Children abstract the concept of redness simply by seeing a few red things. — Samuel Lacrampe

No they don't.

Simple proof: ask a toddler to pick the red ball out of other coloured balls, and as long as he can understand the language, he will do so correctly. — Samuel Lacrampe

OK, now you add another qualification, the child must be able to understand the language. That just proves my point. Which do you believe, does the child abstract the concept of redness solely by seeing red things, or is the use of language necessary as well?

Are you asking how we know that universal forms (2) are one, and not duplicates in individual minds? The ontological principle that supports this is the law of identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, the law of identity does not support this. It states that a thing is the same as itself. Therefore it doesn't say anything about universal forms, it says something about things.

Universal forms (2) or concepts have no accidental properties, by definition of being universals.
These forms, although in minds, are separate things from the minds they are in.
The law of identity states that if "two" things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing.
Therefore the form in two minds must be one and the same in both. — Samuel Lacrampe

This is a very poor argument. First, you beg the question with your definition of universal form, by saying that they are separate from the minds which they are in. That is what you are trying to prove, that they are separate from the minds. Then, you still do not have any premise which allows you to assume that concepts in different peoples' minds have "the exact same properties"? I would assume that being in different minds is a case of having different properties.

Note that the builder is a hylomorphic substance. It is the builder, not his mind, that is the causal actor. It is he that is constructing the building so that people can live in it (the final cause). — Andrew M

Actually, the builder's mind is the cause of the various activities of the builder's body. So ultimately, it is the builder's mind which is the "causal actor" in this case. That is what final cause is all about, and this is understood through the concept of free will. The mind sets into motion physical bodies. But the decisions of the mind, which set these motions, are not caused by any physical motions themselves. So the chain of causes, which we trace back from the existence of the material building, through the hands of the builder, ends with the intentions of the builder, hence "final cause".

That is also the form that the cosmological argument must take if it is to be coherent. It is hylomorphic substances all the way down. — Andrew M

No, this is just a statement of your prejudice. You probably aren't even acquainted with the cosmological argument so you just assert that it must be consistent with what you already believe in order to be coherent. But its coherency is based in principles which you haven't considered yet.

He can't show you; it's the nature of the beast. You would only ever be convinced by a testimonial if you had a feel for it yourself. — Janus

But I don't accept that because I don't agree that experience - of this kind - is primal.

My position is that "pure experience" is just a lack of differentiation. That is all folk are talking about when they talk about the ineffable.

So I have a psychological model than can be validated in the usual scientific fashion. I can make claims and offer support in a way that is epistemically self-consistent.

You are arguing for an epistemology that can make claims about experience as something we both could all share, and yet could never actually share. This is the radical inconsistency I keep pointing to.

It is claimed there is this spirit stuff, or higher plane, or state of cosmic awakening, or whatever. And that is somehow both something we all could have in common yet is also always forever private.

It is an incoherent epistemological formulation. It piggybacks for credence on the fact that awareness is normally a highly attentive, highly differentiated state. It is "a point of view" above all. And so it points most definitely to the psychological construct of the "witnessing self" in pointing towards the contrast of "the external world as it is right now ... for the ineffably private me".

We can then imagine a relaxing of this state of extreme differentiation. It just seems logical, in the usual dialectical way, that a strong self~world divide could be relaxed so that there just is ... undifferentiated experience.

So the psychological mechanisms are clear. So is the rationalising philosophy. There is no actual big mystery here.

However that is just me taking a naturalistic science perspective. And when folk reject that, they reject the very grounds of metaphysical claims that aim to do more than just be "not even wrong".

The point is that such experience is felt as primal; there is nothing beneath it that we can get to experientially; and such experience forms the intuitive basis upon which the presuppositions that form any individual's worldviews rest.

Of course we can critique that primary feeling of experience rationally and mount arguments as to why we should not think that experience really is primary; if we are so inclined. We can produce arguments to critique whatever we like. But any critique will be based on some other groundless assumptions. The point is, why should we question the primacy of our intuitions in metaphysical matters? We may elaborate our thoughts, but I doubt anyone genuinely questions their deepest intuitions about how things are. I see this constantly in life and on these forums.

So, I say own your own experience and elaborate your worldview upon your deepest and most honest intuitions. I have no doubt that is what you are doing anyway; but you seem to want to claim that your thoughts are not based on rationally groundless presuppositions; which I think is just necessarily BS. You might argue that you go for the inference to best explanation; but, in metaphysical matters at least, there is no way to measure, or collaboratively assess, that; so it ultimately comes down to what you want to believe; in the sense of what feels most right to you.

IF you had your way, it seems, everybody would have the same worldview, or at least the same kind within a very narrow range; how boring would that be! >:O

Dang. Once again, I have trouble understanding your big words. Could you provide an example of what you call 'non-relational aspects of an object'?

I'd argue in the same sense as you, but rather viewing temporal and spatial properties of information as yet another indication that information is physical. Datum informs also the processor from their occurences in space and time, and therefore in no actual way does Epp applies in a meaningful way to both individualised occurences of "Montréal is in Québec" and "Montréal is in Québec". — Akanthinos

If I understand correctly, you say that because the information "Montréal is in Québec" was spoken at a specific time and place, then that indicates that info is physical. But as I was trying to show, the info is a separate thing from its container. The container has a time and place, but not the information. People acquire the same information from the message "Montréal is in Québec", regardless if they hear it today or tomorrow, in Canada or in France.

[Posted before completion]

My position is that "pure experience" is just a lack of differentiation. — apokrisis

No, for me it's not an idea at all, but a certain kind of feeling, undifferentiated of course (because pre-conceptual), but it can vary over a vast qualitative range. For you the undifferentiated seems to be the opposite, instead of an idealess affect, an affectless idea.

[to Janus] You are arguing for an epistemology that can make claims about experience as something we both could all share, and yet could never actually share. This is the radical inconsistency I keep pointing to. — apokrisis

What you refer to as ‘scientific validation’ always requires a separation between knower and known - your ‘epistemic cut’. This is why, to you, quantification is the first step in any valid knowledge - ‘show me the data’. So the way that ‘shares experience’ is by eliminating anything that can’t be replicated in the third person. That is the subject of Thomas Nagel’s book, The View from Nowhere:

Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectually, morally, and practically? To what extent are they irreconcilable and to what extent can they be integrated? Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. He deals with its manifestations in such fields of philosophy as: the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, ethics, the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible

You (Wayfarer) would be right that science - hard physical science - deliberately leaves out values. But that is because it is seeking the mind-independent view of reality. Or if you look closer, the view of reality that allows us the most effective way of inserting our own values into the general story. — apokrisis

That’s not the reason. It leaves out values because they are associated with ‘the subject’ and also with ‘secondary qualities’ in the Galilean and Lockean system of empirical sciences. Values are always ‘mine’, or maybe ‘ours’, but they’re on the subjective side of the ledger. Accordingly the distinction that Platonism makes between ‘doxa’ or ‘pistis’ (mere opinion or belief), on the one hand, and ‘knowledge’ (episteme) on the other, no longer obtains to the domain of value. Sure, we can ‘insert’ whatever values we like, but those values no longer have any relationship with an essentially value-less Cosmos (values being ‘anthropomorphism’.)

We can see exactly how to start pulling the levers of the world to do the things we think are of value. — apokrisis

Which is a very valuable and important thing to do. We need great technology.

Dang. Once again, I have trouble understanding your big words. Could you provide an example of what you call 'non-relational aspects of an object'? — Samuel Lacrampe

A colour realist, someone who would say that "the rose is red" states a true fact about the object rose, would very likely say that a colour is a non-relational property of its object. On the other hand, a relationalist would say something to the effect that a colour is a property of an object to be seen as such under certain circumstances.

Now, the thing is, everyone is free to choose when and where they draw the line when it comes to properties. For example, a lot of people would say that objects don't have negative properties. It makes a sort of sense, because of parsimony, because once you start admitting negative properties then you must admit that almost everything as an infinite amount of properties. If my hand has the properties of not having more than 6 fingers, then it has the properties of not having more than 7, 8, 9, ... n fingers. And as such, someone could say that because temporal and spatial properties are intrinsically relational (or at least, it is very intuitive to admit that they are), then they are not really properties of the object itself.

The container has a time and place, but not the information. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why not? Understanding happens in a time and a space.

We may elaborate our thoughts, but I doubt anyone genuinely questions their deepest intuitions about how things are. — Janus

But psychological science gives us good reason to question "primal experience". What is the status of the yellow we see? Judging by dreaming or sensory deprivation, how much is reality imagined? We presume introspection is part of primal experience and yet it is a learnt, language-scaffolded, skill - a social framing.

So for many reasons, I would say we don't experience primal experience in any direct sense. It is a construction. What we believe about it shapes what we think we see.

Of course there is still something "there". And we can apply psychological science to try to construct a view that is "maximally primal" in some conceptual sense. But you seem to be encouraging the acceptance of a naive realist stance towards the primality of experience. We don't have to construct the self that looks. There just is ... experience happening.

But any critique will be based on some other groundless assumptions. — Janus

Why groundless? Psychological science shows that we are only thinking about our consciousness in some particular socially constructed fashion. It reveals this to us via experiment and observation. It is a hypothesis, true. But inductively confirmed.

So, I say own your own experience and elaborate your worldview upon your deepest and most honest intuitions. — Janus

But that is not how I think it should work. I accept a method of reasoning. And the prime tenet is not to just believe your "deepest intuitions".

Sure, it makes sense to axiomatise those intuitions - assert them as foundational hypotheses. You need to form a belief to test a belief. But those intuitions are then up for grabs. They get judged by the work they do.

The very last thing I would want to do is to cling on to assumptions that seem natural and yet don't yield to inductive testing.

You might argue that you go for the inference to best explanation; but, in metaphysical matters at least, there is no way to measure, or collaboratively assess, that; so it ultimately comes down to what you want to believe; in the sense of what feels most right to you. — Janus

Absolutely not. Otherwise how could my sense of "what's right" have evolved so much over the years.

I can clearly remember not wanting to believe in ontic vagueness for instance when I first heard about it. It felt a quite objectionable metaphysical thesis. I argued hard against it. But in the end, it came to seem a necessary belief because it laid a better ground for understanding.

So deep metaphysical principles come to seem right as the result of inductive confirmation. And belief in those principles remains provisional. They are merely ideas that work, nothing more.

IF you had your way, it seems, everybody would have the same worldview... — Janus

If that were such a big issue, why would I seek out a forum like this where so many would strongly disagree?

This is why, to you, quantification is the first step in any valid knowledge - ‘show me the data’. — Wayfarer

That misrepresents me.

Quantification is the third step following the abductive formation of a hypothesis and the deductive formation of a general theory. After these first two steps, then comes the inductive confirmation of particular acts of measurement.

So produce a theory that is capable of being falsified. Then discover how it fares.

What you refer to as ‘scientific validation’ always requires a separation between knower and known - your ‘epistemic cut’. — Wayfarer

This is correct. And the point here is that all this talk about "experience" is a third person point of view of "what is going on inside our heads". It itself requires that epistemic cut between a knower and the known - even if the two are supposed to be the same in this case.

You are just talking about a first person point of view. It's a theory. Then you are confirming that conception by demonstration - to yourself. You are looking inwards, introspecting, and finding you encounter just what you predicted. There is that ineffable sense of being a self. There are qualia floating about. All this is private information that only "you" witness. Etc.

So to justify your theoretical position in these threads, you are offering the quantification of these personal acts of observation or measurement. And you and Janus urge me to look inwards and make the same quantifications.

So it is not that you escape the necessity of the epistemic cut that allows there to be a "knower" dealing with the data of the "known".

Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. — Wayfarer

I agree there is a dichotomy, and as usual my reply is that dichotomies mean complementary limits. So the view from nowhere is one extreme. The view from "me" is its other. And "we" then sit in the spectrum of possibility that two limits create.

The big difference of switching from a dualised reading of the situation to a dichotomised one is that I can see that the "self", the "mind", the "experience" is just as fictional as the "world". There is no need to ontologise or reify the first person point of view. The mind or self doesn't have to be primal. It is merely emergent in the limit. We can approach the particularity of "being a me" as closely as we like. But we don't have to start with the presumption this "me" foundationally exists.

So yes. We are talking about a sharp division between first and third person points of view. We can imagine both as poles of viewing. But I draw a very different conclusion in seeing those poles as the complementary bounds on our conception, not some tricky ontic choice about which counts as the ground of our being.

This is why, to you, quantification is the first step in any valid knowledge - ‘show me the data’.
— Wayfarer

That misrepresents me. — apokrisis

Not by much. The salient point still remains. As I said before, the crucial step, if not the first step, in modern scientific methodology, is to ascertain what is measurable, and eliminate other factors. I say you're doing this reflexively - these are the spectacles through which you see philosophy. Please understand, that's not a personal criticism, I've had this discussion with a lot of people on forums, and it's a discussion about the way we all tend to see things in the culture we're in (although you may not agree that it is culturally-determined.)

you and Janus urge me to look inwards and make the same quantifications. — apokrisis

'Looking inwards' is not a quantitative matter. It's a different stance, not an application of the same method to a different subject matter.

But what if ‘awakening’ actually is a natural event, and one with real significance? Something real, something our science has completely lost sight of?
— Wayfarer

OK. Show me.

I can accept any conjecture. All I ask is for some evidence. — apokrisis

The evidence is in the interpretation of the metaphysics of the Republic and other facets of Western metaphysics. There are other sources from various philosophical traditions. In most philosophical traditions, but not in modern science, there is a category of evidence called 'the testimony of sages'. But I know they're not likely to persuade you, because they're not what you would consider 'evidence'. Maybe you're looking for this kind of evidence:

I might add, there's a difference between 'scientific objectivity' and 'non-attachment'. Non-attachment is considered one of the highest, if not the highest, of the virtues of a sage. The sage is impartial, treats all equally, is not swayed by fear or desire, and so on. 'Objectivity' attempts to emulate that traditional virtue, however only with respect to matters that are amenable to quantitative analysis.

Actually, the builder's mind is the cause of the various activities of the builder's body. So ultimately, it is the builder's mind which is the "causal actor" in this case. That is what final cause is all about, and this is understood through the concept of free will. The mind sets into motion physical bodies. But the decisions of the mind, which set these motions, are not caused by any physical motions themselves. So the chain of causes, which we trace back from the existence of the material building, through the hands of the builder, ends with the intentions of the builder, hence "final cause". — Metaphysician Undercover

You've just perfectly described 'ghost in the machine' dualism. I'm suggesting that it is only hylomorphic particulars that have identity. And so existence and causality apply to particulars, not form or matter.

No, this is just a statement of your prejudice. You probably aren't even acquainted with the cosmological argument so you just assert that it must be consistent with what you already believe in order to be coherent. But its coherency is based in principles which you haven't considered yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am familiar with how the argument goes. To succeed, the argument must be consistent with what we observe and what we observe are hylomorphic particulars such as the builder, the blueprint and the building, not immaterial forms or formless material.

This really comes down to Wittgenstein's private language argument. Hylomorphic particulars are public observables. Public terms like "form" and "matter" are used to describe those particulars and are not themselves things that have some mysterious ghostly existence or causal efficacy. Only particulars exist and have causal efficacy.

As I said before, the crucial step, if not the first step, in modern scientific methodology, is to ascertain what is measurable, and eliminate other factors. — Wayfarer

Yes. We can eliminate theories that are "not even wrong". If some formula of words makes no observable difference, then it is an empty and meaningless thing to say.

So it is not eliminating other factors. It is eliminating contentless assertions. It is eliminating claims without real consequences.

'Looking inwards' is not a quantitative matter. It's a different stance, not an application of the same method to a different subject matter. — Wayfarer

But you are treating looking inwards as counter to looking outwards. It is not a different stance, but the same stance in a different direction.

And you do hint at quantification. Look inwards and you discover .... qualia, selfhood, a higher plane of being, pure feeling, the Dao, or whatever.

You wind up talking of an inner substantial being to match the outer substantial being. So it is you who require hard dualism to make your theory fly. You need Scientism to justify your Romanticism as being "properly other" and not merely a hollow formula of words.

...there is a category of evidence called 'the testimony of sages'. — Wayfarer

What, in most philosophical traditions except the Western? Was the lesson we took from Ancient Greece that we should trust experience and feeling, or trust dialectical reason and concrete observation?

If some formula of words makes no observable difference, then it is an empty and meaningless thing to say. — apokrisis

You’re simply recapitulating Carnap and A J Ayer here.

Was the lesson we took from Ancient Greece that we should trust experience and feeling, or trust dialectical reason and concrete observation? — apokrisis

The lessons in respect of the ‘domain of values’ have been forgotten.

If you want to claim that the higher plane of being is an ontological foundation to being, you will need to show how that isn't just a hollow formula of words.

I'm agreeing that the unreasonable effectiveness of maths, the existence of a Hard Problem, the poverty of Scientism, the nature of personal values, are all important philosophical issues. But I am questioning the vagueness of your proposed unifying ontology.

It sounds perfectly well-intentioned and it is certainly rooted in cultural tradition, but you need to subject it to proper philosophic examination. And that winds up being "scientific" in that theories have to be contested on evidential consequences. Conclusions must somehow be "showable".

What do you think about the Aristotelian demonstration of God's existence in which the hierarchy in the world presupposes the existence of an ultimate self-grounding substance? In particular with regards to the persistence of something: a human body persists because its parts persist, which are made of atoms, which have electrons, protons, neutrons, which are made of subatomic particles, but also because the body is in an environment that is not completely hostile, etc. The explanation of one thing's existence gets pushed onto another thing. Which forms a hierarchy.

Those are fair criticisms, and I need to take those on board.

And that winds up being "scientific" in that theories have to be contested on evidential consequences. Conclusions must somehow be "showable". — apokrisis

What is the evidence, what is the context, what is the domain of discourse for such a science? Which science is it? If you wanted to enroll at university and study such a subject - which I did - you certainly wouldn't enroll in science. (The nearest I got was psychology, which was at the time mainly concerned with 'pulling habits out of rats'.)

Take for an example of a domain of discourse the Zen tradition. (I'm not claiming any special expertise or attainment in it by the way. ) But there is a process whereby the aspirant's understanding and grasp of the discipline is subjected to rigorous assessment by a roshi, who has previously been assessed, generally over the course of many years of arduous discipline, by those senior to him or her. So that 'domain of discourse' has means of such validation and of providing for the continuity of the core understanding that it is concerned with.

You may recall, the Platonic Academy was originally very holistic in its approach. Students who were accepted were expected to be all-rounders, in addition to mandatory requirements, such as understanding of maths. They were also trained in athletics, rhetorics, and so on, as well as the higher teachings. In fact the Academy (and the Lyceum, which was Aristotle's) were the ancient templates for the modern University. But notice that today's universities are essentially secular, they can't, for fairly obvious reasons, provide instructions or assessments in the kind of know-how that we're talking about. Actually I think a lot of that side of Platonism was (a) never written down in the first place, and (b) whatever was there has been redacted out by subsequent editors who didn't comprehend, or wished to exclude, the spiritual side of Plato's teachings.

Both of these arguably constitute a form of science, namely, a 'sacred science' (scientia sacra), but in such cases, the aspirant is both the subject, and the object, of analysis.

What I'm pointing out is that, at the very beginning of the modern scientific period, some decisions were made which have considerable consequences for this whole debate. That is why there is a 'hard problem of consciousness', it's a consequence of early modern philosophy, and it looks like being utterly unsolvable in those terms (as per this 5,000 word essay which wonders why the world's 'great minds' can't 'solve the mystery'.) And many other problems, including those you mention. So here, I do try and discuss that, from a cross-cultural and also historical perspective. But it isn't disclosed by modern scientific method, as an important aspect of that is to exclude the very kinds of ideas that we're trying to consider; and then forgetting what it has excluded.

ALthough I should mention there are quite a few scientists who are nowadays also Zen practitioners. One of them that I have seen speak is James Austin, neurologist and author of Zen and the Brain. Also there’s a neurologist by the name of Andrew Newberg who has done quite a bit on the neuroscience associated with visionary states and experiences. I’m sure there are others. Perhaps that might constitute a means of exploring such questions scientifically.

I'm not seeing this as a good summary of some Aristotelian position - scholastically revisionist, or otherwise.

In particular with regards to the persistence of something: a human body persists because its parts persist, which are made of atoms, which have electrons, protons, neutrons, which are made of subatomic particles, but also because the body is in an environment that is not completely hostile, etc. The explanation of one thing's existence gets pushed onto another thing. Which forms a hierarchy. — darthbarracuda

This smashes together a whole bunch of ideas.

But quickly, hierarchy theory doesn't have to rely on atomistic foundations. All it has to claim is the possibility of entification over multiple scales.

So higher levels of organisation stabilise and simplify the lower levels from which they emerge. The story is about the functional regulation of instability.

Is a living body composed of subatomic particles? Or is it more properly composed of functional organic chemistry?

The cell is realm of hot metabolic activity where molecular machines are constantly falling apart and reforming. The show is kept on the road because the information encoded at a higher level in DNA is enduring enough to keep pointing the way. And then energy flows through the molecular structure in a fashion that keeps it constantly reforming just a bit faster than it falls apart.

So once your model of causality includes functionality - formal/final purpose - then the stability becomes a top-down feature. The information that endures at the higher level is what regulates the stability of its material/effective parts.

Atomism does presume the opposite. A grounding substance just passively exists. But quantum physics and thermodynamics challenge that ontology. Even particles become contextual things - instabilities regulated by the information content of a history, or an environment.

So you are talking about hierarchical order in a sense that is very atomistic and reductionist, not particularly Aristotelian.

Then hierarchy theory as understood in modern holistic systems thinking offers a self-grounding story of how stability is a feature that develops through the semiotic regulation of instability.

The ground floor of being is now understood as being the most radically unstable or indeterministic state of affairs - a sea of fluctuations, a chaos, a vagueness. Then constraints emerge to tame that, give it direction. Information builds in levels to create functional structures that endure. And thermodynamics speaks to that overall function - the imperative to entropify. Every hangs together because it is falling down the same hill - the slide from a Big Bang to a Heat Death.

So a human body persists because it has the informational machinery to preserve a functional idea of itself. It can harness a flow of entropy to rebuild itself faster than it would otherwise fall apart.

See - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867416302082

It's not atomistic as I mentioned how the environment plays a role in how the body survives. The point is that the existence of x is explained by the existence of y which is explained by the existence of z, just like how a laptop rests on a table, which rests on the floor, which rests on the Earth, etc. An "Aristotelian" (not "the" Aristotelian) demonstration is that this hierarchical explanation ultimately follows back to the prime mover.

What is the evidence, what is the context, what is the domain of discourse for such a science? Which science is it? — Wayfarer

I didn't say it had to be a recognised science. I was arguing that Western philosophy actually does employ "the scientific method of reasoning".

This is Peirce's point. The practice of reasoning - which may have reached its early high-point in Plato's academy - is a process of abductive guess, deductive theorising, and inductive confirmation.

And note the importance of there being "an academy". Like Peirce says, reasoning is all about a community of minds. So it is a mechanism for arriving at common agreement. The academy was a step up because it wasn't individuals muttering to themselves. It was all about the power of dialogue to flush out ideas with clear consequences that could be judged.

Likewise the academy led to texts. Stuff had to get written down so it could be shared directly with students. Earlier philosophers wrote poems. But a new rational or dialectical style of argumentation was developed to "show the workings, show the justifying" in definite fashion.

So there is a method for advancing philosophical concerns. My criticism is that you don't think the constraints ought to apply to your talk about "a higher plane of being". You are saying there is another way of knowing, just as valid if not better.

Again, I say well show me. And so we go around the same circle again.

It's not atomistic as I mentioned how the environment plays a role in how the body survives. The point is that the existence of x is explained by the existence of y which is explained by the existence of z, just like how a laptop rests on a table, which rests on the floor, which rests on the Earth, etc. An "Aristotelian" (not "the" Aristotelian) demonstration is that this hierarchical explanation ultimately follows back to the prime mover. — darthbarracuda

But his hylomorphism led towards both a prime mover and prime matter. So there was some ultimate form/purpose (like the global shaping hand of circular motion), and also some basic formless notion of "stuff", a prime matter. Or what Plato called the chora, or receptacle.

So my modern approach understands hierarchical causality as being about constraints and degrees of freedom. This tracks back to Aristotle's dichotomy of prime mover and prime matter. Or top-down functional cause vs bottom-up material cause.

The laptop, like the floor, the planet and the cosmos on which it rests, is subject both to universal laws and particular material initial conditions. It has to rest on formal or functional conditions as much as material ones.

So in claiming the existence of x is explained by the existence of y, you are only telling the tale of material causality. And you are making a big mistake in presuming that stability is a property simply inherited from baser levels of being rather than it being the property a hierarchical system needs to impose on its "base layers".

Do formal and material conditions or universal laws exist? How do they maintain their existence?

So in claiming the existence of x is explained by the existence of y, you are only telling the tale of material causality. And you are making a big mistake in presuming that stability is a property simply inherited from baser levels of being rather than it being the property a hierarchical system needs to impose on its "base layers". — apokrisis

If the hierarchical system imposes stability on its base layers, it is only because the base layers are capable of being arranged in some way. The workings of the composite is done through the combined efforts of the parts, but it's still the parts doing the work.

When I turn on a light, it is clear that the lightbulb requires a voltage source to work. The light turns on because is is connected to a live voltage source. The voltage source itself depends on many other things to act as a voltage source. These things require other things, which require other things as well. There's no such thing as a physical entity existing by itself, there is always something more that is "keeping" it in existence. So the demonstration here is that things require other things to keep them hoisted in existence and if there cannot be a physical entity that pulls itself up by its bootstraps, then there must be something non-physical that ultimately keeps everything existing. Which we presumably call God.

Again, I say well show me. And so we go around the same circle again. — apokrisis

That's solely because I go to the trouble of trying to explain it, and you don't understand it.

Do formal and material conditions or universal laws exist? How do they maintain their existence? — darthbarracuda

History locks them in. When a wavefunction collapses, an event has now happened in some spatiotemporal location with a definite energy. By the same token, it's possibility of happening anywhere or anyhow else has been removed. So the past is a memory that constrains. Actions become ever more limited by their environment.

The same applies over all scales. If a river branches at one point, then that removes the possibility of it bulging and breaking at a host of other points. The branching is an accident. But it leaves a permanent mark that grows to have real effect on everything that follows.

If the hierarchical system imposes stability on its base layers, it is only because the base layers are capable of being arranged in some way. — darthbarracuda

Yeah. My ontology always IS fundamentally two-way or complementary. You've picked that up. It is the basis of the systems view.

The workings of the composite is done through the combined efforts of the parts, but it's still the parts doing the work. — darthbarracuda

Now you are being reductionist. The parts do the constructing, the whole does the constraining. And so the whole shapes the parts that are re-making its wholeness. (Haven't we been through this 1000 times?)

So work is being done from both directions. And importantly for this discussion, the stability of the parts is due to their contexts of constraint. It is not inherent but emergent.

Of course once we start talking about substances - like metal, or rock, or plastic, or glass - we conveniently overlook this bigger picture.

Even protons and electrons are fundamentally unstable - stable only because of a marked lack of their anti-particles in the near vicinity.

When I turn on a light, it is clear that the lightbulb requires a voltage source to work. — darthbarracuda

And now we are into the human engineered view of the world when we create machines made of rigid bits. Somehow examples of artificial things seem canonical examples of nature at its best.

Why are folk always stumbling into this obvious ontic mind-trap?

So the demonstration here is that things require other things to keep them hoisted in existence and if there cannot be a physical entity that pulls itself up by its bootstraps, then there must be something non-physical that ultimately keeps everything existing. Which we presumably call God. — darthbarracuda

Perhaps a rigid mechanical understanding of nature would require you to then imagine a God to wind the clockwork with his circular prime mover, adjust the hands with the occasional miraculous intervention.

Me? Nope, don't need divine cause. I don't make the mistake of thinking the Comos to be rigid mechanism.

Well I've diverted the point of this discussion, I'll make a different discussion some time later and we'll joust there instead.

That's solely because I go to the trouble of trying to explain it, and you don't understand it. — Wayfarer

I asked about this "higher plane of being". You've said a lot but nothing that counts as an explanation. What is it? How is it? What is it? Where is it? When is it?

I mean you could have replied that it isn't really a plane, nor being, nor higher. All that is suggestive of some psychic, transcendent, stuff - a Platonic realm of ideas, or dualism realm of spirit. You could have said it was a poor choice of words and you didn't mean to reify intuition, feeling and value as if they were perceptions of an alternative reality that ordinary rational perception fails to see.

I would still dispute any mystical, non-natural, non-biological, account of our ability to know reality this way, but we might have been more on the same page. But once you make claims about the literal existence of "a higher plane of being", its a different metaphysical ballgame. And I haven't seen you stacking up the justification to take that seriously.

Sure. The regulation of instability is something I've started to focus on because of the recent discoveries in biophysics. It is actually quite revolutionary for the philosophy of biology, as well as also being very much a central concern of psychological science.

Thanks for the info on relational properties. indeed, I think it is the case for colours. I don't see why temporal and spatial properties would be relational though. Relational to what? They are accidental only. I also don't agree with the negative property concept. Instead of saying "an object has the property of non-x", it seems more correct to say "an object does not have the property x".

Why not? Understanding happens in a time and a space. — Akanthinos

I think understanding happens in a time, but not in a space. Here is why: Consider time t1 before I understand an info, and time t2 after I understand it. If we could go back to t1 (somehow), then I would not understand the info. But I understand the info at places p1 and p2, provided it is at time t2. In other words, the existence of understanding seems to be a function of time but not of place.

But I wonder it this is besides the point anyways. The existence of the information "Montréal is in Québec" is not dependent on the receiver understanding the message, is it?