We share the same big bang perhaps. For a star 60 GLY away, they can see the same galaxy the we do, even if we can't see each other. Those are relations, just not direct causal ones. — noAxioms

Doesn't the gravity of each affect the other?

Outside the awareness and measurement of duration, there is no time. — Wayfarer

Strongly disagree.

The same goes for a theory of experience. — David Chalmers, Facing Up...

The problem is that there is no theory of experience; I believe its impossible and you can't access experience empirically. If there is no theory of experience and how it relates to other parts of the world, its propping up an ontology on nothing. That basically leaves it in the exact same place as any kind of framework like physicalism or naturalism or structuralism that doesn't explicitly incorporate phenomena.

That's just geometry. — noAxioms

Yes, which causes changes to what clocks read in an unambiguous way!

But before that demonstration, the predicate was already there. Predication does not depend on it being observed. — noAxioms

Yes, exactly!

Under presentism, yes. But you called all those 'existing', the tense of which implies 'currently existing'. That's what I was commenting on.
Many (most?) presentists don't consider future events to exist since it interferes with their typical assumption of free will. Far be it from me to put words in their mouths; I'm not a presentist. — noAxioms

I agree there's ambiguity in the way I used "exists". Can you suggest a different term? I want to distinguish between the superset of past/present/future existents and hypothetical things that are not in that superset.

I can for sure tell that I exist, by "I" I mean a mind with the ability to experience and cause (I have an argument for substance dualism). I can for sure tell that change exists. Some changes are due to me, and others are not. What causes other changes is subject to discussion; it could be a Demon or it could be real people. So, for sure, we can say that something exists beside me, but I think we cannot tell for sure what that thing is beside me!

@Wayfarer The bit from Davies is interesting, and seems to stem from his attempt to justify a claim other than a multiverse to explain the fine tuning:

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

No, by definition 'this universe' must contain observers, else it would be this one, but rather another one.
Quantum theory seems to hold no role whatsoever for an observer that is anything more than a system with which an interaction takes place.
If Davies is defining the necessity of observers as is stated, it seems this is begging his conclusion about the necessity of the universe being observed.

The apparent Linde quote is something which I agree, at least in part.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. — Paul Davies

Quantum cosmology is in its infancy since there is no unified theory to date. Time drops out only because the subject deals with the universe before time has separated from the other dimensions, before say gravity separates out from the other 'forces'.
The part with which I agree is the bit about time losing its meaning relative to the universe as a whole. He proposes two separate systems, a clock/observer, and 'the rest of the universe' except 1) there's no meaningful place to put that clock such that it still relates in any way to the universe, and 2) the 'observer' seems to serve zero role except to read the clock aloud to nobody.
Apparently the observer is asserted to serves more of a role than that:

Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. — Paul Davies

I don't see any of that following at all, but then this tiny context might have snipped out pages of stuff leading to this conclusion.

The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that.

Funny, I can.

I did some crude research, and Davies apparently suggests that the universe is self-organizing, meaning that certain physical principles naturally lead to complexity and, eventually, life. Life does not cause the universe, but nevertheless something bends the principles to this one optimal tuning.
He also toys with universal teleology, but that seems to require complexity greater than what the universe evolves, leaving unanswered the origin of this even greater complexity.

Complexity must evolve from simplicity, Anything else results in a Ponzi scheme

Thanks for the quote Wayfarer.

For a star 60 GLY away, they can see the same galaxy the we do, even if we can't see each other. Those are relations, just not direct causal ones. — noAxioms

Doesn't the gravity of each affect the other? — Patterner

The average mass density of the universe sets a sort of fixed curvature. Changes to that curvature, say the formation of a concentration of mass like a star, cannot effect something beyond its event horizon, ever. That would require gravitational waves (the carriers of the changes to the gravitational field) to move locally faster than c. A new star as close as 20 GLY similarly cannot make any gravitational difference to us (ever) compared to if that star had not formed. We will never see it. But it's within the visible universe this time, so the mass from which it is composed has had a causal effect on us, not true of the one 60 GLY away.

I agree there's ambiguity in the way I used "exists". Can you suggest a different term? I want to distinguish between the superset of past/present/future existents and hypothetical things that are not in that superset. — Relativist

Well I use 'measured' vs not, which divides events into two (not three) categories, which is roughly delimited not by a hyperplane of a present, but by the past light cone of the system event doing the measuring. That's a physical (invariant) division, not an abstract frame dependent one.

I can for sure tell that I exist, by "I" I mean a mind with the ability to experience and cause (I have an argument for substance dualism). I can for sure tell that change exists. Some changes are due to me, and others are not. What causes other changes is subject to discussion; it could be a Demon or it could be real people. So, for sure, we can say that something exists beside me, but I think we cannot tell for sure what that thing is beside me! — MoK

Well those things exist by some definitions/interpretations of 'exists' and of 'I' and not by others.
You didn't reference any quote, so not sure which interpretations you have in mind. Probably not the relational one I often speak of, since what you assert is not true under that. I certainly don't know how you're using 'exists' here, but I'm guessing 'that which I can empirically glean' or some such. Your comment suggests a flirting with solipsism or BiV given the expressed questioning of 'other people'.

I don't define 'exists' in a way that leads to any of the conclusions you draw, but that's just a different definition, not an assertion of the way things are.

Thanks for the quote Wayfarer. — noAxioms

You’re welcome - from his book The Goldilocks Enigma (also published as The Cosmic Jackpot). I quoted it in support of my contention that there is no time outside the awareness of it.

Andrei Linde enlarges on this point in an interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn, part of the excellent Closer to Truth series. Linde claims it is necessary to include consciousness in any coherent account of the Universe.

Complexity must evolve from simplicity, Anything else results in a Ponzi scheme — noAxioms

I love this!

The average mass density of the universe sets a sort of fixed curvature. Changes to that curvature, say the formation of a concentration of mass like a star, cannot effect something beyond its event horizon, ever. That would require gravitational waves (the carriers of the changes to the gravitational field) to move locally faster than c. A new star as close as 20 GLY similarly cannot make any gravitational difference to us (ever) compared to if that star had not formed. We will never see it. But it's within the visible universe this time, so the mass from which it is composed has had a causal effect on us, not true of the one 60 GLY away. — noAxioms

Not sure I'll say this right... I thought a galaxy could be treated as one body when calculating it's gravitational influence. That one body being the sum of all the stars, and everything else, in it. So each star is part of that sum, and the galaxy would have a weaker gravitational influence without it. No? Or were you thinking of a lone start in intergalactic space?

Well those things exist by some definitions/interpretations of 'exists' and of 'I' and not by others. — noAxioms

By exist, I mean having objective reality or being. I already defined what I mean by "I".

Your comment suggests a flirting with solipsism or BiV given the expressed questioning of 'other people'. — noAxioms

Yes, I can be a brain in a vat, or what I experience could be caused by a Demon. There is no argument to tell whether other people exist.

I agree that physicalism is reactive but it's like a 'half-made reaction' when one wants to have his cake and eat it too. That is, one wants to retain the idea of intelligibility of the physical world and, at the same time, wants to avoid to posit also the necessary conclusion that, in this world picture, the structure of the physical world actually is similar to that of our reason and at the same time trying to affirm that math and logic are the products of our minds. The problem is, of course, that in order to explain anything you have to assume that the explanation and, therefore, logic (and at least some parts of math) must be assumed to be true. In other words, physicalism would like to have a 'physical' explanation of everything and, yet, if it were true there would be no explanation that assumes the very thing it wants to explain as its starting point.

It's seems to me, then, that if one doesn't assume that logic and (at least some part of) math are irreducible, one can't assume that any kind of rational knowledge is possible. If they were simply 'inventions', nothing would be truly intelligible. So, instead of a 'physicalism' we would have an extreme form of skepticism of some sorts.

...

I have no problem with people being skeptical with this description because its obviously not rigorous and comes a lot from my intuition. But I don't feel the need for anything added to explain things about how math or logic works. Once we pre-stipulate conditions for things to be the same or different, we are just extrapolating those properties in tautologous ways. These things can be gotten straight out of reality, or describe reality very well in suspicious ways, purely because reality has structure in which different parts of the reality act in the same way! And so there is nothing special about maths relation to reality if these are just tautologies. — Apustimelogist

But note that basic notions like 'oneness', 'plurality', 'same', 'different' seem to be innate and do not seem to be 'fabricated' by us as mere abstractions. They do seem to mirror the 'structure' of the world 'external to us' as far as we can know. So, while we can't 'prove' it (and, therefore, we can't have certainty about it), the physical world seems to be (in part) intelligible and, therefore, knowable.
Furthermore, these 'basic concepts' seem to be the very categories that we use to interpret our perceptions even before we are aware of that. We distinguish different things, we distinguish change, we discern sameness, regularities and so on. If we had not these 'innate categories', how could we be able to make any sense of out experience at all? And, everything suggests that, while they maybe not 'without error', they still give us an approximate picture of reality. Which would then mean that the world is intelligible, which would mean that its structure is like that of our reasoning...

The antinomy I was talking about is this: while it does seem to us that the world is intelligible, we can't verify it from the 'outside' of our perspective. So, we might presume that the structure of our thought mirrors (in part) the structure of the 'external world' but we can't just prove that.

Count two fingers, then another two fingers.

Now count four fingers. — Apustimelogist

I am surprised that you made this point, actually. 'Two plus two' is a different concept from 'four'. Just because the numerical value is the same it doesn't at all imply that it's a tautology.

Think about 'two times two' being equal to 'two plus two'. Of course the two mathematica operations are not the same. Conceptually they are different. It is an informative truth, not just a tautology.

What do you mean by 'eternal' here? I have two definitions of that, and neither seems appropriate. I seem to favor the idea of mathematics being fundamental, but not all would agree. — noAxioms

Time-independent in the case of math and logic.

Although my definition of "the natural" precludes things existing that we can't infer, I don't preclude the possibility of things existing that we can't possibly infer. But if so, they are unknowable and therefore we're unjustified in believing any specifics beyond the basic ackowledgement that are are possibilities. — Relativist

Don't you think, however, that you are assuming that this 'natural' world is intelligible, though? That is, your model, actually presupposes the validity of inferences, logical explanations and so on?
The orderly structure you are attributing to the world mirrors the structure of rational thought.

The "laws of logic" are nothing more than a formalized, consistent semantics - for example, the meanings of "if...then...else", "or", "and", "not" - all sharply defined by truth tables. — Relativist

Problem is that any explanation presupposes coherence. If an explanation is incoherent we do not think that it can be true, or convincing. So, you can't ground logic without assuming it in the first place. It's just fundamental.

Suppose there were no intelligent minds to grasp them - in what sense do these transcendental objects actually exist? — Relativist

IMO one might say that transcendental objects are in some way connected to the regularities of phenomena. But I would assume that it would be somewhat inconvenient for a physicalist to admit that, say, the 'laws of thoughts' are actually an essential aspect of that physical world which is assumed to be totally 'mindless'.

From a physicalist's point of view, if some physical phenomenon is describable with mathematics, it is entirely due to the presence of physical relations among the objects involved in the phenomenon. — Relativist

And yet these 'physical relations' have a structure that can be 'captured' by mathematics. There is unmistakable 'affinity' between physical regularities and 'laws of thought'.
Problem is: can physicalism explain that without assuming that logical and mathematical principles are just an essential part of the world (and therefore, ironically, unexplainable in purely physical terms)?

To repeat: my qualms about physicalism is that it still requires to assume the validity of logical and mathematical principles that it wants to explain. After all, all explanations that we can think of must presuppose the validity of those principles. At the same time, however, physicalists seem to say that logical and mathematical principles are just 'inventions'.
But if are not, how can be they considered in any way as 'physical'?

I suggest that it is justifiable to believe the physical world is at least partly intelligible - justified by the success of science at making predictions. I don't see how anyone could justify being skeptical of this. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind our limitations. The known laws of physics (which I contrast with the ontological laws of nature) may be special cases that apply in the known universe but are contingent upon some symmetry breaking that occurred prior to, or during, the big bang. If so, it's irrelevant to making predictions within our universe. — Relativist

Ok, I agree with that. But the problem of how to explain (even partial) intelligibility remains.

I don't see a problem with abstractions. The "way of abstraction" (see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/#WayAbst) is a mental exercise associated with pattern recognition. This describes the process by which we isolate our consideration to properties, ignoring all other aspects of the things that have them. The properties don't ACTUALLY exist independently of the things that have them, IMO. And I don't see how one could claim that our abstracting them entails that they exist independently. — Relativist

Note, however, that in order to even recognize a pattern, you need to assume a basic capacity of recognition of 'sameness' and 'different', which actually means that a capacity of interpretation is assumed. So, how abstraction is even possible if we do not assume the validity of certain basic and seemingly fundamental mental categories (which seem to be unexplainable but, in fact, the ground of any explanation)?

But I would assume that it would be somewhat inconvenient for a physicalist to admit that, say, the 'laws of thoughts' are actually an essential aspect of that physical world which is assumed to be totally 'mindless'. — boundless

Non-eliminativist physicalists don't assume the physical world to be totally mindless of course (unless the minds under discussion are defined as being incompatible with physicalism).

Furthermore, from the perspective of many physicalists, 'laws of thought' of some sort are to be expected. And 'laws of thought' are expected to be consistent with the sort of information processing that occcurs due to the structure of our brains.

I quoted [Goldilocks Enigma] in support of my contention that there is no time outside the awareness of it. — Wayfarer

I realized the reason you quoted it, and ran more with the title since it had direct application to the issue brought up in the OP.

As for there being no time outside the awareness of it, that depends on your definition of time.
1) Proper time, which is very much physical and supposedly mind independent. This is what clocks measure.
2) Coordinate time, which is arguably abstract and thus mind dependent since coordinate systems are mental constructs. Coordinate time is that which dilates.
3) One's perception of the flow of time, which is very much only a product of awareness, pretty much by anything tasked with making predictions.

As for Davies demonstrating your claim, my comment seems appropriate: I feel that conclusions are being begged by what I read there.

Not sure I'll say this right... I thought a galaxy could be treated as one body when calculating it's gravitational influence. That one body being the sum of all the stars, and everything else, in it. So each star is part of that sum, and the galaxy would have a weaker gravitational influence without it. No? Or were you thinking of a lone start in intergalactic space? — Patterner

Yes, a galaxy has mass just like a star does, so it can be treated as a body in its proximity, but 60 GLY is not in proximity. The mass of a galaxy makes zero difference at that distance compared to the same mass that didn't form a galaxy, despite the fact that the galaxy masses somewhat less just like our sun masses less than the material from which it was composed. Those local differences in the gravitational field simply cannot propagate FTL.

I agree that physicalism
...
the structure of the physical world actually is similar to that of our reason and at the same time trying to affirm that math and logic are the products of our minds. — boundless

Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism.
I do agree that such an assertion results in circularity. Logic cannot be used to derive logic as an end product instead of something far more fundamental.

I am surprised that you made this point, actually. 'Two plus two' is a different concept from 'four'. Just because the numerical value is the same it doesn't at all imply that it's a tautology. — boundless

I do admittedly have trouble denying 2+2=4, but even that assumes some context, as does say the impossibility of a square circle. I can do the latter with non-euclidean geometry, and I can deny the former with say modulus arithmetic, or telling weird stories like 1+1=1 to depict the unity of marriage, or 1+1=3 to depict reproduction. Those aren't counterexamples, but rather examples to show that 2+2=4 requires context, and a context requirement seems like an awful big asterisk to the claim of the objectiveness of its truth.

Time-independent in the case of math and logic. — boundless

If it's a mental construct, it would seem dependent on time. I don't think it's a mental construct, so I'll agree with your assertion of it being eternal.

By exist, I mean having objective reality or being. I already defined what I mean by "I". — MoK

How can you be certain of that kind of existence when you have no access to an objective viewpoint? There are even some interpretations of our universe (as opposed to objective) that say that 'you' are in superposition of being and not being, but mostly the latter.

Your comment suggests a flirting with solipsism or BiV given the expressed questioning of 'other people'. — noAxioms

Yes, I can be a brain in a vat, or what I experience could be caused by a Demon.

Same thing essentially.

There is no argument to tell whether other people exist.

I go way further than that. There seems to be no empirical test for the sort of existence you define. A thing existing and the same thing not existing would have identical experience, similar to say the experience of a presentist universe vs experience of a block universe. So one is forced to draw conclusions first, and then make up your evidence from there, a process of rationalization.

Most of the assertions about what is real vs what isn't use a definition that implies, if not explicitly, mind dependence. — noAxioms

Well, it seems fairly plausible that the idea of reality derives form our perceptual and somatosensory experiences. But it also seems plausible that the fact that we don't really know what the body experiences prior to cognition gives rise to the idea that there must be a mind-independent reality.

We have no physical relation to such worlds.
I disagree. We share the same big bang perhaps. — noAxioms

I was referring to other universes, not remote parts of this universe. Other universes, if they existed, would not share our spacetime, hence no possible relation.

Not an exact calculation, no, but 'stupid improbable' can very much be shown. Just not exactly how stupid improbable. — noAxioms

"Stupid improbable" according to our current understanding perhaps. I wonder just how deep our ignorance is. In any case no matter how "stupid improbable" it might be, it has happened in our case, and thus we are here wondering about it. We find ourselves looking from inside a sample of one.

Don't you think, however, that you are assuming that this 'natural' world is intelligible, though? That is, your model, actually presupposes the validity of inferences, logical explanations and so on? — boundless

We seem to have an innate, basic belief that there's an external world that we're perceiving and interacting with. As we develop from infants, we are making sense of the world. The process continues throughout our lives, and underpins our study of nature. Maintaining a basic belief is perfectly rational, unless there's some undercutting facts. It's of course possible that we're wrong, and it's fare to acknowledge that, but possibility alone is not a rational reason to drop a belief.

If an explanation is incoherent we do not think that it can be true, or convincing. So, you can't ground logic without assuming it in the first place. It's just fundamental. — boundless

As I said, logic is semantics -a formalization, based on assigning sharply defined definitions to terms. You could question the grounding of our semantics, I suppose. But again, the grounding seems to be basic, innate beliefs. Of course we learn a language, but we have a common understanding that depends on our hardwired mechanism for perceiving the world - and similarly, rational to maintain.

IMO one might say that transcendental objects are in some way connected to the regularities of phenomena. But I would assume that it would be somewhat inconvenient for a physicalist to admit that, say, the 'laws of thoughts' are actually an essential aspect of that physical world which is assumed to be totally 'mindless'. — boundless

I've identified the specific way universals are connnected to reality, and how we manage to perceive them. This seems a better account than saying they are "somehow connected".

Regarding "laws of thought": an orderly world producing orderly thoughts, enabling successful interaction with it.

order to even recognize a pattern, you need to assume a basic capacity of recognition of 'sameness' and 'different', which actually means that a capacity of interpretation is assumed. — boundless

It seems a minor step from pattern recognition, which Artificial Neural Networks can do.

Yes, a galaxy has mass just like a star does, so it can be treated as a body in its proximity, but 60 GLY is not in proximity. The mass of a galaxy makes zero difference at that distance compared to the same mass that didn't form a galaxy, despite the fact that the galaxy masses somewhat less just like our sun masses less than the material from which it was composed. Those local differences in the gravitational field simply cannot propagate FTL. — noAxioms

I gotcha. But does 2nd hand count? If 60 GLY influences a galaxy that's right between us, and 30 GLY influences us...?

As for there being no time outside the awareness of it, that depends on your definition of time. — noAxioms

OK, how about ‘no time outside the measurement of time’. I refer back to the earlier quote:

Each successive ‘now’ of the clock contains nothing of the past because each moment, each unit, is separate and distinct. But this is not how we experience time. Instead, we hold these separate moments together in our memory. We unify them. A physical clock measures a succession of moments, but only experiencing duration allows us to recognise these seemingly separate moments as a succession. Clocks don’t measure time; we do.

The objections to this seem to be that time is ‘obviously’ objective. But isn’t that because, as we’re all members of the same species and culture, we measure it acording to agreed units?

Imagine some species on another planet, far larger than Earth, with a daily rotation of one of our weeks, and an annual rotation of tens of our decades. Presumably the units they would use for measuring time would be very different to terrestrial units.

Is there an objective time which is independent of these two apparently incommensurable systems of measurement?

Non-eliminativist physicalists don't assume the physical world to be totally mindless of course (unless the minds under discussion are defined as being incompatible with physicalism). — wonderer1

No, but they either have to 'derive' them from purely physical things. I think that many physicalists are emergentists. The problem with that view is that it seems impossible to pin down properties of physical things 'in virtue of which' conscious experience - and, I would add, logic - can emerge.
The problem is that, until now, I never encountered a fully satisfying physicalist account of consciousness, logic, math and so on.

Furthermore, from the perspective of many physicalists, 'laws of thought' of some sort are to be expected. And 'laws of thought' are expected to be consistent with the sort of information processing that occcurs due to the structure of our brains. — wonderer1

In other words, here there is the hidden assumption of intelligibility of the physical world, i.e. that there are regularities in physical phenomena that are more or less the same as 'laws of thoughts'.

To make an example, it seems to me that you can't derive logical inference from mere physical causality. Or, if you can, you either (1) end up assuming that physical causality is more or less the same thing as inference or (2) we 'invent' inference from our experience but we are mistaken that experience can really be described by our reasoning.

Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism. — noAxioms

Well, I believe that physicalism posits that the 'physical' is fundamental. It all depends, after all, on what we mean by 'physical'. If we 'stretch' the meaning of that world enough, I guess that a platonic realm of forms can be thought as 'physical'.

But the risk here is equivocation. For instance, if I say that there are really 'physical laws', it seems that we end up with something like 'hylomorphism', i.e. the position that the 'physical' is also something that has a structure that is intrinsically intelligible (at least, in part). Is that 'structure' also 'physical'. I guess one can say so. But note, for instance, that assuming that 'structure' is not merely something we mistakenly impose on 'physcial reality' would imply that something like 'reductionism' is false. After all, reductionism tells us that fundamentally parts are ultimately real. But if one accepts that 'structures' are as fundamental as 'physical things', it certainly implies that wholes are not really reducible to parts (as parts cannot be 'abstracted' from their context).

So, I guess that at the end of the day the problem can be terminological.

I do agree that such an assertion results in circularity. Logic cannot be used to derive logic as an end product instead of something far more fundamental. — noAxioms

:up:

Those aren't counterexamples, but rather examples to show that 2+2=4 requires context, and a context requirement seems like an awful big asterisk to the claim of the objectiveness of its truth. — noAxioms

I can agree with that. And yes, you need to posit the 'truth' of the whole context.

I do believe that natural numbers ultimately derive from very basic concepts like 'sameness', 'otherness', 'unity', 'plurality' and so on, which can't possibly be 'invented'.

If it's a mental construct, it would seem dependent on time. I don't think it's a mental construct, so I'll agree with your assertion of it being eternal. — noAxioms

:up: on the 'eternality' part. Actually, I do think that maybe logic and math are 'mental constructs'/'concepts' (I do have my sympathies with 'idealism'*), but not in the sense that they are conventional.

*By 'idealism' I mean a very broad category that includes epistemic idealism, or whatever position that posits 'mind' as (at least part of) fundamental reality. In fact, I moved towards the second category recently (albeit, I do recognize that epistemic idealism is a very interesting perspective). I do admit however that strictly speaking I can't make any logically compelling argument from that position.

We seem to have an innate, basic belief that there's an external world that we're perceiving and interacting with. As we develop from infants, we are making sense of the world. The process continues throughout our lives, and underpins our study of nature. Maintaining a basic belief is perfectly rational, unless there's some undercutting facts. It's of course possible that we're wrong, and it's fare to acknowledge that, but possibility alone is not a rational reason to drop a belief. — Relativist

I agree with you here. If we also give credence to the basic belief of the intelligibility of the world would imply that we assume that the world has a 'structure' that can be 'mirrored' by our mental categories.

But note that this does have implications, after all. If we say, for instance, that logical inference derives from physical causality, we are assuming that physical causality has the same character of 'necessity' that logical inference has. So, it would imply that physical processes 'follow' regularities that are the same as the formal structure of coherent reasonings. But this is more or less something close to 'hylomorphism', rather than a physicalism that tries to derive the rules of logical inferences from the 'physical'.

The big question remains in this case: why would the 'physical' follow the same 'rules' that make a coherent reasoning 'coherent'?

As I said, logic is semantics -a formalization, based on assigning sharply defined definitions to terms. You could question the grounding of our semantics, I suppose. But again, the grounding seems to be basic, innate beliefs. Of course we learn a language, but we have a common understanding that depends on our hardwired mechanism for perceiving the world - and similarly, rational to maintain. — Relativist

Note that I am questioning the 'grounding' here. All explanations we can possibly make must be coherent. If we realize that an explanation is incoherent, we reject it.

I've identified the specific way universals are connnected to reality, and how we manage to perceive them. This seems a better account than saying they are "somehow connected".

Regarding "laws of thought": an orderly world producing orderly thoughts, enabling successful interaction with it. — Relativist

If I am not mistaken, however, you are assuming that the world has a structure/order that is amenable to rational description. But here we get the same question that I raised before in the case of causality.

It seems a minor step from pattern recognition, which Artificial Neural Networks can do. — Relativist

Note that Artificial Neural Networks are still, ultimately, our inventions that are programmed by us. So, I am not sure that this can lead us to the conclusion that the world is 'orderly' in the same way as our thoughts are.

But IMO, assuming that is the case, I just find weird from a physicalist point of view that the order is the same.

Anyway, if one assumes that the 'order' is an intrinsic property of the world this would mean that reductionism is wrong. Parts can't be understood as 'abstracted' from their context of relations. In fact, parts must be understood as, well, being intrinsically 'parts' and, therefore, wholes are not reducible to them.

Non-eliminativist physicalists don't assume the physical world to be totally mindless of course (unless the minds under discussion are defined as being incompatible with physicalism). — wonderer1

I’d be interested in an elaboration of that. Would that be the minds of animals other than h.sapiens, or ‘mind’ in a more abstract sense?

Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism. — noAxioms

Just a quick terminological point. I believe that 'physicalism' and 'naturalism' are treated as synonyms. But, I would say that 'materialism' also can mean the same thing, unless we call 'matter' only a subset of what is 'physical'. But considering that 'matter' etimologically comes from 'mother', i.e. 'Mother Nature', I find odd that physicalists, according to which ultimate reality is 'natural/physical' object to call themselves as 'materialists'. Maybe 'materialism' seems to be somewhat less 'sophisticated' as a term. But IMO, it isn't necessarily the case. After all, saying 'ultimate reality is material' or 'ultimate reality is physical' for me is equivalent.

find odd that physicalists, according to which ultimate reality is 'natural/physical' object to call themselves as 'materialists'. — boundless

There are a few reasons. One is that materialism also had a completely unrelated meaning, a materialist is someone who seeks wealth and possessions, who only seeks to own more things. It makes sense to not want your position on the ontology of things to be confused with a shallow value system.

Another is that perhaps not all things that physics is concerned with are strictly "material". A physicalist may believe in quantum fields, but are quantum fields "material" or "matter"?

Good points. Curiously enough, if I had to pick a term based on etimology I would go with 'materialism'. The reference to 'mother nature' is just too poetic.

I would also add that the mathematics that is used in physics is becoming via via more abstract and general principles like symmetries tend to become more and more prominent. And that IMO suggests to me that it can't be a human invention because it is quite surprising how far it is from what one expects from immediate experience.

In other words, physicalism would like to have a 'physical' explanation of everything and, yet, if it were true there would be no explanation that assumes the very thing it wants to explain as its starting point.

It's seems to me, then, that if one doesn't assume that logic and (at least some part of) math are irreducible, one can't assume that any kind of rational knowledge is possible. If they were simply 'inventions', nothing would be truly intelligible. So, instead of a 'physicalism' we would have an extreme form of skepticism of some sorts. — boundless

I don' really follow what you're saying. Knowledge is just predicting things that we see in the world. We then apply a self-consistent description that gives those predictions. We can then apply this to our own brains and minds (cognitive science, neuroscience) interacting with the world and in principle describe how we do this, how we come up with physical models, math and logic as a part of how we make inferences about sensory inputs.

From this standpoint, I don't really see the problem you raise. I don't need to assume rational knowledge for my brain to do stuff... it just does stuff in virtue of how it evolved and developed. And none of what the brain does os strictly arbitrary because it depends on its interactions with the outside world.

But note that basic notions like 'oneness', 'plurality', 'same', 'different' seem to be innate and do not seem to be 'fabricated' by us as mere abstractions. They do seem to mirror the 'structure' of the world 'external to us' as far as we can know. So, while we can't 'prove' it (and, therefore, we can't have certainty about it), the physical world seems to be (in part) intelligible and, therefore, knowable.
Furthermore, these 'basic concepts' seem to be the very categories that we use to interpret our perceptions even before we are aware of that. We distinguish different things, we distinguish change, we discern sameness, regularities and so on. If we had not these 'innate categories', how could we be able to make any sense of out experience at all? And, everything suggests that, while they maybe not 'without error', they still give us an approximate picture of reality. Which would then mean that the world is intelligible, which would mean that its structure is like that of our reasoning...

The antinomy I was talking about is this: while it does seem to us that the world is intelligible, we can't verify it from the 'outside' of our perspective. So, we might presume that the structure of our thought mirrors (in part) the structure of the 'external world' but we can't just prove that. — boundless

Look at it this way; our brain is just networks of neuronal connectivity and activity. All our knowledge comes about in the same way and we learn by calibraiting neural connectivity in response to sensory inputs that reverberate through the system. The system as a whole is performing inference on sensory states. Abstract concepts like "same" are just very abstract inferences about sensory information, and they seem trivial because it is an inevitable fact that percepts have overlaps of difference and similarity in how the brain reacts to them. All systems do this... arguably a thermometer does this... but then it takes a more omplicated system to have a higher order awareness of the similarities and differences in its percepts and utilize them to make more abstract predictions. One might call this innate in the sense that every human ends up having this ability. But these abilities come from the same reason we have any abilities, related to neuronal activity and learning.

Anyway, I am not sure I understand your point here. The world is intelligible to us because we have a brain that is designed to model the world.

Just because the numerical value is the same it doesn't at all imply that it's a tautology. — boundless

We are not interested in the overall concept of four, only the numerical values and operations on those values.

Two times two is two twos. Thats just two plus two. Its the same. If you are using the notion "equals", you are giving a numerical equivalence, a numerical tautology.

and a context requirement seems like an awful big asterisk to the claim of the objectiveness of its truth. — noAxioms

But this is just because you are giving completely differernt things the same representation.

But note that this does have implications, after all. If we say, for instance, that logical inference derives from physical causality, we are assuming that physical causality has the same character of 'necessity' that logical inference has. — boundless

I don't agree. Set physicalism aside and just consider the evolutionary advantage of associating effect with "cause" (something preceding) with "effect" - even in nonverbal animals. This mirrors "if....then", the most basic form of inference. This is instinctual and behavioral, and doesn't depend on a law of nature to make it so; it depends on recognizing a pattern. Humans take it a further step because of our ability to think abstractly.

"Why would the 'physical' follow the same 'rules' that make a coherent reasoning 'coherent'?" I think we're just intellectually tracking the observed regularity, and then abstracting.

you are assuming that the world has a structure/order that is amenable to rational description. But here we get the same question that I raised before in the case of causality — boundless

If the world does have structure/order, then it would be amenable to rational description.

Note that Artificial Neural Networks are still, ultimately, our inventions that are programmed by us. So, I am not sure that this can lead us to the conclusion that the world is 'orderly' in the same way as our thoughts are. — boundless

My only point here is that the capability of recognizing patterns is consistent with physicalism, so it doesn't require magic.

if one assumes that the 'order' is an intrinsic property of the world this would mean that reductionism is wrong. Parts can't be understood as 'abstracted' from their context of relations. In fact, parts must be understood as, well, being intrinsically 'parts' and, therefore, wholes are not reducible to them. — boundless

Order is not a property, per se. It is a high-level intellectual judgement. Properties are not parts. "-1 electric charge" is not a part of an electron, it's a property that electrons have. I don't see a problem with identifying an aspect (a property or pseudo-property) that 2 or more distinct objects have and then focusing attention on that aspect. Explain the problem you see.