• FQXi Podcast

  • Does Objective Reality Exist? Great Mysteries of Physics Part 4 -- FQxI Podcast

Lorraine Ford
Objective reality, is not a construction from one viewpoint. Consider the ancient tale of six blind men and the elephant. Everyone should know and take heed of its message. The blind men each feel a different part of the elephant and says what an elephant is from his own experience. There is no agreement. J.C.N. Smith on FQxI once asked me “What is truth?” I replied, “The whole elephant.” It is not just the elephant, but its happening; breathing, moving etc. That is the objective absolute reality. It is and happens independently of the individual, partial, relative perceptions of it.
Imagine the blind men moving around so they feel what another of them feels. Imagine the one who has felt the trunk getting another group of blind fellows to feel as he has. So they can know and agree with him. Is it correct as they declare, if you disagree with the trunk view you are either an ignorant fool, mistaken a liar, hallucinating or confabulating No disagreement will be allowed because the trunk group agree and confirm it is correct.
This is why preventing discourse, is not a good thing. Both disagreeing parties can potentially learn from each other. It does not have to be adversarial ‘I’m right so you must be wrong. Hopefully it is clear that the blind-men even with consensus of a viewpoint are not describing absolute Objective reality. That does not alter the honesty of their reporting what they have found from their own investigation. Ignorance, mistakes lies, hallucination and confabulating can happen but we do not need to immediately decide that this is the reason for disagreement, rather than the holding of equally legitimate alternative incomplete viewpoints.
Quantum theory suggests that the outcome, prior to measurement is a mix of outcomes that will and won’t be found. In the elephant dilemma, the whole elephant animal does not exist as a collection of singular perceptions before the ‘feeling’ by the blind men of the elephant has happened. The whole elephant is an observation independent entity. Its existence does not depend on perception of it. The Moon (object) really does exist when I’m not looking (Forming an observation product Moon semblance). On observation a relative observation product is formed. It is relative, it is contextural. Many alternative, singular, relative, contextural outcome products could have been formed under different circumstances.

      Georgina Woodward
      Your homespun philosophy, which mixes in elephants and naïve ideas of quantum theory, is quite muddled and unconvincing to me.

      Getting back to the actual specific article you linked to, which you seem to think is some sort of proof of your conspiracy-theorist ideas about climate:

      I have already told you that I never bother to look at the videos or articles that you, or anyone else, links to. You are incredibly presumptuous and lazy, when you expect other people to read articles and watch videos for you. I am not going to do your work for you: it is up to you to explain in your own words what this person or these people are saying, if you can, which I doubt.

        Photosynthesis is a chemical reaction that happens on Earth.
        Carbon dioxide is necessary for photosynthesis.
        Plants use photosynthesis to make their food, simple sugars, stored as starch.
        Photosynthesis is necessary for plant survival, growth and reproduction.
        Most (but not all) life on Earth depends on photosynthesis, directly or indirectly.
        Photosynthesis produces an excess of oxygen, released as waste.
        Excess oxygen from photosynthesis allows animal life to exist and survive.
        There is more photosynthesis when carbon dioxide levels are raised, as carbon dioxide is a limiting factor.
        Growers may add carbon dioxide to greenhouses to increase photosynthesis, thereby increasing the yield of the crop.
        Human beings rely on plants as food directly and as food for the animals they eat. As Photosynthesis keeps ‘food’ plants alive, this is another way human life is dependent on photosynthesis.
        Other benefits of photosynthesizing plants; shade, part of the hydrological cycle, root stabilization of soils, banks etc.
        Satellite data shows the earth is greening. Li, Y., Li, ZL., Wu, H. et al. Biophysical impacts of earth greening can substantially mitigate regional land surface temperature warming. Nat Commun 14, 121 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-35799-4
        retrieved via https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-35799-4#citeas oct 2023

        Georgina Woodward has a degree in biological sciences and studied plant biology and ecology including topic of global warming in year 3

        Georgina Woodward

        1. Climate change scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their consensus conclusion. I am amazed that you would question their honesty, integrity, and competence.
        2. I think that your view of the world is that people have no effect on the world. Both the earth and the earth’s movement round the sun are 100% the outcome of underlying processes, and the earth can’t be said to be an actor that has control over its own movement. I think that you think that both people and people’s movements (raping, murdering, burning fossil fuels) are also 100% the outcome of underlying processes, and people can’t be said to be actors that have control over their own movements (raping, murdering, burning fossil fuels).

        So clearly, I think that you have a very poor opinion of the abilities of human beings and other living things, because you think that they are pseudo-entities (like the earth) that have no genuine control over their own movements and outcomes, pseudo-entities (like the earth) that have no genuine input to the world.

        Do you deny this? Do you say that people ARE genuine entities that have genuine input to the world? Do you say that people ARE genuine entities that have genuine control over their own bodily movements?

          People in my opinion are entities with agency to act upon the material world. I don't know why you imagine I think otherwise.
          It is true that humans are adding to co2 in the atmosphere. It is true that global temperature has risen in industrial times (but not lately). It's true most life depends on photosynthesis, providing food and oxygen. Its true that photosynthesis needs co2 and works better with more of it.

            Georgina Woodward

            1. Climate change scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their consensus conclusion. I am amazed that you would question their honesty, integrity, and COMPETENCE.
            2. How is an entity different to a pseudo-entity (like the earth or the sun); what do you mean by "agency"? These are just words, and you clearly have no conceptual model of entities or agency, and how they are different to pseudo-entities and non-agency. So, despite what you say, I think that you think that, when looked at very very closely, people and people's movements, are 100% the outcome of laws of nature, just like the earth and the earth's movements round the sun, are 100% the outcome of laws of nature. You clearly have no conceptual model of entities or agency: this is very pertinent to the issue of whether or not human beings can actually, genuinely have an effect on the planet and the planet’s climate.

                Lorraine Ford I have not questioned the honesty, integrity and competence of the work of climate scientists.It is you who who have said that I have.
                I have alway been interested in how living things work. I took comparative anatomy, physiology and cell biology classes at University. I have taught both biology and human biology. I know the functional difference between animate and inanimate objects.

                    Georgina Woodward

                    1. You have accused people of “fearmongering”, and of having hidden agendas (“sociall enginerring, political and financial reasons”), no doubt due to your obsessive watching of rubbish videos. Climate change scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their consensus conclusion about what is happening to the climate, and the cause of what is happening to the climate. I am amazed that you would question their honesty, integrity, and competence and the honesty, integrity, and competence of those who trust the majority opinion of climate scientists. You are an anthropogenic climate change denier, and a climate change conspiracy theorist, who very very badly overestimates your own expertise in the subject of climate.
                    2. You haven’t explained the difference between entities and non-entities, and the difference between agency and non-agency. Where is your explanation? The reason you can’t explain the difference between entities and non-entities, and the difference between agency and non-agency, is because you do not see any difference in the physics of entities and non-entities, and the physics of agency and non-agency. If there is no difference in the physics, then there is no difference, except superficial appearances, between entities and non-entities, and no difference, except superficial appearances, between agency and non-agency. And therefore you can have no conception of how people's agency could potentially affect the climate, and no conception of how people's agency could potentially avert climate disaster. Where is your explanation?

                        Maybe this illustration will be helpful. Imagine a sheet of paper that has writing on it front and back. You are allowed or able see left or right of one side of the paper the rest is not visible/obscured. In big letters on the left side of page 1, it says ‘truth, in objective reality, is one, complete and absolute.’ On the right hand side it says ‘see both sides ’The left side of page 2 says ’there are many partial, relative truths that may seem to contradict but have validity according to their viewpoint.’ The right hand side says ‘this is the end’. Imagine having just one of the four statements and no other guide to its intended meaning. What meaning might be given to each statement alone without information about the others and where the writing was situated on the page.

                          Georgina Woodward
                          You have accused people of “fearmongering”, and of having hidden agendas (“sociall [sic] enginerring [sic], political and financial reasons”). Unlike you, climate change scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their consensus conclusion about what is happening to the climate, and the cause of what is happening to the climate. I am amazed that you would question their honesty, integrity, and competence and the honesty, integrity, and competence of those who trust the majority opinion of climate scientists. You are an anthropogenic climate change denier, and a climate change conspiracy theorist, who very very badly overestimates your own expertise in the subject of climate.

                              Lorraine Ford
                              People do not generally have lives where they are only concerned with one thing only .That they might have social, political and financial conerns of their own too is not a conspiracy theory. It is recognizing we are talking about complex human beings, not 1 dimensional sterotypes. I do not think it unreasonacle conjecture that scientists try to promotre their work to get funding, that news organizations sensationalize to sell more news or advertizing, that frightened people try to get action to publisize their concerns, that politicians may be motivated by using the issue to gain votes.

                                  Georgina Woodward
                                  The majority of climate scientists have come to a very different conclusion to the paper you approvingly summarised a few days ago, where your summary seems to claim that climate change will usher in a green and productive utopian future. But unlike you, climate scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their very serious consensus conclusion about what is happening to the world’s climate, and the cause of what is happening to the world’s climate. The conclusion is that if humanity continues on its current path, WHAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE DOING WILL LIKELY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE OUR ONLY HOME AND THE ECOSYSTEMS THAT SUPPORT US.

                                  Instead of facing up to this very serious issue, you accuse the very people who are trying to face up to these very serious issues of “fearmongering” about climate, and of having hidden agendas behind their alleged fearmongering about climate (“Aside from the science itself there are sociall [sic] enginerring [sic], political and financial reasons for fearmongering”). And you distrust the honesty, integrity, and competence of the very people who are trying to face up to these very serious issues.

                                  Again, instead of facing up to these very serious issues, your deplorable response is that, well, people have busy lives, and people are not “1 dimensional sterotypes [sic]", and people “have social, political and financial conerns [sic] of their own”.

                                  And once again, deplorably, you try to minimise what the climate scientists are saying, when you claim that the very people who are trying to face up to these very serious issues raised by the climate scientists are likely to have hidden agendas: “I do not think it unreasonacle [sic] conjecture that scientists try to promotre [sic] their work to get funding, that news organizations sensationalize to sell more news or advertizing [sic], that frightened people try to get action to publisize [sic] their concerns, that politicians may be motivated by using the issue to gain votes.”

                                      Lorraine Ford
                                      May I start by apologising for the spelling mistakes in the text you quoted, It was written from my, acute medical, hospital bed on a mobile phone.
                                      Saying that climate is chaotic was not meant as an insult. I am refering to the scientific meaning of the word. A system is chaoic if it can flip unpredictably between steady states and shows sensitivity to initial conditions. This sensitivity is illustrated by the well known 'Butterfly effect' .Telling how the flap of a butterfly's wings (small input) can be amplified to a storm (large output). Each small input, because of this, is potentially very important ,yet we can not account for every flap of every butterfly on the olanet and every other tiny input.
                                      I also think I should say more about correlation. A football fan may notice his team has won more often han not when he was wearing pink socks. The fan decides he should wear pink socks on match days. Pause for your own thoughs, I won't spell it out. correlation between co2 level rise due to human activity and global temperature increase, during industrial times is noticed. Since climate change can potentially be very unfavorable to humans and this correlation may be due to humans maybe we can stop the correlated change by changing our activity, in case the alteration to the climate sets in motion unstoppable effects. What people think does not effect whether there is causation or not.
                                      The context in which the word 'fearmongering' was used, the media, is important.Taking it out of conext misrepresents the intended meaning.

                                          Georgina Woodward
                                          You have made an absurd assumption that climate scientists, and others, are simpletons who don't know about "chaos" and "complexity" and "correlation"!

                                          But unlike you, climate scientists have taken many, many factors into consideration in reaching their very serious consensus conclusion about what is happening to the world’s climate, and the cause of what is happening to the world’s climate. The conclusion is that if humanity continues on its current path, WHAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE DOING WILL LIKELY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE OUR ONLY HOME AND THE ECOSYSTEMS THAT SUPPORT US.

                                          And you did NOT just accuse the media of having reasons for "fearmongering", you also implied that at least three other groups were "fearmongering" for their own reasons: "scientists try to promotre [sic] their work to get funding", "frightened people try to get action to publisize [sic] their concerns" and "politicians may be motivated by using the issue to gain votes".

                                          People in the media and others, who take what the majority of climate scientists are saying very seriously, ARE NOT FEARMONGERING.