Reality of Abstractions
"hibbsa" <[email protected]> Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:50:43 -0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.science.physics.fabric-of-reality |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
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?