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Post by mrsonde on Dec 2, 2013 6:25:54 GMT 1
Complexity of what, though? Your idea is that until something complex enough to "observe" develops - which on the face of it requires at the least some ability to sense the environment (I'll grant something like an amoeba qualifies) - nothing actually exists, except perhaps as a totality of possible probability amplitudes. Is that right? So what "evolves"? And how?
Put it this way: how did the dust that coalesced to form the planets of our solar system come into being as flecks of dust? Where's their observer?
I would say an oven is something more than a "pattern of thought". An idea of an oven is a pattern of thought; perhaps a picture of one is such. An actual oven is an energetic structure in space-time, and behaves in ways that are consequences of the nature of the universe. That's what we investigate and "discover", or try to. We don't do this by imagining new "patterns of thought", but by observing how it behaves, conducting experiments, making measurements, formulating theories, testing their implications, etcetera. It's irrelevant to this process how earthworms or any other creature sees the matter.
Yes: what I'm asking you is what is your argument for that assertion? That is: what evidence have you to support it? If everything is merely a "pattern of thought", what is it that makes one pattern "work" better than any other? Why would we ever "observe" that our patterns of thought are mistaken, or need revision, improvement? Some patterns of thought are better than others? Why? How would we ever tell? You require something external and objective that refuses to yield to our "patterns of thought" and forces us to change them if we wish to achieve some measure of truth, of correspondence, between our patterns of thought and a reality that stands outside them.
What happens in the process of "verification"? Reality behaves according to our predictions, yes? As in the example we're discussing - despite the expectations of our intuition, our common sense, and I'd wager the confident predictions of the majority of humankind, reality actually behaves in a way predicted by quantum mechanics.
There's nothing wrong or out of place with philosophy. Your belief that you can separate "science" from philosophy is quite mistaken. Popper was right about that much.
That is a question, yes, but it's not this one. Even if everything does depend on conscious observation for its existence, nevertheless that existence displays consistent, predictable, measurable patterns. We elaborate "patterns of thought" in an attempt to represent those energetic patterns, but those patterns of thought are not what those energetic patterns consist of. Else, as I say, we would never get such attempts at representation wrong - we would never be surprised by the way the world behaves.
I do not say your question is meaningless, or unproductive, or even without certain suggestive evidence (such as these quantum eraser experiments.) But there's no need to throw out rationality, even if we might be tempted to accept an idealistic answer to your question. Reality is still real, even if it's all a dream.
I'd go along with you to the extent that they (our theories) are not absolutely, completely true. But other very important aspects of our knowledge are. I've referred to these aspects as "facts" and "objective data" - the stuff our theories attempt to acoount for. These can never really be "out of date" - reinterpreted, of course, in the light of alternative theories, but never shown to be "wrong". If so, we were mistaken in misidentifying them as facts in the first place (a fairly common experience, I grant you.)
Yes, quite - including the basic observations about elementary particles and energy that demanded the invention of QM.
Yes, I'm with you. I'm only saying we shouldn't over-exaggerate the importance of this limitation, if limitation it is. We've developed logic, and the elaborations of it of mathematics, and reality perforce conforms to logic, and hence to our mathematics. This transcends any contingency of any possible platform - it applies to all possible platforms, biological or not.
You skipped a question in your response - could you explicate further what you mean by:
I agree with you, by the way, whichever way you read it. It's a very important point. We won't stand a chance of seeing our way through this puzzle, and the others you've touched upon, unless we explore it.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 2, 2013 11:09:58 GMT 1
Complexity of what, though? Your idea is that until something complex enough to "observe" develops - which on the face of it requires at the least some ability to sense the environment (I'll grant something like an amoeba qualifies) - nothing actually exists, except perhaps as a totality of possible probability amplitudes. Is that right? So what "evolves"? And how? Put it this way: how did the dust that coalesced to form the planets of our solar system come into being as flecks of dust? Where's their observer? The point here is that reality is a relative term according to the observing agency involved. The dust that coalesced to form the planets would not have possessed enough awareness to form concepts like "dust", "planets" or, indeed, "solar system." It was only when biological life developed and was able to form nervous systems and brains that sophisticated systems of "observation" and internal models of the external world originating from such observations evolved. So, when you talk about dust it is necessarily in the context of our current level of awareness and not something that rightly could be claimed to exist at a remote time in the past where no meaningful observers existed. When I use the word "observation" I need to make it clear that this includes all forms of perceptual awareness such as touch, smell, sight, hearing, even gut feelings at times, so that any models we construct within our neural networks are based on data supplied by our sensory equipment. An oven is such a model created by our physical interaction with it, however, it does not follow that an oven has to be completely defined by human perception since we all have to operate within the parameters of our biological measuring potential. It is the ability of new ideas to integrate and synthesise hitherto unresolved questions about phenomena that provide more general answers to formerly disparate aspects of reality. For example, string theory is an attempt to provide a foundational explanation to unite things like quantum mechanics and spacetime but that does not mean such a model is really true but that it provides us with a solution to a puzzle that actually only exists within an intellectual context. Again, is curved space real? It is only real insofar as it is a concept that provides a generalisation of gathered data. What you have to remember is that we can never know what reality is in itself, only our constructed models of it and we are always in the process if refining such models. We are slaves to our internal representations of the "external world." In this sense, what we like to think of objective science is really our highly subjective interpretation of it. I like to think of philosophy and science as a process and I did not intent to imply that they can be treated as completely separate entities. What I would say is that in "doing" philosophy we are emerged in such a process. Patterns which exists alongside inconsistent patterns, but it is our tendency to pick out the former in order to promote our existence. Reality is real insofar as it serves to maintain our continued consciousness. I've more or less covered this already and don't wish to repeat myself. Not quite though, because scientific observations include special apparatus that extend our means of making observations and therefore introduce additional "interference" into the equation. Even logic (including mathematics) rely on causal ideas which originate in the commonsense world. Well, what I would say is that the truth of the matter is that we are are always exploring our own nature in response to incoming data, data that inevitably is compelled to pass through our filters of perception.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 3, 2013 2:58:37 GMT 1
I'm going to break these posts up a little because we're cramming a lot into them and I think rushing ahead of ourselves. I feel this one, for example, needs a lengthy disentaglement before we can get much further.
This is your unsubstantiated claim, and you really need to substantiate it - it is not how the word "reality" is ordinarily meant, either in a casual sense or in more circumspect philosophical (or scientific!) discussion. To convey the meaning you're claiming for the term, one would ordinarily qualify it by some sort of construction like "perspective on reality" or "experience of reality" or appearance of, interpretation of, view of, etc. The standard meaning of the term "reality" is precisely the opposite to the one you're claiming: it means the way existence is irrespective of any distortions produced by the mediating process of observing it.
Now, of course, there is a long and fascinating history in philosophical (or scientific!) discourse about whether this ordinary meaning of the term actually has any sense, or value, or metaphysical referentiality. One might say this is largely what philosophy is all about - epistemology and metaphysics, at any rate. But you cannot pre-empt the various positions resolved in that long discourse by merely declaring that idealism is the winner! As I say, you need to argue the case - profer some evidence and reasons to consider your assertion rational.
Yes, that was my point. It was a rejoinder to your assertion that:
If the dust did not possess enough awareness to collapse its wavefunctions into actuality, what did? You see - you're talking above about "internal models of the external world", which, obviously, do require the evolution of nervous systems and so forth to exist. But according to your previous argument, there is no "external world" without such "internal models" - that's saying something a great deal more.
The "so" doesn't rightly belong here yet. You need to make this case first: so far you've only asserted it. I assert the contrary - I think you're completely mistaken. My argument in defence of that position would be very lengthy, and involve, ultimately, at root, an assertion of universal regularity through space and time, the possibility for rationality to elaborate adequately those regularities, by use of concept formation, measurements, and mathematical representations of hypothesised structural elements of the universe. In other words, I would finally assert the rational validity of science. I believe I could give very sound evidence in support of that contention - that knowledge is possible, that reason can interact with external reality in a way that enables knowledge, that the notion of truth has an essential element of correspondence about it, at its heart. All these assertions have been argued against in the history of philosophy, of course, including the very possibility of "sound evidence". In my judgement, such counter-arguments have failed, and can in turn be (and have been) countered satisfactorily.
What you need to do is give some reason to doubt this before your claim carries any weight. At the moment I have the strong impression it's merely misleading you.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 3, 2013 3:40:41 GMT 1
Your list of examples of "all forms of perceptual awareness" unfortunately only includes what are standardly termed "secondary qualities". Models constructed in science, or rationality in general, on the contrary almost entirely make use of "primary qualities" - things like mass, shape, number, motion, and, broadly, in modern parlance, energy content. Now, it may very well be true that these in turn are based on data supplied by our sensory equipment - but that data is generally, in physics at least, also of primary qualities - needle movements on calibrated instruments of one form or another. And these can be corroborated in any number of ways by other measurements of primary qualities, and lead to unsuspected correlations and connections between such properties, such as the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, for example. Thus is science developed.
Our idea of an oven is such a model - the oven itself is the oven, whether we construct a model of it or not.
The point about primary qualities is they're supposed to be constant and objective irrespective of any biological contingencies in using them. The oven has a certain mass, and size, physical structure, which can be defined to any precision you care to specify using stable and universal metric measurements of space and time. I can give you or anyone else all that data and according only to the exactitude and detail of such specifications, the oven can be reconstructed. It's real, this system of primary qualities - they're properties existing in an independent reality.
You really need to put forward persuasive reasons to suppose this is mistaken before your esse est percipi assertion should be considered a more rational metaphysic.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 3, 2013 4:06:40 GMT 1
It's a little unfortunate that in order to express this metaphysical viewpoint you have to resort to concepts that belong in its contrary: disparate aspects of reality, really true, actually exists, and so on. I'm not blaming you for that, particularly - it's the vocabulary we all share that has developed under the implicit understanding of the rationalistic, realistic metaphysic that I'm advocating, and it's not clear that you have much choice about the matter. I would say that is because this metaphysic is the only one that makes sense, mind you; I'd also say that it's up to you to elaborate your own vocabulary, or at least be a lot more careful how you use the one we've got, if you want to be clearly understood.
We are re-running the famous dispute about theory replacement and paradigm shifts between Popper and Kuhn here. Your statement is obviously "true" ( ;D) - but do you contend with Kuhn that that's all there is to it? If so, I think you need to address Popper's fundamental point that a scientific theory's superiority lies in its ability to imply hitherto unexpected predictions - not formerly disparate aspects of reality, but formerly entirely unexpected aspects. It's not at all clear why this essential feature of a good theory - the hallmark of scientific progress - should occur and occur time and again if your metaphysic is complete. The fact is, it does.
True, actually, exists...
I don't follow your characterisation of a scientific theory as merely a solution to an intellectual puzzle, sorry. That's pure Kuhn, of course - but most of us consider scientific explanation as something to be judged using far more weighty criteria than whether it's something like a satisfying crossword or a good Sudoko. There are matters like: how well does it account for observations, what previous contradictory data using former explanations does it resolve, what new avenues of exploration does it open up, can it be decisively tested by elaborating its observational implications that were previously unsuspected...and so on. Now, those criteria are readily explained and expected using a realistic metaphysic, of course - but using yours and Kuhn's, they're a complete mystery, it seems to me.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 3, 2013 4:38:23 GMT 1
Yes, I'm aware that this is the ground assumption producing these metaphysical speculations, and has done since the ancient Greeks. A profound mistake has been made in the analysis of reason here, producing this counsel of despair. I'm not sure this is the place to properly unravel that mistake, nor whether I have the time...To do so with the thoroughness it deserves would require a hefty volume.
Rather than do that, I'll simply put forward some counter assertions for you to consider. If you disagree with any of them, we can dig deeper, one by one.
Your phrase "constructed models" refers here I would contend to theories - hypothetical-deductive or inductive generalisations. Whether these will always be subject to refinement, overthrowal, etcetera: I don't know - nor does anyone else, I'd suggest. I'm with Einstein on this one: it's something of a matter of faith that we will one day formulate theories that are fully explanatory and true. Faith, but rationally buttressed faith. And it would seem to me that some theories at least are definitively settled for good and all - that dinosaurs once walked the Earth, that the Sun warms the planet, that babies come from sex, that DNA carries essential reproductive information, that life on Earth evolved, that continental drift has occurred, that atoms contain a nucleus, that electricity and magnetism are manifestations of the same phenomenon, and so on and so on.
But never mind that, because there's a much more fundamental point that this over-emphasis on the nature of theory formation has overlooked. And that's the point I've already emphasised twice: the ability for reason to discover and state facts; the objective data that theories attempt to systematise in their hypthetico-deductive explanations. These we can and do "know", and of course they are by definition aspects of "reality". My form of reality - what actually exists in space-time - not yours; though of course, they are "patterns of thought". The essential feature of these patterns, however, is that they correspond to what is actually real: that's what makes them facts, rather than fictions. For example: the city of New York is in the State of New York. This oil floats on this water. This rock when dropped falls to Earth. The Earth orbits the Sun. That sort of "pattern of thought".
These representations will never need refining. They're true. Objective data. They may be internal representations, but we're far from enslaved by them - it's by our ability to so learn about the nature of reality that we're able to survive, prosper, and develop. This is not an entirely "subjective" matter, obviously - it has real, objective consequences.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 3, 2013 4:41:03 GMT 1
I'll finish my reply to you in the morning, I think, my attention is drifting somewhat. Thanks for the fascinating discussion, abacus, it's very enjoyable.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 3, 2013 10:54:03 GMT 1
I'm going to break these posts up a little because we're cramming a lot into them and I think rushing ahead of ourselves. I feel this one, for example, needs a lengthy disentaglement before we can get much further. This is your unsubstantiated claim, and you really need to substantiate it - it is not how the word "reality" is ordinarily meant, either in a casual sense or in more circumspect philosophical (or scientific!) discussion. To convey the meaning you're claiming for the term, one would ordinarily qualify it by some sort of construction like "perspective on reality" or "experience of reality" or appearance of, interpretation of, view of, etc. The standard meaning of the term "reality" is precisely the opposite to the one you're claiming: it means the way existence is irrespective of any distortions produced by the mediating process of observing it.Now, of course, there is a long and fascinating history in philosophical (or scientific!) discourse about whether this ordinary meaning of the term actually has any sense, or value, or metaphysical referentiality. One might say this is largely what philosophy is all about - epistemology and metaphysics, at any rate. But you cannot pre-empt the various positions resolved in that long discourse by merely declaring that idealism is the winner! As I say, you need to argue the case - profer some evidence and reasons to consider your assertion rational. But what meaning is there in asserting that reality is always there regardless of whether an interacting consciousness is present or not? How can one ever demonstrate that reality is still as it is when human beings experience it as it is when they don't? It is purely based on an assumption that the universe has an independent existence that opponents of idealism base their argument, however, this is just an assumption and can never be proved since to provide any proof necessarily has to involve an observing agency which brings us back to the role of consciousness. Did the Theory of Relativity exist before Einstein thought of it? How could it have when it was only at the early part of the twentieth century that it emerged and was talked about? It seems that from such considerations we are compelled to conclude that reality is something that is not necessarily always present, regardless of whether there are observers, but that there has to be a cooperative process of both observer and a potential of whatever phenomena happens to be under scrutiny which combine and produce a "reality." Notice I say "a reality", the reason being that the very same sensations that are coming in from outside would not be identical to, say, a spider, or rat. This is why that despite seeming a very rational position to assume the universe is there whether we consider it or not, it really has no meaning when we look a little deeper into such an assumption. I do not think that idealism is correct in the sense that all of reality is purely mental in nature but I do think that the roll of observers is a crucial element in the formation of what we experience as reality. In the final analysis, we are made of the same fundamental "stuff" as the rest of the universe, therefore, we are the universe interacting with itself and discovering new aspects about itself that lie as potentials waiting to be realized.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 3, 2013 11:43:30 GMT 1
I do not believe there is an external world which is entirely formed and solid but I do think there exist potentials which have to interact with an "initiating" pattern of awareness (for want of a better term) to form what we experience as reality. As such, there will always exist the possibility of increasing complexity of what appears to be the universe by virtue of the interaction of "mind" and "matter." It's not that I'm advocating something can arise from nothing but that something arises from the potential of something. Without potential nothing could change and in fact, I do not see how our current universe could have developed unless there existed a potential for such.
I don't know how much you know about quantum mechanics but in the measurement process there's something called "probability waves." Now, these so-called waves are not real, physical waves but mathematical constructions that are used to predict the behaviour of quantum objects, so here we can see the mind imposing itself on "reality" by creating internal models and effectively building a "real" model in the "external world." This is what I meant when I implied that mind a matter indulge in a kind of mutual dance in creating our experience of reality.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 3, 2013 12:16:26 GMT 1
I would argue that, yes, we can observe much regularity and logic existing in our observations of the universe but, having said that, such consistency would not be apparent to a lower animal such as a dog, for example. Surely this indicates that while there always exists the potential for such harmony, without an interpretive mind, such harmony effectively remains unrealized. If we, once again, turn to the sub-atomic world we see that it is impossible to create completely predicable and harmonious models of what is seen and this kind of thing seems to limit our scientific ability to resolve such issues. Does this not really tell us that science, in terms of its procedural methods, cannot really define the universe? If so, then this seems to demonstrate that science may only create harmony and order within limits and that what we like to think of a preexisting, stable order is, in fact only an illusion.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 3, 2013 12:39:32 GMT 1
Let me ask you a question.
Let us imagine the oven existing in a complete void, i.e., in a place with no life, no particles, no planets, stars and so on. Now, in what manner could we assert that the oven is still an oven when there exists absolutely no agency that is capable of making such an interpretation? Is, what we call the "oven", self-aware? If not, then how does the oven know it is an oven? This is the central point - that there has to be some kind of interpretive means in order to define what is and what is not.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 3, 2013 12:59:33 GMT 1
Unexpected predictions which rely on pattern-forming processes of neural networks. The "unexpected predictions" Popper talks about do not have any self-supporting aspects in the absence of them being observed. I'm not sure if Popper was a materialist or not but I think he probably was at heart but he seemed to think that all the philosophical problems raised by the thinkers of the past and present could be resolved in the process of doing science, however, in taking this view he simply swept all the difficulties under the carpet, opting instead for a pragmatic, materialist approach.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 4, 2013 22:39:39 GMT 1
That is a bit like that old question "If a tree falls in an uninhabited forest, does it really make a noise". The answer is of course it does. No doubt any birds in the tree would have heard the warning crack that warned them to fly off. Any small mammal crushed by the tree's fall would no doubt have heard the horrible creak and thump, before its demise. Even if we are to assume that, somehow, not a single animal was about to hear the noise, we can be certain that any CCTV, with audio capability, would indeed have captured the sounds. For we know what sound consists of: vibrations in air, and a falling tree could not avoid making such vibrations.
You are suggesting that there is, in reality, a universe which entirely consists of an oven. Now if it really does exist then there is no need to worry about whether anyone is there to name it. I think that there is one multi-verse theory that all possible states come into being in separate universes. Assuming that the multiverse theory is correct, and assuming that a universe consisting entirely of an oven (!) must therefore exist, then nobody needs to be there to perceive its existence.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 5, 2013 10:29:41 GMT 1
That is a bit like that old question "If a tree falls in an uninhabited forest, does it really make a noise". The answer is of course it does. No doubt any birds in the tree would have heard the warning crack that warned them to fly off. Any small mammal crushed by the tree's fall would no doubt have heard the horrible creak and thump, before its demise. Even if we are to assume that, somehow, not a single animal was about to hear the noise, we can be certain that any CCTV, with audio capability, would indeed have captured the sounds. For we know what sound consists of: vibrations in air, and a falling tree could not avoid making such vibrations. You are suggesting that there is, in reality, a universe which entirely consists of an oven. Now if it really does exist then there is no need to worry about whether anyone is there to name it. I think that there is one multi-verse theory that all possible states come into being in separate universes. Assuming that the multiverse theory is correct, and assuming that a universe consisting entirely of an oven (!) must therefore exist, then nobody needs to be there to perceive its existence. The thing about the CCTV is that there has to be some intelligent agency that produced it, so here again, you are bringing in a pre-existing "observer" that arranged for the CCTV to detect the falling tree. Vibrations would be produced, yes, but unless there is something that can turn these into noise, like ears, they remain disturbances, not noise. Again, with the multiverse idea, how does a multiverse know it is a multiverse unless it has some kind of self-awareness?
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Post by fascinating on Dec 5, 2013 12:14:43 GMT 1
So the multi-verse does not know it is a multi-verse -so what? As regards the CCTV, at the time the tree fell the CCTV recorded audio data that could only have been recorded if sound had actually been made. The CCTV itself was made by man, but the data on the CCTV was not, it came there by the vibrations in air resulting from the tree falling. Your argument has no substance, it seems to me.
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