I know a bit of the last two, not much of the first.
The electron’s spin is either up or down, yet no one has measured it, hence it is unknown; a truth absent of anyone’s attitude towards it, named without being observed.
Doesn’t quite work (unless there are non-local hidden variables). So clearly we have precedence for the anti-realist view.
Those who argue that this is only true at the smallest scales (and so against anything like Everett’s universal wave-function (and many worlds)) are taking a metaphysical position that strictly speaking is beyond the realm of scientific falsifiability.
Certainly like the electron example above, and as Wayfarer mentioned, that some “A or B” is true doesn’t suffice to show that realism is true. Counterfactual definiteness requires something more substantial.
No, I can’t name a thing that can’t have a name.
So you hold that there are no unknowns; what follows is that you know everything. Well done. Fitch’s Paradox awaits.
That’s a misrepresentation of the paradox. The conclusion is “all truths are known” not “I know everything”.
If I know half of everything and if you know the other half of everything then everything is known but neither of us knows everything.
Yes, belief is what we think is true, while truth is what we know to be true.
Having said that, this simple definition hides significant problems. For a start, what is truth? Next, how do we “know” it’s ‘true’? Here we are heading for an assertion that we have knowledge — verifiable and maybe testable knowledge — of Actual or Objective Reality, which many philosophers consider … overly optimistic.
But I’m sure this was not the intended direction for these comments, or this topic. So I’ll stop here.
I’ve said many times, the in itself neither exists nor doesn’t exist. There are many things that are unknown, but the word ‘things’ is being used figuratively in this context, because without further information, it can’t be ascertained whether there was something unknown that has become known, or nothing whatever. It’s not blanket scepticism, but the suspension of judgement with regards to what is not evident.
There’s a bit of circularity in the claim that to be true is to be known to be true. Are there truths that are unknown? Or do we know everything?
Also, we only know true things, to be sure — that seems to be the difference between what we believe and what we know. So if we are to be able to distinguish what we believe from what we know, we must be able to tell which of those things we believe are the ones that are true; and yet if we believe something, we already hold it to be true. So it seems we still need a difference between what we hold to be true and what is indeed true…
The best answer we have at hand is that given by Tarski. “The cat is on the mat” is true if and only if the cat is on the mat. It seems undeniable, if apparently uninformative. The threads I’ve made on Davidson offer a bit more detail.
There seems to be an expectation that this question has a general answer. But why should it? Why should there be only one reason, or one way, to decide if something is true? We use whatever methods are appropriate to the domain at hand.
But also, notice again that there is a difference between something being true and it being known to be true. There are things we don’t know, and hence there are things that are true, yet unknown. So “Is it true” and “How we know it is true?” ask different questions.
It’s actually an area of unusual agreement amongst professional philosophers. See the Philpapers survey. Scepticism and idealism are far more prominent amongst the denizens of amateur fora than amongst those who do this stuff for a living. Folk will disparage this fact, claiming that the professionals have all been paid off or some such conspiracy, but it remains that those who study such things are remarkably less likely than those hereabouts to claim to know nothing.
A good first year course in philosophy will instil considerable scepticism. A good continuation beyond that will provide alternatives.
I’ll repeat the first point I made here: we can correct our errors only because there is a difference between what is true and what is believed. The flip side of this is that those who suppose that we only have access to what we believe, and not to truth, cannot self-correct.
So I will maintain, in response to the OP, that the Solar Eclipse happened, and that we know it happened, and that it happened whether one believes it to have happened or not.
I’m already making plans for the Solar Eclipse that will occur hereabouts the year after next.
I really don’t much care if it is called realism or something else. I made two points in response to the OP and subsequent discussion. The first is that there is a purpose to differentiating belief from truth. The second is that there are things that are true yet not subject to some propositional attitude - not believed, known, doubted, or what have you.
Before anyone computed the ten-trillionth digit of pi, was it already some specific digit, or did it become that digit upon computation? If pi’s digits are fixed by the definition of pi and the axioms of arithmetic, the value was already fixed — the computation discovers it, doesn’t constitute it. That’s an argument about the nature of mathematical truth, not a pointed-to example.
Suppose, for reductio, all truths are knowable. Take any unknown truth p. Then “p and p is unknown” is itself true. If that conjunction is knowable, then someone could know both p and that p is unknown. But knowing p is unknown entails p is not known, contradicting the fact that they just came to know it. Hence, the conjunction is unknowable, and if there’s even one unknown truth, then there are unknowable truths. And if instead there are no unknown truths, then everything true is already known, which is absurd; nobody thinks the totality of arithmetic, history, and physics is already known. Fitch has a point.
There are true propositions. And we know what some of them are. The alternative is incoherent.
Perhaps, but you will only ‘see’ an eclipse if your perspective — your literal point of view; the point from which your observations are made — lies within that “shadow”. Light propagates in a rectilinear fashion, as I learned in GCE Physics, 50–60 years ago.
Of course there are truths that are unknown to you, or to me, and so we may conclude that you or I cannot know that a truth unknown to you or I is true, and known to be so.
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Yes, but outside of the appropriateness of your methods, how do we know that these methods, in this domain, return a TRUE result? That was my question.
I restored the full quote (of my text), so that we can see that my comments are aimed at the metaphysical discussion concerning Objective Reality. Where “Objective” (capital “O”) means something like correspondence with that which is actually is, regardless of our thoughts, ideas, theories and opinions, often called ‘Objectivism’.
Scepticism is another matter, I think. And I think it’s that which you are referring to here?
A somewhat ambiguous question. Do you mean it in the sense of mathematical realism?
As an analogy, consider a hashing algorithm like MD5; you pass it some input and it provides some deterministic output. Before I computed the hashed value of the string “this is my password”*, was it already “210d53992dff432ec1b1a9698af9da16”?
I don’t really know what it would mean for the hashed value of some string to already be some value (in the realist sense) before the hashing took place. I can understand the counterfactual claim “if you were to input the string ‘this is my password’ then the output would be ‘210d53992dff432ec1b1a9698af9da16’” being true (and unknown), but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.
So although I agree with your claim that there are unknown truths, it’s important that we recognise the nuances. If these unknown truths are counterfactual in nature (e.g. “if you were to measure this then you would find this”) then we haven’t satisfied the more robust realism that I believe you believe in (e.g. “it already is this even before the measurement”) — and we must address the other concerns with counterfactual truths, especially if we desire a realist interpretation of counterfactuals.
* Don’t use MD5 for passwords.
Don’t see the relevance here. I certainly didn’t assert anything being ‘objectively existing phenomena’. I wouldn’t even know what is mean by that since it seems self contradictory.
It’s weird to include spacetime as ‘forms of intuition’ since it’s not intuitive at all and it gathers much resistance due to that. There are always active topics from people trying to wrap their heads around it, usually without first letting go of their intuitions.
Yes, it’s an attempt to imagine the thing in itself, or at least something far closer to it. Your inability to imagine such things is noted, but I don’t include myself in the list, having given examples of imagined things completely sans a point of view. It is precisely that kind of comment that I was disagreeing with in my post.
Here for instance is an imagined small portion of our own sun, compressed to 2 spatial dimensions (all images tend to be 2D) with the temporal dimensioned labeled (so 3 of 4D).
Point is, it has no particular point of view. It’s not what any ‘observer’ would observe.
Relativism in my case. I’ve been open about this. It makes so much more sense than trying to rationalize any kind of objective view. Not subjectivism since it spirals into solipsism. I am open about my biases against anthropocentrist views, despite not outright rejecting them.
Not so. I gave a relational definition that is entirely independent of subjectivity. Hence it being one of the very few actual mind-independent definitions, despite the fact that it takes a subject to actually state the definition. But the definition need not be stated (noticed?) in order for it to work.
My relational definition seems only to work with causal structures. So the relation 5 < 12 doesn’t really imply that 5 and 12 exist relative to each other, but a different wording can include these relations.
As for Schopenhauer text, he says: “that what is chemical can never be referred to what is mechanical”. How is that justified? Seems to be begging some kind of conclusion he wants to reach. It seems to presume that magic is needed for chemistry to work instead of being a function of atomic physics, which in turn would be a function of particle physics, and probably QFT and so on.
I did not see in Banno’s quoted words any implication of the eclipse existing in absolute isolation from any mind or framework. In fact it contains several observer dependent references, such as which-world, and sometimes a temporal reference. In aboslute isolation, a statement like
has no meaning whatsoever. An eclipse of what by what at what 3rd point. It’s not like Earth has any kind of objectively specifiable location, or our world even. So it has to be not an objective statement, but one relative to somewhere, which kills it being an objective truth. I still would agree that the observer plays no role at all, unless ‘eclipse’ is defined as a phenomena instead of a certain kind of celestial alignment.
No they’re not. They’re natural occurrences. Them being phenomena raises them to an unnecessary level of observed thing. Most supernovas are not phenomena at all. You speak of Gamma-ray bursts being energetic events occurring in distant galaxies, but all events anywhere are distant from something and not distant from something else. Them being a GRB does not depend on them being distant.
I agree that ‘it happened’ has little to do with knowledge of it happening. Ontology and epistemology are not the same thing. And yet, ontologically speaking, ‘it happened’ seems to be an observer dependent thing. By ‘human-like’, I’ll generalize to any entity that can work out the fact that some prior event occurred despite lack of observation of it. We find a crater and deduce that a meteor struck there, despite the hit taking place long before human history.
Ah. Human past/present exists. The rest doesn’t? Seems like an awfully human-dependent definition of existence.
A objects, people, brains, rocks, anything with extension, is in some kind of state of superposition relative to parts elsewhere, all presuming non-counterfactual interpretations, which deny superposition I think.
I don’t think you mean that. A brain is almost entirely a classical thing. Yea, its parts are in superposition relative to each other, but none of its function is dependent on how those superpositions collapse. It’s very much like a computer in that way, composed only of components which retain classical behavior and average-away (rather than amplify) any randomness.
You seem to be speaking of systems that do leverage the randomness, such as a quantum computer. So a biological version of same. I think I read that plants do this, as a vital part of photosynthesis.
That’s a lot of capability to give to a Cambrian level organism.
I’m not on board with humans being able to do that. I don’t buy the premise put forth by Penrose-Lucas that essentially says humans can do what a Turing machine cannot. It’s conjecture, not something demonstrated. If it’s actually the case, then quantum theory (not just MWI) is indeed probably wrong.
So apparently you’re describing a biocentric consciousness-causing-collapse interpretation, if not the same as the Wigner interpretation, which can be driven to solipsism. You should familiarize yourself with how that was done to see if your interpretation is somehow not susceptible to the same logic.
By definition obviously.
If the claim is that a new race of humans would not be able to chart the glaciation history of Earth, why not, when we can do it now?
What does my anti-objective-realism stance have to do with it at all?
@Wayfarer seems to understand the relevance of realism to the question at hand. I don’t. Just ignorant I guess.
Yea, I got what you meant there. Tickled that Javi considered me a philosopher at all, armchair or otherwise. If I were to answer this question not asked of me, I don’t know since I pay little attention to the literature, the vast majority of which was written by people ignorant of modern physics.
Never took a philosophy course in school since the courses all seem bent on history of philosophy and not just learning how to think.
I looked up Dummett, who at a glance seems to define ‘is real’ to mean empirically real, a very mind dependent definition, and something I would call ‘real to me’ since empirical only matters to an observer, and my definition is not dependent on observation.
Copenhagen (unlike most of the others) is an epistemic interpretation. Sans observer, there is nothing to know about a system. There is no observer effect (system collapsing due to observation), but the observer IS the effect: Observation collapses what is known about the system.
This is just wrong. An electron is neither, and behaves similar to a particle in some situations and similar to a wave in others.
What an entirely counterfactual statement. I disagree. Superposition (a possibility, not a claim) is not this or that. It’s both/neither until measured. Yes, a counterfactual interpretation would say it’s either up or down.
That’s talking about scientific realism (counterfactuals), a different sort. So for instance, MWI is not counterfactual, so in not real by your usage. But it asserts the (objective?) reality of the universal wave function. That’s the kind of realism I deny.
Are you implying that an unobserved shadow of the moon passing over Earth is not an eclipse? Does it need to be observed by somebody within that shadow? Worse, observed by you?
Real or not, the 2nd digit to the right of the decimal point is factually 4. Like Banno, I find it hard to reach for an objective truth without resorting mathematics. Yes, the ten-trillionth is some specific digit. It’s fact. Whether or not it exist is up to whoever is deciding today what all to stamp that label on.
128 bit hash. Weak. Moot, I know. Yes, given a specific hash algorithm (there are countless ones), it was ‘already’ that. I put ‘already’ in scare quotes because the word implies that it became that hash at some time prior to you computing it for that specific phrase. No, not already. That value just IS the hash of that phrase.
Point is not that the hash of the password is unknown, but rather that the password is unknown given the hash. It’s a 1-way algorithm. P effortlessly generates H, but H generating P requires unreasonable effort (not entirely unreasonable with just 128 bits).
Whole books can be hashed in this manner, reduced to a single 128 bit hash value.
So you don’t think the statement ‘water boils at 100c at an atmospheric pressure of 101.325 kPa’ is valid?
Sure — no observer could actually see what is represented in that diagram. But that doesn’t make it perspectiveless. It is still a representation constructed from a particular standpoint: two spatial dimensions have been selected, the temporal dimension has been singled out and labelled, and the four-dimensional object has been projected into a form accessible to us. The fact that no human observer could literally see the resulting configuration is irrelevant. It still has an implied observer, in other words, it is seen as if from a perspective.
We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. ~ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (trs Guyer), A42
Just as the hands of an old-fashioned clock cross every 65 minutes or so, an eclipse is a visual curiosity, nothing more. And so yes, being a visual curiosity, it has to be seen or “observed”. Otherwise there’d be no point, would there? 
I agree that Penrose’s proof (involving mathematicians and Godel sentences) probably doesn’t work, but I believe it is obvious that he’s correct anyway. Conscious humans are capable of all sorts of things AI is not, such as understanding meaning and value, genuine creativity and intuition, and effortlessly avoiding the Frame Problem. I am therefore assuming it is correct as a structural hypothesis, to see what follows, rather than claiming it is a scientific/logical fact.
I am very familiar with the exact problem Wigner suffered from. I am not susceptible to the same logic for two reasons. Firstly I do not claim consciousness causes collapse. I take von Neumann’s position that consciousness is the only place an otherwise infinite chain of physical observers can end, which does not imply dualism in the same way, because the trigger can be internal/logical rather than external consciousness “poking” the system. Secondly I provide a formalisation of exactly how to avoid the Wigner’s friend problem. It is called Competition-resolved Collapse.
Not objectively, no. It seems valid enough in this world, even if ‘atmospheric’ shouldn’t be in that statement. Pressure is pressure (another non-objective statement).
I disagree with the implied observer. Sure, the diagram is observed, but that which was depicted does not. You cannot identify a point (event?) that acts as the perspective point, but you can identify the point in space where the observer observes not the sun, but the diagram of it. The difference between the two is the same difference between X and concept of X.
If I read this right, Kant says sans observation, this and that would ‘disappear’. To that I sort of agree (Disappear implies that it appeared before, and ceased to do so). That the objects in question still relate to each other, Kant seems to suggest not. With that I disagree. But not sure if he’s suggesting that. The quote seems to only be about appearances. I do no see, especially from Kant, any support to the claim that a thing cannot be imagined without assigning a point of view.
Again, seemingly stating a premise with which I do not agree. Take creativity: AI has solved some decades old problems in mathematics, taking a different approach to the problem than any human has thought of. That’s genuine creativity. As for intuition, that’s arguably in its coding as opposed to what it’s learned, just like your intuition is often from your DNA and not taught.
I am familiar with Wigner’s friend, but not sure in which interpretations it is problematic. Yes, perhaps it sinks the Wigner interpretation itself, the friend thing being exactly how solipsism is derived.
As I said above, I googled the definition, and none of the early hits mentions the necessity of it being observed, or of the necessity of there being a point to it. I’m sure such definitions exist, and you’re apparently using them. Yes, given such definitions, I could agree to your stance.
By your definition, I witness a total solar eclipse every night. Hardly a once-in-lifetime event unless I’m a fruit fly.
Mr Axiom: Hello, I’m calling about my car insurance. A stone hit my windscreen this morning and cracked it.
Insurance: I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Before we proceed, could you clarify what you mean by “stone”?
Mr Axiom: A stone. A small piece of rock.
Insurance: I’m afraid we don’t recognise “stone” as an objectively existing category.
Mr Axiom: What?
Insurance: It may seem like a stone to you. It may even be valid enough in this world to call it a stone. But we can’t establish that “stone” refers to an objectively existing thing.
Mr Axiom: It hit my windscreen!
Insurance: Again, “hit” is problematic. We cannot objectively establish that there was an event in which one object made contact with another object.
Mr Axiom: The windscreen is cracked!
Insurance: We can certainly record that you experience your windscreen as cracked.
Mr Axiom: Can I make a claim or not?
Insurance: We can process your claim once you’ve demonstrated the objective existence of cars, windscreens, stones, impacts and insurance policies.
Mr Axiom: But surely you accept that I have a policy with you?
Insurance: It seems valid enough in this world.
You’re strawmanning. The insurance company recognizes ‘rock’ in our mutually shared context. How they operate has zero to do with objective (non-contextual) meaning of rock and windshield.
You’re being inconsistent with your own nonsense since if the rock has no objective meaning, neither does the experience of the crack or anything else.
So you have no valid rebuttal of my pointing out the boiling point of water not being objective fact?
I will consider your claim.
I thought water boils at 212 degrees F at 1 atmospheric pressure. It boils differently inside a pressure cooker though. 