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Of all of the questions in philosophy, I believe that by far the most interetsting and deep is "what is mathematics?" I feel like the majority of questions in philosophy are easy, and amount to just getting the language straight (I wouldn't go so far as to just call them games though). Many philosophers think there are deep unanswered questions surrounding consciousness, but I would respectfully have to disagree. I think the problems there have mostly been solved, and they were not that difficult to begin with. All of the mind/body questions are essentially just language puzzles. And they aren't even that puzzling if you subscribe to the right philosophy (materialism, whether reductive or eliminative)--there are no large explanatory gaps or paradoxes, despite what people claim. All of the supposed "gaps" and "paradoxes" I've seen people try to construct seem pretty clearly an issue of those people confusing different modes of speaking, and thinking that they are discovering something important and deep about metaphysics, when they just aren't. In contrast, what I would call "The Hard Problem of Philosophy", the one that nobody has yet solved satisfactorily, and the one that keeps me up at night shivering the most, is "what is mathematics?" If we could answer this one, it would probably solve once and for all, all of the metaphysically interesting questions that remain. But as far as I have read, nobody really understands it, and there is still widespread disagreement about it, and curious explanatory gaps and paradoxes no matter what route you take. If ever there were a worthy question for philosophical inquiry, this is it!
Closely tied in with this question is the issue of whether one should subscribe to the Many Worlds Interpretation, or the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (or equivalently, whether one should be a logical positivist or a realist about the physical world). It's hard for me to think about the one without the other, and likewise for the issue of reductionism (I'm thinking here of a particular sort of ultimate reductionism, not just mind/body reductionism). All of it is tied together, so I'm going to have to talk about all 3 at once. This is an attempt to summarize my thoughts and positions on these three issues, and the progress I've made in the past few years in understading this.
Among the most intelligent physicists that I've met, there are essentially only two approaches to understanding quantum mechanics. One is a realist approach (which I'll refer to as Many Worlds) and the other is an antirealist approach (which I'll refer to as Copenhagen--heavily influenced by the Vienna circle and the logical positivist movement). Realist is a tricky word, and has lots of meanings, so the first thing I should do is pin down exactly what it means in this context (and then replace it with something more precise). I used to think realist here meant that there was a real external physical world, independant of the mind of an observer. It was very hard for me to see how others could deny this, and so Many-Worlds seemed like a "no brainer" over Copenhagen from the get-go. But in fact, as I've come to admit, that's more of a straw man than anything, because most antirealists (at least physicists) do at least believe there is a physical world. If they really didn't believe there was a physical world, they could hardly understand how they make a living off of studying "physics" now, could they? ;) So what is it that they reject about the physical world, that they think realists are taking on faith? I think it's more a particular brand of reductionism (one that I subscribe to) that they reject.
I think reading Bob Laughlin's book helped me understand better how many bright people with very different POV's from me look at the world. I see a lot of things tied together... mathematical formalism, logical positivism, non-reductionism, and the Copenhagen Interpretation all fit into one world view. And that world view has never been my worldview, and while it's always seemed bizarre and inconsistent to me, I'm beginning to understand the strange logic of it better. My own worldview is something that is incompatible with all of those: representational realism, mathematical realism, reductionism, and the Many Worlds Interpretation. As I get closer to trying to understand how this alternate worldview works, I feel more openminded about it. But at the same time, I just can never quite get myself to take it fully seriously. Whenever I try to make sense of it, I'm always eventually led to paradoxes and inconsistencies. But perhaps it's because I'm just trying to drop some assumptions from my worldview, rather than dropping all of these assumptions at once.
Let me state a few preliminary things about the way I see the world. First, I think Descartes was dead wrong when he fallaciously concluded "I think therefore I am". What I would say instead is "I am aware of something, therefore something exists." I'm not convinced that I exist, in the way that he thought he did. With high probability, something approximately "me-like" exists, but that shouldn't be made into an absolute statement as I think it's only approximately true, and I am only approximately separable from the rest of the world anyway. I am on the other hand, 100% convinced there is something which exists, and I call that something "reality". So that's my general starting point for any sort of reasoning about philosophy--it's the only truth that I see as beyond any doubt: something exists, that's for damn sure! So now let's go about trying to describe it (which is by no means guaranteed to be possible). The first issue that I would disagree with logical positivists about is that I think it's very, very, very unlikely that the only things which exist are the things we happen to be aware of with our senses. If someone believes that the only things which exist are those which are necessary for describing their perceptions (or for even more radical positivists, only their perceptions themselves exist), then I think they are being incredibly egocentric and solipsistic. Why on earth would you think that you're that special, that the entire universe revolves around you? The only parts of it that exist are there for your benefit? As if the universe is your own private movie theater, made just for you to watch, with nothing outside of your little screening room? How disturbingly myopic! I would strongly disagree with that viewpoint, which tends to be what logical positivists (and many physicists today, who were influenced by logical positivists like Niels Bohr) still seem to believe. Nevertheless, perhaps the situation is more subtle and they're just taking a pragmatic approach. Perhaps in their heart of hearts, they do agree that there are very likely other things besides what they perceive which exist, but they just don't like talking about them much because they feel like there is no way to make progress on understanding what other sorts of things are out there, if we can't perceive them. "Where I cannot speak, I must remain silent." And that sentiment I can very much understand, even though ultimately I would have to disagree. (And the reason I would disagree, to skip ahead, is mathematics.)
Unfortunately, it's getting late and I need to get up pretty early, so I'm going to have to break it here and continue with a "part 2". I foresee it may take 3 or 4 parts to finish explaining the main point I have here, since this is stuff I've been saving up for at least 3 years, wanting to post.
Closely tied in with this question is the issue of whether one should subscribe to the Many Worlds Interpretation, or the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (or equivalently, whether one should be a logical positivist or a realist about the physical world). It's hard for me to think about the one without the other, and likewise for the issue of reductionism (I'm thinking here of a particular sort of ultimate reductionism, not just mind/body reductionism). All of it is tied together, so I'm going to have to talk about all 3 at once. This is an attempt to summarize my thoughts and positions on these three issues, and the progress I've made in the past few years in understading this.
Among the most intelligent physicists that I've met, there are essentially only two approaches to understanding quantum mechanics. One is a realist approach (which I'll refer to as Many Worlds) and the other is an antirealist approach (which I'll refer to as Copenhagen--heavily influenced by the Vienna circle and the logical positivist movement). Realist is a tricky word, and has lots of meanings, so the first thing I should do is pin down exactly what it means in this context (and then replace it with something more precise). I used to think realist here meant that there was a real external physical world, independant of the mind of an observer. It was very hard for me to see how others could deny this, and so Many-Worlds seemed like a "no brainer" over Copenhagen from the get-go. But in fact, as I've come to admit, that's more of a straw man than anything, because most antirealists (at least physicists) do at least believe there is a physical world. If they really didn't believe there was a physical world, they could hardly understand how they make a living off of studying "physics" now, could they? ;) So what is it that they reject about the physical world, that they think realists are taking on faith? I think it's more a particular brand of reductionism (one that I subscribe to) that they reject.
I think reading Bob Laughlin's book helped me understand better how many bright people with very different POV's from me look at the world. I see a lot of things tied together... mathematical formalism, logical positivism, non-reductionism, and the Copenhagen Interpretation all fit into one world view. And that world view has never been my worldview, and while it's always seemed bizarre and inconsistent to me, I'm beginning to understand the strange logic of it better. My own worldview is something that is incompatible with all of those: representational realism, mathematical realism, reductionism, and the Many Worlds Interpretation. As I get closer to trying to understand how this alternate worldview works, I feel more openminded about it. But at the same time, I just can never quite get myself to take it fully seriously. Whenever I try to make sense of it, I'm always eventually led to paradoxes and inconsistencies. But perhaps it's because I'm just trying to drop some assumptions from my worldview, rather than dropping all of these assumptions at once.
Let me state a few preliminary things about the way I see the world. First, I think Descartes was dead wrong when he fallaciously concluded "I think therefore I am". What I would say instead is "I am aware of something, therefore something exists." I'm not convinced that I exist, in the way that he thought he did. With high probability, something approximately "me-like" exists, but that shouldn't be made into an absolute statement as I think it's only approximately true, and I am only approximately separable from the rest of the world anyway. I am on the other hand, 100% convinced there is something which exists, and I call that something "reality". So that's my general starting point for any sort of reasoning about philosophy--it's the only truth that I see as beyond any doubt: something exists, that's for damn sure! So now let's go about trying to describe it (which is by no means guaranteed to be possible). The first issue that I would disagree with logical positivists about is that I think it's very, very, very unlikely that the only things which exist are the things we happen to be aware of with our senses. If someone believes that the only things which exist are those which are necessary for describing their perceptions (or for even more radical positivists, only their perceptions themselves exist), then I think they are being incredibly egocentric and solipsistic. Why on earth would you think that you're that special, that the entire universe revolves around you? The only parts of it that exist are there for your benefit? As if the universe is your own private movie theater, made just for you to watch, with nothing outside of your little screening room? How disturbingly myopic! I would strongly disagree with that viewpoint, which tends to be what logical positivists (and many physicists today, who were influenced by logical positivists like Niels Bohr) still seem to believe. Nevertheless, perhaps the situation is more subtle and they're just taking a pragmatic approach. Perhaps in their heart of hearts, they do agree that there are very likely other things besides what they perceive which exist, but they just don't like talking about them much because they feel like there is no way to make progress on understanding what other sorts of things are out there, if we can't perceive them. "Where I cannot speak, I must remain silent." And that sentiment I can very much understand, even though ultimately I would have to disagree. (And the reason I would disagree, to skip ahead, is mathematics.)
Unfortunately, it's getting late and I need to get up pretty early, so I'm going to have to break it here and continue with a "part 2". I foresee it may take 3 or 4 parts to finish explaining the main point I have here, since this is stuff I've been saving up for at least 3 years, wanting to post.
