Philosophy Now Forum

henry quirk wrote:He said: "An anti-electron, anti-matter, can we see them, no. The point I'm trying to make is not everything is visible, touchable, yet we accept them by FAITH."

No, sir, I do not. I accept these entities as real because each is measurable. Tools were developed to extend human senses in to both macro- and micro-worlds. The nature of the atomic and nuclear is plumbed not through faith but through measurement with these instruments. This information, these measurements, are reasoned through, considered and contrasted with and against other information, other measurements.

“(...) Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object”
....Immanuel Kant....from the Jasche Lectures on Logic.

You place an unwarranted FAITH in the objective validity of observations, Henry. An electron is only an electron because that's the way we've mutually agreed to model a particular class of observations, not because it's in any sense an objectively "real" thing. This is something that any philosophy undergraduate would be expected to understand but it still remains rather too nuanced an idea to have penetrated the minds of the logical positivists who infest the science of physics.

"You place an unwarranted FAITH in the objective validity of observation"

I got no faith at all.

There's sumthin' outside of me, sumthin' independent of me, sumthin' that largely is observable in a similiar way by folks independent of one another. I call this 'sumthin' the world, which is comprised of a great many things, from the micro- to the macro-levels. In observing, we catalog, and name, and prioritize, and impart meaning to. But the existance of that sumthin', is apart from, predates, all conceptualizing.

Faith need not apply.

henry quirk wrote:"You place an unwarranted FAITH in the objective validity of observation"

I got no faith at all.


Faith need not apply.

Observing means you don't need faith.

"an electron is only an electron because that's the way we've mutually agreed to model a particular class of observations, not because it's in any sense an objectively "real" thing."

To my simple brain this sounds like 'electricity doesn't exist'.

henry quirk wrote:"an electron is only an electron because that's the way we've mutually agreed to model a particular class of observations, not because it's in any sense an objectively "real" thing."

To my simple brain this sounds like 'electricity doesn't exist'.

It's more a matter of making a distinction between a subjective and an objective reality, henry, rather than trying to specify what does or doesn't exist. We can all agree that there is a such a thing as an objective reality but the way in which we model such an objective reality is entirely arbitrary. All that our consciousness has access to is raw data which is presented to our minds via the medium of our senses and processing this information is an act of cognition. Even in principle such a process can make no truth claims about the ontological status of that which we observe. This is a limitation well understood by every science except physics, which remains a Platonist doctrine by continuing to conflate this cognitive map with the territory it's intended to be mapping.

It may be rather confronting to have to accept that the world which we observe is purely a construction of our own minds but to deny it isn't going to change it as an inescapable FACT. Instead of observing an objectively real world all we can do is model as best we can the self-organising patterns generated by the behaviour of matter and energy within it. Of course the big advantage of this is that if we subsequently figure out a more coherent way of modelling these self-organising patterns then we can simply chuck all our old models in the bin and invent new ones. That's why we have scientists.

Obvious Leo wrote:

henry quirk wrote:"an electron is only an electron because that's the way we've mutually agreed to model a particular class of observations, not because it's in any sense an objectively "real" thing."

To my simple brain this sounds like 'electricity doesn't exist'.

It's more a matter of making a distinction between a subjective and an objective reality, henry, rather than trying to specify what does or doesn't exist. We can all agree that there is a such a thing as an objective reality but the way in which we model such an objective reality is entirely arbitrary. .

Actually I don't think I can agree in that.
I think we can agree that there is a "real" material world, "out there", but I do not think it can be fairly called an "objective reality" - mostly because people make claims about it, as if they can perceive it without interest of bias, and they call that "objective reality". Since I do not think perception is without anticipation, bias and interest, "objective reality" is nothing more than an aspiration.
Further, our modelling of "it" (material reality), is not arbitrary at all. IN fact is is quite specifically human. And the fact that we can share and agree things about the material world with other humans is based on the fact that we apprehend that world in very similar ways.
This agreement is why we like to use the phrase objective reality.

As I say: There's sumthin' outside of me, sumthin' independent of me, sumthin' that largely is observable in a similiar way by folks independent of one another. I call this 'sumthin' the world, which is comprised of a great many things, from the micro- to the macro-levels. In observing, we catalog, and name, and prioritize, and impart meaning to. But the existance of that sumthin', is apart from, predates, all conceptualizing.

Hobbes. I'm happy enough to go along with your correction. I used the term "objective reality" rather loosely to denote the fact that there is indeed something physically going in our external world which is independent of our own cognitive construction of it. However I was not seeking to imply that this physically real world has any objective structure or form which exists independently of mind. Defining the meaning of reality always remains within the cognitive domain of the observer of it, a point I'm fairly certain we've agreed on before.

This is particularly relevant to the titular topic presented in the OP because the science of physics rejects this basic Kantian doctrine.

Henry. I think we're basically on the same page. All our senses actually have access to is raw data from the external world but the way in which we codify this raw data is entirely subjective. Because we are a species which has evolved language this subjectivity then becomes inter-subjectivity but no amount of mutual agreement can miraculously convert the inter-subjective into the objective. In fact the reverse is far more likely to be the case because there's plenty of widely accepted inter-subjective bullshit going around which is being passed off as some sort of objective truth. e.g. god.

"Henry. I think we're basically on the same page."

Then I truly am befuzzled cuz I thought we disagreed.

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. I'm happy enough to go along with your correction. I used the term "objective reality" rather loosely to denote the fact that there is indeed something physically going in our external world which is independent of our own cognitive construction of it. However I was not seeking to imply that this physically real world has any objective structure or form which exists independently of mind. Defining the meaning of reality always remains within the cognitive domain of the observer of it, a point I'm fairly certain we've agreed on before.

This is particularly relevant to the titular topic presented in the OP because the science of physics rejects this basic Kantian doctrine.

Henry. I think we're basically on the same page. All our senses actually have access to is raw data from the external world but the way in which we codify this raw data is entirely subjective. Because we are a species which has evolved language this subjectivity then becomes inter-subjectivity but no amount of mutual agreement can miraculously convert the inter-subjective into the objective. In fact the reverse is far more likely to be the case because there's plenty of widely accepted inter-subjective bullshit going around which is being passed off as some sort of objective truth. e.g. god.

I admit to there being an external world. What we call "objective" has to be within the bounds of our own perceptual limits, and the limits that can be pushed by technology. It would be ridiculous to assume that we had just magically evolved a system to be able to perceive everything possible. Kant's thing-in-itself has to be inaccessible to some degree.

So I was with you until you mention Kant, and your assertion that science reject his "doctrine".
Does it? How?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:So I was with you until you mention Kant, and your assertion that science reject his "doctrine".
Does it? How?

I was referring to physics in particular rather than science in general because physics is a branch of applied mathematics which is exclusively Platonist in what passes for its underpinning ontology. Physics assumes that the thing-as-it-is is synonymous with the thing-as-it-is-observed and then proceeds to make inductive generalisations from its observations. I'm not suggesting that physics can be done in any other way but this methodology is fraught with hazard because an observation is an act of cognition. In other words mathematical physics is only capable of mathematically modelling a particular narrative of the universe which must first be specified in advance. This is an inherently tautologous methodology because If this narrative is flawed then such a flaw can never be revealed from within the mathematics used to model it. The only way such a flaw could ever be detected is if the universe thus described is one which makes no sense, which is exactly what has happened. The physicists have attempted to resolve this dilemma by redefining what making sense means but no philosopher worthy of the name is going to buy into bullshit such as this. This is why the physicists have been floundering in the conceptual wilderness for a century by trying to unify models which blatantly contradict each other. Sacking the philosophers wasn't a very smart idea for them.