--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>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?
Well, its sort of a funny thing...especially with realism. I certainly
would agree that you cannot disprove narcissism, or last Thursdayism (the
world was created with history intact last Thursday, just before that
especially good breakfast) empirically. You cannot disprove realism.
However, I think that it is possible to use arguments about what we observe
to discuss the reasonableness of various approaches: i.e. if phenomenon has
nothing to do with reality, why do you avoid walking on the freeway?
The same sort of questions can be made of realists.
>
>Of course, you don't necessarily have to follow Kant to the letter or
>anything; I'm just curious.
Well, obviously I don't, because he thought Euclidian space was a priori. I
tend to follow his general scheme of bridging realism and idealism.
>
>But it does depend on the existence and, more specifically, >*observation*
of God.
Right. IIRC, Hegel also discussed Mind.
>"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.
Well, minds are things in themselves. We are, and God is, and perhaps other
beings are.
>
>Does Copenhagen represent a realistic or unrealistic interpretation >of QM?
Copenhagen is not a realistic interpretation. (The proper term is
non-realistic, BTW...unrealistic connotes something that is not plausible).
>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."
Well, I realize that a number of people interpret Copenhagen as Logical
Positivism in action, but I don't. I think its more metaphysical humility.
We see phenomenon. Its relationship to reality apart from us is unknown.
We have strong suspicions that there is a relationship, but we aren't sure
exactly what it is.
>
>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."
It is not locality itself that must be preserved for realism to be valid.
It's that there is an internal contradiction in a metaphysical system that
states:
1) We obtain understandings about reality from our observations. Our
observations give a true, if limited, understanding of what things are like
apart from us
2) A law of nature, that has been verified countless times and has never
been falsified by experiment is invalid. It is falsified in a hidden manner
that we cannot see.
How can realism say both that we can obtain knowledge about things in
themselves via observations and that our well verified theories based on
these observations are false?
>
>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.
Let me try again. The realistic interpretations of require hidden spacelike
signals that are not required by QM. What is problematic is a realistic
interpretation that requires the unseen and unseeable to explain phenomenon.
>
>
>And I guess what I'm asking is, does a realistic (or non->transcendental)
philsophy *have* to make the assumptions >contradicted by QM?
>
They have to make assumptions contradicted by SR, or, in the case of
backwards-in-time signals, assumptions that allow causal loops.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
