On 2/17/2014 7:09 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 06:32:35PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/17/2014 5:21 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 02:03:49PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/17/2014 1:55 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 05:33:48AM -0800, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
Russell,
All of science assumes an external reality independent of human
observation.
Who says? I must have been asleep when they announced this in Physics
101! Actually, I'm pretty sure they never did.
I'd say science assumes that we can agree on observations. The
success of this hypothesis is generally taken as evidence for a
reality independent of human observation.
By whom?
Vic Stenger for one. Me for two.
and David Deutsch, for three, IIUHC. To which we can add Bruno Marchal and
myself against the obviousness of that idea.
But these are all rather unusual individuals, in a way.
That is a serious question. Of course, some scientists might
speculate about this down at the pub, and certainly there has been
some discussion along these lines on this list, but in everyday
science, everyone is trained as a positivist, and tends to act as
such, which is probably a worse syndrome than naive Aristotelianism.
The notion that there is a real reality there, with solid things like
tables and stones to stub your toes on has taken such a drubbing since
the beginning of the 20th century,
I'd say positivism has taken a lot more of a drubbing since Mach than realism.
Hmm - I'm not so sure. It was certainly the prevailing opinion back
when I was closer to fundamental physics research. The sort of stuff I
deal with now is much less abstract, though, so things like tables and
stones (or people and dollars) are fundamental objects of
analysis. Are people doing string theory utterly realist about the
stuff they do? Seems hard to imagine it.
There's a strong form of realism which says the real is whatever is in the ontology of our
best theory. I think that is a mistake and I doubt anyone really holds that view. Of
course it is our working assumption at any given time, but that is true even when we're
pretty sure the theory is false. GR is our best theory of spacetime and so we think
gravity waves exist, but we don't think singularities exist and consider GR almost
certainly wrong. I think scientific realists are all falibilists.
But there is a weaker form. However unlikely one thinks strings or singularities or
multiple-worlds are, one may still hypothesize that there is *some* reality as the
explanation for the intersubjective agreement that is consistently observed. Just
consider the contrast with religions in which there is NOT intersubjective agreement about
visions and revelations.
The replacement of tables and chairs by atoms and then by wave
functions is just changing our best guess about ontology - it's not
evidence that there is no mind independent ontology. The fact that
there is intersubjective agreement on observations is still evidence
for a mutual reality.
Yes a mutual reality, but not a mind independent one.
Certainly independent of any single mind. And the science formulated so far is
independent of mind - which is why Liz supposed that the past existed before it was
observed (and constitutes a block universe past).
that most everyday scientists usually
just focus on mathematical descriptions of phenomena, and leave it at that.
But if you ask them why mathematical descriptions are so successful?
Wouldn't they just point at Occam's razor, if they've thought about it
at all, that is? Or even go with Max Tegmark and say its all mathematics.
Mathematics is just a different substrate, a different but still mind indpendent reality.
Notice that the main argument given for the reality of mathematics is the intersubjective
agreement on the truths of mathematics; which gives the feeling it is discovered rather
than invented.
Or why do we all agree that's a chair over there?
That one is obviously convention. Someone from remote Amazonia who's
never seen a chair before wouldn't agree.
They might not agree on the name, but they would agree there was an object there. The
possibility of having a useable convention would seem to be a miracle if there is nothing
mind-indpendent that correlates the perceptions of different persons.
The existence of
some mind independent reality is always the working assumption.
Really? I don't think working scientists need to think about the issue
much at all.
Because it's an assumption so common they only question it unusual experiments - like
tests of psychics.
Whether they assume there is some kind of
mind-independent reality, or are outrageous solipsists would not
affect their ability to conduct experiments or do theory.
One could still assume a mind-independent reality while assuming that one was the only
mind. But they could not do either experiments or theory if they assumed the result
depended on what they hoped or wished or expected.
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
