Is the word duck, the same as a duck?

[Leo Gura]

They def make the mistake of confusing the map for the territory.

The problem is that this mistake is so obvious and embarrassing to admit that it will never be admitted by a serious intellectual. If you try corner him on it, he will deny that he ever confuses the map for the territory, even though routinely he does -- which you can verify by asking him some basic metaphysical questions about the substance of reality. He will give you the map as the substance.

For example, if you ask a quantum field theorist What is the substance of reality? He will say something like: Quantum field equations. This is literally what Sean Carroll says in his book.

Max Tegmark makes this mistake flagrantly as well:

Quote

"He is also known for his seminal paper on the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, in which he claims that our physical world is an abstract mathematical structure with an infinite number of initial random conditions. He points to fractals as proof that the equations used to describe all possible mathematical multiverses would fit on a single T-shirt."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark

Pretty much all materialists do this. Since it never occurs to them that the substance must be consciousness.

[taotemu]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course if you corner them they will start to fess up and try to save themselves. The point is that they don't understand what they are talking about. The don't have a coherent metaphysics. But they basically picture reality as a giant computer crunching numbers behind the scenes. Which is laughable.

Ask them this: Are quarks made out of mathematics or is mathematics made out of quarks? Are brains made out of mathematics or is mathematics made out of brains?

I don't know how many scientists you know, but pretty much all the ones I have talked to about this issue understand completely.  Their maps are VERY useful and so it can seem to us non-scientists that they mistake the two.  They don't.  At least the ones who are not just lab technicians.

This whole forum is an example of mistaking the map for the territory. At least as any observer unfamiliar with what we talk about would conclude.  It is a perfectly understandable thing to do.  It is what we humans do.  We make maps, models, stories and paradigms of our experiences.  While the layman easily mistakes the map for the territory, anyone with any sophistication with science and math doesn't.   

[taotemu]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Max Tegmark makes this mistake flagrantly as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark

Pretty much all materialists do this. Since it never occurs to them that the substance must be consciousness.

I don't think you understand the nuance they are describing here.  There is an order and pattern to the world.  The mathematical models are highly predictive, and in the case of black holes, quantum mechanics and relativity, the mathematics described phenomenon prior to empirical observation.  This has implications that mathematics is a part of the underlying order of the universe.  That is NOT the same as mistaking the map for the territory however.  It is also NOT the same as being stuck in a materialistic paradigm.  That would be a very unsophisticated understanding of what scientists are actually saying.  Higher level mathematics may be closer to consciousness than simply a model of material things.

This kind of mistake happens when spiritual people lack a scientific understanding.  They either take the strangeness of quantum mechanics and turn it into some kind of New Age woo woo non-sense, or they dismiss what science is actually saying about the nature of reality as pure materialism.  As if the 20th century in science never happened and we are still stuck with Newtons laws and an 19th Century understanding of the world.  It is science that is confirming that consciousness may indeed be pre-eminent, basically confirming the psychedelic and the subjective experience.  

  

[Adamq8]

"Scientism today is doing what the church did in the fifteenth century: forcing theory to fit a predetermined metaphysics." - Bernardo Kastrup

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, taotemu said:

I don't know how many scientists you know, but pretty much all the ones I have talked to about this issue understand completely. 

Look at all the major scientists that people like Curt and Lex Fridman interview. They are clueless about metaphysics.

I could name dozens of names.

Read Sean Carroll's book, The Big Picture. It's pure nonsense metaphysically and epistemically. Even someone like Donald Hoffman (a sort of idealist and meditator) horribly misunderstands what consciousness is.

They don't understand much outside their narrow technical field. Yet the public considers these academics as intellectual geniuses. They aren't. They are horribly dense and conformist in their understanding of reality. All of these academic types are hopelessly lost in concept-land and they will never break free.

[Alex_R]

But what is consciousness? The mystery of consciousness.

[Alex_R]

When i trip on LSD i can feel consciousness being like an infinite sea of energy that is hosting this reality, but i am unable to identify myself with that consciousness.

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Alex_R said:

But what is consciousness? The mystery of consciousness.

Absolutely Nothing