Ya, I keep thinking that there must be a story in there somewhere. Scientific Realism carried to it's logical conclusion entails surrealism.
In an infinite universe, everything that is possible (no matter how vastly improbable) must occur an infinite number of times. Somewhere out there very, very strange things are happening.
But how do we know that the seeming solidity and order of our own world isn't entirely due to an incredible run of luck, which could give out at any moment? What if reality's only true law is that everything is contingent? After all, what necessitates necessity? What could cause causality?
Setting all that aside, we're still left with Hawking's paradox - if there is causal structure that underlies our experience, then we don’t make or believe arguments because they’re logical...instead we make and believe the arguments that are entailed by the underlying causal structure.
If we present and believe logical arguments, that can only be because “the machine” *makes* us do so.
Which means that our beliefs are only rational and right if that rationality and rightness is built into the causal substructure that gave rise to those beliefs.
Similarly, our experiences will make sense to us only if the underlying causal structure entails that we feel that they make sense.
It seems to me that everything we have discovered about the universe tells us in no uncertain terms that reality must be full of lies. Even tiny glimmers of truth should be incredibly few and far between.
no subject
In an infinite universe, everything that is possible (no matter how vastly improbable) must occur an infinite number of times. Somewhere out there very, very strange things are happening.
But how do we know that the seeming solidity and order of our own world isn't entirely due to an incredible run of luck, which could give out at any moment? What if reality's only true law is that everything is contingent? After all, what necessitates necessity? What could cause causality?
Setting all that aside, we're still left with Hawking's paradox - if there is causal structure that underlies our experience, then we don’t make or believe arguments because they’re logical...instead we make and believe the arguments that are entailed by the underlying causal structure.
If we present and believe logical arguments, that can only be because “the machine” *makes* us do so.
Which means that our beliefs are only rational and right if that rationality and rightness is built into the causal substructure that gave rise to those beliefs.
Similarly, our experiences will make sense to us only if the underlying causal structure entails that we feel that they make sense.
It seems to me that everything we have discovered about the universe tells us in no uncertain terms that reality must be full of lies. Even tiny glimmers of truth should be incredibly few and far between.