dkomo
comcast.net> wrote:
> John Wilkins wrote:
>=20
>> dkomo
comcast.net> wrote:
>>=20
>>=20>>>John Wilkins wrote:
>>>
>>>>dkomo
comcast.net> wrote:>=20
>>>>>
>>>>>It's all about *models*. Better models impart more understanding a=
bout
>>>>>nature. For example, energy. What *is* that? The idea of energy =
is as
>>>>>abstract as that of information, but we've been thinking of energy =
for
>>>>>hundreds of years now, and we've internalized the model to the poin=
t we
>>>>>think that energy is as *physical* as anything else. Another few
>>>>>decades we'll be viewing information as being just as physical. Th=
e
>>>>>universe is a giant quantum computer? Of course, how obvious!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>A giant fallacy here: the identification of the territory with the m=
ap,
>>>>or the model with the things modelled. It's a common fallacy, but th=
at
>>>>still doesn't make it any less of a fallacy. It's kind of like the
>>>>fallacy that words have power over the things they represent.
>>>
>>>It's not a fallacy. That's your own personal view of epistemology.
>>=20
>>=20
>> Whose else would I assert?
>>=20
>>=20
>>>I=20
>>>don't happen to believe that it is possible to make as clean a=20
>>>separation between models and physical reality as you do. I have a
>>>different epistemology. In mine, physical reality is lot more depend=
ent
>>>on the observer, and what models she uses to build up a picture of th=
at
>>>reality. Take away the map(s), and the territory becomes a big fuzzba=
ll.
>>>
>>=20
>> This is a view known as idealism. It is not obviously false, but as a
>> physicalist I do not think it runs. Physical reality just is - our
>> representations are neither constitutive of it nor necessarily correc=
t.
>> Epistemic relativism like this is, I think, based on a series of
>> mistakes. But that's for another forum in Another Place.
>>=20
>>=20
>=20
> I hold fairly closely to the views of Immanuel Kant. He basically said
> that there is an external world, but we can never accurately come to=20
> know it because we process all of it through perceptual and cognitive
> filters. These are what I call our "models". Immanuel had his feet=20
> planted firmly on the ground, in my opinion, but you do not with your
> "physicalism." You are the one who is an idealist, in the vernacular
> sense.
I do deny the noumenal/phenomenal distinction, and I also deny that we
are trapped in our phenomenal world (which *would* make me an idealist).
But we are indebted to our perceptual and cognitive filters, for that is
what observing and thinking requires. It is a long way from "we have to
think" to "thinking defines reality".
Physicalism is a metaphysical, not an epistemological, claim. While our
*present* physics may be limited or erroneous, that doesn't license the
view that the world will not be totally describeable and explicable in
terms of the Final Theory. And even then, that physics will be a
representation of the world, not the world itself.
So properties of conceptual entities are not to be taken as properties
of the entities they represent. That is the fallacy of reification.
"Information" is only an abstract property of abstract symbols - we may
be justified in calling, say, a physical telegraph-like system an
information-bearing system, but only because it closely instantiates the
abstract properties of a Shannon communication system. Another way to
say this is that it serves our purooses to call what the telegraphish
system does "communication", but "communication" is not a *physical*
property of that system, electrical voltages and magnetic fields are,
etc.
>=20
> "We are perfectly justified in maintaining that only what is within=20
> ourselves can be immediately and directly perceived, and that only my
> own existence can be the object of a mere perception. Thus the existenc=
e
> of a real object outside me can never be given immediately and directly
> in perception, but can only be added in thought to the perception, whic=
h
> is a modification of the internal sense, and thus inferred as its=20
> external cause =E2=88=91 . In the true sense of the word, therefore, I =
can never
> perceive external things, but I can only infer their existence from my
> own internal perception, regarding the perception as an effect of=20
> something external that must be the proximate cause =E2=88=91 . It must=
not be
> supposed, therefore, that an idealist is someone who denies the=20
> existence of external objects of the senses; all he does is to deny tha=
t
> they are known by immediate and direct perception =E2=88=91 .
>=20
> =CB=86 Critique of Pure Reason, A367 f."
Which is precisely the opposite of my view. I do not deny that.
--=20
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog:
scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,=20
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
