The problem with descriptivism in modern physics is that you say physical theory describes something independent, but you end up postulating the things that it describes as part of the description language, you do not provide any additional denotation for them. I.e. you claim that it describes the real stuff, but in fact it only describes the constants of its language. So the descriptive view forces anti-realism. But it seems your mereological reductionism is a form of realism.
Under prescriptivism, the theory postulates reality. So we can remain realists, just uncertain whether we are not mistaken about what is real.
I think that various-level-of-prescription laws are not contradictory. I’ve heard on LW that arithmetic might cause the calculator to output 4 to 2+2.
The problem with descriptivism in modern physics is that you say physical theory describes something independent, but you end up postulating the things that it describes as part of the description language, you do not provide any additional denotation for them. I.e. you claim that it describes the real stuff, but in fact it only describes the constants of its language. So the descriptive view forces anti-realism. But it seems your mereological reductionism is a form of realism.
I’m having trouble following your argument here. Could you clarify how descriptivism commits me to anti-realism?
I hope everyone understands that anti-realism is not a statement that “reality is not real”, i.e. it is not nihilism, but it is a statement that the predication of existence is relative to the theory which gives it (this predication) validity, so to say. ETA: I think I’ll withdraw my comments here regarding “anti-realism” because it seems the term is not defined this way… See Anti-realism and metaphysical nihilism.
Correct me where I might go “off the rails”.
I think that descriptivism+realism implies that the theory has a denotational semantics, where the terms are part of the theory and the objects are part of reality. This goes without problem in case of mechanics applied to billiard ball dynamic, or of crowd dynamic theory, etc. But one cannot give denotational semantics to the “Standard Model” theory, because there is no outside-theory means of individuation of its objects like the elementary particles.
Presumably the reason you think it’s unproblematic in the billiard ball case is that we can see billiard balls, so we have independent non-theoretical access to them. But we can also “see” the particles in the Standard Model, or at least we can see their experimental signatures. Now it’s true that our observations in this case are much more obviously theory-laden than they are in the billiard ball case, but I would argue that this is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. In neither case do we have some kind of direct access to the object itself, unmediated by any model of the world. It’s just that in the billiard ball case the mediation isn’t so blatant. So I don’t think the distinction you’re drawing here holds up.
Anyway, if this is what you mean by anti-realism—no access to the object unmediated by a model—then I guess I’m fine with that kind of anti-realism. It doesn’t seem to compel me to say things like “The Higgs boson doesn’t actually exist.”
Now my comments feel silly to me, I withdraw criticism. But I’d like to elicit the semantics under which we say we have a description. We don’t have a description of the Higgs boson but of the experimental results, right?
Let me take a different stab at it. Do you mean by “The Higgs boson actually exists” that you believe that in every theory at least as good as the standard model, we could naturally delineate a structure that corresponds to the Higgs boson?
Note that the condition was not to have “access to the object unmediated by a model”, but to have an independent model, the model which is being described.
Also, continuing to allow cruder levels can help to validate the more fundamental ones, or even falsify them (which would help refine the fundamental ones). If a description that bases its predictions on fundamental axioms turns out to be unreliable, that can point to a problem in the axioms themselves, even if they look flawless to us, it could be clear where the problem is coming from.
The problem with descriptivism in modern physics is that you say physical theory describes something independent, but you end up postulating the things that it describes as part of the description language, you do not provide any additional denotation for them. I.e. you claim that it describes the real stuff, but in fact it only describes the constants of its language. So the descriptive view forces anti-realism. But it seems your mereological reductionism is a form of realism.
Under prescriptivism, the theory postulates reality. So we can remain realists, just uncertain whether we are not mistaken about what is real.
I think that various-level-of-prescription laws are not contradictory. I’ve heard on LW that arithmetic might cause the calculator to output 4 to 2+2.
I’m having trouble following your argument here. Could you clarify how descriptivism commits me to anti-realism?
I hope everyone understands that anti-realism is not a statement that “reality is not real”, i.e. it is not nihilism, but it is a statement that the predication of existence is relative to the theory which gives it (this predication) validity, so to say. ETA: I think I’ll withdraw my comments here regarding “anti-realism” because it seems the term is not defined this way… See Anti-realism and metaphysical nihilism.
Correct me where I might go “off the rails”. I think that descriptivism+realism implies that the theory has a denotational semantics, where the terms are part of the theory and the objects are part of reality. This goes without problem in case of mechanics applied to billiard ball dynamic, or of crowd dynamic theory, etc. But one cannot give denotational semantics to the “Standard Model” theory, because there is no outside-theory means of individuation of its objects like the elementary particles.
Presumably the reason you think it’s unproblematic in the billiard ball case is that we can see billiard balls, so we have independent non-theoretical access to them. But we can also “see” the particles in the Standard Model, or at least we can see their experimental signatures. Now it’s true that our observations in this case are much more obviously theory-laden than they are in the billiard ball case, but I would argue that this is a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. In neither case do we have some kind of direct access to the object itself, unmediated by any model of the world. It’s just that in the billiard ball case the mediation isn’t so blatant. So I don’t think the distinction you’re drawing here holds up.
Anyway, if this is what you mean by anti-realism—no access to the object unmediated by a model—then I guess I’m fine with that kind of anti-realism. It doesn’t seem to compel me to say things like “The Higgs boson doesn’t actually exist.”
Now my comments feel silly to me, I withdraw criticism. But I’d like to elicit the semantics under which we say we have a description. We don’t have a description of the Higgs boson but of the experimental results, right?
I think that “explanation” sits between “description” and “prescription” and is most fitting.
Let me take a different stab at it. Do you mean by “The Higgs boson actually exists” that you believe that in every theory at least as good as the standard model, we could naturally delineate a structure that corresponds to the Higgs boson?
Note that the condition was not to have “access to the object unmediated by a model”, but to have an independent model, the model which is being described.
Also, continuing to allow cruder levels can help to validate the more fundamental ones, or even falsify them (which would help refine the fundamental ones). If a description that bases its predictions on fundamental axioms turns out to be unreliable, that can point to a problem in the axioms themselves, even if they look flawless to us, it could be clear where the problem is coming from.