HI Stephen,
Just a short reply to your post to Colin, and indirectly to your last
posts.
On 22 Oct 2010, at 10:53, Stephen Paul King wrote:
Dear Colin,
Let me put you are ease, van Fraassen has sympathies with the
frustrations that you have mentioned here and I share them as well,
but let's look closely at the point that you make here as I think
that it does to the heart of several problems related to the notion
of an observer. OTOH, it seems to me that you are suggesting that
the objective view is just a form of consensus between all of those
subjective view, no? Also, the notion of a measurement is discussed
in detail in the paper. I wonder if you read far enough to see
it...If we buy the computationalist interpretation of the mind then
there is nothing necessarily special about a human brain; the
discussions about computational universality give us a good argument
for that.
OK. So we agree on the basic. But if you take the comp hypothesis
seriously enough, then you might understand that assuming set theory
or quantum mechanics is either contradictory (worst case) or redundant.
Thanks for the van Fraassen paper. I have already argue that the
"modal interpretation" of QM is a form of MWI, and that paper confirms
my feeling. Not sure it is really new if you read with some attention
the entire thesis by Everett.
First of all we need to admit that if we are to be consistent
with the mathematical prescriptions of quantum mechanics, each and
every one of those scientists and table lamps, as physical objects,
have a wave function of sorts associated with them and, assuming
that they could interact, are entangled with each other. “Being in
the universe” implies to me that that there is a sharing of context
and maybe even a common basis of sorts. But is that all there is to
it? Hardly! being a table lamp, when considered from the quantum
perspective is not so simple. We cannot assume that there is any
definiteness of properties in a sharp sense. When we consider a
Table Lamp or any other physical object in isolation at best we have
a superposition of possible properties, and what is the outcome of
measurement is given in terms of restrictions upon those
possibilities by the possible properties and modes of possible
interaction of all of the tables, chairs, beds, etc. that are in the
room with that table lamp and beyond. We cannot assume that what
something ‘is’ is somehow invariant with respect to changes in the
interactions that it has with all of the other objects. This is a
very subtle point that need to be carefully considered.
The notion of a Table lamp in isolation literally dissolves into
nothing when we remove all those other objects upon which its
definiteness of state persists. The conflation that has persistent
for more than 2000 years is the idea that object in themselves are
what they are. I am reminded of Einstein’s quit to Bohr that the
moon would still exists if he was not looking at it. My response to
Einstein is that he is not the only one interacting with the moon.
We need to take the whole web of interactions into account when we
consider the definiteness of properties otherwise we are only
considering bare existence and that tell us nothing at all about
properties.
It should be obvious, if you get the UDA, that physical reality does
not have a "view of nowhere" or an ultimate third person describable
reality. Mechanism makes the physical reality a first person plural
reality, with the person played by the Löbian machine or Löbian
number. There is still a boolean ultimate third person view available:
arithmetic (or combinators, lamda calculus, etc.).
And this contradicts nothing written by Pratt, who is indeed a little
less naïve than those defending the identity thesis. But Pratt
scratches only the surface of the mind-body problem: he identifies the
physical with the set-theoretical (which is not so much senseless
actually, but far from leading to extracting QM from numbers), nor
does he tackle any problem in the cognitive science (qualia,
undefinability, rôle of consciousness, etc.). But his SET/SET^op
duality is rather natural for a category theory minded attempt to go
toward a formulation of the mind-body problem. His duality is also
100% mathematical a priori, which makes him mathematicalist like
Tegmark, and like comp (with some nuances).
In november I will have a bit more time, and I could add something on
both van Fraassen-Rovelli and Pratt.
Best,
Bruno
From: Colin Hales
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 10:35 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: A paper by Bas C. van Fraassen
Hi,
Looks like and interesting read.... but the initial gloss-over I had
revealed all the usual things that continue to frustrate and
exasperate me....
Why won't people that attend to these issues do some
neuroscience...where the only example of a real "observer" exists.?
Why does characterising the actual reality get continually conflated
with characterisation of the reality as it appears to the observer
(with a brain/scientist observer I mean)?
Why does scientific measurement continue to get conflated with
scientific observation which continues to get conflated with
scientific evidence which then gets confusedly applied to systems of
description which are conflated with actual reality?
There _is_ a view from nowhere!
It is acquired with objectivity, which originates in a totally
subjective capacity delivered by the observer's brain material.
In a room of 100 scientists in an auditorium there are 100
subjective views and ZERO objective views. There is ONE 'as-if' '/
virtual objective view which is defined by agreement between
multiple observers. But no "measurement" is going on. There's 100
entities 'BEING' in the universe.
The Van Frassen discussion seems to conflate 'being' somewhere and
'observing'. A table lamp gets to BE. It is intimately part of its
surrounds and has a unique perspective on everything that is 'not
table lamp', but the lamp NOT observing in the sense scientists
observe (with a brain). A brain is in the universe in the same way a
table lamp is in the universe - yet the organisation of the brain
(same kind of atoms/molecules) results in a capacity to
scientifically observe. This 'observe' and the 'observe' that is
literally BEING a table lamp, are not the same thing! Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
This conflation has been going on for 100 years.
I vote we make neuroscience mandatory for all physicists. Then maybe
one day they'll really understand what 'OBSERVATION' is and the
difference between it and 'BEING', 'MEASUREMENT and 'EVIDENCE' and
_then_ what you can do with evidence.
There. Vent is complete. That's better. Phew!
:-)
Colin Hales.
Stephen Paul King wrote:
Hi Friends,
Please check out the following paper by Bas C. van Fraassen for
many ideas that have gone into my posts so far, in particular the
argument against the idea of a “view from nowhere”.
www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/Rovelli_sWorld-FIN.pdf
Onward!
Stephen
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