copenhagen vs many worlds, philosophy of mathematics, and reductionism: part 1

[spoonless]

Of all of the questions in philosophy, I believe that by far the most interetsting and deep is "what is mathematics?" I feel like the majority of questions in philosophy are easy, and amount to just getting the language straight (I wouldn't go so far as to just call them games though). Many philosophers think there are deep unanswered questions

Comments

[urlgirl]

Of all of the questions in philosophy, I believe that by far the most interetsting and deep is "what is mathematics?"

OMFG, I hate that I only saw this just now as I'm shutting down and going to bed for the night. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to reading your thoughts on this in the morning. I quit a career in mathematics in disgust over this very question, and the fact that I couldn't get anyone around me to even acknowledge its interestingness, let alone conduct a philosophical discussion with me on the subject.

I've learned much in the past fifteen years on my own on this very subject, but to this day the question gives me goosebumps. In a good way. Thank you. I shall go to bed happy.

[spoonless]

I look forward to hearing if your opinions are at all similar.

[pmax3]

"All of the mind/body questions are essentially just language puzzles. And they aren't even that puzzling if you subscribe to the right philosophy (materialism, whether reductive or eliminative)--there are no large explanatory gaps or paradoxes, despite what people claim. All of the supposed "gaps" and "paradoxes" I've seen people try to construct seem pretty clearly an issue of those people confusing different modes of speaking, and thinking that they are discovering something important and deep about metaphysics, when they just aren't."
Hey, not so fast ... how can you just issue a blanket statement that materialism is the "right philosophy"?

[spoonless]

how can you just issue a blanket statement that materialism is the "right philosophy"?

Thankfully, this is possible because of the first amendment to the United States constitution. :)

My journal, my opinions. That's not to say I wouldn't change my mind if someone gave me a reason to believe there were a better philosophy. In fact, I intend to read Chalmers book very soon, since a friend of mine vouches for his stuff being intelligent. But until then, I can only describe the situation how I see it... which is basically, that there isn't any serious competitor with materialism, or any reason to doubt that it's true.

[pmax3]

I would second that ... Chalmers is absolutely brilliant. Btw, you may also like to have a look at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ .

[pmax3]

And also this: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
Sorry if this is too elementary for you, no offence meant. Also I would urge you to post this on the physics community, where it will get the attention of people far more qualified than me, for instance.

[easwaran]

There's an interesting possibility in what you bring up - perhaps there are two correct ways of understanding the world. One is the anti-realist cluster you mention, and the other is the realist cluster. There's a book, Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics, by Mark Balaguer, that takes this position about mathematics. (I haven't read it, but I think he's wrong in the end. At least, the type of realism ("full-blooded platonism") and the type of anti-realism (I think some sort of formalism) he admits are both incorrect in my view, because they both make there be no fact of the matter beyond what follows from what axioms. I might buy something like this if the possibilities are something more like a standard platonism, and a fictionalism that allows for a meaningful search for new, "correct" axioms

[spoonless]

Perhaps there are two correct ways of understanding the world. One is the anti-realist cluster you mention, and the other is the realist cluster.
That's pretty interesting. I've wondered that, although I still suspect that in the end one is going to hold up better than the other

[spoonless]

I wasn't thinking of pure utopian versions of these concepts, really. What I meant was just left wing versus right wing views on economics, for instance the views help by Republican and Democrat parties in the US. I see them both as reasonable economically, whereas the Democrats are clearly in the right regarding many issues of civil liberties.

I grew up in an extreme rightwing environment. The first time I actually had a conversation with a Democrat about politics was about halfway through undergrad. Before that I had only ever met Republicans and libertarians. Since grad school, I have met a lot more Democrats, greens, and socialists and now I'd say that a significant fraction of my friends is liberal and my whole understanding of politics has been shifting over the past few years as a result (as I become more open to the liberal paradigm).

[smirkingjustice]

I'm surprised that as a physicist you would be so quick to reject paradox. I personally think that there is an absolute reality shared by many people, and for each individual person, that absolute reality is entirely inside their minds. I just finished reading Lon Milo Duquette's Chicken Qabalah, in which he posits that everything is both real and imaginary, we just have no idea how real our imagination is. This is conveniently consistent with spellwork in western folk magic, which mainly focuses on imagining (or symbolically creating) something in your world with enough conviction that it actually appears.

[spoonless]

I'm surprised that as a physicist you would be so quick to reject paradox.

Paradoxes are instances of collisions between different language systems, models, or paradigms. Paradoxes are fine as long as you're aware that you're stitching together incompatible ways of speaking or thinking.

But in a sense, I think the whole enterprise of both philosophy and physics is to resolve such paradoxes. The job of most philosophers is to look for subtle paradoxes in different ways of speaking, by creating thought experiments, and trying to come up with ways to resolve such paradoxes by finding a more consistent way to talk about something. We do the same thing in physics, but instead we call it "unification". Unification is stitching together two seemingly incompatible theories into one consistent theory. And like philosophers, we also often do this by proposing paradoxical thought experiments.

I'm not aware of any physicist or philosopher who would think a paradox was something you were supposed to have in a theory, rather than a sign

[spoonless]

I'm not aware of any physicist or philosopher who would think a paradox was something you were supposed to have in a theory

On second thought, I think there are some pragmatist philosophers who might argue that it's neceesary to have multiple ways of describing things, and therefore we shouldn't always worry about resolving paradoxes. It's generally physicists who are more insistent on unification.

[smirkingjustice]

I suppose it comes down to whether you think the universe is fundamentally understandable. I'm instantly suspicious of any philosophy which posits an easy, understandable reason for the why's and the how's. There are questions that science can't explore because observation prevents the behavior. I'm not sure about other religions, but I know that paradox is fundamental to both Buddhism and witchcraft. Not a paradigm collision, but a certain conviction that something is at the same time both true and false.

Perhaps your meditations are leaning too much on the logical side and not enough on the experiential side. Although I doubt myself in saying that, since I know that you've had many intense experiences in your life.

[naebliser]

I'll take a stab at this one. I like getting the chance of stepping outside my specificity for a bit to think about more universal problems. I can't say that as far as I am knowledgeable of the Copenhagen Interpretation that I really understand it either. I don't think wave function collapse is it's own phenomenon. I being a materialist & physicalist myself, have always leaned towards probabilist interpretations of quantum phenomenon, where it starts to get fuzzy for me - is why so much consideration has to be put into these 'worlds' that different probabilistic combinations of events that did not happen create. And how probabilistic uncertainty automatically leads to application of the superposition principle. Truthfully - I don't see much value in anthropic reasoning to make sense of 'our' universe. Certainly there is some use in it, but I see using examples of what isn't existent in our universe to explain what is existent in our universe as bunk. I just can't believe that multiple universes can ever interact with each other- Why