Objective reality

Dude - Given the topic isn't that inevitable?Let me ask - Does the number pi exist? Is it only a number that has meaning to the decimal point that we require it to have meaning to? Or does it mean more?If it means more doesn't that imply that perfect circles mean more?If we say that 1 = 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 we also (necessarily) say that 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 =0.999R = 1This depends on the infinite limit. So does infinity "exist"? I get where you are coming from in saying that maths is effectively just a subjective represenatation of objective empirical reality - But does this hold up to scrutiny? That is my question and it doesn't seem clear cut.Hence the paltonistic position of many (most?) mathematicians.

Satisfactory to you (to whoever is posting).A quick comment to all. I am out of time with limited access, so I won't be replying to most of the posts here for a few days.But do keep up the discussion.

I don't have any authoritative references for the following -- so far as I know, it's my own invention, based on some fairly well-established (readily observable) facts. I expect one or more of you can poke holes in it, but it's worth a try...The very nature of human language defeats the solipsist and eliminates any doubt about the presence of "objects" that exist outside an individual's internal mental state. Language can only be learned through cooperative interaction with other individuals -- it is something that each individual develops through a combination of (a) accepting/mimicking the expressions of others and (b) assembling / inventing "generative" (creative) systems and structures that serve to keep all this linguistic information "sensible", manageable, and adaptable to new experience.When Decartes said "Cogito ergo sum", a large proportion of the cogitation he referred to was dependent on a vocabulary and grammar that he learned from his parents and community, based on shared experience of objects, events, behaviors and relationships. (Picture Decartes at age 3, as his mother says to him, "Yes, René, that's a dog. The dog just licked your hand. Wasn't that nice? Would you like to pet the dog?" He acquired language the same way we all do.)The language we use for mathematics is considerably more specialized and constrained, but it operates the same way: as concepts are discerned and understood, symbols and expressions are needed to describe them in a manner that can be shared. Unlike the natural language that we all acquire instinctively and automatically, the symbols and expressions used for math must obey strict rules that disallow ambiguity, emotional affect, etc. As a collection of symbols and grammatical rules, it has the ability to stand up as a coherent system on its own without direct dependence on physical reality, despite being founded on (and drawing its purpose from) reality. The "perfect circle" exists only in the sense that there is an expression to define it: the shape that is built up from all points that lie on a plane at an equal distance from a single, central point. Given such a definition, all sorts of derivative expressions can arise to describe various properties of a circle, including the relation we call pi, and all this comes in very handy as we try to get a more detailed grip on reality itself. (For one thing, we get to see the degree of "error" between an idealized shape and an observed shape, and this in itself can be very informative, in many ways.)But, returning to the OP question: "objective reality" could be defined as the domain of linguistic expressions that seek to represent, as accurately and consistently as possible, the interaction of objects with the aggregate of human senses.I'll use the term "objects" to refer to things that reside in the physical world and are accessible to human senses (by whatever physical means, including specialized instruments) -- thus "objects" include humans and their behaviors, as well as everything else from sub-atomic particles to clusters of galaxies. Objects, their actions and their relationships are the primary building blocks on which human languages (including mathematical language) are built -- they are the basis for the success of our languages as tools of communication.When objects demonstrate properties or actions that are perceived uniformly by humans, such as temperature or gravitational attraction, it is the uniformity of perception that constitutes "objective reality", and our attempts to accurately describe such properties and actions are "objective descriptions". It is the ability to establish an agreed-upon description, based on unambiguously common perceptions, that constitutes "objectivity".Now, consider objects whose properties or actions are not perceived uniformly by humans. One example might be psycho-active drugs, which tend to induce very different perceptions from one individual to another -- the particular effects can be profoundly subjective. Until more is understood about "normal" perception (and memory and "creativity") in the human brain, as well as what these drugs actually do to brain chemistry, there isn't much we can say in "objective" terms about these objects -- there isn't enough that can be recognized and accurately described as common, shared experience.Another example, of course, is human behavior (including natural language behavior -- i.e. things people say). As of just the last 100 years or so, we have the ability to create a physical ("objective") record of a given human behavior: movements and voices can be captured on physical media for repeated review and analysis, and there will be consensus among watchers and listeners about the physical details of the recorded event. But (apart from the fact that such recordings may be limited in fidelity or completeness), the unavoidable shortcoming we face is our inability to record a person's intent.If multiple viewers / listeners of a given recording are asked "what was this person trying to do / say?", we are prone to get multiple (possibly conflicting) answers, especially in the case where the actions or utterances (or persons) that were recorded happen to impinge on any sort of emotional or prejudicial bias held by the viewers / listeners. Even seemingly simple actions can be ambiguous, e.g.: "he's tying his shoe" vs. "he's trying to duck down but doesn't want others to think that he's ducking"; or "he's describing the weather" vs. "he's trying to avoid engaging in substantive discourse", and so on. Describing other people's intent is a notoriously subjective endeavor.As for anything that would be called "metaphysical"... well, that's a different matter entirely -- neither "objective" nor "subjective", IMHO. Metaphysics is a form of guesswork that explicitly forswears any reliance on sharable physical perception when trying to explain things that have been perceived (or worse, when explaining things that have not been and cannot be perceived). I consider metaphysical descriptions to be a "natural" extension of our innate habit for inducing purpose; they may also have something to do with the kind of thinking that led the famous emperor to command admiration for his "new clothes" {AbE: as well as the kind of thinking that led so many of the emperor's subjects to show admiration}.The diversity, pervasiveness and persistence of metaphysical belief says a lot about the nature of human cognition, while saying virtually nothing substantive about the nature of reality.Edited by Otto Tellick, : minor grammar repairEdited by Otto Tellick, : (addition as indicated in next-to-last paragraph)

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

That's a good question. Certainly for most human purposes, we could restrict to some large finite number of decimal places and we'll never need to know any number beyond that precision.Pi and e and other such irrational numbers are better behaved than most, in the sense that they have a well-defined formula for calculating them. Take the more extreme case of the uncomputable numbers, numbers for which there is no algorithm for computing their digits. In fact virtually all numbers are uncomputable.The reason we need all these numbers is not because we'll ever use them. The reason is because we need to do calculus. In order for calculus to work in all its glory, you need a number system with a certain collection of axioms. Those same axioms imply the existence of a vast sea of uncomputable numbers.This is the kind of thing that splits mathematicians on the objective nature of mathematics. An awful lot of mathematicians I have met simply view these numbers as a necessary evil in order to get calculus, that the numbers are just a bunch of formal junk.As for what I think about mathematics and objective reality, it's a difficult issue. I'm by no means sure of my opinion.Considering I can easily just write down a set of axioms and explore that system, I don't think every mathematical system has a relation to reality. For example even chess is a formal system with axioms (its rules).
I do think there is something objective about two things:
(a) Some mathematical systems have a very strong relation to reality.
(b) I think that the most subjective part of maths is the axiom system. For example chess, could have had different rules. The most objective part, I think, is the consequences of those rules/axioms. So even though the rules of chess are arbitrary, given those rules the 2006 World championship game, for example, was always (in some sense) possible outcome. It "existed" somewhere in the space of all consequences of those rules.Although in truth, I don't really know what I'm talking about.As for objective reality in general, that's an even more difficult question. I'll take a toy model for consideration. Imagine there is a world containing a red box and three beings Alice, Bob and Carl. Also Carl has malfunctioning senses, he perceives the box as yellow. That is the objective truth of this world. I'm not even sure of how the inhabitants would obtain a definition of objective reality in this toy world.

The Matrix does not vanish when just you are unplugged - it continues for all others, we assume. And how does the ability to switch on and switch off the Matrix differ from say the rather larger scale Big Bang, Big Crunch?

I am * coughs gently * a mathematician.What I would say about mathematics is this. Given the rules of chess, we can show that it is absolutely impossible to achieve checkmate with just a king and a knight against a lone king.Mathematical truth is like that. Given a set of rules which we make up, we can discover the logical consequences of these rules.This should not be dragged into a discussion of "objective reality" as I believe that phrase was meant in the OP. At best it is a side-issue. Is it objective reality that a king and a knight can't checkmate a king?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Why ever not? Esepecially as you follow with this... A very good question, which seems to demonstrate that questions concerning the reality or otherwise of mathematics are especially pertinent in this thread. And? Amongst my friends is a mathematician who doesn't believe in the reals, and finds the rationals highly suspicious we tend to avoid discussing mathematics with each other.

Well, because they seem to be different kinds of questions.The question: "Does that fact that we can't achieve such-and-such a checkmate follow from the rules of chess?" can be resolved by looking at the rules of chess and deducing their logical consequences. We would in principle never have to look at the outside world to answer the question.This is different in kind from the question; "Do aardvarks exist?", which can be resolved, if at all, only by observation. We can only even approach towards an answer to this question by looking outside our heads and seeing if we can see anything that looks like an aardvark. Such questions are pertinent only until I've explained why the answer is NO. After that they're not so much pertinent as redundant. I'll go further than that. The natural numbers don't exist.

True, but it's not really what I'm talking about. What "exists" to me is the "fact" that your particular checkmate does follow from your particular rules. Ah, I see. I must have erred. I didn't realise that all great questions have their answers in Dr A's infallible proclamations That's the spirit! I'm not sure why it never occured to me before that to puzzle out the mysteries of Platonism, all I needed was a constructivist - it's all so obvious now

But I note that you yourself put "exists" in quotation marks.It really doesn't exist in the same sense that rain or potatoes or income tax exist. I shall try to see if I can think of a suitable penance. I am not a constructivist. I despise constructivism, for reasons that should be evident from my posts.

But surely that is exactly what we are discussing here? The question is "what is objective reality". I am reasonably convinced that intelligent aliens will be more aware of the existence of Pi than they are of potatoes. Pi certainly appears objective, and to many of us, it seems real. What is your problem with this? My apologies - I obviously don't pay enough attention to your posts...Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Objective reality simply means: As it is.That the data such as:" what goes up, must come down" is true and verified by all observation.The human factor loves to rewrite these basic understandings with doubt even still today. Yet the truth remains; Some things are simply what they are without any doubt at all. such as: "You ARE."This statement would be verified by all. therefore is "True". Accepting data based on verifications is what it means to accept "Objective Reality".For some its best understood by saying "The Truth, as it truly is".For you people who love to complicate simple stuff (ie: philosophers etc.) :You CAN argue that since all observations, even those verified, are subjected to the rule of unlimited possibilities. Meaning: All observations, real or imagined, have NO absolute reality and are unreliable.I liken you type of thinkers as sophists, Ignorant of any true ability to understand anything. And I am sad that you cannot even accept the FACT that you yourselves exist beyond any doubt. I will pray sincerly for your eyes to be opened to forsake such foolish thinking. And also for God to bless your imagination. maybe youll be a great writer of fiction.Edited by tesla, : spellingEdited by tesla, : bad wording. repaired.Edited by tesla, : Shift key impaired.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

To which I would reply in the first instance: real stuff that really exists, like treacle and tigers and titillation. Me too. I have the impression that every post I've made on this thread to date explains my problem with this. At this point I want to ask: what is your problem with my problem with this?I've made my arguments. Feel free to criticize them. Well, you obviously don't pay enough attention to the posts that I make and that you take it upon yourself to answer. Reading my posts about math and calling me a constructivist is like reading my posts about biology and calling me a creationist.

Err, that would be you're really cutting to the heart of matter

I would agree that the answer is NO.I would say that the answer is objective... only based upon the subjective rules that are agreed upon to play the game.Therefore, it is not a part of "objective reality".I find this equivalent to my morality. My morality is based upon some subjective rules (good things are those that make other people happy, bad things are those that make other people sad, my goal is to maximize happiness and minimize sadness). Once those subjective rules are in place, an objective morality can result with objective results based on specific situations. (Did I do something good? That depends on if I helped make people happy or sad, which can be objectively identified by asking those affected) However, the "objectiveness" is still based back on those subjective rules in the first place. Therefore, my morality is not a part of "objective reality"."Objective reality" would be those things that are objective regardless of any subjective nuances beyond some basic assumptions like "I exist" and "an external reality exists" and maybe "we can experience that external reality"... which seem to be requirements for any subjective ideas to exist as well. I smell a razor in here...I still stand by the statement of: All things that are collectively agreed to exist within objective reality are testable and verifiable through the scientific method.So far, no one has provided any example that goes against this statement. "Mathematics" has been attempted... but it seems that certain aspects rest on subjective rules while other aspects actually can be verified through scientific tests (like obtaining the value of pi from observations of circles).