One thing I am really enjoying about this series is how the host’s ability to communicate concepts and have meaningful conversations with his experts has improved over time. We can follow the progress of his learning and development over the course of this project.

@MIKERICH1

3 ай бұрын

Agree, he could easily dominate but he constructively considers his guests ideas and yet challenges them to explain + clarify ideas further

Grayling finally gets to the point when he observes our success at fending off sabretooth tigers. But he doesn’t want to pursue the obvious implication: we are the product of evolution. Our very existence testifies to the truth of our experience of the world.

@malcolmcurran6248

3 ай бұрын

Well put! Our existence screams the fact that our evolved sensory abilities do and have correctly interpreted our environment and the world. Our general sense of the world we have evolved in and initially adapted to can't be totally or even in great part illusory, or as is self evident, we wouldn't even be here to discuss such things. If it were otherwise how could there ever have been any science or... philosophy. If the phenomenal world is only our subjective interpretation of it as humans with our pride of superior consciousness then, how, as I put it once to a platonist friend, do both we and the animals in the forest know to run from a forest fire.

The very purpose of the organs of sense is to provide knowledge regarding the properties and qualities of the objects of the material world around us. Of course, things like color, sound, etc. have _meaning_ only when there's a mind to perceive but that does not mean that these do not _exist_ . Rather it may be said that they always exist; only their *subjective apprehension* takes place when minds or conscious personalities are introduced into the picture.

A human is actually analog. We see and hear analog. Digital that is ones and zeros. So digital audio that just sounds different to us than analog audio...we do not hear audio digitally. It is kind of similar with realism vs. anti realism in humans who are always subjective. So what is and is not realistic or objective we always decide subjectively.

@jamesconner8275

3 ай бұрын

Humans are not actually analog at the quantum level. We process bits just like a CD. Everything eventually gets down to discrete bits. Sound, sight, taste and smell are deciphered in seperate discrete units.

@fortynine3225

3 ай бұрын

@@jamesconner8275 That is not true. Quantum bits are just small enough to quantify them as 1 and 0 that does not mean that they are actually 1 and 0 or are the same as digital 1 and 0. Also it is of non relevance for us real world hearing which is analog. ''a qubit not only has two eigenstates but also a phase. It is the qubit’s complex-valued probability amplitude that determines the likelihood of finding the qubit in one or the other eigenstates. This probability amplitude is a unit complex number, which is to say, it is an angle in the Gaussian plane of complex numbers. Its value can be anywhere between 0 and 2π. And it is a continuous quantity.'' (continuous is analog)

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

The existence of the objective is an inference from subjective evidence. That doesn’t necessarily mean that inference must be wrong, or must be right. It’s a matter of confidence. We can be more confident in some objective inference than others.

“none of those things which are taken by the perception of the sense and pondered by the mind really exist, but that the transcendent essence and source of the universe, on which all things rely, alone exists. Because even if the knowledgeable looks down upon any other existing things, reason sees in none of them the self-sufficiency by which they would be able to exist without being involved in the genuine Being.” Excerpt From The Life of Moses St. Gregory of Nyssa

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

Since the “transcendent essence and source of the universe” is a concept communicated between us using our perceptions, and is pondered by the mind, I suppose that doesn’t exist either, right?

@jackforeman2742

3 ай бұрын

Reason sees, is the part of the quote that stands out to me. Could it be said that that which it is fundamentally necessarily is? It, whatever you think of it, simply is.

@jackforeman2742

3 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887it does exist too necessarily as you said since we have minds, at the very least as a concept communicated

the video earlier on sex and gender...not really up my alley. I know its important to talk about about is crucial for understanding ourselves but this video topic is the good stuff. More great minds confronting existential reality please!

👏👏👏

Reality is relative. A exists to B if and only if it interacts with B, directly or indirectly.

@jackforeman2742

3 ай бұрын

Great! I love your simple synthesis . IT IS relational.

If all is One then One can be against anything but it will always be itself.

If you take realism as a stance whereby the goal of science is to describe an objective reality, then I do think there are a few conceptual problems there. First, it assumes a dualism between the objective and the subjective, when in practice that dualism is not so easy to describe precisely. It's better to consider the objective and subjective to be interrelated in a complex manner. Scientifically, it's by testing subjective theories with objective experiments. Second, there's an assumed knowability of reality that's questionable. It's not that I think there's no reality, it's that I'm quite sure no one reading this is especially good at describing it. When you consider the scale of a human brain (or even worse, human intellect) to the scale of the universe, you can see where this computation may require some oversimplification. Third, it's better to consider all theory to be imaginary, for the sake of creativity. It is idealism that must be considered if we are to leave no stone unturned in questioning our scientific assumptions. Because of these questionable assumptions, realism in dialog appears as a game of convincing an opponent that one set of half baked, imaginary assumptions about reality is better than some other set of half baked, imaginary assumptions of reality. We should probably tackle the assumptions directly, rather than have to argue that there is such a thing as reality every time. I believe there are productive forms of anti-realism (or plain old idealism), and it shouldn't be reduced to the caricature that we're all living in a dream, or something to the effect. Opposing viewpoints are necessary if we are to consider every possible solution.

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

I don’t think objectivism is necessarily dualistic, it’s possible to believe that subjective observers objectively exist and have objective properties. Objective nature and subjective experience can be seen as just different ontological categories. We don’t say that distinguishing between substances and their properties is dualism, they’re just categories within an ontological system that could very well be monistic. On knowability, realism and anti-realism are basically attitudes to the nature of knowledge. Personally I’m an empiricist, which makes me an anti-realist, but as you say that doesn’t mean I deny there is a reality at all. Realism and anti-realism are just attitudes to the nature of scientific knowledge, anti-realism doesn’t claim scientific knowledge doesn’t exist, or any such nonsense. It means I take a particular stance towards our ability to ever have certain knowledge. However for me very high confidence in our knowledge can be so high that for everyday purposes it is indistinguishable from certainty. On considering all theory to be imaginary, that’s pretty much where I’m coming from. I see scientific theories as fundamentally descriptive. All theory is contingent on the best evidence available. The whole of science must always be considered one repeatable, verifiable, high confidence result away from being refuted. That is fundamental to empiricism, and for me that’s what true objectivity means. But if you’re an idealist, you must have a healthy respect for the imaginary, right? In that view it’s all we’ve got. 😀 Great comment and very thought provoking.

@rivjiou3696

3 ай бұрын

🔖

@ywtcc

3 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887 At the point of measurement, or the point of sensation, the task of differentiating between the objective and subjective becomes impossible. There's inherent uncertainties here, because an inability to differentiate between theory and reality, or objective and subjective, appears to be the same phenomenon as uncertainty! There are theories that are arrived at, by various methods of analyzing our sensations, and our measurements, and we claim that these theories have greater certainty than the measurements on which they're based. There's statistical reasons for thinking so, and it's not entirely off base. However, the possibility of a shared delusion should not be discounted. We do all approach the problem with a similar set of language techniques. Also, the context in which we all operate is quite small in scale compared to the size of the universe. What if it turns out a concept as basic as spacetime is more closely related to functions of the brain, rather than properties of matter? What if it turns out the reason we always arrive at indeterminacy when we measure these concepts is because we were projecting them on reality the whole time?! It's by considering indeterminacy, and where it comes from that I arrived at my views. Thanks for the feedback!

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

@@ywtcc >"There are theories that are arrived at, by various methods of analyzing our sensations, and our measurements, and we claim that these theories have greater certainty than the measurements on which they're based." I'm afraid i don't think that's true at all, our conclusions are based on evidence, and we can only ever be as confident in our theories as we are in the supporting evidence. The basic principle of empirical science is that every theory is one repeatable, verifiable, well attested observation away from being refuted. In fact our theories are even less certain than that. General Relativity has proved accurate in every way it has been tested. This is also true of quantum mechanics, we have no observations at variance with either of them. Yet we know they are incomplete because they disagree with each other about phenomena we cannot observer, such as whether there's a singularity in black holes. >"What if it turns out the reason we always arrive at indeterminacy when we measure these concepts is because we were projecting them on reality the whole time?!" I don't know if you've seen the interviews with Douglass Hoffman but he talks about this suff a bit. He's quite right that the world is not as we experience it. He describes our perceptual and experiential framework as a user interface, and I think that's apt. So I'm happy to accept that underlying 'reality' or consensus experience is quite different. But wait, science tells us exactly the same thing. Our everyday experience doesn't look anything like the equations of relativity, or the evolution of a wave function. We don't see the frequency of light, or feel gravity waves. As an empiricist I think science cannot tell us about the 'true nature of reality', or any such thing, not because that's a particular limitation of science, but because it's a general limitation of the human experience. We have observations, we have predictive mathematical models that match those observations. The end. Well, obviously there's more to say about that, but that's what it comes down to. Is underlying reality cosmic consciousness, or a mathematical logical necessity, or an alien computer simulation (and therefore not ultimate), if it's not observable it's not knowable. So I consider myself a physicalist because it seems to me that all of the phenomena we observe can be explained in terms of physical causation and physical processes. I think consciousness is most probably a result of computational processes in the brain. It's an opinion about which way up we should stand the chain of causation, from physical processes up to consciousness, where you would presumably put it the other way up, from consciousness up to the physical. I just think holding it my way up will turn out to be more useful, but whether it's 'true' or 'real' or not, or what those terms even mean is probably unknowable.

@ywtcc

3 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887 I've heard Hoffman's position, I think panpsychism, or universal consciousness, isn't a good way to think about it. (Not least because it dilutes the meaning of consciousness.) There's two different minds being discussed here. The problem of consciousness is a problem for individual minds. The problem of science is a problem for a community of minds, mediated by a sufficiently complex language. (Science has long been too big for individuals.) Because of the properties of language, we get a more precise description of the interface between mind and matter in science that we do with our consciousness. To me, the critical insight is how indeterminacy and determinism fit in. In science, at the point of measurement, there is always indeterminacy. Not only that, but no one would believe it as a measurement if there were no indeterminacy! (It would just be a mathematical constant.) My advice to the Hoffman style idealists would be to simplify the problem with a greater appreciation for indeterminacy. Otherwise, that position will remain in the psychology department. The type of indeterminacy discovered here is the type that allows one to predict a dice roll. The physical problem is too complex, so we simplify it by constraining the die to 6 outcomes. It is our inability to differentiate between the one real outcome and the 5 imaginary outcomes that is the phenomenon of indeterminacy. In this way, our models of dice rolls are 5/6ths imaginary! (It's also the best we can do.) I'm not so much a physicalist, then, in a universe that requires prediction using non deterministic methods. It's the randomness that's the giveaway in how you have to approach the problem. This kind of randomness is similar to consciousness, in that randomness justifies speculation and modeling using counter factuals. However, randomness is better expressed mathematically using simpler language than is available in psychology. This is why randomness is preferable to consciousness analytically.

both objectivity and subjectivity can help to survive nature and reality?

So many assumptions here that go back to Locke, Descartes, Galileo and co. Classical metaphysics didn't regard things like colors, sounds as merely subjective and dependent upon being perceived.

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

Not assumptions, inferences.

@anteodedi8937

3 ай бұрын

@@simonhibbs887 Metaphysical assumptions that stripped from matter all the qualitative character like color and sound and relocated them to the mind. All they left to matter was what natural sciences describe. Basically, Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. That naturally leads to some kind of dualism and that's why it is hard for modern materialists to explain those secondary qualities (color, sound, etc.) in terms of primary qualities (shape, size, etc.). Basically, the hard problem of consciousness. Idealists like Berkeley relocated both primary and secondary qualities to the mind, making everything mind-dependent, which is batshit crazy.

@Arunava_Gupta

3 ай бұрын

@@anteodedi8937 I found your comment interesting and informative. 👍

Robert, what do you want to believe? Endlessly questioning the questions that question everything seems like a circular thought tunnel that carries you to repetitive... questions. Enjoyable show, however.

Great topic....but if you think about it, it's all pretty obvious.

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

And yet there are a dozen people in comments here already saying they know better.

Either way. Realism depends only realism for truth and anti-realism on anti-realism. So both are trapped in own circularism.

Good points.. I think that anti-realism philosophies often represent a rejection of empirical knowledge AND, in a way, science itself.. Philosophy has no legitimate role to play on this topic.. One opinion.

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

Anti-realism is a term of art in philosophy and doesn’t imply a rejection of science. The main anti-realist philosophical positions are varieties of empiricism, such as instrumentalism and . These are different ways of thinking about scientific theories and results. Personally I’m attracted to constructive empiricism, which I think does a good job of striking a balance between the literalism of most realist positions and the clumsy abstraction of some empiricist positions such as logical positivism.

objectivity to understand nature, subjectivity to understand reality?

natural laws, unlike their subjective interpretations, don't seem to be very consensual 🤔

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

Indeed. Denying the reality of the physical won’t help you when someone is smacking you in the face.

@r2c3

3 ай бұрын

​@@simonhibbs887the faster you learn it, the better...

As Kant famously said we can never perceive or know the real world (The thing in itself). Our unique brain, sensory apparatus and observations affect our perception of the real world or Nature. Im a realist who believes the Universe predates and exists independently of humans and that we are participants and parts of Nature.

@blijebij

3 ай бұрын

But the opposite, knowing nothing of the real world is also not true (is to absolute), wich leaves us humans with a resolution that fits our understanding to some degree.

@joshyman221

3 ай бұрын

@@blijebijwell we don’t really know anything of the real word (the numena) except for some transcendental things that Kant points out. 1) space 2) time and 3) energy (from Schopenhauer). Everything else is by definition only the world of phenomena. Space,time and energy must exist but our notions of them are phenomenological. Indeed the whole of physics since Einstein has seemingly proved this by unification theories (which still ultimately can only be phenomalogical statements)

@blijebij

3 ай бұрын

@@joshyman221 But we are part of reality, there for we are part of the equation and within its relation. There for it is logic we have a degree of truth resolution. !00% absolute anomaly, so nothing shared with reality would there for be impossible, so also a to strong simplification. How else you take the door for entrance of your home, or how else your consciousness, wich is a very highly ordered state is possible, or why is math so succesful. See that means we live inbetween both absolutes, knowing nothing and truly knowing. That is not something easy for us to accept, as in general we want to simplify all to one side, its either this or that. We dont like in general inbetween states cause we do not like uncertainty.

Gravity is based on size and expansion not mass and attraction. The “ physicists” have yet to figure that out. This endless rambling here will continue to express man’s incompetence. “The Final Theory: Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy “, Mark McCutcheon for proper physics. Start at start.

JS Bach has been reincarnated!

Surrealism is fantastic, just get wasted and enjoy!

7:07 when you penetrate it truly, the objective or the transitory of phenomena is known not as the substratum. There's the subjective only. 'Objective negation leads to subjective synthesis' - Ken Wheeler(Theoria Apophasis) the most intelligent and wise man today on the entire planet.

@tomjackson7755

3 ай бұрын

SMH 🤦‍♂

Why did we have to learn the colors as a child ? Our brains needed programming to establish a common reality.

I need to talk. I have to talk to saves lives with knowledge. God is necessary. Humanity have to know God exists. It doesn't matter what or who is this God. It is infinitely important that atheism ends because it is not the truth. Logically it is impossible the existence of the creation or finitude without the creator or infinitude, therefore the universe was created from an eternal entity uncaused. Regardless of when the universe was created God existed always before. God decided to create the universe because it wanted something that didn't have. It's fact. It's reality. It's truth. It's what happened. I am tired and I want the end of atheism and religion today, not tomorrow. God is simply everything that exist past, present and future. It is just an idea that can not do harm to anyone. Thank you.

You can't be sure there's a world at all or a saber tiger at all. This dude doesn't answer the question at all. His idea of adapting to anything is based on perception also.

@simonhibbs887

3 ай бұрын

It’s a matter of degrees of confidence. He says we try to get as close to the objective as possible, but doesn’t say or imply that absolute objectivity is possible. Let’s say that absolutely certain knowledge is impossible, that does not mean we can’t have very high confidence in an awful lot of our knowledge. He keeps referring back to our everyday experience. When someone asks if your going to work in the morning do you say that you cannot possibly be certain your job, or means of transport, or the person who asked you even exists? Finally, even most anti-realists will say that our experiences are real, they just deny that these experiences have a reality external to ourselves. Nevertheless escaping a sabre toothed Tigre can be a real experience, and we can think of these animals as a consistent class of such experiences, so even in the anti-realist view we can infer the existence of and talk about these experiences in a way that is functionally identical to realism.