Is that you agreeing that the question of what we ought do remains unanswered? That would be progress.Yep — apokrisis
If your question is now "what ought we do", then you might well look to ethics as well as physics....answer the OP — apokrisis
Only if we make it so. — Banno
One of the most common replies on this forum is : "I don't understand what you are saying". Yet sometimes not phrased so politely. I've seen such responses to your own posts. But that's OK. If you will note specific instances of vagueness & inadequacy, I will attempt to clarify them. I have the time, if you have the interest.Do you see some spooky implications of my Energy/Information/Mind hypothesis that you would not wish for? — Gnomon
It presents Energy/Information/Mind, three quite distinct concepts, in a vague and inadequate way. — Banno
Do you think the Santa Fe Institute is a bunch of amateurs? — Gnomon
What are these and how would we know? — apokrisis
Well, in line with what I said, we don't know what they are. — Janus
Whether or not you acknowledge that determines your basic orientation towards life. — Janus
The irony is that someone like Wayfarer who doesn't want to acknowledge that many things have happened, are happening and will happen that we can never know about, nonetheless believes that sages can "directly" know "what is really going on". — Janus
The irony is that someone like Wayfarer who doesn't want to acknowledge that many things have happened, are happening and will happen that we can never know about, — Janus
So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.
Hence there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. — Wayfarer
sages can "directly" know "what is really going on". — Janus
If you see "what is" then you see the universe, and denying "what is" is the origin of conflict. The beauty of the universe is in the "what is" and to live with "what is" without effort is virtue. — Krishnamurti
A constant reminder that incomprehension of an argument doesn't constitute a rebuttal.
So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.
Hence there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. — Wayfarer
So there are the known unknowns and then the unknown unknowns which we can believe surely also must exist? That kind of thing? — apokrisis
For me, it would is a matter for empirical inquiry. As in how far does one really get by employing tunnel vision?
The dog that didn't bark could be the clue. The world as it "is" might exist as an optimisation algorithm such as we find at the base of all physics – the least action principle. The "ought" that eliminated all the other worlds that felt they too might have been possible if we hadn't outcompeted them in the race to be the case. — apokrisis
But does he clearly believe either side of the proposition at any time? There are those who assert and won't explain. There are those who don't understand. Then there is this other thing of seeming to agree and then slipping back across the boundary towards the other side. A foot in both camps.
There are many ways that arguments are never won on PF. :wink: — apokrisis
the judgement that there are (or are not) such realities is an expression of a perspective. — Janus
I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)
state a clear position. — Janus
"The world as it is" is for us just an idea — Janus
"Optimization algorithm" is still an anthropomorphic notion, so perhaps we could rule that out? — Janus
The "thing in itself" (which I'm saying is 'the Universe with no observers) represents the reality that lies beyond our perceptual and cognitive reach. This underscores the limits of human knowledge and reinforces the idea that our understanding is always shaped by the conditions of our cognition, making any direct knowledge of the "thing in itself" both impossible and meaningless within our conceptual framework. — Wayfarer
There was a mention earlier in this thread about Kastrup's 'mind-at-large', and my questioning of that in a Medium essay. On further reflection, I am beginning to see that this could be conceptualised as 'the subject' or 'an observer' in a general sense. It doesn't refer to a particular individual, nor to some ethereal disembodied intelligence that haunts the Universe. But I wonder if it might also be plausibly understood as represented by the 'transcendental ego' in Kant and Husserl. Also, quite plausibly, the role of 'observer' in physics, which is never something included in the mathematical descriptions. — Wayfarer
What is clear from ten years of interactions, is that you don't understand what I write despite repeated efforts on my part to lay it out as clearly as I can. I'm about at the end of my tether as far as you're concerned. — Wayfarer
Right, and this is just what I've been saying except I don't think the fact that we must acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our perceptual and conceptual capacities is without significance, since it is a fact about the human condition. — Janus
This underscores the limits of human knowledge and reinforces the idea that our understanding is always shaped by the conditions of our cognition, making any direct knowledge of the "thing in itself". — Wayfarer
This is an ontological commitment we might make as part of an evolutionary metaphysics. Such as Big Bang cosmology. — apokrisis
One can’t believe in physics without going along with its least action principle. Optimisation of dialectical balances just is the reality physics describes. — apokrisis
Right, and this is just what I've been saying except I don't think the fact that we must acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our perceptual and conceptual capacities is without significance, since it is a fact about the human condition.
— Janus
Better yet, we can subtract the human from the epistemic equation as best we can. That is, apply the scientific method, or Peirce's logical arc of abduction, deduction and inductive confirmation. Arrive at the view that represents the limits of inquiry for a community of rational thought. Act as if it were the Comos that is contemplating its own Being. — apokrisis
I don't have the background to understand what you are saying or hinting at here. — Janus
The very idea that is and ought could be connected in this finalistic fashion! — apokrisis
Well I don't see any connection whatsoever. — Apustimelogist
So once the direct route is accepted as forbidden to us, then what becomes the best indirect route? That is what pragmatism is about. We can subtract the psychological individual from the equation and make it about a dispassionate community of reason. — apokrisis
There is the myth of the given; that mere observation, uninterpreted, is a given foundation for knowledge. — Banno
But nowhere have I said 'there is no world', only that we can't see it as if we were not a part of it, that the objective stance is treated as if it were an absolute, which it isn't. — Wayfarer
So you can't demonstrate it? — Apustimelogist
So you acknowledge that unperceived things exist, and you are only denying that we can see things as they are when unperceived? — Janus
Let me address an obvious objection. ‘Surely “the world” is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not! Science has shown that h. sapiens only evolved in the last hundred thousand years or so, and we know Planet Earth is billions of years older than that! So how can you say that the mind ‘‘creates the world”’?
As already stated, I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth. By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer
But then I won't be surprised if the cycle repeats because you seem to vacillate as to whether you want to make an ontological claim or merely an epistemological one. — Janus
You mean experimentally? - https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3343 — apokrisis
The Principle of Relativity asks us to set out the laws of physics in such a way that they apply to all frames of reference. — Banno
Hence this suggests to me that any true description of the physical world can be made from any perspective/frame of reference. — Banno
But we can have a theory of reference frames can’t we? We continue on as we see with holography, de Sitter metrics, or twistor space. We can have general arguments that pick out 3-space as special as the only dimensionality that has the same number of rotational degrees of freedom as translational ones. — apokrisis
'How the world is' independently from any perspective seems to get weirder and weirder as we get to more 'advanced' theories. — boundless
There may always be questions but they also can be new ones. — apokrisis
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.