mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, but that is not all of reality and for some defintions of reality that is not all of the everyday world.
Now if you can find a defintion that say reality is about QM or GR then fine.
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"Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."
- Thread starter mikkel_the_dane
- Start date
Yeah, but that is not all of reality and for some defintions of reality that is not all of the everyday world.
Now if you can find a defintion that say reality is about QM or GR then fine.
Where did you get the quote from. What is the context? That is my question.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
From another poster here in this thread, That poster seem to have another understanding of it than your understanding. But I will look into it.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
I couldn't find it. So you have to ask the other poster, who uses the qoute.
"reality-is-not-what-you-perceive-it-to-be-instead-its-what-the-tools-and-methods-of-science-reveal"
I want to make the case again that the word should be empiricism, not science if science is meant to mean the things that professional scientists do in laboratories and observatories, which I've back-named formal science to distinguish it from the empiricism of daily life, or informal "science" if you will. That's where most of our understanding of our world and reality comes from. That's where most practical knowledge comes from, and it's exactly the same process as formal science - collecting sensory data, generating valid inductions (general rules), and then testing and applying that generalization in specific circumstances to gain a desired outcome. Instead of E=MC2, induction look like "That Italian restaurant on Main and 1st streets has a great veal scallopini, but best to get there before six or have reservations when the restaurant fills up, and it's closed Tuesdays" This is a generalization derived from having visited the restaurant (experience, empiricism) and can be applied this evening (assuming that today is not Tuesday) to attain a desired outcome - a great meal of veal scallopini at a specific location under specified circumstances.
Also, I would add that subjective reality should be prioritized over what is thought to be objective reality, which we don't have direct access to, as our conscious, subjective view is always modified in its rendering in consciousness, modified by filtering, distorting, and adding. So which of these is more "real," the world I actually inhabit in my head, or the one I imagine is responsible for that apprehension? The latter is merely another induction, a mental model generated from that subjective experience, and if it is a good one, generates useful predictions about subsequent experience. That is why I call it subordinate in importance to so-called objective reality.
Yet we more typically see these two ranked the other way, with subjective reality being disesteemed because it's different from what we imagine exists outside of consciousness. Consider color, which appears to be the brain and mind's code for photon frequency. Photons don't have color, or brightness. The have wavelength and intensity which are transformed into color and brightness. Shall we call those experiences lies or errors, or think of them as less real that what was experienced in their rendering as color and brightness? They're very real to the subject of consciousness, albeit subjectively. My point is that that shouldn't be viewed as something inferior that we have to settle for, but that that IS our personal reality, and our priorities include choosing paint colors for our homes, which in my case anyway affects my mood.
Aren't we really all just trying to manage that subjective reality, to maximize desirable experiences (euphorias) like comfort, beauty, and a good Italian meal while minimizing the dysphorias like anxiety, pain, boredom, shame, and loneliness? And if we can do that successfully, does it matter how much our mental model actually reflects objective reality? As long as depending on that model yields desirable results, it is good enough.
Think of a video arcade racecar game. When one is in the zone, he imagines that he is driving a car, and that the wheel he turns turns wheels on the ground and changes the direction of the car. The reality is a box of circuit boards with very few moving parts, but are we better served thinking in terms of what is actually the reality behind the experience while playing the game? No. We do that when we're not playing, when we think about quarters to play, or when the game is over and we recognize that we are still in the arcade. But for purposes of a high score, we use the model of an actual car moving through the streets as long as it yields the desired result. Isn't all of life like that?
*******
On a different tangent but still related to the topic of the thread, I'd also like to introduce the concept of false consensus, a cognitive bias that assumes that at the deepest levels, most of us are alike. Superficially, we are different. We like different movies, hair styles, and food, but when it comes to being exposed as a liar, for example, or wanting to be correct rather than in error, it is assumed by those that feel that way that the vast majority of people are just like them in that regard. We assume that most people want respect. We assume that most people prefer freedom, and so on.
This was a plank in my mental model that experience has shown needed to be revised, at it leads to false conclusions. The MAGA phenomenon has taught me differently (as has climate denial and vaccine denial). Approximately half of Americans are radically different from the other half. Once, I would have said that most Americans support the rule of law and democracy. Today, I understand that that is not the case, and I am perplexed. Have I always been this wrong about other people and what they want? Have tens of millions of people changed into something that I would once have called rare or unusual? Both feel unlikely, but one, the other, or some blend of them is seemingly the case.
But my point is that my view of "objective reality" has changed, and our models must conform to experience, but if they do that, they are good as any other more "objectively accurate" model, so why the greater esteem for that model than the theater of conscious phenomena it attempts to unify?
I want to make the case again that the word should be empiricism, not science if science is meant to mean the things that professional scientists do in laboratories and observatories, which I've back-named formal science to distinguish it from the empiricism of daily life, or informal "science" if you will. That's where most of our understanding of our world and reality comes from. That's where most practical knowledge comes from, and it's exactly the same process as formal science - collecting sensory data, generating valid inductions (general rules), and then testing and applying that generalization in specific circumstances to gain a desired outcome. Instead of E=MC2, induction look like "That Italian restaurant on Main and 1st streets has a great veal scallopini, but best to get there before six or have reservations when the restaurant fills up, and it's closed Tuesdays" This is a generalization derived from having visited the restaurant (experience, empiricism) and can be applied this evening (assuming that today is not Tuesday) to attain a desired outcome - a great meal of veal scallopini at a specific location under specified circumstances.
Also, I would add that subjective reality should be prioritized over what is thought to be objective reality, which we don't have direct access to, as our conscious, subjective view is always modified in its rendering in consciousness, modified by filtering, distorting, and adding. So which of these is more "real," the world I actually inhabit in my head, or the one I imagine is responsible for that apprehension? The latter is merely another induction, a mental model generated from that subjective experience, and if it is a good one, generates useful predictions about subsequent experience. That is why I call it subordinate in importance to so-called objective reality.
Yet we more typically see these two ranked the other way, with subjective reality being disesteemed because it's different from what we imagine exists outside of consciousness. Consider color, which appears to be the brain and mind's code for photon frequency. Photons don't have color, or brightness. The have wavelength and intensity which are transformed into color and brightness. Shall we call those experiences lies or errors, or think of them as less real that what was experienced in their rendering as color and brightness? They're very real to the subject of consciousness, albeit subjectively. My point is that that shouldn't be viewed as something inferior that we have to settle for, but that that IS our personal reality, and our priorities include choosing paint colors for our homes, which in my case anyway affects my mood.
Aren't we really all just trying to manage that subjective reality, to maximize desirable experiences (euphorias) like comfort, beauty, and a good Italian meal while minimizing the dysphorias like anxiety, pain, boredom, shame, and loneliness? And if we can do that successfully, does it matter how much our mental model actually reflects objective reality? As long as depending on that model yields desirable results, it is good enough.
Think of a video arcade racecar game. When one is in the zone, he imagines that he is driving a car, and that the wheel he turns turns wheels on the ground and changes the direction of the car. The reality is a box of circuit boards with very few moving parts, but are we better served thinking in terms of what is actually the reality behind the experience while playing the game? No. We do that when we're not playing, when we think about quarters to play, or when the game is over and we recognize that we are still in the arcade. But for purposes of a high score, we use the model of an actual car moving through the streets as long as it yields the desired result. Isn't all of life like that?
*******
On a different tangent but still related to the topic of the thread, I'd also like to introduce the concept of false consensus, a cognitive bias that assumes that at the deepest levels, most of us are alike. Superficially, we are different. We like different movies, hair styles, and food, but when it comes to being exposed as a liar, for example, or wanting to be correct rather than in error, it is assumed by those that feel that way that the vast majority of people are just like them in that regard. We assume that most people want respect. We assume that most people prefer freedom, and so on.
This was a plank in my mental model that experience has shown needed to be revised, at it leads to false conclusions. The MAGA phenomenon has taught me differently (as has climate denial and vaccine denial). Approximately half of Americans are radically different from the other half. Once, I would have said that most Americans support the rule of law and democracy. Today, I understand that that is not the case, and I am perplexed. Have I always been this wrong about other people and what they want? Have tens of millions of people changed into something that I would once have called rare or unusual? Both feel unlikely, but one, the other, or some blend of them is seemingly the case.
But my point is that my view of "objective reality" has changed, and our models must conform to experience, but if they do that, they are good as any other more "objectively accurate" model, so why the greater esteem for that model than the theater of conscious phenomena it attempts to unify?
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I'm going to be honest - I'm not completely following the opening post because the writing style is not helping me understand what, exactly, you're driving at. I mean, defining reality solely through the sciences is absolutely scientism (and ironically unscientific), and it is axiomatic (what you are calling "foundationalism"). Rationalism... well... depends on in what sense is being meant. And the notion that there's only one correct form of knowledge is just dumb, but maybe showcasing that's dumb is what you were trying to get at?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, it is that in a sense at least one version of science is dumb, because it operates in effect with the claim that only objective reality is real, but that it is real as real is a subjective opinion.
As for axiomatic, to some people is not axiomatic becaiuse it is a fact or foundational for knowledge that objective reality is real.
As rational it is the claim that reason and logic should be based on objective reality as all knowldge comes from there.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
OK, some more clearification. Axiom, a statement that is accepted as true for the sake of grounding an argument, does not claim "truth" in and of itself.
I guess I am a British empiricist in using the axiom that there is an objective reality and our senses allow us to subjectively "know?" it.
That reason exists and we are capable of it I consider another axiom though with the caveat that the theorems, lemmas etc are unproven in that the fundamental axiom lacks rigor.
Excuse me for mangling the language.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, yes. But to some the axiom that the universe is knowlable is not an axiom. It is true.
Here is how I understand it.
Ever tried debating someone who doesn¨t doubt their own understanding at least for the relevant question as far what knowledge, reality and so on are.
That has nothing to do with religion or not. Or science or not.
Rather it is in effect: This makes sense to me, so that is how it is even though it is not certain that it is so, when using skepticism, but that is irrelevant because it makes sense to me.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
Met plenty of them especially on forums like this.
I'll reduce it further to a fundamental axiom of knowledge; I might be wrong.
That is just an Axiom, but I've found it useful.
Then the proper thing is to debate how that poster is using that quote. A quote taken out of context cannot be used to criticize either science or N. Tyson.
Your position is that reality is whatever you perceive it to be?
i don't really have a problem with that. Science is simply seeking to understand the mechanics of that perception.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, I did found this: “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
Now I doubt it is just about QM and GR. But even if it was, it is still scientism because of the use of the good thing.
How? Well, the good thing is only true if you believe it, but apparently it is to be considered true that it is a good thing.
Hence excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.
Here is another one: “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
That in a sense doesn't match this one, the last part:
So yes, I suspect that there is some form of scientism at play, because if you look at other qoutes is about science in general and a claim of knowledge.
Or he just has a bad habit of stating opinion so they appear as fact. There is also that at play.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, yes, it is that I assume that reality is epistemologically fair and knowable.
But that I am in reality as a part of reality and everything is not external sensory perception.
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Yes, much of it is internal. They've been able to detect when your brain switches between external and internal perception.
Let us look at the second quote first. Here is the full quotationWell, I did found this: “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
Now I doubt it is just about QM and GR. But even if it was, it is still scientism because of the use of the good thing.
How? Well, the good thing is only true if you believe it, but apparently it is to be considered true that it is a good thing.
Hence excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.
Here is another one: “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
That in a sense doesn't match this one, the last part:
So yes, I suspect that there is some form of scientism at play, because if you look at other qoutes is about science in general and a claim of knowledge.
Or he just has a bad habit of stating opinion so they appear as fact. There is also that at play.
"Does it mean, if you don’t understand something, and the community of physicists don’t understand it, that means God did it? Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, here’s a list of the things in the past that the physicists—at the time—didn’t understand … [but now we do understand.] If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance, that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller, as time moves on. So just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come at the problem. That’s simply the “God of the Gaps” argument that’s been around for ever."
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes - 15 Science Quotes - Dictionary of Science Quotations and Scientist Quotes
As one can see, he is, correctly, criticizing the attempts to attribute to God phenomenon that are not understood at a given point in history. His argument is sound. That the problem of quoting things out of context.
Your first quote does not need defending. All scientific truth claims are mind independent...ie if they are true, they would remain true regardless of there being anyone believing in it or not. This is actually a good thing because technology (computers, aeroplanes etc) need to work whether or not their users believe in the scientific principles underlying that technology or not. It makes technology use simple ...much simpler than using other societal systems that do require belief to be true (like value of a dollar bill, or democracy or law).
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, that contradicts this version of science written in part by scientists:
Science doesn’t draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won’t help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal faith and spirituality. ..."
As for true that is philosophy as you use it. But I won't go into that, because it appears that you don't understand that truth is not mind independent.
So you are just of one those, who can't understand when they do philosophy.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
How can a truth claim ever be mind independent?
Without getting into the question of what we mean by truth, claims are necessarily made, assessed, and validated in the mind of the observer.
This is not only true of terms and concepts - and let us not forget that truth is a concept, rather than an observable entity - it’s also true of more fundamental phenomena, such as time and space. General Relativity for example, tells us that facts about time are not absolute but depend upon a frame of reference; and without an observer there is no frame of reference.
It's like we share one brain....one not up
to the task of understanding the OP.
As I see things....
If something isn't possible to address by science,
then that something isn't really relevant to my life,
ie, it can't be detected, it makes no testable
predictions, thus it isn't "useful".
The tricky part is defining just what "science" is,
& recognizing that today's limits of the method
aren't tomorrow's limits. This makes science
broader than the slice of the larger whole that
is as yet unseen.
Example of something irrelevant....
The number of gods & their role in our lives.
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So?
Certainly humans need to put the universe into a frame of reference to have any amount of understanding of it but the universe doesn't need us humans to put it into a frame of reference for it to exist.