4 ms·

Conversely you now seem focused on getting into an argument about simulations -- I gave an example of what I meant that doesn't involve simulations and is purel

Conversely you now seem focused on getting into an argument about simulations -- I gave an example of what I meant that doesn't involve simulations and is purely physical but you didn't comment on that. It's true I've focused on something that wasn't the meat of the original post -- but it's also true that I challenged a direct quote that is arguably the most profound claim in the post, and that's what I'm most interested in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

perl4ever 5y ago
>Conversely you now seem focused on getting into an argument about simulations I gave a definition of reality, and definitions can't really be debated; thus, I don't see them as encouraging argument. >I gave an example of what I meant that doesn't involve simulations and is purely physical I'm uncertain what that was. Do you mean your "thing-ier example"? That compares simulated melting with actual melting?
- dsizzle 5y ago
  Yes to your first question: the example was that quarks (sub-nuclear particles) can be justifiably ignored completely in understanding/predicting some physical properties of matter, like the melting point of metals (even though metals are composed of quarks). Or more generally, quantum chromodynamics mostly has no effect on solid state physics -- and these are both sub-branches of physics! When you consider all of science/reality there are many such levels where phenomena appear at only some levels. I don't really understand where you're going with the metaphysics/reality discussion. It seems you consider software part of metaphysics? The laptop I'm typing this on is real in Johnson's sense, as are the patterns of photons projected from the screen, and these can't be understood much of the time without having some understanding of the software it's running. Just to establish some common ground: I agree that metaphysics is different from physics. I also agree that a thing is different from a simulation of the same thing. I get that software is more abstract than the particle interactions described in the article, and that that is perhaps a distracting difference in the example I first used, as you pointed out. If there's an interesting discussion/disagreement here it's somewhere in the neighborhood of the question: "is math part of reality?" That's something of an open philosophical question https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/289138 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/289138. I think that's even more tangential than my original comment though.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    You seem to be arguing that "everything affects everything else" is false because, moving to a concrete example, if Kristin Kreuk is beautiful, then she's beautiful in an objective sense that can't be affected by the motion of space dust. But this doesn't matter, because every time her beauty is assessed, the assessment itself is affected by space dust. Her objective, Platonic beauty is only relevant in that it affects how often she is assessed to be beautiful. But this is precisely the statistical description that the OP argues for. In the world of things that happen, everything affects everything else.
    - dsizzle 5y ago
      It seems in this example you do accept that there's an objective reality (beauty) that isn't affected by space dust? If so, I don't understand why you say that doesn't matter, and instead attach significance to the camera noise or whatever measurement artifacts that space dust causes. A central goal of science -- and making sense of the world more generally -- is to distinguish between such measurement artifacts and more interesting theories that describe what's really out in the world. I would reserve the usage "X affects Y" to where there's an interesting theory involving both, and I had the impression the OP did as well.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > It seems in this example you do accept that there's an objective reality (beauty) Think about why I might have picked beauty for the example.
        dsizzle 5y ago
        I don't know, I did think it was an odd example, but you also referred to beauty in an objective sense twice. Are you saying... everything is subjective?
        perl4ever 5y ago

perl4ever 5y ago

>Conversely you now seem focused on getting into an argument about simulations I gave a definition of reality, and definitions can't really be debated; thus, I don't see them as encouraging argument. >I gave an example of what I meant that doesn't involve simulations and is purely physical I'm uncertain what that was. Do you mean your "thing-ier example"? That compares simulated melting with actual melting?

dsizzle 5y ago
Yes to your first question: the example was that quarks (sub-nuclear particles) can be justifiably ignored completely in understanding/predicting some physical properties of matter, like the melting point of metals (even though metals are composed of quarks). Or more generally, quantum chromodynamics mostly has no effect on solid state physics -- and these are both sub-branches of physics! When you consider all of science/reality there are many such levels where phenomena appear at only some levels. I don't really understand where you're going with the metaphysics/reality discussion. It seems you consider software part of metaphysics? The laptop I'm typing this on is real in Johnson's sense, as are the patterns of photons projected from the screen, and these can't be understood much of the time without having some understanding of the software it's running. Just to establish some common ground: I agree that metaphysics is different from physics. I also agree that a thing is different from a simulation of the same thing. I get that software is more abstract than the particle interactions described in the article, and that that is perhaps a distracting difference in the example I first used, as you pointed out. If there's an interesting discussion/disagreement here it's somewhere in the neighborhood of the question: "is math part of reality?" That's something of an open philosophical question https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/289138 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/289138. I think that's even more tangential than my original comment though.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  You seem to be arguing that "everything affects everything else" is false because, moving to a concrete example, if Kristin Kreuk is beautiful, then she's beautiful in an objective sense that can't be affected by the motion of space dust. But this doesn't matter, because every time her beauty is assessed, the assessment itself is affected by space dust. Her objective, Platonic beauty is only relevant in that it affects how often she is assessed to be beautiful. But this is precisely the statistical description that the OP argues for. In the world of things that happen, everything affects everything else.
  - dsizzle 5y ago
    It seems in this example you do accept that there's an objective reality (beauty) that isn't affected by space dust? If so, I don't understand why you say that doesn't matter, and instead attach significance to the camera noise or whatever measurement artifacts that space dust causes. A central goal of science -- and making sense of the world more generally -- is to distinguish between such measurement artifacts and more interesting theories that describe what's really out in the world. I would reserve the usage "X affects Y" to where there's an interesting theory involving both, and I had the impression the OP did as well.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > It seems in this example you do accept that there's an objective reality (beauty) Think about why I might have picked beauty for the example.
      - dsizzle 5y ago
        I don't know, I did think it was an odd example, but you also referred to beauty in an objective sense twice. Are you saying... everything is subjective?
        perl4ever 5y ago