Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/12/2024 17:18, D wrote:

 Its not that the real world is not at some level most usefully regarded as a fact, it is that the more subtle question is whether what we *perceive* is in fact the real world *at all*. Or simply a construction in our own minds that maps what is *actually* there (maybe a probabilistic entangled quantum soup) into a recognisable world of objects and events linked in space time by natural law and causality.

 I'd say it is an obvious fact and not a subtle question if we look at the
limited spectrum of our senses, and our limited compute resources. I think in terms of reality, it can be seen as a spectrum of probabilities about
things in the world. Many clever people cling to this, and think it means that no world exists, or that nothing can be proven.

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Well the concept that no world exists is called Idealism.  It's all in the mind. Mine  alone [solipsism],  Gods [monism], or some other arrangement. It explains everything but predicts nothing. Like Islam. Inshallah. If it is Gods Will. Great, But not very *helpful*.
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'Nothing can be proven' is in fact the case, and the whole problem and the disjunct between the mind of the ordinary person and that of philosophers.
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Only deductive logic is provable, But all science and everyday life rests on inductive logic and inference.
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On 'probable cause'.
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My late mother was convinced that people were coming in to her house and hiding her car keys. So she started putting them in places no one, including herself, would think to look.
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But with short term memory loss, she couldn't find them again, thus reinforcing the original belief.
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The neighbours were a plausible if somewhat paranoid explanation. For someone in her condition.
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It's the same with conspiracy theories. They are plausible to people without the background to reject them as extremely unlikely. How many people believed in WMD in Iraq?
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I reverse

that, and say that any proposed alternatives to the real world should be proven, and if they are not, the real world is a perfectly reasonable default assumption.

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The problem is that no alternatives can be *proven*,  and indeed while the 'real world' is a perfectly reasonable *assumption*, it starts to crack a little under the strain of modern physics. And indeed some psychology and other pressures. It cannot be 'proven' *either*.
It is as you correctly say a default *assumption*.

My great revelation is that it does not need to be proven, since we are all in it, and seem to act as if it actually exists and works as it does.
That is why I'm very happy to dismiss idealists. I also agree that idealists will have a hard time to prove their position or reason to it. They have not stopped though, after millenia of trying, and they probably won't.

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Left wing idealists would argue that the world is simply what you think it is and can be changed by 'magical thinking'. To them this is more than plausible, it is self evident *fact*.
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My point in advocating the philosophy of Kant et al, is that it solves problems that mere materialism does not.
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Neither can be proved correct, but in the context of modern  life 'transcendental idealism' may prove to be (sic!) more *useful*.
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It accounts for the subjective element of experience. It allows time to pass differently for different observers.
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Pure materialism insist that time and space are immutable, they are there as the framework of all material existence. Einstein says that they are in fact relative to the observer.

I think I use materialism in a way more comprehensive and all encompassing way, than might be customary. Maybe that is why there is confusion. As long as the quantum guys continue to provide testable hypotheses, I'm all for it. Where I at the moment get off the train, is when they get all excited about many worlds & co, since that by definition can never be tested, nor can it ever influence our world in any way. I like Wittgensteins silence on that matter, have my concept of agnostic monism, once our theories are starting to tear at the seams.

Oh dear.
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