Our theories tells us about how the world might be in itself. — John

Well, that's a small step in the right direction at least.

Any understanding of how the world could be in itself in accordance with our theories can only ever be given in terms of how the world appears to us, and so would be, utterly speculative. — John

Of course theories are speculative - to be more precise conjectural. But for that precise reason, they may have literally nothing to do with anything that has ever appeared to us. Many theories were conjectured to solve theoretical problems; Special Relativity solve the problem of the incompatibility of electromagnetism and Newtonian Mechanics. General Relativity achieved the unification of Newtonian Gravity and Special Relativity........

But what are these conjectures about? They are about how Reality really is. Are they wrong? Of course, but that is a bit harsh. It is more precise to describe our best theories as the prevailing misconceptions, that will be replaced in time, by better theories.

It would be a catastrophic mistake to ignore the fact that our deepest theories have made utterly shocking predictions about novel phenomena that are true. All future theories must respect these discoveries. Entanglement, quantum computing, electronics, teleportation .... are not going to go away!

We know from mathematics that there is a limit to what can be proved, but no such limit to conjecture, and no such limit to the scientific method exists.

So you mean ... exactly what I said then?

Ie: Holism is four cause modelling, reductionism is just the two. And simpler can be better when humans merely want to impose their own formal and final causality on a world of material/efficient possibility. However it is definitely worse when instead our aim is to explain "the whole of things" - as when stepping back to account for the cosmos, the atom and the mind. — apokrisis

No, not at all what you said. The modeling which you describe portrays final cause (intention, or telos) as top-down causation, instead of its true position, bottom-up, as is evidenced by free will. You really don't provide a four cause modelling, as your top-down causation is just formal cause, through and through. You haven't provided a position for final cause.

Still this dualistic crackpottery.

A computational simulation is of course not the real thing. It is a simulation of the real thing's formal organisation abstracted from its material being. — apokrisis

That's what allows thought, and life.

That's what allows thought, and life. — tom

Nope. It is the semiotic interaction between the realms of sign and materiality that allow that.

Computation explicitly rules out the interaction between formal and material causes. So to actually build a computer, the dynamics of the material world must be frozen out at the level of the hardware. Computation is the opposite of the organic reality in that regard. And biophysics is confirming what was already obvious.

And that is before we even get into the other issue of who writes the programs to run on the hardware. Or who understands that the simulations are actually "of something". Or that error correction is needed because what the computer seems to be saying must be instead that kind of irreducible instability which is the real dynamical world intruding. (Oh shit, my quantum entanglements keep collapsing or branching off into other worlds.)

But keep on with the computer science sloganeering. I'm well familiar with the sociology of the field. No one cares if people talk in scifi terms there. It is the name of the game - always over-promise and under-deliver.

Except what if there is nothing besides nature as it appears to us? — Agustino

do you believe that nature would disappear if humans were wiped out?

Only if you accept a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. — Agustino

I can't see why it's not a perfectly valid distinction.

Well I can conceive of flying pigs too - are flying pigs therefore important? :P — Agustino

Flying pigs if they were real would be just another phenomenon, so the analogy doesn't work. The fact is that we can and routinely do conceive of things in themselves. It is generally understood that there was a world long before there were humans, but of course we can only imagine that as though we were seeing it. What it looked like to a dinosaur or what it was like absent being perceived at all is simply unimaginable to us. But it is equally unimaginable that there was not what would appear to us as the Earth. So, if the Earth and its mountains, rivers, plants and animals etc. existed prior to humans, how would that not qualify as, despite our inability to imagine it as other than how we would see those things, the Earth and its creatures in themselves?

do you believe that nature would disappear if humans were wiped out? — John

The question makes little sense to my mind. Things can only disappear or appear for perceivers.

It is generally understood that there was a world long before there were humans, but of course we can only imagine that as though we were seeing it. — John

Yes, but for the world to exist it doesn't need to appear to someone. This doesn't mean the world is noumenal at all though.

So, if the Earth and its mountains, rivers, plants and animals etc. existed prior to humans, how would that not qualify as, despite our inability to imagine it as other than how we would see those things, the Earth and its creatures in themselves? — John

The world-in-itself is ultimately no different than the phenomenal world. We see the world as it is - there is no world other than the world as we perceive it. Before we existed, the world existed just as it exists now - the only difference is that now there exists someone to perceive it.

Just out of curiosity, have you read Meillassoux's After Finitude? I'm curious if you have what you think about his anti-correlationist (with regards to Kant) arguments.

I can't see why [the noumenon/phenomenon distinction is] not a perfectly valid distinction.

...

But it is equally unimaginable that there was not what would appear to us as the Earth. So, if the Earth and its mountains, rivers, plants and animals etc. existed prior to humans, how would that not qualify as, despite our inability to imagine it as other than how we would see those things, the Earth and its creatures in themselves? — John

It might be that the Earth just is the phenomenal thing and not the noumenal thing. So although there was indeed something that existed prior to humans, it would be a mistake to equate that thing with the Earth (or mountains, or rivers, etc). So it's not that there's this independent thing that is the Earth and that contingently appears to us a certain way, but rather that there's some independent thing (or things, if we're to be a realist about particle physics) that contingently appears to us as the Earth (which seems to be what you're saying in the first sentence of the second paragraph above, contrary to the rest of that second paragraph).

This is the approach Putnam seemed to take with his internal realism, and it's the only way I can see to avoid reductionism (which I think is a mistaken position).

It might be that the Earth just is the phenomenal thing and not the noumenal thing. — Michael

Right so when human beings will disappear, the Earth will disappear even though there are no perceivers left for which it can disappear right? :-} Appearing and disappearing are events of perception, they are not ontological. To say the Earth is just a phenomenal thing - just something which appears - is incoherent. The Earth is exactly THAT which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes, etc. The Earth as that which can both appear and disappear is independent of the perceiver.

To say the Earth is just a phenomenal thing - just something which appears - is incoherent. The Earth is exactly THAT which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes, etc. The Earth as that which can both appear and disappear is independent of the perceiver. — Agustino

It's not clear to me what you mean by saying that the Earth is that which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes. I would say the same of pain – pain is that which appears or disappears depending on the firing of certain neurons. But given that it doesn't then follow from this that the pain is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be felt, it doesn't then follow from what you said that the Earth is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be seen. So there's something missing in your claim.

It seems to me that you want to reduce the Earth to the mass of particles out there in space that is causally responsible for the experience of the Earth. But to me that's akin to reducing pain to the neurons in my brain that are causally responsible for the experience of pain. I think such reductionism is mistaken.

At best I'm open to reducing pain to neurons that are firing a certain way, and so at best I'm open to reducing the Earth to that mass of particles that are causing me to have a certain kind of experience. But I'm less open to reducing pain to those neurons even when they're not firing or to reducing the Earth to that mass of particles even when they're not causing me to have an experience.

It's not clear to me what you mean by saying that the Earth is that which appears or disappears depending on the perceiver opening or closing his eyes. I would say the same of pain – pain is that which appears or disappears depending on the firing of certain neurons. But given that it doesn't then follow from this that the pain is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be felt, it doesn't then follow from what you said that the Earth is something that's always there, independent of perception, that only sometimes happens to be seen. So there's something missing in your claim. — Michael

Yes, pain is something that is always there when there's the specific firing of certain neurons. Whether one is conscious of this pain is different, and that depends on whether a state of consciousness is present in the mind of the person experiencing pain. If I'm hit with a ball in the head and I have a concussion, while I'm knocked out it isn't that I'm not in pain, but that I don't perceive the pain - my perception has ceased, but the world goes on, unperceived. That's why when I wake up, I wake up feeling the pain.

It seems to me that you want to reduce the Earth to the mass of particles out there in space that is causally responsible for the experience of the Earth. But to me that's akin to reducing pain to the neurons in my brain that are causally responsible for the experience of pain. — Michael

The mass of the Earth in and of itself isn't sufficient to cause a perception. Perception is the result of the Earth and of your cognitive faculties together - it's two aspects of reality meeting that results in perception. But both aspects are real prior to perception.

Perception is the result of the Earth and of your cognitive faculties together - it's two aspects of reality meeting that results in perception. But both aspects are real prior to perception. — Agustino

"Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible."

The objector has not understood the fact that time is one of the forms of sensibility. The earth as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry...; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the room in which one is sitting.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time - including the world 'before man evolved' - is a creation of the understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some point in time: and this is as true of 'the earth before there was life' as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.'

Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107 (paraphrased).

"Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible." — Wayfarer

Yes I am aware that Kant thinks so, but his assumption must be questioned.

The objector has not understood the fact that time is one of the forms of sensibility. The earth as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry...; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the room in which one is sitting. — Wayfarer

How do we know that time is only a form of the sensibility? Isn't the sensibility itself within time? In fact, it seems that time itself is presupposed even to get the sensibility itself working. There can be no sensation without time - so not only is time something that structures sensation, time is also something which makes sensation itself possible.

In other words Wayfarer - time is transcendentally real - it exists beyond perception, and beyond even sensation, which perception necessarily presupposes.

But, what exists 'beyond perception'? And, what does 'duration' comprise? It might seem obvious, but in order for time to exist, there has to be sense of scale. Humans conceive of time in terms of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which gives them days and years - everything is measured by us in those terms. But what if you perceived it from the point of view of a being that lived for a million years? Or a being that lived for an infinitesmal instant? Those scales would be vastly different to the human scale - which is real?

I think you're still operating from the assumption that what is real is simply what is there in your absence - you can picture the world without you, or anyone, in it. But that picture is still based on a perspective, a point of view. In it, things have relationships, and scales. You can't picture it from no viewpoint, because from no viewpoint, nothing is large or small, near or far, long-lasting or ephemeral. The mind creates that framework or structure within which all judgements about what is real and what is not are made. Not your mind or my mind - the human mind, the biological-cultural-linguistic milieu which comprises the mind.

The only reason you think the mind presupposes the world, is because you yourself know you were born into the world. That's true, and it's all well and good, but it is not what is at issue in asking about the nature of the mind and its relationship to the world.

My argument is not that the world doesn't exist in the absence of any or all observers, but that whatever we can say we know about what exists, presupposes a perspective. Even if that is mathematicized, which effectively eliminates purely individual perspectives and gives a kind of 'weighted average' of all points of view, it's still an irreducibly human point of view, which is inextricably an aspect of whatever we say exists.

Still this dualistic crackpottery. — apokrisis

Dualist crackpottery, you say?

Nope. It is the semiotic interaction between the realms of sign and materiality that allow that. — apokrisis

Semiotic interaction between the realms, you say?

What's the problem? Is deflection your only defence?

My argument is not that the world doesn't exist in the absence of any or all observers, but that whatever we can say we know about what exists, presupposes a perspective. Even if that is mathematicized, which effectively eliminates purely individual perspectives and gives a kind of 'weighted average' of all points of view, it's still an irreducibly human point of view, which is inextricably an aspect of whatever we say exists. — Wayfarer

I agree. Your view contrasts with the view expressed by Sean Carroll (quoted) in the OP of this thread. Physicists often are happy to equate "the Universe" -- the totality of what exists -- with some comprehensive set of "initial conditions" conjoined with a set of universally quantified statements ("universal laws"). Everything (i.e. every empirical truth; every state of affairs) is supposed to be determined by the initial conditions and the laws. This is a view of the "block universe" in which time just is another dimension akin to the three spatial dimensions. The human perception of the flow of time is alleged to be an illusion stemming from of our merely subjective perspective, not just in point of temporal scale, as mentioned by Wayfarer, but also regarding the distinctions between present, past and future, which are taken not to be of any relevance to the objectively existing fabric of the world. Hence, Sean Carroll is led to downgrade the objectivity of the very notion of causality. In his view, nothing ever really comes into existence. The "block universe" being "eternal" at a fundamental level, events (or states of affairs) need not be caused to occur (or to be as they are) since the laws of physics govern everything and the way in which they govern consists in them fully constraining the mathematical relationships between the layout of the universe at all the singular moments of time (i.e. in between elements of a full set of space-like slices of the eternally existing "block universe").

Such a view of the universe can't of course mesh with our view of the world as a source of possible objects of experience. Kant argues in the Analogies of Experience (in his CPR) that an empirical experience can't have an objective purport if it doesn't potentially rationally bear on other experiences. (Wilfrid Sellars also argued for this in his Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind currently being discussed in another thread). And this is only possible if we can distinguish the successive experiences of a single thing that has changed from the simultaneous experiences of two separately existing things. The possibility of our conceiving of this simultaneity/succession distinction, in turn, depends on our ability to recognize laws that govern the evolution of enduring substances (i.e. laws that state their persistence conditions and their fallible (active and passive) powers. (Why those powers must be fallible is explained by Sebastian Rödl in his book Categories of the Temporal). If it were conceivable that any "substance" could be experienced to have become any other "substance", with no law governing how its qualities tend to change over time, then there would be no telling if two qualitatively distinct experiences refer to the same object (at different times) or to two distinct objects (at the same time). Thus, the possibility of the objectivity of experience presupposes the possibility of the experience of time (as a formal condition, rather than as a material content) and the possibility of the experience of time, in turn, presupposes the ability to recognize substances governed by laws. So, in sum, the category of a substance -- of an enduring object that can be experienced at different moments of time and that is governed by laws that specify its powers -- must be brought to bear by an experiencing subject to all her experiences if they are to have objective purport at all. If this is right, the formal concepts of substance and of time are prerequisites of the intelligibility of the world.

But, can't the world be simply conceived to exist (i.e. be intelligibly be judged to exist) without its satisfying the condition of its also being a potential object of experience by agents possessed of finite intellects like us? This was the issue being discussed by Agustino, John and Michael regarding the existence of the Earth before there were humans experiencing it. It is important to recognize that the Earth is a potential object of experience of a distinctive formal kind. It is an enduring substance. As such, it doesn't exist qua object of experience independently of the specific substance concept that it is taken to falls under -- e.g. the concept of a rocky planet -- which specifies its conditions of persistence and individuation. Those conditions are tied up with the concept and aren't independent of our interests in individuating it thus. If we wonder at what point in time the Earth began to exist, for instance, this question can't be made sense of quite independently of our criteria for an object's inclusion into the (substance) category of a rocky planet. So, this is why the claim that the Earth existed before there were humans quite independently of whatever humans ever thought regarding what it is that makes a planet the sort of thing that it is doesn't quite make sense. The existence of the Earth, qua possible object of experience, doesn't depend on there actually existing humans actually or potentially experiencing it, which is something Agustino would be correct about if it were his only claim. But the very sense and intelligibility of the state of affairs being considered -- e.g. that the Earth existed three billion years ago -- is relative to some substance concept or other that corresponds to the specific interests of a potential subject of experience.

Sean Carroll's block universe, as he conceives it, within which time just is an objective parameter, doesn't contain any planet because this conception lack any criterion according to which some set of "particles" does or does no make up a "planet" in any specific space-like slice of his "objective" (so called) universe.

The objector has not understood the fact that time is one of the forms of sensibility. — Wayfarer

Why would time be considered as a form of sensibility? The concept of time is produced by us relating numerous activities. What is being sensed here in this relationship? It is not the activity itself, being sensed, that lends itself to the concept of time, it is the relationship. The earth circles the sun once, then it circles again, and these are judged as "the same" amount of time, by comparing to the cycles of the moon, or other things. The concept of time is based in such relationships, not the things being sensed.

But, what exists 'beyond perception'? And, what does 'duration' comprise? It might seem obvious, but in order for time to exist, there has to be sense of scale. Humans conceive of time in terms of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which gives them days and years - everything is measured by us in those terms. But what if you perceived it from the point of view of a being that lived for a million years? Or a being that lived for an infinitesmal instant? Those scales would be vastly different to the human scale - which is real? — Wayfarer

This is a better explanation, time is "beyond perception", but that's why Agustino referred to it as transcendentally real. As you say, it's beyond any particular scale, human or otherwise. The fact that it's beyond any particular scale does not make it unreal, it only confirms the reality of it. Time is not a scale, it is really what is measured, and can be measured by many different scales.

My argument is not that the world doesn't exist in the absence of any or all observers, but that whatever we can say we know about what exists, presupposes a perspective. Even if that is mathematicized, which effectively eliminates purely individual perspectives and gives a kind of 'weighted average' of all points of view, it's still an irreducibly human point of view, which is inextricably an aspect of whatever we say exists. — Wayfarer

You are assuming here, that every description is particular to a perspective, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's a valid principle. Now, consider something which enters the description regardless of the perspective, and here we have time. Each and every perspective of reality includes time, so it is something which is common to every perspective. Therefore it is that thing which is evident from every perspective. It is what is real, objective, not perspective dependent.

This is a view of the "block universe" in which time just is another dimension akin to the three spatial dimensions. — Pierre-Normand

If we propose a "block universe", we propose a perspective from which there is no time passing. That is, there is no such thing as the activity of time passing, from that perspective. If we accept this proposition we deny that time passing is something which is evident, and observable from each and every perspective, these are incompatible. Then time as something real, independent, objective, is denied, because the objectivity of time is dependent on the assumption that it is something which is evident from each and every perspective.

Such a view of the universe can't of course mesh with our view of the world as a source of possible objects of experience. Kant argues in the Analogies of Experience (in his CPR) that an empirical experience can't have an objective purport if it doesn't potentially rationally bear on other experiences. (Wilfrid Sellars also argued for this in his Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind currently being discussed in another thread). And this is only possible if we can distinguish the successive experiences of a single thing that has changed from the simultaneous experiences of two separately existing things. — Pierre-Normand

The idea that two distinct objects have "simultaneous experiences" is what, in the past, grounded our notion of objective existence. This gave us the notion that distinct things had something in common, the experience of time passing. This thing which they have in common was called existing. The precepts of special relativity do not necessitate that we dismiss this objectivity in favour of the block universe. What special relativity indicates is that there is vagueness with respect to "simultaneous experience". How we understand "simultaneous experience" greatly influences how we produce laws of physics. So there is variance within the laws of physics depending on one's interpretation of simultaneous experience.

And, what does 'duration' comprise? It might seem obvious, but in order for time to exist, there has to be sense of scale. Humans conceive of time in terms of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which gives them days and years - everything is measured by us in those terms. — Wayfarer

Measuring time only becomes possible after time already exists. It's not measurement that makes time possible, but time that makes measurement possible. So no - humans don't conceive of time because of measurements or rotations... So why do they then conceive of time? Because of motion - activity - becoming. The notion of time is nothing more and nothing less than an abstraction extracted from change. Change gives the concept of time - this was so now, and it isn't so later. Without change, there is no time.

Scales are formed to allow measurement simply because there is no transcendental point where one can get outside of reality to judge it. Measurement is simply comparing one aspect of reality with another - a ruler with a desk (when measuring the desk). So the fact that measurement uses scales - and necessarily does so - proves immanentism and denies all transcendentalism as incoherent. Time for example is nothing but comparing one change (a clock ticking) with another.

But what if you perceived it from the point of view of a being that lived for a million years? Or a being that lived for an infinitesmal instant? Those scales would be vastly different to the human scale - which is real? — Wayfarer

All scales are equally real, since they map the same underlying reality. If X is equal to 3 x 30mm rulers in so and so circumstances, that is the same thing as saying X is equal to 9 x 10mm rulers in so and so circumstances - or even that X is equal to 1 x 30mm rulers if its traveling very quickly. A giant will have a ruler which is equal to 10 of mine maybe. Asking which scale is real, his or mine, is stupid though. They're both equally real.

In it, things have relationships, and scales. You can't picture it from no viewpoint, because from no viewpoint, nothing is large or small, near or far, long-lasting or ephemeral. — Wayfarer

That is just a mental model, not reality itself. Mathematical models are just that - models. And of course you can't picture it from no viewpoint - that would entail being transcendent to reality, and you're not. You're immanent.

The only reason you think the mind presupposes the world, is because you yourself know you were born into the world. — Wayfarer

Not only. I daily experience my mind being dependent on the world.

My argument is not that the world doesn't exist in the absence of any or all observers, but that whatever we can say we know about what exists, presupposes a perspective. Even if that is mathematicized, which effectively eliminates purely individual perspectives and gives a kind of 'weighted average' of all points of view, it's still an irreducibly human point of view, which is inextricably an aspect of whatever we say exists. — Wayfarer

Yes, there are only immanent explanations, not transcendent ones, thank you for finally coming to the realisation X-) Surely, conceptual knowledge presupposes that one is embedded within reality - and not transcendent to it.

Sean Carroll's block universe, as he conceives it, within which time just is an objective parameter, doesn't contain any planet because this conception lack any criterion according to which some set of "particles" does or does no make up a "planet" in any specific space-like slice of his "objective" (so called) universe. — Pierre-Normand

Except of course, it is the very theory that reveals the block-universe to us - i.e. that the B-Theory of time is true - that explains the formation of planets and correctly predicts their orbits.

And time is a dimension, not a parameter, and it is relative, not objective.

The idea that two distinct objects have "simultaneous experiences" is what, in the past, grounded our notion of objective existence. This gave us the notion that distinct things had something in common, the experience of time passing. This thing which they have in common was called existing. The precepts of special relativity do not necessitate that we dismiss this objectivity in favour of the block universe. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, of course. That was part of my point.

What special relativity indicates is that there is vagueness with respect to "simultaneous experience". How we understand "simultaneous experience" greatly influences how we produce laws of physics. So there is variance within the laws of physics depending on one's interpretation of simultaneous experience.

Special relativity relativizes the concept of simultaneity to "inertial frames of references" that are used to operationalize this concept (with the notional use of sets of co-moving rulers and clocks) as well as the concepts of physical length and duration. It doesn't have much bearing on the ideas of simultaneity or succession of perceptual experiences of rational agents as Kant was making use of them. That's because those concepts, as used by Kant to investigate into the grounding of empirical knowledge, are revealed to be tied up with the concept of an enduring substance and such a formal concept doesn't fall under the purview of physical law.

Physicists talk about specific substances all of the time (e.g. atoms, rocks and planets) but they rely on ordinary concepts of enduring material objects that fall under common sense sortal concepts with their associated persistence and individuation criteria, which physics as such says nothing about. Physicists usually are philosophically naive about substances. They fail to notice that their knowledge of ordinary objects (singular substances) isn't informed by physical theory. They also tend to fail to notice that singular substances as such only obey the so called laws of physics approximately and fallibly (e.g. on the condition that they don't change shape, don't lose or gain material parts, etc. etc.)

Except of course, it is the very theory that reveals the block-universe to us - i.e. that the B-Theory of time is true - that explains the formation of planets and correctly predicts their orbits. — tom

I never questioned the explanatory and predictive powers of the special or general theories of relativity, or the heuristic value of the "timeless" metaphysical pictures that they may suggest (for mere purpose of physical explanation). This picture of complete determinacy of the future (given some fully determinate specification of energies and momenta in some space-like surface), of course, rubs against the indeterminacy inherent to quantum mechanics. Only through endorsing a time-independent state formalism can you attempt to reconcile QM with the block-universe view, as you are wont to do. But this is to gloss over the measurement problem of QM and the fact that the measurement operators carry over the time-dependence of actual measurement operations (e.g. though specifying the time-evolving basis of the projection of the time-invariant state vector, in Dirac's formalism.)

Yes, I agree that it doesn't make sense to speak of the noumenal thing as the Earth, because the Earth is knowable and the nounemon is, by definition, not. The noumenon is, however, minimally conceived as the transcendental conditions of or for experience that can never appear in experience. Experience can thus never be completely transparent to itself; or knowable from the inside out, so to speak. The idea of the noumenal is an expression of the existential realization of this universal human condition.

This picture of complete determinacy of the future (given some fully determinate specification of energies and momenta in some space-like surface), of course, rubs against the indeterminacy inherent to QM — Pierre-Normand

If you resist the temptation to invoke "collapse", QM is a fully deterministic theory. Copenhagen is not a theory of reality, so has nothing to say about whether reality is really deterministic or not, De Broglie-Bohm is fully deterministic as are the various Everettian interpretations. The indeterminacy is purely epistemic, and not a feature of reality.

That said, according to realist no-collapse QM, we have determinism, but space-time is false, or rather an approximation.

Only through endorsing a time-independent formalism can you attempt to reconcile QM with the block-universe view, as you are wont to do. But this is to gloss over the measurement problem of QM and the fact that the measurement operators carry over the time-dependence of actual measurements (e.g. though specifying the time-evolving basis of the projection of the time-invariant state vector.) — Pierre-Normand

There is no measurement problem in realist no-collapse QM.

There is no measurement problem in realist no-collapse QM. — tom

No, but then there's the problem of there being many worlds. The remedy is worse than the disease in my opinion.

It is important to recognize that the Earth is a potential object of experience of a distinctive formal kind. It is an enduring substance. As such, it doesn't exist qua object of experience independently of the specific substance concept that it is taken to falls under -- e.g. the concept of a rocky planet -- which specifies its conditions of persistence and individuation. Those conditions are tied up with the concept and aren't independent of our interests in individuating it thus. — Pierre-Normand

Very well said, your comments are extremely helpful thank you. I notice that two of Sebastian Rödl's books are available in my University library, and thanks for alerting me to him.

No, but then there's the problem of there being many worlds. The remedy is worse than the disease in my opinion. — Wayfarer

There isn't. Everettian QM adds zero worlds to those already proposed by cosmological theories. Denying Everett does not reduce the number of worlds.

Tell me, then, why was 'Everettian QM' referred to as 'the many worlds' intepretation? The Wikipedia entry on the subject (and it seems adequately footnoted and referenced) states:

MWI's main conclusion is that the universe (or multiverse in this context) is composed of a quantum superposition of very many, possibly even non-denumerably infinitely many, increasingly divergent, non-communicating parallel universes or quantum worlds.

So, are you saying this is not the case? Is this paragraph wrong, and should the article be changed?

Measuring time only becomes possible after time already exists. — Agustino

Measurement is simply comparing one aspect of reality with another - a ruler with a desk (when measuring the desk). So the fact that measurement uses scales - and necessarily does so - proves immanentism and denies all transcendentalism as incoherent. — Agustino

That is just a mental model, not reality itself. — Agustino

You're overlooking the very act of measurement itself. Most of what you say about 'what already exists' is, I think, the subject of the criticism by Sellars in his essay 'the myth of the given'. You presume that we can compare 'models' with 'reality itself', as if you can rise totally above the act of knowing, and know what it is you don't actually know. Then, by claiming you know 'reality', you say that what we think we know is 'a model'. You're not seeing your own sleight-of-hand here.

thank you for finally coming to the realisation.... — Agustino

Q: What do you call a Greek sky diver?

A: Con Descending. ;-)

I notice that two of Sebastian Rödl's books are available in my University library, and thanks for alerting me to him. — Wayfarer

Those must be Self-Consciousness and Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Intellect. The latter book appeared last in the English translation (slightly updated, it seems), but was written by Rödl first in German (Kategorien des Zeitlichen: Eine Untersuchung der Formen des endlichen Verstandes). Although Self-Consciousness is excellent and, among other achievements, clarifies some core aspects of John McDowell's epistemology, Categories of the Temporal is my favorite and is an unmitigated success, in my view. It may be worth reading first. I have only one small reservation regarding one subsidiary thesis -- about the divisibility of movement -- that is not damaging to the main argument at all.

...the subject of the criticism by Sellars in his essay 'the myth of the given'. — Wayfarer

You must be thinking of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.