I am reading a great science fiction book entitled Anathem by Neal Stephenson. These lines struck me as quite insightful.
“I…was struck by their intelligence, their polish, and (as usual) how much stuff they owned. But there was nothing underneath. They knew many things but had no idea why.”
[Watching fire on the mountain] “beauty pierces through like that ray through the clouds…Your eye is drawn to where it touches something that is capable of reflecting it. But your mind knows that the light does not originate from the mountains and the towers. Your mind knows that something is shining in from another world. Don’t listen to those who say it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
“At the same time, though, I knew that this was how the Saunts [secular saints] had done it. They judge theoretical proofs not logically, but aesthetically.”
These observations point towards the ideal, and more specifically in Anathem, an “ideal” world that is real (Platonic Realism).
Karl Popper gave a wonderful lecture in the Tanner Series on Human Values entitled “Three Worlds,” that is available on line, and it provides a modern thumbnail justification for escaping both the materialist and the dualist dilemma. Professor Popper posits the normal material world, which he calls World 1, the human experience of World 1, which he calls World 2, and the set of things created by the human mind, which he calls World 3. To use his example, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony exists in World 1 as ink on paper, sound waves in an auditorium, the neurons of Beethoven’s brain, etc. It also existed in Beethoven’s mind as a concept or audience’s experience of a performance of it, World 2. But, Professor Popper also noted that there were better performances of the Fifth Symphony, meaning also that there is objective creation that is the 5th Symphony, World 3. The standard would not simply be to what degree the performance exactly replicated the notes on the paper because that is not how music works; the score points to the performance, but is not precise enough to dictate it (thank goodness), and one could say the same about a performance of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Does a great work of the human mind really and objectively exist? Professor Pooper argues that it does because it has a causal effect upon us in Worlds 1 and 2. He compares it to iron filings reacting to an unseen magnet. What exactly is a magnetic field anyway? A description of what was observed in its theoretical presence or something that actually caused the observed behavior to happen? Professor Popper opines that a magnetic field is real because it has a causal effect. If the real is defined this way, the question becomes whether a scientific theory or combination of notes or colors have a causal effect; if they do, they are real. Another way to think about this is to realize that the thought behind the language used is that thought which survives translation; it is only the thought behind the words that causes the response to it, not the words themselves—the thought has an objective reality. World 2 acts as an intermediary between World 1 and World 3; World 2 describes a thought process and World 3 thought content.
The materialist and the dualist are limited to saying that a great work of art or scientific theory or language itself is merely a subjective opinion, a metaphor for something that does not actually exist, a reaction by some group of people. Ockham’s razor, a logician’s tool for evaluating the truth of a theory, speaks to this; simpler and cleaner is somehow presumed better. Why? Why isn’t the more awkward or ugly theory the best? Why is there something satisfying about E=mc2 or F=MA? Anathem is focused on the scientific/mathematic possibility of Platonic realism; the result of the intersection of mulitverses at the quantum level; not probability wave forms collapsing upon observation, but our glimpse of a portion of a sub-atomic thing that is shared by many universes. According to both Professor Popper and Neal Stephenson “redness” or “chairness” would not be just an idea, but an object, a World 3 object to use Professor Popper’s terminology. The beauty of fire on the mountain would not just be the beauty of that fire on that mountain in Anathem, but an objective, universal beauty.
No. 37 Anathem and Platonic Realism
I am reading a great science fiction book entitled Anathem by Neal Stephenson. These lines struck me as quite insightful.
“I…was struck by their intelligence, their polish, and (as usual) how much stuff they owned. But there was nothing underneath. They knew many things but had no idea why.”
[Watching fire on the mountain] “beauty pierces through like that ray through the clouds…Your eye is drawn to where it touches something that is capable of reflecting it. But your mind knows that the light does not originate from the mountains and the towers. Your mind knows that something is shining in from another world. Don’t listen to those who say it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
“At the same time, though, I knew that this was how the Saunts [secular saints] had done it. They judge theoretical proofs not logically, but aesthetically.”
These observations point towards the ideal, and more specifically in Anathem, an “ideal” world that is real (Platonic Realism).
Karl Popper gave a wonderful lecture in the Tanner Series on Human Values entitled “Three Worlds,” that is available on line, and it provides a modern thumbnail justification for escaping both the materialist and the dualist dilemma. Professor Popper posits the normal material world, which he calls World 1, the human experience of World 1, which he calls World 2, and the set of things created by the human mind, which he calls World 3. To use his example, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony exists in World 1 as ink on paper, sound waves in an auditorium, the neurons of Beethoven’s brain, etc. It also existed in Beethoven’s mind as a concept or audience’s experience of a performance of it, World 2. But, Professor Popper also noted that there were better performances of the Fifth Symphony, meaning also that there is objective creation that is the 5th Symphony, World 3. The standard would not simply be to what degree the performance exactly replicated the notes on the paper because that is not how music works; the score points to the performance, but is not precise enough to dictate it (thank goodness), and one could say the same about a performance of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Does a great work of the human mind really and objectively exist? Professor Pooper argues that it does because it has a causal effect upon us in Worlds 1 and 2. He compares it to iron filings reacting to an unseen magnet. What exactly is a magnetic field anyway? A description of what was observed in its theoretical presence or something that actually caused the observed behavior to happen? Professor Popper opines that a magnetic field is real because it has a causal effect. If the real is defined this way, the question becomes whether a scientific theory or combination of notes or colors have a causal effect; if they do, they are real. Another way to think about this is to realize that the thought behind the language used is that thought which survives translation; it is only the thought behind the words that causes the response to it, not the words themselves—the thought has an objective reality. World 2 acts as an intermediary between World 1 and World 3; World 2 describes a thought process and World 3 thought content.
The materialist and the dualist are limited to saying that a great work of art or scientific theory or language itself is merely a subjective opinion, a metaphor for something that does not actually exist, a reaction by some group of people. Ockham’s razor, a logician’s tool for evaluating the truth of a theory, speaks to this; simpler and cleaner is somehow presumed better. Why? Why isn’t the more awkward or ugly theory the best? Why is there something satisfying about E=mc2 or F=MA? Anathem is focused on the scientific/mathematic possibility of Platonic realism; the result of the intersection of mulitverses at the quantum level; not probability wave forms collapsing upon observation, but our glimpse of a portion of a sub-atomic thing that is shared by many universes. According to both Professor Popper and Neal Stephenson “redness” or “chairness” would not be just an idea, but an object, a World 3 object to use Professor Popper’s terminology. The beauty of fire on the mountain would not just be the beauty of that fire on that mountain in Anathem, but an objective, universal beauty.