Ruth\'s \"real\" possibilities (General)

by dhw, Sunday, July 28, 2013, 14:29 (3931 days ago)

This will be the first in a number of posts in which I'd like to pinpoint certain areas of Ruth's Chapter 7 that I don't understand. Most of the science is beyond me, though, and I'll be focusing on the philosophical premises and conclusions. But I hope these will be interesting for others, and that a discussion of them may also prove useful for Ruth herself, as she's writing a book that aims to make quantum theory accessible to non-specialists. Perhaps there will be questions already covered in other chapters, but it might be months before some of us can read the book. I shall only take one point at a time, and my first is this:-7.2 The PTI formulation: possibility as physically real potentiality-"'Heisenbergian 'potentia' [...] are less real than events in the actual world, yet more real than mere thoughts or conceivable events."-"Under PTI, the realist use of the term 'possible' or 'potential' refers to physical possibilities; that is, entities which can directly give rise to specific observable physical phenomena based on a realized transaction. This is distinct from the common usage of the term 'possible' or 'possibility' to denote a situation or state of affairs which is merely conceivable or consistent with physical law." 
You then emphasize that PTI possibilities refer to individual events rather than "universal sets of events".-I find this confusing. Until a possibility, whether physical or intellectual, is realized in physical terms as an individual event, surely it remains a possibility, and so I can't see the distinction between your use of the term and the common usage. For instance, I might have an idea for a house (emission), and then Richard Rogers hears about it (absorption), and builds it (realized transaction - lucky me!). Do we not have a conceivable possibility giving rise to an observable physical phenomenon based on a realized transaction? Or are you saying that in the context of PTI, 'possible' and 'potential' can only refer to the physical, e.g. that the steel and glass used by Rogers 'emit' the PTI possibility, whereas my idea is non-physical and therefore is not a PTI potential? (You will gather from this that as a layman I look for clear examples to illustrate generalizations!) -By the same token, I have difficulty understanding your claim that one potential is more real than the other. Is this another way of saying that your criterion for measuring "reality" is physicality? This would open up a Pandora's box of philosophical problems, not least in the light of your response to David concerning the difficulty or even impossibility of getting consciousness "to somehow emerge from purely physical matter"! -For your entertainment, but still in the context of reality, let me offer you one of a series of sketches I wrote about thirty years ago: -THE ACTOR
Lights up on THE ACTOR, lying on the ground with a ladder on top of him.-ACTOR:	Part One. I am an actor. This is a ladder. I am acting a play in which I am supposed to fall off the ladder and break my leg.
He groans and grimaces realistically.
Now during this particular performance I have, in reality, fallen off the ladder and broken my leg.
More groans and grimaces.
I am therefore genuinely in agony, having genuinely fallen off the ladder, but am acting the part of a man who is in agony having fallen off a ladder.
More groans and grimaces.
The question is: where does fiction end and reality begin? 
Pause. He stands up.
Part Two. I am an actor. Ten years ago I dreamt that I was in a play and had to pretend to fall off a ladder and break my leg. But in my dream, I did fall off the ladder and I did break my leg. Five years ago I was in a play and had to pretend to fall off a ladder and break my leg. But I did fall off the ladder and I did break my leg. I am now standing in a theatre recounting the story of my dream and the sequel to the dream. For those who are listening to me, the dream and the sequel are both stories. And so the question is: where does reality end and fiction begin?
Lights out.