You have shown me no connection between my understanding that we know the world from a unique perspective, and the possibility of performing counting and/or measuring operations on all that we know. — Dfpolis

Hah. Your replies depend on such diligent misrepresentation of my arguments that it is pointless pushing them further.

But note that I was very careful to distinguish between a biological level of semiosis (the animal mind), a social level of semiosis (ordinary language), and a metaphysical or scientific level of semiosis (involving formal logical models)

So of course the nature of a sign or act of measurement is quite different at each of these levels. But the general mechanism is the same.

If we talk about an elephant, we are cutting across all these levels. There is of course the elephant as it would be perceptually for any speechless animal - like a fly, a lion, your cat, another elephant.

Humans, as primates with three cone colour vision, would be privileged in seeing the elephant was grey and not red. So we could talk about the specificities of our biological umwelt in that regard. There are some measurements of reality that our evolved neurology is equipped to make, and yet not others.

Then of course, we have also our linguistic and logical levels of discourse about "elephants" as objects of the world. Now you might understand me to be talking about elephants when I point to some statue or mention "Dumbo".

Or in a more formal and scientific setting, you might suddenly see a world of difference between Loxodonta cyclotis and Elephas maximus. Some fool ordinary person might call both "just an elephant" - being generically that. But you would be alert to the particular signs that mark a distinction between two very separate breeding populations. As a scientist, you will know how a logical structuring of your perception results in you literally seeing a different world than before. You see things "properly" when it comes to natural phenomena, in contrast to the ill-educated layman you were just before.

So you can't escape the fact that all mind is modelling. It is a business of reading off a self-centred understanding of the world. And all we need to know is what immediate signs tally with our long-run habits of interpretance. We are organised to comprehend reality as a set of measurements.

Is there an elephant in the room? I can't see one, but I can smell one. There is enough of a sign that I perhaps ought to keep looking.

But it seems - your presentation is confusing - that you are happy to collapse this triadic psychological process to a dualistic mysticism. That pretends to be a monistic direct perception. We look and we see the data that is there. Even when we look at our own "minds". It ain't qualia - perceptual signs conceived meta-cognitively as just that. The mind has just regressed in familiar homuncular fashion, curled deeper into its snail shell, and it is surprised to find there is an internal world along with an external world.

But what world is this "mind" now in that it can see both inwards and outwards? And so the nonsense continues.

You don't have to know what it is in order to use it. — Wayfarer

How does one use an unknown concept?

I meant that you don't have to have a philosophy of mathematics, to do mathematics.

As I understand it, to say there is a universal law just is to say that there is a universally invariant form of action, a natural behavior which operates at all times and all places regardless of human awareness and opinion. — Janus

To claim an "invariant form of action", is to make a generalization about action. How do you jump from making such a generalization about action to the conclusion that there is a "natural law" which is the cause of that type of action which is described by the generalization?

Suppose that every time you drop an object in air, it falls. This indicates an "invariant form of action", so you can make a generalization. What principle allows you to say that there is a "natural law" which is the cause of this action, rather than something else, like gravity, which is causing the action?

Furthermore, isn't the real "cause" of the action you picking the objects up and dropping them? So you think that there is a natural law which causes this "invariant form of action", when the "invariant form of action" is really caused by you carrying out that similar procedure over and over again.

What principle allows you to say that there is a "natural law" which is the cause of this action, rather than something else, like gravity, which is causing the action? — Metaphysician Undercover

If gravity operates always and everywhere then it just is a natural law; that's what the term means.

You will recall that this discussion was precipitated by your assertion that:

Real numbers [and the like] don’t begin to exist by virtue of there being someone around who learns how to count. The mind evolves to the point where it is able to count, that is all. The same goes for ideas and universals, generally. They are the constituents of the ability to reason but they’re not the products of reason. — Wayfarer

In contrast to Einstein's thoughts on the subject:

The axiomatic structure (A) of a theory is built psychologically on the experiences (E) of the world of perceptions. Inductive logic cannot lead from the (E) to the (A). The (E) need not be restricted to experimental data, nor to perceptions; rather, the (E) may include the data of Gendanken experiments. Pure reason (i.e., mathematics) connects (A) to theorems (S). But pure reason can grasp neither the world of perceptions nor the ultimate physical reality because there is no procedure that can be reduced to the rules of logic to connect the (A) to the (E). Physical reality can be grasped not by pure reason (as Kant has asserted), but by pure thought.

Einstein, A. (1933). On the Method of Theoretical Physics. Lecture delivered on 10 June 1933 at Oxford University.

Strugging to make the connection between what I said, and what Einstein is trying to say. Although what I am inclined to say, is that, as per Kant, reason is what enables the interpretation of empirical data into some form of mathematical hypothesis.

Actually I do have another Einstein reference that I think helps make my point. He said elsewhere:

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.

Now, I believe that to be true; but I also believe that the Pythagorean theorem, or anything of that kind, can be only known by a rational intelligence. It is not an artefact of experience per se; and it will never be understood by any creature who is not capable of rational thought and the ability to count. So what I mean is that, while I agree that it is independent of your or my mind, or any individual mind, it is nevertheless an intelligible object, something that can only be grasped by a mind. And I think that resembles the kind of principle that Platonism has in mind, when it speaks of ‘ideas’.

[Although I am also extremely dubious that ‘physical reality can be truly grasped’, as it is [per Plato] inherently unintelligible, which I think the conundrums in current physics make abundantly clear.]

If gravity operates always and everywhere then it just is a natural law; that's what the term means. — Janus

The appearance of gravity is dependent on the existence of mass or energy, therefore it is a property of these things. The occurrence of gravity induced activity is the effect of the existence of these things of which it is a property. The activity is not caused by a natural law.

Here's a coupe questions concerning that quote from Einstein.

What principle do you think he uses to claim that inductive reason cannot derive A (the axiomatic structure of a theory) from E (the experiences of the world of perceptions)?

Also, in the last sentence, what do you think is the difference between "pure reason", and "pure thought"?

He seems to deny the capacity of pure reason to derive A from E based on the assumption that there are no rules of logic which will allow for this. But are rules necessary for "pure reason"? There are no specific rules which one follows in inductive reasoning. So Einstein seems to be denying the capacities of inductive reasoning based on this assumption. The problem is that one can deny the certainty of the conclusions of inductive reasoning, based on this assumption, but you cannot deny that the conclusions are being made. So in reality, A is derived from E by means of inductive reasoning, but since inductive reasoning is free, and lawless, the certainty of those axioms is dubious.

Now we need to consider the relation between "pure thought" and "pure reason". If one of these is necessarily controlled by laws, as Einstein implies that "reason" is, and the other is not, then we have a distinction. The agent which acts to control thought, to abide by rules, is the will. The will, as it is free, may allow thought to proceed outside the constraints of rules, allowing knowledge to evolve. This free thinking appears to be classed outside of "reason" by Einstein. However, the reason why A cannot be derived from E, appears to be that "inductive reason" does not follow rules. Therefore to even call induction "reason" would be contradictory. It ought to just be called "thought".

I know some physicists, and they do not practise physics as if the descriptive laws of physics represent some "laws of nature"[. They work to understanding existing laws of physics and establish new ones, without concern for whether there is such a thing as laws of nature. Like I said, this is an ontological concern. — Metaphysician Undercover

Effectively, you are saying that, regardless of their misguided philosophical beliefs, they practice physics as if there are laws operative in nature. When "They work to ... establish new ones," are they making up the new laws out of whole cloth -- as a fiction writer would -- or are they looking at the results of experiments and observations to see how nature actually operates? If they wish to retain their positions, I am sure they are doing the later. In other words, they are seeking to describe what is.

Further, when they posit a new or improved law, do they merely see it as describing the results of past experiments and observations, or do they expect it to describe future phenomena? All the physicists I've worked with expect the latter. And if you ask if this is a rational expectation or a baseless faith position, surely they would say it is entirely rational, i.e based on some reason. Certainly they are not such egotists as to think that they, or the description they have formulated, is the reason why nature will continue to operate in accord with the order it exhibited previously. So, despite any errant philosophical views, they expect nature to continue to conform to their description, not irrationally, or because of an extrinsic reason, but for reasons intrinsic to nature -- reasons we call "laws of nature."

Why would you think that this law of physics represents a law of nature, rather than thinking that this law represents a description of how the activity of matter is affected by something called gravity?" — Metaphysician Undercover

These are not contradictory views. We can project the same phenomena into different conceptual spaces and so give differing, non-contradictory accounts.

Why do I say that the concept <law of nature> is instantiated here? Because the phenomenon is not a "one of." Similar phenomena, exhibiting the same underlying order, occur through space and time. That is how Newton came to understand that the laws we formulate here, in the sublunary world, are universal -- operative throughout nature. Of course, we can forget Newton's great insight, but then we have no rational ground for thinking we understand the dynamics by which the universe developed or life evolved. If the order we describe here is not universal, anything could have happened at any time -- and we'd never know. It is only by positing that the same laws act now as in the past that we are able to understand the time-development of the universe.

Still, when we speak of "gravity" in physics, we are not just saying "things fall," but that of all the possible ways of falling, actual falling always follows a unique, mathematically describable, pattern. Since information is the reduction of possibility, the the exclusion of other possible patterns tells us that actual falling is informed. Informed by what? In your thinking, by nothing -- it happens by magic. For those with a more scientific turn of mind, it is informed by a determinate potential, an intrinsic intentionality, that generations have thought fit to call "the law of gravity."

The fact that laws of physics can be extrapolated, projected, to a time when there was no human beings, doesn't support your claim that these artificial laws represent natural laws. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, it could be magic? Yes, if we reject the entire structure of scientific thought -- based on the thesis that all phenomena have an adequate explanation. As I've pointed out, rejecting this principle allows one to say that any confirming or falsifying observation or experimental result is a "brute fact" that "just happened" -- and so of no value in understanding the structure of reality. For example, on your magical account, the results of the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment could be a "brute fact" requiring no cause. Fortunately, Ernest Rutherford rejected this nonsense and saw that they could be caused by a dense atomic nucleus.

The laws of physics are descriptions with very wide (general) application, so they are generalizations. In order that they are real, true laws of physics, it is necessary that the things which they describe (gravity, Pauli's exclusion, etc.,) are real. There is no need to assume that there is a "law of nature" which corresponds. That is just an ontological assumption. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, I have been careful to distinguish "the laws of physics" which are approximate human descriptions from "the laws of nature" that they describe.

Second, I would challenge you to test your suggestion that gravity is not real by stepping off a tall building, but charity prevents me from doing so. Remember, "real" does not mean "substantial." The real need not stand alone. It can be an intelligible aspect of something else.

Third, it is metaphysically necessary that whenever a potential is actualized, it is actualized by a cause adequate to actualize it.

So, your claim is that physics is a species of fiction writing. — Dfpolis

You've obviously misunderstood what I've been saying. I hope that I've made it clearer for you. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand that you see the laws of physics as generalizations of past events -- events that are similar, not for any objective reason, but purely by chance. I infer that you see their success in new cases as equally uncaused and fortuitous. Thus, if you began floating instead being weighted down by gravity, or if your keyboard disappeared in midword, you would see no deficiency in physics -- because you see no reason why the past behavior of nature foreshadows its future behavior.

the footprint (which is what you are measuring) is quite real. — Dfpolis

No it is not, that's the point, it is not a footprint, therefore "the footprint" is not real. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is pettifogging. You called the depression you were measuring a "footprint." I accepted this, not as a statement of origin, but as a naming convention. My point was not that you were measuring a footprint, but that, whatever you call it, what you were measuring is real. If there were no depression, you could not measure the depression. Even if you do not name it, it is real.

No, by my logic his "blue eyes" do not exist. Where's the nonsense in that? — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not what you claimed earlier, viz. that what you were measuring was unreal because you mischaracterized it as a "footprint." Naming conventions have no affect on the reality of what is named.

I take a ruler and lay it beside something, measuring that thing. Why do you claim that it is necessary for that thing to interact with me in order for me to measure it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Because if the object you are measuring did not scatter light into your eyes you would not know what to measure.

The existence of a medium is completely immaterial to the question of interaction. A number of media lay between us, still we are interacting. Media are only relevant to how we are interacting.

I take it that all you mean by this is that what you term "awareness" (which I would call 'reflexive self-consciousness' to distinguish it from animal awareness) cannot be adequately explained in terms of sheer physics? I would agree with that and say that this is also true of biology in general. — Janus

Yes, I mean that subjective awareness (as distinct from medical consciousness), is outside of the competence of physics because the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science leaves behind andy and all data on intentionality.

Biology is also outside of the competence of physics, for a related, but slightly different, reason. When we are doing physics, we abstract aware the data contextualizing the entities (e.g., electrons) we are considering. Meanwhile, the core concern of biology is part of the very contextual data physics abstracts away. Physics allows any number of structures to be possible, but biology is concerned with actual living structures and their interactions. Because information is not possiblity but the reduction of possibility, physics does not have the information that constitutes biology.

Or are you suggesting that it is part of some separate (supernatural or transcendent) order? If you are asserting the latter, then I can't see how you should not be classed as a substance dualist in the Cartesian sense. — Janus

"Supernatural" is an ill-defined term of opprobrium in naturalism. Unless you define "natural" clearly, it is hard to define "supernatural." So, if you're identifying as "nature" the subject area of the natural sciences, then since the Fundamental Abstraction excludes data on intentionality, you could say that intentionality is "supernatural." But, if you define "nature" as the object of human experience, then intentionality is completely natural.

I am also quite wary of "separate." To me it implies either physical distance, or dynamic independence. I do not say how we can justify thinking of intentionality as either. As intentional objects are not measurable, the concept of physical separation is inapplicable. As we form concepts by experiencing physical reality, and our commitments find fruition in physical behavior, I do not see how we can say that the physical and intentional orders are "separate."

They are, however, distinct: intentional concepts are not physical concepts.

I certainly do not see myself as a substance dualist. We each a single, unified being, but a being that is able to act both physically and intentionally. The fact that we can form disjoint concepts of physicality and intentionality does not mean that these concepts have separate foundations in reality.

Consider a red rubber ball. It is an adequate foundation for the concepts <red>. <rubber> and <sphere>, but the disjoint nature of these concepts does not justify a triadic theory of toys.

If reflexive self-consciousness is dependent on, and evolved along with, language, and linguistic capability confers survival advantages (which it obviously does), then I don't see why reflexive self-consciousnesses could not have evolved. — Janus

Language does give us an important evolutionary advantage. Still, one of my arguments against epiphenomenalism is that if consciousness can have no physical effects, we could not speak of it -- for we could form no neural representation of it. So, my argument is about the inadequacy of physicalist assumptions in explaining it -- not against evolutionary selection per se.

A related issue is that for evolution to select awareness, it has to first arrise. As Dennett points out in Consciousness Explained a physicalist model explaining the data of consciousness is impossible

Thank you for the lucid explanation, no further questions at this point. — Wayfarer

You are quite welcome.

You have shown me no connection between my understanding that we know the world from a unique perspective, and the possibility of performing counting and/or measuring operations on all that we know. — Dfpolis

Hah. Your replies depend on such diligent misrepresentation of my arguments that it is pointless pushing them further. — apokrisis

I have done my best to understand your position and arguments. My present conjecture is that by "measure" you do not mean an operation that produces a number, but "observe." I have given you a number of chances to clarify this, but you have not done so.

So of course the nature of a sign or act of measurement is quite different at each of these levels. — apokrisis

I see no clear relation between the nature of a sign and the nature of an act of measurement. Certainly we use signs to record measurements, but we use signs in many, many cases with no relation to measurement.

As a scientist, you will know how a logical structuring of your perception results in you literally seeing a different world than before — apokrisis

No. I would see the same world with greater attention to detail, not a different world. As philosopher, I recognize that my representation of the world is only a projection of reality -- a dimensionally diminished map. So, I am not surprised, nor do I think I am dealing with a new reality, when some new dimension is added to my representation -- when, for example, I learn to recognize the difference between African and Indian elephants.

So you can't escape the fact that all mind is modelling. — apokrisis

This is a very vague and questionable statement. First, my mind is not only information (which you might call "models" and Aristotle calls the "passive intellect"), but the capacity to be aware of that information (the "agent intellect"), and the capacity to direct my attention and other actions to effect ends (the will).

Second, with regard to the information itself: Do I have instruments of thought such as concepts, judgements and chains of reasoning that are distinct from their reference? Of course. Do any of my instruments of thought exhaust reality? Of course not. Are these instruments all "models" in the sense of including constructs covering areas of ignorance? Of course not. Do I have any such constructs? Yes. Do I have models that include both accurate information and constructs bridging ignorance? Certainly. Is that all I have in my mind? Certainly not.

You see things "properly" when it comes to natural phenomena, in contrast to the ill-educated layman you were just before. — apokrisis

There is nothing "improper" in having an <elephant> concept while not having distinct <African elephant> and <Indian elephant> concepts -- unless you are in a role that requires understanding these distinctions. Claiming otherwise may boost one's ego, but it does not reflect a rational understanding of what is proper. What is "proper" is what is required by your circumstances.

All human understanding is limited. So, there is no need to apologize for limited knowledge, unless those limitations are the result of being closed to reality. The relevant question is: Is our knowledge adequate for attaining our goals.

But it seems - your presentation is confusing - that you are happy to collapse this triadic psychological process to a dualistic mysticism. — apokrisis

I have no idea what you're talking about. I assume the triad is Peirce's. As we have not discussed my understanding of signs, I don't understand how you can pass any rational judgement on it. Also, I have repeatedly said human beings are intrinsic unities, not dualist compounds.

We look and we see the data that is there. — apokrisis

You seem not to have internalized anything i have said.

The mind has just regressed in familiar homuncular fashion — apokrisis

Who have you been reading? I have made no appeal to a homunculus.

But what world is this "mind" now in that it can see both inwards and outwards? — apokrisis

There is only one reality. If you would reflect on it, you would find that your mind is not only aware of the elephant you are seeing, but the fact that you are seeing it. If you find this puzzling, simply accept it as a contingent fact of reality. If it does not fit your theory, then your theory does not fit the facts.

As I understand it, to say there is a universal law just is to say that there is a universally invariant form of action, a natural behavior which operates at all times and all places regardless of human awareness and opinion. — Janus

Well yes, but isn't a human-formulated 'law' an opinion? Such a law can't be human-independent, can it? After all, the universe will continue to behave as it does if we disappear. And while we're still here, our 'law' has no effect except to describe (for the convenience of humans) what nature does all by itself, without laws or anything like them. Laws are for us. Nature doesn't need or use them; it just does what it does. Just that.

The appearance of gravity is dependent on the existence of mass or energy, therefore it is a property of these things. The occurrence of gravity induced activity is the effect of the existence of these things of which it is a property. The activity is not caused by a natural law. — Metaphysician Undercover

According to current scientific understanding mass warps spacetime, and this is a universal phenomenon which is called 'the law of gravity', or simply 'gravity'. Gravity is not an "appearance" it is an action or effect. The "activity" is not caused by the law, it is the law.

Laws are for us. Nature doesn't need or use them; it just does what it does. Just that. — Pattern-chaser

We don't invent the law-like behavior of nature. Sure, the Law of Gravity is also a human formulation as well as an invariant natural phenomenon which does not depend on us for its action.

I find nothing to disagree with here, unfortunately.

I would like to note, though, that if mind is considered in the way Spinoza does, as an attribute rather than a substance, and if extensa and cogitans are understood to be incommensurable ways of understanding organic entities, then it would be a category error to say that mental phenomena cause physical phenomena and vice versa: instead there would be a kind of parallelism between them. So mental events cause other mental events, and physical events cause the physical events correlated with the mental events. They are the same events, seen from one side as mental and from the other as physical.

There is only one reality. If you would reflect on it, you would find that your mind is not only aware of the elephant you are seeing, but the fact that you are seeing it. If you find this puzzling, simply accept it as a contingent fact of reality. — Dfpolis

It is just so funny how you repeat the standard comforting formula of words as if they could make sense.

There is "me" who sees "my mind", and even sees the "me" seeing its "mind". And what is this mind seeing. Why, its "the world". Or no. In fact its sees the one reality. Or is that "the one reality", given that reality is whatever any mind happens to make of it? I mean "it".

If it does not fit your theory, then your theory does not fit the facts. — Dfpolis

Ah, "the facts". The signs, the acts of measurement, the particulars, that attest to a theory not being false. Or at least not useless for the purpose that "I" had "in mind".

I think it's funny that you purport to be able to get beneath the phenomenological description of experience: on the basis of what...experience?

My approach is internalist, not externalist. So I don't claim to get beneath, or outside, or otherwise achieve some actually transcendent perspective on experience ... or "experience".

That is what makes a semiotic approach so epistemically consistent with its ontological claims. I'm surprised you haven't figured that out yet.

That is what makes a semiotic approach so epistemically consistent with its ontological claims. I'm surprised you haven't figured that out yet. — apokrisis

Well, semiotic thought is relatively new to me. :grin:

So, as per Dfpolis' example, you can't "get beneath" the elephant you are seeing (and please don't make the obvious joke). It's the reality, the phenomenology, of what we experience, and of ourselves experiencing it, that must be the starting point. Of course, we also have to acknowledge that we do not see the whole of reality. So the self and the others and the world of common experience is fundamental, along with the acknowledgement that that experience is also, in a sense, a functional selection proper to our evolved kind, from a vaster reality.

Do I have to point out you are already assuming there is a “we” that experience. So without being able to experience that I experience, you seem ready to take that for granted as a known fact. You have already divided experience into experiencers (plural) and experienced worlds.

You have a theory about how things are. And also of course, the notion of the evidence that rightfully sustains that belief.

So how you are progressing is exactly as I have described.

There were no actual universals prior to subjects thinking them. — Dfpolis

Isn't that conceptualism about universals rather than moderate realism?

All of these are intelligible aspects of the molecule, not actual universal ideas. If we could see on hydrogen atom, we could form the universal <hydrogen> — Dfpolis

The term universal normally refers to what particular things have in common (what you're calling the intelligible aspects). For a moderate realist the universal is immanent in the particulars, not the mind.

All of these are real and intelligible, but not actually known until someone becomes aware of them. — Dfpolis

Agreed.

The one fine point here, made by Aristotle in his definition of "quantity" in Metaphysics Delta, is that there are no actual numbers independent of counting and measuring operations. — Dfpolis

I can't find this - could you quote the specific text you're thinking of there?

So, while counting the hydrogen atoms in a water molecule will always give <2>, there is no actual number 2 floating around the molecule. — Dfpolis

Agreed. Numbers aren't particulars.

Effectively, you are saying that, regardless of their misguided philosophical beliefs, they practice physics as if there are laws operative in nature. When "They work to ... establish new ones," are they making up the new laws out of whole cloth -- as a fiction writer would -- or are they looking at the results of experiments and observations to see how nature actually operates? If they wish to retain their positions, I am sure they are doing the later. In other words, they are seeking to describe what is. — Dfpolis

I don't see your point. You appear to have misunderstood me.

Further, when they posit a new or improved law, do they merely see it as describing the results of past experiments and observations, or do they expect it to describe future phenomena? All the physicists I've worked with expect the latter. — Dfpolis

Right, physicists expect things to continue to be, in the future, the way that they have been in the past, just like we expect the sun to shine in the day, and it to be dark at night. This has nothing to do with whether or not they believe that there are laws acting to ensure that this will continue, that's just your ontological assumption.

All the physicists I've worked with expect the latter. And if you ask if this is a rational expectation or a baseless faith position, surely they would say it is entirely rational, i.e based on some reason. Certainly they are not such egotists as to think that they, or the description they have formulated, is the reason why nature will continue to operate in accord with the order it exhibited previously. So, despite any errant philosophical views, they expect nature to continue to conform to their description, not irrationally, or because of an extrinsic reason, but for reasons intrinsic to nature -- reasons we call "laws of nature." — Dfpolis

I agree that there must be reasons why we expect that things will continue to be, into the future, as they have been in the past, but I disagree that the reason why we expect this is because we believe that there are laws of nature acting to ensure this. The reason why we expect this is that we have experienced it in the past, and it has been consistent. We have experienced in the past, that things continue to be, into the future, as they have been in the past, except when something acts to change this, so we conclude by means of inductive reasoning, that that this will continue.

We do not expect that things will continue to be as they have been because laws of nature are acting to ensure this, and this is evident from the fact that we allow that things change. When we act, for instance, we can break this continuity, destroying and creating things. So clearly we recognize that there are no laws acting to ensure continuity, unless we as human beings are allowed to play God, and override the laws of nature. So it is impossible that we expect that things will continue to be into the future, as they have been in the past, because we believe that laws of nature are acting to ensure this, because we commonly act to override this continuity, thus that would be contradictory.

Why do I say that the concept <law of nature> is instantiated here? Because the phenomenon is not a "one of." Similar phenomena, exhibiting the same underlying order, occur through space and time. That is how Newton came to understand that the laws we formulate here, in the sublunary world, are universal -- operative throughout nature. Of course, we can forget Newton's great insight, but then we have no rational ground for thinking we understand the dynamics by which the universe developed or life evolved. If the order we describe here is not universal, anything could have happened at any time -- and we'd never know. It is only by positing that the same laws act now as in the past that we are able to understand the time-development of the universe. — Dfpolis

Newton's laws refer to the activities of "forces", they do not refer to the activities of "laws". To interpret newton's laws in this way, as referring to the activities of laws, is a gross misunderstanding of Newton's principles.

So, it could be magic? — Dfpolis

Why would anyone think that the cause of uniform activity is magic? That would be even more ridiculous than thinking it is laws which cause uniform activity. It's quite obvious that uniformity of activity is caused by similar conditions of existence. If the conditions of existence are the same here as they are over there, then there ought to be a uniformity of activity between these two places. When we determine those conditions of existence we will see exactly why there is such a uniformity. Why must you posit something more, like magic, or laws to account for the uniformity of activity? Are you suggesting that the laws act like magic, to ensure that activity is uniform?

Second, I would challenge you to test your suggestion that gravity is not real by stepping off a tall building, but charity prevents me from doing so. Remember, "real" does not mean "substantial." The real need not stand alone. It can be an intelligible aspect of something else. — Dfpolis

It is you who is suggesting that gravity is not real, not I. I recognize that the activities we attribute to gravity are caused by a real thing, gravity. You suggest that these activities are caused by some magical "laws of nature", which are forcing matter to behave the way that it does.

I understand that you see the laws of physics as generalizations of past events -- events that are similar, not for any objective reason, but purely by chance. — Dfpolis

What did I ever say to make you think that? That's ridiculous.

The existence of a medium is completely immaterial to the question of interaction. A number of media lay between us, still we are interacting. Media are only relevant to how we are interacting. — Dfpolis

Strictly speaking, that's not true. I am interacting with the media, and you are interacting with the media, and we are not interacting with each other. By ignoring the media which separates us, you create a misrepresentation, (which is completely wrong I might add), of our activities. For all I know, you're a bot. And what do you know about me, which makes you believe that we are actually interacting? I think you know enough about physics to understand that two objects do not directly interact, there is always a medium between them.

According to current scientific understanding mass warps spacetime, and this is a universal phenomenon which is called 'the law of gravity', or simply 'gravity'. Gravity is not an "appearance" it is an action or effect. The "activity" is not caused by the law, it is the law. — Janus

This makes no sense to me. Sorry, I can't follow that statement, that an activity is the law.

The "we" of experience is more fundamental than the skeptical or solipsistic "I" who doubts or denies the reality of others who share the experience of the world.

Is that tree over there part of your “we”? What about that rock?

If you are claiming experience as fundamental, you are already making a fundamental distinction. The conceptual claims have started.

No the rocks and trees are not part of we people, but part of our world. "We people" is as instinctive for us as the implicit "we baboons:" is for baboons, I would say.

I also say that experience being fundamental is prior to all claims; it is pre-teflectively fundamental for us just as it is for animals.

I give up.

Laws are for us. Nature doesn't need or use them; it just does what it does. Just that. — Pattern-chaser

We don't invent the law-like behavior of nature. Sure, the Law of Gravity is also a human formulation as well as an invariant natural phenomenon which does not depend on us for its action. — Janus

You seem to be struggling to accept my point. On the one hand, your words seem to acknowledge what I'm saying, but your syntax appears to have been crafted to restate the primacy of (human-created) laws over reality.

We have, I think, already agreed that these 'laws' are descriptive, not proscriptive. So law is a synonym for a description or model of natural behaviour. So when you say this:

We don't invent the law-like behavior of nature. — Janus

what you're saying is "We don't invent the natural-behaviour-like behavior of nature", which is correct but (as you can see) circular, and not very useful. Let's be clear about this. Gravity was discovered; the laws of gravity were created, by human scientists, to model or describe natural behaviour. I don't dispute that these laws fulfill that purpose well, and that their predictive power has been thoroughly tested, and found to be useful. But the fact remains that these laws are secondary, or derived. The master, the reference, is reality itself. Gravity, in this case, is the master.

Sure, the Law of Gravity is also a human formulation as well as an invariant natural phenomenon which does not depend on us for its action. — Janus

The "Law of Gravity" is not "an invariant natural phenomenon which does not depend on us for its action", it is a human creation. It is gravity that is "an invariant natural phenomenon which does not depend on us for its action".

It does no-one any good to confuse the reference and the derived model. :up:

I find nothing to disagree with here, unfortunately. — Janus

I am not sure why agreement is unfortunate.

I would like to note, though, that if mind is considered in the way Spinoza does, as an attribute rather than a substance, and if extensa and cogitans are understood to be incommensurable ways of understanding organic entities, then it would be a category error to say that mental phenomena cause physical phenomena and vice versa: instead there would be a kind of parallelism between them. — Janus

I don't think i'd call mind an "attribute," but i know I wouldn't call it a "substance." I'd prefer to call it a "power" or "combination of powers." It may be nitpicking, but I also wouldn't say "phenomena" cause things. I'd say "actions" cause things. Still, I see the point you're making.

The Fundamental Abstraction doesn't partition the world into the mental and the extended, but into subjective experience and objective physicality. Of course, our experience of being a subject is an experience of having a mind, but having a mind is more than being a subject. In the same way, being objectively physical is more than being extended, and even more than being a physical state. It also includes observable orderly behavior, which is the foundation in reality for our concept <laws of nature>. I have been arguing that the laws of nature are intentional in a well-defined sense that puts them in the same genus as our committed intentions (aka acts of will).

Because Descartes got the partition boundary wrong, modern philosophy has struggled with the very question you raise: how can the mental and the physical interact? Let us be clear, it was Descartes who got this wrong. Aristotle saw ideas as arising from sensory experience and sensory experience as firmly in the physical order. He even dissected bodies to find the conduits conveying sensory signals. The Scholastics followed him in this combined view. Aquinas, for example, insisted that there could be no concept without a correlative phantasm (what we now call a bound neural representation).

Because of Descartes confusion, naturalists feel that if they show the mind depends on the brain, they have somehow reduced the mental order to the physical order. But, as I have just pointed out, the notion that human thought depends on depends on physical instrumentality goes back at least to Aristotle.

So, we must not think of "mind" as belonging to some separate, dynamically isolated order of reality. Clearly, normal thought depends on the brain, and the brain is a data processing organ and control system. On, the other hand, because of the Fundamental Abstraction prescinds from data on being a subject, the natural sciences lack the data and concepts to form judgements involving the concept <subjectivity> or <subjective awareness>. Absent such judgements, no line of argument can end with the conclusion "Therefore, we have subjective awareness." So, we cannot rationally reduce our experience of being a subject to a process fully describable by natural science.

This problem, this irreducibly, is not a problem with reality, but with the conceptual space we have chosen to employ and with naturalist's hopes and expectations for it. Clearly, our minds are integrated wholes. The brain processes data by firing neurons, emitting neurotransmitters, etc, and we are subjectively aware of some of the contents so processed. Thus, knowing involves both physical and intentional operations. In the same way, we choose (will) to attend more to one aspect of experience than another, and the corresponding physical representations are activated. So, again, in willing, our minds seamlessly combine physical and intentional operations.

May we not wonder, then, if our conceptual space is failing us? We have <idea> and <neural representation> concepts, but our <knowing> concept is not sufficiently robust to reflect the dynamics connecting these abstractions. Similarly, we have <interest> and <neural activation> concepts, but our <attending> concept misses the dynamics linking them.

This is why I've reflected on the concept of logical propagators, pointing our the generic similarity between the evolution of physical states according to the laws of nature, and the implementation of a willed goal. I think this is the key to understanding the link between willing and willed movement. Although, i have mentioned it above, we need not leave the mind to see instances of this. If our willing to attend more closely to some contents were not supported by an appropriate neural response, the relevant contents would not be activated. Thus, intentional commitments must have physical effects even to think.

How are we to understand this? If the laws of nature and committed intentions are two species of the same genus, there is no reason why our intentions cannot perturb the laws of nature. The brain has evolved as a control system, and it is the nature of control systems to use small inputs to effect large outputs. Thus, a small perturbation to the laws of nature is all that its required to effect our willed commitments.

This possibility (that human intentionality can perturb natural intentionality) is one that can be and has been investigated experimentally, with results that rise to the level of statistical certitude (z= 4.1, 18.2, 16.1, and 7+ depending on study) -- as I discuss in my book, and in my video "#22 The Mind Body Problem" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJwNSzzxhLM).

This leaves unresolved how neurally encoded contents inform our concepts.