Against Realism: Examining the Meaning of Local Realism

[AnssiH]

QM is flawed, is that a simple enough of a model for you?

Aren't all theories flawed, then, as none are perfect (or totally accepted as the true theory)?

...yes... Let's try this one more time;

All models are descriptions of the behaviour of semantical objects, not "real" objects. All we can do is pick up stable patterns, classify them into "objects" (arbitrarily). And apparently then confuse that model with reality.

You cannot be aware of anything but semantical objects. Anything you can think of is something that exists in your semantical worldview. Don't forget this.

There will always exist a number of valid TOE's. Some may be more elegant than the others, but that too depends on how you measure "elegance".

 

[rewebster]

There will always exist a number of valid TOE's

See, this is where I disagree. I think there is only one valid TOE (which, I think, hasn't been realized as of yet), and, whether or not, one of the present theories is just incomplete to be valid as THE one and only TOE, or an as-to-be-found TOE.

 

[AnssiH]

There will always exist a number of valid TOE's

See, this is where I disagree. I think there is only one valid TOE (which, I think, hasn't been realized as of yet), and, whether or not, one of the present theories is just incomplete to be valid as THE one and only TOE, or an as-to-be-found TOE.

I probably should have been more specific with my post. I meant it will always be impossible to make any explicit ontological interpretation of any TOE. You could come up with math that describes the whole universe accurately, but you cannot find out what is the "metaphysically correct" way to interpret that math.

I'm not saying this merely on the basis of there already existing a great number of QM interpretations with no way to explicitly choose which is the "correct" one. I'm saying this because any ontological description or any "way" to understand any system ontologically is an expression of how semantical objects interact, not how "real" objects interact, and if you follow my arguments in this thread (starting from the first one) you should be able to figure out just why we shouldn't expect any object we perceive to be "real" fundamental object in any metaphysical sense. Not photon, electron, or anything. We are merely describing stable systems. Imagining that waves are real objects, instead of stable systems.

 

[rewebster]

Labeling interactions and objects, perceived or not, is and, seems to be, one of the more complicating aspects with any 'system' (physics, religion, etc.) What is a 'real' object? What is a 'real' interaction?

A photo of a object or interaction isn't the object or interaction--it is a representation of that object or interaction. A person may be able to 'interpret' that photo of that object or interaction; but, it is still an interpretation--on a subjective level. Even if an event is seen by two people, such as an apple dropping from a tree, it can be (and probably would be) interpreted differently by those two people.

I think that is why math (in physics) and pure math is so well appreciated to some extent. It's hard to argue that 1 doesn't equal 1; but, anytime a representational object is exchanged for a numeric value, say, as in physics, such as t=t, which can become 3t=4t -1t, where t=time, an ambiguity can become incorporated where the interpretation is differing. Does having a '-t' mean, by some, that time travel is possible?

To me, that is one problem with MWI or string theory. It great for math and 'theory' (and maybe students like it for, it seems, lab time may diminished in that study area); but, labeling is extensive--and, therefore, interpretations of the 'labels' seems more varied--e.g. What does a membrane look like?

What is and, how many, interpretations can be made of even a 'real' particle?

 

[AnssiH]

Labeling interactions and objects, perceived or not, is and, seems to be, one of the more complicating aspects with any 'system' (physics, religion, etc.) What is a 'real' object? What is a 'real' interaction?

A photo of a object or interaction isn't the object or interaction--it is a representation of that object or interaction. A person may be able to 'interpret' that photo of that object or interaction; but, it is still an interpretation--on a subjective level.

Exactly, but the case is also the same without any photograph; when the person is actually looking at some system right in front of him. Think about how reality is expressed in the brain in the form of semantical objects, and how we have built such semantical concepts as "interaction" in order to be able to predict how things unfold (this occurs for obvious survival reasons). Think about how this semantical expression really correlates to actual reality, and how our thoughts are and always will be limited to handle only semantical objects, and nothing more.

Like, let's talk about gravity. Any dog or a cat probably assumes that "things fall down", which is enough to make predictions about how something is "about to fall down from the roof onto my head". At all times "down" and "falling" and even "acceleration" (of that given object) are nothing but semantical concepts and the same situation can be described in many many different ways, so to come up with the same prediction that the object from the roof will hit you in the head.

That object can be a rock, or a block of ice, or a sack of flour. All these can be handled as a single object by the math (and also by the semantical mind), while in metaphysical reality they are nothing like that, they are just stable systems. Super-darwinism.

Or think about a doughnut. We see it as if it is the doughnut that is the object here, but we could equally well say it is the hole and the surrounding space that is the object, and doughnut is the shape that is "missing" from the object. Either way we are talking about semantics, and it is merely the intuitive usefulness of looking at the doughnut as "the object" and the hole and surroundings as "the space" that we tend to do that.

I think that is why math (in physics) and pure math is so well appreciated to some extent. It's hard to argue that 1 doesn't equal 1; but, anytime a representational object is exchanged for a numeric value, say, as in physics, such as t=t, which can become 3t=4t -1t, where t=time, an ambiguity can become incorporated where the interpretation is differing. Does having a '-t' mean, by some, that time travel is possible?

Yeah. It cannot be argued that 1 is not 1 because we simply decided it is so, and numbers are not entities floating around in reality either, they are tools which we use to classify reality, we can do whatever we want with them.

Like in the example with object falling from the roof, a mathematician could also produce the correct prediction in many different ways, and each of these methods would seem to imply something about reality. But we could not choose which of the methods corresponds to the way the event occurs in reality. (With further observations we could shut some ideas out, but we would also probably introduce a number of new ontologies into the picture at the same time)

Let's take another example. We can describe the motion of waves on a pond with math, and find out where they interfere and how. We could say from the math that there "must be waves that actually travel over the surface of the pond", and we can also imagine the wave as an object with identity in our head, but in reality nothing but a shape ever traveled over the surface, the water itself just went up and down.

Likewise we could use math to describe a path of a tornado or how two tornados affect the paths of each others, so to predict where the semantical tornados end up at, but even though the tornados affect each others, they are not "real entities", they are just stable patterns. And this is the case when we describe anything, even photons.

So, it would be a mistake to interpret any math as if it describes any real objects. It doesn't say how reality is. It just describes semantical objects, and it predicts how we will find the semantical objects to behave.

To me, that is one problem with MWI or string theory. It great for math and 'theory' (and maybe students like it for, it seems, lab time may diminished in that study area); but, labeling is extensive--and, therefore, interpretations of the 'labels' seems more varied--e.g. What does a membrane look like?

Yeah, I have found that philosophically less aligned physicists tend to make rather arbitrary assertions about reality without even realizing it.

We naturally ask ourselves questions like "what does an atom look like", while we also abide to a model where it is the "electron" that gives off a "photon" which is what reveals the shape of any "thing". Noticed the conflict yet? Noticed how, strictly speaking, the atom cannot really "look like" anything? I think I put it down quite clearly here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=925018&postcount=39
(The latter parts of the post, from "Or think about an atom. What does an atom look like?" onwards)

What is and, how many, interpretations can be made of even a 'real' particle?

I don't know, infinite number?

I'm not sure what you mean with "real particle" though. "Particle" is a semantical concept and QM phenomena quite explicitly shows they are not fundamental, but rather stable patterns/systems.

Stable pattern is handy as a semantical concept in that it allows the pattern to appear and disappear if the environment permits, like a tornado. Fundamental entity cannot do that unless we also imagine alternative dimensions where they go, like in MWI. It should have been clear when Einstein posited that mass equals energy, that mass really IS energy in stable interaction loop of some sort. It does not become "solid" in any real sense, it just performs certain functions which cause "solidity". If we find objects to disappear, energy has lost its structure, that's all.

And even when we talk about semantical electron, and even if it did not exhibit wavelike behaviour, could we really say that electron is a "real object", or is it rather that space is real and electron is a "hole" in it? Either way, we are juggling semantical concepts around, and reality does not work with semantical concepts, WE do, and we cannot get around that. Note how we are not only confused about reality of space & objects, but also time and motion... So very confused... :I

 

[selfAdjoint]

Or think about a doughnut. We see it as if it is the doughnut that is the object here, but we could equally well say it is the hole and the surrounding space that is the object, and doughnut is the shape that is "missing" from the object. Either way we are talking about semantics, and it is merely the intuitive usefulness of looking at the doughnut as "the object" and the hole and surroundings as "the space" that we tend to do that.

It seems to me you're stretching the term semantics until it ceases to mean anything coherent here. If this figure-ground perceptive change is "semantics" then so are the different was of seeing the Neckar cube, or any optical illusion. I think, haveing spent a lot of time doing just this kind of mental gymnastics that my understanding of "semantics" just doesn't relate to what seems to me to happen in my head when I do that. But perhaps you have a ready answer?

 

[rewebster]

In biology, labeling works; in that, gross characteristics are categorized into phyla, species, etc. It's when something out of the ordinary is found that questions whether, what and how to assign it (aberration or new species).

Physics is the same, it seems, to a higher factor. Some things are accepted and definable, while a lot of others are theorized upon due to the inability to exactly define it (them) with enough validity. Some don't/didn't see classic physics as the total answer, so 'this' and 'that' theory are brought into play each with their own set of definitions and labels about this action or that caveat, each adding to the confusion with even more labels. I think that that is why conversations about physics often times gets into philosophy and even religion (how many religions in the world are there?). Too many unknowns and too many opinions about the 'too many' unknowns---and, I think, that it will continue until 'things' are more 'known'.

 

[AnssiH]

It seems to me you're stretching the term semantics until it ceases to mean anything coherent here. If this figure-ground perceptive change is "semantics" then so are the different was of seeing the Neckar cube, or any optical illusion. I think, haveing spent a lot of time doing just this kind of mental gymnastics that my understanding of "semantics" just doesn't relate to what seems to me to happen in my head when I do that. But perhaps you have a ready answer?

Yeah. Well, check out the first paragraphs of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

Perhaps I should talk about "general semantics" to cause less confusion, but I keep falling back to just "semantics" because language is so clearly just an instance of semantical understanding. Langauge is semantical because our understanding is semantical. And yes, just being conscious of holding a coin in your hand or seeing an apple in your visual view is a case of semantical understanding. I'll try to break it down and I hope I can demonstrate why it is important for a physicist to understand this.

Sensory data causes spatial/temporal patterns to occur inside the cortex. This is where different objects are being recognized. But what does it mean to recognize an apple? Does there exist a metaphysical "apple neuron" whose firing means an apple has been perceived? Of course not. You must have first assumed there exists such things as "apples" in the world. The brain must form a worldview, which is assumptions about "what exists" and assumptions about their behaviour.

How does this learning happen then? I could say the brain classifies objects by their properties, but that would already be wrong, in that it would imply there really exists metaphysical objects that can be classified. Oh no, the brain only finds stable patterns, and assumes there are objects. We do not point at an arbitrary portion of a wall and call it an object, we classify reality into, let's say "sensible objects" (Like what rewebster said about labeling things in biology).

All this labeling and classification of the sensory data occurs because that is the only way to find "things" that exhibit persistent behaviour, and when we find such things, we can perform predictions. The brain can basically simulate reality. It perceives some situation, it recognizes objects (rolling rock, gushing water, fog in the wind...), and it can form some idea about what is going to happen. (Rock coming down on you will harm you, water might too, but fog won't, unless if it might be nerve gas, etc...)

At no point of this learning we had any actual "knowledge" about reality in our disposal. How could we have ever learned that there exists "ground" when we did not know what any of the sensory data means at all, when we did not know what is "visual" data or what is "audio" and what is "tactile"? Well, at root, the worldview is self-supported circle of truth. All ontological arguments are circular. All views of reality are a set of self-supporting assumptions. Not only that, all things we could ever perceive and form any semantical ideas of, were patterns that were distinguished by their differences from each others. Air could not be perceived if everything was air. There must also be an idea of "ground" so to give any meaning to "air".

This is why all our conscious understanding is semantical. Nothing has any metaphysical meaning to itself, and nothing we are conscious of is "reality". It is merely something we have a semantical idea of, and the idea itself exists only on the virtue of other ideas giving it some meaning. We do not even have any visual experience without a semantical worldview against which to interpret the data.

This is imperative to understand, so let's still imagine a world where everything was completely red. If everything was red, we would have no comprehension about colours at all. The red world would not look like "red" looks to us currently. We would not be conscious of any "red" things. The way we experience red now is arbitrary. Reality does not look by its colour the way we see it; there just exists different wave lengths of light. We could not consciously perceive red without being able to tell what is not red; without other colours existing.

So, just being conscious of an apple moving across your visual view will require a good amount of semantical interpretation of the data to occur. When the apple moves, a corresponding pattern moves across the cortex and only at the upper levels it will be recognized as an apple, and only by the virtue of some semantical assumptions about reality it can be assumed to be the "same apple" from one moment to the next.

And because we understand reality in terms of sensible objects, we tend to make the error of identity. It is useful to assume the apple really is the same from one moment to the next, even though this is completely arbitrary assumption. We assume the apple has got metaphysical identity, and we have an experience of our "self" having an identity (which I is caused by certain semantical assumptions also). As we break reality down into smaller components, we find that things like shadows, rainbows and tornados do not really have identity; they are just stable shapes which consist of different "stuff" from one moment to the next. But we still make the same error and ask "so what are the fundamental things then?" We assumed reality was made of "water, ground, air and fire" because we saw it fit to assume things really have identity to themselves.

The answer I can give is that there never was and never will be any fundamental "things". Reality consists of self-organization and there comes to exist stable patterns which interact and form new stable patterns in emergent sense, and at some point along that road there comes to exist the stable pattern that is our semantical prediction process, which is stable in evolutionary sense BECAUSE it can actually predict reality before reality itself catches up.

Many materialists fall to this fallacy of identity as well when they posit our identity is the matter we are made of. Here we come to the mind-blowing parts of the nature of our "self".

I said objects are recognized in the cortex. Many people naively imagine that we are the cortex then; whatever happens to the cortex is what we experience. This is almost right but in some important ways not quite. The cortex is not a metaphysical object either. It does not have identity to itself. It is just stable system, where in some arbitrary sense we can say there occurs so-called "object recognition", but it is not the cortex having a conscious experience, for the cortex is a "colony of things", like an ant colony. How does a colony conceive itself as one and have just one subjective experience? Why don't every neuron have a subjective experience of "reality hitting them"? Or if they do, which one is our "self"?

Note that a single neuron does not build a worldview in any sense, it is the whole colony that does. A single neuron doesn't have a model of reality in it; the whole colony does (in some arbitrary form). And this is an important hint; the colony has, by its structure, made an assumption that there does exist such a thing as "self". This "self" is entirely a semantical token in the worldview, which consists of nothing but "assumptions". The colony conceives itself as one.

There are many neurons, but only one worldview, only one interpetation process, and consequently only one subjective experience (it is possible, and there are cases, where there basically exists multiple worldviews inside one brain, which is the same as many "minds" inside one brain, which in some cases are both active at the same time and are capable of independent attention, like in the case if Kim Peek)

Furthermore, here I claim, that for conscious experience to occur the "learning system" must make semantical assumption about there existing such a thing as "self", and consequently interpreting sensory data in semantical form of "I see an apple".

We never were and never will be aware of reality hitting our cortex directly, for it is not reality we are conscious of, it is the semantical objects and ideas in the worldview instead! Think about that.

But it is important to notice, as you probably have many times while reading this post, that when I use semantical concepts to describe the above, I am moving in circles, and I cannot actually touch the "true reality" of what happens. No matter in which form you imagine the worldview to really exist, you are at all times merely imagining bunch of SEMANTICAL THINGS that exist in different configurations. This can be useful, but it is not reality.

This is why I can never exhaustively convince anyone about the above being true. If what I say is true, I can never convince you of it! Ain't that a bummer... I can only say there exists overwhelming amount of indications towards the above, and it basically solves the hard problem of consciousness as good as it can ever be solved. Semantical idea of the system that causes those semantical ideas is never true to reality of the system itself.

But I've already said enough, if you are interested of philosophical side of it, try;

(I still haven't had a chance to read this myself but I intent to, and judging from the first pages it is pretty spot on)

Or for mechanical side of prediction processes, try;
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805078533/?tag=pfamazon01-20
(This I have read, and what is described could well be what gives rise to such system that can produce semantics and semantical predictions the way I described)

Phew... That was long but now I hope I put everything I have stated before into rather coherent whole, and I can just refer everyone to this post when I make confusing statements about semantics elsewhere ;)

 

[rewebster]

AnssiH --could you paraphrase your post #148?












Just kidding---



now, how do you relate all this to physics and 'realism' in physics?

 

[rewebster]

DrChinese

We lost a couple of the last posts---

could you repost your answer about the photons and electrons?

 

[DrChinese]

DrChinese

We lost a couple of the last posts---

could you repost your answer about the photons and electrons?

I'll come as close as I can. The question was whether photons are assumed in most posts about Bell's Theorem & entanglement.

Bell's Theorem itself used spin 1/2 electrons as the base example. But because photons are much easier to prepare, and because the resultant tests also can control for the locality assumption as well, photons are almost always used in experiments. I would say that most posts assume the discussion is about photons and spin. Technically, entanglement can be seen with other observables besides spin.

 

[rewebster]

Well, I've thought about what I see could be problems; and, it is that it was first created as a thought experiment, right? It seems a lot of physics experiments do start that way. To me, the electrons probably wouldn't react in the experiment as a simple 'electron' as so much energy would have to be pumped into them, right?; and the testing in that way may make the experiment 'different'.

And as far as photons, does the test lean toward them being waves or particles? Does it matter? And since photons are still in the 'what is it?, a wave or a particle?', it makes the testing (with the filters) a little bit removed to, as least for me, to give any weight to the results.

The results of any tests, for me, have to be taken with a grain of salt. I like wondering how many assumptions are made, first, to bias the results.

 

[AnssiH]

now, how do you relate all this to physics and 'realism' in physics?

Well the stuff about phenomenal self was just additional words to hopefully drive home how meaningful it really is to assume such a worldview where there does not actually exist any "fundamental entities". And if you can do that, it obviously does have an effect to questions about realism. Like I said early on in this thread, any form of semantical understanding (i.e. any human understanding) is at the end of the day "naive realism" in the sense that it must posit some fundamentals, and what we posit will always be - to an extent - arbitrary.

But still we keep forgetting this, and this is evident all over the place, including in the comment that Einstein made about reality of electrons, that "particle must have spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured". He should have noticed our idea of electron exists due to certain ways we measure certain systems, and due to us imagining there really are such things as electrons causing the effects we measure.

I'll just copy-paste from my first post to this thread (#33):
Like Einstein noted himself; our comprehension of reality is based on certain assumptions about reality... ...But here he is making certain assumptions about the metaphysical identity of things. A realist doesn't have to assume that an electron has spin, a location and so on before being measured, because we can only measure things with pieces of matter, and thus these properties of electron, indeed the whole electron as we think of it, can be a result of interaction between the measurement device and something else that is not measurable as it is by matter.
(This touches little bit your above post too)

This doesn't mean we should assume our mind creates the illusion of electrons & reallity in idealistic fashion. It means we should not assume electron to be "real object" any more than a rainbow is "real object". Neither exists objectively "as they are observed" without the observer. The rainbow, as it is observed as a band of colours, is a result of interference on the observer, and it never could exist "independently".* There's no reason why electron, and everything, could not be like that. And in fact we should expect them to be like that. It's all just darwinism in extended sense.

Granted, with understanding QM there is the added complication of "semantical time"... :I

* If this doesn't seem to ring true, try to really pin down what is the location of a rainbow in an objective sense. The rainbow is certainly "real" in that everyone observe it, but can we say it is something that has independently got the properties that we measure? Like its spectrum and intensity and location? We can define rainbow in many different semantical ways, and say, for example, that it exists in the eye of the observer (where we can say what is its "real spectrum"), but then we don't account for other parts of the system that cause the pattern of rainbow (light and water droplets).

We could insist rainbow is a "real object", like we insist photons and electrons are real things, but if you assume this, your scientific explanation of the rainbow would have to include multiple dimensions where there exists multiple rainbows while we observe only one at a time. (Much like some people like to explain QM with many-worlds)

But it seems that the key to understand the reality of a rainbow or the reality of an electron is to perform such a paradigm shift where all the observed properties are just semantical properties of semantical things, and they are actually caused in part by the measurement device, and do not exist independently at all.

 

[rewebster]

1. What does realism mean to you? & 2. Einstein said:..

It depends. If you mean the 'physics' definition, or more toward 'the idea of what is real'?---When you even look around the web, there are various definitions by various people of the physics definition; and it seems every discipline (philosophy, math, etc.) uses the term 'realism'. 'Realism' to me is what appears real and logical --the moon will be there, even if I'm not looking at it. However, I don't think anyone will convince me that if one of a paired electron if rotated, that its 'other' one of the pair will rotate a light year away, or even a foot away. My logic will be different than anyone else's logic--it's based on what I have come to believe. MWI is not logical to me, and neither is time travel.


3. In your opinion, is "realism" an assumption of Bell's Theorem? If so, where does it arise?

To me, it is an assumption based on an assumption.