Talk:Reality

Early comments

Page created--Maria Cuervo 22:21, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Good start. Two things I think it needs are Johnson's "I refute it thus" [1] and the 60s T-shirt "Reality is for people who cannot handle drugs". Sandy Harris 00:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Or "... science fiction" in another version. Peter Jackson 10:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Sandy. I'll slowly work my way to Johnson but if you want to create an applicable section, go for it. Thank you for the suggestions. Is there an image for the T-shirt? I imagine that would be a great relief from the seriousness of Plato, to wear it or even to just see the image.--Maria Cuervo 01:08, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Hayford: I didn't even see that apostrophe in the definition of Reality!

Also Schroedinger's cat and at least two butterflies — Chuang Tzu's and the one in Chaos theory. Sandy Harris 04:23, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice. BTW, I worked for a decade in IT before switching to Philosophy, so I did enjoy reading your profile. I'm a bit of a polyglot and taught myself a few languages. Doing Oracle, perl, php, cold fusion, asp, pl/sql, regX, whatever and anything. Whatever was needed. I've written my own little content management system which by now is pretty old and useless. (So I retired my personal sites that used the program, for now.) I did consider having myself added to the technology workgroup? but wondered if it was too much. At least I could on occasion write articles on Baudrillard or other philosophy-related technology issues that could cross link. Who knows.--Maria Cuervo 04:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, Holographic Universe

I'm interested in this (Is it Talbot that wrote on it?) and see certain affinities between it and Plato's cosmology.

Definition for Reality

What I tried to attempt in the definition was one which could be concise and clear yet accommodate vastly different meanings. The definition used works in Platonic Realism but depending on how the terms within it are defined, e.g., being, also with phenomenology.--Maria Cuervo 13:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Saw a quote today, attributed to Einstein "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." I do not know if that is genuine, but if it is, it belongs in the article. Sandy Harris 14:11, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that a whole page could go Einstein's string theory version of reality v. the holographic version and link back here. This page could become a huge project.

Physicists about philosophy?

Maybe somebody (Anthony?) could explain to me why a couple of physicists have especially noteworthy views on this topic? Basically, they're trying to do philosophy. There are far more important thinkers who talk about the concept of reality.

I'm not trying to start a fight, or disrespect Stephen Hawkings or Anthony of course (I love both!), I'm just rather tired of non-philosophers (Dawkins is another example) being thought of as making important contributions to philosophy, when they're basically just authors who are using their popularity as a platform from which to advance theories, probably without reference to serious philosophers, who do this sort of thing for a living... --Larry Sanger 03:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I know of a couple of physicists who don't know that such a field as philosophy exists, and write about philosophy under the impression that they're writing about physics. Michael Hardy 04:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Larry. Sorry to hear you're "rather tired of non-philosophers...being thought of as making important contributions to philosophy...". I guess you can view Hawking and Mlodinow as being thought of as contributing to philosophy. Actually, when it comes to science, you can't do philosophy very well if you don't understand the science, they argue. Nobody understands quantum reality, but some scientists spend their lives learning as much as they can about it. Many are philosophers at heart, and contribute insights to questions that can't be answered by science alone. The first philosophers were philosophers of nature, but not scientists. The latest philosophers are both. I could not label Stephen Hawking a non-philosopher. Perhaps 'metascientist'? Anthony.Sebastian 04:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Um, this article is called reality, not philosophy? I hope Larry isn't trying to suggest that the only people who can have views on reality are people with philosophy degrees. That in itself seems to be a somewhat anti-scientific view. David Finn 06:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Reality is a philosophical concept. CZ is an expert-based site, or academic-based, maybe, but not specifically science-based. Look at the workgroup list.

On the particular topic in question, I don't think Hawking & co are saying anything particularly new. You'll probably find it all already in philosophers of science. Yes, of course you can have different theories giving the same empirical predictions. Usually scientists choose between them on the basis of usefulness, e.g. simplicity. For example, there are versions of creationism and intelligent design that are empirically indistinguishable from standard evolutionary theory. They're just not very useful, and probably more complicated (if God makes things happen as if they evolved through natural selection, then the entire theory of natural selection would have to be implicitly present in his mind, so these theories contain the other in toto, with additions). Peter Jackson 15:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I see the article is listed in philosophy and classics workgroups. I don't think the EC has yet worked out a policy on workgroups. Peter Jackson 15:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

What might be more interesting to cover is the philosophical implications for the concept of reality of quantum mechanics. What you've got there is a complicated mathematical formalism that doesn't seem to "describe" anything one might want to call "reality". You might say it does nothing but predict the results of experiments (correctly), without explaining why the experiments have those results in any way we can understand.

For example, it says "If you do this experiment, you can measure position. If you do that, you can measure momentum. But you can't do both experiments. If you do this experiment you'll observe a particle. [That is, you'll get the sorts of results you'd expect to get if there were "really" a particle there.] If you do that you'll observe a wave." So what is "real" here? Is there a particle, or a wave, or both, or neither? Has it got a position, or a momentum, or both, or neither? There are "hidden-variable theories" that describe some sort of reality and give the same experimental predictions, but physicists don't seem to find them useful. Peter Jackson 15:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

There are articles about the physicist Niels Bohr in multi-volume encyclopaedias of philosophy. I haven't tried looking up Hawking. Peter Jackson 15:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I will try to come up with a list of scientists widely regarded a philosophers of science. Anthony.Sebastian 20:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Have to admit I get occasionally irritated by philosophers who try to be neuroscientists. On balance, has philosophy benefited more from scientists than science has from philosophers? Gareth Leng 15:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Good question, Gareth. Obviously, for non-scientist philosophers to write about the philosophy of science—most particularly when they try to formulate and answer questions about science that cannot be answered by scientific methods themselves—it would seem they should have a good understanding of the science. Hawking and Mlodinow make no bones about that:

How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time. 'Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. —Hawking, Stephen (2010). The Grand Design (Kindle Locations 41-45). Bantam. Kindle Edition.

Many non-scientist philosophers do an estimable job, in my opinion, and have significantly advanced the philosophy of science. One might ask whether such creatures as non-scientist philosophers exist, as all philosophers are seekers of knowledge, trying to pick up where scientists leave off. Perhaps we should consider philosophers of science, theoretical scientists.

I would like to see traditional philosophers, including philosophers of science, recognize the philosophical contributions of scientists to the philosophy of science. To seek knowledge, we need trained philosophers thinking about science and trained scientists thinking philosophically. —Anthony.Sebastian 17:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Be that as it may, the fact remains that CZ is founded on the convenient fiction that experts know all about their subjects, so it's for philosophers to decide whether what physicists say about philosophy is valuable. Peter Jackson 17:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Mathematics and Reality

[Mathematics and Reality http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199280797.do Mathematics and Reality] reviewed here and discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here is a recently published (2010) book that might be of interest for this article. The author is Mary Leng - my niece, so I declare an interest and won't insert any details myself. (She, unlike me, is a 'proper' philosopher, Larry.)Gareth Leng 15:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wow, sign her up! Must be genetic ;) D. Matt Innis 00:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The notion of "reality" encompasses many topics. Bertrand Russell, who could be classified as both a philosopher and a mathematician, raised the interesting point of the assumptions underlying the practice of science, for example, the belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, which is not made more secure by noting that it has done so for some time. Likewise, the observation that it is a particular case of a general law provides no certainty that the law will continue to hold. See The Problems of Philosophy. It is somewhat like the caution in investment brochures: Past performance is not a guarantor of future performance.

This notion shows up again in the work of Dirac and others on the possible change over time of things like the speed of light or the fine structure constant, or the second law of thermodynamics. That slow evolution of "reality" replaces Russell's very short term skepticism with one on a longer time scale, maybe related to the expansion of the universe, if one can consider cosmology to be part of "reality" (maybe it is too removed from everyday experience to be "reality"?). John R. Brews 14:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The book mentioned by Gareth (according to the summary on Amazon) discusses the viewpoint (shared by most, I think) that the success of a mathematical theory as used in a scientific theory to describe observations, is not an indicator that the underlying mathematical concepts are "real". I don't know what the concept of "reality" is in this work, having not read it. However, the topic is worth raising in the article.

It has long been a query among scientists from Galileo to Feynman as to why mathematics should be successful in science. Weyl and others thought pure intellect could discern reality, and that led to mathematics. A different explanation is that the human mind is very limited in its capacity to process information: for example, the brain cannot store unlimited examples like a computer and rifle through them to find the closest analogy to a present situation. Accordingly, a shorthand method is used, somewhat like Aesop's fables serve to summarize some of the dilemmas of life. That shorthand happens to be mathematical in nature, more a reflection of how the brain can summarize disparate details than an indicator of what is "out there".

The question for this article is whether reality is "out there", or is the shorthand version stored in our brain. Is the Mona Lisa reality or a window on reality? John R. Brews 14:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Along these lines, Feynman notes in his lectures that the human eye is not sensitive to the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum, from the infrared to the X-ray. Likewise, our hearing is limited compared to other species. What is the implication for reality? Do we limit "reality" to what is immediately apparent to us, or do we allow reality to include the very delicate separation of so-called "noise" in an electronic image of a star from its "spectrum" that reveals its inner workings? At some point science appears to be working on a very thin edge, where "reality" and "theory" are so intermixed that it becomes a function of who exactly is deciding what constitutes the "data", and even of who a committee allows access to the telescope to accumulate more "data", or who a committee funds to equip a laboratory. As in the days of Galileo himself, the concept of "reality" may be subject to the rules of public enterprise, not just science. John R. Brews 15:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding John's last sentence, note his reference to the concept of reality. It seems reasonable to suppose a distinction between reality and a concept of reality. A concept of reality counts as a model of reality, a model constructed using language, a system of symbols such as 'natural language' or 'mathematics'. Either of those two languages, or both together, enables us to conceptualize reality, i.e., create a model of reality. Just as a map does not count as the territory, a model only represents that which it models—it maps reality but cannot duplicate it or re-create it.

In a sense, then, in conversing using our concepts of reality we converse using inventions of human minds, constructed of symbols. In effect, we invent reality, or realities.

If human symbolic processing can invent realities, perhaps some kind of symbolic processing invents reality itself.Anthony.Sebastian 17:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Mathematical objects are abstract. Nevertheless many mathemticians consider themselves as Platonists, and say that they discover mathematical objects and structures -- in contrast to inventing or creating them. However, they cannot prove this ... --Peter Schmitt 17:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Making a distinction between "reality" and the "concept of reality" could lead to the "concept of the concept of reality" or contrariwise to "a rose is a rose is a rose", eh? John R. Brews 18:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The underlying subtlety, I think, is what is "out there" versus our picture of what is out there. It's pretty hard to argue that there is anything "out there" at all, without getting into just what it is, that is, what our picture of it is. This is an old chestnut of philosophy that is discussed by Bertrand Russell at length, and which has led to a lot of contempt for philosophy, like kicking stones. John R. Brews 19:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Peter, yes, many mathematicians speak of discovering their mathematical models, not of inventing them. Yet, do they not discover them through a process of synthesizing other thinking processes of differing patterns, weaving a fabric of novel thinking itself? A novel model, embodied in their cognitive system. Doesn’t that analogize to creating a work of sculpture? An act of creation, or of invention, if you will?

What do you call it when a sculptor says the model already resided in the marble, they just chipped away its cloaking? —Anthony.Sebastian 23:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A mathematician has much less freedom than a sculptor. Anyway, it is a fact that both the Platonic view and its negation exist and that prominent mathematicians are examples. Both views cannot be proven wrong, I would say (at least not easily). Probably most mathematicians will agree that they are inventing parts of mathematics, but not everything. Just like engineers who invent machines. --Peter Schmitt 23:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Interjecting here a response to John: John, regarding your concern about the "concept of the concept of reality", it seems to me we do think about our concepts of reality, and conceptualize in the process. We could discuss Aristotle’s concept of reality, or Plato’s, or Aquinas’s, or Einstein’s, or Feynman’s. My concept of concepts of reality: they vary conceptually quite diversely.

Regresses needn’t regress ad infinitum, I believe. It seems to me we’re still at a rather infant level of metacognitive ability. Anthony.Sebastian 23:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

←outdent Hi Peter: I'd agree that both views are found among mathematicians. Would you care to comment upon the longstanding speculations by scientists about why math works in science? If one holds the view that math is just a convenient form of description that can be shown to agree with nature, or not, by making observations, the success of castles of thought built in thin air seems a bit mysterious. My explanation, which is not unique to me, is that math helps organize the brain's activities and is peculiar to brain structure. So the success of math is like learning to swim: it works for us, but other species might find it quaint. Dolphins swim, birds navigate, and ants have better government, eh? John R. Brews 00:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

←outdent Hi Anthony: So far the article has the two proposals: the Platonic and the Hawkins et al. views. If the others you mention are really different, they should be in the article too. So far as I know, Einstein and Feynman would agree with Hawkins, although Einstein might inject some aesthetic requirements upon the theory (it should be deterministic entirely) and Feynman might do the same (it should be intuitively appealing - at least to those properly prepared). I know nothing about Aquinas, though I'd guess it has theological overtones more specific to dogma than Platonism. John R. Brews 00:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the practical issue for mathematicians is not whether mathematical entities "exist" or are "real" in some "metaphysical" sense, but whether statements such as the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis have definite truth values. If you think they do then you're a Platonist. Peter Jackson 08:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The importance of multiple authorship

Anthony, you seem to suggest that multiple authorship of journal papers is an antidote to the strictures of "Big science". The source you cite in this connection doesn't appear to raise this issue - what it does say is that (i) the tendency toward multiple authorship is increasing, (ii) many topics require diverse backgrounds and hence collaboration of specialists, (iii) multiple authorship is an advantage in gaining citations and funding, and (iv) multiple authorship can expedite rushing an article to print, thereby gaining a "first come" advantage.

One could argue that all these factors decrease the advance of a more complete picture by promoting two bad things: crowd mentality among workers and funders, and the quick patching together of bits and pieces by "collaborators", rather than the pondered integration of something profound. The sources by Smolin and by Woit document these difficulties as seen by well-published authors in string theory. John R. Brews 17:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I find myself quite persuaded by Smolin and Woit in the sources you cited, namely the continuing failure of string theory, and the sociological factors that keep it in play. I don't quite understand what point you want to make vis-a-vis Hawking/Mlodinow's advocacy of model-dependent realism. Perhaps you could rephrase for me, as I have no bias about model-dependent realism.

You write: "To a limited degree, the shaping of "reality" based upon modeling of selected data is a public enterprise, with all the foibles that implies." What do you intend with the word 'shaping'; I suppose you mean something like 'considering reality as determined by models of data'? What makes modeling selected data a 'public enterprise'? Smolin and Woit seem to talk aboutn the 'academic enterprise'. Perhaps you are referring to the public funding of the academic enterprise.

My only goal in pursuing this with you is ensure we make our points clear to the reader, perhaps a college undergraduate or a interested biologist. Anthony.Sebastian 03:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not challenging Hawking/Mlodinow's notion of "reality" as a tenable position, but I wanted to point out that this model of reality is first of all, extremely narrow in its focus, and leaves out a very large portion of what Plato calls reality. Building upon that idea, even within the confines of accepting "reality" to comprise the ideas underlying a theoretical explanation of some selected data, I wanted to point out that the process by which data is allowed into the theory, and therefore, into "reality" is not addressed by the Hawking/Mlodinow's model, at least as it is described in this article.

To illustrate some of the implications of the Hawking/Mlodinow's approach, I wanted to point out the limitations upon acceptance of "data", limitations imposed by entirely unphilisophical forces. Aside from our human intellectual limitations, there are the limitations of any any large-scale committee and corporate driven enterprise, namely the blinkering of exploration that would expand "reality" that is inevitably incurred whenever commerce and politics are involved.

That criticism does not undermine the Hawking/Mlodinow's approach, but does serve to show that this method has some serious built-in, inadvertent, and inexplicit limitations. These "shape" reality.

Historically, these forces impeded the development of "reality" from way back when anatomy could not be pursued, and when the Earth could not be thought to move. Today they divert resources to "string theory" because that has become an industry in itself. These forces also support the notions of dark matter as some unknowable huge fraction of everything in the universe, even though that seems less an "explanation" than a reformulation of the problem. John R. Brews 11:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Lucidly expressed, John. Understanding your motivation, I more clearly understand the intent of your section, theory and reality.

I'm thinking about a section before Hawking/Mlodinow, heading, Scientific realism, with Hawking/Mlodinow as one subsection. As I've understood it, scientific realists believe in a reality independent of the mind, but, inasmuch as part of that reality includes humans with minds and thoughts, reality includes minds and thoughts. Consequently events that happen because of the operation of minds and thoughts, those events in part characterize reality. But scientific realists do not speak one mind, so to speak, they speak from many perspectives. Those differing perspectives invite separate subsections accompanying model-dependent realism at the same subsection level.

I quote Peter-Godfrey-Smith (Peter Godfrey-Smith. Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (p. 176). Kindle Edition.):

Common-sense Realism Naturalized: We all inhabit a common reality, which has a structure that exists independently of what people think and say about it, except insofar as reality is comprised of thoughts, theories, and other symbols, and except insofar as reality is dependent on thoughts, theories, and other symbols in ways that might be uncovered by science.

Once we have made this modification, it is reasonable to include common-sense realism as part of scientific realism.

Here is my preferred statement of scientific realism:

Scientific Realism:

1. Common-sense realism naturalized.

2. One actual and reasonable aim of science is to give us accurate descriptions (and other representations) of what reality is like. This project includes giving us accurate representations of aspects of reality that are unobservable.

20:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)Anthony.Sebastian

new font size

John, at CZ we mostly eschew typographical tricks such as boxes and different font sizes. If the quotation isn't worth having in regular fonts, then making it smaller only makes it worse. My own feeling is that while selected quotations from various non-philosophers are *interesting*, and amusing, reality falls under the Philosophy workgroup and if the philosophers here feel that these quotations should be avoided, then they probably have the last word on it. Hayford Peirce 13:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hayford: I haven't heard anything from this workgroup on this topic. I reduced the font size because I felt the quote was so prominent as to suggest an importance it did not have. I had nothing to do with finding or inserting this quote. Personally, I'd be happy to remove this quote to the text where its relevance could be amplified by comment. John R. Brews 13:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, then I think you should, John. As to les philosophes, didn't Larry offer some thoughts somewhere in this discussion? Hayford Peirce 14:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, John, we shouldn't emphasize that we pay a price if we over-focus on one aspect of reality, which does get emphasized by inserting the quote as an epigraph for the whole article. Perhaps, as the article develops, we'll find a better epigraph, if we want one. I view article epigraphs in part as teasers, to encourage further reading. I will remove it, if you have no objections.

I like Philip K. Dick's, "Reality is that which, when you quit believing in it, doesn’t go away." ;) Anthony.Sebastian 20:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)