Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On 09/12/2024 23:19, D wrote:

I think you might enjoy the book The Shaky Game - Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory.
 An excerpt...
 "Realism is dead. Its death was announced by the neopositivists who realized that they could accept all the results of science, including all the members of the scientific zoo, and still declare that the questions raised by the existence claims of realism were mere pseudo- questions. Its death was hastened by the debates over the inter- pretation of quantum theory, where Bohr's nonrealist philosophy was seen to win out over Einstein's passionate realism. Its death was certified, finally, as the last two generations of physical scientists turned their backs on realism and have managed, nevertheless, to do science successfully without it. To be sure, some recent philo- sophical literature has appeared to pump up the ghostly shell and to give it new life. I think these efforts will eventually be seen and understood as the first stage in the process of mourning, the stage of denial. But I think we shall pass through this first stage and into that of acceptance, for realism is well and truly dead, and we have work to get on with, in identifying a suitable successor."
 Let me know if you would like to read more, and I can get you the book in electronic format (unless you haven't read it already).

Sounds like fun. Books like that I pay money for. They are in general worth it.
That excerpt pretty much sums it all up.
People have seen the issues that arrive with realism but very few have come around to Kant's and Schopenhauer's TI.
One of the late greats who is almost completely unknown, was Hilary Putnam. He really understood the problems, although I am not sure he felt he could offer any solutions.
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There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Mark Twain