Philosophy, Science & Reality

[beecee]

I should note Lawrence Krauss is not the only Universe from nothing model developer. He certainly popularized the theory but the Universe from nothing idea has been around prior to Krauss. I recall reading older variations.

Yup....Alex Filippenko was one, and I suspect many others......

 

https://www.astrosociety.org/publications/a-universe-from-nothing/

[tar]

Thread,

 

Do you think there is a different relationship between science and philosophy in terms of the reality of the situation, depending on the branch of science?

 

That is, if you are a material scientist, you are interested in stress and strain of materials and such for purposes of building a bridge that does not fall down. If you design and select your materials correctly the bridge REALLY does not fall down. The reality of your work and knowledge can be easily verified by reality...empirical feedback. "Is the bridge standing?" There is little argument over the reality of the answer.

 

In quantum physics, you get a little more philosophy leaking into the arena, where the way you look at it, will give you different answers, and different scientists in the field can favor different models, but basically the ideas and models can be checked against reality, where an experiment can be designed and the results can either favor keeping, adjusting, or discarding the model. Still a little flakey sometimes, as the mathematical models of probability are not, by their very nature absolute, but usually results yea, nay or undetermined or partially true can find a consensus vote.

 

But take a field like cosmology, where we are so insulated by immense space and incredibly long time periods, that the models can not be fully vetted. Here Professor Krauss can tell us what the universe must look like to a scientist 600 billion years from now...and we have absolutely no way to empirically check on the reality of his claims.

 

Regards, TAR

here I would propose that the philosophy to science ratio is directly proportional to the reality you are giving to the model

 

That is, is the empirical checking happening on paper and computer and in the imagination against the model, or is the empirical data coming directly from reality and is it the actual, real behavior of the people, place and things that is the focus of the exploration.

Edited June 23, 2017 by tar

[swansont]

To me, the person is by definition a scientist. We internalize the entire universe, in an analogous fashion, into a model of the universe constructed with the cells and synapses, connections and signals in our brains. There is not one of us, that knows better how to do this science, than any other or every other human that is so constructed, by nature.

 

Where Lawrence Krauss goes wrong, in my estimation, is when he thinks, or knows, that his model is superior to mine.

 

And that goes for SwansonT as well.

Then show that your model is valid.

 

That I am not privy to the meeting of professors at Oregon, does not ban me from being a scientist.

No, but you have to actually do science to be a scientist.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

but implications are important

 

We could half the population of the world in a short amount of time, solving population and hunger issues, by returning population levels to levels half a century ago, if light eaters each killed and pickled one heavy eater, to eat during the upcoming year, if everybody completed their task this afternoon.

 

Math is exact, but what the implications are is the REAL question.

 

What is standing for what? Is the speed of light taken as 1? In which case, you just took reality right out of the equation.

 

 

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

We could half the population of the world in a short amount of time, solving population and hunger issues, by returning population levels to levels half a century ago, if light eaters each killed and pickled one heavy eater, to eat during the upcoming year, if everybody completed their task this afternoon.

 

Will you throw yourself on that bonfire?

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

Huge diversion in which Tar seemed to challenge theory without background, aim, or reason has been broken off to speculations.

 

If we are discussing Philosophy then do so - using misrepresentations and shoddy understandings of current theory in an attempt to shed light on the philosophy of science is doomed; if you start your logical argument with an incorrect premise then all that follows is pretty worthless.

 

Please stick to the topic - and use examples you actually understand otherwise members will, unsurprisingly, take issue with the abuse of the theory rather than the point it was meant to illustrate

 

Do not respond to this moderation within the thread

 

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

Tar - which bit of the above mod-note did you not understand? Do not pollute this thread with your poorly understood ideas of cosmology. You will not be warned again

 

[Randolpin]

I have an idea that I think, a rational argument against solipsism. You see a chair, according to solipsism, you don't know whether it really exist or not or just an illusion. But you touch it and feel it. So it is confirmed that it really exist and not just an illusion. Your sense of sight is not lying because your sense of touch confirm it. Even if you are blind, obviously, you can still touch and feel the chair.

 

This is my argument against solipsism. You know that something apart from yourself, really exist. It doesn't depend on your senses. The chair still exist, even you don't have eyes to see it because you know it still exist thru your sense of touch. So, you can't say that yourself only exist and others are only illusion. You know that something exist apart from yourself because it is independent from your senses.Let me call it, sensory recognition approach argument (sraa).

Edited June 28, 2017 by Randolpin

[Klaynos]

The trivial counterargument is that the sense of touch is an illusion.

[Randolpin]

The trivial counterargument is that the sense of touch is an illusion.

Then it is not an illusion because your sense of sight confirms what you touch.

[tar]

Perhaps something makes "sense" when it is confirmed by more than one sense. Then it is true, in more than one way. Add peer review, and you have confirmation from someone else's senses. It then is confirmed as making sense because it all fits together in the waking world, and has its own, non illusion type reality, without ANY requirement that any particular individual thinks its true.

knock on wood

[Klaynos]

Then it is not an illusion because your sense of sight confirms what you touch.

Why can't they both be illusions? This is rather foolish.

[Strange]

Perhaps something makes "sense" when it is confirmed by more than one sense. Then it is true, in more than one way. Add peer review, and you have confirmation from someone else's senses.

 

But maybe that "other person" (and their confirmation) is an illusion as well.

 

Solipsism may seem to be a rather foolish idea but it can't be disproved and, as we can see from this discussion, it does have a role in teaching critical thinking.

[tar]

except the solipsist has the problem of determining the "real" population of reality

if it is only her that is real and all else, other than she is deemed by her, to be illusion, then the total number of entities that exist in reality is one

 

This can only be the case if such a wonderer is reality itself...in other words, it can only be the case if all that we are calling the waking world, or reality, is occurring in the mind of God and she, the solipsist, is God.

 

I don't think this is the case, nor would it provide any discussion points, since she would already know she was alone and had no one to talk to, or any entity to run into, that was not created in her own imagination.

 

I think it more reasonable to assume that reality exists and we each build our own model (image) of it, from what of it we sense.

now it is possible that God got lonely and invented the world, and we are each just a piece of her consciousness, and it is our job to be a single point of consciousness, pretending to be separate from her, in order to witness the rest as "something else"...but in that case, I would have to say she is a great illusionist, and we might as well just play along, being that the alternative is to tell her she IS alone

Edited June 28, 2017 by tar

[Strange]

except the solipsist has the problem of determining the "real" population of reality

if it is only her that is real and all else, other than she is deemed by her, to be illusion, then the total number of entities that exist in reality is one

 

This can only be the case if such a wonderer is reality itself...in other words, it can only be the case if all that we are calling the waking world, or reality, is occurring in the mind of God and she, the solipsist, is God.

 

 

Exactly. (Although I think it is a bit silly to use the word "god" to describe this.)

 

 

 

I don't think this is the case, nor would it provide any discussion points, since she would already know she was alone and had no one to talk to, or any entity to run into, that was not created in her own imagination.

 

And maybe that is why invoking god is a mistake. It doesn't matter whether an individual knows or beliefs they are the only thing in the universe, it is impossible to prove they are not.

 

You are saying that a god would know. But we aren't talking about god, we are talking about you or me.

 

Or you can say that "common sense" tells you that it is wrong. But that common sense could be (and, in reality, usually is) an illusion as well.

 

 

 

I think it more reasonable to assume that reality exists and we each build our own model (image) of it, from what of it we sense.

 

You can assume that. But there is no evidence for it. And no way of proving it.

 

That is all I am going to say on the matter. There is another forum where the discussion on the nature of reality has been (voluntarily) limited to one thread which has been going for what seems like a million years and it is just repeating the same arguments over and over.

[tar]

Strange,

 

Well all the proof that is required is for one person to "sense" another and for the other, at the same time to "sense" the one, and then for the two to compare models. If the "common" model has it that there is the one and there is the other and there is an entire universe common to and outside the both, then the one, the other and the rest, are real.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited June 28, 2017 by tar

[Strange]

Strange,

 

Well all the proof that is required is for one person to "sense" another and for the other, at the same time to "sense" the one, and then for the two to compare models. If the "common" model has it that there is the one and there is the other and there is an entire universe common to and outside the both, then the one, the other and the rest, are real.

 

 

Nope. Because the "other person" could be a creation of the first person's mind. (As indeed, could the first person.) So sensing them, and communicating with them to compare models could all happen in one persons mind.

[tar]

Could but not likely it happen that way in every case of a sensed human. That is, we each have our own model of the place, and that model is by definition imaginary or illusory and prone to error and differences, but in all cases of model building, the model is of something, and according to everything I have read, everything I have heard and everything I have seen, smelled, touched, tasted, and everything you and I have conversed about, the reality that science seeks to model is real and is something that we both have in common.

besides a person can not be a creation of his own mind, because he would need a real mind to be the creation of, in which case the mind in question exists

Edited June 28, 2017 by tar

[Randolpin]

Why can't they both be illusions? This is rather foolish.

 

 

Why they are both illusions?

 

The 2 senses agree with each other on sensing the same thing. If they are both illusions, one sense would contradict the other sense. But they both agree.

[Klaynos]

 

 

Why they are both illusions?

 

The 2 senses agree with each other on sensing the same thing. If they are both illusions, one sense would contradict the other sense. But they both agree.

You're setting artificial limits.

 

There is no reason other than your belief that both senses couldn't be both complying to the same illusion.

 

Not only is it only your belief but it's observably false as people who have hallucinations it often effects multiple senses.

 

This is incredibly frustrating.

[tar]

klaynos,

 

Well yes its frustrating, but you are setting artificial limits as well. For instance you believe it is true that people sometimes hallucinate something that effects multiple senses. If you were to give me an example of this, I would believe it too. We both make a distinction between what is real, and what is going on in our model of reality that is not accurate. That is we can both discern between what is peer reviewed, waking reality, and what is due to mental breakdowns, dreams, drugs, and common beliefs.

 

I for instance cried when the place that put my dog to sleep sent me a postcard about meeting Shady again, running across the field to greet me as I crossed the rainbow bridge.

 

I know there is no such bridge, in reality.

 

Regards, TAR

 

(yet I have real tears running down my face right now)

and you, Klaynos, know that there is not a rainbow bridge in reality, but you also know that I am real and I once had a real dog named shady, and that there is a vet that sends out cards about the rainbow bridge that can verify my story

you know its true, because it is true in more than one way

peer review is what we go to, to check we have not fooled ourself into believing what we wanted to believe

but we are already pretty sure the thing is real because it satisfied all our tests and senses and we already checked that it was true in more than one way

 

Peer review would be pointless if we did not believe that other scientists were real and could run the same checks that we ran and get the same results, because the thing we were modeling actually was out there to be tested against our model, for a match.

Edited July 1, 2017 by tar

[Klaynos]

I acknowledge it is a shared belief in this reality though. I do not claim it is absolute. That is an important acknowledgement in this discussion and one others in this thread refuse to understand. They think because they believe it or is true. Or at least that is the impression they're giving.

[dimreepr]

klaynos,

 

Well yes its frustrating, but you are setting artificial limits as well. For instance you believe it is true that people sometimes hallucinate something that effects multiple senses. If you were to give me an example of this, I would believe it too. We both make a distinction between what is real, and what is going on in our model of reality that is not accurate. That is we can both discern between what is peer reviewed, waking reality, and what is due to mental breakdowns, dreams, drugs, and common beliefs.

 

I for instance cried when the place that put my dog to sleep sent me a postcard about meeting Shady again, running across the field to greet me as I crossed the rainbow bridge.

 

I know there is no such bridge, in reality.

 

Regards, TAR

 

(yet I have real tears running down my face right now)

and you, Klaynos, know that there is not a rainbow bridge in reality, but you also know that I am real and I once had a real dog named shady, and that there is a vet that sends out cards about the rainbow bridge that can verify my story

you know its true, because it is true in more than one way

peer review is what we go to, to check we have not fooled ourself into believing what we wanted to believe

but we are already pretty sure the thing is real because it satisfied all our tests and senses and we already checked that it was true in more than one way

 

Peer review would be pointless if we did not believe that other scientists were real and could run the same checks that we ran and get the same results, because the thing we were modeling actually was out there to be tested against our model, for a match.

 

Are you suggesting hallucinations don't exist?

[tar]

Absolutely they exist.

 

And probably In more than one way. That is, while you are experiencing a "good" feeling, there is actually more dopamine in the synapses between the cells in your brain.

 

I have no doubt that Mohammed conversed with an unseen other in the darkness of the cave, because we actually have a region of our brains that allows us to converse with unseen others.

 

The same ability that allows us to pick up an extra thing at the market, because we know our significant other would like it, without making a cell phone call. Or to do a thing that would have pleased Grandma, even though she died 25 years ago.

 

But to Klaynos's "absolute" requirement. I think it is "good enough" to get consensus of your peers.

 

There is no more absolute judge available.

after all, any unseen other you conceive of, that does not exist in objective reality is by definition imaginary and therefore not absolute...at least another scientist, or a pastor is a real human being, that is not you, and therefore a member of objective reality

isn't it convenient that we can turn to objective reality and ask it what is real

[dimreepr]

But to Klaynos's "absolute" requirement.

 

It's not a requirement, it's an observation.

 

 

I think it is "good enough" to get consensus of your peers.

 

There is no more absolute judge available.

 

 

Peer review has no place, if you can't be sure they exist.

 

The point is there is no way to confirm solipsism isn't real.