But you can’t assume nonsensical postulates ‘for the sake of argument’. And machines interpret data because they are designed to interpret data by human agents. They are instantiations of human intentionality.
I’ll refer to the relevant section in the original essay:
In the scientific imagination, we tend to picture a landscape empty but still structured — planets orbiting stars, rocks resting on mountainsides, waves crashing on empty shores. But Pinter argues this view is misleading. Without the animal sensorium — the biological apparatus of senses and the nervous system — to perceive it, the mind-independent universe is not an array of distinct objects but an undifferentiated continuum. And if you insist that all of those objects are “there anyway”, you’re drawing on those remembered experiences which were originally generated by the sensorium.
Mathematicians, whether from birth or through practice, are wont to think in this way. They’re constantly immersed in abstractions and are privy to the exquisite details of how math intersects with the sciences. This makes them better and fully appreciate the mathematical nature of our universe. This insight is not available to those who don’t pursue higher-level mathematics. Luckily one of the greatest discoveries in natural philosophy, the law of universal gravitation involves nothing more than multiplication and division: F = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}. We can compute any one of these variables given the other 4. This is indeed very fortuitous, very fortuitous indeed! The derivation of the relationship is probably not so easily handled but for someone who has the knack and is in daily contact with math I daresay it’s no different from cooking a tasty snack: I need tuna. Go get tuna from the grocery. Now I need bread. The bread is in the refrigerator. So on and so forth until voila! A big grilled tuna sandwich, ready for the eating.
Looking at your Medium article and the quote from Charles Pinter’s book…
“Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed…
I think the mistake being made here is what the hindsight fudges - thus the results of the thought experiment are predictable to that.
( The thought experiment assumes a universe that once had consciousness - and then removes it. But that is not the same as a universe that never had consciousness.)
What I think requires imagining is that the universe never had consciousness in it - and nothing outside of it was conscious of its existence, then it could not be said to exist, regardless of whether it actually did or not.
In the same way, we cannot say that “Heaven” or some other alternate universe exists. We can surmise. We can believe. But until we actually experience, we cannot know - for it is in the experiencing that we have, at least - something known. In that knowing, we may not a complete knowledge, or our language may be inadequate to even explain what we know we experienced.
I think that this points to - is not what is experienced as being real - but that which is having the experience as being real.
For example, imagine a void. Simply in that, the void seemingly becomes real, because that which imagined it, made it so.
Yes, we could say to that “but I only imagined it!” and this would be true. But how can we be certain that whatever we imagine isn’t real, even just for the brief time we imagine it?
But here we appear to be in a steady state universe…only in its infant years - and for us it is more like a thing that we briefly experience in what we call a “lifetime”.
Could it be that this universe itself is something being imagined - a mind (mindfield) so vast as to be able to build it in the way physics explains it - from inception (that singularity of potential) to what it is in our time in our (The Humanities) here and now?
So then, what are “we” and what else could we be, but that very same mindfield fragmented into countless individuate “minds” which have traversed deeper and deeper into the imagined universe, exploring, experimenting and experiencing…and in our human capacity - forgetting we are the real that makes anything and everything real…
Really it does nothing of the kind. The abstract of the introduction — and bear in mind, it’s only an abstract! —says:
Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.
There’s nothing in it that assumes or suggests ‘a universe that once had consciousness’. Could you explain why you think it’s saying that?
I should add that Charles Pinter’s book Mind and the Cosmic Order is not a speculative book about ‘other worlds’ or ‘different planes of existence’. It’s grounded in current science and philosophy.
The Wikipedia comment is that it is an illusory contour or subjective contour, a visualillusion that evokes the perception of an edge without a luminance or color change across that edge.
It is somewhat similar to Pinter’s point about how ‘three coins comprise a triangle’. We are, as it were, cognitively pre-disposed to seeing a triangle in these images. You could say the image is implied by the shape. And that principle operates in many instances of cognition. You can’t say we’re really ‘seeing things that aren’t there’ — but what is perceived is dependent on cognition in some basic sense.
Actually, I first encountered this illusion in a very interesting 1980s book, Perceiving Ordinary Magic by Jeremy Hayward. It has some interesting points of convergence with Pinter, particularly in its exploration of perception, cognition and the way we apprehend an apparently objective world. It was a precursor to Pinter, in some ways, albeit from a rather more counter-cultural perspective.
I didn’t know what to post. Seemed relevant to the topic.
The good doctor Pinter was probably making an important point but most philosophers are materialists/physicalists. Not because it’s true but philosophy needs to work with science which we know is a fully owned subsidiary of materialism. Science has firmly established itself in our world.
I say that you’re materialism is quite clearly culturally-determined. That is not meant as any kind of personal slight! You seem a good person and intelligent. The reason I say this is because the way our culture is set up, science/materialism seems to make sense. And the alternative seems to require belief in ‘res cogitans’, Descartes’ ‘thinking thing’ that can’t do anything. Plus the proximity of metaphysics to religion.
By the way, about Charles Pinter: not a philosopher! (by profession anyway.) He was a mathematics professor.
Charles C. Pinter (Mar 5, 1932 — Jul 3, 2023) was a Hungarian-born mathematician who grew up in Tangier, Morocco, and was educated at the French Lycée there. He later moved to the United States to complete his Bachelor’s Degree at Columbia University before returning to Europe, where he earned a doctorate in mathematical physics from the University of Paris. Pinter returned to the United States to join the faculty at Bucknell University, where he taught for three decades. Renowned for his work in mathematical logic and model theory, he authored classic books on abstract algebra and set theory that became long-standing standard texts in the field.
Thanks for being congenial to my materialism/physicalism. Scientific hegemony has all but wiped out contrarian views. I know one materialist who appears to live a deeply spiritual life. He’s probably suspicious that any other view might just be wishful thinking/self deception.
Mathematics can be pure abstraction e.g. a point doesn’t exist in physical reality and a tesseract might also be one such object. Heisenberg, I believe, said that particles were mathematical points, concepts, not physical things. I linked you to the IBM video of a boy and his atom. This isn’t that big of a deal. Every time we break something into smaller pieces we, in effect, subtract from its extension (res extensa).
Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed.
Clearly the words imply that life had once been but has now vanished. That is what we are being asked to imagine re this thought experiment.
Are you arguing that all current science and philosophy does not speculate about alternate realities? Or are you saying that the particular science and philosophy you follow does not speculate on such things.
If it is the latter, then perhaps I should start my own thread on the speculative subject - otherwise I don;t know why my post was placed here in this thread, if it has nothing to do with your position or anything you personally wish to discuss.
I suppose you can read it that way. I took it to mean ‘a universe devoid of life’. Whether life had existed and then become extinct is not really relevant to the point of the thought experiment.
I’m saying that the book that this thread is based on does not engage in speculation, such as:
The book, and the original post, is about cognitive science and philosophy.
Because you started another thread, based on a link to my review of the book already being discussed in this thread — so the moderators merged the thread you started with this thread. (That book is: Mind and the Cosmic Order — How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics, by Charles Pinter.)
It depends upon the point of the thought experiment. My understanding is that if no consciousness in interacting with a universe than there is no way to empirically say that such a universe exists (which was the bulk of my post).
Given what has transpired, I don’t think my post belongs here, specifically because it appears the quote I used is saying one thing (which I address in my post) but apparently is talking about another.
Do you think it’s relevant that the 3 coins don’t know that they constitute a triangle? Only a conscious intelligence can appreciate the form the 3 coins represent.
Of course! Elsewhere in the review, I quote this passage.
“The atoms of a teacup do not collude together to form a teacup: The object is a teacup because it is constituted that way from a perspective outside of itself.” (Mind and the Cosmic Order, p. 44)
With the comment:
Perceptive readers will notice that this maps beautifully onto what classical philosophy wrestled with under the heading of “universals” — the insight that abstract forms are relationally real in the structure of things but are actualized only by the mind (‘nous’). Indeed, the triangle is often given as an example of a universal, but many more could be given.
Though the 3 coins don’t collude to form a triangle, if we do connect them with some straight objects like metal bars they will exhibit the mechanical properties of a triangle like stability (I believe engineers utilize triangles in building bridges). It’s as if the coins and the bars together are now aware of being a triangle and that they all confer with each other and decide, we have to be stable.
very fortuitous indeed! The derivation of the relationship is probably not so easily handled but for someone who has the knack and is in daily contact with math I daresay it’s no different from cooking a tasty snack: I need tuna. Go get tuna from the grocery. Now I need bread. The bread is in the refrigerator. So on and so forth until voila! A big grilled tuna sandwich, ready for the eating. 
