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juicyfizz t1_irkshnn wrote

Reply to comment by TMax01 in Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality by ADefiniteDescription

Is this related to Descartes’ work in philosophy? The only thing I remember from philosophy 100 in college 20 years ago is the lecture we all had on how do we know the clock on the wall doesn’t disappear and reappear when we come back in the room?

I was an asshole back then and didn’t give a shit so I’m like, “so long as the clock is there when I need it to be, I don’t fucking care if it comes or goes”. Nowadays this shit is fascinating to me and will send me into an existential crisis if I think about it too much.

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TMax01 t1_irl6bis wrote

>Is the related to Descartes’ work in philosophy?

That's the trillion dollar question.

Yes, your philosophy professor was trying to explain metaphysical uncertainty. My point was that it isn't actually limited to quantum mechanics. QM just makes it more obvious that it is fascinating and will send you into an existential crisis if you think about it too much. Physicists have the luxury to "shut up and calculate", but philosophers deal with the hard problems.

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juicyfizz t1_irl7bue wrote

Totally agree. That line between philosophy and mathematics/physics fascinates the fuck outta me.

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TMax01 t1_irl94el wrote

Yeah. "Are numbers real?" is the most intriguing question ever, and if you are satisfied with any answer for it, you don't actually understand it, as far as I'm concerned.

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arkticturtle t1_irmxabr wrote

What would make them unreal? Is there a distinction between realness and existence?

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TMax01 t1_irnaler wrote

>Is there a distinction between realness and existence?

Depends. 😉

The question isn't really what makes numbers unreal, but what makes them real. To ask whether numbers "exist" simply explores the issue further rather than indicates a resolution. Are numbers simply functional illusions, or do they (not the numerals we use to identify them, which is a separate order of "exist", but the numbers apart from the quantities we abstract them from) exist 'in and of themselves', and if so, are they more or less real than the quantities, or the minds perceiving them?

Most people are satisfied with ignoring it all as esoteric navel-gazing or psychobabble, and say it is something only incompetent philosophers do to earn a paycheck. They assume that when it comes to non-material (?) things like numbers, being real or existing only reduces to utility, anyway, so why bother caring. Nobody has respect for philosophers, unless they're just mathematicians in disguise, until their pet or their relative dies, and then suddenly everything becomes starkly existential and they want solace from their angst and uncertainty, and even then they don't want philosophers, they just want secular priests.

Sorry for the rant. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps. 🤓

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arkticturtle t1_irnc6wz wrote

I wonder... Does this idea apply to other descriptors like "redness"

I'm not well versed or educated by any means but I think I've heard this issue before with colors. Does redness exist in and of itself or is it always applied to something

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TMax01 t1_irnqpu6 wrote

You are doing an admirable job of recreating the course of philosophical development. I wish I could call it "progress", but this is, I believe, an iconic example which illustrates it is not. Thousands of years before humans discovered the real nature of colors (both as frequencies of electromagnetic radiation differentially effecting the cells in our eyeballs, and as comparative/relative signals processed by our neurological visual systems) Aristotle and other ancient philosophers contemplated the idea or ideal of the conscious experience of color (what today philosophers identify as qualia). But the question of whether "redness" exists 'in and of itself' is more a matter of convention than ascertainable fact. I believe (I'm not rigorously academic so I could be mistaken, and I'm sure I'm not using the "proper" terminology) that the current convention is to say that redness is always applied to something, similar to the idea of size; it is comparative rather than fundamental.

The truth, at least as I see it, is that this epistemic uncertainty is the same in terms of qualia like "redness" and also numbers, but also every other word in every real language. It just becomes most obvious in these two examples, so much so that not even the most neopostmodern of postmodernists can deny that metaphysical uncertainty (whether "red" exists or whether "math" transcends physics or results from it) and epistemic uncertainty (whether "redness" exists or whether "numbers are real") themselves exist (distinct from simple ignorance), and will argue whether they can really be distinguished.

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Erin4287 t1_iru61ld wrote

Can you further explain why this question is so intriguing, and why confidence in an answer implies not understanding the depth of the conversation around it? I always have felt that numbers and math are imagined concepts and if they are “real”, they are only so in the sense that any concept is real. Are you suggesting that numbers and math exist in the physical universe, and if so what’s your argument and evidence for this belief?

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TMax01 t1_irwbdsr wrote

Unfortunately, you've ruined any hope I have for such a conversation simply by using the word "concept". As I am already discussing in a different thread, using that term assumes a conclusion, and untangling the premise would be necessary for an adequate consideration of the original question. You seem to have covered both sides of the argument, by suggesting that math both does and does not "exist in the physical universe". How could anyone possibly argue against such a position?

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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Erin4287 t1_irwzct0 wrote

It seems that you’re not willing to answer, and claim that’s the case because of a word I used, which is disappointing. I don’t believe math exists in nature, though I also don’t think such existence determines whether numbers are real.

I’d be interested to understand your point of view there, but I don’t really care to ”argue” about it. I’d just like an explanation. I’ll defer to you as being far more knowledgeable than I am on this topic.

What I really care about is why you find this to be the most intriguing question ever. I don’t find it particularly interesting at all, and I’d like to understand why you do, even if it’s a one sentence response.

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TMax01 t1_iry83l9 wrote

> don’t believe math exists in nature

I gathered that. So how do you explain why it works so well, and how is it not "in nature" by doing so? Do you think thoughts exist in nature? Do people exist in nature? Do words? This notion of "in nature", like the reality of numbers, is really not as simple as you appear to believe it does.

>I’d just like an explanation

You should just Google "why numbers are real" and dive down the rabbit hole, then. There isn't an easy explanation, on either side of the issue, which is exactly what makes it intriguing. (Note; such a quest will be made difficult because the technical term "real numbers" exists. You might find it easier to google "why numbers are not real", and paying attention to, rather than facilely dismissing, the counter-arguments.)

>I don’t find it particularly interesting at all, and I’d like to understand why you do, even if it’s a one sentence response.

Because I've thought about it (and learned about it) a lot more than people who respond the way you have and don't find it intriguing. As I said, anyone who believes it is a simple issue doesn't actually understand the issue. It explores epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty (and certainty) more completely than any other single question I have come across, and yet does not simply reduce to epistemic or metaphysical uncertainty.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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Erin4287 t1_irylvta wrote

I don’t feel the need to have an “argument” because I don’t at this point care about this issue. Whether numbers are “real” or not, whatever that means, they’re very useful and fundamental in helping us understand the world and make decisions. You deny the possibility of a simple answer being a valid response at least in part because the discussion is supposedly so complex, a premise I reject, and in fact you deny that it’s even possible for me to have thoughts of value on the issue, so there’s no point in my enabling your fervor and apparent anger at me.

What I was hoping is to understand why you believe this to be the most intriguing question there is. Many questions don’t have answers or ”easy” explanations! so this doesn’t explain to me why you assert that this is objectively the most intriguing question. You may find “exploration of epistemic and metaphysical certainty and uncertainty“ to be fascinating, but I don’t find those topics particularly interesting or relevant. Rather than this being objectively one of the most interesting questions possible, I feel like this is a matter of personal preference. I believe you totally when you say that the discussion is very complex and explores these subjects in amazing depth, but like many other scientists, I don’t find those particular subjects particularly stimulating, and in fact they feel sort of irrelevant to me, especially when the focus is on questions which apparently can’t ever be answered with empirical data or logical proof.

I’m glad that exploration of this question has enriched your life, just as questions like “why do we experience having a sense of self”, a question which is primary in Cognitive Science and appears simple on the surface, have captured the minds of people involved in neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and other fields. Of course that question may have a simple answer, in part because it’s actually solvable, and finding this answer may help us understand numerous things about ourselves and other life. Different people find different questions interesting, including academics and free thinkers in all fields.

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TMax01 t1_is0sr5s wrote

>You deny the possibility of a simple answer being a valid response at least in part because the discussion is supposedly so complex, a premise I reject,

That's your argument, and you're going to stick to it no matter what. 🤣

>in fact you deny that it’s even possible for me to have thoughts of value on the issue,

I only deny that you do, and you have ratified my perspective with your arguments. I'm quite certain it is possible, that you could learn enough about the issue to have thoughts which have value to people who already understand the issue more thoroughly, in theory. Whether you will is a different question, and seems a dubious possibility. Now, what makes all this intriguing (to those of us who are actually interested in philosophy, including but not limited to the question of whether numbers are real, for whatever definition of "real" you'd care to settle on long enough to have a philosophically valid opinion of the issue) is that it is ultimately impossible to identify whether you aren't learning that much because you will not, or because you can not, and whether there is any meaningful difference between those two propositions. The reason I use the term "intriguing" in this regard is because there is a lot of affinity, if not an identity, between that question and the other one, of whether numbers are real.

Most people have no interest in or patience for plumbing the depths of epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty. It seems a human characteristic to prefer certainty as much as possible, but it is also a human characteristic to be curious.

>I’m glad that exploration of this question has enriched your life,

I'm sorry that consideration of this question has failed to enrich yours. The endemic existential angst underlying our society, accounting (in my view, quite directly) for so much anxiety, depressions, contentiousness and even violence we suffer from, is not as far removed from this philosophical issue as you may believe.

>Of course that question may have a simple answer,

It does not. The matter of the hard problem of consciousness is not simply a 'difficult scientific challenge', it is an unresolvable metaphysical issue which is coincident with consciousness itself. Accepting the reality of that is the only way to "understand numerous things about ourselves", for those specific things which are the purpose and context of philosophy. This being a subreddit dedicated to philosophy, I find it interesting, but not really unusual, that you are here while also denying you are interested in such matters.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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