Against Objective Realism by Harlan Swyers

Hal

"only one immediately observable universe that is extent at any time"

Yep, I remember that, but then you started talking about the mind and the lack of an objective reality! Just to make sure we are saying the same thing via that sentence, I would comment:

a) potentially observable, ie it is there but our chances of seeing it all are zero,

b) sensorially experienceable, rather than observable, ie the point relates to all forms of senses of all sentient organisms not just humans and sight,

c) the word universe which is an alternative to physical reality (or physically existent state) would need clarification in that it includes the physical phenomena received by the senses, which are physically existent in themselves and in the context of the sensory systems are a representation of what is normally referred to as reality, which is that what existed and caused the phenomena received due to an interaction

d) any given point in time, rather than just any time, in order to stress the point that in order to identify what was physically existent differentiation must be pursued until there is no 'time' left for any change to occur.

"However, there are no objects, in a classical sense, upon which this reality is based"

I agree with this, and did before, but I suspect for different reasons(?) In order for there to be physical 'presence' there must be 'objects', and by definition, these must be constituted by something (objects) that is elementary (ie not further reducible, there may be more than one type of these). However, while these 'objects' constitute the substance of physical reality, they cannot be equivalent to a physically existent state, ie what existed. Because these 'objects' have 'properties', and change occurs, they do not exist in a constant state. And in order to define physical existence, we need to identify one such state, which as I have said before is probably impossible, but that is another issue. However, I suspect that a number of 'objects', as conceived, do not actually correspond with their conceptual representation.

Paul

Hal

Yes, we can only start with "observations of events", because that is the end product of the sensory process, which is the mechanism through which we can effect an independent awareness of reality. And indeed, because observation (or more generally, sensing) is fraught with practical problems, many times it will have to be an estimate as to what could have been sensed had we been able to do so. But there is only one physical reality to be sensed, its occurrence does not involve any indefiniteness, and it can only be in one physically existent state at a time. Otherwise we would have sensed bizarre effects and sheer anarchy by now. We do not create reality through sensing, it is independent of that.

On the paragraph on logic. Remember, we exist, we are part of reality, so we are trapped in an existentially closed system. Reality is not an abstract concept. Thus one needs to establish how that is constituted and what, then, is objectivity within that confine. These notions of proof, etc, are otherwise nonsense if that differentiation is not invoked first. For example: I can just assert that reality is a shoot-em up game run by little green men with 6 heads. This cannot be disproved. It only causes an immediate impression of being 'wrong' because of the superficial 'ludicrousness' of the proposition. But the real test of validity, of this or any other proposition, is whether there is any form of experienceable evidence (preferably validated direct experience, otherwise inference from that) to substantiate it.

I agree, and did so at the start, that this (convenient) conceptualisation of what constitute the basic 'stuff' of reality as 'billiard ball' like is possibly incorrect.

Paul

Dear Hal,

I have read your paper with great interest. I think you are right. To understand the universe more deeply we have to abandon objective realism in favour of quantum reality.

One of the most strong theoretical foundation of objective realism is certainly special relativity which became inseparable part of quantum field theory.

I never believed in Einstein's position that quantum mechanics is an incomplete description of reality. Instead of that I was convinced that special relativity itself was somehow incomplete.

To identify this incompleteness of special relativity I applied quantum mechanical concepts, like the wave-particle-duality, to the axiomatic core of Einstein's theory.

Finally following idea came up: If light has two faces, a wave-like face and a particle-like face, it seems quite natural to assume, that the speed of light c has two faces as well.

If this concept of a »Dual Parametrization of c« is consciously applied to special relativity, we can easily recognize, that Einstein's theory is essentially incomplete, because only the wave-like face of c referenced by its second postulate is taken into account, whereas no reference to a particle-like face of c can be found.

This idea of a Dual Parametrization gives us - as conceived by me - the possibility to get a thorough understanding of quantum reality as you have called for at the end of your essay.

Good Luck for Your Paper

Kind Regards

Helmut

Hello Hal,

I enjoyed your essay, but I disagree. You say that "classical objective reality must be replaced by quantum reality as the framework for understanding the universe." I think that to assume either would be a major mistake.

What we have in front of us is an unsolved puzzle, or several. To me, by far the most common mistake in both physics and philosophy is to assume we have all the pieces of the jigsaw in front of us, and then to draw conclusions from looking at them. Instead, it's essential to allow for the existence of missing pieces, and use reasoning to deduce what we can about what these missing pieces might look like. That's what my essay is about - looking at the clues we have, to guess what the clues we don't yet have look like.

I think if you fail to suspend judgement in the present situation, you risk making the kind of false assumptions that the purpose of this whole discussion is to prevent.

Let me point out one general overview-type clue, about the subject of your essay. The two main theories, GR and QT, both have trouble with the reality of what they're describing - but in entirely different ways. This is extremely interesting, and suggests these problems may disappear in the future. But admitting that we don't yet know is absolutely essential. We're simply not in a position to do anything else.

To me, non-locality is unavoidable, and David Z Albert has argued that it applies in any possible interpretation of Bell's work, with Aspect's confirmation. You say:

"However, since no local version of classical mechanics can explain the outcomes of quantum experiments, and admitting non-locality would completely contradict the results of relativity in classical experiments, one is left with the conclusion of local quantum mechanics as being the correct and only option over any non-local classical alternative."

You seem to imply that it has to be one or the other. The correct conclusion is, particularly in the light of the potential conflicts between SR and QT, that we don't yet know what's going on.

Best wishes, Jonathan Kerr

Objective realism is tautology.

Subjective realism is contradiction.

Man is doomed to always be in this framework.

Yuri

Man, or any sentient organism, is part of reality, it cannot be transcended. So the issue becomes what can constitute objective knowledge given this confine.

Paul

Ludwig Wittgenstein answered:

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world"

Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 5.6

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