What is the Empirical World?

Agreed.

It gets even more obscure when the distinctions are more nebulous like: society, or the individuals? the forest, or the trees?

Is the view of the paper as a whole "the same amount of real" as the view of individual wood fibers? ... I think a reductionist would say "yes" but a non-reductionist might disagree ... specifically, a reductionist would say that the whole is simply the sum of the parts and so a representative set of parts (a wood fiber) "explains" the whole, whereas a non-reductionist might say that individual wood fibers do not provide a complete explanation of the whole (e.g., the whole has properties such as "thickness", "density", "texture", etc., that are not simple summations of properties of individual wood fibers but are also due to the particular organization of the whole) ... so as far as Ken's definition of "exist" goes (i.e., a thing with properties "exists"), the view of the paper as a whole and the view of individual wood fibers may contain different amounts of "existence" (how this relates to reality I can't say - Ken differentiates between existence and reality, but I'm not entirely clear on the difference).

I reckon the notion of ''mind-independent" is the foundation of a belief system. It can't be anything else really.

---------- Post added 01-04-2010 at 08:53 PM ----------

which is why we often get stalled at this point in a discussion, as it really rests on a statement of faith. In this case, 'faith in reality' vs. the counter-claim that reality and perception are not actually seperable. It is hard to get past the is/isn't dialog - the idea of mind-independent reality is taken to be the irrefutable foundation, and to question it by any means, a bad argument. Is. Isn't. And so on.

---------- Post added 01-04-2010 at 09:09 PM ----------

"Physicists used to think that electrons are truly fundamental, but today many of them would place strings in that deeper role, regarding electrons as just one manifestation of string activity". Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? p 253

But according to some physicists, the existence of strings can never be proven, regardless of whether they are real or not (e.g. The Trouble with Physics, Lee Smolin).

So after all this time, we are still arguing about what is 'really there'.

In which case, belief in a "mind-independent reality" really is an article of faith.

I'm very unclear regarding this notion of differing amounts of reality and existence. It seems very odd to me. Things either exist, or they do not exist. Things are either real, or they are not real. Perhaps it's sometimes difficult to ascertain which things are real or which things exist, but to say there are different levels of existence and reality, I don't quite understand (I mean, I don't understand the reason why one would offer these further distinctions). Care to explain?

I'm very unclear regarding this notion of differing amounts of reality and existence. It seems very odd to me. Things either exist, or they do not exist. Things are either real, or they are not real. Perhaps it's sometimes difficult to ascertain which things are real or which things exist, but to say there are different levels of existence and reality, I don't quite understand (I mean, I don't understand the reason why one would offer these further distinctions). Care to explain?

I am pretty nearsighted, so if I were talking to you without my glasses I would only see your face as an amorphous mess. But, if I put on my glassed, I would see how you really look. Handsome as a god, no doubt. Isn't the first way not the way you really look, but the second way closer to how yu really look?

... these "different amounts" are related to different magnifications, not different levels ... if you look at a fragment of a sand dune with a microscope, you will see less of the sand dune than if you look at the sand dune with your eyes ... as this relates to different amounts of existence and reality, if organisms do not exist nor are they real, then looking at a fragment of an organism with a microscope reveals the same amount of what exists and what is real as does looking at the whole organism ... however, if organisms do exist and are real, then looking at a fragment of an organism with a microscope misses much of what exists and is real about that organism ... the reason why one would offer these distinctions is because it drives scientific agendas (it shapes the Empirical World) ... if reductionism is true, then you can learn just as much about an organism by studying physics as you would by studying the whole organism, so why bother studying the whole organism?

What does reality have to do with our perception of reality, in this vein? Say, instead, you viewed my face with a high-calibur microscope and were able to see every one of my skin cells. Is this closer to how I really look? I don't think real has anything to do with it.

When you placed your glasses on, what you would see would be closer to what the human eye is able to see under normal circumstances; you regained your normal vision. The distorted mess you saw previously wasn't less real, it was the same reality, it was just a less clear perception of that reality. Once you were able to see me more clearly, it makes more sense why you'd stand in awe in front of such a beautiful face (as my own).



.

But, what makes you think one is more important than the other, or that one is more real than another? Looking at the whole creature may be the only way to understand one thing ...

Yes, I think you are right in that when I say that I can see what you really look like when I have my glasses on, I am not saying that what I see when my glasses are off is not real (in the sense that it is mind-dependent) but rather that what I see is not an accurate perception of your face.

... myself not being a reductionist, I don't ... if you want such an answer from the mouth of a professional philosopher, see if you can find a copy of Jaegwon Kim's essay "Making Sense of Emergence" ... in it, he makes explicit why he thinks wholes are mere epiphenomena and that looking at the whole is never the only way to understand a thing ... at any rate, I've made the difference in magnification so extreme here (organism vs. physics) that it seems pretty obvious to you that there are certain things about an organism that can only be explained by looking at the whole organism ... however, the difference in magnification is not always so extreme ... take neuroscience as an example ... you could probably get a neuroscientist to voice agreement with the statement that organisms can't be explained simply by studying physics - while in the same breath talk about his current work in explaining consciousness by way of studying brain parts.

But I still don't see how the difference in magnification has anything to do with something being real or not real. Does our visually zooming in and out of an object change reality?

the earth (to include all life on it) is merely an epiphenomenon of physics (physics being the only thing that is real)

An attempt or tendency to explain a complex set of facts, entities, phenomena, or structures by another, simpler set: (John Holland)

Basically this translates as explaining matter in terms of atoms, mind in terms of neurons, and life in terms of genomes.

But if a reductionist is truly a reductionist, why would they stop at physics? Suppose we discover more on a quantum level, and much of how we understand physics is revised. And, perhaps even, we call this field something other than physics. Wouldn't the reductionist follow the most reduced and seemingly clear understanding (to which they would call the real)?

They haven't failed in explaining matter in these terms. The point is, however, there are often many ways to explain the same thing. Is it not possible that two explanations are true, but, at the same time, different? Yes, of course!

The problem is, when you, and others, mutter "explained" in this context, you seem to be seeking more than an explanation. You seem to be seeking something Ultimate or Absolute, the end all of explanations.

Of course! But it was not I who tried to explain it thus. It is materialism that has sought to become the 'end of all explanations'. It still is seeking to do that - and it won't succeed. I don't deny that this agenda has produced many material benefits, but I still say it has failed as a philosophy.

What is nebulous about trees and forests, in terms of being real? Trees are real, and forests are real. Just as the woven fibers are real, and the linen is real. Reality isn't defined, or changed, by our theoretical zooming in and out of the innerworkings of things; the nucleus of a skin cell on a deer is just as real as the deer.

If we are to speak of society as something tangible, as in, a count of the populous, then there should be nothing unclear: It is the sum of a given set of individuals. And, I don't know why anyone would debate individuals are real. But, of course, society is usually used in the abstract and does have a varied usage. I think it would depend on how we're using the word. I think it could be unclear, you're probably right.

If so, then if must have failed to explain something it should have explained. What was that?

It seems to me that since the universe predated minds by many billions of years, the universe was mind-independent, and, therefore, real in that sense.

When it comes to the universe as a whole, time loses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored in the theory by considering the universe to be separated into two sub-systems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the universe. So the observer plays an absolutely critical role in this respect. Linde [Andrei Linde, a physicist] expresses it graphically: "Thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time", and "we are together, the universe and us. The moment you say that the universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of this. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead."

Perfectly reasonable assumption, but check this out:

Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma, p261.

Like much else in 'the new physics', this throws considerable doubt on the concept of the 'mind-independent reality'.