Philosophy Now Forum

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 9:23 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 9:08 amI guess it would always be getting us to look at assumptions: could it be possible that other models for this external reality would also work? Are we inferring in this situation in ways we would not allow theist to infer? for example.

That's definitely a useful function, sure. I see it.

Just to be clear I wasn't arguming that antirealism is only a kind of 'red team' within realism or only has a useful function as a check inside realism. But it was my interpretation of what you were suggesting in your post. (not that you were necessarily limiting it to that either).

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 9:25 pmI think many realists would agree with this. IOW while there is this sense of mind independent reality out there, I don't think this is necessarily an antirealism. I think one could agree with you and still be a realist. It sounds like naive realism...

I wasn't really thinking of naive realism here. Now I feel a bit like VA, just copying stuff I wrote earlier elsewhere

Actually, I think #1 was a serious philosophical issue somewhere around the late 19th century, at least in scientific circles. #1 was pretty much a fundamental assumption of science, in the form of absolute scientific objectivity. Scientists left the investigation of the mental realm to the philosophers, and only concerned themselves with the material world. Or better yet, some of them proceeded to completely deny the existence of the mental realm, as there was no longer any use for it. There was simpy the clockwork universe, which they could investigate via absolute objectivity.

And then the most hilarious thing happened, as science progressed further, they realized that they always disturb the things they were trying to measure, it wasn't possible not to do that. So science refuted one of its own fundamental assumptions. It was pure horror for some scientists

And then it got even worse with quantum mechanics, where they found that even their mental content seems to perfectly correlate with the external world in subtle technical ways. For example which experiment they choose to perform, and what they know or can know about systems in the external world. There is always some kind of perfect correlation.

So #1 was destroyed by physics itself. And #1 also got destroyed by 20th century psychology and neuroscience in other ways. It's a VERY dead horse.

So yeah I think, even for most "realists", #1 is no longer tenable at all.

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Is this the idea that the mind is not in reality? and outsider view? I'm not sure that's realist or at least not necessarily realist. It sounds rather dualist and a bit archaic. Neither of which excludes it from realism, but not so common in modern realisms, I think.

Yeah I thought the #2 wasn't a good point I made. Yes it looks more like some kind of archaic dualism that I'm talking about here.

I guess the emphasis here would be that the material world isn't some sort of illusion, that is more or less distinct from us. Either we (as brain/mind) seem to be part of this very world, or at least there's some kind of duality where the brain and mind are perfectly correlated.

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This sounds more like a modern common realism, especially if one presumes that while there is a common realism not dependent on minds, but affecting what minds perceive when there are minds around, what gets perceived is severely interpreted, guessed at, and affect by the specific senses and nervous system of animals, that then the psychology and cultures and individual peculiarities of the individual human perceiver.

Yeah here I was thinking of what most people describe as "objective reality". Maybe this is the main view that makes a realist a realist today. That would make me a realist with a bunch of anti-realistic views.

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I'm not sure how to categorize this one.

I considered it as a mix of realism and anti-realism. Kant and others have probably shown that we are forever limited to our own minds, and infer the rest from there. I'd say that's anti-realistic.

Some like VA then say that there can't be anything beyond the appearances, which is nuts. Others say with certainty that there are things beyond the appearances, which is also nuts.

What is left is to remain fundamentally agnostic, but from there, I'm fairly sure that the only consistent view is to posit things beyond the appearances anyway. Because that's the only thing that makes consistent sense. So this assumption is then the realist part, if one makes it.

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If you take observation to be this separate act that is performed on matter, then you end up with something like what you say above.

One thing about many antirealist positions is that they question either the existence of unobservables or at least the possibility of confirming them. IOW models may be adequate, in the sense that they produce math that has predictive value, but this does not mean they reflect the reality of things in the model that are not observered. The reality that they exist. The qualities those things have that lead to our perceptions. So, there's no particle or wave, no eigenstates 'waiting' to move from potentialities to actuality. So, there is always simply moments of perception which include a unity of perceived/perceiving. The whole model of observation collapsing some unobserved potentiality is just a ways of explaining something we cannot know anything about or does not exist. Epistemological antirealism or metaphysicsal antirealism.

In any case one big bone of contention between the realists has been around observables.
Realists have countered that the distinction is not meaningful. We can get into that more below, just trying to get things rolling.

I will say that I am, myself, mainly interested in metaphysical antirealism and one that takes an actual stance, a positive stance, instead of primarily saying that realism is wrong or speculative.

The thing is, after puzzling for over a decade about how or whether our minds could play a central role in QM, I'm more and more of the opinion that QM is nonlocally real AND observer-dependent AND the QM observer is not synonimous with the human mind, but it may be synonimous on some level with some feature that tends to occur in human minds.

So even if the QM observer has to do with collapses / entanglement islands / whatever, it may not be as simple as mind = QM observer, at all.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 6:08 am

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 11:44 pm to begin:

1. I appear to be a perceiving being (according to my perceptions and the collection thereof) -
2. the perceptions (and the linguistic labels thereof) are the only things to which that my mind has access ...

existence outside of the perceptions can never be perceived...

what are some assumptions about that which is perceived?

-Imp

Is this a presentation of an antirealism? Pardon my crass request for an overview.

it isn't a presentation of anything. it is a starting point.

existence outside of the perceptions can never be perceived...

This seems like an analytic truth. In some instances I would stress 'seems' but let's take it as given now.

agreed

what are some assumptions about that which is perceived?

Realists might assume that one can infer things about that which instigates the perception. Which gets into the observable/inobservables issue, I mentioned in my previous post?
Antirealists of the epistemological persuasion might say that we should not make any assumptions about that which is perceived ( a phrase they might consider unjustified). Metaphysical antirealists might say that there is nothing which is perceived, we just have perceptions. (I sometimes wonder if this leads to a regress. Do we perceive our perseptions? Or does it lead to a loss of self? if all there is are perceptions, what is the self? There is no self ---> perceiving stuff, but rather just this ongoing shfting perception without perceiver. Some critiques of the cogito look like this.

we may be brains-in-vats, but I believe we act as if we weren't (we make the assumptions, among other assumptions of effect, habitually.)






One thing antirealists need to address, I think, is what we are allowed to infer, if anything. If we can infer the existence of X, then why not Y. If we can infer the qualities of X, why not the qualities of Y? Is inference to best explanation available to your version of antirealism or not?

allowance is a question of will isn't it?

-Imp

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 3:51 pm The thing is, after puzzling for over a decade about how or whether our minds could play a central role in QM, I'm more and more of the opinion that QM is nonlocally real AND observer-dependent AND the QM observer is not synonimous with the human mind, but it may be synonimous on some level with some feature that tends to occur in human minds.

So even if the QM observer has to do with collapses / entanglement islands / whatever, it may not be as simple as mind = QM observer, at all.

Are there other things that have that feature?
How does your interpretation affect what you imagine is going on?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 6:08 am One thing antirealists need to address, I think, is what we are allowed to infer, if anything. If we can infer the existence of X, then why not Y. If we can infer the qualities of X, why not the qualities of Y? Is inference to best explanation available to your version of antirealism or not?

Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 10:11 pm allowance is a question of will isn't it?
-Imp

Possibly, though perhaps you could expand on that.
What I meant was that an antirealist might say, hey great you came up with this model of atoms (which we can't see) and it helps you think about what is happening and what is there, but we really have no idea. Use the math that is working to predict. Use your models to give you a grip on it and even in the situation where the model helps you generate more math or more experiments that also give useful information, just remember that your model need not be or is not real. We don't really know. There may be other models that also 'work' or work.

So by allowed to infer, antirealists often will say...but we can't infer X.
Could be a broad-stroke injunction: you can't say there is a mind-independent reality.
Coud be a fine-stroke injunction: but quarks may not really exist at all. Your model is empirically adequate but you cannot say you've actually imagined and described these invisible things with any accuracy. Or even: they don't even exist.

Let's imagine for a moment that there is no mind independent reality + we think there are many minds (IOW: no solipsism).

What's that world/universe like?

What surprised me (naivite a factor or not) when I started again looking at antirealism in the philosophy of science and then elsewhere in philosophy was that there was very little about implications and little resembling another ontology. Well, duh, it's an antiposition. It's against the conclusions of realism, some or all. Which leads a lot of philosophical discussions of antirealism to be about:
semantic competence - manifestation
decidability and truth
conceptual relativity - the model theoretical argument (there are so many ways we can apply symbols to 'stuff'/experiences

On the other hand if you do not believe in metaphysical realism you might have a postive image of what is going on. Positive in the sense of asserting stuff about the nature of reality, rather than saying oh, we can't know that, or we could say so many things.....

I think there are some belief systems out there that are to some degree antirealist, and which do put forward models of reality, ironically or not.

Magical type systems that assert and focus on how thought creates reality. Here reality is not (necessarily) mind-independent, but added to this is not only that mind is always present in any phenomonon, but one can actually change/control phenomena through thought (also emotion/will/desire).

Even some of the multiverse/mandela effect combinations circulating now. Where instead of A universe, you have all possible universes and even a bleeding through from different timelines. This could be a realism, but it is so pluralistic, especially if one can move around, there is no reality out there in the sense there is in realism.

Then there's the Hindu antirealism with world as Maya and plurality also as illusion, everything a 'dream' of a single all encompassing deity.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 7:22 am What's that world/universe like?

That is the standard form of all metaphysical questions! So in every world where minds ask metaphysicsl questions would be no different to any other world where minds ask metaphysical questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence are there. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions of: What is it that exists; and What it is like.

The irony in asking such a question, of course, is that likeness is always relative to human experience/perception.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 7:14 am

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 3:51 pm The thing is, after puzzling for over a decade about how or whether our minds could play a central role in QM, I'm more and more of the opinion that QM is nonlocally real AND observer-dependent AND the QM observer is not synonimous with the human mind, but it may be synonimous on some level with some feature that tends to occur in human minds.

So even if the QM observer has to do with collapses / entanglement islands / whatever, it may not be as simple as mind = QM observer, at all.

Are there other things that have that feature?
How does your interpretation affect what you imagine is going on?

I don't know how to explain this properly. I'll try to describe a 4-dimensional slice of my main philosophies. What I suspect might be the case is that human thinking creates the illusion of linearity, but nature is always circular, closed-loop-like. The universe is a closed loop. Some/most human minds may be smaller circular things within the universe. A closed loop in a closed loop. Then is some human minds, there could be further loops embedded in each other. What we call "observation" in QM might usually be the extension of the first "mental" loop into the external world.

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 12:46 pm I don't know how to explain this properly. I'll try to describe a 4-dimensional slice of my main philosophies. What I suspect might be the case is that human thinking creates the illusion of linearity, but nature is always circular, closed-loop-like. The universe is a closed loop. Some/most human minds may be smaller circular things within the universe. A closed loop in a closed loop. Then is some human minds, there could be further loops embedded in each other. What we call "observation" in QM might usually be the extension of the first "mental" loop into the external world.

Loops in space or time (or both or something else)?
Could you give an example of a loop?
Perhaps like this:
Person A experiences that X, then Y, then Z happen, but actually.....

IOW some kind of contrast around a single loop first through our linear experience of it.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 12:52 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 12:46 pm I don't know how to explain this properly. I'll try to describe a 4-dimensional slice of my main philosophies. What I suspect might be the case is that human thinking creates the illusion of linearity, but nature is always circular, closed-loop-like. The universe is a closed loop. Some/most human minds may be smaller circular things within the universe. A closed loop in a closed loop. Then is some human minds, there could be further loops embedded in each other. What we call "observation" in QM might usually be the extension of the first "mental" loop into the external world.

Loops in space or time (or both or something else)?
Could you give an example of a loop?
Perhaps like this:
Person A experiences that X, then Y, then Z happen, but actually.....

IOW some kind of contrast around a single loop first through our linear experience of it.

I'm thinking of something like a causality loop. A causes B causes C causes A. Where the two A-s are one and the same A, not just repetitions of each other.

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 1:13 pm I'm thinking of something like a causality loop. A causes B causes C causes A. Where the two A-s are one and the same A, not just repetitions of each other.

OK, that got me closer.

But we still have time?

Or it's sort of like there are a few different static experiences/phenomena, and we experience moving away but actually this is also always move toward (also) Like tiny eternal recurrances? (or Karma for that matter)

It might help if me understand if you connected it back to the realism/antirealism issue.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 1:18 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 1:13 pm I'm thinking of something like a causality loop. A causes B causes C causes A. Where the two A-s are one and the same A, not just repetitions of each other.

OK, that got me closer.

But we still have time?

Or it's sort of like there are a few different static experiences/phenomena, and we experience moving away but actually this is also always move toward (also) Like tiny eternal recurrances?

Let's look at the proposed universal loop first. I don't know how to put it. I've never been able to explain to anyone yet on philosophy forums that eternal recurrence happens IN TIME, we move forward in time, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a loop, where a distant point in our future and a distant point in our past is the same point in spacetime, which is the only logical solution to spacetime imo, and both Eastern and Western philosophy missed it.

But within the universal loop we can talk about time, as an internal, relative feature. So I guess, based on that, our mental loops could also be seen as having internal time. Although I haven't really thought about this part I guess.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 7:20 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 6:08 am One thing antirealists need to address, I think, is what we are allowed to infer, if anything. If we can infer the existence of X, then why not Y. If we can infer the qualities of X, why not the qualities of Y? Is inference to best explanation available to your version of antirealism or not?

Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 10:11 pm allowance is a question of will isn't it?
-Imp

Possibly, though perhaps you could expand on that.
What I meant was that an antirealist might say, hey great you came up with this model of atoms (which we can't see) and it helps you think about what is happening and what is there, but we really have no idea. Use the math that is working to predict. Use your models to give you a grip on it and even in the situation where the model helps you generate more math or more experiments that also give useful information, just remember that your model need not be or is not real. We don't really know. There may be other models that also 'work' or work.

So by allowed to infer, antirealists often will say...but we can't infer X.
Could be a broad-stroke injunction: you can't say there is a mind-independent reality.
Coud be a fine-stroke injunction: but quarks may not really exist at all. Your model is empirically adequate but you cannot say you've actually imagined and described these invisible things with any accuracy. Or even: they don't even exist.

question of will in the Nietzschean sense...

ultimately, "we" create the world in which "we" exist...

some are better than others, but which is "correct" is that which works for the artist...

-Imp

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 7:20 am Coud be a fine-stroke injunction: but quarks may not really exist at all. Your model is empirically adequate but you cannot say you've actually imagined and described these invisible things with any accuracy. Or even: they don't even exist.

You are not using "exist" in the way model-builders use it.

An entity exists if it does some work in the model.

If you can remove this entity and the model continues to work then the entity was never necessary - so it doesn't exist. By Occam's razor - don't multiply entities beyond necessity.

So if we discover some model which accounts for the same observations without appealing to quarks then quarks will cease to exist.

That which physicists call "ontology" isn't.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 1:27 pm question of will in the Nietzschean sense...

ultimately, "we" create the world in which "we" exist...

are you viewing this as an antirealism? Are we actually in separate worlds?