Axiom 1) Either external reality exists or it does not. Let’s call external reality ‘the black box’.

Axiom 2i) If the black box exists, then it is knowable or it is not knowable.

Axiom 2ii) If the black box does not exist, then it is not knowable.

From here we have 3 possible options as above.

But let’s take a clear look at this :

Axiom 1. Either there is something ‘out there’ that give rise to our perceptions or there is not. Let’s call this the black box. Axiom 2. It follows that either the black box is knowable or it is not. Nothing here to disagree with I hope. It just basic logic of ‘Either Or’.

From here we have 3 possible options.

option a). There is No black box. As you say it’s possible that when we don’t think about things then they don’t exist (e.g. Paris) and you say ‘I guess assuming that there is no objective reality is not such a long shot’. If that is the case then everything is purely inside your mind. That position is called Solipsism. Think about it. If Paris ceases to exist when you don’t perceive it, then that applies to everything else, including other people. Your perceptions are ‘inside’ your mind, hence the entire universe is just a bunch of perceptions that come and go inside your mind. No external reality, means no external universe. That means that the universe is really just a bunch of perceptions that come and go inside your mind. Your mind is the only thing that exists.
If you want to avoid solipsism, then you have to allow that there is something out there that gives rise to our perceptions.

option b). There is a black box out there and we can know its contents. We know exactly what reality is and science just extends and enhances our knowledge of reality.

option c). There is a black box out there, but we cannot know its contents. That is Kant’s position. We can Not know the nature of the underlying ‘reality’ that gives rise to our perceptions. In his terminology, the noumenal that gives rise to the phenomenal cannot be known.

Your last note concerning speculation and scientific knowledge is pure philosophy. Just find a good book on the philosophy of science.

I am also a Christian, and pretty Orthodox as well.

However, I don’t seek to find God in the physical universe, and I’m not afraid to admit that my belief in God is just that — belief.

For me, Christianity has ofered the most convincing explanation of human life and its inherent value, and therefore the reason to live a “good” and “just” life.

Other people might find something else, and frankly, I don’t worry about it.

Because if the God I believe in really does exist — a merciful, loving, compassionate God — I doubt that God is overly concerned about doctrinal differences.

I’m happy to share my faith with others, and I welcome informed dialogue about it. And I doubt I will ever leave my own faith behind. Yet, I refuse the notion that I have the exclusive track of truth or faith because I am willing to admit that my own faith is just that.

In my opinion, faith should never produce arrogance; rather, it should produce the opposite. If faith is to be authentic, then it should be admitted to be such and should therefore produce humility. Because ultimately, I could be wrong, and I shouldn’t be afraid of that.

It implies distinctions that I think are false: the “secular” vs. the “sacred,” the immaterial, or at least the vaporous/ethereal/ or otherwise foggy vs. the material.

A thread isn’t enough room to state with precision how I use the word spiritual – it’s kind of a hard word to avoid in talking about a certain category of experience. To give a rough idea, I’d apply it to anyone with a strong passion for the world beyond the self – which very much includes the desire to see truth win out over lies.

I would not apply the word to those who only imagine that they have a strong passion for the world beyond themselves –for example, believers who get their egos and their God mixed up and try to impose their views on others.

Faith and belief in supernatural forces or deities are not the same thing despite how very linked they’ve become over the centuries I think due primarily to the equivalence drawn between them by major religious institutions. (Btw, “supernatural” vs. “natural” is another distinction I’d reject.)

Faith as I’ve described it isn’t irrational. I doubt very much that you’d ever want to read the book – “faith” in the title is a real turn off to unbelievers – but I wrote it with two primary groups of people in mind, and atheists is one of the two. I just couldn’t avoid the word “faith” since that, along with love, is mainly what the book’s about.

Needless to say the title of your blog got my attention.

Kant is saying, in a way, that objective reality is a black box.

I guess this quote sums up your position. If that is so, then I have to say: I still disagree with you. Because you suggest an underlying ‘objective reality’, whereas I say that the question of reality is in some sense the same as the question for god. We cannot know the answer, knowing it wouldn’t probably change anything, and most importantly, everything works just fine without it.

I see ‘objective reality’ as another construct the human mind has created to cope with the phenomena it encounters every day for the past few million years. It is a result of the increasing ability to rationalize, to perceive, and to prescind.

For example, I assume that you assume that some “thing”, which represents itself towards us as the city of Paris, exists in objective reality the very moment you are reading these lines. If neither you nor me are there, how can we be sure about that? With all that mankind has learned about quantum physics, and the at least cogitable idea of multiple universes, I guess assuming that there is no objective reality is not such a long shot.

On a last note, I don’t consider this issue a matter of metaphysics and/or philosophy. It’s a matter of

a) scientific knowledge (can we finally figure out the nature of reality, and if so, how), and

b) speculation, which is what I am doing right now, by assuming that there is no ‘objective reality’.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

There is no disagreement. You are discussing the nature of scientific knowledge and our ability to understand it. So you are agreeing with me that metaphysics (actually let’s just call it philosophy, i.e. the type of enquiry that examines our capacity for reason and understanding and examines the nature, utility and validity of the kinds of knowledge available) is essential if we want to discuss such things. Well, this is a philosophical discussion.
Also, in computing, ppl use the expression ‘black box’. A black box is a system or object viewed in terms of its input and output without any knowledge required of its internal workings. Kant is saying, in a way, that objective reality is a black box.

And how would that be any importance to science?
Philosophical interpretations are important if we want to understand science’s contribution to our knowledge of the universe.

You are engaging in philosophical discussion right now.

See Big Bang timeline

As for the wave function thing, once a quantum system has decohered into a specific state it won’t go back to being in an unspecific state. Decoherence means an increase in entropy, so it would be like saying that the molecules in a gas could go back to their original configuration once they’ve mixed. In theory its’ possible, but in practice it won’t happen (for a complex system).

Science is all about formula’s and numbers, philosophycal interpretation is not part of science.

Sometimes it is really cool to look at those formula’s and ask yourself what do these numbers mean? How could we convert those formula’s and numbers to something that we can actually visualize and tough. It is nice as a hobby, but not part of science.

Did you know that the atom model you get taught in school is actually an oversimplified model and not really how an atom is?

Did you know that the so called electron orbits you have learned in school do not exist in science? There is no electron that orbits the atom like a solar system, it is just a location with high probability where you can find an electron, and the electron pops in and put of existance.

Basically this atomic model learned in school is just a simplified physolophycal interpretation, but the formulas are correct as far as evidence shows it to be. They just need some more finetuning.

So if you think about it, how cool is is to know that you are part of the universe in relaxed state. LOL

I agree, the complete atoms are forged in the stars and supernova, so that is also very cool, but the basic building blocks, electrons, protons,… were created in in big bang.

I believe that the energy froze to matter after 300.000 years, not minutes. But I need to check on this.

For example, there are not that many people who really understand 4-dimensional space time, yet we apparently live in it, and we can construct hyotheses that turn out reliable results.
There are probably far less people in the world (I guess the actuall number is somewhere close to zero) who understand QCD, QED etc. Yet there are tens of thousands of physicists crunching numbers every day and mathematically explaining effects that are counter-intuitive.

Point is, we don’t have to understand something to make it work for us (think of your computer, do you really understand how it works?!). In fact, I think that we have reached a point where we know much more than we understand. And that doesn’t worry me the slightest bit :D

Our neurological and physiological limitations are results of adapting to a specific environment. If you were a bat, you might be able to hear colors. But we can “only” see them. That’ll have to do.