From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Sep 05 2002 - 00:17:15 MDT
Dan wrote
> > > Maybe realism is your favorite language for science (though it's still
> > > a difficult fit in QM), but non-realism teaches you the most about how
> > > to look at morality, or at mathematics.
> >
> > I don't follow this. Do you have an example for each? I claim that
> > anything with actual content is best spoken about with realistic
> > language.
>
> In quantum mechanics: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
> Subjectivists had been arguing for a world view in which we
> reify uncertainty as part of our world, in which there are
> no deeper facts than those about which *we* are certain.
Their's isn't the only view. As gts wrote later, there are
realistic theories of physics that don't commit the error
you have in mind here.
In particular, the Many Worlds Interpretation provides an
entirely satisfactory account for an ever growing number of
physicists. Years ago followers of MWI were a small minority,
restricted almost entirely to cosmologists. I think that as
we continue to free ourselves from the bad thinking of the
20th century, the MWI will become more popular. David
Deutsch, perhaps the greatest exponent of MWI I believe
attributed to his realistic outlook his discoveries in
quantum computation.
> In mathematics, the answer is even easier. Are there *really* numbers
> apart from the natural numbers? Is 0 real? How about the negative
> numbers? How about the imaginary numbers?
Yes, they all exist. See Penelope Maddy's great book
"Realism in Mathematics" for a superb account. The realists
(or platonists) have also been gaining the upper hand in
mathematics. I asked Dr. Soloway, the Fields Medal winner
who has made so many strides in set theory and even a few
in primality testing, just what he believed. He told me
that no only was he a complete platonist, but that now in
the conventions he attends, the platonists appear to be
in the majority. What happened, I think, was the computer
influence: after you see a Mandlebrot set, for example,
it's much more difficult to believe that mathematics is
just a human creation. Roger Penrose, platonist par excellence,
discusses this in detail in his wonderful books "The Emperor's
New Mind", and "Shadows of the Mind".
> How about the "supernatural" numbers Hofstadter suggested in GEB?
They are trivial, and cannot be connected up to the rest
of the discovered numbers, and may even be inconsistent
with them (I don't recall exactly). Perhaps quaternions
and other constructions would appear to be "unnatural"?
No, I think that they all exist. I believe that simpler
patterns are merely more manifest than complex ones, but
all patterns already exist, or should be thought of as
having prior existence.
> In geometry, are we to be realists about Euclid's axioms?
> What about non-Euclidean geometries? Here, reinterpretations
> from different systems are obviously fruitful, and obviously
> non-realist.
I think that geometry isn't really problematical: you have
a number of axioms, and you have the theorems that flow from
those axioms. Finding out *the* geometry of our universe---
i.e., which one happens to characterize (perhaps only to
some degree) our universe is kind of an empirical question.
Mathematicians are much more worried about set theory. The
question is "is aleph one equal to the continuum" continues
to haunt us realists. Godel, Soloway, Penelope Maddy and
the rest of us, I think, are put upon to explain why a clear
answer keeps evading us. (Yes, we already know that the
problem of the continuum is independent of the Zermelo
Frankel axioms; the trouble is that Godel among others
thought that by now a new axiom would have revealed itself
to us that would have the right characteristics.)
I agree with your remarks about the meaning of life,
> I think you therefore misunderstand my purpose. If it were my
> project to try to cook up a new way of speaking that everyone
> would then be forced to follow, I think you're right, I ought
> to abandon my project and find some more honest line of
> work. But that's not my goal.
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you thought that it should
be *forced* on anyone...
> I'm just suggesting that the design of cultures/interpretations/
> languages, aside from whatever aesthetic merit they may have,
> (which is plenty), can be insightful and interesting, and
> leads to fruitful conclusions.
I agree: in some cases it leads to fruitful conclusions,
and in some cases it doesn't, and we shouldn't be shy about
criticizing the efforts that we think fail.
> In case you hadn't noticed, alternate language models have ALREADY taken
> over the world. ;) We use different language models for different
> situations all the time; I've already named a few. Studying any of the
> seminal works here will give you dozens more.
Yes, in specialized areas, jargon is triumphant. But I don't
think that non-realistic jargon is anywhere worthwhile, do
you? Even postmodern lingo is probably productive for the
purpose of understanding literature, and (to a limited extent)
the cultures that produced certain works of literature. But
this is precisely because they *are* realistic: they *are*
talking *about* the sentences of the text, the signifiers
within the sentences, and so on. The trouble comes when, as
we know, they escape their cages.
> What that means is that this particular metaphysical problem
> has no corollary in English; for philosopher-logicians, this is a live
> issue, but for ordinary speakers, it isn't. (It's an especially live
> metaphysical problem if you're the sort of philosopher-logician who
> believes that the formalism of Frege and Russell limns the true and
> ultimate structure of reality: in that case, the question of whether the
> future *really* \exists is a deep problem of what's really there.)
>
> Of course, I can explain the problem to you in English, but only by
> teaching you the language in which the problem occurs. In this case, I
> can teach you how to use the logical symbol \exists.
>
> It's worth asking: have these metaphysicians *found* a problem that cannot
> be expressed in English? Or have they *created* a problem by allowing
> themselves to have verbs without tenses? (I like to think that the latter
> is true, FYI.) Can we *solve* this problem by just using English? Or do
> we simply overlook it?
Good questions. I wish I had something to add. My guess is that
human languages (like English) are universal in a strong sense,
and that *anything* can be expressed in them by one intelligence
so that another intelligence in principle is able to follow. (The
latter uses his own conjectures, but the description provided by
the former channels his thinking appropriately.)
> > > And anyway, let's not forget that the realists have some rather
> > > significant atrocities to account for, atrocities which, on their
> > > face, seem as if they couldn't have happened if everyone was a
> > > postmodernist. Take religious/ideological wars, for example.
> >
> > You can't be serious! Post-modern academics have just as
> > ferocious battles with each other as anyone else, and struggle
> > for turf in the universities with a ruthlessness that would
> > impress New Guinean head-hunters.
>
> Academic disputes are almost entirely non-violent. I believe
> that counts for quite a lot!
I think that it's more a reflection on who gets drawn into
academic disputes. Similarly, theologians *themselves*
rarely resort to violence (it's their followers). Also,
don't forget that Fibonacci was chased out of town a few
times for having bested the *local* Italian mathematician.
> But, of course, Bruno Latour *argued* that we should instead say that
> Ramses II could not have died of tuberculosis; he did not wonder how it
> could be, but argued that we ought not say it like that. THAT's a point
> of view, and no mere mistake, no mere error.
>
> Indeed, if I were to guess at what kind of argument someone would bring to
> bear in favor of Latour's view, I'd say something like: this manner of
> speaking is the best way of doing cultural history; it's most in keeping
> with the interpretive principles of charity, and allows you to more easily
> empathize with what people of other cultures might be like.
Well, then, if you are going to be *that* charitable, why
not just give me a pass on all my remarks too? :)
You had better be able to call a spade a spade, talk plainly,
and criticize error when you see it. Anyone who defends
Latour in the mentioned instance is IMO making a big mistake.
Lee
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