Re: MD Reality and observation

[Jonathan Marder]

Hi Roger, Dave, Bezek, Rich and all,

> ROGER QUANTIFIES HIS POSITION ON REALITY

ROGER says:
> But then again, I am sure I am wrong,

That may be Roger, but I agree with every word you wrote. Your piece was a
SUPERB description of current scientific thinking. The fact that it all
sounds weird is because of all our socially infused prejudices. It's usually
only certain  advanced scientists who have to face up to the implications of
all that you are saying.

DAVE prompted Roger when he wrote:
> I can't believe that atoms or particles or waves only exist when humans
> look at them. I don't think that our perceptions create reality or that
> reality is an abstaction of experience. Rather experience is fundamental
> to the nature of reality and has, through the course of evolution,
> created humans and their  perceptions.

BEZEK promptly rebuked Dave with:
>THIS IS A MATTER OF BELIEF, NOT OF KNOWLEDGE, YOU JUST BUMPED INTO THE
>CULTURAL IMMUNE SYSTEM, OUCH!!!!!!

Quite right too. (BTW welcome - nice to finally see a second Israeli
participating. I've been the only one for well over a year)

RICH still doesn't quite get it yet:
>I think it was Magnus who hit the MOQ right on the bottom (or is that
>button?) when he wrote that the moon may be understood as having it's
>reality created by observation, not when the definition of 'observation' is
>limited to -human- (social/intellectual pov's - subjective) observation,
but
>when *any* interaction/relationship (=observation =experience) takes place
>between it (one collection of pov's) and something else, be it a telescope,
>a mathematical equation, a comet or an intelligent intergalactically
>hitch-hiking green-cheese-eating SOMnambulistic (hehheh) monkey.

How is it that "the moon may be understood" when you don't have a human
observer?
To put it in subject-object terms, your telescope looking at the moon is all
object, while the subject is the human "understanding" that "a telescope
looking at the moon" is a useful description of reality.

  ROGER:
> Ultimate REALITY is
> unconceptualizable (but not unexperienceable). Science now recognizes
this.
> Physicist James Jeans wrote: "The outstanding achievement of 20th Century
> physics is.... the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with
> ultimate reality".

The very idea that there is an ultimate reality is Platonic Idealism. Until
the the twentieth century, this idea completely dominated science.
Scientists were sure that given a few more years they were going to unravel
the secrets of the Universe, EXACTLY, ABSOLUTELY and TRUTHFULLY. James Jeans
isn't necessrily contradicting this, but he may merely be pleading for more
time.

What IS in contradiction is this (thanks again ROGER):
> Allow me to quote Dr. Heisenberg: "For the smallest units of matter are,
in
> fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are
forms,
> structures or -- in Plato's sense  -- Ideas."  They are mental constructs,
> and even as such are inadequate explanations of even the shadows of true
> REALITY without complementary definitions.

Rather than regarding scientific theory and the rest of our static patterns
as "maps" of the ultimate reality
(see thread on Maps and Metaphors a few months ago), it seems that they are
maps or summaries of EXPERIENCE.
I said way back that the maps ARE practical reality. For something to be
real, it has to be on the map, and when we make a new discovery we PUT IT ON
THE MAP.

Science now recognises that the PERFECT map is elusive (maybe this is just a
way of keeping scientists in jobs:-).
Pirsig drew our attention to Platypi which may require us to reconstruct the
map.
But the ultimate test of the map is its VALUE. Modern science has made our
map much more valuable (for growing food, curing disease, launching
communication satellites), but lacks all the tools for assessing its own
value.

I once noted that OCCAM's razor is one huge platypus. As one of the
cornerstones of science it tells us that the "correct" theory is always the
simplest one consistent with observations, yet there is absolutely no
objective scientific reason why that should be so.

Thanks again ROGER for your exceptional post.


Jonathan



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