>> I agree that (specific) tables and chairs, along with atoms, are both
>> constructs. But the former are empirical constructs, all of whose
>> elements are qualia and the relationships among them. Atoms, however,
>> are not constructed from qualia (nor are the *concepts* of a table or
>> chair). Those
> They appear as "qualia" in the results that devices of detection
> present, even if maybe only as monochrome dots or the tracks of their
> flying parts in collisions. Extra-solar planets are discovered using
> instruments and inferences concerning the data, usually without any
> images of the planets at all. Electrons filmed for the 1st time:
>
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/src-eff022208.php
Sure, because we construct devices which will behave that way, according to
theory, when atoms behave in a certain way. But no one takes those visible
traces to be properties of atoms. They are properties of the phosphors
coating the display screen.
> It's the nature of everyday objects to be composed of smaller objects
> (and gets to the bone of that if they happen to be at ground zero
> during an atomic blast). Thus, in my opinion, everyday objects and
> atoms have a similar practical, "real status".
I agree that atoms are "real" --- just as real as trees. (A constructed
entity is "real" if it is necessary to the theory which defines it, and that
theory has explanatory power). Atoms, are as real as trees, but are of a
different ontological order.
> Yet the latter will be
> devalued by average people and their sympathizers because we don't
> regularly study and manipulate them as chemists / physicists do.
I'm an ex-chemist. :-)
But we "devalue" many nontangible entities because they we don't need them
to accomplish most of the tasks of daily life. They can be ignored safely.
One nontangible everyone regards as "real" is money, or value (the $5 bill
in one's wallet being merely a token for that value, not the value itself).
> Both
> are probably something bizarre in the noumenal world, yet both can
> nevertheless be detected and represented as spatiotemporal things in
> our "phenomenal world" template.
We always seek to produce tangible representions of nontangible, theoretical
entities --- sketches showing a cluster of spheres orbited by a number of
smaller balls (or surrounded by onion-like shells), or even a triangle drawn
on paper. But the drawings are not the things represented, as we define
those things. (e.g., the line drawn on paper has a color and a width; the
lines of a defined triangle have no color and no width).
> In the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Interpretation of QM, I'm most likely to
> be located in this room, yet part of even a large phenomenon like
> myself is also distributed over the whole universe (as are atoms and
> particles). While I seriously doubt that GRW is THE objective reality,
> it reflects how macrophysical objects can become as weirdly abstract
> as microphysical ones when trying to go down that route. That is, no
> special status for the scale that humans favor or empirically
> construct apart from it being special for commonsense.
Macrophysical objects can become weird when we undertake to explain them
with weird theories.
But entities on the human scale (and constructed from sense-detectable
properties) do indeed have a special status --- they are the entities
constructed entirely from the primary data available to us, and are the kind
of entities our modeling faculties are optimized to produce. Higher-order
constructs are viable only to the extent they are reconcilable with those
base-level entities.
> The Earth looks like a featureless pixel from deep space, but that
> speck is a kind of perceptual grouping or perceptual summary of the
> Earth's finer details that as a consequence obscures what Earth fully
> is. Just as a conventional concept conceals the meanings or lesser
> concepts it has symbolically integrated (unless intentionally analyzed
> for the latter). That's why there comes a stage where I question
> whether there is much of a distinction between an empirical object and
> a concept, since both are "groupings" that try to make a singular out
> of a plural situation.
They are both groupings, but they differ in the nature of the elements
grouped. If the elements are all qualia (properties we can detect with the
senses), then they are concrete, tangible things. As they begin to acquire
properties which are not sense-detectable they ascend the ontological
hierarchy.
> Generalizing all its branches, the biotic realm has a gradual history
> from primitive to complex, even if evolution isn't supposed to
> axiomatically have a tendency for "progress": An uneven sequence from
> atoms to self-replicating molecules to polycellular life to cognitive
> behavior to social orders to intelligence.
The 2nd Law prevails in closed systems. But systems which are contained, yet
permit energy exchange with the external world, can become increasingly
complex. Carbon and other atoms on the Earth's surface cannot escape their
environment, because they are gravitationally bound together. Incoming
energy allows endothermic reactions among them, yielding complex compounds,
some of which are stable. Continuing energy input forces further reactions,
producing more complexity.
> If the qualitative aspect
> of cognition is also to be classed as natural or physical in the
> biological sense, then it might have to eventually get on board this
> step-by-step ascension rather than abruptly appearing when neurons or
> certain neural systems evolved.
Not sure how much of Andy's and my dialog you read. A major point I tried to
make was that while it is predictable theoretically under what circumstances
systems experiencing subjective states will appear, no theory will be able
to predict the "qualitative aspect" of those subjective states. That is
because those qualitative aspects are inherently subjective: they are the
primitives of experience, and are therefore unanalyzable (one cannot analyze
primitives). Because they are unanalyzable, they are ineffable; we cannot
describe "what they are like." And if we cannot describe a phenomenon we
cannot explain it theoretically.
We can (in principle) set forth the necessary and sufficient conditions for
a system to experience subjective states. But what those states will "be
like" will be knowable only to the system experiencing them.
