How is it that minds cause things to exist as they do, why should there not be 6 when we count at one time, and 8 when we count the next? — m-theory
If there is no consistency in reality, as this is what you seem to be claiming? — m-theory
Except it is not arbitrary, it is necessary to navigate reality. — m-theory
The point is that it takes a mind to distinguish one time from another time. So perhaps things "exist as they do", but it takes a mind to distinguish this time from that time, in order to say what exists at this time, and what exists at that time. — Metaphysician Undercover
To "navigate reality" is not a justifiable end, because it fails to give us any direction, which is what an end is supposed to do, and it leaves "what is necessary" as completely arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, interaction corresponds to existence. — aletheist
Peirce's definition of "real" is having predicates independently of the thought of any individual person or finite collection of people. It thus includes possibilities and regularities, qualities and laws/habits, not just actualities.
And my point is how do you know that it takes a mind and that it does not occur in nature without minds? — m-theory
What do you mean by justifiable end? — m-theory
Further this does not answer the question of why, if it is as you say one arbitrary abstraction is as good as the next, is it that our models prove so useful? — m-theory
In other words, that the difference amounts to seeing the conceptual abstractions as having the same qualities that they have as conceptual abstractions, only we're saying that they're not a mental phenomenon but some sort of phenomenon that obtains independently of people. — Terrapin Station
Because these are things which are done by minds, and all of our examples of them, are done by minds. If it happens in nature, then this is something other than what we are talking about, because we are talking about the instances which are done by minds. Why would we assume that the thing which minds do, happens in nature without a mind? We see that minds do very special things, creating products, manufacturing, and all sorts of artificial things. Why would we think that what a mind does would happen naturally without any minds? — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think that this follows.An end is a goal, so to be justifiable means that the end is demonstrably good. — Metaphysician Undercover
So whether or not our models are useful is not at all an issue. Of course they are useful, or else we would not produce them, we only produce them for a particular purpose, and if a model did not fulfil that purpose it would be thrown away, and we'd choose another instead. The issue is "what is that purpose". — Metaphysician Undercover
To "navigate reality" does not answer that question at all, because this only constitutes a coherent purpose in relation to a further purpose, which tells us where we want to go in our navigation. Navigating is meaningless nonsense unless there is some place where you are going, because "navigating" refers to the means (how to get there) rather than the end (where you are going). — Metaphysician Undercover
Our minds reproduce what occurs in nature. — m-theory
---Thomas Metzinger argues that consciousness itself is also a kind of representational model (requiring specific constraints to arise), a model which is invisible and thus confuses itself with reality.
So we are a collection of “phenomenological self representational models”. They are not fixed entities but dynamic processes, constantly interacting with different objects, and simultaneously representing the representational relations themselves. We ‘are’ these models which cannot turn around and catch themselves in action, and so confuse their contents with “themselves”. This confusion is the feeling of 'self'. We feel as if we are looking directly at the world, yet we are unable to separate ‘ourselves’ from the representational model that is maintaining our lives as a process of interaction with the world, and in the process producing our selves.
it does seem odd, to me at least, that we should regard reality as a thing unknown and then marvel at the miracle that our arbitrary quantification of reality should meet with any results. — m-theory
Our minds reproduce what occurs in nature and not that nature arranges itself to conform with what occurs in our minds. — m-theory
Also this does not really answer my question.
How do you know that these things do not occur in nature.
That you have a mind is not proof that these things do not occur without minds. — m-theory
We must know the ends that justify the means or we can not be sure the means are real. — m-theory
That is not what I asked, I asked why should they be useful at all if they are not models of something real? — m-theory
Maybe it doesn't answer the question of where we are going, but it does seem odd, to me at least, that we should regard reality as a thing unknown and then marvel at the miracle that our arbitrary quantification of reality should meet with any results. — m-theory
Or it could be that our quantification are not arbitrary they are tuned to obtain real results in a real world. — m-theory
That seems intuitively obvious, but I think that the 'nature' which you say our minds 'reproduce', is also a mental artefact. — Wayfarer
The models are useful because they help to achieve some end, that's what being useful is. Whether or not they are "of something real" is irrelevant to whether or not they are useful — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but what does this belief contribute?
What breakthroughs has it lead to?
Also I pointed out that if we can't know what is real because everything is a mind artifact then we can't know that those artifacts don't model reality accurately. — m-theory
What results are produced by the model that we cannot know what is really real?
Does this foundational assumption produce any results?
Does it unify different theories under a single model or produce better predictions than the models that presume the principle of relativity? — m-theory
It is the assumption that there is an objective reality. — m-theory
It is the assumption that there is an objective reality. — m-theory
For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work. — John Stewart Bell
Again quantum mechanics does not disprove realism. — m-theory
If [quantum mechanics] did that would be quite remarkable. — m-theory
So you are going too far if you think that minds somehow reflect reality in some true fashion. As I say, you are leaving out the self-interested reasons of the modeller, as well as the modeller's desire for modelling efficiency. — apokrisis
If our models were not of something real then it seems to me that they should not produce useful results. — m-theory
We could go on with many examples, and it is quite evident that there is a disjoint, a separation between what the model says, or indicates, and what actually exists in reality. I say it's two kilometres from here to the store, but it's really about 2.1. We say there's 365 and a quarter day — Metaphysician Undercover
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