[FRIAM] The Atlantic article on "the illusion of reality"

Tue Sep 19 23:58:19 EDT 2017

I'm disappointed. No one bothered to comment on or even notice my post on
this subject.  Here it is again.

An easy way to agree with Hoffman and not get bent out of shape is to
acknowledge that anything we think involves something being constructed in
our heads. That construction is an idea -- or an emotion, or whatever other
modes of awareness we have. That seems to me to be tautological: we can
think or feel, etc. nothing but our thoughts, feelings, etc. As I said
that's a tautology. After all, when we see something and say, that's a dog,
we are converting whatever raw signals we encounter into an image and a
concept. We aren't talking about the raw signals. It's impossible for us to
be aware of the impact of, say, every photon on our retinas. (I'm assuming
it is impossible. Perhaps some people can do something like it.) Also, I'm
assuming there is a world that includes photons that we encounter.

So this position doesn't deny a world "out there." At the same time it
acknowledges that as living beings we have evolved means to make something
more useful to us than awareness of raw signals. After all, why have eyes
if all they do is give us the equivalent of a plane of pixels. That doesn't
tell us anything about friend/foe, nourishment/poison, etc. If our senses
weren't hooked up to internal processes that made something of them besides
the raw signals, evolution wouldn't have kept and perfected them.

So the simple answer is that Hoffman is right that we don't see "the world
as it is" but that doesn't mean there isn't a world as it is.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 8:49 PM Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Physicists Are Philosophers, Too - Scientific American
> <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-are-philosophers-too/>
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-are-philosophers-too/
>
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 6:55 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net
> > wrote:
>
>> M.
>>
>>
>>
>> M
>>
>> I am sure they were smart people, but did they know anything about the
>> history and contemporary practice of philosophy, or were they starting from
>> scratch.   I guess I think that it’s almost as preposterous to say that a
>> physicist can do philosophy as to say that a philosopher can do physics.  N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Merle
>> Lefkoff
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 19, 2017 6:15 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] The Atlantic article on "the illusion of reality"
>>
>>
>>
>> Definitely the latter.  They were a big help to me with my "Coexistence"
>> modeling project.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:27 PM, Nick Thompson <
>> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> M
>>
>>
>>
>> In what sense philosophers?  They liked to entertain lofty thoughts?  Or,
>> they were systematic thinkers in relation to things beyond the realm of
>> physics?
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Merle
>> Lefkoff
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 19, 2017 1:19 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] The Atlantic article on "the illusion of reality"
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick, the quantum physicists that I worked with during my four years at
>> CNLS were very much also philosophers.  I think it kept them reasonably
>> sane.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 9:26 PM, Nick Thompson <
>> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Marcus,
>>
>>
>>
>> To be honest, I have never seen what philosophy has to do with quantum
>> mechanics.  I agree with you that the idea of a real world outside
>> experience is nonsense but I don’t see how QM gets you there.  Peirce held
>> that all “objective” observation consist of guesses at what we all, the
>> community of inquiry, will agree is real, after much discussion, in the
>> very long run.  So it’s all experience, all the way down, except that
>> “reality” is a sort of future experience.  No dualism allowed.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Marcus
>> Daniels
>> *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 10:40 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] The Atlantic article on "the illusion of reality"
>>
>>
>>
>> "Experiment after experiment has shown—defying common sense—that if we
>> assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective,
>> observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central
>> lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out
>> there in some preexisting space."
>>
>> For some reason, many scientists seem to believe that they are
>> independent observers and not part of the physics they measure.   If they
>> can give that up, then things make more sense.
>>
>> Marcus
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <
>> wimberly3 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 7:56:16 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] The Atlantic article on "the illusion of reality"
>>
>>
>>
>> This resonates with various Framework discussions.  I think it's an area
>> of interest to Nick.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/?utm_source=atlfb
>>
>> Frank Wimberly
>> Phone (505) 670-9918
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
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>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>
>> Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding
>>
>> Saint Paul University
>>
>> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>>
>>
>>
>> merlelefkoff at gmail.com <merlelefoff at gmail.com>
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>
>> Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding
>>
>> Saint Paul University
>>
>> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>>
>>
>>
>> merlelefkoff at gmail.com <merlelefoff at gmail.com>
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> emergentdiplomacy.org
> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>
> Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding
> Saint Paul University
> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>
> merlelefkoff at gmail.com <merlelefoff at gmail.com>
> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 
Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
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