The Moon Does Not Exist If No Humans 'Look' at It

[Veritas Aequitas]

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[Veritas Aequitas]

I've been following this discussion with interest - and I think FJ is right.

Question is: why does VA need to flip flop, dodge and weave? What's at stake? After all, VA thinks 'morality-proper' has nothing to do with the moral rightness or wrongness of behaviour. It's just about avoiding evil and promoting good, which has nothing to do with personal opinion. (?)

So why is it so necessary to reject realism in all its forms? How does that facilitate avoiding evil and promoting good?

Btw, do you understand what is Philosophical Realism? [I had brought to your attention, > a "million" times]

Philosophical Realism is .... is about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) 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.[1][2][3]
This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding.[4]
This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself.

Realism can also be a view about the properties of reality in general, holding that reality exists independent of the mind, as opposed to non-realist views ... which question the certainty of anything beyond one's own mind.
Philosophers who profess realism often claim that truth consists in a correspondence between cognitive representations and reality.[7]

Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality but that the accuracy and fullness of understanding can be improved.[8]
In some contexts, realism is contrasted with idealism.
Today it is more usually contrasted with anti-realism, for example in the philosophy of science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

That is what you claim with your what-is-fact, i.e. a feature of reality which is just-is existing independent of the human conditions [mind-independent existence].
As such there are no absolutely independent moral facts, so, morality cannot be objective.
Though you explicitly deny the Correspondence Theory, it is implicit in your 'what is fact' where descriptions are necessary to mirror that 'just-is' to as close as possible.

My anti-realism is in contrast to the above.
My what is fact is not 'mind-independent existence' but entangled [inter-dependent, intertwined with ] with the human conditions.
In this case, what-is-fact is always conditioned to a human-based-FSK [science being the most credible and reliable], thus highest degree of Objectivity.
What is a moral fact is conditioned upon a human-based-moral-FSK which has near equivalence in objectivity to the scientific FSK.
Therefore, "Morality is Objective" as conditioned upon the moral FSK.

The above is a general summary, and the details are presented in the many separated threads I have raised in this section.

You strawman me with 'right and wrong', feeling of moral sentiments, descriptive moral statements, which I do not agree with.
It is obvious these are not moral facts and I have never agree they are moral facts.
I don't agree with moral realism in the Platonic sense, i.e. there are independent moral ideals independent of the human conditions.
I do not agree with moral realism in the theistic sense, i.e. moral facts from a God.

What I agree with is Moral Empirical Realism which is conditioned upon a human-based-empirical-moral-FSK which is credible, reliable and has a high degree of objectivity.

[Iwannaplato]

Does the oughtness not to kill that is in mirror neurons exist when no one is looking at those neurons? And since they can only be looked at via medical interventions that would prevent moral actions or empathetic behavior on the part of the person with those neurons, how can this oughtness not to kill exist in any effective way?

It seems to me your objective moral facts are very much like the Platonic Forms?

[popeye1945]

If the moon's energy never reaches you, for you it would not be-------------------generalize!

[Iwannaplato]

If the moon's energy never reaches you, for you it would not be-------------------generalize!

How could the Moon's energy not reach you if everything is interdependent?

[popeye1945]

If the moon's energy never reaches you, for you it would not be-------------------generalize!

How could the Moon's energy not reach you if everything is interdependent?

What I am suggesting is that the moon is an energy form not unlike the world of objects and unless that energy is processed through biology there is no object/moon. I don' t think we actually see the moon anyway; we see its reflected light. Quantum reality where all is connected might, not sure, mean that all energy forms are interdependent which would be somewhat different than our world of objects.

[Iwannaplato]

What I am suggesting is that the moon is an energy form not unlike the world of objects and unless that energy is processed through biology there is no object/moon. I don' t think we actually see the moon anyway; we see its reflected light.

We see the Sun's light reflected off of it. But then, that's true for the whole of the outdoors in daytime, and once upon a time, everything, if we add in starlight to the source and a few bioluminescent life forms.

[popeye1945]

What I am suggesting is that the moon is an energy form not unlike the world of objects and unless that energy is processed through biology there is no object/moon. I don' t think we actually see the moon anyway; we see its reflected light.

We see the Sun's light reflected off of it. But then, that's true for the whole of the outdoors in daytime, and once upon a time, everything, if we add in starlight to the source and a few bioluminescent life forms.

Light is energy.

[Agent Smith]

How exciting this all is, oui mes amies?!

[Iwannaplato]

What I am suggesting is that the moon is an energy form not unlike the world of objects and unless that energy is processed through biology there is no object/moon. I don' t think we actually see the moon anyway; we see its reflected light.

We see the Sun's light reflected off of it. But then, that's true for the whole of the outdoors in daytime, and once upon a time, everything, if we add in starlight to the source and a few bioluminescent life forms.

Light is energy.

Sure and it's also photons. But I am not sure what this has to do with what I wrote above.

[popeye1945]

We see the Sun's light reflected off of it. But then, that's true for the whole of the outdoors in daytime, and once upon a time, everything, if we add in starlight to the source and a few bioluminescent life forms.

Light is energy.

Sure and it's also photons. But I am not sure what this has to do with what I wrote above.

A photon is an energy it has no mass. My point has been that energy processed through the biology of organisms is an object. Not sure what you're going on about daytime, bioluminescent life forms? We are disconnecting somehow.

[Iwannaplato]

A photon is an energy it has no mass.

It's a massless particle. I mean, you often say that everything is energy. So, I am not sure why you think photons, which are also particles, are energy because they don't have mass. Sure we used to think matter had to have mass, but that changed in the 20th century.

Here's what our once resident physicist said about 'everything is energy'

This isn't correct. Not everything is made of atoms (only baryonic matter is), and atoms aren't "made up of energy." Atoms possess energy as a property.

Nothing is "made up of" energy, energy is a property. It would be like saying a ruler is "made up of" length or a pillow is "made up of" softness, that would be the same kind of conceptual error. You will not find a clump of just energy anywhere in the universe, you will only find other things which possess energy as a property -- just like you won't find a clump of length anywhere in the universe, only things which possess length as a property.

IOW saying everything is energy is a category error. And I think you're conflating waves with energy. Like particles are reallly waves so they are energy.

My point has been that energy processed through the biology of organisms is an object. Not sure what you're going on about daytime, bioluminescent life forms? We are disconnecting somehow.

Because you said:

I don' t think we actually see the moon anyway; we see its reflected light.

It seemed like, though I wasn't sure, it was a special case. It's reflected light. I could have asked about the Sun. The Sun's light is not reflected, it comes from the Sun. Does that make a difference? But what I focused on what saying that everything we see during daylight is could be described as us actually just seeing light from the sun reflecting off them.

Often I get distraction tangents, like. But what if you use a flashlight. Or, some plankton create their own light. So, I tried a preventative measure, pardon any confusion.

Is the Moon unique in reflecting light from another source and that's why it isn't an object? But actually your first assertion was that it's energy, if it didn't reach me, meant that it didn't exist.

If the moon's energy never reaches you, for you it would not be-------------------generalize!

Which implies that it's energy does reach me sometimes.

But then it seems like you are trying to say it never reaches me since it is reflected light.

So on the one hand it seems like you are saying that if we are not perceiving something it doesn't exist or only exists as undifferentiated energy. But when we do, it does exist as an object.

But then, no, it doesn't really because it is reflected light.

So, then it seems like they never exist or are undifferentiated enery unless it is a source of that light, because, again most things are visible reflecting light, from the sun, and lamps etc.

And then presumably the Moon's own gravitational field is affecting my body, however minutely, it affects the rotation of the earth. That's the Moon's gravity, not the Sun's (which also does this). So how is the Moon not always there? Or anything else in the universe? Hence my question about interdependence.

[Iwannaplato]

If the mind is cocreating and entangled with the undifferentiated quantum foam, a few questions....

1) where is that mind? is it 'in the skull'?
2) wouldn't there no longer be 'my mind' and 'your mind' with this persistant self experiencing things (which is realism)? Wouldn't it be more like a series of conglermate minds: mind/coffee cup, mind/desk. No real persistant self. This would dovetail nicely with VA's occasional Buddhist interest, where there is no self in the sense most Westerners have one.
3) Why is reality so consistant? Why when I walk into a room and then later my wife does can we later check and find that we saw the same furniture? Let's say it was at an apartment showing and a living room neither of us had seen before? Not much cocreation going on: it seems like the room decided a lot on its own.

[Flannel Jesus]

3) Why is reality so consistant? Why when I walk into a room and then later my wife does can we later check and find that we saw the same furniture? Let's say it was at an apartment showing and a living room neither of us had seen before? Not much cocreation going on: it seems like the room decided a lot on its own.

4. How does reality surprise us, collectively? Humanity was apparently surprised to find that heavier objects don't fall faster, when Galileo started dropping things off towers. If reality is being co-created, things like gravity, relativity, chemistry, quantum physics - they point to it at least not being co-created by the most popular ideas. Which people manifested these things into reality, overriding popular beliefs?

4.1 Why are popular superstitions not being manifested into reality?

[Iwannaplato]

3) Why is reality so consistant? Why when I walk into a room and then later my wife does can we later check and find that we saw the same furniture? Let's say it was at an apartment showing and a living room neither of us had seen before? Not much cocreation going on: it seems like the room decided a lot on its own.

4. How does reality surprise us, collectively? Humanity was apparently surprised to find that heavier objects don't fall faster, when Galileo started dropping things off towers. If reality is being co-created, things like gravity, relativity, chemistry, quantum physics - they point to it at least not being co-created by the most popular ideas. Which people manifested these things into reality, overriding popular beliefs?

I guess it's being created by something other than our conscious choice. But yes, I had forgotten about all the laws and relations, I've focused on things.

The first organism arises in the primordial soup. It makes the soup and part of earth and some facets, at least of the Sun. But yes, also gravity and all these laws. What was it about the organism that led to the cocreation of these laws and not others. What if it made a mistake - like an unsually large plank length or too much charge on an electron? And certainly, as you and I have both brought up, how did it retroactively not only create the Big Bang but also leaves after effects in the details of this much older event?

I do have a partial solution to this, but it's trickier with the laws invovled.

Imagine that the quantum foam is sort of vibrating in its indeteminateness. Every now and then something appears out of this semi-void. Like random fluctuations lead to a perceiver. Oftne this doesn't hold. But finally one arises that creates enough to survive. Well, the existence of things might entail a certain past. So, you have built backwards. Like the perceiving in the now creates the past also that fits/leads to that organism and what it needs.