Hawking's Goldfish's FSK

[Veritas Aequitas]

Hawking's view, generally is that of a human-based FSK-Conditioned Reality.

"If a goldfish formulated such a theory, we would have to admit the goldfish’s view as a valid picture of reality."

Here is the beginning of Chapter 3 of his Grand Design:

FEW YEARS AGO the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved goldfish bowls.
The measure’s sponsor explained the measure in part by saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality.

But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?
Might not we ourselves also be inside some big goldfish bowl and have our vision distorted by an enormous lens?
The goldfish’s picture of reality is different from ours, but can we be sure it is less real?
The goldfish view is not the same as our own, but goldfish could still formulate scientific laws governing the motion of the objects they observe outside their bowl.
For example, due to the distortion, a freely moving object that we would observe to move in a straight line would be observed by the goldfish to move along a curved path.

Nevertheless, the goldfish could formulate scientific laws from their distorted frame of reference that would always hold true and that would enable them to make predictions about the future motion of objects outside the bowl.

Their laws would be more complicated than the laws in our frame, but simplicity is a matter of taste.

If a goldfish formulated such a theory, we would have to admit the goldfish’s view as a valid picture of reality.

Realists interpret Hawking's statement below as if Hawking's still believed there is an independent ultimate reality and that Hawking was agnostic about it.
"a valid picture of reality."
"undistorted picture of reality"

However if we were to read Hawking's Grand Design, one will note, Hawking actually denounce realism's [philosophical realism] mind independent reality.

Hawking stated [mine];

Philosophers from Plato onward have argued over the years about the nature of reality.

Classical science is based on the belief that there exists a real external world whose properties are definite and independent of the observer who perceives them.
According to classical science, certain objects exist and have physical properties, such as speed and mass, that have well-defined values.
In this view our theories are attempts to describe those objects and their properties, and our measurements and perceptions correspond to them.
Both observer and observed are parts of a world that has an objective existence, and any distinction between them has no meaningful significance.

In other words, if you see a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage, it is because there really is a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage.
All other observers who look will measure the same properties, and the herd will have those properties whether anyone observes them or not.
In philosophy that belief is called realism [Philosophical Realism].

Though realism [Philosophical Realism] may be a tempting viewpoint, as we’ll see later, what we know about modern physics makes it [realism] a difficult one to defend.
Chapter 3 - The Grand Design

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
Philosophical realism is ... about a certain kind of thing is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.

[Flannel Jesus]

... the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.

This makes it sound like your philosophy is just about solipsism or solipsistic skepticism. But if that were the case, that's entirely incompatible with most of the things you've been saying in these threads.

[Skepdick]

This makes it sound like your philosophy is just about solipsism or solipsistic skepticism. But if that were the case, that's entirely incompatible with most of the things you've been saying in these threads.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. --Bertrand Russel

You've translated everything you've heard into "solipsism" and "solipsistic skepticism" even though VA is citing Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design". A book which advocates for Model-dependent realism

[Iwannaplato]

Hawking's view, generally is that of a human-based FSK-Conditioned Reality.

"If a goldfish formulated such a theory, we would have to admit the goldfish’s view as a valid picture of reality."

Great perfect.
Goldfish will eat their fry - their young offspring.
This is an objective fact about them, it is moral for them to do this.
Given that it is brains that produce behavior, the goldfish have something in their brains that leads them to do this.
So, eating one's young is an objective moral fact for goldfish.

[Agent Smith]

Mr. Hawking is onto something very interesting. In this dark tunnel of karmic delusions, I see a glimmer of hope, a light, at the end. I see a child, he's 1 year old, he's in his crib, his diaper needs changing, it's what he's doing with his hands that interests me, but alas, I can see through walls but I can't see through the cabinet that now blocks me view. Allah rahim.

[Iwannaplato]

I think this story is odd because the idea of barring pet owners, while silly for other reasons, was problematic because the way goldfish perceive reality is as valid as ours according to Hawking. Well, that's fine. But the bowl is distorting goldfish perception, just as it would ours. Yes, such goldfish if they advanced to our level of intelligence might manage to form theories about reality outside the bowl. But the bowl is an ADDED distortion as it would be for us. Whatever distortions our sensory systems and filters and...etc., have on our perception, the bowl is not our nor is it our natural habitat.

This doesn't destroy the message of his story, which I tend to agree with, but it's very odd and sloppy thinking from Hawking.

FEW YEARS AGO the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved goldfish bowls.
The measure’s sponsor explained the measure in part by saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality.

But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?
Might not we ourselves also be inside some big goldfish bowl and have our vision distorted by an enormous lens?
The goldfish’s picture of reality is different from ours, but can we be sure it is less real?
The goldfish view is not the same as our own, but goldfish could still formulate scientific laws governing the motion of the objects they observe outside their bowl.
For example, due to the distortion, a freely moving object that we would observe to move in a straight line would be observed by the goldfish to move along a curved path.

Nevertheless, the goldfish could formulate scientific laws from their distorted frame of reference that would always hold true and that would enable them to make predictions about the future motion of objects outside the bowl.

Their laws would be more complicated than the laws in our frame, but simplicity is a matter of taste.

If a goldfish formulated such a theory, we would have to admit the goldfish’s view as a valid picture of reality.