He will be missed. Latour's book We Have Never Been Modern was enormously influential to me in graduate school, as someone interested in questions of periodization and how inconsistently "modern" has been defined.

And I have answered the question repeatedly. What they provide is money. If you don't see how that warrants equity then you don't understand what equity is... Labor has nothing to do with it. They aren't providing labor, they are providing capital. They have equity because they bought the equity...

What you are saying is equivalent to "why does the guy who paid to have a house built for his family have all the equity in the house? He didn't do any labor to build it. It should be the construction workers' house."

RIP. I'd like to mention that with him also goes equally impressive thinker Jim Johnson.

Omg. I think he would live this comment.

Again, i keep asking you questions but you just keep ignoring literally all of them. How exactly are the owners of capital providing 90% equity? Is it permission? Their special blessing? Is it the act of saying, "yes, i well spend my wealth here" that you believe is comparable to the act hard labor?

Secondly, even if you believe the owner's labor is just it's just the act of investing, don't they hire people for that too? So it isn't just that either. Its just the decision to invest at all and not even what to invest in and is that a really that much harder of a decision? Does that require so much brain power to the point it deserves 90% of the pie to you?

What is it? You keep evading this very basic question and ignoring everything and you want to accuse me of engaging in bad faith? What do they do? Even if you believe in "economics" why cant you tell me why Keynes was wrong about the efficiency of technology making it so we have to work less?

You have no answers to any of this. I already know. You're a victim of decades and decades of propaganda. All you can offer is the same talking points people were giving in the 70s except we have the conclusion of those policies already. It didn't work. Keynes was wrong and so was Reagan and so was Clinton.

I wonder... Does this idea apply to other descriptors like "redness"

I'm not well versed or educated by any means but I think I've heard this issue before with colors. Does redness exist in and of itself or is it always applied to something

Anyone have a recommended book written by him?

>Is there a distinction between realness and existence?

Depends. 😉

The question isn't really what makes numbers unreal, but what makes them real. To ask whether numbers "exist" simply explores the issue further rather than indicates a resolution. Are numbers simply functional illusions, or do they (not the numerals we use to identify them, which is a separate order of "exist", but the numbers apart from the quantities we abstract them from) exist 'in and of themselves', and if so, are they more or less real than the quantities, or the minds perceiving them?

Most people are satisfied with ignoring it all as esoteric navel-gazing or psychobabble, and say it is something only incompetent philosophers do to earn a paycheck. They assume that when it comes to non-material (?) things like numbers, being real or existing only reduces to utility, anyway, so why bother caring. Nobody has respect for philosophers, unless they're just mathematicians in disguise, until their pet or their relative dies, and then suddenly everything becomes starkly existential and they want solace from their angst and uncertainty, and even then they don't want philosophers, they just want secular priests.

Sorry for the rant. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps. 🤓

You have to just be being purposefully dense at this point. Or a troll. I refuse to believe that someone can make all of these comments that you're making while genuinely trying to argue in good faith... Think that's my cue to stop trying to have a conversation with you.

You think this is bad, you should check out r/consciousness. Even disregarding the admitted panpsychists, every discussion highlights and then centers around the "quantum eraser experiment", it seems. But it isn't surprising, since QM and the hard problem are the most vexing issues related to philosophy these days, so it (they, and their potential alignment/conflict) is what people want to talk about. Philosophy is all about explaining and professing world views. And I do believe I prefer the quantum physics posts to the more mundane but equally pointless rehashing of utilitarian ethics posts. And all that's left is esoteric and arcane plumbing of the depths of analytic logical positivism. 😉

> As a strawman, it is not an entirely inadequate proxy for what I actually said, but it is not what I actually said.

It is exactly what you said. That is the exact misconception that was being discussed when you replied, quoting another person, and said “it’s a common misconception among physicists.” I’m always amazed by people on Reddit who pretend they didn’t say the things they said, that are still there for all to see.

> This is r/philosophy, not r/physics.

Yes, in an article about philosophical ideas related to a model of physics. You cannot meaningfully consider the philosophy of physics if you don’t first understand the physics.

> Oops.

Did you fall, or something?

> Quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood. Perhaps owing to the fact it cannot be easily (or actually) understood.

But we aren’t talking about the entirety of quantum mechanics. We are talking about one specific and common misconception of it. And that particular misconception arises primarily because the words “observation” and “measurement” mean something different to a physicist than they do to a lay person.

> So despite the devastation you have wreaked on the strawman argument that I have besmirched the good name of Niels Bohr, the actual issue I am discussing remains, unperturbed.

No, I responded to two specific things you claimed. One, your claim that physicists commonly suffer from the misconception that conscious observation plays a special role in quantum mechanics. Two, that Niels Bohr deliberately confused the two. The first claim is laughably wrong and makes it very clear you have no experience with the actual physics community; and the latter is demonstrably false and demonstrates your propensity to make shit up for some reason that I can’t comprehend.

You keep defending your claims, but whenever I make any reference to those claims you call it a strawman. That just makes you dishonest.

> I don't identify you as a neopostmodernist to "make myself feel better", I do it to accurately describe your position and practices, or at least the intellectual milieu and time period of your reasoning.

You don’t know enough about my positions and practices to call me anything, since the only things I’ve addressed are whether physicists possess a particular misconception, the origin of that misconception, and what words Bohr used. This would be like watching someone walk down the street and diagnosing them with heart disease.

> The problem is that "clarifying [...] the words used to talk about" any subject, let alone the supremely difficult subjects of QM or consciousness, doesn't actually work as well as you insist it should.

But it does. I actually teach these things, I deal with this all the time. In this particular instance, about the very specific and precise thing we’re discussing, it works quite well. In fact, you can see it working in this very Reddit post, among others on the subject. Your imagination — or perhaps your own confusion — notwithstanding.

> Personally, I don't suffer from this problem, because my philosophy resolves the nature of consciousness more completely than neopostmodern philosophies do.

How pretentious of you. This attitude is certainly consistent with your previous assertion that Einstein and Bohr weren’t qualified to talk about quantum mechanics.

> I can understand the parallels between quantum uncertainty and existential uncertainty, and recognize the meaning of those parallels without conflating the subjects.

And yet you’ve demonstrated that you clearly don’t understand the physics (see your claim that this year’s Nobel prize has nothing to do with interpretations of quantum mechanics). So sorry if I doubt your ability to see parallels so crystally clear when you don’t even understand one of them in the first place.

> But the problem remains, even for me, when I attempt to discuss these issues with other people, and the more neopostmodernist they are, the more cantankerous they get.

It’s more likely that people who actually understand the physics get frustrated when you, who clearly don’t, make baseless and false claims about something you don’t understand, and then accuse them of inventing strawmen when they correct your errors. You aren’t arguing honestly. Hell, you’re still defending your claim about Bohr instead of admitting that you took this shitty article’s awful summary of his argument as a stand in for his actual words, and you’re too proud to admit you made a mistake.

>What do you mean contribute in what way? They literally directly provide the money without which the company can't exist. Acting like capital isn't just as important as labor to a company is either painfully misinformed or just plain silly

A company to do what? Produce something? Do you need private ownership to do that? What are these owners exactly providing to everyone? Permission to work? Financial judgement? Do they not have fiduciaries to do that for them? If they have that, what is exactly is the labor of owning if the management of it can outsourced? Please, explain to me how that's worth 90% of the profit?

>Keynesian economics saying that productivity increases with technology doesn't mean that it doesn't still require more labor to create more things

Keynes literally said we would have a 15 hr work week.

>YouTube videos and reading a few articles makes you an economics expert.

What type of economics? We don't operate by one economic theory. All we can do is react and attempt to manage a system that crashes every 7-8 years.

Are you familiar with the philosophy of science? Economics claims to be a science correct so it should be within its purview. You should check out Thomas Kuhn so you could see how politically motivated even our hardest sciences could be. I'd also suggest a history of economics, Michael Hudson has written plenty on this.

Finally, do you not have any answers to my points about capitalism corrupting science, democracy, or public health? Do you believe it's responsible for global warming? Do you even believe in global warming?

Why does this sub have an obsession with using quantum physics to prove their idealist notions?

"Seeing" an object is not using your eye balls in this context. Its hitting the quantum sized object with another, known, object that can interact with it in order to have it relay the properties of the object you are studying. You have to interact with the object to know anything about it.

You can't will reality into existence, please stop with these posts. The missing piece in quantum physics isn't your lack of knowledge on how causality works or your immaterialism.

Godspeed and good luck on your next roll, Sir.

What do you mean contribute in what way? They literally directly provide the money without which the company can't exist. Acting like capital isn't just as important as labor to a company is either painfully misinformed or just plain silly... And I don't thunk you need me to describe the things we have today that serfs didn't have. Keynesian economics saying that productivity increases with technology doesn't mean that it doesn't still require more labor to create more things...

The more you say the more it sounds like you don't really unset this topic as well as you seem to think you do, and that you're one of those people who thinks that watching some YouTube videos and reading a few articles makes you an economics expert.

Im tired of the "quantum physics" posts on this sub

Its all just idealists or non materialists trying to force their world view

>propose they (energy and wave functions) are 'made of' and 'make up' the
>
>ineffability of being
>
>, and it's "turtles all the way down"

sort of like a feedback loop? I will definitely check out that sub

>hey are 'made of' thought, perception, even consciousness

well one could ask what those things are made of as well

>You keep saying that the misconception that observation requires a conscious observer is a common misconception among physicists. I

As a strawman, it is not an entirely inadequate proxy for what I actually said, but it is not what I actually said.

>You are what I would refer to as obtuse.

And you are what I refer to as cantankerous. You're in the wrong subreddit. This is r/philosophy, not r/physics.

>. I am not arguing about the details of language, consciousness, and existential truth. I am merely pointing out that the language [...]

Oops.

>used to describe quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood, and that the specific misconception that quantum mechanics places conscious observation on a pedestal is easily dispelled by clarifying what the words used to talk about quantum mechanics means.

Quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood. Perhaps owing to the fact it cannot be easily (or actually) understood. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." The meaning of words is also (supposedly independently) not easily understood, despite the faith one might have in any particular definition or dictionary. So despite the devastation you have wreaked on the strawman argument that I have besmirched the good name of Niels Bohr, the actual issue I am discussing remains, unperturbed.

I don't identify you as a neopostmodernist to "make myself feel better", I do it to accurately describe your position and practices, or at least the intellectual milieu and time period of your reasoning.

The problem is that "clarifying [...] the words used to talk about" any subject, let alone the supremely difficult subjects of QM or consciousness, doesn't actually work as well as you insist it should. Whether 'observation' or 'measurement' or 'interaction' or any other word is used, and no matter how rigorously one attempts to nail down what any of them "mean", the difficulty of understanding or discussing these things does not evaporate, or even lessen, and the effort itself simply compounds the difficulty. Scientists can shut up and calculate, but when they don't, and for everyone else who simply accepts what (current) science provides without further consideration, the nature of meaning, in both words and more generally, makes the difficulty of dealing with the possible correlation, or at least parallel, between the ineffably quantum and the ineffably conscious all the more enticing.

Personally, I don't suffer from this problem, because my philosophy resolves the nature of consciousness more completely than neopostmodern philosophies do. I can understand the parallels between quantum uncertainty and existential uncertainty, and recognize the meaning of those parallels without conflating the subjects. But the problem remains, even for me, when I attempt to discuss these issues with other people, and the more neopostmodernist they are, the more cantankerous they get. You have demonstrated that well, I believe, and I apologize for engaging on this topic with you as an object lesson on principle, since I don't disagree with you at all about how much that strawman deserved the thorough thrashing you've given it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>You're acting like labor is the only thing of value to a company or to the production of something.

Precisely. There is dead labor which includes the machines and the factories and the roads, all products of active labor-- live labor. We mix both forms of labor when we produce. We don't need to be privately owned to be productive. If we cooperated it would be magnitudes cheaper.

>It isn't. If one buy spends $10 million on factory equipment then hires people to run it, then he has contributed just as much (if not significantly more) than the people working the machines

Contributing? In what way? The act of paying? That's trivial. Build a house.

>More things consumed or used by definitely requires more work to create.

Are we talking iphones? Having more technology should mean less labor and that according to Keynes.

And besides that the biggest issue is how we are leveraging people to trade hours of their lives and for less and less. Ignore money. Housing is the biggest most important metric for necessities which is burning a bigger hole in people's pockets than the new 80 different types of ketchup. Focus on the relationship between our labor and the way it's relatively valued against those main necessities to see is what's becoming diluted. That trend is not stopping, that's the issue. These are people's lives and we're taking more and more of it away from them for less and less. Food, housing, healthcare are all non-optional expenses and they're getting more and more expensive despite better technology.

And, again, as we established earlier, we've had greater contributions from publicly funded institutions, you can't really attribute every sparkly thing we have today to purely capitalism. We had to fight tooth and nail for s lot of this, even just banking insurance. There was a literal attempted coup against FDR called the business plot.

This system is run by mafiosos. It's horribly ineffecient at distributing resources, it concentrates so much wealth and it's literally posing an existential threat to us. There's no way to justify .001% of the population should have that much power. It's corrupting democracy, science, public health and what are we getting for it? Walmart? McDonalds? It's not science. It's not culture. What more do we have to sacrifice to the Moloch for it to be the 1960s again? 99%?

RIP! Some of the more traditionalist professors in my graduate school could not even hear his name without beginning to shake and froth at the mouth like Cujo. He wrote some of the smartest and occasionally funniest work I read in graduate school, even if I had to do it in secret. Thank you for stretching my mind in all the directions, Bruno!

His worked played a huge role shaping my scholarship in my early career as an anthropologist.

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> I think it is fair to say this is true in principle, but in real terms you are overstating the case

No, not really. What do you think condensed matter physics is, if not the application of quantum mechanics to macroscopic systems? What I said is both true in principle and proven in reality, even if it’s often too difficult to do.

> We know that classic physics relates to, for instance, the collapse of superpositions and entanglement through decoherence into classically deterministic states, yes, but not really how or why.

That’s fine. Scientific models aren’t concerned with how or why. It’s pretty easy to prove that the mathematical model that we call quantum mechanics reduces to classical mechanics in the appropriate limits of energy and scale based solely on the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. In fact, mathematically the only distinction between the two arises entirely from the fact that in classical mechanics [x,p] = 0 and in quantum mechanics [x,p] = ihbar.

You’re right that we don’t fully understand the mechanisms by which macroscopic systems lose coherence. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know that, regardless of those details, quantum mechanical behavior necessarily reduces to classical mechanics in appropriate macroscopic limits. We also know that macroscopic systems are represented in our models of quantum mechanics by the same sorts of density matrices as everything else is. Of course, this is all predicated on the assumption that quantum mechanics is an accurate model, which there’s some small chance it isn’t, but this conversation is meaningless outside of that assumption.

> It doesn't really mean we actually can derive classic physics from QM, explicitly, just that we assume it must be possible theoretically.

No, you’re wrong. We cannot derive the stress tensor for a chair when I’m sat on it using quantum mechanics (which we could do using classical mechanics) because it’s simply much too complex a feat. But the neat thing about physics and math is that we can often prove things to be true in general more easily that we can actually do something for a specific, complicated case, but that first proof nonetheless implies that a determined and resourceful enough entity could do the latter, too. This is one such case, where mathematical proofs of the correspondence principle between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics exist. See, for example, the Ehrenfest Theorem. A different alternative is to take the limit as the ratio of hbar to a relevant scale factor (multiple choices could be made here) approaches zero, and then quantum mechanics and classical mechanics become mathematically identical models.

> Your profession of faith in physical realism is scientifically appropriate, but philosophically it is akin to a declaration of omniscience.

My comment has nothing to do with physical realism. My comment is entirely based purely on the mathematical properties of quantum and classical mechanics.