“Physical stuff” can’t do this and that - a false Dichotomy

AFAIK physics leaves the account of the Now, of lived time, out of their equations.

This was noted by Einstein and more recently by Smolin who is big on rejecting the idea that our experience of time is merely illusory as the Block Universe would suggested. (Though there's Ellis' Growing Block theory that tries to reconcile lived time and physics time.)

Indeed ~ the laws of physics only explain the behaviour of matter and physical forces, so the belief that physics can explain time, something not quite related to matter and physicality, feels like an overstep beyond what it capable of meaningfully explaining. Those physicists that try will simply find themselves in one paradox after another ~ a result of broken and useless mathematics.

Time might be a variable in physics... but time itself cannot be truly measured, not when it varies from individual to individual. For physical and material things, time is ultimately meaningless, and can only be comprehended by conscious, living entities who can witness its flow.

Indeed ~ the laws of physics only explain the behaviour of matter and physical forces

Oh, I don't even think the "laws of nature" are real explanations. Just observations of regularities.

As Louis de Broglie once said, "The mechanism demands a mysticism."

Oh, I don't even think the "laws of nature" are real explanations. Just observations of regularities.

As Louis de Broglie once said, "The mechanism demands a mysticism."

Indeed ~ Rupert Sheldrake believed that the idea of "laws of nature" is based on a poorly-implemented metaphor. Rather, he thought it better to call them "habits of nature".

This was noted by Einstein and more recently by Smolin who is big on rejecting the idea that our experience of time is merely illusory as the Block Universe would suggested. (Though there's Ellis' Growing Block theory that tries to reconcile lived time and physics time.)

I wonder how many people here feel uneasy about the idea of a block universe, because the fourth dimension of SR or GR is in no way equivalent to the spatial dimensions.

The difference was most clearly expressed in older textbooks that used coordinate sets such as (x,y,z,i t) where time was explicitly multiplied by sqrt(-1) - an imaginary number! (Note that this uses units in which C=1).

Eventually this got obscured by including the idea of a spacetime metric of the form (1,1,1,-1).

Leaving the technicalities aside, I think it is fair to say that talking about a 4-D block of spacetime isn't very convincing if one of its dimensions is a complex number!

David

As stated in another thread there’s no proof for the existence of “physical stuff” (whatever that is) or even an objective reality.

I think there is some evidence for an objective reality.

You leave home for a nice vacation at the beach. When you return, the trees in your yard are in the same places.

Why?

~~ Paul

P.S.: Hello, all!

I think there is some evidence for an objective reality.

You leave home for a nice vacation at the beach. When you return, the trees in your yard are in the same places.

Why?

~~ Paul

P.S.: Hello, all!

I think @sbu 's point is that until there is a definite resolution among the varied interpretations of QM we can't actually know there is a physical reality.

The physicist Adam Frank said something similar ->

You can see how this throws a monkey wrench into a simple, physics-based view of an objective materialist world. How can there be one mathematical rule for the external objective world before a measurement is made, and another that jumps in after the measurement occurs? For a hundred years now, physicists and philosophers have been beating the crap out of each other (and themselves) trying to figure out how to interpret the wave function and its associated measurement problem. What exactly is quantum mechanics telling us about the world? What does the wave function describe? What really happens when a measurement occurs? Above all, what is matter?

A particularly cogent new version of the psi-epistemological position, called Quantum Bayesianism or QBism, raises this perspective to a higher level of specificity by taking the probabilities in quantum mechanics at face value. According to Fuchs, the leading proponent of QBism, the irreducible probabilities in quantum mechanics tell us that it’s really a theory about making bets on the world’s behaviour (via our measurements) and then updating our knowledge after those measurements are done. In this way, QBism points explicitly to our failure to include the observing subject that lies at the root of quantum weirdness. As Mermin wrote in the journal Nature: ‘QBism attributes the muddle at the foundations of quantum mechanics to our unacknowledged removal of the scientist from the science.’

Putting the perceiving subject back into physics would seem to undermine the whole materialist perspective. A theory of mind that depends on matter that depends on mind could not yield the solid ground so many materialists yearn for.

Of course [even if QM was shown to be context/observer dependent] one could be an Objective Idealist, but that would suggest the "objective" is still under the whim of some Ur-Mind.

I think there is some evidence for an objective reality.

You leave home for a nice vacation at the beach. When you return, the trees in your yard are in the same places.

Why?

~~ Paul

P.S.: Hello, all!

Hello.

Well, yes, the trees are the same, but the mystery is ~ with how chaotic to underlying quantum stuff is, how does that logically result in a macro-reality that is stable and reliable, wholly unlike the quantum?

The "objective", inter-subjective reality we perceive is merely what our senses show us. We have never seen the true nature of this reality, beyond our senses.

Related, naive realism makes no logical sense, due to the implication that redness is literally a property an apple has, while also contradicting colour-blindness. Not to mention how non-humans sense the world ~ dogs and cats have vastly stronger senses of smell than we do. Owls have echolocation and hearing that is far superior to our own. Jumping spiders have extremely good vision for their size, along with being extremely proficient hunters. They also seem very capable of noticing us lumbering giants. Eagles have extremely good eyesight, far beyond our own.

Point being that we do not know what reality actually is, despite our inter-subjective human measurements of it.

In the past, we did not know what we know now ~ we thought we knew, but it turns out that we actually didn't.

And what is it that does the knowing, that becomes aware of that which it didn't know before? Logically, nothing material or physical, as its nature does not change.

I think there is some evidence for an objective reality.

You leave home for a nice vacation at the beach. When you return, the trees in your yard are in the same places.

Why?

~~ Paul

P.S.: Hello, all!

As far as you remember, yes, but what is your objective measuring tool?

Nice to have you back Paul.

As far as you remember, yes, but what is your objective measuring tool?

Nice to have you back Paul.

Thanks, Brian.

My objective measuring tool is that I was not conscious of the trees while I was away. So something non-conscious is involved. Isn't it fair to call that thing "objective," even if it's my own memory?

~~ Paul

Hello.

Well, yes, the trees are the same, but the mystery is ~ with how chaotic to underlying quantum stuff is, how does that logically result in a macro-reality that is stable and reliable, wholly unlike the quantum?

The "objective", inter-subjective reality we perceive is merely what our senses show us. We have never seen the true nature of this reality, beyond our senses.

Related, naive realism makes no logical sense, due to the implication that redness is literally a property an apple has, while also contradicting colour-blindness. Not to mention how non-humans sense the world ~ dogs and cats have vastly stronger senses of smell than we do. Owls have echolocation and hearing that is far superior to our own. Jumping spiders have extremely good vision for their size, along with being extremely proficient hunters. They also seem very capable of noticing us lumbering giants. Eagles have extremely good eyesight, far beyond our own.

Point being that we do not know what reality actually is, despite our inter-subjective human measurements of it.

In the past, we did not know what we know now ~ we thought we knew, but it turns out that we actually didn't.

And what is it that does the knowing, that becomes aware of that which it didn't know before? Logically, nothing material or physical, as its nature does not change.

I think that this issue of whether there is an objective reality has different answers when viewed at two radically different levels of perspective and experience.

Objective reality is understood to be the idea that things in the world exist independently of any conscious awareness of it, and can be verified by others.

From the human perspective of experience and activity in the physical world, there absolutely, definitely, is a very real objective reality. It's the way the world actually works at the human scale of sizes and distances. When you push something, it structurally and inertially always pushes back, when you kick a rock you get a sore foot and ankle, etc. Our entire high technology is designed and works very successfully on this assumption.

Naive realism assumes that this level of objective reality is all there is.
 
But we know from philosophical reasoning that the true underlying nature of ultimate reality is alien, humanly unknowable, and cannot be directly perceived or interacted with by humans. From that perspective there is (ultimately) no objective reality.

So there really is an objective reality as long as you define that as being strictly from the human perspective. But naive realism is invalid because there is no objective reality from an ultimate God-like perspective of absolutely all of reality, not just what is perceived and interacted with by humans.