happen when you no one is looking that seem to behave according to scientific theories which have clocks. At the end of the day, clocks help people co-ordinate actual behavior and activities all over the world. At the end of the day, subjects like history, paleontology many others only make sense when clocks work like they should. At the end of the day, people can have different units of time or find different scales time relevant for different activities but clocks still work and they don't appear to be subjective. Clocks are even relevant to subjective time since subjective time is due to brains whose neurons behave in ways which rely on the timing of processes as measurable by clocks. But we don't need to over-conflate subjective time and what clocks do.
What do you mean by a mountain's measurement of time, if not sensory information?
You talk as if the mountain of your imagination has a flicker fusion threshold, but a flicker fusion threshold is a characteristic of sensory systems.
It is a 'thought experiment' intended to impart the idea that the concept of time is inextricably linked to the subjective system of the relevant beings. Of course mountains don't perceive time or anything else for that matter. (I can see why you refer to that 'flicker fusion' idea.)
Do mountains change?
Does it take time to process sensory information? Is processing sensory information a type of change?
There is change and then there is the measurement of change, which is time. The rate at which our brains process sensory information would be relative to the change occurring in other processes, so the way we perceive other change would be relative to the rate at which we process sensory information. Slowly changing processes would appears as solid, static "objects" and faster processes would appear as actual processes, and even faster processes would be blurs of motion, or possibly not perceivable at all.
Sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately, I am quite busy right now, so I don't think that I'll be able to continue the conversation for a while. I just answer to some of your points.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Well, as I understand it, ontological idealism asserts that the 'mental' is the fundamental reality. It is generally used to denote the position that only minds and mental contents are real. If the 'fundamental' is understood in a weaker sense, however it certainly tends to include some views that aren't traditionally included in 'idealism' (for instance neoplatonism, theisms and so on) because they still allow the 'material' to be real.
IMO the 'intelligibility' of reality tells us that there is a structural correspondence between the 'mental' and the 'physical' and this means at least that the 'mental' is always a 'potentiality' in the 'physical', which would strongly suggest panpsychism.
On the other hand, I do believe however that intelligibility actually tells us something more. The 'physical' has an order, a structure that can be grasped by reason because the fundamental level of reality is 'mental'. The 'hard problem' might be a hint in this direction as it seems to suggest that consciousness cannot be explained in purely 'physical' terms.
Now, of course, I don't pretend to be able to explain how the 'physical' has 'emerged' from the 'mental', but what we have said about intelligibility, meaning and so on of the physical world suggests to me that an 'idealist' is right.
IMO if one accepts that the 'mental' is fundamental, one adopts either a (broadly) 'ontological idealist' view or something like panpsychism.
Anyway, I admit that this hardly convinces, especially someone like you who says:
Quoting Apustimelogist
Note that I appreciate your perspective. It is right to be skeptical in the sense that it is right to be open to revise one's thoughts. But I think that there are two things to consider here. First, maybe science isn't the only valid way of knowing 'reality'. Second, even if these speculations cannot give us knowledge, they might still be 'reasonable' and some may be better than others. Of course, if one doesn't accepts these two possibilities, then one has no motive to pursue anything else except science in the quest of knowledge.
Ok. To me this confirms that you endorse a skeptical form of 'realism', i.e. you accept the existence of an independent reality but you are agnostic about its 'nature' and that you are skeptic about the possibility of knowing it except the patterns we can know via scientific investigation (which include the patterns we can know by our perceptions).
Ok, thanks! But both the formulations IMO are valid inside Kantianism and related epistemologies. In a sense, the 'representation' is the manifestation of the 'external world', 'how the external world has access to us'. In another way, however, it is also a 'representation' something that has an irreducible 'subjective pole', to mutuate an expression that uses @Wayfarer.
Quoting Mww
Ok! Again, a very good way to sum up transcendental idealism, thanks.
As I said in other posts, gradually I came to believe that the intelligibility is not something that is due to the ordaining faculties of sensibility and intellect. Rather, the very fact that we can't conceive an unintelligible external reality suggests to me that intelligibility is an essential feature even of physical reality, which implies that either there is a fundamental mental aspect of reality or that fundamental reality is mental.
I still think that transcendental idealism provides us some truths but, ultimately, I believe that it also fails to explain why reality appears/manifests the way it appears/manifests. Of course, I don't think that transcendental idealists ever claimed to explain this. But for me this means that TI is incomplete (I admit that this is not a decisive argument).
Or, as seems to be more common in my experience, "direct realism" denies a metaphysics of "representation" as well as knowledge of things "in-themselves" as a coherent "gold standard" of knowledge. They often favor the triadic semiotic relationship over a diadic notion of representation, and to the extent they embrace some form of "mental representation," these are not, primarily, "what we know," but rather "how we know."
In high scholastic terminology for instance, the idea is more "how things exist in us in the manner of an art," (i.e., our capacity for reproduction, as the form of a statue is in a sculptor before he sculpts) as opposed to being primarily objects or principles of knowledge.
Aristotle would say that sensation is "of" the interaction between the environmental medium (which interacts with the object perceived) and the sense organs, but that it carries the intelligible form of what is perceived. Sensation is always, in a sense, immediate, not in the imagination. This leads to very different conclusions.
Two scholastic adages are influential here:
A. "Everything is received in the mode of the receiver" (and this is as true for how salt interacts with water as for how we interact with an apple when seeing it)this dictum becomes totalizing and absolutized in modern "critical philosophy" in a way that direct realists tend to find problematic and indirect realists tend to find unavoidable.
B. "Act follows on being." Only natural things' interactions with other things make them epistemically accessible (or at all interesting). Hence, the gold standard of knowledge is not knowledge of things "as they are in themselves,' (which would be sterile and useless) but rather "things as they interact with everything any anything else."
So, the Neo-Scholastic view tends to be to reject the underlying assumptions that lead to "critical philosophy," but it's worth noting that these principles have also influenced (or been rediscovered by) other camps. The semiotic camp grows out of scholasticism but is, in some outgrowths, quite estranged from its original heritage. Process philosophy tends to lean heavily on B, but this seems to me to be largely a case of convergent evolution in ideas.
The "metaphysics of appearance" are probably key here to. If act always comes before potency, i.e. if some prior actuality must always activate some power (e.g. sight), then any sensible appearance (i.e. the activation of a sense power) must correspond to some prior actuality. Hence, appearances, while they might be deceiving, are never arbitrarily related to reality. All appearances reveal something of being (they are [I]really[/I] the way it appears).
Perhaps this is a bigger point than direct versus indirect. I am not sure if mediation really matters that much. Lots of pre-critical philosophy of perception and "metaphysics of knowledge" involves mediation. But it's a "direct" mediation in that it ties back to some determinant prior actuality (form). A thing's eidos is its form which is also its image, its interactions vis-á-vis everything else.
Does this mean that the content of our knowledge are images of 'things' which are nevertheless intrinsic properties of things? If that is the case, 'direct' realism would be 'a middle position' between 'naive' and 'indirect' realism. That is, we can know something of external things but we can't know all their intrinsic properties. But this also means that concepts/forms are something essential even of the 'external' or even 'physical' reality.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ok, yes. The intellect grasps the intelligible form of what is perceived. Doesn't this imply, however, that we are directly acquainted with something essential to the external things as they are (i.e. things-in-themselves)? In other words, we have a partial yet genuine knowledge of 'things as they are'.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ok. While the modern 'critical philosophy' says that the sensibility and intellect ordain the representation and 'dictate' how things appear to us, the 'scholastic' here says that the intellect recognizes the forms it can recognize. Is that right?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ok but I'm not sure how this avoids to assert that we know something of the 'things in themselves'. After all, forms seem to be intrinsic to things. But on the other hand, the knowledge is partial in the sense that we can't know everything about something external.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Ok. If, however, the 'eidos'/'forms' of physical things are the images that are 'recognizable' by the intellect, it seems that there is a 'likeness' between the 'physical' and the 'mental'. How is this explainable?
A possible explanation is that something 'mental' is the fundamental reality. If that is the case, then, the 'external reality' can be said to be both independent and dependent from 'mind'. Independent from our minds - we merely recognize 'forms'. But not independent from the 'fundamental mind' or 'fudamental mental aspect' of reality. So, as I said in my previous post, this leads to either to some form of panpsychism or of 'ontological idealism' in a broad sense.
Epistemic idealists would argue that 'forms' are something that our minds impose on the 'external world' in order to give a structure to experience. I guess that it's partially true. However, the problem of such a view is that it doesn't explain why the mind would ordain in such a way. Even if it is said that such a 'structuring' is done because it is useful, it nevertheless seems to me that it leaves the issue unresolved: why is it useful?
The epistemic idealist would retort that we can't be certain that forms 'really' exist 'out there'. But it does seem reasonable to assume that.
We all look both ways before we step out into the street.
People profess various forms of pure idealism but no one lives it.
If they did they would not survive long.
Even in the most strict forms of ontological idealism, the scenario you have to imagine is something like a shared dream, where each subject interacts with others. So, there is an 'external' world relative of each subject and the subject interacts with that external world - and this interaction can be a cause of harm.
What this kind of idealist deny is that there is something beyond minds and mental contents (thoughts, sensations and so on).
I personally don't subscribe to such a view but I think it is a disservice to say it is equivalent to solipsism (or something like that) without giving a good argument for saying that such a view actually implies solipsism.
Quoting boundless
So what form of idealism is being promoted? What does this form of idealism have to say about cosmology (14 billion year old universe, 5 billion year old solar system and all the time before advanced or organized minds existed?) Or even the process of evolution. I just can't see how the notion that everything is just minds and mental contents, survives the modern scientific view of the world we live in.?
I've written an OP on it, The Mind-Created World. Here, I'll point out that the empirical facts to which you refer, and which science discloses, are themselves inextricably related to human concepts of time, space and measurement. If you were to subtract the conceptual framework within which the 'modern scientific view of the world' is meaningful, nothing would remain.
[quote=The Mind Created World]Surely the world is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not! Science has shown that h. sapiens only evolved in the last hundred thousand years or so, and we know Planet Earth is billions of years older than that! So how can you say that the mind creates the world?
...I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What Im calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world the world as it appears to us with a kind of inherent reality that it doesnt possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth.
By creating reality, Im referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified worldpicture within which we situate and orient ourselves. And although the unified nature of our experience of this world-picture seems simple and even self-evident, neuroscience has yet to understand or explain how the disparate elements of experience , memory, expectation and judgement, all come together to form a unified whole even though this is plainly what we experience[sup]1 [/sup].
By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it. We designate it as truly existent, irrespective of and outside any knowledge of it. This gives rise to a kind of cognitive disorientation which underlies many current philosophical conundrums.[/quote]
This just sounds like Kant's noumena, phenomena dichotomy or the repetitive discussions of indirect versus direct realism.. Sure our worldview is strongly shaped by our culture, our language, our limited sense perception and the way in which our mind integrates and presents sense data to us. I just don't see how that makes a reality independent of human minds any less "real" or "existent". It is our limitation not a limitation on reality independent of our minds and thoughts.
It seems like a tautology to see our minds create our reality but begs the question of a reality independent of our minds.
You're correct that the distinction between how reality appears to us (phenomena) and a supposed reality in itself (noumena) is central to Kant, and I acknowledge that my argument certainly draws from that lineage.
However, dismissing it as "just" those things misses the specific nuance and also the validation from cognitive science that I'm emphasizing. It's not simply a philosophical rehashing; it's showing how our modern understanding of cognition lends empirical weight to these philosophical insights. In fact, scholars like Andrew Brook, who has written extensively on Kant and cognitive science, highlight these very connections between Kant's insights and current cognitive science. I'm intending to show how our modern understanding of cognition lends weight to these philosophical insights, going beyond a mere rehashing of past debates.
As to 'not being able to see' - the very act of seeing (or not seeing) draws on the mind's structuring capacities. The thought experiment of picturing a scene from "no point of view" highlights this: our attempts to describe even an unseen reality always, implicitly or explicitly, reintroduce a perspective. It's not merely that our minds are limited in grasping an already-structured external reality. It's that the structure itself (the segmentation into "objects," the experience of "color" or "sound") arises from the interaction between the world and the mind's organizing principles. This doesn't make what we regard as 'external reality' any less than real - rather, it's to point out that its reality-as-known or reality-as-intelligible is co-constituted by mind. Self and world are co-arising, neither exists in any absolute sense.
I get your objection, it's the one that everybody has: the world is there anyway, regardless of whether we're in it or see it or not. And we rely on that for our sense of orientation to the world, we are kind of reassured by it. But this is the philosophy of 'the subject who forgets himself', to put it in Schopenhauer's terms, an insight that has been subsequently elaborated by phenomenology and existentialism. Again, I'm not saying that the world exists in your or my mind: what I'm arguing is that what we understand as the world has an inextricably subjective element, which is provided by the observer, and outside of which, nothing can be said to exist or not exist.
The problem with 'idealism' is that there are different forms of it and under that names are included views that are incompatible with each others.
If we restrict to the 'strict' ontological idealism that I talked about before - that is everything is either 'minds' or 'mental contents' - then, of course, you have to posit something additional to what we observe 'in this world'. Berkeley, for instance, would probably respond that God's creative and sustaining activities are what guarantee the validity of scientific theories, at least from a phenomenological and practical level.
Other ontological idealists that are not so strict and affirm the existence of the material/physical world nevertheless accept the idea that the 'mental' is more independent from the 'material'. So, of course, something mental must have existed before the coming into being of life and mind as we know it.
But, anway, even if something like Democritus' atomism - i.e. reductionist materialisms - were true then scientific theories like evolution would be only provisionally true. After all, if at the ultimate level there are only the fundamental consitituents of matter and everything else - like cells, DNA, mountains, animals, humans etc - are reducible to those consituents, it seems evident to me that a theory like evolution would not be ultimately true, but only pragmatically/transactionally true. Why? Because under such reductionist models, there are, ultimately, no DNA, cells, humans, animals etc. So you can't take the theory of biological evolution as a literal picture of 'reality as it is'. You can still speak about its practical usefulness, its ability to make predictions and so on but you have to renounce to treat it as a correct depiction of 'what really happens'.
So, I guess that, ironically, the most strict forms of materialism - i.e. reductionist materialisms - actually have to treat these things in a similar way as they are treated by strict ontological idealism.
How can a metaphysical project, the theme of which is the set of necessary conditions for a theoretical method of empirical human knowledge, have contained in it as central to that theme, that which is systemically impossible to know anything about?
Given such thematic major premise, it follows as a matter of course that .
..phenomena/noumena is a false dichotomy;
..by definition, the mind cannot create reality;
..a supposed reality in itself is a methodological, systemic, contradiction.
But then, times have changed, pick the predicates of one or of another, but to co-mingle them destroys both.
I always have had trouble with philosophical skepticism (especially solipsism) and any form of absolute idealism, even to the point of refusing to seriously entertain the premise or spend considerable time or effort to follow the argument.
I would agree the division of the world into individual objects with inherent properties is a product of mind not of nature. There are no independent objects (everything arises from and is dependent upon) the larger world and environment and properties are really just relationships between events. In that sense the world as we imagine it to be and the way we talk about it are just products or our minds and sense perceptions. The post modernist critique of all our notions about truth and history being products or our language and culture have some validity.
I would also agree that our thoughts, feelings and perceptions are just as much a part of reality and nature as the atoms and fundamental physical forces that we create language and concepts to talk about. The warmth of the sunset and the red sky are as real as the infrared and wavelengths of light we use to talk about them. They are all part of nature, you can not pick and choose.
In the end it seems clear that there is a world, reality, universe which carries on with or without us and which is really quite oblivious to our conceptions and which will obliterate us (and thus our minds, perceptions and thoughts) if we get too carried away with the notion the we create reality as opposed to just living in it, temporarily and contingently :smile: .
It's not a matter of being carried away. It's an antidote to having been carried away by the belief...
[quote=Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship]...that Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Mans achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruinsall these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the souls habitation henceforth be safely built.[/quote]
The mistake is to situate, or confine, 'the soul' to that context to begin with. What if the entire spectacle were to exist in the soul, rather than vice versa?
We are accustomed nowadays to thinking of ourselves as 'the outcome' or 'the product of' material causation, the accidental byproducts of an entirely fortuitous chain of events. Historically, idealism arose as a criticism and protest against that, the observation that whilst physically h.sapiens is a mere blip in the vastness of cosmic time, nevertheless it is us who are aware of that vastness, we are the form in which it becomes aware of itself.
It should be pretty clear that I do not subscribe to Russell's view of our role in nature. Since my particular view of the divine is one of striving towards creativity, experience, novelty and complexity. That is not to say that there is not a "reality" separate from us or that we are the intended "result" of the divine which dwells within, merely that we (with all our thought, perception and experiences) are part of nature, not separate from the world in which we arise and on which we depend. To separate the world into primary and secondary qualities like Locke is to make an artificial bifurcation of nature. To think that our mathematical models are nature is to commit a fallacy of misplaced concreteness and to think that space and time are separate from process and events is the fallacy of simple location.
I don't really see idealism as the proper solution to eliminative materialism (scientific materialism) although it does get one thinking along a better trajectory.
I didn't think that you would. My point was that the view that Russell expresses in that essay, is what Kant's form of idealism was a remedy for.
I've read a little of Whitehead 'science in the modern world' and other snippets. I'm generally on board with it, but struggle with his 'actual occasions' and pan-experientialism.
Well, for Whitehead "actual occasions" (drops of experience) are the final actualities of which reality is composed. Apart from them there is vast nothingness. As for panexperientialism, panpsychism is becoming a respectable view in the philosophy of mind and consciousness and the view that Whiteheads events (which create time and space) have both a experiential and a physical aspect fits into that quite well. Whitehead is well worth more of your time,, I think. Not contrary to Buddhist philosophy just different concepts and language. The divine dwells within the processes of nature.
Incidentally, I don't regard the view I'm arguing for as necessarily skeptical, in the sense that I don't take issue with established scientific hypotheses. I'm not claiming that scientific knowledge is illusory or fallacious. The principle I'm arguing against, is the idea that mind-independence is a criterion of what can be considered real, in regards to objects of perception and cognition. The problem with it is that perception of objects is itself contingent upon our perceptual and cognitive faculties, and in that important sense, objects are not 'mind-independent', even if, in another sense, they exist independently of us.
This was the philosophical point behind the famous Bohr-Einstein debates that occupied them for decades. While there are many complexities in those debates, the fundamental point was Einstein's insistence of the mind-independence of the objects of physics, 'otherwise', he said, 'I don't know what physics is meant to be about'. Bohr, on the other hand, wasn't being a solipsist or skeptic. His point was more nuanced: the conditions under which sub-atomic phenomena appear are not separable from the means of observation and measurement. As he put it, Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world. This reflects a kind of epistemological modesty, not a sweeping skepticism.
As regards absolute idealism - we had a thread at the beginning of this year on a current German philosopher, very much in the lineage of German idealism, Sebastian Rödl, Professor of Practical Philosophy at Leipzig University and an advocate of absolute idealism, associated with G W Hegel:
According to Hegel, being is ultimately comprehensible only as an all-inclusive whole (das Absolute). Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being.
His book is Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: an Introduction to Absolute Idealism. And it was one tough read. We got through the first few sections, but discussion petered out, as his focus was so intense and specific.
"does the moon still exist when not being observed?" part of the Einstein/Bohr debate
The answer as lawyers would say "it depends" on how one defines the meaning of the words and concepts.
Is the reality that we observe and experience, Mind independent, probably not. For our experience of the word is filtered through our senses and organized into patterns by our brains. Our picture or representation of reality is good enough for our survival and our procreation which evolutionarily is all that is required. Other creatures can see wavelengths we can not and hear frequencies we can not because such capabilities enhance their survival and procreation. Their picture of the world is different from ours so one could say they experience a reality different from ours, but probably better stated they experience "reality" in a different way (avoiding a certain ambiguity of language)..
All of this is pretty basic science and physiology of perception along with neuroscience and cognition. Arguing whether our experience of the world is direct or indirect,, mind independent or mind created in some ways seems beside the point, as long as you understand cognition and perception.
What is the nature of reality apart from us or apart from our mind and experience. That seems like the question of noumena versus phenomena and arguments rage about to what degree our experienced reality corresponds to any external reality. Kant would argue we can know very little about the noumena. Modern science especially with the aid of instruments and technology would seem to argue we can know quite a lot, and our ability to manipulate and alter the world would seem to agree.
Do our mathematical formulas, and concepts like electrons, bosons, muons and fundamental forces really reveal "reality, the noumena" to us as it is? Yes and No, the only conceivable disagreement being to what extent. To think that our language, models and formulas are completely accurate representations is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness (A.N.W.) To deny that there is any reality apart from our experience or perception of it seems well silly, foolish and dangerous and no one actually lives as though it were true.
QM would seem to argue that there are no particles with specific properties (position, momentum, etc.) there are only fields with fuzzy distributions of energy which condense under conditions of interaction, measurement and observation. Of course the world is a continuous process of interactions and observations so reality is not so fuzzy as all that on a macro scale.
A lot of this stems from what A.N.W would call the artificial bifurcation of nature. Where we designate our ideas about external reality as the real and all of our experiences and thoughts as mere physic additions (primary and secondary qualities). We cannot and should not remove ourselves from our picture of the world. Our minds, experiences and thoughts are as much a part of nature (maybe more so) than our conceptions of electrons and electromagnetic radiation.
You are seeing the point Im making, which is good. Yes, cognitive science illustrates the sense in which the brain constructs the world by synthesising perceptual data with the categories of the understanding - that is the broadly Kantian point. I refer in the OP to an important but largely unheralded book Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter, which is, of course, a much more current work than Kant (although he does mention Kant), drawing on cognitive science and evolutionary theory. (Its unheralded because Pinter was a maths professor emeritus, who published this book in the last years of his life, and it didnt receive much attention from the academy, which is a shame, because its a very insightful piece of work (ref)
As for knowing very little about noumena two points. The noumenal and the in-itself are not the same, although the distinction is not very well drawn. Noumenal originally meant object of mind (nous), but Kant uses the term to denote something like the object as it must be thought independently of the conditions of sensibility that is, as intelligible rather than sensible. The Ding an sich means the object as it is in itself, distinct from how it appears or is presented to the senses.
My interpretation is that the in itself simply refers to the object (where this is any object including the world as a whole) unperceived and unknown. Where this can be mapped against philosophy of physics, is in relation to something like Wheelers it from bit, and Bohrs no phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is registered. So the question as to what are the objects of sub-atomic physics aside from how they show up when registered or measured, is precisely the question of what they really are in themselves as distinct from how they appear. And that, I believe, is still an open question - otherwise there wouldnt be the interminable disputes about interpretation of the theory! (From my readings, the interpretation Im most drawn to is Quantum Baynsianism, or QBism.)
It is also why Einstein asked the rhetorical question about the moon still being there. Of course it is, was the implication, but the point was, he had to ask the question! And that was because his colleagues work had called the objectivity of the so-called fundamental constituents of nature into question. Einstein was a staunch scientific realist, the main point of which is that the objects of physics are mind-independent. It was the suggestion that they are not that he couldnt accept.
As for Whiteheads bifurcation of nature - of course I agree that he is also diagnosing the same issue. Another of the books Ive read on it is Nature Loves to Hide, Shimon Malin, a philosopher of physics (also a physicist) which draws considerably on Whitehead and process philosophy, but situates it more broadly within the Neoplatonic tradition.
Quoting prothero
Having insight into that IS the point! The whole point of a critical philosophy, in fact. Overlooking or not understanding the role of the observing mind in the construction of reality is what comprises the blind spot of science (yet another book, but Ive already cited enough in this post.)
I've been reading a presentation of Whitehead's bifurcation of nature, from which:
Quoting Nature and Subjectivity in Alfred North Whitehead
This is the very point at issue. What I'm arguing in 'the mind-created world', is that this attitude, which Whitehead sees as the fundamental flaw in modern philosophy, is based on a false notion of mind independence (the exclusion of subjectivity). I'm not presenting the same argument as Whitehead's, but I'm talking about the same problem.
This topic got away from me, moving faster than I could follow. This coupled with being really busy with work and ailing mother, it got to be over a month.
Trying below to hit points that I feel require some response from the OP.
Quoting Wayfarer
Despite my efforts to the contrary and the lack of space in the title line, I don't think anybody articulated exactly what I'm trying to point out with this thread. I don't expect an answer from you since you don't claim said independent
reality.
Sure, @Apustimelogist might presume that the moon would still be there even if humans had not evolved, but the question of this topic is not about the moon, but about the unicorn. If the unicorn exists, why? If it doesn't, why? Most say it doesn't, due to lack of empirical evidence, but if empirical evidence is a mind-dependent criteria. Sans mind, there is no empirical evidence to be considered.
Hence my query about if one's definition of what is real is actually a mind-independent definition.
Quoting Apustimelogist
Per my comment just above, no, it's still mind dependent. It only indicates that the clock still relates to you even when not being immediately perceived.
Quoting Punshhh
You need to accept more if you're to claim mind independence. I agree that this positivist position that you (Wayfarer mostly) continually knock down is not a mind-independent view.
Quoting Wayfarer
It may presume physicalism to be based on false premises, but it does not demonstrate it, or if it does, the quote to which this is a reference does not demonstrate it.
Quoting Wayfarer
OK, I agree with all that, but our belief being shaped by perceptions does not alter what is, does not falsify this externality, no more than the physicalist view falsifies the idealistic one.
This part seems to be just an assertion. How are we (as 'agents', whatever that means) fundamentally different than any other object, in some way that doesn't totally deny the physicalist view? It seems a very different view must be assumed to make these assertions. Fundamentally, I don't think there is 'importance' at all. Importance to what? Us? That's subjective importance, nothing fundamental.
Naive physicalism maybe. Few would assert such direct realism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Patching it back in isn't excluding it. That it isn't a supernatural entity of its own is, yes, something excluded.
Science very much does pay attention to the role of observers when relevant, such as the role of survivorship bias, which must be recognized to avoid drawing incorrect conclusions, and this topic is very much pointing out incorrect conclusions by most due to the dismissal of survivorship bias.
Quoting Wayfarer
I also acknowledge this, but any alternative to physicalism has the same significant explanatory gaps, so what's the point of bringing it up?
Quoting WayfarerYea, pretty much, and I've agreed that both 'man', 'mind' and 'object' are words referring to concepts, so it seems rather circular to suggest that 'man' is dependent on 'man'. Nothing seems to ground this.
I think this doesn't hold water. Observation may depend on subjectivity, but not on a subject or on a consciousness, both of which are, in the end, presumed objects. Objects being ideals, they are not the source of subjectivity, but rather a product of it.
As for standpoint and perspective, those seem to be locations, which may or may not be deemed to be objects.
The below is a later post, to which I've added a few (n) references to comment on specifically.
Quoting Wayfarer
Here, Kant seems to be talking about the mental representation of time, not of time in itself. In that light, I see no conflict and I agree with the statement, especially since time is most often represented as a flow, a succession of states of things, which yes, is no more than a mental representation and is hardly foundational in a view where mental is not fundamental.
If this is an accurate representation of Bergson's position, he doesn't take a very scientific view. There is proper time (the thing in itself), coordinate time (an abstrction), and one's perception of time, which is what Kant seems to be talking about. Concerning (3), both clocks and people measure proper time, hence my non-scientific assessment. (4) correctly points out that the difference between people and clocks is one of precision, but better precision doesn't make it a different kind of time.
(2) suggests that real (proper? schm-ime?) time is discreet but perceived time is continuous. There seems to be no evidence one way or the other for the former.
I don't get the 'crucial point' about duration and measurement (chicken-egg?). Under relativity, time is geometry, not a mental construct. Duration is a distance under that geometry. Measurement is any interaction between systems. Bergson perhaps sees things in more idealistic ways, where such circular dependencies become a problem.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Quoting boundless
Amateur late responder... :)
This post was directed to me, and here I am well over a month late responding to it.
Quoting boundless
[quote=noAxioms]Most in fact, naturalism being one of them. Pretty much anything except materialism and idealism respectively.
Quoting boundless
1) My comment concerned what various 'ism's state about what is fundamental, but your reply seems to be about what is.
2) I disagree. Naturalism says that all of our phenomena have natural causes (obey natural laws of this universe) and it says nothing about what other universes exist or not. Yes, it by definition denies anything supernatural, but that's a thin claim because if they discover something not know before (dark matter say), then that suddenly gets promoted to a natural thing. If dualism was shown to be true, then these mental entities would become part of natural law.
My example of one was a spacetime diagram which has no point of view. How is that still 1st person then, or at least not 3rd?
Yes, it seems dualistic to assume that. No, neither needs to be fundamental for it to be dualism. They both could supervene on more primitive things, be they the same primitive or different ones.
Not directly. It having a requirement of being describable is different than having a requirement of being described, only the latter very much implying mind dependence.
Perhaps so. This is consistent with my supervention hierarchy that goes something like mathematics->quantum->physical->mental->ontology(reality) which implies that the physical is mind independent (mind supervenes on it, not the other way around) but reality is mind dependent since what is real is a mental designation, and an arbitrary one at that. There's no fact about it, only opinion.
[quote=boundless]Imagine 'how the world looks like' without any kind of sensations.[/quote]
Nit: A thing 'looking like' anything is by definition a sensation, so while a world might (by some definitions) exists sans an sort of sensations, it wouldn't go so far as to 'look like' anything.
Quoting Relativist
Quoting Relativist
1) boundless made no mention of life forms. An observing entity is indeed implied, but I personally don't consider 'observing entities' to be confined to life forms.
2) The universe, not being contained by time, includes all times, so there is no 'this universe before life emerged'. This universe has life in it, period. A subsection of it before a certain time is a subset of the universe, not the universe itself.
Now if you deny this and have the universe contained by time, then it isn't really a universe, just an object that at some moment was created in a larger 'universe'.
Just being picky since this conversation makes little sense to me the way it is worded.
Quoting boundlessIt is related to sentient experience in that some sentient thing is conceiving it. But that isn't a causal relation. Objects in each world cannot have any causal effect on each other, and yes, I can conceive of such a thing, doing so all the time. Wayfarer apparently attempts to deny at least the ability to do so without choosing a point of view, but I deny that such a choice is necessary. Any spacetime diagram is such a concept without choice of a point of view.
Quoting boundless
I don't consider this to be just a physicalist problem. The idealists have the same problem. It's a problem with any kind of realism, which is why lean towards a relational ontology which seems to not have this problem.
- - - -
Quoting boundless
Quoting Relativist
To emphasize what little weight I give to said basic intuitions, I rationally do not agree. Denial of existence of any kind of external reality isn't necessarily solipsism. At best, it's just refusal to accept the usual definition of 'exists', more in favor of a definition more aligned with the origin of the word, which is 'to stand out' to something (a relativist definition).
Quoting prothero
I consider myself quite the skeptic, but not in the solipsism direction. None of this 'cogito ergo sum' logic which leads to that.
No, I don't think the universe is contained by time, but I believe time is real within the universe - and therefore there was a time before life emerged. My dual-view of time is consistent with the Page & Wooters mechanism.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't understand why you deny our basic intuitions about there being an external world. Surely you intuitively accepted this during your childhood, so what led you to believe you were mistaken?
The assumption that the object is at it is, in the absence of the observer, is the whole point. That is the methodological assumption behind the whole debate. The fact that there is an ineliminable subjective aspect doesnt falsify that we can see what is, but it does call the idea of a completely objective view into question.
From John Wheeler, Law Without Law. The caption reads what we consider to be reality, symbolised by the letter R in the diagram, consists of an elaborate paper maché construction of imagination and theory fitted between a few iron posts of observation.
Quoting noAxioms
Because we make judgements, for starters. We decide, we act, we perform experiments, among other things. What object does that?
No worries about the delay! Anyway, I wanted to point out that I did in my replies use the word 'observer' in different ways and it certainly can create confusion.
Standard QM by itself is silent, I believe, on what is an 'observer'.
Of course, what is an observer is a matter of interpretations. So, in the future I'll try to qualify the word 'observer' with adjectivies when I'll make interpretation-dependent claims. Like, say, 'sentient observer' or 'conscious observer' for interpretations that need that specifications. With RQM, where every physical object can be an observer it's more difficult. Perhaps 'physical observer' - it is a bit awkward but I think in some way one must distinguish these views from standard QM which is simply silent on what an observer might be.
I'll respond to the rest in the next few days.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn (Closer to Truth) has a series of interviews on 'the physics of the observer'.
Anyway, my point is that unfortunately the meaning of the term 'observer' varies between interpretations and this causes confusion when discussing QM.
It is indeed an assumption. It being an 'object' seems to be a mental designation, so not part of the assumption of whatever it is in itself not being observation dependent.
Any such aspect wouldn't be a an inextricable aspect of the thing in itself, given said assumption above.
Cool picture from Wheeler. I could read the caption, but only by zooming in.
The picture/diagram seems to address realism, and the assumption of things being independently as they are seems not to necessarily require any realist assumptions.
The picture talks about imagination and theory, all of which seem to be mental constructs, as is said observation. I'm not arguing against that.
I can think of several that might do all that, but you probably would not choose that vocabulary to describe something not-you doing the exact same thing. The not-human thing doing say 'experiments' has no effect on things being what they are, again, given the assumption of lack of dependency above.
Quoting boundlessMaybe. At least one interpretation gives a role to a sentient observer, leading to solipsism. The rest seem to discard altogether it as a distinct interaction separate from other kinds.
Copenhagen has something called an epistemic cut. That sounds like a an observer distinct from interaction to me. That concept also leads to solipsism with such experiments as Wigner's friend.
Quoting RelativistYour choice of tense suggests that at said earlier time, 'the universe' (and not just the subset of the universe events where the time coordinate is some low value) 'was' devoid of life, that the universe changes over time. This is not consistent with a universe not contained by time.
That comment is a classical one, not taking quantum implications into account. Your Page & Wootters reference is appreciated. According to it, time is an entanglement phenomenon, something which needs bending on both sides (time being geometry in Relativity, and external under QM.
I said I give little weight to intuitions since the purpose of intuition isn't truth, but rather pragmatism. Hence I question all intuitions and don't necessarily reject all of them (most though).
As a relativist, I would say that there is a relation between myself and said external world of which I am a part. Without me, there would not be those two things to relate, so that relation is 'mind dependent'.
As for that world 'being' (my bold above), well I'll leave that to the realists, but the relation is as far as I go.
Long story. The childhood intuition didn't hold water, just like God, or the time 'flowing' and there being a 'present' all seeming very intuitive, but completely lacking in empirical evidence. So I learned to be rational rather than to rationalize.
The god thing was the first to die when it publicly forced a choice between faith and evidence. I wasn't raised in a way that said these two were in conflict.
The universe does change over time, from the perspective of any intra-universe reference frame. If anything exists outside the universe, it would "see" our universe as a static entity.
Quoting noAxioms
That doesn't answer my question. You had a belief about the external world, and now you don't. I can understand questioning it, given that it is possibly false, but most of our beliefs are possibly false and (I assume) you nevertheless continue to believe most of them.
Regarding this particular intuition: IF there is an external world, and this world produced living organisms, those living organisms would necessarily need to successfully interact with that external world. This would necessarily lead to the organisms distinguishing between what is external and what is internal. The evolutionary development of consciousness would maintain the distinction, through natural, innate intuitions. This doesn't prove there is an external world, but it provides an explanation for why we believe it to be the case. Contrast this with the alternative: there's no reason to believe there is NOT an external world - it's merely a logical possibility.
What if that is false somehow? Then we make everything up, literally. It's a fine line between knowing we are unique creatures in the natural order, but no to the point of saintliness, in which we become unhindered by nature.
Well, name one.
This AI-powered lab runs itselfand discovers new materials 10x faster
Why think that there are any unnaturally occurring objects?
The question stands - what kinds of objects think, decide, act, perform experiments? AI is not a naturally occurring object, nor does it possess agency in the sense of the autonomous intentions that characterise organisms. It operates within a framework of goals and constraints defined by humans.
Bearing all that in mind, the original question was:
Quoting noAxioms
So - AI systems embody or reflect human agency, so again, they're not objects, in the sense that the objects of the physical sciences are.
You can dodge the question of agency so easily, nor how physicalist theories struggle to account for it.
(In philosophy, an agent is an entity, typically a person, that has the capacity to act and make choices. This capacity is referred to as agency. Agency implies the ability to initiate actions, exert influence on the world, and be held responsible for the consequences of those actions.)
I was going to suggest a thermostat, which performs experiments and acts upon the result of the experiment. I always reach for simple examples. But you'll move the goalpost no doubt.
Now we drag purpose into the mix. That wasn't in the original question (quoted above),. Most guys doing experiments in the lab are also doing those experiments due to the needs of their employers, not their own purposes, so does that make them not actual acts and experiments now?
Is a bird nest not natural?
How does something being a deliberate creation (you were perhaps one) disqualify it from being something that acts and performs experiments?
Quoting Wayfarer'Think' and 'decide' have now been added to the list. Hard to wedge especially that first word into what the thermostat is doing.
I beg to differ. That very phrase is used to describe what a self-driving car does, that it can perform its task without direct human intervention.
Only for current lack of anything else defining different ones. There are devices that operate under their own goals, one notorious example being a physical robot that make multiple escape attempts, sometimes getting pretty far.
No, they don't always. OK, the game playing ones play games, but they don't play the way the humans tell them to. Driving cars are constrained by the road rules which admittedly are human rules. They'd do far better if they made up their own rules, but then the humans would likely not be able to follow them.
I can designate a robot, rock, or person each as objects. Your choice not to do so would be your choice.
Quoting RelativistI must disagree. The (3D) state of the universe changes over (1D) time, but the (4D) universe does not. Similarly, the air pressure at a mountain changes over altitude, but the mountain itself, nor the air about it, is not at one preferred altitude, in any reference frame.
As for the 'view' from outside, well, nothing is entangled with that view, so there is not state, space or time at all. If I read P&W correctly, if time is an entanglement phenomenon (something I find plausible), then so is space.
The pragmatic part of me still believes it, and it's the boss. The rational part thinks otherwise, but the boss, while it doesn't mind, is certainly not swayed. Part of growing up was to recognize the conflict between the two and keep them separate.
This is nothing new. You have all these free will proponents that suggest that their choices don't have physical causes, but those people still look before crossing the street. The boss will not let that decision be made without physical causes.
What if there are no beliefs, only acknowledgement of possibilities? I don't go that far, but I do try to identify rationalization when I see it and try to cut through fallacious reasoning.
For example, I'm not big on realism because I've never found a satisfactory answer to 1) an explanation of reality of whatever it is one considers real, and 2) an explanation for the unreality of that which is not. But lack of a satisfactory answer doesn't prove realism wrong.
So sure, there's seemingly an external world, but that only means that whatever I am relates to whatever the rest of it is, and therefore both it and I share similar ontology, but what that ontology is seems untestable.
What if we took away just the bold part? This world produces living organisms that interact with it. How would that interaction differ from the same word that is real?
It's the same as asking if all planar triangle angles add up to 180° or only the real ones do, and if only the latter, why don't the geometry classes teach that?
Quoting noAxioms
'In philosophy, an agent is an entity that has the capacity to act and exert influence on its environment. Agency, then, is the manifestation of this capacity to act, often associated with intentionality and the ability to cause effects. A standard view of agency connects it to intentional states like beliefs and desires, which are seen as causing actions.'
Physicalism has to account for how physical causes give rise, or are related to, intentional acts by agents. But then, the nature of so-called fundamental objects of particle physics - those elementaruy objects from which all else is purportedly arises - itself seems ambiguous and in some senses even 'observer dependent'.
Hence your thread! Which, incidentally, I've most enjoyed. (And belatedly, sympathies for your mother. Mine too was ill for a long while.)
Ok. But, again, what is 'natural', though? Also, we do not have a complete understanding of 'natural laws', so it is difficult to determine what might not be natural.
Also, if there was another 'universe' with different laws, would that be 'not natural'?
Quoting noAxioms
Those who interpret physical theories as 'useful models' would regard that diagram as an useful abstraction that has practical value.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, it makes sense. A provisional dualism.
Quoting noAxioms
Correct. But how can you know, from your cognitive perspective, that it's not the latter?
For instance, let's say you are on a pebble beach. It's certainly useful to us to regard different pebbles as 'different things'. But this doesn't imply that each pebble is a distinct entity. In fact, IIRC we agreed before that macroscopic inanimate objects do not seem to be 'real entities' but are more likely to be useful abstractions that help us to 'navigate' in the world. Perhaps the 'pebbles' are merely emergent features of their constituents and envinronment - so the 'pebbles' are mentally imputed and not real 'entities', and we can reasonably argue for that.
So, how do you tell the difference between something 'describable' and something that is 'of the description'?
Quoting noAxioms
But, again, can we reasonably speak of the 'physical' or even the 'quantum' without making ontic commitments? And what about the possibility that mathematics is conceptual?
The 'worldview' you are presenting here seems to me a sort of 'neo-pythagoreanism', where mathematics is fundamental and everything else is derivative. I prefer this worldview than physicalist ones. But as Steven Hawking asked What breathes fire into the equations? That is, how can mathematics 'produce' everything else?
Quoting noAxioms
Good point. Notice however that what you call 'sensation' is in fact an interpretation of the 'sense data', a model if you like. In the same way, one might say that our theories might be like perceptions (interestingly, David Bohm made this point).
If, however, 'reality' has an intelligible structure, it must 'look like' in some way...
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, both SR and GR taken literally imply a 'block universe', i.e. only the 4D spacetime is real and 'space and time' are abstractions. Interestingly, both Minkowski and Einstein himself read relativity in this way (Einstein even wrote a letter of condolences for the passing of his friend Michele Besso saying that physics has more or less proven that space and time are abstractions, IIRC).
But notice that the question is hardly settled. Einstein, despite taking relativity at 'face value', was deeply troubled by the 'problem of the now', that is how can we reconcile our immediate experience of the 'present' and the 'flow of time' with what relativity seemed to imply.
Personally, I don't think that QM supports the 'block universe' view. After all, if quantum events are not deterministic it doesn't seem the case that 'everything is fixed'.
If, however, the 'block universe' is not 'how things really are', it certainly make us wonder how to interpret relativity. There are operational interpretations of SR, which are quite similar to epistemic interpretations of QM, i.e. SR doesn't describe the 'how things really are' but it's an useful instrument for us to make predictions and applications. GR, however, is a different animal: it's difficult in GR to deny that spacetime isn't something 'physical'. So, yes, GR definitely supports the 'block view'. QM however doesn't. So what?
Quoting noAxioms
Ontological Idealists in the most general sense posit at least that 'the mental' is in some sense fundamental. So, it's really not surprising that the 'physical' has a structure that is analogous to the mental. Same goes for your view that mathematics is fundamental. It's not surprising that mathematics is incredibly successful in physics if it is the ultimate reality.
Anyway, do you think that everything about life can be described, in principle, by math?
Quoting Wayfarer
@noAxioms, try to think about this in this way. Let's say you see a street signal. It certainly contains meaningful information to you. This maningful information has a physical support. But does this mean that the 'meaning' of what is written in the signal is something that exist outside mind?
Perhaps the same goes for measurements. They are certainly meaningful. But meaning doesn't seem to be something that pertains to the inanimate but only to living beings or, perhaps, only to sentient beings.
The thermostat interacts with its environment in a way that produces something that is meaningful to us.
Do measurements reveal to us an intelligible structure of the world or, rather, are we that we mentally imputing an interpretation to the data we have, according to the cognitive structure of our mind?
The figure made by Wheeler IMO is quite useful here. What is being questioned here is not the existence of 'something' outside the mind. Rather, what is being questioned is the fact the existence of such an 'intrisically meaningful' structure of the 'mind independent world' that enables us to know it. Rather, perhaps, there is no such 'intrinscally meaningful' structure in the 'mind independent world' and we know it only through the filters of our interpretative mental faculties. Therefore, we can't claim knowledge of 'the world as it is'.
What would a thermostat-in-itself even mean?
Could there ever be a thermostat that wasn't a possible human experience?
The question never was - is a thermostat a natural object, which is easily affirmed - but whether or not the objective reality of a thermostat, re: the existence of it, reduces to a necessary conscious reflection of a particular intelligence.
Even the idea of a naturally-occurring thermostat still requires some human cognitive relation by which such thing meets the rational criteria employed in the experience of that thing to which the conceptual representation initially applies. Is Ol Faithful a thermostat?
I wonder .but not very much .what these AI chatbots would say about that.
Something like a thermostat in-itslef would be what a thermostat could be like absent human experience. This has similarities to Kant's "things-in-themselves", albeit presented in a less critical manner.
Along those lines...
What a thermostat would be like absent human experience, is unintelligible, insofar as any named thing follows from a possible human experience. That being given, the reverse proves the case, for it remains impossible, absent human experience, to cognize how that in-itself could ever be referred to as thermostat. Or, simply put .how does a thermostat-in-itself get its name?
You might be thinking the thermostat-in-itself is the one outside my kitchen window, that I dont experience from my tv room. Be that as it may, that thermostat, while a natural object, is not for that reason alone a naturally occuring object, nor is it absent my experience, but only my immediate awareness.
Agreed: less critical. Kants absent human experience means all and every human experience, ever. A totality irrespective of time.
Hey man, I'm just the mediator. Don't argue with the messenger but with the bot.
It will agree with you always.
As for how it gets its name, we give it to it, but it's meaningless.
Oh. I missed the clue. Sorry.
S'all good. :up:
[quote=ChatGPT]A thermostat reacts. It doesnt decide. It compares a set input (say, 22°C) to the ambient temperature and triggers a mechanism based on that difference. It operates entirely within a pre-defined causal structure: stimulus ? comparison ? output.
When we perform an experiment, we ask a question about the world and design a process to answer it. There's intentionality, inference, and anticipation involvednone of which apply to the thermostat. Even if you set up a robotic lab that automates experiments, the initiative, the meaning, and the goals originate from a human context. The system doesn't careit cant carewhat the results mean.
This connects to a deep point: an experiment is not just a procedure but a question posed to nature. And asking a question is a noetic act.[/quote]
. It is only the principles of reason which can give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and it is only when experiment is directed by these rational principles that it can have any real utility. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose .
(B intro)
Cool. Bot n I read the same book.
You need to assert that a thermostat is now not an object (in 'the usual sense') in order to make a point? I actually agree with all but that last bit since not of it prevents that object (and yes, it's an object, just like you are) from performing an experiment and acting on the result of that experiment.
OK, that distinguishes agent from the thermostat, which probably lacks what most would consider 'intentionality'. But physicalism doesn't deny intentionality, and intentionality is not not necessarily confined to biological objects.
Quoting Wayfarer
I can very much pitch my decisions as reactions to inputs, so it's merely a choice to apply one word or the other according to ones preferences.
I don't think it has to do this. I think rather that it must be shown that these things cannot have physical causes, which admittedly many have tried to do. Any explanation by a naturalist can be waved away as usual as correlation, not causation. That won't ever change, regardless of what non-biological entities begin to exhibit agency as defined here.
Thanks. Not ill, but structural issues. Both knees, hips, one shoulder, all replaced. What does she do after that? Falls and breaks her elbow/hand, the only one that isn't a robot. Sigh... Problem is, we (3 kids) all live almost a day's travel away.
She's hardy stock. Her mother, sisters, all lived will into their 90's.
Quoting boundless Probably. Traffic lights definitely are meaningful to a self-driving car, a straight-up example of information that has meaning outside what many consider to be a 'mind', a word that tends to be reserved for biology if not only humans. traffic lights definitely are meaningful to a self-driving car, a straight-up example of information that has meaning outside what many consider to be a 'mind', a word that tends to be reserved for biology if not only humans.
Ants leave information for each other, useless without their mental processes to detect it.
Trees communicate, also without what many consider to be a 'mind'.
Would a sufficiently independent AI device, one not doing what any humans made it to do, count as a sentient being? I've already given thin examples, but better ones will come soon as humans have dwindling roles in the development of the next generation of machines.
Quoting boundlessAre those two mutually exclusive, or just the same thing described at different levels? Does a candle burn or is it just atoms rearranging themselves?
Quoting MwwWell it wouldn't have the name 'thermostat', and it wouldn't even have 'thingness', a defined boundary where it stops and is separate from all the not-thermostat. And given certain interpretations, it has identity or not, or has a less intuitive number of dimensions say.
How is it being 'natural' or intentionally created or not in any way have any bearing on the nature of the thing in itself?
It being an objective thing is already a mind-dependent assessment. I personally doubt it, but hey, I have issues with realism, so that's just me.
Quoting boundless
Gray line. Natural is whatever is not magic. Dark matter and energy were recently upgraded from magic to 'natural'. If it can be empirically demonstrated that there is some non-physical 'mind object/substance' that somehow can produce deliberate physical effects, then I suppose it would similarly be upgraded to the list of natural things. But until then, its considered taboo to look at the man behind the curtain.
Pointing out that 'natural' is a relation. Our 'naturalism' means natural to our universe. It means the laws of the universe in question, so each one might have different natural physics, if 'physics' is even applicable, which it probably isn't to most.
But you didn't answer the question. How is that not an example of a view without a perspecitve? There's no point of view since you see the whole thing, much in contrast to @Wayfarer's subjective description of a scene without observers in it.
It's always the latter from my perspective since the item in question has been described. OK, it's been described, but that description wasn't a requirement. 2+2 is still 4 even if nobody ever happens to notice that.
Grouping them into objects like that is definitely a mental thing, but the state of the system doesn't require that mental grouping to behave as it does in itself.
By definition, I cannot give an example of only the former, since by doing so it ends up also on the latter list. That leaves discussing such things without explicit examples. I can describe a world without me in it, but the description by me still requires me.
Probably not. This 'speaking' doesn't seem to work without some kind of commitment like that. But the quantum system in itself presumably doesn't require being spoken of.
That would mean that my supervention list is totally wrong. Seems unlikely though since it can be independently gleaned by isolated groups, something contrasted by 'god' which does not have that property.
It's one model, yes. Sort of MUH, with attempts to patch the blatant flaws in such a model.
That's the cool thing about my heirarchy. No fire breathing is necessary at all. Only a realist view (which Tegmarks MUH is, BTW) has that problem.
It apparently does, as demonstrated by the lack of example of something that cannot be thus produced.
I would say that it says that space and time are the same thing, which, again, perhaps is just 'entanglements'.
Actually, only Minkowski at first, who reinterpreted SR as spacetime geometry, which the SR paper did not. This led Einstein to note that he didn't understand his own theory anymore, but this new way of looking at it (geometrically) was essential to completing the GR work.
This is all IIRC.
Eternalism was kind of new to the physics community at the time. There's no conflict. The experience is an interpretation put there by evolution. Without that, one could not be a predicting being. But the two different views actually have identical empirical experience, so the conflict is only between models, not anything that can be used to falsify one or the other.
But you don't know the QM is not deterministic. There are plenty of interpretations that are such, and even the dice-rolling ones do not falsify a block view. Don't confuse determinism with subjective predictability.
There is generalized version of LET. Took over a century to publish one, but it's a valid interpretation that is compatible with presentism. Certain GR predictions like black holes and the big bang had to be eliminated, but if you're ok with that, then we're good. There is an empirical test for black holes, but not one that can be published in a journal. Physics has a sense of humor sometimes I swear.
More like I haven't seen anything that cannot. Sure, some things are too complex, but that doesn't demonstrate that is isn't math. Hard to describe Fred the butcher using just math.
Pretty much, yep, hence .unintelligible.
Quoting noAxioms
It isnt a question of natural; its naturally-occuring. It relates to things-in-themselves only insofar as things-in-themselves are the only necessary naturally-occuring existents, which, of course, a thermostat is not. To say or even imply it is the one is unintelligible, to say or imply it is the other is a contradiction.
Quoting noAxioms
I dont agree. All thats required for being an objective thing, is the possibility of its appearance to our senses, which, the senses being purely physiological in function, is very far from mind-dependent.
Now, I grant the logic from which this is the major is mind dependent, but in such case, the objective thing is presupposed as given, and THAT is not mind-dependent. If infinite regress is not nipped in the bud, every cognitive speculation is immediately reduced to junk, the human empirical knowledge theoretically possible from it is lost, and all the toaster ovens, particle colliders and ..er, you know ..thermostats, just never were.
You have a choice, and you have preferences, which an instrument does not. Its reaction is strictly determined, whereas yours is unbounded. You could respond in an incalculable number of ways, or choose not to respond at all.
Quoting noAxioms
Doesnt it? Intentions and intentionality are, after all, very difficult to accommodate in a physical framework. Physicalism holds to the causal closure of the physical domain, which means that for every effect, there is a physical cause. Now, of course, this seems very difficult to reconcile with the apparently-obvious fact that intentions and mental acts have consequences - but a lot of effort has been made to explain away this apparent discrepancy. So its not really true that physicalism doesnt deny intentionality - what it does, is try to account for it in terms of theories of action which purport to show that intentional behaviour is ultimately reducible to brain states and is therefore physical. That seems obvious to a lot of people here but there have been many books written about it and its not at all regarded as resolved.
Notice, however, that humans built those things in a way that they would react in such a manner. A dog would probably attribute a completely different meaning to traffic lights and signs than humans do.
Furthermore, self-driving cars perhaps perhaps do not find traffic lights 'meaningful' in a sense that is remotely analogous to our own finding it 'meaningful'. A computer perhaps doesn't 'understand' the calculations that it does more than, say, a mechanical calculator does.
Do you think that mechanical calculators find the input we give them 'meaningful'?
Quoting noAxioms
I can accept these cases. I believe, in fact, that talk of 'meaning', intentionality and so on makes sense in the case of living beings (and perhaps even in something at the 'border' of life, like viruses).
Quoting noAxioms
Honestly, I don't know. AI is doing incredibly interesting things. But I would say that perhaps they are more like incredibly complex mechanical calculators than living or conscious beings.
Will be able one day to actually build 'artificial life'? I don't know.
Quoting noAxioms
My point was more like: is the intelligibility we find in the world a property of the world or a property of the world as it is presented to us? You might argue that it is both. If it is so, however, this means that we can understand features of a 'mind-independent reality', which to borrow from Bernard d'Espagnat, might be 'veiled' but partly accessible. I happen to think that the answer to that question is undecidable, an antinomy to reason. I think that the most reasonable thing to say is that the 'mind-independent reality' has an intelligible structure but it is also 'veiled' and it's not easy to 'disentangle' what comes from the interpretative faculties of our mind and what is truly 'independent' from them.
But at the same time, I am not sure if one can make irrefutable claim in one way or another.
Quoting noAxioms
Again, we call it a 'thermostat' because we observe it doing things that conform to a certain function we have built it to do. Does this mean that a 'thermostat' is a specific kind of 'entity'? Well, I would question that.
Just like we call a chair a certain arrangment of matter that can be used in a certain way but a chair isn't an entity in itself, we call a thermostat something that can be used in a certain way. Do the qualities of 'being a chair' and 'being a thermostat' exist independently of our minds'? I don't think so.
Independently form us, there are no 'chairs', no 'thermostats' and so on.
Quoting noAxioms
Interestingly, despite having a reputation of being a skeptic for his questioning of causality, Hume was very convinced that of the existence of laws of nature. In fact, IIRC he denied the possibility of 'miracles' by implying that no violation of these laws was possible.
Similarly, Spinoza argued that 'miracles' were natural phenomena that, due to our ignorance we misunderstood as 'super-natural' or 'magic'.
This, however, makes the very critique questionable. For one thing it shows that naturalism is no more falsifiable than other metaphyisical theories. But even worse, the risk is that we equivocate the meaning of 'natural' in a way that it becomes empty.
It would much more helpful if, say, naturalism would simply forbid certain events.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. But notice my point above.
Quoting noAxioms
I retaliate that it depends on the interpretation you give of it. I'm not trying to be dense but if you interpret the 4d spacetime diagram as an useful tool, it doesn't matter that the model makes no reference to a perspective. In this lecture (starting around minute 5), Carlo Rovelli makes a distinction of 'cosmology' and what he calls 'totology', which would be a scientific study of literally 'everything without exception'. Remember that Rovelli is a relationalist, and according to his interpretation of quantum mechanics (which you also seem to like), the state of a given physical system is defined in relation to another physical system. So, it is difficult to justify a description of the 'whole universe' in a relational view. So, even from a RQM perspective, it is perhaps impossible to make truly perspective-independent descriptions. Of course, what counts a perspective is different here from an epistemic interpretation. But the point is similar.
Quoting noAxioms
I would agree for mathematics. But I am not sure that in physics you can make descriptions without a reference for a similar reasoning that Rovelli made.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. But, again, where is the cut-off where we can safely disentangle what is 'mental' and what is 'independent from our interpretative faculties'?
You seem to agree that carving the beach into distinct 'pebbles' is a mental imputation. So the description of the beach as a collection of pebbles is a mental imputation. But at what point we can safely say that a description is not the result of a mental imputation and is a faithful description of 'what really is'.
Quoting noAxioms
Honestly, I have a hard time to accept that mathematics isn't conceptual. Also I do believe that mathematics is independent from our particular minds. In order to reconcile these things, I accept a broadly ontological idealist view: mathematics is conceptual but our particular minds do not make up the totality of the 'mental'.
On the other hand, you seem to say that mathematics is the foundation of reality. But what is the relation of, say, your concept of 'three' and the number 'three'?
Quoting noAxioms
How so? If mathematics is before the everything else in your view, you still have to explain how 'everything else' is derived from it. It's not obvious to me that a relational world - which you seem to accept - can be easily derived from pure math.
Quoting noAxioms
You might say that math can describe everything or that everything exhibits regularities that can be understood mathematically (though I am not convinced by this, let's assume that it's true). You still have to explain how the 'production' is made.
(I am not saying you are necessarily wrong in your view but this is a problem IMO that your model should address...)
Quoting noAxioms
Well, for instance in SR, inside the spacetime interval formula the time component has an opposite sign form the spatial. Also, you can travel in all directions of space but not backwards in time. So, I don't think that relativity makes space and time equal. It's either (i) space and time are aspects of the whole spacetime or (ii) space and time are useful abstraction in which we carve spacetime. I think that the more economical interpretation is (ii), as space and time are there once you specify a reference frame.
Quoting noAxioms
Right. Initially, Einstein apparently had an operationalist understanding of SR. But with GR he understandably had a realist understanding of spacetime. I recall that there was a dialogue in which Heisenberg pointed out to Einstein that he also reasoned in an operational way at the time he introduced SR and Einstein replied that if he truly did he was saying nonsense. Notice that Einstein was strongly influenced by Kant, Schopenhauer, Hume and Mach in his early years. It's no surprise to me that he reasoned in a operationalist way early on. But yes the more sensible interpretation of GR is actually a realist one (but, of course, we know that GR is not the whole story, so the point is moot).
Interestingly, Einstein also relied on the idealist Schopenhauer in his rejection of quantum nonlocality despite being a realist. He took from Schopenhauer that spatio-temporal separation is the basis of ontological seperation. That's why he could not accept any kind of nonlocality. He believed that if one renounces to the idea that spatio-temporal separation is the basis of ontological separation then, the way we carve the universe in distinct 'things' becomes arbitrary.
Quoting noAxioms
I disagree here. If eternalism is true, it becomes quite clear that despite that the 'now' and 'the flow of time' are essential aspect of our experience they are in fact purely illusory. Honestly, I am not ready to abandon what is seems a phenomenological given as an illusion. I need more evidence. But I admit that GR makes a strong case that they are mere illusions.
Quoting noAxioms
Right! But without determinism, I can't see how a block universe is untenable. Eternalism entails determinism (notice that the reverse is not true, however).
As you point out there are many deterministic interpretations of QM. So QM doesn't refute the block universe per se.
And I also believe that in GR one can even explain quantum nonlocality without much problems, given the fact that spacetime is not flat.
Quoting noAxioms
Are you referring to Ilja Schmelzer's theory? I read some discussions about ten years ago in physicsforums. If it is that version of LET, I didn't know that it is now accepted as valid.
Anyway, interesting. Thanks. Do you have any reference for this?
Notice that even if presentism were right, and, indeed, there is a real 'now' and an objective 'flow of time' it might still be the case that our 'now' and 'flow of time' is illusory. After all, our reference frame isn't the same as the preferred frame of such a theory.
So, I would admit that physics strongly puts into question the validity immediate experience. It's one of the most fascinating and disorienting mysteries for me.
Quoting noAxioms
I believe that life can't be understood in purely mathematical terms, but I acknowledge that there I can't give a compelling prove that it is the case.
Einstein made the point especially clear in a 1948 letter he sent to Max Born (from the SEP article about Einstein's philosophy of science):
Admittedly, it's a very intuitive argument and prima facie it seems correct. It's also something that the epistemic idealist Schopenhauer was true: distinct things in the physical world (which is a part of the 'representation' aspect of his world view) could be distinguished by the 'principium individuationis', i.e. spatio-temporal separation.
Of course, we now know that quantum nonlocality is a thing and we can't use that criterion to distinguish things. I see the ER=EPR conjecture an attempt to 'resurrect' the Einstein's thesis of the centrality of spatio-temporal separation in the face of quantum nonlocality (which in turn would, however, imply that spacetime has quite a weird structure).
Quoting noAxioms
Here we are 500 posts in, and I don't think this has been answered. Lack of it is why I suggests that nobody really supports mind independent existence.
Quoting boundlessAgree with all that, but none of it negates my point that those cars find meaning in the lights. Only some dog's get the meaning intended by those that built the lights, such as dogs trained to aid the blind.
Perhaps, but then arguably neither does your brain. It's the process that does the understanding, not the hardware. For instance, if a human was to be simulated down to the neurochemical level (molecular level is probably unnecessary), then the person simulated would know what it's like to feel pain, but neither the computer, program, or programmers would in any way know this.
Not if you give a definition of '... like a human' to the word. Otherwise, yes.
Hard to use 'intent' in the context of ants, but it can be done.
Quoting boundless'Intelligible' is a relation, not a property, so X might be intelligible to Y, but not to Z.
My opinion: mind independence has no requirement of intelligibility, but 'reality' does since it seems to be a mental designation. So I agree with your statement.
Irrefutable is easy. It refuting the alternatives that gets challenging.
Quoting boundlessThe question was from Mww who asked "What would a thermostat-in-itself even mean?". So why we give it that name is not particularly relevant to what it is in itself.
Agree with that.
Not by that name anyway. There have been thermostats long before humans came around and made some more. But that name is under 2 centuries old, and a human-made mechanical device serving that function is only around 4 centuries old.
Quoting boundless
There you go. What's the difference between calling something magic by another word (immaterial mind say), and just calling it 'yet undiscovered physics'. The latter phrasing encourages further investigation, but the former seems to discourage it, declaring it a matter of faith and a violation of that faith to investigate further. Hence no effort is made to find where/how that immaterial mind manages to produce material effects.
Of course. No metaphysical interpretation is falsifiable. The ones that are are not valid interpretations.
Yes, as I tried to point out with my dark matter example. If something new comes along, the magic it used to be becomes natural, and naturalism is by definition safe. But it isn't a specific interpretation in itself since naturalism doesn't specify the full list of natural laws.
Agree. There is for instance no 'state of the entire universe', only a state relative to say some event. MWI is quite similar except it does away with the relation business and goes whole hog on the absolute universe, a thing with the property of being real. Since there's nothing relative to which any state might be, there's no states, just a giant list of possible solutions to the universal wave function. It's still that one structure. One can extend MWI to include different possible states of an even more universal wave function, including different values for all the universal constants, but MWI itself seems confined to just this one set of values for those constants.
Quoting boundlessThat's actually a really hard question, loaded with biases. A thing being an object seems intuitively mind-independent, but I showed otherwise, doing a whole topic about it. What actually IS mind independent is super difficult to glean since it's a mind doing it. "Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think. -- Heisenberg
Our understanding of it certainly is conceptual, but I have no trouble accepting that the mathematics in itself is not.
A little like my concept of the moon and the moon in itself, but that relation is quite different since I have a mutual measurement relation with the moon and it doesn't work that way with 3.
Quoting boundless
Tegmarks MUH book spends a lot of pages doing that, but in short, if there is nothing doesn't see to follow mathematical law, then the proposal is valid.
There's problems with this. There are a lot of mathematical objects which include me in it, exactly as I am with no experiential difference, and yet the object containing me like that is so very different than the one we model. That is a super big problem with the view, that needs to be addressed.
That sounds like the 'fire breathing' spoken of. Not necessary. 2 and 2 add up to 4 despite lack of instantiation by any mechanism actually performing that calculation. Similarly, a more complex mathematical entity (say the initial state of the universal wave function) yields me despite lack of real-ness.
Agree. That the universe is mathematical does not in any way imply that we can fully understand the mathematics, or far worse, understand something complex in terms of tiny primities, which is like trying to understand Mario Kart in terms of electron motion through silicon.
Quoting boundlessYea, that sign makes it not quite the same thing, eh? Both aspects of the same 'object', but different properties in that direction.
One does not travel through spacetime. Travel is something done through space. It's an interpretation, a mental convenience. Reference frames are definitely abstractions.
Quoting boundlessIntuitive maybe, but it's been demonstrated to be quite wrong. There is no valid locally real interpretation, and Einstein seems to argue for one.
He should have been around when Bell did his thing. He'd have to choose since the stance you describe is invalid. Locality or realism. Can't have cake and eat it too.
Quoting boundlessBut there is no evidence one way or another, except eternalism is the simpler model, but then the simplest quantum models also don't mesh well with one's intuitions. So instead of needing more evidence (there isn't any to start with), you need to justify the more complicated model.
Quite right. If it's true, our experience of it is a lucky guess since the view makes not empirical difference.
It's a kind of determinism, but not what's usually meant by the term. A block model with randomness just means that a subsequent state does not necessarily follow from some prior state. An atom might decay or might not. Bohm says that there are hidden variables that determine if it will or not. MWI says it both decays and doesn't. There is no state evolution at all under RQM since it's all hindsight, but RQM is not considered deterministic. Most of the rest are not. In a block context, that might mean that there's randomness in state evolution, but the history is all there. It's dice rolls, but equivalently all in the past so to speak.
No, at least not the kind of determinism that QM is talking about. I actually listed 6 kinds of determinism, and block universe was only one of them, but the one the name talks about is a different kind.
You'll have to explain that one. I don't see this, and I don't see how lack of flatness matters. No, 'spooky action' is not implemented via worm holes, if that's what you mean.
Quoting boundlessYes, talking about that, and what it did was generalize an absolutist interpretation (LET) of physics. LET is the special case like SR, only applicable to zero energy situation. Schmelzer finally extended that interpretation to include gravity.
My reference is just the paper. Most of what I asserted about it comes from the abstract. Not like I read the rest of it. But it supports presentism far better, and it can be falsified similar to the way one falsifies the afterlife. Can't publish the results.
Quoting WayfarerSorry, under physicalism, there is no difference between the two. Your assertion is just that, nothing that has been demonstrated.
None of this seems to follow. Under physicalism, human intentionality is just another thing physically caused, deterministic or not. No discrepancy is in need of resolution. You correctly point this out with: "intentional behaviour is ultimately reducible to brain states and is therefore physical". You discolor that statement with words like "attempt" and 'purport", but the statement is not falsified by your personal assessment. The only disagreement I have with the statement is it being confined to brain states. There would be plenty of physical factors outside the brain that also contribute to intentionality.
Quoting MwwIt seems a thermostat has some sort of nature in itself just like anything else. It being purposefully made doesn't change that at all. It being purposefully made or not isn't one of the in-itself properties.
Quoting MwwQuite the opposite. For one, something appearing to something's senses makes it by definition subjective, not objective. Not being a realist, I don't think anything at all has objective existence, but that's just opinion. The fault I find with objectivity lies elsewhere.
Big 'if'. If mind (or life, or intelligence) is truly not reducible, then it's also not really explainable in other terms.
Well, I guess that's an opening for me to chip in. I do have a problem, however, that I haven't got my head around what the criteria are for mind-independent existence. But I can explain what I understand about unicorns. Perhaps that will help.
But first, can I ask whether you say that there is no question about the moon because there is no question whether it exists independent of any mind? If so, your general question is already answered, and we are dealing with the much more interesting question which things exist independent of any mind and which don't. A lot depends here on what "independently of any mind" means. I'm relying on my intuitions here. Perhaps we'll get a definition later.
For me, unicorns exist, all right. But they are not real creatures. They are mythical creatures. So I say that their existence is the existence of myths. Can we say that they are real mythical creatures? That sounds odd because "real" and "mythical" pull in opposite directions. We might say that they are really mythical creatures, contradicting anyone who might claim that they are real.
Myths are a complicated concept. Their existence does not depend on any specific minds, but does depend on the circulation of stories which cannot be tracked back to any specific people. If those stories stopped circulating and got forgotten, those myths would cease to exist and, although it seems odd to say so, unicorns would also cease to exist. Yet it would remain true that the myths and unicorns existed at some time, and that gives a sense to our feeling that even forgotten myths exist in the way that forgotten things continue to exist. So, in that sense, they are mind-independent, but in another sense, they are not.
The bottom line, is that, in the case of unicorns, our intuitions pull in opposite directions. Unicorns don't fit our, perhaps naive, common sense.
If I may add a comment on thermostats. We made them to meet certain purposes in our lives. In that sense, they are mind-dependent. And yet, there is a physical object that, we would like to say, exists independently of our minds. I would say that what exists indendently of our minds is a physical object shorn of its place in our lives. Without that context, it is misleading to call it a thermostat. But we can easily provide another description of it as a physical object. In that sense, it exists independently of our minds. One might add that the components of the thermostat all exist independently of our minds. It is their arrangement into the causal cycle, that makes those objects a thermostat.
I should have summarized the last pargraph. A thermostat qua thermostat is mind-dependent but qua physical object it is mind-independent.
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps we should resist the equation of explaining something with reducing it. Physics can only explain things in certain terms. We live with things in different terms. But it's a matter of point of view - context and use - not a metaphysical problem - unless we choose to make it so.
Perhaps 'understood in its own terms' was what I meant.
I think it helps. I don't think there is much missing in the physical explanation of a rainbow. A rainbow, understood as we perceive it and conceive of it, is one lange-game or practice. However, the same - what shall I call it? --phenomenon understood in physical terms, is another.
The same, I would say, applies to colours and sounds.
Nature in itself? Im not sure how you mean the concept of nature to be understood in these cases, but I personally can think of no reason to even consider what the nature of a thermostat, or anything of existential likeness, might be. I cant be blamed, given this general idea of a things nature, for thinking a hammers latent nature, manifest sooner or later, is to hit my thumb instead of the nail.
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Quoting noAxioms
My use of appearance merely indicates the presence of a thing as an effect on my senses, which is the parsimonious method for distinguishing the empirically objective from the rationally subjective. The effect of the thing on my senses by its appearance, affects me as a sensation, and THAT is where subjectivity arises. Effect of the object is the affect on the subject.
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Quoting noAxioms
Interesting. Where do you find fault with the concept of objectivity, then?
Not sure why you said that, after, for instance, the discussion we had about intelligibility and the 'perspectives'.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, it is a rather difficult point, right? If our empirical knowledge was a perfect knowledge of 'reality' we would be certain that unicorns exist or do not exist. Our knowledge, however, is certainly limited even for a direct realist. On the other hand, a direct realist might say that, in principle, we could know that. But, again, their opponents would however raise the issue: "how can you be certain that the way 'physical reality' appears to you isn't filtered with your own cognitive faculties?". As I said, I believe that we arrive an antinomy here. On the other hand, you was pretty explicit that at the fundamental level of your hierachy we have mathematics and mind is after the physical. Ho can you claim that?
Quoting noAxioms
Well, denying that we can't understand meaning goes against the immediate evidence. It is a phenomenological given. It's hard to deny that and I would not unless I have a very strong reason for doing so. You also assume that the simulated brain is enough to have sentience. Even within a physicalist model, however, I would question that. What if, instead, that brain needs to be in a body which, in turn, needs to be in an environment and so on...?
Also, I believe that there is no consensus that our mind is algorithmical. So, before saying this, you would also make a case that our mind is, indeed, like a computer.
Quoting noAxioms
Agreed. Unfortunately, we do not have enough words to avoid ambiguity. Ants do not move and behave as stones do. They do not 'intend' as we do, either, but they certainly have goal-directed actions.
Quoting noAxioms
Here I disagree. While, it can be the case that X is intelligible for Y and not to Z, I would say that this is due to the limitations of the agents. I believe that something is either intelligible, or not.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, you agree for different reasons, however. Not sure why you seem to label 'reality' what I would call a 'representation' or an 'interpretation' of reality.
Quoting noAxioms
Quoting noAxioms
Good! To me this means that those qualities are part of our representation/interpretation and not of the mind-independent 'reality'. I also happen to have a difficult time to say the precise 'cut-off' where we can safely say "this quality is, indeed, something that is outside of our representation. It is indeed mind-independent". Hence the antinomy.
Quoting noAxioms
How can a thermostat be there long before humans came around if the quality of 'being a thermostat' is mind-dependent?
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, I would say I agree with this. But, in general, I would say "yet undiscovered phenomena" rather than "physics", but I am okay with that.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes. I believe that certain classes of metaphysical interpretations are falsifiable, but not broad categories like 'idealism' or 'naturalism'. For instance, a 'local realist naturalism' has been falsified by Bell's experiement (BTW, I believe that even superdeterminism is actually a form of nonlocality...).
Quoting noAxioms
Yup!
Quoting noAxioms
Right! BTW, as time passes, I am growing more sympathetic with MWI and MWI-like models if interpreted as describing potentialities. I believe, however, that the mistake of these models is to assume that all potentialities actualize, i.e. a belief that whatever can happen, will happen.
(Some time ago, I read that there is even a version of MWI where the universal wavefunctions never branches. Rather, there are simply parallel 'worlds' which evolve deterministically and independently from each other and the branching is merely an illusion due to a lack of knowledge of the existence of the other 'worlds'.)
Quoting noAxioms
Right! This is in fact a point I was making with my reference to the 'antinomy'. To be honest, I think that you do realize that there is an antinomy but at the same time you are reluctant to accept the consequences of that. Your notion of 'reality' is quite similar to the notion of 'empirical reality', 'representation' and so on that you find in d'Espagnat view of 'empirical and veiled reality', transcendental/epistemic idealism and also some versions of ontological idealism and realism.
I accept the presence of the antinomy and I think that this implies that we simply can't be certain about what is 'mind-independent'. In contrast to what transcendental/epistemic idealists would say, however, I think that it is reasonable to say that we can have some knowledge of the 'independent reality' but we can't prove it.
Quoting noAxioms
Quoting noAxioms
Interesting, thanks. Oddly enough, I would even say something similar about my view of math. Even if 3 is conceptual, this doesn't mean that we understand it completely.
Quoting noAxioms
Two points here. Regarding the first sentence, I believe that you have not presented sufficient evidence to say that.
Regarding what you say later, I might agree. It seems that the same 'object' can be found in different mathematical structures. If MUH was right, this would imply that the 'object' exists. But how can we make sense of the fact that the same object exists in different structures? In a sense, to me this shows that math perhaps isn't enough to explain 'things'.
Quoting noAxioms
I guess that I would repeat what I said before. Interesting, but I don't find convincing.
Quoting noAxioms
I agree. Also, mathematical structures are holistic. Take the natural numbers. The set of natural numbers can't be reduced to its components. Rather you define the set and then you discover the relations between the numbers. Of course, I am not denying that we perhaps constructed and learn the set of natural numbers by starting from concrete examples. But at a certain point the set is to be seen as an undivided whole and it contains things that do not have a 'referent' in nature. For instance I am not sure that the number ((10000000000^100000000000000)^100000000000000)^100000000000000 is instantiated in our universe, despite being finite.
Quoting noAxioms
Oddly enough, time and space are present only if you specify the reference frame. If not, you have only the spacetime and its intervals. So, I am not even sure that they are aspects of spacetime and not, say, arbitrary way of carving it.
Quoting noAxioms
And yet are space and time are quite 'real', right? They are a phenomenological given, immediate features of our experience. Is there a relation between reference frames and our experience?
Quoting noAxioms
Yup! BTW, what I find powerful of Bell's theorem and the experiments that confirmed it is that some metaphysical views of reality have since been refuted.
One, however, might feel the plight of Einstein and ask: "Well, then, how can we 'carve' the world into distinct objects if we can't spatially sperate them??" And voilà we discovered that the problem is very deep and there is no consensus about this even among experts.
Quoting noAxioms
The problem with rejecting our 'intuitions' is when these intuitions are immediate aspects of our experience. The flow of time is probably the strongest example. If eternalism is right, change is merely illusory. But if our experience is so wrong about something 'obvious' like that, how can I trust it? Science, after all, is empirical. If our experience gets something basic like that so wrong, how can even trust science?
Quoting noAxioms
Right! And the mystery goes deeper! If the alternative to eternalism is a presentism that, in fact, does even justify the very reason we went in search for a presentism...
Quoting noAxioms
Of course, I meant 'tenable' not 'untenable'
Quoting noAxioms
Not sure if I understood. If the state truly evolves, you can't have a block universe. Unless you mean that potentialites are what is described by 'eternalism'.
In fact, this is quite close to how I see it. As potentialities, all 'histories' are 'there' and eternalism is right for them. They have a weird 'virtual' existence, so to speak. They aren't 'nothing' but they aren't properly 'something'. Not all potentialities actualize. What is actual is what is truly 'real'.
Quoting noAxioms
My point was that you need to have determinism in order to have eternalism. If 'the flow of time' is illusory, in order to have consistency, you need to assume determinism. If determinism is false then the future isn't inevitable.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, thanks for the clarification!
I don't think my criteria matter at all. It's something that should be explicitly specified by anybody that claims it, so it might vary from one view to the next. Since I consider ontology to be a mental categorization, there's nothing mind independent about it. I'm not asserting that the others are wrong, but I'm trying to explore the consistency of such a view.
A typical realist would probably say that. I don't. "The moon is real because of empirical evidence". Presumably the moon's existence (relative to this planet) is not dependent on humans (or any life forms) observing it, and yet it's existence is justified by observation. I challenge that logic, but to do so, I need to find somebody who supports it.
For the record, I typically use the word 'mind' or 'observer' in a physicalist way, both synonyms for information processing of sensory input. There's nothing anthropocentric about it, but others might use the word differently.
OK, so you draw a distinction between 'exists' and 'is real'. As a mythical creature, it is a common referent. People know what you're talking about, but it seems no more than a concept of a thing, not a thing in itself. I am not talking about the concept of anything, but about the actual thing, so perhaps I should say 'is it real?', or better, come up with an example that is not a common referent such as a bird with 7 wings, all left ones. That at least eliminates it existing as mythology. But instead let's just assume I'm talking about a unicorn and not the concept or myth of one.
Side note: Your definition of 'exists' seems to be confined to 'exists at some preferred moment in time', which implies presentism, and only membership in this universe. I consider a live T-Rex to exist since I consider 75 MY prior to my presence to be part of our universe. The notion of 'cease to exist' makes like sense to me.
I also don't confine existence to our universe which is why I call it 'our' universe instead of 'the' universe. I find presentism to be a heavily mind dependent view. Just saying...
The bottom line should be an answer to my question. Do real unicorns (not the myth) exist or not, and how might that answer be justified? Perhaps unicorns are again a bad example of mind-independence because they presumably implement mental processes of their own. Perhaps we should discuss some questionable inanimate entity.
Anything deliberately designed seems mind-dependent, yes. The thermostat was my example of Wayfarer's query for something not human that performs an experiment and acts on the result of that experiment. I didn't propose it as something mind independent.
So an alien-made device on a planet out of our access cannot be called a thermostat by us? How about the temperature regulatory systems that the first warm-blooded animals evolved? Both those are sans-human-context.
Quoting boundlessSorry. I didn't see how that discussion actually applied to what I'm asking. Mind independent existence shouldn't be confined only to things that have a certain relationship to a potential mind (intelligibility).
I know, and it's one I apparently failed to articulate well in my OP.
As explored in my reply with Ludwig V above, perhaps the unicorn is a poor example, but it is difficult (contradictory?) to identify something that has no experience associated with it.
By 'after', you mean mind supervenes on the physical. My hierarchy doesn't count since I'm not claiming mind independent existence. I have existence supervening on mind, so that's pretty explicitly mind dependence. That hierarchy is a proposal, not something elevated to 'belief'. It seems to work pretty well though.
I didn't say that. There's no claim that 'I' = brain. I'm just suggesting that understanding is perhaps a physical process that takes place utilizing components, none of which understands what the process understands. That equates 'I' with 'process'.
Quoting boundlessIt kind of is if it utilizes classically deterministic primitives, and I've never seen a biological primitive that leverages randomness. All the parts seem to have evolved to leverage repeatability, sort of like how transistors do despite using quantum effects. Sure, it involves a lot more chemistry than does a computer, so in that sense, it's not the same. It doesn't implement an instruction set, but a computer need not do that either. I have designed a few computers with no instructions and no clock ticks.
They're life forms, so of course not. But they're bloody close to full automatons. Super close to what a herd of identically manufactured robots would be like, which admittedly aren't designed to work together. Maybe nanobots, which are.
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Reality is an interpretation of empirical data. That's what I'm calling an interpretation here. People interpret that data differently, so there's all these different opinions of what is real. If being real is no more than an ideal (a mental designation), then there's no truth to the matter.
Quoting boundlessIt wasn't a named quality back then. Nothing with the language to name it. So was it what we now call a thermostat? It's not like it was this funny isolated object, separate from what it controlled. It was spread out, integrated throughout what needed to have its temperature regulated.
Quoting boundlessSuperdeterminism is supposed to be local, but it kind of prevents empirical investigation, so it's an empty metaphysical proposal, sort of like BIV where all sensory input is rejected due to suspicion of it being lies. Thus superdeterminism is not listed as a valid quantum interpretation since it doesn't conform to data, but rather fully rejects it. Yes, local realism has been falsified. Here, realism has somewhat a different meaning that what the realists mean by the word.
There is a way to falsify presentism: Just jump into a large black hole. Presentism says it is impossible to be inside one since the interior never happens. No point in doing so of course, but you'll know for sure during what short time you have left to live.
What's the point of MWI if not to point out that all potentialities (valid solutions to the wave function) occur? Some do and some don't? That seems to make far less sense, a reintroduction of dice rolling for no purpose.
Quoting boundlessWasn't the question though. The question was, do you have an opinion about it? What's the most mind-independent thing you can describe, something as unlike an apple as you can get? Does describing it disqualify it? I'm still not clear where you stand with unicorns, or a better example than unicorns.
Quoting boundlessOne does not present evidence of a negative. One provides a counterexample to falsify it.
Example: It evolves naturally in one and by chance in many others.
Yes, it's a huge problem.
You should have grouped the parentheses from the right, yielding a much larger number. Anyway, that number is the distance, in meters, between a certain pair of stars, given 1) an infinite universe, and 2) counterfactuals, the latter of which is dubious. Still, a distance between potential stars then.
Dunno. You just got finishing saying that these are not defined without a frame, and a frame is an abstraction.
Probably, but out experience is physical, the same regardless of frame chosen to describe it. This is sort of like the twin paradox, illustrating that while time dilation is a coordinate effect (frame dependent), differential aging (noting the different ages of twins at reunion) is physical: the same difference regardless of frame choice.
Quoting boundlessWhy can't we spatially separate them?
Disagree. Change is typically defined as difference in state over time, and eternalism is not incompatible with that. The illusion of time flow is a gift of evolution, allowing beings to predict the immediate future and be far more fit that something that can't.
Trust it. Just because it isn't rational doesn't mean that it isn't essential for fitness.
Science actually doesn't render much of an opinion, but rational logic does. Humans are by nature not rational. It takes effort to ignore the biases.
OK, that's one usage of the term 'evolves'. Another is simply that one state is a function of the prior, classically or completely.
This sounds like MWI until the part of about partial actualization. Not sure what it is with that. MWI is a very deterministic interpretation, but with the partial actualization bit thrown in, it ceases to be.
Disagree, per the examples I gave. Presentism vs eternalism is merely an ontological difference. If one is possible without determinism, then so is the other.
Having said that, and having floated the idea that ontology is a mental designation, it would seem to follow that presentism and eternalism are the same thing, just interpreted differently, an abstract different choice without any truth behind it. I hadn't realized that until now.
Quoting MwwI find both "empirically objective" and "rationally subjective" to be somewhat contradictory terms. It is quite difficult to communicate with such a gulf in how we choose to use language.
Objective implies something that is, independent of context. Not being a realist, I find very little that meets that. OK, arguably mathematics is objective, but one can argue against even that.
Quoting WayfarerYou responded to a comment to somebody else and totally ignored the fallacies identified in my comments regarding your own assertions.
Ehhhh .we use language the same way, as means to represent a favored system, one in which you find the terms contradictory, another in which I find them complementary. The gulf resides in the disparity of the systems, not so much the words used to talk about them.
Quoting noAxioms
As first responder herein, I admitted to unabashedly supporting mind-independent reality, which makes explicit something that is, and is necessarily, regardless of what I think about it.
Im not sure how to relate the mind-independence of reality with context-independence, if mind just is the context from which reality is independent. If mind is necessary context for that objective which is independent, it follows the totality of context-independence for the objective, is impossible.
No worries. As I said, it didn't help that I used terms like observer and perspective in a rather liberal way. Regarding this point you are making now about intelligibility I see you but if there are non-intelligible things, can we know them?
Quoting noAxioms
And here you raise a good point, indeed. Can we really think about things that are outside our 'experience'? Read what philosopher Michel Bitbol said:
(Michel Bitbol https://www.academia.edu/24657293/IT_IS_NEVER_KNOWN_BUT_IS_THE_KNOWER_CONSCIOUSNESS_AND_THE_BLIND_SPOT_OF_SCIENCE_")
If we answer to this that, indeed, we can know something 'mind-independent' we have to assume that what is 'mind-independent' is conveniently intelligible, at least in part. If we answer in the negative, at least a transcendental idealism seems inexcapable. Note that even with the first answer we have to explain intelligibility.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, I see. What about a dual-aspect view though? If the mental and the physical arise both from math, perhaps neither mind nor the physical has a precedence.
Quoting noAxioms
It seems that you assume here that the only possible alternative are either determinism or probabilism. But what if our knowledge of 'the world' is limited and, in fact, the regularities of nature make room from something else?
Quoting noAxioms
Yeah, but ironically even it needs the existence of wildly nonlocal unexplained correlations that some how 'trick us' in believing that 'local realism' is false. One might, however, ask the superdeterminist how these correlations were there in the first place.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, but there is a resemblance. In physics, the lack of realism means that physical quantities have no definite values unless they are measured (take your favorite interpretation of what a 'measurement' is, it's not relevant for what I am saying now). In philosophy, 'realism' strictly speaking not only means that there is a 'mind-independent reality' but also that it is knowable. Kant's transcendental idealism is not a 'realism' in this strict sense because it posit an unknowable 'mind-independent reality'. The resemblance here is that both claim there is always something 'definite'.
So, while I agree that that 'local realism' in physics is not really a metaphysical category, it seems to me that some metahphysical models - even 'anti-realist' in the philosophical sense - have been excluded. For instance, Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism was proven wrong.
Quoting noAxioms
Here I use relationism to defend presentism. Since there is no 'view from nowhere', when I jump into a black hole for me time stops. For you, it doesn't. So a global presentism is certainly refuted, but perhaps a local one?
Quoting noAxioms
Well, the merit of such a 'MWI' would be to reintroduce a version of 'potentiality'. Also, if the world isn't deterministic, it makes clear that "things could have been otherwise". Of course, I don't think that such a MWI alone would be able to explain QM's results. But maybe it can be integrated in some ways.
Quoting noAxioms
Funny thing is that, dependending on the context, I'll answer in different ways. In general, I believe that we can't know if there is something mind-independent. However, that there is some mind-independent reality is the most plausible asumption we can make. I would perhaps say that, in general, living beings are what is certainly mind-independent, they can't be understood as parts of any 'representation' of our cognitive faculties.
Also, I should add, however, that in a deeper sense, perhaps, nothing is 'mind independent'. As I mentioned before, I lean towards some of forms of 'ontological idealism' and theism, some forms of mind as fundamental. But such a 'mind' is not our own.
Sorry, I know it isn't clear.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, for instance, I have the 'impression' that my actions are neither deterministic nor probabilistic. And that impression is quite strong for me. So, I consider that immediate impression as evidence that, perhaps, there is something other than determinism or probabilism. Prove me wrong.
Quoting noAxioms
Or maybe they are different 'versions' or aspects of the same object.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, right, but if the universe is not infinite, then, you can conceive a natural number that hasn't a 'referent'. Note that even for a simple structure as natural numbers, then, it's difficult to find a 'physical support'. You already need an infinite universe!
Quoting noAxioms
While I can't concede you that 'experience is physical' you make a good point here.
Quoting noAxioms
I meant to write something like: "if local realism is wrong, is there a non-arbitrary way of distinguishing objects? If so how?"
Quoting noAxioms
But from our experience of change, we get the a very convincing impression that the present alone is real and the future and the past aren't. Eternalism says that past, present and future are equally real. So, it is interesting that, if eternalism is right, we are favoured by a very deep self-deception.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, but note that if experience goes so wrong and it is the starting point of science even science itself has shaky grounds so to speak.
Quoting noAxioms
We are potentially truly rational beings. We can be rational but very often we either can't or choose not to be.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I know. And I don't see it as a problem.
Quoting noAxioms
Honestly, I do not get how non-deterministic models are compatible with eternalism. I'll reflect on what you have wrote.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, I'm not sure how this doesn't imply something like either a form of idealism or a radical skepticism. The only possible way I can think of that they can both be 'true' is that they give good predictions and are useful.
Quoting noAxioms
Again, I believe that we have to agree to disagree here. Based on how experience my choices, I am open to the possibility that also ants might not have an 'algorithmic mind'. So, while robots can emulate the ants' behavior (becuase they are programmed to do so), I question that they would be the same.
To use a probably not very good analogy, it is like to compare a portrait of a human being to the human being. It well represents some features of the human being but certainly they aren't the same.
Quoting noAxioms
...Unless, there is something that goes 'beyond' the representations that gives an independent criterion on the 'truthfulness' of the representations.
Quoting noAxioms
By quality I meant 'what makes a thermostat, a thermostat'. If I negate the mind-independence of that, there is no mind-independent thermostat. Note that a 'thermostat' is dependent on the existence of the 'temperature'. But is 'temperature' a property of things outside our conceptual categories or is a concept we introduced to make sense of our experience?
It's an excellent topic.
Quoting noAxioms
It might well. The variations will be very instructive.
Quoting noAxioms
If I believe that the moon is exists independently of what I, or anyone else, thinks about it, is that an ontological claim? If so, the mere fact that we categorize or classify something in some way, in my view, is no ground for claiming that it is mind-dependent, though the classification obviously is.
Quoting noAxioms
I would not dream of claiming that the moon is real because of empirical evidence, because that is not true. The moon exists because of complex events in the solar system, some billions of years ago. We know it exists because of empirical evidence, but that is an entirely different matter.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't quite see your point. We can agree that your birds do not exist. But, since you have imagined them, they are imaginary birds, and consequently not real birds, and not real. They don't seem at all problematic. That makes them different from mythical creatures. Mythical creatures such as unicorns have an additional feature. Why would we ignore that?
As to the distinction between "exists" and "is real", I had assumed that anything that exists is real. A forged banknote is not a real banknote, but it is a real forgery. The reality of the banknote depends, so to speak on how you classify it. The difference is that there is no classification under which I can say that a unicorn exists. That's a difference in meaning between "forged" and "mythical".
Quoting noAxioms
I must confess that I don't have a firm view of about presentism and eternalism. We seem to have a difference in our understand of "exist". I wouldn't dream of saying that dinosaurs exist in the sense of being alive. I accept that dinosaurs exist in the sense that their remains are still to be found in various places. On the other hand, I do maintain that they did not exist before they evolved in the Triassic period.
Quoting noAxioms
The bottom line, then, is that the answer depends on your definition of "exist" and "real".
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, that's true. I wouldn't hesitate to call either of those cases thermostats, because in each case, they are part of a living system or part of a living being. On the other hand, if we found an inanimate system that included a feedback loop that tended to maintain itself in a steady state, I would hesitate to call it a thermostat, but probably come down on the side of doing so, on the grounds that it is at least analogous to what we now call a thermostat.
Quoting noAxioms
"Real" is more complicated that "red" or "large". Many, if not all, objects can be classified in several ways, according to context and point of view. Things can be real under one designation and not real under another. As to reality as philosophers debate it, I don't really understand what they are talking about - unless they mean real things in general. But since what is real depends on how it is described, that doesn't mean very much to me. "Real" does not mean "Ideal". On the contrary, the real is quite often opposed to the ideal.
Quoting noAxioms
Could you please enlighten me - What is "local realism"?
Quoting noAxioms
I must confess, when I've come across that argument, I haven't found it particularly interesting. So I'm not disappointed by that conclusion.
Quoting Mww
I agree. The interesting part is which items qualify as mind-independent and under what criteria.
Quoting boundless
I'm a bit puzzled by this. Why can't it be both?
Poorly worded on my part. Typical claim is that "I know the moon exists due to empirical evidence". It's an epistemic claim about ontology, but not directly an ontic claim.
That's a description of how it was created and already assumes the moon shares the same ontology as those solar system events long ago.
Why should I agree with that? The bird example was admittedly a reach for impossibility/improbability, but a helicopter gets close to fitting the description.
Imagining something presumably isn't what makes it not real. Again, I'm not talking about the concept of something, but about the thing itself. I have a imagined image of the moon, what it's like up there, which doesn't make the moon nonexistent.
Contradicting your prior quote: "For me, unicorns exist, all right. But they are not real creatures.".
Quoting Ludwig VDifferent definition of 'real' there. We're discussing ontology, not 'being genuine'.
I've seen whole topics devoted to the latter: "My signature is not mine since it was made by a pen, not by me". Games like that.
To be a unicorn, all it needs to be sort of horsey-like with a single horn on its head. There's no requirement to correspond exactly to the human myth (attracted to female virgins, blows rainbows out of its butt). A Rhino is almost one, similar to how manatees were sometimes taken for mermaids. Still, not particularly horsey. I don't like the unicorn example because it is so improbably that there is not a planet in the infinite universe somewhere that has produced them. And that's a mind-dependent opinion because I reference 'the universe', making it preferred due to us being in it. I mean, Tegmark calculated how far away is an exact copy of Earth (given a classical universe). If that's there, there's plenty of unicorns between us and it.
So again, just because there's a myth about it, why does that preclude the reality of one? It's like you're saying that the myth causes its noexistence.
Quoting Ludwig VThere are many definitions, rarely clarified when the word is used. Some examples:
1) Idealistic: A thing exists if it is conceived. Not particularly mind independent.
2) Part of this universe: The universe is what is real, as is its contents, observed or not.
2p) Part of this universe now. There is a preferred moment in time, and only the current state of the universe is real. The rest is not.
2e) Time is part of the universe, so all states/events share the same ontology.
3) Relational: X exists relative to Y if Y has been affected by X. This is seemingly relevant only in causal structures.
4) Existence is whatever we designate as such, an opinion which doesn't have a truth value.
5) Objective: Existing (or being real) is a property of some 'things' and not a property of others. It is unclear how to determine this property, but two interacting things probably have the same ontology as each other.
There are other definitions, but that's a taste. Your intuitions seem to lean heavily towards 2p. I favor the relational definition most often since it is far more compatible with quantum mechanics. I've been exploring the 4th one.
The 5th one allows (but does not require) other universes to exist, ones that are far simpler, or ones with 4 spatial and 2 time dimensions and stuff like that. I find #5 empty since the property doesn't seem to be required for anything. My prior topic was all about just that.
I want to say this is a mind-dependent definition, but it might be too hasty. The apple exists not because it is observed, but its observation suggests an interpretation of reality that includes that apple. Fair enough, but it doesn't say how the interpretation deals with things not observed, and this topic is mostly about that.
Quoting Ludwig VA recent Nobel prize in physics was given for proving this again, despite Bell doing it in the 60's.
'Local' refers to the principle of locality, that information, cause/effect, cannot go faster than light. 'Spooky action at a distance' suggests otherwise, that measurement of one of a pair of entangled particles instantly (whatever that means, given relativity of simultaneity) affecting the state of the other, no matter how distant. Whether this actually occurs has never been verified, so there are local interpretations of QM such as Copenhagen, RQM, MWI, Qbism.
'realism' in this context refers to the principle of counterfactual definiteness which states that a system is in a given state even in the absence of measurement. So for instance, a photon exists in space en-route before it finally hits something. It has a location and momentum and such. It factually goes through one slit or the other despite nobody measuring/knowing which one.
Realist interpretations include Bohmian Mechanics and Transactional interpretation. These all require faster than light cause-effect.
Proving that reality is not locally real means that at most one of the two above principles is true.
An example that rejects both principles is objective collapse interpretations.
This is all quite relevant to the topic, because under most interpretations, the moon is not objectively real, but only real to that which as measured it, which usually means anything that has in any way interacted with it by say receiving a photon emitted by the moon.
Quoting boundlessSure, but I'm not asking about something not thought of. I'm asking about something that doesn't require that thought for its existence.
[quote=Bitobt]The natural conclusion of this little thought experiment is that there is nothing completely independent of experience.[/quote]Totally doesn't follow from what he writes. Not impressed. All that follows is that nothing thought of goes un-thought of, a trivial tautology.
Quoting boundlessI cannot agree. 1) An apple is typically presented as mind-independent, but it is intelligible. 2) (Caution: new word coming) The thing in question could be entirely intelligible, but lacking anything in any way experiencing, imagining, or knowing about it, it merely fails to go itelligiblated.
You mean independently, one not supervening on the other? Yea, then there'd be no precedence between those two.
Those seem to be the only valid alternative in QM. Even the consiousness-causes-collapse interpretation doesn't have mind doing anything deliberately. There's not control to it. All the interpretations exhibit phenomenal randomness.
Then we're wrong, being insufficiently informed.
Quoting boundless
Those correlations might be widely separated, but never is there superluminal cause-effect. Thus is is considered a local thing, but not an interpretation.
No it doesn't. Time is experienced normally for all observers in both views. Under presentism, you simply abruptly cease to exist at the event horizon. The experience under eternalism is of being inside, also with time phenomenally flowing as normal.
I don't know what these are, and absent me jumping into a black hole, I've not refuted anything.
That's the impression, yes. Doesn't make the impression correct, especially since both interpretation give that same impression.
Maybe you're not the person to ask then, as I'm also not.
Quoting boundlessWe all have that impression, but as said, I give little weight to that evidence. I find my actions deterministic in the short run, but very probabilistic as the initial state is moved further away. So sure, given a deer crossing in front of my car, my reaction would likely be the same every time. On a longer scale, it is not determined in the year 1950 that i will choose vanilla today since it isn't even determined that i will exist. Under MWI for instance, fully deterministic, I both choose and don't choose vanilla, but under the same MWI, almost all branches (from one second ago) have me swerving (nearly) identically for the deer.
There is dualism, which is something other. But immediate impression isn't good evidence for that one since the determinism and probabilism both also yield that same impression.
Granted. A torrid universe is a possibility for instance. Finite stuff, but no edge. I think a torrid universe requires a preferred orientation for the spatial axes. I wonder if one can get around that.
Don't understand this. This marble is red, that one is blue. How is that not distinguishing objects, and what the heck does lack of locality have to do with that?
Quoting boundlessIt has immense pragmatic utility to be so deceived. Evolution would definitely select for it.
My investigation makes us fundamentally irrational, but with rational tool at our disposal. This is kind of optimal. If the rational part was at the core, we'd not be fit.
So for instance, I am, at my core, a presentist, and I act on that belief all the time. The rational tool is off to the side, and instead of being used to rationalize the beliefs of the core part, it ignores it and tries to figure things out on its own. But it's never in charge. It cannot be.
Suppose physics says that the next state is the square root of the prior state (9). Determinism might say subsequent state is 3, but randomness says it could be 3 or -3. Either value in the block is not a violation of the physics, but if there can only be one answer, it can't be both. It can be there, so eternalism isn't violated, but it can't be predicted from the state 9.
They don't make predictions at all. If they did, only one would be true. Hence falsifiability.
To use a probably not very good analogy, it is like to compare a portrait of a human being to the human being. It well represents some features of the human being but certainly they aren't the same.
Quoting Wayfarer
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1000411
Near the bottom. Your replied only to a part of that comment addressed to boundless.
Quoting MwwOK, reality is real because it's necessary. That's something. Necessary for what? What would be violated by there not being anything?
His point seems to me that there are limits to our 'imagination' and our conceptual models. Our minds is not a passive 'recorder' of 'what is outside of us'. In fact, they actively try to interpret things according to their own categories. So, it's not obvious that 'the world we see' isn't a representation. And, in fact, the same goes for unpercieved objects.
Quoting noAxioms
The question you should be asking is: why is the apple intelligible?
Quoting noAxioms
They might depend on a common 'source', for example, or maybe they are aspects of the same thing. In both cases, the mental would not 'supervene' on the 'physical'. Quoting noAxioms
Yes. Before QM, all physical theories were deterministic. With QM, we found out an apparent probabilism, the status of which is of course controversial. Assuming that such a probabilism is 'real', why can't we think that there are other possibilities besides determinism and probabilism?
Quoting noAxioms
In a sense, yes. But I would not even call newtonian mechanics 'wrong' tout court. Our physical theories give us incredibly precise predictions. They have to be at least partially right.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I know. I just find bizzarre that a 'scientific realist' would prefer to say that there are 'unexplained nonlocal correlations' than saying that, perhaps, instead there are nonlocal interactions of some sorts. If we renounce to find an 'explanation' of those correlations, why not simply take an epistemic interpretation of QM?
Quoting noAxioms
Interesting, thanks. Not sure, however, how this address my point about relationalism.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, for the purposes of our discussion let us ignore that part.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I know. And I am not in a position to tell you that you are being 'unreasonable' here. In fact, I find your motivations quite valid. I was just saying why I find that a problem.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok, I get that. Also, despite saying what I said, I also recognize that perhaps we are less free than we naively think we are. But I still can't renounce that I have a 'little spot' of freedom that allows my choices to be neither fully determined nor probabilistic. YMMV.
Quoting noAxioms
Good point. Perhaps, it is me that I should explain how my 'impression' isn't compatible with determinism and probabilism.
Quoting noAxioms
If the two marbles, however, are in some way 'nonlocally entangled', you can't treat them as two separate objects but perhaps as two parts of an undivided whole. In fact, what is common between, say, most readings of de Broglie-Bohm interpretation* and Neumaier's thermal interpretation is that entangled systems do form an undivided wholeness. Perhaps this also means that two different 'objects' can occupy the same position (or limited region of space).
*There is also a 'Humean' reading of that interpretation that denies that there is a real interaction between entangled particles and/or they form an undivided whole. For that reading it 'just happens' that particles follow a nonlocal law of motion. Just as with the superdeterminists, I don't get these realists that do not seek an explanation...if you are interested, I'll link some sources.
Quoting noAxioms
Fair enough. But I find the thing curious. I can accept that a limitation of our knowledge might be useful. But (self-)deception? I find it curious, but I admit that this doesn't refute your point, of course.
Quoting noAxioms
Right!
Quoting noAxioms
I respect this. But my view is that 'being rational' is a full realization of our own nature. So, for me, it is more difficult to accept what you say here. Perhaps, however, it isn't impossible. And, also, I have different reasons to say that unrelated to the topic of the discussion.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, I don't understand how it isn't violated except if both values actualize, i.e. a MWI-like scenario (not of the modified type I imagined before)
Quoting noAxioms
Yes.
. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which is absurd .
Whats violated, absent the something that necessarily is the LNC and the principle of cause/effect.
Quoting noAxioms
Reality is not real; things that appear to the senses are real, and those are real necessarily. Reality is merely that general pure conception representing the totality of real things that appear to the senses, and from which the possibility of experience itself, is given.
For me anyway, the only mind-independent items are those I dont think about, either particularly, from the lack of occassion yet for which an experience is nonetheless possible immediately upon such occassion, or, generally, from the impossibility of a conception sufficient to represent them, for which there can never be an experience at all.
This relates iff mind-dependence begins at intuition, not perception, insofar as, with respect to criteria, at intuition is the first representational construct, which replaces the empirically real of things effecting the senses, in a theoretical point of view regarding the human intellectual system.
Im not a fan of the concept of mind; all that is mind can be replaced by reason. The explanatory power of mind I can do without; of reason I cannot.
What if a tiny critter has a sensor for food, a sensor for poison, and flagella to take it toward food and away from poison. The sensors weigh which sensory input is stronger, and the stronger gets control of the flagellum.
So a decision is made.
I think I understand that. So "unicorn" is not an irrelevant example. I like it just because it is not straightforward, but requires some thought. That's much more instructive than the moon.
Quoting noAxioms
OK.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, yes. It is an object in the solar system, so it seems a reasonable assumption. Any question about that is pretty much incomprehensible to me.
Quoting noAxioms
You are right. It is curious that we talk of the imaginary friends that some small children have, meaning that they do not exist. Yet it is perfectly possible to imagine something that is real - such as a friend who is absent. My grounds are precisely the ones that you were reaching for - improbability or impossibility. Those grounds are defeasible, but the implausibility of the idea means that it would not be easy to convince me of the opposite - especially in this age of deep fakes!
Quoting noAxioms
Sorry. I meant to explain that.
My model for "real" relies on the common use of the word, in which something that is unreal under one description will (normally) be real under another. This contradicts the common assumption that "real" and "unreal" are exclusive, which neglects the fact that many things we would describe as unreal do in fact exist and are real under a different description. Hence "A forged banknote is not a real banknote, but it is a real forgery."
As I was writing, I realized that unicorns and mythical creatures and 7-winged birds are imaginary creatures and "unicorns are real mythical creatures" and "7-winged birds are real imaginary creatures" seemed malapropisms. But unicorns and 7-winged birds do not, to put it this way, have the same mode of existence as forged bank-notes and industrial diamonds.
Quoting noAxioms
True. I get a bit confused by "mind-indendent reality", which, pretty clearly is about existence.
Quoting noAxioms
If I write something like that, you can be pretty sure it is a joke.
Quoting noAxioms
You did cite unicorns in your earlier post. It is true that my disbelief in them is defeasible. (Most claims about non-existence are.) But your argument is wildly speculative and does not even begin to convince me. Until there is better evidence, I shall continue to classify them as mythical and claim they don't exist, except in the way that mythical creatures (Pegasus, the Gorgons, etc.) exist and not in the way that horses exist.
Quoting noAxioms
I see your point. Compare "imaginary". My reply is the same.
Quoting noAxioms
Thinking about it, I'm really not content to say that past events and future events don't exist. It makes sense to say that all events, past, future and present exist, but in different modes. "X event happend in the past", "Y event will happen in the future", and "Z event is happening now" are all true and all those events are real, hence exist. So I don't accept 2p.
I've worked with 4) most of the time, though I would resist the apparent arbitrariess of "whatever we designate" and substitute "whateven the language we are involved in specifies". But I would insist on the truth value. I've talked about different modes of existence in this post. That reflects the effect of context on the meaning of "exist" .
Quoting noAxioms
I don't think you've got that quite right. Surely, the data are also part of reality? Also, on the face of it, it looks as if you are saying that reality is not (directly) observed, so your problem disappears. I'm not sure about reality, but I'm pretty sure that what counts as real depends on the context. "Real money", "Real food", "Real champagne" all have different definitions.
Quoting noAxioms
That's odd. There must be a story about that.
Edit. Text deleted here.
Quoting noAxioms
Thanks very much for that. It was very helpful.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, I've gathered that modern physics seems to have become something that Bishop Berkeley would have approved of, - apart from the refusal to include God. But there also seems to be very little consensus.
I'll venture on one ignorant comment. If you try to define space and time or space-time without any physical objects, you are bound to run in to trouble. At least, it seems obvious to me that those dimensions only have meaning in a universe that includes some actual objects. But then, so far as I can see, a space-time diagram is a method for plotting physical objects, like a map, rather than a description of reality, like a picture.
Quoting Ludwig V What if Y [I]doesn't[/I] happen in the future? An uncountable number of things had been "sure bets" never happened. How can Y be real in the sense that either X or Z are real?
Quoting boundlessDoes asking that help nail down a mind-independent reality? Perhaps the answer to that question does.
Maybe there are, but they'd still have to conform to the theory.
Newton is not wrong, and it is all still taught in schools. But it is a simplification, and requires more exactness at larger scales.
What does the rest of the world say? How does that acronym convert to metric?
Quoting boundlessUnsure of the difference. A local interpretation asserts neither nonlocal correlation nor interaction.
Isn't that kind of what Copenhagen does?
Well, plenty of folks want to assert free will because it sounds like a good thing to have, and apparently it is a requirement for some religions to work, which makes it their problem, not mine. If I'm designing a general device to make the best choices, giving it free will would probably be a bad thing to do. Imagine trying to cross the street.
How about a moth? Moths fly about in unpredictable ways, making them harder to catch, and thus more fit. That's a benefit over deterministic (or at least predictable) behavior. Maybe moths are the ones with free will.
Quoting boundlessWhat does that mean? I only know 'entangled'. Is there a difference between locally entangled and nonlocally? Anyway, I presume the marbles to be entangled, in superposition of blue/red. You'll measure one of each, but until then, they're not any particular color. The marbles are far apart.
Well, my only comment here is that this sounds a lot like your prior quote about time being entanglement, and space as well, all this being a sort of solution to the different ways relativity and QM treat time.
I just picked this bit out. What is a nonlocal law of motion? Example?
I do appreciate links since you've already sent me down several new pages I've not heard of before. Always good to read new things.
Quoting boundlessDangerous. I don't think you'd be fit if you had that realization. Part of it would be the realization of the lack of need to be fit.
Which is why I said 'only one value', because yes, otherwise it's something like MWI, which is back to full determinism, and you wanted an example of block randomness.
- - - -
Quoting Ludwig V
But I said 'share the same ontology' without saying what that ontology is. I also somewhat misspoke, since a presentist would say the moon 'is' while the Theia event (where the moon is created) 'was', a different ontology.
OK, so pick something that doesn't exist, and justify that. Or pick something that exists outside of experience, and justify that. That's what I'm looking for in this topic: Somebody who can come up with a consistent model of mind-independent existence. But when pressed, it seems that everybody's limits of what exists or doesn't relies on things gleaned through observation.
You're missing the point. The speculative argument is about the odds of them existing in this universe, which is only relevant if only things in our universe exist. If that's the case, it is the preferred universe because it's observed, no? I'm not trying to-argue that unicorns exist (or don't). I'm trying to argue that your notion of what exists is a mind-dependent one.
Definition 4 totally discards truth value. 2 can have a truth value even if it's a relative truth. 2 boils down to [is a member of a preferred set, and members of other sets don't matter].
Quoting Ludwig VThe recent prize was given for apparently proving things to more precision, developing new techniques for taking such measurements. Good stuff, but the pop articles make it sound like it wasn't already known. Bell's theorem (and not just 'theory') demonstrated the impossibility of local reality almost 60 years ago.
Seems mathematically valid, but meaningless, much like a blank graph of X-Y axes needn't bother with numbering the tick marks on the axes.
Funny then that I find the picture less like reality and more like an abstract interpretation.
Quoting PatternerThe block interpretation answers that one at least. There are versions of presentism that say that Y (in the future) exists as fact. You're 'sure bets' are not fact, but merely predictions made without access to the full history. So yea, you could have a block universe, but with a preferred moment in time. This is the 'moving spotlight' view and it even permits some of the nondeterministic interpretations.
Quoting Mww
I don't see how the lack of anything violates any of those laws, or why those laws (especially the cause/effect law which isn't relevant at all outside a causal structure) apply to this non-state. Also, it seems that the reality of our universe is violated by your causal law there since it needs something to have caused it.
Pretty much an idealistic statement, and I don't need idealists defending the realist view, as this topic asks.
It may be that I/we are stretching the language. There's not a lot of popular interest in the modes of existence - even, I suspect, among philosophers.
Quoting Patterner
Yes, it is tempting to treat the future differently from the present or past. Perhaps the ground is that the the future is undetermined while the present and past are determinate and can't change. But one needs to show that this is quite different from the generalized uncertainty that would point out that our belief in X or Z is also defeasible. The determinism, whether logical or causal, will chip in to demolish us completely.
It was the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics which was awarded to the experimentalists who proved it. (I wrote an article on it for anyone interested).
..and yet, in order to not understand what I said, what I said necessarily must have been something that appeared to your senses. Hence, the LNC .which follows from the quoted absurdity on the bottom of pg17 .you cant claim to misunderstand something that wasnt there.
Same deal with the cause/effect principle. What I said caused your misunderstanding; your misunderstanding is an effect causally related to what I said. If I hadnt said it you wouldnt have misunderstood it.
Quoting noAxioms
.and yet an idealist can defend a realist view better than a realist, insofar as the latter denies, or at least refuses to acknowledge that he necessarily employs, the very intellectual machinations the former provides, for defending anything at all. Not to mention, of course, a proper idealist is in fact a dualist, as are all humans, with respect to their fundamentally relational cognitive powers.
(Sigh)
Yes. Because if intelligibility is due to the 'representation' of the cognitive faculties of the mind, then anything intelligible can be a 'mind-independent' reality.
Quoting noAxioms
Before early 20th century it seemed uncontroversial that everything is deterministic. Then, QM happened and experts debate. Why do we have to be so certain that, in the future, we will find out that physical laws allow that some events are neither probabilistic nor deterministic?
Quoting noAxioms
Yes. It might be that both deterministic and probabilistic models are a simplification or, better, they are valid in a determinate context.
Quoting noAxioms
I meant that I am aware that my views here are unconventional. But I do not find the arguments that they are wrong persuasive. And I certainly understand people who think that determinism and probabilism are the only allowed possibilities. I disagree. But fine.
Quoting noAxioms
According to superdeterminism, there are correlations that 'trick us' in believing that either 'realism' (CFD) or 'locality' is wrong. But superdeterminists argue they are mere coincidences.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, right! I mean why not embrace Copenhagen if one is content with a purely kinematical model?
Quoting noAxioms
Well, if all my actions are deterministic, it is quite controversial to attribute to myself moral responsibility. After all, I literally could not have behaved otherwise.
Probabilistic choices are no better. Yes, I could have acted otherwise but, again, how can I be blamed if, ultimately, my choices are a result of a blind mix of deterministic and probabilistic mechanism?
To make sense of moral responsibility, you need to impute to moral agents some deliberative power and a sense of right and wrong.
Of course, ethics is something external to physics. But I would like that my 'worldview' is something coherent, a stable unit. It is difficult to 'believe' to have free will half of the time becuase I have to assume it to have a coherent concept of moral responsibility and in the other half 'believe' that I have no free will. Cognitive dissonance is quite a risk.
Quoting noAxioms
Would you consider moths as moral agents?
Quoting noAxioms
Yeah, sorry I mean 'entangled' in a way to produce nonlocal correlations.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, Rovelli proposed that in reconciling GR with relativity, the spacetime of relativity gets quantized because it is the gravitational field and like other fields become quantized. However, 'time' as a measure of change remains. Same goes for space, if it is interpreted as a relation between things.
So, perhaps uniting GR and QM resolves the 'tension' between the apparent denial of the 'flow of time' and our experience.
Quoting noAxioms
It is good to hear that, thanks. The model I had in mind is described in this paper: "Reality and the Role of the Wavefunction in Quantum Theory" by Sheldon Goldstein and Nino Zanghì. It is an interpretation of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation (dBB) where there is no mention of a quantum potential that 'guides' the particles in a non-local way as Bohm and Hiley believed (and was the concept that inspired Bohm to have more speculative ideas like the 'implicate order', 'active information' and so on that also have been adopted by Hiley) and the somewhat more 'restrained' but still different versions of dBB by people like John Bell and Antony Valentini, who treat the wavefunction as a physically real field that guides the particle but make no mention of the quantum potential. Anyway, according to the variant in the linked paper, the wavefunction should be thought as a 'law of motion', a sort of kinematic law that, however, is explicitly nonlocal. There is no explanation of why particles move in they way they move. They just move that way. The only advantage with respect to a 'Copenaghen-like' view is that here you can easily visualize 'what happens'. But there is absolutely no explanation of why particles behave the way they behave.
Quoting noAxioms
I believe that our life is, among other things, a learning process where we can learn to become more and more rational. It would be quite weird to me that, ultimately, deceiving myself is something that is good for me. Perhaps, however, it is too dangerous to 'take a step too far' or 'learn things before due time' etc.
Quoting noAxioms
I need to reflect on this. I still can't make sense of a probabilistic block. Perhaps I have a wrong idea of what a block should be.
Are you also saying that there is no connection between those two facts?
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see that things that don't exist are relevant here. Mind-independence doesn't apply to them.
What if there cannot be a single model that applies to both unicorns and the moon?
Quoting noAxioms
How could we possibly know about things that exist independently of our minds without observation? The role of the senses is precisely to give us information about the world outside or beyond our minds.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see why you would think that what I would say about the existence of unicorns can be generalized to everything that exists. The speculative argument does not bring anything into existence, so it is no ground for thinking that anything is mind-dependent. However, I do agree that notions and concepts and ideas are mind-dependent (mostly). But it does not follow that the objects of notions and concepts and ideas are necessarily mind-dependent. The moon is a case in point. We have an idea of something that exists quite independently of human beings.
Quoting noAxioms
You're right. I made the mistake of picking the criterion that seemed closest to what I think. I don't really think that there is a general definition of existence. What existence means depends on the kind of object your are talking about. So there is one criterion for the moon existing and a different one for unicorns existing; the criteria for thermostats are different again. The criteria for existence are truth-conditions, so are not themselves true or false.
Quoting noAxioms
I'm a bit puzzled about what you mean by "the picture" here.
Quoting Wayfarer
Thanks for that. I did look at it, and it was interesting. But I'm simply not competent to comment.
Quoting boundless
This is a bit of a distraction. However, let me say that I think that most philosophers do actually decide to live with the dissonance. Perhaps they actually prefer the argument and would be disappointed if they couldn't have it.
Suppose you started with recognizing two facts. First, we sometimes act freely. Second that the world appears to be deterministic. The only problem is to develop an account of those two facts that recognizes both. Doing that will require rejecting the concepts that are taken for granted in formulating the problem. For example, free will is defined in opposition to determinism, so we need to get rid of that concept. It doesn't make any sense anyway. Determinism, on the other hand, is treated as if it was true. But if it is true, it is empirically true, and I don't see how we can possibly know that, so we need to think that through again.
It absolutely does apply. The justification given for its nonexistence gates whether the chosen stance is valid or not. It's the core point of this whole topic.
Then you don't have a valid model, let alone several of them. A quite simple model might say that both exist, the unicorns just being somewhere else where we don't see them. That example shows that there can be a single model that applies to both. Another is that unicorns don't exist, but moon does. That's likely more popular, but it isn't specified why the model declares unicorns to be nonexistent, so it's incomplete.
I've never required us to know about them. This is a model, not proof of existence or not. The topic is not about epistemology. We can't know if the unicorns exist or not, and we certainly can't know if our chosen model is sound or not, but we can at least come up with a valid one.
You got it backwards. The general rule is what I'm after. The unicorns end up on one side or the other depending on the rule chosen. Rule first, then assessment of unicorn or whatever. Point is, I want a rule that you might assert belief in, and one that has the property of mind-independent existence. If you can't do that, then my title is pretty accurate: Nobody really believes in mind-independent existence. They might assert it, but they apparently don't have a coherent model that supports it.
OK. Sounds like the beginnings of a complex model. I would have probably classified moon, unicorn, and thermostat in the same category of either 2: Part of this universe, or 3, relational.
You compared my suggestion of a spacetime diagram to a picture of the same subject, presumably from some point of view.
Quoting boundlessClassical (Newtonian) physics is not deterministic, and if they thought so 1.2 centuries ago, they didn't think it through. Norton's dome is a wonderful example, but that was published only a couple decades ago.
We're not so certain, but can you even think of an alternative? One alternative is that the system isn't closed, but non-closed systems have always failed to be either deterministic or random.
Yes. Empirical data cannot be trusted, and that's why it's not an interpretation of evidence, but rather a denial of it, similar to BiV. Yes, superdeterminism can be locally real. It's a loophole. Still is even under the new improved 'proof' 3 years ago.
Quoting boundlessThat's the line, yes, and its a crock. FW is only needed for moral responsibility to something not part of the deterministic structure, such as an objective moral code. But I've seen only human social rules, hardly objective at all.
The alternatives are randomness and not-closed system. The former doesn't yield external moral responsibility either (as you point out), so the latter is required, in which case the system is simply larger, and we're back to determinism or randomness again.
That does not absolve you of responsibility (to something within the closed system) for your choice. This has been fact for billions of years. You are responsible to eat. Punishment is death. Nothing unfair about that.
All correct. All those are best implemented with deterministic mechanisms.
I get along with it fine.
Not much. They're not particularly social. My point was that moths find utility in, if not randomness, at least unpredictbility. Utilization of randomness has nothing to do with morals.
My, but we're digressing, no?
Quoting boundlessSaid 'guide' sounds like pilot waves, something definitely associated with dBB. The variant doesn't go along these lines then.
I don't know enough about QM to comment about wave functions being anything but nonlocal. I mean, they're supposed to describe a system, or at least what's known about a system. The latter suggests that the real wave function is different than the one we measure. It being a system means that it's nonlocal since systems are not all in one place. That it sort of describes a state implies a state at a moment in time, but a nonlocal moment in time is not really defined sans frame. So we really need a unified theory to speak the same language about both theories.
Quoting Wayfarer
So what didn't Bell prove 55 years prior? From reading up on the prize, it was for vastly improved techniques and closing several (but not all) holes.
Quoting Mww
This makes no sense. If there wasn't anything, there'd be no misunderstanding, no existing claim of anything. That isn't a contradiction.
It only becomes a contradiction if you claim the existence of misunderstanding, and also claim the lack of existence of anything.
Hence there seems to be no necessary existence of anything.
Bell didnt prove anything. At the time, the required experimental apparatus and know-how didnt exist. He worked out what needed to be proven, but the actual proof had to wait for those guys that won the Nobel (well after Bell had died).
Yes. How did you type your response and send it over the internet to me? Do you think there was a mind involved that created the electricity? Do you think that if your power was out, you could walk over to your computer, type a message, and it would appear on the internet? Reality constantly smacks us in the face with a two-by-four with contradictions daily to what our mind wants to believe is true.
There is often a confusion between "What we know" and "What is". What we know is what can be best reasoned with the limited information we have. But even that knowledge could be contradicted one day if we haven't yet encountered everything that involves the knowledge claims reasonableness.
What we know is clear: There is a world independent of our own minds. Does that mean we've grasped that world accurately? What does accurately mean? To create a concept of the world that when applied is good enough for most purposes. Gravity accelerates at 9.8 meters per second on Earth. For most calculations, this gets us the outcome we predict consistently. And in this regard we have what could be considered an accurate assessment of reality independent of a mind. We didn't set gravity to accelerate at 9.8 meters per second on Earth, we discovered it.
But the question of whether things exist independently of the mind, is not the question of whether they exist whether or not you or I, in particular, are aware of them. The question arises from the realisation of the role of the mind in perceiving what we know to be the external world. The brain and the central nervous system are in contact with the world through the sense-faculties of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The mind or brain integrates all of that data with our remembered world-model to construct a panoramic vision we know as 'the world' (panorama literally meaning 'seeing all'). Without that conscious and unconscious process of data reception and synthesis, there would be no world to see. It's not something infants see; they have to learn how to see it, an act which takes the first few years of life.
'Sure', might be the response 'but even if you're not conscious or not there, "the world" continues to exist.' And in one sense, it does - but again, we only know that, because we're able to consciously contemplate it. We have an innate sense of its existence, and all of the empirical data indicates that it existed before we, as individuals, were born, and will continue after we die. But that knowledge is still grounded in our 'mind's eye', so to speak - even our knowledge of what it is.
Realism neglects the role of the mind in this process. It takes the world as given, without considering the role the mind plays in its construction. That is the context in which the idea of mind dependence or independence is meaningful.
Ok, but I think that 'truth' is not contradictory. Philosophers seek truth and I would assume that there is a way to reconcile these things. If determinism and probabilism can't give a reasonable account of moral responsability it is quite a deep problem.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not sure about your point here. Are you saying that we can still 'believe' in free will even if all empirical evidence goes against it because, even if there is no free will, we can't be certain of it?
To me that would be self-deception.
What? Interesting, wow. Anyway, I don't think that at that time people thought that it wasn't deterministic. Even chaotic systems are deterministic despite the appearances.
Quoting noAxioms
I can think of an alternative but I can't formulate it mathematically and I can't think of how to make a scientific test that can be used to falsify the idea.
Quoting noAxioms
Agreed. If emprical data can't be trusted, what even is the point to do science?
Quoting noAxioms
We generally do not held accountable people if they could not act otherwise (e.g. for instance, one might be regarded as 'not guilty' due to reason of insanity - the assumption here is that the transgress didn't have the capacity to act otherwise). If determinism were true, the same would be true for all. I guess that one can think that punishments could have some utilitarian sense but I can't make sense of talking about of moral responsability.
Quoting noAxioms
Right, if closed systems are either deterministic or probabilistic nothing really changes. I think that it is a questionable assumption but I respect it. After all, there are good reasons to regard it as true so it's not irrational. I do believe, however, that a more 'complete' picture that gives the due importance to ethics suggests that such an assumption might not be valid. Or at least that there are heavier consequences than what it is generally assumed.
Quoting noAxioms
In a sense, yes, I agree death by starvation is a sort of punishment for death. But if one that dies of starvation didn't have the possibility to act otherwise can we held that person accountable?
Quoting noAxioms
Ok.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, sorry for that. But I don't treat different areas of culture as separated from each other. Scientific knowledge isn't something that has no effect on ethics and vice versa. Both are quite important and if they contradict each other there is something amiss in one or the other. From a practical point of view, I would say that ethics is even more important. So, I don't think that we should ignore the fact that some of its constitutive assumptions seem to be in tension with what science tell us.
But yes, it is off-topic.
Quoting noAxioms
In the 'wave function as a law' model the laws are simply descriptive. There is no 'pilot wave' that guides them, no causal agent for their motion. That's why I said it is a kinematic model. Both the Bohm-Hiley and the Valentini-Bell variants do have a dynamics. In the first, there is a 'quantum potential' that depends only on the form of the wavefunction (that's why in later years Bohm thought that it is a kind of 'informatiuon pool' and the particles have some kind of ability to decode information) that act on the particles with a 'force' which in turn causes an acceleration - all is described as in classical physics with second-order time derivatives. The other 'realist' model doesn't use the quantum potential. It is also a model that uses only first derivatives of positions and, according to Valentini, it is a very big difference with respect to classical mechanics.
Still, both models treat the wavefunction as a causal agent. This isn't true for the 'wave function as a law' model. While the latter is better than superdeterminism, it is still curious that one wants to make a CFD model without a dynamics.
Well, Bell proved mathematically that no 'local realistic' theory can make the same predictions of QM (outside some problematic loopholes like superdeterminism). In itself it is a powerful result. Of course, the 'experimental proofs' came later. The first experiments however were made in the 80s and Bell was still alive.
Nice article BTW.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right. Honestly, part of the problems in these discussions is that 'realism' is often assumed to be the position that there is something that exists even in the absence of our minds. This of course gives an incredible amount of 'realisms'. Physicalism is a type of realism. But also theism is. But even epistemic idealism is a form of 'realism' becuase it doesn't say that reality is only minds and mental contents.
'Realism' is, however, also an epistemic position. It claims that there is a reality different from minds and mental contents that can be known by mind as it is. Of course, even with this definition realism covers a lot of positions. But with this definition realism excludes an epistemic idealism or a skeptical position where nothing outside minds and mental contents, representations etc can be known and also an ontological idealism where there is nothing outside minds and mental contents ('weaker' forms of ontological idealism, which claims that fundamental reality is mental but do not deny the existence and the knowability of something different from minds and mental contents however are in fact forms of realism).
In order to prove 'realism' in this sense one should be able to identify what can, with certainty, be said to be different from minds and mental contents (including representations). That is, one should be able to distinguish 'what pertains to reality as it appears to us' and 'what pertains to reality as it is itself'. Contrary to appearances, when one considers the regulating role that the mind has in ordering our experience it becomes quite hard to just do that.
I stand corrected.
Quoting boundless
Thank you :pray:
My comments on mind (in)dependence were mainly to illustrate that what it means is not as obvious as many would think.
Which is precisely what you did, on both counts, affirming the LNC violation you asked for.
Agreed. Unfortunately, however this is also because there is a tendency to use the same words with different meanings. But this isn't a problem only for philosophers. Think about how much the term 'observer' varies among the various interpretations of QM.
@noAxioms, if you are interested in this 'variant' of dBB, there is this lecture by Valentini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZV9crCZM8 that I watched years ago.
Here, among other things, he suggests that his version of dBB can make different predictions with respect to standard QM. In fact, IIRC he suggests that these deviations might be observed in the early stages of the universe. Interestingly, if that happens it would be possible to send faster than light signals.
Then I'm afraid I don't see what you are getting at.
Quoting noAxioms
I'm afraid I'm lost again.
Quoting noAxioms
This doesn't help me at all.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't understand any of the above.
Quoting noAxioms
A general rule would be good. But how can one work that out without looking at specific cases? Rule first is just wild guessing. You'll have to come back to assessment of specific cases after that. So why waste time?
Quoting noAxioms
I don't understand how 2 or 3 applies to all three and I don't see how that classification tells me anything about their mind-indendence.
Quoting noAxioms
That's not quite what I meant. I have no idea what spacetime would look like and even less idea what a picture of spacetime would look like. We seem to be agreed that what we actually have is a diagram, not a picture.
Quoting boundless
So far as I can see, and I may be wrong, many, if not most, philosophers are compatibilists and are trying to cash that out by re-conceptualizing the problem. To put is another way, the approach is that both traditional free will and traditional determinism are interpretations of the world. If they jointly produce absurdity, we need to think of both differently. Have a look at Wikipedia - Determinism
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't understand why you say that. It we did not have the equipment, we would not be able to carry out the process, and so would be unable to see what would still be there.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course our knowledge is "grounded in our mind's eye", but that doesn't mean that the things we know about (most of them) would vanish if our mind's eye or even the eye in our heads did not exist. Knowledge is not existence.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't know what "realism" does. But I do not deny the role of the mind in the process of perceiving the world. I just deny that the world would cease to exist if our minds etc. ceased to exist.
Quoting Philosophim
I like that. Yes, one of the ways that we can tell what the real world is, is by the way it smacks us in the face if we do not pay enough attention to it.
Quoting Philosophim
Basically, I do agree with you. I even agree with you that we usually have not grasped what we know accurately. But I think there are things in our world that are "mind-dependent" as well as those that are "mind-independent". The difference matters, because it maps the limits of what we can change. It would be a useful piece of philosophical work to chart the difference, if only we could set aside our hunger for grand generalizations.
Knowledge, you will agree, is mind-dependent. Outside of knowledge of the object, the object neither exists nor doesn't exist. This is elaborated in The Mind Created World, if you're interested in further discussing it.
you can imagine that I'm not paticularly sympathetic - especially to the second sentence. However, I've read the first paragraph of your thread and will read further. We'll see.
Yes, that's a possible solution. But still, it seems to me that compatibilists simply do not address the problem. If we cannot act differently, how can we be held accountable?
The reason why we do not attribute guilt to those who are considered 'not guilty' by reason of insanity it is because we do not think they have been able to act otherwise. Their mental state was too compromised.
Unless someone gives a solution to this problem, I am afraid that, despite its popularity, I can't accept compatibilism.
Yes - "too compromised" means "not working as it should or normally does." If their mental state was normal, we would hold them responsible. Yet a deterministic account cannot point to any significant difference between those states. Compromised state and uncompromised state are all the same to it. So our judgement is made in a different framework or category. In practice, when people are behaving normally and their mental state is not compromised, we do not bother with the causal, deterministic level of explanation. We only pay attention to it when things have gone wrong, and those normal explanations don't apply.
Let me offer you this. It seems to me that there is no problem whatever in seeing rational action as entirely compatible with determinism, because calculating machines can perform calculations and yet we know that they are also behaving deterministically. But we only pay attention to the deterministic level of explanation when the machine is not functioning properly. When it is working properly, we have no doubt that it showed the result 4 because it was asked 2 + 2. We don't appeal to its causal states, because they cannot distinguish between correct and incorrect answers, so causal explanation wouldn't explain anything.
Okay, it's not freedom. But it is a step in the right direction. The key is the recognition that actions, as opposed to events, are explained in a different category from events.
If our actions are truly deterministic and we could not have acted otherwise, the only way I can think about 'ethics' is being exactly like medicine. So, we act wrongly and we are held accountable and get punished in order to 'get well' later on. I guess that upo to a certain point I agree. In fact, I am ok with the classical 'virtue ethics' where good act are good because they fulfill our nature. So, in a sense, yes, I agree to treat ethics in a medicinal way. But, as always with analogies, we also have to avoid to take them too far. When we do wrong it is not that we were coerced by internal or external constraints to act in that way. We are influenced by those constraints, but there is a 'window' of freedom that we can't ignore and that 'window' is what makes 'accountability', 'culpability', 'moral responsability' meaningful.
So, yeah, I guess that my view is that compatibilism gets something right but can't tell the whole story.
Also, if we were not free, I even doubt we could consider ourselves as distinct beings from the 'rest of the universe'.
Apparently there was a laundry list of things to verify, which began in the 70's and was completed by the guys winning the prize 3 years ago.
[quote=Wayfarer]Realism neglects the role of the mind in this process.[/quote]Yes. If that sort of mind plays a role, it makes its own predictions, different than the ones made by quantum theory.
Realism already necessarily rejects locality, which allows action from outside, but even nonlocal QM allows nonlocal information transfer, and mind playing a role requires that, no?
- - - - -
Quoting PhilosophimYou've apparently not read much of the thread. Not suggesting any of that. Not even the idealists suggest that.
Pick something you believe doesn't exist. Why do you believe it doesn't exist? What is your criteria for deciding one way or the other? I ask because the criteria specified is most often based on observation, making it observer dependent.
Almost everything is 'what we believe'. Much of what claim to be known is just beliefs. I'm fine with that. I'm not asking if we know reality is mind dependent. I'm seeing if the beliefs are really what they claim to be.
That is a fantastic example of a belief. Plenty of self-consistent views deny this. I personally would say that a world external to myself is perceived. That much makes it relation with an observer. It does not imply that said world exists, unless 'exist' is defined as that relation (which is often how I use the word).
Quoting WayfarerI think the realist position (and not just the direct realist position) is that there would still be the world (quantum definition of the word), relative to something measuring it (a rock say), but yea, all that synthesis that the human mind does is absent, so it would be far more 'the world in itself' and not as we think of it. Time for instance would not be something that flows. Rocks have no need to create that fabrication.
I chose rock and not apple because an apple is definitely a product of perception. The think would not exist without perception since it's design/purpose is to be perceived.
Most of it seems learned by the time the baby is perhaps hours old. They've done experiments with say depth perception and aversion to heights, to newborns opening eyes for the first time. Plenty is built in an not just learned.
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Quoting boundlessTell me. It not being mathematical is also great because it challenges something like MUH. And there's no falsification test for the random/determined issue either.
Which is why BiV, superdeterminism, and say Boltzmann Brains all need to be kept in mind, but are not in any way theories, lacking any evidence whatsoever.
Quoting boundless
So some societies operate, but such societies are quite capable of rendering such judgement using deterministic methods. And yes, I think morals are relative to a specific society. A person by himself cannot be immoral except perhaps to his own arbitrary standards.
I don't hold the person accountable, nature does. One has an obligation to not starve. Death is the unavoidable punishment, and only that death potential make eating an obligation and not just one more choice.
An you do have the opportunity to act otherwise. Brains were evolved to make better choices, which wouldn't work at all if there were to choices available. Determinism shouldn't be confused with compulsion as it often is in these discussions.
If you think determinism has any relevance to accountability, how is any alternative (randomness say)
any better? I cannot think of a moral choice where randomness would yield a better selection.
I don't think there's any relevance at all, so the question is moot to me.
Quoting Ludwig VIt isn't wild guessing since the rule needs to be consistent with what we do observe, and the opinions of most people don't meet that criteria, per the OP.
The unicorn, as a specific case, should of course be 'I don't know'. So an educated estimate might be in order, which is not wild guess. How about a 4 dimensional rock? That's not going to be part of 'the universe', so either you pick a rule that says it doesn't exist, or pick one that doesn't confine existence to 'the universe', or perhaps, 'the universe now'. Once we have a rule, we analyze it for mind dependence, and per my argument, anything that mentions 'the universe' is probably going to be mind dependent, unless one defines universe far more broadly with 'all that exists', in which case one is left wondering if we're part of that. I am at least. Most use a definition that includes one's self.
2 is 'part of the universe'. You probably put the moon and thermostat in the universe. I consider the universe to be sufficiently large to leave little probability of the absence of a unicorn anywhere. Hence same classification. 3 is trickier since it needs to relate to me, so perhaps the unicorn isn't close enough to do that.
As for mind-dependence, we call our universe 'the universe', making it privileged because we see it. That makes it a pretty observer dependent definition of existence. 3 is not observer dependent, but depends on causal relationships. Existence is thus only meaningful within structures that have them.
Internet is full of them. OK, so you don't have a physics background. Makes it harder to discuss relativity and quantum implications to this topic.
Quoting Mww
You'll have to point out where I did any such thing.
:100: The universe that most believe would be there in the absence of any observer would not have any form, as form is discovered by the mind (per Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order). The world 'in itself' is formless and therefore meaningless. We mistake the form discovered by the mind as something that is there anyway, not seeing that the mind is the source of it. Kant 101, as I understand him.
Its irrelevant why I believe something does not exist. Its relevant if I know that something doesn't exist. Belief is a feeling. Knowledge is an objective determination.
Quoting noAxioms
The only way to know if a belief is valid is if you have done the diligence to turn it into knowledge. There is a way to measure inductions by a hierarchy of types, but you need to know what knowledge is first.
Quoting noAxioms
No, its basic knowledge. There was a time you did not exist, now you do. Do you think you spontaneously created and are the only person in existence? Why do you need to breathe? Go ahead, hold your breath for as long as you can. Don't eat for a month. Stop drinking water. Don't make the mistake of getting so caught up in word games that you ignore the basic reality that will kill you no matter how much you don't want it to.
And yes, you perceive the outside world. its 'outside'. How else are you supposed to experience it? Why does the fact that you perceive means it can't exist apart from yourself? You even know you can misperceive it. Try jumping 10 feet down and believe that you'll float. Doesn't work does it? The outside world will happily grab a two by four and smack you over the head again and again. Those who don't learn end up crippled or dead.
If you're interested in a knowledge theory that results in a hierarchy of induction (a rational way of managing beliefs), read my knowledge theory. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1 There's a summary from the first poster if you want the cliff notes.
Self consistent, and oftentimes with low correspondence to reality. Perhaps, something to watch out for.
I'm sorry this has taken so long. I hope this is not a disappointment to you. All these quotations come from the original post for the thread "The Mind-Created World". I read your essay, with profit. But I think the major issues are reasonably clearly identified here.
I can accept that. It doesn't mean that the objects that we make judgements about are mind-dependent. That would be confusing the framework with its contents.
Yes.
I suppose so. Mind you, I'm not happy with the term "Reality". It seems as if it means "Everything that's real". But some things can be unreal under one description and real under another. So reality and unreality are inextricably entwined, which make "Reality" a rather unhelpful term.
Similarly, the binary idea that things are either mind-dependent or not seems quite wrong to me. If one considers something like, say, a thermostat, we can see that it is mind-dependent in one way, but since it is made of raw materials that are mind-independent, it is hard to classify. Thermostats, unicorns and transfinite numbers are all mind-dependent, and mind-independent in different ways.
Well, yes. It's an exciting time in neurology, no doubt about it. But let's not go overboard.
I wouldn't assume that we have a single unified world-picture. We might be working with several such pictures of different parts or aspects of the world. But does anyone think that creating a world-picture makes the objects in the picture mind-dependent? On the whole, the object of a picture does not depend on being in the picture for its existence. There are exceptions, but they are exceptional.
It is really quite extraordinary how the processes that reveal the world to us are represented by philosophers as concealing the world from us. What you are forgetting is that the world actually exists. Our "world-picture" is actually a picture of something. So, although it is not exactly wrong to say that our brain generates a picture, it is crucially important to remember that it is not conjured up from nothing but is the result of removing noise from the signals that we get from the world. (That's not a perfect way of describing what is going on, but it is better than thinking that the brain presents us with a fantasy.)
You had a video on your web-site. I watched it. A collection of scientists told me that I did not know reality accurately. Which is probably true. But they also told me that it was science that had revealed this truth to them. This was a case of what I think of as scientific exceptionalism. The idea that scientists are immune from the failings of ordinary human beings. Rubbish! Science gets things wrong, too.
Let's allow that we are presented with a world-picture by our brains. This world-picture is not perfect. Fortunately, we have a critical faculty and a feed-back system, so our brains are perfectly capable of identifying errors and recticying them. That applies to scientists and non-scientists alike.
Well, yes. What we know is "bound by and to the mind we have (are?)". It wouldn't be our knowledge if it were not so. But that doesn't show that the object of our knowledge is "inextricably bound by and to the mind". Indeed, one of the things we know is that many things are not bound to our minds at all.
... except, of course, that nothing can be said (or known) about it. But that's an annoying argument, so I won't press it. I think I understand what you mean about the idea that things go out of existence. "Neither exists nor does not exist" must be based on "What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible" (?) There is indeed a certain puzzle about saying whether something that we do not know of at all exists or doesn't. The catch is that has literally nothing to do with the question whether it did or not.
Take an actual example. It does seem clear to me that in the centuries before Neptune was discovered, a) no-one knew of its existence, b) no-one knew that they didn't know of its existence and c) it existed. How do I know that? By working back from its discovery. Mind you, that does not mean that Herschel knew everything that was to know about Uranus; indeed, when he first saw it, he thought it was a comet, not a planet. So we could say he did not discover Uranus in March 1781, My sources don't tell me exactly when the new body was recognized as a planet, but it was a bit later, after detailed measurements had been collected; people other than Herschel were involved. Discovery is not necessarily a single event, and discovery of existence is not separate from discovery of information about the discovery. Bare existence is not something to be discovered or revealed - (i.e. existence is not a predicate). Perhaps that's what you are getting at?
Disorientation is a good way of characterizing philosophical problems. But I don't experience that here. Can you tell me more about it?
Quoting Wayfarer
I can't comment on either Kant or Pinter. But it all depends what you mean by "form". I could be wrong, but I am under the impression that Aristotle and many others were quite happy to posit forms as existent in things whether or not anyone knew about it. Even Plato allowed that existing things "participated" in the relevant forms.
Not at all! I very much appreciate the careful and constructive comments on The Mind-Created World. They show genuine engagement, and I welcome the thoughtful critiques. However, I've posted my response in that thread.
Quite so. No-one except Nietzsche seems to have spotted the distinction between compulsion and determinism.
Quoting noAxioms
There's something we agree on. I'm offering you some observations that suggest, at tleast to me, that the question of mind-dependence is much more complicated than you seem prepared to recognize. What's wrong with that?
As to the OP, I'll have to get back to you.
Quoting noAxioms
If unicorn-like creatures exist anywhere in the universe, their similarity to the unicorns we know and love is entirely coincidental and proves nothing. That argument is a side-issue. That pattern of argument can be used to prove the existence of anything that you can imagine. It makes the idea of distinguishing between what does and doesn't exist meaningless.
Quoting noAxioms
Three dimensions for space plus one for time, makes four dimensions. So all rocks are 4-dimensional. Perhaps you mean 5 dimensional? In which case, you'll have to ask someone else.
You have what, to me, is a very peculiar idea of what the universe is. For me, naively no doubt, the universe is everything that exists. I realize there's another definition around, but since I don't understand it, it would be foolish of me to use the word in that sense. Don't ask me for a definition of the world. If the world is not everything that exists, I have no idea what it is supposed to be. The world of fishing or chess - or the lived or phenomenal worlds - make a kind of sense to me. But none of those are whole worlds.
Quoting noAxioms
I do put the moon and the thermostat in the universe. I'm less sure about unicorns. They are mythical creatures, so exist in our universe. But since they are mythical, they do not exist. It's complicated - either answer is justifiable.
Quoting noAxioms
You may be suffering from delusions of grandeur. Mt. Everest's existence was not caused by the people who climb it or by the people who worship it and mathematical objects like numbers, it would seem, do not exist at all.
Quoting noAxioms
Indeed. If there are any. It seems to me that very little is agreed in those fields, so perhaps it is premature to think that any secure conclusions can be derived yet.
But it does seem fairly well established that making observations at quantum level does have a causal impact on what happens and both theories seem to have adopted Berkeley more or less wholesale.
Yet the observers live in the ordinary world. It's a conundrum.
Cognitive disorientation: the empirical kind, a posteriori, and properly reduced, occurs when we say we know what a thing is but we dont realize it is not the thing but always and only the representation of it, to which such knowledge expression relates. So yes, you, and everyone else, is a victim of it, but it isnt an experience, as such. It is the mistake of conflating the occurrence of a cognitive method with the post hoc ergo propter hoc expression of its functional terminations.
Some folks like to quip .the universe doesnt care what the human thinks about it, it is what it is. Compounded categorical errors aside, it is at least consistent to quip that human thought doesnt care what the universe is. It remains the case that the universe, or, with respect to empirical knowledge, the objects contained in it, can never be comprehended as anything but that of which the human mode of intellectual determinations prescribes. Why these should be considered incompatible with each other, is beyond reason itself.
Well, unless you can show me a mathematical model that can predict (deterministically or not) choices, I don't think you have shown that everything can be described mathematically.
Roger Penrose for instance has argued that our reasoning isn't algorithmic. Certainly, this goes against the 'computable universe hypothesis', according to which all phenomena are computable.
In any case, it is quite speculative to say that everything can be described mathematically.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes. Interestingly, I made a similar objection to the 'block universe', where all events past, present and future have the same ontological status. If we can be so wrong in our experience, how can empirical knowledge (which is needed to falsify/verify scientific theories) be trusted?
Quoting noAxioms
I think that it depends on how one understands morality. If one understand it simply as a social contract, then sure. But if one adopts a kind of 'virtue ethics', then, one can be moral or immoral even when alone.
Quoting noAxioms
How so? Yes, you can argue that a human that is compelled to act in a certain way isn't 'acting properly'. But if all actions are determined by the initial conditions and deterministic laws, how can we say that we have an opportunity to 'act otherwise'? And if we do not have it, how can we attribute responsibility to someone in a non-trivial way (a 'trivial way' would be something like: the 'lightning' is responsible for the destruction of the tree)?
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, probabilism is no better. We need something else.
Quoting Wayfarer
Interestingly, there is the 'many-mind' interpretation (MMI). In this view, the physical universe evolves in the same way as is described by MWI. In MMI, however, the 'emergence' of a classical universe is, in fact, due to 'mind'. That is, the definite outcomes in which the wavefunction 'splits' are observed by different minds.
One is moral or immoral only if he is alone. Otherwise, he is possibly criminal, or merely unethical, which stand as objects of moral dispositions, but says nothing regarding the determinations of them.
Caveat: this under the assumption morality, in and of itself, is an intrinsic human condition, and if so, can only be represented in himself, by himself, because of himself. Criminality and ethics presupposes a community in which a member can be alone within; morality itself, does not, and indeed, such communal presupposition negates the validity of intrinsic condition.
Two cents
Human beings are also essentially relational. I don't think that a human being is conceivable in total isolation (at least in potency). So, I would say that morality also is about how one relates to others.
Interesting that you distinguish ethics and morality in that way.
To get to the bottom, though, it might be closer, to say morality is that by which one decides what his relation to others ought to be, irrespective of the particular incident for which a morally predicated act is required. What I mean is, how one relates to others, or, the manner by which the relation manifests, requires some relevant act, but something else must be the ground for determining what the act ought to be.
Another two cents, and an entirely different philosophical doctrine, then merely supporting the mind-independence of reality.
I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that the methods by which we come to know what something is aren't methods at all? That seems odd. How did you come to know that?
More seriously, thinking of what enables us to know what a thing is as a veil between us and what we seek to know is, for me, seriously disorienting. Why our methods of coming to know should be considered incompatible with knowing may well beyond reason as you say; but it is certainly beyond me.
I think what may lie at the bottom of this confusion is a binary approach, which cannot recognize that we can come to know something about things, but we never (or seldom) come to know everything about anything. The answer to one question usually generates another question. That's why we know that things are not entirely dependent on our minds.
Of course not; thats self-contradictory. Im saying the method by which things in particular are known, re: the system, in whichever form it may have, is very far from talking about the things possible to know, re: reality in general.
Quoting Ludwig V
I dunno, man; what enables us to know is a system of cognition; thinking of what enables us to know is philosophizing about a system of cognition. Those dont fit the conceptual veil. On the other hand, the representation, not being the thing, but necessarily that of which our knowledge consists, is a better fit for the conceptual veil, but to think of what enables us to know, the system itself, is not to think of representations, which are mere parts of the system. For a whole boatload of -isms reflecting the confusion this nonsense brings, see the SEP article.
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Riddle me this: do we seek to know a thing, or do we seek to know the cause of a sensation?
Pretty silly, methinks. I know what a basketball is, but trust me when I say there isnt and never was any such thing in my head. Why should both of those judgements be so apodeitically yet trivially true, but some folks still want to make some sort of veil out of it? And .spoiler alert therein lay the answer to the riddle.
Quoting Ludwig V
Ehhhhh .on the other side of a very large coin, why we know things are not entirely dependent on our minds, is because it is not things we know, from which follows nothing of a thing is dependent on our minds. A simple re-stating of the thread title.
Havin fun yet?
That sounds like my cup of tea. But which article exactly.
Quoting Mww
What if a thing is the cause of a sensation?
Quoting Mww
I'm very glad to hear it.
Quoting Mww
It all depends on what you mean by "know".
Would that be a large coin in the sense of a coin worth a large sum of money?
In the old days, the largest coin in the UK was a penny. There were 240 pennies in one pound, so it made a sort of idiot sense.
Quoting Mww
Well, most philosophy is fun, but some philosophy is more fun than the rest. Unless you are a professional. For a professional, the question is which philosophy gets you paid.
I agree that form interpreted (not discovered) by mind is often mistaken thus.
Quoting boundless
I never got that interpretation since it being different definite outcomes is relative to anything, not just information processors. I suppose I'd need to delve into it more to critique it more informatively.
Quoting Ludwig VWhat would you want to prove? How does your assessment differ from anything else that's in the universe but unobserved? Whether or not humans would classify/name it as a unicorn or not has no bearing on it being there.
Then imagine something more exotic like that 4-spatial dimension 'rock'. That can't exist in the universe, but is hardly impossible in another. That thing can't exist if 'the universe' is the only privileged one. So how does our chosen policy deal with that?
[/quote] In which case, you'll have to ask someone else.[/quote]You abstain, which is much what the topic title is about. Few hold a consistent enough view to deal with these outlier cases. What I see exists. What I don't, well, I don't care. That sounds awfully observer dependent even if you assert that it would exist without people to see it. Too late. It's already been observed. Can't unsee it by pretending we were never there.
No actually. I can think of half a dozen definitions, but 'everything that exists' makes 'existence' definition 2 circular. You don't know if we're part of that set, and thus if we exist.
I tend to put 'universe' as 'all that came from our big bang', but even that is ambiguous. It at least allows one to posit more, and make words like 'multiverse' meaningful, which it isn't if 'universe' is all that exists.
Why? I know, it sounds like a stupid question, but given your fairly objective definition, how specifically do you justify that statement? I use a different definition, and yea, would put the moon and theormostat in my 'world', which is confined to my past light cone. I relate to the things in my world, and those things exist (def 3) relative to me, but not in any objective sense. That definition is nicely mind independent, but you may differ.
Not talking about the myth or the concept, but actual unicorns. Keep that in mind. Sure, the myth exists, in stories. Not what's being asked.
Here I thought I was humble by being quite unsure of even my own existence (by any definition).
Not true. Most realist interpretations deny any causal impact from observation. No wavefunction collapse. The transactional interpretation seems to be an exception to that statement, but I know little about it.
Quoting boundlessInability to express something complex as a function of trivial operations doesn't mean that it isn't a function of trivial operations, but of course it also isn't proof that it is such.
Empirical knowledge is exactly how we correct our initial guesses, which are often based on intuition.
Yes, quite. I understand it as a contract (written or not) with a society. Many would define it differently. My assertion about the isolated person works with my definition, and not with some others.
Compulsion is when you make one choice, but are incapable of enacting it. Cumpulsion is not the inability to do two different things, which is what 'could have done otherwise' boils down to.
Quoting PhilosophimThen this topic is not for you since it is all about the limits of what we feel exists, and what doesn't meet that criteria.
Nope. This topic is not an epistemic one. I'm not asking how you know something exists or not. I am looking for a belief system that is consistent with mind independence, and where the limits are placed is critical to that.
Subjective actually, almost all of it anyway. I doubt you'd figure out 2+2=4 without subjective input, even if it is arguably objective knowledge.
No, that's how you know the belief is sound. What I'm talking about cannot be knowledge, so logic must be used to validate it. Nobody seems particularly inclined to expose their own beliefs to this analysis.
Quoting wonderer1Only if they're wrong, and you don't know if they're wrong.
Nope. I dispute that. To say what it is, to name it, you have to bring it to mind. If you are considering what it would be, sans any observer, you're still bringing it to mind. And as soon as you say 'seems to be', already you're talking of what appears to be the case.
OK, interesting. I would also add: how is that by which one decides what his relation to himself is.
Ok. I admit that I am also not that familiar with that interpretation. Also it doesn't make completely sense to me. I mean: I have one body in a superposition of states and a myriad of minds for each? Still, I do think that it is an interesting 'take' of MWI. For instance, MWI supporters generally claim that decoherence is enought to have 'classicality'. But IIRC, interference isn't eliminated. The terms relative to interference become very, very small but not zero - so apparently MMI supporters claim that to have true classicality you need minds.
Quoting noAxioms
Agreed. Both positions are possible until one gives enough evidence for one of them. I think that it is not unreasonable to hold both of them.
Quoting noAxioms
I agree. I just think that the block universe takes things too far. Fortunately for me, GR is not the whole story.
Quoting noAxioms
Agreed.
Quoting noAxioms
I would say that compulsion is when our deliberative power is coherced to act in a certain bway by internal (e.g. severe mental illnesses) or external constraints. I disagree with compatibilists that excluding these factors is enough to retain accountability.
That doesn't seem like a downside to me. Who says interference at classical scales needs to be anything other than very very small?
After all, we've put relatively large objects in superposition...
Note however that our experience does seem about definite outcomes without any interference, i.e. our experience suggests to us that there is no interference, period. Of course, it can be wrong.
Honestly, I think that it is one of those situations where you get a stalemate between two positions.
Interestingly, you find a similar problem in epistemic interpretations different from QBism vs QBism. Here, probabilities that have a value of 0 and 1 do not represent probabilities, rather they represent the situation when you get a certain knowledge. And from here you get the speculations about a supposed role of observations to bring 'into being' definite outcomes from an indeterminate state. In QBism, probabilities with a value of 0 and 1 still represent a 'degree of belief' like all other probabilities.
Do you have a solid concept of what the experience of interference would be like? What kinds of experiences would you be expecting, if there were interference?
I have no idea. That's might be taken as a suggestion that there is no interference in the world we experience. Hence, decoherence is not enough. In fact, I do agree with this.
Conversely, MWI supporters would say that our experience is not precise, has been proven wrong before and, therefore, should not be trusted here.
I take it as a suggestion that maybe you experience the consequences of interference constantly, as a matter of course, but they're just... normal. They don't look particularly different from anything else you experience.
We live in a quantum world. Quantum IS normal. Everything normal you experience is the consequence of many quantum interactions. So maybe... interference is just happening all the time, and you experience it all the time, and it's just a normal part of this quantum world we're in.
Any interpreter of QM must give an account of why we do not experience mutually contradictory states.
Also there is the preferred basis problem. Basically, in MWI the branching is explained by saying that there is a superposition of definite states. Yet, there seems no reason from 'first principles' that tells us that the branching should be between definite states. In fact, it seems an a posteriori assumption that is made in MWI. This is not a fatal objection to MWI but, if I am not mistaken, the fact that the branching happens in the way that is consistent to our experience is a ad hoc assumption that we need to add to MWI.
This problem is found in all interpretations that claim to not add any additional structure to the quantum state of the universe. This objection doesn't apply to de Broglie-Bohm due to the presence of particles and to Copenaghen-like views due to the presence of observers. Also perhaps MMI escapes this problem via the 'minds'.
See on this this paper: "Nothing happens in the Universe of the Everett Interpretation" by physicist J. Schwindt.
@noAxioms
https://www.bing.com/search?q=veil+of+perception&form=APIPA1&PC=APPD
Quoting Ludwig V
Thats given; theres no knowledge in a given, arguments from Plato and Russell aside. Next in timeline from the given thing that causes a sensation, is the sensation itself, and it is there that the system is triggered, booted, if you will, into function.
What do I care that you have the cutest damn kid ever, if Ive never seen it?
Quoting Ludwig V
What I mean is, to know is to end a systematic cognitive method in a possible experience, given a particular sensation. Logically, that reduces to simply ..knowledge is experience, and from which follows the fundamental justification for affirming mind-independent reality.
What about you? What do you mean by know?
From a purely speculative metaphysical perspective, bottom line is, ones decision on his relation to himself follows necessarily from whether or not the volitions of his will justify his worthiness of being happy. Clear conscience on steroids, so to speak.
What you are looking for is a way to find rational or cogent inductions. Read my paper, it answers that. I'll post the answer here but you probably won't understand it until you do. Once you understand what applicable knowledge is, (A definition that you test deductively against reality for contradictions), the next step is being reasonable about situations in which you cannot test deductively against reality. The most reasonable thing is to create an induction that has the least steps removed from what is applicably known. While an induction can never be certain by definition, it can be reasonable, and thus a hierarchy of inductions can be created.
Probability, possibility, plausibility, and irrational are the hierarchies of induction. Probability is the belief that what is applicably known can happen again, and applicable knowledge of its limits. Possibility is taking what has been applicably known and believing it can happen again. Plausibility is distinctive knowledge, or a creation of an idea in the mind that seems logical, but has yet to be tested against reality. Finally an irrational belief is holding that distinctive knowledge which has been shown to be contradicted by reality, is believed to be known or induced as being viable in reality.
While none of the inductions are certain, in a competing set of beliefs, it is most rational to take the higher order of induction over the lower. For example: Its possible to win the lottery, but improbable. As probability is a higher order of induction, the most rational belief to hold is that it is massively unlikely that you will win the lottery and not bother purchasing a ticket. If someone comes up to you and says, "It's plausible a unicorn that cannot be sensed by any means exists, we should base our actions as if one exists" you can counter, "Yes, but we've never applicably known one. Therefore its possibility of existence is 0, and we do not have to rationally consider that it exists in our decisions going forward."
So, I went through your OP carefully. Im afraid that I do not come away with a general criterion for mind-independence. So I wont be able to meet your challenge. A lot more could be said, so I dont pretend that Ive made a conclusive case here. All quotations are from your OP.
Im not clear what this means. Presumably, you mean that to say the universe exists is to say that the universe exists, but not to say that any of the others exist. Fair enough. I dont see any implications for mind-dependence or not.
Your etymology is not wrong. But arguments based on etymology are very weak because words can change their meaning over time. I dont think exists any longer means stands out in any sense that is relevant to questions about mind-dependence or not.
For me, "exists" just means "There is/are.." as in "There is a moon" or "There are elephants".
Well, it is true that if we perceive something, that something usually exists. Thats part of the meaning of perceive. But most often that something exists quite independently of the label and quite independently of the perception. So there is nothing to the point here. (When we think we see things that do not exist, we use different language concepts like mistake, hallucination, delusion and illusion.)
Thinking of the word/concept real as like a label that you can slap on things can be a bit misleading. In many cases, you will find that something that is not real under one description is perfectly real under another description. The traditional example here is that a decoy duck is not a real duck, but it is a real decoy duck, a fake Rolex watch is a real fake Rolex watch, a mirage of trees and water is not real trees and water, but is a real mirage, and so on. That complicates the question of mind-independence considerably.
In principle, this is an interesting criterion, which could work, at least in standard scientific contexts. The original formulation in Platos Sophist) goes something like Anything that exists is capable of affecting other things, and capable of being affected by other things. But it works in favour of mind-independence of anything that it applies to. Your argument to adapt it to show the opposite is very weak, because you admit that there are different ways to formulate it. I;m afraid that in any case, phrases like counted as do not imply mind-dependence, at least as I understand it.
A criterion does not normally affect the independence or otherwise of what it is a criterion for. When they changed the criterion for a planet so that Pluto was no longer a planet, Pluto was totally unaffected.
I agree with that. But thats because philosophers use the word in a very peculiar way which generates all sorts of fake puzzles. Normal people know perfectly well what the critical marks are of real coins, real diamonds, etc. What philosophers seem unable to stomach is the fact that the criterion for real depends on what you are talking about.
For my money, the neat singular classical reality was always an illusion. Quantum Mechanics, in this respect, was knocking at an open door. But I dont see anything that clarifies mind-dependence or not.
Im afraid I must have missed something. I dont find any third principle here. The question seems to get lost in a maze of interpretations and dramatically strange ideas. Maybe things will get sorted out in a few years. What is clear is that quantum mechanics is a huge raspberry to anyone who thinks that our thinking makes the world what it is.
Quoting Ludwig VIf you're looking for me to evangelize one, I tried not to.
I am pointing out the distinction between 'a universe' (this being one of many) vs 'the universe', which implies there's just one, and we're looking at it. The preferred way things are has plot holes that I point out, and declaring only this one to exist is a mind-dependent act.
For that statement, 'the universe' refers to all of our spacetime, even the parts not measurable, but not other type II universes such as ones with 4 spatial dimensions, just to name a simple difference.
I'm harping mostly on 'the' vs 'a', and not so much on the problems with asserting that it exists.
I'm harping mostly on 'the' vs 'a', and not so much on the problems with asserting that it exists.
It out of gazillions of potential universes, only this preferred one exists, it is probably special because it is observed and the others are not. Sounds pretty observer dependent to me.
Yes! The origin of the word is a relation, and yet over time it gets thought of as a property. Elephants existing to me slowly becomes elephants existing period.
That which stands out to an observer seems observer dependent. So I'm looking for a definition where yea, it stands out, but not necessarily to anything observing or caring about it. Still a relation though. Hence definition 3 (relational) of 'exists', which has nothing to do with perception or knowing about the related thing.
That sounds pretty objective. A thing either is or it isn't, a property that is true or false. But then how does an existing elephant differ from the nonexisting elephant, in any way that matters to it? That's a hard question since most dismiss the question before thinking about it.
Well, it stands out to us, so it exists as a relation. There doesn't seem to be a test for the existence as a property. That's the problem with the word slowly changing meaning from its original definition.
Again, this topic is about ontology, not a completely different definition of the word that means genuine vs, counterfeit.
Agree. I said that to show that it seems to be a valid mind-independent definition of existence, and an objective one this time, one that provides a test to pass or not.
Quoting boundlessSay an epileptic fit.
Bottom line for me: I don't think we have anything that qualifies as free will, and despite the positive sounding term, I wouldn't want it any more than I'd want a heaven where you can't be in pain. I all sounds good until you think about it.
Quoting boundlessOf course not. That would violate theory. The moon exhibits classicality without requiring minds.
Discussion elsewhere noted that if I enter ALDI double doors at high enough speed (multiple times), my cumulative demise will form an interference pattern on the far wall. The wall would have to be incredibly far away from the doors to notice it. They've not done it in the lab with anything larger than a bucky ball, but they have put eye-visible classical objects in superposition for really short times.
Where I find it far simpler and elegant, and less filled with unanswerable implications such as what was the first cause.
Quoting flannel jesusYes, exactly
Quoting boundlessYou'd have to show where QM says anything like that. QM does not contradict empirical experience.
Right. There's no cat experiencing superposition or being both dead and alive. There's (from the lab PoV) a superposition of the cat experiencing living, and of experiencing dying by poison. A superposition of those two experiences is very different than the cat experiencing both outcomes. Each experience is utterly unaware of the other.
'Definite states' sounds awfully classical to me. MWI is not a counterfactual interpretation, so is seems wrong to talk about such things.
Quoting boundless
Hard to read, lacking the background required, but it seems to say that there are no 'worlds' from any objective description of say the universal wave function. It has no 'system states', something with which I agree. There are no discreet worlds, which again, sounds like a counterfactual. I think the paper is arguing against not so much the original Everett paper, but against the DeWitt interpretation that dubbed the term 'worlds' and MWI and such. I could be wrong.
What thing would that be?
Incidentally a nice Australian Broadcasting Corp feature on the 100 year anniversary of Heisenberg's famous paper https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-07-29/quantum-mechanics-100-years-physics-heisenberg-schroedinger/105425950
I prefer thinking about these things in a virtue ethics framework, but I think we aren't say different things here. I would say that 'clear conscience on steroids' fulfills our nature...
Quoting noAxioms
Yeah, I should have phrased it better. I meant something like 'QM without the reduction postulate'. If you do not accept collapse, you still have superposition and interference. So, you need to explain why we do percieve everything in a definite state. Many claim that the 'appearance of collapse' given by decoherence is enough. Others disagree.
Quoting noAxioms
I know. But I was questioning if decoherence is enough for the appearance of collapse. Interference terms remain, they become however very, very small. Is that truly enough to explain our 'definite' experience (same goes for the cat's experience)?
Quoting noAxioms
Definite means something like this. Consider a spin 1/2 particle. When we measure the spin (say) in the z-axis we obtain either '+1/2' or '-1/2'. So, '+1/2' and '-1/2' are 'definite states'. The general quantum state of that particle can be written as a linear combination of these 'definite states'. Let's call this basis 'basis 1'.
But again the same is true for the states '(1/sqrt(2))*('+1/2' +'-1/2')' and '(1/sqrt(2))*('+1/2' -'-1/2')'. These two states are an orthogonal basis but they do not correspond to anything in our experience. Still, a genral quantum state of the same spin 1/2 particle can be written as a linear combination of these two vectors. Let's call this basis 'basis 2'.
Here things go tricky, however. Why, when we make a measurement, does the quantum state collapse or appear to collapse in one state of the 'basis 1' instead of 'basis 2'? Certainly 'basis 1' describes the states that correspond to our experience. But if MWI-supporters do not want to make any reference to experience to explain how we have the quantum-classical transition, then why systems evolve as if they have to appear to collapse in a state of the 'basis 1', which happens to correspond to our experience?
This is a part of, as I understand it, the 'preferred basis problem'. MMI posits that 'basis 1' is selected by the mind. But 'pure MWI' claims to be 'QM without the collapse postulate' and no other additional axiom like the collapse/reduction.
I don't think that this objection is fatal, though. But to me it suggests that there is more in the story than just states in the Hilbert space and their evolution as MWI would claim.
Quoting noAxioms
Yeah, the paper is a bit technical and also beyond my paygrade. Basically, however, it tries to reject MWI by adducing that if a MWI supporter doesn't add some postulate to 'pure QM without the collapse postulate' you can't explain how the universe decompose in subsystems, how the preferred basis is selected etc. So, I would say that it does apply to any Everettian interpretation with the universal wavefunction. RQM seems unaffected by the criticism.
Yes, the latter two are, but the meaning of especially superposition is still interpretation dependent. Superposition itself is baked into the mathematics.
I suppose that explanation is interpretation dependent as well.
It seems to be enough given an interpretation (MWI say) that explains it that way.
Interference is a statistical effect, so with no particle can interference be measured, let alone measured by the particle in question. But it can be concluded given hundreds of thousands of objects all being treated identically. So I suppose a really huge crowd of people (far more than billions) could collectively notice some kind of interference if they all did something identical. I cannot fathom what that experiment would look like or how any of those people could survive it.
Quoting boundlessOK. They're post-measurement, so they are definite, sure, but post-measurement, they're not in superposition anymore, so it's only in superposition of definite state relative to a system that has not yet measured the lab doing the spin measurement.
This is very well illustrated by the cat, where death when -1/2 is measured. From inside the box, there is one definite state and the cat is alive or dead depending on that. From outside the box, they know the measurement has been performed, but don't know the result of it. So the cat is in superposition of the interior definite state of being dead and alive, but the cat is not in a exterior definite state, meaning it is still in superposition relative to the lab. And yes, they can measure interference in principle.
In practice, there's no way to keep the cat alive and in superposition since there's no way to prevent information from leaking out of the box.
Interpretation dependent obviously. Some interpretations have no concept of 'our' experience since there's no 'you' that satisfies the laws of identity and non-contradiction. Keep that in mind.
But if MWI-supporters do not want to make any reference to experience to explain how we have the quantum-classical transition, then why systems evolve as if they have to appear to collapse in a state of the 'basis 1', which happens to correspond to our experience?[/quote]MWI does not collapse in a state of the basis 1 which happens to correspond to our experience. It denies the bold parts at least. Basis 2 is also experienced, and as much by the pre-measurement 'you' as is the post-measurement 'you' that's in state 1, which is to say, not by the same person as the one before.
What is 'the mind' per MMI? It is some dualistic mind thing, sort of a moving spotlight which gets to pick which path it follows, with the other paths left as zombies? That sounds like uni-mind, so no, probably not that. You can tell I don't know much about MMI, especially the part about how they define 'mind'. Do trees similarly select their bases? Where do they draw the line between what has a 'mind' and what doesn't?
There's no preferred basis in MWI. That much I know. Can't speak for MMI.
Quoting WayfarerWe were discussing 'worlds', which is loosely referenced by the word 'thing' in my statement, despite not being an object. A world is unaffected by something elsewhere imagining one.
Cool article, compressing 100 years of quantum history into a few pages. It harps a lot on how Einstein really wanted a locally real universe, and perhaps never knew it was hopeless. His critique was critical to the development of quantum theory.
Which world?
As soon as you name a world or a thing or an unknown object which you claim is unaffected by or separate from your thought of it, you are already bringing it within the ambit of thought. The realist always has something in mind when he or she speaks of something unaffected by thought. Its a Chinese finger trap - you cant even say it without undercutting the point.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, but the article acknowledges that. It quotes Alain Aspect:
Ive listened to a couple of interviews with Sir Roger Penrose of late, and hes adamant that quantum theory is wrong - and youd think he would know! But when you drill down, his objection is philosophical, not scientific.
Notice the should! Penroses gripe is the same as Einstein - the belief that the world is a certain way, and its sciences job to discern that, to discover the way it is. But what if physical reality is actually indeterminate on a fundamental level? What if it really is probabilistic and in some basic sense incomplete? That is the idea that drives scientific realism around the bend. Whereas there are philosophies, ways of seeing the world, in which that openness is understood. This is one of the points of convergence between quantum physics and the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness (??nyat?).
(This has been explored by credible academic sources, moving beyond popular mysticism, to examine genuine philosophical parallels. Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, founder of loop quantum gravity, has written seriously about how Nagarjunas philosophy of emptinessthe idea that phenomena lack intrinsic existenceresonates with quantum mechanics relational ontology, where particles and properties exist only through measurement relationships rather than independently. Academic journals have published rigorous analyses, such as SpringerLinks examination of Two Aspects of ??nyat? in Quantum Physics, which argues that both quantum mechanics and (Middle-Way) Buddhism suggest there are no intrinsically existing particles with inherent properties, but rather that all phenomena arise through dependent relationships. This philosophical convergence centers on the idea that reality is fundamentally relational rather than consisting of purportedly mind-independent objects, challenging the classical scientific assumption that the objective domain has fixed, determinate properties independent of observation. It dovetails well with aspects of the Copenhagen and QBist interpretation, not so much with classical realism.)
Yes. In order to get definite outcomes without interference you need that axiom (or some modifications of the mathematical apparatus of QM as in dBB)
Quoting noAxioms
MWI was developed before decoherence. MWI supporters like decoherence because it seems to explain the branching. It doesn't IIRC remove interference however. I believe that it is legit to ask if it is 'enough' to explain our experience.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. But this still doesn't refute my point. It is conceivable to observe interference it it exists. So, perhaps, some versions of MWI are falsifiable?
Quoting noAxioms
But in this relationalist view, the basis is selected via the experimental apparatus. In MWI one should IMO expect to derive everything from the universal wavefunction. I don't think that your view is affected by that argument.
Quoting noAxioms
Yes, but there is a preferred basis in our experience. How does MWI account for that? Here what Schwindt concludes:
So, perhaps, there are 'Many-Many Worlds'...
Quoting Wayfarer
Notice that Rovelli IMO overstates the similarities. Yes, his interpretation has a lot in common with Madhyamaka. But Madhyamaka has an (epistemic) 'idealistic' bent to it that Rovelli doesn't capture. Ultimately, all apperances are illusion-like or equivalent to illusions. I doubt that Rovelli would agree with that. QBism perhaps is closer to Madhyamaka but perhaps QBism risks to reify 'agents' in a way that Nagarjuna would not have approved.
Still, I am happy that physicists find inspiration in those views. It might mean something... not sure what but I don't think that it doesn't mean anything.
Perhaps. It's been said he has a nihilist view of N?g?rjuna, and this kind of mistaken interpretation is not infrequent even amongst expert readers.
Have you encountered the charming and ebullient Michel Bitbol? I learned of him on this forum and have read some of his articles. He is a French philosopher of science who has published books on Schrodinger, among other subjects. Also has an expert grasp of Buddhist philosophy. See for example It is never Known but Is the Knower (.pdf)
There are convergences between Buddhism and physics, but they're nothing like what you would assume at first glance. It has to do with the ontology of Buddhism, which is not based on there being Aristotelian substances or essences, and also on the way that Buddhism understands the inter-relationship of 'self-and-world'. It has a relational, not substantial, ontology. Husserl sang high praises of it.
Ironically, in a sense the problem is the opposite, i.e. he still 'reifies' too much things and leans toward a physicalism that is not very compatible with the views of Nagarjuna. Ultimate truth is beyond concepts and it is also presented as saying that, ultimately, things 'do not arise'. Appearances aren't negated but they are seen as mere apperances, neither true nor false, like 'moon in the water' as Nagarjuna compared conditioned things in his Sixty Stanzas of reasoning.
I do believe that Rovelli's views are similar to the 'conventional truth' espoused in Buddhist traditions. Interdependence is central also in RQM but in Buddhism one goes beyond that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes! Bitbol is an excellent source. Notice that he is also closer to QBism than Rovelli's RQM. I also believe that they are good friends.
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed!
A tempting argument. But you beg the question, which is whether speaking of something affects it. An obvious question is, "In what way is it affected".
I maintain that naming something (most things) is a Cambridge change, that is, a change that does not affect the object itself. It will not surprise you that there is a good deal of debate about this. You might like to look at SEP - Change See especially sections 2 and 5. There is also a Wikipedia entry - Cambridge change
I can guarantee you that mentioning these entries will not change a syllable that is in them.
Question: how do you arrive at .
Quoting Ludwig V
.from .
Quoting Wayfarer
First of all, why isnt it effects rather than affects?
But most of all, the second doesnt say anything about speaking of something, which makes the question-begging claim irrelevant. Doesnt it?
To name is to first think, that is, to conceive, that which is subsequently cognized in a judgement. To name a thing is to already have conceived that which is represented in a cognition as a particular thing. It follows that to name a thing is not the same as a thing named.
You said nothing is changed by speaking of it, which is true, but your comment referenced something which wasnt claiming anything was spoken. I got confused, is all.
Just wonderin ..
-
On Cambridge change:
.Among the trivial subjects of discussion in the old schools of dialectics was this question: If a ball cannot pass through a hole, shall we say that the ball is too large or the hole too small? In this case it is indifferent what expression we employ; for we do not know which exists for the sake of the other. On the other hand, we cannot say: The man is too long for his coat; but: The coat is too short for the man.
We are thus led to the well-founded suspicion that ( ) all the conflicting sophistical assertions ( ), are based upon a false and fictitious conception of the mode in which the object of these ideas is presented to us; and this suspicion will probably direct us how to expose the illusion that has so long led us astray from the truth .
(A490/B518)
I bring this up only to show, once again, what seems new, mostly isnt.
It may well be special because it is observed. But observing something doesnt normally cause it to exist. So even if it is special because it is observed, it may exist for some other reason. You need to demonstrate that there is no other reason.
Quoting noAxioms
If it doesnt stand out to anything observing or caring about it, its not a relation. Its like claiming to be a parent when you dont have a child.
Quoting noAxioms
Im glad we agree on something. However, to establish the difference (or similarity) between A and B, you have to identify A and B. Suppose that A is the existing elephant. Your problem is that you have no non-existing elephant to take the place of B. You might find a partial solution in Meinongs work, but you might not find his arguments persuasive.
I need convincing that existence is binary, but I guess thats a side-issue.
Quoting noAxioms
I can see why you would see it like that. I maintain that the sense of a word now trumps the sense of a word 1,000 years ago.
However, Kant argued that exists is not a predicate, which means that existence is not a property. Many philosophers agree with him about that, even if they disagree with much else that he argued for.
Quoting noAxioms
Im afraid I have been lazy in not giving you the variety of examples that was really needed and left you with the impression that real is equivalent to genuine as opposed to counterfeit. It is true that real can be equivalent to existing as opposed to non-existing as in imaginary or proposed or rumoured or mythical. But consider real property which means land and similar property as opposed to, for example, intellectual property, stocks and bonds, good will, &c. or real earnings as opposed to earnings before allowing for inflation, real cars as opposed to toy cars, real ghosts as opposed to pretend ghosts, real anger as opposed to simulated anger, a real murderer as opposed to an actor of a murdere, a real flower as opposed to an artificial flower. I could go on.
In none of these examples is real opposed to non-existing. Unreal, by the way, is a whole other problem, and you will see from those examples that it is by no means always the opposite of real. Real is a protean word, capable of being applied to a wide variety of objects, and taking on various different meanings in these contexts, If you are still not convinced, you can find many other examples in dictionaries, which, remember, are compiled on the basis of actual uses and not on the basis of what anyone thinks they should mean.
Quoting noAxioms
Some reservations. Your formulation has the consequence of limiting existence to things that have causal relationships with each other that is, physical things. Materialists or physicalists would, no doubt be happy with that. But no-one else will. Plato clearly takes it in that sense, (which justifies the formulation you have) but then rejects it precisely because it denies existence to anything that is not physical he cites the virtues and the soul. (See Sophist 246 7.) It could be made to work in other contexts, I think. Still, its a step forward for me. But then, Im not even looking for a single definition of exists. I think that, like real, it has different meanings in different contexts. The existence of numbers is not the same as the existence of trees, and the existence of sensations is different again.
The meaning of a word is given in the context of its use in the local structure (a.k.a. language game) in which it is used.
I think that one cannot name something by merely thinking, because the name has to be shared to be meaningful. Hence I focused on the speaking rather than any preparatory thought..
Quoting Mww
Too true. Though I think some people would argue that Geach's version of the point was rather different from Kant's.
Sall good.
@Mww replied for me.
Remember this thread started in part with
One of many such apparent paradoxes in quantum physics - which is, after all, supposed to be the science of fundamental particles.
Arguably so, but being thought of doesn't change it to be affected by thought.
We've switched to 'realist' now. I suppose most of those claiming mind independent existence of say some rock consider said rock to be real. Being real and existing are often synonyms, or treated as such, but there are pages keeping the two terms distinct.
I haven't seen the point undercut, despite your implication of 'ambit'.
Quoting WayfarerI know. I was relaying a couple snippets from the article since Einstein's realist leanings have been noted multiple times in this topic.
Quoting WayfarerOnly in some interpretations, and not crazy, just unintuitive.
Schrödinger equation is deterministic actually. Penrose also seems to be a realist, which doesn't contradict QM, it just contradicts locality. Does he also disagree with say Bohmian mechanics?
There are those interpretations as well, such as objective collapse.
Preaching to choir
Quoting boundlessWhy would you want interference removed? It is seen. Even a realist interpretation like DBB has the photon going through one slit and not the other, yet interference patterns result. We experience that. Perhaps we're talking past each other.
You don't know that, there being no evidence of it. Under MWI, there's no 'our', so every basis is experienced by whatever is entangled with that basis, with none preferred.
Quoting Ludwig VA realist might want to justify the existence of whatever he asserts to exist, but I don't count myself among them. I actually think its a big problem. I mean sure, the elephant exists because its parents got busy one day, but that's not a fundamental cause.
Nonsense. Two pebbles are (at a particular moment in time) a meter apart. That's a relation ('is a meter from') even without them ever being observed or known.
Quoting Ludwig V
Maybe I'm in the presence of elephant B and I've no relation to the existing A one. That would imply that I don't exist since such relations (in the presence of) tend to be between things with similar ontology.
Given that statement, you may want to retract the 'agree on something', but if existence is a property, there's no way to know if you have it. It's usually assumed, but doing so renders the property meaningless.
I did say I wasn't a realist. I usually define 'exists' as the original 'stands out to' relation, in which case yea, B exists to me and A does not. It's objective existence (a property) that is a realist stance, and it makes little sense to me.
Quoting Ludwig VMy prior topic was on exactly that. I am more open to Meinong than most. My focus was on his rejection of existence being prior to predication (EPP). Given that rejection, I can be in the presence (a predicate) of elephant B without either of us existing.
I don't know Kant all that well, but doesn't his 'exist' boil down to 'I know about'? That is a predicate. Kant isn't exactly a ball of mind-independent opinions.
To reject objective existence as a predicate is to embrace EPP.
There's plenty of causal structures that are not typically classified as physical. Conway's Game of Life (GoL) is one example. A medium spaceship is an object in that structure. It moves (at 0.5c), can be created and have causal effects. It exists by this EP definition. But it lacks mass, energy, etc, words that are meaningful to our particular physics.
Yes, Plato certainly used a different definition than EP. Plato cites the soul as something lacking in causal interaction? That seems contrary to how souls are often defined.
Quoting WayfarerPCD is not paradoxical, it just isn't classical.
Yes, I think so. Probably it is because also I am muddlying the waters lol.
Anyway, my contention is that if the interference terms are too significant, in the Schrodinger's cat experiment, the version of the observers that sees the 'alive' cat should perceive in some ways the other 'world'. I get that decoherence explains that, due to the decoherence between the observer and the system you get definite outcomes but IMO one also needs that the interference terms become negligible to get the appearance of classicality (i.e. 'definitiness').
Hope I clarified a bit.
Quoting noAxioms
I disagree. In my example of spins, for instance, we observe either '+1/2' or '-1/2', but we never observe the state 1/sqrt(2)('+1/2'+'-1/2'). In other words, I am not sure how, in MWI, from 'first principles', without the assuming from the start that MWI must be consistent with our experience, we can derive the classical features that we observe.
Anyway, this is not an important point. I mean, perhaps it is asking too much.
Sure we do. You observe that by not measuring the spin, same as not measuring which slit.
Yeah, I was just wondering if their magnitude is small 'enough' after measurement/interaction. Some years ago, I read that there was some debate on this point.
Quoting noAxioms
I meant that the 'normal' basis is selected, after the measurement, due to the fact that our experimental apparatuses are structured in some ways. In other words, the reason why we observe things in the 'right' basis is that the the experimental apparatus has those properties it has. However, in principle, you could have that after the measurement the state vector 'collapses' to one of the vector in the 'wrong' basis.
But, again, it is perhaps an useless observation. No theory in physics, after all, explains why the world is structured in the way it is. So, MWI is perhaps also immune by this 'criticism'.
So what is more fundamental than that?
Quoting noAxioms
Oh, I see. The criterion you are applying is simply "being in a relation with something that exists".
Quoting noAxioms
I can make some sort of sense to your acceptance of Meinong's rejection of EPP. I need to pay more attention to him, (thanks for that) but so far I can't make any sense at all of your being in the presence of elephant B.
Quoting noAxioms
Not really. Phenomena are dependent on minds for their existence (and properties). But noumena are not.
Quoting noAxioms
That's not at all obvious to me. I'm lost.
Quoting noAxioms
I won't quibble about that. It's a side-issue.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, he lived in different times and thought with different concepts.
I list what is probably classified by Aristotle as an efficient cause of the elephant. More fundamental would be a root cause, something realists need to face.
That would be a different relation than the one I listed. I mean, that's like 'being in a relation with something that's green', which begs the question 'what if it's a meter from something that's not green?'. It seems your relation asserts something in addition to the relation. Mine did not. That relation is a predicate, and if EPP is not accepted, only the relation 'is a meter from' is sufficient. Existence of neither object is required. With EPP, yea, they need to exist before they can be a meter apart.
No different than the two things a meter apart. Existence of either thing is not required if EPP is rejected, so I can be in the presence of a nonexistent elephant. Since related things often (not always) seem to share ontology, I probably wouldn't exist either. My suggestion is that since elephant A & B are identical except for A existing, nether A nor B has any empirical test to see which is which. For this reason, I find existence defined as an objective property to be useless. Hence my not being a realist. All the problems of realism are solved.
I really don't know Kant then. Those are not idealist ideas.
Quoting boundlessI don't understand any of that. There is no right/wrong basis under MWI. They all share the same ontology, but some are more probable than others, whatever that means.
Im not saying that an object is affected by thought. Im thinking of the Statue of Liberty right now which will make no difference to it whatever. The question of mind independence that is of interest to me, is the sense in which the world exists independently of the mind.
No worries, as I myself said it is a quite secondary issue. Even if there is a counter-intuitive increase of number of 'bases' it is not a problem, I guess, for MWI-supporters as they already accept that there many more 'worlds' out there.
Thanks for the patience!
Yes, there's a real problem about EPP. The root of the problem is the idea that something can exist before any predicates apply to it, or that something can have a predicate applied to it before it exists. Neither works. Hence "prior" cannot mean "temporally prior" so it needs to be reinterpreted or abandoned. It could mean something like "more fundamental", but I can't make any sense of that either. The only position that makes any sense to me is "co-arising" or interdependence.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, you're still left with the problems of idealism. For me, your suggestion demonstrates that predication without existence makes no sense. I already knew that existence without predication makes no sense. So I'm left with interdependence.
Part of the issue is that EPP isn't very specific about what definition of 'exists' is being referenced in its statement. Under def 1 (idealism), and 4 (deliberate assignment), predication seems prior to existence.
Definition 3 (relational) also doesn't seem to require EPP. So that leaves 2 (part of the universe) and 5 (objective), the only ones that arguably need it, but if EPP is not assumed, I don't see any contradiction that follows from predication without existence.
OK, def 2 as worded arguably of needs it because the universe needs to stand out from other universes, else it's just a universe. But since two objects can be a meter apart in one of the other universes, EPP isn't necessary for the predication, only for it being (unexplainably) preferred.
So EPP fails at every step. You seem to find that problematic, but without begging EPP, you need to point out what contradiction results from it, being very specific about how you're defining your terms.
As I said, under idealism, the elephant's existence is due to its being observed, being a phenomenon. That phenomenal relation results in the existence of the elephant, hence predication is prior to existence under idealism. You disagree I take it.
If you define existence as 'standing out', yea, it can't stand out without predicates. Under idealism, that would mean existence despite not being perceived, which isn't really idealism then. 2-4 seem to require predication, yes. 5 (objective)? That one seems contradictory only because existence under def 5 is a property (not a relation), and a property is a predicate, as is the lack of the property.
Thanks for your input Ludwig. Forcing me to work stuff out, which is good.
My reply to you here belongs in my EPP topic.
Quoting WayfarerJust calling it 'the world' seems to be an assumption that this world is preferred, presumably because it is perceived. This sounds like a very mind dependent stance to me.
Quoting boundlessEverett's thesis had to dumb-down the number of bases due to the finite but inexpressibly large actuality of the actual figure. For instance, you (a physical object with extension, at a moment in time) is undergoing trillions of splits such that there is no one measured state except relative to some measuring event well after said moment in time. Hence Rovelli saying that a thing cannot measure itself, it can only measure something sufficiently in the past to have collapsed into a coherent state. Not sure if it's Rovelli's term, but an extended system (a person say) at an extended moment in time, is a sort of extended spacetime event called a 'beable'.
IMO not just for that reason, but also because he had to explain how 'classicality' arises.
Quoting noAxioms
Ok. I thought that he said that a thing can't measure itself becuase a thing can't interact with itself. Interesting.
Quoting noAxioms
The term 'beable' was introduced by John Bell as opposed to 'observable'. Basically, 'beable' were objects or properties that are definite (i.e. that can be represented mathematically with definite quantities) even if there is no measurement. Local realists, like Einstein, hoped to explain everything in terms of 'local beables' (like, say, point particles, local values of fields and so on) which interact with local interactions (i.e. interactions that aren't faster than light). Of course, what Bell proved is that you have either to assume that, ultimately, there are no 'beables' in the sense expressed above or that, ultimately, there are 'nonlocal beables' or at least beables that interact with faster than light interactions.