I mentioned in #Philosophical yesterday in a conversation with Niniane that the observer is an essential part of scientific reality, nowhere more pointedly than in Quantum mechanics, the current heart of physics. Reality is defined by the observer’s interactions with the wave equation, and not by the wave equation itself. Certainly philosophers have rid themselves of the troublesome problem of subjectivity, having relegated it by now to one corner of philosophy of mind. Apparently, to go by Searle, it no longer has any meaningful effect on our epistemology. But if science is unable to avoid subjectivity in its definition of reality, and if our own involvement in the world is the strongest evidence of an external world that we have, then isn’t it more the case that objective contents are inferred from subjective experience, rather than vice versa?
I think it is. And although I don’t wish to use this argument to dismiss an objective universe, I think it’s clearly time for philosophy to give up its newtonian physics and catch up. Physical phenomena are relative, not absolute, and they are relative to — guess who? The observer. So maybe consciousness is something more than a coincidental side effect of biological processes. Maybe it has something to do with the existence, possibly even the basic nature of the Universe.
May 3, 2008 at 1:30 pm
What is “the observer”? Is this “observer” not part of reality, just as the photons or electrons he observes? What is so special about observation, as opposed to other types of particle interaction? Are we not made of particles ourselves?
Recently I’ve been reading Eliezer Yudkowsky’s series of posts about quantum mechanics (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/quantum-explana.html). I admit that my own understanding of QM is superficial, but he explains it amazingly clearly. That clarity comes at a cost of sorts – for in the middle of the series it becomes apparent his approach leads to the Multiple Word Interpretation! He doesn’t call it an interpretation, but claims that this is the reality we get when we treat the math seriously, without any extra interpretations bolted on top. This is preposterously counter-intuitive, yet so simple (well, conceptually – I don’t claim to understand the math). And it gets rids of the pesky observer – or rather, it puts the observer back where he belongs – in reality itself, as opposed to outside of it. A grand demystification of QM, in my humble opinion.
I cannot recommend any concrete conclusions, obviously, but I think it’s well-worth exploring further.
May 4, 2008 at 4:38 pm
For me it is simple: no observer, nothing is observed.
The fact is that science is a human endeavour. Admittedly it is a group effort, but any group is a collection of individuals, and no matter how many of them join in with scientific enquiry this remains the case.
The objective is putative. A necessary fiction in order to make the science useful.
May 7, 2008 at 7:31 pm
What happened before humans evolved, and before any sort of life could evolve? If we create reality, who or what created us, and in what medium do we exist? If in the future the human race goes extinct, do the laws of physics go away with it? What will alien intelligence discover about the world, if it studies it?
Why is the fiction necessary? If we ignore the fiction, does science stop being useful? What magic makes it applicable?
This sort of subjectivity creates lots of difficult questions, and the point I was trying to make that it’s not even necessary to posit it. Science is able to avoid it, at the cost of radically changing our intuition, but then I never trusted it much to begin with
May 17, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[...] where I had a few interesting exchanges with the author regarding some of the Standard Issues – objectivity and meaning. The author decided to honor me with a separate post, where he first paints a [...]
October 16, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Hello John,
If you will forgive me for impinging on your universe in an apparently random fashion, I want to report on an accidental discovery of mine that immediately made me think of you and our many conversations, as well as the various topics on this blog.
Many of us seem to be struggling with each other over problems that arise from our particular world views and the constraints of our language when it comes to describing who we are and what we are doing in the context of whatever-it-is-that-is. I stumbled onto a series of web pages devoted to new theorizing that affects such issues, and my only reason for leaving this message is to give a link to a starting point, hoping that you and/or others might benefit from a perusal of its assertions. At the bottom of the article are links that reveal a cluster of related articles. Hope you enjoy!
http://www.enformy.com/tesintro.htm
November 2, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Thanks Gnomon, I’ll certainly give it a look. Now, I’d like to add that it seems some people are indeed struggling with me over various conficts in our world views. For my own part, I started this blog in order to set out what sort of conclusions I had got to over some years of thinking, so I don’t really see myself in conflict with you, and not with Gritsenko either, although I would make some minor corrections to his position.
I think Mr. Grieves sums it up nicely. Not only philosophy, but also all of science, is a story about how the world looks to human beings. No human beings, no story.
November 11, 2008 at 4:41 am
[...] Philosophy of science, reductionism | Some time ago, in a response to my post, Is the observer essential, my friend Gnomon recommended I take a look at an idea called TES: Theory of Enformed Systems, [...]