Quote:
Originally Posted by AnssiH
And in terms of our worldview, whatever math you use to describe reality, that math is describing the behaviour of some elements that you have decided to tack with identity. The problem being, we did not begin science with a set of "objects" whose behaviour we are just trying to probe. Instead, we decide what constitutes an "object" (or any defined entity like "space" or "time"), the large deciding factor in these definitions being "what makes it simple to understand/predict the behaviour of reality"
I mentioned space and time; notice that in most cases that math is describing the behaviour of those "sensible things" in some "space" (whose properties/essence you defined), and in some "time" (also that you defined). As a related note, it should be clear to see that there's no point in defending some arbitrarily chosen ontological take on spacetime, just because it happens to seem particularly aesthetical or elegant together with the rest of one's worldview.
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Thank you for the response. IMO:
I am not sure what you are referring to when you talk about science defining objects. I am referring to, for example, an apple. Animals have concepts of things like apples, without having a concept of science. An animal or even unscientific human may wonder if he hits an apple from a tree, where will it land.
A minimalist will begin listing properties of apples, and seeking to measure additional properties of apples. Logic is only to be used in conjunction with these ascertained properties. Such a person may weigh an object. They may have, through previous such inquiries determined that certain rules apply even when you switch the object you are working with. Then they will combine these ascertained properties logically to better reason where the object will land.
Minimalism is a more general approach because the same thing can be done with introspective concepts like honesty...
Perhaps you have extracted a response to your arbitrary space time objection. You need not refer to space time to deem my concept of an apple arbitrary. I no doubt define the apple in terms of how I perceive it. If I had a bat's sonar array, or if I had an inverted spectrum, my definition would be different.
Realizing this does not change what I perceive regarding the apple. Trying to redefine apple to meet a new understanding of perception or space time is exactly the type of thing that minimalism is supposed to prevent for the sake of processing efficiency. Rather our understanding of such concepts should just be tacked on to the end of everything else we understand and left there. We can say that if we were a bat and had a sonar array, the same external object (assuming there are external objects) would look different. But an apple is still the colorful yummy fruit in front of us.
