Phillip K. Dick:

A real thing is one which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

SOME REFERENCES ON REALISM

ACHINSTEIN (2010) EVIDENCE, EXPLANATION & REALISMALSTON (1996) A REALIST CONCEPTION OF TRUTHDEVITT (1991) REALISM AND TRUTHHARRÉ (1986) VARIETIES OF REALISMHERSH (1997) WHAT IS MATHEMATICS, REALLY?HILDEBRAND (2003) BEYOND REALISM & ANTIREALISMKITCHER (1993) THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCELAUDAN (1990) SCIENCE AND RELATIVISMMUNITZ (1990) THE QUESTION OF REALITYNIINILUOTO (2004) CRITICAL SCIENTIFIC REALISMPSILLOS (2007) SCIENTIFIC REALISMPUTMAN (1987) THE MANY FACES OF REALISMSEARLE (1995) THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITYWESTERHOFF (2011) REALITY

SCIENTIFIC REALISM

(1) ASSERTS THE EXISTENCE OF PHYSICAL ENTITIES (e.g., planets, pigeons, frogs, ferns, magnetism, mammoths, germs, gravity) INDEPENDENT OFOUR HUMAN PERCEPTIONS, HISTORIES, INTERESTS, AND CONCERNS.

FOUNDED ON (BUT NOT EXCLUSIVE TO!) A “COMMON SENSE” REALISM.(e.g., Seattle and sea hawks are not mere figments of our imagination—i.e., THERE

ARE FACTS OF THE MATTER).

(2) NATURAL SCIENCE CAN TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE ENTITIES AND PATTERNS OF THE WORLD IN (1) THAT AT LEAST APPROXIMATELY REFLECTS WHAT IS THE CASE AS EVINCED, FOR EXAMPLE, BY THE EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESSES OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING—THE “MIRACLE” ARGUMENT. THERE ARE DISCOVERIES.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THERE HAVE BEEN NO FAILURES OR REFORMULATIONS, OR THAT SCIENCE SEEKS “ABSOLUTE TRUTH”—WHATEVER THAT MEANS. MANY, MANY MYSTERIES WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL, BUT THAT’S WHAT SCIENCE IS ABOUT: TO EXPLORE THE MYSTERIES OF NATURE.

OED: ILLUSION(1) The fact or condition of being deceived or deluded by appearances, or an instance of this; a mental state involving the attribution of reality to what is unreal; a false conception or idea; a deception, delusion, fancy.

(2) Something that deceives or deludes by producing a false impression; a deceptive orillusive appearance, statement, belief, etc. An unreal visual appearance, an apparition, phantom.

(3) Sensuous perception of an external object, involving a false belief or conception: strictly distinguished from hallucination, but in general use often made to include it, and hence = the apparent perception of an external object when no such object is present, or of attributes of an object which do not exist. (4) The argument from illusion (Philosophy): the argument that the objects of senseexperience, usually called ideas, appearances, or sense-data, cannot be objects in a physical world independent of the perceiver, since they vary according to his condition and environment.

SCHRÖDINGER

WALTER MOORE (1990). SCHRÖDINGER LIFE AND THOUGHT

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“…it contains much of physics and, in principle, all of chemistry.”

PaulDirac