Yep. And?

Yep and what? If you want to strut about here, answer the OP. What do you propose as the dialectical ethical algorithm that could scale so as to make the best of our possible future?

If you have no thoughts on this, wobble off.

Yep — apokrisis

Is that you agreeing that the question of what we ought do remains unanswered? That would be progress.

...answer the OP — apokrisis

If your question is now "what ought we do", then you might well look to ethics as well as physics.

But ethics is complicated, and not reducible to slogans.

Which thread are you addressing? the answer here is

Only if we make it so. — Banno

Do you see some spooky implications of my Energy/Information/Mind hypothesis that you would not wish for? — Gnomon
It presents Energy/Information/Mind, three quite distinct concepts, in a vague and inadequate way. — Banno

One of the most common replies on this forum is : "I don't understand what you are saying". Yet sometimes not phrased so politely. I've seen such responses to your own posts. But that's OK. If you will note specific instances of vagueness & inadequacy, I will attempt to clarify them. I have the time, if you have the interest.

Are you not able to grok my abreviated 2 or3 paragraph posts on this forum? Or my 30-page Thesis on the net? Or my multiple Blog posts on specific topics? Admittedly, it's difficult for someone to make sense of an unfamiliar, even unorthodox, concept. My posts typically include links to scientific articles that discuss relevant topics in more focused & precise ways, and in technical scientific terminology, instead of arcane philosophical language. Besides, I have no formal training in abstruse linguistic philosophy, so my writing style may be too mundane for you :smile:

Grok : to understand (something) intuitively or by empathy or profoundly.

The EnFormAction Hypothesis :
As a supplement to the mainstream materialistic (scientific) theory of Causation, EnFormAction is intended to be an evocative label for a well-known, but somewhat mysterious, feature of physics : the Emergent process of Phase Change (or state transitions) from one kind (stable form) of matter to another. These sequential emanations take the structural pattern of a logical hierarchy : from solids, to liquids, to gases, and thence to plasma, or vice-versa. But they don't follow the usual rules of direct contact causation. . . . . . . . .
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

Do you think the Santa Fe Institute is a bunch of amateurs? — Gnomon

No. It gathered a good bunch of people to drill into self-organising complexity in the broad sense. But then over-generalised that dynamicist view at the expense of the further thing which biosemiotics is focused on. Dynamics regulated by information. Systems with the added thing of an encoding memory. The genes to control a metabolism, the neurons to control an environment, the words to control a society, the numbers to control a world.

So a rookie blunder right there to the degree Santa Fe folk hyped up the dynamical half of the equation when it comes to the story of life and mind as it exists as a local exercise in informational modelling in a dynamically-unwinding, entropy-driven, world.

This paper might be useful to you here – The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut

What are these and how would we know? — apokrisis

Well, in line with what I said, we don't know what they are. Do you really think the whole story consists in what we can be consciously aware of? I get it that if we can't know about something it, as Banno puts it, "drops out of the conversation", but I also think that it is a significant fact about the human condition that there is much that determines what and who we are, what we experience and how we interpret it, that is precognitive. Whether or not you acknowledge that determines your basic orientation towards life.

The irony is that someone like @Wayfarer who doesn't want to acknowledge that many things have happened, are happening and will happen that we can never know about, nonetheless believes that sages can "directly" know "what is really going on".

Well, in line with what I said, we don't know what they are. — Janus

So there are the known unknowns and then the unknown unknowns which we can believe surely also must exist? That kind of thing?

Whether or not you acknowledge that determines your basic orientation towards life. — Janus

For me, it would is a matter for empirical inquiry. As in how far does one really get by employing tunnel vision?

The dog that didn't bark could be the clue. The world as it "is" might exist as an optimisation algorithm such as we find at the base of all physics – the least action principle. The "ought" that eliminated all the other worlds that felt they too might have been possible if we hadn't outcompeted them in the race to be the case.

The irony is that someone like Wayfarer who doesn't want to acknowledge that many things have happened, are happening and will happen that we can never know about, nonetheless believes that sages can "directly" know "what is really going on". — Janus

But does he clearly believe either side of the proposition at any time? There are those who assert and won't explain. There are those who don't understand. Then there is this other thing of seeming to agree and then slipping back across the boundary towards the other side. A foot in both camps.

There are many ways that arguments are never won on PF. :wink:

The irony is that someone like Wayfarer who doesn't want to acknowledge that many things have happened, are happening and will happen that we can never know about, — Janus

A constant reminder that incomprehension of an argument doesn't constitute a rebuttal.

So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.

Hence there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. — Wayfarer

sages can "directly" know "what is really going on". — Janus

I had Parmenides in mind, but obviously a very difficult text to fathom. I was recently musing whether Krishnamurti has a similar insight to Parmenides:

If you see "what is" then you see the universe, and denying "what is" is the origin of conflict. The beauty of the universe is in the "what is" and to live with "what is" without effort is virtue. — Krishnamurti

A constant reminder that incomprehension of an argument doesn't constitute a rebuttal.

So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.

Hence there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. — Wayfarer

It's not that I don't understand what you are saying, it's that I don't agree with it, but you don't seem to be able to fathom that. You say "the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective", but from my perspective your mistake is that it is not that the existence of such realities "relies" on an implicit perspective, but that the judgement that there are (or are not) such realities is an expression of a perspective.

If you believe that there is a reality as to what is the case regarding whether such unseen realities rely for their existence on some perspective, then you are claiming that there is something mind-independently the case; that is that there are or are not such realities.

I don't see how you can escape from that. If you claim that sages can directly know what is going on you are claiming that something is the case regardless of any perspective, that is that sages either can or cannot know directly what is going on, or else your claim becomes meaningless.

You say it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any mind, which seems to imply that it is true only from that perspective. From what perspective do you imagine it to be untrue?

your mistake is that it is not that the existence of such realities "relies" on an implicit perspective, but that the judgement that there are (or are not) such realities is an expression of a perspective. — Janus

Yep.

So there are the known unknowns and then the unknown unknowns which we can believe surely also must exist? That kind of thing? — apokrisis

Sure, why not?

For me, it would is a matter for empirical inquiry. As in how far does one really get by employing tunnel vision?

The dog that didn't bark could be the clue. The world as it "is" might exist as an optimisation algorithm such as we find at the base of all physics – the least action principle. The "ought" that eliminated all the other worlds that felt they too might have been possible if we hadn't outcompeted them in the race to be the case. — apokrisis

I'm not sure what you are getting at with your first sentence. "The world as it is" is for us just an idea, but it doesn't seem to follow that the world as it is is just an idea. Do you think anything would exist if humans, or if you like, any other perceivers didn't exist? I'm not interested in the question as to what its mind-independent existence would be like, because I don't think we can answer that; it's kind of a meaningless question. "Optimization algorithm" is still an anthropomorphic notion, so perhaps we could rule that out?

But does he clearly believe either side of the proposition at any time? There are those who assert and won't explain. There are those who don't understand. Then there is this other thing of seeming to agree and then slipping back across the boundary towards the other side. A foot in both camps.

There are many ways that arguments are never won on PF. :wink: — apokrisis

Of course, I agree that these kinds of arguments can never be settled, and that people believe whatever they do for not purely rational reasons. So, we are all here telling others what seems most plausible, most salient, most important to us individually. We are all just one small voice in the greater cacophony that is human thought and belief.

But if we are here to argue sensibly it seems at least reasonable to be called upon to state a clear position. My complaint about @Wayfarer is that he cannot or will not do that. We don't all have to agree with one another, but it would help to at least know what the others' coherent and consistent standpoints are (if they have such). If the standpoints presented are not lucidly articulated and internally consistent then why should they be taken seriously?

the judgement that there are (or are not) such realities is an expression of a perspective. — Janus

But what can be expressed about anything without bringing a perspective to bear on it? As soon as you start to talk about 'whether the tree falls in the forest if no-one is there to hear it', you're already bringing a perspective to bear. As soon as you say there are unseen planets and unknown vistas, then you're already bringing a perspective to bear. The only way not to do that is to not say or think anything whatever.

Again, I'm making the distinction that Kant identified about the compatibility of empiricism and transcendental idealism. In Kant's philosophy, there is no inherent conflict between empiricism and transcendental idealism because they address different aspects of knowledge. Empiricism pertains to the content of our experiences, emphasizing that all knowledge begins with sensory input. Transcendental idealism, on the other hand, concerns the conditions that make such experience possible, positing that our minds actively structure and organize sensory data through a priori categories and forms of intuition, such as space and time. Thus, while empiricism provides the raw material for knowledge, transcendental idealism explains the framework within which this material is synthesized and understood, harmonizing the two by showing how empirical data is shaped by the mind's innate structures to produce coherent experience. That is the framework you can't get outside of, yet this is what you posit when you imagine a world with no subject in it.

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)

Time and space are themselves projected by the mind onto the cosmos. They're not real independently of your perception of them.

It is why Kant says that we can't know the Universe (or object) as it is in itself, although @Banno has already declared that he rejects the idea (whereas I think he simply doesn't get it.) The "thing in itself" (which I'm saying is 'the Universe with no observers) represents the reality that lies beyond our perceptual and cognitive reach. This underscores the limits of human knowledge and reinforces the idea that our understanding is always shaped by the conditions of our cognition, making any direct knowledge of the "thing in itself" both impossible and meaningless within our conceptual framework.

Now I question Kant on that score, and there have been plenty of objections raised by generations of subsequent scholars. But I still say the substantive point remains.

There was a mention earlier in this thread about Kastrup's 'mind-at-large', and my questioning of that in a Medium essay. On further reflection, I am beginning to see that this could be conceptualised as 'the subject' or 'an observer' in a general sense. It doesn't refer to a particular individual, nor to some ethereal disembodied intelligence that haunts the Universe. But I wonder if it might also be plausibly understood as represented by the 'transcendental ego' in Kant and Husserl. Also, quite plausibly, the role of 'observer' in physics, which is never something included in the mathematical descriptions.

state a clear position. — Janus

What is clear from ten years of interactions, is that you don't understand what I write despite repeated efforts on my part to lay it out as clearly as I can. I'm about at the end of my tether as far as you're concerned.

"The world as it is" is for us just an idea — Janus

Sure. Let’s not confuse epistemology and ontology once more. It would be handy to have some kind of highlighter button to mark the switch in register.

"Optimization algorithm" is still an anthropomorphic notion, so perhaps we could rule that out? — Janus

This is an ontological commitment we might make as part of an evolutionary metaphysics. Such as Big Bang cosmology.

The reason inflation seems a must at the start of the Universe is eliminate all other geometries except the very flattest. The Goldilocks balance of being not too positively or negatively curved but instead “just right” as that which can then dump its energy into particles and continue on its way, expanding and cooling as infinitum.

One can’t believe in physics without going along with its least action principle. Optimisation of dialectical balances just is the reality physics describes.

The "thing in itself" (which I'm saying is 'the Universe with no observers) represents the reality that lies beyond our perceptual and cognitive reach. This underscores the limits of human knowledge and reinforces the idea that our understanding is always shaped by the conditions of our cognition, making any direct knowledge of the "thing in itself" both impossible and meaningless within our conceptual framework. — Wayfarer

Right, and this is just what I've been saying except I don't think the fact that we must acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our perceptual and conceptual capacities is without significance, since it is a fact about the human condition. What I don't agree with Kant about is that we are (by dint of practical reason) warranted in populating that "realm" with the artifices of our own imagination and faith in the context of intersubjective argument. What we choose to believe in our own hearts is another matter; the point is that something seeming right to me cannot constitute an argument for why anyone else should believe as I do.

There was a mention earlier in this thread about Kastrup's 'mind-at-large', and my questioning of that in a Medium essay. On further reflection, I am beginning to see that this could be conceptualised as 'the subject' or 'an observer' in a general sense. It doesn't refer to a particular individual, nor to some ethereal disembodied intelligence that haunts the Universe. But I wonder if it might also be plausibly understood as represented by the 'transcendental ego' in Kant and Husserl. Also, quite plausibly, the role of 'observer' in physics, which is never something included in the mathematical descriptions. — Wayfarer

I cannot make sense of the idea of an "observer" apart from individual observers. We are finite temporal observers. Is there an infinite atemporal observer? Do we even know what that could mean? So, for me the "transcendental ego" is just an idea, I can't imagine how it could be a reality. I don't deny that it might be a reality, but I don't see how we could understand what such a reality could be, any more than we could understand what the reality of the in itself could be.

When it comes to imaginable possible more or less coherent explanations for how it is we all perceive the same things I can only think of 'actual mind independent' existence in the form of actual mind independent existents or ideas in a collective or universal mind, which is Kastrup's solution. I personally find the actual mind independent existents more plausible, but I can't mount an argument for that because there is no objective measure of plausibility. What is one person's plausibility is another's incredulity.

What is clear from ten years of interactions, is that you don't understand what I write despite repeated efforts on my part to lay it out as clearly as I can. I'm about at the end of my tether as far as you're concerned. — Wayfarer

I understand what you write, but I don't see just what is your reasoning for thinking what you think, and also it is not precisely clear to me just what it is that you do think. Your reference to a "transcendental ego" above is an example; I think that is a much less clear idea than the idea of a collective mind, or the idea of mind-independent existents.

Empiricism pertains to the content of our experiences, emphasizing that all knowledge begins with sensory input. — Wayfarer

There is the myth of the given; that mere observation, uninterpreted, is a given foundation for knowledge.

Right, and this is just what I've been saying except I don't think the fact that we must acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our perceptual and conceptual capacities is without significance, since it is a fact about the human condition. — Janus

Better yet, we can subtract the human from the epistemic equation as best we can. That is, apply the scientific method, or Peirce's logical arc of abduction, deduction and inductive confirmation. Arrive at the view that represents the limits of inquiry for a community of rational thought. Act as if it were the Comos that is contemplating its own Being.

This underscores the limits of human knowledge and reinforces the idea that our understanding is always shaped by the conditions of our cognition, making any direct knowledge of the "thing in itself". — Wayfarer

So once the direct route is accepted as forbidden to us, then what becomes the best indirect route? That is what pragmatism is about. We can subtract the psychological individual from the equation and make it about a dispassionate community of reason.

Social cognition based on the scientific method.

This is an ontological commitment we might make as part of an evolutionary metaphysics. Such as Big Bang cosmology. — apokrisis

I believe the Universe evolved, and I think this belief entails that there were an untold number of events and processes that occurred before there were any perceivers..

One can’t believe in physics without going along with its least action principle. Optimisation of dialectical balances just is the reality physics describes. — apokrisis

I don't have the background to understand what you are saying or hinting at here.

Right, and this is just what I've been saying except I don't think the fact that we must acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our perceptual and conceptual capacities is without significance, since it is a fact about the human condition.
— Janus

Better yet, we can subtract the human from the epistemic equation as best we can. That is, apply the scientific method, or Peirce's logical arc of abduction, deduction and inductive confirmation. Arrive at the view that represents the limits of inquiry for a community of rational thought. Act as if it were the Comos that is contemplating its own Being. — apokrisis

I agree with what you say, and I think it follows on from what I said. It's the best we can do.

I don't have the background to understand what you are saying or hinting at here. — Janus

No worries. It just goes to the larger Peircean project which argues that reality as the thing in itself would have to have this Darwinian logic. And that this connects to the position I expressed as the answer to the OP.

For reductive science, the principle of least action is both a necessary axiom – a universal principle and not just a law – but also something to be a little embarrassed about because of its teleological overtones. The very idea that is and ought could be connected in this finalistic fashion!

But for a larger holistic view of science, as the Big Bang demands, the action of least principle becomes itself a matter in want of a decent explanation.

The very idea that is and ought could be connected in this finalistic fashion! — apokrisis

Well I don't see any connection whatsoever. Can you demonstrate this?

Well I don't see any connection whatsoever. — Apustimelogist

That would be consistent with your rejection of quantum temporal entanglement I guess.

So you can't demonstrate it?
What has that got to do with 'temporal entanglement'? When did I say when I apparently rejected it?

So once the direct route is accepted as forbidden to us, then what becomes the best indirect route? That is what pragmatism is about. We can subtract the psychological individual from the equation and make it about a dispassionate community of reason. — apokrisis

I don't know if 'forbidden' is the right word.

There's a relationship between 'subtracting the psychological individual' and the idea of detachment or disinterestedness. The 'dispassionate community of reason' is what the scientific community aspires towards, striving for objectivity and minimizing personal biases and emotions to gain an accurate understanding of the natural world through empirical observation, repeatability, and falsifiability. Detachment in the earlier, pre-modern sense esteemed by philosophical spirituality demands self-effacement and the abandonment of personal desires and ego to achieve insight into universal truths. They're historically related, in that the scientific developed out of the pre-modern, but as it did so, it also assumed a more anthropocentric perspective. (Maybe that's discussed in the Peter Harrison book on the foundations of science. )

There is the myth of the given; that mere observation, uninterpreted, is a given foundation for knowledge. — Banno

I see your point, but it's not too remote from my argument. My bad for bringing up Sellars. But nowhere have I said 'there is no world', only that we can't see it as if we were not a part of it, that the objective stance is treated as if it were an absolute, which it isn't.

But nowhere have I said 'there is no world', only that we can't see it as if we were not a part of it, that the objective stance is treated as if it were an absolute, which it isn't. — Wayfarer

So you acknowledge that unperceived things exist, and you are only denying that we can see things as they are when unperceived? In that case there would seem to be no argument since our being unable to see things as they are unseen would seem to be a mere tautology.

So you can't demonstrate it? — Apustimelogist

You mean experimentally? - https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3343

As a bone of contention? - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-023-04251-x

Set out your objections.

So you acknowledge that unperceived things exist, and you are only denying that we can see things as they are when unperceived? — Janus

If you look at the OP again, you will notice that I've worded it very carefully. I will draw attention to a specific passage:

Let me address an obvious objection. ‘Surely “the world” is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not! Science has shown that h. sapiens only evolved in the last hundred thousand years or so, and we know Planet Earth is billions of years older than that! So how can you say that the mind ‘‘creates the world”’?

As already stated, I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth. By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer

Beyond that, I'm unwilling to try and re-state and re-explain what I think is stated and explained quite clearly in the OP.

@Banno - 'taking for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution' is what I took to be compatible with 'the myth of the given', although I didn't have that in mind when I composed it.

OK, I think what you say there is uncontroversial and perfectly compatible with realisms (other than naive realism).

The only ambiguity there is "a kind of inherent reality". I presume you are referring to a naive notion of reality, and if so I agree with you that thinking that the world is in itself just as we perceive it to be probably is the default, unexamined response. But I would suggest that anyone with a basic level of philosophical training or understanding would not fall for that one.

So, it seems that we have cycled around to the familiar point where it appears that we are not disagreeing about anything. But then I won't be surprised if the cycle repeats because you seem to vacillate as to whether you want to make an ontological claim or merely an epistemological one.

It is one thing to say that things unperceived are not the same as we perceive them to be and altogether another to claim that when unperceived they don't exist.

But then I won't be surprised if the cycle repeats because you seem to vacillate as to whether you want to make an ontological claim or merely an epistemological one. — Janus

This link:

You mean experimentally? - https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys3343 — apokrisis

Refers to Wheeler's 'Delayed Choice' experiment. I haven't read that particular article, but there's another on Discover Magazine about Wheeler and this famous experiment. That magazine article is called Does the Universe Exist if We're Not Looking?

That seems to be making 'an ontological claim'. Or wait - is it an 'epistemological claim?'

You tell me.

on second thoughts, don't worry about telling me. But it's worth the read.

Hi Banno, apokrisis,

The Principle of Relativity asks us to set out the laws of physics in such a way that they apply to all frames of reference. — Banno

Correct. But this only says that physical laws are the same in all reference frames. Invariant properties in all reference frames are not necessarily property of a 'physical world independent of all reference frames'

Hence this suggests to me that any true description of the physical world can be made from any perspective/frame of reference. — Banno

I disagree, if the 'phyisical world' here is meant the 'physical world as it is independent from any reference frame'. On the other hand, yes, I agree if this is taken to mean that any reference frame can be used to discover/find some truth that is valid for all other reference frames.

But we can have a theory of reference frames can’t we? We continue on as we see with holography, de Sitter metrics, or twistor space. We can have general arguments that pick out 3-space as special as the only dimensionality that has the same number of rotational degrees of freedom as translational ones. — apokrisis

Yeah, I guess that we can but I am not sure how this is an objection to what I said earlier, if you meant that way. I am perfectly fine, for instance, with what you say about 3-space. But this can be IMO understood as a pointer to a property in common to all reference frames. Regardin holography, de Sitter ant twistors, well as I said, they all seem all quite far as the 'physical world as it appears to us', so to speak. As I said:

'How the world is' independently from any perspective seems to get weirder and weirder as we get to more 'advanced' theories. — boundless

I see it as a sort of 'evidence' for this kind of tendency.

There may always be questions but they also can be new ones. — apokrisis

Agreed.

Anyway, to put in another way what I am saying, I think that a distinction can be made between 'intrinsic' and 'relational' properties. Relational properties are not properties of 'a thing in itself' so to speak, but is a property that arises in a relation. As an example, the apparent height of a tower seen from a distance is a relational property, not an intrinsic one (it cannot be assigned to the tower, without taking into consideration something else). If we do not know intrinsic properties of objects we do not know them 'in themselves', but only in relation.

According to, say, Galileo all 'primary' qualities were intrinsic to physical objects. But his own 'principle of relativity' actually showed that velocity is a relational property. In special relativity, for instance, even distances and temporal durations are not intrinsic properties*. In QM this 'relationality' is even more explicit.

*Yeah, the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames in special relativity. But it does not follow that it is an intrinsic property: after all, velocity is a concept that makes sense only when a particular reference frame is considered. I think that the same can be said even for rest mass. Rest mass is a quantity that tells us how an object 'responds' to some interactions. BTW, after all the operational definition of all physical quantities is in fact relational. So, maybe it might not be surprising if it turns out that they are not intrinsic.