As I see it, the only hope is if physics can provide us with something like gravity we can all agree on --excluding those who disagree with everything on principle, who actually are in the ascendancy exactly because there's no consensus on reality. "Weight" as a value is only relative to the local gravitational field. However, mass is not so easily evaporated. An astronaut on EVA may be weightless in space but he still has mass. But if you chase physics up the ladder of reality, things turn squishy at the top. They're looking for one big force into which everything lesser resolves -- and who isn't? One Big Thing would take care of everything in the end. You could call it God, the spacetime continuum, the future, technology, whatever, the relief would be that nothing we can do matters. Problem is that it's hard to get any 3 people who agree exactly what that One Big Thing is, which makes it seem that chaos (absolute relativity) is our only human reality & nothing matters. But what if we're wrong on that?

Alexander Pruss has apparently thought of this - nb his "Big Conjunctive Facts". Of course, Pruss is a Christian apologist. Somewhere else I remarked that "why" questions usually lead to dogmatism...

The universe doesn't need to be explained - we feel the need to explain. Pan narrans, as someone called us...

If we humans feel the need to explain, maybe there's a reason. If we privileged intellectuals decline to explain, that leaves the field open to those less inhibited. Thus, revival of dogmatism. Reminds me of those 60s & 70s lefty dropouts who announced that politics was beneath contempt = opened the field to the Right. Now it's everybody sit back and make fun of being human. Update of original sin: instead of being sinful we'll futile. Advantage: You don't have to care about things too much.

As an art type, I know the world works if you play by the rules, which means a working dualism. Not a hostile negative dialectic but an interaction of opposed forces. Guess that makes me a dogmatic dualist. Thanks for the exchange.

Virginia - I think you've just put your finger on the problem of relativism. If explanation is theory-dependent, then it is "local" rather than "universal" - it holds within that theory, but we have no guarantee that it can be generalised to situations that are not explicitly given by the theory. There are several candidates for "universal explanation" - the more positivist among scientific realists would propose physics; theologians like Pruss propose God...

As philosophers, I think we should be suspicious of ***any*** claim to universalism. Just how "universal" is the domain over which the explanation ranges? Can we cite actual or possible exceptions to its universality; and if we can, is the theory on which the explanation depends strong enough to integrate or discount those exceptions?

These are philosophers' questions; some of us are lucky enough to get paid for speculating on 'em - others (myself included) have to do it in our free time. Part of philosophy is critical: when someone makes some claim, what is his justification in making that claim?

It's perhaps a requirement for critical philosophy that it should take a position of doubt; but I'm not sure that we should generalise even this. Some people – Haris Shekeris tends that way – have asked whether such scepticism disallows any preference for one explanation (one epistemic system) rather than another: surely, says the radical sceptic, as we have no objective criteria for preferring one scheme to another, we should refrain from expressing any preference, and judge systems on their internal merits.

The problem arises, I think, when the relativistic argument is enlarged to include philosophy itself. There are, I think, two degrees of scepticism about philosophy. The first, "weaker" scepticism concerns what has been called "First Philosophy" – the Aristotelian notion that philosophy could in some way "found" knowledge, as illustrated by Descartes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy). Numerous recent commentators (with Quine in the forefront - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine) have attacked the well-foundedness of first philosophy, claiming that philosophy should rather concern itself with an evaluation of the principles set forth by other epistemic systems (and notably, those of the sciences). Those who reject first philosophy but maintain the independence of philosophy as a discipline would thereby seem to be proposing some "meta-epistemic" role for philosophy: philosophy is a kind of "clearing house" where different accounts of this or that phenomenon are weighed and compared.

The position of the more radical sceptic is evidently set against this kind of claim. For the sceptic, the claim that philosophy has a privileged role in evaluating epistemic systems is based on the notion that philosophy is an "ideally rational method"; for her, not only is the claim that there is an ideally rational method a petitio principii, but the claim also presupposes that a certain way of doing philosophy (and usually, some form of analytic philosophy) is preferable to other ways of doing philosophy. Historically, this can be seen in the various skirmishes between Derrida and people like Quine or Searle, and in the whole "Impostures Intellectuelles" business.

The sceptic argues that neither philosophy as a discipline nor any philosophical method has a greater claim to universalism than any other epistemic system. I don't think we can realistically argue against her stance: philosophy is not an ideally rational activity, and even if it were, there is no guarantee that "ideal rationality" can tell us anything about either the world or ourselves. Nonetheless, I think we can answer the sceptic in part by claiming a normative role for philosophy: philosophy doesn't provide the "laws of rationality", but it CAN provide a norm by which claims to rationality can be given at least a local comparative evaluation. Once again, this strategy presupposes that we accept a certain "scientific turn" in our way of doing philosophy: we take certain phenomena, and look at the various accounts concerning THOSE phenomena, and the role each account plays in a more general system of beliefs about the world. The "ideal rationality" we adopt is normative – thus, rather than claiming that if a rational agent believes one of a mutually exclusive pair of beliefs he will not believe the other, we would claim that ***all things being equal***, if a rational agent believes one of a mutually exclusive pair of beliefs he will not believe the other. The ceteris paribus clause allows for belief systems that are perhaps internally coherent yet are not themselves ruled by the requirement for consistency or by some notion of "tertium non datur". Obviously, the sciences and particularly physics are the epistemic systems which best approximate the norm, and there's little doubt that many philosophers who are interested by "the world and the nature of the world" are attracted to the physical sciences as providing our "best approximation of organised, coherent knowledge about the world".

But a preference for physical explanations of supposedly physical phenomena doesn't preclude an awareness of the explanatory gaps and lacunae that persist between many of our scientific accounts and what is "given" in our phenomenal experience. To give a couple of examples: the natural sciences provide no theory of intentionality or consciousness, and it seems that we can't find "human time" in physics. Yet consciousness and time are more than "given" in experience – they would seem to be the very conditions of experience itself. These should be (and are) areas in which philosophy has a role to play: whether one's preference lies with the "evidence from physical accounts" or with the phenomenology of experience, the object is one of clarification. When we talk of the "timelike qualities of the physical universe", are we even talking about the 'time' discussed by St Augustine – and are either anything like "human time"? Can mind be real yet causally inert in the physical world? Understandably, a lot of time is spent bickering over terminology (what did I mean by "real yet causally inert"? What are "timelike qualities of the physical universe"?)

I don't know whether radical scepticism results in radical relativism – Haris Shekeris could say more than I – but one can argue for a normative role for philosophy from a position of simple pragmatism. Those accounts are to be preferred which best serve our various ends, and the most reliable accounts are those which best stand up to the tribunal of experience over time. Certain accounts – certain myths, if you will – are particularly well-entrenched in our experience: such things as "material objects" and "causation" come to mind. Other accounts are founded on beliefs that have immediate social utility – such things as "theories of mind" and the notion of intentional action. Once again, there's an inherent petitio principii to a certain view of 'the scientific method', and it's unsurprising that the predictive powers of certain theories place them high among "successful accounts" – though we should bear in mind that their validity depends to a large degree on their formalisation.

A long answer to a simple remark – sorry, but I felt the point was worth making. Shall we say that while scepticism is salutary, simple pragmatism requires that we take *some* stance – even though that stance is nothing more than a hypothesis to be tested.

(that's just my opinion, of course!)

Wow, what a terrific answer! You have just boxed the compass on our position, the single best statement of the modern case I can remember reading. In fact I gave up reading on it long since, doubting that anyone could give us the spiritual GPS as well, and as well-informed. Thanks so much.

Let me ask you a simpler question, one of logic. If any -ism allows or respects no alternative point of view to its own, doesn't that position qualify as a monism? For example, if skepticism or contrarianism [modes du jour], materialism, even pluralism or atheism, mysticism, anarchism, idealism-- any system that says ANY alternative to itself is invalid -- isn't that a monism regardless of the number of "gods" or forces? I'm wondering if the only way out is a declared dualism that validates its opponent on principle, the way champion & contender do in sports, rather than god/devil in religion, etc. Heresy, I guess.

Virginia, you do me too much honour! I was writing against the clock (we'd promised to take the kids for a nocturnal drive through Paris to see the decorations), and I didn't even have time to re-read… I should imagine it's not that well written!

For a really good formulation of the kind of thing I'm saying, take a look at Craig Callender's paper "Time's Ontic Voltage", and particularly the conclusion (p. 25) - http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/ccallender/Time'sOnticVoltage.doc

"There is a better way to conceive of the debate. Philosophers of time should model the debate the way philosophers of mind frame theirs. The natural sciences don’t have sophisticated theories of intentionality and consciousness, for instance. There seems to be an explanatory gap between our experience and the so-far incomplete description of our experience provided by the natural sciences. There is an honest-to-goodness problem over how to explain consciousness, for instance. Philosophers of mind then suggest explanations using naturalistic resources to explain consciousness (which, if picked up, might develop as parts of natural science) or they look elsewhere and supplement the naturalistic resources, either with new ‘naturalistic’ resources or ‘non-naturalistic’ resources. They then argue about whether the explanation actually succeeds in accounting for consciousness. Similarly, philosophy of time ought to refine our description of what needs to be explained, carefully examine science and the way it treats time, compare the two, and then try to account for any explanatory gap that arises. The gap may be filled in with scientific or metaphysical resources."

(though, as I'm more a philosopher of language, I wouldn't express things quite the way Callender does in the first part of the paper).

***

As to your further comment: "if any -ism allows or respects no alternative point of view to its own, doesn't that position qualify as a monism? For example, if skepticism or contrarianism [modes du jour], materialism, even pluralism or atheism, mysticism, anarchism, idealism-- any system that says ANY alternative to itself is invalid -- isn't that a monism regardless of the number of "gods" or forces? I'm wondering if the only way out is a declared dualism that validates its opponent on principle, the way champion & contender do in sports, rather than god/devil in religion, etc. Heresy, I guess."

This is going to be hellishly long, I'm afraid – the writing is perhaps more valuable to me than the reading will be to you! Any way, you DID ask (more or less!).

My first comment echoes the rejection of Carnap's argument against metaphysics. If radical relativism makes the claim that NO epistemic system gives "the unique facts of the matter", this objection applies to radical relativism too. Radical relativism is NOT an "antidote to epistemic preference" – it IS an epistemic preference ITSELF; and furthermore, as an epistemic system, it is in fact rather elitist (very much a matter of "fashionable thinking") – radical relativism is as much an "academic phenomenon" as neo-classical analytic philosophy (and I think we could argue for it being far more of an "ivory tower pursuit" than more "science-oriented" views of philosophy). Interestingly enough, the most telling arguments against the Carnapian rejection of metaphysics came from "pragmatist" philosophers; the most telling arguments against the interest of radical relativism as a philosophical position are also pragmatist in origin.

CLAIMS TO UNIVERSALISM: LOGICAL, METAPHYSICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL

As to claims of "universalism": I think we can distinguish between three levels at which a given epistemic system might make a claim to "universality" – logical, metaphysical, and epistemological. In this first part of my reply (sorry!), I'll try and make sense of "logical universalism" and its relation to "metaphysical universalism"; I'll also take a look at what we mean by "a monism". Forgive any solecisms!

"UNIVERSES" IN LOGIC

In first-order logic and given classic bivalence, for any given domain of discourse, and any given property, all individuals within that domain either have or do not have that property. "Domains of discourse" are often called "universes of discourse" – IN THIS RESPECT, a universally-quantified expression holds across an "entire universe" and is (by definition) "universal". We COULD set the domain of discourse as "all real entities", in which case it should be that the range of our quantified statements is LOGICALLY universal across "all reality". However, the problem comes in defining "the domain of all real entities".

First of all, what do we mean by "entity" (and setting aside the problem of "stuff" and "vague entities")? In a formal system, "objects" are given either by 'names' (a list of constants defined in extension) or by variables bound under quantification. Given the resources of logic, we can only define an "entity" as being "some thing bound under existential quantification" – thus, our choice of what constitutes "an entity" will be determined either by giving the domain exhaustively in extension, or by the extra-logical criteria we employ in giving the domain in intension: as, for example, "the class of physical events" or "the class of material objects", in which the putative extension of the class is determined by the sense we give to the terms "physical event" and "material object". It'll also depend on our extra-logical beliefs about the priority relations obtaining between one class and another: if we believe that the world is composed of nothing but events, then we'll quantify over events and try to show that objects can be reduced to properties of events (this is done in certain neo-Davidsonian theories of action where the "actor" is given by adverbial agency). If we believe that the world is composed of material objects, we'll quantify over material objects and try to show that events can be reduced to property-exemplifications by material objects (as with Kim's account of events); similar strategies can of course be employed if we believe that the fundamental "domain of entities" consists of minds, or of fundamental particles, or spacetime regions (or Kellogg's Cornflakes® if the fancy takes you). But whatever domain or domains we postulate is a matter of metaphysics, not logic; the following positions are therefore metaphysical positions. As such they are as concerned with what is "real" as with what "exists" – and the term "real" is the second unanalysed notion in the expression "the domain of all real entities".

SOME EXAMPLES OF "METAPHYSICAL UNIVERSALISM"

1. Strong Monist Reductionism ("SMR")

We can characterise the kind of approach which postulates a unique domain of fundamental entities and which thereafter seeks to reduce all other entities, properties, relations etc. to that domain of entities as "Strong Monist Reductionism". The approach is strongly monist in that it restricts the domain of what is "metaphysically real" to one particular kind of entity (material objects, particles, minds…)

2. Strong Pluralist Reductionism ("SPR")

Strong Pluralist Reductionism will allow different "kinds" of entity (events, objects, states of affairs…) but holds that all these kind of entity are limited to one universal domain – for example, "the physical" (therefore holding that only the physical is "metaphysically real"). On such an account, such things as 'material objects' or 'events' would be sub-domains of the "widest possible domain". Fixing "the widest possible" domain as "the physical" is evidently not that straightforward: what do we understand by "the physical"? Are we talking about the "domain of physical science" (which Ross has characterised as "mathematical"), or are we talking about the "general domain of the special sciences" (which Ross helpfully characterises as "physical")? Perhaps we're talking about something outside the domains of the sciences – entities that are "physical" in the way tables, chairs, boulders, clouds, explosions, and beings-in-Paris are physical… but if we are, our universe of discourse would seem to be "the things of everyday language" and, from the logical point of view, our domain is one of "linguistic entities". From this logical point of view, SPR has a general problem of defining what it is that constitutes the "widest possible domain": it allows that there is more than one "kind" of entity (and thus allows parallel quantification over more than one domain), but still postulates a more general domain such that the members of any sub-domain are only "real" if they are ALSO members of this more general domain (thus "Lassie" might belong to the domain of "dogs" while not belonging to the wider domain of "physical entities"). For my part, I think that SPR is untenable when its domain is set too wide; I won't develop my arguments here, but I'd say that as an argument for physicalism it only works when the domain can be set as that of "the special sciences" (and to my eyes the arguments of, for example, Ross and Ladyman operate from this level). Setting the domain to "the things of everyday life" is just too vague: as nearly everything we'd be quantifying over is given in intension, we'd seem to be talking about "meanings" rather than "things" (this requires LOTS of development, but I think the initial idea is clear enough).

4. General characteristics of Strong Reductionism ("SR")

SR requires not only ontological dependence but also explanatory dependence. So, if a given reductionist theory allows entities at levels "higher" than the fundamental level at all, talk about such entities can be reduced to talk about fundamental entities; and explanations given at higher levels can be reduced to talk about relations obtaining between fundamental entities. At best, such theories hold to what David Lewis called "Humean supervenience", the view on which fundamental-level relations exhaust ALL real relations and thereby "higher-level" relations and entities are merely epiphenomenal.

5. General characteristics of Weak Reductionism ("WR")

When compared to SR, Weak Reductionism can seem a bit have-your-cake-and-eat-it: the most common version is anomalous monism, in which there can be an ontological reduction or priority but where we can't give a nomological reduction. WR models postulate a fundamental level, but allow that entities at higher levels "supervene on" or "emerge from" the lower levels in such a way that the relations between them cannot be given entirely in terms of lower-level laws. While SR allows only fundamental level relations as the basis for explanation, WR would hold that while higher levels are ontologically dependent on fundamental level entities, higher-level relations are "real" insofar as they "serve explanation". Davidson's theory of the role of the mental in causal explanation springs to mind as an example of WR, though if we follow to the letter the characterisations I've give so far, we should rather call Davidson's view Weak Pluralist Reduction (WPR) than Weak Monist Reductionism (WMR) as – to my knowledge – Davidson never suggests that events represent the UNIQUE ontological category.

6. How monist is your monism?

The term "monism" as usually applied to (for example) Davidson is wider in its sense than is allowed by the characterisations above. The distinction between monism and pluralism in my characterisations is a distinction between allowing one fundamental ontological category and allowing many; the "Davidsonian" sense is rather based on refusing a distinction between what is "physical" and what is "non-physical". A physicalist monism in the widest of what I've called a "Davidsonian" sense (and I would hasten to add that this doesn't reflect Davidson's stated views) is a monism which allows that only that which is "physical" is metaphysically real and that only that which is "physical" can figure in our explanations of this or that phenomenon; thus, a neo-Davidsonian account can allow that intentions figure in a physical explanation because they supervene on physical states of the agent and can figure in "causal explanations" of actions, which are physical events (even though they can't give a lawlike relation obtaining between the intention and the action). The extreme form of such physicalist monism is given by "Humean" reductionism – where the Davidsonian postulates ontological reduction, the Humean reductionist also requires nomological or explanatory reduction: no law, no explanation. I'm rather tempted to think that this kind of monism is established after, and in opposition to, a Cartesian dualism: Cartesian dualism posits a domain of physical entities and a domain of mental entities established in such a way that the widest possible domain of existents ranges over both mental and physical entities; in occasionalist interpretations, these two domains of existent are mutually exclusive. From such a position, it's easy enough to see how we can derive both an idealist and a physicalist account in which one or the other of the domains is fundamental to the other – and it's easy enough to understand the motivation for seeking such an account, given the problems for both interactionism and occasionalism. Faced with the choice between explanation of how non-physical causes can have physical results, or how physical and mental causation can run parallel to and mirror each other without one having precedence over the other, it's natural enough for a certain kind of philosopher to try and sever the Gordian knot by coming down in favour of the priority of one over the other.

Whether or not it's the result of some kind of "Cartesian error", the mental/physical distinction plays a role in classical naturalism: the physical world is supposedly 'mind-independent' – that is, physical relations supposedly obtain in the absence of any being that is conscious of them, and would obtain in the absence of any conscious being whatsoever. Such naturalism is to a certain degree an affirmative answer to the old chestnut-question "if a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a noise?".

While I make no particular claim to sophistication, a more sophisticated answer to the old chestnut might be "yes, if your theory allows it".

FIRST CONCLUSIONS: ONTOLOGICAL AND EXPLANATORY REDUCTION; ONTOLOGICAL AND METAPHYSICAL MONISM

In the above I've allowed an implicit distinction between "ontological" and "explanatory" reduction: this is what distinguishes between "strong" and "weak" reduction. Both the strong and the weak versions allow a fundamental ontological level (and in this respect both can be seen as reactions against dualism), but stronger versions claim that this also founds an "explanatory reduction": only fundamental entities are "real", and only relations obtaining between fundamental entities can be evoked in explanation. An explanation that doesn't give explicitly-defined nomological relations obtaining between fundamental entities (or collections thereof), or which cannot be reduced to such nomological relations, is no explanation. If the reductionism is also ontologically monist, then the reduction will be made to nomological relations obtaining between one category of fundamental entity (as would be the case with an account which claimed that the nomological relations described by the special sciences can be reduced to nomological relations obtaining between fundamental particles). Weak reduction allows that explanation can be valid even when it quantifies over non-fundamental entities, provided that those entities "coincide" with fundamental entities –though this is common with some versions of strong reductionism; what is perhaps more specific is that it allows that explanation can be valid even when the explanation postulates relations that cannot be nomologically reduced to relations obtaining between fundamental entities (as in Davidson's "anomalous monism").

I've also employed an implicit distinction between 'ontological" and "metaphysical" monism. "Ontological monism" is the thesis that one ontological category (objects, events, particles, cornflakes) is fundamental and that all other ontological categories can be reduced to that one category; "metaphysical monism" is – as I've defined it, at least – rather a position with respect to a certain post-Cartesian way of doing metaphysics.

To conclude this first part: a certain kind of "universalism" would claims to be "metaphysically universal" – that is, it is universal because its domain of discourse concerns all and only "what is real". The temptation of reductionism is the temptation of the simplest, most general explanation – while metaphysical reductionism allows a certain kind of nomological reduction, a nomological reduction is a reduction to a simpler, more general "explanation".

Which, I think, should lead us to the notion of "epistemological universalism"…

This is too good. OK, I'll come clean. I'm about to send off for submission a "Graphic Novel for Physicists" and this reminds of the moment in the strip when that Schroedinger Cat tries to imagine her black cat-antiparticle and he turns out to be a tiger. I didn't anticipate that, and I didn't anticipate getting a tiger by the tail in this chat, either. Wowed that anybody is left in the pomo tailings that can really think, not just spin a cause. I'll print out what you wrote & work on it the same way I tried to catch up with quantum physics since I can't do math: in terms of that working dualism I find in art. I'm very literal minded, so it's a slow process even to know what question to ask. I am so grateful to be able to take philosophy seriously again, you know the Sci-Guys can get so snobby on that - but not with your level of response. Physics is easy by comparison: just eliminate mind from the equation.

Sunil : lots of remark-worthy comments here, I'll try and get round to them all (time might well be entirely relative to our perspective, but it's still a "real constraint"!).

Your first comment first, then:

"reality is something that is space-independent, time-independent, and observer independent. This is what we call objective reality. This is what we mean by 'reality' in physics. Everything else is a projection of this objective reality and therefore is not fundamentally different from the reality."

I'd agree that this corresponds (in part) to the "metaphysical intuitions" of a large number of working physicists, including many theoreticians (though I'm not sure that we can ***really*** make sense of time- and space-independence: 'time' and 'space' as geometrical quantities are implicit in the definition of most physical constants…).

However, I'm not all sure that we can claim that physics is concerned with the "definition of objective reality": indeed, the belief that there is a mind-independent reality is in general an unanalysed metaphysical assumption of the physical sciences. "Objective" reality is probably a chimera anyway – it implies that there is "a reality" independent of our possibilities of ***actually knowing*** that reality (and this is not at all the same thing as postulating mind-independence). The danger here is "noumenalism" (from Kant's notion – cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon): the view that there IS an "objective reality", but that we can only have intimations of that "reality" through our experience, which is an experience of "phenomena".

I rather think, Sunil, that we should rest with the third part of your definition – that reality is observer-independent. We should subject the notion of "objectivity" to a proper linguistic analysis (are we talking about ontology or about "what constitutes the grammatical object of well-formed sentences"? The first is a matter of quantification, the second a matter of linguistics).

"OBJECTIVE REALITY" AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL UNIVERSALISM

[MY CREDENTIIALS : In the following I assume that we're in a dialogue between "physics" and "philosophy" as academic disciplines; I'm furthermore assuming the kind of philosophy that would pretend to employing a methodological approach consistent with that of the special sciences. My qualifications in this debate are pretty basic – doctoral level research with the French Institute for the Philosophy of Science, but no further academic research: shall we say that I've been working on the "applied" side (a knowledge economy needs epistemologists). All the same, the present exchange is well within my "areas of expertise" - I did my thesis on Mind, and my research area is the philosophy of time (an area which has a lot of overlap with the philosophy of physics). All the same, I must admit that given my particular research interests, my "model physics" is rather Special Relativity than QM – my knowledge of QM is at best that of an informed amateur, though I'm aware of the main philosophical debates in the area.]

The particular question we're dealing with here – that of "objective reality", and the validity of any claim that the domain of theoretical physics is "objective reality" – has little to do with the model physics we choose. I'd say that, in contemporary physical science, QM is the paradigm or model physics; interestingly, QM is the branch of science where observer-independence has been most contested. But interpretations of QM are notoriously tricky in general, and test to the limit our notions of "information"; furthermore, until we have a better understanding of how quantum systems interact in large-scale situations (where at least special relativistic conditions supposedly obtain), we're not even sure that we're talking about the "same thing" when we talking about information - QFT offers better prospects here, though when we introduce gravity, there are still the evident unresolved puzzles. The success of quantum mechanics depends largely on its mathematical formalisation (and we should bear in mind that the "domain" of physics is the mathematical), and the validity of QM as a mathematical model is not in dispute here. Our problem concerns the interpretation of that model: and here, the question is "what is the relation between our models of the world and the world we perceive?". As a model, QM is internally coherent and reasonably consistent (given some notion of "relative consistency"). However, while we have reasons for preferring QM as an account of the physical world, we have no guarantee whatsoever that it is a "faithful representation" of the physical world – that is, that QM and QM alone can account uniquely and entirely for precisely the phenomena given in experience and in cognition. That QM CAN "account for everything" is a belief - and perhaps a well-founded belief; but it's still as much a belief as is the belief that the God of Catholicism "accounts for everything".

At this point, my answer to you, Sunil, rejoins my answer to Virginia. QM can perhaps make a claim to metaphysical universalism, but this claim is domain-sensitive and is dependent on QM's mathematical status (and is therefore dependent on an inherent claim to logical universalism). The claim that QM "describes reality" is a claim to EPISTEMOLOGICAL universalism – and the claim that QM "describes reality" is in truth the claim than QM "best explains the world".

WHY THE INSITENCE ON LANGUAGE?

The linguistic problem is far more central than most physicists would, I believe, imagine; and because the problem is linguistic, it's a problem for what we could call "philosophical grammar". The "linguistic problem" is not inherent in the formalisation of physical theories (this is the domain of the mathematical, and our problems with maths lie elsewhere), but rather in semi-formal and informal discussion of physical theory. The choice of certain terms in semi-formal discussions of physical theory is perhaps assumption-free with respect to the domain of the theory, but as soon as we integrate such terms into a "natural language" account of the theory (and this is generally the case with interpretations of theory), we can't avoid the assumptions underlying the natural language use of such terms. The term "event" is a case in point, and Robert Geroch's introductory work for a non-specialised audience, "General Relativity from A to B", provides a simple, but effective, illustration of the problem:

"The notion of an event is the basic building block of the theory. … By an event we mean an idealized occurrence in the physical world having extension in neither space nor time. For example, "the explosion of a firecracker" or "the snapping of one's fingers" would represent an event. (By contrast, "a particle" would not represent an event, as it has "extension in time"; "a long piece of rope" has "extension in space"). By "occurrence in the physical world" we mean that an event is to be regarded as a part of the world in which we live, not as a construct in some theory."

Of course, the point-events of relativity are NOTHING LIKE explosions of firecrackers or snappings of fingers, which both have extension in space and in time. Geroch is, of course, sophisticated enough to realise this: he gives "point-events" by analogy to the "limit of a 'very small, very fast-burning' firecracker". But in the quoted passage, Geroch the physicist is making a metaphysical commitment: he is assuming that certain events in "the world in which we live" are in some way the ***correspondents**** of the events described in relativistic theories.

This isn't the place to give a full commentary of the various assumptions Geroch's making, nor to enumerate the various degrees of "philosophical naivety" of which he may or may not be guilty. Out immediate end is to consider the notion of reality as being "objective', which is perhaps the fundamental intuition addressed by Geroch. This notion of "objective reality" is, I think, characteristic of our general twenty-first century beliefs about the world - the beliefs of the "typical educated person" (given a rather Eurocentric notion of education) and thus the beliefs of Geroch's target audience. As a formal pursuit, science is agnostic about "reality" (the notion is not given any formal definition) – what is, or is not, "real" is a matter of pure metaphysics. The definition turns more on the notion of "objectivity".

FROM GRAMMATICAL TO METAPHYSICAL OBJECTIVITY

Clearly, the notion of "objectivity" is related linguistically to the term "object", though there's no reason to postulate that it's linked to the notion of "object-as-entity". The relation implicit in "objectivity" is perhaps rather linked to the grammatical understanding of "object" – that is, as a term IN A SENTENCE that stands in some transitive relation to the grammatical subject. The "classic" definition of the structure of a well-formed sentence in English is "SVO" ("Subject – Verb – Object"); given that we're using English I'll take this as a model. In English sentences, the subject and verb are usually considered as representing a "grammatical molecule" – if Charlotte performs some action, the form of the verb depends on Charlotte, not on her "action". In grammatical terms, "objectification" is a process by which we centre our investigation on the verbal object rather than on the verbal subject, thus displacing the subject-verb molecule as the 'origin' of the state of affairs described by the sentence. Thus, if we take

i. Charlotte smells smoke

the 'origin' of (i) is some action by Charlotte – in this case, a "phenomenal state of smelling smoke". If we remain with (i) as a "description of the world", its ***object*** is given as "some phenomenal state of Charlotte's perceptual apparatus" – we know "what Charlotte (believes she) can smell", but we have no direct access to "what is being smelled". One of the first steps in "objectification" is to rewrite (i) so that it concerns the grammatical object:

ii. Smoke is smelled by Charlotte

Whatever the grammatical function of the terms in (ii), it has the superficial structure "SVC" – that is, "Subject-Verb-Complement" – thus, "being smelled by Charlotte" is apparently predicated of "smoke" (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice). There's no coincidence in the common use of the passive voice in the description of experiments ("when X is heated to 100°C under ordinary atmospheric conditions, X boils") – we're not interested in who does what, but in "what happens". The agent – Charlotte - can be bracketed out of (ii) to give

ii*. Smoke is smelled

If (ii*) is true, it should follow that there is smoke, which is not at all the case with (i). However, this is a purely logical stratagem: the ***sense*** of "smelled" remains such that if any X is smelled, then X is in a relation R with some agent Y such that YRX. The agent can be bracketed out, but cannot be "removed". Scientific descriptions are supposedly agent-independent – thus, in

iii. When water is heated to 100°C under ordinary atmospheric conditions, it boils

it doesn't matter whether the water is heated by Charlotte, Barack Obama, or "some natural process". In THIS sense, the "descriptions of the world" given in scientific accounts are "objective" – that is, they are centred on properties predicated of "grammatical objects". However, we must remain alert: while the agent has been effaced, (iii) hasn't effaced an implicit OBSERVER. The consequent "it boils" supposedly describes some state of the water, but in phenomenal terms we could replace it by "the water is observed to boil" – indeed, the very relation between "being heated to 100°C" and "boiling" presupposes some observer for whom the two "facts" are not already identical.

The consequent of any sentence similar to (iii) requires an implicit observer: in order to count as a result, a result must be "available to" us either in perception or in cognition. If it's available to perception, this means that we either see, hear, smell etc. some thing (thus, a trace on a screen is available to vision); if it's available to cognition, it's usually the result of some process of inference, and given the nature of (iii) such inference is supposedly public (and is therefore "linguistic"). Even when the result is "available to perception", it would be meaningless if it was a "mere sense datum" – it becomes an "observation" once it is formulated as an observation sentence (in the case of a particular occurrence) or a sentence describing conditions of observation (in the case of a general statement).

There's nothing very surprising about all this – after all, science is a human activity; and without humans, there'd be no science. This doesn't mean that without humans there'd be no world: many of us (myself included) are committed to the belief that there is a mind-independent world. But the commitment is not made "in the absence of all observers" – it is a fact that there ARE observers, and rather than effacing the observer, we should explain how our observations are determined by things being the way they are ("our observations are causally determined by the world being a certain way"). This is OK when the state of the observer is causally determined by the observation, but becomes problematic when the observation appears to be causally determined by the observer.

(I'll get back to the rest of your comments ASAP - I just wanted to clarify).

Sunil said, "For a physicist, objective reality is observer-independent phenomenon and hence language does not matter." This is deeply shocking to anyone who takes art seriously but it helps explain one of the potholes that makes physics, esp quantum physics, so hard for layfolk to get hold of. I don't mean just that they use big terms; we use big terms in medicine too (I do med.transcription) but we don't use them to mean the OPPOSITE of their usual sense: particles scattering off each other (actually by quite precise dynamics); particles "decay" into more stable forms; a random walk is far from what "random" usually means. If physicians were as careless with meaning as physicians are, all their patients would be dead. So David is right, linguistics can be the joker in the deck of assumptions. But forgive me, all this intoxicating talk is wonderful but we could be having our last conversation on the deck of the Titanic. Einstein would say it's a wash because nothing we humans can do matters anyway. I think he's wrong. I think Mind and Matter are quantum eigenstates (but I'm not sure I understand eigenstates). What troubles me is I doubt that physicists are ALLOWED to get serious about reality. Here's why: in his 1916 paper on GR Einstein accused Newton of an "epistemological defect" for assuming we can know anything beyond our local planet. See Michael Friedman: "Foundations of Space-Time Theory" (1983). David, if that isn't the word from the top down, what is? So far the only knock-down answer to Einstein is quantum physics, in which, Sunil tell me if I'm wrong, the whole point of the double-slit experiment is that the result is NOT independent of the observer. So I'm back to my dogged dualism: observer & observed co-operate in generating their shared reality. Like art. Which is why I can't accept Eastern or Western monism no matter how it's bottled, chose your anodyne. It's too much like wishful thinking: nothing matters, no worries. But what if we're wrong? What if the Universe needs us? Certainly Mind needs the physical Universe to teach us the meaning of law, as David touched on. That's what keeps me awake at night.

. . . realizing later how nutty it must sound to lie awake worrying about the universe. What I meant is the possibility that behind the deceptively simple local reality, what if there is a something we're missing, something big that matters. I grew up in times when things did matter very much, and it's a hard dream to give up, in fact I can't. It goes to that recurring theme of time as David touched on above. And once you start searching for meaning where do you stop? Until you can plant your piton in bedrock you're headed for free-fall and bedrock is hard to come by. I should not have dismissed as "anodynes" anyone's beliefs, I like David's generous attitude better than my own. We humans are under a lot of stress above all from that too-powerful Mind. (Mine's not too powerful tonight, silly typo above, I meant if physicians were as careless with meaning as PHYSICISTS are, but you probably guessed that.)

This is getting interesting! I'll try and make a few BRIEF comments during the afternoon!

Clearing the backlog!

SUNIL:" Let us first discuss the issue of objective reality… The idea of objective reality emerges because we realize that we cannot perceive any object; we can only perceive the information generated by the object."

Agreed; naïve realism is untenable. Nonetheless, noumenalism (the view that we can never have direct access to "things in themselves", but only to "things in appearance") presupposes the Cartesian argument – that "reality" is PRESENTED TO something. If we accept a "causal" relation between things in the world and our perception, then their "reality" is implicit in the causal relation.

***"We can have no direct access to reality, therefore we can never be certain that our phenomenal experiences correspond to some noumenal reality. This being the case, to hold that the putative objects of our phenomenal experiences – the physical objects, events, properties, relations etc. – correspond to the 'actual nature of phenomenal reality' is philosophically naïve***

So goes the classic noumenalist objection to naïve realism. I shall argue that – whatever it might be - the objection to naïve realism is NOT a matter of 'direct access to reality'. We HAVE direct access to 'reality' in perception and cognition – call it "awareness" or whatever. Of course, it's possible that some Demonic Machine is feeding us Virtual Lies, but then there's the Argumentum contra Matricem: why the bloody hell should the Demon Machine BOTHER???

The idea that "we can have no direct access to noumenal reality" – in the following I'll call this notion "noumenalism"- is dependent on the notion that reality could be "other than we perceive it"; in the following, I'll argue against noumenalism as a product of the "Cartesian error" and suggest that saying that we can have no direct access to reality is not at all the same thing as saying that our apprehension of 'reality' is determined by our modes of access to a putative mind-independent world.

Noumenalism makes the Cartesian error of supposing that our sensory impressions could somehow "cheat" us in their reconstitution and representation of reality. Setting aside the "why" of the cheating, the error here is not in the notion of "reconstitution" – we do indeed seem to experience the world as 'unified', despite the different modes of access given by our sensory organs. The error is in the notion of "representation": the assumption that "reality" is *some thing* which can be represented ALSO presupposes that "reality" is represented TO *some thing*. We have a thing A that is represented to B and a thing B to which A is represented. If, against Descartes, we question the assumption of "B", the whole house of cards of noumenalism collapses. If there is no "B", there is no relation of representation; if there is no relation of representation, then "A" – the "noumenal reality to which we can have no direct access" – certainly can't be defined in terms of B having or not having access to A.

If I may use a metaphor : the stage of the Cartesian theatre might be brilliantly lit, but apart from the actors, the theatre is empty. Nothing and no-one is "watching" or "receiving" the contents of experience - indeed, the very idea of distinguishing "experience" and "the contents of experience" is already theory-laden.

We can, I think, argue that we have no need of a "spectator". When we distinguish between 'the contents of experience' and 'experience', we are postulating 'experience' as the province of a Cartesian subject and its 'contents' as "coming from without" – while it is true that I experience the taste and texture of the steak, what I am experiencing is NOT the taste and texture of the stake, but a 'false content' fed directly into my nerve system. This is not the way experience works, I think. My experience and the contents of my experience are not subject and object, but – if there is a distinction at all – at best subject and complement ("I am experiencing steakwise"). I'm not sure we can even make this distinction – there's no "fundamental experience" that can be separated from, for example "the experience of eating steak". If I might cite the classics, Cypher doesn't believe that the contents of his experience is false (otherwise he would have no reason for choosing the illusion). He simply accepts a metaphysical theory – that the causal web underlying his experiences is not the causal web of intuitive realism. For Cypher, the "myth of physical objects" no longer serves to explain the world of phenomenal experience – the myth of The Matrix is, within his narrative world, more compelling to reason. But his choice is still determined by a preference for the phenomenal reality of the experience of eating steak and drinking Château Margaux over the phenomenal reality of eating white goo and drinking raw alcohol.

My view is that, once we get rid of the Cartesian error, "the problem of noumenalism" in philosophical naturalism (PN) reduces to a simple contradiction implicit in PN's metaphysical assumptions. Now, PN postulates that there is a mind-independent reality. This postulates the weak assumption (WA) that things would happen whether or not they are 'known' to some mind (and hence the big problems posed by some interpretations of QM) – in other words, that the physical universe gets on with its business regardless of whatever we might say about it. Whatever it is about the apple that makes me see red is there even if it's midnight. Now, however tenable or not such views might be, they are NOT the strong assumption (SA) that "we cannot know reality".

"Mind-independence" is the tricky term. WA postulates that the world is there whether we think about it or not; it does NOT imply that we cannot have "knowledge about" the mind-independent world .

The error of SA is to understand "mind-independent" as "mind-inaccessible". The basic tenet of noumenalism is that Mind cannot have direct access to "noumenal reality". But if we remove the spectator from the Cartesian theatre of experience, there is no "misrepresentation" possible – "Mind" is not a spectator to whom Reality is being represented in a "narrative" which reunites the disparate modes of sensory impression. Mind is the narrative itself.

If Mind were the spectator of the narrative – the thing ***for which*** a unified image of reality had been reconstituted – then we have four elements: "reality" (R), the "process or reconstitution"(P) by which sensory impressions of R are integrated; the "image of the world" (I) which is the result of 'P'; and the 'Cartesian spectator' (S) to whom 'I' represents 'R'.

We can, however, allow that 'R' is ***no more than*** 'mind-independent', and that 'P' is the process by sensory impressions of 'R' are integrated in experience. The "unified image of the world" 'I' is thus no more than a reification of 'P' – and this is the very banal observation that 'Mind' is a process, not an object. On THIS view, the "noumenalist objection" is just the very banal observation that we cannot have mind-independent experience of mind-independent reality.

All in all, noumenalism is based on the assumption that, although we can have no direct experience of it, there IS some reality which in some ways determines our phenomenal experiences (otherwise, we'd have nothing but phenomena, and this way Berkeley lies). Yet if we reduce "noumenal reality" to mind-independent reality, then it is evident that we cannot have mind-independent experience of that reality: experience is a 'mental process', and CANNOT be 'mind-independent'.

Of course, a lot of people would say "ah yes, but you can have an experience without thinking about it". Of course, but 'mental process' doesn't reduce to 'metacognitive process'. "Being aware" is not metacognition, but is rather a state of excitation fundamental to "having an experience" – if the 'experience' has no impact on your basic sensory and cognitive processes, then it's hard to say that you've "had the experience" (a high-level burst of gamma rays would be undetected by our immediate sensory apparatus – the 'experience' would be indirect, and given by the resultant destructive effects on bodily function).

That "reality" is mind-independent doesn't exclude that its is ALSO mind-dependent. Quite evidently, the notion of "reality" is itself mind-dependent: if there were no "minds", then the questions of whether "reality" is ordered, and "how" it is ordered, would never arise. Nor would the question of "order". All these questions are part of the "narrative" that we're acting out in the Cartesian theatre of Mind. But there are no spectators – just our fellow actors. While experience is 'private", Mind is not – it's an intersubjective domain which requires the interaction of human agents (our 'view of the world' is a matter of triangulation, not direct description. A term designates rigidly only when it can pick out one particular entity throughout all possible descriptions of time and space and for all possible speakers).

Most of all, Mind requires language if it is to serve as a means of triangulating from different perspectives of "the world"; however, this also requires that language is flexible enough to allow for a difference in perspective. While the categories into which we regiment phenomenal experience are linguistic and therefore general, certain linguistic resources (deictics, tense…) allow each speaker to interact with her linguistic community from a perspective that is perhaps local, but is nonetheless unique. "Mind" is itself a linguistic notion – indeed, we can ask whether the term 'linguistic notion' is not tautological – and, as such, cannot be reduced to the characteristics of an individual human being taken in isolation from any social or cultural context. Such a person would have no language, and therefore no equivalent to OUR concept 'Mind', which is irreversible tainted with the linguistic.

So, mind-dependence is not just a matter of "awareness", but also of language. We can push this as a partial redefinition of the hypothesis that "reality is mind-independent": "reality" would be *as it is* HOWEVER we might describe it; what matters is how well our descriptions of one part of reality integrate with our descriptions of other parts.

Now, this redefinition of "mind-independence" effectively brackets out 'awareness'. The problem is not whether our sensory impressions "reconstitute reality" faithfully or not, but whether the observation sentences we use to talk about those impressions are coherent with the observation sentences we use to talk about similar impressions at other times and in other places. Such similarities allow us to talk of 'phenomena', and to postulate relations between such 'phenomena' (to construct "special theories"); these "special theories" allow us to generalise from kinds of phenomena to "underlying regularities"; and the more "general theories" can be tested against experience as they *should* generate a certain class of observation sentences under certain controlled conditions (the view is restated in behavioural rather than mentalistic terms). Now, 'building up' from observation sentences to theories might serve a certain view of 'the abductive process', but we should ALSO bear in mind that the observation sentences are themselves the product of a given language and of the general assumptions that language makes about whatever 'part of the world' the observation sentences are supposed to be about (in this way, theories "face the tribunal of experience as a whole)".

We can go as far as to ask whether we should rather be postulating the language-independence of the world than its 'mind-independence' - or whether the two notions can even be distinguished.

***

I remarked above that, even if "reality" IS mind-independent, this doesn't exclude that its is ALSO mind-dependent. We could understand this as suggesting that

(1) mind-independent reality (MIR) and mind-dependent reality (MDR) are co-extensive;

(2) that MDR supervenes on MIR; or

(3) that MIR subvenes on MDR.

In its most banal form, (3) is no more than the recognition that the notion of MIR depends itself on language; if the subvenience relation were given ontological force, it would simply state that reality is mind-dependent.

(2) covers the familiar Humean supervenience of physical reductionism but could allow for less drastic or less top-down accounts (thus, if we want to keep a bottom-up ontology, we can employ such notions as 'emergence'; on the other hand, we can employ a top-down ontology and talk of theories "carving the world at the joints").

(1) is perhaps the notion that we should be discussing, rather than placing bets on a wresting match between the straw man of "naïve scientific realism" and the self-defeating spectre of noumenalism.

That was NOT brief - sorry!

heh heh heh - EVERYTHING takes me straight to the philosophy of space and time ;-)

Sorry for interfering in your discussion. I am only an economist without any training or skills in philosophy but I am deeply interested in this issues. For me, to speak about reality is the most heroic task of science. So please allow me to raise a naïve question: let accept for the moment a “vulgar” approach based on Peirce / Popper fallibilism / critical rationalism. In such a framework one can ask: if we postulate that there is an object called “reality” how could such a conjecture be falsified? More exactly, what kind of logical / empirical “experiment” can be imagined in order to conclude about the “(in) existence of existence”? And if such experiment could not be imagined, does this imply that this is not a “scientific” concept? It seems to me that in many discussions there is made the “axiomatically true” exception (at least for the “mind / perception / objective-independent” type) whenever the concept of “reality” is involved so that they are methodological weak (at least according to Münchhausen-Trilemma argument). The fact that I can observe the moon can prove anything since the process of observation is a component of the same reality as the moon itself or I just have to accept that there is something like “the observable” universe and the moon can (or not) be placed in such universe? Supplementary, if we have a tool like the language (i.e. a tool consisting in a system of symbols with hierarchical relationships between them able to decompose / recompose the “reality”) does this means that we are able to place ourselves somewhere “outside” as observers or the “reality” remains a perfect closed structure for our conscience? And if this is the case, does it means that we are not able to construct a “complete” model of reality (at least in principle?). Apologise for this confuse language but I have a strong fight with the temptation to just simply accept the “I think about you so you exist” solution…

Tarski correspondence theory? "Snow is white" *** iff *** snow is white. (Statement is true if it corresponds to reality.) Problem is that it only works for relatively trivial reality, not at level of Mind or space-time, which of course is the point of this discussion.

Please apologies for my ignorance, but is not Tarski approach a functional semantic one (since it implies the translation of the analysed sentence into the metalanguage of the theory) and thus it can not be used in a structural sense as it is implied by this discussion?

By “There is only one physical reality in the universe” should we understood that we have to reject a taxonomy like the one proposed by Max Tegmark , the “M” theory, the antrophic principle and any other sort of “multiple embedded structures” approaches?

Thanking for your reply….I will try to make some short comments.

First, if “only perceive the information generated by the objects” the limitations of our instruments, mental or material, makes us to perceive only a part of the information. Each theory is a filtered image of the reality and not the reality itself. Our only hope is to replace successively these filters and to improve their accuracy. Still, the incompleteness principle remains the strongest constriction in our attempt to reach the “ultimate reality”. Worst, in this filtering process we are making a selection of some features considered relevant for the description of the objects. But: 1) we don’t have a baseline for comparing our selection decisions so these remains more or less “subjective” ones (based on some ex ante selection criterions); 2) fore some objects we are not able to access the full list of characteristics due to the limitations of the analytic tools; 3) the whole is much more (in a qualitative sense) that the sum of its components and we are loosing by deconstruction this quality.

Second, when we are saying that two objects “A” and “B” are component of “C” but they are distinct, we understood such distinction rather in a functional sense that in a structural one. More exactly, we do not account that there is a dialectical borderline between them. The way in which my body is functioning is different from how the moon is functioning but this is “true” only according to such criterions. If other criterions are considered such differences becomes less clear. As components of “C”, there should be a certain isomorphism between “A” and “B”. Thus, I agree with you when you are saying that “Philosophically and scientifically, we can explain the relationship between different objects…asking the next question, 'How am I different than other entities’...” but my concern is that we can only provide an incomplete list of such differences.

Third, I agree that there is a Heidegger problem of language but I’m asking if we really have a referential (an “angelic language”) for the proper usage of this tool? Or we just adjust it according to the evolution of our needs…

Well, I’m not a radical agnostic and I agree that ‘some’ part of reality can be understood…My point is that we can not have a ‘complete’ picture of reality. The simplest reason for this is the nature of our logic and material instruments: if the proof of the pudding is in eating it, what are the odds for me to eat the entire reality? And if I have to think the unthinkable there is always something still something to be think about…Between a pure empirism and a pure apriorism we always have to make a functional compromise by accepting an “average” level of conceptualization and an “average” level of empiric tests. Both reason and empirical acquisition of information are beautiful tools but they are intrinsically limited and so is their combination. But I argue that there is also a more profound reason for which a part of reality could escape from the borders of our knowledge. I will elaborate a little bit on this reason lately…

From my point of view, the main problem is that the reality has a single unified nature (φύσις) and a large (probably “infinite”) number of hypostasis (ὑπόστᾰσις). From a single elementary particle to galaxies, all the possible objects of knowledge are in certain sense the same and simultaneous they are different. There is creation and destruction, birth, death and rebirth and there is conscience (I hesitate to treat conscience as an exogenous variable in respect to reality) and language. For all these, we have to construct models (“filters” or “masks”) which are selection mechanisms. We can adopt a pure ‘functionalist’ approach and we can search for lists of some characteristics which we can consider, according to a predefined set of criterions, as “representatives”. By doing so, we eliminate other features so we obtain only partial descriptors and mainly we are loosing the structural architecture. Opposite, we can describe the components of structures but we are not describing the qualitative aspects of how the things are working…Any attempt to combine these two approaches will inherit the limits of each one (and some new limitations)…

OK, here's a challenge. You guys are making sweeping statements one after the other as if everybody has to accept them as true. I'm not saying they are NOT true, but to accept them I would need to share your unspoken assumption about the title of this discussion. Do you ASSUME the "nature of reality" CAN be or CANNOT be discovered by the human mind?

And, following the rule of thumb of the physics guys, your answer should fit on a T-shirt, meaning a dozen words or less. Let's add a single paragraph of no more than 4 lines to explain it. Can you do it?

1) We are just playing with words- the truth is beyond. Or somewhere...I cannot remember exactly where; 2) from my point of view, this nature could only partial be discovered and explained. There is always a part which escape from any mental or empiric experiment; 3) “What is reality? I can not explain this today since it rains” (Sufi story).

It should be a large T-shirt…

Sunil - I'd feel happier with "phenomenology" rather than "spirituality"...

OK, Sunil, is the nonlocal in quantum physics "supernatural" or extra-natural or not? If not, how do you explain it?

‘Religion has to ensure that society does what is right and is in accordance with the laws of nature.’ From my point of view, religiosity is a cultural artefact. Religiosity shares with culture multiple common features: 1) both are system of explanations about the universe, the humanity and the meaning of life; 2) both are generating hierarchical systems of values; 3) both are a product of collective mental; 4) both are operating with various symbolic structures and recognition, transmission and interpretation mechanisms of such structures and also 5) both are offering a set of social compensators.

Like religiosity, science: 1) is a (more or less) set of explanations about the structure and functional mechanisms of universe; 2) is a collective product; 3) implies the usage of a certain set of symbols and 4) is able to provide some components of the societal infrastructure. Maybe the major difference is (debatable) the fact that science does not directly associates some systems of values (but the scientist should do so).

So the question of (in)compatibility is bounded essentially on the social consequences which could be derived from their fundamental hypothesis…

Including the human conscience and its acts? Could we really explain things such as ‘creativity’, ‘spirituality’, ‘emotions’ (and all the others ‘random’ acts) at an individual level by some fundamental invariant laws?

Sunil: I think you need to distinguish the domains of your interrogations. Much of what you're saying is covered by the philosophy of science, but there's a more general epistemological problem (what is "knowledge" and how does it differ from "belief"? What criteria do we have for accepting this or that account - what counts as "justification" for believing some account? What is the relation between science and other epistemic systems? What, for that matter, is the relation between the special sciences and physics? What is the status of mathematics? Of logic?).

A large part of your interrogation is concerned with the philosophy of mind - if you don't know the various arguments, I'd suggest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind

(we can discuss these themes in the Research group!)

"Religion has to ensure that society does what is right and is in accordance with the laws of nature."

Surely, no-one actually made this claim - or did they? If they did, then I'm afraid I'll have to suggest it as "the silliest remark of 2009"...

"a world without religion (of no rules or regulations)"

As far as I can see, Ven, you're confusing "religion" and "ethics". Why should an absence of religious belief have any impact on one's ethical capacity?

...and I'm "against" religion because I'm "for" philosophy. Religions are not concerned with doubt, but with certainty.

"I do not want to go deeper into the difference between knowledge and belief"

What on Earth is the interest of philosophy, then? Metaphysics without epistemology is meaningless speculation.

David: “Religions are not concerned with doubt, but with certainty”. Well, I’m more in favour of a distinction between ‘religiosity’ and ‘religion’ on a more sociological approach. The role of religiosity is to explain the universe and the human existence according with some ‘exogenous’ (non-local ‘causa prima’) and by doing this to produce a set of meanings and values in accordance with them. Subsequently, it generates an ethic in accordance with these explanations (i.e. a set of prescriptions for the human actions perceived as being the “right ones”).Its primary function of the religion is not to compensate for frustration on one or other aspect of human life, but for almost all of them. In other words, religion provides a large set of “supernatural credence commodities” (from explanations and meanings for the human condition to afterlife rewards). And this function is carried out by providing inter-correlated sets of explanations. If the religiosity as collective mental structure is relatively stable by being incorporated in cultural paradigm, the religion is more volatile as is transferred into a system of social institutions with the objective to communicate, promote, and reinforce the subsequent explanations. Thus religion is the manifest hypostasis of religiosity being subject to the determinants and evolutions of social structures. In the mean time, religiosity is not primary about our perception of Divinity, good and evil, sins and redemptions, rituals or dogmas. It is about the purpose of life, our ultimate objectives, our fear, hopes and expectations, our position in respect to others and to universe. And mostly, religiosity is about a meaning greater than ourselves, a justification of our existence; not so much how but mainly why.

I have nothing against religion (or religiosity) as a domain of investigation. For that matter, I have nothing against "God" as a metaphysical hypothesis... the first is a matter for sociology or anthropology; the second, a matter of philosophy. What I do object to is postulating God a priori and then distorting philosophy to fit one's a priori.

"Religion has to ensure that society does what is right and is in accordance with the laws of nature."

I'm still waiting for a defence of this one!

Well, let me try to see if I can come with something.. So: 1) Religiosity is a provider of meanings (and explanations) about our place in universe and about the ultimate goals of existence (these are in fact different from the ones generated by a philosophy based on a set of “endogenous”- in respect of ‘reality’- explanations); 2) Thus, religiosity is an cultural (and by consequence) social artefact; 3) Hence, there should be a certain degree of compatibility between religiosity and the other components of societal culture (as is science itself). I argued this by postulating that on ‘long run’ there is no ‘schizophrenic’ viable cultural paradigm and there should be some homogeneity of its components; 4) From here, it could results (at least, as a tendency) that there should be a sort of agreement between religion and science in order to ensure the internal coherence of the dominant cultural framework in a ‘scientific’ (i.e. ‘rationalist’) society (out of the ‘magic stage’ of development)…Something like this (incomplete and unsatisfactory)…

Bogdan

Religions can be compared to sciences insofar as they are epistemic systems - though as you imply, their domains of discourse and criteria of justification differ greatly. I'm not even sure religion serves "explanation" if by "explanation" we understand "an account of the origins and nature of the world" (religious cosmogonies serve to found the religion, not the world - they're about people, not physical entities). They undoubtedly HAD this function in the past (much as painting once had the function of "providing realistic portrayals") and perhaps still serve such a function in some non-westernised cultures. However, and setting aside certain sub-civilised sections of American society, the general western-style world-view has replaced religious explanations of the physical world with explanations having their origins in the scientific approach. All this said – and as Haris Shekeris would be the first to point out - the general attitude towards "science" and the scientific establishment is still based on "faith" and "authority" rather than on "rationally-determined and revisable belief" – in other words, it's a form of magical thinking.

***

The search for some "homogeneous" characteristic is central to a number of contemporary debates, and not least the debate between relativists and non-relativists. If we can identify a notion, or a belief or set of beliefs, that are common to all cultures, then however wildly their metaphysical accounts or epistemological criteria might differ, there is some common point from which they can be compared. However, we should make a clear distinction between a "common characteristic" and a "fundamental characteristic" – while some characteristic might be common to all cultures, we have no guarantee that the characteristic will play the same role, or be granted the same status, in each culture. A fortiori, it's improbable that culture in general would ***reduce*** to such a characteristic (though a scientistic approach WOULD hold that they can be reduced to the candidate I have in mind)

1. Indeed, my point was that both religiosity and science are epistemic systems- with different meta-hypothesis, discourses and social implications. I’m afraid that it was a “hard” version since I rather think that religiosity provides answers (in the sense required by your point) because in order to be accepted by a critical mass of believers (and to become a part of cultural paradigm) the religious cosmogonies should be, at least at a certain degree, in a concordance with other competitive explanations which are not based on the ‘magical hypothesis’ and more important should exercise some very concrete social functions- at least as ‘ideological’ support for some social attitudes and actions ( the Elaine Pagels’ work on creation myth and its role in the development of sexual attitudes in the Christian West it’s a good exemple of argumentation); 2) I agree that we are in a certain ‘secularization’ stage of the global wave (despite the fact that empirical data such the ones from World Values Surveys provide only a partial support for accounting such a process) but my view is that these days the “rational age” ends a cycle and there is a “paradigm shift” towards some forms of “a-rationality” / “new spirituality” or whatever can be called the new incipient paradigm; 3) I have only a limited information about Haris Shekeris’ work (and more generally, I don’t know if there is a ‘Bristol new scientific gnosis’? sorry, just kidding) but I agree with such position. My only question is: was science in a better social position ever? The ‘authority’ of the current dogmas –and the opposition against it- was in my view a central element of scientific history; 4) I agree with the idea that some characteristics of culture are ‘contextual’- while others are ‘fundamental’ but it is not yet clear for me if there is everything ok with the ‘universalistic’ claim of science (more exactly, I’m not sure that the ‘scientific vision’ is not-at least partially- influenced by the cultural apriorism of the researchers). Please allow me to think a little bit more to this…

Dear David and Bogdan,

David, first of all, I left a curt remark in the philosophy group for you and others (whoever else is in there besides Harris). I concur with most of what you've said. This is partly due to the fact that I am a mathematician or philosopher I suppose at heart and Sunil's statements were so provocative in that they were at times contradictory, at times ill-posed and in general overly conflated the subject of metaphysics with conventional science as you mentioned. Not to mention the fact that he is somewhat unreasonable.

However, Bogdan, I am a religious man myself. I should carefully note that my religion and my spiritual belief system are not the same at all. I think of my religion more like my ethnicity and I borrow from it implcitly as I organize my thoughts over many different issues. I think that you should meet David halfway without the a priori God imposed in the discussion so to speak and perhaps you can do this by elucidating a bit on the nature of social justice and the limits of science. Science is ultimately and non-trivially faith based.

You can use Godel's incompleteness theorem to argue that even mathematics at some non-trivial point is faith based. By a non-trivial point I mean a rational point that all mathematicians should agree is non-trivial. On the other hand, I believe that all belief systems should ultimately give rise to number in that they should include fundamentally and inseparably a context for 1-0 logic and laws or axioms at least somewhat objective in nature.

Sincerely,

Oliver Kayende

Oliver - mathematics is an interesting case, and perhaps on the boundaries between "faith-based" and entirely language-based systems - I think the only uncontroversial example of an entirely languaged-based system would be propositional logic. Even so, the system is still based on a "web" of beliefs, though these are beliefs about symbols rather than beliefs about things...

"Number" is perhaps setting the bar rather high - perhaps some form of quantification? It's true that we can't give an ontology for a language without quantification (unless the constants are treated as "names").

Bogdan : "n order to be accepted by a critical mass of believers (and to become a part of cultural paradigm) the religious cosmogonies should be, at least at a certain degree, in a concordance with other competitive explanations which are not based on the ‘magical hypothesis’."

I agree entirely - and this is why certain "critical beliefs" have caused so much trouble for the Catholic Church. I don't remember any religious controversy around the circulation of the blood, or the atomic theory: such accounts are indifferent with respect to dogma. But heliocentrism and evolution were in direct contradiction with dogma (though it's interesting to see how dogma has been revised). If research were to show that, for example, there is no possibility of a "creation", the Church would likewise be impacted. The capacity for a religious system to adapt its cosmogony and metaphysics to the predominant world-view of its culture is often a mark of its value in the "exercise of concrete social functions- at least as ‘ideological’ support for some social attitudes and actions".

Oliver- Thank you for your kind words! I should mention that I have a certain religiosity but I’m not a religious person. More exactly, I adhere to a particular form of agnosticism believing in an Unknown which is simultaneously immanent and transcendent to the Universe, with a unique essence and infinity of hypostasis (and in Eckhart’ quote: “"The Eye with which I see God is the same Eye with which God sees me") but I do not identify myself as a believer of a certain religion (institutionalized sets of dogmas, rituals and beliefs). So I have no problem to accept that “Science is ultimately and non-trivially faith based.” But I have some doubts about the ‘1-0 logic’ since I view science (as I mentioned in a previous post) as a ‘system of filters’ which can only trace a fragmentary map of reality. Still, I hope that there will be a day when science will be able to go beyond the boundary of such logic and to add more details to this map by taking into account that ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ However, I’m deeply sympathetic with the ‘Great Synthesis’ if this project is viewed as an open one (i.e. if there is accepted a sort of ontological incompleteness principle of any ‘iconic’ representation of reality) …

David- I like very much the observation that there are some ‘critical beliefs’ from the religion’ perspective. I just want to add that in my view there is a dual relationship with some scientific approaches based (deliberately or involuntary) on some ‘non-scientific’ (cultural / religious) ‘ex-ante’ beliefs of scientists…

Sunil, I asked you about nonlocal, yes, it does seem mystical, but I sense that's not quite enough of an answer for you (or maybe anybody here). Your answer about nonlocal versus general relativity was true to your science, and I admire that. I guess I'm hoping that whatever the mysterious link between the local & nonlocal in quantum physics, it might suggest a real-time parallel between the physical/local and the mental/nonlocal -- whether spirituality, David's phenomenology or art (my interest). Meaning an equals sign somewhere along the line, that's the point about a T-shirt equation. First I'll have to take David's advice and check out Wiki on philosophy of mind . . . Happy New Year, everybody.

I also want to wish everybody a new happy, peacefully and fruitful year! And hope that we will be able to remember that whatever is science, it should be funny, full of the enlightenment’ joy!

Dear Mr.Thakur,

I certainly should explain my remarks. I concur with you in many instances and appreciate the perspective you have offered. Particularly, your criticism of the APS as an overly politicized group is one that I have heard somewhere, read somewhere or experienced myself in some capacity as a mathematician in the mathematical/scientific community. I believe in God as well, Sunil. Like you I do not squarely fix God as a supernatural entity. However, for me this IS the case in special contexts. I do not understand God nor do I seek to understand God. I submit to God and see God as the alpha AND the omega. I stress this at times because as I believe we both agree God is omnipotent. And so can God be “tired” or “confused” ? Can God be weak as well as mighty ? Or are these things that even God cannot “have” ? Questions such as these mark a beginning of our understanding of our ultimate lack of understanding of God.

I also believe in social justice and appreciate both Bogdan’s remarks and yours pertaining to the interrelations between religion, culture and science. I think Bogdan put it best when he wrote:

“4) I agree with the idea that some characteristics of culture are ‘contextual’- while others are ‘fundamental’ but it is not yet clear for me if there is everything ok with the ‘universalistic’ claim of science (more exactly, I’m not sure that the ‘scientific vision’ is not-at least partially- influenced by the cultural apriorism of the researchers).”

This after asking: “My only question is: was science in a better social position ever?”

Or when you wrote: “I personally feel that humanity needs religion more than the science but not the kind of destructive religious thinking that we see these days.”

However, Sunil, you wrote earlier that spirituality is about the exploration of self. I feel that spirituality is not about the exploration of self but the exploration of the spirit. I don’t mean to knit pick, Sunil, but

“Now let us discuss the role of the religion in the society by first imagining a world without any religion. The law of the land is only supposed to stop us from doing wrong but there is absolutely no motivation for being good. I may not harm you but I may not help you either. Law cannot force me to help any person.”

I feel you may have been conflating religion and ethics here unless you are operating under some definition or understanding of religion I am not aware of. And,

“Science only seeks to explain nature but religion has to ensure that we live our lives in accordance with the laws of nature and like any mother uses all the techniques at her disposal to make the child do what she thinks is right for the child, religion also has to present the scientific laws in such a way that its subjects do what it wants them to do.”

But, Sunil, religion is the institution or formalization of spirituality or spiritual beliefs in some group like a society or culture. Therefore, religion is at least in some major part constructed by the group. Analogously, how then is the mother in some part constructed or a result of the child ? Do you really believe in such a personification of religion ? I do not believe that religion has to present scientific laws either.

Now, regarding modern science. In general, Sunil, are you speaking as a metaphysicist or a scientist when you use certain modern scientific inferences as fact or grand physical theories of modern science as tenants in your argument towards a universe of fundamental laws that cannot be explained by science and that can be explained by science ??? This is what I meant by contradictory.

“You might have noticed that I have consistently stated that science cannot explain everything…”

“Ultimately, there is one universe and it operates through some fundamental laws. Everything must ultimately be explainable through these laws.”

“There is nothing like local or nonlocal because there is only one - whatever name you may like to call it. It is all scientific.”

There were other instances of what I felt were ill-posed remarks:

“…the reality is that time does not flow at a uniform rate.”

Rates are relative by definition. Like miles per hour. So, when you say that time doesn’t “flow” at a uniform rate what does time flow with respect to ? Or, what do you mean ?

Sunil, modern science is not about an ultimate understanding but more about what Jamahl MIGHT have been trying to say – science is a growing calculus of sorts for documenting and predicting events and causing desired outcomes in nature; to be able to imitate or recreate certain events – not necessarily to understand them. This is why many theories are not just discarded in science because, like the general theory of relativity, they still “work” often enough to give us results. Mr. Thakur, I don’t know if you yourself have conducted any of the experiments that have lead to some of the grand physical theories you have referred to. I know I haven’t. Even if I had, then following the modern scientific method for scientific inference I would need to have other scientists conduct the experiment as well to corroborate my findings. This is one reason why I find it difficult to believe that you can postulate your own independent version of science based upon, as you said, your own observable universe and then equate your findings in some objective, reliable or exact way to those of modern science. I accept the physical theories that I accept partly due to the fact that I accept the scientific method. You wrote:

“We assume that sound moves but we hear the sound at the place it is originated irrespective of our distance from the point where sound originated and hence we can conclude that sound does not move. Sound moves and yet it does not move. Nothing moves forward in a wave and yet wave moves forward.”

“For example, we presently believe that we see the sun when our eyes absorb the photons emitted by the sun but if this proposal is correct then total solar eclipse can never occur. Total solar eclipse can occur only if we can sense the light (and hence the sun) at the place it is generated and at the time it is generated)”

Sunil, sound is any physical oscillation of matter in the frequency range of human hearing. The sound if any caused by some change in energy DOES “move” in so far as it is propagated by matter that admits those hearing frequencies. Before the resultant sonic propagation of that original energy change occurs at the ear it is affected almost invariably by other energy changes and so the sound we hear is hardly ever (if ever at all) the sound that occurred “at the place it originated”. This hardly seems paradoxical. A similar explanation can be given for your comment on total solar eclipses. If you are not speaking at all scientifically here then what do you mean when you speak of sound, photons and waves ?

It seems as though you feel that the contradictions in science can be avoided and there exists a pure, complete and consistent set of fundamental laws in nature (which I believe do not exist or cannot be known). When you refer to the laws of nature do you mean axioms; unbreakable and fundamental universal truths ? If you like we can talk around two references:

(a) Hilbert’s 6th problem; David Hilbert (groundbreaking 19th century mathematician) posed the problem of completely axiomatizing modern science to the international congress of mathematics in Paris 1900.

(b) Karl Popper’s “Conjectures and Refutations”: On the GROWTH of scientific knowledge wherein Popper basically explains that it is natural for there to be contradictions in science (I am paraphrasing) and the laws of which you speak are perpetually being broken and remade as scientific knowledge "grows".

Also, Sunil, I hope you know that not all truth can be known. This can readily be seen in the works of metamathematician Kurt Godel in his incompleteness theorem which states in part that any axiomatic system rich enough to contain arithmetic is either incomplete or inconsistent. So, this is one reason why David’s question regarding knowledge and belief IS important and is connected to my query regarding your position in metaphysics and modern science.

Finally, “What can be more logical then mathematics and yet we ignore the most fundamental contradiction in mathematics. x*0=0 suggest that all digits are equal.” (?)

How in the world can you logically infer that the fact that x*0 = 0 contradicts some fundamental rule in mathematics ? What fundamental rule ? Where’s the contradiction ? You have presented no logic. There is no mathematical axiom that states that the equation x*z = y*z implies x = y.

The closest axiom to this is a field axiom which states that in an algebraic field (like the real number system we use everyday) given elements x and y and the equation x*y = 0 we MUST have x = 0 OR y = 0.

This can be applied by

X*z = y*z --> x*z – y*z = 0 --> (x – y)*z = 0 --> x – y = 0 or z = 0 --> x = y OR z = 0

In closing I contend that the true nature of reality cannot be known but must be experienced in some other way.

Sincerely,

Oliver Kayende

Dear David,

I'm still thinking about it. I feel that in an ontology for language, replacing the constants of our postulates with names changes perhaps nothing if these postulates are ordered already by some other kind of rule like logical equivalence. Ultimately, I believe number will still arise naturally in such a system. Because of order I think. That is I feel that encoding numbers with names changes nothing if the order is still there. But I don't know that an ontology for a language has to have in it implicitly some order that is equivalent in some way to that of numbers. Must we enumerate in a belief system ultimately ? I am much more certain that we should when this belief system is over things that include numbers. Still not clear though. Can you disprove this, anyone ?

Sincerely,

Oliver Kayende

Oliver- “I also believe in social justice…”. As a tool, science is not apparently connected with a certain type of ethic dealing with “truth” as a fundamental goal. But if the stick is “ethic neutral”, the hand who keeps it could not claim such innocence. If the scientists are viewing themselves as ‘knights of spirits’ they can not turn back to the dragon of injustice, unhappiness and misery of human condition but they have the moral duty to fight it. Sciences do not have goals- this is only an anthropomorphic view; the scientists should have. And such goals should in my opinion go beyond ‘understanding’ to concrete actions dedicated to improve ‘here and now’ our lives. I will always respect Luther’s “…here I stand, I can do no other. God help me" stand for what he had considered the truth but I more preoccupied by the ways in which could be achieved the Erasmus view about how we should “treat men and things as though we held this world the common fatherland of all”. Because the search of truth without the companion of compassion is making us to loose a precious part of our humanity. The social reality is not only a given but rather something to be give by each of us. HAPPY NEW YEAR to ALL!

Dear Bogdan,

"As a tool, science is not apparently connected with a certain type of ethic dealing with “truth” as a fundamental goal"

This is essentially what I was saying in my last comment. I hope you see that. More importantly, since culture and science and religion are intertwined in particular ways I THINK we have agreed on then I believe it is social progress that is needed in order to advance science.

Sincerely,

Oliver Kayende

Dear Sunil,

Let me first start by saying that I have indeed explained my remarks and you're comments are still illustrating them. For, this may mark the only progress we have made in our exchange. Sunil, you throw the word science around very loosely and then claim very exact things with it again in the name of science. I never spoke of your laws of nature as laws of science but I DID ask you to clarify your position as to whether these laws were universal and unbreakable like axioms. And I spoke to you of Hilbert's 6th problem to axiomatize science because I didn't know and still do not know in what way you are speaking of these laws and chose the 6th problem as the closest talking point I could find. You later gave the second law of thermodynamics as a law of nature. Clearly, this is a law of modern science. So, please clarify a bit on what you mean by laws of nature. I get the impression now that you must mean something at least akin to laws of science considering all of the scientific references you put in the substance of your arguments. Or, I think you may be assuming that there exists a complete and pure and consistent set of laws of nature that cannot be violated. The existence of this axiomatization would present also a few issues you should take into consideration. Please take the time out to consider Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem which draws important inferences on ALL axiomatic systems rich enough to contain arithmetic. As an axiomatization of all of nature must indeed be. It is based upon Kurt's works and the likes that I infer that your fundamental laws do not exist or cannot be known in any reasonable complete sense. Note, I have NOT said here that you cannot know any particular "law" or that no laws exist.

(1) I have no qualms with your understanding of God nor do I wish to argue these things. I appreciate your perspective on the matter. Also, religion and ethics are different as I think we both agree. Saying that there are important ethical ingredients in religion does not show that without religion there are no ethics. Similarly, as I understand it, Spirit is a part of being - not just OUR being. The Spirit in my understanding is one and does not begin or end with that being of an individual or collective being. It is in this sense that I say that spirituality is NOT the exploration of self but the exploration of the spirit.

(2) But, Sunil, what of the other comments I made regarding,

“Science only seeks to explain nature but religion has to ensure that we live our lives in accordance with the laws of nature and like any mother uses all the techniques at her disposal to make the child do what she thinks is right for the child, religion also has to present the scientific laws in such a way that its subjects do what it wants them to do.”

But, Sunil, religion is the institution or formalization of spirituality or spiritual beliefs in some group like a society or culture. Therefore, religion is at least in some major part constructed by the group. Analogously, how then is the mother in some part constructed or a result of the child ? Do you really believe in such a personification of religion ? I do not believe that religion has to present scientific laws either. What is your answer to this ?

(3) "God is omniscient because information is present everywhere. CMBR confirms this fact. I mean it is possible to explain each quality of God scientifically."

"Exploring objective reality is beyond science."

If you can explain ALL qualities of God scientifically then you can certainly explain everything scientifically which contradicts a few of your earlier remarks. It would also suggest that your laws of nature would be indeed laws of science. By the way, Sunil, this is another example where you use modern science (CMBR) to make your more general claims while at the same time claiming that modern science is ripe with contradictions. Where do you draw the line ?

(4) "Now, the mathematical equation - I thought I do not need to explain it. Have any value of x and result of its multiplying with zero is zero or divide any digit with infinity and we can get any result we want. Obviously, the value of x does not matter or all the possible values of x are equal. If one factor is constant then the same result is obtainable only if value of variable remains same. This technically means that all the values of x in the equation are fundamentally same."

Sunil, I hope you understand that this argument is completely wrong and unsubstantiated mathematically. Especially, "divide any digit with infinity and we can get any result we want".

(a) "Division by infinity" is UNDEFINED mathematically in standard analysis. This is something you made up.

(b) The only form of unconventional mathematics known that has a definition for this is Non-Standard Analysis where the division of a real number by infinity yields what is called an infintesimal - not zero, Sunil.

Sunil, mathematics cannot be trifled with the way you might think. Please reread my first explanation and you will understand. This marks another point where we SHOULD make a distinction between knowledge and belief; to know whether you are speaking of these things mathematically really or in your own words and beliefs. Here, it is clear that you were speaking in terms of your own personal and unfounded assumptions about mathematics and not in terms of math itself. When this is the case, Sunil, you cannot blame math for the contradictions that arise from your own non-mathematical assumptions.

Sincerely, Oliver Kayende

Dear Sunil,

I enjoy reading your comments and I appreciate your perspectives in many instances. This may be hard for you to believe. If I have been critical it is because I am a staunch logician, mathematician and philosopher. As one I cannot let certain statements go unchecked. I hope that this in some way contributes to your philosophy in a constructive way. As for my comment on sound. I did indeed draw a connection between the origin and the observer. I described sound as originating from a source or origin and being caused by an energy change. I then explained in what sense we can say that it "moves" to the observer. I then explained that it is disturbed by other kinetic activity along its "way" to the observer. This is a connection. Now, of course I did not state every physical fact about sound because I was only responding to your comment in which you suggested some kind of paradox that sound moves and does not move. I talked about the interference along the way to indicate that the observer may not receive the same sound that originated at the source.

"This is only an analogy; for God's sake do no assume that either the water, increasing temperature, or any other term used by me explains relativity of time. I have used this analogy to explain what relativity of time mean."

I understand that you are speaking a bit illustratively here. I understand that you are using an analogy or trying to make one. I am not just trying to be overly critical and argumentative. The points I have brought up so far are not trivial. Analogies must be logically consistent though, Sunil. I am comfortable with using abstract ideas or general ones like water flowing and temperature increasing. I have no problem with this at all. It's just that the ASSOCIATION you make has to make sense. For example, If I was speaking objectively and scientifically and said,

""Planets are many many times greater in size and mass than elementary particles and dogs are many many times greater in size and mass than photons. Therefore, Planets are to elementary particles as dogs are to photons."

Then you would almost certainly object to my analogy. Not just because I used dog in it but because my reasoning would be wrong on several levels - as you can surely see. When you say time does not flow at a uniform RATE. What do you mean ? Flow with respect to what ? A rate, as I said before, is a relative quantity between TWO THINGS, Sunil. You cannot talk about a rate without talking about two parameters. Like with the rate of the water's temperature increasing; you probably mean increasing over time. So the two parameters here are the water's temperature and time. Some words and notions when used too loosely result in statements that don't really mean anything at all. So when you say the rate at which time flows - flows with respect to what ?

As for the matter concerning the total eclipse paradox and your website. I have presented no arguments against either of these things or what they contain. I commend you on your accomplishments and the sincerity of your pursuit. I believe that more people should be pursuing great questions and furthering human knowledge and/or curiosity. I always opt to champion the light of humanity and I feel encouraged to see or here of people doing the same. I am of the opinion that your work is valuable educationally whether or not it is actually valid. Many philosophers, mathematicians, etc. stumble through theories that are not valid before ultimately finding the special one they were looking for. This, if you don't mind the analogy, is much like the growth of scientific knowledge.

"We may decide that we want to explain only the observable universe so that we can explain to anyone else what and how we arrived at the conclusion we have. This is science."

Yes. The documentation, repetition and imitation but NOT necessarily the understanding.

Sunil, modern science as it stands today has rules and practices independent of what either you or I want it to be. Modern science is not this deep metaphysical quest for knowledge and understanding and truth. I myself search for truth and these things but when I look at modern science today the way it is, and not just the way I want it to be I see the scientific method and its premises, I see statistical inference and approximation - not absolute truth, I see as you have seen contradictory theories and even correct mathematical models for phenomena that yield solutions which do not in any way describe the phenomena or accurately predict events in it, and I see, hear and read accounts of the same from scientists and philosophers around the world. Sunil, science is as I said it is earlier not because I said so but because in this is the modern scientific philosophy with its scientific method, method of inference and statistical language. Maybe I should envision another science but I cannot pretend that I am not seeing what I am seeing.

I have been to your website and spent some time there indeed. I find it very interesting and I thank you for the reference. But, Sunil, the remark I made was not really in regards to the total solar eclipse paradox earlier but I was objecting to your reasoning when you said that

the total solar eclipse is not what we think it is and so it cannot be true that we see something only when the photons are absorbed by our eyes.

The popularity of your website is a good thing for you but it would never influence my opinions on the science itself. I have some ideas on the eclipse paradox that I am deliberating over with some colleagues. As soon as I am done composing my thoughts over this I will share them with you. Finally, I have no qualms with one speaking in terms of their own observable universe but if you develop a science of some sort independently in terms of this personal observable universe then the nature of some if not all of your results and inferences will be different than those of modern science and should not be equated or conflated. Once again, thank you and may you have a happy new year !

Sincerely,

Oliver Kayende