Has anyone seen my neutral pointer?

[AFTT47]

I'm just completely lost on this. Using the apple analogy, why can't people just say, an apple is an apple. Nothing more, nothing less. Why complicate that?

Because this is the philosophy section - not the off-topic section. Philosophy is all about complicating things.

I agree with Benny. This is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry here.

[Excited Penguin]

I read the OP again. It's complete bullshit, and I'm surprised people can't spot the troll.

What he calls the neutral pointer is really the equivalent of thinking about nothing. So basically meditating.

What he calls ontological baggage is a perfectly valid description of the world. Until he offers good reason to think otherwise, all he said is completely devoid of any meaning or use.

He replaces "the physical world" with the word "experience", all the while not realizing that that word in itself is just as unprovable and filled with assumptions. All words are. Thus is the burden of language. It is imperfect. He is purportedly trying to close a can of worms by setting another open one above it.

This is ridiculous. Stop trying to make sense of what he said. He did a just good enough job of appearing to make enough sense to stimulate a conversation, but this was either trolling or seriously bad reasoning that should be ignored for what it is. A lot of talk about nothing. A word salad, if I ever saw one.

[Bunburryist]

Let me try to explain the neutral pointer concept in a different way.  Imagine there is a box and we can hear an animal moving inside.  We don’t know what it is.  Let’s suppose, however, that all our lives we “knew” (this is just a made up story, so go with me on this) that animals in boxes are cats.  If, for some reason one suspects that it might not be a cat inside, how would one pose the question of what it is?

(In this analogy, the “knowledge” that the animal in the box is a cat is analogous to the common sense “knowledge” that this experience is a material world. )

Now, if I want to ask myself what is in the box, I don’t want to say “what kind of cat is in the box?” No.   I want a “neutral pointer” – a way of referring to what is in the box while implying as little as possible about its nature.  I might say, “what kind of animal is in the box.”  “Animal” is my neutral pointer.  My question now expresses, implicitly, that I don’t know what kind of animal is in the box.  It might be a cat.  But it might be a ferret, too.  It also puts my mind in an implicit “I don’t know what is in the box” frame of mind, where as calling it a cat puts me back in the habitual mode of thinking.

The neutral point SAYS NOTHING about what is in the box.  It is a conceptual tool used to REFER to what is in there without any conceptual or (in the case of this experience) ontological baggage.  It’s like putting it in a box labeled “I don’t know what this is and I’m trying to find out.”  It is merely a way of referring to something of which I don’t know the real identity, nature, etc.  It’s something I use to refer to some thing or concept when I’m trying to understanding what it really is, NOT TO MAKE STATEMENTS ABOUT WHAT IT REALLY IS.

This may seem like a silly little thing, but I’ve found it very helpful.  In my experience, one of the most important things I can do when trying to make sense of something is to be careful how I label it, and to be careful to make distinctions – not only where I KNOW there is a difference, but even more so where I THINK THERE MIGHT BE A DIFFERENCE.  An example of this, for me, is between the concepts of material world and physical world.  (That’s another topic for another day.)  My neutral pointer for what we learn to call "the material world" is "this experience."  It works for me.  I know this might seem very "pedestrian" to people used to thinking in fifty dollar philosophical phrases, but I don't think well that way.  I do the best I can with what God gave me.  (Ouch!)

[Joods]

I'm just completely lost on this. Using the apple analogy, why can't people just say, an apple is an apple. Nothing more, nothing less. Why complicate that?

Because this is the philosophy section - not the off-topic section. Philosophy is all about complicating things.

I agree with Benny. This is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry here.

I didn't say it wasn't a legitimate question. I'm just trying to understand. That's all.

So maybe those of you who are so much smarter than us dumbfolk, could dumb it down and explain it so we can understand and perhaps participate.

[Excited Penguin]

Let me try to explain the neutral pointer concept in a different way.  Imagine there is a box and we can hear an animal moving inside.  We don’t know what it is.  Let’s suppose, however, that all our lives we “knew” (this is just a made up story, so go with me on this) that animals in boxes are cats.  If, for some reason one suspects that it might not be a cat inside, how would one pose the question of what it is?

(In this analogy, the “knowledge” that the animal in the box is a cat is analogous to the common sense “knowledge” that this experience is a material world. )

Now, if I want to ask myself what is in the box, I don’t want to say “what kind of cat is in the box?” No.   I want a “neutral pointer” – a way of referring to what is in the box while implying as little as possible about its nature.  I might say, “what kind of animal is in the box.”  “Animal” is my neutral pointer.  My question now expresses, implicitly, that I don’t know what kind of animal is in the box.  It might be a cat.  But it might be a ferret, too.  It also puts my mind in an implicit “I don’t know what is in the box” frame of mind, where as calling it a cat puts me back in the habitual mode of thinking.

The neutral point SAYS NOTHING about what is in the box.  It is a conceptual tool used to REFER to what is in there without any conceptual or (in the case of this experience) ontological baggage.  It’s like putting it in a box labeled “I don’t know what this is and I’m trying to find out.”  It is merely a way of referring to something of which I don’t know the real identity, nature, etc.  It’s something I use to refer to some thing or concept when I’m trying to understanding what it really is, NOT TO MAKE STATEMENTS ABOUT WHAT IT REALLY IS.

This may seem like a silly little thing, but I’ve found it very helpful.  In my experience, one of the most important things I can do when trying to make sense of something is to be careful how I label it, and to be careful to make distinctions – not only where I KNOW there is a difference, but even more so where I THINK THERE MIGHT BE A DIFFERENCE.  An example of this, for me, is between the concepts of material world and physical world.  (That’s another topic for another day.)  My neutral pointer for what we learn to call "the material world" is "this experience."  It works for me.  I know this might seem very "pedestrian" to people used to thinking in fifty dollar philosophical phrases, but I don't think well that way.  I do the best I can with what God gave me.  (Ouch!)

That analogy is so fucking stupid I won't even touch it.

There's no need for a neutral pointer. It's nonsense. It doesn't add anything to anything. It doesn't help with your reasoning. It's completely and utterly useless.

Normal people already can think of things without adding unnecessary characteristics to them. Maybe you can't. That would be a very serious mental problem, I think, one that would show itself more readily than what I'm seeing with you. So I think this is just a peculiarity of yours and you feel very special for trying to play at philosophy here.

I'm sorry to be so dismissive, but this is so fucking stupid I would have to write 10 pages for every paragraph you wrote in this post to explain why, and I'd still not get anywhere with you. Believe me, I just tried to touch that analogy of yours. I would have to write a whole posts's worth just to explain to you why it's a bad analogy and what would be a good analogy, as well as improve it for you.


Again, apologies for the aggressive response, but until you make one iota of sense I simply cannot respond to anything you write. You have to make some sense at least. Any sense at all. That I could work with.

---

OP, try harder. If you're onto something here, I'm not seeing it.

[Excited Penguin]

Because this is the philosophy section - not the off-topic section. Philosophy is all about complicating things.

I agree with Benny. This is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry here.

I didn't say it wasn't a legitimate question. I'm just trying to understand. That's all.

So maybe those of you who are so much smarter than us dumbfolk, could dumb it down and explain it so we can understand and perhaps participate.

I understand it perfectly. It's a stupid idea. It's exactly what it looks like. 

At least in its current form, it's a bunch of nonsense. That's all.

[bennyboy]

I have no idea what you think that status of science in the here and now is.  What was abandoned in favor of what and when?

The idea that material components are existent "things" which can be located in time and space, which have definite volumes, etc., or the idea that any thing can be represented unambiguously. Photons threw the idea that things must be unambiguous out the window.

[The Grand Nudger]

Imagine there is a box and we can hear an animal moving inside.  We don’t know what it is.  Let’s suppose, however, that all our lives we “knew” (this is just a made up story, so go with me on this) that animals in boxes are cats.  If, for some reason one suspects that it might not be a cat inside, how would one pose the question of what it is?

"Hey fellers, yall recon that there might be something other than a cat in that box, just this once?"

I have no idea what you think that status of science in the here and now is.  What was abandoned in favor of what and when?

The idea that material components are existent "things" which can be located in time and space, which have definite volumes, etc., or the idea that any thing can be represented unambiguously.  Photons threw the idea that things must be unambiguous out the window.

Why do you think that we've abandoned any of those ideas?  Would we still be seeking increasingly specific measurements, if that were the case...if it were futile rather than productive? Wouldn't we throw away our tape measures and our baking dishes? Why do you think that photons, of all things, threw that out of the window in any case?

We could skip all of this and remind ourselves that you've had the materialistic nature of qm explained and elaborated to you, at length..or that an actual physicist has helped clear up some misconceptions you had about photons. You have an outdated view of materialism. When you attempt to object or address some proposition you ascribe to it you're simply propping up a straw effigy that's much more simple, in your estimation anyway, to knock down than materialism actually is and has been. The bleeding edge of what you -think- discredits materialism is, itself, a set of materialistic propositions whose truth you accept.

How this becomes, in your mind, a critique of materialism is beyond me.

[bennyboy]

If you want to define "material" as "whatever seems to be consistently observable," that's fine. However, the fact is that many scientists were held back by their conceptions of what material is. Some of them saw the necessity of letting go of that "billiard-ball" view, and some of them never could-- they could not follow the path that scientific observations were revealing because they had a strong pre-set view of what material was/should be.

I'm not sure why you think I'm critiquing materialism. . . maybe you're carrying in baggage from previous threads, and you need to establish a "neutral pointer?" Why don't you respond to what IS being said, instead of what you believe me most likely to be saying?

[The Grand Nudger]

If you want to define "material" as "whatever seems to be consistently observable," that's fine.  However, the fact is that many scientists were held back by their conceptions of what material is.  Some of them saw the necessity of letting go of that "billiard-ball" view, and some of them never could-- they could not follow the path that scientific observations were revealing because they had a strong pre-set view of what material was/should be.

I'm not sure why you think I'm critiquing materialism. . . maybe you're carrying in baggage from previous threads, and you need to establish a "neutral pointer?"  Why don't you respond to what IS being said, instead of what you believe me most likely to be saying?

Many scientists have been held back by many reasons.  Don't be coy, I like it direct.  

Who, please, tell me who it is that's clinging to billiards balls? I want to know who you think it is, lol.