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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 9, 2013 17:59:58 GMT 1
Firstly I wonder why you say that is the crucial question. But my attempted answer to the question is probably "Yes". Evidence is, by definition, "what is evident" and the word "evident" means "obvious" or "manifest". If it is accepted that there is a Universe, then the very fact that a Universe is there is manifest, obvious, evident. It's true that there may need to be sentient beings around for the Universe to be made manifest to. But that isn't the same as saying that, before sentient beings came along, there was no Universe. Then there is the aspect I alluded to before, quite possibly the whole idea of a Universe is an illusion dreamt up by my own deluded mind, and everything I believe to be external to me (including abacus9900) does not really exist. I think we are not treating such a scenario seriously but even if we (or I) did, I could still say that the Universe evidentially, manifestly and obviously (from the knowldedge of my own subjective reality) exists, consisting entirely of me. Well, I am reminded of the days when the police did not have access to things like DNA profiling or other forensic information. Now, at this time could we really say that evidence that we take for granted today was an overt aspect of police methodology in terms of solving crimes? Of course not because these things had not been developed so were unavailable for detective work. Now, it must be a truism that at some point such means would become available because of the progress of scientific knowledge but this is really what I am getting at, i.e., the fact that somebody has to actively invent these technologies which would have remained otherwise unknown. But, what if we were at a point in the past before human beings existed? How many things we take for granted which are facts of life today would exist? Very few I suggest and the reason is because it is through the intellectual efforts of many individuals, both as individuals and as teams, that contribute to our pool of knowledge. If we accept that we invent new technologies it immediately suggests you have to have an inventor in the first place to make things come about. What this really is, is a chicken and egg question. Does an inventor come first, or the potential of the invention come first?
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Post by fascinating on Dec 9, 2013 18:55:26 GMT 1
Clearly the answer to your question is: the potential. I can agree with most of your posting there, but I still don't know what you are driving at. In the chicken and egg question, the answer is the egg (the first chicken came from an egg that had the DNA of a chicken, and that egg was created from the mixing of the DNA of the parent birds (which of course were not chickens, but an earlier species).
Maybe if you could answer my question in Reply #56, I might understand what point you are trying to make.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 9, 2013 20:19:35 GMT 1
The scenario was not intended to portray your position, but the confusion you keep falling into about the meaning of "proof". You have repeatedly asked for a proof that something exists, independent of any empirical evidence that it does. By doing so you've determined your own conclusion, because obviously you will not accept the assertion as an axiom in a logical system, nor will you accept any other assertions as axioms from which it can be logically drawn as a theorem: you would merely say, yes, but what "proof" have you for these axioms, independent of any empirical evidence...and so on, and so on. And, taking the other standard meaning of "proof", the showing that a conclusion adequately follows from given evidence, you weill merely say: but what "proof" have you that the evidence exists. You see? It's your question that's fundamentally wrong, as so often in philosophy - and science. The crucial question here is: does evidence exist as an overt aspect of the universe or not? It does. It exists as at very least as what you termed phenomena. Whatever else they might be, they are undeniably "overt" and they are undeniably "aspects of the universe" - if they're not, what can you possibly be referring to by your term "the universe"? You know - you experience - absolutely nothing about it! It is "something" before any questions are asked. This is your overall problem, abacus - you are only willing to ascribe reality to a mental processing of some sort, and grant no prior existence to that which might be processed. I think this is fundamental, so I'll return to it properly later. Yes, the same basic presumption. I did strongly suspect that this was your belief, as I suggested earlier (and have pointedly asked you twice already for clarification.) You basically believe with Lewis Carroll that p>q, the relation of implication, is a human invention. You believe that it's perfectly feasible for there to be creatures or planets or times where 2+2 does not equal 4. No, you're quite wrong. The foundations of logic (and hence mathematics) are eternal (by which I mean irrespective of time), entirely abstract, and universal - by which I mean they are applicable to any possible time and space, any possible universe. That isn't a conclusion - it's an axiom, that you've already laid down. There is not the smallest piece of evidence for it. It leads to not one interesting theorem. It accounts for nothing that we call logic or mathematics. It leaves all of our empirical experience unexplained. Therefore - what possible point is there to it? It's an entirely worthless "what if", without evidence, without ground, without consequence, explaining nothing.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 9, 2013 20:41:17 GMT 1
Thankyou, but I'm afraid it doesn't - not even Wheeler was cranky enough to suppose that much. I was sort of puzzled as to why when I kept asking you for evidence for your claims you didn't refer to this and similar experiments, though, I must admit. Seeing as it's in the opening posts, it would have been easy enough. But now you have, let's examine it, and see how far it supports your case. By the way - is this the source of your metaphysical theory, abacus? Or had you formulated it beforehand - and if so, what was your source (or sources) then? Indulge my curiosity, if you would. These kinds of experiments represent the "unearthing" of potentials existing in the mix of raw data and the role of consciousness in defining such data. I've informed you several times - I do not know what you mean by "potentials". Neither of "aspects of reality" nor "raw data". Are you suggesting that what we define just happens to be one way of doing it, but there are others - many, an infinite number, what? There is no relation between what the universe chooses to become, and what we choose to "define" or "give meaning to", and what is actually existent? The "unearthing" is actually merely an "inventing"? Come on - analyse this crucial notion of yours a bit more clearly, please. I can't be the only one who hasn't a clue what you're talking about. Assure me that this doesn't include you, at least. What is? The double-slit and delayed choice erasure process? Utter balderdash. Good. We're making progress! Ooops! No we're not, false alarm. What what says? Look - you're merely getting confused by the various colloquial uses of the word "reality". Sometime around 1966 the Western world commonly caught up with the post WWI generation of dadaists and absurdists and started using the word to refer to one's subjective experience of the world - part of the general fad for hippydom, and all that it represented. Timothy Leary, Ram Das, half-digested half-baked regurgitations of Hindu and Buddhist metaphysical ideas, Jacques Derrida and Thomas Kuhn and a host of leftwing academics intent on overthrowing "establishment" notions like truth and reality, the cognitive relativists, the idiots who plastered their bedsits with posters of Che and Mao and de Sade and Georges Bataille. Youre a victim of 60s inanity, man. Our what? Isn't your argument that it's the other way around? And if not - why not?! Please explain! How do these "potentials" exist? Oscar, I expect; or Quentin Crisp.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 9, 2013 20:43:31 GMT 1
Clearly the answer to your question is: the potential. I can agree with most of your posting there, but I still don't know what you are driving at. In the chicken and egg question, the answer is the egg (the first chicken came from an egg that had the DNA of a chicken, and that egg was created from the mixing of the DNA of the parent birds (which of course were not chickens, but an earlier species). Maybe if you could answer my question in Reply #56, I might understand what point you are trying to make. Sorry, fascinating, in all the many posts that have been made about this thread I did not spot this one. Well, it is not that the solar system did not exist in any absolute sense, rather, it existed as a suspended potential waiting for conscious observers, particularly intelligent observers, to evolve, at which point it become crystalized into objective reality. I suppose, in a way, you might say it was an accident waiting to happen, which, actually, is quite an accurate way if looking at it. This kind of relates back to the chicken and egg question which you correctly resolved about neither coming first but rather developing from earlier forms. In other words, the solar system never always existed in the form we regard it today but "evolved" as conscious observers evolved to become an objective aspect (as we experience it today) of our environment. From all this we can now identify an important philosophical principle viz: objective reality is an ongoing process which is not static and fixed but is malleable according to the observing agencies it interacts with. Why do you think people are now looking at Einstein's Relativity and suggesting within its equations that space can actually be bent and contracted in order to make interstellar travel a real possibility? This is an example of the malleability of "objective reality" and a thinking mind.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 9, 2013 21:15:21 GMT 1
I can only assume that you mean non-human observers, because I suppose you accept that humans only came into existence after the Solar System did. So can you describe for me the nature of these intelligences who were able to crystallise the Solar System?
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 10, 2013 9:48:42 GMT 1
I can only assume that you mean non-human observers, because I suppose you accept that humans only came into existence after the Solar System did. So can you describe for me the nature of these intelligences who were able to crystallise the Solar System? Yes. Animals who would have been aware of the moon, one or two of the planets, such as Venus as a bright object, would have registered such images, but, of course would have had absolutely no conception of a solar system, as such. Presumably, when more advanced species appeared with a degree of intelligence some of these at least would have pondered about objects in the sky and quite possibly speculated about what such objects were and how and why they came to be there. It was when not only Homo-Sapiens but civilisation came on the scene that a more systematic study of nature arose and other developments, such as mathematics, came into play in attempting to describe observations that people made of celestial objects. If we go to the other extreme and consider the situation when the only life that existed on earth was microscopic, we can see that there would have been zero awareness of the solar system aside, that is, of the effect of the moon's gravity and the effect of starlight on the earth. So, at this point in the earth's history it would be completely meaningless to talk about a 'solar system.'
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 10, 2013 10:13:52 GMT 1
The crucial question here is: does evidence exist as an overt aspect of the universe or not? How can something be "overt" if there is nothing to make it overt? I have already acknowledged that there is indeed "something" present before conscious observers are considered, however, this something is not the same as when there are conscious observers present, rather, it remains as a potential. Why not? If particles can exist in superposition, as we find in quantum mechanics, nature does not have to be bound by human mathematics. I don't think you are entitled to make this statement because neither you or I or anyone else can imagine what kinds of realities exist other than our familiar one. Quite simply, in terms of evidence, how can any theorem, logical argument or any mathematics of any description even exist without the requirement of a neocortex?
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 10, 2013 12:20:27 GMT 1
These kinds of experiments represent the "unearthing" of potentials existing in the mix of raw data and the role of consciousness in defining such data. I've informed you several times - I do not know what you mean by "potentials". Neither of "aspects of reality" nor "raw data". Are you suggesting that what we define just happens to be one way of doing it, but there are others - many, an infinite number, what? There is no relation between what the universe chooses to become, and what we choose to "define" or "give meaning to", and what is actually existent? The "unearthing" is actually merely an "inventing"? Come on - analyse this crucial notion of yours a bit more clearly, please. I can't be the only one who hasn't a clue what you're talking about. Assure me that this doesn't include you, at least. It's not a question of having an entirely free choice about what we perceive as reality because we are constrained by our nature in terms of our physical endowments developed over evolutionary time. Even so, within these constraints we still have a rich choice about exactly what we observe and study. Isn't that clear enough? The counter-intuitive results of this experiment could similarly be described as such so where does that leave us? I don't know why you think subjective experiences are less important than so-called "objective experiences" since, according to my argument, everything is really a subjective experience, including our perceptions of what we generally regard as the external world. We have been compelled to re-examine our relationship with the " physical" world in light of the role of observation seems to play in experiments that strongly suggest it is consciousness that has the ability to actually change the outside world, as illustrated in the delayed choice eraser experiment. How would I know? You are asking me about something deeply profound and something that will occupy the minds of philosophers and scientists for many years to come. All I can do is put forward the situation based on logic and knowledge. J. B. Haldane, actually.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 10, 2013 14:14:05 GMT 1
Thanks for your reply, it is becoming clearer what you are thinking. You seem to be suggesting that, before sentient beings with the intelligence to conceive of, and therefore 'crystallise' the Solar System, there were animals living on Earth, which could view the Moon and the Sun, and some planets.
Abacus, if those animals could see the Sun and the planets, then there clearly must have been a Solar System there already. I can't make sense of your suggestion at all.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 10, 2013 15:49:48 GMT 1
Thanks for your reply, it is becoming clearer what you are thinking. You seem to be suggesting that, before sentient beings with the intelligence to conceive of, and therefore 'crystallise' the Solar System, there were animals living on Earth, which could view the Moon and the Sun, and some planets. Abacus, if those animals could see the Sun and the planets, then there clearly must have been a Solar System there already. I can't make sense of your suggestion at all. Ok, there seems to be some confusion here. Very primitive lifeforms with eyes would have been able to register light from various sources, naturally, but they would not have been able to formulate what these were, for example, that they were objects outside the earth's atmosphere or that they were even celestial bodies like the earth. All they would be aware of was various sources of light entering into their eyes but not be able to know much beyond that. No doubt, the light from the moon would have been a major factor in such creatures' life because it would have played a part in the reproductive cycle of some animals (sea turtles who nest at night come to mind here) and also, nocturnal animals who hunt and forage at night. This would have been even more true of the light from the sun which enabled creatures to survive, obviously. So, despite the light from the sun, moon and even possibly from other celestial bodies affording such animals certain advantages, they would have had no clue as to the real origin of such light. Now, you, no doubt would say yes, but that proves the moon and the rest of the solar system had to exist at the same time as these primitive life forms! Well, this is simply an assumption based on commonsense. In the day to day world, when we look at an object then look away and return our gaze to the object it appears again. For example, when we observe a car, let's say, it remains as an idea of a car so that on another occasion when we see a similar object we register it as the concept "car." So, the crucial point I want to get over here is that all our "observations" are based on inner ideas about what some object in the environment represents. A spider, say, would be aware of something or other in its immediate vicinity (car) but would not have any concept of a car, therefore, to assert cars could exist in a world entirely made up of spiders would have no meaning and no logical justification. Rather the idea of a car would remain only as a potential awaiting for some more advanced creature to realise it. The concept of a "solar system" would similarly be impossible in a world inhabited only by primitive creatures by virtue of not possessing consciousness. Would the dinosaurs have been aware of the concept "meteor" when the big one hit around 65,000,000 years ago? Highly doubtful.
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Post by fascinating on Dec 10, 2013 17:36:02 GMT 1
Those creatures that existed before humans (and the human concept of the Solar System) were, you agree, receiving light from celestial objects. Now you say that they had no idea that the light was from celestial objects, the creatures had no concept of celestial objects at all. But you do agree don't you that, nevertheless, the light DID in fact come from celestial objects, from the Sun, Moon and planets, which comprise the most part of the Solar System.
You mention cars but that is a different category of object. I am familiar with the fact that a car is a human artefact and is categorised on the basis of its function for us, and other living things would regard cars differently. Similarly a simple wooden bench might be used as a table or a seat, and be called as such, depending on the use to which it was put. There is nevertheless the inescapable fact that the object labelled bench or table or seat or whatever it is, does exist; in the last resort, that lump of cut wood does in fact exist. With the car, there is no escaping the fact that there is a lump of (mainly) metal present, taking up the space that any object or creature might use instead. Similarly with the Solar System, though the creatures did not have any concept of the moons and planets, they were living on a planet, lit by the Sun, so there was undoubtedly a Solar System then.
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Post by abacus9900 on Dec 10, 2013 18:20:32 GMT 1
Those creatures that existed before humans (and the human concept of the Solar System) were, you agree, receiving light from celestial objects. Now you say that they had no idea that the light was from celestial objects, the creatures had no concept of celestial objects at all. But you do agree don't you that, nevertheless, the light DID in fact come from celestial objects, from the Sun, Moon and planets, which comprise the most part of the Solar System. You mention cars but that is a different category of object. I am familiar with the fact that a car is a human artefact and is categorised on the basis of its function for us, and other living things would regard cars differently. Similarly a simple wooden bench might be used as a table or a seat, and be called as such, depending on the use to which it was put. There is nevertheless the inescapable fact that the object labelled bench or table or seat or whatever it is, does exist; in the last resort, that lump of cut wood does in fact exist. With the car, there is no escaping the fact that there is a lump of (mainly) metal present, taking up the space that any object or creature might use instead. Similarly with the Solar System, though the creatures did not have any concept of the moons and planets, they were living on a planet, lit by the Sun, so there was undoubtedly a Solar System then. Yes, but with all due respect principled, you are falling into the same trap as mrsonde in that you are looking at this through human eyes or, more specifically, human consciousness. We can easily look back now and realise that had we been about at the same time as the aforementioned creatures we would have recognized that the light coming from these objects were up in the sky and that there was a definite pattern to their movements and that they were spheres of some kind being somehow suspended in mid-air. We can do this because we have commonsense, something that is developed from birth onwards and because we have inherited a brain that is extremely adaptable. However, you have to somehow prove that the solar system as we understand it today did effectively exist when there were no intelligent observers present but this is impossible simply because in attempting to do so you get caught in a Catch-22 situation where you are compelled to introduce consciousness in order to justify the existence of something thereby destroying the conditions of the experiment, i.e., by including our consciousness which was not a factor in the original situation. So, in reality, the idea that the solar system was actually about at a very early time in earth's history only remains an unprovable assumption. Do you see what I mean?
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 10, 2013 18:46:26 GMT 1
I'm not sure where you're going with this, or why. Why have you suddenly dragged causality into it? It has the definite aroma of my courtcase scenario above, I have to tell you. You're not trying to evade fascinating's question to you by saying, ah, yes, BUT, members of the jury, can we be sure that time actually exists, or indeed, that anything actually causes anything else? Hmmm? Are you really sure, hand on heart, that my client caused the victim's injuries, when we do not even know whether causing anything to happen at all is possible? I put it to you that there is reasonable doubt here, and you must follow your duty and acquit. Look - very briefly, in a nutshell. In science, and again in rationality in general, the notion of causality does not especially or significantly depend on that of time. Nor does it depend on generalisation - on inductive reasoning. Hume merely made an inadequate analysis of what the term means. I'll give you a more thorough analysis, if you want - but perhaps that would be better on a different thread? - The idea of causality and time is a central plank of science. Not really - it only seems that way because we naturally reify our commonplace notions of "cause" and "time" and project them onto scientific theories. Actually, there is no symbol for "cause" in any scientific theory; and time, t, in physics is, notoriously, a static dimension, and has no reference to anything "moving", "passing", or even pointing in any direction. What time refers to in science is change - which is also all that it refers to in our experience. Not even a rate of change, which would in our scientific equations be self-referential; just the indication of a change from one state to an adjacent one. And this is all that is indicated by "causation" in science, too - traditionally marked as an arrow. How so? It's not a qestion of "dispensing" with them - science doesn't actually use them in any explanation: it's already dispensed with them. Or, rather, one is hypothesised as a stable dimension, indicating an abstract commonality of a rate of change between independent systems (which have no role in scientific explanation, which is all about explicating connections), and the other is similarly never used in scientific explanation except as an admittal of "we strongly suspect there's a connection between these two events, but we don't have a clue what it is (how to indicate the connections.)" Good point, affirming what I've just said. It's a notorious mystery in physics that there is nothing in our equations that explains this. One has to resort to an argument from Thermodynamics, invoking a reified supposed measure called "Entropy" - though on analysis it's clear that this is a circular argument, and that "entropy" depends on a direction of change rather than the other way around. As I say, they play no effective role in any scientific theory or the equations that make them up. Just as "mind" doesn't. They're convenient labels summarising complex systems of associated events, processes, not things in their own right; we've just reified them as nouns, like politics, society, love... Read my post explaining its relevance again: you've missed its point. It is about epistemology, not the law. No, I wouldn't go that far. It is doubtlessly a dimension. Probably a fourth of space, rather than anything distinct from the other three: that's the only explication that makes sense of SR, GR, the wave/particle duality of QM, and c. That is, light doesn't move at all, everything else does - at the rate that the universe (its space) is expanding.
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Post by mrsonde on Dec 10, 2013 19:12:31 GMT 1
But this argues for a realist metaphysic, not yours.
;D I was quoting you, abacus!
Science and reason doesn't attempt to define what it is like, but what it is and how it works. I see no reason or barrier that it "can not" do this, ever, in principle - though of course it's true that such a definitive definition does not exist yet. As I say - it's foundationally a matter of faith, but faith strongly supported by reason and experience.
No - the basic mistake you keep making. Delineating how it is perceived is not the aim of scientific explanation (except as a separate subject in itself, of course.)
And how they do so, leading to the differences in what they perceive of this existent reality, is also part of that delineation. You're supposing that these alternative perceptions might possibly be contradictory yet equally as valid. I repeat: where is the evidence for this desperate hypothesis?
Perhaps? No perhaps about it: that's the way it is.
No, I haven't conceded the always part at all, as I've previously stated. More to the point, you've overlooked the essential point about scientific explanation - any "rational" explanation. It is not "a model of what we observe", but a hypothetical underlying structure that, were it true, would give rise to what we observe. That's what we test, not our previous observations; and that's why it is not possible to have any rational explanation of our observations without a realist metaphysic.
Nothing at all. I am merely pointing out that your conclusions about the universe do not follow from these particular experiments, because no one is pretending for a minute that they're in the least bit understood, and no one is pretending that anyone knows how to draw such connective conclusions. The world of "quantum objects" is one thing; the universe of macroscopic objects is another, and the way the two are connected is a complete unknown. Thus you cannot say: this is what we know about quantum objects, therefore the universe must be like so and so. You can try, of course, but you're on extremely shaky ground - any such reasoning is premature.
You need to ask yourself serious questions about what you mean by "how the world worked" and "systematic methods". The relation between them is the answer to the conceptual mess you've tied yourself up in.
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