Objectivism and science

[Navi]

Hello guys I am new here and have some questions I hope you guys can help me with.

 

I read about Ayn Rand and what she stand for. One of here main points was that we all live in the same reality and our sense help use connect to this reality. That reality is objectively. 
 

What I am wounding is do you guys still believe in this? I have seen a lot of people disagree with this statement and says there is no objective reality and everything is subjective? What are you guys thoughts on this? And do someone of you have some scientific proof/evidence that proof that we live in the same reality or/and objective reality is real?

 

Thank you 

[Boydstun]

Navi, welcome to Objectivism Online. Where do you live? I live in the state of Virginia in the USA. My home is near the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Objectivists and all sorts of realists think that we all live in the real world: Everyone who continues to live needs oxygen and needs protection from freezing and from electric shock. Everyone who continues to live needs some water and nutrition. Everyone with teeth will get tooth decay if they do not clean their teeth. Every human to this day who can make a baby has to be a female. Every human individual will someday die.

As for science and Objectivism: It is fact—not anything like wishing or merely imagining—that   water can be liquid, gas, or solid, and that all forms of water have molecules made of two chemical elements. It is a fact that the sun generates heat by nuclear fusion. It is a fact that the sun weighs more than the earth. It is a fact that the earth is spinning from day to night to day. It is a fact that steam blasting through a turbine can make it rotate.

[DavidOdden]

I’ve heard people say such things, but it is a thoroughly confused way of talking. Reality is “what exists”, nobody seriously claims that reality does not exist. There is another notion of “same reality”, the “multiverse” view that has become more popular recently where there are copies of the universe “out there” that we can’t see except if we are superheroes. Supposing that this is sorta true, that discovery would just tell us of a new aspect of existence that we did not know of before, some “phase” property where we ordinarily only interact with existents that are “in phase” with us. “We” live in this phase-universe, “they” live in another phase universe, all that Objectivism has to say about that is what all scientists have to say about that, namely “Where is your evidence?”.

Instead, what they mean when they talk of “same reality” is that it is impossible to directly know anything, instead every consciousness creates its own internal state specific to that consciousness, and there is no causal relationship between reality and that internal (subjective) mental state. Now, it is true that mental states are individual, that there is no such thing as a collective consciousness where you and I literally share the contents of a single mind. What the subjectivists seem to believe, which we reject, is that knowledge is uncaused. Nobody has come up with a coherent description of this “subjective reality” idea, so the best way to understand it is to understand what Objectivism says about existence and knowledge, then investigate what it would even mean to deny that position.

Objectivism says that we have anatomical devices which sense certain things about reality, such as sound, heat, color, and so on. We use these devices to perceive the universe. We cannot directly perceive x-rays or sounds above 60 KHz, and we even know these facts (and why they are true). We also have cognitive devices that allow us to retain and organize this sensory input. These devices operate in a physically-regular fashion, just as electromagnetic radiation operates in a physically-regular fashion. Humans are special no Earth in that we have some unique cognitive devices for retaining sensory information. In particular, we organize sensory information into general “concepts” based on common properties. We can reduce (primary) colors to frequencies, the wavelength of the light emitted, where “red” is about 430 THz and “blue” is about 750 THz. You simply have to learn the conventional boundaries for your culture, something that you do as a child (where there may not be a difference between “green” and “yellow”, just as English doesn’t have the Russian distinction sinij vs goluboj). The decision to organize sensory inputs one way vs. another is voluntary, in the sense that it is not immutably predetermined by the universe. Because we choose how to organize our knowledge, some people get the confused impression that this means that knowledge is random, chaotic and uncaused.

The concept of “proof” presupposes the Objectivist viewpoint. If you insist that knowledge is subjective and random, then the notion of “proof” or “true” is meaningless.

[hedonic]

On 7/21/2024 at 9:28 PM, DavidOdden said:

There is another notion of “same reality”, the “multiverse” view that has become more popular recently where there are copies of the universe “out there” that we can’t see except if we are superheroes.

Has it? With whom?

[tadmjones]

On 7/21/2024 at 2:53 PM, Boydstun said:

As for science and Objectivism: It is fact—not anything like wishing or merely imagining—that   water can be liquid, gas, or solid, and that all forms of water have molecules made of two chemical elements. It is a fact that the sun generates heat by nuclear fusion. It is a fact that the sun weighs more than the earth. It is a fact that the earth is spinning from day to night to day. It is a fact that steam blasting through a turbine can make it rotate.

Is it a fact that the sun generates heat by nuclear fusion or a set of facts that in some instances could be presented in such a way as to convey the idea that felt heat is a consequence of nuclear fusion 'in' the sun?eg conduction, convection and electromagnetic wave propagation.

In the same vein is it fact that the sun weighs more than the earth or a presentation of the idea of mass and the related idea of gravity and how they interact in our understanding, ie mass 'never' changes but weight is relative to the effects of 'a' specific instance of gravity? As in, on the moon you weigh less? In principle if the earth and the sun were separable as a physical system and independently subjected to various gravitation fields their weights would not be necessarily commensurate, regardless their conserved mass.

Examples as these seem to invite more ambiguity to highlighting the differences between an 'objective' and 'subjective' metaphysical stance than not , no ? As far as integrating science 'and' Objectivism.

The energy released in the nuclear fusion of the sun can result in heat generated or transferred in objects interacting with that energy , but only to the capacity of the objects. Similarly, where or how is there hydrogen and oxygen 'in' water, isn't water a wholly 'itself' 'thing'?

[DavidOdden]

6 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

is it fact that the sun weighs more than the earth or a presentation of the idea of mass and the related idea of gravity and how they interact in our understanding

It is a fact that the sun weighs more that the earth. It is also a fact that, in the Objectivist epistemology, one does not enumerate every nuance relevant to a sentence in uttering a factual statement. If it is important, you can elaborate ad infinitum about what "the sun" really is, or what mass really is. Usually, in case there is any doubt, it suffices to say that the sun weighs more than the earth. If you decide that it is important to you to expand on the objective nature of "weighing", you can hold forth on gravity, the concept of "force", "mass" and what-all else is necessary to achieve your goal, if you have a goal.

[tadmjones]

In a scientific context , the earth weighs less than the sun is a fact?

[DavidOdden]

In every context, it's a fact. What reason do you have for doubting that?

[tadmjones]

In every scientific context the concept of weight is interchangeable with mass?

Isnt mass a stand alone property whereas weight involves relations among entities?

[DavidOdden]

It seems that you don't dispute the fact that the earth weighs less than the sun. It's hard to tell, since you don't affirm anything, you dribble out questions that might generate responses yielding information that you can use, but I don't know what it is that you don't know. I though for a while that you didn't understand the concept "fact", but now I think it is that you don't understand the difference between the concept "weight" and "mass". If your confusion of weight vs mass?

[tadmjones]

I don’t think I’m confused about any of the terms. Are you saying in a scientific context mass and weight are synonymous? Because if that is the case then I am confused and would welcome some direction on how to refine my understanding of how the terms are used and to what they refer , in a scientific context.

What science affords in precision it pays for in constraint of explanation , to wring out all ambiguity.

Edited September 9 by tadmjones
Added text

[necrovore]

The Sun as a whole is weightless because it's in free-fall (in orbit around the center of the galaxy).

But its mass is bigger than the mass of the Earth.

Edited September 9 by necrovore

[DavidOdden]

Earlier today you questioned whether it is a fact that the sun weighs more than the earth, now it seems you have withdrawn the question and instead are asking a question about sociolinguistic usage, about how some scientists use the word “weight” in their professional writings. I’m betting that you really meant to split that hair much finer than “scientists”, there are lots of kinds of scientists and they tend to talk differently. We know that you have an active distaste for understanding history, so clearly that wasn’t on the table as a real intent. Are you now saying that history is sometimes relevant for understand the intent of an author? Are you claiming that there is only one “scientific context” and that all “scientists” follow the same principles and write the same way?

As I explained above, Objectivism provides a framework for broader understanding, or more details elaboration of knowledge. Which part of that did you not understand?

[tadmjones]

How does my active distaste manifest such that it is obvious to all and sundry?

[Boydstun]

@tadmjones I used weight rather than mass in answering Navi to speak more ordinarily. I do not know what education that person has. Any student with a first course in mechanics knows that weight and mass are two different concepts. But as David mentioned, there was no need to get into that and a possible glaze-over when just trying to get discussion going with someone of unknown education. I gather you know that weight on the surface of the earth is mass of the body multiplied by the gravitational constant of acceleration Galileo discovered for this surface. That product has the unit of force. I exert that force standing on the scale at the gym, and the scale platform exerts that force on me. Astronauts in orbit around the earth or moon exert no force on a scale bolted to the ship interior. As nevrovore reminds us, they are weightless. The force of the scale on them (and them on the scale) is zero (absent) because both are in freefall around the earth or moon. Standing on the scale on earth, the scale and the solid ground of the earth are resisting my freefall to the center of mass of the earth. The weightless astronauts still have their masses, of course, and their momenta, such as their orbital angular momentum.

Edited September 9 by Boydstun

[tadmjones]

My comment was a little nit-picky, but if someone were searching for results to the query "science and O'ism" they may well land on this thread as a link, and if this was someone's first impression of O'ism the wording of the examples was less than explicitly sciency.

[Boydstun]

2 hours ago, tadmjones said:

My comment was a little nit-picky, but if someone were searching for results to the query "science and O'ism" they may well land on this thread as a link, and if this was someone's first impression of O'ism the wording of the examples was less than explicitly sciency.

"It is a fact that the sun generates heat by nuclear fusion." 

What was wrong with that statement of mine? I didn't say anything about us receiving the heat and our sensation of it. It is a fact that the sun's heat is generated that way whether anyone feels it or not. Same with controlled nuclear fission in the reactor. The heat is generated by the fission, we make steam from it, let the steam blast through the turbine to spin the electric generator, then condense the steam back to water to circulate it back for more heat from the reactor. Throughout our crafted cycle, heat and its transfers has nothing to do with any bodily sensation of the heat during the cycle.

I was answering Navi's question "And do someone of you have some scientific proof/evidence that proof that we live in the same reality?" I gave some of those firm 'sames'.

I'd like to add an autobiographical experience as well. I was earning my degree in physics during the Cold War. The physics degree required that you satisfy your Arts-and-Sciences-Division foreign language requirement by selecting either German or Russian. I did German, so I knew no Russian. There was a modest Physics Department library in the Physics building. In the entryway were current issues of physics journals. One day I opened one of the Russian journals, and I had the most wonderful experience. Though I could not read any of the Russian text, the equations were homeland to me. I could read them with their mathematical operations and with their physical quantities operated on and the statement of fact that is such an equation. It was the same represented fact in my mind, read with my language, as fact written by the authors of those equations, and I had this rush of closeness to those alien minds on the other side of the world. 

[tadmjones]

Again it was nit-picky-ness and probably motivated more by my subjective internal vocabulary/dictionary.

For Objectivism to remain internally coherent it needs to be based in a materialist/physicalist metaphysics and as David suspected my game lately is pointing to that. "Heat" presupposes an interaction and in an anthropic context is more associated with sensation and grounded in a subjective reality, isn't it more 'scientific' to describe the sun's fusion process as generating energy?

[necrovore]

30 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

"Heat" presupposes an interaction and in an anthropic context is more associated with sensation and grounded in a subjective reality, isn't it more 'scientific' to describe the sun's fusion process as generating energy?

There's nothing "subjective" about the way heat affects our sense organs.

[DavidOdden]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

For Objectivism to remain internally coherent it needs to be based in a materialist/physicalist metaphysics

Do you have a reason that justifies that stance? What are examples of metaphysics that are non-materialist: that is, how would you know if Objectivism or any other philosophy is or is not based on such a metaphysics?

Your understanding of “presupposition” in incorrect. The concept “heat” is a first-order directly-sensible concept, it does not presuppose anything, you just experience it directly. The Nyquist theorem, on the other hand, does presuppose that a sound waveform can be adequately modeled as a sequence of numbers. The concept “sound”, on the other hand, does not.

[Boydstun]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

Again it was nit-picky-ness and probably motivated more by my subjective internal vocabulary/dictionary.

For Objectivism to remain internally coherent it needs to be based in a materialist/physicalist metaphysics and as David suspected my game lately is pointing to that. "Heat" presupposes an interaction and in an anthropic context is more associated with sensation and grounded in a subjective reality, isn't it more 'scientific' to describe the sun's fusion process as generating energy?

There are different forms of energy, and heat is one of them. How on earth do you guys get the idea that heat is something essentially tied to sensation of it. My physics and engineering texts and equations therein in classical thermodynamics and in heat transfer are about the constitution of things in the world independent of the presence of our animal or intellectual discernment. Heat is a physical thing, and taken so in our accounts of (i) its recognition-reception by us through skin receptors registering rate of heat flow into or out of the body or (ii) skin receptors firing for pain.

I agree with Tad's statement that "For Objectivism to remain internally coherent it needs to be based in a materialist/physicalist metaphysic." And frankly, Objectivism needs to step out of the modern chronic focus (by humanities folks) of relations of world to mind at the neglect of relations of physical parts of world to other physical parts of world (outside our bodies and minds). There are physical relations in the world, and for example, the notion of frames of reference in special relativity is talk of material frames, not frames of minds. Talk of measurements in frames in SR is talk about results in physical instruments and all the physical things in the frames. See the embarrassing misunderstanding of this by Peikoff in his 1972) lectures (often quite helpful otherwise) now transcribed in Founders of Western Philosophy: Thales to Hume, pages 493, 497.

On 8/12/2024 at 6:49 AM, Boydstun said:

Space Not Relative to Its Discernment

. . .

Rand erred in taking “existence” in her most basic axiom “existence exists” as not specifically meaning physical existence, particular and concrete, set in mind-independent spatial and temporal relations (Rand ITOE App. 245–46; Peikoff 1991, 5; Boydstun 2021, 83–84). She should have taken the notion and concept existence across cognitive development (same old referent, physical existence, all across) in the manner in which she took the notion and concept man across that development (ITOE 43–45).

“Existence” in Rand’s most primitive axiom “Existence exists” should be understood most wisely as physical existence. We have no word-labeling of objects and actions in our earliest experiences, but the most exact and effective specification of what was primary object of our discernment at our beginning and ever after is physical existence. Then displacing primacy of consciousness with primacy of existence immediately displaces Berkeley’s doctrine of the nonexistence of matter. Sewing the qualifier “physical” into the character of “existence” is good in thinking exactly what is meant by “existence” when it comes to countering the likes of Berkeley: One means mind-independent objects and activities, which we are capable of becoming aware of as they are, including the mind-independent relationships in which they stand. Idealism and God are then immediately out of court by (i) Rand’s “Existence exists” as primary to everything, together with (ii) her specification of the most basic nature of consciousness, awareness of existents, physical existents. 

(To be continued.)

References

Berkeley, G. 1734. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. In Clarke 2008.

Boydstun, S. 2021. Existence, We. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. 21(1):65–104.

Clarke, D. M. 2008. George Berkeley – Philosophical Writings. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Peikoff, L. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton.

——. 2023 [1972]. Founders of Western Philosophy – Thales to Hume. A transcription of lectures, edited by M. S. Berliner. Santa Ana, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press.

Rand, A. 1990 [1966–67]. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. (ITOE) Supplements added by Leonard Peikoff and Harry Binswanger. New York: Meridian.

Stanley, J. 2011. Know How. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

[Mthomas9s]

On 7/24/2024 at 5:17 AM, hedonic said:

Has it? With whom?

From mystics,  magicians, and other reality-distorters , most definitely, as well as woke losers!

[tadmjones]

Again due to idiosyncrasy, 'my' concept of heat is more tied to recognition of the sensory experience of relative kinetic energy affecting the nerve pathways. Heat is qualia and energy is quanta, and quanta is always associated with scientific/physical , for me anyways.

[KyaryPamyu]

6 hours ago, necrovore said:

There's nothing "subjective" about the way heat affects our sense organs.

I think there is, but this must be prefaced with an observation. In philosophy, the word "subjective" is often used to denote what it's like to have an experience, such as struggling with a heatwave or assessing the quality of wine. Objectivism, however, seems to prefer using "subjectivity" to denote the belief that truth is a matter of opinion or feeling. With this is mind, the way heat affects our sense organs is certainly a "firm absolute," but how a heatwave feels to us is also determined, in part, by our philosophical attitude towards discomfort, our current mood, and many other factors. That's the subjective factor, using this word in an alternative, non-Objectivist way.

Now, consider the following argument:

1. The physical is absolutely nothing like the mental.
2. Percepts/ideas are mental
3. Therefore, the physical is wholly unlike percepts and ideas.

That is to say, I can put books in a box, but I can't "put" things in a mind. That's because minds have no holes, they are not made of cardboard etc. In this sense, the mental and physical are indeed wholly different.

However, in order to posit the idea that something physical can find its way into the mind, I must make analogies to physical events. A tree is reflected in a pond -> a physical world is reflected in a mind. A computer file gets converted into another format -> an electrical signal gets converted into conscious experience. Fire emits smoke - the brain emanates consciousness.

Obviously, this flies in the face of the notion that the mind is immaterial. I can measure the distance between two skulls; now, what is the physical distance between two minds, which have no height or weight or the like? Alas, without illicitly materializing mind, I cannot defend common sense realism. Another route would be to hold steadfast to the immaterial nature of mind, and see where that goes. To a lot of fascinating places, based on what ideas I've been studying so far.

Edited September 9 by KyaryPamyu

[necrovore]

4 hours ago, Boydstun said:

I agree with Tad's statement that "For Objectivism to remain internally coherent it needs to be based in a materialist/physicalist metaphysic."

I disagree. As Peikoff has written in OPAR, the "existence exists" axiom subsumes everything that exists, whether physical or not.

Consciousness, for example, exists. Emotions exist. Ideas exist. (This is technically a separate idea from the axiom of consciousness, which is that you are conscious of something. Babies are conscious, but a baby isn't conscious of the existence of ideas yet.)

The "A is A" axiom, the Law of Identity, that everything has a nature and behaves according to that nature, also applies to consciousness and to attributes of consciousness and to the products of consciousness (e.g., ideas).

This is how it becomes possible to show that existence has primacy over consciousness.

(Also, the "existence exists" axiom certainly doesn't deny physical existents or the relationships between them. Whether Peikoff understands relativity or not has nothing to do with the axioms.)

Edited September 9 by necrovore