Philosophical Realism's Mind-Independence is Absurd

[Skepdick]

Interesting that you call your approach anti philosophical.

It goes without saying that if everything is philosophy then nothing is philosophy.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Interesting that you call your approach anti philosophical.

It was an omission.
Should be "the ANTI-philosophical_realism approach" as I had always refers to.

[Darkneos]

No, you're wrong on very many counts there.

You claimed that qm proves the moon isn't there when no one is looking. I replied with, that is ONE interpretation of qm, and there are many. So in that conversation, I was the one acknowledging the existence of multiple competing points of view while you were holding steadfast to your one point of view as being the only possible correct one.

I don't know why you keep bringing up Einstein still. Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics in many ways. I've never been ambiguous about thinking that. I'm not "with Einstein". Sean Carroll, yes, and interestingly enough, Stephen hawking also prefers Sean Carroll's interpretation of qm as well.

All you have to say is, "there are more legitimately competing interpretations of qm than the one I prefer". Can you say that? If you say that, then my previous post goes up in smoke.

Sorry to chime in but I feel the need to add that QM doesn't say the moon isn't there when you're not looking. Rather reality is there when you're not looking but we only experience bits of it at a time.

But then again VA being wrong ain't exactly news.

[Iwannaplato]

No, you're wrong on very many counts there.

You claimed that qm proves the moon isn't there when no one is looking. I replied with, that is ONE interpretation of qm, and there are many.

Just to mull a bit. If no one is looking at the Moon and I look at it, does it exist now, or 1 1/3 seconds ago?

Let's pick a more distant target and one less likely to always having someone look at it.
I'm an astronomer. I notice a dim star in an observatory scope. No other sentient species are capable of seeing this star or they simply don't exist.
When I see that star that is 10 light years away, did I bring it into existence 10 years ago? Does my act of view retroactively create the star and/or collapse the wave function?

Or is the star a kind of noumenon and only the light is real?

But if only the light is real, this should also be true when looking at 'objects' that aren't really there. Even mundane objects. I see a chair across the room. Really only the light is real. There are no chairs.

[Darkneos]

No, you're wrong on very many counts there.

You claimed that qm proves the moon isn't there when no one is looking. I replied with, that is ONE interpretation of qm, and there are many.

Just to mull a bit. If no one is looking at the Moon and I look at it, does it exist now, or 1 1/3 seconds ago?

Let's pick a more distant target and one less likely to always having someone look at it.
I'm an astronomer. I notice a dim star in an observatory scope. No other sentient species are capable of seeing this star or they simply don't exist.
When I see that star that is 10 light years away, did I bring it into existence 10 years ago? Does my act of view retroactively create the star and/or collapse the wave function?

Or is the star a kind of noumenon and only the light is real?

But if only the light is real, this should also be true when looking at 'objects' that aren't really there. Even mundane objects. I see a chair across the room. Really only the light is real. There are no chairs.

That’s not how collapsing the wave function goes.

Reality still exists even if you aren’t looking at it, it’s just that you only experience part of it at a time.

https://www.vlatkovedral.com/the-world- ... s-looking/

Also stars are different as what you see from far away is the light traveling towards you. But trying to compare the traveling light with an object like a chair fails in this case due to the distance. Also the light can’t only be real and there not being a chair. There has to be something there for the light to bounce off of in order to hit your eyes. Unless it’s some kind of hologram. Also you’re more than welcome to test it.

Honestly I wish people would read some science first before talking about this. This isn’t musing it’s just ignorance

[Iwannaplato]

That’s not how collapsing the wave function goes.

I'm responding to VA via FJ's post.

Reality still exists even if you aren’t looking at it, it’s just that you only experience part of it at a time.

Which is not VA's position. I understand this might not be clear to fourth parties, but I think FJ will understand that I am assuming VA's various positions and exploring. Including exploring some of the problems that VA would need to deal with, at least possibly.

Also stars are different as what you see from far away is the light traveling towards you. But trying to compare the traveling light with an object like a chair fails in this case due to the distance.

It's just a matter of degree. If VA wants to say that there is no retroactive causation, he might argue that really only the light exists when we turn and look at a star no one has been looking at. But that entails that the star is a kind of noumenon and thus in VA's position, not real (and not seen). The problem then is that everything becomes noumenon, then, because all seeing has light as the mediation between the object and the perceiver.

Also the light can’t only be real and there not being a chair. There has to be something there for the light to bounce off of in order to hit your eyes. Unless it’s some kind of hologram. Also you’re more than welcome to test it.

Sure, you're a realist.

Honestly I wish people would read some science first before talking about this. This isn’t musing it’s just ignorance

Sigh. You're assuming a lot to get insulting. I understand, you don't understand the context of my post to FJ, iow directed at someone who is not you. But still, now you jumped to insulting me and you have no idea what I know or don't know about science and honestly I think chances are decent you're unaware of the debates within physics for example between realists and antirealists, of which there are many different versions of both types.

I'd like to explore. That's fine if you just want to lecture from your realism at anything that seems like it's going against what you are so sure of and look down at from your lofty certainty.

But you can then argue with VA and ignore my posts to FJ, for example.

[Darkneos]

That’s not how collapsing the wave function goes.

I'm responding to VA via FJ's post.

Reality still exists even if you aren’t looking at it, it’s just that you only experience part of it at a time.

Which is not VA's position. I understand this might not be clear to fourth parties, but I think FJ will understand that I am assuming VA's various positions and exploring. Including exploring some of the problems that VA would need to deal with, at least possibly.

Also stars are different as what you see from far away is the light traveling towards you. But trying to compare the traveling light with an object like a chair fails in this case due to the distance.

It's just a matter of degree. If VA wants to say that there is no retroactive causation, he might argue that really only the light exists when we turn and look at a star no one has been looking at. But that entails that the star is a kind of noumenon and thus in VA's position, not real (and not seen). The problem then is that everything becomes noumenon, then, because all seeing has light as the mediation between the object and the perceiver.

Also the light can’t only be real and there not being a chair. There has to be something there for the light to bounce off of in order to hit your eyes. Unless it’s some kind of hologram. Also you’re more than welcome to test it.

Sure, you're a realist.

Honestly I wish people would read some science first before talking about this. This isn’t musing it’s just ignorance

Sigh. You're assuming a lot to get insulting. I understand, you don't understand the context of my post to FJ, iow directed at someone who is not you. But still, now you jumped to insulting me and you have no idea what I know or don't know about science and honestly I think chances are decent you're unaware of the debates within physics for example between realists and antirealists, of which there are many different versions of both types.

I'd like to explore. That's fine if you just want to lecture from your realism at anything that seems like it's going against what you are so sure of and look down at from your lofty certainty.

But you can then argue with VA and ignore my posts to FJ, for example.

First, it wasn’t clear that you were responding to VA.

Second I’m just setting the record straight when it come to QM as collapsing the wave function doesn’t mean what most think it does. Nothing in science is certain by far but I can assure you no one takes anti realism seriously in science. There might be debate but there is also debate on climate change and vaccines, doesn’t make both sides valid. I can promise I understand this better than you.

Third I can’t argue with them because they blocked me because I decided to just call them stupid rather than show them how.

[Atla]

Let's pick a more distant target and one less likely to always having someone look at it.
I'm an astronomer. I notice a dim star in an observatory scope. No other sentient species are capable of seeing this star or they simply don't exist.
When I see that star that is 10 light years away, did I bring it into existence 10 years ago? Does my act of view retroactively create the star and/or collapse the wave function?

I think this issue was firmly resolved by nonlocality. You "bring it into existence" or how I would rather view it, its "eigenstate-ness correlates with your/our eigenstate-ness" 10 years ago. So it happens "retroactively" or how I would rather view it, spacetime may be a weakly emergent property, time is an illusion on this level.

If the light was emitted 10 billion years ago, this still works all the same. It can appear from our everyday perspective that we can choose from a limited set of possibilites, what happened 10 billion years ago.

Which is absolutely mindblowing of course, if more people understood this new picture of reality, philosophy forums would be on fire.

[Atla]

Realism vs anti-realism in QM: anti-realists have to pretend that stuff in superposition doesn't exist. Realists have to pretend that there is at least one extra dimension (or some even weirder extension to the universe, like a non-existing existing thing that calculates probabilities and arranges the universe accordingly for us etc.).

So either way, we have to pretend. I think the realist stance is far better, as I think wave-behaviour is actually a name for infinitely many forms of behaviour, particle behaviour is just an infinitesimal special case of that, which suggests an extra dimension. And I reject the idea that nothing can act as if it was something, that nothing can follow the Schrödinger equation.

[Darkneos]

Let's pick a more distant target and one less likely to always having someone look at it.
I'm an astronomer. I notice a dim star in an observatory scope. No other sentient species are capable of seeing this star or they simply don't exist.
When I see that star that is 10 light years away, did I bring it into existence 10 years ago? Does my act of view retroactively create the star and/or collapse the wave function?

I think this issue was firmly resolved by nonlocality. You "bring it into existence" or how I would rather view it, its "eigenstate-ness correlates with your/our eigenstate-ness" 10 years ago. So it happens "retroactively" or how I would rather view it, spacetime may be a weakly emergent property, time is an illusion on this level.

If the light was emitted 10 billion years ago, this still works all the same. It can appear from our everyday perspective that we can choose from a limited set of possibilites, what happened 10 billion years ago.

Which is absolutely mindblowing of course, if more people understood this new picture of reality, philosophy forums would be on fire.

I'm not sure how accurate that is. The light might be reaching us from far away because in the vacuum of space light travels faster, but the light from our sun isn't emitted 10 billion years ago and everything didn't already happen ten billion years ago because the universe as we know it wasn't formed at that point in time. I don't think that's what nonlocality is saying. It also depends on which interpretation you are using too.

Also without the math behind it just dropping "nonlocality" doesn't mean much. It also has nothing to do with time.

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality

Light isn't something magical like that, and neither is Quantum mechanics.

Quantum nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication or action-at-a-distance,[6] and hence is compatible with special relativity and its universal speed limit of objects. Thus, quantum theory is local in the strict sense defined by special relativity and, as such, the term "quantum nonlocality" is sometimes considered a misnomer.

Though I don't think we are at the stage of teleportation just yet, they have been able to rearrange particles at distances however.

But even if we were to grant that you're right here, it wouldn't change anything about our day to day lives. I mean beyond the application of quantum physics in the development of new technology (computers, etc.) none of this impacts your life.

TLDR: If you don't have a degree in the stuff just dropping Quantum Physics terms means nothing.

[Atla]

Let's pick a more distant target and one less likely to always having someone look at it.
I'm an astronomer. I notice a dim star in an observatory scope. No other sentient species are capable of seeing this star or they simply don't exist.
When I see that star that is 10 light years away, did I bring it into existence 10 years ago? Does my act of view retroactively create the star and/or collapse the wave function?

I think this issue was firmly resolved by nonlocality. You "bring it into existence" or how I would rather view it, its "eigenstate-ness correlates with your/our eigenstate-ness" 10 years ago. So it happens "retroactively" or how I would rather view it, spacetime may be a weakly emergent property, time is an illusion on this level.

If the light was emitted 10 billion years ago, this still works all the same. It can appear from our everyday perspective that we can choose from a limited set of possibilites, what happened 10 billion years ago.

Which is absolutely mindblowing of course, if more people understood this new picture of reality, philosophy forums would be on fire.

I'm not sure how accurate that is. The light might be reaching us from far away because in the vacuum of space light travels faster, but the light from our sun isn't emitted 10 billion years ago and everything didn't already happen ten billion years ago because the universe as we know it wasn't formed at that point in time. I don't think that's what nonlocality is saying. It also depends on which interpretation you are using too.

Also without the math behind it just dropping "nonlocality" doesn't mean much. It also has nothing to do with time.

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality

Light isn't something magical like that, and neither is Quantum mechanics.

Quantum nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication or action-at-a-distance,[6] and hence is compatible with special relativity and its universal speed limit of objects. Thus, quantum theory is local in the strict sense defined by special relativity and, as such, the term "quantum nonlocality" is sometimes considered a misnomer.

Though I don't think we are at the stage of teleportation just yet, they have been able to rearrange particles at distances however.

TLDR: If you don't have a degree in the stuff just dropping Quantum Physics terms means nothing.

What I said was accurate I think. I used "correlation" instead of "action" for the very reason that nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication or action-at-a-distance. There is a world of difference between the two. Nonlocal correlations can also be thought of as absolute determinism across the universal wavefunction.

[Darkneos]

I think this issue was firmly resolved by nonlocality. You "bring it into existence" or how I would rather view it, its "eigenstate-ness correlates with your/our eigenstate-ness" 10 years ago. So it happens "retroactively" or how I would rather view it, spacetime may be a weakly emergent property, time is an illusion on this level.

If the light was emitted 10 billion years ago, this still works all the same. It can appear from our everyday perspective that we can choose from a limited set of possibilites, what happened 10 billion years ago.

Which is absolutely mindblowing of course, if more people understood this new picture of reality, philosophy forums would be on fire.

I'm not sure how accurate that is. The light might be reaching us from far away because in the vacuum of space light travels faster, but the light from our sun isn't emitted 10 billion years ago and everything didn't already happen ten billion years ago because the universe as we know it wasn't formed at that point in time. I don't think that's what nonlocality is saying. It also depends on which interpretation you are using too.

Also without the math behind it just dropping "nonlocality" doesn't mean much. It also has nothing to do with time.

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality

Light isn't something magical like that, and neither is Quantum mechanics.

Quantum nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication or action-at-a-distance,[6] and hence is compatible with special relativity and its universal speed limit of objects. Thus, quantum theory is local in the strict sense defined by special relativity and, as such, the term "quantum nonlocality" is sometimes considered a misnomer.

Though I don't think we are at the stage of teleportation just yet, they have been able to rearrange particles at distances however.

TLDR: If you don't have a degree in the stuff just dropping Quantum Physics terms means nothing.

What I said was accurate I think. I used "correlation" instead of "action" for the very reason that nonlocality does not allow for faster-than-light communication or action-at-a-distance. There is a world of difference between the two. Nonlocal correlations can also be thought of as absolute determinism across the universal wavefunction.

This is starting to sound eerily close to string theory. But from what I can tell nonlocality has nothing to do with time but distance, though even then it's weird since well:

Nonlocality describes the apparent ability of objects to instantaneously know about each other’s state, even when separated by large distances (potentially even billions of light years), almost as if the universe at large instantaneously arranges its particles in anticipation of future events.

https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/to ... e%20events.

So while it might make sense when it comes to the light of stars from across the universe I think it's a stretch to apply that to all events and say everything that will happen happened already billions of years ago. I'm sure no one is saying that.

Though if that's true then what's the point in living?

[Skepdick]

Realism vs anti-realism in QM: anti-realists have to pretend that stuff in superposition doesn't exist. Realists have to pretend that there is at least one extra dimension (or some even weirder extension to the universe, like a non-existing existing thing that calculates probabilities and arranges the universe accordingly for us etc.).

So either way, we have to pretend. I think the realist stance is far better, as I think wave-behaviour is actually a name for infinitely many forms of behaviour, particle behaviour is just an infinitesimal special case of that, which suggests an extra dimension. And I reject the idea that nothing can act as if it was something, that nothing can follow the Schrödinger equation.

It's almost like you can't read.

In anti-realism, the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality.

[Darkneos]

I'd also note that you don't bring anything into existence, quantum physics doesn't work that way and neither does locality. This is a misunderstanding of what is mean by observation.

Like I posted before, the universe exists when you're not looking at it, you just only experience parts of it at a time.

[Skepdick]

I'd also note that you don't bring anything into existence, quantum physics doesn't work that way and neither does locality. This is a misunderstanding of what is mean by observation.

Like I posted before, the universe exists when you're not looking at it, you just only experience parts of it at a time.

You don't actually know what is meant by "observation". Nobody does.

If anybody knew what observation was we wouldn't have a measurement problem to solve.