On whether what exists is determinate
There have been many debates about whether it is meaningful to speak of what exists in the absence of an observing mind. It is, of course, the argument behind the question 'does a tree fall in the forest if there is nobody there to see it?' which is a famous philosophical conundrum.
In relation to this, I have had the idea that the hallmark of anything that exists is that it is determinate - or that it has a definition, which, I guess, is another way of stating the same thing. If we think of any phenomenon, then by definition we are considering things that exist - even if unobserved. So we can safely surmise that there are trillions upon trillions of astronomical objects that we (and possibly no sentient being) will ever observe, even with the James Webb Telescope. We would be on safe ground to claim that they nevertheless exist, but that is still a presumption, even if a very safe one.
The reason I raise the question of 'determinateness' is that it does have bearing on the 'does a tree...?' question. More generally, I like to argue for the view that whatever we believe to exist (even things existing unobserved) exists in a determinate manner - meaning that if we encounter a previously-unseen celestial object, we will know what kind of thing it is. But that still leaves room for the assertion that the kind of reality the world has outside of the mind of the observer is indeterminate. That means that it is not non-existent, but it's also not strictly speaking existent. At best it has a kind of presumptive existence - but I think there is a natural tendency to take this presumption as an established fact, when it's actually not. That is the crux of the issue I'm trying to articulate.
What comes to mind here are some of the conundrums arising from modern physics. In a profile article of the late, great John Wheeler, we read:
Quoting Does the Universe Exist if we're not Looking?
In Wheeler's famous phrase, we live in a 'participatory universe'.
Another example from quantum physics:
Quoting Quantum Mysteries Dissolve if Possibilities are Realities
In other words, reality comprises a real 'realm of possibility', from which particular ('determinate') outcomes are precipitated. This is very different from the naive realist view in which the unknown is comparable to 'unseen planets', because there is an ontological distinction in play between what is potentially real and what has been actualised (i.e. is determinate).
In relation to this, I have had the idea that the hallmark of anything that exists is that it is determinate - or that it has a definition, which, I guess, is another way of stating the same thing. If we think of any phenomenon, then by definition we are considering things that exist - even if unobserved. So we can safely surmise that there are trillions upon trillions of astronomical objects that we (and possibly no sentient being) will ever observe, even with the James Webb Telescope. We would be on safe ground to claim that they nevertheless exist, but that is still a presumption, even if a very safe one.
The reason I raise the question of 'determinateness' is that it does have bearing on the 'does a tree...?' question. More generally, I like to argue for the view that whatever we believe to exist (even things existing unobserved) exists in a determinate manner - meaning that if we encounter a previously-unseen celestial object, we will know what kind of thing it is. But that still leaves room for the assertion that the kind of reality the world has outside of the mind of the observer is indeterminate. That means that it is not non-existent, but it's also not strictly speaking existent. At best it has a kind of presumptive existence - but I think there is a natural tendency to take this presumption as an established fact, when it's actually not. That is the crux of the issue I'm trying to articulate.
What comes to mind here are some of the conundrums arising from modern physics. In a profile article of the late, great John Wheeler, we read:
Quoting Does the Universe Exist if we're not Looking?
Wheeler conjectures we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself and building itself. It's not only the future that is still undetermined but the past as well. And by peering back into time, even all the way back to the Big Bang, our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.
Does this mean humans are necessary to the existence of the universe? While conscious observers certainly partake in the creation of the participatory universe envisioned by Wheeler, they are not the only, or even primary, way by which quantum potentials become real. Ordinary matter and radiation play the dominant roles. Wheeler likes to use the example of a high-energy particle released by a radioactive element like radium in Earth's crust. The particle, as with the photons in the two-slit experiment, exists in many possible states at once, traveling in every possible direction, not quite real and solid until it interacts with something, say a piece of mica in Earth's crust. When that happens, one of those many different probable outcomes becomes real. In this case the mica, not a conscious being, is the object that transforms what might happen into what does happen. The trail of disrupted atoms left in the mica by the high-energy particle becomes part of the real world.
At every moment, in Wheeler's view, the entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos. And we see only a tiny portion of that cosmos. Wheeler suspects that most of the universe consists of huge clouds of uncertainty that have not yet interacted either with a conscious observer or even with some lump of inanimate matter. He sees the universe as a vast arena containing realms where the past is not yet fixed.
In Wheeler's famous phrase, we live in a 'participatory universe'.
Another example from quantum physics:
Quoting Quantum Mysteries Dissolve if Possibilities are Realities
At its root, the new idea (Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously) holds that the common conception of reality is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantums mysteries disappear. In particular, real should not be restricted to actual objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or potential realities, that have not yet become actual. These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are ontological that is, real components of existence.
This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility, write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.
Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isnt new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a probability wave, describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotles potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.
In other words, reality comprises a real 'realm of possibility', from which particular ('determinate') outcomes are precipitated. This is very different from the naive realist view in which the unknown is comparable to 'unseen planets', because there is an ontological distinction in play between what is potentially real and what has been actualised (i.e. is determinate).
Comments (141)
Also, whether or not Wheeler's participatory universe speculation is ultimately the case vis-a-vis quantum physics, we exist as classical beings within, or at the level of, nature constituted by classical constaints; what difference does Wheeler's speculation make to our lives striving for 'the good life' philosophically or practically?
I have a lot of sympathy for this view, it's basically the same as my own, but I'd quibble with the word 'reality'. I don't think we use the word 'reality' that way. We use the word 'reality' to describe our collective 'precipitated outcomes'. When I ask (say, suffering from temporary hallucinations) "Is that teapot real" I mean something more like "does everyone else see that?", not "does the foundational state of the universe contain a teapot"
I think science (which is at least partly what Wheeler is doing) should merely describe the nature of the things we already use words for. I don't think it should be in the business of re-defining how we ought to use words.
The Heisenberg article explicitly states 'This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of what is real.
As for 'describing the nature of things we already use words for' - surely not. Mathematical physics has necessitated the development of both new forms of mathematics, and the coining of new words ('spin', 'color', 'charm') to describe new discoveries.
The point about physics that it is purportedly concerned with fundamental particles, so the question as to what role the observer has in determining the outcome of the experiment is philosophically significant. The fact that it was so, was the main point of dispute between Bohr and Einstein. It certainly has an impact on how we think about the nature of reality - so many of the books on physics have sub-titles that refer to that (Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, for instance.)
Arent you just mixing up epistemology with ontology?
But semiotics can fix it. All life and mind is semiotically self determinate. It comes with a model - some form and purpose encoded in DNA/neurons/words/numbers - that does determine the kind of thing it intends to be. Or at least limits the extent of material accidents so as to be able to function as that thing.
Then the wider physical and chemical world is at best pansemiotic. It has no coded representation constraining its being. But it does have an environment, an informing context, that again shapes it to be the kind of thing it is for some general reason.
So a river or a mountain or a star all have that kind of environmental determinacy.
A landscape or any other natural structure has to reflect the constraints of the laws of thermodynamics. Disposing of flows becomes the purpose shaping its being, and the forms that result are inescapable patterns.
So there is a ton of ontological-level determination in the universe. Every star, every river, every sand dune, looks much the same just because some geometries are maximally efficient and can build themselves by material accident. They dont need an epistemology - some encoded blueprint or instruction set.
They're intimately linked.
[quote=A Private View of Quantum Reality;https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/]Once upon a time there was a wave function, which was said to completely describe the state of a physical system out in the world. The shape of the wave function encodes the probabilities for the outcomes of any measurements an observer might perform on it, but the wave function belonged to nature itself, an objective description of an objective reality.
Then Fuchs came along. Along with the researchers Carlton Caves and Rüdiger Schack, he interpreted the wave functions probabilities as Bayesian probabilities that is, as subjective degrees of belief about the system. Bayesian probabilities could be thought of as gambling attitudes for placing bets on measurement outcomes, attitudes that are updated as new data come to light. In other words, Fuchs argued, the wave function does not describe the world it describes the observer. Quantum mechanics, he says, is a law of thought.[/quote]
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Quoting apokrisis
Quite. Which is why I'm highly sceptical of the 'pan-semiosis' ploy. Life and mind are one thing, rivers and sand dunes something else.
For conscious, thinking beings like ourselves, there's a further fact viz. knowledge of existence/the interaction - this is an additional layer to being/existence: There is existence simpliciter (interaction) and then there is knowledge (of existence/interactions).
Reality is incomplete then if it is, as Wittgenstein states, the totality of facts if there are no beings like us capable of knowing these facts.
As for "expanding the definition of reality", I'm afraid, it won't do us any good. We could decide to call black a color (we erroneously do), but that doesn't affect the fact that black can't be like red, green, mauve, etc. because black is when all colors are absorbed, unlike other true colors. In other words, we may expand the definition of reality but souls and stones will still be different enough to preclude any radical inferences we might wish to make.
My two cents...
"Expand", maybe. "Replace" is what I'm less convinced by.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed, but not told us that words we've been using for one purpose are 'wrong'. Correct use of language is determined by the community using the word, not by some subset.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I think that each time we discover something new (say quarks) we have to expand what is real to accommodate. A scientist suffering from temporary hallucinations might still say (looking at his machine) "is that quark real, or am I seeing things again".
What I object to is the idea that 'that teacup isn't real'. It is real because thst teacup is the sort of thing we use the word 'real' to describe and that's the only measure there is of what a word means.
What we might have discovered is some property of real things we didn't know about before (like they don't exist until we observe them).
Anything that exists is a latent presupposition. Attributing sufficient warrant to this presupposition, determinate is a valid inference, insofar as something has already been subsumed under a categorical rule.
On the other hand, anything that exists is a general conception not derived by a particular inference, which implies there is either a different categorical rule, or none at all, under which anything may be subsumed.
For humans, it is impossible to cognize anything not subsumed under a categorical rule. It follows that anything that exists cannot be determinate under a definition, but rather, anything that (possibly) exists must still be determin-able under a definition.
Quoting Wayfarer
Absolutely. Which calls into question the determinate warrant for anything that exists.
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Quoting Wayfarer
Put a check mark in the not-even-a-chance column for me. Although, if Im being metaphysically honest, Id substitute rational intelligence for mind.
Oh....I like your Pinter stuff.
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
We can and do make mistakes, oui monsieur/mademoiselle?
America is named after Amerigo Vespucci despite the fact that she was discovered by Christopher Columbus. A catrographical boo-boo that remains uncorrected to this day.
This makes no sense. Do you propose that we hold the entire community to a vote every time we wonder whether language has been correctly used or not? Even if we did that, unless the vote was unanimous, we'd still be left with only a subset saying that the use was correct. Clearly, "correct" language use does not require such unanimity. It only requires that the one spoken to understands the one speaking.
Glad you noticed it. My comments on it got a bit of attention from Joshs, but seemed to go by most people. Good book, in my opinion.
'Nous' is the word I think is missing from today's philosophical discourse.
If particles are just ideas or more idea than rocks are, why don't we see particles that fail the gold standard test of materialism viz. nothing (material) can travel faster than light. In other words why are ideas behaving like matter? It just doesn't add up!
As in Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI, or, Prior Analytics.....yes, though maintained pretty much intact through the Enlightenment, now woefully absent as such.
As if the wonder of human intelligence can be displayed on a scope, traced with a red dye. Or brought forth from a couch at $300/hr.
(Sigh)
This is "true" mostly for perennialists, platonists, theists, idealists & naive realists.
Been thinking about this comment since you posted it. Bloody good question. And if some variation of idealism is true, I don't think it makes any difference to what I'll do next....
I hadn't really noticed that question till this comment. And I say it makes an important difference.
Consider the widely-accepted paradigm, that life and mind are thrown up as a byproduct of essentially meaningless physical processes, or as emergent properties of those processes. This is the consensus view of scientific or secular culture. Concommitant with that view is determinism, the idea that humans are not conscious, rational agents, and that the choices they appear to make are not really within their control. (I'm not suggesting that you're saying this but that it is a widely-held attitude nonetheless.)
Wheeler's ideas can be interpreted as meditations on the way that what is latent or unmanifested - what is indeterminate - becomes manifest or realised - made real - through human agency. It is a philosophical idea that was also suggested by the discoveries of quantum physics in the early 20th century. So this suggests that we're not simply the accidental by-products of a meaningless process, as per Jacques Monod or Richard Dawkins. Maybe a more apt metaphor is that the universe discovers itself through the agency of rational sentient beings, and that this is one of the ways that it is becoming understood.
I understand this point, but for me, 'meaningless scientism' or 'meaningful idealism' notwithstanding, it is still up to me to determine my values and actions and choose my path, wherever this might lead. All this might be illusory, or it might be connected to unknowable transcendence - but I don't think it makes any functional difference as I go about my business. :wink:
Appeal to popularity, again. C'mon, stop with the caricatures. :roll:
No, sir! Compatibilism is the most reasonable idea that's consistent with both scientific in/determinism and human experience.
Anything can be "interpreted" in any way you fancy, Wayfarer, but, in natural science, the more consistent an interpretation is with the prevailing experimental evidence, the more credible reasonable that interpretation is. Wheeler was as guilty as Bohr & co of committing the mind-projection fallacy insofar as he overdetermined that "observation is consciousness" rather than as a classical physical system-1 interacting with measuring a quantum physical system-2 (e.g. wavicle). "The observer" is only ever "conscious" of classical physical system-1 (experimental apparatus) when s/he reads the measurement data. Full stop. The best available evidence is more consistent with the idea that 'the human mind ("consciousness") is a classical, not a quantum, system' than otherwise; and, IMO, it's more reasonable for us to interpret what that means rather than, fairytale-like, speculating in excess / denial of what we do/can not know.
Anthropomorphic fallacy. :eyes:
Is the mind-projection fallacy similar to the 'blind spot' so often evoked by @Wayfarer?
Psychologist George Kelly said what matters is not whether the universe exists, but what we can make of it. Of course, how successful we are at this endeavor will have a lot to do with our criteria of successful
understanding. For instance, if we perceive another as disappointing us, whether we see them
as making an understandable mistake in judgement, or we believe there are always socially mitigating circumstances shaping them, or whether we think they are simply autonomously free subjects doing evil , will
depend on the kinds of embedded assumptions
that you dont believe make any functional difference in you daily life. People kill, torture, punish and condemn
others based on such embedded assumptions that they dont think matter to their daily choices.
Quoting Tom Storm
I guess what I meant was that embedded values and ontological assumptions are two ways of talking about the same thing. Most of the worlds ethical dilemmas and history of violence results not from a disconnect between embedded values and ontological assumptions, but from their connectedness. It is not hypocrites but sincere zealots we need fear most.
I think your general gist in accurate, but would quibble with the quoted portion here. If we assume that some of the celestial bodies shown by James Webb are a galaxy or a star, they could well be a galaxy or a star - after all, they seem to have the properties attributed to these things.
Nevertheless, we could be mistaken. What we take to be a galaxy in a picture could turn out to be a new system or phenomena previously unknown in astronomy. So in these cases, we would not know what thing it is, outside of the very general comment of "being something seen by the James Webb telescope."
As for the "presumptive existence", yeah, I agree. Something is there absent us, but many (I don't think all of them) of its determinations would be meaningless absent creatures with a capacity for rational thought.
As per this article on his profile page.
https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience
Yes. That was careless of me. I see this too.
There's a discernable idealist tendency in a lot of recent physics. (I have many stock examples available on request.) But it's an inconvenient truth for materialism which has to explain it away, or reduce it, to something psychological, like projection or something.
The idea that we are 'the universe made conscious' is a theme in current culture. Julian Huxley, brother of Alduous, argued for a kind of evolutionary humanism:
Quoting Julian Huxley
Yes, but it's a basic fact that postmodernism rejects meta-narratives, so that tends to consign a great deal of what has been made of it in the past to the wastepaper basket.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, take your point. I could also mention the dark matter/energy conundrum, very much a live issue in current cosmology, which posits that dark matter/energy, which can't even be detected. accounts for 96% of the total energy/mass of the Universe. But that's kind of tangential to the point I'm grappling with.
I guess I don't understand why he would say this. How does Huxley arrive at what seems to be an assumption that there is a path to follow and a purpose? Is this just him working to align evolution with perennialism
What do you take the last sentence to mean (destiny, role, agent)?
The idea that evolution is a way in which the Universe comes to know itself can be said of any living beings but (as noted the other day) in humankind this has been made the subject of conscious reflection and exploration - not that it has often been explored in the past. Although there are, for some examples, in the Hermetic tradition, the idea of 'man as microcosm', or the mythology of Adam Kadmon, or the Vedic Hymn of the Cosmic Man (Alduous would have been much more aware of these myths than his brother!)
You even find the idea in Thomas Nagel's book Mind and Cosmos:
[quote="The Universe is Waking Up;https://thebuddhistcentre.com/westernbuddhistreview/universe-waking#:~:text=Nagel%E2%80%99s%20starting%20point" ]Nagels starting point is not simply that he finds materialism partial or unconvincing, but that he himself has a metaphysical view or vision of reality that just cannot be accommodated within materialism. This vision is that the appearance of conscious beings in the universe is somehow what it is all for; that Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself. Nagels surrounding argument is something of a sketch, but is entirely compatible with a Buddhist vision of reality as naturalism, including the possibility of insight into reality (under the topic of reason or cognition) and the possibility of apprehension of objective good (under the topic of value). His naturalism does this while fully conceding the explanatory power of physics, Darwinian evolution and neuroscience. Most Buddhists are what one might describe as intuitive non-materialists, but they have no way to integrate their intuition into the predominantly materialistic scientific world view. I see the value of Nagels philosophy in Mind and Cosmos as sketching an imaginative vision of reality that integrates the scientific world view into a larger one that includes reason, value and purpose, and simultaneously casts philosophical doubt on the completeness of the predominant materialism of the age.[/quote]
Thanks. Sure, but I find it hard to see what difference this makes to a life lived. Speaking personally, it would make no difference to who I am and what I choose to do in life. Knowledge of this might change the values of a rapacious capitalist, but I doubt it. I've known a lot of tough criminals over time and visited a number of jails and it has always struck me as interesting how many people involved in criminal justice are robust theists. Didn't stop them committing egregious crimes, however.
:fire:
Quoting Wayfarer
As if "accidental outcomes" (pace Einstein) are not intrinsic to the universe. :smirk:
Read Lucretius' De rerum natura or Spinoza's Ethica (part 1 "Of God" re: modes). Apparently you didn't understand Dawkins & Monod (or Heisenberg).
Did a term paper on it, as part of Keith Campbell's Philosophy of Matter course.
Something about it must interest you, otherwise why would you keep asking questions about it?
A meta narrative is a claim to universal truth. Personally constructed narratives draw from our own history with others. They are pragmatic and oriented toward predictive sense-making in changeable conditions. Whatever has been made of the world in the past , to the extent that we are aware of it , can be made use of if it proves to be relevant and predictive for our circumstances. Past cultural history( sciences. philosophy , art) is made use of in a transformed way.
I'm interested in a lot of things. Doesn't mean I have a clear use for them. And I am really fascinated by what others believe and why.
:up: Important inclusion of the naive realists, since the presumption that things should be just as they seem or are imagined to be is held in common with all those worldviews.
Fair enough. I guess that is where hermeneutics is important.
I'm not so sure this is true. I mean, you're talking most specifically here about whether people subscribe to determinism or free will, I'm guessing. If you think people are radically free agents then they are radically responsible for all of their actions. If you think that their family circumstances and childhood conditioning are determining factors, that might soften your desire to punish or it might not. I think it's fair to say that many people are motivated simply by emotion; if you do something that hurts them they will wish to punish you, and their wishes do not depend at all on worldviews they might hold, rationally or otherwise.
I guess what Im asking is, do you think the difference between a philosophy that makes a place for the significance of life, and one that doesnt, is significant? I mean, as far as philosophies go, there can't be a much greater degree of difference.
Quoting Joshs
I'm interested in the possibility of a cosmic philosophy. Maybe that's what cosmology is supposed to be. In any case, our culture doesn't have one. All we have is the remnants of passed ones.
Interesting. I can't think of a philosophy in which life is not significant in some way :chin:
How about ...
M-string theory?
Cosmicism?
Meillassoux's hyper-chaos?
Spinoza's (acosmist) natura naturans?
Democritean / Lucretian atomism?
Daojia
The Many-Worlds Interpretation of QM
etc
I doubt it and have asked this question for many years. Humans are meaning making creatures who love and collaborate peaceably, no matter how antisocial faith traditions, politics, capitalism or sundry outliers might conspire to make us. Belief in meta-narratives have never stopped the jails from filling, or prevented the bodycount from piling up on the battlefields or in the dungeons. So my guess is that what you do matters, not what you believe.
:up: More precisely: 'how you think and do what you think and do matters' ...
The science tells us that life first appeared on the Earth about 3.8 billion years ago. But since it is believed most of the stars were formed billions of years prior to our Sun life may have appeared well before that. Or there may be no other life in the Universe than Earth's, however unlikely that might sound.
However the life on Earth up until about 1.5 billion years ago is believed to have been only single cell organisms. And simple forms of sentient life are believed to have appeared about half a billion years ago. The problem is we don't (and arguably can't) know whether life is inevitable in all universes, or whether it was inevitable in this one.
All that said, since these questions are most likely unanswerable, it would seem to have no bearing on how we choose to live our lives and what values we choose to enact.
:fire:
By the "naive realist view" you mean modal realism? There is a modal realist interpretation of quantum mechanics where all quantum possibilities are regarded as real/determinate - the many worlds interpretation, which currently seems to be the favorite interpretation with physicists.
What would be the ontological difference between a potentially real object and an actually real object? The idea of a potentially real object seems to conflate epistemic uncertainty with ontological uncertainty, something I would call a "naive idealist view". I don't think there is any ontological uncertainty, because it seems that any object can be structurally defined as a pure set, which is a determinate structure. Pure set theory can define all mathematical structures as pure sets, including the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics.
The only thing that is indeterminate is what you choose to call a "dune". If instead of baggage words like "dune" you use the mathematically precise word "set" (or collection), this pseudo-problem of ontological indeterminacy disappears. There are just grains and sets of grains.
Even when philosophers say that things are fuzzy around the edges, it seems that they have determined what edges are and what is fuzzy.
Sets are collections. An apple is a collection of atoms. So apples "subsist"?
What is the relation between language and real, nameable objects? This is the question of the basis of the concept of an object or category of objects. Doesnt the mathematical determination follow upon the linguistic-semantic determination? Are you assuming that language is referential: we assign a semantic meaning and then associate it with a linguistic token? How do I know that my token means the same thing as your token? Is there a fact of the matter that will settle such disputes of meaning and sense? Do the empirical facts of the world ( or dictionary definitions) intervene to settle these matters?
Very well said Joshs. :up:
It's not an issue of naming, it's a conceptual issue, no small thing. To argue otherwise is to confuse an ontology for what are in fact epistemological matters.
Are you saying that there are maybe no collections in reality or that it is not clear what a collection is?
While I'm not a physicist, I feel the MWI is posited purely as a means to avoid the anti-realist implications of the 'Copenhagen interpretation'. The problem it sets out to solve is the so-called 'wave function collapse', by declaring that it is not necessary, but at the cost of introducing infinite branching universes. To me it seems blatantly obvious that in this case, the solution is infinitely worse than the problem. (See Sean Carroll's 'most embarrasing graph in modern physics'.)
Quoting litewave
Actual existence, I would think. If it's only potentially real, then it doesn't exist. In is in that sense that electrons and the like can be said to only have a tendency to exist. The wave function is a distribution of possibilities, but it's not as if the object is in a definite but undisclosed location, it has no definite location until it is measured. (Different type of answer to joshs, mine is drawn mainly from Nature Loves to Hide, Shimon Malin.)
So one of the key things about the 'potentia' view is the idea that there can be degrees of reality. That, I think, is something that has been lost.
No. The concept "collection" subsists.
The wave function before collapse (or decoherence, as it is called more recently) indeed does not have a single value for position in space and it has a linear combination of values instead. You could say that this means that the wave function is "indeterminate" but it is still a precisely defined mathematical object and like any mathematical object it can be defined as a pure set. It is not necessary that all mathematical objects have a position (or a single-valued position) in a space, and their lack of such a property does not make them "indeterminate", at least not in the general mathematical context. And spaces themselves are mathematical objects.
Using the term 'object' metaphorically, don't you think? They are what would be called in philosophy a 'noetic object', meaning 'only perceptible by the intellect.'
But I mean a concrete apple, which is a concrete collection of atoms, not a concept. Does a concrete apple subsist?
I am using the term object simply as "something". And I am saying that structurally every object in reality is either a collection of other objects or it is a non-composite object (empty collection); there are no other possibilities.
Quoting litewave
But that's what I'm questioning. Such 'objects' as the wave equation, or many other logical or mathematical laws and principles, do not exist as things, but only as intelligible objects - they are only perceptible to a rational mind, not to empirical observation although they may have empirical implications.
A wise philosopher once told me: "there are interminable arguments in philosophy of mathematics as to whether maths is invented or discovered, whether it's in the mind of humans or is something real in the world."
Quoting 180 Proof
And a particular apple is a particular collection, so particular collections exist.
Well, they are not nothing and so they are something.
So you are returning to the theory of descriptions, the idea that a proper name only has a referent in virtue of some definite description - your "determinate" - that "picks out" that individual to which the name will refer?
Prima facie it seems odd for someone with an idealist bent to hark back to Bertrand Russell.
This might serve to locate your view in the landscape of logic, as siding with Russell against Donnellan and Kripke. I haven't read through the whole of this thread yet, so someone else may have made the same point. If that is of interest to you, we might further discuss the logical implications of replacing individuals with descriptions.
An apple is a structure, sets or collections are not structures; the elements may be arranged in any order without changing the set.
Quoting Joshs
Isn't that shown by the fact that we can make sense of what the other says; follow instructions "to the letter" and so on?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
If the mind/body is "all of a piece" with the world, then it should not be surprising that mathematics has real world applications. If there is pattern then there is difference and similarity, and even sameness, and this is integral to human experience in that we experience quantity everywhere. So, I don't see an absolute distinction between discovery and invention; when I write a poem, do I discover it or invent it? I'd say it's one or the other or both depending on perspective.
And it's a subject of great interest to me, and one of the motivations for this thread.
Quoting litewave
You're glossing over a fundamental philosophical distinction in saying that. As I noted above, one of the points of interest in the Kastner paper on quantum physics is this:
Note 'extraspatiotermporal' which in plain language means 'not in time and space'. So these kinds of 'objects' are not existent in the sense that phenomena are existent, as phenomena exist in time and space. The act of measurement literally precipitates them as phenomena (which is the very implication that the many worlds intepretation seeks to avoid, by saying that this never happens.) Bohr said 'no elementary phenomena is a phenomena until it is a registered (observed) phemomena'. So here you're actually seeing a demonstration of the borderline between phenomenal and noumenal.
Quoting Banno
I'm interested in the meaning of universals and other such intelligible objects.
Rather peculiar to refer to math as an intelligible object since the intelligible is subjective. Math is a universal logic that is rather easily projected onto perceptual reality, and it comes to appear objective because once applied, it is hard to deny the mathematical properties of a perceptual object.
But are you saying something like that there are no individuals, only descriptions? That an individual is some sort of shorthand for a definite description?
It seems to me that whenever anyone uses language they intend to convey information to others. The fact of the matter is the relation the speaker or writer has between the sounds and scribbles they make and the idea they intended to convey. What that might be is anyone's guess, but if you speak the same language as the speaker or writer, somehow, your chances of interpreting that relationship is substantially better than if you didn't speak their language. This must mean something, or else I can speak Italian and say that it's Vietnamese without any fact of the matter to stop me - if my intent was to cause confusion. If my intent was to communicate, then it would help to know the language of my audience.
A structure is a set of objects and relations between them. An ordered set is a special kind of set, and so a special kind of structure.
Me too. It's one of the greatest philosophical subjects of all time.
But then the set is not merely a collection of objects, but a particular arrangement. It depends on how you stipulate it: the set of even numbers is still the set of even numbers no matter how you arrange them, but of course the set of even numbers in their "natural" order only allows of their being arranged in one particular way out of an infinite number of possible ways. It is not part of the specification of any set that the members interact with one another in anything more than a logical or semantic way; which is to say they don't work together to form physical or self-organizing structures.
Quoting Banno
Individuals are identified by means of descriptions.
Ok, so in a limited (physicalist) sense you could say that extraspatiotemporal objects are not determinate, but in a general (mathematical) sense they are just as well-defined and hence determinate as spatiotemporal mathematical objects.
Not so. Your seven is exactly identical to mine. Otherwise nothing would ever work. They're not subjective, but they're only discernable to the mind. The base confusion of the modern world is that 'in the mind' means 'subjective'. We live in a world of shared meanings.
Quoting Banno
No, I'm interested in the reality of intelligible objects. I was recently reading about the idea that the form of a thing determines its nature:
Pollok, Konstantin. Kant's Theory of Normativity: Exploring the Space of Reason (p. 118). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
Now notice the similarity to this passage:
Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan.
I'm trying to trace this theme back through the history of ideas.
Quoting litewave
I guess you could say that.
Like I said, they know what the edges are and what is fuzzy.
An indeterminate thing is a thing with no definition - not worthy of contemplating (even if you could), much less talk about - so a misuse of language.
but it does exist as a phenomena of your imagination and your imagination is just another fact of the world, or what is the case.
Of course; we have words for the numbers one to seven, for example. If I have seven objects in front of me and remove one then the number left will be what we call six; if I divide the seven into groups of two there will always be three groups of two with one left over and so on
The fact that somewhat more complex calculations were originally done on an abacus shows that the operations can be physically instantiated in a non-symbolic way and that, in fact, the symbolization of number is derivative of what were originally physical operations of sorting and grouping.
Yes, math is universally discernable to the rational mind, so it will be identical for anybody capable of comprehending it. You make a good point about it not being technically subjective. However, i must point out that the world of shared meanings has a massive subjective component, and is not necessarily universal like mathematics.
Yes, each individual is unique; and has their own unique set of variations on the universal themes (some more interesting than others, of course)..
Quoting Wayfarer
Then I haven't followed you in understanding what it is to be determinate.
Quoting Wayfarer
You are not here saying that whatever we believe to exist has an associated description; that if we encounter a previously-unseen celestial object, there is a description of what kind of thing it is?
Then what is it we know about the novelty?
Of course. But I question the naturalistic assumption that there's a clear-cut division between 'in the mind' (subjective, internal) and 'in the world' (objective, external). What that sense is, in actuality, is one of the underlying dynamics of 'the human condition' - that sense of otherness or separateness from the world (recall Alan Watts' books). You do find, in classical philosophical literature, scattered references to the 'union of knower with known' - which harks back to the insight that transcends this 'illusion of othernesss'. And that, I say, is something lost to modern philosophy, due to its incompability with individualism.
Quoting Banno
What I was trying to say is that I think there's a widespread assumption that phenomena comprise the whole of reality. So that, were we to discover a previously-unknown planet - there must be trillions of them - it's simply a question of discovering another instance of something that is already familiar, another phenomenally real object*.
Whereas what is indeterminate does not exist in that sense. It is not 'out there somewhere'. And note how easily that expression is taken to indicate 'everything that might exist'. The previously-discussed Smithsonian essay on the nature of maths says:
You see the point? If it's real, it must be out there - i.e. 'existing in time and space'. Whereas, I'm of the view that intelligible objects (such as number) are real - same for everyone - but not existent - they're not out there somewhere. But if they're not 'out there' then where are they? Aha, comes the conclusion, 'in the mind'. But they're the same for all minds, do they're not subjective, either. In fact, neither subjective nor objective - but those two categories exhaust our instinctive ontology of what the world must be like.
So, in pre-modern and early modern philosophy, 'phenomenon' was one of a pair, the other term being 'noumenon' (not necessarily in the strictly Kantian sense) meaning appearance and reality. So my sense is that due to the overwhelming influence of empiricism and (broadly speaking) positivism, that we now have a conviction that only phenomena are real - that the totality of the universe comprise phenomena, 'out there somewhere', and apart from that, there's only the internal, private, subjective domain. So, back to that Smithsonian essay:
This is an undercurrent to a lot of the debates on this forum.
----
* There are of course kinds of objects, like black holes and various sub-atomic particles, which we have never empirically validated but which are predicted to exist by mathematical physics. But whatever they may be, they're still 'out there somewhere', or supposed to be.
In set theory, ordered sets (which have members arranged in a particular order) can be defined out of unordered sets. For example an ordered set (a, b) is a set with members a and b which are ordered in such a way that a comes first and b comes second, and it can be defined as an unordered set of sets { a } and { a, b }:
(a, b) = { { a }, { a, b } }
A set with the opposite order can be defined as follows:
(b, a) = { { b }, { a, b } }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordered_pair#Kuratowski's_definition
You can define any order, any mathematical structure in set theory.
Quoting Janus
Physical sets can be seen as a particular kind of sets that are contained in a spacetime. Space itself is a particular kind of set (with continuity between its members, as defined in point-set topology) and time is a particular kind of space (as defined in theory of relativity). Causal relations between sets can be seen as a special kind of relations between spatiotemporal sets in the presence of the arrow of time (rising entropy of spatial structures along the time dimension), where the "consequences" logically follow from the "causes", and the "causes" are initial conditions and spatiotemporal regularities known as the laws of physics.
So it a question of fitting the new individual into an existing description.
I'm afraid I cannot see how you are not committing yourself to a description theory. Something exists only if there is a suitable description of that thing.
Right. And aren't universals the determinates of predication? Insofar as the mind is capable of grasping universals, then it is able to specify what that thing is. 'No entity without identity'. That is the subject of the Kelly Ross essay on my profile page, Meaning and the Problem of Universals.
And where is space and time? In general, an object does not need to be in a space or in a time (and time is just a special kind of space according to theory of relativity, a dimension of spacetime). An object just must have relations to other objects, and spatiotemporal relations are just a special kind of relations between objects inside a spacetime, and spacetimes are just a special kind of objects.
I don't understand what that means. Are you saying there are no particulars? Or that we cannot predicate to a particular? But "Wayfarer" designates a particular, and "Wayfarer wrote the post to which this is a reply" predicates writing a post to you, so that does not seem right.
Quoting Wayfarer
But might this not be arse about? Perhaps we infer universals from particular instances. Indeed, one comes to understand "Cat" from dealing with particular cats, and in contrast to particular dogs and trees.
I don't see much promise in what you are suggesting.
That is a figure of speech. It might make no difference in terms of manipulating the concepts required to understand relativity theory, but it's the kind of difference that philosophy ought to consider.
Quoting Banno
says John Stuart Mill, and the other empiricists, but I do realise that we're at the boundary of what you consider acceptable, so I won't press the point.
It is this "union of knower with known" that is difficult for me because it insinuates a division (knower/known). And when I reconcile it by saying the knower directly apprehends the known, I feel like it is too simple of a solution. I would love to say: that is simply the way it is and be done with it...but the human in me wants to go further and explain the mechanism by which it all works. And that always leads into the Kantian nightmare.
Quoting Wayfarer
If this false sense of separation is part of the human condition, I'm interested in how an unseperated pair is unified. Is it as simple as saying humankind has a dual nature (appetitive and rational) which directly relates to the dual nature of reality (the perceptual and the intelligible)?
Don't forget about the blessed nomenalists, they only have access to their own unique set of variations on particular themes :smirk:
Universals have little significance in nominalist views. They are nothing but particulars we call by the same name.
If universals exist at all, then all particulars are subordinate.
Structurally, a spacetime is a pure set like any other object. One of many objects in set theory or mathematics.
They're objects in the sense of 'objects of thought' but they're not literally objects.
They are intelligible objects, apprehended in the mind. And, although they are objects in the metaphorical sense, they have literal existence in the same way a cup does (minus the perceptual component). In fact all universals are non-objective and literal realities.
There is an actual division, isn't there? When I see the proverbial [apple/tree/cup] then there's a distinction between the knowing subject and the known object, surely?
The way it is explained in terms of traditional realism (as I understand it) is that the senses apprehend the material thing, but the rational mind realises the form.
Quoting Summa
As expressed by a classics scholar:
Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism, 39:00
I'm not saying I believe it but I'm very interested in understanding it, and also in understanding criticisms of it.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Is that a simple thing to say? Besides, the two principles are generally described as sensible (sense-able) and intelligible, i.e. what can be apprehended by the senses and what can be known by the mind.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Ah, but do they? I'm saying that @litewave is glossing over the issue by saying that e.g. 'time and space are objects'. In fact, the nature of time and space are unresolved questions, and arguably not scientific questions at all. Time and space may be regarded as 'objects' (or parameters) for the purposes of mathematical physics but it doesn't make them objects in the literal sense. Same with other intelligible objects. Whereas most empirical philosophers will deny that they have any kind of existence except as mental acts.
I am not using the word 'object' metaphorically but generally, as 'something'. And any 'something' is either a collection of 'somethings' or a non-composite 'something' (empty collection).
It's too general a distinction for the purposes of philosophy. I agree that abstract objects are real, but many do not agree with that, on the basis that they have no concrete or objective existence. There is a difference between the sense in which the [tree/apple/chair] exists, and the sense in which prime numbers exist, because the latter can only be deduced by an act of counting and reasoning, not perceived by the senses.
Me too. I'm mostly interested in ethics, but this issue is the one nonethical philosophical issue I can't let go
Hopefully you can help me understand more, you're obviously better informed than me.
Quoting Wayfarer
The current generation of philosophers would have us believe it. But no, it appears simple, but it holds as much weight as any other school.
If you would be so generous, what is the greatest criticism you've heard of the traditional view? I always assumed it was dismissed in our time, not because of any major deficieny in itself, but because of modern arrogance. Please correct me if I'm wrong
Then take as real only concrete collections as opposed to generalized collections (properties). For example, concrete trees as opposed to a generalized (Platonic) tree. It seems to me that properties are "out there" just like non-properties (and not just like words or thoughts) although I know it's controversial.
But then you necessarily rule out the reality of rational thought... along with the capacity for apprehending intelligible objects. It diminishes human existence to a particularized absurdity.
:up: If you get that, you're seeing the point.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
You're not wrong! The roots go back to the disputes about universals in medieval times, between the scholastic realists (Aquinas and others) the nominalists (Ockham, Bacon) and then later the empiricists (who were mainly nominalist.) And history was written by the victors. All of it happened so long ago that collectively we've forgotten about it.
Quoting What's Wrong with Ockham, Joshua Hothschild
That essay is a good starting point, although by no means an easy read (it used to be posted online but the site is no more. (Unfortunately (or so it seems to me) this kind of critique is often associated with social conservatism, which I am not really comfortable with, but it's a matter of 'let the chips fall where they may'.)
The other book I found really helpful, I read pretty well straight after discovering philosophy forums, there's a very good reader review here. It's a revisionist history of how modernity got to be how it is.
Well, for the sake of argument we might regard properties as thoughts or words that represent certain similarities between particular objects. But it does seem to me that properties are "out there" in the objects that have them. Even then though, it seems that we are not able to apprehend them directly but rather in the form of usual or typical examples of them and in the feeling that the similarity of the examples evokes in our minds. For example, you can't imagine a general circle because it is not even a spatial object, but you can imagine particular circles and have an experience of their similarity.
Now that I think about it, I am not sure that "generalized collection" even makes sense. A particular tree is a particular collection (of atoms or whatever) but a generalized tree is what collection? It seems that a property (generalized object) can't be identified with a collection and so a property is not a collection; it can however be represented, and in this sense defined, by its concrete examples, which are collections. This also applies to numbers, which are inherently generalized objects; for example number 3 can be represented by any collection that has 3 members. A particular space, however, is not a generalized object and so it is a collection (it can be identified with a particular collection).
That is the basic nomimalist view. when I compare it to the traditional view it is obviously more problematic. For instance, things like mind, justice, love, happiness, &c. can only be inferred from concrete particulars so that they have no actual reality in themselves, but have existence only as abstractions (i.e. concrete particulars to which we apply a conventionalized name).
Quoting litewave
I agree. These properties inhere in the object, and humans possess the appropriate faculties to apprehend the sensible and intelligible properties of what is out there.
Quoting litewave
It only seems that we do not apprehend them directly because our modern culture has confused what apprehends and what is apprehended. Is it out of the question that there could be qualitatively different modes of apprehending the same thing, or qualitatively different properties constituting the thing in itself?
Quoting litewave
Actually, it is the optical distortion in the human eye which makes it virtually impossible to percieve a perfect circle in spacetime. But geometrically speaking, adobe photoshop can technically render a perfect circle. This properly illustrates how qualitatively different the sensible and intelligible are.
Well, shit! Great excerpt there.
Quoting What's Wrong with Ockham, Joshua Hothschild
Indeed, Platonic hierarchy of forms. The purpose of philosophy (traditionally speaking) is to make this ascent, and best exemplified in the accounts of Socrates.
Quoting What's Wrong with Ockham, Joshua Hothschild
That is on point and very well put. It's a terrible tragedy that philosophy has become such a lowly enterprise for the modern consciousness.
Quoting Wayfarer
That is why this debate is so important. Philosophy has real consequences for the sociological predispositions of its adherents, regardless of whether they adhere consciously/volitionally or not.
Unfortunately, it seems that the traditional view defaults into a position of social conservatism. Yet, I'm not so sure the alternative (based in the modern paradigm) is any better - so much creative/destructive power, and so little wisdom. It is really a question of lesser evils.
This is a an example of simplistic thinking at its worst. Philosophy today is not just one thing. There are many, many streams. The more important streams are those concerned with giving us the tools to understand what life is for us, and with ethics, with wisdom as to how to live. But the retrograde idea that there is just one answer is pernicious, toxic: it invites authority to the table, and authority and wisdom are terrible bedfellows; one or other of them will always be kicked out of bed.
For example, a mathematical function such as f(x)= 2x can be regarded as a 'universal' term that when applied to the 'particular' object 2 is eliminated to produce the 'particular' object 4.
Beta reduction a useful analogy for understanding the cognition of language; For example, if i am looking for my red jumper, then I understand "red jumper" in the sense of a universal until as and when I find the particular object i am looking for - in which case "red jumper" reduces to an indexical such as this, which points directly without further linguistic mediation to the non-linguistic 'term' concerned.
'nihil ultra ego'
Quoting sime
Interesting, but only speaks to the philosophical implications by way of analogy, I think.
There's an encyclopedia article I often refer to, The Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics, which is a useful summary of some of the main arguments. Briefly, it starts with reference to paper by a well-known math scholar, Paul Benacerraf, on the topic. According to this paper 'Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.'
What are these 'best epistemic theories' and why do they 'seem to debar' such knowledge? Reading on, we learn that:
[quote=IEP;https://iep.utm.edu/indimath/#:~:text=our%20mathematical%20beliefs%3F%E2%80%9D-,Mathematical%20objects,-are%20in%20many]Mathematical objects are in many ways unlike ordinary physical objects such as trees and cars. We learn about ordinary objects, at least in part, by using our senses. It is not obvious that we learn about mathematical objects this way. Indeed, it is difficult to see how we could use our senses to learn about mathematical objects.[/quote]
So this is a hint that 'our best theories' are empiricist, namely, that knowledge is only acquired by sensory experience, and that there is no innate facility for knowledge, of the type that mathematical reasoning appears to consist in. The point is elaborated below.
Quoting IEP
So, if the 'rationalist philosophers' are correct then we're not physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies! The horror! When 'our best theories' are all premised on the fact that we are! That's the motivation behind this whole argument. Because if number is real but it's not physical, then this defeats materialism, so it's acutely embarrasing for mainstream philosophy. Especially because the 'mathematicization of nature' has been so central to the ballyhoed advance of modern science (hence it's 'indispensability').
This lead me to look into why the faculty of reason was attributed with divine powers by Greek philosophy. Now there's a research topic for the ages.
It is not denying that there are many streams in modern philosophy, it is saying that out of all those streams, its highest aspiration is in securing veridical cognitive events.
Quoting Janus
I agree, the most important philosophical threads are indeed concerned with giving us the tools to understand what life is for us, and with ethics, with wisdom as to how to live. However, those things are clearly not a priority in the modern philosophical paradigm, and I don't see it giving us many of those tools to work with.
Quoting Janus
I don't see much wisdom coming from man-as-the-measure of all things, especially combined with the upsurgence in the right to individual opinion. I would argue that the present world could use a little authoritative and life-altering wisdom to balance things out a bit.
And I think that's a simplistic and egregious generalization. The common aspiration of all philosophy is to understand, and if that were all that was meant by "veridical cognitive events" then I could agree. The point is there are many different kinds of understanding in many different contexts.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
I disagree I think it's just that we often cannot relate to different understandings so they seem irrelevant to how we might conceive the human situation. People vary; it's "horses for courses".
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Man as the measure of all things is very much what is promoted primarily by those of an idealist bent. I think it's a complex issue, and there are ways in which humanity is the measure of all things, at least for us; or perhaps more accurately: 'man is the measurer of all things'. Because we are undoubtedly the measurers, the idealist (or as Meillassoux would say "the correlationist") argument is that we are also the measure, insofar as all we are held to know is our measurements (ratios, rationality, judgements).
If there is a cure for the pernicious aspect of this mindset it would be philosophical naturalism, not the kinds of idealist or religious philosophies that take humanity to be special, to be the privileged "crown of creation".
You might be the only relevant philosopher on TPF who consistently argues on this point. It is such a different view that it is nearly impossible to get through to one who is inured with the modern paradigm, I give you credit. I have a deep affinity for Platonism, but my philosophical acuity is not sophisticated enough to argue with the modern mind from the platonic perspective. It's just easier to fall back on phenomenology. But you are really helping me to sort it out.
...
Just because a thing is simplistic, egregious or generalized doesn't not mean it's untrue. But to be clear, it's not refering to all philosophy but to a very popular trend in present day philosophy, which comes from a long line of thought that can be traced back to Descartes' work.
Quoting Janus
There could also be the possibility that when we view the big picture, some things are merely superior to others. This is the case with many things in life, why not with philosophy? Would you say that a philosophy that makes you a better and happier person is superior to one that doesn't? I would argue it is more than likely that some philosophies can do this much better than others.
Quoting Janus
Plato certainly shows little favor towards "man as the measure" in Theaetetus. He goes so far as to have Socrates mock it sarcastically:
Quoting Janus
Why philosophical naturalism? It has just as many, and arguably worse, pitfalls as the others.
Sure, but what makes some better and happier may make others worse and unhappier. How can we justify saying that some philosophies are "superior" tout court? Couldn't we only justify such an opinion if we could show that adherence to such a philosophy would make everyone better and happier?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Sure, Plato had his opinion, but Plato was just a man like any other. I don't see much argument in that passage you quoted there; why should I be convinced on account of it? What relevance, for example, do pigs or baboons have for the question? For pigs perhaps it is pigs that are the measure of all things, and for baboons, baboons. Why then for men, should men not, in some senses, be the measure of all things?
So, remember before I said it is a complex issue. In relation to any person, who is responsible for determining their views if not the person, assuming that they find themselves capable of thinking for themselves? Is it desirable that others should overrule and impose their authority against the freethinking individual (provided of course that the indivdual is not seeking to impose their own views on others)?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Philosophical naturalism has its benign and pernicious forms, as I see it. The pernicious form claims that everything about humans can be explained in scientific terms; and this is patently false and wrongheaded (in my view: so note that I am not denying anyone's right to believe that, but just as with religious faith, I am denying their right to impose that belief on others). The benign form eschews explanations that posit unknowable entities such as God, angels, or spirits as explanations and authorities that must or even should be believed and submitted to.
The pernicious form denies anyone the right to have faith in Gods or entities of their own choosing; the benign form accords anyone the right to have faith in such things, but not the right to impose their beliefs on others. This is particularly relevant today in regard to issues such as abortion and gay and transgender rights. The benign naturalistic denial is not an imposition on personal faith or belief, but a denial of the possibility of any such faith or belief being of an authoritative nature.
In other words, it has ruled out the existence of intelligible objects, so that everything must be reducible to a sensible object.
Quoting Wayfarer
And according to 'our best theories' ... even if mathematics is a human invention, it only has reality insofar as it is applied to the sensable - positivism.
Quoting Wayfarer
It would be a very embarrassing thing to read on its epitaph. And, I imagine that the advocates of the modern view would do what is necessary, doubling down and tripling down, even deprecating any alternative positions, to ensure that it prevails.
I find much promise in the idea that there is an invisible (nonsensable) aspect to reality that is directly accessible to the rational mind.
If I remember correctly, reason was a gift from Zeus to mankind. One thing we can say for certain, reason and divinity have invisibility in common, and do not belong to the world of sensability.
Step 1: Objects A, B, C, and E (pure language)
Step 2: Only objects A, C and E are possible (logic)
Step 3: Only objects A and E are actual (causality/PSR)
Set theoretical argument that the physical world is created from the mental world.
It isn't possible to build a subset B that's got more elements that the set A whose subset B is. We can, however, build a subset Y that's got less elements than the set X whose subset Y is.
Ergo, since the set of mental objects has more elements than the set of physical objects, it follows that the latter was created from the former. As Parmenides once said ex nihilo nihil fit (nothing comes from nothing).
:snicker:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/514081
What you say kinda makes sense - possible worlds as intrinsic to actual ones and thus "Nothing to see here! Move along, move along."
However, reconsider my argument.
Take two sets, M = {z, , ?, 8} and P = {?, }. Which set can be created from the other and which set simply can't yield the other? The answer is easy - you can't get M from P, but you can get P from M - and comes as a revelation to me if one then goes on to say, salva veritate, M = set of mental objects and P = set of physical objects.
I believe I'm repeating myself; apologies if you find that annoying. It's just that I feel I'm onto something.
I agree "M > P" which, to me, implies that M P = nothing but extrinsic, mere possibilities, which necessarily cannot be actualized necessarily are not actual à la Spinoza's first kind of knowledge.
:smile: In a sense Momma Nature aborts some, how shall I put it?, bad ideas. Did you know, a significant number of fetuses are abnormal and these are terminated as it were via spontaneous miscarriages that go unnoticed? The same must be true of the universe itself - there's a filter between possible and actual.
It's just that the possibles [math]>>[/math] the actuals. This leads us to the question "why is there something rather than everything?" another metaphysical conundrum worth mulling over in my humble opinion.
You're right on the money 180 Proof, as always. :up:
That is the problem, such types of claims are unverifiable. But just because we cannot verify it, it does not mean that it is not the case that one philosophy is superior to another.
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I know what it means to think one philosophy is superior to another. I agree that one philosophy cannot be proven or demonstrated, to be superior to another. I don't know what it could mean for one philosophy to be superior to another in any absolute sense, since it could not be verified, and superiority is nothing more than a value judgement, which is always going to remain subjective or at best, if much agreement exists, inter-subjective. I don't see how there could be any objective fact of the matter about it.
It is really a matter of whether a hierarchy exists. And that requires a world in which intelligibility exists. It would then be possible for the rational mind to discern a universal value-order of things.
In every case without intelligibility and hierarchy, man necessarily becomes the measure of all things, and superiority becomes a subjective value judgement - "that a thing is for any individual what it seems to him to be". Then the superiority of one value judgement over another (not to mention that of entire value systems) comes down to things like sophistry, coercion, consensus, &c.
Why should there be any superiority of one value judgement over another, other than in the practical sense that some judgements are productive of social harmony, or at least not productive of disharmony, and are therefore adaptive, and others are antisocial and hence maladaptive?
Because, it is ironic for someone to claim special knowledge of a subject, if at the same time he concedes to the notion that man is the measure of all things. He is using the imagery of baboons and tadpoles to highlight the irony, that if "a thing is for any individual what it seems to him to be", then neither the man (meNing the speaker) nor the knowledge have any inherent merit or authority.
Quoting Janus
It is not desirable. But it is also not desirable that others should overrule and impose inferior things over superior things just because of the right to individual opinion. I'm with Nietzsche on this one, the democratization of society leads to a "slave morality".
Probably something based on Platonism, like the quote provided by @Wayfarer: "[a heirarchy] making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble." Plato claims that certain things are heirachically superior, like the Good and Beauty. And he shows Socrates going around discussing things such as the beautiful and the ugly.
I'm talking about intelligibility in the Platonic sense. In that there are intelligible objects that are separate from the individual, and which are invisible to the senses, but can be apprehended (or in a sense, sensed) by the rational mind. The popular philosophies of our time claim that animal and man relate to the natural environment strictly through the senses, and anything intelligible is something that occurs internally. It does not admit of a parallel but qualitatively separate dimension of nature (the intelligible) that is apprehended by the rational mind (as does platonism). This is because it views the rational mind as something that can be reduced to physical processes, something which essentially creates all of the rational contructs by which it manipulates and navigates and understands the world.
I know this is common knowledge, just making sure it's being noted here.
But think about an object such as a neuron in a textbook, accompanied by verbal description. Anyone with a grade schooler's ability to reason grasps the form (Plato's "intelligibility") and function (Aristotle's "final causality") involved as long as they can receive that information via the senses. This degree of universality associated with our basic scientific models is a special kind of ideal intersubjectivity that distinguishes it as objectivity. And anyone with common abilities to reason can pursue the topic further, getting into more detail and expanding comprehension by strategically arranged study, becoming a specialist in that area. 99% of the population is at least in principle capable of becoming an expert in some discipline by similar regimen, and that 99% can make it practical for everybody. Not absolute, but not really relativistic either.
I think this ideal rationality ought to be promoted and channeled into academic pursuits more than it is, and citizens should be encouraged towards independent development. This is really the fundamental purpose of an education system in my opinion, and the justification for forums such as the one we are using. An objectivity of this kind is certainly presumed by many philosophies, at least implicitly in the methods employed.
Value judgments are just hypotheticals based on the facts of an intellectual discipline, to be tested empirically and modified as opinions. Some human beings have better initial intuition into more or less universalizable principles, and this is ethical aptitude, but it is basically honed by the same discipline as science.
Because, that has been done, done in many ways, and it has never worked out. Its a slow death at best.
But, Platonism never made it into practice on a massive scale, so we don't know it's ultimate practical consequences in society. Imagine a world of philosophers carrying staffs and wallets, wearing half-folded cloaks.