What is "Real"

Ok, sure. Real, illusory. There we go...

I don't mean to be snotty, fresco. But we have some curious happenings in brain science.

Speaking as a published "psychologist" I am pretty skeptical about the term "brain science".

Science is about prediction and control. We can do that is limited defined contexts, but as for the "bigger picture" we are stuck with the fact that we have no independent vantage point with respect to our own immersion in potential data. As Heisenberg put it "we never experience nature directly, on the results of our experiments on it". This point has been amplified by the biologist Maturana who sees no need for the assumption of an "ontic reality" in order for "science to work". Essentially this is the philosophy of phenomenolgy as opposed to (naive) realism.

Oh, pardon me, re brain science, though that may have been an easy phrase. I'm not clueless about science in action. And sometimes science works when prediction fails. Sorry, fresco, but this is the first time I've thought of you as out of your gourd.

(Sorry about typos..Heisenberg... on=only

I don't care about misspelling, who, me?, but I do wonder about your grasp of science in action.
We had a simple maneuver turn out entirely wrong, and worry warted about it for some hours. Of course, reproduced it not working with more hours. This started us on other thinking.

Science is action.

You wrote a paper, give me a break.

a2k

Er, sorry, that a2k was from my needing to post something (I forget just why), a seeming website thing.

Anyway, not part of the conversation.

I've lost you on the significance of the phrase "science in action". My activities as a psychologist were cited merely to illustrate my ability to "play the science game" in pseudo-scientific areas. If you are saying something like "real" is "what works" (action ?) then I would agree with you. The problem arises when we try to deal with "real is what is" because that's where we have no independent vantage point.

'Statistical agreement tends to promote concepts of "absolute reality" at the layman's level but scientists argue against such a concept.'

Could you explain this statement a bit more please, Fresco.
Thank you.

Einstein.

I understand this to mean that by extension the "relativity principle" applies to all experience and not just to motion. For example, the common experience that " some matter is solid" is deconstructed at the level of atomic structure where "matter" and "energy" become interchangeable. Our common experience is a function of our physiology functioning in limited contexts, which implies that there are never any "objective data". There is no "abolute reality". There are only shared expectancies in particular contexts (reference to Kuhn's "paradigms"). There will always be sub-levels of analysis which deconstruct axioms.

The irony of the term "cognitive science" is that it attempts to analyse "experience" itself, without recognising that experience is transcendent with respect to the activities of "scientists".

Thank you.

I get about as much as I think I can without the background in science that you have. It makes sense.
Is that your specific interpretation of Einstein, or did Einstein say something similar himself? Is there anything written on Einstein's metaphysics?
You 'tie in' a lot of scientific knowledge to back up your stance. It's relation to the non-dualist worldview you maintain, as you say in other posts, may be coincidental, but on the other hand many not. You've given me a lot to chase up on 'mystical' philosophy, (thank you) is there a paper written upon the way in which this science and the 'mystical' metaphysical perspective integrate?



I am inclined to believe so, but can we express it in this way? 'Always' makes it an axiom in itself.
Do you mean it in the sense that 'it's turtles all the way down'?

"Turtles all the way down" is another way of saying "no absolute vantage point".

Einstein's metaphysics only extends as far as his "wonder" at the universe, which he considers may be a manifestation of the impersonal holistic "God of Spinoza". He was certainly uncomfortable with the non-duality implied by Bohr's exposition of Quantum Mechanics...a position which is thought to have "arrested his thinking" in later years.

A good exponent of "science" and "the mystical" is undoubtably Fritjof Capra.
(See for example "The Tao of Physics"). Another bunch of sources is probably available from the University of Exeter, who offer post graduate degrees in esotericism.

(That interpretation of Einstein may be my own but follows a 20th. century fashion of extrapolating from the concept of "relativity")

Postgraduate degrees in esotericism is interesting.

Thank you for the Capra link. "The Tao of physics" looks extremely interesting, but I don't know whether I should read it since I have little knowledge of any of the underlying theories or the history of physics and would have nothing to critique it against.
In your opinion, does the book withstand (proper) criticism?
Is it likely that it's critics are only critics because they are philosophically naive, or would that not be the case at a high level of academia.

Capra does not get too technical. Provided you understand the concept of "observer-observed interaction" (=Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics /The Personal Equation is psychology) you should be okay. Because of his popularist exposition "serious physicists" would tend to be dismissive of its contents. However, scientific theists like Polkinghorne may take a more welcoming view. (Try googling him).

Mystical connections with science are heavily criticised by Dawkins because they tend to undermine his scientificism. On the face of it he does appear "philosophically naive" but this may be a consequence of his atheistic public posture.. Interestingly, Richard Harris who often shares atheistic platforms with Dawkins, is more favourably disposed to "spiritual matters" and may not be a critic.

BTW..I forgot to mention David Bohm the physicist who wrote "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" which he later described as advocating a concept of "cosmic consciousness". Bohm was a collaborator with Einstein and later with Krishnamurti ( "The Ending of Time" edited discussions between them)

Thank you Fresco.

I can't find the direct quote at the minute, but on many threads you stress that the best scientific theories are the most eloquent models, rather than anything tantamount to 'truth'.
Do you think this is the best way to define scholarship in general?

No. I think "scholarship" implies "paradigm advancing" rather than "paradigm changing" which we might call "genius". I use paradigm in Kuhn's sense of a network of interdependent concepts and activities stemming from a model or theory. The "eloquence" of a model denotes both a superior economy of expression over alternatives, and perhaps also the absorption of such alternatives as a limited case. (An example would be Einstein's model of space-time subsuming Newton's seperation of space and time for motion well below the speed of light) . Thus Einstein revolutionary work could be considered that of "genius" whereas those who used his famous e=mc (sqd) equation to predict atomic energy were engaged in works of "scholarship".

Outside the area of science, I would also suggest that the innovator is considered "genius", and those who would meaningfully evaluate such innovation as "scholars".

Yes I would agree with that, thank you.