“I don’t really understand metaphysics or why it’s needed.”—Matt Simpson
“Sketch version: There is no “no metaphysics” anwser, there is only “metaphysics I just unconsciously accept” and “metaphysics I’ve actually thought about”. You can do it well or you can do it badly but you can’t not do metaphysics.”—Andrew Summitt
This is a wild guess, but (on the assumption that you endorse this quote) is the thought that MWI stands in relation to experimentally testable physics as something like a metaphysical thesis, and that instrumentalism doesn’t lack metaphysical theses of this kind, but simply refuses to acknowledge and examine them?
Anyway, a related quote, and so far as I know the oldest of this kind:
The man who is ready to prove that metaphysical knowledge is wholly impossible..is a brother metaphysician with a rival theory of first principles. -F. H. Bradley “Appearance and Reality” 1893
Actually, it was someone asking what the heck I meant by “reality fluid”, to which the answer is that I don’t know either which is why I always call it “magical reality fluid”. I mean, I could add in something that sounded impressive and might to some degree be helpful along the lines of “It’s the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of ‘probability’ as it appears inside hypotheses about collections of real things in which some real things are more predicted to happen to me than others for purposes of executing post-observation Bayesian updates, like, if the squared modulus rule appearing in the Born statistics reflected the quantity present of an actual kind of stuff” but I think saying, “It’s magic, which is the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of ‘I’m confused’” would be wiser in a conversation like that. I think it’s very important not to create the illusion of knowing more than you do, when you try to operate at the frontiers of your own ability to be coherent. At the same time, refusing to digress into metaphysics even to demarcate the things that confuse you, even to form ideas which can be explicitly incoherent rather than implicitly incoherent, is indeed to become the slave of the unexamined thought.
I wonder if others find the notion of “magical reality fluid” a useful moniker for “I have no clear idea of what’s going on here, but something does, so I cannot avoid thinking about it”. I confess it does nothing for me.
Some people do (I have already received multiple comments to this effect). Mileage possibly varies.
Signalling sophistication and confidence when there is no object level reason for such confidence is one of the more destructive of human social incentives. I heartily endorse measures to prevent this. Seeing that someone is willing to admit uncertainty at the expense of their dignity increases the confidence I can have that their other expressions of confidence are more than social bullshit.
I would of course encourage you to stop using “magical reality fluid” as soon as possible. That is, after someone figures the philosophy (or epistemology or physics) out with something remotely approaching rigour.
Much as I love the idea of this and would like it to work for me, unfortunately as far as I can tell my brain simply treats “magical reality fluid” the same way as it would something bland like “degree of reality”.
Though come to think of it, I’m not actually sure whether or not I’ve really been saying the magical part to myself all this time. I’ll try to make sure I don’t leave it out in the future, and see whether it makes a difference.
I wouldn’t if it was the first time I read that phrase, but since I read EY’s explanation of what he means by it I have had no trouble in remembering that. Sure, a long phrase full of hyphens starting with “whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-” would be clearer, but it would also be more of a PITA to type, so I can see why EY wouldn’t use it.
“The adherents of the Vienna Circle of logical positivism and of the Mach Association used to say that systems of metaphysics are merely the ghosts of departed scientific theories: scientific theories that have been abandoned.”
This is a wild guess, but (on the assumption that you endorse this quote) is the thought that MWI stands in relation to experimentally testable physics as something like a metaphysical thesis, and that instrumentalism doesn’t lack metaphysical theses of this kind, but simply refuses to acknowledge and examine them?
Anyway, a related quote, and so far as I know the oldest of this kind:
Actually, it was someone asking what the heck I meant by “reality fluid”, to which the answer is that I don’t know either which is why I always call it “magical reality fluid”. I mean, I could add in something that sounded impressive and might to some degree be helpful along the lines of “It’s the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of ‘probability’ as it appears inside hypotheses about collections of real things in which some real things are more predicted to happen to me than others for purposes of executing post-observation Bayesian updates, like, if the squared modulus rule appearing in the Born statistics reflected the quantity present of an actual kind of stuff” but I think saying, “It’s magic, which is the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of ‘I’m confused’” would be wiser in a conversation like that. I think it’s very important not to create the illusion of knowing more than you do, when you try to operate at the frontiers of your own ability to be coherent. At the same time, refusing to digress into metaphysics even to demarcate the things that confuse you, even to form ideas which can be explicitly incoherent rather than implicitly incoherent, is indeed to become the slave of the unexamined thought.
Thanks for the explanation.
I wonder if others find the notion of “magical reality fluid” a useful moniker for “I have no clear idea of what’s going on here, but something does, so I cannot avoid thinking about it”. I confess it does nothing for me.
Some people do (I have already received multiple comments to this effect). Mileage possibly varies.
Signalling sophistication and confidence when there is no object level reason for such confidence is one of the more destructive of human social incentives. I heartily endorse measures to prevent this. Seeing that someone is willing to admit uncertainty at the expense of their dignity increases the confidence I can have that their other expressions of confidence are more than social bullshit.
I would of course encourage you to stop using “magical reality fluid” as soon as possible. That is, after someone figures the philosophy (or epistemology or physics) out with something remotely approaching rigour.
Much as I love the idea of this and would like it to work for me, unfortunately as far as I can tell my brain simply treats “magical reality fluid” the same way as it would something bland like “degree of reality”.
Though come to think of it, I’m not actually sure whether or not I’ve really been saying the magical part to myself all this time. I’ll try to make sure I don’t leave it out in the future, and see whether it makes a difference.
FWIW, it does a fine job for me of conveying “I don’t quite know what I’m talking about here.”
Hypothesis: Whether or not a readers finds that useful correlates with whether or not they’ve read this.
I wouldn’t if it was the first time I read that phrase, but since I read EY’s explanation of what he means by it I have had no trouble in remembering that. Sure, a long phrase full of hyphens starting with “whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-” would be clearer, but it would also be more of a PITA to type, so I can see why EY wouldn’t use it.
Reminds me of Popper (World of Parmenides):