Great thread. Please continue.

Thanks for the detailed answer.

Over and over I'm seeing a pattern in your reasoning, namely that measurements or perceptions are "incomplete." And in this case the act of measurement alters the system which introduces certain problems. But you admit that our knowledge works pretty well in practice, such as when we construct a laser. And that certain erros are neglible, such as when doing Newtonian physics on a small scale. And then when discussing blue, there are many gradations. In every case, your discounting of man's knowledge is always on the grounds of the lack of precision.

So let's say I concede that our knowledge is perpetually incomplete. Would you accept that our knowledge is at least increasing? Given all the marvels of technology, isn't it a bit extreme to say that all knowledge is COMPLETELY subjective?

Schroedinger's cat...is the cat alive or dead? My answer: The cat is a macroscopic object, not an electron. Observing it doesn't knock it all out of whack. Observing it also doesn't change the fact of it's alive/dead state before the box is opened.

teller said:

I was just about to say the same thing.

teller said:

I would agree that our knowledge is certainly increasing. I still believe that theories in quantum mechanics are just that... theories, but they are very important and necessary for scientific development. All good science started as a theory, so we don't know where we will end up with the varying viewpoints, but at least science has a focus and direction for the future rather than being mired in classical physics and the inherent problems there.

As far as all knowledge being completely subjective goes, I believe we can known things of human construction such as mathematics or other non-physical mental constructs that are rigidly defined and have unambiguous rules that net exact results each time actions are carried out, but I do not believe we can completely know anything about external physical reality, for the problems that I have outlined earlier.

Schrodinger's Cat... the cat is both alive and until it is observed, at which point it takes on a definite state after the collapse of the wave function... fun stuff.

IceNine said:

You're taking measurement problems at the quantum level and applying them to the macro-scale. How in fuck can you justify this leap? It's one thing to disturb a system with the act of measurement. But to kill a cat by merely opening your eyes?! C'mon...give us laymen a break...

teller said:

Schrodinger talks about a superposition of states where the cat is neither alive nor dead... the cat is merely being used to help visualize the collapse of the wave function and is not meant to be a real cat.

He was also talking about the idea of particles having indeterminate spin... it is a VERY difficult concept to grasp or even to explain in layman's terms. When a particle is split in to particle pairs, we cannot know the spin of both particles until one particle spin is measured... the act of observation causes the collapse of the wave function and forces the particle to take on a definite state...

IceNine said:

::WHEW:: You almost lost me dude!

teller said:

Yeah... that would be a bit incomprehensible... wouldn't it? A real cat...

Uh Oh!
Shrodinger's Cat! (I can feel a migrane coming on)

I have to admit that I still cling to Einstein-istic ideas when it comes to quantum 'reality'. I can't help feeling that a lot of the bizarre results of quantum mechanics stem basically from our own human perspective about the nature of reality. In particular our way of trying to model the sub-atomic world in a way that we can visually & physically imagine (like the old 'solar system' idea of the atom).

I can't remember who said it, but I've always liked the multi-dimensional example:
If you imagine that we existed in a two dimensional world, and everything existed only as x & y coordinates on a plane. Then a 3 dimensional object passing though our 2D world would appear bizzare, since we could only percieve the parts of it that intersected our reality. What is in fact a single 3D object may appear to us as many apparently unconnected phenomena. (or something like that, I can't remember it exactly, but you get the gist).

The upshot being that the whole Particles/Waves debate is defunct because both are correct, as they are both attempts to visualise the sub-atomic world in a way we can understand. When in reality what we percieve is just a fragment of a greater reality, which we, as human beings, may not be even capable of truly understanding.

BorisFishpaw said:

Yes, yes and yes... so very right!

IceNine said:

Yes...well said. Perception in definitely limited according to the properties of the perceiver, and there is much merit in recognizing the various ways in which we can be deceived, and a certain humility is called for when acquiring knowledge.

I still argue that Ice has swung the pendulum too far, not wanting to admit that some knowledge is actually perfectly valid.

Bump...

Wish I would have been online for this discussion.

Two points: epistemology is not the philosophy of thinking, it's the philosophy of knowing, ie. what can be known, and how. Just for clarification.

Second: read The Critique of Pure Reason. Kant doesn't MEAN to turn you into a skeptic, but I'll be damned if that's not the take-home message. Very powerful arguments and conclusions.

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

Hey it doesn't have to be over. You're quite right about epistemology, I was merely being informal.

I have this book but I find it very hard to read. As far as I can tell, Kant says we can't know reality because our perceptual apparatus is limited...sounds like IceNine, actually. I know he splits reality into the phenomenal and nominal worlds, which I don't think is very helpful. Care to fill us in on any key points?

Yeah, the Critique is damn near impossible to read, but I took a class on Kant from a very knowledgable prof, and there is lots of good supplementary literature out there.

The main idea is, you're right, that our perceptions are limited. The neumenal/phenomenal world thing is just a metaphorical device to help you get your brain around it, really. The idea of rose colored glasses can be helpful, too: your perception is like a pair of colored glasses that you can't take off, so that not only is the world always rose colored, you can't even really imagine what it would MEAN to be anything else, because you don't have non-rose-color to compare the world with.

Basically, all you really know is your perceptions. What is causing them is beyond your ability to know, though I think he does want to say that you can know that SOMEthing must be causing them. So the phenomenal (perceptual) and neumenal (beyond-perception) worlds are both real, and we can know that they both exist, but we can never know more than that about the neumenal world.

This sounds like a sort of skepticism, but some people have tried to save Kant from this by pointing to his claim that it is not really skepticism, and that people who would say that are just asking a confused question: what is the world like beyond my ability to perceive? Kant says that is an incoherent question. What would it MEAN to have experiences of something you can't perceive? It doesn't even make sense, so essentially it's not fair to critisize Kant just because you want impossible things. Kant says that the phenomenal world is real and you can know about it, and that you can know that there is something real "behind the curtain" causing it. What more do you freakin' want?

There you go. Kant in a nutshell, as I understand him. I think his view makes a lot of sense, but I DO think it's a fancy sort of skepticism, and that's ok with me.

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

That is a nice description of Kant... I believe that to be an accurate analysis.

My take on things is very much like that as well... one of my favorite things about Kant is that he thought that PRIMARY qualities of objects were subject, just as secondary qualities...

Why, oh why, could he not keep god out of his thinking though... he was so good at skepticism, but he got weak at the end...

TIME IS MY THANG!!!

IceNine said:

Absolutely, the primary qualities bit is important, and I think he's right.

The god stuff. . .well, his moral philosophy is irritating and useless for that reason. In his metaphysics, though, I think he leaves room for a sort of elegant agnosticism. . .god would be a neumenal thing if he exists, so that we can never actually KNOW anything about him (so Christians are wrong ) but it's still one possible causal explanation.

Of course, Kant was commited more firmly to a god than that, but his actual theory only supports this neumenal agnosticism. It's one of the things I especially like about his view.

Doves,
Mel!ssa

Thanks for the details, tackam!

This is about how I remember what little I learned about Kant. The argument that perception is really all we have is obviously true--perception is the origin of all knowledge. The question, then, is how valid is it? And on this point I lean toward "extremely valid" whereas Kant and others lean toward "not very valid." Or so it seems.
[This message was edited Mon Nov 11 11:50:44 PST 2002 by teller]

teller said:

I think what Kant would say is "as valid as you're gonna get!". Why do we care? Well, we want our perceptions to lead us to make accurate predictions about how the world will be tomorrow, things like that. And so far, they have been very reliable. Just based on inductive reasoning, we can say that our perceptions can get us all the knowledge we need to go about our merry little lives. Is that a strong claim agains a skeptic? No!

Since we can't ever know the neumenal word, it's reasonable to think of the phenomenal world as our 'real' world and go about our business.

Kant is so much fun.

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

Knowledge of the neumenal world sounds exactly like omniscience. Too much to ask, unreasonable.

I've got my copy of Critique out though, gonna take a look and see if I can do better at my current age/level.

teller said:

There's a nice supplement out by Sebastian Gardener that I'd suggest picking up.

I don't think I'll ever be old or advanced enough to understand Kant without help.

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

See, that really bothers me. It's one thing if it's not exactly accessible to the layman, but I have a strong background in philosophy and I STILL can't understand his crap--doesn't that invalidate it on some level? Better minds were able to bring their sciences down to the level of freshmen...!