Dear Andrei,
I really like your way of being scientist: you dare to state your point of
view and do it very well.
I hope you don't mind if I take it as an opportunity to try to push the
borders of our discussion a bit further and look forward to your reactions.
The point of departure is that you according to your latest posting as a
realist readily admit that social consensus is the basis of modern science -
or at least physics.
This very situation opens up an alternate way to consider the realist's
dilemma - since the measurement problem I posed there has been met with no
response. Today's alternative connects to comprehending causality as
mentioned by Ted (posted 06-06-03) that draw attention to Kolmogorov that
spanned two traditions in mathematical philosophy:
>One which is based in numbers and asserts that science is a matter of
>measurement, and a second tradition which asserts that science is a matter
>of >comprehending causality (causality >in this context being a
matter of
>logical explication).
So let us now turn to comprending causality (instead of measurement as in
the realist's dilemma):
If one admits social consensus is the very basis of science - in lack of
other alternatives - then one admits the primacy of subjectivity (i.e., that
a decision has to be made at the level of the knowing subject before he can
even participate in any group decision on social consensus). The knowing
subject is thus the FIRST DECIDER (which is the base line of SOA) in acts of
decisions. And now you admit that consensus is the only basis of scientific
decision - that is decisions based on a pure belief. Call an object X; then
the (model) decision "X is real" is made on a pure subjective belief and
such acts of pure subjective beliefs are THEN (afterwards) made consensual
by a social group decision. However X can be (appoint) an object, a state
transition, reality . you name it .the procedure is exactly the same.
The point is that here the first and ultimate decider is the INDIVIDUAL
SUBJECT and nothing else and the place of this decision (the subject's mind)
is the point from where are all discussions about CAUSES must proceed. Not
the other way around as practised in classical science - which proceeds from
the idea that state transitions (as part of properties) are the CAUSE of
mind impressions !!!! There is no one "out there" to make a unbiased
decision about such an eventual state transition occuring in a point P in
space-time! The model we usually construe of this very process is a
"signal" that has to travel all the way to human consciousness and on the
way through my perceptual apparatus it is multiply feed-back - in a way that
actually can make state transitions to "disappear" (anyhow so it looks like
in the realist's way of reasoning). However this situation totally ruins our
possibility to make certain causal deductions.
THIS MEANS A FORCED ON REVERSAL OF THE DIRECTION OF CAUSAL CONSTRUCTION
(CAUSATION) - THAT IN ONE BLOW DECLARE NUGATORY TOTAL THE CELEBRATED THIRD
PERSON'S PERSPECTIVE OF CLASSICAL SCIENCE - AND SUCH A REVERSAL HAS
DEEP-GOING CONSEQUENCES FOR SCIENTIFIC REASONING.
Such a reversal of causation also resolves the realist's dilemma - or maybe
it is better to say that a reversed direction of causation must be imposed
on our reasoning because of the human capacity of observation (and the fact
it is deeply feed-back connected). In that view you can stay realist if you
want - one simply has to redefine "real" into "actual", so when you say the
"real world" you refer to the "actual world" as it appears to you in your
experience, i.e., your PRIVERSE. BUT .. this priverse is by no means unique
or unary - this is your personal world PRIVERSE :: this is your experience
:: and you are on the train to Copenhagen becoming an "actualist" (please
let us look upon this catch-term as a joke!)
In short: All scientific decisions rely on social consensus that implies a
foregoing personal subjective decision. This decision is based on pure
belief - in the lack of a certain experimental account. Such a realisation
will not make science worse - on the contrary it will for the first time (?)
inject consistency into our reasoning. It will not undermine science - since
science will operate very well as a tool of prediction - a tool to predict
what is going to happen to my coming experience (and OUR coming experience
in case we are tuned into the consensus of the group). However it will cause
turbulence to mankind's frequent abuse of the truth and objectivity
conception.
This is also why information rises first in a human mind and as a mean of
conceptualisating (grasping/explicating) his own FEELS - well . the "inside
version of signal" cannot be portrayed in any more telling way. But since
the society by education and upbringing has tuned the scientist's mind to
think and conceptualise in a way that allows for intersubjective
communication - we all can understand his model (what he says) reasonably
well.
However the bottom line is CONSENSUS - not a pre-given reality (!!!!) and
this make a great difference - at least to my mind.
Best wishes
Arne
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrei Khrennikov" <Andrei.Khrennikov@vxu.se>
To: "Arne Kjellman" <kjellman@dsv.su.se>
Cc: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 12:07 PM
Subject: Reply to Arne Kjellman: Reality of Information
> Dear Arne,
> You wrote:
>> You are dicussing the possibility to classify fields and information
>> as REAL - and \"existing\" on an equal level as of REALITY
- as
> opposed to> something else...experience I guess.
>> Does this means you both both think it is consistently possible to
>> classifying phenomena of science into the dichomoty REAL/UNREAL (or
>> eventually MATERIAL/UNMATERIAL)?
>
> In any event I speak not about the dichomoty MATERIAL/UNMATERIAL.
> The main point of my Email was that the modern physics shows that the
> traditiotal distinction MATERIAL/UNMATERIAL is not so sharp as was
> believed. I again advertise reality as reality of fields (classical or
> quantum). Fields are not more localized in the space. So I would not
> like to consider fields as material structures, but as information
> structures. D. Bohm and B. Hiley in their book Undivided Universe had a
> similar viewpoint. They interpreted teh pilot wave in the Bohmian
> mechanics as a purely information field. I did teh same in my book and
> congnition was described in terms of information fields.
>
>
> The dichomoty REAL/UNREAL -- yes!
>
> You wrote:
>> I mean do you think is it possible to come to such a distinction of
>> phenomena on grounds of an obsevation science??
>> In in this case on what criteria could such a distinction possibly be
>> uphold?> Do you expect a possible experimental
\"proof\"? Like the way
>> physicists
>> strive for an experiemental \"proof\" of Bell\'s inequality
for
>> instance?
> No I do not expect a purely experimental proof. There should be created
> a model. Then we should test if it matches the experimental data.
> But we can never prove that a model is correct through the experimental
> data (Poper\'s thesis), but we can reject our model if it does not
> match data.
>
>
>> Or can such a \"proof\" only be established by a social
convention -
>> consensus? In this case a matter of consesual belief. And how do we
>> then
>> proceed from this very point?
> This is a problem. Yes, modern science works in such a way. But there
> is reality which is independent of consesual belief. Soon or later this
> reality will go into teh contradiction with a social agreement.
> But as we have seen it could take hundreds and even thousands of years.
>
>
>
>> The SOA\'s line of arguing is that real/unreal distinction can only
be
>>
>> grounded on social convention - i.e., a definition that is generally
>>
>> accepted but cannot be (ap)proved in a science based on experimental
>> evidence. (The realist\'s dilemma is an attempt to show that human\'s
>> capacity
>> of perception is the cause that make this outcome a necessity.)
>> However a decision in consensus can only be achieved in the case each
>>
>> individual participating in this act of consesual decision has made
>> up his
>> mind, ie made a private decision in the matter under consideration.
>> This is
>> why science has to take off form the individual subject\'s point of
>> view -
>> the subject-oriented approach (SOA) - and accordingly make a strict
>> use of
>> the first person\'s view.
> Yes, modern science is SOA, I agree. But it does not imply that
> everybody should accept such a social agreement. I organized 9 large
> internatonal conferences on quantum foundations, about 600 people. Many
> of them have doubts in the conventional interpretation of QM, in spite
> of the fact that we all formally accept it.
>
> All the best, Andrei
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Jul 19 10:29:16 2006
