On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 6:15:38 AM UTC, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 09:18:32PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
> > On 2/17/2014 8:58 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> > >On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 07:30:23PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
> > >>But there is a weaker form. However unlikely one thinks strings or
> > >>singularities or multiple-worlds are, one may still hypothesize that
> > >>there is *some* reality as the explanation for the intersubjective
> > >>agreement that is consistently observed.
> > >Sure - one may hypothesise so. But does it assist in any scientific
> > >experiment to do so? And is there any evidence to support the
> > >hypothesis, or is it simply like pre-classical physics - good enough
> > >to get the next meal.
> >
> > The same kind of evidence as for any scientific theory. It not only
> > assists, the repeatability of experiments by persons with different
> > minds tests it.
>
> I don't see why. It merely tests _inter_subjectivity, not
> objectivity. I cannot think of a single test of objectivity, off the
> top of my head.
>
There is probably a range of legitimate characterizations of tge principle
of repeatability in science and how repeatability contributes value to the
scientific process. And a few legitimate arguments against, perhaps too.
As such there is an easy to vary quality to many of these components of
method, as they have come to be known. Which undermines many components in
the eyes of scientists, and makes of them easy pickings for that ever
denser cloud of the vulture-Philosopher who then gets the boot in.
I hear a lot these days how this or that method doesn't deliver much and
isn't important. I actually remember the last time I heard or read anyone
do this, that didn't completely give them away for not having any knowledge
about the component to be making judgement calls in the first place,.
It's not policed the way standards are elsewhere. So people are free to
know little or nothing, and know that the know little or nothing, and issue
missives or quote philosopher misconceptions. And that's a behaviour bereft
of personal scientific integrity, because what it is, is basically
bullshitting.
What I would recommend you do, is understand that with few exceptions, no
part of the scientific method can be understood as the hard to vary
entities that they are, absent their root conception, which all or most of
them have, and that root is the way that the component came to be in
science.
You'll be surprised, because almost no component was consciously conceived
by a human being. Not at the start. No one ever wrote a paper in which
methods were conjectured up and everyone then bought in. The methods
emerged very much out of the background day to day realities, and as such
in a way people created and used methods, and those methods spread
everywhere, and yet no one had recognized this was going on. Even though
they were doing it. Many methods were already invented and common to all,
the very first time a human being said something like "that's a method".
So you've speaking of repeatability. At the dawn of science, the individual
that was fascinated by a particular vague question that no one else
understood or gave a damn about, might have been the only man in the
country who cared about that and realized it was important. Kindred souls
were precious to all the pioneers then and now. But the chances were the
nearest one was halfway across the continent and neither of you spoke a
common language though they probably usually did.
But we're talking the late 17th early 18th century here. Horses and
carriages if you were lucky. After that letters. But before letters people
needed to discover eachother. Initially it was just fluke, but networks
quickly formed. But the new thing that had never existed was this
fascination with observing things and finding ways to describe the parts of
interest. As these early geniuses began to isolate the puzzles, in most
cases it was actually easier - say in the twilight between the day of
alchemy and the birth of chemistry, it was actually easier to explain the
issue not directly in words alone because nothing was even defined to
support that sort of thing.
So people began to turn to observables and given a shared obsession, start
using the observables as communication enablers. Objects to symbolize. To
make the other person experience the same insight. It was the only clean
way it could be done. No one ever stood up on the platform and spoke across
all of pioneering science, and said a word like 'it's about observation' or
'it's about objectivity' or 'discovering nature'. Not in the early days. P#
All of it was discovered by other means. The proto-chemists were putting
years into identifying sequences that always happened when something
exploded or smelled bad. There was no way to communicate about that, so
they had embroil everything in the objective stuff, the common observables.
And this gave rise to new codes and codifications, and ways of technically
drawing, all the time bouncing back and forth in observables. The pioneers
that weren't doing that weren't communicating and knowledge was growing
real slow there. And the pioneers that were finding ways to rock solid
define in codifications and symbolism, precise sequences, and
initializations. And they began to fly. Networks expanded,. Each next
standardization surging them forward for opening up a whole new landscape
all over again.
Thus in a very real was born Science. And it's Method. Together.
Indivisible.
Repeatability still reinforces those standardizations, and those quality
standards. Those little attentions to detail still define reputations.
Those early beginnings are the common ancestors of all the innovations in
method that came next. All of which happened the same way, and grew out of
the developments that came before. It's a unique phenomenon.
> >>Certainly independent of any single mind. And the science
> >>formulated so far is independent of mind - which is why Liz supposed
> >>that the past existed before it was observed (and constitutes a
> >>block universe past).
> >Supposed, maybe, but certainly not evidence of it. Whose to say that
> >"our" past is not simply hewn out of the primordial Multiverse by our
> >observations, which progressively fix which world (and history) we
inhabit?
>
> Why "our" then; why not "my" and why not a brain is a vat? Why not
> nothing but a momentary dream? Some hypotheses are more fruitful
> than others, lead to more predictions, provide a more succinct model
> of the world.
>
Not sure what your point is here. It's our, because we're having this
conversation.
> >>>>The existence of
> >>>>some mind independent reality is always the working assumption.
> >>>>
> >>>Really? I don't think working scientists need to think about the issue
> >>>much at all.
> >>Because it's an assumption so common they only question it unusual
> >>experiments - like tests of psychics.
> >>
> >Assuming the assumption is common for the sake of argument, can you
> >think of a situation where that assumption has any bearing on the
> >experiment being performed?
>
> Sure. The experimenters don't try to think special thoughts about or
> during the experiment to influence the result - contrast prayer.
What does that have to do with whether there is an objective reality
or not?
It _is_ reasonable to assume that one's private thoughts will not
affect the experiment's outcome. But that is not the same as assuming
the phenomena is due to some objective reality.
>
> >
> >>>Whether they assume there is some kind of
> >>>mind-independent reality, or are outrageous solipsists would not
> >>>affect their ability to conduct experiments or do theory.
> >> One could still assume a mind-independent reality while assuming
> >>that one was the only mind. But they could not do either
> >>experiments or theory if they assumed the result depended on what
> >>they hoped or wished or expected.
> >>
> >I certainly have never asserted that. The reality we observe must be
> >compatible with our existence. Any observed reality must be compatible
> >with the existence of an observer. But we suppose that there are many
> >different possible observed worlds.
>
> Real ones?
>
> >Some features of those worlds are
> >accidental ("mere geography"), and only shared by some worlds. Other
> >features are shared by all observable worlds (what we call
> >"physics"). The question is whether any feature shared by all possible
> >observed worlds
>
> Is that possible worlds that are observed or worlds that might
> possibly be observed?
possible worlds that are observed
>
> >is due to some reason other than the fact that
> >observers necessarily exist in those worlds. For there to be a mind
> >independent reality, there needs to be such a facts.
>
> So a world must have physics that *permits* observers in order that
> it be our world. But worlds don't have to have *geography* that
> permits observers, e.g. this universe between inflation and the
> recombination. So they can be mind independent.
>
Just so long as some geography permits the observers, such as on a
rocky planet on a middling start some 13 billion years after those events.
> >It is my position
> >that no such fact exists - but I'd love to be proved wrong, it would
> >make things "interesting".
> >
> >I could believe that mathematical facts (about say the integers) could
> >fit that category, and thus be the basis of a fundamental
> >ontology. But even in COMP, we cannot distinguish between an ontology
> >of Peano arithmetic, or of Curry combinators, say. Once your ontology
has
> >the property of Turing completeness, you could choose any such
> >ontology and be none the wiser. Doesn't this make the whole notion of
> >an ontological reality rather meaningless?
>
> Then you would have structural realism.
Yeah - fair enough. That position is largely a defeat of the idea that
we can know an ontological basis of phenomena.
>
> >
> >Anyway, given some fact of our reality about which it is not known
> >whether it is necessary for the existence of an observer, how do we
> >distinguish between mind dependence (perhaps we may discover it to be
> >important later on when we have a better theory of consciousness),
> >mind independent physics or just mere geography?
> >
>
> You seem dismissive of geography, even though it includes us. It
> seems like a too convenient move to deny realism.
>
A mere geographical fact is not evidence of an objective reality. My
geographical facts differ from yours.
--
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Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au <javascript:>
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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