It's data streams all the way down — Marchesk

Is that any different to saying that it's quantum fields (or whatever) all the way down?

I don't think it makes sense to say it's anything all the way down.

But something is ontologically primary. Maybe quantum fields is a good guess or approximation?

Anyway, whatever else exists is made up of the primary stuff, be it quantum fields or what have you. So it would be society then brains/biology, then chemistry, then physics, or however one wishes to do the reduction.

But something is ontologically primary. Maybe quantum fields is a good guess or approximation? — Marchesk

I wonder if that's what charleton means, then. Data streams are ontologically primary, and all other things (brains, hands, trees, etc.) are emergent phenomena.

I wonder if that's what charleton means, then. Data streams are ontologically primary, and all other things (brains, hands, trees, etc.) are emergent phenomena. — Michael

Possibly. I don't know what it would mean for data streams to be primary. Streams of data according to whom?

But you do know what it would mean for quantum fields to be primary?

Personally, I don't actually understand much of physics (especially quantum mechanics). I just know to repeat the things it says.

Do I know what quantum fields mean as a physicist? No. I don't understand the math at all, nor the experiments. Just some of the lay explanations.

But I mean ontologically the way the Greek atomists thought it was atoms and the void.

But something is ontologically primary. — "Marchesk

Ontological primacy gets a bit murky when we're talking about quantum mechanics, though.

My understanding is that it would be valid to say that quantum fields are in a sense primary with respect to particles (and thus all matter), but that there is a reciprocal ontological relationship between the two nonetheless.That is, while certain quantum fields potentiate certain particles (and the latter could not exist without the former) it may be just as correct to say that particles potentiate quantum fields. For example, we would say that the Higgs field gives rise to the Higgs boson, but if there were no Higgs bosons, then the Higgs field wouldn't exist in any coherent sense because it wouldn't be doing anything.

It seems to be, then, that we can't have particles without fields, but that we also can't have fields without particles. To that extent, it wouldn't make sense to say that either is primary.

It seems to be, then, that we can't have particles without fields, but that we also can't have fields without particles. To that extent, it wouldn't make sense to say that either is primary. — Blurred

Sure, whatever happens to be the case.

Why have a flat ontology?

Do you see a utility in emergentism? What work is it suppose to do?

Materialism suffers from the same epistemological problem.
— Michael

A materialist can say that it's inconceivable for a human being to act like they have a mind but not have one, since mind is necessary for human behavior. — Marchesk

A materialist can say that it's inconceivable for a human being to act like they have a mind but not have one, since mind is necessary for human behavior.
— Marchesk

And the idealist can say the same. — Michael

Can an objective idealist say or claim all the same things that a metaphysical physicalist realist could? It seems to be the case that what's of issue is that what we experience must be separate from our minds or other minds to be meaningful (not contradictory) but both of the those positions, the realist or objective idealist, do it just well with the idealist merely taking an epistemological doctrine to an ontological extreme.

Why have a flat ontology? — Marty

Because Occam. And I think Quine. But mostly because it seems the more complex, everyday stuff is determined by the micro stuff.

I'd completely forgotten this old thread. I'll just toss another comment in.

There's a trap in your question. What does 'independent' mean? 'There anyway', right? We know the moon and the earth pre-date h. sapiens by billions of years, it doesn't make any sense to say they exist only in the minds of humans. But the subtle question is this one - what is it, that provides the perspective of 'before' such and such an event, and the units in which the measurement of that duration is made? Where does that judgement reside? — Wayfarer

I'd think your mere existence is independent of my mind (might be a bit rude/arrogant to claim otherwise). Same deal with the rest. The judgement may be ours, should we do that. The judged has no existential dependence on whether we judge it or not, the judged is not the judgment. It's our judgment that's the adjustable part. And that's not a trap in the question.

Right, the great physicists of last century did discuss such questions. I'd say, though, that raising their discussions by giving them the same weight as their physics, can be a bit misleading. That's not to deflate them, just to avoid inflating them.

What makes parsimony a metaphysical commitment that one ought to take?

And there seems to be a lot of examples where the opposite it true: the parts are maintained by the whole.