they just convey the idea that something, its exact nature unspecified, is happening when I am not looking — Apustimelogist

I have probably misapprehended you then, but this seems like more a comforting thought than something which can be 'objectively known'. Banno's cups notwithstanding.

Thanks for the link to the journal. Might be useful.

To be sure, what I object to is stuff such as:

...of course there's an external world. We just don't see it as it is. — Wayfarer

It seems to me odd that Wayfarer accepts this, since it is implicitly a scientistic notion - that there is a proper way to describe how the world is, given by physics, and other ways of describing the world are wrong. That the only true description of the world is that given by physics.

It now looks like Wayfarer wants to buy in to scientism.

that there is a proper way to describe how the world is, given by physics, and other ways of describing the world are wrong. That the only true description of the world is that given by physics. — Banno

Not what I said, and not what the source said. I maintain that world described by physics is an abstraction based on the measurable attributes of objects and their relations, which is why I mentioned this quote:

The scientific world-picture vouchsafes a very complete understanding of all that happens — it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clockwork which, for all that science knows, could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavor, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it — though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this: that for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it is gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed. — Erwin Schrodinger, Nature and the Greeks

'Scientism' is the problem of believing that the world independent of any observers is what is real, that science really does give us a kind of total objectivity. Which is why I also mentioned 'The Blind Spot of Science', as that is its subject matter.

I really don't know why you have so much trouble understanding what I write. I was a technical writer for 20 years and I write in plain English. Yet you consistently construe me to be saying things that I don't say, or are even the opposite of what I say.

The journal in which that article is published is Constructivist.info . And what is 'constructivism'?

Constructivist philosophy is based on the idea that knowledge and understanding are not passively received from the outside world, but actively constructed by individuals through their experiences and interactions. It emphasizes that reality is subjective and that each person creates their own version of reality based on their perceptions, background, and cognitive processes.

It's clearly descended from Kantian philosophy. The 'actively constructed by' gives that away.

Not what I said, and not what the source said. — Wayfarer

Well, it's the quote you used. There is a tendency to take the argument just that bit further than is valid.

I can only access information from the world by looking at it through my perspective, yet when I am not looking at it, the external causes of those percepts (in my perspective) continue to exist even when I am not looking and even despite the fact I cannot actually characterize them independently of my perceptions - but something is there, without needing to specify too much about that something. — Apustimelogist

I think that's near to what Kant describes as 'transcendental realism'.

There are two crucial paragraphs in his Critique to wit:

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)

Having carefully distinguished between transcendental idealism and transcendental realism, Kant then goes on to introduce the concept of empirical realism:

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing – matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are called external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. (A370)

Time and space are 'in us' i.e. they're supplied by the mind. And Donald Hoffman says something similar - there's a video interview of called Space Time is a VR Headset (which I haven't yet reviewed). So empirical realism enables us to act as if the world is real in itself.

What you're doing with 'something' is imagining the world with no observers in it as a kind of placeholder for 'what is really there' - but that is still a projection, a mental operation.

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero? Seems like that would be the same as there being zero possibilities, which kinda makes experimental results rather suspicious. — Mww

I take it what it means is that prior to measurement there is the superposition described in terms of the wave function but the moment a measurement is registered then all possibilities other than the one describing that specific outcome are now zero.

Not what I said, and not what the source said.
— Wayfarer
Well, it's the quote you used. — Banno

Here's the paragraph from which you cherry-picked a couple of words:

Is there external reality? Of course there's an external reality. The world exists. It's just that we don't see it as it is. We can never see it as it is. In fact it's even useful to not see it as it is. And the reason is because we have no direct access to that physical world other than through our senses. And because our senses conflate multiple aspects of that world, we can never know whether our perceptions are in any way accurate. It's not so much do we see the world in the way that it really is, but do we actually even see it accurately? And the answer is no, we don't.

I really doubt chatgpt is going to give you a good interpretation from the stochastic interpretation. I doubt it is discussed in nearly enough for chatgpt to give a coherent answer. I have not even seen a single paper that looks at Wigner's friend scenarios specifically through this interpretation so it doesn't really have anything to go off of. This chatgpt answer is definitely wrong.

The Wigner's Friend scenarios are formally not really fundamentally that different from other kinds of contextual scenarios in QM; much of their claims - at the highest generality - come from the non-existence of joint probability distributions regarding measurements of different observers. (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.16220)

Different measurement contexts regarding observers are statistically incompatible; but rather than meaning that observers have equally valid views of the same thing at the same time, it just means that different measurements change the statistics of a system. When observers disagree, they are actually sampling from different statistical contexts of the world that can never co-exist at the same time; for example, (https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.07213):

The view that quantum theory may only describe such “observer-dependent” facts was proposed by Brukner [6] and found further support, e.g., in [7].

There is, however, no need for a radical departure from the standard textbook rules [11]. The “contradiction”, discussed in the first paragraph of this section, is a spurious one. The probabilities in eqs. (4) and (7) refer to two mutually exclusive scenarios, in which W either erases all records produced by F, or preserves them. Like the proverbial cake, a record cannot be both present and destroyed, and the results (4) and (7) should never be played against each other (we would like to avoid using an over-used term “contextual paradox”). The wave function (1) just before W’s measurement contains no information about the course of action W is about to take, and contains the answers for each of the W’s arrangements. It remains one’s own responsibility to decide which one to use.

Another allusion to these incompatible contexts but in an experimental set-up (https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.09905):

We then propose a simple single-photon interferometric setup implementing Frauchiger and Renner’s scenario, and use the derived condition to shed a new light on the assumptions leading to their paradox. From our description, we argue that the three apparently incompatible properties used to question the consistency of quantum mechanics correspond to two logically distinct contexts: either one assumes that Wigner has full control over his friends’ lab, or conversely that some parts of the labs remain unaffected by Wigner’s subsequent measurements. The first context may be seen as the quantum erasure of the memory of Wigner’s friend. We further show these properties are associated with observables which do not commute, and therefore cannot take well-defined values simultaneously. Consequently, the three contradictory properties never hold simultaneously.

The stochastic interpretation says that the wave-function is not a real object. The real objects are actual particle properties which are hidden-variables and they always have a definite outcome at any time so there is always ever only one way the physical world is at any one time. Those definite outcomes, however, may come from statistical contexts which are incompatible or cannot be represented on a single, unique probability space.



I think it really depends on what you mean by all these terms which I often find confusing. Yes, realistic in terms of there are particles in definite configurations all the time. But it will also have all the statistical properties in the wavefunction that are responsible for violating contextual realism generally in quantum mechanics. However, the wavefunction isn't a real physical object in this interpretation.

Also, to be more specific, the hidden variables shouldn't be seen in terms of a single particle but ensembles of particles - i.e. many, many repetitions of an experiment.

Those definite outcomes, however, may come from statistical contexts which are incompatible or cannot be represented on a single, unique probability space. — Apustimelogist

So even though there's a single, unique probablity space, it won't ever be captured the same way by two observers. There's a good get-out-of-jail card, right there. I'll take your point that ChatGPT could be wrong but I still don't see it defusing the observer problem.

The real objects are actual particle properties which are hidden-variables and they always have a definite outcome at any time so there is always ever only one way the physical world is at any one time. — Apustimelogist

Which falls under the title of 'transcendental realism' - the real world exists external to us, even though we can never capture what it is.

Summary table on different interpretations. (Says I'm wrong about the 'stochastic intepretation' not defusing the 'observer problem'.)

but this seems like more a comforting thought than something which can be 'objectively known'. — AmadeusD

Sure, perhaps, but this would apply to everything you can ever think or say. I wasn't necessarily arguing for 'objective knowing' in some perspective-independent sense. I don't think that should stop one creating theories or stories about how the world works and about the things they should expect if they do x, y or z. At the end of the day, 'objectivity' is neither necessary or sufficient for people selecting their preferred theories, hypotheses, viewpoints. People pick theories that seem to work for them.

Sure, perhaps, but this would apply to everything you can ever think or say. — Apustimelogist

People pick theories that seem to work for them. — Apustimelogist

Ain't that the truth/s :P

What you're doing with 'something' is imagining the world with no observers in it as a kind of placeholder for 'what is really there' - but that is still a projection, a mental operation. — Wayfarer

Well, yes, more or less. So are you when you use "you" communicating with me. The question is: do I exist outside of your mind, Wayfarer?

The question is: do I exist outside of your mind, Wayfarer? — Apustimelogist

You and I are different individuals, no question about that. In the mind-created world thread, I do try and address the objection that 'idealism says that "the world is all in the mind"' as I think that's what you believe I am arguing (@Banno most certainly believes that.)

So: You have your mind, and I mine. But we are instances of a more general phenomenon—human consciousness, or the human mind. This isn't something just to be studied 'from the outside' as object, but is the ground or basis of all experience and knowledge. While there’s no question that the objectively-existing elements of the world, as analyzed by science, are real, they always appear to us as patterns within experience. In that sense, mind is the irreducible basis of existence—not as a constituent of objects, but as the condition through which anything can be said to exist at all.

I understand that at the time of my death there is a world that will continue to exist, although obviously the world as I see it no longer will. But then I don't think that the type of idealism I'm defending must necessarily deny any of that. What I'm driving at is that we're instances of 'mind' in a more general sense than that of the individual consciousness. I'm talking about human consciousness, or better, the human mind, not as something to be studied 'from the outside' so to speak, but as the ground or basis of any and all experience, knowledge, and theorisation. Hence the requirement for a perspectival approach.

The consensus in the scientific mainstream is that the mind, or human consciousness, is an emergent or epiphenomenal construct arising from the objectively-existent elements identified and understood by the natural sciences. That is naturalism or physicalism. What I take analytical idealism to be arguing, on the contrary, can be paraphrased as: whatever these objectively-existing elements analysed by the sciences are, and there's no question that they exist, they appear to us as patterns in experience. Everything occurs within experience, or in mind in that general sense (Hoffman says somewhere that 'experience is the coin of the realm'). Mind is the irreducible basis of existence in that sense - not in the sense of being an objective constituent of objects, but in the sense that to say of anything that it exists, that it exists for a mind (per Schopenhauer.)

This approach can also draw from phenomenology, which asserts that the world is always given to us through experience, or "intentionality." We don't simply observe a pre-existing world from a distance; rather, the world appears to us through the lens of consciousness, shaped by our perceptions, language, and understanding. Phenomenology doesn't deny the existence of an external world, but it emphasizes that this world is always inseparable from how it is experienced. In this way, the form of idealism I'm arguing for doesn’t reject the reality of the world but insists that mind is the condition of its intelligibility and experience. We can't 'get outside' that.

Think about how deeply-entrenched the idea of 'apart from' or 'separate to' is embedded in our usual world-picture. When the question is asked about 'what exists', that mental construct is already underpinning it. So hence the 'phenomnological epochē' which is learning to see those automatic assumptions that so pervade what we consider to be normal and real. It's different from 'scientific objectivity' - not in conflict with it, where it is necessary, as it so often is, but it operates in a far wider context.

Here's the paragraph from which you cherry-picked a couple of words: — Wayfarer

Hey, careful - you cherry-picked those words, not me. Here:

That ties in with the role that I see in 'the observer' generally. As that video Is Reality Real? says 'of course there's an external world. We just don't see it as it is.' Our brain/mind is constructing reality on the fly at every moment. — Wayfarer

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero?
— Mww

I take it what it means is that prior to measurement there is the superposition described in terms of the wave function but the moment a measurement is registered then all possibilities other than the one describing that specific outcome are now zero. — Wayfarer

Ahhh…yes, got it. (Kinda figured that’s what you meant): All OTHER possibilities reduce to zero. If all possibilities reduce to zero there is no outcome, hence nothing to describe, which is a contradiction to the act of measurement.
————-

It's clearly descended from Kantian philosophy. — Wayfarer

Agreed, clearly. But still, just as I favor probability over possibility, so too I favor determined over created. To say we create, especially with respect to that which is regulated by empirical principles, suggests more power in us than we possess.

To say we create, especially with respect to that which is regulated by empirical principles, suggests more power in us than we possess. — Mww

Well, maybe ‘create’ is a strong word. But look at the way science has managed to peer into the realm of possibility and pluck things out of it that actually work. Like this magic little iPad I sit here and type this on. I sometimes wonder if an experimental outcome in physics is like a special case of that. So, maybe ‘making manifest’ would be better than ‘creating’.

We can never see it as it is.

If we can never see the world "as it really is," then how shall we explain things like mistakes? For instance, if I mistake my car for one that looks like it in the parking lot. In the case I was not experiencing things as they "really were." But on the view that all sensation is somehow illusory, it's also the case that when I later properly identify my car I have also failed to see things as they really are.

The same holds for illusions. When I look at the famous checkerboard illusion and I see the square in the shadow labeled A as darker than the square outside the shadow labeled B, I am "not seeing things as they are." Actually, the two shades of gray are identical. But then when I put them side by side, and see that they are the same exact gray, it seems I would still not be seeing them as they are.

Are there gradations of illusion here? Do we rank perceptions by their approximation of truth? But if getting a view of truth is impossible (as it must be if the truth of things is "how things are conceived of without a mind") then how do we ever make a proper comparison by which to rank approximations of truth? It seems quite impossible. This is the difficulty with a correspondence theory of truth, particularly if paired with subject/object dualism. And then it also seems like the intelligibility of the world ends up coming down on the subject side of our ledger, since we are "constructing" the quiddity of the objects of experience.

It's a thorny issue. I think it is possible to maintain the old scholastic mantra that "everything is received in the manner of the receiver," without setting up such issues, but it's difficult. The term "objective" is particularly thorny because it has become a sort of chimera of Lockean objectivity (properties that exist 'in-themselves') and Kant's "noumenal," with the less loaded definition of "the view with relevant subjective biases removed" lumped in with these. I do think philosophy could benefit from using C.S Pierce's terminology re "objective," as being placed in the umwelt (and for man the lebenswelt) but it's fairly technical and has the problem that "subject" and "subjective" used to mean pretty much the opposite of what it is used for now (in the scholastics Pierce is relying heavily upon).

But maybe a start would be to say that "men see things as many sees things," rather than "man sees things not as they really are." The issue of models and theories is also put into better focus if these are seen as tools for knowing rather than the subjects of knowledge. The idea of "constructing" seems unobjectionable if it is kept in mind that the intelligibility of things is not being constructed out of the unintelligible, but of course the exact opposite is true for Kant's usage.

But on the view that all sensation is somehow illusory, it's also the case that when I later properly identify my car I have also failed to see things as they really are. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A common argument against Bishop Berkeley. But he does consider it in his dialogues.

Say we see an oar in water, Hylas says, and it appears bent to us. We then lift it out and see that it is really straight; the bent appearance was an illusion caused by the water's refraction. On Philonous' (i.e. Berkeley's) view, though, we cannot say that we were wrong about the initial judgement; if we perceived the stick as bent then the stick really must be bent. Similarly, since we see the moon's surface as smooth we cannot really say that the moon's surface is not smooth; the way that it appears to us has to be the way it is.

Philonous has an answer to this worry as well. While we cannot be wrong about the particular idea, he explains, we can still be wrong in our judgement. Ideas occur in regular patterns, and it is these coherent and regular sensations that make up real things, not just the independent ideas of each isolated sensation. The bent stick can be called an illusion, therefore, because that sensation is not coherently and regularly connected to the others. If we pull the stick out of the water, or we reach down and touch the stick, we will get a sensation of a straight stick. It is this coherent pattern of sensations that makes the stick. If we judge that the stick is bent, therefore, then we have made the wrong judgement, because we have judged incorrectly about what sensation we will have when we touch the stick or when we remove it from the water.

Are there gradations of illusion here? Do we rank perceptions by their approximation of truth? — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are gradations of reality, so I guess that is like the inverse of that. But the deep, underlying issue is one which I think you, in particular, will grasp, more so than others.

I think it is possible to maintain the old scholastic mantra that "everything is received in the manner of the receiver," without setting up such issues, but it's difficult. The term "objective" is particularly thorny because it has become a sort of chimera of Lockean objectivity (properties that exist 'in-themselves') and Kant's "noumenal," with the less loaded definition of "the view with relevant subjective biases removed" lumped in with these. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What was the historical context of Berkeley's idealism? It was a reaction to the emerging materialism which had started to creep into the 'new' philosophies of Hobbes and Locke. That the objects of sense have a reality independent of our perception, which our ideas represent - representative realism, in fact. This is the genesis of much modern materialism. Berkeley's arguments were a protest against that, aiming to undercut the idea of a 'mind-independent empirical reality'. But by this stage, empiricism had already dispensed with the residue of Platonism and Aristotelian realism that still animated scholastic philosophy, dessicated though it might have become. Part of the sweeping changes to do with the decline of scholastic realism (Theological Origins of Modernity by Gillespie is mainly about this.)

My theory is that Aquinas' insight that you mention, 'everything received in the manner of the knower', is precisely what had become lost in the transition to the empiricism and nominalism of early modern period. This is why that terms such as 'idealism' and indeed 'objective' only start to enter the lexicon in the early modern period. It signifies the transition to a new form of consciousness - that of modern individualism, as distinct from the 'participatory' or 'I-thou' form of consciousness that characterised the earlier epoch. It corresponds with the loss of that connectedness with being, articulated in Aquinas' epistemology as the union of the knower with the known (ref). That retains an element of the idea of union which was severed by empiricism. Again, the origin of that is clearly given in Perl's book (which incidentally I learned about from John Vervaeke.)

The emergence of Berkeley's idealism and the notion of 'objective knowledge' are both characteristics of that underlying historical trend. And one hallmark of empiricism is the insistence on the mind-independence of the objects of science and (from Descartes) the supposed soveriegnty of the individual 'I'. Starting with Kant, continuing through phenomenology, we see the critical phase of showing that 'mind-independence' in the sense posited by materialism can't be maintained (even if in rather different ways.) That I see as the background to these debates, at a very high level. (See What's Wrong with Ockham: Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West, Joshua Hochschild (.pdf))

But maybe a start would be to say that "men see things as many sees things," rather than "man sees things not as they really are." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In Buddhist Studies, I learned there is a Sanskrit term, yathābhūtaṃ, which means exactly 'to see things as they truly are'. Naturally, that is an attribute of the Buddha, but it can be extended by analogy to other philosophical and spiritual traditions. Like the Latin 'Veritas'. I think it conveys the idea of 'sagacity', or 'sapience' - what is required of sound judgement at a very holistic level. Which of course seems an impossible ideal in fragmented and hyper-specialsed world we now inhabit. But surely a major part of that has always been self-knowledge, still as elusive as always. We are entangled and bound up with false conceptions. Philosophy was intended as a therapy for that.

So even though there's a single, unique probablity space, it won't ever be captured the same way by two observers. — Wayfarer

There is not one, unique probability space. Measurements alter the statistical behavior of stochastic system, inducing different statistical contexts mutually-exclusively.

There is no particular observer problem in stochastic mechanics because collapse isn't rea but measurements do disturb systems. This is just because measurement of a system by a device can just be seen as the coupling of two stochastic systems together and the coupling causes the disturbance. This can be linked to the uncertainty principle which show up naturally in stationary stochastic systems of any kind.

Which falls under the title of 'transcendental realism' - the real world exists external to us, even though we can never capture what it is. — Wayfarer

I don't think its meant in that sense, after all, these hidden particles are what is directly measured. Its just hidden under the quantum formalism.

(Says I'm wrong about the 'stochastic intepretation' not defusing the 'observer problem'.) — Wayfarer

Its confusing but the statistical/ensemble/minimalist interpretation is not actually the same as the stochastic interpretation even though I did use the notion of ensembles before.

It has a separate wikipedia page to the stochastic quantum mechanics page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_interpretation

Yes - many arcane details to consider. Serves me right for introducing physics into the conversation but then it is part of what Hoffman discusses in his book, at the beginning of Chapter 6: Spacetime is Doomed. Thanks anyway for the explanations, I'm learning from them.

e.g.

Most of us believe deeply in a physical reality, consisting of objects in spacetime that existed prior to life and observers; no observer is needed, we believe, to endow any object with a position, spin, or any other physical property. But as the implications of quantum theory are better understood and tested by experiments, this belief can survive only by clinging to possible gaps in the experiments, and those gaps are closing. — Donald Hoffman, Case against Reality

I find it extremely hard to think his arguments actually lead to this conclusion.
Logically, there must have been something for life to come in to. So, his position seems to be that without perceivers we couldn't know anything. Sure, but that doesn't entail a lack of anything, does it? The activity we call ESR for instance, doesn't need an observer. But, we are te observer, so we're just stuck - I don't know that we can draw conclusions from that, though, positive or negative.

Though, I found Kastrup convincing for a few days after finding his work more accessible than most idealists (and related theorists). Perhaps I just don't find Hoffman as accessible.

his position seems to be that without perceivers we couldn't know anything. Sure, but that doesn't entail a lack of anything, does it? — AmadeusD

The way I put it is that 'existence' is not an on/off, is/isn't concept. Saying that 'the object doesn't exist without an observer' isn't necessarily the same as saying that it vanishes or becomes non-existent in the absence of one. But outside any conception of its existence, what can we possibly be talking about? The way I put it is that the mind provides the frame within which anything we think or say about existence takes place. Granted though, that is my way of putting it, not necessarily his. Also - see if you can find a copy of the book, or other of his materials. He does anticipate many of the apparently obvious gotchas that people point at him.

(The Essentia Foundation interview with Hoffman might be a good source. At least it's free!)

The way I put it is that the mind provides the frame within which anything we think or say about existence takes place — Wayfarer

This could be straight from the Kant's mouth. Nice.

Fair enough - I've been following the thread, but admittedly haven't read much mroe than what's been provided here. Will do.

I think it really depends on what you mean by all these terms which I often find confusing. Yes, realistic in terms of there are particles in definite configurations all the time. But it will also have all the statistical properties in the wavefunction that are responsible for violating contextual realism generally in quantum mechanics. However, the wavefunction isn't a real physical object in this interpretation. — Apustimelogist

Ok, I see. The wave-function is interpreted as an 'useful' fiction but at the same time the theory also adopts Counterfactual definiteness. How is non-locality handled in this interpretation?

It is realist, but I think he really does say there are degrees of existence:
.... — Wayfarer

I can see the appeal but IMO this view leads to some problems (some serious, some not).

First, if the wave-function is given any kind of reality, then non-locality is inescapable. If I make a position measurement, then QM literally says that the wave-function can contract instantaneously from a 'very large space region' to a 'point-like space region'. Of course, you can say that it has a 'different' degree of reality, but I'm not sure how a truly physical non-local effect can be avoided. This is not per se a 'damning'* problem (after all, I know that even the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation can be formulated in a way that is consistent with special relativity) but it is still IMO a problem for one who wants to present it as 'local'. BTW, I know that Kastner argued that the interpretation is local because the measurement only 'destroys' possibilities, not actualities but at the same time the 'actualities' do, well, become actual and if they do not come 'from nothing', something 'real' must be there before.

Second, the wavefunction itself can be changed before the measurement. In fact, the wave-function contains the information of the experimental set-up, which can be modified by the experimenter. In some ways, then, if the wavefunction is interpreted as having some kind of reality, it somehow interacts
(in some cases nonlocally) with the experimental setup and/or the experimenter.

Third, in a Wigner-friend type of scenario, some actualities seem to have become 'actual' only to an observer and not to the other. If one wants a realist interpretation, this IMO leads to an inconsistency.

I believe that this shows that the wavefunction does indeed represent 'potentialities' but only epistemic ones, i.e. gives probabilities that some experiences or observations occur.

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)

(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep)

Edit: by this I don't mean that those who think that 'non-local realism' is possible are wrong. But it would be still a quite strange form of realism where we cannot 'separate' the elements of reality by using a spatio-temporal separation.

If we can never see the world "as it really is," then how shall we explain things like mistakes? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that you are raising here a very good objection, but it is not 'decisive' IMO.

I believe that a 'mistake' or an 'illusion' can be interpreted as an interpretation of a given experience that is inconsistent with his inconsistent with other related experiences.

For instance, consider the case where you see a circular table from a certain distance and angolation. It doesn't appear as circular but as elliptical. And as I move around, its apparent shape is still elliptical but different and it continues to change. So, I conclude that the 'elliptical shape' is a mere appearance, an illusion if you like, because the fact that the 'apparent shape' changes as I change my position means that it is not an intrinsic property of the table and assuming naively that it is makes my judgment mistaken.
On the other hand, saying that the table is 'really circular' does accomodate all these observations and, therefore, it is 'more correct' than saying that a particular elliptical shape that I saw was the 'real one'. But of course, we know that the 'circular shape' itself when examined more closely is not true either etc.
BTW, I used the example of the physicist David Bohm (see e.g. this video).

So, I think that you can't detect a mistake even if the 'world as it really is' is inaccessible to us.

Also IMO this doens't imply that the world is not intelligible or our experience is not intelligible. In fact, at least up to a certain point we can say that there is intelligibility.

the wave-function is given any kind of reality — boundless

if they do not come 'from nothing', something 'real' must be there before. — boundless

As that article suggests, Heisenberg’s analogy between Aristotle’s potentia and the wave function highlights an important metaphysical insight. Heisenberg refers to quantum objects as existing in a ‘strange kind of reality somewhere between existence and non-existence,’ which introduces the idea that there may be degrees of reality. This contrasts with the modern view that ‘existence’ is a binary concept—something either exists or it doesn’t (known as ‘the univocity of being’). But Heisenberg’s interpretation suggests a more nuanced understanding, where entities like quantum objects have a form of potential existence that becomes fully real only through observation. This idea of gradations of being allows for a richer metaphysical framework, one that resonates with pre-modern views like Aristotle’s, where being is understood in terms of potentiality and actuality. So the answer to the question ‘does the object exist prior to being observed’ is neither yes or no - the answer actually *is* the wave-function. The observation ‘manifests’ or is actualised in a particular outcome. I can’t help but feel that it is at least a pregnant metaphor.

You know, Heisenberg was a lifelong Platonist. In that book I mentioned, Nature Loves to Hide, the author says that Heisenberg was known to carry with him the Timaues when a university student. I have a reprint of his essay, The Debate between Plato and Democritus. He comes out in favour of Plato.

I would like to know if anyone has read the Hoffman paper from Constructivist Foundations, since I think it really does make some good improvement over the kind of metaphysical quietism WRT reality and/or Kantianism we tend to see in his popular level clips and writings.

As I interpret it, Hoffman et al don't seem to be claiming that space is just a mode of apperception ala Kant, but it really exist but not in a Newtonian, objective sense, either. I think Hoffman has become Peircean in all but name.

As you will see, he describes environment and organism co-emerging and co-creating. Icons and eigenforms really exist since they're holographically encoded as space. I think this is what he is saying: This is what space is. It's icons and eigenforms encoded holographically and we interpret and act on them.

Space isn't wholly "out there" nor is it just our mode of apperception. It's a semiotic phenomena which we interpret to perpetuate our existence, and it exists in the relational in-between.

This idea of gradations of being allows for a richer metaphysical framework, one that resonates with pre-modern views like Aristotle’s, where being is understood in terms of potentiality and actuality. — Wayfarer

To be fair, I do not, in principle have a problem with this understanding. Problem is, however, that the 'collapse' of the wavefunction is observer-dependent, i.e. it takes place in the perspective of a given observer (whatever an 'observer' might be). In this view, the collapse is a process of actualization, so actualization is observer-dependent.

So in other to be consistent, I think that this kind of understanding has to treat both the potentialities and the actualities as observer-dependent. No matter how Heisenberg saw these these things, I really doubt that Aristotle or Plato would have liked that potentiality-actuality is something that is perspectival.

The observation ‘manifests’ or is actualised in a particular outcome. I can’t help but feel that it is at least a pregnant metaphor. — Wayfarer

With this I agree.

The idea of "constructing" seems unobjectionable if it is kept in mind that the intelligibility of things is not being constructed out of the unintelligible, but of course the exact opposite is true for Kant's usage. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the idea of construction in Kant’s usage becomes objectionable because the intelligibility of things is constructed out of the unintelligible?

Is it your intention that your readers should understand you to mean Kantian speculative metaphysics in general, and transcendental idealism in particular, is unintelligible, thereby making his idea of “constructing” objectionable, insofar as Kant’s idea of constructing is predicated on both of those philosophies?

Saying that 'the object doesn't exist without an observer' isn't necessarily the same as saying that it vanishes or becomes non-existent in the absence of one. — Wayfarer

I wouldn't toss this in except I know you are sympathetic to a Taoist way of seeing things. I think Lao Tzu is saying something similar to what you are. These are from Stephen Mitchell's version of the Tao Te Ching.

Verse 1 (excerpt)
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Verse 40
Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

Well, on the error point, I don't think someone like Berkeley has the same problem here. For Berkeley, we see the world as it is under normal conditions, although of course we see it from our individual perspective. Error is its own category.

The problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." The problem is not only that both experience under normal conditions and conditions of error share in unreality, but that we have no means of saying which is closer to "what things are really like." If the way things "really are" is inaccessible, if even space and time are the unique products of the mind, then there is no possible comparison of experience and reality. Correspondence is out. Nor will an identity theory work. We can't say that there is an identity shared by experience and reality—that, as Aristotle says in De Anima, the "mind (potentially) becomes all things," because this possibility is also excluded.

An ancillary issue might be the justification for proposing "properties in-themselves," since properties that don't involve interaction are not only epistemically inaccessible, but also make no difference to the world. They might as well be locked away in their own sui generis sort of being.

Now, if the intelligibility of things and the intelligibility of our experiences and our knowledge of things is the same, there is no problem. Reason is perhaps the glue that holds things together (rather than a sort of "bridge between them" that we must build). On this view, we are never separated. But on this view it isn't true that we don't see things as they are. To be sure, we don't see things perfectly. There is a difference between discursive human reason and simple divine apprehension of all truths. Truth, with being, is inherently bound up in intelligibility though (e.g. St. Thomas' disputed questions on truth).

So the idea of construction in Kant’s usage becomes objectionable because the intelligibility of things is constructed out of the unintelligible?

Well, I see two distinct problems. On the one hand is the focus on arelational "in-itselfness" that Kant inherited from Locke and Co. I don't think this makes sense.

The other problem is that of the "construction" of intelligibility, if this is to mean something like "construction ex nihilo," where what is contained in the construction cannot be said to be present in what it is constructed from. There are other problems here. For example, might we not be locked in our own worlds? What's to say all minds don't construct radically different worlds? Because we understand each other? But we are supposedly constructing all understanding, and we construct our experience of other people communicating with us just as much as we construct our sensory perceptions of nature. Maybe natural selection and biology explain why our minds are similar? But these are phenomena and can say nothing of the noumenal.

And then in Kant's case the noumena becomes the solution to that pesky "free will and determinism problem" at the end of the Prolegomena, but it seems to me that this move is totally unjustified (this is I suppose an ancillary problem).

he problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." The problem is not only that both experience under normal conditions and conditions of error share in unreality, but that we have no means of saying which is closer to "what things are really like." If the way things "really are" is inaccessible, if even space and time are the unique products of the mind, then there is no possible comparison of experience and reality. Correspondence is out. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This seems untrue. Maps are never their territory; if a map was, it would just be the territory. Yet, we can clearly distinguish maps that faithfully correspond to their territory, and those that do not. The non-identity of bad maps with their territory is not the same as the non-identity of all maps with their territories. We distinguish the two kinds of non-identity conceptually and in practice.