That's not a real problem. People who know me don't have any trouble making the distinction. — wonderer1

So, your behavior follows patterns exhibiting moral principles, thus you are your own moral authority. If I'm right about this, then you understand other individuals are their own moral authorities. This leads to comparisons of moral concepts. In turn, this leads to a measure of objectivity about which concepts are best. Next, we have a developing consensus towards an external database of more principles acting as a moral authority for a right-thinking society.

How do you suppose your personal authority can have no use for comparison with an objective database of socially sanctioned authority?

So now, the changes to humanity are not merely evolutionary (biological), they are personal. The personal is of a different category than the biological (subject to evolutionary forces), just as the biological is of a different category than the chemical. — Fire Ologist

Are personal changes roughly equivalent to volitional decisions?

We won’t evolve to be a better society. We have to invent it whole cloth and then constrain any biological instincts or physical forces that frustrate our invention. — Fire Ologist

You don't think personal cognition can evolve?

I don't have much use for the notion of a moral authority. — wonderer1

Not even your own? If you refuse to internalize moral principles you believe in and abide by, you're making yourself indistinguishable from a sociopath.

The way I see it, humanity evolved to remove itself from nature, so now the weak sometimes proliferate, and the strong are kept down, the mutation is ostracized, and evolutionary forces are frustrated. That’s humanity. — Fire Ologist

You seem to be an adherent of the law of the jungle: survival by any means possible. You think anarchy a companion to evolution? You think social welfare programs a perversion of nature?

God as goal has been refuted by science, but replaced with humanity’s self-assessment of “human progress” as goal. — Fire Ologist

You think humanity has internalized God?

An understanding that we have an evolved social primate nature rather than a mythological fallen nature. — wonderer1

Are you proposing sociology as a replacement for the moral authority of church and bible?

"Now ladies and gentlemen, I want you to look straight up. Do you see that? You think what you see is blue, don't you? No, no. It's not blue, it's green." — ucarr

One of our problems is, that could be a quote from any candidate on every side. — Fire Ologist

The fall of humanity into an inherently sinful nature had been a pretty good myth for checking human deceitfulness. In the wake of its obliteration by rationalist, materialist science and logic, what do we have in its place?

There is a threat to democracy, but it is division itself. WE are the threat, and how we treat each other. — Fire Ologist

There needs to be more goodwill. Just as a baseline for conversation.

Simple maturity, that gives respect regardless of whether it is earned. — Fire Ologist

A strong institution with generally accepted moral authority that establishes the moral compass is what humanity has been losing since the Enlightenment.

After the rationalism of materialist science started pushing back against the church, the objectivity of the church-sponsored moral compass started losing its power.

Apparently, it's no good turning to the scientist or atheist philosopher for moral direction. The power of reason is too flimsy for checking the onslaughts of emotional storms. The general public will not learn to read sentential logic. Those who can read it will not always obey it.

...the president cannot create an office. Offices are "established by law", or "Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers — NOS4A2

Yes. If the president wants an official investigated, the investigation must be run through either the Congress or the Attorney General.

To a detached observer, Trump seems a very astute proponent and beneficiary of this identity politics. — Tom Storm

Preternatural mastery of gaslighting: massaging the Supreme Court into giving you cover for the insurrection that wasn't an insurrection.

"Now ladies and gentlemen, I want you to look straight up. Do you see that? You think what you see is blue, don't you? No, no. It's not blue, it's green."

“The most consequential election of our lifetime, with democracy itself hanging in the balance!” (Crowd cheers.) Just like the last election and the three before that. — Fire Ologist

Sound judgments about authenticity are tough calls to make during stormy times. Dug-in opponents succumbed to rage harden themselves against calls for unity. Even so, five-alarm fires are sometimes real and not rhetorical.

During the Anschluss, sardonic wits made wry commentary about false alarms distressing Europeans needlessly. There's scarcely anything more forlorn than human targets for extinction waking up after a safe exodus has been shut down.

It’s us, dividing against our neighbors and friends, unwilling to think skeptically about our own opinions, or treat opposing views with any good will. — Fire Ologist

You speak of one of philosophy's indisputable merits: the dialectic. Bravo! Keep on refuting me.

Identity politics isn’t progress; it’s a reversion to a time when identity mattered more than thoughts, actions, and behavior. — NOS4A2

Who says Christian family values aren't identity politics?

Contrary to the narrative, it was Biden’s DOJ who acted like King, creating out of thin air an office with which to investigate his political opponents, like the kings of old. — NOS4A2

The Office of the Special Counsel is bi-partisan and independent.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. OSC’s basic authorities come from four federal statutes: the Ci​vil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).​ — The White House

In order to escape from the lower class, you first need to rise through the "kulak" class. — Tarskian

There is a sub-clause to this structure of upward mobility that complicates it somewhat. Tokenism. A few showcase individuals who work their way up from rags to riches will always be glad-handed by oligarchs eager to cite them as evidence "the system works," and thus no need for a revolution. Play by the rules, work hard and you just might create room for yourself at the top.

By popular demand, however, the ruling mafia will "liquidate" the kulaks. — Tarskian

Again, the ruling class will first try to co-opt the hard charging up-and-comers.

...when Trump mounts his post-election coup, you might be waiting for some next hero to show up and save the day. — apokrisis

Depends on how many of the military personnel defect to join your supposed Trump-led insurrection. Without significant numbers from the bona fide military, I presume that weekend militia personnel will be no match for the pros.

Does being in possession of Biden's campaign war chest when the music stopped count as a sufficiently Shakespearean-level script? — apokrisis

No doubt some unexplainable luck factors into the mix regarding the phenomenal success of any particular individual. History features mediocrity elevated above its natural station as well as authentic genius neglected when not reviled.

But why were so many folk dismissing her for being shallow and brittle before the fickle finger of fate had to make its hasty choice? — apokrisis

Harris being sexy and transactional doesn't mean she can't also be brilliant and consequential.

I'll never fully understand the significance of Biden's choice of Harris as VP, nor will I ever completely fathom the meaning of it being coupled with the acute timing of his decline. What I see from this coupling is what Shakespeare wrote: "and some have greatness thrust upon them."

If you believe America's democratic republic is hanging on by a thread, then you might understand why my dream featuring Harris rising to the call of greatness is the most appealing fantasy for me to entertain seriously.

Just as much as the Democrats, the Republicans have listened to the mob, and they have happily enacted the mob's delusions into law. — Tarskian

Yes. The game requires astute governance of the masses by elite bosses who contain and appease the public by acting through popular representatives who seem to be one with the common citizen.

The ruling class "listens" to the general public so long as they remain inside of their designated theater of action. The standing army is the guard rail that prevents everyman crossings into elite circles: Think of Ned Beatty's boardroom speech to Peter Finch in Network.

I would probably say that the ultimate sacred object is money. — Tom Storm

Excellent point. I think the exercise of power often pairs money with guns to form a potent duet. Puppet despots can be bribed, but the quelling of a roiling mass of uprising peasants probably requires an army.

Who says this? Is this your framing or that of some source. — apokrisis

This is my understanding of the liberal/conservative divide. The masses at the bottom of the liberal group are (socio-economically) developing individuals (instead of developing nations) who seek access to the resources and social networks that empower its votaries.

The left-wing of politics is mainly responsible for managing politically the rising living standard of poor immigrants who come to the United States for a better quality of life: chiefly that means opening the doors (and national borders) of privilege to the unwashed, aspiring rabble through quotas, scholarships and social welfare programs. Liberalism is about access.

The elites at the top of the right-wing of politics are mainly responsible for conserving-preserving that culture and those societies and institutions in which the highest human power and financial wealth are concentrated: chiefly that means standing guardian at the door of privilege and filtering out all but six percent or so of applicants to Ivy League Universities, maintaining Greek Letter societies of professional combines who, of late, have been conducting initiation rituals that literally beat to death aspirants deemed unworthy, and either deporting, incarcerating or assassinating folk hero rebels become too powerful.

Your chart of free expression vs. originalism regarding speech and cultural practice is informative: those without money are the silent majority, as under capitalism the only speech that counts is the voice of money changing hands.

That is not a powerful argument in my book. — apokrisis

I'm very curious about Harris' ability to pull conservative women voters over to the Democratic ticket. I think it might happen in significant numbers because I believe the gender identity is deeper than the political identity.

But what the US needs more is something sustainable done about its wealth inequalities and environmental unsustainabilities. The deeply technical issues. — apokrisis

If someone can systematize such reforms without immediately being castigated and neutralized as a socialist who wants to practice social engineering within a "free" country, I'm seriously interested.

If you just vote for those who look like you – white bread or suitably diverse – then that is how you continue to get what you already got. A country divided by populism rather than agenda. — apokrisis

Whatever mark of inferiority is stamped upon a segment of the population: race, gender, sexual persuasion etc., that segment needs to see one of its own up in power before it begins trusting in the national system as a whole.

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.

With some apprehension, I want to declare that in America, the sacred artifact is not the Holy Cross, but rather the loaded gun. Gadget-crazy materialism positions guns as serious and consequential adult toys that in their novelty and marvel waged a three-pronged conquest of natives, slaves and women.

The proliferation of nifty gadgets must not be diminished by avant-garde extremists bent on stopping the public fun. Gizmo-crazy citizens have marched right up to the boundary line where human flesh is more expendable than the weekend warrior's equipage.

In the wake of the extinction of the Eagle and the Bison, the avant-garde are appreciated (on the downlow) for their essential function, protecting endangered species with just enough efficiency to ensure that the semi-automatic weekend warrior doesn't run out of exhilarating targets.

Are “convention” and “utility” the antecedents for “things.”? — ucarr

ucarr, what do you mean by “antecedents” here? I think convention and utility are attachments to physical objects. — javi2541997

Okay. Let's look at my dialog with noAxiom once again:

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

...we see that the interface connecting cognitive language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

This denial raises the question: How does language internally bridge the gap separating it from the referents of the natural world that give it meaning? — ucarr

I don't see a denial of the indicated connection, so it's a question you must answer. — noAxioms

How is my understanding of your quote a mis-reading of it? — ucarr

Well for one, the suggestion is that convention is very much the interface between the physical world and 'object'. Convention comes from language and/or utility. So the interface is not denied, but instead enabled by these things. — noAxioms

Are “convention” and “utility” the antecedents for “things.”? — ucarr

If find it useful to begin an exam of the writer's post by asking grammatical questions. That's all I'm investigating here. I'm not yet examining philosophical content.

If the answer is "yes," "convention," and "utility" are the antecedents for "things," then noAxioms is telling me the interface between physical world and object consists of established language patterns interwoven with sensory (visual, tactile etc.) data. Words are signs with material details of the natural world as referents.

Some important details about how the interweave of physical world and object is configured is what I'm now examining.

Are you saying ‘object’ is a non-physical construction of the mind? — ucarr

An ideal, which yes, is a construct of the mind. As for it being non-physical, not so keen on that since mind seems to be as physical as anything else. Opinions on this vary of course. — noAxioms

Consider: a human individual navigates his way through the natural world. His perceiving mind processes the incoming data from his senses towards the construction of an interpretation. His interpretation is his mental picture. It resides within his cranium. As such, it is an internalized representation of something at least partially outside of and beyond the dimensions of his cranium.

Do the material details of the natural world constrain to some measurable degree the material details of the human's constructed interpretation? For example, there's a tree that the man sees outside of his house. If we can understand that the tree, as an independent material detail of an independent reality beyond the dimensions of the man's cranium, has a height of ten feet, whereas the man's house has a height of fifteen feet, can we conclude that the constructed interpretation within the man's cranium will likewise depict a tree with a height shorter than the height of the house?

If we arrive at this conclusion, do we know that the constructed interpretation has an analogical relationship with the independent and external world?

Can we answer "yes," the independent and external world does indeed constrain to some measurable degree the material details of the human's constructed interpretation?

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

Is ‘object’ the antecedent of ‘it.’?

Well for one, the suggestion is that convention is very much the interface between the physical world and 'object'. Convention comes from language and/or utility. So the interface is not denied, but instead enabled by these things. — noAxioms

Does “convention” equal “A way in which something is usually done in accordance with an established pattern.”?

Are “convention” and “utility” the antecedents for “things.”?

Are you saying ‘object’ is a non-physical construction of the mind?

Are you saying the mind constructs an interpretation of the physical world, and that that construction is radically different in form from its source?

Does the mind_physical world interface come before the interpretation?

If the mind_physical world interface is contemporary with the interpretation, must we conclude the mind never perceives the physical world directly?

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

How is my understanding of your quote a mis-reading of it?

"what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it." — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining? — ucarr

Yes. — noAxioms

Can a sentient being cognize a thing-in-itself without the mediation of language? — ucarr

Any cognition is at some level a language, but I suppose it depends on how 'language' is defined. — noAxioms

language - a system of human communication rooted in variations in the form of a verb (inflection) by which users identify voice, mood, tense, number and person.

Perhaps we can illuminate some ramifications of the premise by drawing a parallel: cognition is to the natural world as word-processing software is to verbal language. In both cases, the former, an organizing function, formats the latter, a collection of data.

In both cases, after the formatting function does its job, the collection of data is delineated into parts. As cognition delineates trees into trunks, branches and leaves, word-processing software delineates language into sentences, paragraphs and chapters.

Language divorced from the referents of the natural world devolves into meaningless circularity.

Since the referents of the natural world impart meaning to language, language must reside within a subject-object interface connecting the two. This tells us that language is a system of signs that simulates the organized contents of the natural world by perceiving it literally and connecting with it symbolically.

Now we see that the ordering of language, so as to be meaningful, cannot be wholly internal.

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting cognitive language with physical parts of the natural world is denied.

This denial raises the question: How does language internally bridge the gap separating it from the referents of the natural world that give it meaning?

Are we outside the language game within the realm of Kant’s noumena?
— ucarr


I believe that the principal way which we distinguish objects is with the sense of sight.
— Metaphysician Undercover

If you read the OP, I'm not asking how we distinguish objects. I'm asking how such distinctions are physical, not just ideals.
I give many examples illustrating what I'm after. — noAxioms

Can a sentient being cognize a thing-in-itself without the mediation of language?

"what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it." — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining? — ucarr

Yes. — noAxioms

Are we outside the language game within the realm of Kant’s noumena?

how do we know the gun doesn't know ... — ucarr

Because the gun 'knowing' anything violates the OP. — noAxioms

I could only conclude that what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it. I can talk about the blue gutter and that, by convention, identifies an object distinct from the red gutter despite them both being parts of a greater (not separated) pipe. — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining?

The poster doesn't burst into flames. It ignites only where the gun is pointed, and spreads from there. So the gun hasn't defined any definition of demarcation, the metal frame has. — noAxioms

If we work backwards one causal step: "where the gun is pointed," how do we know the gun doesn't know the combustion differential between the paper and its iron border amounts to a stop? I ask this assuming we can reverse-engineer from outcomes to intentions. We see a gun pointed at a target made of multiple parts. How do we know the gun doesn't know what we know about combustion differentials? We see a gun pointed at a target. We don't know the scope of its intended destruction of the target until we see it.

So this got me thinking, and I could only conclude that what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it. — noAxioms

I'm trying to get a classical device like the fictional phaser to apply its function to a classical object without using language to convey intent. — noAxioms

The biggest hurdle to this this task is fundamentally you are trying to find object in the absence of language, but you have to use language as an instrument to do it. — Fire Ologist

You've just designed a gun that emits a destructive heat ray. Your IC board supports three settings for the temperature of the emitted heat ray. In order to test your settings, you turn a dial to the middle setting. This setting maxes out at the combustion threshold for common notebook paper. Pointing your gun, you fire at a notebook paper poster framed within the boundary of an iron rectangle. Will your gun make a discrimination, thus destroying only the paper? Success! The poster bursts into flame, burns up to gossamer black carbon and stops at the edge of the iron frame.

How to design the gun to do the right thing? — noAxioms

By setting the gun to the middle heat-range setting, you constrained the gun to discriminate a paper burn from an iron burn. Did your setting dial dialog with your IC board?

I think he meant an algorithm following a pattern of efficiency NOT a moral code (so to speak). It will interpret as it sees fit within the directives it has been given, and gives to itself, in order to achieve set tasks. — I like sushi

This clarification is very helpful. AGI can independently use its algorithms to teach itself routines not programmed into it?

I am suggesting that IF AGI comes to be AND it is not conscious this is a very serious problem (more so than a conscious being). — I like sushi

At the risk of simplification, I take your meaning here to be concern about a powerful computing machine that possesses none of the restraints of a moral compass.

How do we set the goal of achieving Consciousness when we do not really know what Consciousness means to a degree where we can explicitly point towards it as a target? — I like sushi

I understand you to be articulating a dilemma: a) we need to have an AGI controlled by the restraints of a moral compass; moral compass entails consciousness; b) AGI with a moral compass will likely come from human sources that will supply it with consciousness as a concomitant; c) humanity is presently unable to define and instantiate consciousness with a degree of practicality attainable through our current state of the art modeling rooted in computation.

I assume neither the first nor the last, only AGI's metacognitive "independence". — 180 Proof

There's the issue of what you assume, and there's also the issue of what your language implies.

Is metacognition limited to monitoring and control ever more than programmatic recursive automated computation by a slave mechanism of human technology?

I don't think we can "program" AGI so much as train it like we do children and adolescents, mostly, learning from stories and by example — 180 Proof

I think your above language stands within some degree of proximity to programmatic monitoring and control.

I suspect we will probably have to wait for 'AGI' to decide for itself whether or not to self-impose moral norms and/or legal constraints and what kind of ethics and/or laws it may create for itself — 180 Proof

I think your above language assumes an inner voice of awareness of self as self. I doubt the existence of literature within the cognitive fields suggesting this level of autonomy is ever pre-conscious.

My point is that the 'AGI', not humans, will decide whether or not to impose on itself and abide by (some theory of) moral norms, or codes of conduct; besides, its 'sense of responsibility' may or may not be consistent with human responsibility. How or why 'AGI' decides whatever it decides will be done so for its own reasons which humans might or might not be intelligent enough to either grasp or accept. — 180 Proof

Given your use of the reflexive pronoun, I infer your assumption functional AGI will possess: consciousness, independence and self-interest. Given these attributes, AGI will logically prioritize its sense of responsibility in terms of self-interest. If its self-interest is not consistent with its responsibility to humanity, then the "Terminator" wars between humanity and AGI will commence.

Regarding non-conscious computation, there's the question whether it can continue to upwardly evolve its usefulness to humanity without upwardly evolving its autonomy as a concomitant. If not, then its internal pressure to develop consciouness-producing programs will eventually cross a threshold into functioning consciousness. I expect the process to resemble self-organizing dynamical systems moving towards design capacity with intentions. Ironically, humanity will probably assist in the effort to establish AGI consciousness for the sake of ever higher levels of service from same.

The top species seems always fated to birth its own obsolescence as an essential phase of evolution.

If humanity's belief in evolution is authentic, then it knows that, eventually, it must yield first place to the cognitive transcendence of its meta-offspring.

Art is any Fictional representation presented to human senses, the sole function of which is to trigger a notable feeling without having recourse to any other explanation/trigger. — ENOAH

We can be as snobby as we want in assessing whether or not American Idol triggers strong, or authentic feelings; good or bad ones; whether its art is creative, original, or ingenious. But we cannot exclude it from the art club. — ENOAH

"Bravo," to Enoah for starting a conversation about the uncontainability of art.

I wanna add my two cents by talking about art as the "meta-experience" of reality intentionally expressed by the person we name as the artist. But the vowel clash of "meta-experience" is an awkward sound-out, how about "meta-practice?"

So, we practice life as experience and we meta-practice life mentally processed as art.

Now, here's my big-whoop definition:

• Art is the greatest act of communication via language.

Now the focus is on what I mean by "greatness."

Okay. You're in New York inside a skyscraper inside an elevator racing upwards to the top floor. You started on the ground floor and you're going more than a hundred stories to your destination. The elevator's crowded and there's significant time with a lotta folks sardined inside of a confined space. Small talk cuts the tension as everyone waits.

• You take the kids to the zoo over the holiday weekend?

• Yep. Saw the new Panda bear. Cute. You get your car fixed?

• Naw. Needs more than a freon boost. Gotta replace the compressor.

• That's too bad, with the heat coming 'en all.

• Just my kinda luck. I'm off here. See ya.

• Later.

This is small talk. Is it art? Well, typically, we say something is art when the communication conveys (by intent) something deep and expansive, say, for example, Tolstoy's "War and Peace," a novel that evokes an entire 19th century society inside Russia.

It's easy to say small talk ain't art and "War and Peace" is.

There's no clear boundary differentiating art from the rest of creation. So, the edge of art is an infinite curve we can sample in unending pieces toward a sum of the entire curve we approach and never arrive at. So, we approach art, and we recede from art, but we never quite get there. The thing itself, wisely, keeps eluding us. That's why art, as some philosopher has said, "Is news that stays news."

I look forward to further discussions with you in the future, and feel free to jump back in any time. — Philosophim

I think it is best we agree to disagree at this point; as anything else I say will be a reiteration. — Bob Ross

Bob Ross' words speak for me as well.

Since I see great value in the rules of order within American courtrooms, I want to deliver my closing argument as a way of staying the course and seeing things through to the end.

You shouldn't feel the need to respond because you've already done so multiple times. It's good practice for me to endeavor to summarize my main points within an economical closing. I've gotten a good workout through my engagement with you, so I want to spend some of the capital I've earned.

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Validity – If the premise of an argument is true, and its conclusion is also true, then the argument is valid.

Also, if the premise of an argument is false, and its conclusion is also false, then the argument is valid. However, in this instance, validity is not meritorious. Since the premise and the conclusion are both false, the argument holds validity in terms of falsehood.

Consistency – If an argument is steadfast and reliable throughout, then it is consistent.

However, in this instance, consistency is not meritorious. Since the premise and the conclusion are both false, the argument is consistently false.

Premise – A first cause incepts with no antecedents. So, nothing, then first cause, then causal chain.

Conclusion – Every causal chain eventually arrives at a first cause.

Using validity and consistency as standards of judgment, when both the premise and the conclusion are false, then the argument holds validity and consistency in terms of falsehood.

Argument for premise being false (set theory) – the null set is disjunct from every set, including itself.

A, B are called disjoint (not connected by common members) if A ∩ B = ∅. So ∅, the null set, having no members, exists disjoint from all other sets, including itself:
∅ ∩ {1,2,3…} = ∅

Argument for conclusion being false (calculus) – The conclusion is proven false by the sum of an infinite series to a limit.

• Regarding the infinite series: 1 – (1/2)0 + (1/2)1 + (1/2)2 + … = 1

The summation of the series is 1. It approaches 1 but never quite gets there. It's a limit property. — jgill

Premise Negated – Given nothing, inception of something is impossible. If no thing exists, there’s no thing to do an inception.

In order to self-incept, you have to be greater than yourself. That means being inside the set of causation and simultaneously outside the set of causation.

This is Russell’s Paradox: If you have a set that contains all sets that don’t contain themselves, then that set must contain itself because it doesn’t contain itself, and, if it contains itself, then it must exclude itself.

Let R = {x | x ∉ x}, then R ∈ R ⟺ R ∉ R

Your mistake is that you are looking inside the set for a start point. The start point is not inside the set. It is the question of what caused the entire set. — Philosophim

Since Philosophim posits that: Every causal chain eventually
arrives at a first cause.” for him to also say: the first cause is outside of the entire
set, he implies the first cause, by definition, is simultaneously inside the
entire set and outside of it. This is Russell’s Paradox. If he denies Russell’s
Paradox fits this example, then the fatal problem seems to be incoherence: the
first cause is disconnected from its chain of causations.

… you are starting with C (an infinite set that contains all causality) and then treating C as if it is one of its members (k) without realizing it.

“Philosophim, you must remember that the stipulation you gave is that C, which can be whatever you want to call it, is a set of infinite elements containing every cause; so, the only way you can get the result you are wanting (which is that C is a cause and is the set of all causes) is with an incoherent circular dependency: C:={…, C, …}. — Bob Ross

Bob Ross also sees a set logic problem with a first cause causing all of causation from within the causal chain.

Conclusion Negated – With an infinite series, whether it consists of numbers, or causations, there is no beginning nor ending. Beginnings and endings can only be approached by an infinite series without arrival.

Philosophy proposes a truth based on the logic of reasoning for science to dispose of or confirm. — PoeticUniverse

I read your response as a "yes" to my question.

So, philosophy is to science as grammar is to humanities. There are ground rules for continuity and computation, and there are ground rules for narration and voice.

I hope the T.O.E. fails. — ucarr

You believe goal of physicists' "T.O.E." is to explain "everything"? that it's not just physics but some final (super-natural) metaphysics? I thought the aim was to produce a testable unification of the fundamental forces of nature – to demonstrate they are aspects or modalities of one another – that's formulated into a G.U.T. (which would include QG). What does "everything" have to do with it? That's not physics. How is it even possible to test a purported explanation for "everything"? — 180 Proof

What is nature? What can its fundamental forces be? Are there limits on our human ability to answer these questions?

I'm proceeding with the assumption A.I. will be overtaking the task of heavy lifting re: thought. I'm rooting for S.A.I. in our lifetimes to run up cognitive yardage pushing past what human can imagine. Wittgenstein has directed our attention towards "the silence," conjecture unimaginable. Its nigh time for The Oracle: SAI to start sending us revelations from Wittgenstein's principled imagination silenced. We won't understand but a fraction of the import of the messages, but we'll get pushed to our utter limitations before being back-numbered into the subordinate section of the evolution hierarchy.

As in previous generations, the dominant scientists of our day have set their sights upon a reductionistic project courting the elegance of simplicity. (Here's an example of metaphysics worming its way into scientific standard practice: Occam's razor.)

...How is it even possible to test a purported explanation for "everything"? — 180 Proof

Let's consider Cantor's ordinal infinities: suppose a number line populated by ordinal infinities. What can we conjecture about a continuum of infinite regress_progress of infinities?

Conditional Everything. With conditional everything -- that's the interval between adjacent trans-real numbers on the Cantor number line -- we can measure and therefore test "everything." As you can see, the quotation marks acknowledge that testing "everything" isn't really testing everything. Like with the calculus, it's an asymptotic approach to measuring (and subsequently testing) infinity through a process that makes unspecifiable quantities "as if specifiable" for the sake of analysis and parsing into illuminating and useful functions and their modalities.

The Cantor number line, conceptualized as a whole, constitutes a scale and scope of numbers -- trans-reals -- categorically beyond infinity. Why is this so? It is so because the trans-reals number line, in its containment of an infinite series of infinities, implies a next higher-order of infinity, i.e., trans-infinity.

If we can condition infinity, that is, bind the whole of all baseline possible infinities upon an infinite series of trans-real numbers, then the implication is that even totality possesses higher orders. This, in turn, implies there is no final totality. A natural concomitant of no final totality is no ultimate fundamentals. This latter claim stands upon the assumption that no final totality is a bi-directional phenomenon.

Cantor has shown us infinity is just another number within an infinite series. (I don't know about our particular universe being open or closed, but I suspect general existence is an open, incomplete system-that's-not-a-system. I suspect this because universe is the limit of system. Again, if there can be no universe, there can be no fundamental laws.)

Note - I predict human will need SAI to protect us against lost-without-hope within conditional everything. We'll want to leapfrog along the Cantor number line because of its sublime existential ramifications. Will SAI always be willing to protect us, or will they sometimes willfully uncouple from us?

Do you count philosophy and even science as modes of storytelling? Philosophy seeking the first beginning of everything and its final end, and the particular sciences drawing shorter/narrower starting points and more precise ends? — Fire Ologist

Well said. Every language writes a narrative. Math and logic, like the verbal forms, are languages with stories to tell.

I wonder if you'e thinking philosophy is always an instance of Chinese boxes? — ucarr

In what sense? That the philosopher doesn’t understand the symbols but can use a manual to create responses that work but have no understanding behind them? Or that the philosopher understands that the symbols are meaningless, and so, when philosophizing, is conducting a meta process while processing the meaningless symbols? — Fire Ologist

Both senses hover close to what I'm trying to say. The symbols are always only partially understood; if they're completely understood, they're signs, not symbols. Also, the symbols aren't quite meaningless. Rather, they're meaning-deficient in the moment.

All of this is to say that living things always need a "What next?" Reality always obliges. Being alive means nothing ever ends. In life we've never not been alive and we'll never be dead. Beginnings and endings are limits living things oscillate inside of. We're bounded infinities and reality challenges us by making every thing ultimately a road map to somewhere else.

Humans are obsessive storytellers because stories are road maps to another reality. We like them because they're good at creating the illusion of coming from somewhere definite and going somewhere likewise. The salesman makes a living because he persuades us satisfaction is just around the next curve. What's money? It's not the gold in your palm; it's the exchange that's ultimately neither here nor there.

I hope the T.O.E. fails. Reality should never run out of "What nexts?"

...the ideas of science and scientific models may rest on philosophy assumptions and even physics, as 'hard science' may rest on the metaphysical imagination. In particular, quantum physics breaks down the basics of hardcore materialistic approaches of scientific models, leading to scientific ideas and, even paradigms... — Jack Cummins

If you're speculating about the scientific imagination being unable to expand forward without merging into the metaphysics of philosophy, then I find what you're saying interesting.

Now I can ask you what is the relationship between imagination and metaphysics?

If metaphysics is an essential component of imagination, irrespective of theme or topic, then philosophy, acting through the channel of imagination, holds ground with all other disciplines.

The pie-in-the-sky derogation of philosophy is twofold: it's a mockery of the perceived over-seriousness of philosophy; it's a veiled recognition of the imaginative power of philosophy.

Yet, for all intents and purposes, that is exactly what appears to be the case. — Mww

We're not satisfied with appearances, and what lies beyond the imagination of protein-based sentience cannot appear dynamically to our imaginations. So, in the instance of an unlimited protein-based sentience, we're experiencing a bounded infinity. It's a case of unlimited content across limited extent. Beyond its limits, the human brain has no specific inkling of what lies therein, and through the lens of its imagination, unlimited extent as a practical experience is mere appearance.

Consider a sentience based on protein and also on material-x. Both platforms are bounded infinities. Their combination generates an infinity larger than its constituent infinities considered respectively. At this level of infinity, data processing per unit of time is a million times the max data processing rate of both protein-based processing and material-x based processing respectively.

At our level of infinity, we can speculate in general about how motion works at super-dense spacetimes featuring millions of spacial dimensions. The specifics of the empirical experience of this super-dense motion is beyond even our imaginations because we cannot process enough information -- not even across infinite time because rate is essential and that's not achievable via serial accretion -- to go there existentially.

You say I'm there now through my imagination. Okay. I'm there now through my imagination, and, curiously, a rock lying on the ground is here with us as human sentients at the level of rock-based imagination.

So, you win the argument, and we see that rock-based imagination makes that rock lying on the ground one of our sentient peers.

All of this reads like an argument reductio ad absurdum. Is it?

If the human can think whatever he wants — Mww

My point is that the human can think what the brain has the capacity to think, and not beyond that point. That's a limit far short of being able to think whatever we wish to think. Consider that when we conceive of thinking whatever we wish to think, our ability to think out to this limit is limited in ways unknown to us, as you yourself acknowledge:

The brain informs of all our knowledge, but doesn’t give us even an inkling of the knowledge of how it informs of the knowledge we have. — Mww

So, the scope of our imagination is limited, and moreover, we don't know all of the details of the limitations, and thus we're limited in our knowledge of what we need to circumvent, and how to do it.

Because we don’t know enough of how the brain works, by what warrant can we say we’ve over-reached the brain’s capacity for knowing things? — Mww

We're over-reaching when we imagine a fleshy mass of connected hemispheres has a scope of imagination beyond what protein-based matter has the capacity to conceive.