What does physicalist science tell us about reality?

[AshvinP]

However, I do not believe that these math models have anything to do with the "noumenal" source of those phenomena. They only give us approximate math models of how the phenomena behave, but do not explain what they "noumenally" are and what their noumenal source is."
...
Still, we can not completely rule out a possibility that the models may have something to do with the noumenal reality.

Yes, we can, and Don did, and you yourself did. Do I really need to ask?

But there is still a problem for any philosophy/metaphysics/ontology: the fact that the observed conscious phenomena always follow consistent patterns that can be accurately approximated and predicted by certain math models requires an explanation. Any metaphysics, ontology or spiritual worldview is ought to explain how these empirical facts and consistent patterns of phenomena that we observe emerge from (or caused by) the noumenal reality that such metaphysics assumes to exist. Every metaphysics has this explanatory challenge, which usually remains an unsolved explanatory gap for most of the known variants of metaphysics/ontology.

If we stop assuming dualism, where you are passive observer here and phenomena is over there, and realize our participatory Thinking working within the phenomena, then the above is the easiest of all things to explain.

[AshvinP]

Maybe I see what your confusion is about.

You are confusing the abstract concepts that model reality (energy, matter, gravity, etc) with reality itself.

That is practically the definition of "physicalism" or "materialism", Jim. Just a slight case of projection... Don is pointing out why you guys (including Rovelli RQM followers and all Eastern mystical materialists) have been confusing abstractions for Reality going on centuries now and may want to stop doing so, as it leads to no true understanding (it never did), and does not even lead to beneficial practical application anymore.

Ashvin,

You're crazy. This is what you think physicalists think. You're attacking a straw man.

It is exactly what physicalists think. If they do not hold warped space-time, existing external to all observers, as the cause of gravitational effects, in a very literal materialist way, then what?

[Eugene I]

To this monad of irreducible Mind, seems pretty much like saying that all models are provisional ... except my preferred one of course

Right, they are all provisional, but some of them are still preferred

[Soul_of_Shu]

Right, they are all provisional, but some of them are still preferred

Coming back again to why any given affinity for a preferred model or mythos, if not a pre-corporeal predisposition toward a preference/proclivity/affinity? And as such no amount of chastising or pressuring or re-educating someone for not seeing that some other model or mythos 'should' be preferred is going to have much impact—and hence why endless attempts fail to convert what are perceived to be the hapless 'infidels'.

[Eugene I]

Coming back again to why any given affinity for a preferred model or mythos, if not a pre-corporeal predisposition toward a preference/proclivity/affinity? And as such no amount of chastising or pressuring or re-educating someone for not seeing that some other model or mythos 'should' be preferred is going to have much impact—and hence why endless attempts fail to convert what are perceived to be the hapless 'infidels'.

Could be. But then how come there can be pre-corporeal predisposition towards a preference to physicalism? Perhaps even in the pre-corporeal form there is still uncertainty and provisional nature of models and still no convergence to universally agreed models, with "groups of interests" of pre-corporeal monads leaning towards different preferred models. Which means that they probably have their own "metaphysical speculation" forum there to endlessly attempt to convert the infidels from other groups into their own belief systems. Well, at least they have something there to entertain themselves with. As one NDE experiencer said, his deceased relative told him: "It's very nice here, but boring"

[Soul_of_Shu]

Could be. But then how come there can be pre-corporeal predisposition towards a preference to physicalism?

Not sure, but why should any given predisposition be precluded? Or for that matter, what precludes the tendency for becoming a zealous crusader?

[AshvinP]

Right, they are all provisional, but some of them are still preferred

Coming back again to why any given affinity for a preferred model or mythos, if not a pre-corporeal predisposition toward a preference/proclivity/affinity? And as such no amount of chastising or pressuring or re-educating someone for not seeing that some other model or mythos 'should' be preferred is going to have much impact—and hence why endless attempts fail to convert what are perceived to be the hapless 'infidels'.

Dana,

Your question really highlights the complete failure of physicalism and idealism which rejects reincarnation of the soul to make sense of our "innate" dispositions and seemingly "determined" life paths. That includes any Eastern view which accepts reincarnation but practically negates it by saying we are not accumulating experience, knowledge, etc. throughout the entire process. And the naive physicalist and idealist alike will say, because I can't remember it or see it, it must not exist or influence me in any way.

[Jim Cross]

All models are false - including the one that asserts mind or consciousness is ultimate reality; however, some models are useful .

OK, but then also including the one that asserts matter is ultimate reality. Absolutely

But here we need to distinguish math models of natural sciences that are not concerned (or should not be concerned) with the nature of ultimate reality, and metaphysical models that are allowed to and are intended to make inferences about the nature of ultimate reality. To say that they are by default all false is IMO overstatement, we just do not know if they are true or false, there is still a possibility that one of them may turn out to be true, but we just don't know with absolute certainty which one it would be.Possibly but I don't think so. They may resemble reality in a fractal sort of way but still not be the whole.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Dana,

Your question really highlights the complete failure of physicalism and idealism which rejects reincarnation of the soul to make sense of our "innate" dispositions and seemingly "determined" life paths. That includes any Eastern view which accepts reincarnation but practically negates it by saying we are not accumulating experience, knowledge, etc. throughout the entire process. And the naive physicalist and idealist alike will say, because I can't remember it or see it, it must not exist or influence me in any way.

Makes some sense that in any given incarnation we test-drive a model, learning from it certain lessons that can't be learned from other models, until such time that we learn what needed to be learned, and the model having served its integral function in the Process is worn out, and traded in for the next one.

[Jim Cross]

What does physicalist science tell us about reality?

Nothing.

In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting phenomena.[1]

According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes.[2] Scientific theory is merely a tool whereby humans predict observations in a particular domain of nature by formulating laws, which state or summarize regularities, while theories themselves do not reveal supposedly hidden aspects of nature that somehow explain these laws.[3] Instrumentalism is a perspective originally introduced by Pierre Duhem in 1906.[3]

Rejecting scientific realism's ambitions to uncover metaphysical truth about nature,[3] instrumentalism is usually categorized as an antirealism, although its mere lack of commitment to scientific theory's realism can be termed nonrealism. Instrumentalism merely bypasses debate concerning whether, for example, a particle spoken about in particle physics is a discrete entity enjoying individual existence, or is an excitation mode of a region of a field, or is something else altogether.[4][5][6] Instrumentalism holds that theoretical terms need only be useful to predict the phenomena, the observed outcomes.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism