In my understanding, a physical language per se is purely a communication protocol for coordinating human actions, that is to say physical languages per-se do not transmit information about the world from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener. — sime

How, then, do you hope to persuade a listener? Presumably you are hoping to convey something are you not?

How, then, do you hope to persuade a listener? — Wayfarer

What he's saying is kind of why it's so hard to persuade people.

Like I think back to how much trouble Corvus had (and still has) understanding why denying the antecedent doesn't work as a logical operation. In his mind, no doubt, it makes perfect sense, because the meaning he's assigning to logical operations themselves are not the meanings everyone else is assigning.

And even though the meanings everyone else is assigning are more in tune with each other, they are still not identical.

I am just looking for an opinion of mind-independent existence (….) other than "what I see is what exists". — noAxioms

That opinion, while apodeitically certain, again, insofar as its negation is a contradiction, re: what I see is not what exists, or, what I see does not exist, has to do with that which exists without regard for whether such existent is mind-independent. To satisfy that condition, “what I see” must be isolated from the mind in order to be independent of it, from which follows the necessity for proving the mind absolutely cannot itself be sufficient existential causality for what I see.

And that’s pretty easy…..just close my eyes and I see nothing, so if the mind is itself sufficient causality for what I see, I cannot explain why it is I no longer see anything when my eyes are closed while there remains no indication whatsoever my mind is not still fully functional. Which it must be the case because I am quite aware I’m no longer seeing anything and that directly and immediately related to the closing of my eyes. The other senses are, of course, somewhat more difficult to exemplify, but the principle holds throughout.

All of which kinda begs the question…..why seek an opinion regarding mind-independence of existents in general, that isn’t covered by the opinion that human perception alone, by which the existence of anything at all is already provable by the LNC, is itself mind-independent?

And if the question concerns mind-independence of existence, in and of itself, as a stand-alone pure conception in general, then the notion of what I see becomes immediately irrelevant. I see things that exist; I can say I see existences, but I never see existence itself. From which follows, a valid opinion would be that existence itself cannot be mind-independent iff it is the case the mind requires it as a condition by which things are given to my senses.

But anyway, the thread title asks about the mind-independence of reality, which presupposes the existence of what I see, that being the initial condition I supported.

I may not be understanding you, but I argue that no ideas are mind-independent. As we seem to be out in the Kantian plain, it's useful, imo, to try to navigate the context of these ideas. Among Kant's tasks was to account for knowledge. Before him it was either mind or world, and he found a way to put them together - mind and world - noting also limitations in the synthesis.

My understanding is that he never doubted the efficacy of practical knowledge, but instead had noted that practical knowledge was not well-accounted as knowledge, which account he provided.

Thus the "in-itself-(as-it-is-in-itself)" suffix used in reference to things in themselves is both significant and important. It's the boundary between knowledge that ideas about a thing provide, and the thing that provides it - the thingness of which cannot be doubted. — tim wood

How does this apply to rocks "as-it-is-in-itself" and the atoms they are composed of "as-they-are-in-themselves" and the structural arrangement of the atoms that gives the rick the property of hardness and porosity?

The problem with invoking Kant here is that Kant had no knowledge of modern atomic theory and quantum mechanics. Is the "thing-in-itself" a state of superposition, or a wave function?

With living beings, I suppose that one can consider them as distinct entities, but with inanimate composite objects the distinction seems more difficult to make. So, in a sense, no, the rock isn't an idea. But in an important sense, I would say that it probably is an idea, indeed. The way we 'carve' the world into physical objects seems to be in part mind-dependent.

Is a chair an unique entity? Are the parts of the chair distinct entities from the chair? Or is the identification of the chair or its parts as different 'things' a mind-dependent construct? — boundless

Good point. The problem though is why are living beings distinct entities but rocks and chairs are not. If perceive living beings the same way I perceive rocks and chairs then why make a special case for living beings?

I think that the boundaries are defined based on our goals. It is useful to distinguish humans from other animals and inanimate objects. It is sometimes useful to distinguish individual objects or group them together. Which cause or which effect one focuses on is dependent upon the goal, or intent, in the mind.

There's a small possibility of that, yes. Boltzmann Brains and whatnot. — RogueAI

Possibility is a projection of our ignorance of the facts. Either CDs and books can randomly spawn into existence or they cannot. Even if they did. The information would be the causal relation between their existence in the present moment and the causes that preceded their existence. If there was no cause then there is no information.

It's just because our minds are parts of the world. — jorndoe

Yes. The map is part of the territory.

Not at all. That world relates to you as much as it does to me. But confining our declaration of reality to that mutually shared world is what I'm bringing into question. — noAxioms

But you are only aware of me in the same way you are aware of anything. I don't understand how you can question the nature of everything except other people when you access the nature of people the same way you access the nature of everything else. I mean, I could be a bot. Others could be p-zombies or androids, or aliens in disguise. Even then, they would be something tangible (a bot, android or alien), like stars and planets, chairs and tables, rocks and mountains, and CDs and books. So the question doesn't seem to be "DO they exist" rather "HOW do they exist". Are they ideas, physical, information, process, relationships, or what? And the answer seems to be intricately related to our present goal in the mind.

A system state does not measure itself. Subsequent system states measure it, yes, true even under Newtonian physics, although I don't think this relational spinning of ontology was seriously considered back then. — noAxioms

But that is what you said,

a system at a moment in time does not exist since it hasn't measured itself. — noAxioms

The issue now is what measured the first system to get it all going, or is it measurements all the way down? Is this different than saying it is information, or relationships all the way down? Is measuring a process?

In my opinion, we need to understand other aspect of consciousness. One must understand how consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level. And consciousness is constituted at the most fundamental level as present and immediate time. Thanks to Husserl's analysis we understand that consciousness is constituted at this level by protentions and retentions. This implies that there is always a non-present side with which consciousness is continually in contact. This non-present is precisely the form of the world, as a thing not given in consciousness. In that sense one can maintain the existence of the world as a distinct other with which consciousness is related. But even more, it is consciousness itself that is constituted by non-presents, with which it can be said that consciousness is constituted by what is proper to the world as non-present. Consciousness is part of the world and the world is part of consciousness. To deny the world we must deny the existence of the non-present. But this non-present is fundamental for consciousness and for its functioning.

Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? — noAxioms

Who are we all talking to if not something independent of our minds? What do I think can or will respond to my question? Why do I bother to ask, if I can’t see anything independent of my own mind to be an answer?

But, no I can’t defend my view that there is mind independent reality any better than Moore or Aristotle.

I just can’t defend speaking without mind-independent reality either, so, by speaking to you, I reveal my belief in your independence and my ability to reach through the world from me to you, and for you to hurl something mind-independent back towards me.

If no one responds to my post I will probably give up on the mind-independent facts I think I’ve gleaned and go try walking on my unique concept of “water”. (I’ll tell you how it goes in case you are really there.)

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Good point. The problem though is why are living beings distinct entities but rocks and chairs are not. If perceive living beings the same way I perceive rocks and chairs then why make a special case for living beings? — Harry Hindu

Living beings, even the simplest ones, behave quite differently from non-living things. They demarcate the 'outer' and the 'inner' space, they have a metabolism, they strive for self-preservation and so on.
So, I would say that in their case, it seems reasonable to assert that they are distinct entities (instead of, say, distinct patterns, emergent features or whatever).

I think that the boundaries are defined based on our goals. It is useful to distinguish humans from other animals and inanimate objects. It is sometimes useful to distinguish individual objects or group them together. Which cause or which effect one focuses on is dependent upon the goal, or intent, in the mind. — Harry Hindu

Is this true in all cases, though? I don't think so. In the case of living beings as I said before, it seems that we can treat them as individual entities.

In the case of a chair, we can of course distinguish it from a table. But maybe they aren't distinct entities as much distinct emergent features that appear to be distinct entities. But is this true for all non-living things (at least if they are composite)? I'm not sure. But I do believe that it is more difficult for inanimate objects to have a level of differentiation from the environment to be considered separately existing things.

Anyway, as an aside, probably the main reason why Albert Einstein was dissatisfied by QM (even by the realistic non-local interpetations like de Broglie-Bohm interpretation) is that the non-locality in QM to him meant that the division of the world into sub-systems (i.e. distinct physical objects) become arbitrary. In a 1948 letter to Born he said:

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/)

That is spatiotemporal separation could not anymore be taken as a way to 'carve' the world into separate objects (maybe, ironically, he took the idea by the 'idealist' Schopenhauer who called the principle 'principium individuationis'). I sympathize with him. At least in the case of non-living things, it seems to me that spatiotemporal separation would be a reasonable way to distinguish a thing from another.

Is yours knowledge of a theory, or of the thing itself? — tim wood

I get the issue. Kant is fundamental. Mind-independent reality is provisionally acknowledged. But what could distinguish the ontology of "theory" from the ontology of "thing itself", if not some thing in itself? How to draw lines without a knife to carve them?

It's as if the question of mind-independence can't be asked without mind-independence.

Kant clarified that we can't know things in themselves. But this epistemological/methodological observation of our constructing limitations is distinct from the notion that mind independent reality (thing in itself) is not even there (in some unknowable manner) independently of our minds.

We must see mind-independent reality in order to say we see any change. We may not see causation itself, or things as they "are" apart from our constitution of those things, but we see there are things apart from any constitution in order to wonder about causation or an act of constituting.

And if we see two things, distinct from each other, like the sun and the sky, we have learned about "independent reality" - identity, unique from other identifiably unique things in themselves.

We just can't explain or justify this wondering. But that doesn't mean we cannot really be smacked in the face. It can't mean that, because I've been smacked in the face. My mind is unable to explain how or why, but does not need to wonder whether[/i] "smacking things" exist, because I became one of them, despite my lone dependence on myself to define what "smacking" is, in response to being smacked in the "face".

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.

Exactly. Without mind-independence, "explanation" itself has no explanation.

I'm just noting that human biases tend to slap on the 'real' label to that which is perceived, and resists slapping that label on other things, making it dependent on that perception. — noAxioms

But surely this is nothing to do with the reality outside our heads which is mind-independent, and only about our beliefs about the world and how we should attach labels to it which trivially come under the umbrella of 'mind'. I think there must be a mind-independent reality but obviously any attempt to describe it necessarily is an act inside your head. At the same time, just because you cannot 'access' reality without a purview from inside your head doesn't mean you cannot navigate it accurately in principle; and I think the very consistency in how different people see the world implies mind-independence. I think there is a sense in which we are directly aquainted with information about the world in our perceptions even if it is inherently perspectival, just in the sense that the information you get from the world depends on your position within it and relation to it - but this is non-arbitrary because how you relate to the world is mediated by how the mind-independent world behaves (e.g. you see things because of the laws of physics and the physical structure of your nervous system and body). I do agree we can very easily disagree on what things are "real" - and there may not be a substantial definition - but I believe these discussions are usually so abstract they do not have much interesting implication.

I do subscribe to a perspective where you can basically deflate everything in regards to our minds and what minds are doing - beliefs, concepts, etc - which could be interpreted in terms of a kind og anti-realism. But what is left after such deflation? I don't think such deflation even makes sense without a mind-independent reality that scaffolds what is left post-deflation, and everyday experience and scientific observation tells me that it is there beyond experience. Again, we cannot describe mind-independent reality in a perspective-free way (non-threatening to the notion of mind-independent reality though) which leaves us in a kind of strange loop - there are inherent logical difficulties in self-description, self-reflexivity to the extent that I simply don't think minds ... or brains ... or whatever ... can do it, and we are simply stuck with accepting a limit to what we can talk about regarding fundamental reality, the nature of one's own consciousness, our descriptions and explanations (which can be deflated to acts). But this limit is about us and doesn't extend to reality itself as say someone who supports a relational quantum mechanics might think. Maybe what I am saying is still quite close to what some people are thinking about when they dismiss a mind-independent reality though; but I think describing it using that specific phrase would be misleading, personally.

Part of what has been learned is the incredible unlikelihood of our universe's fundamental constants being what they are. — noAxioms

I have personally never understood the fascination with this topic. I has never bothered me that extremely unlikely things can happen. I have never felt the need to explain it. I am not entirely sure reality warrants an explanations, a priori, and even thinking about a posteriori, I don't think we know enough about reality to be confident that we can narrow down a reasonably accurate explanation and not miss out on some plausible explanation that relies on information we simply don't have yet. However I look at it, it doesn't seem like an interesting topic to me - one that can wait and shouldn't be used to inform beliefs about metaphysics of the universe.

But the exact 'current' state of the moon is not in any way fact.

Bohmian mechanics takes that principle as a premise. Almost no other interpretation does. — noAxioms

For me, I advocate this kind of counterfactual definiteness so this segment I don't think is powerful to me.

It's hard to think it matters that most interpretations don't advocate counterfactual definiteness is you son't subscribe to them, ha.

I think there is a subtle conflation here between an attribute and it's notation.

That we notate something as existing depends on a mind to do the notation. With the weak anthropic principle, this means that worlds conducive to minds are liable to be notated, and worlds not conducive will not be notated. This absolutely biases the notation towards only those worlds that can support it.

But this doesn't have a logical connection to mind independent reality, itself. Both types of worlds may exist independently of minds, regardless of the fact that only one may be so notated.

Mind-independence’ has two levels of meaning. In one sense, of course the world is independent of your or my mind — there are countless things that exist and events that happen regardless of whether anyone perceives or knows them. That’s the empirical, common-sense perspective.

But in another, deeper sense the very idea of a mind-independent world is something the mind itself constructs. This is where Kant comes in. For him, the mind-independent world is not an observable object, but a regulative idea — a necessary conceptual limit. It’s not something we experience, but something we must presuppose in order to make experience coherent. The notion of a world ‘in itself,’ existing independently of all observation, is not something we encounter — it’s something we must presuppose in order to have coherent experience at all. And yet, we can never know what that world is in itself, only how it appears under the conditions of our sensibility and understanding. So paradoxically, even the idea of ‘what is independent of mind’ is an idea we arrive at only through thinking about it. That's why he makes the paradoxical remark, 'take away the thinking subject, and the whole world must vanish'.

Scientific realism tends to treat what is “really there” as that which exists independently of any observer — that is, what would still be the case even if no minds were around to perceive or theorize about it. On this view, reality is objective in the most literal sense: it's out there, unaffected by how we think about it.
You can see that in Einstein's ruminations provided by @boundless above:

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.

Notice the strong assumption that mind-independence is the criterion of what is real.

Kant's is not that radical a claim, but it requires a shift in perspective - an awareness of how the mind constructs what we take to be the objective world. This is something that nowadays has considerable support from cognitive science (indeed, scholar Andrew Brook has called Kant 'the godfather of cognitive science'. ) And for all Einstein's impassioned polemic, the experiments which validated 'spooky action at a distance', and which were the basis for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, undermine the premises of scientific realism.

(For anyone interested, a blog post of mine, Spooky Action in Action, about how entanglement is being used for secure comms technology.)

The very idea of science from the usual point of view is to take out everything to do with human subjectivity and see what remains. QBism says, if you take everything out of quantum theory to do with human subjectivity, then nothing remains — Christian Fuchs

Mind-independence’ has two levels of meaning. In one sense, of course the world is independent of your or my mind — there are countless things that exist and events that happen regardless of whether anyone perceives or knows them. That’s the empirical, common-sense perspective. — Wayfarer

Well, I believe that some properties we assign to 'external objects' are not mind-independent even in this sense. I am thinking about colours, sounds, smells etc in the way we percieve them.

But in another, deeper sense the very idea of a mind-independent world is something the mind itself constructs. — Wayfarer

Yep! Aye, there's the rub...

We tend to think that the 'physical world' is divided into discrete, separately existent physical objects. But how we 'carve' the world and divide it into separate objects does seem to be at least in part a mental construct.

A chair is of course an individual object... except that when you think more deeply it's not clear that it should be considered that. It is certainly a composite object which seems to be reducible to its parts. In that case, does it make sense to consider it as a 'entity'? Furthermore, when one takes into account, for instance, the fact that it is composed of atoms and so on, the 'boundaries' between the chair and 'what isn't a chair' become fuzzier and fuzzier.
I believe that a chair is more like an emergent pattern, an emergent feature. It's a bit like a whirpool in a current of water or a vortex in the air. Their status as 'entities' is questionable. There is an appearance of a separately existent entity, but not a true entity.

Our minds certainly pre-reflexively seem to percieve discrete objects even when there aren't. It certainly helps us to navigate in an otherwise chaotic world, but we shouldn't take everything literally.

But what about living beings? In this case, it would seem that they are, indeed, individual entities. After all, as I said in another post, they behave as wholes, they strive for self-preservation etc. So, maybe, in their cases their 'distinctivness' isn't a perceptual, but convenient mistake.

And yet, we can never know what that world is in itself, only how it appears under the conditions of our sensibility and understanding. So paradoxically, even the idea of ‘what is independent of mind’ is an idea we arrive at only through thinking about it. That's why he makes the paradoxical remark, 'take away the thinking subject, and the whole world must vanish'. — Wayfarer

I do see this more as an aporia. How we can establish what is 'mind-dependent' from what is 'mind-independent' in the more 'deep' sense, if our knowledge is of course given by a particular cognitive perspective?

Furthermore, when I asked to noAxioms "how does your house look irrespective of any perspective?" that question was a way to ponder about the possibility to make descriptions independent for any perspective ? (although in that post 'perspective' had a different meaning that in this post, I believe the question is pertinent)


BTW, Good Easter to everybody.

And to you!

I do see this more as an aporia. — boundless

Or an antinomy of reason. I thought of a philosophical joke:

Q: What’s the difference between an aporia and an antinomy?

A: It’s a conundrum ;-)

Right.

Very nice joke! :lol:

A mind independent world is precisely that old mischief of a "true world," vs. the reality of the apparent world rearing its ugly head yet again. The "true world," is actually the make-believe, whereas the real apparent world is the one we live in. The "true world," the one that adheres to all our systems, is merely a world that reality doesn't give a damn about. Nature is indifferent to that world, and thus No, you can not have a mind independent world. That's what Heaven is.

In my understanding, a physical language per se is purely a communication protocol for coordinating human actions, that is to say physical languages per-se do not transmit information about the world from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener. — sime

Then what actions are you attempting to coordinate with this assertion? It appears to me that you are attempting to inform others something about the world - about the nature of physical language.

The problem with Kant is that people who don't understand him say that the problem is his. — tim wood

Well, yeah. That could be possible. It is also possible that the problem is theirs. How do we find out who has the problem if not by getting at language as a thing in itself - the scribbles on the screen as the things in themselves?

What is so strange are these philosophers that cast doubt on our understanding of things in themselves yet fail to make the same case for people, their minds and their actions (language-use), when they are accessed by the same apparatus that we access everything else. It's no different than how physicists have ignored having to account for consciousness in the grand-scheme of things, as if minds either do not exist, are an illusion, or not susceptible to the same laws or rules that govern everything else.

Solipsism logically follows from doubting the existence of things in the external world, including other minds, because they are all apprehended by our senses and reason in the same way.

And here's spoor of the confusion: "had no knowledge of modern atomic theory and quantum mechanics." Knowledge of what, exactly? — tim wood

The study of atomic structures, the calculus of QM and its predictive power as well as the conflicting interpretations of QM and the current problem of trying to reconcile the quantum with the macro.

The point is that Kant is a product of his time and times have changed.

Would Kant have said the same things if he were alive today?

Kant was concerned with knowledge. His arguments are toward both what we know and how we know it. You, e.g., speak of knowledge of quantum mechanics. Richard Feynman famously wrote that no one understood QM. Assuming him correct, how can you have knowledge about what is not understood? But that's just half the problem. Is yours knowledge of a theory, or of the thing itself? — tim wood

What Feynman meant was that we do not have an adequate interpretation of the calculus of QM and why it is so useful at making predictions.

Is a theory a thing in itself? Is knowledge a thing in itself? Are scribbles on the page things in themselves? Are minds things in themselves?

I agree with Kant that knowledge is an amalgam of experience and reason. Beliefs would be having just one or the other. Knowledge as justified belief is reasoning justified by observations or observations justified by reason. For instance, religions typically try to explain experience (the existence of the universe, suffering, etc.) without reasoning (many arguments made are illogical and contradictory). Logic independent of confirmation by observation would be hypotheses unconfirmed by observation.

I would go further to say that logic is symbolic relations - symbols which require the senses to perceive. All thoughts are composed of empirical data - visuals, sounds, etc. If not, then what are you thoughts composed of if not shaped colors, sounds, etc.? How would you know you are even thinking at any given moment? What are you pointing to when you assert that you are thinking, if not the various sensory data and the relationship between them in your mind?

Living beings, even the simplest ones, behave quite differently from non-living things. They demarcate the 'outer' and the 'inner' space, they have a metabolism, they strive for self-preservation and so on.
So, I would say that in their case, it seems reasonable to assert that they are distinct entities (instead of, say, distinct patterns, emergent features or whatever). — boundless

Every thing behaves differently than other things. This does not make living beings special. We are merely talking about degrees of complexity, or causes, of some behavior of some thing. There is an "inner" and "outer" to everything. Open an box to see what is inside. Peel an orange to get at what is inside. Open a skull, and well you get at what is inside - a brain, not a mind. It would seem to me that you, as a living being, would subjectively think of yourself as special, which is a projection of your self-preservation.

Is this true in all cases, though? I don't think so. In the case of living beings as I said before, it seems that we can treat them as individual entities. — boundless

Yes, it is true in all cases that whether we treat organisms as individuals or parts of a larger group, it depends on our goals. This can be said of individual atoms of individual molecules of individual cells of individual organs of individual organisms of individual species, of individual genus and families, of individual planets, star systems, galaxies and universes.[

quote="boundless;983469"]In the case of a chair, we can of course distinguish it from a table. But maybe they aren't distinct entities as much distinct emergent features that appear to be distinct entities. But is this true for all non-living things (at least if they are composite)? I'm not sure. But I do believe that it is more difficult for inanimate objects to have a level of differentiation from the environment to be considered separately existing things.[/quote]
Can you distinguish a chair from the class, "furniture"? No, because it is a type of furniture. Change your goals and you change which information is relevant at any given moment.

Organisms are composed of organs, which are composed of cells. Are cells living things? Organisms evolve based on changes in the environment (natural selection). Organisms are even participants in the selective process of other organisms (prey vs predator).

Anyway, as an aside, probably the main reason why Albert Einstein was dissatisfied by QM (even by the realistic non-local interpetations like de Broglie-Bohm interpretation) is that the non-locality in QM to him meant that the division of the world into sub-systems (i.e. distinct physical objects) become arbitrary. — boundless

This seems to coincide exactly with what I am saying. Any individual entity or system it is part of is dependent upon arbitrary goals in the mind. One simply changes one's view by either looking through a telescope or microscope, or by changing one's position relative to the object being talking about. When on the surface of the Earth, you are part of it. You are part of the environment of the Earth and actively participate in it. Move yourself out into space and the Earth becomes an individual entity because you cannot perceive all the small parts and processes happening. They are all merged together into an individual entity, but only if you ignore that the Earth is itself influenced by the Sun and the Moon. The question is, which view is relevant to the current goal in your mind?

Well, I believe that some properties we assign to 'external objects' are not mind-independent even in this sense. I am thinking about colours, sounds, smells etc in the way we percieve them. — boundless

I think they do capture mind-independent information though. When you see red, it is generally related to actual structure in the world that is being communicated to. Same with sound or smell, albeit there is probably a lot of nuance. And if toy think about it, all I see is color, or "shades" so in some ways I think color an't be any more remarkable subjectivity-wise than anything else we see. Its more difficult to articulate a deacription about color though, which I think may be part of why it often gets special attention philosophically as a kind of paradigmatic example of qualia.

Sorry for these large posts, but it's the only way I can keep track of which posts not yet replied to. I tend not to reply to posts prior to my most recent one.

In my understanding, a physical language per se is purely a communication protocol for coordinating human actions, that is to say physical languages per-se do not transmit information about the world from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener. — sime

So saying that the moon causes tides is not an example of physical language then.
This whole topic must use common language then.

Physical languages are de-dicto not phenomenological; otherwise their meaning would become relativized to the thoughts and judgements of a particular speaker which would hinder their ability to function as universal protocols.

They are relativized becasue one speaker might intend different meaning than another for a specific word. This is not true of computer languages, which allows (almost) no ambiguity. You speak of physical language as distinct from common language, and perhaps my assessment is only true of the latter.

That opinion , while apodeitically certain — Mww

Only in a relational sense, and the opinion wasn't worded as a relation, so I very much question it.
You cite LNC in defending this. How is the apple not having objective existence contradictory?

its negation is a contradiction, re: what I see is not what exists, or, what I see does not exist

Or 'what I see is only part of what exists'. None of those are contradictory without some assumptions in need of explicit identification.

That opinion [...] has to do with existence itself, without regard for whether such existence is mind-independent.

If the list of what exists is confined to that which is perceived, then it is perception dependent. To say 'what I see exists' is fine, but to say 'only what I see exists' is another story. Which is why I ask where the line is drawn between existing things and not.

I don't understand what that has to do with anything — flannel jesus

See just above.

And that’s pretty easy…..just close my eyes — Mww

Only some extreme forms of idealism support things going out of existence when out of sight. I'm not talking about actual sight, but any form of measurement at any time, not just 'in view by me, now', which is both solipsistic and presentist, neither of which is relevant to the topic.

The problem I see in RQM is that it doesn't seem to have a 'unifying' ground for these perspectives. Each physical object defines its own perspective and there is nothing in the theory that is assumed to be beyond that. — boundless

Funny, but I find that to be the solving of a problem, not the creating of a problem.

To say that there is nothing outside these perspectives is, in fact, inconsistent with the RQM claim that the world can be described only by assuming a certain perpsective. In other words, one of my problem with RQM is that it seems to make a claim that goes against its own epistemology.

It has epistemology? The view doesn't assign meaning to there being something sans relation, so saying "there is nothing outside these perspectives" is not meaningful.

Regarding MWI, it is in fact more consistent on this than RQM IMO.

Correct. It says what is, and maybe what isn't. It kind of says that everything is, or at least everything QM, which begs the question, why just that?

There is the universal wavefunction which is the unifying element (and in a sense the only real 'physical entity'). — boundless

There could be other entities. Calling them 'physical' might be assigning a property meaningful only to our structure.

I think that Heisenberg himself actually had an ontic interpretation of Copenaghen. At least, he talks a lot about interpreting the collapse as a way to actualize potentialities. And yes the act of observation 'actualizes' these potentialities. Not sure how this isn't a causal explanation of the collapse and how can it be interpreted epistemically. — boundless

Agree, that sounds like an ontic assertion on said interpretation. I certainly don't know my history enough to suggest who posited what back then. You seem to be more informed of the opinions of these pioneers.

The entire spacetime cannot be foliated in a unique way. — boundless

Not in any way at all. It can under SR, but not GR.

But still, the world we see with its frame-dependent values of physical quantities is perspectival, frame-dependent, yes?

No. What we see is physical and thus frame independent. A frame is but an abstraction after all. A location or a speed are not physical quantities, but abtract ones, so those are frame dependent. So my perspective doesn't change just because I happen to choose a different one, something I do effortlessly from moment to moment, from one context to another.

And I am not sure that reference frames are 'just' coordinate systems. — boundless

Under an absolutist theory, they're not. One coordinate system is the correct one, and the rest are simply wrong. It ceases to be an abstraction as it is under relativity.

For instance, it can be a way of trying to describe "how the world would look like to an observer in such and such situation".

A different perspective, so yes, a different way it looks. That would be frame independent.

To make a trivial example. Let's say that Alice is in a train that moves at constant velocity and Bob sees her from the station. The velocities that are relative to the 'reference frame at rest with the train' are actually the velocities that Alice would observe.

Yes, and if Alice changed her frame choice to that of the platform, she'd still observe nothing different, but she'd compute something different. Your opinion is otherwise, and I'm fine with that. You interpret the words differently than do I.

My point is more like asking: how your house look irrespective of any perspective?

I can show a floor plan, which is sort of a view without a perspective.

Most of this discussion is getting off topic, going on about frame dependency instead of mind-dependency of ontology.

But you are only aware of me in the same way you are aware of anything. I don't understand how you can question the nature of everything except other people when you access the nature of people the same way you access the nature of everything else. I mean, I could be a bot. Others could be p-zombies or androids, or aliens in disguise. — Harry Hindu

So what? I presume we share the same ontology, but none of that matters to the question of 1) what that ontology is, and 2) what else (unperceived) also shared that ontology.
'What you are' is irrelevant to the question at hand 'what all is?'.

So the question doesn't seem to be "DO they exist" rather "HOW do they exist". Are they ideas, physical, information, process, relationships, or what?

That's actually different than what I asked, but well put. I didn't see anything on that list that implied objective. 'Physical' is not much different than 'is part of this universe', but the word 'physical' probably can be used in other contexts.

The issue now is what measured the first system to get it all going — Harry Hindu

No, the subsequent states do the measuring. Nothing needs to be 'got going'. That's one of the advantages of the view is that it doesn't demand anything objective. Yea, it's measurements all the way down (and not up).

Is this different than saying it is information

Different than saying it, yes. Does not imply that it isn't all just information.

Is measuring a process? — Harry Hindu

I could spin it both ways. System state Y (a 'beable' if you want the term used for an event with extension) is a function of prior state X, which means that Y has measured X and X exists relative to Y. There is definitely a causal relationship between the two and evolution of system states is a process. The intervening states are therefore a process and the 'measuring' involves those processes. But Y is a state and isn't doing anything at all, so Y isn't 'measuring' or doing any other process. It's just in a state of having measured X.

But surely this is nothing to do with the reality outside our heads which is mind-independent — Apustimelogist

Who are we all talking to if not something independent of our minds? — Fire Ologist

I'm not questioning that. I'm questioning what is typically on our list of what exists and what doesn't. I'm not asking if the reality is mind-independent, but if our choice of ontology is one of mind independence.
I'm presuming the part of realism that says that the ontology of the apple isn't altered by any absence of perception. But my topic is about assertions of other worlds not existing because they're not perceived.

So what's the cause? — tim wood

There is no 'the cause'.

To say there are many is to say that no one of them is a cause.

Wrong. It's to say that no one of them is the cause.

So sacrificing an ox controls, say, flooding or typhoons or earthquakes?

Influences, which is in no way control, despite claims to the contrary.

Let's retry this: "cause" is an abstract concept used by an observer to account for an apparent connection between two events. Being the free invention of the observer, there can be no real connection between the cause and the events referenced. — tim wood

That's like saying that because I have a concept of you, if follows that you don't exist. Non sequitur. Yes, we have a concept of cause, and it very much might correspond to real connections between states. Such is the assumption of pretty much any non-idealist.

I have personally never understood the fascination with this topic. I has never bothered me that extremely unlikely things can happen. — Apustimelogist

Roll a 10000 dice. Any outcome that comes up is just as extremely unlikely as the next. So no, that's not the problem. The problem is that it came up 6's on all dice, first try. That is a problem. Not being bothered by it is the choice made by most, but that doesn't make it a problem not in need of solving if one wants a valid answer to 'why is reality like this?'.

That we notate something as existing depends on a mind to do the notation. With the weak anthropic principle, this means that worlds conducive to minds are liable to be notated, and worlds not conducive will not be notated. — hypericin

Agree to all, and I suggested something along these lines in my OP. Saying something exists (even saying it exists in a mind-independent way) is a notation being made by a mind.

But this doesn't have a logical connection to mind independent reality, itself. Both types of worlds may exist independently of minds, regardless of the fact that only one may be so notated.

No argument. Would you go so far as to say that there is no correspondence at all between the notation and the actuality of the situation?

For [Kant], the mind-independent world is not an observable object, but a regulative idea — a necessary conceptual limit. It’s not something we experience, but something we must presuppose in order to make experience coherent. The notion of a world ‘in itself,’ existing independently of all observation, is not something we encounter — it’s something we must presuppose in order to have coherent experience at all. — Wayfarer

But we're talking a realist view here where there are actually things in themselves, and not just ideas of them. You speak only of ideas, concepts, suppositions, notions.

The notion of a world ‘in itself,’ existing independently of all observation, is not something we encounter — it’s something we must presuppose in order to have coherent experience at all. — Wayfarer

Are we talking about an observerless world now, or just this world, but absent any observation? Sure, we don't encounter it, but for the reasons in the OP, we must posit them anyway, and for the reason you give: to make experience coherent.

So paradoxically, even the idea of ‘what is independent of mind’ is an idea we arrive at only through thinking about it.

I find no paradox in that at all.

Scientific realism tends to treat what is “really there” as that which exists independently of any observer — that is, what would still be the case even if no minds were around to perceive or theorize about it.

Yes, that's a pragmatic assumption that allows the science to work. But science knows at least enough to extend that treatment to far more than this world. On the other hand, it has no requirement to extend the treatment to things that are in no way related to our world.

And for all Einstein's impassioned polemic, the experiments which validated 'spooky action at a distance', and which were the basis for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, undermine the premises of scientific realism.

Spooky action has never been demonstrated. That prize was for showing the universe to not be locally real, but you're presuming it to show that the universe is not local.
BTW, Bell showed exactly that 60 years prior, and this latest effort was just better resolution, and for refinement of some very useful techniques.

Entaglement is very much used for secure communications, but no spooky action is ever utilized. No messages or assurances of security are received at superluminal speeds.

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Roll a 10000 dice. Any outcome that comes up is just as extremely unlikely as the next. So no, that's not the problem. The problem is that it came up 6's on all dice, first try. That is a problem. Not being bothered by it is the choice made by most, but that doesn't make it a problem not in need of solving if one wants a valid answer to 'why is reality like this?'. — noAxioms

But this is part of my point. Like you've started using analogies like this when it isn't really clear if this is even a fitting analogy because we just don't know enough.

And even then, I still don't think the analogy is necessarily saying much. The fact that 6's came on all dice came up first try doesn't necessarily warrant an explanation because its perfectly possible.

You can keep asking 'why, why, why... ' but these aren't interesting questions unless there is a kind of reasonable potentiality of an intelligible solution. You may ask why anything exists at all... clearly an example of a question where at least with what we know now does not have a reasonable, even conceovable solution.

I think some people are sometimes too eager to make everything fit into a neat box right this moment. To me, trying to answer these kinds of ultimate questions is just very premature.

Spooky action has never been demonstrated. — noAxioms

I do understand that there's no 'action' as such, like a force that operates between the two particles. 'Spooky action at a distance' was, however, Einstein's expression.

So paradoxically, even the idea of ‘what is independent of mind’ is an idea we arrive at only through thinking about it.

I find no paradox in that at all. — noAxioms

Yes, I have to remind myself that you're not defending scientific realism.

No argument. Would you go so far as to say that there is no correspondence at all between the notation and the actuality of the situation? — noAxioms

I think that goes too far. Minds are adept at formulating concepts, and matching instances to these concepts. For something to be notated a member instance of a concept biases toward the fact that the thing does indeed match the concept. And while the relationship between concept and reality is not simple, it similarly goes too far to say there is no relationship at all.

We appear to have two (at least) genera of cause in play.

1) Conceptual causes (CC), the invention by an observer that you think might correspond to an actual cause,
2) Actual causes (AC): in this case being the something that causes some change in some system. — tim wood

A cause does not necessarily cause a change. I mean, hairspray is intended to cause a hairdo to not change as much. I also don't like using a word in its own definition/description. I might hazzard: "AC is something that has influence over the effect state", but we seem to be using different definitions.

I've been wording it as "effect state is a function of the cause-state" which seems to be the same thing. Whether a mind is aware of this relationship between these two system states or not seems irrelevant.
Humans want more direct correlation: They want to answer "How do I cause the weather to be what I intend" rather than "How do I cause the weather", the latter of which has a trivial answer: Impossible not to if you're old enough to not still be in the womb.

Of AC, on my understanding of the term, butone only, the without-which-not of the supposed event.

Hard to parse that, but you seem to say that a cause is something necessary for the effect state to be. That is not too far from the way I worded it. You also seem to indicate "one only" (my bold), which perhaps indicates that only one factor meets this definition. I certainly cannot agree with that, yet you seem to rely on this assertion when attempting to demonstrate that ACs don't exist.
I'm not sure why this distinction is important. Is not everything in our universe part of a causal network? Can you name one thing that isn't? Something supernatural perhaps, but even something like an epiphenomenal mind is affected by the universe, even it it cannot cause anything. It meets the criteria of the Eleatic principle, but not of the relational definition.
How about luminiferous aether? That seems to be a valid physical example.

I do understand that there's no 'action' as such, like a force that operates between the two particles. 'Spooky action at a distance' was, however, Einstein's expression. — Wayfarer

I don't think Einstein had yet abandoned counterfactuals at that point yet, so FTL action was the only alternative, and it defied the premises of special relativity. So yea, he described it in those terms.
It's too bad that he wasn't around for some of the more modern interpretations. I wonder what he'd say to something radical like MWI, radical at the time, accepted by some only decades later. But Einstein liked simplicity and symmetry, and MWI certainly is those.

But this is part of my point. Like you've started using analogies like this when it isn't really clear if this is even a fitting analogy because we just don't know enough. — Apustimelogist

We do know enough that it is on the order of many thousands of dice. It being possible is not the same as it being plausible.

these aren't interesting questions unless there is a kind of reasonable potentiality of an intelligible solution.

There is an intelligible solution. Read the OP.

You may ask why anything exists at all... clearly an example of a question where at least with what we know now does not have a reasonable, even conceovable solution.

There is a solution... but the solution has its own problems, and some of those are just as bad. I don't claim to have an answer here. I have weird ideas, but I know that there are holes in them just like the holes I see in the typically held views.

Minds are adept at formulating concepts, and matching instances to these concepts. — hypericin

Agree, but a more rational approach would be to match concepts to evidence instead of the other way around.

And while the relationship between concept and reality is not simple, it similarly goes too far to say there is no relationship at all.

In this case I will also agree, but my suspicions in this case are that while there is some correspondence, there's not a lot of it.