i hate predestination but what you said is why scientific determinism (the concept) was developed around the turn of 19th century (early 1800s). When the whole universe is connected in different ways (gravitiation pull), light traveling in vacuums as well as through material, chemical and biological interactions, dna and brain structure, and so on, it is very hard sometimes to actually believe we have complete or any control over our life. A great book to read is "a brief history of time" by stephen hawkings.

Correct !
"Things" require thingers to thing them !
The apparent persistence and independence of 'things' is promoted by the abstract persistence and independence of the words we use to conceptualise aspects of what we call 'the world'.

I think what you're saying is closely linked to the "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" idea. I think there's a parallel in Buddhist thought called interdependence which, if I understand correctly, basically claims there is no real or unchanging essence to things, including our selves. Perhaps that's where they (the Buddhists) get their idea of non-self.

To some degree I agree with the whole interdependence concept. After all, a common example in Buddhism being a chair, the chair is the conjunction of wood, iron nails, cloth, leather etc. Remove one of these elements and the chair disappears.

Interedependence seems to be a fundamental concept, applicable to much of reality, for where is that one single entity that can claim to have independent existence?

What is worth mentioning is science is an attempt to find the fundamental - the basis of all our reality. With this aim scientists have built bigger and bigger machines (Hadron colliders) in order to get to the basic stuff that matter is made up of - those which they suppose exist independently. However, even at that level we may discover that the building blocks of the universe exist in relation to one another and don't have any independent existence.

This awareness of the universe as consisting of entities is a phase I believe we are in the process of evolving away from - and towards an awareness of the universe as a network of interdependent processes.

From ‘The Order of Time’:

If the world were, however, made of things, what would these things be? The atoms, which we have discovered to be made up in turn of smaller particles? The elementary particles, which, as we have discovered, are nothing other than the ephemeral agitations of a field? The quantum fields, which we have found to be little more than codes of language with which to speak of interactions and events? We cannot think of the physical world as if it were made of things, of entities. It simply doesn’t work.

What works instead is thinking about the world as a network of events. Simple events, and more complex events that can be disassembled into combinations of simpler ones. A few examples: a war is not a thing, it’s a sequence of events. A storm is not a thing, it’s a collection of occurrences. A cloud above a mountain is not a thing, it is the condensation of humidity in the air that the wind blows over the mountain. A wave is not a thing, it is a movement of water, and the water that forms it is always different. A family is not a thing, it is a collection of relations, occurrences, feelings. And a human being? Of course it’s not a thing; like the cloud above the mountain, it’s a complex process which food, information, light, words and so on enter and exit...a knot of knots in a network of social relations, in a network of chemical processes, in a network of emotions exchanged with its own kind. — Carlo Rovelli

I agree with your general thrust. However, the interaction of things does not in and of itself define whether they are "independent." And that is especially true when one contrasts independent with dependent. I may well interact with my television remote, but that does not make me dependent upon my television remote. And I could choose to never interact with it be independent of it.

"Independent" doesn't imply "incorrigibly isolated and not capable of interaction."

So arguing against those notions amounts to arguing against a straw man.

"Things" require thingers to thing them !
The apparent persistence and independence of 'things' is promoted by the abstract persistence and independence of the words we use to conceptualise aspects of what we call 'the world'. — fresco

I agree!

Also the idea that we belong to a world independent from us seems self-defeating, because our thoughts belong to that world, so what we think about that world is influenced by that world in some unknown way, we don't think about it from an independent outside vantage point, so we think about a world but we don't think about the supposed independent world that we belong to, so we don't know anything about it, and so we can't know that we belong to one.

I agree with your general thrust. However, the interaction of things does not in and of itself define whether they are "independent." And that is especially true when one contrasts independent with dependent. I may well interact with my television remote, but that does not make me dependent upon my television remote. And I could choose to never interact with it be independent of it. — Arne

You are not independent from it if you see it, or if you think about it, interaction doesn't reduce to the feeling of touch. What about a remote that you've never seen and never thought about? People somewhere designed it, others built it, others use it, which influences what they do, what they think about, which influences what others do and think about, which influences the world, which ends up having an influence on you.

"Independent" doesn't imply "incorrigibly isolated and not capable of interaction." — Terrapin Station

Dictionary definition of independent: "not influenced or controlled in any way by other people, events, or things"

So a rock is not an independent thing.

Dictionary definition of independent: "not influenced or controlled in any way by other people, events, or things" — leo

"Not influenced or controlled in any way" there doesn't mean, for example, that independent things do not interact per the laws of physics. You're reading it Aspie-like so that it's suggesting that to you (as what the words "literally mean"). That's not the idea.

That particular definition is more in the vein of an "independent person" (hence "other people"), where it's trying to get across the notion of someone "ultimately thinking for themselves."

It should be obvious to you that "independent" isn't referring to "not influenced or controlled in any way" per the laws of physics, for example, because then there would obviously not be any independent thing. No one believes that there are objects that can't have forces applied to them by other objects, or that people can't pick up and use pencils or anything like that. Yet they use the word "independent." So obviously they're not saying the "literal" reading you're introducing. ("Literal" is in quotation marks there because the whole notion of a "literal" reading is actually interpretational.)

So then it appears that the very concept of independent thing is flawed. — leo

As independent things is the simple way of looking at the world. And there is much empirical support for this. We see things as distinct from each other, and we can take these distinct things and move them in different directions, separate them and do different things with them. There is good empirical evidence to suggest that things really are distinct from each.

When we talk about these distinct things interacting with each other, this is based in observations of past interactions, and the possibility of future interactions. We do not observe that all things are necessarily interacting with each other, but we have seen interactions, and we propose that there is the possibility for all things to interact. So your conclusion "it's all an interacting whole", isn't quite right, because all interacting is just a possibility.

To designate what we see of reality as "a whole", requires a unifying principle. We do not see this unifying principle, and there is no empirical evidence for it, because it is the "possibility" of interaction. So to reify your whole, we need to validate this "possibility". In the past, this was accomplished through the concept of "time". The entire visible universe was assumed to share the very same present, "now". This was the principle by which the universe was assumed to by a unity, one whole. "Possibility" was validated by the division between future and past, created by the present. Modern principles of physics have removed the reality of the present, "now", thereby dismissing the principle which provided for the unity of "the universe". Speculators now attempt to re-establish a principle of unity in various ways, like a theory of everything.

"independent" isn't referring to "not influenced or controlled in any way" per the laws of physics, for example, because then there would obviously not be any independent thing. — Terrapin Station

That's how I choose to use the word "independent" in this context, several others have understood it, are we arguing over semantics again?

Call it however you want, my point is nothing interacts with nothing, rather a thing interacts with other things which themselves interact with other things and so on, so there is an interacting whole, and so if instead of considering the whole we single out a thing, and model how it appears to interact with some other things, and then say that the whole is governed by these interactions, then we're not actually modeling the whole, we're modeling a world we made up that matches the whole in some limited ways but not at all in some other ways, we're missing essential parts of the whole, and that's the issue I'm pointing out, fundamental physics does not model our world, it models a world physicists made up.

But the issue goes beyond fundamental physics, as soon as we generalize apparent interactions between some things to the whole world, we're not modeling the world. A rock is not just some thing lying there on the ground, the interaction between the rock and some being can provoke thoughts, perception, feeling, imagination, depending on the rock's position relative to the rest of the world, and depending on how the being relates to the rest of the world, there is much more there than an independent thing. And if you fail to take the whole into account, and just see a rock as a shape/color/density/composition, you're missing a lot of the picture, you're not seeing how it is connected to everything else.

However if you start looking at how thoughts/perception/feeling/imagination are connected with everything else, you might start noticing that they are not just influenced by everything else, they also influence it. And that's the essential part that you miss when you look at individual things as if they had independent existence, as if they were disconnected from the whole we belong to.

nothing interacts with nothing, rather a thing interacts with other things which themselves interact with other things and so on, — leo

And who claims that anything interacts with nothing?

And who claims that anything interacts with nothing? — Terrapin Station

I didn't claim someone did. Relevant quote:

You're reading it Aspie-like so that it's suggesting that to you. That's not the idea. — Terrapin Station

It would be nice if you took the habit of clarifying the point you want to make, rather than letting your interlocutors attempt to guess it through your isolated questions. Personally I don't like discussions going that way, and I have noticed others who don't either. I used to think you were a man of few words, but then you lectured me extensively above on how you didn't like my use of the word "independent", so I'm thinking you can do better than single-question posts to make your point clearer. You seemed to suggest in your first post that my use of the word "independent" led to a straw man, it would be nice if you could clarify that, because I don't want to make another detailed reply only to be met with another short question that ignores the substance of what I develop.

That being said, to address what I think you're going to suggest next (I could be wrong about that since I'm just guessing what your point is), many people see the world as being made of things, take out all humans and the Earth is still there, take out everything except a rock and the rock is still there, take out everything except one atom and that atom is still there, take out everything except an electron and that electron is still there, with its properties of charge and mass, things would still exist the way they do, the laws of the universe would remain the same, and so on. I explained why I see that view as mistaken. A related view I see as mistaken is the idea that we can predict the far future of the universe from the laws of physics we use, because again these "laws" are missing something essential about the whole.

You are not independent from it if you see it, or if you think about it, interaction doesn't reduce to the feeling of touch. What about a remote that you've never seen and never thought about? People somewhere designed it, others built it, others use it, which influences what they do, what they think about, which influences what others do and think about, which influences the world, which ends up having an influence on you. — leo

You seem to be suggesting that independent and interaction and influence and perception are all somehow synonymous. And again, you seem to be suggesting that there is no connection between the notions of dependent and independent. I would hate to think that I am dependent upon something just because I perceive it. You are essentially draining the concept of any useful meaning.
.

I didn't claim someone did. Relevant quote: — leo

If no one is claiming that there's anything that interacts with nothing, then why would we not only point out that it's not the case that there isn't anything that interacts with nothing, but essentially start a thread arguing against the idea?'

In other words, it's like saying, "Here's something that no one proposes: 'Blue things are what create black holes.' So let me point out that blue things are not what create black holes. In fact, let me start a thread arguing against the notion that blue things are what create black holes."

If no one is claiming that there's anything that interacts with nothing, then why would we not only point out that it's not the case that there isn't anything that interacts with nothing, but essentially start a thread arguing against the idea?' — Terrapin Station

You misunderstand my point. People don't claim that anything interacts with nothing, they claim that there are things that do not interact with some other things, that's what I'm arguing against.

If we say that two things exist independently, we're saying that one can exist without the other, in other words they do not necessarily interact. I disagree that such independence exists.

Assume there is an objective reality and you belong to it. You do not see things as they are independently from you, you're involved in the act of observation, a perception results from an interaction between a thing and you. Your perception of a rock requires you and a thing to be there. Your perception of a rock is not the thing, it is your perception of the thing. You never see independent things, as in things existing independently of you.

But even if you believe that you do see independent things, that your perception of them somehow doesn't depend on you, when you model that world you realize that these things interact with one another and with you. So there is no independence here, if one thing stops existing it has an influence on everything else, and so the everything else is not what it was before, it has stopped existing, it has changed into something else.

Which is why I say that everything is interdependent, if you remove something from the whole everything changes, the whole is not the sum of its parts, because these parts all influence one another.

And so modeling a part of the whole and generalizing it to the whole is not modeling the whole, it is modeling something else, it is missing something essential. The current laws of physics model a part of the whole, their validity does not extend to the whole. They can't be used to say what happens to our mind when we die or how the whole will be in the future (cosmologists talk of the heat death of the universe as if their laws applied to the whole).

Another implication is that since our minds belong to the whole, then they have an influence on it. Our thoughts, perception, imagination have an influence on the whole, they are not only influenced by it, and they do not abide to the laws of physics.

I would hate to think that I am dependent upon something just because I perceive it — Arne

How else could it be? Do you see yourself as unchanging within a changing world? You depend on the thing because it changes you.

You misunderstand my point. People don't claim that anything interacts with nothing, they claim that there are things that do not interact with some other things, that's what I'm arguing against.

If we say that two things exist independently, we're saying that one can exist without the other, in other words they do not necessarily interact. I disagree that such independence exists. — leo

So you think that everything interacts with everything else.

Does a pencil on someone's desk in Japan necessarily interact with a glass in my cupboard in New York?

If we say that two things exist independently, we're saying that one can exist without the other, in other words they do not necessarily interact. I disagree that such independence exists. — leo

Well then, I also can't disagree more, one thing is to claim that there's nothing independent to the world at large, no part independent in relation to the whole, but you seem to claim that one is dependent on all others, what would be the basis for that?

if one thing stops existing it has an influence on everything else — leo

This is way too vague. It can be said that a thing's disapperance would eventually have ramifications for everything else, but only if the world doesn't end before that could happen.

Which is why I say that everything is interdependent, if you remove something from the whole everything changes, the whole is not the sum of its parts, because these parts all influence one another. — leo

Again, you have to prove that there's a web that links everything to justify this instant communication and impact in-between all things of yours.

So then it appears that the very concept of independent thing is flawed. There is not independent thing A and independent thing B interacting with one another, rather "thing A and thing B" is a thing in itself, but even that thing is not independent because it interacts with other things, and then it appears that everything is interdependent, including ourselves with everything else, it's all an interacting whole, and if we abstract things out from that whole then we're artificially introducing a separation in our minds, we're separating the whole from its essence, if we cut the whole into independent things and we amalgamate these things we're not getting the whole back, we're getting something else. — leo

A group of things is not itself a thing.

So you think that everything interacts with everything else.

That would be Mach's Principle. It's a compelling view.

Things enjoy discrete identity within specific spatio-temporal contexts and scales. Radically change the context of evaluation and the parameters of thinghood also change. A thing, like a piston, becomes part of a process (reciprocating dynamism of energy-delivery) when the context shifts from building an engine to driving a car.

How would you say that a pencil on someone's desk in Japan interacts with a glass in my cupboard in New York?

How would you say that an arbitrary neutrino in the vicinity of Japan interacts with my glass?

I wouldn't necessarily, just noting that was essentially Mach's principle.

In a more abstract sense, however, things always exist in contexts, and contexts continually change and evolve. It is possible that pencil in Japan could be picked up by someone flying to New York, and end up in a glass in your cupboard. A forced example, to be sure. In the real world, contexts evolve and hitherto unrelated things are discovered to be related. Quantum entanglement. Synchronicity. Physics is constantly striving towards unifying disparate realms of forces.

Call it however you want, my point is nothing interacts with nothing, rather a thing interacts with other things which themselves interact with other things and so on, so there is an interacting whole, and so if instead of considering the whole we single out a thing, and model how it appears to interact with some other things, and then say that the whole is governed by these interactions, then we're not actually modeling the whole, we're modeling a world we made up that matches the whole in some limited ways but not at all in some other ways, we're missing essential parts of the whole, and that's the issue I'm pointing out, fundamental physics does not model our world, it models a world physicists made up. — leo

You haven't justified your assumption of a "whole". Just because things interact doesn't mean that there is a whole. You proceed from the observation that things interact, to the conclusion that there is a whole. But why, what makes you believe in a whole? Isn't the "whole" just the concept of "independent thing" transposed, to include all other things as parts of that thing? So the assumption of a "whole" is just the disguised assumption of an independent thing, which is what you were trying to get away from in the first place. Dismissing "independent thing" for "whole" does nothing for you because a whole is necessarily an independent thing.

So you think that everything interacts with everything else.

Does a pencil on someone's desk in Japan necessarily interact with a glass in my cupboard in New York? — Terrapin Station

You frame your question in a way you're already implicitly assuming that there is such a thing as a pencil having independent existence and a glass having independent existence.

With that assumption sure, if suddenly everyone dies and the glass gets swallowed in a volcano then it hasn't had a chance to interact with the pencil.

This whole thread is about seeing how that assumption is not warranted, so if you are not willing to tentatively let go of this assumption this discussion with you won't lead anywhere.


In another attempt to clarify, there are many people like you who believe that many things exist independently of minds. They wouldn't say for instance that a pencil in Japan interacts with a glass in New York, but they would say that the pencil interacts with the desk it is on, with air molecules to some extent, photons that reach it and so on, they do say that things interact with their surroundings. And that these surroundings interact with their surroundings and so on. In that view it could be that the glass and the pencil cease to exist before their influence reaches the other, however the glass and the pencil wouldn't have popped out of existence, they would have changed or dispersed into something else, into some other shape or some other dispersed molecules, and those would be influenced by what was previously the glass and the pencil.

But then even though the pencil is influenced by its immediate surroundings, its immediate surroundings have been influenced by their surroundings which were influenced by their surroundings and so on, so if we say that the pencil is only influenced by its immediate surroundings we're missing a big part of the picture: the pencil is influenced by what has occurred before, even far away. In that sense, when you say things such as the existence of a rock doesn't depend on us, that it will keep existing independently of us after we die, I don't agree, what exists and how it exists will depend on what we did. Same goes with all the other things, and so everything is interconnected, not through the present but through the past.

So I don't see that pencil and that glass as having independent existences, they are there as a result of chains of events that depended on one another, that particular glass could not exist without that particular pencil also existing. They don't interact in a physical sense or in the sense instantaneous action at a distance, but in the sense that one couldn't exist the way it does now without the other existing the way it does now, they are connected in that way. The world is not a sum of independent existences.

This is just one part of my point, but apparently this required clarification. Hopefully you can make some effort to try to understand the rest, that is if you care at all about my point of view, otherwise I'm not gonna keep making long replies to clarify everything that you misinterpret. Words can be interpreted in various ways, but if you interpret too many words differently than I do we'll just keep talking past each other, any attempt at clarification will use words that you interpret differently and we'll never get to the point that you see what I mean.

So the assumption of a 'whole" is just the disguised assumption of an independent thing, which is what you were trying to get away from in the first place. Dismissing "independent thing" for "whole" does nothing for you because a whole is necessarily an independent thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

The whole is the interdependent things, there is no sense in saying that these interdependent things are independent, independent from what?

Do you believe everything is mind dependent?

The whole is the interdependent things, there is no sense in saying that these interdependent things are independent, independent from what? — leo

Doesn't "whole", as a complete unity, signify to you, an independent thing?

I follow what you’re saying here, and I agree with what I think you’re trying to convey - but I think the quibbles about the meanings of words here are valid.

It’s difficult to get past this idea of ‘independent things’ while referring to them in relation to this concept of the ‘whole’. When we refer to a concept, it’s really just a set of correlations in relation to that set. But when we refer to a thing, we do so without reference to its various correlations, either internal or external to the set.

Things and concepts therefore exist in different dimensions of awareness - they can interact (we can talk about them together) through abstract thought and language, but in order to do that effectively, we need to accept them both as concepts: as sets of correlations in relation to each set.

A set is not a ‘thing’ - it’s only a way of understanding certain correlations and not others. It doesn’t imply independence or complete unity - neither does it imply either separation from or even the existence or non-existence of anything outside of that set.

"Independent" doesn't imply "incorrigibly isolated and not capable of interaction."... — Terrapin Station

Indeed. That's the first thing that came to my mind, or words to that effect/affect...