Running with the phenomena-noumena thing, you can know how something interacts with you at least, yes?

Say, you may interact with an apple-an-sich, which might at least tell you something about the apple, namely about your interaction therewith. Or, you may interact with a neighbor-an-sich, which might tell you something about the neighbor, namely how the neighbor interacts at least. — jorndoe

Yes, I believe it does, but we don't know how. As in, once you remove all senses from our experience of an object, I think something remains, which itself is not only our unification of properties to create a phenomenal object.

Some have tried to read it this way, say Cristoph Koch, he says something like there was the "sun-in-itself" the "planets in themselves" etc., but that is problematic, imo.

For you are already presupposing a great deal about an object by saying it's an apple (in-itself), that suggests that no matter what creature would arise, an apple as an entity in the world. Different creatures might well pick up different properties.

If we expect apple-omniscience/certainty, then we're over-demanding.
In terms of (phenomena-noumena) epistemics, what would be required (perhaps expected) to know a ding-an-sich (without interaction)? Becoming das-ding...? — jorndoe

Ah. There are different views here.

Kant doesn't think there are any - with a somewhat problematic (but very interesting) exception: free will. It's due to a kind of causality which is not solely a naturalistic one.

Schopenhauer would say the thing in itself is will, roughly energy, which we feel when we move an arm or a leg and pay attention to what we are doing. He would say that this is akin to what other objects in themselves would probably feel like too, if we could feel them. But we are still removed from it due to our cognitive apparatus.

Plotinus, much older, speaks of the One, which we can only speak in an "as if" manner, very interesting and quite reasonable.

There are other options, but none that come to mind that straight out say this is how we know a thing in itself. Of course, there are probably exceptions I am missing.

I wonder if you're aware of Samuel Sagan? If you are, perhaps this would be better as a DM thread.

I think that's an oxymoron, no? — bert1

Could be. The phenomena-noumena thing is the context or background presumption here, though.




Let me just add, I don't think becoming das-ding makes much sense here. Anything other than you is not you. And whatever other than you may not perceive at all, or at least not like you — which would be unwarranted anthropomorphization, incidentally perhaps converging on panpsychism/animism. In other words, becoming das-ding is a dead end; some other requirement will have to be employed (if any).

We may interact similarly with a Moon rock, whereas (what we identify as) hydrochloric acid interacts differently with the Moon rock. In principle, you could interact with something in whatever ways (typically by proxy), and we may find new ways of interacting with things, or discover interaction previously unknown to us. Do we have an alternative to interaction, by which to attain knowledge of something otherwise unknown (or scantily known)? I suppose the hyper-skeptical parsimonist might reduce everything to interaction. (← I have already ditched solipsism and the like here)

I mean, I don't think we can become the thing in itself either, at best we can perhaps say some negative things about it, or we can use "as if" (or "like a") language to speak about it, as Plotinus does.

But I don't think we will ever get more insight than that and furthermore, I fully understand why some may think this may a complete waste of time or effort (not that you are saying this.) But I find myself and always have been, extremely attracted to and fascinated by this idea.

Panpsychism could be a solution, but animism less so, though as you point out they can be similar. The issue as I see it is that panpsychism only considers the (conscious) mental aspects of reality, either explicitly denying or overlooking the non-mental aspects of reality, which by far outnumber those things we consider "mental".

If you believe knowledge is inherently relational (as I do), then I don't see an alternative interaction. At least none that I can detect using our human intelligence.

Maybe God or angels - or, if you want to be less poetic and more naturalistic, an extremely intelligent alien species - could have an intelligence utterly above ours, which may include other ways of knowing.

Or maybe it's impossible. Hard to say.

No, I never crossed paths with Sagan or Clairvision.

Yes, I don't think so either. My desire to just get rid of an inherent conflict between our direct aquaintance of experience and our descriptions of ontologies in physics. I think there is much less conflict by getting rid of this notion of a bottom to the universe with a fixed set of objects just arranged in different ways. Already, the conflict is weakened somewhat imo if it is emphasized the way that physics can be seen as models or tools that describe or trace functional aspects of the universe rather than intrinsic things. — Apustimelogist

I sort of agree. If we let go the position that physical theories give us a complete description of the 'universe', things change. IMO, we can say that there are 'regularities' in physical phenomena but to 'reify' our descriptions and interpreting them as a 'faithful portrait' of reality is wrong. I think that 'non-representationalist' interpretations of QM have the merit to question this assumption - one can see that merit even if disagrees with them

It's unexplained either way imo. I just am not compelled to commit to the idea that its brute nature requires appeal to anything beyond local dynamics. I don't need to appeal to the whole universe (the only isolated system that exists) to observe examples of conserved quantities from interactions, as implied by conservation laws, in local systems. And I imagine you could say the same thing if the local system was further decomposable so one could focus on what is happening at a single component of it. — Apustimelogist

Well, I think I can see what you mean. But IMO the 'reductionistic' picture takes conservation laws as accidental properties of interactions, whereas the 'holistic' one explains why the interactions behave in a certain way via the conservation laws themselves. In both cases there is no 'full explanation', but IMO the second ontological 'picture' is better.

Yes, it especialliy depends if you interpret the wave-function as a physical object I think. — Apustimelogist

Well, I would say that this is true in a more general sense, i.e. if the quantum formalism gives us a 'glimpse' of how physical objects are.

In the thermal interpretation, as I understand it, the wave-function is a pure fiction. As the 'summary' (found here) says:

This richness of physical properties is not compatible with the notion of a system being purely decomposable into its subsystems in all cases. There are many properties such as a correlators that are properties of the total system that don't arise from properties of subsystems.

Since some properties are assigned to the system as a whole, which can be quite extended, they provide the nonlocal beables required by Bell's theorem. This is a combination of points above. Consider an extended two photon system. This has correlator properties like <AB> that are assigned to the whole system, no matter how extended it is and by the above these properties are not merely a property or combination of properties of any of the subsystems.

I still have to find an ontological interpretation of QM that doesn't have some kind of 'holism', BTW.

and interpreting them as a 'faithful portrait' of reality is wrong. — boundless

I wouldn't say that its not like the portait cannot possibly in principle be faithful (where it does not have wrong predictions); but that it cannot tell us anything about reality intrinsically beyond tools that are used by us to essentially anticipate what comes next or came before or what could happen in some scenario.

I think that 'non-representationalist' interpretations of QM — boundless

I feel like my point should be interpretation-independent.

But IMO the 'reductionistic' picture takes conservation laws as accidental properties of interactions — boundless

I disagree. They would still be an inherent part of the descriptions of those interactions, it just doesn't have to be anything more than local to that picture.

In the thermal interpretation, as I understand it, the wave-function is a pure fiction — boundless

Not entirely sure this is the case. Hard to tell. Imo, the 'holism' can be explained away given that the wave-function isn't real and entanglement depends on local entangling interactions ans locally incompatible observables.

Kant quite clearly, after he read Hume, doubted the reality of everything except for his brain. Just as Descartes had done. Kant had logic while Descartes had mathematics. They both seem quite Platonic to me in that they doubted the contingent while holding on to the necessary. Yet Descartes was able to convince himself that a perfect divine Will existed while Kant was unable to prove he was once a baby craddled in his mother's arms. Descartes convinced himself by pure reason that perfect Will could not deceive him, while Kant relied on senses and understanding to hold on to his isolated ego. Descartes didn't seem to have a genuine "relationship" with a deity so maybe he was in the same spot. Descartes's philosophy entails that we can know material things but not all their components (noumena?). For Aristotle form and matter are a union resulting in a substance, but what we perceive is the accidents. The difference between Aristotle and the other two is that the accidents reveal something about the substance. Modern physics seems to disagree in that the space-time/vacuum is unknowable in itself. Night time thoughts..

I wouldn't say that its not like the portait cannot possibly in principle be faithful (where it does not have wrong predictions); but that it cannot tell us anything about reality intrinsically beyond tools that are used by us to essentially anticipate what comes next or came before or what could happen in some scenario. — Apustimelogist

Ok, I see. Yeah, even if the portrait is faithful, it is still a portrait, after all. But IMO the 'weirdness' of modern theories suggests to me that they do not even 'portray' reality. But YMMV.

I feel like my point should be interpretation-independent. — Apustimelogist

Agreed. I meant that in a way non-representationalist interpretations might agree with that.

I disagree. They would still be an inherent part of the descriptions of those interactions, it just doesn't have to be anything more than local to that picture. — Apustimelogist

In a sense, yes, they would describe the behavior of the interactions. But whereas the 'bottom-up' perspective says that conservations law are 'contingent consequences' of the behavior of interactions, the 'top-down' picture (i.e. interactions are more fundamental) says the reverse.

Not entirely sure this is the case. Hard to tell. Imo, the 'holism' can be explained away given that the wave-function isn't real and entanglement depends on local entangling interactions ans locally incompatible observables. — Apustimelogist

I don't see how this isn't some kind of 'non-realism', thought. It seems to imply this rejection of 'unicity', as the article on SEP on Consistent histories uses the term:

But it is contrary to a deeply rooted intuition, shared by philosophers, physicists, and the proverbial man in the street, that at any point in time there is one and only one state of the universe which is “true”, and with which every true statement about the world must be consistent: what is here called unicity. In §2.4, it was argued that because of the noncommutation of quantum projectors, classical unicity must be replaced by quantum pluricity.

Abandoning unicity is certainly a radical proposal, which can only be justified if by doing so one obtains a more coherent and internally consistent understanding of the quantum world, together with a resolution of some of its major problems and paradoxes, such as those described above in §8. In this connection it is worth noting that according to CH the use of a quasiclassical quantum framework, §5, allows one to understand why unicity works so well in the macroscopic quantum world, and hence why its failure in the microscopic domain can be so counterintuitive and hard to grasp. To be sure, there may be other ways of dealing with the quantum mysteries, and it is up to future research to determine whether CH runs into serious problems or continues to resolve the quantum paradoxes to which it is applied. It is also not a foregone conclusion that the quantum Hilbert space, though basic nowadays in almost all applications of quantum theory—quantum foundations is the only notable exception—will continue this leading role or be replaced by something else. Should that occur it would, of course, require the revision or abandonment of any quantum interpretation, such as CH, based firmly on Hilbert space mathematics.

In a sense, yes, they would describe the behavior of the interactions. But whereas the 'bottom-up' perspective says that conservations law are 'contingent consequences' of the behavior of interactions, the 'top-down' picture (i.e. interactions are more fundamental) says the reverse. — boundless

Not sure I agree. I've only started to think more deeply into this after a conversation I am having in another thread and it is beginning to dawn on me there are potentially a number of ways to view this kind of thing. Maybe too off point to go into those thoughts though; so, to skip to the point:

The kind of "behavior of interactions" I had in mind would be effectively equivalent to the conservation principles. Just alternative descriptions of the same thing though this I imagine depends on the nature of specific statements, formulations, descriptions. An example special case could be:

https://www.engineering.com/whats-the-similarities-between-these-principles-1-dalemberts-principle-2-law-of-conservation-of-energy/

It seems to me that whatever is conserved is always implied in the described behavior of the interactions. Obviously you might be able to apply these principles as a blanket description of various systems of different sizes and claim holism in virtue of the fact you could be talking about large spatially separated systems. Thinking about it then; for me, I would accept a holistic explanation if say, the forces and displacements in the above link were non-local. But if they are solely local or mediated locally, then I don't see the need for a holistic description. Sure I may not be able to directly explain why these descriptions apply, but if everything interacts only locally then I don't see the need for holistic descriptions. The blanket description for the system would not be distinct from compatible descriptions applied to all the sub-components of a system.

Obviously, you this may seem to not apply for quantum non-locality and so holism seems the case there. My reply again would be that quantum non-locality is not a real example of the exertion of forces over space and time, but a correlation whose origin is local.

I don't see how this isn't some kind of 'non-realism', thought. It seems to imply this rejection of 'unicity' — boundless

Based on the Stanford article, I would say the stochastic interpretation manages to fulfil unicity in the sense of: "a single point represents the exact state of a system at any given time" ehich applies to particles but not the wave-function.

It seems to me that whatever is conserved is always implied in the described behavior of the interactions. Obviously you might be able to apply these principles as a blanket description of various systems of different sizes and claim holism in virtue of the fact you could be talking about large spatially separated systems. Thinking about it then; for me, I would accept a holistic explanation if say, the forces and displacements in the above link were non-local. But if they are solely local or mediated locally, then I don't see the need for a holistic description. Sure I may not be able to directly explain why these descriptions apply, but if everything interacts only locally then I don't see the need for holistic descriptions. The blanket description for the system would not be distinct from compatible descriptions applied to all the sub-components of a system. — Apustimelogist

Ok, I think I can get what you are sayinh. However, to be fair, it seems to me even in this kind of 'bottom-up' model, conservation laws, symmetries seem like something that happens due to some kind of 'happy chance'. On the other hand, if one considers that, say, the 'universe' as a single 'system' with some kind of properties and derives the behavior of interactions from them the picture is both simpler and less 'fortuitous'. Again, I get that one can say that even those 'properties of the whole' remain unexplained but IMO the picture is simpler. And simplicity seems important.

Regarding the principle of locality (outside quantum non-locality), I get what you mean but I see it as some kind of 'differentiation' principle, so to speak, that itself derives from some kind of global property. I mean, I don't see it as necessarily as a fatal argument.

Based on the Stanford article, I would say the stochastic interpretation manages to fulfil unicity in the sense of: "a single point represents the exact state of a system at any given time" ehich applies to particles but not the wave-function. — Apustimelogist

Ok, interesting. Just for curiosity, but in this interpretation do the 'real' momenta of particles coincide with the 'observed' ones? In de Broglie-Bohm, while the observed position coincides with the 'real' position, this isn't true for momentum/velocity.

Animism is actually very misunderstood by modern academia since animism is read through a very Cartesian lens, which is really mistaken. Of course it's going to sound silly if you make animism into panpsychism, as if everything had some sort of little cartesian soul and consciousness was wholly subjective.

Animism bears much more in common with American pragmatism and their ideas of metaphysics rather than panpsychism/Cartesianism. There are worlds in the plural, and personhood of whatever- rocks, trees, people etc. arises in pragmatic contexts of action.

The proper term to describe animism is really ontological pluralism, reality is many, not One. But not solipsism, since worlds are partially overlapping but partially autonomous yet other worlds can be entered into/assumed.

It's context sensitive metaphysics and I've argued earlier on Hoffman's views imply this too, once we understand the physics underlying it.

Ok, I think I can get what you are sayinh. However, to be fair, it seems to me even in this kind of 'bottom-up' model, conservation laws, symmetries seem like something that happens due to some kind of 'happy chance'. — boundless

Imo it would only be 'happy chance' if one of the equivalent descriptions could be the case while the other (e.g. conservation laws) failed, but clearly that isn't the case if one follows from the other formally.

but IMO the picture is simpler. — boundless

I don't think it is simpler imo; because, if these conservation behaviors are properties of individual interactions, and individual interactions can only propagate locally, then there is no reason for me to attribute this as a holistic property of the whole system. The principle applied to the system would be rendered redundant if it holds for subsystems, subsystems of subsystems... right down to local interactions. It would be explanatorily simpler to say that the conservation property holds for the whole system in virtue of the fact it holds at any interaction propagating in some local part of the system.

Ok, interesting. Just for curiosity, but in this interpretation do the 'real' momenta of particles coincide with the 'observed' ones? — boundless

Not sure exactly what you mean but stochastically behaving particles (whether classical or quantum) do not have well-defined velocity / momentum in general so in stochastic mechanics velocity fields are constructed using averages regarding particle motion.

This would depend on what type of panpsychism one envisions. The panpsychism I am familiar, Galen Strawson's, does include incomprehensible (to us) subjects of experience, but it's not to be viewed in terms of something that thinks or wills- it's a very, very, basic type of phenomenon, quite rudimentary.

Other forms of panpsychism many be more extreme, but I don't know them in depth.

You are right, I don't understand a lot of animism well, and I will take your word that it mirrors say, something like what William James argues for. Which is fine. It's not my persuasion, but it's a legitimate view.

As for Hoffman himself, it's somewhat hard to say, since he says we don't evolve to capture truth at all. That's seems to me more excessive than the current science indicates, including the science Hoffman uses to defend his views.

Imo it would only be 'happy chance' if one of the equivalent descriptions could be the case while the other (e.g. conservation laws) failed, but clearly that isn't the case if one follows from the other formally. — Apustimelogist

Fair enough. Here I disagree but I understand why you can argue for that.

I don't think it is simpler imo; because, if these conservation behaviors are properties of individual interactions, and individual interactions can only propagate locally, then there is no reason for me to attribute this as a holistic property of the whole system. The principle applied to the system would be rendered redundant if it holds for subsystems, subsystems of subsystems... right down to local interactions. It would be explanatorily simpler to say that the conservation property holds for the whole system in virtue of the fact it holds at any interaction propagating in some local part of the system. — Apustimelogist

Ok. But what about uniformity/universality of physical laws?
Why, say, do electromagnetic interaction and gravitation seem to behave the same everywhere?
If there weren't any kind of 'top-down' constraints, how can one explain this universality?

Not sure exactly what you mean but stochastically behaving particles (whether classical or quantum) do not have well-defined velocity / momentum in general so in stochastic mechanics velocity fields are constructed using averages regarding particle motion. — Apustimelogist

I meant that in de Broglie Bohm (dBB), the velocities/momenta that one computes in the 'standard way' are not the same as the actual velocities/momenta that the particle have (and when we measure velocities we find the value predicted by QM without contraction with dBB). IIRC, this kind of pecularity of dBB have lead to the objection that 'Bohmian trajectories' are 'surreal' but oddly enough 'weak measurements' displayed them (I remember that about 10 years ago these experiments were taken by some as an evidence against 'standard QM'. But this isn't true...). This objection is of course not a problem for dBB as far as predictions go but it would be certainly strange that when we measure velocities, the 'real' velocity is something else.

It seems that stochastic interpretations do not share this conceptual pecularity. Interesting.

Ok. But what about uniformity/universality of physical laws?
Why, say, do electromagnetic interaction and gravitation seem to behave the same everywhere?
If there weren't any kind of 'top-down' constraints, how can one explain this universality? — boundless

I don't think of the fact that laws may behave the same everywhere as holism.

With regard to explanation, you could equally ask why should there not be universality without reason?

This objection is of course not a problem for dBB as far as predictions go but it would be certainly strange that when we measure velocities, the 'real' velocity is something else.

It seems that stochastic interpretations do not share this conceptual pecularity. Interesting. — boundless

The Bohmian formulation is very closely related to the stochastic one. Effectively The stochastic mechanics momentum / velocities are equivalent to the standard quantum ones. Bohmian mechanics includes very similar kinds of momentum /velocity to the stochastic ones abd then essentially adds extra deterministic particle trajectories on top of it. The way I personally see it, the main difference between Bohm and stochastic mechanics is that the latter eschews this last assumption of additional deterministic trajectories. Without that, the natural way to viee trajectories is stochastic and we see this directly in the path integral formulation of standard mechanics because the paths in this formulation that are used to calculate ptobabilities are the same as the stochastic mechanics particle trajectories. Because quantum mechanics is so bizarre though, it is always assumed these paths in the path integral formulation are not real but purely computational tools. Stochastic mechanics just takes them at face value.

With regard to explanation, you could equally ask why should there not be universality without reason? — Apustimelogist

Well that's a good question. I don't have an answer for that (I do however think that regularities in nature can be taken as 'clues' for some kind of 'transcendent Reason'... but I won't digress)

Regardless of that, I think however that universality is better explained in some kind of 'holistic' picture than a 'bottom-up' one. But YMMV. After all, none of these two pictures can be 'proved'.

The Bohmian formulation is very closely related to the stochastic one. Effectively The stochastic mechanics momentum / velocities are equivalent to the standard quantum ones. Bohmian mechanics includes very similar kinds of momentum /velocity to the stochastic ones abd then essentially adds extra deterministic particle trajectories on top of it. The way I personally see it, the main difference between Bohm and stochastic mechanics is that the latter eschews this last assumption of additional deterministic trajectories. Without that, the natural way to viee trajectories is stochastic and we see this directly in the path integral formulation of standard mechanics because the paths in this formulation that are used to calculate ptobabilities are the same as the stochastic mechanics particle trajectories. Because quantum mechanics is so bizarre though, it is always assumed these paths in the path integral formulation are not real but purely computational tools. Stochastic mechanics just takes them at face value. — Apustimelogist

Thanks for this. So, the trajectories themselves are determined probabilistically, rather than deterministically. Interesting, thanks.

That's fair enough then! :up:

Thank you very much for the discussion!

And you!

I thought Bohm's idea was just an inelegant and superfluous attempt to retain discrete particles and a purely objective pre or no-collapse reality. But what is the motivation for retaining this idea given what we know now?


Isn't it the case we now have significant experimental refutation of hidden variables, such as Bell's Theory, Legget-Garg inequalities, and Kochen-Specker theorem?


IMO, this takes us some way beyond the traditional positions of monism, dualism, reductionism etc. to some sort of metaphysics which needs a new vocabulary, like the kind of constructivist pluralism I've been talking about here.

I thought Bohm's idea was just an inelegant and superfluous attempt to retain discrete particles and a purely objective pre or no-collapse reality. But what is the motivation for retaining this idea given what we know now? — Bodhy

Well, the main motivation remains the same, I think, i.e. retaining the idea that physics is about describing the world 'as it is' also when measurements are not made. Not only for de Broglie-Bohm interpretation(s) (dBB) but for all 'realist' ones.

Anyway, I read of one dBB proponent who give an additional reasoning: for him, dBB has the advantage of making QM visualizable. And visualization has been an extremely useful tool for physicists.

As I said, personally I prefer an epistemic approach but I repsect 'realists'. Even if their interpretations are wrong, I still think that they can give us insights.

Isn't it the case we now have significant experimental refutation of hidden variables, such as Bell's Theory, Legget-Garg inequalities, and Kochen-Specker theorem? — Bodhy

dBB gives the same preidictions as 'usual' QM. No result you mentioned here falsify it. There are more technical difficulties when QFT is taken into account but some proponents insist that a dBB version of QFT is acheavable. Others disagree.

IMO, this takes us some way beyond the traditional positions of monism, dualism, reductionism etc. to some sort of metaphysics which needs a new vocabulary, like the kind of constructivist pluralism I've been talking about here. — Bodhy

Well, the fact that 'taken literally' modern physical theories give us 'pictures of realities' which seem getting progressively weird is a good clue that there is a limitation of our ability to arrive at a conceptual and mathematical description of 'how physical reality is in itself'. This also suggests to me that physical theories shouldn't be taken as 'literal portraits' of the 'external, physical world'.

Hence, physical theories use useful conceptual fictions that can be used to make predictions, applications and so on. These conceptualizations are, therefore, very useful for understanding the regularities of phenomena of the empirical reality. We cannot, however, get 'true knowledge' of the 'external world as it is in itself' (see my references about the 'two truths' and skepticism).

On the other hand, I also do not 'forbid' speculations about the ontology of 'external world'. But I don't think that scientific knowledge can enlighten us about which speculative ontology is the 'right' one.