I pause. “Well…” I say slowly. “Frankly, I’m not entirely sure myself where this ‘reality’ business comes from. I can’t create my own reality in the lab, so I must not understand it yet. But occasionally I believe strongly that something is going to happen, and then something else happens instead. I need a name for whatever-it-is that determines my experimental results, so I call it ‘reality’. This ‘reality’ is somehow separate from even my very best hypotheses. Even when I have a simple hypothesis, strongly supported by all the evidence I know, sometimes I’m still surprised. So I need different names for the thingies that determine my predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the former thingies ‘belief’, and the latter thingy ‘reality’.”
The map is not the territory, and the territory is not the map. My hypotheses about it might be wrong, but the territory is still the territory. How would a map determine my experimental observations?
That is a great quote from The Simple Truth. And what is more, it is perfectly responsive to what I was trying to say. Thank you.
As you may already know, Eliezer quoted that passage in Quantum Non-realism because QM makes it necessary to modify that argument slightly. The trouble is that in QM, your experimental results are no longer “determined” or at least not in the same sense. Oh, I agree with the basic message of that Quantum Non-realism posting that QM creates no problems for realism that MWI and a little fine print can’t fix. But I think that the fact that QM forced a change to the argument does suggest that there may be even more changes needed down the road.
I need a name for whatever-it-is that determines my experimental results, so I call it ‘reality’. This ‘reality’ is somehow separate from even my very best hypotheses.
If you want to call the whatever-it-is ‘reality’, that is fine with me. The whatever-it-is is definitely different from the best map that you know of. But it is possible, is it not, that the whatever-it-is is the whole tower of maps—including the maps you know of and the maps you don’t even imagine yet.
How would a map determine my experimental observations?
A map doesn’t determine observations. A whole tower of maps determines observations (modulo the necessary QM/MWI fine print). In much the same way that map-towers determine theoretical predictions. Maps, predictions, and observations are all made out of the same kind of ‘stuff’. There is nothing mysterious about it. You only get into trouble if you somehow begin to imagine that experimental observations are somehow built out of some kind of ‘reality stuff’ which is ontologically different from map-tower stuff. They are not. Observations are very theory-laden.
Logical positivism had all this stuff covered fairly satisfactorily by 1970 or so (IMHO)
but then somehow there was a change in the Zeitgeist and everyone agreed that positivism is dead. I am a contrarian who thinks something like it can be revived—along with a number of more academically serious anti-realist philosophers working in philosophy of science.
I am taking the word ‘map’ to mean pretty much the same as what philosophers of science refer to as ‘theories’. And ‘territory’ to mean ‘reality’. So by a ‘tower’ of maps, I mean a series of theories, each reducing to a ‘lower-level’ theory. For example, one map might be a theory of infinitely divisible material bodies with state properties like density, temperature, and elasticity. At the next level down in the tower of maps, we might have an atomic theory with 92 elements. Next a theory in which the elementary particles include electrons, neutrons, and protons. Next down, we have the standard model with QCD. Then some super-symmetric Kaluza-Klein GUT. Etc.
Is there a base-level theory (‘map’) that reduces to an underlying ‘reality’, rather than to a lower-level map? I suppose we will never know—can never know—whether such a reality exists and what it ‘looks like’. Certainly, we never know whether our current lowest-level map is the final one.
The thing that strikes me is that a ‘reduction’ is really a relation (a morphism?) between maps—an association between the entities and observables at one level with those at the next level down. In doing a reduction, we are constructing in our minds a relation or morphism between maps which also exist in our minds. I am simply saying that if you postulate a new kind of thing—a ‘reality’ or ‘territory’ that exists outside our minds, you may solve some philosophical puzzles, but you create others. For one thing, we need to have two kinds of reduction in our epistemology—one taking maps to territories, and one taking maps to maps. I say, “Why bother! Let’s follow Occam’s advice and stick to maps rather than adding this new entity—the ‘territory’ - without necessity.”
Not to my mind. In fact, I’m not sure they are ‘claims’ at all. I’m suggesting a different way of looking at things—a way which has advantages and disadvantages. I think the advantages dominate. Your mileage may differ.
If I did make claims, it was in the last paragraph where I suggested that anti-realism is both a respectable and a populated position in ontology and philosophy of science. The wikipedia article should provide links to sufficient evidence to back those claims.
The Wikipedia article wasn’t all that helpful other than to give a better idea of what the term means.
There seem to be two major types of anti-realism—one seems to be the idea that nothing is objectively real, and the other that no matter how much indirect evidence we have we can never know what is objectively real.
The first position doesn’t seem to be useful for much of anything (to me, anyway), and the second seems to be pretty close to what “the map is not the territory” is all about, with the claim that the map well never be able to perfectly reflect the territory.
Since you like to argue about the map/territory, I can only assume you believe nothing is objectively real.
I can only assume you believe nothing is objectively real.
It would probably be more productive to assume that I have seen no evidence that anything is objectively real, and that I have noticed no particular advantage to forming a belief on the subject in the absence of evidence.
And since I don’t expect to see or hear any evidence on the question any time soon, I follow Occam’s advice and try to think of how I can live without that belief in the real existence of something called ‘territory’.
I think I understand you, but what I don’t understand is how the idea that our subjective observations do not have an objective cause is simpler than the idea that what we sense directly and measure indirectly is the objective cause.
I would think Occam’s razor would require you to assume there is an objective reality causing all of your indirect observations. Even if all of reality is just a figment of our imagination, or just a part of some simulator (to take an extreme position), doesn’t there need to be a cause of such figments, or a machine of some kind on which the simulation runs?
In other words, I could understand the position that our understanding of reality (our best maps, if you will) may be completely wrong, and I could even understand the position that the nature of reality may be impossible for us to discover, but it seems to me the fact of our existence is pretty significant evidence that some kind of objective reality exists, whether or not we have accurately mapped it. Furthermore, both positions seem far more complicated than the position that what we have seen and measured is reality. Both positions must explain all of our senses as well as having some larger thing that is an undiscoverable reality. Occam’s razor seems to say the simplest answer is that what we have sensed directly and measured indirectly is reality (though not necessarily the fundamental reality).
It does. But I think you are underestimating just how much complication a belief in an unknown (or not yet known) reality brings with it. And it is an unsupportable position to claim “that what we have seen and measured is reality”. Measurement is obviously theory-laden. Sense data is too, though the theories involved are in the field of psychology and the neurosciences.
it seems to me the fact of our existence is pretty significant evidence that some kind of objective reality exists
One thing I notice you doing that you may not notice yourself: you are using the words “objective” and “subjective” as a kind of praise or condemnation. And you seem to associate the adjective ‘objective’ with the noun ‘reality’ as if ‘reality’ has a natural right to that adjective. But I am taking the position here that the only ‘reality’ you have access to is a subjective one (or, at best, intersubjective).
I think we pretty much understand each other at this point. I’m not trying to convert anyone—just to open some minds. And I apologize for my “maps all the way down’ crack that started the conversation. It came across as trollish, and I regret that.
The map is not the territory, and the territory is not the map. My hypotheses about it might be wrong, but the territory is still the territory. How would a map determine my experimental observations?
That is a great quote from The Simple Truth. And what is more, it is perfectly responsive to what I was trying to say. Thank you.
As you may already know, Eliezer quoted that passage in Quantum Non-realism because QM makes it necessary to modify that argument slightly. The trouble is that in QM, your experimental results are no longer “determined” or at least not in the same sense. Oh, I agree with the basic message of that Quantum Non-realism posting that QM creates no problems for realism that MWI and a little fine print can’t fix. But I think that the fact that QM forced a change to the argument does suggest that there may be even more changes needed down the road.
If you want to call the whatever-it-is ‘reality’, that is fine with me. The whatever-it-is is definitely different from the best map that you know of. But it is possible, is it not, that the whatever-it-is is the whole tower of maps—including the maps you know of and the maps you don’t even imagine yet.
A map doesn’t determine observations. A whole tower of maps determines observations (modulo the necessary QM/MWI fine print). In much the same way that map-towers determine theoretical predictions. Maps, predictions, and observations are all made out of the same kind of ‘stuff’. There is nothing mysterious about it. You only get into trouble if you somehow begin to imagine that experimental observations are somehow built out of some kind of ‘reality stuff’ which is ontologically different from map-tower stuff. They are not. Observations are very theory-laden.
Logical positivism had all this stuff covered fairly satisfactorily by 1970 or so (IMHO) but then somehow there was a change in the Zeitgeist and everyone agreed that positivism is dead. I am a contrarian who thinks something like it can be revived—along with a number of more academically serious anti-realist philosophers working in philosophy of science.
I’m not sure what you mean by this.
How does one make maps into a tower? What would such a tower of maps look like? How is this different from a “territory” containing a tower of maps?
I am taking the word ‘map’ to mean pretty much the same as what philosophers of science refer to as ‘theories’. And ‘territory’ to mean ‘reality’. So by a ‘tower’ of maps, I mean a series of theories, each reducing to a ‘lower-level’ theory. For example, one map might be a theory of infinitely divisible material bodies with state properties like density, temperature, and elasticity. At the next level down in the tower of maps, we might have an atomic theory with 92 elements. Next a theory in which the elementary particles include electrons, neutrons, and protons. Next down, we have the standard model with QCD. Then some super-symmetric Kaluza-Klein GUT. Etc.
Is there a base-level theory (‘map’) that reduces to an underlying ‘reality’, rather than to a lower-level map? I suppose we will never know—can never know—whether such a reality exists and what it ‘looks like’. Certainly, we never know whether our current lowest-level map is the final one.
The thing that strikes me is that a ‘reduction’ is really a relation (a morphism?) between maps—an association between the entities and observables at one level with those at the next level down. In doing a reduction, we are constructing in our minds a relation or morphism between maps which also exist in our minds. I am simply saying that if you postulate a new kind of thing—a ‘reality’ or ‘territory’ that exists outside our minds, you may solve some philosophical puzzles, but you create others. For one thing, we need to have two kinds of reduction in our epistemology—one taking maps to territories, and one taking maps to maps. I say, “Why bother! Let’s follow Occam’s advice and stick to maps rather than adding this new entity—the ‘territory’ - without necessity.”
I hope that explanation helped.
Is there any real evidence of this? I hear interesting conjecture but not one bit of evidence.
You know the saying, big claims require big evidence. These are very big claims.
Not to my mind. In fact, I’m not sure they are ‘claims’ at all. I’m suggesting a different way of looking at things—a way which has advantages and disadvantages. I think the advantages dominate. Your mileage may differ.
If I did make claims, it was in the last paragraph where I suggested that anti-realism is both a respectable and a populated position in ontology and philosophy of science. The wikipedia article should provide links to sufficient evidence to back those claims.
The Wikipedia article wasn’t all that helpful other than to give a better idea of what the term means.
There seem to be two major types of anti-realism—one seems to be the idea that nothing is objectively real, and the other that no matter how much indirect evidence we have we can never know what is objectively real.
The first position doesn’t seem to be useful for much of anything (to me, anyway), and the second seems to be pretty close to what “the map is not the territory” is all about, with the claim that the map well never be able to perfectly reflect the territory.
Since you like to argue about the map/territory, I can only assume you believe nothing is objectively real.
Am I misunderstanding you?
It would probably be more productive to assume that I have seen no evidence that anything is objectively real, and that I have noticed no particular advantage to forming a belief on the subject in the absence of evidence.
And since I don’t expect to see or hear any evidence on the question any time soon, I follow Occam’s advice and try to think of how I can live without that belief in the real existence of something called ‘territory’.
I think I understand you, but what I don’t understand is how the idea that our subjective observations do not have an objective cause is simpler than the idea that what we sense directly and measure indirectly is the objective cause.
I would think Occam’s razor would require you to assume there is an objective reality causing all of your indirect observations. Even if all of reality is just a figment of our imagination, or just a part of some simulator (to take an extreme position), doesn’t there need to be a cause of such figments, or a machine of some kind on which the simulation runs?
In other words, I could understand the position that our understanding of reality (our best maps, if you will) may be completely wrong, and I could even understand the position that the nature of reality may be impossible for us to discover, but it seems to me the fact of our existence is pretty significant evidence that some kind of objective reality exists, whether or not we have accurately mapped it. Furthermore, both positions seem far more complicated than the position that what we have seen and measured is reality. Both positions must explain all of our senses as well as having some larger thing that is an undiscoverable reality. Occam’s razor seems to say the simplest answer is that what we have sensed directly and measured indirectly is reality (though not necessarily the fundamental reality).
Does that make sense?
It does. But I think you are underestimating just how much complication a belief in an unknown (or not yet known) reality brings with it. And it is an unsupportable position to claim “that what we have seen and measured is reality”. Measurement is obviously theory-laden. Sense data is too, though the theories involved are in the field of psychology and the neurosciences.
One thing I notice you doing that you may not notice yourself: you are using the words “objective” and “subjective” as a kind of praise or condemnation. And you seem to associate the adjective ‘objective’ with the noun ‘reality’ as if ‘reality’ has a natural right to that adjective. But I am taking the position here that the only ‘reality’ you have access to is a subjective one (or, at best, intersubjective).
I think we pretty much understand each other at this point. I’m not trying to convert anyone—just to open some minds. And I apologize for my “maps all the way down’ crack that started the conversation. It came across as trollish, and I regret that.