Reality of Abstractions

[hibbsa]

By far Reality of Abstractions is my favourite BoI chapter, particularly
Deutsch's treatment of the layering or levels of abstractions as when
interrelated.

Purely for their pertenance to what I will be wanting to say (i.e. why
this post ) I illustrate some strands Deutsch said or I picked up maybe
mistakenly

- that in some sense, different manifestations of the same explanation
(in terms of explaining the same thing) can exist on different layers.

- Apparent paradoxes resolved by layering in which explanations are
simultaneously the same yet different.

- Speculative / personal-intuition of what means the whole 'stack' or
'spectrum' of layers or levels of some interrelated thing

------as the true or complete or objective form of an explanation of
some thing

------all the properties described or inherent in the levels and
relations between them

----- -e.g. commonalities, regularities, upward/downward inheritences,
emergences, convergences, divergences)

[Note: just to say again that all the above essentially for illustrative
purposes....to help you recall and visualize Deutsch's arguments in that
chapter, faithful to your not my level of understanding]

AND NOW MY BUILD UP QUESTIONS.

Q1: Is the extent the objective existence of an explanation on or across
objectively real layers or levels (of reality) dependent/proportionate
with the extent, depth and reach overwhich it is an explanation of
objective reality?

Q1: Does all of this apply to philosophical explanations? Does the
PopperDeutsch philosophy exist on objectively real layers of abstraction
to the exist the philosophy 'touches' (describes, is, navigates,
reflects, etc) on objective[ly true] reality? Both in its whole and in
its parts?

LEADING TO MY ULTIMATE QUESTION:

If a component of the Deutsch Philosophy, say regarding Foundations or
the Conjecture or Refutation (or as a pair), can exist on multiple
objectively real levels, and if each level can differently manifest that
same explanation, then does its significance/importance/application to
the 'human condition' also apply differently by level?

If that is so, doesn't that mean that:

- the level of abstraction that poppper applied the philosophy he had
corrected, was one or a subset of a larger potential set, thus a choice
requiring its own explanation. Unless....

- popper analysed and reapplied the corrected philosophy at the same
level of abstraction conceived by the early pioneers of science at the
time of their attempts at philosophy of science. But then...wouldn't
that equivalence require an explaination also?

[Brett Hall]

Hi there!

I have struggled with much of what you have written. Your sentence fragments might be better expressed if they were clearly stand-alone sentences, or your list was in more simple point form. But this is largely my problem, I suppose. That said, I'll do my best to understand as well as I could...

Post by hibbsa
By far Reality of Abstractions is my favourite BoI chapter,

One of mine too. My "take away" is that this idea of "abstract things are real" is neither dualism in the Cartesian sense nor monism in the Spinozistic sense. The abstract stuff is not altogether separate from the physical stuff. Indeed the opposite. Abstract "stuff", like knowledge, is instantiated somewhere physical...and yet it is not itself something physical. Knowledge cannot be said to be "just" atoms moving through the void "just" obeying the laws of physics. To understand how atoms move through the void while obeying the laws of physics you have to understand high level explanations. In order to explain anything you actually invoke abstract stuff - which is real.

Post by hibbsa
particularly
Deutsch's treatment of the layering or levels of abstractions as when
interrelated.
Purely for their pertenance to what I will be wanting to say (i.e. why
this post ) I illustrate some strands Deutsch said or I picked up maybe
mistakenly
- that in some sense, different manifestations of the same explanation
(in terms of explaining the same thing) can exist on different layers.

I'm not clear on what this means. My guess is that you mean something like: the same explanation can be instantiated in many different ways. So for example it can exist in the mind, in a book, or in a simulation in a computer. Is that right?

Post by hibbsa
- Apparent paradoxes resolved by layering in which explanations are
simultaneously the same yet different.

This, I do not understand. I do know that physical reality contains no paradoxes. Isn't that true? Paradoxes arise because there is some limitation in our explanations. "This statement is false" and such things - how are they resolved? Explanations which are "simultaneously the same yet different" could be a paradox, I suppose. Is this in BoI somewhere? I couldn't find anything.

Post by hibbsa
- Speculative / personal-intuition of what means the whole 'stack' or
'spectrum' of layers or levels of some interrelated thing
------as the true or complete or objective form of an explanation of
some thing

I do not know what this means. I know that the philosophy underpinning FoR and BoI is realist. So that is a commitment to an ontological reality. As for "complete"...form of explanation: well we never get to complete, do we? Or if we do, we cannot know. The whole point of infinite progress is we can never "complete" our quest for knowledge.

Post by hibbsa
------all the properties described or inherent in the levels and
relations between them

Which part of the previous stuff you have written does this fragment connect to? As it is, it seems to contain a verb and an object with no subject. I'm unsure about it...

Post by hibbsa
----- -e.g. commonalities, regularities, upward/downward inheritences,
emergences, convergences, divergences)

I'm not sure what that means either. Again, the full sentence written out in full, connected perhaps by clauses and commas rather than in this list of fragments might help comprehension. Or, indeed single sentences separated by full stops.

Post by hibbsa
[Note: just to say again that all the above essentially for illustrative
purposes....to help you recall and visualize Deutsch's arguments in that
chapter, faithful to your not my level of understanding]

I really liked the argument, in that chapter, against reductionism (and holism) and the strange "moral overtones" invoked by scientists (or otherwise) that suggest science "should be" one of those. I think that is a key part of this chapter too.

Post by hibbsa
AND NOW MY BUILD UP QUESTIONS.
Q1: Is the extent the objective existence of an explanation on or across
objectively real layers or levels (of reality) dependent/proportionate
with the extent, depth and reach overwhich it is an explanation of
objective reality?

I do not understand the question. Maybe someone else does and could help. I'll ask some questions about your questions:

By "objective existence of an explanation" do you just mean "an explanation"? After all, explanations are real, right? What other kind of existence could they have? Only subjective? I think, fwiw, there is indeed such a thing as subjective existence which is just as real as objective existence, in the ontological (what reality consists of) sense. I'm unsure if this is what you mean by objective though. So let's say you're talking about an explanation written down on piece of paper. Let's say, for argument's sake, it's general relativity in a book.

Now this explanation "on or across objectively real layers or levels (of reality)" - does this mean that the explanation (book on general relativity in my example) exists in many universes? In other words, it is an example of how knowledge gives some structure to the multiverse? General relativity, the explanation, exists in many universes. Yes. Indeed its physical instantiations aren't just books but would also include technologies that have arisen, and exist because of general relativity. So GPS and similar technologies: where they are found in the multiverse, there is, to use your words, " the objective existence of an explanation on or across objectively real layers or levels (of reality)". Layers I have trouble with. If you mean: both minds, books and technologies like GPS systems, th
en that's correct. And we expect minds, books and technologies containing the explanation of general relativity to be more common in universes that are the future of our own.

Is such an explanation, like general relativity, "proportionate with the extent, depth and reach overwhich it is an explanation of objective reality"? I think: yes.

So if I have interpreted your question correctly I think the answer is yes. But I interpret the question to mean something like: are true explanations more common (i.e have higher measure) in the multiverse than particular false ones? Yes.

Overall, false explanations are more common but for any given false explanation, their measure in the multiverse will be less common than true ones. For example, we expect that more people in the multiverse know about quantum theory than know about how Apollo carries the Sun across the sky.

Post by hibbsa
Q1: Does all of this apply to philosophical explanations? Does the
PopperDeutsch philosophy exist on objectively real layers of abstraction
to the exist the philosophy 'touches' (describes, is, navigates,
reflects, etc) on objective[ly true] reality? Both in its whole and in
its parts?

Yes. Because knowledge can only grow in the way Popper and Deutsch explain, people will gradually learn this. It will gain more and more of a prominent "structure" in the multiverse. We will notice its *physical* effects on larger and larger scales across time and space and throughout the multiverse. Ideas like justificationism will decline and so will stuff like Kuhn's idea about the framework, and so too will astrology and homeopathy, etc. What is closer to true, works better. What is false, will be discarded. Because it will turn out to be more and more useless as better and better (truer and truer) things are discovered.

Post by hibbsa
If a component of the Deutsch Philosophy, say regarding Foundations

You mean his rejection of foundations?

Post by hibbsa
or
the Conjecture or Refutation (or as a pair), can exist
on multiple
objectively real levels,

I'm still unsure what you mean by "levels". Can you provide an example of a specific explanation or philosophy that exists on "multiple objectively real levels"? Tell me what the explanation is and what two possible levels it exists upon.

Also, can you clarify what objective means? And what real means? And so what objectively real means? Does it differ from how these words are used in FoR or BoI?

What I am getting at it is whether you think there are subjectively real levels. If so, what are examples of these?

Post by hibbsa
and if each level can differently manifest that
same explanation, then does its significance/importance/application to
the 'human condition' also apply differently by level?

I don't understand this, of course...because I'm still not sure about "levels".

Post by hibbsa
- the level of abstraction that poppper applied the philosophy he had
corrected, was one or a subset of a larger potential set, thus a choice
requiring its own explanation. Unless....

All philosophies are explanations and all require explanations. It's infinite in all directions. Even if we do not have an adequate explanation yet...that's good! More progress is required, then.

Also, yes, epistemology is part of a set, or class, of other explanations, which are false. For example there is the false idea of JTB and there are "guesses and criticisms". They are both part of the set of "ideas" or perhaps even "philosophies". One is true. One is false. The set of true ideas will always be smaller than the set of true *and* false ideas.

Post by hibbsa
- popper analysed and reapplied the corrected philosophy at the same
level of abstraction conceived by the early pioneers of science at the
time of their attempts at philosophy of science. But then...wouldn't
that equivalence require an explaination also?

I think the answer is yes. I am hedging with the "think" because I am not at all confident I understand the question. Can you rephrase this and perhaps provide a concrete example? Thanks!

Brett.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[a b]

Post by Brett Hall
Hi there!
I have struggled with much of what you have written. Your sentence
fragments might be better expressed if they were clearly stand-alone
sentences, or your list was in more simple point form. But this is largely
my problem, I suppose. That said, I'll do my best to understand as well as I
could...

Post by hibbsa
By far Reality of Abstractions is my favourite BoI chapter,

One of mine too. My "take away" is that this idea of "abstract things are
real" is neither dualism in the Cartesian sense nor monism in the
Spinozistic sense. The abstract stuff is not altogether separate from the
physical stuff. Indeed the opposite. Abstract "stuff", like knowledge, is
instantiated somewhere physical...and yet it is not itself something
physical. Knowledge cannot be said to be "just" atoms moving through the
void "just" obeying the laws of physics. To understand how atoms move
through the void while obeying the laws of physics you have to understand
high level explanations. In order to explain anything you actually invoke
abstract stuff - which is real.

Post by hibbsa
particularly
Deutsch's treatment of the layering or levels of abstractions as when
interrelated.
Purely for their pertenance to what I will be wanting to say (i.e. why
this post ) I illustrate some strands Deutsch said or I picked up maybe
mistakenly
- that in some sense, different manifestations of the same explanation
(in terms of explaining the same thing) can exist on different layers.

I'm not clear on what this means. My guess is that you mean something
like: the same explanation can be instantiated in many different ways. So
for example it can exist in the mind, in a book, or in a simulation in a
computer. Is that right?

Post by hibbsa
- Apparent paradoxes resolved by layering in which explanations are
simultaneously the same yet different.

This, I do not understand. I do know that physical reality contains no
paradoxes. Isn't that true? Paradoxes arise because there is some limitation
in our explanations. "This statement is false" and such things - how are
they resolved? Explanations which are "simultaneously the same yet
different" could be a paradox, I suppose. Is this in BoI somewhere? I
couldn't find anything.

Post by hibbsa
- Speculative / personal-intuition of what means the whole 'stack' or
'spectrum' of layers or levels of some interrelated thing
------as the true or complete or objective form of an explanation of
some thing

I do not know what this means. I know that the philosophy underpinning FoR
and BoI is realist. So that is a commitment to an ontological reality. As
for "complete"...form of explanation: well we never get to complete, do we?
Or if we do, we cannot know. The whole point of infinite progress is we can
never "complete" our quest for knowledge.

Post by hibbsa
------all the properties described or inherent in the levels and
relations between them

Which part of the previous stuff you have written does this fragment
connect to? As it is, it seems to contain a verb and an object with no
subject. I'm unsure about it...

Post by hibbsa
----- -e.g. commonalities, regularities, upward/downward inheritences,
emergences, convergences, divergences)

I'm not sure what that means either. Again, the full sentence written out
in full, connected perhaps by clauses and commas rather than in this list of
fragments might help comprehension. Or, indeed single sentences separated by
full stops.

Post by hibbsa
[Note: just to say again that all the above essentially for illustrative
purposes....to help you recall and visualize Deutsch's arguments in that
chapter, faithful to your not my level of understanding]

I really liked the argument, in that chapter, against reductionism (and
holism) and the strange "moral overtones" invoked by scientists (or
otherwise) that suggest science "should be" one of those. I think that is a
key part of this chapter too.

Post by hibbsa
AND NOW MY BUILD UP QUESTIONS.
Q1: Is the extent the objective existence of an explanation on or across
objectively real layers or levels (of reality) dependent/proportionate
with the extent, depth and reach overwhich it is an explanation of
objective reality?

I do not understand the question. Maybe someone else does and could help.
By "objective existence of an explanation" do you just mean "an
explanation"? After all, explanations are real, right? What other kind of
existence could they have? Only subjective? I think, fwiw, there is indeed
such a thing as subjective existence which is just as real as objective
existence, in the ontological (what reality consists of) sense. I'm unsure
if this is what you mean by objective though. So let's say you're talking
about an explanation written down on piece of paper. Let's say, for
argument's sake, it's general relativity in a book.
Now this explanation "on or across objectively real layers or levels (of
reality)" - does this mean that the explanation (book on general relativity
in my example) exists in many universes? In other words, it is an example of
how knowledge gives some structure to the multiverse? General relativity,
the explanation, exists in many universes. Yes. Indeed its physical
instantiations aren't just books but would also include technologies that
have arisen, and exist because of general relativity. So GPS and similar
technologies: where they are found in the multiverse, there is, to use your
words, " the objective existence of an explanation on or across objectively
real layers or levels (of reality)". Layers I have trouble with. If you
mean: both minds, books and technologies like GPS systems, then that's
correct. And we expect minds, books and technologies containing the
explanation of general relativity to be more common in universes that are
the future of our own.
Is such an explanation, like general relativity, "proportionate with the
extent, depth and reach overwhich it is an explanation of objective
reality"? I think: yes.
So if I have interpreted your question correctly I think the answer is
yes. But I interpret the question to mean something like: are true
explanations more common (i.e have higher measure) in the multiverse than
particular false ones? Yes.
Overall, false explanations are more common but for any given false
explanation, their measure in the multiverse will be less common than true
ones. For example, we expect that more people in the multiverse know about
quantum theory than know about how Apollo carries the Sun across the sky.

Post by hibbsa
Q1: Does all of this apply to philosophical explanations? Does the
PopperDeutsch philosophy exist on objectively real layers of abstraction
to the exist the philosophy 'touches' (describes, is, navigates,
reflects, etc) on objective[ly true] reality? Both in its whole and in
its parts?

Yes. Because knowledge can only grow in the way Popper and Deutsch
explain, people will gradually learn this. It will gain more and more of a
prominent "structure" in the multiverse. We will notice its *physical*
effects on larger and larger scales across time and space and throughout the
multiverse. Ideas like justificationism will decline and so will stuff like
Kuhn's idea about the framework, and so too will astrology and homeopathy,
etc. What is closer to true, works better. What is false, will be discarded.
Because it will turn out to be more and more useless as better and better
(truer and truer) things are discovered.

Post by hibbsa
If a component of the Deutsch Philosophy, say regarding Foundations

You mean his rejection of foundations?

Post by hibbsa
or
the Conjecture or Refutation (or as a pair), can exist
on multiple
objectively real levels,

I'm still unsure what you mean by "levels". Can you provide an example of
a specific explanation or philosophy that exists on "multiple objectively
real levels"? Tell me what the explanation is and what two possible levels
it exists upon.
Also, can you clarify what objective means? And what real means? And so
what objectively real means? Does it differ from how these words are used in
FoR or BoI?
What I am getting at it is whether you think there are subjectively real
levels. If so, what are examples of these?

Post by hibbsa
and if each level can differently manifest that
same explanation, then does its significance/importance/application to
the 'human condition' also apply differently by level?

I don't understand this, of course...because I'm still not sure about "levels".

Post by hibbsa
- the level of abstraction that poppper applied the philosophy he had
corrected, was one or a subset of a larger potential set, thus a choice
requiring its own explanation. Unless....

All philosophies are explanations and all require explanations. It's
infinite in all directions. Even if we do not have an adequate explanation
yet...that's good! More progress is required, then.
Also, yes, epistemology is part of a set, or class, of other explanations,
which are false. For example there is the false idea of JTB and there are
"guesses and criticisms". They are both part of the set of "ideas" or
perhaps even "philosophies". One is true. One is false. The set of true
ideas will always be smaller than the set of true *and* false ideas.

Post by hibbsa
- popper analysed and reapplied the corrected philosophy at the same
level of abstraction conceived by the early pioneers of science at the
time of their attempts at philosophy of science. But then...wouldn't
that equivalence require an explaination also?

I think the answer is yes. I am hedging with the "think" because I am not
at all confident I understand the question. Can you rephrase this and
perhaps provide a concrete example? Thanks!
Brett.

Hey thanks for having a bash and I'm sorry it was dense.

The upshot - or what I'm driving at - is that Popper's key early
insights/corrections - under headings like Foundations,
Justifications, Authority, Explanation, Criticism - are dealt with at
a higher level of abstraction by Science than individual rationality,
peer-to-peer rationality. So there's a levels of abstraction mismatch.
With far reaching ramifications.
The explanation of this is counter-intuitive....I'll maybe have a bash
at some point. Once again thanks for wading through my poor
communication skills.