Is physical reality a hoax | Peter Atkins, James Ladyman, Joanna Kavenna

Peter Atkins, James Ladyman, and Joanna Kavenna argue over the existence of physical reality.
Watch the full debate at iai.tv/video/the-world-that-d...
No-one who has ever stepped on a Lego brick could doubt the reality of physical objects. Yet from Heraclitus to George Berkeley, many philosophers claimed to have disproven the existence of things. Now even high-energy particle physicists are inclined to agree and describe material stuff as energy, or even as mathematical constructs. Could the world truly be made up of fields and processes, rather than physical stuff? Or is science trapped in a philosophical fantasy from which it needs to escape?
#PhysicalRealityDebate #MaterialistWorld
#RelatingToReality
Chemist and Fellow of Lincoln College Peter Atkins, Philosopher of Science at the University of Bristol James Ladyman and author of A Field Guide to Reality Joanna Kavenna debate whether the everyday objects that surround us are an illusion. Julian Baggini hosts.
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[@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas]

Do you think physical reality exists? Let us know in the comments below! To watch the full debate visit iai.tv/video/the-world-that-disappeared?KZbin&+comment

[@dr.satishsharma1362]

Excellent..... thanks 🙏.

[@laautaro11]

I appreciate Joanna answer, quite educative

[@brothermine2292]

The first speaker (after the introduction) evaded the "illusory?" question by talking about a "realization of mathematics" (which sounds to me like gobbledegook). He also claimed the universe arose from nothing, as if that's established fact even though it isn't. The second speaker provided a misleading example when he claimed rainbows aren't real even though they're light refracted through water vapor, both of which I think he would say are NOT illusory. The third speaker made the common error of claiming the self "cannot" be found, as if the failure so far to find it somehow implies it can never be found no matter how many advances & discoveries are made by neuroscientists.

[@stacielivinthedream8510]

YES, YES AND YES! CEREBRAL BORING GOBBLIGOOK!!!

[@dhammaboy1203]

I’m glad someone else noticed that these experts where making absurd claims! Yes if raindbows are public illusions because they’re only experienced through one sense than so too is all knowledge - also experienced through only one sense.

[@oioi9372]

Adkins is a moron and a clown, despite writing excellent physical chemistry textbooks

[@matthewstroud4294]

Firstly, mathematics is created by humans as a tool. Because we have discovered that many, many phenomena in the external real world also conform to the logic of mathematics we are able to use this tool to better understand that external reality. That does not mean that reality is "made of mathematics", or that objects are an expression of mathematical constructions, that is stupid. The last speaker was really good. Yes, "primacy of existence" vurses "primacy of consciousness". Also, the tendency for strict determinists to deny the self (free will), and the fallacy of self-exclusion that both they and the "I think therefore I am" crowd fall into.

[@priyakulkarni9583]

What do you mean by everything is mathematics???? It is just a word for concepts. Numbers are concepts mixing numbers with additions substratum’s integers are all we do by rules we created. Do they exist ? Of course we created and they exist for us. We picked these number concepts. If reality is just mixture of mathematics 🧮 so easy then universe would have been mastered !!

[@mathematicalmuscleman]

Mathematics is the Language of Physical Chemistry and Physics.

[@dhammaboy1203]

If a rainbow is considered to be a public illusion on the basis that it can only be experienced through one sense then, similarly, all knowledge - which can also only be expiernced through one sense (the mind) - must also be illusory. Sounds like an untenable claim!

[@likliklik9515]

Less untenable than you might think - many influential neuroscientists subscribe to this theory. I would recommend Anil Seth's TED talk, it's very well-crafted.

[@dhammaboy1203]

@@likliklik9515 yeah it comes down to semantics - if you have a listen to the full podcast they actually debated this point. The problem was the statement was made in a misleading way. What he meant is that a raimbow isnt a physical entity - which is obvious and everyone is going to agree with. As I observed - along with a number of other panelists - light being refracted through the atmosphere is not an illusion at all - that is objectively true. He just needed to qualify his claim more clearly! I am familiar with and like Anil Seth. Hoffman too!

[@TheDeadlyDan]

I'm sorry but no, math isn't the fundamental. Irrational numbers (pi or the golden ratio for example) have no answer. They have infinite integers and there's not enough space in the universe to calculate nor hold an infinite number without an answer. Math is a tool of the universe, not the answer to it.

[@lucasstinchcombe9200]

I disagree. Pi is a real number which can be built from rational numbers via Dedekind cuts, and rational numbers are of course equivalence classes of pairs of integers. So although I don't know if reality is fundamentally mathematical, pi is certainly readily understood and constructed from integers.

[@ryanj748]

I disagree with Daniel, too, and I agree with Lucas Stinchcombe (although I prefer to think of the real numbers as equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences of rational rather than as defined by Dedekind cuts). @Daniel Whitaker, here is something to consider: If you take issue with irrational numbers because there is a way of representing an irrational that doesn't terminate (the "infinite decimal expansion" of an irrational), then you also must take issue with the number 1 (and with every other rational number, for that matter). After all, there *is* a perfectly valid way to represent the number 1 using infinitely many integers: just represent 1 using set complementation within the natural numbers. That is, notice that 1 can be represented using the infinite set {2, 3, 4, 5, ...}, since 1 is the unique positive integer missing from this set. Similarly, 2 can be represented by the infinite set {1, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...}, and 5 by the infinite set {1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, ...}. In this way, we obtain an "infinite representation" of mundane number like 1, 2, etc. By your logic, since "there's not enough space in the universe" to accommodate the infinite set {2, 3, 4, 5, ...} which represents the number 1, there must be something dubious about this number 1 (perhaps it doesn't even exist!). But of course this is nonsense. The number 1 exists, and the number 1 is finite if anything is. The number 1 is finite, but this *representation* of the number 1 I've offered isn't finite. And the same thing goes for numbers like pi (or other irrationals): these numbers are (of course!) finite and non-problematic. There *do* exist infinite representations of irrationals, but that needn't tell us anything about irrationals, in the same way that the infinite representation of the number 1 doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the nature of the number 1. @Daniel Whitaker I think you may be confusing mathematical objects with their representations. There is all the difference in the world between the thing and the way we represent the thing, both within math and outside of it: the word "rose" is not itself a rose; an n by m matrix of real numbers is not itself a linear map between vector spaces; the parametrization of a curve is not itself the curve. @Daniel Whitaker I'd be interested to know what you think of this.

[@TheDeadlyDan]

@@lucasstinchcombe9200 I've not said it wasn't understood, I said that Pi didn't have an answer. No matter how many integers you define, there is still ambiguity in the result. The only way to use an irrational number is to truncate it at some arbitrary point. The universe isn't ambiguous.

[@TheDeadlyDan]

@@lucasstinchcombe9200 The statement was made that math is the "fundamental" of the universe, yet I pointed out that when you use irrational numbers you arrive at ambiguous results. Math cannot be "the fundamental" because the universe is not ambiguous. It has nothing at all to do with whether a number is real or not, but whether it can be used repeatedly to obtain a consistent and reliable result.

[@ryanj748]

@@TheDeadlyDan But it's not true that the only way to use an irrational number is to truncate the infinite decimal expression. We compute (take sums, products, etc.) with irrationals all the time. Approximation error is introduced into these computations only if you insist on representing an irrational using its infinite decimal representation; because there is no reason at all to insist on this, approximation error of the kind you're describing can (and is) avoided.

[@Puppetmastersfool]

It is good to question matters, but also one can take things too far from reality. if physical reality a hoax, then the hoax is on you.. da dumb da dumb da dumb da dumb and so on. No offence meant, but why should one be taken if it is all in your mind, getting upset would only be being up set with yourself. The Italians have a phrase "stai facendo la sega mentale" I will leave that for you to translate, but why would you need to if it is already in your mind and therefore so am I.

[@realphysics5137]

The physics must be absolutely real and simply mechanical. Anything beyond that is not physics in the sense of science. There are phenomena that cannot be explained with our knowledge. But that doesn't mean that some unrealistic and nonsensical theories and hypotheses in physics are allowed. In the face of such inexplicable phenomenon, we should finally consider whether something is missing in our basic knowledge of physics. For example, we know that Newton's laws, the fundamental laws of all physics, are not complete, because they only apply to linear motion which rarely exists in the real world. When basic physics is flawed, it's no wonder why modern physics is hopelessly wrong!

[@ready1fire1aim1]

The known multiverse: 1) real/ necessary w, x, y, z being 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D 2) contingent/not-necessary w, xi, yj, zk (YOU ARE HERE) being 0D, 1D xi, 2D yj, 3D zk 3) simulated/imaginary (working on it) Our ten numbers are 0, 1, 2, 3,...9 ✅. "10" is not one of our ten numbers. If you think 10 comes before 0...you might be duped by Newton's logic/calculus/physics. What an absolute fraud. Newton used political power to "win" against Leibniz. And Humanity foots the bill. The scumbag, trying to "win", always wins. Edison was the scumbag vs Tesla. The M and M "Moron" scumbags vs the Aether guy. The list goes on and on. Read about Newton. Even his most significant achievement was disputed (Hooke had beef with Newton "stealing" HIS original idea). We need to reassess who we're even studying 📖. If humanity all had the correct fundamentals then we'd advance like Tesla was talking about. Who's doing this... It's like a Twilight Zone episode where Globalists are pushing fundamentally incorrect gobbledygook to keep the Plebians stupid. fundamentals = rock specifics = sand Everyone is a genius at the fundamentals. CERN so concerned with 1D, 2D, 3D, 4D 🚫 instead of 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D ✅. Derp.

[@simesaid]

@@ready1fire1aim1 0D objects are studied all the time, they're called point particles, and make up almost all of existence. In fact probably nothing in physics is studied _more_ than zero dimensional objects.

[@lllULTIMATEMASTERlll]

Spoiler alert: no one has proven that mind independent things don’t exist.

[@kencarp57]

FIRST! But not really… 😏

[@Awibrahor]

Only first if you are something out of nothing. 😉

[@merlepatterson]

Rainbows are in fact "REAL", they can be assessed as prismatic effects of incoherent light from the sun being segregated into constituent color spectrum components at a specific viewing angle and distance from the prism to the observer (in this case billions of suspended rain droplets). This is the reason a camera can capture an image of a rainbow. Though it's true that a rainbow isn't a physical object per se, it is the resultant effect of physical objects (observers, photons and prisms) which are well known. The rain is real, the light is real and the observation is real. Nothing is fake about a rainbow. The same thing happens when you hang a crystal from your car mirror or your kitchen window and it makes multi-colored rainbow effects all over the walls when the sun beams through it. Those are as real as turning on a flashlight.

[@laautaro11]

I would only give him the benefit of the doubt as he says thay electromagnetic radiation is indeed real, thus a rainbow as the light diffracted from the sun is real, but as a concept we use to tell the colors we see is in a sense 'not real' as everyone will probably see slightly different colors and have an slightly different idea of what a Rainbow is, and is thus a human concept and not a fundamental part of nature if we understand that as the only 'real' things. But anyway I dont think this is what he means.

[@merlepatterson]

@@laautaro11 And if you snap a photograph of the rainbow you're looking at and show it to someone else later on, will they be correct in saying "That's not real"?

[@laautaro11]

@@merlepatterson The photograph and the image are real for sure 100%, at least in my view. The doubt I would leave open is only if the concept of "rainbow" is "real", in the sense that if it is something that exists outside of human bias perception and description. I guess it would be important to try and define what we mean by real. I think that human perception is part of what is real, which is different from the universe outside of human perception which I presupose to exist and be something that is real and unique (note that this are sort of axioms I am taking to start with). With this framework the "rainbow" is real, but is not part of the universe outside of perception, contrary to photons, which would belong to the category of real within the universe outside of human perception. If someone considers things not intrinsically part of the universe to be not real then the rainbow would be no real. Anyway, I am not totally sure this is the best way to frame haha, what do you think?

[@merlepatterson]

@@laautaro11 The issue isn't whether or not the concept of a rainbow is "real", the issue is that the effect is "real" no matter how one looks at it. You can conceptualize that a rainbow is imaginary, but you can't say the effect is. This is why a camera (a non sentient inanimate object) can record the occurrence of the effect without any requirement or ability for conceptualization. That makes the effect as real as the clouds the rainbow is spawned from. The physical laws of nature dictate the effect is predictable 100% of the time and will always occur under the proper conditions. When I was young, I used to make my own rainbows with one of my mom's plant misters. All I'd have to do is go outside on a sunny day, turn my back to the sun and spray a fine mist in front of me and 'voila' a rainbow appears.

[@laautaro11]

@@merlepatterson I think you nailed it saying "you can conceptualize that a rainbow is imaginary, but you can't say the effect is". I think we agree on this and is precisely the core of the idea. Its been a nice talk, bests.

[@PorGaymer]

this is kind of dull

[@geraldobah1]

Am gonna stop now. Thanks for the awareness.

[@libraryofthemind]

I watched the entire thing on the website while cooking and it proceeded to be dull. What is also revealed is the host seems fearful of Donald Hoffman.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Theory of Everything solution (short version): Swap from Newton "real/necessary" universe over to Leibniz "contingent/not-necessary" universe as our fundamental blueprint of the universe. This includes Leibniz calculus vs Newton calculus. Anywhere Leibniz and Newton thought different. All of it. Full swap. Gottfried Leibniz "contingent/not-necessary" universe just lacked 2022 quantum physics verbiage (just match up definitions i.e. quark and Monad) and Hamilton's 4D quaternion algebra (created 200 years after Leibniz died). Lastly, our first number is NOT 1. It's 0. Our ten numbers are 0, 1, 2, 3,...9 ✅. Our ten dimensions are 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D,...9D ✅. Ask someone to begin counting. I bet they begin with 1. 1 is not the beginning. 0 is the beginning. 1D is a Line; two points; physical; matter; beginning and ending; contingent. 0D is a (point); exact location only; no spatial extension; zero size; Monad (Leibniz) Quark (strong nuclear force); necessary. Examples: What is another word for quark? fundamental particle, elementary particle. Do quarks take up space? Its defining feature is that it lacks spatial extension; being dimensionless, it does not take up space. How fast do quarks move? the speed of light (see Leibniz's Law of Sufficient Reason). What is an elementary particle example? (0, 1, 2, 3) Elementary particles include quarks (the constituents of protons and neutrons), leptons (electrons, muons, taus, and neutrinos), gauge bosons (photons, gluons, and W and Z bosons) and the Higgs boson. What is the size of an elementary particle? The elementary particles are not believed to have any size at all. As currently understood they are zero size points. Protons and neutrons (and all hadrons) are about 10−15m. Match Leibniz definitions to quantum physics definitions. Different word, same definition. Not a coincidence.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Human consciousness, mathematically, is identical to 4D quaternion algebra with w, x, y, z being "real/necessary" (0D, 1D, 2D, 3D) and i, j, k being "contingent/not-necessary" (0D, 1D xi, 2D yj, 3D zk). 1D-9D contingent/not-necessary universe has "conscious lifeforms" (1D xi, 2D yj, 3D zk)..."turning" 'time'. [In mathematics, a versor is a quaternion of norm one (a unit quaternion). The word is derived from Latin versare = "to turn" with the suffix -or forming a noun from the verb (i.e. versor = "the turner"). It was introduced by William Rowan Hamilton in the context of his quaternion theory.] [Math; 4D quaternion algebra] A quaternion is a 4-tuple, which is a more concise representation than a rotation matrix. Its geo- metric meaning is also more obvious as the rotation axis and angle can be trivially recovered. How do you make a quaternion? (Nobody is starting with 0) You can create an N-by-1 quaternion array by specifying an N-by-3 array of Euler angles in radians or degrees. Use the euler syntax to create a scalar quaternion using a 1-by-3 vector of Euler angles in radians. "Turn" to what, you might ask. 5D is the center of 1D-9D. The breadth (space-time). All things are drawn to the center, the whole. (Gravity means Nothing compared to the Strong Nuclear Force) [Contingent Universe]: 3 sets of 3 dimensions: (1D-3D/4D-6D/7D-9D) The illusory middle set (4D, 5D, 6D) is temporal. Id imagine we create this middle temporal set similar to a dimensional Venn Diagram with polarized lenses that we "turn" by being conscious. Which requires energy. 3D height symmetry/entanglement with 6D depth and 9D absorption is why we are "consumers", we must consume/absorb calories, and sleep, to continue "to turn" 'time' (be alive). 1D-3D spatial set/7D-9D spectral set overlap creating the temporal illusion of 4D-6D set. Transcending one another. 1D, 2D, 3D = spatial composite (line, width, height) 4D, 5D, 6D = temporal illusory (length, breadth, depth) 7D, 8D, 9D = spectra energies (continuous, emission, absorption) Symmetry/entanglement: 1D, 4D, 7D line, length, continuous 2D, 5D, 8D width, breadth, emission 3D, 6D, 9D height, depth, absorption [Time] According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of its flow doesn't correspond to physical reality. Indeed, as Rovelli argues in The Order of Time, much more is illusory, including Isaac Newton's picture of a universally ticking clock. Does time exist without space? Time 'is' as space 'is' - part of a reference frame in which in ordered sequence you can touch, throw and eat apples. Time cannot exist without space and the existence of time does require energy. Time, then, has three levels, according to Leibniz: (i) the atemporality or eternality of God; (ii) the continuous immanent becoming-itself of the monad as entelechy; (iii) time as the external framework of a chronology of “nows” The difference between (ii) and (iii) is made clear by the account of the internal principle of change. The real difference between the necessary being of God and the contingent, created finitude of a human being is the difference between (i) and (ii). Conclusion: Humanity needs to immediately swap from "Newton" to "Leibniz". Also from Edison to Tesla. Also Dalton Our calculus is incorrect (Leibniz > Newton): What is the difference between Newton and Leibniz calculus? Newton's calculus is about functions. Leibniz's calculus is about relations defined by constraints. In Newton's calculus, there is (what would now be called) a limit built into every operation. In Leibniz's calculus, the limit is a separate operation.

[@TheAtheist22]

You needed to have Sam Harris in the debate. Would be very interesting.

[@rikcoach1]

Really? Sam Harris put me to sleep.

[@TheAtheist22]

@@rikcoach1 Really? Is that your best argument!?

[@likliklik9515]

@@TheAtheist22 Obviously it's not his best argument.

[@JCO2002]

When I hear nonsense like that, I always think of Gormenghast when the student sets the professor's beard on fire to demonstrate that reality indeed does exist.

[@scoreprinceton]

Pain/Suffering though real, the perceiver of that pain/suffering might be illusory.

[@JCO2002]

@@scoreprinceton Not illusory to the perceiver - he's got his beard on fire. And the one who set it on fire has immense satisfaction by having done so.

[@scoreprinceton]

@@JCO2002 so everything is real no illusions at all!!

[@JCO2002]

@@scoreprinceton You got it. There is a real world, with real things in it, with no room for gods, spirits, genies, or fake gurus with mystical powers.

[@scoreprinceton]

@@JCO2002 💯