I think Terra is referring to the very specific and unusual use of the word 'observation' that is employed in quantum mechanics to refer to what is sometimes called 'collapse of the wave function'. Under the 'decoherence' view, which I think is accepted by a majority of physicists, that refers to an extremely rapid interaction between the microscopic quantum system that is the subject of attention and the relatively enormous, macro system that is the scientific equipment used to record information about the micro system. The macro system usually includes a person looking at what is recorded by the equipment, but it doesn't have to.Observation is a noting of information. Interaction is a reciprocal action. — Metaphysician Undercover
The macro system usually includes a person looking at what is recorded by the equipment, but it doesn't have to. — andrewk
I don't remember anyone saying we were "simply apes" — Baden
I think Terra is referring to the very specific and unusual use of the word 'observation' that is employed in quantum mechanics to refer to what is sometimes called 'collapse of the wave function'. Under the 'decoherence' view, which I think is accepted by a majority of physicists, that refers to an extremely rapid interaction between the microscopic quantum system that is the subject of attention and the relatively enormous, macro system that is the scientific equipment used to record information about the micro system. The macro system usually includes a person looking at what is recorded by the equipment, but it doesn't have to. — andrewk
I should add that not all physicists believe that decoherence fully explains 'wavefunction collapse', and some of those physicists believe that consciousness is involved, which gives an interpretation more similar to the everyday one. — andrewk
Human bias and partiality is not limited to the limitations of our senses. Bias also stems from our opinions and beliefs. And what else is the 'human perspective' if it isn't (at least in part) our opinions and beliefs? [It's what you said too, but as well not instead.] — Pattern-chaser
But there is - which is the reflexive problem of 'the eye not being able to see itself'. We can't stand outside ourselves, or outside reason or thought, and see ourselves. We're always the subject of experience, and the subject is never an object of perception. This is the topic of the paper I mentioned by Michel Bitbol, It is never known but it is the knower - the title more or less serves as an abstract! — Wayfarer
If we move anywhere even by thought or by imagination, we are still in our Umwelt; we are still thrown into the world of appearances. — Bitbol
science implicitly depends on the human perspective.
— Andrew M
You can say that now, but I bet if we had been having this conversation a couple of decades ago, it would have been fiercely contested. And really this whole debate is about making the implicit, explicit. — Wayfarer
I'm happy to accept this idea if it is right, but I don't understand it. How could it ever be known that 'it doesn't have to', because even if there is a macro system that performs a measurement without a person, we can't know that the measurement has actually collapsed anything until we look at the macro system, at which point we become part of the system? No doubt I've misunderstood something and am happy to be corrected. — bert1
Here are a couple examples of a belief that we can eliminate bias:
<links deleted for clarity>
Do you agree that those are examples of the belief? — Terrapin Station
what I'm focusing on is the fact that there is a belief that we can overcome bias — Terrapin Station
The whole idea behind overcoming bias, as misconceived as the idea that we can may be, is the belief that it's a feature of human perspective that we can overcome bias. — Terrapin Station
the only point I was making was that science [...] isn't ignoring human perspective. — Terrapin Station
And I contend that it is, and that it cannot help but do so. By aspiring to 'impartial observers' they aspire to non-human observers. The human perspective is all about partiality. The only way that science addresses the human perspective is in its attempts to avoid it. — Pattern-chaser
The aspiration to impartiality that characterizes the sciences, is not best thought of as an attempt to get outside of the human perspective altogether, to achieve a "God's-eye view" of the world, even though some may think of science this way. It is rather a matter of suspending our preferences, putting aside our partiality, "bracketing" how we would like the world to be in accordance with our desires and fears, in order to see phenomena through clearer eyes, and come to understand how things actually work. But it should be obvious that whatever we observe will always be things as they appear to us. — Janus
Christianity continued and amplified this tendency to see the world dualistically, with this world being mostly seen as a "a vale of tears", a fallen cosmos, and the real importance and meaning of life being understood to reside in some transcendent realm, an afterlife in Heaven. — Janus
Please provide a quote from Einstein where he says that the aim of science is to see "things as they are in themselves" in the kind of sense that you mean it. — Janus
I think Kant would have agreed with Einstein — Janus
I felt one shrill rant deserves another ;-)shrill little rant — Janus
If one thinks about x, if one takes it into consideration, one is not ignoring x. — Terrapin Station
Experience, which is "the practical contact with and observation of facts or events (OED)", is implicit in any scientific model. And that "practical contact" can itself be modeled scientifically.
In a general sense, there's the world, and there are separable systems within the world, from particles to human beings to galaxies, that we can seek to describe, explain and interact with. It takes a human (or similarly sentient being) to experience and model that world but there's nothing preventing the modeling of the modeler themselves.
As I see it, the puzzles of experience are front and center in science rather than neglected. — Andrew M
There is an implicit assumption in there, the assumption there is such a thing as facts and events existing independently of experience. But how did we arrive at these 'facts' and 'events' if not through our experiences? — leo
Then if you start from these 'facts' and 'events' and attempt to model the modeler through them, you're not actually modeling the modeler, you're modeling your experience of the modeler. Most scientists don't realize that. — leo
Alice steps gingerly through the train door and finds the nearest seat, choosing to ignore the peeling blue paint that reveals the grey metal underneath. Carefully placing her bag on her lap, she observes the other people around her. Several are tapping on their mobile phones, an elderly woman is napping opposite her, and a young couple at the far end of the train car are holding hands, chatting happily. Bob, a guy who works in the same building as her, catches her eye and says, "Good morning!". She smiles in acknowledgement while thinking, "I've had better". She winces as she becomes conscious of the pain in her ankle again. "Are you OK?", Bob asks, looking concerned.
So there are a number of experiences described there, some are Alice's, some are other people's, some are interactions between other people, or between her and others. All within the broad scenario of Alice catching a train to work.
Alice is modeling her experiences, which includes modeling the people she encounters (who, in turn, are doing the same, at least when they're not preoccupied) and she is even modeling herself (e.g., evaluating her morning, reflecting on her pains).
It's not a formal scientific model in the sense of a mathematical hypothesis that has been rigorously tested. But the basic elements are there. That is the human-oriented view with the experiences that ground scientific investigation and enable self-referential modeling. — Andrew M
It is impossible to derive from their models that photons of wavelength 460nm stimulating an eye will give rise to an experience of the color blue. It is impossible because they have neglected the human perspective. — leo
She isn't modeling herself nor the people she encounters, she is modeling her experiences of herself and of the people she encounters — leo
That is the human-oriented view with the experiences that ground scientific investigation and enable self-referential modeling. — Andrew M
In philosophy, Kantian transcendental apperception is that which Immanuel Kant states makes experience possible. It is where the self and the world come together.
Transcendental apperception is the uniting and building of coherent consciousness out of different elementary inner experiences (differing in both time and topic, but all belonging to self-consciousness). e.g. the experience of "passing of time" relies on this transcendental unity of apperception, according to Kant.
There are six steps to transcendental apperception:
1. All experience is the succession of a variety of contents (an idea taken from David Hume).
2. To be experienced at all, the successive data must be combined or held together in a unity for consciousness.
3. Unity of experience therefore implies a unity of self.
4. The unity of self is as much an object of experience as anything is.
5. Therefore, experience both of the self and its objects rests on acts of synthesis that, because they are the conditions of any experience, are not themselves experienced.
6. These prior syntheses are made possible by the categories. Categories allow us to synthesize the self and the objects.
Again, if we build a model that describes what we see, that model can never explain why we see, because at no point we are modeling the modeler, we're just modeling our view of the modeler. We're just finding correlations within our experiences, how could they tell us why we experience? If we find correlations within a movie, how could they tell us how the TV works? — leo
It's as if the question pretends to want an explanation and yet demands something beyond any conceivable explanation. This same idea can be expressed by denying that so-called explanations really explain with any depth. — g0d
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