On 4/22/2019 4:01 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Monday, April 22, 2019 at 4:39:34 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 4/22/2019 2:17 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Monday, April 22, 2019 at 4:08:12 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 4/22/2019 1:56 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
The Kantian view is that *reality* is actually really real.
It is there whether there are any of us (or anyone else)
thinking beings around to agree about or argue about anything.
Really?
What people agree (or disagree) about, "intersubjective" or
otherwise (and it is questionable these days in 2019 what
agreement there really is) are *theories of reality*.
Most theories (and all the useful ones) are not theories of
reality, they are theories of a part of reality, i.e. a
domain in which the theory makes accurate and reliable
predictions.
Brent
“All human progress has been made by studying the shadows on
the cave wall.”
--- Sean Carroll
Sean is a Platonist. Just like Vic said.
Have you read the parable of the cave??
Brent
It's the very definition of Platonism: Platonic Forms.
[Wikipedia: The Allegory of the Cave]
The allegory is probably related to Plato's theory of *Forms*,
according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material
world known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most
fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the *Forms* constitutes
real knowledge or what Socrates considers "the good".
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak,
etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm
of*Forms*.
The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.
In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the *Theory of
Forms* to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All
they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire.
Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which
puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners,
hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The
prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass
behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes
cast by objects that they do not see.
OK. You read it. Maybe you didn't read the quote of Carroll, in which
he plainly says the "prisoners" whos pay attention to what they see and
make inferences from their observations are the ones that advance
knowledge...not the mystics like Plato to who think mere introspection
is superior.
Vic would have agreed completely with Carroll on that point. He called
Carroll a Platonist once because Carroll considered quantum fields more
fundamental than particles. I don't think fields vs particles has much
to do with Platonism and at other times Vic seemed to agree one was a
good as the other. I (and I think Bob and LC) consider fields more
fundamental because particles come and go depending on acceleration and
the existence of horizons.
Brent
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