What is the Empirical World?

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;114974 wrote:

... so if I'm getting you straight, only machines can observe and only minds can perceive ...

Only external recording devices (changed via physical interaction) can observe, as the mind could be considered a machine.

paulhanke;114974 wrote:

"How do we determine if an observation includes all that is able to be observed?" ...

That relies on the idea that a single observation can capture the entire aspect of the observed. Observation is case specific. The electromagnetic phenomena can not observe dark matter, for example.

paulhanke;114974 wrote:

"How do we determine if our perception/observation is qualitatively similar to the elements of a mind-independent reality that are being perceived/observed?" ...

Let us assume there is a mind-independant reality that is knowable, then it is only by mixing up the distinction that leads to problems. Mind-independent reality is by definition not knowable by perception. It is knowable by observation. The two are linked by theory. Without a theory of mind, the colour red, being percieved, is not a mind-independent aspect of reality.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;114988 wrote:

Have you read Rorty on this issue? Objectivity, relativism, and truth - Google Books

... I'll have to add that to my "to read" list Smile

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114954 wrote:

Reality hasn't changed. How we experience reality has. Or, rather, we have a greater understanding of what we're actually perceiving.

I agree that this dualism appearance/reality is useful, but perhaps it is also deceptive. Reality is still a human concept, and nothing but the name of a mental model.

If we contrast mental models and call one real, we may forget that both are products of our imagination. What would reality be devoid of our conceptions of it? Wavelengths are no less imaginary than qualia, even if more useful for certain purposes. We invent the concepts of wave and length. We invented the math we use to describe these wavelengths.

I think objectivity and subjectivity are the poles of a spectrum, and that consensus is a large part of where we rate an experience on this spectrum.

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@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo wrote:

I think "reality" is a mind-dependent concept that refers to mind-independent. Humans never experience human-mind-independent reality, but the concept is useful anyway as an ideal that counteracts subjective prejudice. (in the name of group prejudice)

I consider reality to be, "The state of things as they actually exist". It is what is mind-independent.

How we perceive reality is subjective, but that does not mean that we aren't perceiving what is objectively real.

1 Reply

@validity,

validity;114993 wrote:

Only external recording devices (changed via physical interaction) can observe, as the mind could be considered a machine.
That relies on the idea that a single observation can capture the entire aspect of the observed. Observation is case specific. The electromagnetic phenomena can not observe dark matter, for example.

Let us assume there is a mind-independant reality that is knowable, then it is only by mixing up the distinction that leads to problems. Mind-independent reality is by definition not knowable by perception. It is knowable by observation. The two are linked by theory. Without a theory of mind, the colour red, being percieved, is not a mind-independent aspect of reality.

... but if observation can only be accomplished via mind-independent interactions in a mind-independent reality (i.e., observation occurs within and is therefore part of the mind-independent reality), how can observation be any more accessible to mind than mind-independent reality? ...

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@paulhanke,

I agree that there is a "reality" outside of our minds, but this reality is always mediated. The brain is a sponge in the dark, and yet we experience light, sounds, etc.

Surely you will agree that the concept of reality is mind-dependent. The concept of mind-independent is certainly mind-dependent. So much of human "reality" is conceptual that mind-independent seems like a deceptive term to me.

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... but if observation can only be accomplished via mind-independent interactions in a mind-independent reality (i.e., observation occurs within and is therefore part of the mind-independent reality), how can observation be any more accessible to mind than mind-independent reality? ...

"How can observation be any more accessible to mind than mind-independent reality?"

What does this mean? We observe the mind-independent reality. That's it.

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;115019 wrote:

"How can observation be any more accessible to mind than mind-independent reality?"

What does this mean? We observe the mind-independent reality. That's it.

... is "red" mind-independently real? ... if not, then (at least in the case of color) what we perceive is decidedly not mind-independent reality, even though mind-independent reality forms the basis of that perception ... the distinction is subtle, but I think it is important and its investigation needs to be carried through to our prosthetic senses if we are to understand what empirical science is really (pun intended! Smile

) telling us ...

EDIT: if it's still confusing, see Validity's post regarding "Only external recording devices (changed via physical interaction) can observe", as it was this assertion that my sentence was a response to.

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115045 wrote:

... is "red" mind-independently real? ... if not, then (at least in the case of color) what we perceive is decidedly not mind-independent reality, even though mind-independent reality forms the basis of that perception ... the distinction is subtle, but I think it is important and its investigation needs to be carried through to our prosthetic senses if we are to understand what empirical science is really (pun intended! ) telling us ...

EDIT: if it's still confusing, see Validity's post regarding "Only external recording devices (changed via physical interaction) can observe", as it was this assertion that my sentence was a response to.

While it is true that not everything we perceive is actually 'out there' in reality, but its quite a vast leap to conclude that all we perceive isnt actually 'out there' (if that is what you are implying). So yes the color red is medium dependent but how are we concluding that space, time, causation, etc. are also sensory manifestations and not in reality???

2 Replies

@Kielicious,

Kielicious;115061 wrote:

So yes the color red is medium dependent but how are we concluding that space, time, causation, etc. are also sensory manifestations and not in reality???

I'm not just trying to be difficult, but space, time, and causation are abstractions. This is not to deny that these abstractions are based on experiences that motivated their creation....

Sense-experience is mediated. Concepts are inherited/socially-mediated. Will physical science hit a rock-bottom real or is such a hope absurd? What do we mean by "real"? Have atoms ever really been out there or are atoms just a useful mental-model for explaining/controlling measurements?

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@paulhanke,

There are two issues:

1. Does what we observe exist independently of our observation?
2. Does what we observe resemble what we reserve, and to what extent?

The answer to 1. seems to be yes. At least, that is the Realist answer. But, the answer to 2. seems to vary. The commonsense realist answer is yes, at least to a great extent.

But the scientific realist answer is, no. At least to a large extent what we observe is not what is there. What is there is what science tells us is there.

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@Kielicious,

Kielicious;115061 wrote:

While it is true that not everything we perceive is actually 'out there' in reality, but its quite a vast leap to conclude that all we perceive isnt actually 'out there' (if that is what you are implying). So yes the color red is medium dependent but how are we concluding that space, time, causation, etc. are also sensory manifestations and not in reality???

... arguments for could be logic-based ... e.g., we start by treating all sensory qualities the same (the traditional division between primary and secondary sensory qualities does not apply here because it begs the question) ... from there, we can infer from what we know about what we used to call secondary qualities (color, etc.) that sensory qualities are in general qualitatively different than the mind-independent reality they are mind-dependent representations of ... bolstering this argument is that general relativity appears to tell us that space and time are not what we perceive them to be, and quantum mechanics appears to tell us that causality is not what we perceive it to be.

The counter argument could be Occam's-Razor-based ... e.g., the simplest explanation for why we perceive space, time, and causality the way we do is that space, time, and causality are qualitatively as we perceive them to be (at least at the relativistic/macroscopic scales at which we typically encounter them).

These are just rough sketches, certainly with gaping holes in each ("red" comes to mind for that sketch of a counter argument) ... are there more substantial arguments (either pro or con)?

---------- Post added 12-28-2009 at 08:11 PM ----------

kennethamy;115069 wrote:

There are two issues:

1. Does what we observe exist independently of our observation?
2. Does what we observe resemble what we reserve, and to what extent?

The answer to 1. seems to be yes. At least, that is the Realist answer. But, the answer to 2. seems to vary. The commonsense realist answer is yes, at least to a great extent.

But the scientific realist answer is, no. At least to a large extent what we observe is not what is there. What is there is what science tells us is there.

... it's almost as if there's an area of overlap between the "epistemological idealism" of Kant and Schopenhauer and scientific realism (assuming the Stanford entry on scientific realism is a good representation of the subject) ... that is, while Kant and Schopenhauer assert that our perception and understanding of the real is ideal (but not that reality is itself ideal, as would be the case with a metaphysical idealism), there appear to be remarkably similar concepts in scientific realism, such as "Thin Truth" (pragmatic truth as opposed to correspondence truth - in which case, is scientific realism an "epistemological realism"?) ... anyhoo, what do you make of the concluding sentence in the Stanford entry? "Considerations of the significant philosophical challenges which it faces indicate that it can be effectively defended only by the adoption of a metaphilosophical approach which is also closely tied to the science, viz., some version or other of philosophical naturalism."

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115130 wrote:

... arguments for could be logic-based ... e.g., we start by treating all sensory qualities the same (the traditional division between primary and secondary sensory qualities does not apply here because it begs the question) ... from there, we can infer from what we know about what we used to call secondary qualities (color, etc.) that sensory qualities are in general qualitatively different than the mind-independent reality they are mind-dependent representations of ... bolstering this argument is that general relativity appears to tell us that space and time are not what we perceive them to be, and quantum mechanics appears to tell us that causality is not what we perceive it to be.

Yes I agree that sensory qualities are qualitatively different than its objective, or, 'mind-independent' reality but you still have to answer the question of how you know that space, time, causality, etc. are secondary qualities. After all if space is only a sensory apparatus then what/where on earth are you located? and how do you manage to interact with 'reality' if reality is in fact non-spatial? Because by interacting with any independent object inherently implies two seperate spatial locations...

1 Reply

@Kielicious,

Kielicious;115172 wrote:

Yes I agree that sensory qualities are qualitatively different than its objective, or, 'mind-independent' reality but you still have to answer the question of how you know that space, time, causality, etc. are secondary qualities. After all if space is only a sensory apparatus then what/where on earth are you located? and how do you manage to interact with 'reality' if reality is in fact non-spatial? Because by interacting with any independent object inherently implies two seperate spatial locations...

... the first question should actually be, "How do you know that sensed qualities can meaningfully be categorized into 'primary' and 'secondary' without begging the question regarding the status of space, time, and causality?" ... for the second part, the assertion is not that space is a sensory apparatus - Schopenhauer's specific assertion is that phenomenal space is a representation constructed by the mind that allows us to organize and make sense of groups of sensory qualities (and the same for time and causality) ... this in no way denies the possibility that space, time, and causality might exist in a mind-independent reality exactly as we experience them - merely that to infer such a thing from what has been given (i.e., experience) is to make an inferential leap way beyond the evidence at hand (especially given the counter-examples of color and sound) ... and the subsequent developments of general relativity and quantum mechanics appear to be validations of his conservatism.

I think that the major difference between the idealism of Kant and Schopenhauer and scientific realism may be that the former presumes that all experience is an ideal construction that does not necessarily accurately represent reality (until proven otherwise), whereas scientific realism presumes that all experience represents reality exactly (until proven otherwise) ... it's a glass-half-empty-glass-half-full kind of situation - in more ways than one, Schopenhauer was a pessimist Smile

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115200 wrote:

... the first question should actually be, "How do you know that sensed qualities can meaningfully be categorized into 'primary' and 'secondary' without begging the question regarding the status of space, time, and causality?"

While that is a legitimate concern that question can be held off for the moment.

paulhanke wrote:

... for the second part, the assertion is not that space is a sensory apparatus - Schopenhauer's specific assertion is that phenomenal space is a representation constructed by the mind that allows us to organize and make sense of groups of sensory qualities (and the same for time and causality) ...

I have no idea what you mean by phenomenal space. I was under the impression we were talking about space-time that GR advocates.

paulhanke wrote:

this in no way denies the possibility that space, time, and causality might exist in a mind-independent reality exactly as we experience them - merely that to infer such a thing from what has been given (i.e., experience) is to make an inferential leap way beyond the evidence at hand (especially given the counter-examples of color and sound) ... and the subsequent developments of general relativity and quantum mechanics appear to be validations of his conservatism.

For the first part: I am then confused; for I thought you were endorsing a form of solipsism. If you agree that space, time, etc. can exist independent of mind then doesnt this contradict what you initially stated in the Op?

To the second part: I disagree. I think the leap lies in solipsist. Of course believing in a mind-dependent reality is easy (i.e. lazy) and is our first 'instinct' as children, that in no way -for me- avoids other immediate and implied assumptions that cannot be answered. The solipsist has alot more to answer than the realist.

1 Reply

@Kielicious,

Kielicious;115209 wrote:

For the first part: I am then confused; for I thought you were endorsing a form of solipsism. If you agree that space, time, etc. can exist independent of mind then doesnt this contradict what you initially stated in the Op?

... I hope not! Smile

... what the OP asks is whether our current concepts regarding space, time, and causality will be seen in some future time as being ridiculously naive ... and if the same will hold true for those folks when they are viewed from an even more distant future ... and finally, whether or not the concepts of space, time, and causality will even be part of the empirical world at that point in time (or will they have been replaced by new concepts relating to the bizarre things we might find as our prosthetic senses continue to improve) ...

Kielicious;115209 wrote:

To the second part: I disagree. I think the leap lies in solipsist. Of course believing in a mind-dependent reality is easy (i.e. lazy) and is our first 'instinct' as children, that in no way -for me- avoids other immediate and implied assumptions that cannot be answered. The solipsist has alot more to answer than the realist.

... to experience "red" and from that make the inferential leap that "red" is mind-independently real is the sort of leap that Schopenhauer is arguing against ... and I do not think that you would claim that Schopenhauer is wrong to argue this point in the case of "red" ... but Schopenhauer's point is more general than simply the case of "red" - it also applies to folk physics (which was replaced by Newtonian physics), and to Newtonian physics (which was replaced by GR), and arguably to GR (which is expected to be replaced by "quantum gravity" or some such), and so on.

Again, the major difference between Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism and scientific realism seems to be that the scientific realist is an optimist ... at the dawn of science, folk physics was presumed to be "the real" ... Newton came along and proved that presumption to be incorrect, and so for the scientific realist Newton's physics becomes "the real" ... Einstein came along and proved that presumption incorrect, and so for the scientific realist GR becomes "the real" ... at some point in time, it is expected that someone will prove even that presumption to be incorrect ... how many times do these presumptions have to be proven incorrect before scientific realism asks the question that Schopenhauer is asking: is "the real" at all knowable in principle? ... that is, will the best empirical world we can ever hope to achieve using the best prosthetic senses we can ever hope to imagine to construct still be no more than a mental approximation of "the real"? ... but I think that's the point of scientific realism - it doesn't see such a question as being anything worth asking.

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115308 wrote:

... ... how many times do these presumptions have to be proven incorrect before scientific realism asks the question that Schopenhauer is asking: is "the real" at all knowable in principle? ... that is, will the best empirical world we can ever hope to achieve using the best prosthetic senses we can ever hope to imagine to construct still be no more than a mental approximation of "the real"? ... but I think that's the point of scientific realism - it doesn't see such a question as being anything worth asking.

How many times has it been thought that a cancer cure was just on the horizon, and how many times has that belief been dashed? Do you see such question as being anything worth asking? (In the meantime, there is no reason to think that GR will be falsified. Unless you have one).

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115313 wrote:

How many times has it been thought that a cancer cure was just on the horizon, and how many times has that belief been dashed? Do you see such question as being anything worth asking?

... I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here ... Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads to the asking of a question that it wouldn't occur to scientific realism to ask (is "the real" knowable in principle) - are you saying that this question of cancer is also a question that only Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism would think to ask (while it wouldn't occur to scientific realism to ask it)? ...

kennethamy;115313 wrote:

(In the meantime, there is no reason to think that GR will be falsified. Unless you have one).

... if GR and QM are incompatible theories (which it has been argued they are), then at least one of them has to be (in some sense) "wrong" ... but much like how GR took Newtonian space and time and fused them into space-time (which, according to Kuhn, was not merely a refinement of the Newtonian concepts but rather a new conception altogether), the answer to the GR/QM incompatibility might turn out to be a fusion of space-time and causality into space-time-causality (which, if a Kuhnian paradigm shift, would again be a difference in kind and not simply a difference in degree) ... and would space-time-causality be the end of the story?

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;115321 wrote:

... I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here ... Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads to the asking of a question that it wouldn't occur to scientific realism to ask (is "the real" knowable in principle) - are you saying that this question of cancer is also a question that only Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism would think to ask (while it wouldn't occur to scientific realism to ask it)? ...

... if GR and QM are incompatible theories (which is has been argued they are), then one of them has to be (in some sense) "wrong" ... but much like how GR took Newtonian space and time and fused them into space-time (which, according to Kuhn, was not merely a refinement of the Newtonian concepts but rather a new conception altogether), the answer to the GR/QM incompatibility might turn out to be a fusion of space-time and causality into space-time-causality (which, if a Kuhnian paradigm shift, would again be a difference in kind and not simply a difference in degree) ... and would space-time-causality be the end of the story?

I am saying that even repeated failure to find an answer is not a good argument for the conclusion that there is no answer. Nor, that the answer you now have is not the right answer.

I agree that if two theories are incompatible, then at least one of them is false. But then, one of them may be true.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115324 wrote:

I am saying that even repeated failure to find an answer is not a good argument for the conclusion that there is no answer. Nor, that the answer you now have is not the right answer.

... personally, I am in complete agreement - technology is littered with examples of repeated failures ending in success, and science itself is a method for the continuous expansion and refinement of knowledge ... but does that also mean that the question of whether or not "the real" is knowable in principle isn't worth pursuing? ... that is, should Godel have simply taken Hilbert's word for it that formal systems can explain everything? ...

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