So imagining an empty forest, with no observer to hear the tree fall, still amounts to a perspective. What would any scene or object be like, from no perspective? — Wayfarer

Back to this. Perhaps the realist can say the idealist is making a mistake here in insisting that the realist be able to imagine what something is like independent of perspective. We can't do that because we're human beings who always perceive from a certain perspective. The best we can do is abstract away. But that doesn't mean the tree or the forest or anything else doesn't exist independent of perspective, just because we can't conceive it that way.

IOW, realism doesn't need to be committed to being able to conceive of something (exactly as it is) for that something to exist. All the realist needs is reasonable grounds for thinking so. And the reasonable grounds are an experience of a world that is much larger and older than us. A world that gave birth to us individually and as a species.

In a way, the idealist is criticizing the realist on idealist grounds, in that the idealist expects the world to be entirely conceivable for it to be. But the realist need not be committed to this at all, since by definition, real things are mind independent, and thus independent of conceptualization.

Further, the realist can just say this is a limitation of human minds, not the world, since human imagination is parasitic on human perception. But the world is not limited by human abilities, or lack thereof. Man is not the measure of the world.

If you say that what humans believe to be true, is simply a consequence of adaptive necessity, — Wayfarer

We die or fail to reproduce if we get it wrong. Dennett's response is that for bacteria, truth isn't relevant. But for a fox, it needs to know what is a mate, what is prey, and what is predator. It needs to know the truth about such things.

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse — Wayfarer

So Wheeler proposes a delayed choice double slit experiment using photons from a distant quasar with gravitational lensing involved by galaxies in between. Very interesting.

Question though, what if alien minds existed in that distant quasar. Does that change the outcome?

At least Wheeler allows for inanimate detectors to decide quantum outcomes. Lindren goes all the way to conscious observers only determining the history of the universe. What distinquishes us from the cat in the box? If ancient aliens have put Earth inside a box, perhaps with a quantum object that has a 50/50 chance of turning into a black hole that consumes Earth, are we in a state of destroyed/not destoryed before they look?

Good reply.

1. Entirely ignores the problem posted in the OP. It's head in the sand philosophy.
3. Deflates to a position indistinguishable from anti-realism (or at the very least, a positon that is not realist, since being realist entails mind-independence).

2. Is a bit more promising.

No realist discussion is complete without mention of QM, eh?

I'll read it here in a minute. Wheeler is also the physicist who proposed it from bit, I believe.

So nobody has any thoughts on object oriented realism? It is a form of speculative realism that seeks to answer the sort of post Kantian objections to realism, correct? I thought it was an interesting approach, that sort of gets around the problem of differentiation but acknowledging the limits of understanding, but not because the mind differentiates, but rather because of the nature of objects in relation to one another (including us in relation to the things we perceive). Or something like that.

Oh don't worry, it's just that it then gets hard to remember which thread is which! But, photons are cheap. — Wayfarer

Is the photon from a distant star one minute away not yet perceived real, or only conceptual until we perceive it?

I think the best answer is just to be honest and admit there isn't any evidence for the claims realism makes. — The Great Whatever

David Chalmers in a conference on consciousness briefly discussed why he rejected idealism. It was because it left the structure of experience unexplained. I agree with that. There is something beyond our experiences which is the reason for our experiences. What we experience is a world much bigger and older than us mere humans. Even the fact that I have parents which gave birth to me is enough to doubt idealism (I wasn't experiencing anything as a zygote).

Basic epistemological and metaphysical questions like these don't have good answers, and not because they're meaningless but just because they're hard. — The Great Whatever

This is what interests me, because no answers proposed seem entirely satisfactory, and knowledgeable people can debate them endlessly. I think realism must be the case, but the objection idealism puts forth has not been fully answered by realists. I sometimes wonder if both aren't right in a way, and some sort of synthesis is the answer.

This thread has now been duplicated, courtesy of Marchesk. — Wayfarer

Sorry, I wanted to explore the implications of what you posted in it's own thread. It always struck me as the strongest objection to realism. Didn't mean it to be explicitly about the tree.

Would you rather that God could create rock bigger than even he can lift? — wuliheron

It's kind of like asking if Jesus can microwave a burrito hotter than he can eat. What would it mean for God to lift a rock? Is the rock supposed to be immovable?

To wit: if the evil demon exists, in what sense is he deceiving me? Deception only makes sense if there actually is a possibility that I come to know that I am deceived. That's what I call a deception. I thought something, and then new evidence came up, and it turns out I was wrong. But if the evil demon scenario is correct, then I will never know it is the case - and hence practically there is no possibility that I will know of the deception. But if there is no possibility that I will know of the deception, then it isn't really a deception in the first place, because it's not what we understand by "deception" - a meaning we have arrived at within our world. — Agustino

Unless the evil demon has something to gain beyond just keeping you deceived. The Matrix scenario had humans envatted to server as batteries for the machines. Granted, we would actually make a lousy power source and not be worth the effort, but maybe the evil demon is empowered by our being deceived?

Problems:

1. Numerous, ranging from the ancient Skeptics, to Berkeley, to modern science.

2. Science is incomplete. We don't know how far from a complete scientific understanding of the world we are. Also, the Kuhnian challenge of paradigm shifts.

3. What breathes life into the equations? Also, the challenge of mathematical realism in and of itself.

4. Not sure what the critique is here.

5. This is admitting to global skepticism. Why even suppose there is a real world if you can't know anything about it?

6. Demonstrating how this is different from anti-realism. But it has been used by various realists in these forums and elsewhere as an attempt to avoid traditional objections, and out of a suspicion for metaphysical questions in general. But can metaphysics be avoided altogether without assuming realism is the case?

No answer my question. Is Solomon saying that it is better to humiliate yourself in order to live longer? Is he doing that or not? — Agustino

I don't know, but he seems to be saying that being alive is better than being dead, in general, because the dead aren't aware of anything.

I think Solomon is just making some pessimistic observations about life. You're turning it into a Nietzschean overcoming the world thing with a Christian afterlife.

What's the sceptical problem? — Michael

I perceive a rock. I perceive you talking about having perceived a rock when I wasn't around. I create a mental model of you perceiving stuff in my absence.

The skeptical problem is how I can know you actually exist outside my mental model when I'm not perceiving you. The idealist solution is just to assert that of course other minds are around perceiving when I'm not perceiving them. Solipsism avoided. But it's just an assertion. There is no sound epistemological basis for that assertion.

It's talking about the afterlife, not about this life. "Whoever shall lose his life for my sake - shall gain it". That's the promise Jesus made. Whoever throws this earthly life as if it were nothing, and gambles with it for eternity - they are those truly worthy for the Kingdom and Heaven, and they shall overcome, despite the appearances. They shall be eternal, and live amongst the stars. While those who cling to life, scared, they will perish and will be forgotten - that's the GREAT irony. Those who cling to life will lose it, but those who gamble with it as if it were nothing shall take it all back, just as Jesus Himself did. — Agustino

Christians are amazing at reinterpreting the Jewish scriptures to fit Christian theology. Solomon says nothing like that in the full verse you quoted.

But the idea of life being a struggle to be embraced for a better life later on is an interesting idea. If only there were evidence.

That doesn't follow. "To be is to be perceived" is not the same as "to be is to be perceived by me". The rock doesn't require that I perceive it. — Michael

But my knowledge of other minds comes from perception, just like my knowledge of rocks. So there is a skeptical problem for the idealist that the solipsist recognizes, and the idealist pretends isn't an issue.

Furthermore, the idealist doesn't even perceive the other minds, just their bodies. The other mind is a mental inference. It's an ontological commitment the solipsist would never feel warranted in making.

How is it making an exception? The idealist presumably uses the same inference that the materialist uses to confirm the existence of other minds. They just don't think that this inference can be used to confirm the existence of some non-mental substance from which minds sometimes (but not always) emerge. — Michael

To be is to be perceived. I perceive a rock, so it exists. But it doesn't exist outside being perceive. I perceive you so you exist, at least while I'm perceiving you.

Now I can imagine that you continue to perceive the world as a good idealist once I'm no longer perceiving you, but then I'm just pulling a realist stunt by making an exception for other minds. You can say it's different, because it's other minds. Fine, but I only know about them via perception, so it's an epistemological problem for the idealist.

That's why they screwed the pooch, you answered it yourself. Because they only want paradise aftera life of great struggle. it's the struggle that teaches them about themselves (spirit) and about God. — Agustino

I don't think one life of a few short decades is enough for an eternity of no struggles. Seems to me that the Hindus have a better idea. Reincarnate over many lifetimes until you reach envatment. 70 years just isn't worthy.

Yes, banning them only makes sense if I am opposed. Romeo's and Juliet's love only made sense because of the great opposition against it. Because they had to throw their lives to keep their love, that's what made them great, that's why they are eternal - they will be remembered. It is those who overcome the greatest obstacles based on their love for Truth and Justice that have overcome the world. It's not even about achieving - it's about fighting, it's about never giving up, it's about not yielding. That's what matters - not success. Romeo and Juliet failed in the flesh. And yet, in the spirit they have overcome - they have left this world with their heads up high - unlike other petty fools who cling to a few more days of life, these two threw it all on the line, gambled with it as if it was nothing. — Agustino

As a story, anyway. How many couples in love do you suppose want to die young so that their love can be immortalized?

A saying comes to mind: "A live dog is better than a dead lion". Might have even come from Solomon. I suppose your view changes if the struggle leads to perfect envatment in the afterlife.

Yes making it better is worthy only if there is the struggle to make it better. Believers want paradise, because after living a life in hell, one wants a quietus. But that's only AFTER the great struggle is over, not before. — Agustino

What was the plan before Adam & Eve screwed the pooch? Just give people virtue up front and a free ticket straight into paradise?

If it would do everything that it is claiming to be able to do then I'm sure everyone would, and probably someday will be pushing a similar button for at least a few hours a day. — Wosret

There is already a lot of hours spent watching screens, and plenty of people still enjoy escaping into a book. If and when we do have a Star Trek Holodeck quality VR, it will be interesting to see what happens. It's rather hard to believe that the characters on ST spend relatively little time in the Holodeck. But then again, most of those characters have rather exciting and demanding careers, being on the frontier of exploration with alien contact and spacial anomalies, so maybe that keeps the temptation at bay.

Star Trek didn't focus on regular folk much. Picard had a brother in France who maintained a vineyard. I guess that's still rewarding work in the 24th century?

You can't equate idealism with solipsism. As we've gone over many times before, they're not the same thing. The idealist's position is that all things are mental in nature; it's not simply the position that all things are a product of one's own mind. There can be other minds, each with their own thoughts and experiences, that continue to exist even when you're dead — Michael

This is true, and it has been defended many times. But I can't get over the fact that the idealist is making an exception for other minds, epistemologically speaking. The idealist is hand-waving the issue away by asserting that of course other minds exists. Don't be silly.

The solipsist is more consistent. We only know about other minds the same way we know about objects, which is via perception. And if to be is to be perceived ...

n fact, the greater the opposition, the greater the victory, the greater the triumph. — Agustino

If only we could all endure the holocaust. What titans of virtue we would become.

God overcame the impossible to create the world - made the world out of nothing. What greater triumph than possibility beating impossibility? — Agustino

Making a better world than this. Question for you. Why is it that believers wish to enter paradise when they die? Why not more character building?

No - because a world tailored to my needs takes away from the merit of my character. The world we live in isn't tailored to anyone's desires. That's great! — Agustino

I'm glad you find it to be great. Very Nietzschean of you. Here's a thought, though. Do you ever wonder why we live in such a technological world? It's probably because people were never entirely happy with the way the world was, and figured out some way to tailor it. We could all just be overcoming lions and thirst on the Savanna with our two legs and opposable thumbs, but someone clever was always dissatisfied.

I don't find that entertaining, actually that's fucked up and disgusting. If I was in charge, I'd ban all horror movies for teaching and entertaining psychotic mindsets. — Agustino

Guess what? In your envatted world, you get to be in charge and ban all such shows. Although, it won't affect any of the other envatted minds, so you might not get the same satisfaction from doing so. That's one strike against being envatted. I suppose you could choose to delude yourself during the envatment procedure.

You mean a world where my overcoming is guaranteed instead of merely possible? I would refuse, because then it wouldn't be my merit. My virtue, my character - neither would be the result of me, but rather the inevitable result of history. — Agustino

I mean more like playing a video game, where you can accomplish goals, or fail to, but one tailored completely to your desire to suffer and overcome. The world we all live in isn't tailored for anyone. Shit just happens to all of us in meaningless proportions. Some people manage to get enough money and power to make it a little more tailored. But that's no guarantee against a thousand things that could go wrong at any moment.

I mean, people regularly watch all kinds of horrendously violent TV drama; and I'm pretty sure they don't want their lives to be like that. — John

Yeah, The Walking Dead is entertaining to watch, but it would be hell to live.

But not everyone wants to get rid of their sufferings. For example if someone told me they will fulfil all my desires - anything I want - today and get me rid of all my present sufferings, I will say no. That would be the absolute worst thing someone could do to me. The whole thing is that I want to do it myself, I want to overcome obstacles, develop my character, and learn myself. I don't want someone else to do it for me. That would be the horror of horrors. — Agustino

And if you get to suffer and overcome in the best possible world for doing that as Agustino, instead of this life, with all it's happenstance, would you still refuse?

As for others, the truth of this life is that some people do live a horror of horrors. There have been very many horrors in human history, and a great deal of suffering.

have yet to meet anyone who wants to be a brain in vat. — wuliheron

Then you just haven't argued with any of the dream machine advocates yet. They do exist. Their position is basically to hell with truth and reality, experience is what matters, and having the best possible experience trumps everything else.

Based on what I've seen said about the Cyrenaics, my guess is they would have agreed, since pleasure is the only good for them.

I think of 'brains in vats' tales as imagined by the idle rich, who can somehow conceive of such scenarios without the many labourers and other resources and energy that would be needed for each brain. — mcdoodle

Fully automated society = envatting everyone into their ideal world? Was that Marx's true goal???

But in ontological terms, there exists no forest in the absence of mind. At least that's my opinion. — dukkha

How do you account for minds inferring that forests existed before minds to think about them as forests? If the world only exists for minds, then why does it seem like the world existed prior to minds? Why is it that minds find themselves to be dependent on the world?

there's a difference between philosophy and science fiction although it's sometimes a hard thing to explain. — Wayfarer

Brain trauma and the sometimes odd disorders which result aren't science fiction. The rest is, for now, but notice how nobody has shown that it's technologically impossible to create a simulacra indistinguishable to our senses from the real thing. The most I've seen anyone try to refute it is Dennett, who claims that the combinatorial explosion of providing a brain in a vat with all the inputs every moment dwarfs any future computing capacity. But there are computer scientists who dispute that claim.

This is false. Wittgenstein disproved global skepticism by his analysis of hinge beliefs. Global skepticism is self-defeating. — darthbarracuda

I don't think he quite succeeded. Consider a possible hinge belief. My left arm belongs to me. I can't doubt that. I can wave my left hand in front of my face. Seems like this a great candidate for a hinge belief.

Except it turns out there is a rare brain condition where people come to believe that a certain part of their body doesn't belong to them. There is even a brain condition where people ignore an entire side of their body as if it doesn't exist.

Let's try another hinge belief. I'm alive. I can't doubt that, right? I breathe, I pinch myself and feel pain, I experience hunger, thirst, I interact with objects and others, etc.

But then again, there is yet another brain condition where people feel like they're ghosts. Everything seems hollowed out to them.

One more. I can't really doubt that my partner or family member is someone else that looks like them in disguise, right? You can't live closely with someone over time and actually believe they are some kind of doppelganger. Another hinge beliefs.

But yet again, there is a brain condition where people come to believe that someone close to them has been replaced by a double. This has to do with losing access to the feelings they used to have for that person.

So in all those rather strong looking hinge cases, it is possible to have brain trauma so that you actually do doubt what seems to be undoubtable, in a real, every day lived sense.

Beyond that, we have the Truman Show, The Matrix, Brains in a Vat, being stuck inside a Holodeck program indistinguishable from the real world, etc. that all show at least the possibility of global beliefs being radically mistaken. And if our current computing technology continues to advance, some of those scenarios could become possible. The latest VR is quite a bit better than the VR of the 90s. We can only imagine VR or total immersion in the 2050s, or the possibility of whole brain emulation.

Nick Bostrom has even written about the death of realism given future technologies, where we lose the ability to distinguish generated experiences from real ones.

ike pretty much every commentator on the Election you seem to have conveniently forgotten that Clinton received nearly 2 million votes more than Trump and that Trump's triumph has almost nothing to do with a significant shift in popular feelings only the bizarre electoral system that turns a 1.3% lead in the polls into a 13.8% deficit in the final result combined with the lowest turnout for decades. — Barry Etheridge

Yeah, but a lot those votes come from states like California and New York, which were going heavily Democratic no matter what.

Clinton lost in states she should not have lost, like Michigan. Voters who voted for Obama in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, etc. switched to Trump, voted third party, or didn't bother voting. That's the problem.

The Democrats had a popular candidate in Bernie, but they wanted to go with an insider who represents the establishment. I think Hillary would have been a good president, but she didn't inspire anyone like Bernie or Trump. What was the message to the Bernie supports and moderates? Vote for the lesser evil. Hearing that every single election is fatiguing. It's hardly inspiring. Hillary didn't represent change. Bernie did. Voters in states that mattered wanted something different. Plenty of the swing votes would have gone to Bernie if he had been the candidate.

As for the electoral college, I'd be all for reforming it, if the states could agree to do a percentage instead of winner take all. There's plenty of people in California or New York or Texas or any state that always goes one way who would like to see some of their electoral votes go for the candidate they voted for.

I'd be all for breaking up the two party system, and having a ranked choice voting system. Just getting rid of the electoral college isn't going to solve everything (which is bloody unlikely to happen since it takes an amendment, and those red states aren't likely wanting to see the big cities dominate the election).

It is pretty amazing that whoever won was going to have like 25.x% of the eligible votes. Maybe if you can't get at least one third of the eligible votes, the current president just stays in for another term.

Well, yeah, depending on the specific example and context, you might want to not just settle on stage (1) or (2) of that. I'm just noting that the question of whether unobservables are real can be taken and answered in different ways. — Terrapin Station

Yes, especially in theoretical physics.

(1) We can treat them simply as instrumental utilities where it doesn't matter if they're real in any sense beyond being useful for the theories in question (and one might say that's "real enough"), — Terrapin Station

Except for when it comes to school funding or medical treatments. Then you might want to know whether they are just instrumental utilities or actually real.

I can tie this into another thread where the OP asked about aliens.

Kris Kelvin arrives aboard Solaris Station, a scientific research station hovering near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, a scientific discipline known as Solaristics, which over the years has degenerated to simply observing, recording and categorizing the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)#Plot_summary

In this story, scientists have gathered their data on the Solarian ocean. However:

Thus far, they have only compiled an elaborate nomenclature of the phenomena — yet do not understand what such activities really mean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)#Plot_summary

If anti-realism were the case, I would expect that factor analysis would never get farther than what the scientists in Lem's story have gotten with the alien ocean. Scientists and statisticians collect a bunch of data on a wide variety of phenomena which they classify accordingly, but no hidden factors can be inferred to make sense of it.

Can you show a concrete example with some specific observable and unobservable variables? — Babbeus

I'm just learning how to use it. You can do a search for factor analysis studies. There's plenty of scientific results and papers.

Or are you simply asking whether there "really are" unobservables? — Terrapin Station

That's stated as the motivation for the people who invented factor analysis.