langten69 said:

sudly said:

The point I’m making is that physical systems can interact without a conscious observer. Two galaxies can interact gravitationally whether or not anyone looks at them through a telescope. Observing them brings us into a further physical relation with them, but their interaction does not depend on our awareness. In Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, a physical system can fulfil the role of observer through its interactions with another system. Consciousness has no privileged status.

That is why relationality does not lead me towards idealism. I see no need to introduce a fundamentally mental reality to account for those relations, including our own participation as conscious beings within them.

A glass of water can likewise be described mechanically, chemically, biologically or economically. These descriptions concern the same thing through different relations, with each suited to different questions. I understand Rovelli’s idea of equality as questioning metaphysical divisions between those domains. How we engage with something matters to our description of it, without making its existence dependent on our engagement.

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This is an interesting idea,  is there any literature that expounds on these ideas?

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redgreenvines said:

reading the quotes another way, they point to the nature of mind as the first thing that should be understood.

i.e. mental contents are the universe we face (sensory and perceptive reflexes)

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Quote:

"The world is my representation": this is a truth
valid with reference to every living and knowing being, although man alone can bring it into reflective, abstract consciousness. If he really does so, philosophical discernment has dawned on him. It then becomes clear and certain to him that he does not know a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world around him is there only as representation, in other words, only in reference to another thing, namely that which represents, and this is himself. If any truth can be expressed a priori, it is this; for it is the statement of that form of all possible and conceivable experience, a form that is more general than all others, than time, space, and causality, for all these presuppose it.

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Quote:

On the other hand, how early this basic truth was recognized by the sages of India, since it appears as the fundamental tenet of the Vedanta philosophy ascribed to Vyasa, is proved by Sir William Jones in the last of his essays: "On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (Asiatic Researches, vol. IV, p. 164): The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school consisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms." These words adequately express the compatibility of empirical reality with transcendental ideality.

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CreonAntigone said:

For Schopenhauer physical objects have no essence independent of perception.

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This is the whole essence of Idealism

Very well put

sudly said:

langten69 said:

sudly said:

The point I’m making is that physical systems can interact without a conscious observer. Two galaxies can interact gravitationally whether or not anyone looks at them through a telescope. Observing them brings us into a further physical relation with them, but their interaction does not depend on our awareness. In Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, a physical system can fulfil the role of observer through its interactions with another system. Consciousness has no privileged status.

That is why relationality does not lead me towards idealism. I see no need to introduce a fundamentally mental reality to account for those relations, including our own participation as conscious beings within them.

A glass of water can likewise be described mechanically, chemically, biologically or economically. These descriptions concern the same thing through different relations, with each suited to different questions. I understand Rovelli’s idea of equality as questioning metaphysical divisions between those domains. How we engage with something matters to our description of it, without making its existence dependent on our engagement.

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This is an interesting idea,  is there any literature that expounds on these ideas?

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Yes, there's Rovellis original paper from 1996, his later account in 2021, and the 2025 revision of Relational Quantum Mechanics in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Quote:

Carlo Rovelli, “Relational Quantum Mechanics” (1996)

The original paper introducing RQM. It’s the primary source for the idea that physical descriptions and values are relative to interactions between systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9609002⁠

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Quote:

Carlo Rovelli, “The Relational Interpretation of Quantum Physics” (2021)

A later account by Rovelli that develops the interpretation in terms of events or facts arising through interactions between physical systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.09170⁠

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Quote:

Relational Quantum Mechanics

The interpretation does not require, for its formulation, the assumption of a classical world. Measurement does not play any fundamental role, and it does not require certain special systems to be counted as ‘observers’. Instead, it assumes that any physical system can play the role that the Copenhagen’s observer assumes in bringing about values of variables at a given time. This is possible without changing the predictions of quantum theory, thanks to the Main Assumption, because the interference observed by a systemSis not erased by the actualisation of variables relative to a different systemS′(it can of course be suppressed by decoherence). In the Wigner-Friend situation, the interference observed by Wigner is compatible with Friend’s determined observation. In this way, RQM succeeds in making sense of a fully quantum world without requiring hidden variables, many worlds, physical collapse mechanisms, or a special role for mind, agents, or similar.

Relationality and realism
The central move of RQM is to interpret all physical variables as relational, namely as referring to two systems, not a single one, and to view them as realised only in interactions. Relationality has been playing an ever dominant role as our knowledge of the natural world has increased. Examples are the relational nature of velocity in classical mechanics, of locality in general relativity, of the potential in electromagnetism, of the gauge invariant observables in non-abelian gauge theories, and many others. RQM is a long step further in this direction. Taken seriously, the philosophical implications of this overreaching relationally can be heavy. The main one is a weakening of a strong version of realism.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/

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Along with his most recent lecture from may this year,

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Very fascinating!

It reminds me of Ephesians 4:6



GOD='Being' Itself

The fact that any system can itself be that which observes the measurements of any other system further points towards the ultimate innerlinking and absolutely relationality of all "things" that can be observed.

Thank you for providing this food for thought 🙏

langten69 said:

I stand in the point where I realize that all of life is ideal in the sense that things which seem outside of my control are exactly how i would want them to be anyway

In other words, there are no mistakes, life is a 1:1 replica of my idea of it

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syncro said:

One thing is the mind's intimacy with the natural world can be underestimated. As with the body, insight can be deeper experientially, 'visually' of internal organs. So with other objects. One sees the house. Where are limits of sensing the house?

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RJ Tubs 202 said:

langten69 said:

I stand in the point where I realize that all of life is ideal in the sense that things which seem outside of my control are exactly how i would want them to be anyway

In other words, there are no mistakes, life is a 1:1 replica of my idea of it

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So if Trump did not exist, we would feel compelled to create him?

Humans do seem to crave various types of hysteria.

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Pinkerton said:

Who b da koanist person alove?

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langten69 said:

...
Koans are meant to open the mind up to possibilities that have no physical representation or one definitive answer
...

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redgreenvines said:

langten69 said:

...
Koans are meant to open the mind up to possibilities that have no physical representation or one definitive answer
...

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open the mind yes, but not towards any direction that you may consider in advance.

that which is falls into place upon the open mind, and keeps on falling so as it changes.

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Very true, this is why a common prescriptive mantra for very controlling people is to "let go"...

There is no way you could preplan in advance the direction infinity deems to take you, you must simply allow it to show you the way

redgreenvines said:

letting go as an instruction is a beginning, but not a koan. koan's are questions - they initiate the basic seek aspect of mind.
letting go is more basic, but it goes hand in hand with all forms of meditation.
i.e. samatha with vipassana, both go together.

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