An object can't exist outside a subject-object relationship. But a thing persists when no subject is around. — Dawnstorm

This is profound. I've not got much else to say here - but this statement is a clear explication of exactly why an IRist cannot really understand a DR position.

Perhaps someday we will. But, I don't disagree. I mean, how many "thoughts start in the Gut?" For lack of better wording... consciousness is merely the final plane of awareness. That said I believe will on will is the only causality. The inner will of energy being "the will to power."

I really don't know what you mean by entailment . I don't think there's any such thing as a "correct conclusion" where this topic is concerned. It's not a math problem. One thought causes another thought. . . — Patterner

I agree this is difficult. Harking back to my distinction between the two senses of "thought": Suppose we substituted the "proposition" sense of "thought" and said, "One proposition causes another proposition". Do you still think that would be true?

Can you give me an example of the kind of proposition you have in mind?

Any of the propositions that form the premises of a syllogism, for instance.

Prop A: "All humans are mortal."
Prop B: "Socrates is a human."

Taken merely as propositions, is there any reasonable sense in which we can say that they cause:

Prop C: "Socrates is mortal."

I don't think so. We've had to invent a new word -- entailment -- to use in order to talk about the relation of Props A and B to Prop C. The question of causation only enters, possibly, when a particular mind thinks Prop A and Prop B. That, I believe, is what you're getting at with saying "One thought causes another thought." And clearly it's contingent: If I'm simply no good at elementary logic, thinking Props A and B will not cause me to think Prop C, no matter the entailment.

If this sounds right to you, then the question would be: What is it about Props A and B that, if you do think them and understand them, causes the thought of Prop C?

The question of causation only enters, possibly, when a particular mind thinks Prop A and Prop B. — J

I don't follow. What else could it be other than thoughts? Certainly, if you write Props A and B in a book, and even if you also write everything about syllogisms, then close the book, Prop C isn't going to spontaneously appear in the book. But explain syllogisms to someone, then let them hear or read Props A and B, and...

In what way can a proposition be "merely" a proposition, and not a thought?

And clearly it's contingent: If I'm simply no good at elementary logic, thinking Props A and B will not cause me to think Prop C, no matter the entailment. — J

That's true. But Props A and B will cause some thought or other. Possibly "What the hell are they talking about? Who is Socrates?" That didn't spring into the person's thoughts for no reason.

↪Patterner Perhaps someday we will. But, I don't disagree. I mean, how many "thoughts start in the Gut?" For lack of better wording... consciousness is merely the final plane of awareness. That said I believe will on will is the only causality. The inner will of energy being "the will to power." — DifferentiatingEgg

I can't say I fully understand what you mean, but I like the direction you're going. What is "will on will"? Are you saying only agents with will can cause anything?

The question of causation only enters, possibly, when a particular mind thinks Prop A and Prop B.
— J
I don't follow. What else could it [a proposition] be other than thoughts? — Patterner

This is an excellent question, and something of a thorn in the side of the traditional understanding of what a proposition is.

A prop. is supposed to be the object or content of a thought, much as a tree could be the object of a perception. The tree is there, regardless of whether anyone in particular perceives it; when you and I both perceive it, we are perceiving "the same" tree. And so with a prop.: It's supposed to be independent of any particular thought, and you and I can correctly speak of having "the same" thought when we mean "are thinking of the same proposition." (Obviously we're not having the same brain event, since our brains are separate.) There's also the implication of persistence, so the prop. remains an item in the world even if no one thinks it, just as the tree does. One important difference: Many would argue that a prop. requires a "first thought," so to speak, to bring it into existence, whereas a tree does not. Thus on this view props are mental creations, yet also weirdly independent in the way I've described. (However, the props of math are regarded by the majority of mathematicians as "already out there," requiring no "first thought," at least by a non-divine consciousness.)

Anyway . . . the more we think about this picture, the more problematic it gets. Sebastian Rödl, in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, offers a strong critique. This passage, while a bit sarcastic, gives the idea ("p" is a proposition here):

Philosophers are in the habit of indicating the object of judgement by the letter p. There is an insouciance with respect to this fateful letter. It stands ready quietly, unobtrusively, to assure us that we know what we are talking about. For example, when we do epistemology, we are interested in what it is for someone to know - know what? oh yes: p. If we inquire into rational requirements on action or intention, we ask what it is to be obliged to - what? oh yes: see to it that p, intend that, if p, then q, and so on. However, if we undertake to reflect on thought . . . then the letter p signifies the deepest question and the deepest comprehension. If only we understood the letter p, the whole world would be open to us. — Rodl, 55

Thus, your question, "In what way can a proposition be 'merely' a proposition, and not a thought?" is what Rödl wants to know too. If only we understood the letter p! (The subtitle of his book is "An Introduction to Absolute Idealism," which gives you a clue about how he answers it.) But for our purposes here, suppose we accepted the received view of what a prop. is. Can we then make any sense of the concept of entailment as a special kind of relation between props, but not thoughts?

I guess this is as tricky as anything else, eh? :grin:

I've never heard of this line of thinking, so I can't say further thought and discussion on it won't change my mind. But at the moment, my stance is no, there is no proposition outside of the thoughts of those entities who understand what is being discussed. If Props A and B can, or should, or will lead to C, it will only be in the thoughts of such entities. Write A and B, and all the rules and explanations of Propositions, in a book, and it will never lead to C until such an entity reads it and thinks the next step.

Thanks for the interest, and I apologize for the delay in reply. All force exhibits a sort of Will and Willingness. Life, isn't added to matter... that would be preposterous. Causa Sui even... but as is the whole linguistic tradition in philosophy was practically spawn by Nietzsche's detailing of grammar psychology and how it smuggles in metaphysics into our current sciences. Which ends up making the Perceptions a Cause... which becomes a reduction to absurdity, that is of course if the conept Causa Sui is taken as something absurd.

So Nietzsche finds a way around the grammar psychology which smuggles in metaphysics into science by changing a few valuations that are actually logical.

A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces and the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of existence—it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "Will to Power"; with this formula one can express the character which cannot be abstracted in thought from mechanical order, without suppressing the latter itself in thought.

I wrote a little post the other day in my discord group on N's conceptualization of life:

Life is not a substance added to matter, but "a lasting configuration of force-establishing processes." It consists in contending forces growing unequally, stabilizing themselves through resistance, command, and counter-strife. Obedience and coordination are not peaceful states, but tactical relations within an ongoing competition.

The Will to Power names the inner character of energy itself. Energy is not neutral or merely mechanical; it must be understood as having direction, valuation, and drive. Every force seeks to expand its sphere, to appropriate, to incorporate, and to shape what resists it. Where incorporation succeeds, life grows; where it fails, division and disintegration follow. Complexity and differentiation are not goals but expressions of domination, of life simplifying inward while expanding outward. Even “spirit” is only an instrument in the service of higher configurations of life.

Perspectivity arises from this same structure of force. Every center of energy has its own point of view, determined by its immediate relations of attraction and repulsion. Even the inorganic world is perspectival: distant forces cancel out, while what is nearest compels action and resistance. This is why life is “egoistic” to the core, not morally, but structurally. Interpretation is not a mental act added later; it is the continuous activity of the Will to Power itself, the primary means by which forces order, value, and master one another.
Life, will, and perspective are thus not separate domains, but different expressions of the same fundamental dynamic: force interpreting force in order to reconfigure and grow.

This does away with grammar psychology causality of forcing a subject predicate agreement, a doer always doing, which then makes the sense perceptions a cause.

Here's an example of how this will on will works...

The forces that configures a rocks properties, such as weight, size, surface texture etc etc. A 75lb chunk of sharp obsidian may resist attempts at applying enough force to pick it up, especially with unprotected hands.

The rock isn't conscious, of course, just that all energy, kinetic or stored, has the inner character of "will to power."