Philosophy, Science & Reality

[tar]

beecee,

 

 

Seems the problem is you need a little bit of energy to get the thing started, and a little bit of energy is not nothing.

 

 

Regards, TAR

 

And if science is a systematic study of the structure and behavior of the place, based on empirical data and testable hypothesis, then matching the model to the place, and the place to the model seems to be the solid foundation of science. The speaker in your link seems to be more interested in proving his model is superior to all others, and he knows the ultimate truth. That does not seem a bit scientific to me. Rather more on the philosophical side, or maybe even political or self serving as an entertainer after laughter and applause. His conclusions and pronouncements are not testable.

Edited July 8, 2017 by tar

[beecee]

beecee,

 

 

Seems the problem is you need a little bit of energy to get the thing started, and a little bit of energy is not nothing.

 

 

Regards, TAR

Like I have said a few times now, perhaps one's definition of reality needs to be looked at.

 

 

And if science is a systematic study of the structure and behavior of the place, based on empirical data and testable hypothesis, then matching the model to the place, and the place to the model seems to be the solid foundation of science. The speaker in your link seems to be more interested in proving his model is superior to all others, and he knows the ultimate truth. That does not seem a bit scientific to me. Rather more on the philosophical side, or maybe even political or self serving as an entertainer after laughter and applause. His conclusions and pronouncements are not testable.

No they certainly are not as yet testable, and he openly says that as I did in the past.

The rest of your opinionated claims re Krauss, are wrong in my opinion....He is simply showing how invalid the ID argument is.

The fact is, his hypothetical model is somewhat supported in quantum mechanics, and much of that discipline does stand up to scrutiny.

He also has gained a few enemies of late with his rather critical and out spoken view on Philosophy today and its usefullness or lack of.

Edited July 8, 2017 by beecee

[tar]

beecee,

 

So, science ought not be used as a weapon.

 

 

My statement about the thing needing to have some energy to get started, was something I said after I read your links and watched Krauss' talk. You then say perhaps I need to review my consideration of how reality is. I just took what was being posited and read it back to show its inconsistencies. The review of how reality is, that is undertaken by philosophers and scientists, religious people and laymen and all combinations thereof, has to work out, has to add back, has to be true in more than one way. It does not have to fit Krauss' model or fit the ID person's model, the models of these two folks has to fit reality.

 

What too often is the problem in human interaction is the reality that a person needs to be right about the world. Its in our DNA to be right. I have a personal dopamine theory I am working on that has our pleasure reward system at the basis of consciousness, language, human motivation, politics, social interaction, politics, AND philosophy and Science. What I mean, is that our ability to know internally what is going on externally is basic to our survival on the planet as individuals and as a species. To that, as we evolved, EVERYTHING, that accrued to survival would be good to repeat. So something must have given us a reason to repeat actions that worked. Actions that were correct. Actions that aligned the internal model with the external reality. It would be "good" to know where the water hole was, so you could find it again. So my dopamine theory has our norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine complex developing to give us urges, needs and desires which we then were rewarded for, by fulfilling the need. We felt good, and we wanted to do it that way again. To this my theory says that anytime we win, or complete a task, or get something right, or get a joke, or find an answer, or match our model to reality, or reality to our model. we feel good, we feel right, we feel alive, we feel like we are winning. But it is not notably helpful to only feel right by showing the other person wrong.

 

There is a big grey area in this model building business where matching ones model to the other's model is crucial, but where the match between the model and the reality it is tasked to model, is lost in the sauce.

 

So it makes Dr. Krauss happy, makes him feel good to have a superior model. And indeed it is better to have a map of the area with the water hole marked then to get out your divining rod every time you are thirsty, but it is not important to tell the guy with the divining rod he has a goofy way to find the water, it is more workable if you show him the underground sonar depiction of the layout of the shelves and sediment underground that show where the underground water is liable to run and pool.

 

In an effort to prove ID people wrong, if you ignore reality and wallow in your own ultimate model, and ignore the mismatch between your model and reality, just to be right. just to feel good, just to feel your model of reality is superior to the other's, when you actually have no empirical data to back up your claim...you are not doing science, you are doing something else.

 

Now, I have nothing against the science that Dr, Krauss is teaching, the fact that the CMB is figured to be a view of the universe when it was 100,000 years old and such. But what that means, the implications of that, how that fits into my model of the place, and how that will enhance my enjoyment and survival, is pretty much up to me, not anybody else. While there is a need we all have to align our models with those we love, learning from those we trust, and sharing our discoveries with those we love, so that a consensus working, intricate, all encompassing model of the place can be built for us to then maneuver through and allow us to manipulate the place for our benefit, some of the dopamine we get for matching our model to objective reality has to do with matching the models of others and some has to do with directly matching with reality. But Dr. Krauss gets no dopamine from matching with the model of an ID person, or a religious person, or a biologist or a philosopher. He gets it all from when his model matches reality so securely that his mtodel lets him know how the universe will end. He gets his dopamine by matching, indeed, but he is ass-backward, cramming reality into his model, not allowing reality to inform his model and my model simultaneously, as would be the case, if the empirical data was noted and cataloged and a map of the place thusly drawn.

 

Regards, TAR

It is not important in science to prove someone else's model wrong. The important thing in science, and in your personal life is to determine were YOU have it wrong. Someone else cannot tell you this, because they do not have your model of the place, they only have their own.

I just reread and saw I put politics in twice. I did not edit it out. It seemed almost appropriate.

[dimreepr]

beecee,

 

So, science ought not be used as a weapon.

 

 

My statement about the thing needing to have some energy to get started, was something I said after I read your links and watched Krauss' talk. You then say perhaps I need to review my consideration of how reality is. I just took what was being posited and read it back to show its inconsistencies. The review of how reality is, that is undertaken by philosophers and scientists, religious people and laymen and all combinations thereof, has to work out, has to add back, has to be true in more than one way. It does not have to fit Krauss' model or fit the ID person's model, the models of these two folks has to fit reality.

 

It doesn't matter how often, or finely, you change the focus, you can never see reality.

 

 

There is a big grey area in this model building business where matching ones model to the other's model is crucial, but where the match between the model and the reality it is tasked to model, is lost in the sauce.

 

I don't understand, is that meant to mean, lost in space or lost in meaning?

Edited July 8, 2017 by dimreepr

[tar]

beecee,

 

like a piece of meat can get lost in the sauce

 

The important thing is in there, but it is obscured by the sauce.

 

 

 

It doesn't matter how often, or finely, you change the focus, you can never see reality.

 

I don't understand, is that meant to mean, lost in space or lost in meaning?

 

When you say "you" do you mean me or "one". Are you saying in general that a human can not ever see reality as it is, or are you saying that I am oblivious to the reality discovered by science?

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

When you say "you" do you mean me or "one". Are you saying in general that a human can not ever see reality as it is, or are you saying that I am oblivious to the reality discovered by science?

 

Regards, TAR

 

There you go again, you conflate the two sentences in order to twist the focus knob again.

 

It's obvious what I meant:

 

It doesn't matter how often, or finely, you change the focus, you can never see reality.

 

 

It's far far from obvious what you meant, in the sentence I quoted.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

I am lost. It is not obvious to me what you meant or I would not ask for clarification.

 

Is reality something I have direct access to, or can I only experience it through the understanding of your mathematical model?

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

Is reality something I have direct access to, or can I only experience it through the understanding of your mathematical model?

 

Again, you conflate:

 

Neither, reality is something you can only glimpse; look, it really doesn't matter how hard you, or I, want it to be true; a mathematical model can only ever be an approximation.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

I am not trying to conflate or prove anybody's model better or worse than anybody else's. I am trying to discuss the OP and determine if reality is something the average person has equal access to as the philosopher has or the scientist has. My change of focus, was to look at the situation from a human perspective, as that is the common factor that is obviously found between laymen, philosophers and scientists. All the former actually do agree on a common reality. The Earth, the Sun, the stars, the oceans the continents, the nations, the technological advances of our forefathers and mothers, everything that exists in the waking world. Hiroshima exists in the model of every person on the planet that has read about it, or heard about it. It is real. It is all real. The things that differ between folks, is what it all means to them.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited July 8, 2017 by tar

[dimreepr]

My change of focus, was to look at the situation from a human perspective, as that is the common factor that is obviously found between laymen, philosophers and scientists. All the former actually do agree on a common reality.

 

This thread would suggest otherwise.

[tar]

Well, here is where we should not throw the word "obviously" around haphazardly.

Edited July 8, 2017 by tar

[dimreepr]

Well, here is where we should not throw the word "obviously" around haphazardly.

 

Clearly...

[tar]

Sounds like a good topic for a seperate thread. How would one test if something is real or a simulation ?

 

If our universe was a simulation that would be our reality. So if our universe is a simulation. How could we possibly test gor it?

 

The only answer I can come up with would be based on our understandings of how programs work. Hence the repeatability test. Its the only possible method I can come up with.

 

Mordred,

 

You asked earlier that we attempt to address the OP question actually asked, which was which was a better methodology, regarding reality. I on purpose did not use a verb, like model, or understand, or recognize or whatever, because a verb would give away what ones conclusion is.

 

But on the objective reality vs. simulation question I have a few open points. One, you mentioned HUP and I missed what that stood for. Do you have a link? Or did you already provide it?

 

But regardless of whether one could identify the place as a computer program or not, it would necessitate that either the place itself is real, or the computer running the simulation is real. In either case, we have Dr. Sagan's argument, that you can just cut out the middle man and claim reality is real. Because if it is a simulation it is a real simulation on real equipment that some real someone has to be programming and maintaining...in other words, the question of actual or simulation does not get one any closer to any ultimate reality. That is, this one, is ultimate enough, close enough to reality, to go with, as real, with NO need for anything "greater". The place is pretty great on its own, without our mental models of it even coming close in greatness, to it.

 

In one of the links provided in the LIGO thread, there was a description of the expansion of the universe shown by overlaying a grid of dots with one separation over a grid of dots of another separation, and aligning any one dot, would provide the same picture "when looking at the situation from the outside".

 

In science, as in philosophy it is important to be able to see the thing under study from the outside. I have to define the entire set, in order to then look at the members of the set. I have to define the boundary conditions of my model before I can determine the interaction of the internal elements. There is, in both methodologies a requirement that you have a point of focus from which to operate. Same idea as human lenses focusing rays of light from all directions onto the back of the eye, in an upside down backward image of the place which is then brought to the brain by the optic nerves, providing an exact analogous image of the place. The place is real, the model is of the place.

 

"objective reality" is that thing you would experience, if you were observing the place in someone, or something else's shoes, with some set of "eyes" with defined capabilities

 

There are a lot of ways to do this. A lot of different thought experiments that could be run, except each and every plan, comes down to using our senses, or enhanced versions of our senses to capture the image of the world against which we will compare the model of the world we have built from previous sensory images. For instance we can see further, and see tiny stuff, and we can look at different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, but we are still in a "sense" seeing the place.

 

That there really are electromagnetic waves coming into any point on the surface of a lake, from everywhere, is really happening. The only way to simulate this reality would be to actually have a universe.

 

Regards, TAR

notice that a point of focus consciousness is at one place, at one time

 

same conditions required when looking at any model or any "case"

 

to do a transformation you need a point in each space, to overlay and consider "the" point of focus from which you can now see the comparison between the sets

science is formalized, structured thinking, based on empirical (sensed) evidence

Philosophy, as the OP points out, is not constrained by the senses, and can just think a thing through logically.

[dimreepr]

 

Mordred,

 

You asked earlier that we attempt to address the OP question actually asked, which was which was a better methodology, regarding reality. I on purpose did not use a verb, like model, or understand, or recognize or whatever, because a verb would give away what ones conclusion is.

 

But on the objective reality vs. simulation question I have a few open points. One, you mentioned HUP and I missed what that stood for. Do you have a link? Or did you already provide it?

 

But regardless of whether one could identify the place as a computer program or not, it would necessitate that either the place itself is real, or the computer running the simulation is real. In either case, we have Dr. Sagan's argument, that you can just cut out the middle man and CLAIM reality is real. Because if it is a simulation it is a real simulation on real equipment that some real someone has to be programming and maintaining...in other words, the question of actual or simulation does not get one any closer to any ultimate reality. That is, this one, is ultimate enough, close enough to reality, to go with, as real, with NO need for anything "greater". The place is pretty great on its own, without our mental models of it even coming close in greatness, to it.

 

You've missed the point of his, intention, using the word I've underlined.

Edited July 9, 2017 by dimreepr

[tar]

The following from the Wiki article on Kant's Categories

 

 

The table of judgments[edit]

Kant believed that the ability of the human understanding (German: Verstand, Greek: dianoia "διάνοια", Latin: ratio) to think about and know an object is the same as the making of a spoken or written judgment about an object. According to him, "Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."^[8] A judgment is the thought that a thing is known to have a certain quality or attribute. For example, the sentence "The rose is red" is a judgment. Kant created a table of the forms of such judgments as they relate to all objects in general.^[9]

Table of Judgements Category Judgements Quantity Universal Particular Singular Quality Affirmative Negative Infinite Relation Categorical Hypothetical Disjunctive Modality Problematical Assertoric Apodictic

This table of judgments was used by Kant as a model for the table of categories. Taken together, these twelvefold tables constitute the formal structure for Kant's architectonic conception of his philosophical system.^[10]

The table of categories[edit] Table of Categories Category Categories Quantity Unity Plurality Totality Quality Reality Negation Limitation Relation Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident) Causality and Dependence (cause and effect) Community (reciprocity) Modality Possibility Actuality Necessity

Mordred,

 

Philosophy would have it, that there are certain judgements we can make about reality ​ objects and certain things we can think or say about reality objects. Call it "claims" we make.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited July 9, 2017 by tar

[dimreepr]

"Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."

 

No, of course it's not,

 

"Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think assume."

 

 

FTFY

[Mordred]

HUP is the Heisenburg uncertainty principle.

 

In the virtual argument its categorized as complementary uncertainty in this arxiv.

 

There is a chart on how different measurements, physical laws have been in essence worded to support the VR reality hypothesis.

 

One primary distinction surprise surprise is our universe arises from nothing according to this paper.

 

Also a multiverse must exist for VR to be possible

 

 

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.0337&ved=0ahUKEwj50bycvfzUAhXo44MKHUzSBrw4ChAWCCswAg&usg=AFQjCNGChmNY9GJ5GU0fshkAL-6NuE4BsQ

 

As this is philosophy I am positive there is counter arguments to the arguments used in the paper

[dimreepr]

As this is philosophy I am positive there is counter arguments to the arguments used in the paper

 

I wouldn't want to go that deep; just deep enough, for understanding to occur.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

You did not fix it for me, you corrected Kant.

 

 

Regards, TAR

 

I would think that a scientist's request for a layman to understand the equation before passing judgement could be equally asked as a respectful requirement of someone who has read Critique of Pure Reason, for a person to read Kant, and understand his thinking, before carelessly professing an all encompassing methodology as "wrong".

 

Note that "reality" is one of the categories considered as things we can say about an object in general.

[dimreepr]

dimreepr,

 

You did not fix it for me, you corrected Kant.

 

 

Regards, TAR

 

I would think that a scientist's request for a layman to understand the equation before passing judgement could be equally asked as a respectful requirement of someone who has read Critique of Pure Reason, for a person to read Kant, and understand his thinking, before carelessly professing an all encompassing methodology as "wrong".

 

Note that "reality" is one of the categories considered as things we can say about an object in general.

 

Stop relying on others, think for yourself.

You did not fix it for me, you corrected Kant.

 

I doubt that, did you present it in the correct context?

 

Otherwise, you damn straight he was wrong.

[Mordred]

I have a personal definition of reality.

 

Some may not agree with it but it works for me.

 

Real can be defined as any measurable quantity or object that all observers can agree on. Invariant quantities. Variant quantities being examples of observer effects due to location etc.

 

That is about as far as I ever go to define reality. I leave the more abstract arguments to others 😎

Edited July 9, 2017 by Mordred

[swansont]

I have a personal definition of reality.

 

Some may not agree with it but it works for me.

 

Real can be defined as any measurable quantity or object that all observers can agree on. Invariant quantities. Variant quantities being examples of observer effects due to location etc.

 

That is about as far as I ever go to define reality. I leave the more abstract arguments to others

So the spin of an electron measured along a particular axis (the z-axis) is real. What is the spin measured along the x or y axis, since it is not real?

[Mordred]

Looks like that personal definition got busted. Ah well back to the drawing boards...

 

Didn't think of that scenario lol +1

 

Goes to prove, when you try to define something to account for all possibilities.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Mordred

[Itoero]

Reality concerns anything that's observable.

[swansont]

Reality concerns anything that's observable.

 

 

Not really helpful, IMO, considering that we've had several posts asking how you know what you've observed is actual reality. Either situation "concerns" reality, but the definition avoids addressing the problem.