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Post by alancalverd on Jan 14, 2014 18:53:15 GMT 1
Sorry, Alan, you're just not getting this. You have to think beyond the scientific method to see what I'm getting at. If what you are getting at is subject to disproof by experiment, it's a scientific hypothesis. If it isn't, it's bullshit. Toujours diplomatique, moi.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 14, 2014 20:42:57 GMT 1
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 15, 2014 6:54:30 GMT 1
No, the interaction is the cause of experience. The fact that the hydrogen spectrum looks the same whatever the source, whoever the observer, and whenever the electron transitions occured, implies that reality pre-exists observation. How could an organism without any eyes observe the hydrogen spectrum? You are assuming all intelligent life in the universe is broadly similar to us but you have no evidence of this and therefore should not assume we all observe the same thing. I've answered this facile point three times already. The "assumption" is that primary qualities exist, in the real world: they comprise the existent universe that applies to everything, including any life, and must perforce share (and if life has managed to develop and survive, must be able to adequately "observe".) And it's not an assumption - it's a well-verified hypothesis that all so far observed evidence confirms. The evidence that all intelligent life does in fact observe and adequately respond to primary qualities is overwhelming, and has never in the history of observations been contradicted. Of course - if they didn't, they'd have long died out. It is you who have not a shred of evidence for your claim: that in some unimaginable manner there's some creature who does not observe the primary qualities in the universe. But, even if some sense could be made of this claim, it still wouldn't be evidence for your overall point. If there was indeed some creature who did not observe the hydrogen spectrum - that was somehow composed of matter that did not, against all our experience and knowledge, respond to heat, for example - then that would merely be another extraordinary discovery about the universe that demanded explanation - using the language of primary qualities! This animal is composed of a hitherto novel form of matter that does not absorb light, whose molecular bonds if it has any do not vibrate, whose sensory apparatus if it has any does not register photons, or phonons, or any energetic vibration of any sort! Yet somehow it is able to function in the world! It would be the greatest discovery and profoundest mystery in the history of science, abacus, not least because it would be the very first hint of evidence that your philosophical view just might have some validity to it.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 15, 2014 7:18:24 GMT 1
The point is your analysis of experience and reason leaves you totally unable to account for how science should be a "very powerful tool with which to examine the universe", or why it should ever have come to be seen as such. If all science is "ultimately subjective", what is it that prompts us to develop our views of what we're supposedly observing? We're back to page bloody one again, because you consistently ignore points that are put to you. What is it that would ever falsify any observations if they're merely entirely subjective? (The "ultimately" qualifier adds nothing, as far as I can tell.)
Your analysis has simply overlooked the well-proven fact that "the interaction of synapses which process input from our sense experiences" does so very successfully in a manner that accurately registers primary qualities in the outside world and preserves them along all that chain of biochemical processes to an adequate degree of fidelity so that we are able to correctly perceive that outside world. It doesn't mean that this process can't sometimes make errors - we know that it does, in fact. But because we are able to interact with the independent world via our registration of primary qualities, we are able to discover and correct these mistakes! An ability that by your analysis should be completely impossible! If our observations are all that exist, if reality is merely our subjective experience, what sense could there be in saying we sometimes make perceptual mistakes? How could we ever discover such mistakes? How could we ever correct them?
Yes, and I've given you, over and over and over, a perfectly cogent argument why. You persist in completely ignoring that argument. Whether it's senility, some form of religious dogmatism that prevents you from responding to reason, or it's merely plain rudeness, I can't decide.
Plainly you haven't the most rudimentary awareness of what science says about the nature of perception. You still believe it's at the stage it was in 1750 or so.
He showed nothing of the sort. Furthermore, you have completely misunderstood what Kant argued.
Yeah? "Probability waves", is it? So what does "Philosophy" say they are then? I hope it's more informative than what science says! This is according to you the entire content of "Reality", so it should be fairly voluminous. Pray tell.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 10:44:32 GMT 1
There has to be some kind of visual representation of the hydrogen spectrum, however. Why? The computer that maps the cosmos doesn't have eyes, and its calculation of the redshift of the hydrogen spectrum of a distant galaxy, and hence is speed of recession, doesn't depend on human intervention. I can design a system that automatically launches a missile to seek and destroy anything that emits infrared radiation. No visual representation needed to respond to a quantum phenomenon and do something about it. The fact that I'm now alive and the other pilot is splattered over the ground is known as grim reality. Sorry, but you seem to be missing the central point. Clearly, no matter what apparatus you are using, you will have to engage one or more of your senses in interpreting what such apparatus is telling you. In other words, ultimately it is your perceptions that are making models of the phenomena you are examining. If you or any other observers were not present there would be no phenomena to begin with.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 10:46:03 GMT 1
Sorry, Alan, you're just not getting this. You have to think beyond the scientific method to see what I'm getting at. If what you are getting at is subject to disproof by experiment, it's a scientific hypothesis. If it isn't, it's bullshit. Toujours diplomatique, moi.We are not really discussing science here. We are discussing philosophy.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 10:55:36 GMT 1
How could an organism without any eyes observe the hydrogen spectrum? You are assuming all intelligent life in the universe is broadly similar to us but you have no evidence of this and therefore should not assume we all observe the same thing. I've answered this facile point three times already. The "assumption" is that primary qualities exist, in the real world: they comprise the existent universe that applies to everything, including any life, and must perforce share (and if life has managed to develop and survive, must be able to adequately "observe".) And it's not an assumption - it's a well-verified hypothesis that all so far observed evidence confirms. The evidence that all intelligent life does in fact observe and adequately respond to primary qualities is overwhelming, and has never in the history of observations been contradicted. Of course - if they didn't, they'd have long died out. It is you who have not a shred of evidence for your claim: that in some unimaginable manner there's some creature who does not observe the primary qualities in the universe. But, even if some sense could be made of this claim, it still wouldn't be evidence for your overall point. If there was indeed some creature who did not observe the hydrogen spectrum - that was somehow composed of matter that did not, against all our experience and knowledge, respond to heat, for example - then that would merely be another extraordinary discovery about the universe that demanded explanation - using the language of primary qualities! This animal is composed of a hitherto novel form of matter that does not absorb light, whose molecular bonds if it has any do not vibrate, whose sensory apparatus if it has any does not register photons, or phonons, or any energetic vibration of any sort! Yet somehow it is able to function in the world! It would be the greatest discovery and profoundest mystery in the history of science, abacus, not least because it would be the very first hint of evidence that your philosophical view just might have some validity to it. The trouble is you seem to have a very limited idea about reality. You are referring to the physical spacetime universe we are all used to but what about the multiverse? Given that there exist other dimensions that support some form of intelligent life how on earth can we say what perceptions they might or might not possess? They might not have a clue about the phenomena we here on earth know about because they would have perceptions adapted to their particular set of physical laws, so the Kant's concept of a noumenal realm is here redeemed since it does indeed take into account situations we can never directly experience, only in name.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 15, 2014 11:28:48 GMT 1
We are not really discussing science here. We are discussing philosophy. I'm sure there is a forum for intellectual masturbation somewhere. This is a science board.
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Post by alancalverd on Jan 15, 2014 11:32:48 GMT 1
If you or any other observers were not present there would be no phenomena to begin with. So sentient beings preexisted the universe, or the creation of the universe was not a phenomenon? I think most paleontologists and astronomers would disagree.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 15, 2014 11:33:04 GMT 1
You're merely using words to say nothing. You haven't the faintest clue what you mean by "things-in-themselves" nor "direct access to them". They do not, in fact, mean anything: they were mistakes, artefacts of an inadequate analysis of experience and knowledge; a better analysis has no need for these empty concepts, and they vanish, like phlogiston, and celestial spheres, and demonic possessions, and the four humours. Just mistakes. What there is, what we experience, and come to know about, is energy in spatio-temporal forms. Okay?
You will find yourself unable to think of a single word that has a verifiable meaning that does not refer to energy in spatio-temporal arrangement - with only one very curious and interesting exception, which is the result of a structural explanation of them. Nothing else. Everything else you might say is meaningless - it refers to nothing, and there is no reason to say it.
I'll give you a long list of questions of mine that you have not answered in the slightest. I acknowledge they're having an impact, however - insofar as you've significantly changed your position because of them. But nowhere near far enough - you're still repeating your original mistakes.
As for Fascinating - yes, you've finally responded, after more than twenty pages of waiting.
On the contrary. It's certainly no one else's!
No - very accurate. That's precisely what your philosophy is, and all it is. Not Kant - Berkeley. With some badly misunderstood gobbledygook about wavefunctions.
I haven't rejected anything Feynman said - though I'm happy to, if it's mistaken, as some of it inevitably is. What I've rejected is your misrepresentation of what Feynman said - that you can't accept that is the only arrogant thing here.
Yes, I suppose it did. It was hard to credit that there could be anyone who seriously believes calculus was evidence for the existence of a God, or a "cosmic intelligence". Or anyone so clueless about the nature of mathematics that he believes that 2+2=4 was not true until some culture developed the symbolic notation to express it as such. It's akin to encountering someone from a primitive culture who has not yet had the benefit of an education, and who can only believe, for example, that the prediction of an eclipse is proof of magical or Godlike abilities and bows down on the ground trembling.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 15:25:01 GMT 1
We are not really discussing science here. We are discussing philosophy. I'm sure there is a forum for intellectual masturbation somewhere. This is a science board. Perhaps people enjoy talking about philosophy more than science, although actually, we are discussing both.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 15:27:41 GMT 1
If you or any other observers were not present there would be no phenomena to begin with. So sentient beings preexisted the universe, or the creation of the universe was not a phenomenon? I think most paleontologists and astronomers would disagree. I have already been through this. Sentient beings gradually evolved from simpler forms to induce the reality we experience today.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 15:50:49 GMT 1
The point is your analysis of experience and reason leaves you totally unable to account for how science should be a "very powerful tool with which to examine the universe", or why it should ever have come to be seen as such. If all science is "ultimately subjective", what is it that prompts us to develop our views of what we're supposedly observing? We're back to page bloody one again, because you consistently ignore points that are put to you. What is it that would ever falsify any observations if they're merely entirely subjective? (The "ultimately" qualifier adds nothing, as far as I can tell.) Your analysis has simply overlooked the well-proven fact that "the interaction of synapses which process input from our sense experiences" does so very successfully in a manner that accurately registers primary qualities in the outside world and preserves them along all that chain of biochemical processes to an adequate degree of fidelity so that we are able to correctly perceive that outside world. It doesn't mean that this process can't sometimes make errors - we know that it does, in fact. But because we are able to interact with the independent world via our registration of primary qualities, we are able to discover and correct these mistakes! An ability that by your analysis should be completely impossible! If our observations are all that exist, if reality is merely our subjective experience, what sense could there be in saying we sometimes make perceptual mistakes? How could we ever discover such mistakes? How could we ever correct them? You keep talking about primary qualities but you have still not grasped the fact that such primary qualities are a product of our biology. "Primary", in this instance, does not mean primary in the sense of existing independently of human perceptions but in the sense of the interaction of such with the noumenal world. Do you, in fact, reject the whole concept of the noumenal world? If you do we can at least agree where exactly the battle lines are drawn, but at the moment I'm unsure of whether you think Kant's basic premise of a world that will forever be hidden from human perceptions is valid or not. No matter how successful we have been in integrating and organising our primary qualities to represent the world we inhabit they still cannot exist outside of consciousness. What you are, in effect, suggesting is that we human beings somehow enjoy a privileged position in having access to all of the universe, no matter if this means other dimensions or realms where our laws of physics simply do not apply. Isn't this a rather grandiose self-deceptive fantasy on your part? What, for example, are the primary qualities involved deep within a black hole? Even our maths break down when applied to the physics of the inside a black hole, so what of your primary qualities here?
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 15, 2014 16:16:01 GMT 1
You're merely using words to say nothing. You haven't the faintest clue what you mean by "things-in-themselves" nor "direct access to them". They do not, in fact, mean anything: they were mistakes, artefacts of an inadequate analysis of experience and knowledge; a better analysis has no need for these empty concepts, and they vanish, like phlogiston, and celestial spheres, and demonic possessions, and the four humours. Just mistakes. What there is, what we experience, and come to know about, is energy in spatio-temporal forms. Okay? You will find yourself unable to think of a single word that has a verifiable meaning that does not refer to energy in spatio-temporal arrangement - with only one very curious and interesting exception, which is the result of a structural explanation of them. Nothing else. Everything else you might say is meaningless - it refers to nothing, and there is no reason to say it. What is it about the idea that human perceptions are not omnipotent that bothers you so much? It is a self-evident, even obvious, thing to assert because our perceptions have been tailored by evolutionary forces to enable us to survive on this planet in the universe it occupies. You seem to be suggesting that we possess god-like powers in being able to be directly aware of anything and anywhere in the universe. What about non-spacetime universes? You are taking a very parochial view of reality if you really think what is basically a smart monkey has the ability to sense every possible form of matter and energy or every possible level of consciousness.
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Post by mrsonde on Jan 15, 2014 16:30:32 GMT 1
No one has disputed this assertion. I've said several times, it's a statement of the obvious - we perceive through our senses, our experience is experience. The confusion that this commonplace observation raises is not mine, it''s yours, in the logically fallacious conclusion you've leapt to, and it's that that I object to: because, as I've repeatedly explained, it is not valid at all.
I will repeat my objection yet again, for what must be the seventh or eighth time. Perhaps this time you'll have the civility to respond to it?
We may be able to correctly perceive through our senses the outside existent reality independent of them if our perceptual apparatus is able to faithfully preserve the essential aspects that constitute that reality so that they are accurately represented in our perceptions. These essential aspects are traditionally termed primary qualities. The conditional is abundantly answered in the affirmative because all the evidence ever encountered assures us of this fact.
Okay? Now - it is up to you to answer in what way you doubt the validity of this point of view. If you can't logically refute it, your conclusion does not follow. You understand at last?
I'll give you another example, again. I'll highlight in bold the references to what we correctly know about the independent world, our observations of its primary qualities:
I take what is generally called a razor blade - it's sharp and hard in relation to something that is comparatively soft and yielding, such as the set of primary qualities we call flesh. Placed against flesh and drawn across it with adequate pressure produces a cut, as the molecular arrangement of the razor overcomes the comparatively weak bonds that hold the structures of the skin and flesh together. Blood begins to flow, because the vessels that carry it have been severed.
It doesn't matter what intelligent creature this unfortunate incident occurs to; it doesn;t matter what that creature might or might not understand about the physics of razor blades, and flesh, and the act of cutting. It doesn't matter how it perceives the matter,, or how it defines it. These are facts about Reality, and it will get cut. Not an "abstract idea" of a cut - a real cut, that makes its blood flow, and if serious enough will very likely threaten its life.
There is no such thing as a priori knowledge.
It is for me, thankyou. You can make up whatever a priori diktat you want, and believe it's knowledge, but it isn't, and outside of a Thomist monastery you'll have a hell of a time finding anyone who will share your belief. And even if you do, it's still not "knowledge."
A tautology. A tautology is not knowledge.
Yes - tautologies. Nothing whasoever about the empirical world. This has been understood for at least five centuries!
Blimey! It's even more daft and wrong-headed than I thought! I imagined you were going to say something like: immediate awareness of qualia. So - it turns out that it is indeed an a priori statement: you are merely stating a tautology after all. You have already defined that we have no experience of anything except through our perceptions. You're saying nothing more than that, and as I say, no one has disagreed with it.
Of course not! "Cognitive science" has overwhelmingly shown that our perceptual apparatus successfully registers and transmits primary qualities from the outside world. It's how our senses work, and for the most part they do so exquisitely well. There are layers of neurones in a particular visual centre that register the precise angle from the perpendicular of a line (a boundary) seen in the world, for example - one degree this or that way, that neurone won't fire, but another will. This line is of course successfully registered in the first place in the retina, by cells that work in an identical manner; and transferred successfully down the optic nerve bundles in a specifically identifiable pattern. None of this information, again correctly transmitted by the contrast in light emitted either side of that line, is lost or distorted - you have no reason at all, against this precisely observed evidence, to assert that it is. Now, nevertheless, our brains can misconstrue such correctly conveyed information - the information may still be incomplete or inadequate, and we may for a variety of reasons misinterpret it (a common fact of our experience that your theory is utterly unable to account for.) But, because this is existent Reality we're trying to perceive, we can test and confirm or falsify our interpretations. We can move over to the construed line and take a closer look, from different angles; we can feel it with our hands; we can take photographs of it, in whatever variety of wavelengths we want; we can throw things at it; shine lights at it; see if sound bounces off it; and so on and so on. We interact with the world, physically, and thereby validate and refine and amplify our sensory experience.
But according to you we have no access to the "thing in itself". So how can we make an analogy of it?
Since it is impossible, the distinction between direct and indirect is meaningless, isn't it? So, we have "indirect" access - so? What's the problem. It's the access part that's important.
Reality gets tranformed into something else? What might that be?
Hippy talk. You seriously contend that in Aristotle's time there were no such things as atoms and molecules, but Reality consisted of various admixtures of fire, earth, air and water? Not "for" Aristotle, but in actuality? Like I said, gobbledygook.
No - now you're saying there's this something else behind and beyond called noumenal reality. Don't forget.
As I recommended to you before, you need to find a new vocabulary.
Oh, ffs! Another sort of reality! How many is this a priori metaphysic of yours going to end up inventing?!
No. Dead people can't make measurements, that's all the ergo there is to it. They can't dance or play the drums either. Living people can though. Why would you suppose otherwise? You make measurements from time to time, don't you, even though some people have been known to have died?
Kant? In many ways. I've told you the important ones. Fundamentally, his understanding of experience was inadequate - not as misleading as yours, but not much of an advance of Berkeley. His conceptual scheme was misguided, fundamentally. He should have started with Galileo and Locke and argued from there, as Hume did.
All over the place. You've just said as much to Fascinating. It only exists for the observer, you said: "No observers, no space."
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