My problem is when people say that the observation, and observers, are different kinds of things from the things getting observed. I see no evidence for it and I a lot of problems that can arise. — khaled
Our observation ontologically "creates" reality. That's just QM (at least the versions with collapse, MWI disagrees). — khaled
Our observation ontologically "creates" reality. That's just QM (at least the versions with collapse, MWI disagrees). — khaled
We see the cup, so it has the property of being seeable, which we now know means that it is a configuration of bound charged particles. — Kenosha Kid
(in principle, not a weird invitation) — Kenosha Kid
Obviously I can't watch me experiencing a film. — Kenosha Kid
What wayfarer’s move does is turn the subject into a kind of object.
— Joshs
Please show me where I've done that. As far as I'm concerned that is what I've been arguing against. — Wayfarer
Is the existence of the cup dependent on mind(s) in any way? — RogueAI
What about reading a novel, don't you observe images in your head? Or when you are lost in thought? — Manuel
In what sense could we be said to be not separate from, for example, galaxies which are yet to be discovered? This would only make sense conceptually if a universal or collective mind were posited in which all the things and events we call the universe are thoughts or imaginings that our own experiences, thoughts and imaginings are "mirroring". In this view the essence of things would be ideal and physicality itself a manifestation of this ideality. — Janus
all (apart from other animal) knowledge is human knowledge and thus cannot, by definition, be said to be independent of the human, and that there can be no absolute sentient being-independent knowledge; we are entitled, indeed bound, to say that much. — Janus
A property isn't for a particular event. The single-objective-universe hypothesis has it that the cup has the capacity to emit light without the evolution of conscious observers, and, if provided with energy, will emit light whether it's seen or not. — Kenosha Kid
But... putting aside minds for the moment, my view is that no photon is created that is not destroyed, that is: a photon's final destination is a boundary condition of its existence. From a panpsychist point of view, whatever that destination is, that is a conscious observer. So there's that.
Of course, I personally have no direct evidence of any cup that I am not seeing. If I look away, I cannot see it. The opposite of objectivism (in the above sense, not the Randian sense) is solipsism: the belief that only my conscious experiences are real. Solipsism cannot explain why the cup appears the same when I go back to it, or why it disappeared after I heard a meow and a crash. This is why the single objective universe is the best explanation for our conscious experiences. Science is the test of that: the hunt for exotic phenomena that puts that hypothesis through its paces (falsification, null-hypothesis). — Kenosha Kid
You're claiming that whatever a photon hits is a conscious observer? — RogueAI
Solipsism can explain the behavior of the cup by positing that you're creating the reality you're experiencing (i.e., you're dreaming all this). — RogueAI
Solipsism has no explanation for why I experience no cup on the table rather than any of the infinite other experiences I might have. — Kenosha Kid
You experience no cup on the table because you're dreaming there's no cup on the table, and you're experiencing what you're dreaming. That's an explanation. — RogueAI
So if you go and do x and someone asks you "what was it like to do x?" do you understand what they're asking? Do you think it's just a language game going on? — RogueAI
That's not an explanation. It explains absolutely nothing about why I'm having that experience and not some other. — Kenosha Kid
In fact, "What it was like for me to watch Fight Club the last time" isn't even *a* thing, it's lots and lots of events. — Kenosha Kid
watched Fight Club a couple of nights ago and I enjoyed it a lot less than I did 20 years ago. I'd interpret the question "What is Fight Club like?" as meaning my current view on it, which isn't what it was like to me 20 years ago. "What it is like to watch Fight Club" isn't a thing; "What it is like for me to watch Fight Club" isn't even a thing. In fact, "What it was like for me to watch Fight Club the last time" isn't even *a* thing, it's lots and lots of events. — Kenosha Kid
OK, so instead of a dream, let's pretend this is a simulation, and you notice a cup in the simulation. Why am I seeing a cup? you ask. Because the simulation is programmed that way. Do you accept that as an explanation? — RogueAI
This is unclear. Let's look at the following conversation:
"I went skydiving."
"What was it like?"
"It was scary and fun."
What part of that conversation is unclear or "not a thing"? — RogueAI
Yes, but does our observation create the content of that reality: the object and its properties? — Joshs
Time,space , the content of the object with all its properties, don’t seem to be co-constituted by a subject , but independent of it. — Joshs
Copenhagen also disagrees, in its original guise anyway. The wavefunction in Copenhagen is epistemological, not ontological. — Kenosha Kid
Even wavefunction ontologists who believe in collapse are still usually describing "universal collapse" — Kenosha Kid
Yes I know it’s not the only interpretation. But I don’t understand epistemological interpretations. And I thought they were the minority with ontological being more popular. — khaled
I don't agree with a lot of that, but I appreciate the time you put into those responses! — RogueAI
Most interpretations of QM as far as I understand don’t have it be that electrons are “really somewhere” bumping into each other, but what is “really there” is quantum soup, until something takes a look, then it collapses, ontologically, to electrons bumping into each other — khaled
I don’t know what “constituted by a subject” means. We don’t decide where the electron appears, but without observation, there is no electron, just a quantum wave (or quantum soup as I like to call it). — khaled
If you hold that QM is not a physical theory, then we don't have the same language. — Kenosha Kid
It sounds like your view of the subject is compatible with that of Zahavi and Michel Henry. — Joshs
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