I am not sure what you are saying here, Doyle. True, if you don't define realism about X in terms of X's being independent of the mind, then it isn't inconsistent with realism to say that X is dependsent on the mind. But mind-independence is the standard definition of realism in philosophy. So we need an explanation of how we can be realistic about X if whether X exists or X has certain proprties or a certain nature depends on what we think or see.
A differenty approach, which I hinted at a bit cryptically, is to try to square QM with mind-independence. The likeliest way I know to do this is the many worlds hypothesis, but a lot of people are really uncomfortable about saying that there are an infinite number of actual worlds of which this one is only one. Also it can be objected that it's not clear that the MWH doesn't raelly help if what makes thsi world ours is the observations we make, thus making it dependent on our minds thst it's this world. There are other problems. I am unclear on your point about quantum computers. Perhaps you aree saying, but look, QM is true, it works, we can build quantum computers. So it doesn't mater if QM makes the world mind dependent, we still can accept QM. Well, of course, but accepting QM wasn't the issue. We've known that QM was true since the 1930s. The problem is that the true theory of the microphysical world seems to be incompatible with realism, understood as mind-independence. This is a conclusion that I am not happy with, because I am a scientific realist. As well as accepting QM. jks --- Doyle Saylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Greetings Economists, > Andie Nachgeboren writes, > Anyway this all gets into deep waters, and is kind > of > off the topic of economics. > > Doyle, > I don't agree with this. What one thinks about > these things aside from > philosophy and science, how we build the > intellectual property is affected > by such theories. For example, > > Andie Nachgeboren writes, > The basic problem that QM poses for realism is this. > Realism normally commits us to the idea that there > is > a world, in this case physical, that is independent > of > our minds. > > Doyle, > That's dualistic formulation of realism. Reality is > independent of mind. > That assumption allows us to consider intellectual > property as Hollywood > would have us believe it to be. We can't assert a > socialist realism in > those terms. What are we to do with Quantum > Computers then? > > Andie Nachgeboren writes, > But the real point is that the natural > interpretation > of QM is antirealistic. > > Doyle, > It does not follow that if I say reality is not > independent of the mind that > QM is antirealistic. > thanks, > Doyle > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
