There is no God’s Eye View of Reality

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coberst

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There is no God’s Eye View of Reality

Thus spake Mr. Hilary Putnam in Reason, Truth, and History.

Putnam speaks of metaphysical realism and objectivism, from both an externalist and an internalist point of view.

Objectivism is a special case of metaphysical realism. Putnam argues that metaphysical realism is incoherent from an internalist perspective. This incoherence results from the impossibility of the externalist view; one cannot place the self outside of reality in order to find a unique perspective in which to view reality.

Putnam shows that the externalist view is logically impossible because metaphysical realism is formulated within symbol systems. “The metaphysical realist views of meaning, reference, knowledge, and understanding all make presuppositions about symbol systems and their interpretations that are logically incoherent.” Putnam argues that there cannot be “exactly one true and complete description of the ‘the way the world is’…there can be no God’s eye view of reality”.

Putnam is not arguing that there is no reality, i.e. basic realism, but only that the epistemology of the externalist view is logically incoherent. The problem rests on the assumption of the availability of a “God’s eye view”, which is inherent in the externalist perspective. We can not step outside of reality, we are part of reality. What is needed is an internalist view of reality, i.e. we must develop an epistemology that recognizes that we are functioning as part of reality and that it is impossible for us to just step outside and become an observer with a God’s eye point of view.

In place of metaphysical realism Putnam proposes another form of realism: internalist realism wherein we take a point of view in accordance with the human functioning within the world of objects and not externally from the object. To quote Putnam:

“I shall refer to it as the internalist perspective, because it is characteristic of this view to hold that what objects the world consists of? is a question that it only makes sense to ask within a theory of description…‘Truth’, in an internalist view, is some sort of (idealized) rational acceptability—some sort of ideal coherence of our beliefs with each other and with our experiences as those experiences are themselves represented in our belief system—and not correspondence with mind-independent ‘states of affairs’. There is no God’s Eye point of view that we can know or usefully imagine; there are only various points of view of actual persons reflecting various interests and purposes that their descriptions and theories subserve.”
 
You'd be interested in what Kierkegaard has to say about perspectivism, external influences and God.
 
An Objectivist here, just passing by, interesting to see comments holding to the idea that it is impossible to be outside looking in. I agree. "Supernatural" is a contradiction in terms.

I also think this 'internalist perspective' as described begins to get close to proper validation of truth. When saying "rational acceptability" I would tend to reverse the "idealized" modifier and instead throw in "contextual." This means that the 'acceptability' mentioned above ignores protesters who have found exceptions outside of the bound of the system. "Idealized" tends to throw up the need for perfection, while contextual requires exhaustion all the way to the bound of the system, but not beyond into silly, unneeded demands.

This, in fact, is how science works. Induction with bounds and context with rigorous exhaustion to avoid hasty generalization.

Example:
Proposition: "Type 303 stainless steel melts at 2650 degrees F."
For real humans in the real world, this proposition might be really important! The urgency of importance establishes the context and bounds. If investigated, all those attempting to validate or disprove will respect the context and bounds. They will not declare failure if massive testing with instruments costing millions of dollars discovers that some 303 melts at 2650.0123 degrees and some at 2649.9938 degrees if the real life human need is accuracy only to .1 degree. Since for the purpose of the truth-need .1 degree is way more than enough, all results finer than the bounds need not be gathered. They won't call the cops if they find a way to apply pressure in a smelter costing millions that lowers the melting temp by 2 degrees. Context and bounds.

You see, once context and bounds are clear to all, testing can bring about certainty. We don't have to get lucky or have some magical idealized acceptability. It is verifiable by all rationals and not subjective. It is objective. And not outside.

Some other need might generate the proposition "Type 303 stainless steel melts between 2600 and 2700 degrees." They have set their bounds. Certainty can be attained here, as well.

Ayn Rand was a major champion of this epistemology and Objectivists see no reason to validate truth -- all truth -- in any other way.

John Donohue
 
Objects for us cannot exist independently of our conceptual schemes.

Knowledge is not a narrative with no constraints, it is a narrative with the internal coherence demanded by our internal conceptual system. There are no data inputs unconstrained by our concepts—preconceptual structures.

Our objectivity is “internal” because it does not take an external perspective that stands outside of reality.

“Our way of understanding the world in terms of objects, properties, and relations is an imposition of our conceptual schemes upon external reality” “Because objects and categories of objects are characterized internal to conceptual systems, not external to them, the problem of the indeterminacy of reference disappears.”

For more than a millennium Western philosophy was controlled by intellect and powerful hand of the Catholic Church. That control is still embedded in our Western philosophical and scientific tradition.

Galileo (1564—1642) faced the Inquisition because he proposed scientific theories unfavorable to the Church and was severely chastised. Descartes (1596—1650) formulated his philosophical theories in accordance with Church doctrine and was not chastised. Descartes’ philosophy remains as a fundamental element in today’s philosophy of objectivism.
 
coberst I could go Socratic on that post and challenge each forumlation, since I disagree with many and many are dubious. But to what end?

Are you making a case FOR something?

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
 
Okay, here, I'll question one.

"Objects for us cannot exist independently of our conceptual schemes."
Are you saying that when you die, reality will cease to exist?

John Donohue
 
John Donohue said:
coberst I could go Socratic on that post and challenge each forumlation, since I disagree with many and many are dubious. But to what end?

Are you making a case FOR something?

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
Click to expand...

I am making the case for a new paradigm for cognitive science that is an internalist view of reality. This new paradigm challenges the other paradigm, which is AI (Artificial Intelligence) that is based upon the objectivist or externalist view.

We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

The three major findings of cognitive science are:
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”

All living creatures categorize. All creatures, as a minimum, separate eat from no eat and friend from foe. As neural creatures tadpole and wo/man categorize. There are trillions of synaptic connections taking place in the least sophisticated of creatures and this multiple synapses must be organized in some way to facilitate passage through a small number of interconnections and thus categorization takes place. Great numbers of different synapses take place in an experience and these are subsumed in some fashion to provide the category eat or foe perhaps.

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”.
 
John Donohue said:
Okay, here, I'll question one.

"Objects for us cannot exist independently of our conceptual schemes."
Are you saying that when you die, reality will cease to exist?

John Donohue
Click to expand...

When I die reality for me will die also.
 
I am following you a little better now. To paraphrase, you are saying that there is a tradition that holds an unresolved mind/body schism. You are rejecting his and saying the functions of mind are wholly part of the animal man's brain.

Is that accurate?

If so, I am with you up to that point.

I would disagree with your quoted writer on the second part of this, and then the connected ideas down to the bottom of your post:

“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. ..... our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”

Is there a lot going on with instinct, drives, hormones, fears, etc? Yes, all of that. Still, man can and must bring his consciousness to a focus and voluntarily think and act. That makes all the difference.

I would also say there is a much more compelling disquiet from dropping the mind/body duality: If reason, the soul, the 'person' is intrinsically embodied, this puts the quash on the idea of a supernatural realm and life after death. That is a big deal.

"When I die reality for me will die also."
But reality does goes on existing, right?

Also, unless you believe there is a "me" after death, which could not be the case given the above statements you support, then the "for me" is superfluous, right?

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
 

John, it is very difficult to speak with preciseness because we do not have a vocabulary to do so, because we have seldom before had the need to do so, because our common sense and our traditional Western philosophy led us to belief that mind-independent reality exists and that we can know it.

We need a word like body-mind to use to replace our commonly used mind and body. Body-mind means that every thought, perception, and knowledge that we have is a result of the mind-body.

We cannot bracket the body. All of our experiences and all of our abstract ideas are filled with structures relating to our body’s reaction. Like a tennis player’s concepts of serving have the moves required to hit a serve likewise all of our concepts contain our bodily reaction to the experience. That is why we are so inclined to speak with our hands and with our bodies.
 
John Donohue said:
Okay, here, I'll question one.

"Objects for us cannot exist independently of our conceptual schemes."
Are you saying that when you die, reality will cease to exist?

John Donohue
Click to expand...


For an accurate answer you'd have to ask someone who's dead.

My opion/wager is that when you die, yes reality ceases to exist... Reality is what the invidual makes...... It's like "evil" that is just down to a persons personal preference there is no 'standard' lol.... I have my own reality and when I die it dies with me..... Your's (if you should out live me.) Carrys on.... Mine does not. (I don't think so anyway... 88% sure)
 
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