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". — apokrisis

Do you have an actual argument? Can you point to an error of fact or reason here? Or does your entire critique rest on the claim that my position is "so funny," You are entitled to your sense of humor, I to my facts and analysis.

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

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

Not unless I also denied that the universals we think have a foundation in reality. I do not. I have said that universals result from the actualization of notes of intelligibility in objects of experience. So, I am a moderate realist.

For a moderate realist the universal is immanent in the particulars, not the mind. — Andrew M

Intelligibility is the immanence of universals in the object. This immanence is potential, not actual. It is the objective power of the object to properly evoke specific universal concepts.

he 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? — Andrew M

1020a "'Quantity' means that which is divisible into constituent parts, each or every one of which is by nature some one individual thing. Thus plurality, if it is numerically calculable, is a kind of quantity; and so is magnitude, if it is measurable."

In other words, they are seeking to describe what is. — Dfpolis

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

If you are describing "what is," your description is based on reality. I am calling that reality, the one being described, a "law of nature."

If I am misunderstanding you, I am truly sorry. Perhaps you could correct my misunderstanding.

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 — Metaphysician Undercover

So, your position is that this expectation is entirely irrational -- ungrounded in reality?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not an argument about reality, but about what to call the aspect of reality effecting the continuing order. I am quire flexible on naming conventions. What name do you suggest/like?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a reason why we might expect them to continue, viz. intellectual laziness (the unwillingness to consider the possibility of change). It is not a reason why they actually continue to behave as they have.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we recognize that nature changes. These changes have nothing whatsoever to do with us "allowing them." Since we do recognize that nature is continually changing, the constancy of the order ("laws") of nature is all the more surprising and indicative of a reality effecting that constant order.

Newton's laws refer to the activities of "forces", they do not refer to the activities of "laws". — Metaphysician Undercover

It would be best to research your sources before making claims. Let's read a bit of Newton's Principia. In the preface, he tells us "I had begun to consider the inequalities of the lunar motions, and had entered upon some other things relating to the laws and measures of gravity, ... and the figures that would be described by bodies attracted according to given laws..." [italics mine].

Why would anyone think that the cause of uniform activity is magic? — Metaphysician Undercover

That is for you to explain -- you are the one denying that they have a natural cause.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only if the same logical propagators are operative in both places -- in other words only if the laws of nature are universal.

In physics initial conditions ("the conditions of existence") alone do not determine final states. To arrive at the same final states we need to apply the same dynamics (aka "laws") to both sets of initial conditions.

It is you who is suggesting that gravity is not real, not I. — Metaphysician Undercover

Please! Where have I said any such thing? To say that there is a law of gravity is not to say gravity is unreal, but that gravity acts in a consistent way over space and time -- something essential to the practice of astrophysics.

Nothing you say later in your post requires additional comment.

In other words, they are seeking to describe what is. — Dfpolis

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

If you are describing "what is," your description is based on reality. I am calling that reality, the one being described, a "law of nature."

If I am misunderstanding you, I am truly sorry. Perhaps you could correct my misunderstanding.

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 — Metaphysician Undercover

So, your position is that this expectation is entirely irrational -- ungrounded in reality?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not an argument about reality, but about what to call the aspect of reality effecting the continuing order. I am quire flexible on naming conventions. What name do you suggest/like?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a reason why we might expect them to continue, viz. intellectual laziness (the unwillingness to consider the possibility of change). It is not a reason why they actually continue to behave as they have.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we recognize that nature changes. These changes have nothing whatsoever to do with us "allowing them." Since we do recognize that nature is continually changing, the constancy of the order ("laws") of nature is all the more surprising and indicative of a reality effecting that constant order.

Newton's laws refer to the activities of "forces", they do not refer to the activities of "laws". — Metaphysician Undercover

It would be best to research your sources before making claims. Let's read a bit of Newton's Principia. In the preface, he tells us "I had begun to consider the inequalities of the lunar motions, and had entered upon some other things relating to the laws and measures of gravity, ... and the figures that would be described by bodies attracted according to given laws..." [italics mine]. in presenting his famous three laws, he labels them collectively "Leges Motus," and each individually a "Lex."

Why would anyone think that the cause of uniform activity is magic? — Metaphysician Undercover

That is for you to explain -- you are the one denying that they have a natural cause.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only if the same logical propagators are operative in both places -- in other words only if the laws of nature are universal.

In physics initial conditions ("the conditions of existence") alone do not determine final states. To arrive at the same final states we need to apply the same dynamics (aka "laws") to both sets of initial conditions.

It is you who is suggesting that gravity is not real, not I. — Metaphysician Undercover

Please! Where have I said any such thing? To say that there is a law of gravity is not to say gravity is unreal, but that gravity acts in a consistent way over space and time -- something essential to the practice of astrophysics.

Nothing you say later in your post requires additional comment.

You misunderstand me: I am saying that according to ordinary usage "the law of gravity" applies to both the human formulation, and to the natural force. In the latter one of its senses, 'the law of gravity' is synonymoous with simply 'gravity', in other words; but the addition of "the law of" signifies that gravity is a universally acting force; in other words it is understood to be "law-like" or "lawful".

I am not sure why agreement is unfortunate. — Dfpolis

Well, it doesn't make for good debate, is all. I was joking really, though, since agreement doesn't foreclose on the possibility of further fruitful discussion, obviously.

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. — Dfpolis

I agree that Spinoza's conception of mind and matter as attributes of substance is inadequate, but it does serve as a starting delineation, that avoids Cartesian dualism .

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).

So, here I would respond to your first sentence by saying that the most basic quality of subjective experience is that it is, to some degree, mental; and likewise that the most basic quality of physicality, phenomenologically speaking, is extension.

And as to your point about the experience of being a subject being an experience of having a mind; I would say that it is that but also much more than that, just as having a mind is much more than just being a subject. Each is more, from different perspectives, than the other, in other words. As to "being objectively physical" being more than being merely extended or a 'physical state'; I agree, without caveat.

I also agree with what you say about Descartes' error being the beginning of the rejection, based on misunderstanding, of Scholastic thought, that subsequently led to all the fantastically fecund nominalistic errors of German Idealism, and its postmodern outgrowths. At least, that is the way I am beginning to see it based on my reasonably fair familiarity with German Idealism and my admittedly scanty acquaintance with Scholastic thought. You seem to be making a similar point.

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. — Dfpolis

I find this passage intriguing, but I fear I am not familiar enough with the background against which you are making your suggestions to make any intelligent comment.

The same goes for your further comments about 'logical propagators'; I am intrigued, but I think I would need to know much more in order to enter into any discussion about that.

The point is that the very idea of there being operations of symbolic signs, which rely entirely upon convention, entails that there is a shared world of experience; "our world", in other words. Without that the advent of symbolic signs would be impossible.

If you are describing "what is," your description is based on reality. I am calling that reality, the one being described, a "law of nature." — Dfpolis

OK, so my point is, that if the thing being described is reality, then why not call that thing being described "reality" rather than "laws of reality"? And if the thing being described is nature, then why not call that thing "nature", rather than "laws of nature". To say that the thing being described is "laws of nature", rather than "nature", just because the descriptions are formulated as "laws", makes no sense.

This is not an argument about reality, but about what to call the aspect of reality effecting the continuing order. I am quire flexible on naming conventions. What name do you suggest/like? — Dfpolis

Since you seem to have lost track of my objection, replying to so many different people, allow me to refresh your memory.

Matter behaves in particular ways which are regular, orderly, and which we describe with laws, the laws of physics. I think we both agree on this. Where I disagree is when you jump to the conclusion that there are another type of "laws", "laws of nature", which are inherent within matter acting within matter, causing it to act in these regular, and orderly ways. I've been asking you to support this conclusion, or assumption, whatever you want to call it, but you've been beating around the bush.

Here's the reason why I do not agree with you. If there are such laws inherent within, and acting within, matter, then free will is impossible. Matter cannot act in any way other than the way determined by the laws of nature. Someone who adopts your position might appeal to some sort of compatibilism, but it is quite clear that there is no room for free will here, because matter cannot behave in any way other than what is determined and dictated by the laws of nature. This is contrary to the concept of free will, which allows that the human soul, and mind, has the power to move matter in the way that it wills. The will's capacity to move matter cannot be forcibly restricted by the matter itself (having laws inherent within), or else it would not be free. However, experience demonstrates to us that the will is in fact free from any confines of matter, as the constraints on the will are completely formal. So your position of laws acting from within matter must be rejected.

If instead, you want to continue with your position that there are real "laws of nature" acting in the universe, then you ought to place them outside of matter. These "laws of nature" would be not much different from Neo-Platonic Forms. They must be independent from matter though, because they are responsible for the very existence of matter. Have you ever considered that matter itself must have come into existence, and so there must be a cause of it? This would be the "Forms", or "laws of nature". They cannot be inherent within matter though, because the thing which inheres within is dependent on that thing within which it inheres for its existence. In the case of the relationship between the laws of nature, and matter, it seem quite likely that the existence of matter itself is dependent on the laws of nature, therefore the laws of nature are most likely independent of matter.

It would be best to research your sources before making claims. Let's read a bit of Newton's Principia. In the preface, he tells us "I had begun to consider the inequalities of the lunar motions, and had entered upon some other things relating to the laws and measures of gravity, ... and the figures that would be described by bodies attracted according to given laws..." [italics mine]. — Dfpolis

See, Newton is referring to "laws" as human constructs, like "measures".

Please! Where have I said any such thing? To say that there is a law of gravity is not to say gravity is unreal, but that gravity acts in a consistent way over space and time -- something essential to the practice of astrophysics. — Dfpolis

Now you are conflating descriptions with causes of action. Look what you wrote. "To say that there is a law of gravity is not to say gravity is unreal, but that gravity acts in a consistent way over space and time -- something essential to the practice of astrophysics." So, you say "gravity acts in a consistent way". Gravity is the thing which is acting. How can you replace "gravity" with "the law of gravity", or any "law", to say that it is the law which is acting rather than gravity which is acting? Either it is gravity which is acting, which is understood as a property of mass and energy, or it is a law which is acting. But the "law" here is only understood as a description of how gravity is acting, so it is impossible that the law, rather than gravity, is acting. The two are clearly quite different

Do you recognize the difference between descriptive laws and prescriptive laws? Descriptive laws, like the laws of physics, are just that, descriptions which are formulated as "laws". Prescriptive laws tell us, human beings, what we ought, and ought not do. Descriptive laws are not causative in the actions of matter. Prescriptive laws my influence the activities of the matter of the human body, through the means of the human mind, intention, and free choice. These laws are causative in the sense that they influence the way that we act with our bodies. However, there is a medium of free choice, free will, which exists between these prescriptive laws and the activities of the matter of the human body, caused by them.

You are proposing another type of causative laws, laws of nature. But the only model we have, of laws acting in a causative way on matter, is the one which has the medium of free choice between the acting law, and the actions caused by the law. Are you prepared to allow for a medium of free choice between your proposed acting "laws of nature", and the actions of matter which are caused by these laws?

the most basic quality of physicality, phenomenologically speaking, is extension. — Janus

That is arguable. What impressed the Greeks the most about nature (physis) is that it changes. Still, Aristotle might argue that change is only possible because natural bodies have parts outside of parts (are extended).

I would say that it is that but also much more than that, just as having a mind is much more than just being a subject. — Janus

Agreed.

At least, that is the way I am beginning to see it based on my reasonably fair familiarity with German Idealism and my admittedly scanty acquaintance with Scholastic thought. You seem to be making a similar point. — Janus

Yes, but my background is the reverse of yours -- I'm fairly well-versed in Platonic, Aristotelian and Augustinian and Scholastic thought, but have a sketchy knowledge of Kantian and post-Kantian European thought.

I find this passage intriguing, but I fear I am not familiar enough with the background against which you are making your suggestions to make any intelligent comment. — Janus

We're sailing in largely uncharted waters. So, I'd rely more on look-outs than charts.

I've mentioned a couple of problems. (1) In becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility, we have no idea at all of the neural matrix which encodes it. (2) Somehow we distinguish the object modifying our senses from the modification of our senses by the object -- even though both are encoded in a single neural representation.

The point is that the very idea of there being operations of symbolic signs, which rely entirely upon convention, entails that there is a shared world of experience; "our world", in other words. Without that the advent of symbolic signs would be impossible. — Janus

Exactly right. But that is the analytic view of how to understand experience.

You were talking about where epistemology has to start. And I would agree that it is with "brute unanalysed experience" experience ... whatever that then means from some subsequent properly derived, fully analysed, internalist understanding.

So the fact of semiosis would be what ensures a commonality of umwelts. To the extent we seem to understand each other via a common system of sign, we will be of the same mind, share the same experiential being. We can safely impute that of other beings.

And thus I know my cat has a mind to the extent that we can communicate. Likewise other humans. And conversely, not trees or rocks so much.

But what do we then say about "experience" itself, now looking back from a more informed semiotic viewpoint.

Well Peirce for one did try to say something, and even develop that explicitly as a triadic logic.

Do you have an actual argument? Can you point to an error of fact or reason here? Or does your entire critique rest on the claim that my position is "so funny," You are entitled to your sense of humor, I to my facts and analysis. — Dfpolis

You don't have to try to answer the challenge I've set for your position. If you can't see the incoherence of talking about the data of self-awareness when claiming to have got beyond dualism, it's not my problem.

Exactly right. But that is the analytic view of how to understand experience. — apokrisis

So, I'm saying that the shared experience of a common world is fundamental, which entails that there being others who experience as I do is not merely an inference from the subjectively experienced fact of my own experience, but the very condition of there being my own experience or a triadic sign relation.

On the basis of this I reject the idea that the self and the world are socially constructed fictions, although I do acknowledge that our ideas associated with self and world are evolutionary insofar as they are mediated by social contexts and interactions, as well as all the domains of human inquiry and artifice. There must also be something fundamental to human experience which is wordless and cannot be captured in terms of signs at all. I think this, among other things, of course, is what Peirce means by 'firstness'.

That is why I said earlier that "we the people" is as fundamental to, and implicit in all, human life as "we the baboons" is fundamental to, and implicit in all, baboon life (although in the latter case the idea obviously never becomes self-reflectively explicit, due to the baboons' lack of symbolic language).

So, as you ask, "what do we then say about "experience" itself, now looking back from a more informed semiotic viewpoint?".

Are you wanting to ask a kind of "chicken and egg" question? Do signs constitute experience in a kind of 'atomic' sense? Or does the holistic sign relation constitute experience? If anything I would have to say the latter, and that the evolution of the sign relation just is the evolution of experience. neither is prior to the other, in fact they are coterminous; the sign relation just is experience; although looked in the abstract as distinctly different things, they are each impossible without the other.

Although as said above I don't think this entails that everything about our experience can be adequately captured by any form of language, the closest would be its evocation by the arts. This leaves room for the mystical; although as I said to @Dfpolis in another thread, I don't think the mystical, or the apprehension (or prehension :wink: ) of pure being, can ever become a science, due to its inadequate potential for inter-subjective corroboration.

So, I'm saying that the shared experience of a common world is fundamental, — Janus

You mean "world", or unwelt? And so the noumenal - analytically - falls outside that phenomenology? It is the division that is fundamental, even if the division ain't usually experienced?

And also, it can only be fundamental in the sense of being fundamental to a particular level of semiosis, a particular community united by a common system of sign?

On the basis of this I reject the idea that the self and the world are socially constructed fictions, — Janus

Well, the self certainly is. A linguistic community is fundamental to the production of a linguistic self. And some kind of semiotic community is the shaper of any kind of selfhood.

These are in fact the consequences of your own first move - the one where you say the shared is what is fundamental. The self must emerge from that, if you are correct.

I of course make it easier by saying that co-emergent is in fact what is fundamental. It all begins with a symmetry-breaking or division. However you are taking the substantialist view that existence begins with something being already definite. You are calling that "experience" at the moment.

There must also be something fundamental to human experience which is wordless and cannot be captured in terms of signs at all. — Janus

Sure. But your problem is that we become human through language and its narrative framing. That is how we can even get to a position to wonder what "wordless experience" would be like. By which time it is too late. And it is only going to be make worse once you start using poetical social constructs about oceanic feelings, or whatever else you have picked up in your cultural wanderings and drugged states.

Are you wanting to ask a kind of "chicken and egg" question? Do signs constitute experience in a kind of 'atomic' sense? Or does the holistic sign relation constitute experience? If anything I would have to say the latter, and that the evolution of the sign relation just is the evolution of experience. neither is prior to the other, in fact they are coterminous; the sign relation just is experience; although looked in the abstract as distinctly different things, they are each impossible without the other. — Janus

Now you are talking of co-arising like me. There are atomistic and holistic aspects to it. And they complement each other because one constructs and the other constrains.

But you are still trying to ontologise experience as a substance of some kind. It is the thing that evolves.

My position is semiotic. Experience is what it is like to be modelling the world in the fashion a brain does. It doesn't need further explanation. We can just ask how could it not feel like something to be in that kind of modelling relation?

So the focus of the explanation is the "how" of the modelling relation itself. And this is analysed as the development of systematic and purposeful habits of interpretance based on the construction of "worlds of sign", or lived umwelts. The habits and the signs co-arise as two parts of the model - exactly in the way that theory and measurement have become the epistemically formalised basis of scientific semiotic models of the world.

Brains are already developing theories and taking measurements to generate your "brute experience". It is the same semiotic process. Just coded in genes and neurons, rather than words and numbers.

Although as said above I don't think this entails that everything about our experience can be adequately captured by any form of language, the closest would be its evocation by the arts. — Janus

Of course. Your argument has to reach your favoured conclusion. There is little point me commenting on that. Art is just straightforwardly the social construction of selfhood. That is not even disguised.

We know, as a contingent fact, that matter exhibits an orderly dynamics, which by analogy with human ordinances, we call "obeying laws." This does not imply either awareness or choice on the part of matter. Asking how the laws work is like asking what dynamics links the dynamic of a system to the system it is the dynamics of. That kind of question misunderstands what "dynamics" means. — Dfpolis

In so far as there are some quibbling and nitpicking going on in this thread, allow me to quibble in some napoleonic way. I would avoid using the word "orderly". Organized? Yes, as in quantized outcome. Yes, as in organized chaos. Nature could change, even abruptly -- so out goes your order. But we don't suppose nature could change without organization. Dynamics is organized activity, but not necessarily orderly.

(1) In becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility, we have no idea at all of the neural matrix which encodes it. — Dfpolis

I define awareness as a perceptive and cognisant condition.
So, rather than "becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility", I think it is more accurate to say that we:
1) Become aware of (perceive and know) sensations (physical data).
2) Form an idea (mental data) based on awareness, and
3) Categorise the idea (more mental data) through the faculty of understanding (a mental function).

Moreover, we are unaware of (don't perceive or know) "the neural matrix which encodes" physical and mental data.

You misunderstand me: I am saying that according to ordinary usage "the law of gravity" applies to both the human formulation, and to the natural force. In the latter one of its senses, 'the law of gravity' is synonymous with simply 'gravity', in other words; but the addition of "the law of" signifies that gravity is a universally acting force; in other words it is understood to be "law-like" or "lawful". — Janus

I think I understand you quite well. You seek to confuse a human invention - the 'law' of gravity - with an attribute of the universe - gravity. You also seek to understand the 'law' as the master or reference, and the universe as being governed by that law. You are wrong in every respect. Gravity is only "understood to be "law-like"" by those who fail to understand the difference between the two. Gravity is not law-like. Your law is gravity-like. It is a model or description of gravity. Gravity is. It doesn't do anything; it just is what it is, and cannot be anything other than what it is. Gravity is not conscious or intentional. It's gravity. And it is not governed by any law.

Gravity and the law of gravity are similar only in the sense that one is a model, a copy, of the other. There is no question as to which is the reference, despite your struggle to muddy the waters. Sorry.

It's gravity. And it is not governed by any law. — Pattern-chaser

You obviously do misunderstand since I haven't stated or even suggested that gravity is "governed by any law". If gravity is indeed omnipresent, then it simply is a law. If nature must always behave in a certain way, what do you think it is that determines that invariance? Is it forces?

If the forces always must behave the same way, then we can say the behaviour of the forces cannot be contravened, and this is what is meant by 'lawlike' or 'lawful'; and this is not necessarily to posit some other transcendental Principle that governs the forces. It is simply to say that force always acts according to a law.

There is a difference between acting according to a law, and being governed by a law in the sense of some extra governing principle. That's why I say gravity itself is the law. I hope I have dispelled your confusion.

If gravity is indeed omnipresent, then it simply is a law. — Janus

Omnipresent? Present everywhere? Who mentioned location? :chin:

A law is created by humans.

Gravity is a feature of the universe, and was not created by humans, it was discovered by them.

Gravity is not a law any more than a pulsar or a mushroom is a law.

You are trying to impose your beliefs upon reality. Good luck with that.

We're done for now. Happy trails!

OK, so my point is, that if the thing being described is reality, then why not call that thing being described "reality" rather than "laws of reality"? And if the thing being described is nature, then why not call that thing "nature", rather than "laws of nature". — Metaphysician Undercover

Because "reality" and "nature" are so general no one would know which aspects we are referring to.

To say that the thing being described is "laws of nature", rather than "nature", just because the descriptions are formulated as "laws", makes no sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, the primary use of "law" in this context, (going back to Jeremiah) is to name the regularity of nature. It's derivative application (by an analogy of attribution) is to human approximate descriptions of the laws of nature. The underlying analogy is that as civil laws order social behavior, so laws of nature order natural behavior (an analogy of proportionality).

Matter behaves in particular ways which are regular, orderly, and which we describe with laws, the laws of physics. I think we both agree on this. Where I disagree is when you jump to the conclusion that there are another type of "laws", "laws of nature", which are inherent within matter acting within matter, causing it to act in these regular, and orderly ways. I've been asking you to support this conclusion, or assumption, whatever you want to call it, but you've been beating around the bush. — Metaphysician Undercover

When you say that "Matter behaves in particular ways which are regular," you are admitting the existence of laws of nature -- unless you go on to say that the observed regularity is purely fortuitous. So, are you saying that the regularity is purely fortuitous, occurring for no reason, or are you saying that there is some aspect of nature that makes it so? I am saying the latter.

"Laws of nature" does not name substantial things. It names the aspects of reality you are describing as regularity in behavior. So, there is no need for me to justify more than you have admitted in your first sentence above. Let me state it in the form of an identity: Laws causing the regularity of nature is identical with the regularity of nature being caused by laws. In other words, if nature is reliably orderly, whatever the explanation of that reliable order is, I am calling it "the laws of nature."

Here's the reason why I do not agree with you. If there are such laws inherent within, and acting within, matter, then free will is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wish you'd said this earlier. When I started this discussion, I pointed out that the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science prescinds from the consideration of the knowing subject. The knowing subject is also the willing subject. So, when I am discussing the laws of physics and the laws of nature they describe, I'm not discussing reality in all of its complexity, but only the aspects of reality delimited by the Fundamental Abstraction -- which does not have the data to justify conclusions on knowing and willing -- on subjective awareness and freedom.

To forget the self-imposed limitations of natural science is to commit Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We cannot assume that a science adequate to the physical world in abstraction from the knowing and willing subject is adequate to dealing with subjects knowing and willing. I began turning my attention to this yesterday in an exchange with Janus beginning with:

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

So, to respond to your objection, if the universal laws of nature, as described by physics, fully determined the actions of knowing subjects, then yes, free will would be of no avail. But, we have no reason to think that the laws, as described by physics, apply to more than the abstract world physicists have chosen to study. Specifically, we have no reason to think that these laws fully determine the actions of subjects, given that natural science has chosen, ab initio, to exclude subjects as such from its consideration.

As I discussed in more detail with Janus (and in even greater detail in my book), since both the laws of nature and human commitments are intentional (species of logical propagator), it is reasonable to ask whether human intentions might not perturb (modify) the "universal" laws of nature. Experiments provide us with statistical certitude that human intentions do perturb the so-called universal laws. So, we have every reason to believe that human actions are not fully determined by the "universal" laws of nature.

If instead, you want to continue with your position that there are real "laws of nature" acting in the universe, then you ought to place them outside of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

Clearly, the laws of mature must act immanently to order natural processes.

I have not suggested here that the intentional nature of the laws points to an ordering Mind (as Aquinas does in his fifth way, and I do in my book). As I have said before, I do not want to side-track the conversation by bringing up the contentious issue of the existence of God. Still, to make my position clear to you, I agree with Jeremiah in seeing the laws of nature as divine ordinances. So, theologically, we can say, with Aquinas, that "man, by reason, participates in Divine Providence." In other words, that we are granted the power to be co-creators so that our will, combined with the Divine Will, controls the course of nature. In this projection, the "universal" laws of nature are God's general will for matter and we are granted the limited power to add further specificity by making willed commitments.

I hope that this clarifies my position for you.

i have no problem with your formulation. Mine attempts to accommodate a neuroscientific approach to mind as much as possible.

Fair enough.

(2) Somehow we distinguish the object modifying our senses from the modification of our senses by the object -- even though both are encoded in a single neural representation. — Dfpolis

I would say that phenomena (physical actualities) are perceived, not encoded in neural representations.
Perception being the experience caused by sensation (sense function).
Sense being the reception and transduction of exogenous and/or endogenous stimuli, resulting in environmental perception (exteroception) or corporeal perception (interoception).

Therefore, what "modifies" our senses are physical stimuli originating from the environment, or from our own body.

I think communication is a good analogy for the process which connects phenomena to awareness.

In Shannon's Mathematical (Quantitative) Theory of (Data) Communication, it is data which is encoded, transmitted, conveyed, received, and decoded. Information (defined as a measure of improbability) is the result.

This clearly provides an incomplete definition of information (for example, not addressing the semantics inherent in human communication), but I find the framework of communication it presents to be useful.

Following Floridi, I prefer to define information in more general terms of data, which, in addition to mathematical information, applies to semantic, physical, and biological information (among other types).

Noting that Floridi's description of data bears similarities to Merleau-Ponty's concept of form, I consider the two terms to be synonymous, referring to asymmetries.

So,
1) Information becomes: communicated data (form), and
2) A process of physical communication provides a connection between phenomena and awareness.

For example, in seeing an apple:
1) Apple colour and shape are encoded into reflected light.
2) Reflected light is transmitted from the apple surface,
3) Conveyed through a transmission medium (e.g., air) capable of propagating energy waves,
4) Received by an eye (Sensory Stimulation),
5) Encoded into a neural signal (Sensory Transduction),
6) Transmitted to the brain (Neurotransmission),
7) Received and decoded by the brain (Sensory Processing),
8) Received and decoded by the mind (Perception & Cognition).

Mental representation happens at step 8. I have no idea what a neural representation is.

In talking about the logical order, I'm discussing information. Information is the reduction of (logical) possibility and results from the actualization of intelligibility. Both physical and intentional states have an intelligibility that is prior to our knowledge of them. — Dfpolis

While information properly speaking belongs to the logical order, a state's intelligibility, as a source of information, may be called "information" by an analogy of attribution -- just as we say food is "heathy" not because it's alive and well, but because it contributes to health. — Dfpolis

So, I'm using "logical" to refer to the information (intelligibility) specifying a state, whether that state be physical or intentional. "Logical Propagators" in nature, then, transform the intelligibility of one state into that of another. — Dfpolis

For my cognitive psychology project, I have found it very useful to maintain a physical/mental distinction in conceptual analysis (as the above example demonstrates).

That is why I would prefer to describe intentionality/logical propagation in general terms which can apply to both physical and semantic information, not exclusively in terms of the latter.

The underlying analogy is that as civil laws order social behavior, so laws of nature order natural behavior — Dfpolis

No, the analogy is that, as civil laws order behaviour, natural behaviour orders human laws. :up:

When you say that "Matter behaves in particular ways which are regular," you are admitting the existence of laws of nature -- unless you go on to say that the observed regularity is purely fortuitous. — Dfpolis

No, there is no admission of laws, and no fortuity either. Nature doesn't need either. It just is, and it does what it does without the need for any sort of support or guidance. No laws. No luck. Just reality, being real.

Laws causing the regularity of nature is identical with the regularity of nature being caused by laws. — Dfpolis

No it isn't. In one case, the laws are the master and nature follows them; in the other, nature is the master, and the laws follow it. The latter is the truth. The former is sciencist dogma, and wrong. As you have phrased it, it's the difference between cause and effect; they aren't interchangeable, as you seem to think they are.

(2) Somehow we distinguish the object modifying our senses from the modification of our senses by the object -- even though both are encoded in a single neural representation. — Dfpolis

I would say that phenomena (physical actualities) are perceived, not encoded in neural representations.
Perception being the experience caused by sensation (sense function). — Galuchat

I like to project reality into different conceptual spaces -- to think about the same thing from different perspectives. I think doing so, and comparing the resulting "pictures," helps me understand an issue more fully. Often features that are prominent in one projection are missing in another. Trying to understand why this is so allows us to critique the alternate approaches. On the other hand, features common to different conceptual schemes are understood with greater depth.

Thus, I have no problem saying that we perceive physical reality (actualities), but I find it helpful to look at perception from from a neurophysical perspective as well. I third useful projection is semiotic, recognizing that neural states considered as instrumental signs are very different from concepts, which are formal signs. (A perspective gleaned from Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic: A logic based on philosophical realism.)

The problem I am discussing in (2) comes from reflecting on an observation of neurophysiologist Anthony Damasio that our knowledge of the external world started as neural representations of body state and evolved into representations of the external world as the source of changes in our body state:

... to ensure body survival as effectively as possible, nature, I suggest, stumbled on a highly effective solution: representing the outside world in terms of the modifications it causes in the body proper, that is representing the environment by modifying the primordial representations of the body proper whenever an interaction between organism and environment takes place. — Damasio, Descartes‘ Error, p. 230.

Now, for an animal merely processing data to generate adaptive responses, it makes no difference whether a neural state is conceived (by us) as representing a body state or a world state -- as an exteroception or interoception in your terminology. All that is required is that certain types of neural inputs generate corresponding adaptive outputs.

But for humans, with our powers of abstraction and conceptual representation, there is a world of difference between exteroception and interoception. Think of seeing an apple. The image projected on our retina results in a pattern of rod and cone activation that modifies our neural state. There is no difference between the neural state that would inform us of this pattern of rod and cone activation (and so be an interoception) and the neural state that would inform us of an apple being seen (and so an exteroception). Yet, when we see an apple, we become aware of the apple and not of our retinal state. How is this possible?

As I pointed out this distinction has no survival value, and so it is how to see how it could be selected by evolution. Further, there is no difference in the brain state encoding the exteroception and the interoception, so there can be no physical basis for the distinction. It is as if our intentionality, our interest in the apple rather than in our retina, is determinative of what we become aware of.

Of course, there is nothing mysterious about this when we think about seeing apples in the conceptual space of traditional epistemology or psychology. There, we have sensations and, in some cases, become aware of them -- perhaps abstracting concepts. What is problematic is how to integrate this projection of perception and ideogenesis with our neurophysical understanding of sensation.

I find the framework of communication it presents to be useful. — Galuchat

I agree both with the usefulness of the information theoretic framework and with the need to supplement it with semiotic considerations.

Thank you for the reference to Floridi's article. I confess complete ignorance of Merleau-Ponty.

1) Information becomes: communicated data (form), and
2) A process of physical communication provides a connection between phenomena and awareness. — Galuchat

I have no problem with this schema and only one problem with the example:

7) Received and decoded by the brain (Sensory Processing), — Galuchat

I have no idea what it means for the brain to "decode" the neural signal. It surely processes neural signals, but what difference can there be processing in which one form of neural signal is input and another form output, and "decoding" when the output is simple a neural signal?

A nitpicking objection is that I see the brain, with its data processing capabilities, as the information processing subsystem of the mind with awareness (the agent intellect) as part of another, intentional subsystem. So I would state (8) in a slightly different way, saying that the intelligible information carried by the neural signal is actualized by our awareness (aka the agent intellect).

I have no idea what a neural representation is. — Galuchat

A neural representation is a modification to our neural state that encodes information in the same way that an E-M signal carries a representation of transmitted information.

For my cognitive psychology project, I have found it very useful to maintain a physical/mental distinction in conceptual analysis — Galuchat

I agree. I suggest you look at John of St. Thomas' distinction between Instrumental and formal signs, which is quite useful in articulating this. I got it from Veatch and discuss it in my book. The most convenient place to see it is in my video "#25 Mind: Ideas vs. Brain States" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMiQKYCEj14). Failing to make this distinction can lead to considerable confusion.

It just is, and it does what it does without the need for any sort of support or guidance. No laws. No luck. Just reality, being real — Pattern-chaser

Of course, it is metaphysically impossible for nature to "just be" without a concomitant cause..

Why? Because an infallible sign of existence is the ability to act. If there is an action, then, necessarily, there is something acting. Nature changes, and its future states of nature are not actual in its present state. They are merely potential. As future states are not actual or operational, they cannot operate to make themselves actual; nonetheless, they are actualized, which is an action. So they need something else, something actual or operational to make them actual -- namely an operational cause.

Laws causing the regularity of nature is identical with the regularity of nature being caused by laws. — Dfpolis

No it isn't — Pattern-chaser

Of course it is. If A is doing B, necessarily, B is being done by A. There is no question here of master and disciple, only of different ways of stating the same reality.

cause and effect; they aren't interchangeable, as you seem to think they are. — Pattern-chaser

I do not think cause and effect are the same. Causes operate to actualize. Effects are operated upon to be actualized.

Yet, when we see an apple, we become aware of the apple and not of our retinal state. How is this possible?

As I pointed out this distinction has no survival value, and so it is how to see how it could be selected by evolution.

There is survival value to perceiving the world as it actually is (or at least a functionally accurate representation of it), since we have to interact with it to survive. What am I missing?

There is survival value to perceiving the world as it actually is (or at least a functionally accurate representation of it), since we have to interact with it to survive. What am I missing — Relativist

There is survival value in generating an "appropriate response." Whether you're moving in the right way in response to data on your internal state or on the state of the world makes no difference to survival.

Some forms of life went down that path (e.g. cockroaches), but that does't seem nearly as flexible as the sort of perception primates, and especially humans, have. It enables us to adapt to changing conditions.

The underlying analogy is that as civil laws order social behavior, so laws of nature order natural behavior (an analogy of proportionality). — Dfpolis

OK, so the question is, will you adhere to the analogy? As civil laws order social behaviour through the means of the free will choices of human beings, do you assume that the laws of nature order natural behaviour through the free will choices of matter? If not, then you have no analogy. If so, I would object on the basis that matter has no soul and no free will to make such choices.

So, to respond to your objection, if the universal laws of nature, as described by physics, fully determined the actions of knowing subjects, then yes, free will would be of no avail. But, we have no reason to think that the laws, as described by physics, apply to more than the abstract world physicists have chosen to study. Specifically, we have no reason to think that these laws fully determine the actions of subjects, given that natural science has chosen, ab initio, to exclude subjects as such from its consideration. — Dfpolis

What physicists choose to study is irrelevant, because the laws of nature, as you have described them are independent of what physicists study. The point is, that either matter is bound and determined to follow the laws of nature, as you claim, in which case there can be no free will, or matter is not determined by the laws of nature, in which case free will is possible. If the laws of nature inhere within matter as you have stated, acting to cause the activities of matter in this way, then it's irrelevant whether these laws are known to scientists or not, matter is still determined by them, and the human body being composed of matter is thus determined by the laws of nature. it is impossible that matter could behave in a way other than what is determined by these laws, and free will is impossible.

I wish you'd said this earlier. When I started this discussion, I pointed out that the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science prescinds from the consideration of the knowing subject. The knowing subject is also the willing subject. So, when I am discussing the laws of physics and the laws of nature they describe, I'm not discussing reality in all of its complexity, but only the aspects of reality delimited by the Fundamental Abstraction -- which does not have the data to justify conclusions on knowing and willing -- on subjective awareness and freedom.

To forget the self-imposed limitations of natural science is to commit Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We cannot assume that a science adequate to the physical world in abstraction from the knowing and willing subject is adequate to dealing with subjects knowing and willing. I began turning my attention to this yesterday in an exchange with Janus beginning with: — Dfpolis

Again, this is irrelevant, and you are only trying to create the illusion of free will. Either the activities of matter are determined by the laws of nature, or they are not, regardless of what the laws of physics say. To imply that there could be an undiscovered law of nature which allows for free will is to state a deception intended to give an illusion that free will is possible under your assumptions. However, this undiscovered law of nature would have to allow that the activity of matter is not determined by the laws of nature. And this is contradictory to your fundamental principle which holds that the laws of nature inhere within matter and therefore the activities of matter is determined by the laws of nature. The "undiscovered law" would have to be exactly contrary to your stated first principle. So it is deception, because you imply that your fundamental principle could actually allow for free will, but it would only allow for free will if there is an undiscovered natural law which contradicts your fundamental principle.

As I discussed in more detail with Janus (and in even greater detail in my book), since both the laws of nature and human commitments are intentional (species of logical propagator), it is reasonable to ask whether human intentions might not perturb (modify) the "universal" laws of nature. Experiments provide us with statistical certitude that human intentions do perturb the so-called universal laws. So, we have every reason to believe that human actions are not fully determined by the "universal" laws of nature. — Dfpolis

No, I think it's impossible that human actions are not fully determined by the laws of nature, or that human actions could modify the laws of nature, if the laws of nature inhere within matter. A human action is an action of a material body. If a human being could act in a way which is inconsistent with the laws of nature, this would indicate that the laws of nature are not inherent within the matter of the human body, causing the activities of that matter. So it must be one or the other. What you propose would be contradictory.

Clearly, the laws of mature must act immanently to order natural processes. — Dfpolis

I would like to know how you base this assumption that the laws of nature must act immanently. Traditionally, there is a duality between what you call "the laws of nature" (immaterial Forms), and material forms, (physical things). The Forms act to order natural processes because they are prior in time to these material processes, as God is prior to nature, being the creator. It is only when one decides to abandon this dualism that it becomes necessary to say that the laws of nature act immanently, in order to account for the fact that matter behaves in an orderly way.

However, this move to materialism leaves intentionality unintelligible. It denies the possibility of free choice which is essential to intentionality. Without a separation between matter and that which causes matter to behave the way that it does (Forms, or laws of nature), there is no room for possibility. Matter must behave the way that it does because it has no choice as to which laws it will follow, if the laws inhere within it.

But the question is on what physical basis can we draw the distinction?

A law is created by humans. — Pattern-chaser

It really is nothing more than a matter of different interpretations of the ambit of a term. I really don't care if you disagree with my interpretation, and I have no investment in trying to convince you of anything; I've just been trying to explain to you how i see it. We'll have to just agree to disagree now since it seems to be bugging you.