"Reality is not what you perceive it to be. Instead, it's what the tools and methods of science reveal."

[mikkel_the_dane]

The universe may not be in your consciousness only, but it is in your consciousness; and it’s only through consciousness that you are able to encounter it. So for you, as a conscious observer, consciousness and the universe are inseparable.

You may say you are able to imagine a universe without you in it, but this remains an imaginary universe; you are unable to observe any universe existing independently of the act of observation

@sayak83
The set of knowledge of what the universe is as indepedent of knowledge is that it is indpendent of knowledge and that is all we can say.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes but science may be the best way to explain something because science does require some type of evidence to support a view for a view to be formed. Instead of just an opinion without any evidence at all.

This alone could suggest science is the best way to explain something. A thought/theory with only 20% proof is better then 0% proof? Yes?

Take harm as experinced subjectively. All science can do it is to explain that that is the case and report different subjective experiences.
Science can't decide what harm is or what the best understanding of harm is.
So your idea that there is evidence for everything, is when tested a belief without evidence.

 

[sayak83]

@sayak83
The set of knowledge of what the universe is as indepedent of knowledge is that it is indpendent of knowledge and that is all we can say.

This needs rephrasing. I cannot follow

 

[sayak83]

The universe may not be in your consciousness only, but it is in your consciousness; and it’s only through consciousness that you are able to encounter it. So for you, as a conscious observer, consciousness and the universe are inseparable.

You may say you are able to imagine a universe without you in it, but this remains an imaginary universe; you are unable to observe any universe existing independently of the act of observation

That I am observing the universe through through my senses via conscious awareness in no way means that the things that I am observing and the features thereof are dependent on me the observer. In fact all the knowledge gained from such observations show otherwise.
10 litres of water take 30 minutes to boil whether I am looking at it, or in another room watching tv. Etc.
Hence your proposition is refuted by the observations themselves.

 

[PureX]

There is no reality apart from conscious cognition. Reality is a cognitive experience. No cognition, no cognitive experience, and no reality.

Whatever there is or isn't apart from cognition is 100% meaningless and irrelevant. Without cognition, there is no point to existence at all. And no awareness of it.

That's how important conscious cognition is.

In fact, it can be logically argued that the whole reason the universe exists is to enable conscious cognition.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, your belief that you can test the axiomatic assumptions is just that, a belief without evidence.

We check that by actually testing and seeing if we can at least reject some ideas as false based on that testing.

We can.

And understanding the limits of what can be tested.

Absolutely. We cannot test morality. We cannot test aesthetics. We cannot test beauty.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, one version. You will find those who claim they that in effect philosophical naturalism is with evidence and that science is the best/only way to understand the universe.

What alternative can you give to the scientific method to give an understanding of the universe?

 

[Polymath257]

Your head is a part of the universe.
Let me construct an absurd case of how your head works if not in the universe.
You think something in your head. You want to write it on your computer. The computer is in the universe.
Now something not in the universe causes something to happen in the universe.

Nobody is saying the head is not part of the universe. But the ideas in that brain may or may not be a good representation of the universe outside of that brain. The mere fact that I am thinking of a unicorn does NOT imply that unicorns exist.

That is the problem with the strong ontological duality for if something is different, it is not connected in any sense to something else.

And that violates what is required to actually exist.

That one is standard in philosophy and revolves around at least 3 versions.
Everything is in the mind.
Everything is not in the mind.
Everything includes minds and can't be reduced to either only mind or not minds.

The universe includes minds. Nobody is disputing that. The issue is whether those minds give an accurate description of the rest of the universe.

For example, computers are part of the universe. But that does not mean that a computer simulation is an accurate description of the world outside of that computer. In fact, it does not mean that a simulation has anything at all to do with reality outside of that simulation.

 

[Polymath257]

Yeah, but because of the problem of whether your experinces correspond or not to the actual objective universe in itself, you can know that it is there as such, but not anything else including whether your experiences correspond or not.

That is where testing comes in. Even if we are in a simulation, we can study the science of that simulation. Since it is all we can experience, it is all that is relevant for discussions of truth. And, inside of the simulation, we can determine whether our hypotheses hold up to testing.

And, again, that is all that matters unless you find red and blue pills, in which case the evidence available changes and we expand our search for truth. But until then, we base our investigations on what is available.

That is it and how you understand methodological naturlism as methodological and how you explain that science is a set of axiomatic assumptions for which there is no evidence for them.

Which axioms do you think are actually required? From what I can see, all that is required is the ability to make and test hypotheses. And that *should* be required in any search for truth.

And indeed is how you understand this piece of text by one of your fellow scientists:
"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."
Keel, William C. (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.

If you can solve that you are the first human in recorded history to do that.

Actually, there *are* ways to test this. And we *know* of some peculiarities of our specific position in the universe (such as drift velocity with respect to the background radiation). We *can* test to see if the laws of physics are the same in other places and times. For example, we can test whether the various 'constants' vary by a variety of tests. And, ultimately, we can test to determine whether the laws we see here and now actually apply to information we get from other places and times. More specifically, we can test whether the results we get are consistent. if they were not, that would be a good hint that the laws change.

 

[Polymath257]

The universe may not be in your consciousness only, but it is in your consciousness; and it’s only through consciousness that you are able to encounter it. So for you, as a conscious observer, consciousness and the universe are inseparable.

But it is easy enough to verify that the universe existed before I did: so it is not dependent on my consciousness. And, we can verify that it existed before any beings we can reasonably say are conscious (say, before the Earth existed or before the elements required for life existed) and thereby conclude that consciousness isn't required for the universe to exist.

That our ability to obtain information is limited is not a good reason to think that information is all there is.

You may say you are able to imagine a universe without you in it, but this remains an imaginary universe; you are unable to observe any universe existing independently of the act of observation

So what? *I* cannot do so, but others can and have. I am not so egotistical as to think that my existence is fundamental to the universe as a whole.

 

[Polymath257]

There is no reality apart from conscious cognition. Reality is a cognitive experience. No cognition, no cognitive experience, and no reality.

Clearly false. The Earth existed long before conscious beings. The universe existed long before that. Consciousness is in no way necessary for the existence of the universe. Reality is what is out there beyond our puny little consciousnesses.

Whatever there is or isn't apart from cognition is 100% meaningless and irrelevant. Without cognition, there is no point to existence at all. And no awareness of it.

I completely disagree with is meaningless and irrelevant. We are simply not that important. The universe existed long before we did and will exist long after we do. That we are limited to our consciousness in learning about the universe is a limitation of *us*, not of the universe as a whole.

That's how important conscious cognition is.

In fact, it can be logically argued that the whole reason the universe exists is to enable conscious cognition.

That seems like a HUGE stretch. The universe existed for billions of years before conscious beings came on the scene. And, if we manage to destroy ourselves, it will continue to exist for billions of years after.

 

[Polymath257]

@sayak83
The set of knowledge of what the universe is as indepedent of knowledge is that it is indpendent of knowledge and that is all we can say.

OUR knowledge of the universe is dependent on the limitations of our senses and our thoughts. So what? That is only our limitation.

 

[Polymath257]

Take harm as experinced subjectively. All science can do it is to explain that that is the case and report different subjective experiences.
Science can't decide what harm is or what the best understanding of harm is.
So your idea that there is evidence for everything, is when tested a belief without evidence.

And that is precisely why 'harm' isn't an objective reality.

 

[Polymath257]

If everything is connected, and the old classical conception of discrete entities interacting mechanistically is inadequate if not redundant, then it surely follows that the concept of discrete consciousness interacting superficially is also inadequate if not redundant.

The classical ideas of how entities interact is wrong. of that I agree. But you go way beyond what quantum theory actually says in this.

If the cosmos is an entangled state -

It isn't. Entangled states are incredibly delicate and are easily destroyed by interaction with other things.

and QM certainly invites us to consider this possibility (the linear evolution of Schrodinger’s equation since the Big Bang preserving the initial entanglement) -

Except that it wouldn't. Again, entangled states are very delicate and easily destroyed. That is, by the way, one of the challenges of quantum computers.

and if entangled states are fundamental wholes, then the cosmos itself is a fundamental whole, and that would apply to all constituents of that whole; individual consciousness included.

First, the *if* part of this is wrong. Second, the rest would not follow even if it were.

My friend’s Indian father, a doctor and psychiatrist, was fond of saying “we are all facets of one consciousness, experiencing life subjectively.”

Nice opinion. Any evidence?

 

[PureX]

Clearly false. The Earth existed long before conscious beings.

There was no "Earth". Whatever existed was nameless, irrelevant, and meaningless. I find it very strange that you can't/won't recognize this.

The universe existed long before that.

Again, there was no "universe". And whatever there was, was nameless, irrelevant, and meaningless.

Consciousness is in no way necessary for the existence of the universe. Reality is what is out there beyond our puny little consciousnesses.

There is no "out there" that is not a cognitive experience. No cognitive experience, no "out there", or "in here" or anywhere else. No relationship between anything and anything else because there are no "things" to relate.

I completely disagree with is meaningless and irrelevant.

Of course you do, and you're going to fight to maintain that disagreement. And to learn nothing as a result.

We are simply not that important. The universe existed long before we did and will exist long after we do.

Meaning and importance are not the same things.

That we are limited to our consciousness in learning about the universe is a limitation of *us*, not of the universe as a whole.

The universe learns nothing except through us. It knows nothing except through us. It is nameless, irrelevant and meaningless except through us.

That seems like a HUGE stretch. The universe existed for billions of years before conscious beings came on the scene. And, if we manage to destroy ourselves, it will continue to exist for billions of years after.

There were no years before we thought them into being. There wasn't even time because time is a cognitive experience of space and motion. And these are both cognitive experiences. No cognition, no experience of the relationship between motion and space. And so no time.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

This needs rephrasing. I cannot follow

If there were no humans but there was a universe, then there would be a universe independent of the knowledge that there was a universe.

Do you understand that?

 

[sayak83]

If there were no humans but there was a universe, then there would be a universe independent of the knowledge that there was a universe.

Do you understand that?

Yes.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

We check that by actually testing and seeing if we can at least reject some ideas as false based on that testing.

We can.



Absolutely. We cannot test morality. We cannot test aesthetics. We cannot test beauty.

And we can't test if the objective universe for our subjective experinces of it corresponds to those experiences or not.

 

[Polymath257]

If there were no humans but there was a universe, then there would be a universe independent of the knowledge that there was a universe.

Do you understand that?

Yes. And that is the case. So?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes.

Good, then in the strong sense of independent of the mind as in all ascepts independent then something, which is that, is unknowable, because you know in the mind.