Dan, I'm going to split my response across two emails. Here's part 1.
On Sat, 24 Feb 2001, Dan Minette wrote:
> No, I do feel that way. But, when I do, I have my philosopher hat on, not
> my scientist hat.
I guess my question is that, if I'm reading Kant correctly, he doesn't
permit empirical cognitions--among which I would include scientific
observations--to have a place in metaphysical reasoning; so if you agree
with Kant's metaphysics, why does your philosopher hat allow your
scientist hat into the game via QM?
Of course, you don't necessarily have to follow Kant to the letter or
anything; I'm just curious.
>
> Well, that's an interesting question, because Plato doesn't develop the
> source of the fire for the shadows. But, for Berkley, the existence of
> ideas is not dependant on the existence of man.
But it does depend on the existence and, more specifically, *observation*
of God. "To be is to be perceived," is how he puts it, IIRC. Berkley
concluded (if I'm remembering the class I took 11 years ago correctly) in
his own twisty way that there is no "thing in itself" and that our senses
apprehend reality directly because we get what amounts to a direct feed of
empirical data from God. The reason a tree makes a sound in the forest
when nobody's there to hear it is because God hears it, basically.
> But, if you look at all the major interpretations
> of QM, including the realistic ones, they are all based on something we
> cannot perceive, detect or observe. That's my main point. Even the
> realistic interpretations are forced to posit something undetected and
> probably undetectable that is the realistic basis for QM.
Does Copenhagen represent a realistic or unrealistic interpretation of QM?
(I'm genuinely puzzled.) By realistic in this context do we mean,
"assuming particles must have some independent but unprovable existence,"
or "refusing to make any assumptions or inferences beyond the data at
hand?"
I'm under the (erroneous?) impression that the Copenhagen interpretation
falls into the latter camp by explicitly avoiding positing "something
undetected." IOW, you're supposed to just admit that words like
"electron" and "meson" are just placeholders for functions in the math
that allows QM to describe what we observe and nothing more. If a
metaphysical stand is to be made, then that stance would be "the buck
stops here...this is what 'reality' is, like it or not."
> >I'm not convinced that realism requires such assumptions.
>
> Well, perhaps not. But then they require a hidden falsification of
> scientific theories (which is a problem for a realistic theory) or realistic
> backwards in time signals. I guess this can still be realism, but it's a
> funny kind of realism that requires the existence of a problematic real
> unobservable to explain what we see. With that kind of latitude, I can
> probably resurrect Aristotle's spheres.
I'm afraid you lost me here. You snipped part of my original paragraph
above regarding local realism: "I have some quibbles with the definitions
of realism that have been offered up so far in this discussion. 'Local
Realism,' it seems to me, freights realism with a very specific and
scientific definition of what space and matter can be; so specific, in
fact, that local realism ceases to be a metaphysical statement and instead
becomes a statement of the classical assumptions of regular physics. I'm
not convinced that realism requires such assumptions."
So it sounds like you're saying, A realist who doesn't subscribe to 'local
realism,' i.e. who accepts QM, is indulging in hidden falsifications or
backwards-in-time signals...as I said, you lost me here.
> >So the question that I'm putting to both of us is, is there a
> >metaphysical form of realism that doesn't commit itself to any particular
> >theory of physics?
>
> The problem is not just a commitment to a particular theory of physics. The
> problem is that a theory of physics that is well validated has elements
> that, on the surface at least, contradict assumptions made by realistic
> philosophies.
And I guess what I'm asking is, does a realistic (or non-transcendental)
philsophy *have* to make the assumptions contradicted by QM?
Here endeth part 1 of my response.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
