you said there's no laws, only regression to the mean,
— flannel jesus

This is what you said that I said. But it isn't what I said. I am not so dogmatic. — unenlightened

Nature does not conform to Laws.
Nature does whatever the fuck she wants, and laws have to learn to conform to her, if they know what's good for them. — unenlightened

is there a reason they average out, by chance,
— flannel jesus

I think it's called "regression to the mean". — unenlightened

Perhaps I'm misreading your words, I feel like they leave a lot of room for interpretation there.

I think a lot of it is bloviating for sure. I think the foundations for the philosophy of science are probably pretty important. Good epistemology can't be overrated.

I'm in the mood for getting more specific: you said there's no laws, only regression to the mean, but you haven't given any indication of where this 'mean' comes from in the first place. As it turns out, it doesn't come from nowhere. It's pretty well defined.

In quantum mechanics, things are indeed stochastic, and measurement results when taken in aggregate can be described as 'regressing to the mean', so the question I asked is, *what mean*? And in QM, the answer is, "the mean as described by the wave function". If the wave function of a quantum system gives us a probabilistic spread of possible measurements, then the "mean" being regressed to is the mean of that probabilistic spread.

And the wave function, in QM, it turns out is governed over time by the Schrodinger Equation - that equation defines how wave functions evolve over time.

So I think you're absolutely right in an important way, that we observer regularities because of a regression to the mean. I think you're stopping short when you don't ask yourself the question, "where does that mean come from? The mean as defined by what?"

So now we know where the mean comes from - the Schrodinger Equation, which evolves the wave function deterministically over time - what we have is something people might metaphorically refer to as a "law". However, this time it's not a law that's defining a singular behavior, it's a law defining statistical behavior, probability distributions. But a law nonetheless.

So even if the regularities we see are due to regression to the mean, when we look deeper into what that actually means, it looks like "laws" are still a pretty good metaphor.

So, the question here is, when I refer to the Schrodinger Equation as a law, am I making an ontological statement or just a statement about my model of the world? And I think my answer is, a little bit of both. It might be that hte Schrodinger equatiation and/or the wave functions are ontological, OR it may be that they're a model we have of something, and maybe our model is maybe a bit off, and maybe there's some other ontological reason why it seems like wave functions are obeying the schrodinger equation with remarkable consistnecy -- and it just turns out that hte schrodinger equation is a really good approximation of that ontological reason, or an approximation of a high-level consequence of the ontological reason.

But it would seem to me that, even if we're a little bit wrong, there's still *some underlying reason*. And I call that underlying reason a law.

Why does the skeptic tap on his door but not yours?

I don't have a problem with anything. I'm just curious about how you deal with these situations. You previously said "Nature does not conform to Laws." Ok, that's fine, so where do these super-consistent behaviors come from?

Something that follows no laws whatsoever, it would seem to me, wouldn't have any regular repeating patterns. So there must be *some reason*, from your point of view, why our world is so full of reliably repeating patterns. If nature does not conform to laws, then why can physicists predict with remarkable accuracy how long it will take a ball to hit the ground? What's the background process behind that, that doesn't involve laws in nature?

You say 'regression to the mean' but that's super general. Why should 'regression to the mean' mean balls fall down in that particular way and not some entirely different way? Or fall down in any particular way at all? Or stay coherent long enough for a person to recognize it as the ball? Regression to *what* mean? There must be some reason why the mean is this and not that - what do you call "that reason" if not something like laws or rules or ... ?? What do you call the reason?

I guess we just mean different things when we say 'looking at'. That's ok by me.

I don't see why it needs to be metaphorical. What else would "looking at" mean if not what I said? What I said was not metaphorical at all.

I don't think there's any problem with an indirect realist saying "I'm looking at mars". That's just shorthand loosely for "My physical eyes are pointing in the direction of mars, and there's enough light from Mars hitting my retina that it's affecting my visual experience in a recognizable way, that I recognize as Mars". If that's what "looking at" means, roughly, then... it can be literal, right?

hmm to my understanding the Indirect Realist would say that they are looking at mars, but directly experiencing something that looks like mars — Ashriel

I would go as far as to say, things -as they are- don't "look like" anything. The idea that our visual experience of looking at something could be, somehow, experienceing the thing -as it is- seems absurd to me. The amount of things our brains do in constructing our entire visual experience that are completely arbitrary is honestly pretty huge. And the difference in perception between one person and another person, or one species and another species, makes it hard for me to understand how they can both be experiencing that thing -as it is- when they're having drastically different experiences from each other.

Think about the experience you have when you go into a room full of shit - think about what that smells like to you. Now think about what that might smell like to a fly. If your smell is experiencing that shit -as it is-, how can you say that the fly is also experiencing the shit -as it is-?

In reality, things don't "smell like" anything, or "look like" anything. Imo.

So are those pieces of matter, molecules, attractive force -- is all that due to something you might describe as 'rules' or 'laws'?

Like, why is there attractive force between masses instead of repellant forces? Is that related to any of this matter following "rules" of some kind?

cool cool

Does that place representationalism among direct-realist ideas or indirect?

Indirect Realism is not any more skeptical realism than Direct Realism is. I address this in the OP itself.

And Indirect Realism is a form of Representationism. I hold that what we see corresponds to the external world. Just that what we see is not the external world. — Ashriel

For what it's worth, I think your take here is completely reasonable. What we experience, when it comes to sensory experience, corresponds to the external world, but is not just "the external world as it really is".

I think it's really interesting that Representationalism is claimed by both direct and indirect realists in various contexts.

And how does regression to the mean produce balls falllng from towers with incredible consistency?

I'll quote myself, because I'm really curious about your thoughts on this:

Like if I drop a ball from a tower, and I time how long it takes to hit the floor, over and over again, and I keep recording the same time within a very small margin of error over and over again - how do you conceptualise the reason for this consistency? Is there something in reality, independent of human ideas, which underlies this consistency?

is there a reason they average out, by chance, to look super consistent in certain realms of inquiry?

Like if I drop a ball from a tower, and I time how long it takes to hit the floor, over and over again, and I keep recording the same time within a very small margin of error over and over again - how do you conceptualise the reason for this consistency? Is there something in reality, independent if human ideas, which underlies this consistency?

are there regularities in nature or are we only imposing them — Pez

What's your opinion?

Or is it more conceivable that electrons and protons don't actually have such properties, and are just following laws? — wonderer1

What's the difference between them having those properties, and them following laws that produce those properties? They seem like just different phrasings of the same thing to me.

Is it the difference between those laws being internally defined Vs externally defined?

Why? Perhaps you're taking the word "law" too literally - is it inconceivable that pieces of reality do what they do as consistently as they do them because those pieces of reality are defined by algorithms which decide their behaviour?

Eg 2 hydrogen atoms consistently bond with 1 oxygen atom when they can because the stuff that makes these atoms up is defined, at it's very core, to behave in a particular way?

If you treat the word "law" as metaphorical, it seems like it gets a lot more conceivable

No one else has done better. *shrug* I guess people think that perception, which is physically indirect, is direct in discussion. Seems like this may be a dead end on TPF. — AmadeusD

That shouldn't be a surprise. All topics are dead ends on every philosophy forum. Even topics that ARE settled among experts, so doubly so for topics that aren't settled.

Okay, so if there's no consensus that direct realism is true, then it's not ignorant of someone to reject direct realism it seems to me. It feels like that's the tone of some of your previous posts: this is a settled issue, direct realism won, there's nothing else to talk about. But it's not exactly settled like that, and so any of us plebs who haven't read as many jargon-filled academic papers as you can still reject direct realism without being spoken down to.

If it was a settled issue, I might feel differently.

For those who are relatively new to the forums, there is a thread on this topic about every three or four months, and they generally go for two or three dozen pages. They consist in the main in some folk expressing pop accounts of indirect realism while others with a background in Philosophy point out the many flaws in those pop arguments, only to be informed repeatedly that they "have not understood the argument". — Banno

This entire post gives this air of being above the conversation, because the answers are all there and you've read deeply into enough to know what the clearly true answers are. Which is fine, sometimes that's the case.

Do you believe most philosophers are direct realists? Would they say we experience reality as it is?

Do you believe most scientists are direct realists? Would they say we experience reality as it is?

Is there a general consensus among relevant experts? And do you think that consensus agrees with you? And do you have any strong evidence that the consensus agrees with you? Like a survey for example.

You've of course posted a link to a single article arguing for direct realism, but I would hazard a guess that there are also articles that are similarly well written, similarity well researched, arguing for indirect realism, so the ability to link to an academic article that agrees with you shouldn't just be the end of the story, is lowly posters in here shouldn't actually take that to mean "clearly this guy is right and we'd be stupid to disagree with him". We can both find experts that agree with us, so that's alone is clearly not satisfactory.

But if there were any kind of actual measured consensus, then the self assured tone would make a lot of sense. Expert consensus is meaningful to me - it doesn't mean the experts are right, but it does mean I'd take certain positions much more seriously than I would do if there were a consensus in the reverse direction.

So if you have any means of showing a consensus, I'm super interested in that, much more than I'm interested in your ability to produce individual articles that argue for your position.

you did not understand that exchange. Your edit to my question is nonsensical and not what I was asking at all.

you tell me, why are you bothering with it? The distinction is foolish, in your own words - nobody is forcing you to make this foolish distinction. You are free to ignore it

indirect realists are often non skeptical realists. Representationalism is treated as borderline synonymous with indirect realism by a hell of a lot of sources.

"This argument is interminable because folk fail to think about how they are using direct and indirect."

It's quite possible that you're disagreeing with indirect realists for this very reason - failing to understand what they mean by indirect.

you did ask, though -- and I answered — Moliere

My question was why do you think what you think about indirect realism, why do you reject it. You reject it because things you imagine indirect realists might say? And not what indirect realists do say?

You could quote indirect realists who talk about that, instead of being sarcastic and snarky. That might be more fruitful.

You can slip in as many layers of "reality" as you like in the notion to justify whatever you want, in spite of your senses. — Moliere

But just because you theorize that people CAN do that doesn't mean indirect realists DO do that. Why does it matter if someone can do this? Surely it matters what indirect realists actually say, and not wild things you've imagined they can say

The argument that dislodged me from my belief has already been alluded to. It's the infinite regress argument. Suppose that we're only indirectly aware of reality. If so then how are we aware of our perceptions? Aren't we a step away from those too? — Moliere

Interesting argument, thanks for making it explicit instead of just alluding to it.

I don't think indirect realists necessarily have a model of perception that is humunculous-like. I can kinda vaguely see what some might have the intuition that they do, but I don't think that's a required feature of being an indirect realist.

That's the question I ask the indirect realist! — Banno

Indirect realists don't really make claims about touching balls directly. The claims of indirect realists are about experience and perception. If that's what you ask, I suspect you're misunderstanding what indirect realists think.

but you still haven't said why. Why is it incoherent? What makes it incoherent?

you just said indirect realism doesn't hold up. I just want you to explain your own reasoning for saying that

Have you presented an argument about why? An argument that addresses what indirect realists actually say, rather than the thing about bodies touching other bodies.

I don't know what point you think I'm going to make. You've made a distinction, and you've said that the distinction is foolish. I'm pretty confused about this. If I think something is foolish, I generally try not to do that thing (admittedly, sometimes I fail)

I don't understand what you're trying to say here

If making a distinction is foolish, and you're making a distinction, then are you doing something foolish?

but the indirect/direct realist distinction is foolish — Moliere

You've said you disagree with indirect realism in this thread. It would seem to me that, in order to say that, you'd have to make a distinction, no?

I don't think I have any kinda unique view of what they say. I read what google has to say about it, I read what wikipedia has to say about it, what google and wikipedia say they say, I assume they say.

"Indirect realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework."

That's what google says. That doesn't make a claim about whether or not our physical bodies touch other physical bodies.

I interpret it as a statement about how we process sensory information - specifically, that our minds DO process sensory information, rather than our perceptions being just reality-as-it-is. Our perceptions go through a whole lot of processing in our minds to create this immersive experience full of sound and color and dark and light, smell, taste, pain, cold, hot - our experience is a product of our mind, that's what indirect realism is stating.

But what if the statement about minds and perception are the same as whether or not our physical bodies really physically touch other physical bodies? — Moliere

That's not the claim indirect realists are making. If that's what you're arguing against, you aren't arguing against indirect realism.

To be more explicit: Indirect realists do not say "our physical bodies do not really touch other physical bodies". If that's what you're arguing against, you're arguing against something that is not indrect realism.

I mean, I'm sure it's possible that SOME indirect realists say things like that, but that's not the central claim of indrect realism and you need not believe that to be an indirect realist.

This seems like just a massive misunderstanding of what indirect realism claims.

Indirect realism is about conscious experience and perception. What do you mean when you say 'touch the ball directly'? If you don't mean 'your mind touches the ball directly', then you're misunderstanding the point of indirect realism, because indirect realism is a statement about minds and perception, not a statement about whether or not our physical bodies really physically touch other physical bodies.

So then why are you saying that the quantum field is not an ontological concept? How would you know? It seems like you should just be entirely agnostic about it, if your position is that "the microworld is 'too small' for us to be able to construct an ontology that is adequate for us". That would justify the statement "I have no idea if quantum fields are ontological or not", not the statement "quantum fields are decidedly not ontological".

Quantum mechanical phenomena such as the “spooky action at a distance” indicate that at the lowest level, the world must be seen as a coherent field. The field is not an ontological concept — Wolfgang

I'm taking this to mean that in your mind, the field doesn't really exist, but is instead just an artifact of our models.

The ontological realness of these fields is certainly open to question, and there's no unanimous answer I think among the relevant experts, but it is a very serious idea that they ARE real, perhaps more fundamentally real than even the particles themselves, and many many experts are realists about this field. You may decide for yourself personally, if you like, that you don't think the fields have ontological existence, but you should still at least take the idea seriously and accept the reality they many experts think they are real.