Henry P Stapp, an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the "orthodox" quantum mechanics of John von Neumann. — Kizzy

I am familar somewhat with Roger Penrose's ideas on the subject. I've never been clear about the distinction between local and non-local however. Are they both referring to aspects of quantum space or, then, what?

Einstein had a great deal of difficulty doubting his own theory because his metaphysical parameters did not admit of the possibility that his theory could be wrong. — Leontiskos

But the facts forced him to change his mind. A cosmological constant was added to his equation of state. He remained uncomfortable, but so what.

The issue didn't really become a crisis until measurement showed the Universe lacked the critical mass to be in fact expanding. But then measurement also showed that there was then this "dark energy" as a new contribution to now guarantee its eternal expansion.

So whatever Einstein might have wanted to believe about anything was irrelevant as he had framed a theory with deductible consequences and thus inductively confirmable measurements. Pragmatism in action.

It is all the more impressive that such an epistemic method worked despite the deeper intuitions of one of the most brilliant ever thinkers. And that a "humble priest" could have played a part in correcting him.

Similarly, if the naturalist thinks that the only possible argument for theism is a god of the gaps argument, then it seems to me that it is the paradigm that is controlling his conclusion more than the data. — Leontiskos

Again, a pragmatist asks only what use is this belief? Does the belief have observable consequences? If not, it is not even a theory capable of being wrong. So it is up to the theist to deduce the consequences of their theory such that they stand counterfactually opposed to some clear alternative and so measureable on that explicit basis.

Even the null hypothesis would do as that alternative – the statistical case that there is some effect to be discussed rather than just some random noise in the data. So what difference does your version of a God make in this natural world? What difference would His absence make? What effect are you making claims for in a suitably counterfactual fashion? Where is then the evidence in terms of at least some statistical reason for a pause for thought?

The (classical) theist responds that this is a fine argument except for the fact that God is not and has never been conceived as an object within the universe. Internalism is a non-starter for the theist. It's not a matter of adjusting supernatural claims, but rather of attending to the actual claims that have been with us for thousands of years. — Leontiskos

Of course the theist might take refuge in transcendence. But why would any rigorous epistemology go along with that? Once isn't a pragmatist because one dislikes truth. One is accepting – as this thread underlines – that we are epistemically bounded in being that kind of creature which models its reality rather than "experiences" its reality in some kind of direct and brute fact fashion. Internalism just is our epistemic reality.

Which is why Peirce's arguments for also an ontological internalism – a pansemiotic metaphysics of immanent creation – becomes such an appealing alternative.

And that seemingly wild proposition has become only ever more believable as the facts in favour of ontic structural realism, topological order, dissipative structure, quantum field theory, etc, keep spilling out of the scientific mainstream as its latest "well no-one saw that one coming, did they?" surprise.

More pointedly, the question of whether the metaphysical structure is or is not a brute fact is not adjudicable within a naturalistic paradigm, but it does not thereby follow that it is not adjudicable. — Leontiskos

When one metaphysics endlessly has to retreat in the face of scientific advance, and the other metaphysics instead keeps looking scientifically sounder by the day, I would say history is indeed passing its judgement on the beliefs of humans.

And because of this the god-of-the-gaps paradigm of the modern naturalist matches the theological paradigm of the modern fundamentalist, which ensures that these two camps seldom talk past each other. Both are working with a similar conception of God. — Leontiskos

Am I operating in that paradigm? As a pragmatist, I would say not. If you can show me the effect in some controlled fashion – show it isn't just nature being random – then I would say, well let's start investigating that as a class of cause.

So Peirce of course had to presume something as a starting point. He "believed" nature is essentially tychic. Rooted in true spontaneity.

But then the logic of that is that absolute spontaneity can't help become what is now thought of as "order out of chaos". The pansemiosis of dissipative structure theory. Or the path integral of quantum field theory.

If everything is striving to be the case, not everything can then be the case as most of it becomes self-cancelling. Order emerges in topological fashion as all that cannot in fact self-cancel away.

This is a summary of ontic structural realism. This is how relativity comes to encode spacetime as global Poincare invariance and quantum theory comes to encode spacetime's material contents as local "chiralised" gauge invariance.

The Big Bang is the tale of infinite dimensional possibility being broken by its own dimensional symmetry breaking. Absolute spontaneity reducing itself to a Planckian residue of just three spatial directions organised by exactly those global and local symmetries that could not in the end be completely cancelled out of existence.

The Big Bang starts at the point where nearly all free possibility was wiped out. And that then resulted in a hot seed of dimensional structure – a fleck of energetic order – which took off towards its own form of self-cancellation or temporal inversion in expanding and cooling its way to its own Heat Death.

So as a cosmology that provides a metaphysical alternative to transcendent theism, it is pretty detailed. It relies on mathematical strength arguments about Lorentz boosts and Lie groups. It demands all the mathematical machinery of general relativity and quantum field theory. It raises a whole set of factual issues about "the missing critical mass" or "quantum weirdness".

As I say, one metaphysics runs to escaped being eaten up by scientific advance. The other is instead the product of that scientific advance. What Peirce proposed as an epistemic logic is also indeed panning out as an ontological logic. Both in the science of mind and the science of the cosmos.

Honestly I skipped Penrose and went straight to Stapp, his papers stuck with me, found him randomly from researching Hoffman (thanks to YOUR thread)..Okay, when you think of non-local or locality in QM, picture this: the non-local (stapp) says that the brain, no matter the distance, can affect with a choice a particle instantly and consciousness plays a part in that happening, collapsing of a wave function by observing or deciding... while local characters of QM (penrose) is local, when consciousness is, there is a direct explanation that consciousness comes directly from the QM interactions within the brain, brain cells and microtubules or something. Local doesnt involve particles being connected over long distances, non-local can with, effort and interest of the thinking mind (probing action) its tied to the idea that our minds are co-creators in the quantum world. Sorry if that was sloppy, I am a self taught philosophy enthusiast, I do CAD I know basic maths, science, I am relearning a lot myself in this journey...now its sticking that I am interested, thanks to my passion for learning philosophy. I have been reading about this stuff for a week, but I dont know much about science, biology, anatomy, math (statics I am good with) and QM until recently so take this comment loosely, if I got something wrong..I am not that far off if I am.

For some off reason, this thread is ringing a bell and I feel a connection may exist to better explain this so its easier to picture...maybe look at this attempt I shared, my first time learning what a paradox was. Lol, I am not saying I nailed this problem at all. I didn't even use probability to answer, intuition only. But I am saying, even though I can't explain it now, I am feeling a connection is there for me to make...I'll keep you posted. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14022/cinderella-problem-anyone-understand-it

But the facts forced him to change his mind.

...

It is all the more impressive that such an epistemic method worked despite the deeper intuitions of one of the most brilliant ever thinkers. — apokrisis

Yes, very true! I suppose my point is that someone who does not share Einstein's intuition will not feel any force from his claim. Such intuitions are often defended by a vague appeal to "the science," which is what I think is happening in Michael's case. Then when one probes the supposed inferences they find that there is nothing more than an intuition. My background theism causes me to desire to remain open to the possibility that color may have some non-arbitrary meaning, and this provides me with an additional motive to question the validity of the inferences. That is the minor point I was trying to make at the outset.

Again, a pragmatist asks only what use is this belief? Does the belief have observable consequences? If not, it is not even a theory capable of being wrong. So it is up to the theist to deduce the consequences of their theory such that they stand counterfactually opposed to some clear alternative and so measureable on that explicit basis. — apokrisis

Sure, and I haven't really considered these questions vis-a-vis pragmatism. I also haven't worked out where Peirce's pragmatism ends and James' begins. At the same time, I don't know whether intuitions such as Einstein's are pragmatic in this sense. The same would go for John Henry Newman's "illative sense," which is a kind of broad and fundamental inductive or abductive belief. Not all beliefs are equally pragmatic, or equally able to be suspended.

Even the null hypothesis would do as that alternative – the statistical case that there is some effect to be discussed rather than just some random noise in the data. So what difference does your version of a God make in this natural world? What difference would His absence make? What effect are you making claims for in a suitably counterfactual fashion? Where is then the evidence in terms of at least some statistical reason for a pause for thought? — apokrisis

I think there are many different kinds of arguments for God's existence, especially when God is taken to be transcendent and is thought to be able to manifest in very different ways. I don't really know enough about you to know what kind of argument would resonate with you, or whether I am capable of making it.

Of course the theist might take refuge in transcendence. But why would any rigorous epistemology go along with that? Once isn't a pragmatist because one dislikes truth. — apokrisis

And why would any rigorous theology go along with the idea that God is reducible to an epistemic object? This is where the incommensurable paradigms begin to collide, and I don't know that there are neat and tidy answers to be had.

For example, is an epistemology less rigorous if it admits of beings which transcend humans, and in particular the capacities of the human mind?

When one metaphysics endlessly has to retreat in the face of scientific advance, and the other metaphysics instead keeps looking scientifically sounder by the day, I would say history is indeed passing its judgement on the beliefs of humans. — apokrisis

Yes, I agree.

Am I operating in that paradigm? As a pragmatist, I would say not. — apokrisis

I don't know, but you began with a god-of-the-gaps inquiry and it seemed that you were unfamiliar with the relativizing of the would-be brute-fact structure. We see a similar dynamic when Aristotle is content to appeal to brute facts where Plato will desire a higher and more unified metaphysical explanation.

But my point there was that the naturalist is generally able to talk to the fundamentalist without in any way prescinding from a naturalistic paradigm, for the fundamentalist has a tendency to confront naturalism on its own terms. Think for example of intelligent design theorists, who hold that there are demonstrable and unfillable gaps. But I am more of a classical theist, and the classical theist won't generally address naturalism on its own terms. What this means is that the fundamentalist's evidence for God can straightforwardly square off against the naturalist's evidence of absence, because they disagree primarily on the particular evidence and not on the general inferences. But evidence of absence for the fundamentalist's God need not count as evidence of absence for the classical theist's God. This does have to do with transcendence, but the transcendence is not ad hoc and in fact predates the fundamentalist's approach by a large stretch of time.

If you can show me the effect in some controlled fashion – show it isn't just nature being random – then I would say, well let's start investigating that as a class of cause. — apokrisis

And would you say that effects that cannot be controlled can still count as evidence?

So Peirce of course had to presume something as a starting point. He "believed" nature is essentially tychic. Rooted in true spontaneity. — apokrisis

Interesting.

The Big Bang is the tale of infinite dimensional possibility being broken by its own dimensional symmetry breaking. Absolute spontaneity reducing itself to a Planckian residue of just three spatial directions organised by exactly those global and local symmetries that could not in the end be completely cancelled out of existence.

The Big Bang starts at the point where nearly all free possibility was wiped out. And that then resulted in a hot seed of dimensional structure – a fleck of energetic order – which took off towards its own form of self-cancellation or temporal inversion in expanding and cooling its way to its own Heat Death. — apokrisis

Okay - I think I followed this part best. :grin:

So as a cosmology that provides a metaphysical alternative to transcendent theism, it is pretty detailed. It relies on mathematical strength arguments about Lorentz boosts and Lie groups. It demands all the mathematical machinery of general relativity and quantum field theory. It raises a whole set of factual issues about "the missing critical mass" or "quantum weirdness". — apokrisis

So then what is the counterfactual case for Tychism? For the idea that Logos is a byproduct of chance rather than a fundamental reality?

As I read the Wikipedia article on Tychism I find that much of it seems to be in sync with theism and not opposed to it. According to that article it is primarily meant to target deterministic, necessitarian, mechanistic accounts. But I should say that many of the ideas in the culture strike me as leaning too heavily on extrapolated forms of Darwinian theory. In many ways Darwin has become our keystone to interpreting the world, and think this may be due more to a vacuum than to careful thinking or observation.

I get it now: when scientists say the world is not locally real they mean superposition and maybe something like "many worlds" (?), and so non-local would be classical. I hope that's right because it feels right. It's weird how someone can read something and not get the key words but still get something out of it lol.

Anyway- the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022 was awarded to three scientists for proving the world is not locally real. But is this like saying that noumena is not locally real? We know from experience what the classical is and isn't.. It's pretty interesting how this raises ancient questions but dresses them in modern garb (stylish). Between observer-centric theories and, say, pilot wave theory or objective collapse theory, there is John Wheeler's "participatory universe" theory, which states that the substrate of the quantum combined with the nucleus of the consciousness is what creates the world. It's an interaction between "I" and "not I". It's more of a duality becoming a whole rather than a duality of separation, and this is what guarantees we can have knowledge of the world

Bingo! Yes, thanks for following up to clarify. It is weird isn't it. We got it, though! Good stuff... :strong:

Anyway- the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022 was awarded to three scientists for proving the world is not locally real. But is this like saying that noumena is not locally real? We know from experience what the classical is and isn't.. It's pretty interesting how this raises ancient questions but dresses them in modern garb (stylish). Between observer-centric theories and, say, pilot wave theory or objective collapse theory, there is John Wheeler's "participatory universe" theory, which states that the substrate of the quantum combined with the nucleus of the consciousness is what creates the world. It's an interaction between "I" and "not I". It's more of a duality becoming a whole rather than a duality of separation, and this is what guarantees we can have knowledge of the world — Gregory

Thanks for sharing some further reading! I have never heard of John Wheeler! Glad you brought him up, he's a good ole Florida boy and I am from the sunshine state myself! I will add this all to my list.....Thanks!!

You know, I have left plenty of breathing room for superposition to work in my thoughts on which theories I am leaning towards supporting with more surety. I have been swaying back and forth for the past two years, I am combining a lot of different ideas to make sense of one...I am hoping in time we will be able to eliminate many silly options, that potentially bog down the systems flow of intel more than we know....

Something about MWI, I just can't get on board with. I never liked it and it just sounds off to me so I haven't bothered entertaining it much. Perhaps, I could do a little peeking and see if anything sticks out that's new. I guess it will have to be done on my end eventually to be sure that its wrong. It doesn't seem solid enough for provable progress to be had from there though, maybe before its time?

I have no agenda so I am easily adaptable at the phase I am in, creating the framework for a bigger discussion. I am open and again, left plenty of room to comfortably account for superposition to work. I feel like we have the parts, we just have to start building the damn thing...with no template but as one.

Probably a reason I never liked MWI was because it goes against, [ I believe Wayfarer mentioned it first in Donald Hoffman thread - (with refer to Bohr/Einstein) ], the Copenhagen interpretation, MWI theories are saying that the wave function never collapses and that every possible outcomes of the quantum event exists in its own separate universe...that is just not working for me, the words alone are not adding up. Something feels off.

I currently lean towards the Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, also known as "consciousness causes collapse," suggesting that, like I said in the first explanation about non-local and local, that consciousness of the observer plays a critical role in the collapse of the wave function. Not just focusing on the role of the observer in the causing of the wave function collapse, like the original Copenhagen interpretation. That is focused on the probabilistic side of QM and that is not my forte. THAT is evident and what is clearly shown in my Sleeping Beauty Paradox* twist, that probability nor mathematics is my strong suit...weirdly enough, though that I am still seeing connections, as I do mention in the thread from 1+ year ago, the measurable nature of the experiment and did so before learning about the actual concepts from a reputable source working in the field. Fun!!!

But yeah in Stapp's work the influence of Von Neumann's Process 1, is big too. You can read about it in the paper I linked earlier.

*Tired thinker thread OP titled, Cinderella problem* and hypericin posted OP after tiredthinker, called Sleeping Beauty Paradox. I commented because I wanted to show that a thread with this paradox was already started and also included a summary of my twist. See Pg 11/20 of hypericin's thread. I got no response in either thread. Perhaps, reasonably so. I didn't even know what I was talking about....or did i?! Kidding, i know nothing :cool:

I also asked what the difference was between the mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur and seeing red, and dreaming red.

You claimed "nothing" as an answer to all three questions. If there is no difference between four things, then they are the same.

They're all experiences. — creativesoul

The red part of hallucinating red, dreaming red, and seeing red are all the same thing; the occurrence of that mental percept, either reducible to or supervenient on neural activity in the visual cortex, that is ordinarily caused by 620-750 light stimulating the eyes.

The when and how it is caused to occur is then what distinguishes dreams, hallucinations, and non-hallucinatory waking experiences. It's a dream when it occurs when we're asleep, it's an hallucination when it occurs when we're awake and in response to something like drugs, and it's a non-hallucinatory waking experience when it occurs when we're awake and in response to light stimulating the eyes.

But I am more of a classical theist, and the classical theist won't generally address naturalism on its own terms. — Leontiskos

And maybe I am not your classical naturalist. If you take structuralism seriously, matter isn’t really very material when you get down to it. Even Aristotle’s prime matter or Anaximander’s Apeiron are a little too substantial. Plato’s Khôra isn’t right either but has something to recommend it. Somehow the material principle must be reduced to the purist notion of a potential. As in perhaps a Peircean vagueness or quantum foam.

Form is also only expressed as limitation. The inevitability of symmetrical simplicity. The standard model of particle physics keeps pushing until it finds someway to wind up at the ground zero of U(1). The universe in its final state as a bath of holographic blackbody radiation.

So as a metaphysics, neither matter nor form appear very “real” in any substantial sense. Reality seems derealised in a way that neither naturalists nor theists would think about things. It is all a lot more tantalising.

So then what is the counterfactual case for Tychism? For the idea that Logos is a byproduct of chance rather than a fundamental reality? — Leontiskos

Tychism pairs with synechism. So you have local fluctuations and global continuity. The systems science story of hierarchical order. Each of these conceptions grounds the other. They are really each other’s inverse by logical definition. Chance and necessity as the opposing limits defining the actuality we find sandwiched between these two limiting extremes.

Logos and flux would be another twist on the same thought.

As I read the Wikipedia article on Tychism I find that much of it seems to be in sync with theism and not opposed to it. — Leontiskos

Well Peirce lived in a very theistic times. There was plenty of social pressure, and advantage, to frame things in that light. And I don’t think a semiotic metaphysics in general could come across as clearly opposing an immanent kind of idealism or divine principle as - as I argued - it shouldn’t either stand for anything like an orthodox material account of Nature. It is poised in some metaphysical space of it own that sees both classical materialism and classical idealism as suffering from misplaced concretism and not tuned into the subtleties of Aristotelean hylomorphism as an argument.

In many ways Darwin has become our keystone to interpreting the world, and think this may be due more to a vacuum than to careful thinking or observation. — Leontiskos

Well evolution is a pretty robust logical concept. How would you even prevent it happening in the sense that given a variety of possibilities, the most effective - in what ever sense that means - is going to win out.

Why else is physics so tied to the principle of least action? The path integral says every quantum event is a sum over a whole universe of possibilities. That’s a pretty dramatic application of Darwinian competition in its physicalist sense.

The red part of hallucinating red, dreaming red, and seeing red are all the same thing — Michael

Your equivocating "red".

It seems that you focus on the sensory aspect of pain, and I focus on the affective aspect of pain. I did this to argue that pain is not simply sensory, as you claim. Since "pain" in its scientific representation, is understood to consist of both of these aspects, we must be very careful if we try to assert that it is one or the other.

Do you agree that it is wrong to say that pain is simply a specific type of touch sensation? Unpleasantness is a defining aspect of "pain", and this makes the experience referred to by this word more than a simple sensory experience, there is also an emotional aspect of the experience called "pain". For comparison consider the tase known as "sweet". This is a basic taste which most people enjoy. However, "enjoyment" is not inherent within the definition of "sweet", like "unpleasantness" inheres within the definition of "pain".

That example demonstrates the following conceptual difference. It is understood that whether or not sweetness is enjoyable, is dependent on the conditions of the subject experiencing the sweetness, and so this emotional "affect" of enjoyment, is said to be "subjective". In the case of pain, unpleasantness is a defining feature, so one cannot feel pain without the unpleasantness, and so this emotional aspect is an "objective" aspect of pain, it is a necessary condition.

Therefore the emotional aspect of the taste, sweet, is separable from the sensory experience of sweetness, so that we can talk about the sensory experience without considering the emotional aspect. However, in the case of "pain", unpleasantness is the defining feature of that concept, and so we cannot separate the emotional aspect to talk about the sensory experience of pain, as if it is not necessarily unpleasant. We can though, separate the sensory aspect and talk about "pain" as an emotionally based concept, representing unpleasantness, without the necessity of any sensory input. And, the fact that "pain" as an emotional concept, is a true representation of the reality of pain, is evident from experiences such as phantom pain, and some forms of chronic pain.

Your equivocating "red". — creativesoul

I am being very explicit with what I mean by the word "red", which is the opposite of equivocation. I'm saying that the colour red, as ordinarily understood, is the mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur, and that this mental percept exists when we dream, when we hallucinate, and when 620-750 light stimulates our eyes.

Any other use of the word "red", e.g. to describe 620-750 light, or an object that reflects 620-750 light, is irrelevant, because the relevant philosophical question is "do objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive [colour] property that they do appear to have?", and this question is not answered by noting that we use the word "red" in these other ways.

So as a metaphysics, neither matter nor form appear very “real” in any substantial sense. Reality seems derealised in a way that neither naturalists nor theists would think about things — apokrisis

Not all naturalist thinking is limited in this way. Joseph Rouse’s radical naturalism is one example of alternative paths that are being taken by new materialists.

https://www.academia.edu/38199897/Liberal_or_Radical_Naturalism

Thanks for the paper. In modern quantum theory they make as fine distinctions as scolastics of old. How many angels can fit in a quark, so to speak. The thing about Many Worlds is that people wonder, regret, and dream of what "could have been" a lot. Humans want it all, however it is that they get it i guess

The thing about Many Worlds is that people wonder, regret, and dream of what "could have been" a lot. Humans want it all, however it is that they get it i guess — Gregory

I wouldn't disagree. BUT, let me ask you. These people doing that, living their day to day lives while stuck in what "could have been" are they aware that maybe two things are happening at once? Scratch that, do you think the awareness of these people to a certain level plays a considerable role? I wonder how a test could be given to someone and those that take the test will either be classified as aware or unaware, and not in a all around type of way just about this specific thing (bad thinking patterns, stuck in day to day life, unfulfilled, not happy)

I look at it almost like multitasking, maybe that's not the word I should use...but I kind of relate to what I can only describe because lack of better words, as "living in my head" as I let things get to my head. Subjectively speaking from my own life experiences as ME, when I am in this mode it seems to effect my performance. I tend to shut down under pressure, I used to cry easily if someone yells too scary and loud, or if I got in trouble at school no matter how stupid, I avoid confrontation, I have insane stage fright, but its not that I couldn't learn to control myself better, its that for some people I think the mind does bring outcomes that are undesired and inconsistently messing with the performances or messing with the way I end up handling a situation. I am still too worried about what people think, but have come a long way. So proud.

Where was I? Ah yes...the damage!

I think some times we can/ought to be able to "undo" or "redo" or "take-back" a decision or act before the damage is fully done or run its course. Sometimes the damage or "outcome" or "result" that comes from the decision, choice, act is not...it's too late. [Now, now, where could it be? where could that take place, a choice that is take back able? where is it still not too late? Hm? Ill give a hint. Think: privacy of your mind] :wink:

Those undesired or unnecessary outcomes stemming from questionable behaviors* or as I like to call them "unnecessary necessities" that bring results within a certain time frame whether it brought quick response results or a lag...that time clip is of interest to me. When the triggered response shows up in the body we can track whether it was instinct, intent, learned skills, reasons, beliefs, desires, maybe life they lead (lifestyle, identity, are you lost or found?) that leads to the an act, choice, decision that caused the damage to the line of no return...

What unit are those outcomes even in and how can we smush it in with time constraints or clips to get anything useful out of all this? Perhaps, it's not worth it.

BUT I still wonder if this is measurable...a limit, maybe? There is a line, i think, that when its crossed, we can't turn back. The damage that was done, consequences are seemingly immediate (to our physical bodies and selves at least).

Freak accidents should be tied into this somehow, with that time is important as it is always somehow constraining when its in decision-making moments and time it takes for that choice to bring the bad outcome, how quick the results play out from when the thought first stemmed in the mind, how much was thought out and how long did it take to act on that thought...and where did that thought come from?

I don't expect you Gregory, or anyone to answer or get into all this here...though I'd love to go back and forth all night. And could.

You had an interesting take on Many Worlds, a bit relaxed for me sure but like I said when I replied to the quote I wouldn't disagree. I joke when I say this but I am jealous of that, a relaxed take. As I am the opposite in character. Intense...

Anyways, as I was relating to these people you speak of stuck in "could have" in a somewhat similar way, I think but not exactly. I just definitely get what it could be like, what it means, how to get out of the stuck pattern of thinking that's keeping us stuck. Its tough and especially considering environments, circumstances, abilities,moods,will? etc...that do play a role into thinking patterns, some times.

These decisions could be linked to lifestyle and social life. Even personality, behavior, patterns, themselves in the individual can effect each other differently. It's not so easy to pin-point, I am realizing but I think doable. I am worried if any of this would be worth it, I could be unbothered if it wasn't...

Its like we constantly have to remind ourselves and work at it with self (in privacy of mind) and I think its important to not be fully recluse. Being alone in this process is quite...melancholic. With support from another that cares about you in a place of knowing that they have your back, no judgement, mutual trust and love. That you can be that back to another, is just as important and the lesson that also needs to be learned. Its the give and take...love and be loved. Is this fairness or balance? I don't know which works better, does it make a note worthy difference? I sharpened my pencils....

I imagine this data hard to capture though as its difficult to link what effects what. As once it comes to the subjective level of each our own lives, experiences, beliefs (if any-religion), circumstances, positions, abilities, etc. it could be tough to test given how inconsistent our skills to get reliable intel, gather it, and determine weights and values. It may be tough to communicate what exactly is going on, from either end...Unless honesty is a verified step that comes after the initial aware or unaware results, that focuses or filters the A or U into new folders for focused results...

Time can be a very hard thing for people because we only have so much of it. If we want everything to be perfect, we have to accept that for every mistake there can be an equal or greater victory.

Time can be a very hard thing for people because we only have so much of it — Gregory

Spend it while you live

Not all naturalist thinking is limited in this way. Joseph Rouse’s radical naturalism is one example of alternative paths that are being taken by new materialists. — Joshs

But Rouse’s concern here appears epistemological whereas I was talking ontological commitments. Rouse wants to place the scientific image within some wider pluralistic space of materialistic images. I am instead asking about the best possible version of that scientific image. What would it be like to bring our scattered scientific understandings of the world into one coherent image of natural being?

A difference would likely be that the image in our minds has to be so abstracted and mathematical that it restructures our own habits of thought. We would be “picturing” a dynamical pattern of growth and symmetry breaking. Our understanding would be more kinesthetic in being about the movements of forms coalescing in spaces. A holistic geometry of relations rather than just some kind of cause and effect narrative.

If you are thinking in terms of pure structuralism, everything drops away except a stabilising architecture of relations - the constraints that produce the freedoms that compose the constraints in the one single triadic web of action.

And there you would have it. How reality hangs together according to what science has discovered. It’s deep structural logic. The symmetry that imposes itself on all possibility.

Getting to that level of the scientific image is what anyone who really “gets” the geometry of nature right in their heads is doing. But it is not then an easy thing for people to share and compare. That is one reason I would always offer Peircean semiotics as an anchor. And systems science in general. The dynamical structure of nature is a form not to be seen as if from the outside but something to become a lived and embodied experience.

It has to be an image in the internalist kinesthetic sense of always knowing which way to move so as to flow with the flow of the natural structure.

I am being very explicit with what I mean by the word "red", which is the opposite of equivocation. — Michael

No. The opposite of equivocation is using one and only one sense of a key term in a logical argument about the ontology of our referent(s).

I also asked what the difference was between the mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur and seeing red, and dreaming red.

You claimed "nothing" as an answer to all three questions. If there is no difference between four things, then they are the same.

They're all experiences.
— creativesoul

The red part of hallucinating red, dreaming red, and seeing red are all the same thing... — Michael

Well, that remains a contentious matter. The 'red part', huh?

:brow:

There are common elements within each. The mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur is but one. It does not follow that seeing red, dreaming red, and hallucinating red are equivalent in every way. There is no distinction between four different 'things' according to what you've argued(claimed and reaffirmed when later asked).

It does not follow from the fact that seeing, dreaming, and hallucinating red all involve the mental percept that 620-750 light ordinarily causes to occur that there is no difference between seeing red and the percept under consideration.

There are physical, non-physical, subjective, objective, internal, external, private, public, meaningful and meaningless elements. All three kinds of experience differ from one another in their elemental constitution.

The when and how it is caused to occur is then what distinguishes dreams, hallucinations, and non-hallucinatory waking experiences. It's a dream when it occurs when we're asleep, it's an hallucination when it occurs when we're awake and in response to something like drugs, and it's a non-hallucinatory waking experience when it occurs when we're awake and in response to light stimulating the eyes. — Michael

You've no ground to speak in such ways. The consequences of your claims - if true - is that you cannot further discriminate between those four things. What is the difference?

Nothing.



The experiences consist of mental percept. They also consist of auditory functioning. We do not conflate hearing a sound with the sound. We ought not conflate seeing red with red, dreaming red with red, and/or hallucinating red with red.

Those are very different in the constitution. They are existentially dependent upon one another.

Seeing red pens is an experience that always includes red pens, whereas dreaming and hallucinating them does not - cannot. That's one elemental difference. The pen.

There is no red pen while dreaming and hallucinating red pens.

Colors are not simple entities. Nor are they equivalent to the biological machinery doing it's job... mindlessly.

There is no red pen while dreaming and hallucinating red pens. — creativesoul

So? I'm talking about colours, not pens.

Here's the visible spectrum.



There is a clear distinction between wavelengths of light and the corresponding colour. We can certainly conceive of a variation of this image with the colour red on the left, the colour violet on the right, but the wavelength staying as it is, with the shorter wavelength on the left and the longer wavelength on the right. Such could even be the case for organisms with a different biology, and so a different neurological response to the same stimulation. We even see examples of that with the dress, where different colours are seen by different people despite looking at the same screen emitting the same light.

And the fact that we use the adjective "red" to describe tomatoes because they look to have the colour on the right is completely irrelevant. They look that way because they reflect that wavelength of light, and our biology just happens to be such that objects which reflect that wavelength of light look to have that colour. That's all there is to it.

But the colour just is that mental percept, falsely believed by the naive realist to be a mind-independent property of the tomato. Physics and neuroscience has taught us better.

They look that way because they reflect that wavelength of light, and our biology just happens to be such that objects which reflect that wavelength of light look to have that colour. That's all there is to it.

But the colour just is that mental percept — Michael

:yikes:

Not only that, but colour is far more complicated than your simple description. Our eyes are never receiving one simple wavelength of radiation from an object. there is always a mixture to be discerned. Mixing is the art of the artist. A red object is not simply an object emitting or reflecting light photons only at some specific point between 650 and 700 nanometers. And the dress is a fine example of the problems we may encounter dealing with the mixing of radiation.

Take a look around your field of vision, and notice all the different colours, flowers are great and may make you wonder how evolution produced such an array of beauty, The human eye is capable of discerning millions of different colours, and this is not a matter of there being an infinite number of points between 400 and 700 on the number line, it is a matter of mixing. On top of all that mixing of photons with different wavelengths (if "photons with different wavelengths" makes any logical sense), there is the matter of non-mixing, the boundaries we see.

At the edge of each object there is a boundary, and there is background radiation, foreground radiation, radiation coming from the right and from the left, with an endless number of boundaries in a common field of vision. The capacity to perceive boundaries is the most fascinating aspect of the sense of vision. Because we can discern such a huge number of differences in the various mixtures, a slight change to that mixture is evident as a boundary. The boundaries give us the impression of objects. But what exactly is a boundary? A non-dimensional point of difference? A one-dimensional line of difference? A two-dimensional angle, or three-dimensional corner of difference? Of course it's not an angle or corner at all, it's curved in some way. And what lies behind that boundary, to the inside of the object, where light doesn't seem to be able to penetrate?

But Rouse’s concern here appears epistemological whereas I was talking ontological commitments. Rouse wants to place the scientific image within some wider pluralistic space of materialistic images. I am instead asking about the best possible version of that scientific image. What would it be like to bring our scattered scientific understandings of the world into one coherent image of natural being? — apokrisis

Th epistemological for Rouse is secondary to the ontology of agential materiality, what he calls ‘intra-action’. This ontology erases the boundary separating nature from culture, the manifest image of thought from the scientific image of nature. His point is that a ‘best possible image’ is always going to be relative to commitments and material practices which are contingently formed through indissociable interaction between the world and our purposes.

And maybe I am not your classical naturalist. If you take structuralism seriously, matter isn’t really very material when you get down to it. Even Aristotle’s prime matter or Anaximander’s Apeiron are a little too substantial. Plato’s Khôra isn’t right either but has something to recommend it. Somehow the material principle must be reduced to the purist notion of a potential. As in perhaps a Peircean vagueness or quantum foam. — apokrisis

Sure, and I don't really know enough about Peirce to engage these things. I tend to read Aristotle through Aquinas, although I recognize that in many ways Aristotle was the better philosopher.

Chance and necessity as the opposing limits defining the actuality we find sandwiched between these two limiting extremes.

Logos and flux would be another twist on the same thought. — apokrisis

Okay, but Logos also seems to be something different from both chance and necessity. Nevertheless, theism tends to be averse to the notion of fundamental flux, and this is at least one data point where classical theism clashes with a Peircean (and also an Aristotelian) model.

Well Peirce lived in a very theistic times. There was plenty of social pressure, and advantage, to frame things in that light. — apokrisis

But it is interesting that Peirce was not opposed to Medieval thought in the same way that modern science traditionally has been. For example, he read thinkers who his contemporaries were largely ignorant of, like Aquinas and especially Scotus. For this reason theistic semioticians like John Deely relate to Peirce in an entirely different way than they relate to scientists bound by modern thought.

And I don’t think a semiotic metaphysics in general could come across as clearly opposing an immanent kind of idealism or divine principle as - as I argued - it shouldn’t either stand for anything like an orthodox material account of Nature. It is poised in some metaphysical space of it own that sees both classical materialism and classical idealism as suffering from misplaced concretism and not tuned into the subtleties of Aristotelean hylomorphism as an argument. — apokrisis

Right, and it does not seem to be as agonistic and reactionary as many of the forces at work in modern science.

Well evolution is a pretty robust logical concept. How would you even prevent it happening in the sense that given a variety of possibilities, the most effective - in what ever sense that means - is going to win out.

Why else is physics so tied to the principle of least action? The path integral says every quantum event is a sum over a whole universe of possibilities. That’s a pretty dramatic application of Darwinian competition in its physicalist sense. — apokrisis

As I understand it, there are competing models that do not make such a strong use of the Darwinian principle of randomness or random mutation.

But considering the idea that the most effective possibility will win out, are we saying that what is known in a prior way to be most effective will in fact win out, or is "most effective" being defined as whatever ends up winning out? It is that dallying with necessitarianism which strikes me as odd, especially as a keystone for interpreting increasingly large swaths of reality. Teleology is becoming more and more acceptable, and yet the telos seems to always be up for grabs. Mechanistic science avoided the whole problem by turning a blind eye, but once teleology is admitted the idea of an ordering Intellect or Mover becomes more plausible.

His point is that a ‘best possible image’ is always going to be relative to commitments and material practices which are contingently formed through indissociable interaction between the world and our purposes. — Joshs

That’s still just epistemology.

Nevertheless, theism tends to be averse to the notion of fundamental flux, — Leontiskos

Hence the “God of the gaps” issue. My position argues from the point of view that even chaos can’t help but self-organise itself into some form or order. Chaos negates itself. Therefore order emerges.

For this reason theistic semioticians like John Deely relate to Peirce in an entirely different way than they relate to scientists bound by modern thought. — Leontiskos

Yes. When learning about Peirce as a group of biologists and complexity theorists in the 1990s, the Peircean scholars making sense of his vast volume of unpublished work were mostly theology researchers. Deely was one.

But considering the idea that the most effective possibility will win out, are we saying that what is known in a prior way to be most effective will in fact win out, or is "most effective" being defined as whatever ends up winning out? — Leontiskos

It depends how much information we have about the situation. If you know that the U(1) symmetry of electromagnetism is the simplest possible chiral form, then it is not a surprise that the Big Bang did not stop evolving until it arrived at that final simplicity.

If you know that the chemical reaction with the most bang for buck on the planet Earth is the redox reaction of carbon-oxygen bonds, then it is no surprise that life on Earth kept evolving until it not only could harness this reaction but even set up the planet to have its Gaian balance of oxygen and carbon.

So the basic entropic race drove the Cosmos towards an ultimate symmetry breaking simplicity, and Life, as the negentropic response, was driven towards its maximum negentropic advantage.

The goals existed in dialectical fashion. And they forced Nature through a whole set of unlikely hoops so as to arrive there.

Mechanistic science avoided the whole problem by turning a blind eye, but once teleology is admitted the idea of an ordering Intellect or Mover becomes more plausible. — Leontiskos

Science earnt its keep by being the epistemology that delivered a mechanised world. Teleology could take a back seat as technology was the pragmatic point. Humans existed to supply the point of a world of machines.

But when it comes to now incorporating telos into science, the mathematical inevitability of topological order or dissipative structure is how that is happening.

That could be seen as a thumbs up for Platonism, divine immanence, idealism, or whatever. Or it could be seen as the arrival of a structuralist understanding of Nature that rides on the back of stuff like Lie groups, thermodynamics, path integrals, and Darwinian selection.

His point is that a ‘best possible image’ is always going to be relative to commitments and material practices which are contingently formed through indissociable interaction between the world and our purposes.
— Joshs

That’s still just epistemology — apokrisis

And I suspect Rouse would consider Peirce’s view of the scientific image as an epistemologically-based first philosophy:

…both orthodox and liberal naturalisms impose on their conceptions of the sciences what I have elsewhere characterized as an epistemolog­ically-based first philosophy. The challenge to familiar meta-philosophical
naturalisms does not concern their intramural disputes
over whether the sciences provide a conceptually unified
or comprehensive image of the (structure of the) natural
world or instead provide a partial and multi-leveled con­ceptual patchwork at multiple scales, ontological levels, or disciplinary orientations. The question is instead whether the sciences aim for or produce a consistent representation of the natural world at all.