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Post by mrsonde on Jan 8, 2014 3:35:21 GMT 1
Well, I don't pretend to understand the jargon but, nevertheless, all you have to bear in mind is that whatever data they have obtained in their measurements is derived from the way they have set-up their instruments. So, really this just supports my original contention that what we are really doing in all this scientific activity is defining reality in our own terms, i.e, from the data we extract from particular experiments. Once again, you have to get away from the idea that what science does is "discover" reality", no, science interferes with reality to produce conscious representations of it. You have shown yourself to be consistently and apparently unshakeably under the misapprehension that these two descriptions are necessarily contradictory. They are not. One may perfectly be able to '"discover" reality' by interfering with it to produce conscious representations of it if our conscious representations are able to a) have access to that reality, and b) reproduce faithfully - to whatever precision - what it accesses. You have yet to provide a single argument to say either of these things does not and can not happen (as I've said without reply to you several times before - against all the overwhelming evidence around us!) You would call all the various Planck's Constants relative approximations of some sort then? And c too, presumably? And the other half dozen or so "fine-tuning" constants? And what is measured? A metre might vary from year to year according to the standard adopted and the precision of its actual representation - but the extension in space that it is used to measure? You've previously contended that this must change in a similar way - indeed, you've argued there is no difference. Falsely. The distance between my fingers today will always be smaller than the distance between Land's End and John o'Groats.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 8, 2014 4:56:01 GMT 1
And before we go any further along Abacus' line, I think it would be a good idea for him to reply to the objections on another thread to his assertions. He contends things about reality with no evidence whatsoever - indeed, no possible evidence whatsoever - based on a creed promulgated in the late 1920s by a small group of a dozen or so physicists strongly swayed not by logic or science but by a then in vogue metaphysical creed known as logical positivism and a professional envy of the achievements and status of Albert Einstein. I would like Abacus to answer a question put to him for once, instead of these repetitive chantings of the credo of Copenhagen. How is it if electrons don't exist I'm able to tune into my radio stations? Or watch television? Or communicate by this broadband facilitated means? How did the pre-ancient Greeks first observe the phenomenon of electric charge? How is it that the universe exists at all? Hydrogen might possibly have evolved without electrons, but helium certainly couldn't - therefore no stars. Who was doing all this essential "measuring"? Think for yourself, abacus. You read some half-baked popular science regurgitation of quantum mechanics by some semi-qualified journalist like Paul Davies or Nigel Calder back in 1970 whatever, the era of dancing woo-woo tai-chi God is a mathematician physics, and you've been floating along happy to think whatever you believe is true simply because you think it ever since. Stop polluting the intellectual atmosphere of the world with such nonsense. Out here - in reality - there's a demand to be logical, and respond to rational criticism. You are still labouring under the impression that I have said electrons do not exist. Electrons do exist in the context of an interaction between consciousness and probability waves or, as I referred to them earlier, as "potentials", but what I actually said was that electrons do not exist in their own right, in an unobserved state (eigenstate). Very well. You seem to be under the firm impression that you're saying something meaningful here. So you'll be able to give some straightforward answers to some very straightforward questions about it. No doubt. You wouldn't want to give the impression that you're merely using words to express nothing, after all, I'm sure. 1) How does "consciousness" interact with "probability waves"? Before you say: how the hell would I know, as you did before when asked this question about "potentials", please recall that you claim this is how electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) come into existence. You claim indeed that this "interaction" is their existence! So, if you don't know what you mean by this "interaction", then obviously you don't know what you mean by your sentence as a whole; and nor do you know what you mean by "existence" therefore. 2) What is it exactly that you take "probability waves" to be? Because the Copenhagen Interpretation that you take to support your whole argument says they're purely mathematical descriptions - they don't "exist" at all, and interact with nothing whatsoever. They're not effective agents in a real world - their sole reality is as an expression in a mathematical equation. But you claim - if they really are equivalent to what you previously termed "potentials" - they "obviously" and "certainly" exist, before any observations or measurements are made, by anyone. So - what are they, according to your theory? 3) At the definite risk of repeating and repeating myself ad nauseam, please answer this one, for once. If electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) require an interaction with consciousness to exist: what existed before consciousness arose? "Probability waves" you say: I refer you to Q2. Please address yourself to these simple questions, already put to you many times. If you can't answer them, as is already more than evident, accept that your whole theory is gobbledygook, describing let alone explaining nothing.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 8, 2014 13:33:15 GMT 1
Well, I don't pretend to understand the jargon but, nevertheless, all you have to bear in mind is that whatever data they have obtained in their measurements is derived from the way they have set-up their instruments. So, really this just supports my original contention that what we are really doing in all this scientific activity is defining reality in our own terms, i.e, from the data we extract from particular experiments. Once again, you have to get away from the idea that what science does is "discover" reality", no, science interferes with reality to produce conscious representations of it. You have shown yourself to be consistently and apparently unshakeably under the misapprehension that these two descriptions are necessarily contradictory. They are not. One may perfectly be able to '"discover" reality' by interfering with it to produce conscious representations of it if our conscious representations are able to a) have access to that reality, and b) reproduce faithfully - to whatever precision - what it accesses. You have yet to provide a single argument to say either of these things does not and can not happen (as I've said without reply to you several times before - against all the overwhelming evidence around us!) Except the thing you seem to be overlooking is that in interpreting the experiences of our experiments there exists a whole chain of events that become progressively removed from the original causal event. Our most powerful scientific theories are, ultimately, the end result of a whole complex of biochemical processes that take place anytime we turn our attention to external stimuli. I compare this a bit to "Chinese Whispers" where some original message becomes progressively corrupted by its re-telling over time from individual to individual. The upshot of all this is that we can never "know" what is going on outside of our internal perceptions and what we term as "reality" is, in fact, our subjective representation of the impressions we are subjected to. Again, such measurements represent the end result of our biological activity, something we cannot escape from. The point is, therefore, that there can be no such thing as "objective reality" but only that reality that is (if you like) "user-defined" and I'm not in any way decrying this because it's just the way things are and is a tribute to the way evolution has adapted biological entities to survive in a complex environment. Yes and no. Measurement is something that works in practical terms but, yet again, only insofar as our biological state requires it. See my previous post.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 8, 2014 13:46:11 GMT 1
You are still labouring under the impression that I have said electrons do not exist. Electrons do exist in the context of an interaction between consciousness and probability waves or, as I referred to them earlier, as "potentials", but what I actually said was that electrons do not exist in their own right, in an unobserved state (eigenstate). Very well. You seem to be under the firm impression that you're saying something meaningful here. So you'll be able to give some straightforward answers to some very straightforward questions about it. No doubt. You wouldn't want to give the impression that you're merely using words to express nothing, after all, I'm sure. 1) How does "consciousness" interact with "probability waves"? Before you say: how the hell would I know, as you did before when asked this question about "potentials", please recall that you claim this is how electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) come into existence. You claim indeed that this "interaction" is their existence! So, if you don't know what you mean by this "interaction", then obviously you don't know what you mean by your sentence as a whole; and nor do you know what you mean by "existence" therefore. 2) What is it exactly that you take "probability waves" to be? Because the Copenhagen Interpretation that you take to support your whole argument says they're purely mathematical descriptions - they don't "exist" at all, and interact with nothing whatsoever. They're not effective agents in a real world - their sole reality is as an expression in a mathematical equation. But you claim - if they really are equivalent to what you previously termed "potentials" - they "obviously" and "certainly" exist, before any observations or measurements are made, by anyone. So - what are they, according to your theory? 3) At the definite risk of repeating and repeating myself ad nauseam, please answer this one, for once. If electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) require an interaction with consciousness to exist: what existed before consciousness arose? "Probability waves" you say: I refer you to Q2. Please address yourself to these simple questions, already put to you many times. If you can't answer them, as is already more than evident, accept that your whole theory is gobbledygook, describing let alone explaining nothing. Well, if you push me, and you seem to be doing that, I would have to conclude that the only reality there is, is the reality if ideas, or information. So, this obviously begs the question: where do ideas come from? Perhaps we should simply call the origin of ideas/information God since this is as good as explanation as any and allows us submit to the unknowable. The more science delves into the structure of matter the more apparent it is that matter and energy are abstract ideas that require mathematical constructs in order to make sense. I have often heard it been said by physicists that the universe is essentially mathematical in nature so does not this give some support to the idea that there is some kind of cosmic intelligence at work?
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 8, 2014 19:45:04 GMT 1
You have shown yourself to be consistently and apparently unshakeably under the misapprehension that these two descriptions are necessarily contradictory. They are not. One may perfectly be able to '"discover" reality' by interfering with it to produce conscious representations of it if our conscious representations are able to a) have access to that reality, and b) reproduce faithfully - to whatever precision - what it accesses. You have yet to provide a single argument to say either of these things does not and can not happen (as I've said without reply to you several times before - against all the overwhelming evidence around us!) Except the thing you seem to be overlooking is that in interpreting the experiences of our experiments there exists a whole chain of events that become progressively removed from the original causal event. I'm not overlooking it - I'm just denying such straightforward difficulties imply the conclusions you leap to. So what? You need to move from this commonplace observation to your conclusion that therefore we know nothing about a real world independent of such biochemical processes. To do that you need to proffer some sort of persuasive argument that our perceptual and interpretative processes are unable to correctly access that reality. An essential part of that persuasion must be to give a coherent account of how we're so systematically deceived into believing otherwise - how, for example, our abilities to build devices such as the ones we're using now do not imply that we have discovered essential aspects of the existent universe so that we're able to invent them, design them, manufacture them, and even use them. Not the "upshot" at all. I've pointed out to you several times before - all this reasoning is based on an inadequate analysis of perception and reason and was all thoroughly argued through centuries ago. I've pointed out to you how such an analysis is inadequate - if you ever answered posts responding to you, out of basic politeness if nothing else, then we wouldn';t have to keep going round and round and round over the same ground all the time. I repeat, again: You have shown yourself to be consistently and apparently unshakeably under the misapprehension that these two descriptions are necessarily contradictory. They are not. One may perfectly be able to '"discover" reality' by interfering with it to produce conscious representations of it if our conscious representations are able to a) have access to that reality, and b) reproduce faithfully - to whatever precision - what it accesses.
You have yet to provide a single argument to say either of these things does not and can not happen This is the point you need to answer convincingly. Where is your argument, please? I repeat: so what? All you're really saying is that anything we experience is our experience. Obviously. For the umpteenth time: your "therefore" is out of place! Your conclusion does not follow! You need to present the missing argumentation asked for above. Then it might, if you can do it - but of course you can't, because it's obvious from all the evidence around us that our perceptual abilities do allow us to gain knowledge about an objective reality. You've just made a simple error in reasoning, that's all - that's why you're led to these bizarre self-contradictory waffles. You merely don't understand how perception and reason interact successfully with the world outside them. You need to explain how there could be a "biological state" without space and time and energy and mass. Basically, you need to successfully show how Kant was mistaken. Good luck with that. Why would anyone want to do that?! All you do is make dogmatic statements. You don't present an argument, and you totally ignore any counter-arguments put to your diktats. What is there in any of your previous posts that invalidates my statement? Your contention that we might have made a mistake in supposing six inches is a shorter distance than 800 miles, because such a measured ratio is somehow dependent on our being a biological specimen? Doesn't do the job you suppose it does, sorry.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 8, 2014 20:00:08 GMT 1
Very well. You seem to be under the firm impression that you're saying something meaningful here. So you'll be able to give some straightforward answers to some very straightforward questions about it. No doubt. You wouldn't want to give the impression that you're merely using words to express nothing, after all, I'm sure. 1) How does "consciousness" interact with "probability waves"? Before you say: how the hell would I know, as you did before when asked this question about "potentials", please recall that you claim this is how electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) come into existence. You claim indeed that this "interaction" is their existence! So, if you don't know what you mean by this "interaction", then obviously you don't know what you mean by your sentence as a whole; and nor do you know what you mean by "existence" therefore. 2) What is it exactly that you take "probability waves" to be? Because the Copenhagen Interpretation that you take to support your whole argument says they're purely mathematical descriptions - they don't "exist" at all, and interact with nothing whatsoever. They're not effective agents in a real world - their sole reality is as an expression in a mathematical equation. But you claim - if they really are equivalent to what you previously termed "potentials" - they "obviously" and "certainly" exist, before any observations or measurements are made, by anyone. So - what are they, according to your theory? 3) At the definite risk of repeating and repeating myself ad nauseam, please answer this one, for once. If electrons (and presumably anything and everything else) require an interaction with consciousness to exist: what existed before consciousness arose? "Probability waves" you say: I refer you to Q2. Please address yourself to these simple questions, already put to you many times. If you can't answer them, as is already more than evident, accept that your whole theory is gobbledygook, describing let alone explaining nothing. Well, if you push me, and you seem to be doing that, "Pushing you"? You mean asking you what you mean? Yes, we know - you've concluded as much half a dozen times. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your argument, that's your problem. So it's just wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Look - just answer the questions put to you, why don't you? Yes, yes. We know that's where you want to get to. Or, rather, that's where you set out from in the first place. Why on earth you bother pretending to consider scientific theories along your circular journey I have no idea. Nonsense. Kindly desist from all this "Royal We" stuff! You do what you like with your bonkers ramblings, but don't include anyone else. To earn the right to do that you have to adhere to the shared canons of civilised debate and the demands of logic. Dancing Woo-Woo physics. The subject is stuffed to the gills with such people, saying all manner of gobbledgygook rubbish. Physicists receive no training in philosophy; no training in Logic; they're taught mathematics, but not the philsophy of mathematics. They're taught how to conduct experiments, but not how to conduct reason. I've recommended to you before Susan Stebbing - that's all the proof anyone needs for the truth of this dire educational failure. Or simply tune into any programme presented by Brian Cox.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 8, 2014 23:41:41 GMT 1
You are still labouring under the impression that I have said electrons do not exist. Electrons do exist in the context of an interaction between consciousness and probability waves or, as I referred to them earlier, as "potentials", but what I actually said was that electrons do not exist in their own right, in an unobserved state (eigenstate). Look at a star. The spectrum you see is the result of quantum interactions between electrons and atoms that took place anything from a few minutes ago to millions of years before any conscious beings evolved, and the spectra are reproducible anywhere in the universe or the laboratory. Therefore electrons do exist, and go about their business entirely independently of any observer. Don't confuse the Schrodinger wave function model, which allows you to calculate the behaviour of particles, with reality, which is the observed behaviour of particles.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 9, 2014 4:35:11 GMT 1
You are still labouring under the impression that I have said electrons do not exist. Electrons do exist in the context of an interaction between consciousness and probability waves or, as I referred to them earlier, as "potentials", but what I actually said was that electrons do not exist in their own right, in an unobserved state (eigenstate). Look at a star. The spectrum you see is the result of quantum interactions between electrons and atoms that took place anything from a few minutes ago to millions of years before any conscious beings evolved, and the spectra are reproducible anywhere in the universe or the laboratory. Therefore electrons do exist, and go about their business entirely independently of any observer. ;D I think you've forgotten about God, Alan. Naughty. ..."which includes the behaviour of particles" would, I hope you'd agree, be more accurate. Reality is very much more than what particles get up to; and as you've just pointed out, they get up to it whether anything observes them or not. Sorry if it seems I'm quibbling - but Abacus is genuinely confused enough. Also, the wave function model - Schrodinger's or Feynman's or anyone else's - allows you to calculate the probability of a range of possible behaviours of particles. As, for that matter, does Heisenberg's matrix mechanics - just as accurately as Schrodinger's, of course, but without all this nonsense about the "wavefunction" or "probability waves" being some sort of metaphysical entities, "interacting" with things in the world like "consciousness"! With Heisenberg's formulation the purely mathematical nature of these calculating equations is obvious and indisputable - just tables of numbers and operations thereof. (And mathematically the two formulations are exactly the same thing!) Abacus has been led to believe that numbers come up on a roulette wheel in the predictable way they do (over time, given enough runs) because the calculus of chances somehow dictates that they do so - indeed, he believes the calculus of chances is all that really exists, and that the droppings of actual balls into actual slots is a result of our consciousness somehow interacting with those probability calculations. Not his fault really - there are enough bonkers physicists going around parrotting the same sort of nonsense for him to reasonably suppose this is what "science has confirmed over and over again".
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 9, 2014 4:52:18 GMT 1
Personally, I believe there's another fundamental reason that allows this sort of free-floating metaphysical fantasising to appeal so greatly and persuasively to a certain frame of mind. The temptation to come to the sort of conclusions abacus does is clearly very strong, and persistent - its manifestation in the Copenhagen Interpretation is merely a modern take on a set of conceptual mistakes that go back at least to the ancient Greeks.
I think what makes these mistakes so tempting is that some people live almost entirely in their heads - their interaction with the world consists overwhelmingly of dealing with ideas, words, or "information". The Ivory Tower syndrome of philosophers; or as with George Berkeley, of the religious; or with an influential strand of physicists, in the arena of mathematics and pure theory. I'm willing to bet Abacus is a teacher or office worker or "manager" of some sort.
People like engineers, builders, product designers, craftspeople, artisans - people who actually have to work in and with the world - would never fall for this "reality is only our ideas" business. A craftsman or engineer knows he has to deal with the world - the real solid unyielding material world - if he wants to achieve his aims. He knows he has to do so correctly - if he makes the slightest mistake Reality will punish him for it. The world exists, it is what it is and does what it does, irrespective of our ideas or beliefs or fantasies.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 9, 2014 10:23:32 GMT 1
Except the thing you seem to be overlooking is that in interpreting the experiences of our experiments there exists a whole chain of events that become progressively removed from the original causal event. I'm not overlooking it - I'm just denying such straightforward difficulties imply the conclusions you leap to. Unfortunately, you don't seem to be able to say why. It's not that we are aware of "things in themselves"' as Kant put it, but that we have the capability to invent our own subjective reality which seems consistent and indeed practical. When people use language, for example, in order to express ideas and feelings, it is impossible to directly experience the feelings and thoughts of others yet we can carry on a working relationship with them and their ideas indirectly through the use of symbolic interpretations of such. The same goes with our interactions with nature in that we use language and mathematics to represent detectable patterns we perceive in order to make predictions and thus manipulations of our environment. Why do you think scientific experiments are so important to scientific progress? So, we do not need to actually "know" the external world directly and in fact, is impossible to do so; all wo need to do is make internal representations of our sense experiences in a coherent and predictable way. I wouldn't call Kant's analysis of perception and reason inadequate, far from it, as Kant is considered one of the most influential philosophers in the field of scientific philosophy. One again, you appear to be ill-informed. We may have access to it but it is a subjective access. If you reject this then you then you have to answer the problem of why different species experience different perceptual worlds. I'm glad you agree. Knowledge which is "user-defined." Yes, they do interact successfully with the world outside of them, however, the crucial concept here is "outside." You have just supported my basic premise in recognising that we may never know things in themselves and will always be "outside, looking in." No, Kant's ideas are as accepted today as they ever were. The point is you have to be alive and conscious for measurement to work.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 9, 2014 10:30:58 GMT 1
You are still labouring under the impression that I have said electrons do not exist. Electrons do exist in the context of an interaction between consciousness and probability waves or, as I referred to them earlier, as "potentials", but what I actually said was that electrons do not exist in their own right, in an unobserved state (eigenstate). Look at a star. The spectrum you see is the result of quantum interactions between electrons and atoms that took place anything from a few minutes ago to millions of years before any conscious beings evolved, and the spectra are reproducible anywhere in the universe or the laboratory. Therefore electrons do exist, and go about their business entirely independently of any observer. Don't confuse the Schrodinger wave function model, which allows you to calculate the behaviour of particles, with reality, which is the observed behaviour of particles. Except that you seem to be overlooking the fact that all possible histories of particles exist simultaneously and it is the participation of an "observer", however far removed in time, that determines what particular reality is experienced. You have just admitted yourself that reality consists of the observed behaviour of particles. I rest my case.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 9, 2014 11:12:56 GMT 1
Look at a star. The spectrum you see is the result of quantum interactions between electrons and atoms that took place anything from a few minutes ago to millions of years before any conscious beings evolved, and the spectra are reproducible anywhere in the universe or the laboratory. Therefore electrons do exist, and go about their business entirely independently of any observer. ;D I think you've forgotten about God, Alan. Naughty. ..."which includes the behaviour of particles" would, I hope you'd agree, be more accurate. Reality is very much more than what particles get up to; and as you've just pointed out, they get up to it whether anything observes them or not. Sorry if it seems I'm quibbling - but Abacus is genuinely confused enough. Also, the wave function model - Schrodinger's or Feynman's or anyone else's - allows you to calculate the probability of a range of possible behaviours of particles. As, for that matter, does Heisenberg's matrix mechanics - just as accurately as Schrodinger's, of course, but without all this nonsense about the "wavefunction" or "probability waves" being some sort of metaphysical entities, "interacting" with things in the world like "consciousness"! With Heisenberg's formulation the purely mathematical nature of these calculating equations is obvious and indisputable - just tables of numbers and operations thereof. (And mathematically the two formulations are exactly the same thing!) Abacus has been led to believe that numbers come up on a roulette wheel in the predictable way they do (over time, given enough runs) because the calculus of chances somehow dictates that they do so - indeed, he believes the calculus of chances is all that really exists, and that the droppings of actual balls into actual slots is a result of our consciousness somehow interacting with those probability calculations. Not his fault really - there are enough bonkers physicists going around parrotting the same sort of nonsense for him to reasonably suppose this is what "science has confirmed over and over again". What has any of this got to do with it? The fact is that the only scientific way we may "interact" with the external world is through symbolic representations, whether it be numbers or language. Matrix mechanics or whatever other method used is just our way of registering our patterned observations which are produced by our filters of perception. Why can't you grasp this?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 9, 2014 11:22:38 GMT 1
Personally, I believe there's another fundamental reason that allows this sort of free-floating metaphysical fantasising to appeal so greatly and persuasively to a certain frame of mind. The temptation to come to the sort of conclusions abacus does is clearly very strong, and persistent - its manifestation in the Copenhagen Interpretation is merely a modern take on a set of conceptual mistakes that go back at least to the ancient Greeks. I think what makes these mistakes so tempting is that some people live almost entirely in their heads - their interaction with the world consists overwhelmingly of dealing with ideas, words, or "information". The Ivory Tower syndrome of philosophers; or as with George Berkeley, of the religious; or with an influential strand of physicists, in the arena of mathematics and pure theory. I'm willing to bet Abacus is a teacher or office worker or "manager" of some sort. People like engineers, builders, product designers, craftspeople, artisans - people who actually have to work in and with the world - would never fall for this "reality is only our ideas" business. A craftsman or engineer knows he has to deal with the world - the real solid unyielding material world - if he wants to achieve his aims. He knows he has to do so correctly - if he makes the slightest mistake Reality will punish him for it. The world exists, it is what it is and does what it does, irrespective of our ideas or beliefs or fantasies. You're falling into the trap of assuming outward appearances represent the true nature of things. Clearly, if this were true we would never have to be aware of things like atoms or spacetime or viruses or genes or anything else that is not immediately apparent to commonsense notions. Commonsense can enable people to deal with the world very effectively, as demonstrated by the achievements our our ancestors, however, it is when you need to go beyond the obvious that commonsense fails and science is necessary.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 9, 2014 13:27:47 GMT 1
Well, if you push me, and you seem to be doing that, "Pushing you"? You mean asking you what you mean? Yes, we know - you've concluded as much half a dozen times. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your argument, that's your problem. So it's just wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Look - just answer the questions put to you, why don't you? Yes, yes. We know that's where you want to get to. Or, rather, that's where you set out from in the first place. Why on earth you bother pretending to consider scientific theories along your circular journey I have no idea. Ultimately, science can only go so far in attempting to explain reality, beyond that we have to call it "God", "consciousness", "intelligence", whatever. As far as I am aware I have argued in the most logical terms and in the most civilised manner. On the other hand, your rhetorical attempts at undermining my position fall clearly short of the sort of standards you pretend to admire. Are you suggesting that mathematics is not central in understanding and describing the universe? If so, people like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein must be turning in their graves!
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 9, 2014 18:33:05 GMT 1
I've already done so three times in this thread alone. Your argument consists entirely of this:
1) All we experience is our experience. 2) Our experience is entirely subjective. > Therefore we can know nothing of an objective world that exists independent of our experience.
Your conclusion does not follow because you have failed to take into account the possibility - "proven" by every empirical means that defines "proof" - that our experience contains elements by which we are able to gain access to an objective world independent of it.
Why did you bother quoting a passage which you then totally ignore?
All this passage does is reiterate your argument I've stripped down for you above. I repeat: your conclusion does not follow.
I suggest the main reason you fail to grasp this simple logical point is that you do not understand what you mean when you use the word "know". Indeed, it seems you have a strong intimation of that yourself, because you've put it in scare quotes. "Knowledge" of the objective world does not mean 'direct experience of "things in themselves"': indeed, it seems impossible to ascribe any sense to such a phrase. And this isn't an adequate analysis of "knowledge" either:
We are not making "representations of our sense experiences", internal or external - not when we're trying to know something, at any rate. At the very least, we are making representations of objective features abstracted from our sense experiences. I have pointed out to you several times already the crucial distinction between primary and secondary qualities before - you insist on totally ignoring this distinction, and thereby you keep falling into the same error.
Yours, not Kant's! Your analysis bears no relation to Kant's. Your analysis is Berkeley's, with for some unexplained reason a bit of Descartes thrown in.
;D
No one has argued otherwise! Our experience is experience - that's really all you're saying. What else you could possibly imagine it might be I have no idea! The point is: our subjective experience "may" enable us to have access outside of it, as you've just admitted! All your conclusions are therefore moribund!
I don't know what you think "the problem" about that is, or what relation it has to the problem we're discussing. The important issue about it is that they don't experience different "perceptual worlds" in the essential respects that constitute "knowledge" of the objective world. Otherwise they would never have evolved, and certainly wouldn't be able to survive in that world. If a bug flies into my moving windshield, it gets squished.
What we disagree on is what experience is. You think it's something entirely divorced from the real world.
You might believe this means something, in which case it might be a good idea to pass it along to everyone else. As far as I'm concerned, if a bug flies into my windshield it dies, however it chooses to "define" the matter. As far as I'm concerned, six inches is shorter than 800 miles - if like you you choose to define space differently, so it is not, then I say you're simply wrong, and have failed to understand an essential aspect of the universe (despite the obvious pretence that you have ever read Kant!)
But your analysis is totally unable to give any account of how such success occurs. Indeed, your analysis has no room for any possibility of such success: for you, at most, it's a happy coincidence.
I've taken the trouble before to point out to you that your basic premise is mistaken. We do not need to know "things in themselves" to know things about them - in fact, that's all "knowledge" means, and has ever meant. It's merely another mistake in your analysis that to know means direct experience of something outside our experience, as should be obvious from the self-contradiction in the notion. I do not need to know every street and building and elementary particle in New York City to know that it's in New York State. I do not need to know every elementary particle and how they're intricately arranged in anything to build an accurate representation of its primary qualities, and sufficiently test the correctness of that representation to whatever precision I want, and adequately pass on that knowldege to whomever I want, however many times I want, down whatever length of chain of "causal events" and "biochemical processes" that I want.
Of course they're not - by no one. And in the respects I was referring to - certainly not by you!
That's your point, not mine! Your point is totally irrelevant to mine! And Kant's, by the way!!
Let me repeat my earlier question, again: do you contend that that which is measured - the extension in space, in this case - exists only through the act of measuring it? I know you have contended this, several times, but let's get it straight, on the record, in blunt terms. Just so we're clear exactly how fundamentally you totally repudiate Kant's basic philosophy.
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