What can we know of reality?

[AnssiH]

Then, wouldn't DD's equation be of larger importance in Particle Swarm Behavior field? There, it could be tested without quantum constraints of charge, energy, field. (Why make it a point to derive Schroedinger, when the theory may have larger pertinence elsewhere?)

 

Because if you derive Schrödinger, it means all the further derivations to other physical laws (that already exist due to work of others) are automatically valid.

 

Very important to understand that we are not here theorizing "what reality is like" or "how reality behaves". Not a "theory", and not an argument about ontological reality at all.

 

What it is, it's an examination of tautologous relationships. If you accept "x", "y" follows.

 

What is significant is that "x" here is "the unavoidable characteristics of any self-coherent worldview", and "y" is Schrödinger's equation.

 

I bolded and underlined "worldview", because we are indeed talking about characteristics of WORLDVIEWS, as oppose to characteristics of actual reality. Print that and tape it onto your monitors people :lol:

 

In other words, we are investigating the purely logical constraints that limits our "ideas of reality", at least as long as we want to keep our ideas sensible in the sense that they are not self-conflicting and they do not contain undefendable assumptions as long as we can avoid them.

 

Yet another way to put it, the result, of ending up to Schrödinger's Equation, has got NOTHING to do with what was the real content (or "meaning") of the data whose patterns we embarked to explain.

 

I think that rings as "obviously nonsensical" to many people. You easily jump to think that "of course there could exist different sorts of universes than the one we live in, it's nonsense to think this is the only possibility".

 

The point to focus onto is, that there exists relationship between Schrödinger, and "what sorts of entities can be defined from unknown patterns, when we don't make superfluous assumptions, and when the defined set is self-coherent."

 

That is why I'm pointing out the necessary paradigm shift here. "Learning about reality" is not a case of us looking at how things move in reality and ending up to Schrödinger, as much as it's a case of Schrödinger being a succing expression of those original constraints that gave us the means to classify "patterns" into "objects" in the first place. And as a result, those defined objects obviously obey Schrödinger. Not because "reality just is that way", but because "we just defined entities that way".

 

Notice how those who think "studying reality" is a case of just looking at objects and marking down their behaviour, are bluntly skipping the question "how do we know what constitutes an object". The investigation of that matter leads to that paradigm shift. (And to rather satisfactory explanation of quantum behaviour, among other things)

 

If you think about that, you can see interesting parallels between the paradigm shift from creationism to evolution :hihi: (Not calling you a creationist, just think it is rather suitable analogy)

 

-Anssi

[Doctordick]

Excellent post Anssi!

 

Have fun -- Dick

[lawcat]

DD's "psi" function is the expectation function. How does DD square away "expectation of events" with "probability of occurance of events." One is dreamed up; the other is actual.

 

What are the limits on expectations? Are they the same as limits on imagination--i.e. valid and invalid? What are valid imaginations? Those that have been epistomologically proven?

 

In essence, all that occurs can be dreamed up? But, how do we go from that, to predicting what will actually occur?

 

(This reminds me of Plato's argument that all knowledge is in the past, or within us; then Shrodinger would be a specific case, not an approximation, of DD.))

[Doctordick]

DD's "psi" function is the expectation function. How does DD square away "expectation of events" with "probability of occurance of events." One is dreamed up; the other is actual.

I am afraid you are jumping dead into the middle of a long and involved opus. You have to understand my definitions to know what I am talking about. If you can understand

 

User:UniversalExplanation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :confused:

 

that would be a beginning.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[lawcat]

Probability of occurance = unknown expectation functor - dot - known expectation functor; according to wiki post above.

 

That is the biggest obstacle in my mind.

 

(In addition, I do not understand the reasoning behind the use of Dirac function.

 

First, how is Dirac function pertinent to mapping to, or from, the range of presumed-valid elements which is called D? I presume, as I prefer to read it, that it functions as a switch on/off.

 

Second, the "c" in D(x-c), is simply a delay, or offset. (In no way can or does c alter the output value of Dirac function, regardless of the range of x.) Dirac function has only two output values--zero, and infinity. Morover, the INTEGRAL of Dirac function has only one value--ONE. Yet, here, that is not obeyed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:UniversalExplanation/appendix2. Why?)

 

I think I am starting to see Rade's point here. All of the formulations here are definition based, and definitions are pulled out of thin air.

 

Have fun !

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Rade: "Objects = what DD calls 'ontological elements'. Here I will use the symbol [Oi] for any specific ontological element. Ontological elements are the "physical things that exist" in our universe. I believe in his Fundamental Equation {FE} he uses the label A = set of all possible ontological elements that exist as physical things. Please correct me if I error. "

 

Hi Rade. I'm going to respond to this paragraph because I might see why DD would disagree with it. He gets ornery sometimes but please understand that he is of the opinion (which I know is shared by others) that he is on to something really, really important. So it must be frustrating for him. We've all been there although I'm pretty sure the situations weren't so incredibly universal as this. I think we're talking about the very nature of the relationship between consciousness and existence.

 

And, even though DD might not enjoy your posts on this, I do. I knew, before you said so, that you were an Objectivist. I believe that I am too. We have read and enjoyed the same books and I could tell that you were trying to fit this conversation into your world view. Don't retreat just yet, ok?

 

I believe he's delving into the nature of perception and looking at the process of identification with the end result being the ability to predict events. If we ever design a truly intelligent machine, one capable of having the same sort of ability as ourselves, it will probably be because of what is being discussed here. And, a machine wouldn't care if something existed or not. It would simply act upon the information it had gathered and move on.

 

Your statement, "set of all possible ontological elements that exist as physical things" has some assumptions below it: A definition of what exist means and also what constitutes a physical thing. The set of all possible ontological elements cannot be defined because we can't be everywhere at once with total awareness.

 

I think DD is coming at this from a point of view before those identifications are made. AnsiH calls an ontological element something that appears to have persistence and a recognizable pattern. I loved that statement. I suppose that means it 'exists'. But in "The Beautiful Mind" sometimes that isn't so easy to determine. And further, poke "Time" with your finger once. :hyper: I have argued with an Objectivist scientist of some notoriety that he was projecting "Time" into existence when, in fact, it was just a thing perceived internally. I was "assured" that time did, indeed, exist. His proof? Oh, he assured me.

 

Consider the possibility of a creature that is only aware of magnetic fields. The nature of its "neural net" would be considerably different than ours. My point here is that it would be reasonable to assume this creature would have a very different idea of what an ontological element was. Would it even be aware of what we'd call a "physical thing"? I'm pretty sure that my ontological elements would not be the same as its. And perhaps it is incorrect to even use the term, "my ontological elements".

 

To us, a thing that exists affects our consciousness because the abilities we have detect or perceive its affects on its surroundings. Light reflects off it in a particular way and strikes our optic nerve. Small particles bounce off it and then strike our eardrums. Our perceptive abilities detect the changes and those changes ripple through our neural net, etc. Much of those reactions are automatic and part of our nature as humans. Some of the reactions are self generated. These things are the stuff from which information is made. It's important to note that our senses only detect the affect of what you'd call an existent upon light and moving molecules (sound generators). You don't actually perceive the "thing itself". I suppose if you bit it or physically touched it, you might be able to claim direct perception. A rainbow is a perfect example of something we project into existence even though there isn't anything there. (We do that quite a lot).

 

And after all that, the final process is to fit it into our worldview (our predictive engine). I am of the opinion that DD and AnsiH are incredibly fastidious about their worldviews. To them, I think it is more important to get the worldview correct than to get new data to fit into a pre-existing worldview. Because that worldview affects the final process. If it's too rigid and flawed, one becomes blind to the evidence presented by our response to ontological elements. Basically, consciousness is the ability to affect (in the sense of 'change') the way we process the data our senses detect. That's why this discussion is so bloody important. What we do to gain understanding is what is in focus. And also one implication is that we might find out how not to f##@ it up. And, if that is close to correct, their attempt could be considered the ultimate virtue.

 

These guys are trying to identify the fundamentals below the worldview. They've expanded the worldview to include the process of creating a clean worldview.

 

And I think I just understood why it was necessary to use mathematics to do it. Words reflect a pre-existing worldview, pre-existing definitions and bring with them everything subsumed by the concepts being used. If one's worldview was snow white and contained absolutely no contradictions, then that would be ok, maybe. So, to use mathematics is to presume no such worldview yet exists or perhaps more correct would be to say that the set of worldviews containing close enough definitions is so small that to expend the effort to communicate his theory in that medium will not result in any long term gains. The mathematics will survive. Still, he does try to communicate with words to those of us who cannot fathom the math and who still attack the windmill with our sticks. :)

[arkain101]

I can only presume that your interest is somewhat lacking. As Idsoftwaresteve has not responded for almost a month, I am beginning to get the idea that I have exceeded everyone's attention span again.

 

Of course not! Not at all. You have one interested participant who got off to a late start right here. Along this off-road drive to the destination you fellows have reached. I was not / am not as of yyet able to get a tow out of the ditch from you guys without requesting that you backup and come find me.

 

I will catch up in time, a few google searches here and there, and I will be cruising along with you guys soon.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DD: "No, that is not a necessary assumption. You may just as well presume nothing exists, that everything is no more than a figment of your imagination, just a random collection of meaningless information. If you are going to make up an explanation of that information and require that your explanation be internally self consistent, then that explanation can be interpreted in a way which obeys my fundamental equation. If you wish, you can take my opening axiom to be that logic is defined to be an internally consistent construct.

 

I am doing something very simple: I am carefully defining a way of referring to undefined elements and then creating a carefully constructed tautology which will “explain” those elements (an explanation being nothing more than a procedural mechanism which will predict expectations for information which is not part of the information on which the procedure itself depends)."

 

I couldn't have said it better myself, really. Actually, I couldn't have said it. I can barely understand it. But I will say that the more I read it the better my understanding becomes.

 

Rade, Arkain, read these quotes because the key is right here. "If you wish, you can take my opening axiom to be that logic is defined to be an internally consistent construct. " Rade, you are probably more familiar with "Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification". But I believe that either statement achieves very similar results. The only difference that I can see might be that DD uses the concept of internally consistent construct (which carries with it the idea of a mental creation) and AR uses identification (which carries with it the idea of something below a creation which one identifies with). In either case we're dealing with the recognition of a pattern that persists. If there is another difference it might be along the lines of AR implying a definition making the pattern become an object. And here it's important to note that object in Objectivism gets elevated to an almost supernatural status and if Objectivism has a weakness it's in doing this very thing. The problem with it is that tendency to project a mental object into existence. The more powerful the mental construct, the more we believe the thing actually exists.

 

I have kind of flown up my *** here. I do not have DD or AnsiH's facility with mental references. "I learn. I learn Mr. Fawlty!".

 

DD's second paragraph is really key as well. The predictive engine gives us information that isn't currently in the database. He's talking about predicting 'future' events. The database contains a tau, t dimension.

 

I have to jump back in my foxhole now.

[watcher]

P E R C E I V I N G R E A L I T Y

[AnssiH]

Hi Steve, I really appreciate your attempts to understand, and I'm sure DD does also. I think you are on the right track, and I thought I might offer another attempt to explain this, with even shorter steps...

 

Before that, I would like to comment that understanding this thing doesn't require one to have extraordinary mental capabilities in any way at all. It's quite simple when you "get it". The communication problem is, that we are trying to communicate an issue having to do with the idea of not supposing any "identities" (of objects), all the while all human thinking is based on our ideas "identities".

 

We are not capable of thinking about anything without having defined the identities associated with that "anything", and certainly that applies to me and DD just as much as anybody. Me and DD, we are not "visualizing a reality without persistent identities". We are not talking about ontological reality, we are talking about worldviews.

 

First of all, I suppose you guys understand what I mean when I assert that we, humans, are pattern recognition machines. We see a pattern, and that gets interpreted as an "object".

 

Your comment about "intelligent machine" is spot on; its perception of a tennis ball would be a result of very complicated pattern recognition process, not a case of naive realistic projection of a "picture of the tennis ball". I assume all participants in this thread are at least over the first step of naive realism and don't think in terms of cartesian theater when thinking about awareness. File:Cartesian Theater.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Those who accept that our awarness is a function of some pattern recognition process, next think about whether there exists justification to thinking that any object - whose perception was an interpretation of some pattern - actually carries ontological identity with itself.

 

In other words, when you see that flying tennis ball, in what sense can you say that the tennis ball is ontologically "the same ball" from one moment to the next?

 

The perception of a ball, as a persistent thing, was based on an avalanche of data, whose patterns were defined as the ball. Where in there, we had information about the ontological identity of the thing?

 

Plus, whatever smaller objects we have defined as sub-parts of that tennis ball (like atoms), we do not have any information about the identity of those objects either. There exists specific ontologies (physical theories) where atoms are essentially seen as stable energy concentrations that don't have persistent identity more than a "cone of light" has got persistent identity. We can build such theories because we are completely ignorant about the "real ontological identity of things"

 

Those who got this far without crash and burn, you can perhaps also wrap your head around the observation, that "identity" as a concept, is something that, as far as we know, only exists as a tool for building a mental model of reality. 1. we have no information about the real identity of anything, and 2. try to think about anything without invoking the idea of any defined object (the idea of anything having identity). You should understand quite quickly, that it is simply not possible to think about anything that way, as our thoughts are entirely composed of "semantically identified objects". You cannot think about how something behaves, without having defined what that something is.

 

So, to put it briefly, the problem here is that our perception of reality is a function of what sorts of objects have been defined to exist, while many possibilities always exist as long as one is inventive enough.

 

The question we would like to get answered is, what sorts of limitations exist even for the infinitely inventive person who can see all the valid possibilities.

 

Here we have the idea about some sorts of "patterns" underneath our defined entities, and we would like to express the idea of "patterns" without inhibiting any possibilities to those patterns by making superfluous assumptions about the identity of the entities whose collective behaviour is "the patterns".

 

Think about that problem for a while. Our problem is, that no one is capable of "thinking about" anything that would cause patterns, without imagining some identities to something or some things one way or another, and that would already be invalid assumption at the get-go (Another way to think about this; imagine any set of things causing some patterns. Then, imagine a different interpretation as to what constitutes a "thing" in that view -> You immediately see different patterns)

 

Rade's understanding "Ontological elements are the "physical things that exist" in our universe. was completely wrong interpretation; the "undefined ontological elements" are certainly NOT claimed to be some "things" that have got real identity to themselves, as that would be just as undefendable as any other worldview that sees any other "persistent things" as fundamental entities of reality.

 

Let me suggest that instead of saying "undefined ontological elements", let's say "undefined noumena". Perhaps that carries less baggage?

 

Like I said, you can think of those "undefined noumena" vaguely some sorts of "data points", onto which our definitions align in some unknown ways (different worldviews align in different ways). The ontological source of those "data points" is, and always will be, completely unknown. The data points do not possess identity to themselves; they don't exist as ontological "things". We can never see those data points with our own eyes. If anyone is wondering, no, not even by looking at real time brain scan of your own brain. What you would see is still a semantical interpretation of the sensory data; this is also pattern recognition is it not?

 

This might be starting to sound like a rather complex problem, right? Fortunately, we are not really interested of what the ontological source of the data points is, or what they ontologically are themselves.

 

All we are interested of is that fact that our defined entities are based on "patterns" one way or another, so you can safely ignore all your (semantical) ideas of how the brain works, and what the data points "are", and instead just focus onto the purely logical task of "finding out what common charateristics apply to all valid worldviews that are based on patterns whose ontological source/meaning is unknown".

 

The fundamental equation is essentially an expression of logical boundaries that no valid worldview can cross, when that worldview is expressed in terms of x,tau,t-space. (Where "valid worldview" means that it is self-coherent, and when it does not assume to know the real meaning of any data patterns)

 

And the reason that math is used here is that mathematics is a tool for finding logical relationships. What we are interested of, are the logical relationships between the symmetry arguments and the consequent characteristics of our worldviews. While you could talk about all those logical steps in semantical terms, I think it would be quite impossible to convince anyone of the validity of each step as it's quite hard to think about what is happening there in semantical terms. Not to mention how hard it would be to communicate those steps unambiguously. The math is as unambiguous and free of extra baggage as possible, and still it seems to be very difficult.

 

And really, if you guys and girls are at this point thinking "well what sort of meaningful end this could ever have", I think you should read couple of my previous posts.

 

-Anssi

[Michael Mooney]

AnssiH,

Philosophically, would you consider yourself an "idealist" (as per Berkeley/Hume Idealism?)

How about solipsism? How do you know there is anything "out there?" Could it be that it is all your dream and you are the only dreamer? If so what "real substance"... like a body with a brain... supports your dream and your totally subjective perceptions of "patterns?"

 

To what extent do you trust your senses to give you accurate information about what you sense?

 

Do you really question whether the tennis ball is "the same ball" at different moments of your observation of it?

 

Do you think that the cosmos exists independent of human or any other observational perspective " sensing it " and its nearly infinite variety of "patterns?"

 

Michael

[arkain101]

Those who got this far without crash and burn, you can perhaps also wrap your head around the observation, that "identity" as a concept, is something that, as far as we know, only exists as a tool for building a mental model of reality. 1. we have no information about the real identity of anything, and 2. try to think about anything without invoking the idea of any defined object (the idea of anything having identity). You should understand quite quickly, that it is simply not possible to think about anything that way, as our thoughts are entirely composed of "semantically identified objects". You cannot think about how something behaves, without having defined what that something is.

 

I can imagine you guys do a lot of research related to peoples experiences with shifts in consciousness. For example, many people that experience death, report having out of body experiences, many people have memories of seeing themselves in third person.

 

How I got involved in this whole understanding of reality at its most deepest core was due to experiences that began happening to me for reasons I had no answer for, and that were beyond my control at the time. I was shifting from the view of seeing reality as a fixed state, the same for everyone type of Master world where I took part in as a body with my particular physical appearence. Throughout this shift, I was becoming more and more aware of reality being produced by me, in a way that I learned the real "I" was an undefined phenomena doing it's best to produce a meaningful pattern out of patterns (that were otherwise meaningless without my combining proceedure to produce a world view reality).

At this time in my life I had very little knowledge, of anything that even had to do with the subject.. I was actually quite disturbed and confused to watch what I thought was myself and my world die, as a invisible power of knowing broke through it (picture neo in the matrix after jumping inside the body of the agent, and the agent didnt understand what was taking its place, just a random example that I thought about trying to explain how a previously unconcieved awareness broke forth in me).

 

So this brings me to something I wanted to share in response to:

"you should understand quite quickly, that it is simply not possible to think about anything that way, as our thoughts are entirely composed of "semantically identified objects".

 

One of the most mysterious experiences I had in this shift (which I have now gotten under control) was at a time when I was working underground in a mine on a diamond drill for retrieve cores for mineral exploration. I was working in a state where I had at this point lost much of my emotional experience, and physical touch, and even the ability to taste food or determine texture. It was kind of a hopeless situation at the time, as I couldn't understand it. So one evening on my shift I was working away and suddenly I my whole organized world of patterns (me as the physical body) separated from the observer, and I was literally seeing myself from outside in many angles most strongly from above... it was almost as if I imagined it, but I clearly recall noting after the experience where my observation kept leaping out of my body, as my mental construct of self was walking back and forth stacking pipes, of course during those moments "I" was not stacking pipes, the body was, but "I" had undefined observation that I later defined. For those brief moments, I now have memories of an experience where I was (seemingly) expanded even by kilometers from where my physical body was located. where I was aware of things much further beyond physical location, but it was mixed with blips of the usual internal body experience with its typical internal dialoge we produce to be a functioning life form.

 

I should be careful to share my beliefs on the whole situation. I have no idea what happened. It may have just been my imagination working so strongly that sleeping dream state of consciousness mixed with my waking state. However or whatever it may be, I experienced as much of a detached location from physicality as I can explain to you with words, now in this functioning state of being as I can; the one Anssih explained we all share. our 'natural' functional conscious state.

 

So I think in some way it is possible get unusual experiences that allows us... not think but in a way, unthink of anything without invoking the idea of any defined object, and when that occurs, you can no longer experience that attatchment of identity.

 

Learning about my function, and the relationship it has with the world around me (which to me seems to be the theme of this topic) was the only way I could invert the direction I was going and get back to a functioning person again, by kind of reversing the process. Back into the usual state of mind, but even so, that was not the only time that kind of experienced occurred. There was other times where I was practicing mental understanding and for my own experiment if you will became so strongly convinced of a construct that it literally felt like my body had become fully electricuted, and my conception and vision was going sort of white, and my physical form felt very spread out and dispersed, ready to disipate... which frightened me enough that I was able to make a decision that I didnt know where this was going to lead which made me able to just settle right back down to normal.. If that was just a chemical experience, I am really interested in what concoction it was!

[AnssiH]

AnssiH,

Philosophically, would you consider yourself an "idealist" (as per Berkeley/Hume Idealism?)

 

No, definitely not.

 

There's a difference between the idea that reality does not exist apart from our imagination (idealism/solipsism), and the idea that our definitions of "persistent entities" are immaterial references to the patterns of "reality of unknown ontological nature".

 

Do you really question whether the tennis ball is "the same ball" at different moments of your observation of it?

 

Yes, in ontological sense.

 

Very important to understand that as long as we are talking about persistent identity of something, the idea that anything at all has got identity to itself is completely epistemological of nature. Who else is there to point at some "region" or "portion" of reality and call that portion "a tennis ball", if not us?

 

That is NOT to say, that the tennis ball is idealistic in nature. It is just to say, that we do not know what is its ontological nature, and we cannot even think about that issue without using some undefendable ideas of some "things with persistent identity" (Think Kant and noumena, and also map/territory relationship)

 

It's important to understand that this issue is completely about epistemological aspects of our ability to point at something and think about it as a tennis ball. Not an attempt to claim that reality itself is fundamentally idealistic.

 

Note that this track will lead to rather satisfactory explanations to the strange features of QM & relativity, as in explaining exactly why those features exist in our conception of reality, even if they don't exist in reality itself (even if that conception is ontologically invalid, while prediction-wise valid).

 

Those who don't accept the validity of questioning the nature of the "persistent entities" that we defined, will not be able to follow the analysis at all (from their paradigm reality is as they conceive it in their mind, and the results of the analysis look implausible). And when that is the case, I don't think I can really help. :shrug:

 

-Anssi

[arkain101]

Do you really question whether the tennis ball is "the same ball" at different moments of your observation of it?

 

I thought anssih responded to this very well. Although, I still want to expose a bit of my own comparitive methods of thinking.

 

As Anssih described, the green colored, fuzzy textured, roundly shaped , titled object of a tennis ball(mental construct descriptors) is a designed mental construct of (i think) ontological (new concept , still learning about) object.

 

Scientifically speaking the ball is made of the exact same "electrons, charges, and forces" as the air its traveling through, and the device that accelerated it along its path. In a manner of speaking, the ball is losing and gaining its formation as an object through any of its moments along its movement.

 

The reason "I" would consider the question valid as to "is it the same ball" is due to the considerations that its literal make up is the same as everything else around it, and all of 'that' is changing.

 

But the words I used to define what things the ball has in common with any other material thing around it, are likewise, mental constructs. So I can not under this world view logically separate the ball from not only the world around it, but I also can not pick out one thing in particular about the just the ball that is persistent and individually defined as unique.

[Qfwfq]

Thinking of surface waves on water, we know how common it is to perceive "each wave" as a persisent identity that is moving across the surface, but we also know that it isn't a motion of water in that sense. So, what is actually moving across the surface? Any good 2nd year General Physics course gives details about how an ascillation is being propagated, with momentum and energy being transported, with conservation laws in act although also dissipation, all that mumble-jumble.

 

Quantum field theory gives a similar depiction of particles and valid, to some extent, even for composite bodies. On one hand we talk of coupling between fermionic and bosonic fields, hence indirectly between different fermionic ones; on the other hand this is treated by means of Feynman diagrams in terms of virtual particles being exchanged. A single hadron is not really composed of two or three quarks that just sit there inside it, they aren't in the least individually persistent; as they furiously exchange bosons, a hectic lot of pair production and anihilation must be going on. When they tell you that a proton is "made of" one down and two up quarks, it really means that this is the net content over quarks and antiquarks.

 

The complex structure of the tennis ball is persistent, even at scales of time much longer than those for which it may still make sense to suppose that most of the particles the were in it, still are. Now, coupling between atomic nuclei and the atom's surroundings is pretty weak, so exchanges between those up and down quarks deep inside the ball and those in the air are presumeably a quite slow thing. Phenomena such as solid diffusion are certainly very slow at ordinary temperature and I don't expect exchanges between nuclei of neighboring atoms to be all that quicker, but it might be interesting to calculate it. All this is what gives dumb animals like us that fiendish deception of there being such a thing as persistent objects, even as they are moving around within fluids that are composed of the same kind of quarks, leptons and bosons.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Thanks AnsiH.

 

I think I understand more of what is being said than I can put into words. Most of what you said, I followed.

 

DD's statement to Rade restated something I've heard him say more than once before: "I am doing something very simple: I am carefully defining a way of referring to undefined elements and then creating a carefully constructed tautology which will “explain” those elements (an explanation being nothing more than a procedural mechanism which will predict expectations for information which is not part of the information on which the procedure itself depends)." is very key, isn't it.

 

And AnsiH, I loved your response to Michael Mooney. Good questions Michael.

 

I definitely doubt the evidence of my senses and I think that is why I buy into what is being discussed here. As an objectivist, Rade would probably crap his pants - but all it really means is that I recognize that I am just a perception machine with values. It is still possible to build a structure on top of that understanding. All that is necessary is to keep hold of the idea that the structure might be wrong, even though it works - and be open to the idea of modifying that structure. No big deal. Just don't tie your self worth to a particular structure. Tie it to the idea of an entity that is perceiving reality in a way which is built in - and doing the best it can.

 

I think the biggest problem science has today is that those who practice it have tied their self worth to a particular structure and defend that structure at all costs and in any way they can. But better would be to tie worth to the processes involved in identifying what is true. If I'm seeing this correctly, DD's tautology is an attempt at that without the intrusion of values or perhaps better would be preconceived notions.

 

And it is my opinion that this discussion represents the best of the best.

[AnssiH]

I think we are making some progress here... Just to keep pushing harder towards the target, I should make a comment here.

 

Arkain, as you are trying to think about what sort of underlying reality that tennis ball might have, I'm sure you have noticed that you are still thinking about some "things" or "smaller objects" whose motion is just seen as the stable thing we call "tennis ball".

 

Qfwfq's description of how modern physics defines the structure of the tennis ball is a good example here. Notice how that's also a description of the (frantic) behaviour of smaller entities, whose collective behaviour gives stability to the complex structure that we call "tennis ball", but whose own ontological identity should be just as much under question as the identity of that tennis ball.

 

In other words, don't jump to conclude that those smaller entities have got ontological identity to themselves any more than the tennis ball does. It would be equally unfair to assume they have got ontological identity, as they too are perceived due to some familiar pattern having been defined as the doings of that sort of "object".

 

When reading your response...

 

But the words I used to define what things the ball has in common with any other material thing around it, are likewise, mental constructs. So I can not under this world view logically separate the ball from not only the world around it, but I also can not pick out one thing in particular about the just the ball that is persistent and individually defined as unique.

 

...I'm thinking you may have noticed how it is simply not possible to "think about" any aspect of the tennis ball (or anything else) without still thinking about some sorts of "things" or "thing" (like an energy canvas with identified locations) whose collective behaviour is underlying your perception of "a tennis ball".

 

That of course doesn't mean that reality itself must be built out of some fundamental entities with identity. It just means, that all worldviews work in terms of defined entities that have got persistent identity to themselves.

 

When I said that "DD's analysis begins from the point where we have absolutely no knowledge about the identity of any objects that we'll define as part of our worldview", I meant exactly that. Pick any sub-atomic element from the standard model, and you have an "persistent object" that is defined according to some pattern, without any ontological knowledge about the underlying reality behind that pattern.

 

If this was not understood before, perhaps it would be a good idea to read #283 again, and whenever I refer to "defined object", think about any entity from the standard model.

 

In other words, I'd continue Qfwfq's post with:

 

All this is what gives dumb animals like us that fiendish deception of there being such a thing as persistent objects, even as they are moving around within fluids that are composed of the same kind of quarks, leptons and bosons.

 

...And after all that, there is still the fiendish deception of there being such thing as "quarks, leptons and bosons" with persistent identity to themselves.

 

DD's analysis can be viewed as an examination of this issue from the other end of the spectrum than what people are usually familiar with. As in, when you take bunch of patterns and define "persistent objects" in there, there are certain logical limitations to your possibilities, leading you inevitably into some set of entities that can be seen as conserving "energy", and exhibiting all sorts of other features that are usually seen as ontological features (as "that's just how reality is" types of features)...

 

DD's statement to Rade restated something I've heard him say more than once before: "I am doing something very simple: I am carefully defining a way of referring to undefined elements and then creating a carefully constructed tautology which will “explain” those elements (an explanation being nothing more than a procedural mechanism which will predict expectations for information which is not part of the information on which the procedure itself depends)." is very key, isn't it.

 

Yes.

 

It is still possible to build a structure on top of that understanding. All that is necessary is to keep hold of the idea that the structure might be wrong, even though it works - and be open to the idea of modifying that structure. No big deal. Just don't tie your self worth to a particular structure. Tie it to the idea of an entity that is perceiving reality in a way which is built in - and doing the best it can.

 

Yes, it is important to understand that even when the explicit ontological meaning of the "raw data" is not known, it is still quite possible to build a world conception - a predictive model - on top of it. Prediction ability is the key to survival, not the ontologial correctness of the world view.

 

It's just that one of the necessary evils of any world conception is that you crunch all that data into an explanation where some complex patterns are seen in a lot simpler manner; as objects with persistent identity and predictable (simple) behaviour. The ontological correctness there is completely undefendable, but the prediction ability is... well, priceless :smilingsun:

 

I've mentioned it before and I'll just do it again; notice that when you build a world model onto data whose explicit meaning is unknown, it is possible to interpret that same data in many different manners, all equally valid prediction-wise.

 

I.e, different people might see the exact same portion of reality through different concepts, and you might yourself be able to understand the exact same things in terms of many different alternative perspectives.

 

And what do we call that? Semantics! Our semantical ability is due to the fact that we don't truly "know" what we are perceiving. We "interpret" data whose meaning is unknown, and many logically valid interpretations always exist.

 

Many people think "machine semantics" is not possible, but here you should be able to see clearly the key to exactly that. A learning machine that builds a world model, trying to build one that fits some data patterns whose explicit meaning is completely unknown, will be able to explain (=interpret) everything it sees in many different ways.

 

You mentioned that if we are ever able to build an intelligent machine it is probably because of what is being discussed here, and I could not agree with you more.

 

-Anssi