i'm going to pull a little physics back out of comment threads to the top. i am in quite the little dialogue with my cousin boaz nash, who is a physicist. the paper by eugene wigner that boaz brings my attention to is a really clear statement of the process by which physicists got from experiments to absolute idealism. of course, in my opinion there is no possible legitimate move from one to the other. i am going to gear some comments to quotes.
"The statement that [something] 'exists' means only that: (a) it can be measured, hence uniquely defined, and (b) that its knowledge is useful for understanding past phenomena and in helping foresee future events."
this is an extremely clear example of what i am complaining about. so, where did eugene wigner get his his theory of existence? it should be completely clear that he brought it to and did not derive it from science: no empirical data bear on this definition of existence at all. also, this is just not what anyone, including eugene wigner, does mean by the claim that something exists. i exist, eugene, can i be measured and uniquely defined? is that what it means to say i exist? (b) is just the pragmatic theory of truth again, and i say that it is wrong. but even if it isn't, it is not any sort of scientific result.
now, wigner came up with a series of important equations for quantum mechanics. but, his definition of 'existence': how much critical scrutiny has he subjected it to? has he considered any objections whatever? not to put too fine a point on it, but is he any more competent to define 'existence' than i am to generate important equations? does he give any argument for this? and is anything else necessary to make the world dependent on consciousness? he is doing philosophy, but carelessly, incompetently, and without any actual work to make the definitions and theories stick. he is so not entitled to these assumptions, and i think that in their absence, none of this other stuff about consciousness and reality follows at all.
if 'exists' means 'can be measured', the observer-dependence of absolutely everything follows immediately, ok? the science is neither here not there.
when a scientist starts defining notions like 'existence', 'truth', 'reality' and so on, they often want to be taken to be sort of informal: like, this is what i practically mean by 'truth', so now let's go on. it's almost like it's a trivial assumption: here's what i'll mean when i say something exists: it can be measured etc. like it's a practical, hands-on characterization of scientific procedure, or the underbrush you have to clear out to get to the actual work. only, no it's not: it's an entire metaphysical theory of the universe for which there is no argument, and it governs the way the results of experiments are formulated. in general, everywhere, this is the problem with science: the assumptions one brings very very often control the results and are very very often accepted uncritically.
honestly, i want all the physicists in the world, starting with hawking, to withdraw these claims immediately in their entirety and go back to what they can actually do. i just kind of wish i was a macarthur genius or a nobel prize winner. then i would publicly demand that the claims of observer-dependence be withdrawn until the totally-destructive objections can be answered. this really is a very long and very bad mistake, i think!
