Perspectives here do not just mean spatiotemporal locations. More importantly, it means which thing you are. e.g. you are experiencing the universe from the perspective of a particular human being named mikbp.
Treating perspectives to be axiomatic means any physical description has to be based on the perspective of something. We cannot think from a god’s eye view, and directly describe the world as it is. As in think directly in terms of the “absolute reality”.
If there are no interactions between two observers, then how can either of them say they are giving the same descriptions for an object? To each of them, the existence of the other observer is physically moot. There is ontologically no comparison at all, let alone saying their description are the same or different.
how can either of them say they are giving the same descriptions for an object?
They cannot. But why is it relevant? The fact that they don’t know it does not mean that their description is not the same. In addition, different observers may get different descriptions (eg. an infrared camera does not record the same as a normal camera). That does not change the object observed, just what we know about it. As long as you don’t think you know everything about the objects you observe, this is fine. The more we know, the more physical laws we can infer.
Taking the God’s eye view is restricted to specific problems and it just implies that you know all you need to know for that problem. Of course that’s not something one can do all the time.
You can say even when neither of them can compare the descriptions it still means their descriptions are the same. But from what perspective is this statement made? It is from a god’s eye view that directly thinks in terms of reality.
A self-consistent theory only means from any perspective, analyzing the interactions affected by an object cannot give conflicting descriptions of said object. If the only interaction upon you from the camera is an infra-red photo of the bottle, and from your direct interaction with the bottle you concluded it’s red, and from the infra-red photo you concluded it is green, then there’s something wrong with your theory that needs rectifying.
Besides, applying the same theories from the cameras’ perspective does not necessarily mean an infrared camera and a normal camera would give different (macro-scale) descriptions of the bottle. Sure the cameras give different photos. But the interactions they receive from the bottle are not that different. The infrared camera still gets bombarded by photons of all energy levels. They don’t just pass through the camera unaffected without interacting with it. And physical descriptions are based on them. If instead there is an infrared camera that let photons of higher energy levels pass through without interacting, as if they don’t exist to the camera, then it would give different descriptions.
Look, what I am arguing is that a foundational “absolute reality” is an additional assumption based on our intuition formed in the daily environment. Thinking directly in terms of this absolute reality is problematic outside of our intuitive environment, e.g. high speed or microscopic so we should get rid of this assumption however convenient it proved to be in the past.
I remembered Thomas Nagel said we get the idea of scientific objectivity through 3 steps.
Realize (or postulate) that my experiences are caused by actions upon me from the environment.
Realize (or postulate) that what causes actions upon me can also act on other things. They can exist on their own.
Realize (or postulate) an “true nature” that is independent of any perspective.
People in general regard science as the study of this “true nature” using “a view from nowhere”. I am simply arguing Postulate 3 is taking it too far.
Postulate 1 expands the scope from subjective experiences to actions, i.e. subjective experiences are not special. Postulate 2 expands the scope from my first-person perspective to anything’s perspective, i.e. my perspective is not special. Using only these two is not only more parsimonious, it also fits very well with the increasingly observer/perspective-dependent trend of physical discoveries.
Perspectives here do not just mean spatiotemporal locations. More importantly, it means which thing you are. e.g. you are experiencing the universe from the perspective of a particular human being named mikbp.
Treating perspectives to be axiomatic means any physical description has to be based on the perspective of something. We cannot think from a god’s eye view, and directly describe the world as it is. As in think directly in terms of the “absolute reality”.
If there are no interactions between two observers, then how can either of them say they are giving the same descriptions for an object? To each of them, the existence of the other observer is physically moot. There is ontologically no comparison at all, let alone saying their description are the same or different.
They cannot. But why is it relevant? The fact that they don’t know it does not mean that their description is not the same. In addition, different observers may get different descriptions (eg. an infrared camera does not record the same as a normal camera). That does not change the object observed, just what we know about it. As long as you don’t think you know everything about the objects you observe, this is fine. The more we know, the more physical laws we can infer.
Taking the God’s eye view is restricted to specific problems and it just implies that you know all you need to know for that problem. Of course that’s not something one can do all the time.
You can say even when neither of them can compare the descriptions it still means their descriptions are the same. But from what perspective is this statement made? It is from a god’s eye view that directly thinks in terms of reality.
A self-consistent theory only means from any perspective, analyzing the interactions affected by an object cannot give conflicting descriptions of said object. If the only interaction upon you from the camera is an infra-red photo of the bottle, and from your direct interaction with the bottle you concluded it’s red, and from the infra-red photo you concluded it is green, then there’s something wrong with your theory that needs rectifying.
Besides, applying the same theories from the cameras’ perspective does not necessarily mean an infrared camera and a normal camera would give different (macro-scale) descriptions of the bottle. Sure the cameras give different photos. But the interactions they receive from the bottle are not that different. The infrared camera still gets bombarded by photons of all energy levels. They don’t just pass through the camera unaffected without interacting with it. And physical descriptions are based on them. If instead there is an infrared camera that let photons of higher energy levels pass through without interacting, as if they don’t exist to the camera, then it would give different descriptions.
Look, what I am arguing is that a foundational “absolute reality” is an additional assumption based on our intuition formed in the daily environment. Thinking directly in terms of this absolute reality is problematic outside of our intuitive environment, e.g. high speed or microscopic so we should get rid of this assumption however convenient it proved to be in the past.
I remembered Thomas Nagel said we get the idea of scientific objectivity through 3 steps.
Realize (or postulate) that my experiences are caused by actions upon me from the environment.
Realize (or postulate) that what causes actions upon me can also act on other things. They can exist on their own.
Realize (or postulate) an “true nature” that is independent of any perspective.
People in general regard science as the study of this “true nature” using “a view from nowhere”. I am simply arguing Postulate 3 is taking it too far.
Postulate 1 expands the scope from subjective experiences to actions, i.e. subjective experiences are not special. Postulate 2 expands the scope from my first-person perspective to anything’s perspective, i.e. my perspective is not special. Using only these two is not only more parsimonious, it also fits very well with the increasingly observer/perspective-dependent trend of physical discoveries.
Okay, I disagree :-)