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Sorcerer,

This is an incredibly important topic, for a reason I just recently noticed. It ties in with our dopamine reward system. Like StringJunky says you try to be objective by avoiding phrasing the question in a way that would prejudice the undertaking toward certain results you "want" to see. Except, according to my current thinking about dopamine and its role in our evolution and consciousness and thinking abilities, it is important to be right, to get a match between what you thought the world was like, and what it objectively turns out to be. That is, the whole reason for the undertaking, the theory, the test, the study, is to confirm the match, to "be right" about the world. That is what provides the good feeling, the feeling of victory, the feeling of correctness, the getting of the joke, the understanding of reality, the having of an insight (as precipitated this post in my case), the finding that the thought fit the place, is the whole reason we want to survive and live and enjoy the place, in the first place.

So it would be unlikely that one would structure a study, or even undertake a study if one was not expecting to find a successful match between model and reality.

This idea, confirmation bias, is thusly unavoidable, and actually there is no real reason to avoid it completely, as that finding out the world is not what you thought it was, is usually depressing and people, in all areas of endeavor "want" to strengthen their narrative, to prove they are right, and the other wrong.

So, although complex, being right, is a natural, survival requirement, that is closely tied to human socialization activities and personal feelings of accomplishment and worth.

We have no way to avoid it, without becoming something other than human. And confirmation of one's worldview is not such a bad thing.

It does cause great rifts in societies, as people tend to double down when they are proven wrong, in an effort to "be right" in the end, but it gets ridiculous as often people cut off their nose, to spite their face. Marriage counselors will often point out that you sometimes have to decide whether it is more important to be happy or right.

So it is complex, but to be "objectively" right, fulfills no purpose. If it doesn't make a person subjectively right, there is no dopamine, and the whole idea of "being right" is bypassed.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

You did not fix it for me, you corrected Kant.

Regards, TAR

I would think that a scientist's request for a layman to understand the equation before passing judgement could be equally asked as a respectful requirement of someone who has read Critique of Pure Reason, for a person to read Kant, and understand his thinking, before carelessly professing an all encompassing methodology as "wrong".

Note that "reality" is one of the categories considered as things we can say about an object in general.

The following from the Wiki article on Kant's Categories

The table of judgments[edit]

Kant believed that the ability of the human understanding (German: Verstand, Greek: dianoia "διάνοια", Latin: ratio) to think about and know an object is the same as the making of a spoken or written judgment about an object. According to him, "Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."^[8] A judgment is the thought that a thing is known to have a certain quality or attribute. For example, the sentence "The rose is red" is a judgment. Kant created a table of the forms of such judgments as they relate to all objects in general.^[9]

Table of Judgements Category Judgements Quantity Universal Particular Singular Quality Affirmative Negative Infinite Relation Categorical Hypothetical Disjunctive Modality Problematical Assertoric Apodictic

This table of judgments was used by Kant as a model for the table of categories. Taken together, these twelvefold tables constitute the formal structure for Kant's architectonic conception of his philosophical system.^[10]

The table of categories[edit] Table of Categories Category Categories Quantity Unity Plurality Totality Quality Reality Negation Limitation Relation Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident) Causality and Dependence (cause and effect) Community (reciprocity) Modality Possibility Actuality Necessity

Mordred,

Philosophy would have it, that there are certain judgements we can make about reality ​ objects and certain things we can think or say about reality objects. Call it "claims" we make.

Regards, TAR

Sounds like a good topic for a seperate thread. How would one test if something is real or a simulation ?

 

If our universe was a simulation that would be our reality. So if our universe is a simulation. How could we possibly test gor it?

 

The only answer I can come up with would be based on our understandings of how programs work. Hence the repeatability test. Its the only possible method I can come up with.

Mordred,

You asked earlier that we attempt to address the OP question actually asked, which was which was a better methodology, regarding reality. I on purpose did not use a verb, like model, or understand, or recognize or whatever, because a verb would give away what ones conclusion is.

But on the objective reality vs. simulation question I have a few open points. One, you mentioned HUP and I missed what that stood for. Do you have a link? Or did you already provide it?

But regardless of whether one could identify the place as a computer program or not, it would necessitate that either the place itself is real, or the computer running the simulation is real. In either case, we have Dr. Sagan's argument, that you can just cut out the middle man and claim reality is real. Because if it is a simulation it is a real simulation on real equipment that some real someone has to be programming and maintaining...in other words, the question of actual or simulation does not get one any closer to any ultimate reality. That is, this one, is ultimate enough, close enough to reality, to go with, as real, with NO need for anything "greater". The place is pretty great on its own, without our mental models of it even coming close in greatness, to it.

In one of the links provided in the LIGO thread, there was a description of the expansion of the universe shown by overlaying a grid of dots with one separation over a grid of dots of another separation, and aligning any one dot, would provide the same picture "when looking at the situation from the outside".

In science, as in philosophy it is important to be able to see the thing under study from the outside. I have to define the entire set, in order to then look at the members of the set. I have to define the boundary conditions of my model before I can determine the interaction of the internal elements. There is, in both methodologies a requirement that you have a point of focus from which to operate. Same idea as human lenses focusing rays of light from all directions onto the back of the eye, in an upside down backward image of the place which is then brought to the brain by the optic nerves, providing an exact analogous image of the place. The place is real, the model is of the place.

"objective reality" is that thing you would experience, if you were observing the place in someone, or something else's shoes, with some set of "eyes" with defined capabilities

There are a lot of ways to do this. A lot of different thought experiments that could be run, except each and every plan, comes down to using our senses, or enhanced versions of our senses to capture the image of the world against which we will compare the model of the world we have built from previous sensory images. For instance we can see further, and see tiny stuff, and we can look at different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, but we are still in a "sense" seeing the place.

That there really are electromagnetic waves coming into any point on the surface of a lake, from everywhere, is really happening. The only way to simulate this reality would be to actually have a universe.

Regards, TAR

notice that a point of focus consciousness is at one place, at one time

same conditions required when looking at any model or any "case"

to do a transformation you need a point in each space, to overlay and consider "the" point of focus from which you can now see the comparison between the sets

science is formalized, structured thinking, based on empirical (sensed) evidence

Philosophy, as the OP points out, is not constrained by the senses, and can just think a thing through logically.

well if I understand, then the design of the experiment is giving me a problem that I hope is worked out in that the distance between the mirrors is changing while the gw is coming through, and the laser is bounced back and forth between the mirrors hundreds of times for leverage, before the beam exits to the detector That is, on each bounce of each laser the distance of the mirrors is different with a different amplitude of stress on each mirror and the distance between the center and end of each arm, while the wave is coming through, and the wave has multiple peaks and troughs, in that 20 wavelets came through in a little over a second

Thank you Mordred, I think I almost understood that.

I am still however left with the question of why GWs are thought to travel at or below the speed of light. That is, why mathematically should they be thought to propagate through a matter field at the same rate.

Regards, TAR

that is, if the electromagnetic waves coming from a BH merger are traveling through space warped by gravity for 1.3billion years, and a GW is traveling through space warped by gravity for 1.3 billion years, and the dynamics of interaction between the light and the space and the GW and the space are different, how is it assumed they will reach the Earth at the same moment? (or come in from the same direction)

Well, here is where we should not throw the word "obviously" around haphazardly.

dimreepr,

I am not trying to conflate or prove anybody's model better or worse than anybody else's. I am trying to discuss the OP and determine if reality is something the average person has equal access to as the philosopher has or the scientist has. My change of focus, was to look at the situation from a human perspective, as that is the common factor that is obviously found between laymen, philosophers and scientists. All the former actually do agree on a common reality. The Earth, the Sun, the stars, the oceans the continents, the nations, the technological advances of our forefathers and mothers, everything that exists in the waking world. Hiroshima exists in the model of every person on the planet that has read about it, or heard about it. It is real. It is all real. The things that differ between folks, is what it all means to them.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

I am lost. It is not obvious to me what you meant or I would not ask for clarification.

Is reality something I have direct access to, or can I only experience it through the understanding of your mathematical model?

Regards, TAR

Thread, the original MM experiments I thought proved there was no ether, that is there is no medium through which light travels.

The LIGO proves however that there is a medium through

GWs travel. A medium that the GWs energy can stress and strain this way and that.

aramis720, and me as well a little, are trying to square these two findings in terms of what is the medium through which light travels, and what is the medium through which GWs travel.

Is it the same medium or do each item, light and gravity ride upon their own medium?

Regards, TAR

beecee,

like a piece of meat can get lost in the sauce

The important thing is in there, but it is obscured by the sauce.

 

It doesn't matter how often, or finely, you change the focus, you can never see reality.

 

I don't understand, is that meant to mean, lost in space or lost in meaning?

When you say "you" do you mean me or "one". Are you saying in general that a human can not ever see reality as it is, or are you saying that I am oblivious to the reality discovered by science?

Regards, TAR

beecee,

So, science ought not be used as a weapon.

My statement about the thing needing to have some energy to get started, was something I said after I read your links and watched Krauss' talk. You then say perhaps I need to review my consideration of how reality is. I just took what was being posited and read it back to show its inconsistencies. The review of how reality is, that is undertaken by philosophers and scientists, religious people and laymen and all combinations thereof, has to work out, has to add back, has to be true in more than one way. It does not have to fit Krauss' model or fit the ID person's model, the models of these two folks has to fit reality.

What too often is the problem in human interaction is the reality that a person needs to be right about the world. Its in our DNA to be right. I have a personal dopamine theory I am working on that has our pleasure reward system at the basis of consciousness, language, human motivation, politics, social interaction, politics, AND philosophy and Science. What I mean, is that our ability to know internally what is going on externally is basic to our survival on the planet as individuals and as a species. To that, as we evolved, EVERYTHING, that accrued to survival would be good to repeat. So something must have given us a reason to repeat actions that worked. Actions that were correct. Actions that aligned the internal model with the external reality. It would be "good" to know where the water hole was, so you could find it again. So my dopamine theory has our norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine complex developing to give us urges, needs and desires which we then were rewarded for, by fulfilling the need. We felt good, and we wanted to do it that way again. To this my theory says that anytime we win, or complete a task, or get something right, or get a joke, or find an answer, or match our model to reality, or reality to our model. we feel good, we feel right, we feel alive, we feel like we are winning. But it is not notably helpful to only feel right by showing the other person wrong.

There is a big grey area in this model building business where matching ones model to the other's model is crucial, but where the match between the model and the reality it is tasked to model, is lost in the sauce.

So it makes Dr. Krauss happy, makes him feel good to have a superior model. And indeed it is better to have a map of the area with the water hole marked then to get out your divining rod every time you are thirsty, but it is not important to tell the guy with the divining rod he has a goofy way to find the water, it is more workable if you show him the underground sonar depiction of the layout of the shelves and sediment underground that show where the underground water is liable to run and pool.

In an effort to prove ID people wrong, if you ignore reality and wallow in your own ultimate model, and ignore the mismatch between your model and reality, just to be right. just to feel good, just to feel your model of reality is superior to the other's, when you actually have no empirical data to back up your claim...you are not doing science, you are doing something else.

Now, I have nothing against the science that Dr, Krauss is teaching, the fact that the CMB is figured to be a view of the universe when it was 100,000 years old and such. But what that means, the implications of that, how that fits into my model of the place, and how that will enhance my enjoyment and survival, is pretty much up to me, not anybody else. While there is a need we all have to align our models with those we love, learning from those we trust, and sharing our discoveries with those we love, so that a consensus working, intricate, all encompassing model of the place can be built for us to then maneuver through and allow us to manipulate the place for our benefit, some of the dopamine we get for matching our model to objective reality has to do with matching the models of others and some has to do with directly matching with reality. But Dr. Krauss gets no dopamine from matching with the model of an ID person, or a religious person, or a biologist or a philosopher. He gets it all from when his model matches reality so securely that his mtodel lets him know how the universe will end. He gets his dopamine by matching, indeed, but he is ass-backward, cramming reality into his model, not allowing reality to inform his model and my model simultaneously, as would be the case, if the empirical data was noted and cataloged and a map of the place thusly drawn.

Regards, TAR

It is not important in science to prove someone else's model wrong. The important thing in science, and in your personal life is to determine were YOU have it wrong. Someone else cannot tell you this, because they do not have your model of the place, they only have their own.

I just reread and saw I put politics in twice. I did not edit it out. It seemed almost appropriate.

beecee,

Seems the problem is you need a little bit of energy to get the thing started, and a little bit of energy is not nothing.

Regards, TAR

And if science is a systematic study of the structure and behavior of the place, based on empirical data and testable hypothesis, then matching the model to the place, and the place to the model seems to be the solid foundation of science. The speaker in your link seems to be more interested in proving his model is superior to all others, and he knows the ultimate truth. That does not seem a bit scientific to me. Rather more on the philosophical side, or maybe even political or self serving as an entertainer after laughter and applause. His conclusions and pronouncements are not testable.

Randolpin,

To back up your argument, I offer this.

I looked at the Carl Sagan clip beecee posted, and Carl Sagen said exactly what I have argued on several threads regarding the logic that if God has to be eternal to explain his existence, why not just cut out the middleman and consider that the cosmos is eternal. I thought I came up with this logic myself. I had a talk with God when I was thirteen (and felt sorry for him because he had no mother and father, and was all alone, except for us, and it was important for us to keep it a secret that we were his imagination) around the same time I was considering, grain size wise, that the universe could be a component of a greater reality and we might be, to some other consciousness as tiny and brief as a consciousness living on the surface of an electron, is to us...so I also have Carl Sagan's book Cosmos on a shelf downstairs, and I believe I read through the whole thing, and could have gotten my argument from Carl Sagan, OR I could have actually had the idea when I was 13, and this proves that Dr. Sagan and I are living in and attempting to comprehend the exact same reality, in all its complexities, from the quark to the beginning of the universe and beyond, in both directions, and possibly eternal, and extending in both directions not only in size, but in duration. And here we are, in the middle, with tiny quick stuff out of our reach below and huge expanses of space and time out of our reach above. But we are in this together, us Philosophers and Scientists and laypersons. And we experience it on the same size and time scale as every other human, with the same basic equipment in terms of senses and folded up brain parts, and this human sensing of the place has been going on since Lucy.

But its the same place it always was, before we each individually where born, and it will be here after we die, and it will not get any bigger or smaller, slower or faster, simpler or more intricate, depending on what we think about it. The place is our place. The time is now, the place is here, and we are all in this together.

Regards, TAR

And what is true is true, regardless of what we think about it.

Thread,

Just thought of how a saying I learned in business relates to this discussion.

The saying is "Think Globally, Act Locally."

Perhaps philosophers are the global thinkers, and scientists are the local actors.

Regards, TAR

We are clearly all in the same reality - regardless of what any of us believe. The point is - you can't prove it or which one you are in.

DrP,

This one of course. That is why there is uni in universe. It's mine, yours and the guy's down the street.

Regards TAR

dimreepr,

I don't know what you mean by me arguing the other way up to now. My stance is that reality is real, and we are real, and we each have an internal model of reality that is less than as complete and fitting, as reality itself is. That science seeks to understand this reality, same as philosophers seek to understand this reality, is an indication that we are all in and of the same reality. I think everything I have argued in this thread is consistent with this stance.

Regards, TAR

Thank you scientists for working for me, for free. I truly rely on you and appreciate your work.

The computer holding the model, holding the information of the exact position and momentum of every quark and photon the universe possesses would have to be composed itself of real quarks and photons, which themselves would have to have some position and spin and momentum that would "stand for" the position spin and momentum of the target components of the universe. So the mind that could comprehend the output of the computer, would have to be bigger than the place.

For me, and my philosophy, I think it better to cut out the middle man, and look at the universe directly. It is already real, exactly as it is. And the whole place is already reporting its existence to me, when I look at it, and when I believe the reports of scientists that study it, and measure it and record and catalog it for me.

Regards, TAR

Mordred,

On the lattice spacing and gauge considerations, and transforms and models and such that you prefer the hard science on, I would like to point out that the models are residing in human brains and on sheets of paper and in 1s and 0s in computer chips and algorithms, and these things are subsets of reality, so any characteristics that they can describe about reality are limited by limitations that reality itself actually has...if reality does have limitations.

Example: In my business of technical support on wide format inkjet printers, the programing of the image processing and the physical arrangement of the inkjets and the pattern and spacing of horizontal and vertical movements created what we referred to as "artifacts". The analogy I am attempting to draw, is that our job was to lets say, make a life sized banner of body painted model, look lifelike, look real, look like reality itself. And the moire pattern visually evident on the finish product, or the increased contrast and enhanced color, were not exact representations of reality but had elements that were added or subtracted by real interpreters. The model and the model painter and make up artist, the camera and the camera designer and the camera's internal programming and memory, the settings of the camera and the effects that the photographer added or subtracted, the programming of the photoshop program that touched up the picture, the resolution of the original image, the data transfer encoding and the memory limitations of various devices, could have, NO, actually HAD TO have left artifacts on the data, before the pixels even where presented to the printer and its many transforms.

So, when researching lattice spacing, be aware that some characteristic that you are finding reality has, might be a characteristic that a subset of reality has. Your brain can shift grain size and might not make all transforms required to keep all aspects of the studied item intact, and reproduced in true and complete form. The scientific equipment gathering your data has limitations and things are already encoded and averaged and adjusted. The thing might look different under a microscope, or from 100 million lys.

Regards, TAR

Mordred,

Yeah, but she is a "real" idiot.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

Just gesturing perhaps, but if there is a requirement in science to explain that you really don't know reality, you really are not trying to match reality, you just have this model that is the best you have at the moment, subject to change and improvement and such, why it is bad to say I have this working model that has me conscious, and other people conscious, that has so far past every test I have put on these other humans that are everywhere, and have been everywhere for a long time?

What is the objection?

Who would get in trouble if they were to say that other minds existed?

Regards, TAR

In fact, if the idea is to be right, about the call as to whether you are a simulation or you are real, who would be angry with you, if you called it wrong? If you determined you were a simulation, would the simulators be upset that you found out? Are the simulators then automatically real, or do they have to claim they don't know either?

And more importantly if there is anybody whose job it is to enforce the idea, that you can not prove you are not a simulation, then I would say automatically the enforcers had to be the real thing.

DrP,

I of course know you don't beat your wife. That was the point. You can't prove a negative. You can't stop beating your wife, if you never started, so the question is impossible to answer, yet you know the truth, you just can not prove it, once the question is made. I was drawing an analogy to the solipsism question, you of course know the truth, you just can't prove a negative.

So I take the opposite task and concentrate on the evidence that there is, that you have a mind, regardless of the fact that I can not know this for sure.

But follow me here. For me to think I have a mind, I MUST be capable of developing a theory of mind. The ability to view yourself objectively in this fashion, requires having a mechanism within your brain that is capable of taking "you" and putting that observer in someone else's or something else's "place". It is done in science all the time. The very idea of the models we are talking about requires the ability to have one thing stand for another, to consider what it would "be like" to be the thing under study. This operation requires two minds, one's own, and one's own in the place of the entity under study. Einstein had observers all over the place, that were given hypothetical minds. Science has peer reviewers. Other minds, meant to check reality for the same conditions you found. The whole operation, philosophy, science and reality, requires at it's base a mind that is investigating, recording and manipulating the place, and then only when this mind is assumed to be real, is there any reason to continue the investigation. Then the question of whether someone else has a mind, like yours, can be asked...but the fact that there is science (requiring peer review) and language (requiring a second party, or a internal construct,) to share your thoughts with and philosophy (requiring the consideration of other people's thoughts, by definition), and a reality to share with these other minds, already has the question of whether other minds exist, answered in the affirmative.

Regards, TAR

for instance, if one scientist makes some progress, but allows for the fact that he/she stood on the shoulders of giants to make such strides...the fact the other scientists existed, and had not only minds, but exceptional ones, is a given

robinpike,

Two points. One, who are you attempting to prove this to?

And how are you assuming the person simulator is capable of considering that it has a mind? If we as human's require a Right Temporoparietal Junction to even develop a theory of mind for ourselves? And the person simulator demonstrably lacks a functioning Right Temporoparietal Junction, which with to notice its own mind.

Regards, TAR,

So you have not provided a mechanism through which the person simulator would think it had a mind, so the question of whether the person simulator would be able to tell if it was a simulation or not, would not come up.

which, I just realized provides a proof of mind

Only a real mind could consider whether or not it was real.

A proof Rene already offered those many years ago.

Cogito ergo sum

DrP,

I am a realist, in the sense that I do not subscribe to cancelling arguments that rely on the fact that you can't prove a negative to prove their point.

So when did you stop beating your wife?

That everything could be an illusion is such an argument. Everything could be a strawberry sundae and you can't prove otherwise.

Stupid for a scientist to propose such nonsense.

For substance, browse Wiki's article on "theory of mind"

iNow's thread on how religion hijacks the neurocortical mechanisms of the brain included some work on the study of the portion of the brain that develops at around 3 or 4 years old, that is responsible for our ability to put ourselves in other people's shoes, also responsible for our ability to converse with unseen others, and heavily involved in our resolution of moral dilemmas.

A paragraph from Theory of Mind follows.

Regards, TAR

Definition[edit]

Theory of mind is a theory insofar as the mind is the only thing being directly observed.^[1] The presumption that others have a mind is termed a theory of mind because each human can only intuit the existence of their own mind through introspection, and no one has direct access to the mind of another. It is typically assumed that others have minds by analogy with one's own, and this assumption is based on the reciprocal, social interaction, as observed in joint attention,^[5] the functional use of language,^[6] and the understanding of others' emotions and actions.^[7] Having a theory of mind allows one to attribute thoughts, desires, and intentions to others, to predict or explain their actions, and to posit their intentions. As originally defined, it enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of—and thus be used to explain and predict—the behavior of others.^[1] Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior implies, in part, that one must be able to conceive of the mind as a "generator of representations".^[8][9] If a person does not have a complete theory of mind it may be a sign of cognitive or developmental impairment.

And here is a link to the scientist that studied this area of the brain.

https://www.ted.com/speakers/rebecca_saxe

Why not, in your person simulator with all the data streams of inputs just imagine instead of the supposed imprecise inputs a human receives, a super human detector that sensed all wavelengths of light and sound and could tell exact energy and pressure and the existence of contacting chemicals...you could take the human right out of the sensing business and just say what ever is happening is happening. It could be a rock, and the rock is real and receives all the stuff around it. Every vibration, every photon, every object or chemical that comes to it. Put a person and a rock and a person simulator in the same room and they will experience the exact same reality, give or take a few feet. Except the rock receives the stuff and takes it like a rock, and does not "think" it is anything other than a rock. A human takes it and considers itself human. A person simulator would take it like a person simulator.

does a rock "remember" getting hit by a photon by heating up?

did you ever notice that everything above the shoreline on a glassy lake is repeated upside down below the shoreline...that means the same impressions that are hitting your eyes must also be hitting the lake...every point on the lake is surrounded by the exact same reality that surrounds your eyes

proof that reality exists