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> "Is your claim that the picture is the building?" You said "a model which makes accurate predictions is as real as real gets". That the picture is the buildi

> "Is your claim that the picture is the building?" You said "a model which makes accurate predictions is as real as real gets". That the picture is the building is your claim here, that there's nothing more real than an accurate model, which I'm countering by absurdum. Wind can turn a turbine, a weather predicting model of wind cannot. You say "the differentiation [between a model and reality] is meaningless", I say a model is a leaky abstraction - when you send a single atom through a Young's double slit experiment and it interferes with itself and generates a wave interference pattern, that's leaking a reality outside the billiard-ball model of atoms, that's one time when the distinction between model and non-model is meaningful. > "If that building is destroyed in a fire and remade to those exact specs, do we not say it is still a building?" If the building is destroyed in the fire, and your model of it isn't, how can you say there is no difference between the building and the model?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> You said "a model which makes accurate predictions is as real as real gets". That the picture is the building is your claim here, that there's nothing more real than an accurate model, which I'm countering by absurdum. My claim is that the model describes a real thing, not that it itself is a real thing, and the extent to which that thing being described is real is a matter of the accuracy of the model. You can model the motion of planets with geocentric epicycles, but that is less real than a model that uses heliocentric ellipses. Let me turn this around for a second: > when you send a single atom through a Young's double slit experiment and it interferes with itself and generates a wave interference pattern, that's leaking a reality outside the billiard-ball model of atoms, that's one time when the distinction between model and non-model is meaningful. Now ask yourself: if we have a 100% accurate model of physics that employs a concept of spacetime such that there are no leaks, no unaccounted for observations whatsoever, then would you say that it matters if spacetime is just some mathematical concept and the real mechanism works differently but produces exactly the same results? I submit that it doesn't. A model that produces perfectly accurate descriptions describes reality in so far as any description of reality can be said to. We don't have perfect models of reality, that is known, however lacking a more accurate model it is meaningless to say that our current ones (which are astonishingly accurate despite being imperfect) don't describe reality.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  > You can model the motion of planets with geocentric epicycles, but that is less real than a model that uses heliocentric ellipses. This example actually weakens your argument. Heliocentric ellipses are chosen because they explain our model well and importantly are simpler than epicycles; but we can make epicycles arbitrarily accurate by piling on as many of them as you like. So which is real? That Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun or that the sun and other planets revolve around the Earth? > if we have a 100% accurate model of physics that employs a concept of spacetime such that there are no leaks, no unaccounted for observations whatsoever, Let's say I have a box with a green LED, a red LED, and a button. One of the LEDs is always lit. Whenever I press the button, that LED becomes unlit, and the other becomes lit. If I try to open the box, it explodes. My model of how this box works is very simple: A demon is sitting inside the box and touches the LED that becomes lit. When I press the button he gets poked with a tack and switches to touching the other LED. If I try to open the box, he gets angry and blows up. This model is 100% accurate. Every one of these boxes I have seen always behaves this way. Is there a demon sitting in the box?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    > This example actually weakens your argument. Heliocentric ellipses are chosen because they explain our model well and importantly are simpler than epicycles; but we can make epicycles arbitrarily accurate by piling on as many of them as you like. Epicycles allowed us to map the motions very well but they were incredibly complicated and didn't provide for explanations of how they came into being. Simpler models that provide the same results are considered to be better. Given two models that make the same predictions, it makes more sense to use the simpler one than the more complicated one (Occam's razor). The heliocentric model no doubt had its detractors until it was refined enough to make the same or better predictions, but its simplicity made it much more attractive as an explanation. > This model is 100% accurate. Every one of these boxes I have seen always behaves this way. Is there a demon sitting in the box? Typically we apply Occam's razor in this. If we know how we could construct such a device without a demon, a being for which we have no other evidence of its existence, then our simpler and more readily explainable solution is what we generally go with. However, if this box is indeed unopenable, and the light always changes, then it doesn't really matter does it? Neither the demon nor a more conventional explanation makes any difference to how we interact with the box, nor could it ever. The "reality" of what happens inside the box is not relevant and some would argue not even something that exists in the realm of scientific thought. It's like, say you live in Conway's Game of Life, and ask "what are cells made of?", it is completely unknowable and even if you somehow had the answer it would be meaningless since cells always behave in exactly the same way that is 100% explained by a simple model.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> You said "a model which makes accurate predictions is as real as real gets". That the picture is the building is your claim here, that there's nothing more real than an accurate model, which I'm countering by absurdum. My claim is that the model describes a real thing, not that it itself is a real thing, and the extent to which that thing being described is real is a matter of the accuracy of the model. You can model the motion of planets with geocentric epicycles, but that is less real than a model that uses heliocentric ellipses. Let me turn this around for a second: > when you send a single atom through a Young's double slit experiment and it interferes with itself and generates a wave interference pattern, that's leaking a reality outside the billiard-ball model of atoms, that's one time when the distinction between model and non-model is meaningful. Now ask yourself: if we have a 100% accurate model of physics that employs a concept of spacetime such that there are no leaks, no unaccounted for observations whatsoever, then would you say that it matters if spacetime is just some mathematical concept and the real mechanism works differently but produces exactly the same results? I submit that it doesn't. A model that produces perfectly accurate descriptions describes reality in so far as any description of reality can be said to. We don't have perfect models of reality, that is known, however lacking a more accurate model it is meaningless to say that our current ones (which are astonishingly accurate despite being imperfect) don't describe reality.

cgriswald 6y ago
> You can model the motion of planets with geocentric epicycles, but that is less real than a model that uses heliocentric ellipses. This example actually weakens your argument. Heliocentric ellipses are chosen because they explain our model well and importantly are simpler than epicycles; but we can make epicycles arbitrarily accurate by piling on as many of them as you like. So which is real? That Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun or that the sun and other planets revolve around the Earth? > if we have a 100% accurate model of physics that employs a concept of spacetime such that there are no leaks, no unaccounted for observations whatsoever, Let's say I have a box with a green LED, a red LED, and a button. One of the LEDs is always lit. Whenever I press the button, that LED becomes unlit, and the other becomes lit. If I try to open the box, it explodes. My model of how this box works is very simple: A demon is sitting inside the box and touches the LED that becomes lit. When I press the button he gets poked with a tack and switches to touching the other LED. If I try to open the box, he gets angry and blows up. This model is 100% accurate. Every one of these boxes I have seen always behaves this way. Is there a demon sitting in the box?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > This example actually weakens your argument. Heliocentric ellipses are chosen because they explain our model well and importantly are simpler than epicycles; but we can make epicycles arbitrarily accurate by piling on as many of them as you like. Epicycles allowed us to map the motions very well but they were incredibly complicated and didn't provide for explanations of how they came into being. Simpler models that provide the same results are considered to be better. Given two models that make the same predictions, it makes more sense to use the simpler one than the more complicated one (Occam's razor). The heliocentric model no doubt had its detractors until it was refined enough to make the same or better predictions, but its simplicity made it much more attractive as an explanation. > This model is 100% accurate. Every one of these boxes I have seen always behaves this way. Is there a demon sitting in the box? Typically we apply Occam's razor in this. If we know how we could construct such a device without a demon, a being for which we have no other evidence of its existence, then our simpler and more readily explainable solution is what we generally go with. However, if this box is indeed unopenable, and the light always changes, then it doesn't really matter does it? Neither the demon nor a more conventional explanation makes any difference to how we interact with the box, nor could it ever. The "reality" of what happens inside the box is not relevant and some would argue not even something that exists in the realm of scientific thought. It's like, say you live in Conway's Game of Life, and ask "what are cells made of?", it is completely unknowable and even if you somehow had the answer it would be meaningless since cells always behave in exactly the same way that is 100% explained by a simple model.