Re: path-dependence: a philosophical issue concerning time

On Dec 1, 2:02 pm, Haines Brown <bro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Justintruth <truth.jus...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
I think Occam's razor helps here. The issue of the "reality" of the
past is reduced to a question of the "simplicity" of the required
assumptions.

I don't want to quibble, for I'm quite sympathetic to Okham's Razor, but
I fear you may be going a bit far with it. It is one of several
subjective criteria by which we select among competing hypotheses, each
of which is considered equally sufficient to the data. There are other
criteria, such as whether a hypothesis is coherent or heuristic. I hope
you don't imply that Okham's Razor in itself suffices to choose among
hypotheses to the exclusion of other criteria. Also, Okham's Razor
refers to the number of assumptions or auxilliary hypotheses, not their
"simplicity".

I was just trying to point out that positing an objective history is
no different than positing a time space manifold or other object as
part of our "best guess" or "current theory" that "explains"
experiment. Taking the time-space manifold of relativity as an
example. It does not exist "in time" it is an objective model "of
time". I am only pointing out that its "validity" is based in the same
tests as were used in previous theories which posit entities "in
time". In fact I am told that relativity can be described from the
point of view of absolute time but that the equations are more complex
and the resultant theory requires more assumptions. The notion of the
existence of the past is not necessary but can be used in an objective
model and when used is subject to the "standard" methods of
verification namely that it be in agreement with observation and then
it must meet the test of Okham's Razor.

I was not aware that there were other criteria like "choherence" or
being "heuristic". I confess I did believe that it was just
correspondence with observation and then Okam's razor. I will try to
check out these other criteria. I never heard of them before you
mentioned them. I believe theories need "choherence" to even be a
candidate theory but I don't know that a theory being more heuristic
would give it an advantage over another theory? "Simplicity" perhaps?


Understanding it correctly implies a mature recognition of the fact
that all objective existence is posited and contingent on observation
and therefore not fundamental or absolute and not existential but
essential and constantly in the possibility of being disproved.

Is all existence contingent on observation? Doubt that there is a world
independent of our consciousness is certainly a position that some
philosophers have held, but not scientists in general, and the history
of the philosophy of science in recent decades shows philosophers of
science coming around more to the typical scientific view.

Please note that a condition of my question was that there is a world
independent of our consciousness. I realize this assumption can be
debated, but doing so does not help much to arrive at an answer to my
question.


No existence is contingent on observation. Consistency with
observation is merely the criiteria for discriminating between
competing objective theories. The contingency comes from the fact that
all objective existence is completely unexplainable. It "could be
otherwise" and therefore is "contingent" and depends on observation
for confirmation or refutation. That is why scientific theory must be
confirmed via experiment. Physical law cannot be derived
mathematically.

With respect to the idea of "worlds behind the scenes" to use Sartre's
phrase, I believe that it is true that most scientists would agree
that in a sense there is a world independent of our consciousness but
that in another sense there is not. The world is available in
consciousness as that is the mechanism by which we experience it and
in that sense it is not independent. However, I do agree that they
posit objects existing (waves, particles, manifolds etc - it's set
theory basically, the theory of objects) as well as non objective
realities constituting constraints etc and that these entities "exist"
independent of a given experiment. However, I think that for the
scientific method to work they have to admit a possibility for
experimental confirmation and this makes them not "completely
independent" of our consciousness. For example I do not consider
Tachyons as scientific because they are truly independent of our
consciousness. Protons however are scientific precisely because they
can on principle be observed.


It must also include a mature realization of the vast stability of the
essent and the degree to which it has allowed scientific theorizing
which at its heart is predictive and therefore temporal as well as its
limitations.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow you here. I don't know what it means to
say something is not existential but essential. I've no idea what this
stability of the essent refers to.

At any time it is possible to turn ones attention away from what
something is and consider instead the fact that it is. When one does
that he turns from the essential to the existential.

The stability of the essent can be explained like this: I have a car
out in the parking lot. I believe that if I get up and go outside I
will see it. Now that is not a necessary fact. It cannot be derived
that I have a car in the parking lot or that I will see it. However,
there is a kind of stability in reality that is pervasive so much that
for me to doubt that my car will be there is unreasonable. If this
stability were to break down, if experience were to be altered such
that I go out and there is no longer a car and then I turn and there
is no building out of which I came and then etc etc then the basis for
objective modeling would be eliminated. In this way the basis of
objectivity is a real aspect of the world and is based on a kind of
stability in its appearance.

In some ways this stability has in fact broken down. With respect to
quantum mechanics certain naive notions of objectivity have broken
down. However there is still a great stability since the wave
functions still produce the probabilities of appearing reliably. Those
laws are still contingent (dependent on the stability of the essent)
and capable of being disproved in future experience so we do not know
absolutely but only contingently that they will hold.

I do agree that the idea that there is some "reality" "causing"
physical law is not scientific. The idea that there are real
scientific laws I do not doubt. But that they are self causing or that
something "in" reality "causes" reality seems to me to be ridiculous
and entirely unscientific.


A non- predictive scientific theory is unscientific as it does not
allow confirmation through future experiment.

I don't want to be rude, but no one has thought this for a very long
time,

Actually, that is not true as I have thought it recently and I am
someone. However, either way its no argument because whether someone
has thought something recently is not a good criteria for validity.

and it may actually be more an artifact of positivist ideology
than a description of scientific methods or what scientists actually
do. I don't want to get hung up on this issue, but merely note that I
tried to state my question in terms of current thinking, not because it
is necessarily right, but because it makes sense to begin dialog in
terms of it.

I have no problem starting with current thinking but it seems to me
that all advances have come when one departs from current thinking
where it is wrong. I think of the notion of the vacuum, the
heliocentric theory, the theory of relativity etc. I do not believe
that "common sense" leads to an understanding of the truth nor that
what is "currently thought" is correct. I do not think that current
philosophy is "correct".


Check this out:

http://www.ma.utexas.edu/mp_arc/c/08/08-62.pdf

as well as her latter posts.

Thanks for this very interesting citation. Off hand, the authors seem in
agreement that time in quantum cosmology is a extranic property rather
than an independent dimension.

Your welcome. Glad you liked it! She's great to read!


--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

.

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