it's instead part of the formal machinery
— Andrew M
where 'machinery' is a metaphor for a network of concepts and predictions that arise from them. — Wayfarer
they're not outside the world, but only a rational intellect can perceive them. And they're 'prior to' in exactly the sense that without the intellect's grasp of necessary truths, then it will never be able to arrive at them.And contra mathematical Platonism, they are not prior to or separate from the world. — Andrew M
I shall probably regret asking this, but to satisfy my curiosity, why can things which are in minds not be efficacious and predictive? — Isaac
I don't interpret relativity as saying that reference frames have any ontological value. They are a useful tool for doing relativity, and as such I think fall under the broad category of human ideas, encodable in materials, and likely encoded in materials when being considered or memorised. — Kenosha Kid
Critical theorists argue that in the ancient world the concept of ‘reason’ was an objective and normative one. Reason was thought to refer to a structure or order of what ought to be which was inherent in reality itself and which prescribed a certain way of life as objectively rational. Human beings were thought to have a (subjective) faculty which allowed them to perceive and respond to this objective structure of the world; this faculty could then also be called reason in a derivative sense. Even when ancient philosophers spoke of reason as a human faculty (rather than as a structure of the world), their conception of it was ‘substantive’; humans were thought to be able to use reason to determine which goals or ends of human action were worthy of pursuit.
In the post-Enlightenment world the ‘objective’ conception of reason becomes increasingly implausible. Reason comes to be conceived as essentially a subjective ability to find efficient means to arbitrarily given ends; that is, to whatever ends the agent in question happens to have. The very idea that there could be inherently rational ends is abandoned. Reason becomes subjective, formal and instrumental.
Now you're just saying that that grounding and use is what makes them material - physicists couldn't explain their experiments without them.
That's OK. But it doesn't quite fit your definition above. A reference frame isn't itself detectable, it's instead part of the formal machinery that physicists use to detect things — Andrew M
That is what I was taking issue with. — Wayfarer
"Unambiguously immaterial fields" is any substance or realm that cannot be detected, even indirectly. If it exists, it makes no impression on us whatsoever. It is completely uncoupled from our material reality...
The modern view of the material world is that everything, except maybe gravity, is quantum fields. If it exists, it exists as a collection of interacting excitations of those fields, fleeting or permanent. — Kenosha Kid
"Material" here is in the contemporary sense that if it is affected by and/or affects material things, it comes under the material world's purview (e.g. spacetime, electric fields, etc.) In short, if we can detect it, even indirectly, it gets classed as material. — Kenosha Kid
he point was, is demonstration that it should exist sufficient to justify belief in it, even though we cannot demonstrate it itself. — Kenosha Kid
The modern view of the material world is that everything, except maybe gravity, is quantum fields. If it exists, it exists as a collection of interacting excitations of those fields, fleeting or permanent. There are many fields, all with their own properties. These underpin the entire Standard Model. — Kenosha Kid
So you've defined 'the immaterial' out of consideration! — Wayfarer
If someone discovered a grand unified field theory that yielded:
all Standard Model fields exactly
one unknown material field (should couple to our material world)
one unknown immaterial field (should not couple to our material world)
such that no one of the above can be removed and the model stand, and if we then empirically verify the unknown material field (in, say, a particle accelerator), would that justify some credence in the immaterial one? I'm inclined to think it does. — Kenosha Kid
But in saying that, you're simply setting up the problem in such a way as to exclude exceptions. — Wayfarer
So you've defined 'the immaterial' out of consideration! — Wayfarer
I find it difficult to envisage what an "unknown immaterial field" could be. If the GUT requires it, then isn't it then coupled to the world by virtue of that? Or perhaps you mean something like the Many Worlds interpretation of QM where the copies of you are undetectable - in a sense uncoupled from what is directly observable? — Andrew M
One reason might be that nothing has the property of coupling to the radion field (unlikely in this case), which made me wonder: if something like KK theory were formalised that predicted two new fields -- one detectable and detected, the other undetectable even in principle -- would the predictiveness and simplicity of the theory justify belief in something out there that we cannot possibly detect under any circumstances? — Kenosha Kid
I agree this is an extremely narrow range of possible unambiguous immaterial substances, but then that was precisely the point. — Kenosha Kid
Let’s say that this effort goes on for a hundred years and nothing like ‘dark matter’ is ever found. Would it then be considered that the gravitational effects that are now attributed to dark matter, might actually be a consequence of a non-material source? Would this be the kind of idea you had in mind in your OP? — Wayfarer
But given that it is a physical theory, shouldn't we expect the field to be coupled to other things in some way? Otherwise what would it be contributing to the theory? — Andrew M
That the field is undetectable doesn't imply it's not there, so the theory could nonetheless be true. — Andrew M
We usually talk about such things in terms of justifiability. I'm particularly a hardliner on this, so I was wondering what it would take for me to believe in something that cannot be even indirectly experienced. — Kenosha Kid
No easy answer. But it seems to me justifiable just as believing the sun will rise tomorrow (or in a thousand years) is justifiable even though it hasn't been experienced. — Andrew M
That is a falsifiable proposition. — Kenosha Kid
An undetected field doesn't seem like a ghost in the water tank. We've detected plenty of other fields - this particular one just happens to be beyond our ability to test for. — Andrew M
Ahhhhh okay no, I don't mean it is undetectable insofar as it is beyond our current or future technological capabilities. I mean it's coupling to all other fields is zero even in theory. That would be something new. — Kenosha Kid
A implies B and C. B strongly suggests A and is true. — Kenosha Kid
This line suggests you’re imagining a confirmationist epistemology, which is problematic, especially since the question at hand is about justification of belief. — Pfhorrest
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