# 2021-10-06 - ToKCast - David Deutsch answers a question about observations. A question for David number 8 [Official](https://brettroberthall.podbean.com/e/ep-92-david-deutsch-answers-a-question-about-observations-a-question-for-david-number-8/) [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDigMfBSvYo) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-92-david-deutsch-answers-a-question-about/id1447087694?i=1000537681026) Duration: 00:08:02 ## Transcript ### Brett Hall 00:00:00 - 00:03:38 Welcome to ToKCast and question number eight in my series of questions for David. And today it's a question about direct observation, at least in part. I'm leaving you on a bit of a cliffhanger so that I can bring in question number nine. But for this question, direct observation, Popper introduced this concept of observation being theory laden. This idea that we don't directly observe anything. We don't just extract knowledge from our observations of the environment. Instead, we conjecture the knowledge. And the purpose of observations on this view is to then decide between the guesses that we conjecture about the nature of reality, certainly in the case of science anyway. And I, of course, was not immune to this particular way of thinking. I remember quite clearly thinking that the idea of science, for example, was that you went out into the world and you observe stuff. And from your observations, then you extracted the knowledge in some way. You derive the knowledge from your observations. I think I picked this up probably from my schooling and indeed in schools today. To some extent, at least, it's very heavy on observations. There is, I suppose, a virtuous form, to some extent, of observation in science. Of course, there is. You need to observe in science. But where we need to begin is our guess about the nature of reality. And even in schools, they do go through this hypothesis formation process. And then you go about testing that hypothesis against data that you collect. Of course, that's where the problems begin, because then the data leads you usually, at least the way it's taught in schools, down an inductivist path of trying to find a trend and then assuming the trend goes on forever. And this is false, of course. But this whole notion about looking at something and thinking that through looking at something, you know the true nature of something is a mistake. Even though you think, well, how could it be otherwise? I look at the tree and I see the green leaves on the tree. It is a leaf, isn't it? Well, it very well could be. But the process of seeing the green leaf is a complex process. As far as we know, what's going on is light is shining from the sun. It's being reflected off the leaf. Not all of it, just the green bits. And the green bits enter your eye. And by entering the eye, I mean they are absorbed firstly by the front of the eye and then through the lens of the eye. And finally, they reach the retina of the eye where they are absorbed again. And at this point, they cause complex changes in chemicals and these chemicals bend and warp. And in doing so, release electrical signals along the nerve fibres connected to the retina, leading to the optic nerve and finally end up in the brain where they're interpreted. So this idea of seeing something directly, well, there's a lot of layers of explanation between what's going on with the actual photons of light that apparently your eye is detecting and what you end up interpreting in terms of electrical crackles, as David likes to say, between the neurons inside your brain. So without further ado, let's get into this question, a short one for today. And this, once one becomes at least somewhat familiar with the worldview that you've presented in your books and with Popper's worldview, it's very difficult to try and reimagine what people mean by directly observe. ### Brett Hall 00:03:38 - 00:04:39 I struggle now to try and conceive of what one really means when they say, well, there are certain things you can just observe. You can just see. But on explaining to them, well, let's think about what that whole process of seeing actually consists of photons being absorbed and then re-emitted back towards the eye and then being converted into electrical signals, which then go into your brain. This whole concept of direct observation actually itself vanishes into a cloud of explanation, not so much a cloud, but a kind of way of understanding the world that denies the possibility of direct observation. I don't even know what someone really intends by this terminology, this way of denying the reality of things, which we don't have direct access to. When we don't have direct access to anything, even I would tentatively argue that even the contents of our own minds. ### David Deutsch 00:04:39 - 00:06:28 I agree in a way the contents of our own minds are quite a highly sophisticated kind of knowledge that we only know through an extensive chain of interpretations, some of which are notoriously unreliable. You know, even in everyday language, we know what we mean when we say, you're just fooling yourself. Or the content of those ideas is incompatible with empiricism, with the idea that knowledge, reliable knowledge comes from the senses. And I think people regard that as just one of those things. You know, it's one of the mysteries of nature. It's the problem of induction or something like that. And you say it's hard to imagine what people mean when they talk about direct observation. It's interesting that that concept of direct observation also had to be invented at one time. And in fact, it was quite a liberation when it was first invented. Like in various stages. Empiricism in the John Locke sense is relatively recent. But the idea that we can gain knowledge by looking at the world, which is false, was these concepts of knowledge and looking and reliable and that kind of thing. They're not built into our genes. Somebody invented those concepts. And at the time when they invented them, they were an improvement on something that was more vague and more false than that. ### Brett Hall 00:06:29 - 00:06:33 Trust the authority or something, for example. ### David Deutsch 00:06:33 - 00:06:56 Yes. But there was a time when you didn't even have to say trust the authorities when trusting the authorities was just the way that the world was. And nobody bothered to put that into words. It was that reminds me of the divine right of kings, which is a concept that was invented only after the authority of kings was questioned. ### Brett Hall 00:06:57 - 00:08:01 Yes. Well, this all raises the fact that there is this creativity going on, this creation of concepts in order to try and come to better understand the world. That is the uniquely creative capacity of the human mind. Mind itself, how do you understand the nature of mind? I sometimes think of it as this abstraction. I think you've said this to me. It's a funny kind of abstraction. It's an abstraction that itself needs to be instantiated in matter, but also needs to be running. It can't just be like any other piece of knowledge which you can transmit from one place to another in different physical forms. And that's one way of understanding what knowledge is. It allows itself to continue to persist over time and to get itself copied, to get itself replicated. But a mind, a human mind, this thing that is enabling the creation of this knowledge, it itself is an unusual kind of abstraction. How do you think of it at the moment?