It is well recognised that Aristotle was ambiguous and inconsistent about what prime matter might be in his scheme. There isn't a single interpretation. And that likely reflects the fact Aristotle hadn't got the last bit of the puzzle sorted out. He had thoughts but not a decisive answer to offer. — apokrisis

Are you serious? Obviously you haven't read A's Metaphysics, or his Physics. To say that he was ambiguous and inconsistent with respect to the concept of matter is nonsense.




.

I can see why you only want to talk about the particular and not the vague or the general. I'll just remind you that I am talking about a triadic holistic metaphysics - such as Aristotelean hylomorphism - and opposing that to your reductionist metaphysics. — apokrisis

Sorry, but you're wrong here on two counts. First, Aristotle's metaphysics is nowhere near like yours. He denied the reality of the apeiron, and as I explained to you already, provided decisive refutation of this principle. It's in his Metaphysics Bk. 9. Also, as an epistemological principle he insisted that the LNC not be violated.

Second, I do not have a reductionist metaphysics, I have a dualism. I will discuss both the particular and the general, as distinct ontological categories. What you call vagueness appears to be a mixing up of these two categories, category mistake. Since it is a human an error, it is epistemic in nature. You take something which is of the category of the general, potential, and assign to it particular existence, the apeiron. This category mistake, the failure to properly distinguish between the general and the particular initializes your assumption that vagueness is a real ontological category. If you correctly apprehended the nature of potential, as general, you would not be able to assign to it particular existence, as an individual thing, the apeiron, and there would be no basis for your claim of ontic vagueness.

It doesn't allow for it. It swallows it up. It absorbs it. It removes the very fact of there being a difference that makes a difference - a fact of the matter, an individuation of either kind. — apokrisis

Exactly, you lose that difference to category error, and the result is your assumption that vagueness is ontologically real. Therefore the difference actually does make a difference, because denying that it makes a difference allows vagueness as an ontological principle, to emerge.

It makes the PNC an emergent feature of reality. It explains the PNC itself. — apokrisis

Tell me how the claim that there is situations in which the PNC does not apply, "explains" the PNC. It looks to me more like this renders the PNC as a useless, meaningless statement. Or is that what you mean by "explains the PNC", that the PNC is a useless statement?

No. It is generality to which the LEM fails to apply. The PNC fails to apply to vagueness. — apokrisis

I'm not talking about generality or vagueness, I'm talking about the LEM and the PNC. If the LEM fails to apply then this is a situation where contradictory terms can be used in description. If vagueness is when the LEM fails to apply, then vagueness is when contradictory terms can be used in description.

If there is a situation where neither one nor the other, of contradictory terms may be used, then this is a situation where LEM fails to apply. If generality is where LEM fails to apply, then generality is where neither one nor the other of contradictory terms apply.

This is about ontology, not epistemology. The claim is about reality itself having rational structure. Though that in turn would be why we can understand reality in rational terms. — apokrisis

If there is an aspect of reality to which the PNC does not apply, what you call vagueness, then this aspect of reality would be unintelligible because it allows for contradiction. My argument is that to posit the reality of this vagueness, as an ontological principle, is an irrational act, because it is impossible to determine whether the appearance of vagueness is due to reality not having a rational structure, or to a deficient epistemology. However, if assuming the reality of vagueness requires that we forfeit the PNC to allow for this assumption, then clearly this is a deficient epistemology, because the PNC is fundamental to any epistemology. Therefore we ought to conclude that the appearance of vagueness is necessarily due to a deficient epistemology. To say that vagueness is real is to say that the PNC does not apply, and to say that the PNC does not apply is to have deficient epistemology. So to posit vagueness as an ontological principle (assume the real existence of that which the LEM fails to apply) is irrational.

Or rather, metaphysically as a state, it is neither one thing nor the other. — apokrisis

Actually, this is a situation where the principle of excluded middle does not apply. You should learn to differentiate between these two. PNC states that contradiction is not allowed, PEM states that "neither one nor the other" is not allowed. With respect to ontological principles, there is a substantial difference between these two.

I wondered if the potentiality for humans to become god-like was something which would follow from your philosophy, it was an actual question, not an assumption ;). — Gooseone

I would say, that this is not possible, because God is understood as being immaterial and human beings necessarily have a material body. If you read some Christian theological principles, like those explained by Aquinas, you'll see that it is claimed that the major constraints on the human intellect are due to the fact that the human intellect is united with, and dependent on, the material body. God, being a separate Form, meaning a form which is independent from material existence, is intelligible to the highest degree because intellection is an abstraction, or separation of the form from the material object. But to the human intellect God may appear to be unintelligible, due to this deficiency of the human intellect.

For the rest, I don't see much difference between knowing / the unknown and intelligible vs unintelligible... — Gooseone

Do you not recognize the difference between actual and potential here? Known and unknown refer to what is actually apprehended by an intellect. Intelligible and unintelligible refer to what is potentially apprehended by an intellect.

Are you saying, that in symmetry maths, when every possible combination is considered to be an ordered arrangement, then it is impossible that there is a random combination?

Huh? If different permutations have the same outcome, how many different outcomes would you count? — apokrisis

I don't see how that's relevant. I am asking you what you mean by this statement:

Symmetry maths says when every permutation is permitted, what emerges is the realisation that some arrangements can't be randomised out of existence. — apokrisis

Care to explain? For example, what does "arrangements" refer to, and what does "randomized out of existence" mean?

I don't think you've really thought through what it means for the PNC to fail to apply. Vagueness is defined by it not being actually divided by a contradiction. It is the intelligible which is the crisply divided. — apokrisis

When the PNC does not apply, it is and it is not. This means contradiction is united within the same object. To say "not being actually divided by a contradiction" is slight of hand, because what is really said is that contradiction is allowed to be united in the same object. So the object may be described in contradictory terms.

For the child in grade school algebra would indeed be unintelligible, this points to the narrow framework we have to make sense of things. — Gooseone

All you are saying here, is that in relation to the child's intellect, algebra is unintelligible. So you are judging the object, algebra, by relating it to a child's intellect, and coming to the conclusion that the object is unintelligible. You have proposed a system of relativity, and have chosen the child's intellect, as an arbitrary frame of reference, and concluded that within this frame of reference the object is unintelligible. Therefore your use of "unintelligible" is completely subjective, arbitrary. and totally meaningless without a qualifier which designates relative to what.

This narrow framework we are operating in in this thread seems to be the one of the known unknowns where Apo points to the lower end where we can fathom things becoming unintelligible (we do not assign agency to ants yet when we look at the behaviour of an ant colony it can appear to behave intelligently, still we don't assume ants are intelligent) and others point to the higher end where we can fathom more things becoming intelligible (assigning anthropomorphic qualities to the universe, believing in god, having faith in human progress, etc). — Gooseone

It's one thing to say that from within my framework of understanding, it appears like the universe emerged from an unintelligible apeiron. But it is a completely different thing to state this, as apokrisis does, in a way which implies that it is a scientifically proven fact. The latter shows absolutely no respect for the fact that this is only how the object appears from one particular framework, and other frameworks will perceive the object in a completely different way. To base your application of the word "unintelligible" on a framework of relativity, which reduces intelligibility to something completely arbitrary and subjective, and then turn around and insist my framework is the correct one, is completely hypocritical if not actually contradictory.

When we're talking about, say, physics, we(!) are able to determine various causes for what we see and I do not find it inappropriate to state that some things "just happen" (with the caveat that you're looking at something in a specific framework, still, no need to explain the universe to bake an apply pie). — Gooseone

I can't say that I have ever heard a physicist talk in this way, to say things "just happen". A physicist will claim to know why it happens this way, or to not know why it happens this way. When they say that they do not know why it happens this way, what is emphasized is that they do not know. They do not imply that they know that it just happens. Much of high energy physics today is concerned with statistical probabilities. The physicists acknowledge that they do not know why things must be understood in terms of probabilities, but the fact that statistical analysis is applicable, and is being applied, indicates that they do not believe that things just happen.

Being able to fathom everything being intelligible to an intellect does not mean it will be so per se. As Apo mentions, you seem to exclude the possibility for unknown unknowns which are, at this moment, unintelligible. And, if you are excluding the possibility for unintelligibility and claim that everything can, in principle, be intelligible, do you then also believe we have the potential to become god-like? — Gooseone

To speak of unknowns, is completely different than speaking of things unintelligible. "Known" and "unknown" refer to an actual condition in relation to intellect. "Intelligible" and "unintelligible" imply potentiality in relation to intellect. For the reasons I described, it is irrational to assume that something is unintelligible. You have made it rational in a qualified sense with your system of relativity, described above. Things may be deemed as "unintelligible" in relation to particular intellectual frameworks. My argument is that these intellectual frameworks, are therefore deficient. My system allows that if there is something "god-like", then for that god-like being, all is intelligible. Why would you think that it allows that human beings could become god-like?

No, as I explained already, knowing something to be unintelligible is contradictory. If you know the thing, clearly it's not unintelligible. You can partially know a thing, and think that it's unintelligible, but this just means that you must make a better effort to understand it. It does not mean that you know it to be unintelligible.

In the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, it all starts with "a fluctuation".
...
So now the focused attention is going towards the question of "the first fluctuation". — apokrisis

Oh here you go again with that irrational nonsense.

We now actually know that there is a "quantum Planck-scale" at which definite actions and definite accidents blur into each other indistinguishably. — apokrisis

The reason why these things appear to blend into each other is that we are lacking the capacity to distinguish them, our theories which deal with these actions are faulty, not because there is some ontic vagueness about them. The vagueness is epistemic.

Symmetry maths says when every permutation is permitted, what emerges is the realisation that some arrangements can't be randomised out of existence. — apokrisis

Care to explain this? To me, it appears to say that symmetry maths says that when every permutation is permitted, then none are omitted.

I was under the impression that the context in which Apo used the term "unintelligible" had more to do with how things would be if brains weren't perceiving stuff. (As opposed to those who feel there is something 'higher', like knowing without a knower, awareness being really 'REALLY' special, etc.) — Gooseone

Apokrisis posits an apeiron, which is inherently unintelligible, as the beginning from which substantial existence emerges. The apeiron is an infinite potential, a vast vagueness. Vague is described as a situation where the law of non-contradiction does not apply. So it is implied that this apeiron is something which is impossible for a brain, or any form of intellect to understand, because it defies the basic principles of logic which are used in understanding. Therefore it is inherently unintelligible, impossible to understand, whether or not a brain is attempting to understand it. That is the principle which I object to.

Not to get into the: "If a tree falls into the forest....bla bla", but for now I find the whole concept of intelligibility a human thing. Things might exist and the way this stuff behaves might very well be intelligible but if there isn't anything resembling human cognition perceiving it I can just as well call it unintelligible. — Gooseone

I don't see how you can make that statement. "Intelligible", and "unintelligible", refer to whether or not a thing may be understood by an intellect. Suppose there are four chairs at a table. This situation is intelligible (possible to be understood) whether or not there is a human being there, actually perceiving it. Do you recognize the difference between being actually understood, and having the possibility of being understood? You seem to think that if something is not actually understood, then you are justified in calling it unintelligible. But the "ible" suffix implies having the possibility of being understood, so just because something is not actually understood, this does not justify calling it unintelligible, it is simply unknown.

You say it yourself, you need a capacity to understand for things to become intelligible, it's my opinion we need something resembling human cognition to do so and I feel 'that' is something very physical. — Gooseone

I agree, that if there was no capacity to understand, no mind anywhere in the universe, we couldn't call anything "intelligible". But to call something "intelligible" requires a mind itself, and it is clearly not the case that there is no mind anywhere in the universe. So that primary prerequisite. that there be a mind for something to intelligible, is already fulfilled, necessarily, by the present conditions of existing minds. Now, what is at issue is what type of things do we label as intelligible or unintelligible. The fact that I can't understand something, or even that no living human being can understand this thing, doesn't warrant it being entitled unintelligible. In the future, someone might figure it out.

Suppose something is described in contradictory terms. Do you agree that this description is unintelligible, because it is contradictory? But just because the description of the thing is unintelligible, this does not necessitate the conclusion that the thing itself, which is described, is unintelligible. The person making the description may be mistaken. My argument is that it is unphilosophical, and wrong, to assume that anything itself is actually unintelligible. When something appears to be unintelligible (requiring a contradictory description or something like that), this is really due to a deficiency of the intellect which is trying to understand it.

Yeah, something like that. When "the rule" has difficulty dealing with the fringe factors, you need to make up more rules to deal with those exceptions to the rule. Cosmology is just the half of it. At the other extreme, in the microcosm of quantum mechanics, physicists use special relativity to produce fields. And here we have the same result, contradiction, particles which are not really particles. So in the one extreme, with the massive objects of the vast universe, there are motions which are not really motions, and at the other extreme, in the miniature world of quantum mechanics, there are objects which are not really objects. Both of these problems come about from the use of relativity theory which is really only applicable in the middle realm of the human environment, where the discrepancies that are amplified at the extremes, do not cause any problems.

Yes. What about them suggests that the speed of light in a vacuum would be different in different parts of the Universe? — Agustino

OK, you're familiar with the concept of spatial expansion, that's good. So observational information is taken and interpreted according to the precepts of relativity based theories. The interpretations show that distant objects, stars and galaxies are all moving away from us. Of course we cannot conclude that all the objects in the universe are moving away from us, because that would make us the centre of the universe, just like geocentrism. Also, we wouldn't want to admit that relativity theory is defective, because applying it makes it appear like we are the centre of the universe. Instead, cosmologists have produced the theory of spatial expansion.

Now we have the motions of objects which are subject to relativity theory, plus motions which are subject to expansion theories. Since relativity theory is supposed to apply to all motions of material objects, then the latter motions, those explained by expansion theories cannot be called motions. So we have "motions" those which are consistent with relativity theory, and "non-motions", those motions which require expansion theories to explain. Instead of recognizing that relativity theory is inadequate for interpreting all the motions in the universe, cosmologists prefer to accept contradiction. They allow that there are motions which are not real motions, because they are inconsistent with relativity. Then they are forced to produce new theories, spatial expansion, to account for these contradictory motions.

"No reason"? — Srap Tasmaner

I would say "no reason", just like in my example with the gold fish, there is no reason to believe that all fish are gold fish, just because the one pond which was analyzed had only gold fish. Of course you could call this a faulty reason, but then how would you distinguish faulty reason from no reason?

Consider a situation where someone attempts to understand something, and believes oneself to understand, and claims to understand, but really misunderstands. We cannot say that the person understands, because as per the description, the person really misunderstands. Yet the person claims to understand, and has reason for the believe that the thing has been understood. We must somehow disqualify that "reason", as unreasonable, and therefore "no reason", in order to validate the description, which is that the person misunderstands.

It's true that it is logically possible that the speed of light in a vacuum would be different in other places of the Universe, but what reason do we have to suppose this is the case? — Agustino

Do you know about the Doppler effect, red shift, and theories which describe the universe as expanding?

It's not true, light speed is only constant in a vacuum, it varies in speed while moving through any medium. — Wosret

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That's how we get refraction, and the bent stick effect, from the change in speed.

There's no reason to disagree with special relativity for the simple reason that we have never observed light traveling at a different speed anywhere in all our observations so far. It could be possible, but we've just never seen it happen. So there is no reason to doubt SR. A rational person just cannot doubt it. — Agustino

This doesn't make sense. First, your claim with respect to special relativity, was that light in all circumstances always travels at the same speed. Now you say that just because we've never seen light travel at a different speed, this claim is verified and there is no reason to doubt it. The problem with your position is that human beings live only in a very limited, and specific set of conditions, and therefore they have no capacity to measure the speed of light except under these very limited conditions. These conditions make up a very small proportion of possible conditions. So until human beings derive a way to measure the speed of light in all of these vastly differing possible conditions, there is very good reason to doubt the accuracy special relativity. It's like going to a pond and finding that all the fish in that pond are goldfish, then making the bold assertion that all fish in all bodies of water are goldfish.

I can agree with that but the issue here is the knowing. People adhered to the law of gravity by sticking to the ground before we started to share theories of gravity or even gave it a name, I see no issue to call such a previous state unintelligible / vague, I don't take that as a hard limit on what we can know metaphysically in the future. Inclinations, making efforts, for all I know they could also be something we will have a very different understanding of in the future, just like we did in the past. — Gooseone

I can't understand your principles. You seem to be saying that when people can't understand something, then it is correct for them to say that this thing is unintelligible. Would a child in grade school, who can't understand algebra be correct to say that algebra is unintelligible? Would someone in high school be correct to say that university level physics is unintelligible. I would think that "unintelligible" refers to something which is impossible to understand, for any intellect

Do you not see that there is a difference between something which appears to be unintelligible because you do not have the capacity to understand it, and something which is unintelligible because it is impossible for any intellect to understand it? If you accept that there is such a difference, then consider the problem which arises when something appears to be unintelligible. How are you going to determine whether the thing in question just appears to be unintelligible because you do not have the capacity to understand it, or whether it is impossible for any intellect to understand? Suppose you ask others, and no one seems to have the capacity to understand it. Does this justify the claim that it is impossible for any intellect to understand it? I don't think so, and that's why it's always wrong to designate something which you do not have the capacity to understand, as unintelligible.

It is the case of the 1000 monkeys typing on typewriters for a thousand years to produce the complete works of Shakespeare. The problem of the evolution of life from molecules seems settled. — MikeL

I don't think 1000 monkeys could type Shakespeare in 1000 years. I think the proper example is that is a monkey were given an infinite amount of time it would type Shakespeare. But this only exemplifies the absurdity of allowing that there could actually be an infinite amount of anything.

In physics, we have got used to considering possibilities as "virtual particles". So the possibilities we can count - as in quantum mechanics - are also "actual" in a special way.

This isn't empty metaphysics. We can actually measure the physical contribution that a cloud of ghostly possibilities adds to any physical property. It is why the vacuum has an irreducible zero point energy, why the magnetic moment of the electron has an added quantum correction. — apokrisis

These possibilities are derived from a particular actual state which is constructed in the laboratory, or wherever. The point is that any set of possibilities is dependent on the actual state which produces them. Each constructed state of "vacuum", or whatever state is produced in the lab, has possibilities which are proper to that constructed state. This is completely different from the claim that the universe emerged from an infinity of possibilities which is not dependent on any actual state. That is the claim which is irrational.

So I'm not making shit up. Our most accurate theory of nature forces us to take a constraints-based, sum over histories or path integral, view of material being. We can count the effect that unlimited possibility has on the actuality we then measure. — apokrisis

The constraints based view of nature leads to an infinite regress of changing constraints. You seem to avoid the infinite regress by assuming an initial condition of infinite possibility (no constraints) where constraints magical emerge. That's where you're making shit up.

Your alternative account - a classically-inspired tale - is experimentally proven as wrong. — apokrisis

No, actually no one has experimented with my "classically-inspired tale". Scientists, just like you, are uninterested in it.

Well MWI is just an interpretation of these proven facts. It is one way of preserving the kind of classical metaphysics you also hold dear. Just as you say you have no choice left but to believe "God did it", so MWI-ers say they have no choice but to believe every virtual possibility must then be something really happening in some other actual world (or mumble, mumble, another branch of the infinite wavefunction). — apokrisis

There's a big difference between the two interpretations of reality. Giving actual existence to logical possibilities is irrational due to inherent contradiction, assuming "God did it" is naïve but not irrational.

Again, a logic of vagueness is the way out of this metaphysical impass. — apokrisis

Assuming vagueness as a starting point is just another way of assigning actual existence to logical possibilities, and this is irrational. It is not the way out. Assuming God, as an alternative actuality is the way out. But physicalists, like yourself, seem to have a deep fear of God, and will posit any of a vast number of irrational principles in order to avoid what is logically necessary.

If constrain begets constraint, then what begat the first constraint?

Oh I forgot. Must be God. — apokrisis

As soon as someone shows me the way around this problem, I'm fully prepared to ditch the idea of God. I don't want to believe in God, and I never did want to believe in God, but this issue demonstrates the necessity of God, so I am stuck with this. Of course we can dump God and choose an irrational ontological principle, like you do, but I prefer to keep my wits. So, I'm still seeking a logical alternative, and not about to succumb to your irrationality. That's why I keep impressing this point on you, perhaps you can help me come up with something better. To no avail though, because you're already convicted.

Possibility itself will eliminate its own variety just by trying to express its every alternative at once. That is the essence of constraints-based causal self-organisation. — apokrisis

You still don't get it do you? Possibility doesn't do anything. It is not actual, it cannot do anything, by definition. To talk about possibility doing something, itself, is simple contradiction. Something actual must actualize any particular possibility. If this were not the case, then all possibilities would automatically be actualized, all the time, and there would be no difference between "possible" and "actual". That is really the issue with MWI of QM. See how this premise leads to irrational ontological principles?

Nope. It pats you on the head and points you in the direction of the better alternative you've been ignoring. — apokrisis

I sure as hell haven't been ignoring this alternative. How could I? It's rampant all around me. That it's the better alternative is clearly false due to the fact that it is an irrational option.

"In his book “Time Reborn” Smolin argues that physicists have inappropriately banned the
reality of time because they confuse their timeless mathematical models with reality,
(Smolin, 2013). — Rich

"Time Reborn" is a good book, well worth the time to read it. Smolin explains how the applicability of the laws of physics is limited by the confines of the size of the experimenting theatre. So the laws are not applicable at the extreme micro scale, nor are they applicable at the extreme macro scale, they are applicable at the human scale, because this is the environment which they have been developed to be applicable in. He applies this principle to time, and suggests that over a very short period of time, or over a very long period of time, the laws of physics would differ, and speculates that the laws of physics should actually be represented as evolving over time.

At least Peirce was consistent, as apparently was Schelling. — Rich

I don't mind inconsistency in a philosopher's writing. Many start writing when they are young, and if they maintain an open mind, their thoughts will develop. So what appears like inconsistency is quite often just the free mind attempting to understand reality.

It should also be noted that Whitehead also had to include his version of God in his process philosophy. — Rich

Many philosophers will start out with a grand ambition of producing an ontology which excludes God. But as the difficulties emerge, it's found to be not an easy task.

If constraints don't emerge for material being, then provide me with a die that is five or seven sided. Why is six-sidedness a limit on this kind of materiality? Are you not in fact free to change the number of sides composing a regular solid? — apokrisis

As I said, constraints change, but to posit constraints coming into existence (emerging) from an absolute lack of constraint is nonsense.

As soon as you have any dimensionality - on free action in some number of particular orrthogonal directions - you also have the complementary fact of constraints on the resulting geometric possibility.

From as soon as you have 3D flat space, five and seven sided dice are an impossibility. And six sided dice a matchingly definite possibility. — apokrisis

Dimensionality is itself a constraint. A "3D flat space" is a constraint. Why do you suppose that 3D space comes into existence from infinite possibility? This is what is at issue here, we can always ask, "why is there what there is instead of something else?". And this is a respectable philosophical question. But when you posit infinite possibility you deny that there is any answer to that question, and this stymies philosophical investigation.

To some, it may seem too simplistic to describe current scientific theories about the origins of the Universe and Life as "It just happened", but if one takes the time too peel away all of the manufactured words and ideas, and the fog of verbosity, "It just happened", is all that is left. To masquerade the emptiness of the explanations, words such as tychism, and other poetic and pseudo-scientific phrases as invented out of thin air. All to avoid the easily understood phrase"We don't have the foggiest idea". — Rich

But apokrisis' position goes a lot further than "it just happened", with the assumption of apeiron and infinite potential. When potential is conceived of as infinite, then it is impossible that there is any constraints, or actuality. When there is nothing actual, then it is impossible for anything to happen. So the notion of infinite potential is somewhat deceptive, because it implies that anything is possible But apokrisis refuses to accept the other side of the coin, and that is that if there is infinite potential, then every actuality is impossible.

The point of the die example is that constraints do not emerge, they change, so that a new constraint comes into existence from an already existing constraint. So if you are rolling a six sided die, with numbers one to six, it would be a mistake to think that if you rolled enough times you might get a zero, or a seven, without changing the die.

What if, instead of a die, you take Buffon's needle? You can throw a needle on a paper and after a while you can deduce Pi from doing so. As with a die there are a lot of constraints already in place to make this happen but I don't feel it's to dissimilar. So is there some new constraint suddenly? Did it "just happen"? — Gooseone

In a realm of infinite potential, apeiron, there is by definition, no constraints whatsoever. To think that in a world of infinite potential, a constraint might just pop into existence through some form of symmetry-breaking or something like that, is like thinking that you might suddenly role a seven on a die with numbers one to six. It is an irrational thought, something which is logically impossible.

Still, I feel the route to find out what's going on lies in evolving further and not in claiming some higher order principle is already knowable ..just not in the way we are used to know things. — Gooseone

Don't you think that if a higher order principle could be discovered by a more evolved living creature, that higher order principle must be already in essence knowable? We are all evolving living beings, and knowledge advances. No one knows when the higher order principle will be found, but we must keep striving to find it, and this takes effort. But if we posit as a first ontological principle, that the foundation of being, existence, is itself unknowable due to some sort of vagueness, then we will not be inclined to make the effort to find that higher order principle, assuming that such is impossible due to that inherent unintelligibility.

Err, yeah. That was the point. The self-negation of unintelligibility (the constraint on chaos) is what Peirce's "growth of universal reasonableness" is all about. — apokrisis

Right, as I demonstrated in that post, if this is Peirce's ontology, it is mistaken. And, it is the mistake of emergentism in general.

If you had a die, which could roll any number between one and six, and you knew that you could keep rolling forever and the outcome of each roll would be an equal possibility of every number between one and six, why would you believe that at some point some constraints would emerge? It's an irrational belief because it's contrary to what we already claim to know about the die..

That is what you claim when you posit an apeiron of infinite possibility, then say that constraints emerge. Can't you see the irrationality here? You claim to know the apeiron as infinite possibility, then say that constraints emerge from this, as if constraints could emerge from the possibilities involved in rolling the die. Come on, what makes a mind like yours, which normally thinks in a clear and rational way, choose such a clearly irrational ontological principle?

Back to efficient causes, hey? — apokrisis

I never said "efficient cause", I assume final cause,.

When you assume a material first principle, as you do, then some form of active cause is necessary to bring about change. But you assume that the constraints just magically emerge out of the infinite freedom of material potential, as a symmetry-breaking. And this is completely irrational.

No. I'm not happy, this is exactly the position which I criticised in my post, and you still haven't addressed my criticism. You've just restated your position which premises "the unintelligible" as an ontological principle. You haven't addressed my argument against this, which demonstrates that this is an irrational ontological principle.

It is irrational because the thing posited as "unintelligible" cannot be known to be unintelligible because this would mean that the thing is known and therefore intelligible, so the principle would be self-contradicting. If it appears to be unintelligible, but is not known to be unintelligible, then it is most likely a defect in the intellect which is attempting to understand it, which makes it appear to be unintelligible. Then it would not be the nature of the thing itself which makes it appear to be unintelligible, so it would be wrong to call it this. Either way, it is wrong to have an ontological principle which posits the reality of "the unintelligible".

If intelligiblity is what arises, then the foundational limit to that developmental trajectory is "the unintelligible". — apokrisis

This is the impossibility, right here in a nutshell. It is impossible that intelligibility is what arises. Pure random unintelligible infinite potential cannot give rise to intelligible constraint, because this would mean that it negates itself. What it is not, in absolutism, must be already within it, in order that it could negate itself, and this is self-contradictory. Can pure, absolute randomness suddenly become ordered? The order must come from somewhere. But if all there is, is pure absolute, infinite disorder, then there is nowhere for it to come from.

We all experience life, and I'm all about describing experience as precisely as we can by direct observation.

I can say on my behalf, that the duration that I experience is all in my memory. This is my experienced time. — Rich

I agree with this, assuming that we maintain a strict meaning of "experience", as I described earlier. But this allows that we have many feelings which are not experiences. This would be for example, intentions, we have them but we do not experience them. Anticipations fall into this category, we have anticipations but we do not experience the things which are anticipated. We experience what really happens to us relative to the anticipation, and this might be somewhat different from what was anticipated.

With this said, if you experience time differently, then I cannot deny your experience. — Rich

So I would not say that time falls into the category of things which are experienced. Do you recognize that concepts are not experienced? They are understood, not experienced. So duration is a concept, it is not experienced. Experience is always of the particular, while the concept is general. So for example, we do not experience the colour red, this is a concept, we understand it. But we do experience particular instances of seeing the colour red. Likewise, we do not experience duration, we understand it, but we do experience particular instances of duration. So if I referred you to a particular instance of duration, "the time when X was occurring", you would probably describe your experience of that instance of duration as X occurring.

Either the post is there or it is not. I think it's there, and you had no reply. And that's legit.

However, when discussing time (duration) as we experience it, I believe what we are experiencing is a possibility that we create in memory as opposed to an experienced future. — Rich

I agree that duration is a construct of memory, it is an empirical concept, but the point of my first post was that this is not the way that time appears to us in the most primordial sense. In the primordial sense time appears to us as a past and a future, the two being fundamentally different. It is when we assign order to what has occurred, that we conceive of duration. But duration is not time itself, because time goes to that deeper level.

Well, it's quite clear that I explained in very explicit terms how your backward approach is irrational, and you had no reply to that.

I do not know of how to conceive of a possible future without it being in memory. — Rich

I am not talking about conceiving of a possible future, I am talking about anticipation. We anticipate the actual future, not possibilities. Possibilities are created by knowing that the anticipated future is lacking in necessity. Every day I anticipate all sorts of new situations which I will be in, before I am in them. Clearly, since they are new situations, I am not remembering them.

Talk about the Apeiron will thus always have to carry an air of substantiality. But the Apeiron is then formally the vague limit to substantiality. It is the boundary to reality, not itself a further state of reality. That is the subtle further bit of the story. — apokrisis

Still you ramble on...

And emergence, from the random symmetry-breaking of pure, infinitely vague potential, is not an intelligent answer. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but sometimes when a person is so trapped by unreasonable self-conviction that the individual is doing or saying irrational things, it is necessary to grab that person's attention and say "Hey, you are acting irrationally!"

Special Relativity is a very simple theory, the only additional assumption compared to classical mechanics is that light travels at a fixed speed everywhere. Nobody with a good understanding of physics can disagree with special relativity. — Agustino

Why do you say that no one with a good understanding of physics can disagree with special relativity? According to what you've said here, all one has to disagree with to disagree with SR, is the assumption that light travels at the same speed everywhere. Unless the speed of light has been measured in every possible type of circumstance, then there really is no reason to believe in SR. We can easily fail in our inductive generalizations when we conclude that X is the case in all types of situations, without testing X in all different types of situations.

The notion of past and future are tied to memory though. We know about the past, and by extension the future because we have memory. Without memory, there would be no notion of past and future, just the present. — Agustino

Without memory there would be no conscious mind, and it is the conscious mind which anticipates the future, but this does not mean that we know about the future by means of our memory. That would be the fallacy of association. If all creature which anticipate the future also have memories of the past, we cannot conclude that they anticipate the future by means of their memories of the past. So you haven't really provided an argument for your claim that we know about the future through our memory.

That sounds rather nonsensical to me, as memory and anticipation are distinct. Here's a test. Try sitting or standing, and concentrating very rigorously on some past memories. Something could come out of the blue and whack you on the head because you have neglected that faculty which anticipates the future. If you are really good at focusing your attention on past memories, you will find that while you are doing this, you are really not able to do anything else. So anticipating the future, which enables you to do things, and remembering the past are distinct faculties, and this is evident from the fact that if we are overly attentive of one, we do so at the expense of neglecting the other.

I don't think we experience such a separation, as much as we construct it. — Agustino

Again, this is a rather meaningless statement. It may be argued that everything we experience is constructed. Then the questions would be "constructed by what?", and "out of what?". I don't think that you mean by "we construct it", that the difference between future and past is totally imaginary, so what do you mean?

Meaning? What is this that stays the same? — Agustino

The division between future and past stays the same. Have you not found, that throughout your life, the division between future and past has always been right there with you, and has always remained the same, as the division between future and past? Despite the fact that things have changed, the division between future and past, itself, has not changed

Yes, we imagine possible actions, but this is done in memory, not in the future.[ — Rich

No, the imagination is not the memory. And as much as our anticipation of the future is not "in the future", this does not mean it is in the past. Likewise, our memories are of the past, they are not in the past.

Time as we experience only exists as an experience of the past moving into the present, continuously. — Rich

Yes I agree, strictly speaking, with a proper definition of "experience", our experience is only of the past. However, as living beings we also anticipate the future, and this is just as much a part of being alive as our experience of the past is. So there is a part of being alive which transcends experience, and this is our anticipation of the future.

Maintaining this strict definition of "experience", it would not be correct to say that we experience time, or the passing of time. All we have experienced is a changing past, and this is why the empirical notion of "time" is restricted to an abstraction from change.

The point I am trying to make though, is that in the more primordial sense, time appears to us as this separation between things experienced and things anticipated. So if the empirical sciences utilize a definition of time, which is restricted to an abstraction from our experience of things past, then this definition is completely missing half of how time appears to us.

I think your op misses the most important aspect of time. Time exists as the separation, or division, between past and future. The difference which exists between past and future is likely the most important aspect of our living experience.

So you say that we experience a "flow" of time, but this might not really be correct. We experience a separation between past and future, and there is something about this separation which is always changing, the anticipated future comes to pass, so there is always becoming a new past. This we assume as the flow of time. But there is also something about the separation between past and future which seems to always stay the same, and this is what allows us to measure time.

But anyway, the point about the vague~crisp is that it arises as the limit of our metaphysical inquiries into the question of "why existence?".

We can't answer the question in some monistic fashion - A caused B, and that's that. It is already accepted that existence itself is a brute fact because it is a totalising question bereft of counterfactuals (well, no one has imagined a good one so far). — apokrisis

The inquiry of "why existence", when asked, is quickly exposed as nonsensical. The real metaphysical inquiry asks "why is there what there is, rather than something else". And emergence, from the random symmetry-breaking of pure, infinitely vague potential, is not an intelligent answer.

Intelligibility is what emerges. Therefore it would be incoherent to claim that what it emerges from is the intelligible as well. — apokrisis

That's right, so you are assuming as a premise, the existence of something whose nature is such, that the thing is unintelligible. Not only is this blatantly unphilosophical, but it is demonstrably a mistaken premise.

In the logical process, we proceed from premises which are of the highest degree of certainty toward an understanding of things which we have a lower degree of certainty about. The premise "X is unintelligible", cannot be known with any degree of certainty because this would be self-contradicting. To know that X is unintelligible is to know X, and knowing X means that X is necessarily intelligible.

So the premise that X is unintelligible can be interpreted in no way other than as the statement "I do not understand X". This says nothing about X itself, it says something about the intellect which is trying to understand X. Therefore it is always a mistake, wrong, incorrect, to posit as an ontological principle, the existence of something unintelligible. If something appears to be unintelligible, then we ought to assume that the intellect attempting to understand it is deficient. If it could be proven that the thing actually is unintelligible, this would constitute knowing the thing, rendering that conclusion as false. Therefore it is impossible to prove that a thing is unintelligible, and wrong to assume that a thing is unintelligible.

So Peirce stood for a developmental metaphysics in which all things originate in a state of ultimate vagueness (or Firstness).
...

Peirce said vagueness is that to which the principle of non-contradiction fails to apply. — apokrisis

This is the mistaken premise I refer to. It is fundamental to emergence theory, and is nothing other than the statement of "I don't understand it therefore it is unintelligible".

And of course - if you can get past the Scholastic misrepresentations - Aristotle was striving towards the same with his Hylomorphism. His "prime matter" was a logical attempt to vague-ify the basis of being. — apokrisis

You grossly misrepresent Aristotle. He analyzed the concept of "prime matter" and by means of the cosmological argument he demonstrated that the existence of prime matter is logically impossible. You'll find this in his "Metaphysics" Bk 9".

An apeiron is an everythingness in being a pure potential without limitation. — apokrisis

This is "the unintelligible". And. it is the assumption which Aristotle firmly and decisively refuted with the cosmological argument. Here's a summary of that argument. It is impossible that there ever was such a thing as pure potential without limitation, because if there ever was such a thing as pure, infinite potential, there would always be pure infinite potential, because it requires something actual to actualize any potential. If there is something actual, then it is impossible that there is pure infinite potential. What we observe is that there is something actual, therefore it is impossible that there ever was pure infinite potential. Simply put, the proposition of pure potential without limitation is denied as impossible, by the fact that there is something actual.

Except a backwards triadism that relies on brute fact monism rather than emergence...

Sounds legit. — apokrisis

It's backwards because it doesn't rely on emergence? As I've demonstrated to you, over and over again, in a multitude of different ways, emergence is untenable because it relies on an unintelligible premise. This renders the entire approach as unintelligible.

If that's your method for judging an ontology, by relating it to the concept of emergence, then it's no wonder that your metaphysics is so upside down. You need to apprehend emergence as fundamentally flawed, and this will not come about until you get a good grasp of some basic metaphysical principles.

What emergence claims is "we cannot understand what happened, so we'll just say that what happened is unintelligible, and claim that the unintelligible happened." This is the real problem with Peirce's philosophy which gives ontological status to vagueness, it allows one to claim that there are things which are impossible to understand, things which are unintelligible. Allowing the unintelligible into your metaphysics as a fundamental principle, is an act of a quitter. It is to say "I cannot understand it so I'll assume that it's impossible to understand", it's ontologically vague. But if the untintelligible (vagueness) is adopted, and employed as a premise, then it renders all the conclusions which follow (emergence being one), as unintelligible.

Constraints remove degrees of freedom. And the degrees of freedom not removed are then those that must be expressable. It's not rocket science. — apokrisis

No, freedom and constraint only actual exist in relation to something else, a thing which is either free or constrained. Otherwise you are just referring to a concept. Degrees of heat or cold only have reality in relation to something which is either hot or cold. You are trying to assign reality to the abstracted concept "degrees of freedom", with disrespect for the fact that this only has meaning in relation to a thing, a being, which is having these degrees of freedom taken from it.

Once you give reality to this thing, the being, then freedom and constraint can no longer be considered as two faces of the same thing. They are completely different aspects of the world. Freedom comes from a different source than constraint does. They are only two faces of the same thing within the concept which opposes them as the negation of each other.

That's your great mistake, how you conflate final cause with formal cause, as if they are two facets of the same thing. Past actualities, which are the constraints on present existence, are fundamentally different from future possibilities, which are the freedoms of present existence. We relate the two to each other through the assumption of present existence, but that they may be related to each other does not make them two faces of the same thing.

And, the fact that present existence is just an assumption, though it is one which is necessary to make in order to have this relationship, indicates that the constructed, or artificial, relationship between these two, is itself unsound. Therefore the assumption that past actualities and future possibilities are two faces of the same thing, is equally unsound.

The assumption is of a "being", or "existence", at the present. It is made sound by designating us, human beings, oneself, as this "being" at the present. When the assumption of a being at the present is made sound in this way, then past actualities, and future possibilities are assigned the name "reality" by this being. However, they are understood to be independent from the being, and not two faces of the being. To model reality as two parts of one being, at the present, is a mistake, because it disallows the possibility of an independent reality.

You aren't going to be able to follow this as you are insisting on a mentalistic reading of anything I say. — apokrisis

I see this as the obvious problem. We are talking semiotics, which implies semantics and meaning. You appear to be assuming a type of semiotics which doesn't require mental activity. I want you to explain the basis of this assumption to me, otherwise how can I interpret what you say in any way other than mentalistic?

The current flow of water doesn't interact with that past directly, in some material fashion, but it does interact with that past indirectly in seeing the current state of the channel as an informational constraint on its possibilities. — apokrisis

So, this is a good example. How does the water "see" the channel as informational constraint on its possibilities? I can understand how you, as a human being with a mind, can understand the channel as informational constraint on the water's possibilities. But to project this understanding onto the water, to say that the water understands the informational constraints on its possibilities appears like a mistaken attribution of the interpreting, and understanding, of information. You don't really believe that water "sees" or understands the informational constraints on its possibilities do you?

If you don't follow modern physics, you likely have no idea how important this new approach is. But it is why fundamental physics is attempting to rebuild itself on thermodynamic principles like entropy, dissipation and emergence.

One doesn't have to label this pan-semiotics. Physics calls it information theory, holography, thermal, etc. — apokrisis

There is a very big difference between the principles of physics, and what you are claiming. Physicists recognize that they are the ones seeing the world as information, they do not claim as you do that the inanimate matter of the world, such as water, sees the world as information.

My view is that Peircean pan-semiosis offers the best metaphysical framework for interpreting what this new physics is actually struggling to say about reality.

So you can scoff at the triviality of the river in its channel example. But instead, why not think about it carefully. All those little bouncing H2O molecules knocking off one another. And then the mysterious invisible hand that is their collective past. The events of the moment are being shaped by the information which represents the context of a history. But also each molecule has the chance to rewrite the history of the river bed. — apokrisis

This is not a good metaphysics to pursue because it misses the essence of intentionality, "telos", which involves a view toward the future, anticipation. You claim the possibilities involved in the activity of H2O molecules are constrained by history, and this is probably a true way of looking at things. But it is a mistake to claim that this is a semiotic activity because the description lacks the essence of semiotic activity, which is carried out for the sake of bringing something into existence in the future. Semiotic activity involves anticipation of the future. Being constrained by history, and having anticipation for the future are two completely distinct things. Water is constrained by history, the living being anticipates the future. This is the difference between formal and final cause which you will not cease to conflate. Unless you can demonstrate how being constrained by the past, and anticipating the future, are one and the same thing, the conflation is completely unjustified. But I think that by not recognizing this difference your metaphysics entirely misses the mark.

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It" either reads the signs, or creates them (thinking of the creative power of Hoffman's conscious agents); a conscious agent, or agents, which transcend(s) substantial existence. From a psychological standpoint, that makes sense because that's what human beings do: create things (albeit, in a temporal manner). — Galuchat

In apokrisis' ontology, the "it" which reads signs or creates them, bringing substance into existence, is a feature of the vague infinite potential of matter, as substantial existence emerges from the infinite apeiron. But this infinite apeiron, or prime matter, as Aristotle demonstrated, is an unintelligible principle.

In relation to substantial existence then, we can follow the principles of Aristotle's cosmological argument, and apprehend the necessity of assigning to this "it" (which reads signs), substantial existence, creating an ontology of substance dualism, or we can adhere to the physicalist's assertions that prime matter is something real, thus leaving the "it" which reads signs as unintelligible within the infinite apeiron of prime matter.