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Post by dahduh on Dec 2, 2009 20:37:16 GMT
Technically speaking, the conclusion would be intersubjective, rather than objective. But in everyday speech, yes we could call it reasonably objective. This kind of objectivity is a scale, or a gradient, rather than a simple objective/not-objective dichotomy. All right, I've given this a bit more thought. Are you prepared to grant that give a perfect means of measurement - that is, a method that acquires all available information about something in 'reality' - then regardless of the method, we should always return the same amount of information? If that's the case, then there should exist a 1-1 mapping of every measurement by one method to every measurement using another method. In other words, they are related by nothing more profound than something like a coordinate transformation. You would not argue that the position of billiard ball is 'subjective' because you use rectangular coordinates and I use polar coordinates? |
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Post by vazscep on Dec 2, 2009 21:29:35 GMT
But back to the question of theory ladenness and objective truth and connection to 'reality': I think I'm beginning to see the issues more clearly now. The fact that reality injects information into our models suggests that we're not just making stuff up - thus the notion of 'objective truth'. But I would have to call this 'objective' truth, since this information is always seen through the prism of a model - the issue of theory ladenness. Here's the way I'm seeing it: even if the measurement of water boiling at 100 degrees C only makes sense in light of a scientific theory, it's still the case that all praticising scientists will make that same measurement, and no practicising scientist expects to find water boiling at anything other than 100 degrees C. Even if we can't talk about our theories matching up to the external world independently of the theories themselves, it doesn't mean that reality isn't out there imposing constraints. As you say, we can't just go making stuff up. It's just that we have no formal way of describing the constraints imposed by reality apart from our theories. So talk of reality apart from our theories seems mostly pointless. I don't think it matters. You and I, I'm sure, both massively privilege science as one of the most valuable and important social institutions we have, and something whose conclusions have warrant for everyone. It'd be nice if we could give an absolute foundational reason for this in terms of objective truth or correspondence with reality, or whatever, but I don't think it's going to work. |
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Post by blowfly on Dec 3, 2009 0:54:39 GMT
But back to the question of theory ladenness and objective truth and connection to 'reality': I think I'm beginning to see the issues more clearly now. The fact that reality injects information into our models suggests that we're not just making stuff up - thus the notion of 'objective truth'. But I would have to call this 'objective' truth, since this information is always seen through the prism of a model - the issue of theory ladenness. Here's the way I'm seeing it: even if the measurement of water boiling at 100 degrees C only makes sense in light of a scientific theory, it's still the case that all praticising scientists will make that same measurement, and no practicising scientist expects to find water boiling at anything other than 100 degrees C. Even if we can't talk about our theories matching up to the external world independently of the theories themselves, it doesn't mean that reality isn't out there imposing constraints. As you say, we can't just go making stuff up. It's just that we have no formal way of describing the constraints imposed by reality apart from our theories. So talk of reality apart from our theories seems mostly pointless. Perhaps it can be summed up as - the attempt to describe how things are, independent of our descriptions of them, is an internally contradictory endeavor. Actually this idea leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. The idea of the "really real" (stuff being a certain way regardless of what anyone thinks) is immensely appealing and intuitive. On closer inspection, I can't make a sensible philosophy out of it... but the appeal is still there. |
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Post by vazscep on Dec 3, 2009 10:08:12 GMT
Perhaps it can be summed up as - the attempt to describe how things are, independent of our descriptions of them, is an internally contradictory endeavor. Right. And I would go further to say that there is no distinguished set of descriptions which can be used to adjudicate between the others. I want to correct something I wrote in the previous post. I said that reality imposes constraints. This is probably confusing because you'd think the most obvious source of constraints would be from the rules of scientific practice itself, which it seems we invented. Maybe the most I want to say is that science just has real and hard constraints. This is presumably why science manages to reach such a consensus on issues even in the face of scientists trying to show each other up. There's a distinction to be made between anti-realism and anti-representationalism. As I understand, the anti-realist doesn't believe in a real world independent of our descriptions. The anti-representationalist does, but doesn't think we are ever able to describe it. |
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Post by dahduh on Dec 4, 2009 19:08:59 GMT
There's a distinction to be made between anti-realism and anti-representationalism. As I understand, the anti-realist doesn't believe in a real world independent of our descriptions. The anti-representationalist does, but doesn't think we are ever able to describe it. All right, I think we are mostly on the same page here but I'm not convinced that I would subscribe to either of those views. Yes, it's true that our description of the world is necessarily dependent upon the model we have of it. But is there any reason to suppose that one model of 'reality' would not be homologous to any other model describing the same thing? Surely any dissimilarity would be no more profound than a coordinate transformation? For example, Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schroedinger's wave equation both describe the same physics when it comes to quantum states. They are very different models, but it was later recognized they are just different representations of a Hilbert space. Wouldn't that always be the case? If it weren't, they would surely be describing different physics, and one would be wrong or at least incomplete. So blowfly, elaborate on your remark Where does the notion that there is a description-independent 'real reality' go wrong? |
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Post by vazscep on Dec 14, 2009 18:48:30 GMT
All right, I think we are mostly on the same page here but I'm not convinced that I would subscribe to either of those views. Yes, it's true that our description of the world is necessarily dependent upon the model we have of it. But is there any reason to suppose that one model of 'reality' would not be homologous to any other model describing the same thing? Surely any dissimilarity would be no more profound than a coordinate transformation? I have absolutely no problem with that idea. But I'm not sure it's relevant. Even if all final models we come up with are isomorphic, how do we determine that they are accurate representations of reality even up to isomorphism apart from their internal consistency and consistency with measurement? |
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Post by dahduh on Dec 14, 2009 21:50:20 GMT
All right, I think we are mostly on the same page here but I'm not convinced that I would subscribe to either of those views. Yes, it's true that our description of the world is necessarily dependent upon the model we have of it. But is there any reason to suppose that one model of 'reality' would not be homologous to any other model describing the same thing? Surely any dissimilarity would be no more profound than a coordinate transformation? I have absolutely no problem with that idea. But I'm not sure it's relevant. Even if all final models we come up with are isomorphic, how do we determine that they are accurate representations of reality even up to isomorphism apart from their internal consistency and consistency with measurement? I'm not sure I understand your point. You emphasize "even up to the isomorphism", but two isomorphic theories are by definition mathematically equivalent, so why is the isomorphism relevant? To take a concrete example: Theory A says the universe evolves according to the standard model. Theory B says there is a mischievous God who just makes sure the universe looks as if the universe evolves according to Theory A, but actually he's constantly tampering with both the world and our perceptions of the world in such a manner that we never notice. Both are internally consistent and consistent with measurement. They are isomorphic because we can map the predictions of theory A onto theory B one for one. I would argue that these two theories as descriptions of the world are therefore identical (though of course theory A is much simpler than theory B). Would you argue they are not the same? |
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Post by vazscep on Dec 14, 2009 22:26:31 GMT
I'm not sure I understand your point. You emphasize "even up to the isomorphism", but two isomorphic theories are by definition mathematically equivalent, so why is the isomorphism relevant? I mean "isomorphism" here more broadly. "morphism" is probably the better term, but I don't know enough of the category theoretic lingo to go further (I believe institution theory is the place to look). I'll try again: even if the different possible descriptions of the universe we come up with differ in a trivial way by something a bit like a coordinate transformation, it doesn't help make sense of this idea of "consistency with reality." We still only have consistency between measurements and theory, not anything pointing out to reality, even if the different theories we are likely to come up with differ in some trivial way, or fall out of some generalisation, or can be systematically translated between each other. I can respond to this, but I think we might have been talking at cross-purposes. |
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Post by blowfly on Dec 15, 2009 0:41:40 GMT
So blowfly, elaborate on your remark Where does the notion that there is a description-independent 'real reality' go wrong? My problem is that "X independent of my description of it" is a description in itself, (or "X independent of my symbolic representation of it" introduces "X" as a symbol in itself,) making the concept self sabotaging. I can't define it, describe or or talk about it without immediately realizing that I'm actually not - the whole endeavor is automatically self refuting. That's what I mean when I say I can't make a sensible philosophy out of it. Whether this lack of philosophical "definability" should undermine our intuitive sense of the idea (which is still oddly appealing), I don't know. It seems a little awkward. Cheers, -blowfly |
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tar
Junior Member
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Post by tar on Jan 9, 2010 2:57:25 GMT
dahduh,
Within the context of human experience, which seems to me to be the one and only context any of us currently has. I would have to say that objective reality is that which is evidently existant without requiring any human imagination or modeling or measurement what-so-ever.
Regards, TAR
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tar
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by tar on Jan 9, 2010 3:13:50 GMT
P.S. And would equate that which exists to that which is true. So yes, objective truth exists. It is that which is, with or without us.
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