But a value judgement is not value as an objective structure of reality. It’s much more complex than this narrowly perceived relation configured as a linear hierarchy or sliding scale.
— Possibility

OK, I will admit that it is possible to say that a value is not itself a value judgement. We can say that it is the result, or consequence of a value judgement. And, this is a necessary relation, a value does not exist independently of a value judgement, it is dependent on a value judgement, as only being capable of being produced by a value judgement. We can say, this is what a value is, what is produced from that type of judgement.

Also, please note that a value judgement, is an activity, an event. But a value, if we allow it separate existence, as something created by such a judgement, is now static, an object, because it has been separated from the agent, and the activity which created it. This is why we can say that a value is dependent on that agency, and is not properly independent from it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that a value judgement is an activity, an event. But I’m not talking about a particular value created by such a judgement - a measurement. That is a position in a hierarchical (linear) relation to our momentary involvement in that event. It is not an object. What I’m referring to is qualitative or potential value as variability, not a value as a reductionist relation to intra-action.

In this paragraph you describe value structures as being dependent on the human mind, then you conclude by saying that this is a " falling behind in understanding". But there is no other way to understand values, except as being dependent on minds, so how can this understanding be a" falling behind", rather than a moving forward. In reality, to deny that values are dependent on value judgements, which are dependent on minds, is what ought to be called a falling behind in understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

What I’m saying is we assume that value structures are dependent on the human mind, but this is a misunderstanding. The number is a measurement, a momentary intra-action with value, not value itself. It is the human mind that consists of ongoing value judgement - ongoing relationality to the inherent variability of potential/value.

Agency is recognised as a property of the system itself, and these so-called ‘subjects’, ‘actions’ and ‘objects’ are all fundamentally active elements, their apparent ‘properties’ a purposeful configuration of the particular intra-action, within which we should recognise ourselves as necessarily involved.
— Possibility

All systems are artificial. We have mechanical systems, logical systems, as well as representative systems such as models. But all types of systems are fundamentally artificial, therefore agency in the sense of an intentional action of an intentional being, is required for the creation of any system. So agency is prior to a system, as cause of it, and any form of agency which inheres within the system is distinct from the type of agency which acts as a cause of the system. Now we have a very obvious need for dualism, to account for these two very distinct types of agency. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let’s look at another definition:

System (noun): 1. a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.
2. a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.

The only requirements for a system are complexity and relationality. Any system description must include a degree of artificiality (human involvement), but that doesn’t make artifice fundamental to the system itself. That just means there is no way to describe the entire system, so that description always occurs from within. As Bohr says, “We are part of that nature that we seek to understand.”

This is very obviously a misunderstanding. Those particular values which are called "variables" are not important to the hurricane itself, but are important to the human understanding of the hurricane. The human beings are modeling the storm as a "system" and these are the variables which are important to them in their understanding of the storm. They are not important to the storm itself, because the storm has no intention, purpose, and doesn't care about anything whatsoever. — Metaphysician Undercover

Stop trying to anthropomorphise the hurricane. Regardless of our models, a hurricane would not exist without certain intra-acting variables (not particular values), which also determine its duration, movement, intensity, etc. Whether or not anyone cares or understands, these variable aspects of reality are important and significant to the hurricane in its becoming.

Then how can you be sure you’re on the right road, or even heading in the right direction?
— Possibility

As I said, intuition. And, very often I am on the wrong track, that's the problem with intuition, it's not super reliable. However, the open mind which is a necessary aspect of seeking the truth allows a person to readily change one's mind, as the need arises. That's the Socratic position of not knowing, the lack of certitude provides for an open mind.

That feeling of ‘repugnance’ is intuition telling you there’s something amiss, but there's no determining from affect alone whether what’s amiss is in what you’re describing or the system you’re using to describe it. And you can only critique the system from outside it. So what are you afraid of?
— Possibility

I don't follow this. The whole point of dualism is to allow for this position, that the thing being described, and the system describing it, are distinct. You reject dualism, but now you use a premise which requires dualism, "you can only critique the system from outside it", to make your argument. Without dualism, there is no such thing as outside the system, so the describing would be done with the same system which is being described. I believe this is why you seem to have a hard time with the category separation between the representation and the thing represented resulting in the category mistake I've pointed to. An activity, as a type, a description, or a model, does not require a particular thing which is active, because any specific activity is a type, a universal. But a particular activity, meaning a particular instance of activity, always involves something which is active. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m saying that the system of grammatical logic is incomplete as a structure of reality. I’m pretty sure that you and I both agree here. It’s why dualism seems to be your only solution. There is the human mind governed by grammatical logic, and some external system of reality it cannot accurately represent.

But dualism as an ontology is a cop-out in this respect. It’s a refusal to posit and seek to understand a broader relational framework in which two systems can intra-act. It simply stops there and declares two distinct systems. And yet these systems are not independent, not mutually exclusive - they co-exist in a relational framework. But you’re limited by outdated grammatical conventions, that keep you from understanding it.

I’m suggesting that you consider the possibility that this logical system dictated by grammatical conventions exists in a broader relational framework which includes those aspects of mathematical and scientific findings that appear to contradict within the narrow framework of grammatical logic. Consider the possibility that you’re on the wrong track, if it must stop at dualism.

I definitely agree that value is not necessarily judged according to one system of logic, that's why values are commonly said to be subjective. But what else, other than human beings, do you think is capable of making value judgements? Would this be some other animals? I can agree that animals, maybe even plants, are capable of doing something which we might call making value judgements. Is this what you had in mind? — Metaphysician Undercover

To judge is simply to form an opinion about importance, worth, significance, usefulness, etc - to configure a relation of potential to a particular perception of meaning configured as purpose or intentionality. Value can only be judged subjectively. But a value judgement is not value as an objective structure of reality. It’s much more complex than this narrowly perceived relation configured as a linear hierarchy or sliding scale.

To understand value, we need to take into account the capacity of non-human materiality to contribute to a broader perception of meaning. The oscillation frequency of an electron in a caesium atom matters to us ‘reading’ an atomic clock, but does this matter if no-one is ‘telling’ the time? And isn’t the number we attribute to this frequency just a value judgement - a measurement derived from our collaboration with the materiality of the clock components in ‘telling time’? The notion that meaning and value are structures exclusive to the human mind is symptomatic of grammatical conventions falling behind in understanding our broader relationality with the world.

I recognise that this can be confusing and disorienting without being able to rely on the conventions of grammatical logic as a foundation. But that’s no reason to go back and hide behind ignorance. Not if truth is what we’re genuinely seeking. The logical system of grammar is still there - we just need to broaden our understanding of the conceptual structures that make up the system. Agential subjects, attributed actions and fundamentally inert objects are no longer sufficient structural elements with which to construct this broader understanding of reality.

The first paradigm shift recognises the elements of reality as consisting of interrelating events rather than ‘objects’ and their attributable ‘properties’. Agency is recognised as a property of the system itself, and these so-called ‘subjects’, ‘actions’ and ‘objects’ are all fundamentally active elements, their apparent ‘properties’ a purposeful configuration of the particular intra-action, within which we should recognise ourselves as necessarily involved.

A subsequent paradigm shift recognises the elements of reality as consisting of variable values, each with a logical, qualitative and dynamic relationality for meaningful intra-action. Beyond this is pure relational possibility, without distinction.

Human minds are the type of thing which makes value judgements. We know that from experience. It is possible that other types of things. like animals and plants have a sort of mind which could make a value judgement. Is this what you are suggesting? — Metaphysician Undercover

We understand that from human experience, which is not to say that we know objectively. A mind is not required to respond to the variability of value, only to render it as a judgement, an opinion.

No, recognizing a value as a variable does not free it from the judgement of a human mind, because a human mind is making that judgement to recognize it as a variable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Recognising a value as a variable is not judgement. Judgement assigns a particular number (hierarchical value) to that variable, ie. measurement.

I agree in principle with much of what you say following this, but I have difficulty with this:

We need to include non-human matter in discussions about agency, importance and significance.
— Possibility

I don't understand how you can talk about non-human matter, importance or significance without referencing God. Suppose some other creatures, plants and animals are capable of making value judgements (this would be a requirement if we are going to talk about what is important to them, they would have to be able to make such a judgement, because we cannot decide for them what is important to them, just like I cannot decide for you what is important to you). Don't you see that there would be so many contradictions between the various creatures, concerning what is important? Creatures eat other creatures. How do you propose that we could ever sort out this massive mess of conflicting matters (things of importance) without referencing some sort overlord judge, like God? Clearly us human beings are not capable of making such decisions and judgements, because what is important to me already conflicts with what is important to you. So each of us is going to insist "I am the one to decide what is important". — Metaphysician Undercover

We can reference God if you’d like, but I would argue that God is not an actual being who makes value judgements, but is the pure, undifferentiated source of logical, qualitative and dynamic relationality, with which all judgements are but a localised (limited) intra-action of perceived meaning. Value judgement - the assumption that WE determine meaning, purpose and agency in the world according to our constructed language conventions (logos) - is the original sin. One can only correctly judge (assign a comprehensive value to) an event once it is complete, and we have all the information. So who is anyone to assign value judgement, when we ourselves are still becoming in relation to it all, and rely so much on collaboration with other materiality (ie. technology) for the comparatively little information we can access at any one time?

But above, you argued for separate values, by recognizing values as variable. How can you argue the two opposing sides of the coin, variable values which are separable (above), and now, values which are inseparable from other values. What makes a value non-variable is its relations with other values. These relations set or fix the value within a concept. If there was such a thing as a separate, variable value, it would just be free floating, not attached to any other value to set its worth as "x value", therefore it would actually have no value at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m hoping what I wrote above has clarified this a bit better for you. Mathematical logic agentially separates value into intra-acting variables (algebra) for the purpose of understanding the structure of relations between them. The value of ‘x’ is not non-existent, only indeterminate (variable) without a logical structure of relations.

Consider that a hurricane consists of both actual and potential matter, as well as actual and potential form.
— Possibility

Sorry, I cannot decipher what you are trying to say here. As far as I know, a hurricane does not make value judgements, so we cannot say that a hurricane consists of matter, by your definition. There is nothing which is inherently important to the hurricane itself, because the hurricane makes no such judgements, there is only what a person, or persons might say is important to the hurricane, but this is a completely different matter. It is an importance which people impose on another, and that is what produces contradiction, and conflict, such attempts at forcing one's values on others. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does a hurricane respond to the variability of values? A hurricane’s potential relies on certain variables (barometric pressure, temperatures, etc) to stay within a certain range of values. As those variables change, its form and matter change, and its potential shifts. So we understand that what is important to the hurricane are some variables and not others - regardless of how it might be perceived in terms of ‘value’. The hurricane therefore has its own value structure, limited though it may be. Assigning a numerical hierarchy doesn’t change how the hurricane ‘perceives’ those variables, only how we describe it to ourselves in an attempt to understand the relational structure that exists between the variables, regardless of hurricane or human.

How can you be so certain you ‘know the truth’ of reality, if you cannot use it? Philosophy is the love of wisdom - wisdom being knowledge of correct action, not simply knowledge.
— Possibility

We are seeking the truth, not claiming to know it. As philosophers we apprehend that the truth about reality is a long way off, but that does not stop us from heading in that direction. It's a march down a long road, which provides nothing useful to us who are doing the marching. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then how can you be sure you’re on the right road, or even heading in the right direction?

Contradiction is a repugnancy, and repugnancy is not determined by grammatical logic, but intuition. So it's a matter of adhering to intuition, not a matter of adhering to grammatical logic. But naturally grammatical logic is intuitive. as grammatical logic is derived from intuition.

Mathematics and science are both so full of contradictions its pathetic. So your claim of "being consistent across the logical structures of both mathematics and science", is nonsense because the various different logical structures of mathematics are not consistent with each other, nor are the various different logical structures of science. — Metaphysician Undercover

That feeling of ‘repugnance’ is intuition telling you there’s something amiss, but there's no determining from affect alone whether what’s amiss is in what you’re describing or the system you’re using to describe it. And you can only critique the system from outside it. So what are you afraid of?

Values don’t exist in a single hierarchy, anymore than all events exist on a linear timeline.
— Possibility

I know, this is obvious, and it's the reason why there is contradiction and conflict. The goal is a single hierarchy to dispel conflict and contradiction, but it is clearly not the case within the world we live in. — Metaphysician Undercover

So why cling to the goal? Why not try to understand the complexity as it exists?

True and mathematical Newtonian time exists; it is a real entity; it is the gravitational field
— Carlo Rovelli

Time cannot be reduced to gravitation, that is a misconception. — Metaphysician Undercover

He’s not reducing time to gravitation, he’s describing the mathematical variable of Newtonian time as the gravitational field. There’s a difference.

For his part, Aristotle is right to say that ‘when’ and ‘where’ are always located in relation to something. But this something can also be just the field, the spatio-temporal entity of Einstein, because this is a dynamic and concrete entity, like all those in reference to which, as Aristotle rightly observed, we are capable of locating ourselves.
— Carlo Rovelli

And this is also a misconception, because a field must itself be a property of something. So we cannot truthfully say "this something can also be just the field", because fields are always known to be the property of something which creates the field, therefore to assume "just the field" is in violation of physical evidence and inductive reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, fields have been previously assumed to be the property of something, but evidence from quantum experiments has brought this assumption into question. Your first clue should have been your appeal of ‘always known to be’. You have to remember that we’re talking about relational structures of significant variables as active (not actual) entities in a four-dimensional system.

Understanding is not about grounding concepts in just one ‘logical’ system
— Possibility

Yes understanding is about having one logical system, because that is what produces consistency and coherency. To have multiple different conceptual systems which are unrelated allows for contradiction and incoherency, and this is misunderstanding. The only way to eradicate contradiction, incoherency, and misunderstanding is to have one overall system within which all the parts are coherent. To have parts out side one system, which are incoherent to that system, but are allowed to be maintained because they are coherent within a different system, is a symptom of misunderstanding.

To put this into your perspective, the perspective of "matter", or "what matters", what is required is a hierarchy of values. What is important or significant is determined relative to something valued. But when two competing values produce contradiction, or inconsistency in what is important, or not important, then we must appeal to a higher value to make the judgement as to whether the thing is important or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Values don’t exist in a single hierarchy, anymore than all events exist on a linear timeline. This is reductionism, and is a fault of mathematical logic that ignores the sensibility of dimensional reality. When two competing values produce a contradiction in what is important or not important, then we must first consider that we may be oversimplifying the relational structure of the two values in question, as an aspect of four-dimensional reality.

Reduction to a single logical system is broader than this, but it’s still a reduction. Ignoring information on the grounds of unintelligibility is still ignorance. Inconsistency and incoherence are symptomatic of misunderstanding, but the solution is not to eradicate information, but to consider the possibility that the system itself is inadequate, and that a broader relational framework is required (with some adjustment to configuration of the three systems) that would enable them to co-exist.

Not at all, truth is sought for the sake of knowing the truth, not for some usefulness. That is why philosophy is known as being useless. Surely you must see this? — Metaphysician Undercover

How can you be so certain you ‘know the truth’ of reality, if you cannot use it? Philosophy is the love of wisdom - wisdom being knowledge of correct action, not simply knowledge.

Compatibility does not require a ‘higher purpose’, only a broader understanding of each discipline.
— Possibility

This is clearly not true, as explained above. There is very clear evidence of a difference between various disciplines as to what is important, what matters. When it is the case that what is important to one discipline is not important to another discipline, there is incompatibility. The "broader understanding" which you refer to is just a higher purpose, a higher value, which can arbitrate the incompatibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not a ‘higher value’, but a broader relational framework, in which to understand the perception of incompatibility.

To seek the truth is not to "blindly follow doctrine", in fact it is the very opposite of that. — Metaphysician Undercover

And yet you automatically exclude what doesn’t adhere to the doctrine of grammatical logic, despite being consistent across the logical structures of both mathematics and science. That sounds like blindly following doctrine to me.

Accuracy is a necessary aspect of truth, as is rationality and sensibility. Intelligibility may be rational and sensible, but can make no claims to accuracy. And grammatical logic is just one form of intelligibility (and English one kind of grammatical logic), as ‘defined’ by human conceptualisation of ideas, under the assumption of independent and pre-determined boundaries and properties.

By the same token, mathematics aims for accuracy and rationality, but can make no claims to sensibility. And scientific methodology aims for accuracy and sensibility, but without mathematics would have no claim to rationality. I’m not arguing for physics and maths, per se, but for the collaborative efforts they have made towards a more accurate truth as a common focus, despite the lack of mathematical interest in (and resistance to) a broader sensibility, and the lack of modern scientific interest in (and resistance to) a broader rationality.

What I’m calling for is the same collaborative open-mindedness and desire for truth from those who place their faith in rational sensibility. But all I’m getting is fearful, circular reasoning, as if I’m rejecting the foundations of your truth. If those foundations are at risk from a critique on accuracy, then they were never really ‘truth’ to begin with.

OK, I see how you want to define "matter". You define it as the verb in the definitions above, "to be important or significant". Do you agree, that "importance and significance" implies a judgement of value? Importance and significance only have meaning in relation to something which is valuable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Importance and significance implies value, yes - but be careful not to assume that all value is judged by human minds, or according to a single system of logic. And no, importance and significance (value) can be meaningful simply in relation to other values.

First of all, I didn’t say that ‘immaterial’ implies inactive. I said it implies that the activity in question doesn’t matter. What you’re arguing is that the only way this kind of activity can matter is if it actually matters to living human minds FIRST. Quantum mechanics refutes this, and so does neuroscience.
— Possibility

So I cannot understand what you are trying to say here. What "matters" is what is important or significant, and this is only judged in relation to human minds. Why do you believe that quantum mechanics refutes this? Does it demonstrate importance and significance in relation to values which are non-human? What are you saying? — Metaphysician Undercover

Why must importance and significance only be judged in relation to human minds? Because we say so? What gives humans that authority? The difference here between language and quantum mechanics - as the authority by which we determine importance or significance - is accuracy that goes beyond human limitations of perception.

When value is recognised as a variable (as in mathematical logic), it is freed from the affected judgement of human minds (that assume they are logical), and perceived only in potential relation to other variables. This enables us to structure a logic of potential relation that is not limited by human sensibility (eg. homeostasis). Of course, it’s only useful if we can apply it in an embodied intra-action with the world. This is where scientific method is needed, to test and refine this relational structure that enables us to make increasingly accurate predictions about how humans can intra-act.

What has been routinely ignored in this scientific progress is the fact that humans are NOT logical creatures. The involvement of mathematics in science prior to quantum mechanics has downplayed how much our intra-actions are profoundly affected by our sensible limitations, and vice versa. With each new technology we appear more invincible, more unaffected, more rationally-minded. But we’re really just more ignorant, isolating and excluding.

Quantum mechanics demonstrates that humans don’t have infinite access to energy, qualitative attention or time. And we are not passive, independent and logical observers of reality, but rather involved and affected participants in each intra-action, lately in an increasingly minor role. So when we describe science in terms of what we can do and how we can change the world, we need to be more responsible and accountable to the broader meaningfulness of agency and materiality that enable us to predict and actualise accurate intra-action with reality beyond our sensible limitations. We need to include non-human matter in discussions about agency, importance and significance. Or we will continue to undermine our homeostasis, by ignoring our interdependence in collaboration.

This requires a new logical framework, most noticeably in the area of grammatical logic. But this is not a matter of quantum mechanics dictating changes to grammatical logic, but rather bringing discursive practices into the intra-active process, acknowledging their significance as inseparable from the material practices of ‘doing science’. Because I think grammatical logic, properly understood and configured, is actually the key to our sustainable future.

Categories are not mutually exclusive in the existence of real things, like dichotomies are. That is the whole point of using categories rather than dichotomies, to allow for the overlapping of concepts, which would not be allowed by dichotomous divisions. So in Aristotle's hylomorphism, physical objects consist of both matter (potential), and form (actual). In fact, a particular is by definition both. Yes, "potential" is distinct, as a separate category from "actual", so that one is not the other, but the categories don't serve to divide up reality, they serve to divide up the conceptual structure for the purpose of better understanding reality.

For example, we might have the categories of sight and sound, and we could divide up a conceptual structure accordingly. But this is not to divide up reality, as the same thing might be both seen and heard, though the property which is heard is distinct from the property seen, according to that conceptual structure. it is a tool to help us understand reality, but if you think that it is actually dividing up reality, that is a misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is an important area to clear up, because I’m talking about events here, not physical objects. So, does Aristotle acknowledge a particular event as both potential and actual, without breaking it down into physical objects? Consider that a hurricane consists of both actual and potential matter, as well as actual and potential form. How we understand the conceptual structure of reality affects how we intra-act in material-discursive practices. Dividing it up into categories is only part of understanding it. In what way does potential relate to actual? If you have to keep referring to a ‘living human mind’ or a ‘divine being’ to make the system work, then you have a self-shaped gap in your understanding. Humans are not necessary beings.

I do not know what you might mean by "fully actual" here. If an event has "begun", it is active, therefore actual. To suggest that there is a time when the event is partially active, yet not fully active is incoherent. Take the concept of "acceleration" for example. Suppose something is assumed to be at rest, it is not active. At some point in time it begins to move, accelerate. At that point, it is fully active, though it hasn't reached its top speed. We do not say that it is nof fully active, or not fully actual. As soon as it has motion it is active, actual, and it make no sense to say that it is partially actual, but not fully actual.

So I really don't know what you're trying to say here. If the supposed event is not occurring, not actual, then it requires a cause to become actual. That cause itself must be actual, and the cause is prior to the actuality of the event which is the effect. So if the universe is that event, then there must be something actual which is prior to it as the cause of its actuality. We cannot simply say that the potential for the universe was prior to the universe, because that pure potential could not act to cause the universe, so there must have been something more than just the potential, there must have been something actual. There must be something actual which was prior to the universe. — Metaphysician Undercover

You keep trying to explain events in terms of objects, but it’s not the same structure. ‘Active’ and ‘actual’ have different qualitative structures for an event and for an object. Try to explain “acceleration” without reference to an object. Try to describe an entire acceleration event. You cannot use your current understanding of grammatical logic to describe the event - you are forced to change your perspective. But do you even notice that you’ve changed perspective? Do you recognise that you are describing an instantiated observation of the event, when I’ve asked for a description of the actual event? How can you describe ‘acceleration’ by simply describing an object at the point it begins to move? How is this describing actual acceleration?

Yes, "understanding" requires consistency with grammatical conventions. And obviously, we cannot change reality to conform to our conventions, therefore the conventions must conform to reality. You and I are in complete agreement to this point.

Where we disagree is as to which conventions correspond with reality, and which do not. I believe that classical conventions of dualism correspond, and are adequate to form a solid foundation for an understanding of reality. I also believe that numerous modern conventions, of physics and mathematics, such as the dimensional representation of spacetime, and some axioms of set theory, do not correspond, and ought to be rejected. You seem to believe the opposite. — Metaphysician Undercover

Understanding reality is not about adequacy, but accuracy. The bible can be considered adequate to form a solid foundation for an understanding of reality, too. Fundamentalists argue that modern findings of physics and mathematics, which do not correspond with an understanding that is necessarily limited by their classical conventions, ought to be rejected.

I’m not calling for anyone to reject conventions. I don’t believe deliberate ignorance is the answer to understanding reality. What I believe is that our understanding should include a broader understanding of classical conventions, at what level of awareness they are effective, at what point they limit our accuracy, and why.

I think that this is a gross misunderstanding. "Immaterial" does not imply inactive. I think this Idea comes from a modern day misunderstanding of Plato, in which "Platonism" is represented as comprised of the assumption of eternal, inert, passive Ideas, which cannot interact with the material word according to the "interaction problem". In reality though, this is Pythagorean Idealism, which Plato demonstrated has very serious problems. Since Plato's method of dialectics is very difficult to interpret, many modern interpreters do not see beyond Plato's exposé of Pythagorean Idealism to see that Plato was demonstrating the problems with it, mot supporting it, and pointing the direction toward resolving these problems.

So in reality, Plato offered us a solution to the "interaction problem", which involved demonstrating the lack of correspondence with reality of the the theory of participation which provided the support for Pythagorean Idealism. The central problem was that the theory of participation, represents "Ideas" as passive things which material objects partake of. So for example, as described in "The Symposium", a beautiful thing is beautiful because it partakes in the Idea of Beauty. Notice that the immaterial Idea is passive, and the material object actively "partakes". Plato revealed that this is a problem for Idealism, and went on to demonstrate with "the good" (understood by Aristotle as "final cause") that ideas must be active, causal.

Aristotle's metaphysics, with the so-called "cosmological argument" firmly refutes Pythagorean Idealism. He shows that all human ideas require the human mind for actual existence. If any human ideas have any sort of reality prior to being actualized by the human mind, this would be solely as potential. Then he excludes "potential" from the category of "eternal", by showing that anything eternal must be actual. This procedure shows that it is impossible that human ideas have eternal existence, effectively refuting Pythagorean Idealism. However it also shows that it is necessary to conclude actual Forms ("form" having the category of actual, or active) which are prior to material ("matter" having the category of passive potential) forms. In Christian theology, these independent Forms, whose existence is demonstrated as logically necessary by the cosmological argument, are proper to the divine realm of God and the angels. Substance dualism is necessary to support what you might call "an agential cut" between the actual Forms (substance) of the divine realm. which are causally responsible for the activities of independent material things, and the actual forms (substance) of the living human mind, which are causally responsible for the activities of the living human beings. — Metaphysician Undercover

First of all, I didn’t say that ‘immaterial’ implies inactive. I said it implies that the activity in question doesn’t matter. What you’re arguing is that the only way this kind of activity can matter is if it actually matters to living human minds FIRST. Quantum mechanics refutes this, and so does neuroscience.

Aristotle’s understanding of the relation between actual and potential is distorted and limited by certain assumptions. The first assumption is that ‘categories’, with their determinate boundaries and properties, divide up reality with mutually exclusive accuracy. So, according to Aristotle, a particular event cannot be both potential and actual. Yet a particular (human or divine) being can, and the only distinction is an attribution of agency. Which brings me to the next assumption: that agency is an attribute of beings but not events. So, the potential of any event is assumed to be divine, unless it is in the affected interests of humans to attribute agency to particular beings. And grammatical conventions enable humans to enact this agential cut between divine and human according to localised affect, rather than logic.

What is missing from Aristotle’s metaphysics is scientific rigour. He relies on the apparent ‘logic’ of language use alone to support his claims, without taking into account empirical evidence or mathematical logic. And because grammatical logic is created by humans and for humans, the only conclusion that can be made from it is that the human mind is ‘logically’ necessary. Well, duh. But that has nothing to do with reality. It is circular reasoning at its finest.

In reality, I would argue that there is no distinction necessary between ideas as ‘human’ or ‘divine’. The differentiation is one of perspective - human minds have a variable (active) structure of potential embodiment that limits individual capacity to perceive and actualise ideas in a way that impacts homeostasis. The ‘divine mind’ has no such limitations in the variability of its potential structure (internal configuration). Human potential is therefore a localised reduction of possibility (divine potential), not an isolated category of actual forms or substance. And neither do actual Forms matter independently, except that we say they must in order for us to talk about them.

Premises:
- there exists a series of events
- the series of events exists as caused and not as uncaused(necessary)
- there must exist the necessary being that is the cause of all contingent being
Conclusion:
- there must exist the necessary being that is the cause of the whole series of beings

There’s no reason to change ‘event’ to ‘being’ here. This is based purely on grammatical logic, created by humans for humans - we cannot speak of activity without attributing it to a being who acts, and is therefore actual as well as having potential, or agency.

P3: there must exist a necessary event/activity that is the cause of all contingent events.
Conclusion: there must exist a necessary event/activity that is the cause of the whole series of events.

But that necessary event need not have become fully actual prior to all other events in the series. It only needs to have begun. In which case said necessary event - the universe itself - is being, and even now, still in the process of becoming. So there is no reason for the universe in its becoming to be denied agency, except that this affects us in a way that impacts our homeostasis.

But while we cannot individually actualise this idea, we can relate to, strive to understand and even perceive the logic, quality and energy/affect of its potential structure in the same way that we can perceive God: by acknowledging our embodied limitations and the possibility of increasing awareness of, connection and collaboration with all other aspects of the event/being in its becoming. Not by assuming it is already fully actual somewhere else.

All you are doing here is continuing to obscure the problems of your conventions, with ambiguity. The non-three-dimensional particles you speak of are understood as having an effect ("relevant/significant") in a four-dimensional model, but they clearly cannot be shown to have a position, location, or place, in such a model, so we cannot say that this model shows them to have any actual existence. This is the type of activity we've been discussing, the "four-dimensional (active) system" model is only capable of showing that there is some type of activity which is unintelligible from the precepts of that model. That is why there is a wave/particle duality, quantum uncertainty, and all the other logical problems with this type of representation of subatomic particles. What is observed is the effect of this activity, but the activity itself, as the immaterial cause of those effects cannot be observed. Theologists are very well acquainted with this principle, as God, being immaterial, is understood through His effects, the presence of material existence, rather than through direct observations of Him.

The proposed "subatomic particles" are not particles at all because they cannot be represented as having spatial location, and so are much better (more honestly) represented as immaterial activities (Forms) which have a causal influence within the four-dimensional model.

The proposed "four-dimensional (active) system" is fundamentally deceptive because it reverses the true role of time. This is what I've been trying to tell you, but you refuse to acknowledge that this is the case. The base principles are all three-dimensional geometry, arcs, circles, spheres, triangles, planes etc.. and time is layered on top, as a further spatial feature. This does not allow that time can be properly represented as prior to, and therefore independent from space. — Metaphysician Undercover

And this is why an understanding of dimensional principles (not geometric elements) is important. I didn’t say that sub-atomic particles could be shown in a four-dimensional system, and I’m not talking about dimensional models. An n dimensional model shows n-1 dimensional entities, and requires an n+1 dimensional system for intelligibility (significance).

I do agree that ‘subatomic particles’ are more honestly described as activities. But I disagree as to their immateriality, on account of their causal influence within a four-dimensional system. And while I agree that time is logically prior to ‘space’, I disagree that it is therefore independent, on account of Einstein’s gravitational field.

Einstein understands that Aristotle and Newton are both right. Newton is right in intuiting that something else exists in addition to the simple things we see moving and changing. True and mathematical Newtonian time exists; it is a real entity; it is the gravitational field…But Newton is wrong in assuming that this time is independent from things - and that it passes regularly, imperturbably, separately from everything else.
For his part, Aristotle is right to say that ‘when’ and ‘where’ are always located in relation to something. But this something can also be just the field, the spatio-temporal entity of Einstein, because this is a dynamic and concrete entity, like all those in reference to which, as Aristotle rightly observed, we are capable of locating ourselves.
All of this is perfectly coherent, and Einstein’s equations describing the distortions of the gravitational field and its effects on clocks and meters have been repeatedly verified for more than a century. But our idea of time has lost another of its constituent parts: its supposed independence from the rest of the world.
The three-handed dance of these intellectual giants - Aristotle, Newton and Einstein - has guided us to a deeper understanding of time and space. There is a structure of reality that is the gravitational field; it is not separate from the rest of physics, nor is it the stage across which the world passes. It is a dynamic component of the great dance of the world, similar to all the others, interacting with the others, determining the rhythm of those things we call meters and clocks and the rhythm of all physical phenomena. — Carlo Rovelli

Again, you continue to demonstrate the incoherency of your supposed "broader understanding of grammatical forms". "Materiality" is defined by material, and "material" is defined by matter. And "matter" by common definition, and conventional understanding is defined by the physical presence of material things. Now you propose a "matter", in the form of "a materiality", which "extends beyond material things".

By this proposal there is absolutely nothing to constrain the concept of "matter", because it could be extended to any sort of fictional idea. If the concept of "matter" is not grounded in, or substantiated by, the real existence of material things, then we allow that "matter" and consequently "materiality" may refer to any fantasy or fictitious thing. This is why Aristotle, who first defined "matter" and expressed all the limitations under which the concept was to be understood, explicitly denied the possibility of matter which extends beyond the existence of material things.

I believe it is important to recognize that "matter" is a concept. The concept was produced to assist us in understanding the existence of physical bodies. Matter, as a concept was intended to represent a property of such bodies, a property which all bodies have in common. But if we move, as you propose, and make matter something which extends further than its original concept, something other than a property of physical bodies, then we invalidate the entire concept. All the things which were said about "matter", as a property of physical bodies lose their necessity as truths, because "matter" is now something else. And there is no principle which would allow that matter can maintain its status as a property of physical bodies, and also extend beyond physical bodies. So the entire conception is undermined.

We have a very similar problem when we allow that inertia extends beyond mass. The concept of "inertia" was produced as a property of mass. Now if we allow that there is inertia which is not associated with mass we undermine the concept. Of course the argument would be that the concept of "inertia" would be grounded in something else, just like the concept of "matter" above (which extends beyond material things) would be grounded in something else, but that's not really true. The proposal to allow such changes is just carried out in an effort to make the mathematics work. Therefore there is no real grounding, just an effort to make the equations work out. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, of course - if Aristotle defined a term (in Greek), then it must be the true meaning of the idea! :chin:

I see no logical reason why the idea of ‘materiality’ must be so constrained. It could possibly refer to any fantasy or fictitious idea. But it doesn’t. Let’s look again at the dictionary definitions:

Matter (noun): 1. physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.
2. a subject or situation under consideration.
(verb): 1. be important or significant.

I would say that ‘matter’ is not so much a concept as the human conceptualisation of an idea. In reference to things, matter is physical substance, but also mental substance. But in reference to activity, to matter is to be important or significant. You can’t just ignore these additional aspects of the conceptualisation of ‘matter’. And you can’t declare them ‘different substances’ without an understanding of how they relate.

As for ‘inertia’, this refers to a phenomenon - a tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged. Not an actual Form, but an apparent observation. Mass doesn’t really have inertia, it only appears to. Look closer…

Understanding is not about grounding concepts in just one ‘logical’ system - that just gives an illusion of certainty, like religion.

Grammatical conventions must be variable, that I agree with. However the process (discipline) whereby these conventions are questioned, dialectics, is completely different from the process whereby mathematical axioms are question. The former is the philosophical quest for truth, and the latter is the pragmatic quest for usefulness. The two are not incompatible, but compatibility requires a hierarchy of purpose, or intent. The pragmatic quest for usefulness must be guided by the philosophical quest for truth. In other words, the purpose or usefulness must be the quest for truth, or else there can be no compatibility.

Therefore grammatical conventions, which are variable under the auspices of dialectics and the quest for truth, must take priority over the conventions of mathematics and physics which are variable according to pragmatic inclinations. When grammatical logic is altered under the direction of good dialectics seeking truth, this can be known as the evolution of language. But when grammatical logic is altered under the direction of mathematicians and physicists who seek to support the usefulness of their own discipline, we can call this a corruption of grammatical logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematical logic, and the pot calling the kettle black. ‘Good dialectics seeking truth’ is just seeking to ‘support the usefulness of their own discipline’. Surely you see this? Compatibility does not require a ‘higher purpose’, only a broader understanding of each discipline. All three disciplines seek truth in their own way, and none is more significant than the others. To declare otherwise is to put your faith in a narrow ideology, to blindly follow doctrine. I honestly thought you were more intelligent than than, and I’m a little disappointed at all this pontificating. What is truth if it isn’t useful?

We are fundamentally in agreement then. But, when you say, "activity does not require ‘materiality’ in the sense of a qualitative three-dimensionality", I say that this activity is immaterial. And when you talk about what "grammatical conventions" dictate, I say that this is what "logic" dictates. — Metaphysician Undercover

The main difference is that you believe any understanding of reality must conform to grammatical conventions (which is a reduction of logic), whereas I believe any grammatical convention should adjust to accommodate a rational understanding of reality that may fall outside of its existing framework, if it is to remain accurately relevant. Regardless of how we describe it, I think this is fundamentally what we are dealing with.

A couple of points to clear up here. Firstly, there is a difference of configuration between not requiring ‘materiality’ and being ‘immaterial’. The former acknowledges a variability in the configuration of activity/being, while the latter offers only one configuration - enacting an agential cut that excludes activity sans three-dimensionality from mattering.

I did place ‘materiality’ in scare quotes deliberately because I disagree with the narrowness of its parameters as requiring three-dimensionality. I recognise that you’re uncomfortable with me broadening definitions to their qualitative notions, but it enables me to talk about the same idea accurately across different dimensional systems of logic. And I would argue that the term ‘materiality’ refers to a more variable quality of mattering: as being relevant or significant. This can pertain to 3D objects, 4D events or 5D values.

Secondly, grammatical conventions are a particular form or configuration of logic - but not the notion of ‘logic’ itself, which dictates only methodical rationality, not a particular system. Again, you are participating in a material-discursive practice, distinguishing grammatical forms of logic from alternative rational systems of understanding, such as mathematics and physics.

I want be clear at this point in saying that I’m not trying to convince you to discard grammatical forms of logic in favour of quantum physics - only to recognise the limitations of idealising one form or system over another. Your argument is that the findings of quantum physics - as a combination of mathematics and physics - is incompatible with our grammatical forms of logic, therefore we must abandon these findings. My argument is that the findings are sound, and are compatible with a broader understanding of grammatical forms.

So why hold the penchant for anti-dualism? It seems to me, like dualism is very consistent with what quantum mechanics demonstrates. In fact, it appears like one has to intentionally use ambiguity and obscurity with terms like "intra-action" to hide the fact that what quantum mechanics demonstrates is that the nature of reality is very consistent with what dualism dictates. There is the activity of material things, and there is also activity which does not require materiality, therefore it is immaterial. Doesn't that sound like dualism to you? — Metaphysician Undercover

What quantum mechanics demonstrates is that materiality extends beyond the activity of material things. Subatomic particles which lack a fundamental three-dimensional inertia are still relevant and significant (ie. material) to the study of motion, mass, acceleration and force. In quantum mechanics, activity is activity, and the distinction between material and immaterial at this level is irrelevant. So no, it doesn’t sound like dualism at all.

Again, your reliance on "dimensional" models is misleading you. The activity which you say "does not require ‘materiality’ in the sense of a qualitative three-dimensionality", cannot be "an agential cut enacted between three- and four-dimensional configurations", because this agency must be non-dimension, i.e. immaterial.

This is the ambiguity I am speaking of. You consistently argue for the reality of the immaterial, yet your anti-dualism bias (and I believe I am correct to call it that), inclines you to use obscure and ambiguous terms such as "intra-action", in an attempt to hide the obvious fact that what you are arguing for is in reality a material/immaterial dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, you’re making great leaps of assumption here. Not requiring three-dimensionality is NOT the same as non-dimensional. Subatomic particles lack a fundamental three-dimensional inertia. At least one of their dimensional measurements is in a constant state of flux, but this doesn’t render them non-dimensional, only not fundamentally three-dimensional. They can be configured as relevant/significant (material) in a four-dimensional (active) system, but in a three-dimensional (inert) structure they are considered ‘immaterial’.

The reason I use a dimensional structure is because it retains an overall sense of logic and rationality as we move between limited systems or conventions of logic: ie. grammar, mathematics, physics. There are basic structural principles that apply to relational perspective in measuring, describing and constructing any level of dimensionality across all three systems, so I can keep straight this sense of entangled embodied subjectivity: I am never entirely outside of reality, but always involved somehow, and my relational perspective is highly variable. Without this grounding, it’s tempting to assume certainty and objectivity.

Language can obscure the fact that you’ve gone from talking about ‘material forms’ to ‘immaterial forms’ without necessarily understanding the qualitative and dynamic relational structure between them, let alone the change in your own relational perspective that enables you to do this. In this sense dualism is a cop-out: ‘they’re just different things’ is putting up a wall of ignorance and then refusing to do the work of understanding what that difference is.

Quantum physics at least recognises the limitations of classical physics as a system of logic, and intra-acts with mathematics to refine and adjust both systems for a more accurate and comprehensive logical framework. Grammatical conventions need to be in the mix, but for them to effectively intra-act we need to accept their fundamental variability and limitations. It seems you’re not prepared to do this.

I'm sorry that dualism doesn't seem to be capable of satisfying your desire for elegancy. I hope you will consider swapping the desire for elegancy with the need for truth. Then we may happily converse about the nature of time, but only after you put aside all those beautiful symmetries which are proper to the faulty temporal conventions.

Which do you think provides the road to truth, the grammatical conventions which we know as logic, or the temporal conventions by which we practise the manipulation of temporal objects? — Metaphysician Undercover

This is pure sophistry. It is not just elegance that I’m after, but elegant accuracy. Dualism is clunky and ignorant at best - its most glaring ambiguity lies in the absence of a logical, qualitative and dynamic relational structure between ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ Forms.

Grammatical conventions have logical form but are not ‘logic’ in the ideal sense. Accuracy in practise is more indicative of ‘truth’ than words systematically arranged. And the accuracy in our practise of quantum mechanics makes it very clear that the remaining ‘fault’ in temporal conventions is in our grammatical logic, not the physics or maths.

Perhaps, when you apprehend the unintelligibility of the idea, of activity with nothing which is active, you will be inclined to relinquish your bias against dualism, and accept that what is active in this activity which is prior to the emergence of material objects, is something immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

I accept that one can describe or configure this activity as being a property of ‘something immaterial’, but I see it as an unnecessary contrivance to perpetuate dualism. I also acknowledge that many quantum physicists do prefer this configuration - not because it’s easier to do quantum physics, but because it ‘fits’ with conventions in material-cultural practices.

Having said that, what quantum physics demonstrates is that activity does not require ‘materiality’ in the sense of a qualitative three-dimensionality. It only requires two non-commutative variable values, in a measurement relation (ie. one of them corresponding to ‘time’), to be intelligible as ‘real’ activity. But because quantum physicists then describe this as ‘activity’, grammatical conventions dictate that ‘something’ (NOT the activity itself), is what is active. This leads to a chicken-and-egg style dilemma.

Your definition though, did not solve the problem, which is how there could be activity without anything which is active, and how material objects could emerge from this activity. Dualism has already provided a systematic resolution to these problems thousands of years ago. The activity which is prior to material objects is the activity of immaterial Forms, and how material objects emerge from this activity is through an act of will (traditionally, God's will).

You ought to see, that if you just relinquish your bias against dualism, you will readily understand that classical dualism provides a far more comprehensible, intelligible, and coherent approach to this problem than quantum physics does.

Your approach is to simply deny that there is anything active, in this activity which is prior to material existence. But this renders that proposed activity as entirely unintelligible. The way of classical metaphysics is to recognize this sort of activity, which is prior to the activity of material objects, as the activity of immaterial Forms. And, as "forms" their essence is intelligibility. Therefore this activity is necessarily intelligible.

You seem to hold as a goal, the intent of reducing these two, material forms and immaterial forms, to one another, such that there would be no difference between them. This would support your bias against dualism. But then you are left with this fundamental activity, from which material objects emerge, which is completely unintelligible, because you insist that this is activity with nothing which is active. Perhaps, when you apprehend the unintelligibility of the idea, of activity with nothing which is active, you will be inclined to relinquish your bias against dualism, and accept that what is active in this activity which is prior to the emergence of material objects, is something immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not denying that anything is active in activity, just any separate ‘thing’. Activity is inherently active. I’m denying this reliance on grammatical conventions for intelligibility. Your preaching here on the traditions of dualism borders on the religious, and I’m just not buying it. The original notion of ‘Form’ was just reducing activity to a proper noun, in order to talk about its variable qualities. But let’s look again at definitions:

Form(noun): 1. the visible shape or configuration of something.
2. a particular way in which a thing exists or appears.

Form is this same notion of configuration, a particular way in which something exists. And this apparent distinction between material and immaterial Form is not a binary, but an agential cut enacted between three- and four-dimensional configurations.

I don’t have a bias against dualism - I have a preference for an elegantly accurate understanding of reality. Dualism doesn’t cut it.

The metaphysical foundation I prefer is that, at each instant, spacetime is created. Bergson, in The Creative Mind, speaks of an instant of hesitation before Nature moves on, and it has been suggested that the collapse of the wave function marks the next step in the creation of spacetime. In a sense the wave function collapse is Bergson's instant. So there is indeed a block universe, only behind us and not in front.

This makes Schrödinger's equation a predictor of the future in a wider sense than originally thought. I have misgivings about this, however, in that it reifies mathematics beyond my comfort zone. — jgill

By ‘created’, as a so-called ‘collapse’ of the wave function, it seems you’re referring to an instant of differentiation - and yes, I agree that there is a spacetime structure to every instant, and that structure exists in a necessary and non-linear (multi-dimensional) variable relation with every other instant.

I get your misgivings about the reification of mathematics - the way I see it, logic is just one aspect of the ‘real’ block universe. There is also quality (the variable values or ideas themselves) and dynamics (energy, affect).

Thank you for providing additional information about your ideas. Spacetime at quantum levels seems to involve non-commutative algebras and appears to be highly technical. I have enough trouble with spacetime in relativity theory, so I will pass on this. For Bohr, position and momentum of quantum particles simply do not exist before measurements. They come into existence upon the act of "observation". Extrapolating this into the larger world gives rise to intra-action I suppose. But, is this extension from one realm to another warranted? — jgill

It is highly technical, but it’s really just that the relativity of time is in fact a relativity of all four dimensional variables - their non-commutative ‘properties’ are simply the irreducible quality of dimensionality. What Bohr is saying about measurement is that any properties of reality are, at minimum, a relation between two pairs of non-commutative variable values, one of which, for us, acts as time. So we don’t need to assume space or objects - we only need to recognise one of those values as ‘time’, and one of those pairs as our involvement - our entangled embodied subjectivity.

But I don’t agree with the notion of extension from one realm to another. If you invert this dimensionality as starting with time, then distance, then momentum and then position (which is the paradigm shift required), it’s not so much extension as differentiation. And when we talk about mathematics in relation to reality, we are naturally approaching it from a fifth-dimensional perspective: configuring reality according to relations between variable values, undifferentiated as time, distance, etc. So in my understanding, it’s not a ‘separate realm’ at all.

I think for Barad philosophy, and science as well, first delineate the contours of what matters by enacting an apparatus( configuration of practices of intra-action with the world). Then, within those configurations descriptions and distinctions of intelligibility can be made ( true-false, relevant, irrelevant, etc). A particular logical grammar of propositional truth would constitute only one narrow form of intelligibility, that used by humans in a particular historical era within certain cultural domains. In its wider form, intelligibility is not limited to humans.

“There is an important sense in which practices of knowing cannot fully be claimed as human practices, not simply because we use nonhuman ele­ments in our practices but because knowing is a matter of part of the world making itself intelligible to another part.”

If reality as a whole is not intelligible it is only because reality is a becoming. To make an aspect of the world intelligible is to participate in this becoming. — Joshs

I was using ‘intelligibility’ in the narrow form that it has been presented to me here, and employed to dismiss quantum mechanics. But you and I at least are in agreement here. I keep getting accused of ‘making up’ broader definitions, as ‘using ambiguity to obscure’….

But why would you assume that reality, or some aspects of reality are unintelligible? That seems to be a counterproductive, self-defeating assumption. The philosophical mindset is the desire to know, and this means everything. Even if it's beyond the scope of one person, we work toward the collective knowledge. If there is something which I cannot understand, I ought not assume that it is inherently unintelligible, but that it is inherently intelligible, and I just currently have not the means to understand it. Then we keep working toward understanding it. If we assume that it is inherently unintelligible, then we give up on trying to understand it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Despite institutional conventions, philosophy is about wisdom, which is not ‘to know’ in the sense of ‘to describe’, but to understand in the sense of being able to act correctly. Intelligibility - in the sense you are using it here - is about being able to describe this knowledge (using language) and be understood with sufficient certainty. So we’re clearly striving for different goals here. But it should be clear that understanding reality is not the same as understanding how reality is described.

I do think that reality in a complete sense IS unintelligible - this is not an assumption - but that doesn’t prevent us from striving to understand reality in order to act correctly, even if we cannot reduce that correct action to a definitive statement about reality that is true always and everywhere, ie. objective, logical. I think we need to accept the inherent ambiguity and variability of reality, and incorporate this into our use of language, if we are to make any objective statements about reality - rather than try to shoehorn (reduce) reality to conform to conventional language use and definitions.

Quantum mechanics has shown what can be achieved when we put aside the goal of intelligibility, and focus instead on developing precise and accurate intra-action. There’s no reason why we can’t apply this perspective to all our intra-actions.

No, it is "inherently unintelligible" as described above. The only way to make it intelligible is to start redefining terms, as you did with "agency". Now "you'll have to redefine "matter", and so on and so forth, until you have a conceptua structure which is completely inconsistent with convention, and any cross referencing would constitute equivocation. What's the point? You\d just be making up a fantasy reality which is completely distinct from grammatical conventions, i.e. logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did NOT redefine ‘agency’ - I took that definition straight from Google (source: Oxford Languages). Can I be clear that I am not redefining any of these terms - I am only pointing out the variability inherent in their definitions, etymology and usage. And the relation between logic and reality is not bound by grammatical convention. The fact that quantum physics makes exceptionally accurate use of a logical structure which defies grammatical conventions should prompt us to rethink these conventions in light of reality, not the other way around.

The idea of a particular instance of activity, without anything which is active, is inherently unintelligible. This would be nothing but a universal, a type of activity, and not a particular instance at all. What makes it a particular instance is the particular material which is active. You might insist that it is just a type, a universal conception, and not a particular instance which you are talking about, but then it's just a fantasy in your mind, and nothing real at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm quite certain that there cannot be any particular instances of activity without anything which is acting, or active. If you really think that activity without anything acting is a coherent idea, then explain to me what would this activity consist of. What would be the substance here? And, that "it doesn't follow grammatical convention" is very good grounds for rejection, as explained above. — Metaphysician Undercover

A photon is a particular instance of activity, but what is active here? It’s not a universal, not a type - it IS real, and yet it still has no mass. So what does this activity consist of? Energy without substance. A particle of light. A packet of electromagnetic radiation. It’s a pattern of activity without anything which is acting. So is ‘doesn’t follow grammatical convention’ alone grounds to reject the existence of a photon?

The solar system is not comparable to ontology. We can model, or represent all sorts of supposedly independent things, like the solar system, but ontology does not have as its purpose, to model or represent any independent thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, that’s not what I said (but to be fair, what I was supposed to say was cosmology rather than solar system). What I did say was that the logical process is comparable, but the qualitative structure was different. And I said nothing about representation, nor any ‘independent thing’.

No problem. But, could you summerize what you are saying here about time? — jgill

Well, I can give it a go…

Time is not a linear extension - this is how time appears to us because we are perceiving events from the inside - we are involved. For an accurate understanding of an event from the ‘outside’ - that is, without being involved in it - we cannot assume that it has the same configuration (ie. of measurement-independent objects in space, interacting according to a linear temporal order) as it does when we are involved.

So, while it isn’t possible for us to get ‘outside’ of time, with the help of quantum physics we can at least understand the logic of time’s relational structure enough to recognise its ‘objective’ irreducibility, and the relativity of how we generally perceive time.

What I’m positing is that the paradigm shift suggested by Rovelli - to consider time as a ‘chaotic’ series of interrelating events - enables us to seek some kind of structure in this chaos. If reality doesn’t necessarily have a spatial or temporal order, then what kind of order does it have? How can we make sense of these interrelations, without ignoring their objective irreducibility?

I’m saying that each event (including ourselves and time) is most accurately understood (rather than described) by employing the model of a quantum mechanical system (spacetime), consisting of four qualitative dimensions (irreducible structural relations) of variable values, one of which corresponds to a classical sense of temporal ‘order’. Barad suggests that approaching our participation in reality this way prompts us to intra-act more responsibly and with accountability in material-discursive practices that enact boundaries and exclusions, recognising collaboration as more important than attributing/denying agency to subjects/objects in order to make ‘intelligible’ statements about reality.

So I’m suggesting the possibility of a synthesis between materialism and idealism, enabling us to avoid a dualistic ontology. And it starts with inverting our common understanding of reality as objects preceding activity, and the whole traditional assumption that time as the ‘fourth’ dimension is necessarily an extension of space.

That a wave only occurs in a medium, is not a "Newtonian assumption", it is simply the way that we understand the occurrence of waves. You are the one insisting that we need to talk "physics". Do you understand the physics of waves? Electromagnetic waves are unintelligible within the precepts of any theory which denies the reality of an ether, because waves without a substance, through which the waves propagate, is an incoherent notion. — Metaphysician Undercover

I get that the classical explanation of waves is ‘disturbance through a medium’. But look up the Michelson & Morley experiment - there is no ether. So rather than dismiss electromagnetic waves as an anomaly, it makes sense to rethink the classical explanation. It is, after just an explanation.

I do not understand why you are so obsessed with defending this position, to the point that you incessantly deny the problems which I point to. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m defending the position because it’s the only one (so far) that enables me to consolidate all the information and understanding that I have, without ignoring, isolating or excluding. The ‘problems’ that you point to are the result of limitations that our perspective, language and assumptions impose on reality. If we’re talking about ontology, we need to get past all that - including intelligibility. I understand this makes it difficult to ‘do philosophy’ in the traditional or formal sense, because we have to allow for a certain amount of ambiguity. But I consider forums such as these to be opportunities for a ‘community of inquiry’ approach to philosophy.

If there’s one thing I learned from a qualitative understanding of quantum physics, it’s that dismissing ambiguity, uncertainty or incoherence puts limitations on the information we have access to, before we even begin. That doesn’t mean we necessarily have to use that information, but we do need to be honest about choosing to bracket it out intentionally. And when we don’t have sufficient access to information, we shouldn’t make assumptions based on our limited perspective, on conventions or traditions. What we can do instead is look for relations and patterns of logic, quality and energy in the ambiguous, uncertain and incoherent information that we do have access to.

So even by your definition we have the problem I mentioned of a multitude of particular agencies coming into being, from a general sort of "agency". The general sort is unintelligible as motion without anything which is moving is incoherent. And so this sort of ontology ought not be accepted, because its basic presumptions, or premises, renders the coming into being of things, objects, as unintelligible. That is the recurring problem of all sorts of materialism in general. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agency is not ‘motion’ - you’re swapping out terms in order to imply the necessity of a pre-existing object. But there is no such necessity. The apparent incoherence of activity without any ‘thing’ to act comes down to grammatical conventions, nothing more. We both agree that time is logically prior to space. I would say that it necessarily follows from this that time is materially prior to space (ie. activity is materially prior to objects). But you don’t seem to agree with this, and your sole argument is that it is ‘unintelligible’ or ‘incoherent’. Which is to say that we must think of time as prior to space, but for some reason that you put down to an obscure and speculative function of time, this ‘logic’ is necessarily inverted in the ‘outside’ world… and yet I’m the one whose apparently incoherent…

You keep using ‘unintelligible’ to describe something that I understand but you don’t. You dismiss it as such not because it is inherently unintelligible, but because it appears to be so in your perspective. Do you think perhaps the fact that you can’t manage to make sense of it may be due to the way you are processing it? Might there be a possible interpretation you’re dismissing/ignoring/excluding based on assumptions, convention or tradition that prevents you from recognising the information as valid? Or are you that certain as to the perfection of your own intellect, that if you can’t understand it, then it cannot possibly be understood? I’m not saying that everyone should be able to understand it the way that I’ve set it out, but I’m also not going to apply reductionist methodology that dismisses information on the grounds that it doesn’t follow grammatical convention.

You cannot circumvent the fact that your own personal mind is central, and immovable from any sort of ontology which you might believe in, or propose to others. Pretending otherwise, is self-deception, and then your proposals are attempts at deceiving others. — Metaphysician Undercover

I recognise that my perspective is limited, but that doesn’t mean my mind must be central to any proposed ontology, any more than the fact that I’m on earth means this planet must be central to the solar system. The same logical process can be employed - at a different qualitative level - to propose an ontology where my mind is understood as de-centred and variable, just as any other structure or system.

Yes, our current, conventional grammatical structure is insufficient to represent reality, but this is simply a reflection of a fundamental lack of understanding. Human grammatical structures evolve with human understanding, so grammatical insufficiencies are not paramount to misunderstanding, they can be overcome. Grammatical problems can be resolved in the evolution of understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not the grammatical structure itself but the conventions surrounding it that are insufficient. For instance, the assumption that a verb is necessarily attributed to the subject as agency, which is denied to the object, is inaccurate in relation to what we understand about reality and the structure of events. We can still structure the sentence in the same way, but we cannot assume that this attribution of agency is necessarily what it means, and to insist on this configuration of dynamics in an event for the sake of ‘intelligibility’ is to endorse a variety of material-discursive practices that perpetuate ignorance, isolation and exclusion. This is as much about the reality of that cascade of events within a musical performance or telling time by a caesium clock as it is about cultural theory.

This underscores the need for clear and precise definitions in ontology, and demonstrates why yours and Barad's use of ambiguity in terms like "intra-action", and "agencies", is misleading, and conducive to misunderstanding. You obscure the unintelligibility and incoherency of your ontology with ambiguity, then produce definitions as required, but the definition is insufficient to account for the complete scope of the usage. This means that any usage outside the provided definition, is equivocation. — Metaphysician Undercover

The key is not the reductive precision of definitions. Ambiguity and the potential for misunderstanding is a natural consequence of our limited perspective. Reduction only limits our capacity to understand by prioritising certainty over accuracy. I’m not saying that your usage is outside of the definition I offered, but rather that it is a reduction.

What quantum mechanics ought to indicate to you, is that we do not have the principles required for understanding the complete nature of reality. If we must accept the evidence of quantum mechanics, then we must accept this, that the theories by which we approach the foundations of the universe are faulty. — Metaphysician Undercover

What quantum mechanics indicates is that understanding the complete nature of reality will take more than the principles of physics. We must accept that the theories are incomplete. Let’s not throw out the baby…

How's that? Just curious. :chin: — jgill

:yikes: Ok, I’ll admit that it’s a matter of interpretation. Let’s strike that emotional outburst from the argument, and put it down to frustration…

I entered this discussion in response to the question of whether it’s even possible to avoid dualism. But I’ve waded in well past my comfortable depth (and I appreciate the lifeline). I continue to stand by my argument that treating time quantum mechanically is an important step in eliminating dualism. But I will endeavour to be more careful in making claims about QM.

Again, you are hiding (obscuring) the issue through ambiguity and sloppy use of terms. "Agency" refers to the actions of an agent. So this part of what you say: " Agency is not a thing, but activity" is true. But this part of what you say: "So we’re not talking about properties of things" is false. The term used, "agency", implies necessarily that the activity referred to is the property of a thing an agent. That there are distinct agents (as distinct entities) is the only way that Barad has the capacity to speak of distinct "agencies". Otherwise we just have a whole bunch of activity, and no capacity to speak of distinct agencies within this activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agency: action or intervention producing a particular effect (from Medieval Latin agent-, doing).

This definition does not imply (necessarily or otherwise) that agency is a property of a thing or agent - you are making one of those Newtonian assumptions again. And again, not ‘distinct’, but differentiating agencies. Because we DO just have a whole bunch of activity. The capacity to speak of differentiating agencies within activity is still there - we just need to shed some institutionalised assumptions.

But it seems you are so taken with beliefs in representationalism and human exceptionalism that you refuse to accept this. The notion that humanity is not so central and immovable, and that the conventions surrounding grammatical structure are insufficient to ‘represent’ reality, seem too terrifying to contemplate. But just like the work of Darwin and Copernicus before him, the evidence in quantum mechanics is irrefutable. So we must accept it, and do our best to embrace the information and move forward, rather than try to bracket it out.

If we respect this difference, then a number of problems become evident. First, any intra-action activity which is prior to the emergence of agents, cannot be called agency, and it then becomes fundamentally unintelligible. It is activity without anything which is active, because there is no agent, like motion without anything which is moving. This is a fundamental issue with our understanding of electromagnetic energy. Without the ether which is required to understand the waves of electromagnetism, there are waves without a substance which is undergoing the wave activity. Failure to identify the ether has rendered electromagnetic waves as unintelligible to us, motion without anything moving.

Another problem is the issue of how distinct agents could emerge. We have first, activity without any distinct agents. This is a sort of random activity which is fundamentally unintelligible because it is designated as having no agents, nothing which the activity is a property of. Then, from this emerges activity which can be attributed to distinct agents. This is a significant change of category for the proposed type of activity, "intra-action", and we need to account for how such a change could occur.

That is why "intra-action" is really a very misleading sort of proposal. It classes both these very different forms of activity, the unintelligible activity of action without any thing acting, together with intelligible activity, agency, as if the difference between these two is insignificant. In reality, it becomes fundamentally incoherent to try and conceptualize action without an agent suddenly becoming the action of an agent because we need to know where the agent popped from. — Metaphysician Undercover

Electromagnetic waves are not unintelligible - they’re just incompatible with representationalism. Without this and other Newtonian assumptions, there is simply no need for any of these acrobatics. The notion of an ‘ether’ is just trying to allay fears: an attempt to describe electromagnetic energy without abandoning representationalism.

If you place yourself, as the subject, within the universe, then you are the agent. "The universe" is a creation of your senses, perception, and mind. The only way to get an "internal configuration" is to understand your own mind and perceptual apparatus, as to how phenomena, and concepts are created by your mind. Otherwise, you look at the universe as something external to your mind.

To be blunt, it is impossible to observe the internal configuration of an event, unless that event is internal to your own body. That's simply the way that sense observation works, any time we make sense observations we observe from the outside inward, and it is impossible to observe the internal configuration. Therefore your portrayal of quantum mechanics as observing the internal configuration of events, is misguided, and simply wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

A couple of important points. First of all, you ARE within the universe, always - and not necessarily as the subject, let alone the agent. There is no outside to the universe. This is the irrefutable fact of quantum mechanics.

But of course, we use language to describe ‘the universe’, and it is this description that is a creation of our senses, perception and mind. And in that description, we prefer to configure ourselves as either an independent external observer or as subject/agent. So we participate in the becoming of the world accordingly, enacting exclusions through material-discursive practices, with little to no regard for what we exclude from mattering. Because we assume that ‘we’ are the only active beings (until we need to absolve ourselves of responsibility).

I want to be clear that I am not arguing that the universe is internal OR external to the mind, but that it is BOTH - and that the boundary you consider to be ‘impenetrable’ is just one more agential cut we participate in enacting. This is not an activity we accomplish alone as ‘agent’, but is necessarily an ongoing collaboration of material agency in the world, of which we are a part.

Secondly, I didn’t say quantum mechanics observes the internal configuration of events - I specifically said this is unobservable. The observations we make from inside an event enable us to perceive an internal configuration - one that necessarily incudes us. Quantum mechanics understands that specific events have specific internal configurations, but that certain measurement events follow an internal logical pattern or structure. With this understanding, we can calculate predictions for our participation in specific events, based on these patterns, by enacting certain measurements as intra-action.

"Space" ought to be understood as the property of objects, I think you mentioned this already. That is how the concept has been developed. We produced a concept of space for the purpose of measuring and understanding the properties of objects, so our "space" is fundamentally derived from and therefore refers to the property of objects. Objects are logically prior to space.

This means that we need to go further than space to ground, or substantiate, the existence of objects. Traditionally this was done through concept of "matter". The Aristotelian concept of matter has matter as described in terms of "potential", which is basically possibility. So matter is the potential for change, but this potential itself needs to be grounded in something substantial, and in the Aristotelian conception, this is time. Therefore matter is represented as that which does not change through the passage of time (represented now by conservation laws, mass or energy). This is represented by Newton's first law, which even today maintains its position as the basic premise of physics. This implies that the fundamental grounding, or the fundamental substance of the universe is temporal in nature. The problem is that Newton's first law does not adequately apprehend the nature of temporal extension. — Metaphysician Undercover

“An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.“

What Newton’s first law fails to apprehend is that the nature of ‘time’, as the substantial ground of matter, is agency. Matter is a perceived relative stability amidst that agency, and Newton’s first law is a description of that perception which brackets out the inherent variability of that ‘ground’.

This need to ground or substantiate reality is a condition of affect. To accurately substantiate reality, we must recognise not just that we unavoidably affect reality, but that we are unavoidably affected by it, to some extent. Always.

Consider that "impenetrable fortress" refers to the outside, and nothing crosses the external boundary. Things relating to each other externally through space, is how we model things, but try for a minute to imagine all real relations as through the inside. At each moment of passing time, everything comes from the inside, moving in an outward direction (as indicated by the concept of spatial expansion). So all true relations are through the inside, in the upward direction of time, because change must be initiated prior to the material effects being instantiated at the present moment. This means that all real events, as being causal, actually occur in the inside of space, while the outward expression is just the effect of the true internal event. I used to think of the passing of time as a process which involves the inverting of space. At each moment when time passes, spatial existence inverts from inside to outside. — Metaphysician Undercover

I used to think of existence as consisting of three different dimensional structures: the external universe, my constructed conceptual reality, and a biochemical construction of affect in the brain/body that enables interaction between the two. These days, I find it is all one reality, because I recognise time as more than just a linear structure. So I do follow what you’re describing here. I just think your understanding of time is based on a limited perspective, which forces you to accept a dualism. That “everything comes from the inside, moving in an outward direction” is an arbitrary description of causality based on a limited perception of time. But time and causality are not the same.

When you say that “change must be initiated prior to the material effects being instantiated at the present moment”, you’re referring to an internal configuration of the instantiated change. What is ‘occurring in the inside of space’ is simply your ongoing constructed prediction - a configuration of activity based on the information available. One that is structured more sufficiently (in terms of homeostasis) than accurately.

The thing is that our conceptual reality (inner ‘space’) is not restricted to three dimensions, or even four. It is not grounded in temporality, but in pure relation, differentiating into logical, qualitative and dynamic potential. Of course, for it to be accurate and applicable, it must adhere to the logical, qualitative and dynamic structure of ‘the outside’. We need to regularly test our models, and keep them open to adjustment and correction. So it cannot be an ‘impenetrable fortress’, except that we often strive to make it appear so.

Notice that the distinct agencies are said to emerge through "their" intra-action. This is what is incoherent. "Emerge" means to come into being. So if the agencies emerge trough this activity, the activity must precede the agencies in time. But "their" intra-action implies that the intra-action is a property of the agencies which emerge. Therefore the sentence quoted implies that the activities which are the properties of the agencies precedes the existence of the agencies. How is this logically possible, that a thing's actions precede the existence of the thing? — Metaphysician Undercover

The agencies are differentiating, not distinct. Distinct implies separation, which Barad is very careful NOT to imply. There is a lot of Newtonian assumption built into our use of language, and you’re displaying it here. Agency is not a thing, but activity. Agencies emerge through differentiating, which is intra-action. Just as the particular striking of a chord emerges though a particular song performance, emerging through a particular set emerging through a particular music festival. These are not things but events. So we’re not talking about properties of things, but involvement in events. You can assume that a song existed prior to the festival, but we both agree that we’re talking about particular events, not generalities. We’re talking about a particular performance - one that did not exist, with these boundaries and properties, until it was actually happening.

You say "The measurement process is an internal configuration, not an activity occurring between individual, pre-existing entities", but I have no idea what this means. If it's not "internal" to pre-existing entities, then what's it internal to? It appears to me, that instead of facing Barad's incoherency you try to obscure the meaning by saying that the intra-action is "internal" without indicating a type of thing which it is internal to. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not trying to obscure anything. I can’t force a paradigm shift on you, but we are not talking about ‘things’ at all. Language convention leads you to assume that ‘agency’, ‘intra-action’ or ‘event’ in a position of noun means they are individual, pre-existing things or entities. But we’re talking about events within events within events. As Barad says, it matters whether you are talking about an event from inside (in which you are necessarily involved), or from ‘outside’ (where the ‘event’ is internally configured, and treated quantum mechanically).

What I am saying is that "a music festival" refers to something general, a universal, a concept or ideal, and therefore not any particular real event. Likewise for "a generation". To refer to an event, we need to specify a particular music event, or a particular family relation.

This has nothing to do with "events within", it's a matter of the difference between talking about a general idea (a concept or universal), and a particular event. You agreed that any particular event must have a temporal order. Then you went on to say that it is not necessary that all events have a temporal order.

To judge the truth or falsity of this, we must determine what "all events" refers to. Your example, "a generation", indicates that it refers to a generalization, a universal, and not anything real in the physical universe, just an ideal. But I do not think that this is what you had in mind. I think you want "all events" to refer to a compilation of all real physical events, rather than to a concept or ideal. If so, then aren't you just treating all real physical events as a single event, and therefore this particular event must follow the rule that all events have a temporal order?

And if you are treating the compilation of all real physical events as something other than a single particular event, then you need to explain what type of a thing this is, which you are referring to, and how it is possible that all events could exist together as something other than an event. Normally, when we talk about a bunch of events existing together as a single unit, we are just speaking about a bigger event, as your example of music festivals shows. And in the same way that the small event (a chord being struck), has a temporal order, the big event (the specified music event itself) must also have a temporal order, as all events have a temporal order. — Metaphysician Undercover

What I said was that each event has a temporal structure, which can appear linear from within it. When you perceive a particular event from outside it, however, it has to include the other three dimensions, and so is structurally similar to spacetime, which it seems you assume to be something external to or other than the ‘physical’ universe. I am saying there is no ‘external’ perspective of reality - the dimensional perspective here is of an internal configuration to the event, and this is where quantum mechanics comes in. Because if we are observing the internal structure of an event, then we are necessarily involved, and if we are outside, then its internal configuration is unobservable, and must be treated quantum mechanically (ie. like spacetime).

A paradigm shift is required here that inverts our understanding of reality from the traditional one in which we assume that objects precede activity. Without this inversion, we will always assume duality. Because we understand that thinking precedes thought.

There is no universe here beginning to take shape, because you have only presented ideals, a two dimensional plane. There is no substance here, nor is there any activity here because there is nothing to be active, no agency. All you have is two ideal dimensions, and nothing taking any shape whatsoever, just the basis for a conceptual model.

Read what you wrote. You are arguing that an activity of ‘not being’ must precede the being of an object. Time prior to space.
— Possibility

Exactly. That's what I am arguing for, time must be understood as prior to space if our intention is to understand the nature of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with your last statement here, and I think this is important. QM demonstrates that time is prior to space. So why do you keep bringing Newton into the discussion and insisting on ‘substance’ by way of ‘things’? Are you suggesting that objects exist prior to space? That time is not activity? Or that activity is not agency? This is what baffles me about your approach.

—-

I’m starting to work out where we seem to be talking across purposes. So I want to go right back to your first comment on this thread in order to try and clarify, before I run out of steam on this discussion:

I, am an impenetrable fortress. Nothing, I repeat nothing, from that "external world" can infiltrate my defenses, and move me. All which exists within my mind comes from the inside. Thus is my reality.

There is however, a sense in which ideas come to my mind from somewhere other than my mind. Since they cannot penetrate through my fortress, and enter from the external, and "ghostly phenomena" is silly talk, I conclude that they enter my mind through "inner space". And since the ideas which enter my mind through inner space seem to be very similar to the ideas which enter your mind through inner space, I can conclude that we are very well connected through inner space…it's good to understand "inner space" in terms of disembodiment because there cannot be any spatial extension, which is a requirement for bodies, in the intensional realm. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that ‘my reality’ can only ever be internally structured, but I disagree that ‘I am an impenetrable fortress’. Rather, I am an event, a spacetime structure of particular and ongoing internal reconfiguration, entangled with all of reality in our mutual becoming, with which I collaborate to enact an agential cut with every intra-action, every material-discursive practice, marking boundaries and properties that, despite my best intentions, are continually changing. When we invert our understanding of reality from space/objects as prior to time/activity, to time/activity prior to space/objects, then disembodiment is not a question of ‘spatial extension’ to a body, but of arbitrarily differentiating the ‘body’ from being.

Define ‘good’. It may seem pedantic to insist on ‘intra-action’, but for me it’s about being honest, acknowledging the involvement and variability of all aspects of the measurement setup in the process. The measurement process is an internal configuration, not an activity occurring between individual, pre-existing entities - despite what Newton assumes to be the case.
— Possibility

The explanation of intra-action provided for me, by you from Barad, was incoherent by self-contradiction, as I explained. If agents emerge from their "intra-action" then the intra-action must be prior to, and cause the existence of the agents. This leaves the problem of what is acting in the intra-action. Barad called it "their" intra-action, but the activity cannot be "theirs" because it is prior to their existence.

What you describe here is nothing but interaction between the people measuring and the thing being measured, and is not representative of what Barad was referring to in the quote you produced for me. So I am beginning to think that your understanding of "intra-action" is not the same as Barad's — Metaphysician Undercover

First of all, you are reading more into what I describe than what is here. Read it again. There is nothing in what I’ve written that deviates from Barad’s explanation - except that my word choice has maybe opened the door for you to insert your own assumptions. Unless you somehow missed my use of ‘not’ in what I described…?

Where do you get this assumption that an emergence must exist prior to what emerges? Why does there need to be a what is acting? And don’t say because Newton said so - let’s not try to flog that dead horse again. Quantum mechanics has proven over and over again that ‘objects’ emerge through (not from) activity, with boundaries and properties that are materially relative to that activity. I would say that what exists prior to intra-action is a variability of values in potentiality - but that’s really only one possible way to describe it.

Barad calls it ‘their’ intra-action because everything that ‘they’ become within that intra-action is involved in the activity, and nothing else. There is no creator, no first cause, no ‘external’ forces. Materialisation is an intra-action - an internal configuration - of variable values, from potentiality to actuality.

I don't see you point. Even with the atomic clock, someone still has to read the clock, just like someone has to read the sun, in order that the passage of time is actually measured. There is no such difference as you claim. The parts of the clock must be precisely arranged in order that it can properly "keep time", but so must the sun and the earth be "precisely arranged" in order to keep time. But the "keeping of time" is not really done by the precisely arranged parts, it is done by the person who observes them. — Metaphysician Undercover

The difference is between internal and external arrangement. Someone is observing the changing position of the sun relative to themselves. But in the case of the clock, ‘someone’ is not observing the position of the quartz crystal relative to themselves. We cannot observe the change that ‘keeps time’. We can only read changes in the apparatuses: the original frequency is amplified to generate an electric pulse which is digitally ‘counted’. To say that we are the only ones keeping time is hubris: denying agency to this internal material arrangement of the timepiece.

When we ‘keep time’ with the quartz clock we are part of a cascade of internal configurations - within phenomena - that necessarily involve all of the precisely arranged parts, in a ‘clock’ body, keeping time for us through various prostheses. And we are materially entangled with these internal arrangements - the digital count reading the electric pulse reading the amplifier reading the vibrating crystal - whenever we ‘read’ the time as marks on the clock face. And each of these measurement ‘events’ is not ordered in time but roughly simultaneous and NOT identical.

There is a model of the world, a representation, or map, the Newtonian representation which assumes as a fundamental principle the stability of an object, but this model is fundamentally flawed. However, our measurements of time are based in the Newtonian representation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we agree here - EXCEPT that it is not necessarily our measurements of time, but the material-discursive practice by which we describe this measurement, that is based in the flawed Newtonian representation.

But it does allow for it. Spacetime fuses the three dimensions of space and one of time, not into a 3+1 structure, but into a four-dimensional continuum.
— Possibility

Any sort of "dimensional continuum" is problematic from the outset. From what it means to be continuous, a continuum cannot have distinct dimensions. So the dimensions of space are arbitrary to begin with. And that this dimensional model cannot adequately represent space is indicated by the irrational nature of pi and of the square root of two. It appears like it might require an infinite number of spatial dimensions to properly represent space as dimensional, but this would be equally problematic. Making time another dimension just magnifies the failures of the dimensional model. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not trying to represent space here. Spacetime is a mathematical structure of non-commutative relations. Any continuum is just a continuous series of variability, the logical structure of which is that the extremes are vastly different from each other. A one-dimensional or linear continuum is a single variation that continues in a series. This, for me, can only be time, as no other variable can logically exist - without relation to another variable - as anything other than variability itself, which is time for us.

A two-dimensional continuum is a variable plane - but not necessarily a geometrical one. It’s just describing a relation between two variables. And now either of those variables could exist as time, or distance, or direction, or energy, etc. And the universe begins to take shape, as it were.

It’s not that dimensions are arbitrary, but that values seem to be. Dimensions are a method of describing the non-commutative quality of relations between certain values in reality.

FWIW, I have found that the logical structure of reality as a multi-dimensional continuum (a qualitative relational structure between variabilities) maxes out at just six dimensions. At that point, it is pure relation. Which is to say that if absolutely everything matters, then nothing does.

So there is no set or assumed configuration of dimensional structure in spacetime, and that’s the point.
— Possibility

This is exactly why the dimensional representation fails. It is completely arbitrary, therefore it is based on nothing real. It is not based in, or does not start in any real aspects of space or time. And of course, space and time must have very real properties as quantum physics demonstrates. So this type of dimensional representation is not based in anything real, and does not capture the real nature of space and time. — Metaphysician Undercover

In quantum physics, real properties are measurable, as variable values. Dimensionality describes the non-commutative quality of their relational structure - that some measurement values are not interchangeable, like position and momentum. It is the only model that does capture the nature of reality in this sense. It is the values that are arbitrary - measuring/observing a different variable produces a different configuration - like measuring the frequency of electron spin instead of quartz crystal oscillations. You’re still measuring the same dimensional quality: time.

Momentum is a Newtonian principle, tied up with mass and inertia. This is why our measurements of time are based in Newtonian physics, which assumes the continuous existence of the massive object, as per the first law. — Metaphysician Undercover

Momentum is tied to mass and velocity, not inertia. This is post-Einstein physics - basic stuff, really. Forget Newton - his assumptions regarding inertia are fundamentally wrong.

This cannot be true. "To become" implies a coming into being, which is a temporal order of not being then being. If the object emerges from the activity, as described by Barad, then there is activity temporally prior to the being of the object, as it becomes during the activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Read what you wrote. You are arguing that an activity of ‘not being’ must precede the being of an object. Time prior to space.

A generality is not an event, which is a particular. When you refer to "generations" here, you are not referring to events, but to a generalized notion of "a generation". When we speak of the relations between family members we speak of events. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you saying that no event can occur within another event? That a music festival, in which a number of acts perform, is not an event because it contains events within it? And a single instrument being played during one of those acts is or is not an event? And a chord being struck? I want to be clear on what you’re arguing here…

There’s no desire for certainty here in acknowledging conditions for objectivity... And I’m not sure what ‘theoretical solution’ you’re referring to
— Possibility

I agree with your description of an “accounting” to the criteria for what are “relevant features”, but that is not the classic conception of what “objectivity” is. Plato and Kant’s idea of a metaphysical “object” for comparison with its “appearance” to us was born of a desire for certainty (exactness), not just responsibility, accountability. This is the theoretical picture which I think is continued through in having “discursive” and “materiality” (the word, then the referent) with a tweak to try avoid the conclusion it is “metaphysical”. — Antony Nickles

Not accountable to the ‘criteria’, but to our inherent inseparability from the world. Objectivity means without bias, judgement or prejudice. Plato and Kant’s ‘object’ demonstrates a striving for a sense of certainty at the cost of accuracy in terms of responsibility and accountability. Kant’s focus on this ‘object-in-itself’ as a given is I think one of two key distortions in his philosophy (the other is its human exceptionalism). Bracketing out uncertainty behind a dualism is a cop-out.

But I think the point being made with ‘material-discursive’ is that there is no inherent distinction between these practices of ‘mattering’ - that the process is structurally the same.

A performative understanding of discursive practices challenges the representationalist belief in the power of words to represent pre-existing things. Unlike representationalism, which positions us above or outside the world we allegedly merely reflect on, a performative account insists on understanding, thinking, observing and theorising as practices of engagement with, and as part of, the world in which we have our being. — Barad

Representationalism, the metaphysics of individualism and the intrinsic separability of knower and known - all of these are in question according to quantum mechanics. It’s not a matter of trying to avoid the label of ‘metaphysical’ - it’s about seeing a logical practicality in structural alignment between semantic and ontological theories. It’s nothing particularly new - The Tao Te Ching did this thousands of years ago.

So yes, every practice is different, but it is differentiating that constitutes each practice, each reason or interest, and even culture itself - “not just what matters, but what is excluded from mattering”.
— Possibility

And here I agree as well. To have a something we must push against everything. This speaking is a kind of violence and death. I would also point out that off course the “what” that is excluded is importantly also a “who”. — Antony Nickles

Sure, but I’m talking about recognising the practice of differentiating a ‘subject’ (‘who’) from an already entangled materiality - not just with other humans, but with everything. The point is that we don’t have to push against everything in order to have a something. We can differentiate without othering or separating.

This is the paradigm shift required - to understand that when I talk about a ‘something’, I’m engaging in a material-discursive practice, not referring to some individual something that exists as such, independently of both of us. In this way, I acknowledge a variability (uncertainty) not just between my intra-action differentiating ‘something’ and yours, but also the possibility of changes occurring to this agential cut as we continue discussions, as we discuss with others, and as this ‘something’ and the various apparatuses I involve in observing/measuring/describing it, continue to intra-act in the world. These are the conditions for ‘objectivity’.

I didn’t say it was easy…

Therefore, if we’re honest, each measurement of the ‘object’ is necessarily an intra-action involving an observer or measurement apparatus in a localised yet never isolated spacetime.
— Possibility

You still have not provided me with a good explanation as to what "intra-action" means, so why can't we just call the measurement process Interaction? — Metaphysician Undercover

Define ‘good’. It may seem pedantic to insist on ‘intra-action’, but for me it’s about being honest, acknowledging the involvement and variability of all aspects of the measurement setup in the process. The measurement process is an internal configuration, not an activity occurring between individual, pre-existing entities - despite what Newton assumes to be the case.

The passage of time is understood and measured relative not to supposedly measurement-independent objects, but as the change or difference between the measurement/observation of ‘objects’ - that is, how one intra-action relates to another.
— Possibility

I don't think that this is the case. The independent existence of the objects, which provide the basis for the measurement of time is taken for granted, as a given, like I explained is the case with Newton's first law. So it does not matter if it's the earth and sun, quartz crystal, or cesium atoms which provide the basis for measurement, they are all objects whose spatial presence is taken for granted.

And again, I do not see the need for "intra-action" here. Why not just describe the measurement of time as an interaction between the human beings doing the measurement, and the object (sun, quartz crystal, cesium atom) which is being used to provide the temporal stability. — Metaphysician Undercover

You cannot tell time from the spatial presence of a quartz crystal. Each of these three ‘objects’ provides a different set of values as its relative temporal stability, and where the quartz crystal and caesium electron differ from the sun is that there is no human being ‘doing the measurement’ at the level of the ‘object’. Once the timepiece is set up, we ignore the fact that we have created elaborate conditions for a particular, stable and recurring temporal measurement. These properties are not inherent in the ‘object’, but in the entire measurement setup. Alter one part of this apparatus, and the measurement changes. The warmth of the human wrist is responsible for up to half a second clock drift per day on a quartz timepiece, by altering the oscillation frequency of the crystal.

We call these measurements of ‘time’ by ignoring the variability inherent within the measurement process, including the variability of the very ‘object’ being used to provide temporal stability.

I disagree. As I explained, we need to understand activity as prior to space. And since activity requires time, time must be prior to space as well. And, since the concept of "spacetime" does not allow for this conception, it must be dismissed as inadequate. — Metaphysician Undercover

But it does allow for it. Spacetime fuses the three dimensions of space and one of time, not into a 3+1 structure, but into a four-dimensional continuum. It’s no longer ‘time and space’, but simply four mathematical dimensions, without priority. So there is no set or assumed configuration of dimensional structure in spacetime, and that’s the point. How this spacetime is configured determines which value is measured first in any interaction (eg. position or momentum), which also determines the state of the ‘object’ measured. The momentum of a caesium electron is more important to a measurement of time than its spatial position - and we cannot measure both simultaneously. So we prioritise momentum, and this ‘object’ materialises as an event, with no inertia to speak of. And there’s certainly no inertia in the caesium atom itself, emitted in a vapour or in freefall (fountain).

But these objects which we use for the measurement of time are Newtonian objects. I don't think that this can be denied. It is the stability of mass, in its temporal extension (inertia), which gives us the capacity to measure time. I don't think we can pretend that it is anything other than this. — Metaphysician Undercover

Except that mass is not really as stable or inert as it appears. Look closer, and you’ll find activity. The capacity to measure time with a caesium electron is dependent on measuring momentum regardless of its position (as above). Yet the macroscopic state of an atomic clock presents as apparent inertia, with one particular variable having the characteristics of time.

“A macroscopic state (which ignores the details) chooses a particular variable that has some characteristics of time.” (Rovelli)

So we can only say that it is apparent inertia (ie. our ignorance) which gives us the capacity to measure time in a macroscopic state.

Barad’s ‘object’-in-its-becoming is never separate from the activity through which it emerges. An intra-action is not prior to, but rather constitutive of, the existence of its physical ‘objects’.
— Possibility

This appears self-contradicting to me. If the object emerges from the activity then the activity is necessarily prior to the object. That's what "emerges" means. — Metaphysician Undercover

‘To emerge’ means to become apparent or visible - there is no temporal order or actual separation implied. It is entirely possible for the emergence, the ‘object’, and the activity to BE or even become simultaneously.

“At the fundamental level, the world is a collection of events not ordered in time.
— Possibility

As I explained, this is incoherent. "An event" is itself necessarily ordered in time, that's what "an event" is. It's incoherent to speak of events which are not ordered in time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not incoherent at all. Think partial ordering, filiation. We speak about ‘generations’ as events in time, but there is no point in time where one generation ends and another begins for everyone - only between two family members. An event, by definition, is something that occurs in time - has temporality - but that doesn’t mean all events fit into some universal linear order. It seems nice and logical, but doesn’t correspond to reality.

What I mean by pre-exist is to exist before, prior in time. So, for instance, two objects can exist without interacting if there is the required spatial-temporal separation between them. These objects would pre-exist any interaction which later developed. Common conceptions of "interaction" assume that objects pre-exist their interactions, in this way. That's expressed by Newton's laws. The first law makes a claim about the existence of an object which is not interacting, then the other laws bring in interaction. So non-interacting is assumed as the pre-existing condition. — Metaphysician Undercover

You’re still trying to describe objects from some external perspective, a passive observer of two objects not interacting. But there is no outside. Newton’s first law makes a claim about the existence of an object that is assumed to not be interacting, but there are, in fact, measurement interactions going on. This pertains to the OP’s notion of entangled embodied subjectivity. With this first law, one must measure or at least observe the ‘object’ at multiple points in spacetime. And Planck’s constant places a lower bound on how small the disturbance caused by these measurement interactions can be. Therefore, if we’re honest, each measurement of the ‘object’ is necessarily an intra-action involving an observer or measurement apparatus in a localised yet never isolated spacetime.

To restate the problem in a different way, "intra-action" as described by Barad, suggests activity which is prior in time to the objects which are engaged in the activity. This is why it is not "interactivity", it is proposed as some sort of activity from which the objects which are described by Newton's laws, come into existence (emerge). The exact problem is that the passage of time is understood and measured relative to the physical objects which are supposed to come into existence through intra-activity, and whose interactions are understood by Newton's laws. Therefore this proposed activity is incoherent because there is no time in which it takes place. The Newtonian movements of physical objects, in conjubction with the boundary, or limit of electromagnetism are the principles by which time is understood and measured, so prior to physical objects there is not time. — Metaphysician Undercover

The passage of time is understood and measured relative not to supposedly measurement-independent objects, but as the change or difference between the measurement/observation of ‘objects’ - that is, how one intra-action relates to another. This is not Newton’s ‘object’-in-time assumed as a pre-existing individual entity with inherent boundaries and properties. Barad’s ‘object’-in-its-becoming is never separate from the activity through which it emerges. An intra-action is not prior to, but rather constitutive of, the existence of its physical ‘objects’. As I explained before, you are either involved in the intra-action (measuring the passage of time as change in the ‘object’), or you are viewing the quantum mechanical system, the spacetime intra-action, from within another intra-action in spacetime (understanding ‘time’ as a variable value, relative to the internal configuration of the system).

Even Newton himself said: “Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external.” What he was referring to here is the idea of time as an underlying variable in the order of the world. He assumed it was purely logical, but Einstein has demonstrated that it’s qualitative and dynamic as well: time is a variable aspect of spacetime.

Now, if intra-action is proposed as an activity which is prior to, as cause of , the existence of physical objects, then we have np principles to understand this causal force, this supposed type of activity, because it is a type of activity which is outside of time, by our current conceptions of time, hence Rovelli's description of "the absence of time" as "a boundless and disorderly network of quantum events". What Rovelli means, is exactly as I say above, prior to the existence of physical objects there is an absence of time (by the precepts of our current conception of time) and this renders all activity, or events as unintelligible, "boundless and disorderly".[/i]

No, Rovelli is not referring to a ‘prior to the existence of physical objects’ at all. He’s referring to an absence of independent linear conceptions of time; to an understanding of reality in which everything is intra-action, occurring within the variable value configurations of spacetime.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Clearly, what this indicates is that our current conception of time is inadequate for understanding this realm of activity which has been dubbed as "intra-action". It leaves this activity as appearing to be occurring in the absence of time, activity from which time emerges along with physical objects, therefore the activity appears as boundless and disorderly, completely unintelligible to us as "activity", activity being something we understand as occurring within time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, it is inadequate. We need to recognise that ‘activity’ occurs within spacetime - how one activity relates to another. And quantum mechanics shows us that when we look for the fundamental ‘objects’ of the world, we find only localised interrelational activity - with the ‘looking’ necessarily included in that. Not prior to, but constitutive of, the physical existence, (ie. particular boundaries and properties), of ‘objects’.

“At the fundamental level, the world is a collection of events not ordered in time. These events manifest relations between physical variables that are, a priori, on the same level. Each part of the world interacts with a small part of all the variables, the value of which determines ‘the state of the world with regard to that particular subsystem’.”

Rovelli also acknowledges the inadequacy of our grammar - similar to the inadequacy of ‘up’ and ‘down’ once it became undeniable that the earth was round. “We are struggling to adapt our language and our intuition to a new discovery: the fact that ‘past’ and ‘future’ do not have a universal meaning. Instead, they have a meaning which changes between here and there. That’s all there is to it.” (Rovelli)

Our experience of ‘time’ still rings true - it just exists as such within a particular subsystem of local intra-activity or spacetime, rather than being assumed as a universal linear conception.

Naming time as the ‘fourth dimension’ is not a sequential ordering.
— Possibility

It is in a way, a sequential ordering, because it makes time an attribute of space. So conceptually, time follows from space as space is logically prior to time. That is why time is understood as an attribute of space, and space cannot be understood as an attribute of time, by the conventional conception of space-time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Time is not an attribute of space - both ‘time’ and ‘space’ are attributes of spacetime. When you’re speaking of ‘time’ here, you’re referring to a linear conception of time. Yet time is localised not just in space, but in spacetime. There is no evidence that space is prior to time, and plenty of evidence that events in nature occur without first being attributed to boundaried and propertied objects.

As a ‘logical’ sequence these numbered dimensions correspond to how WE construct our representations of space and time - not how spacetime exists, or even how we come to distinguish ‘dimensions’ as such. We assume they’re constructs: that reality began in a single point of ‘matter’, and logically ‘builds’ the dimensionality of space around it in one, two and then three dimensions, like drawing a cube. And then time begins…?

Consider, alternatively, that dimensionality is purely relational - that reality as a singular ‘absolute’ diffracts into relational possibility with a logical-qualitative-dynamic relational symmetry of variable values, through which the universe emerges as spacetime intra-action, differentiating into localised variable events in spacetime, then volume/space, then size/distance and then matter. This is what I mean by a 4-3-2-1 progression: differentiating four-dimensional reality - the variable intra-activity within which space, volume and objects are differentiated. This, at least, is consistent with what is undeniable in quantum mechanics, challenging the assumption that space is logically prior to time rather than simply represented or rendered that way.

But it is my ‘logical-qualitative-dynamic relational symmetry of variable values’ that is a somewhat speculative ontological structure. This is just how it makes sense to me, because while I intuitively agree with quantum field theory and relational quantum mechanics, the maths of it is almost entirely lost on me. For me, it’s a fifth dimension of variable value structures, referring to probabilistic (potential) internal configurations of local spacetime systems. Quantum mechanics presents these configurations as mathematical equations (dynamic-logical structures), the mind presents them to the body’s physical systems (and vice versa) as affect (dynamic-qualitative structures). In the same way that DNA renders a 4D ‘plan’ as an incomplete 3D structure.

I’m beginning to wonder if your avoidance of quantum mechanical aspects of this discussion is deliberate…?
— Possibility

Of course it's deliberate. I am a philosopher, not a physicist. I am here to discuss philosophy not physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

“Philosophy without any understanding of the physical world can only be an exercise in making meaning about symbols and things that have no basis in the world” (Barad). I believe that your current understanding of the logical structure of reality is flawed. I’m trying to help clear out the Newtonian assumptions that continue to distort this philosophical discussion. And I need to present quantum mechanics based evidence in order to do that, otherwise we’re going to continue to talk past each other. I’m not a physicist either - I can’t do the math, but I can grasp the importance of an accurate logical structure to any discussion of philosophy.

Consider the following "the notion of intra-action recognises that distinct agencies do not precede, but rather emerge through, their intra-action".

What is being criticized by Barad here, is the notion of distinct entities interacting. This would imply that the entities preexist the activities which are described as interactions. So Barad replaces interaction with intra-action, and says that "intra-action" is responsible for, or the cause of existence of the entities. But where does that leave "intra-action"? It cannot be an activity which involves the mentioned entities, because it is prior to them, as the cause of their existence. So what kind of activity is this? It cannot be within the objects, because it's prior to the objects' very existence. Therefore it must be activity of some other sort, which is the cause of the existence of the entities. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean by ‘pre-exist’? Do you mean outside of time? What is being criticised is the notion of distinct entities ‘pre-existing’ their material-discursive involvement in reality. Intra-actions are causal but non-deterministic - the entities only ever exist as such within intra-actions. The assumption that potential and actual must exist as temporally ordered notions is false.

I agree that the idea of "global, externally imposed order" is not sufficient. However, I believe that the "local internal one" as described, is also deficient. I agree with many of the principles here, but there is a difficulty with language, and also a difficulty with the concept of space-time.

The existing concept of space does not allow that there is anything internal to a non-dimensional point. and this is what denies the reality of the concept of a local, internally imposed order. By our current spatial-temporal conceptions, all activity must be within space-time. This is because time is conceived of as logically posterior to space, it is the fourth dimension, and time is required for activity. So all activity is represented as spatial activity because time, which is essential to activity, follows from spatial existence.

What is required in order to understand any proposed "internal order", is to allow that time is prior to space, as the zeroth dimension, because this allows for temporal activity which is non-spatial, as prior to spatial activity. Then we can conceive of activity within the non-dimensional point. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that there is a difficulty with language. Naming time as the ‘fourth dimension’ is not a sequential ordering. My own understanding of physics suggests that spacetime emerged through differentiation or diffraction, rather than as a geometric rendering. That is, in a 4-3-2-1 progression. But if you refuse to discuss physics, then I’m at a loss as to how to present evidence of this.

I should add that it's only flat in the sense that nothing is stacked on anything else. It's given as an entire blanket. Entities and categories get their meaning structurally, relationally. People still value things differently. But this need not appear in the logical structure. I'm intentionally leaving the details unspecified. I want to give only the skeleton, leave out everything that's contingent.

Any postulated higher beings would have to be justified in the rational conversation. Basically rationality itself is god in this basically humanist conception. But what humans are is largely what they determine themselves to be. — plaque flag

A few quick points about this:

Any logical structure consists of variables - some kind of differentiation - otherwise you’re talking a singularity, the unintelligible absolute, which can only be relation itself.

For a rational conversation, you need rationality (logical structure), an assumption of embodied intra-action, AND qualitative variability (difference).

To posit rationality as god precludes the embodied intra-action from ‘determining’ themselves to be rational.

In my interpretation of Kant, the agent is incorporated into the phenomena though the means of the pure a priori intuitions of space and time. These are necessary conditions for the existence of phenomena. The exact status of any 'object' might be somewhat ambiguous, because there is a distinction between the object as phenomenal, and the thing in itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kant does not include the human, experiencing ‘agent’, within the phenomenon - which is also a necessary condition for the existence of phenomena. This is an important distinction.

"Interrelating events" is the terminology of process philosophy. What Whitehead demonstrated with his process philosophy is that this perspective runs into a very real problem with the issue of how events are related to one another. To begin with, the division of reality into distinct events is somewhat problematic, because the divisions are to a degree arbitrary. But if there is real distinctions, then "an event" takes the place of an object, as a distinct entity, but such assumed "occasions" require relational principles for their existential reality and presentation as phenomena. So Whitehead uses the concepts of prehension, and concrescence to explain relations between events.

The relevant point here is that if reality is broken down into events, then the need for relations between events, to produce a model of continuity as we experience in phenomena, causes the positing of subjective principles (agential activities of creation) to account for the reality of these relations. The result is a panpsychism, because these subjective principles are a requirement for reality as we experience it.

The issue I believe, is that the "event" incorporates space and time into its conception as necessary preconditions for its reality. So, while Kant places space and time as intuitions proper to the human agent, here space and time are already presumed as inherent within the fabric of the universe, as necessary conditions for the fundament feature, the event. Now space and time are external to the human agent, but external agential concepts are now required to explain the reality of phenomenal appearances. This is why Whitehead ultimately turned to God, having no other way to account for the existence of the panpsychic elements which he found necessary to posit, in order to hold his reality together, in the unified form which we experience.. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m beginning to wonder if your avoidance of quantum mechanical aspects of this discussion is deliberate…?

If you look at Whitehead’s philosophy in terms of relational quantum mechanics, it’s not so problematic. First of all, there is no ‘division of reality into distinct events’ - this is a misunderstanding of the structure of spacetime. If you’ve ever watched the interaction of ocean waves, you might have some understanding as to why this notion of ‘distinct events’ is the wrong way to even begin to explain the relational structure of four-dimensional reality.

Elementary particles, photons and quanta of gravity - or rather ‘quanta of space’… do not exist immersed in space; rather, they themselves form that space. The spatiality of the world consists of the web of their interactions. They do not dwell in time: they interact incessantly with each other, and indeed exist only in terms of their incessant interactions. — Carlo Rovelli

As I said before, it’s a paradigm shift, not a matter of simply replacing ‘objects’ with ‘events’. The result is not panpsychism - it’s post-humanist performativity. Matter is agentive - not in the sense of ‘feeling’, but rather mattering as differentiating: “and which differences come to matter, matter in the iterative production of different differences.” Events are intra-actions of intra-actions of intra-actions, and the differences produced are what matters.

It enables us to focus on the precision of the intra-action, rather than how we describe it, by recognising ourselves as necessarily involved.
— Possibility

Can you explain to me in clear and unambiguous terms, just what "intra-action" means? — Metaphysician Undercover

‘Intra’ as opposed to ‘inter’ action implies that the action happens within, rather than between.

But it’s Barad neologism, so I’ll let them explain it:

In contrast to the usual ‘interaction’, which assumes that there are separate individual agencies that precede their interaction, the notion of intra-action recognises that distinct agencies do not precede, but rather emerge through, their intra-action. It is important to note that the ‘distinct’ agencies are only distinct in a relational, not an absolute, sense, that is, agencies are only distinct in relation to their mutual entanglements, they don’t exist as individual elements. — Karen Barad

Distinct does not mean discrete.

I’m not saying there can be no meaningful distinction, only that there is no inherent one. We make meaningful distinctions all the time, whenever we intra-act within phenomena. But I wonder how necessary is a distinction between active and passive ‘things’, if reality is found to consist of interrelating events, rather than objects in time? Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’ is worth a read in terms of our hope of understanding temporal reality.
— Possibility

As I said, I think that the passive/active distinction is necessary in order to understand causation, and this is necessary in order to understand temporal reality. Without this, two distinct events cannot be ordered in time, because it is necessary to understand how one acts one the other, to produce a causal understanding, and therefore a temporal order. Without this distinction, events would be interacting, but there would be no way to order them temporally without determining what part of which event is causing what part of the other event. There is just interaction, and this provides no information for temporal order therefore a deficient understanding of reality.. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is why I recommended Rovelli. It’s not a deficient understanding of reality at all - it’s just not a global, externally imposed order. It’s a local, internal one. And there is no aspect of reality that is entirely ‘passive’.

There is no single time: there is a different duration for every trajectory; and time passes at different rhythms according to place and according to speed.
It is not directional: the difference between past and future does not exist in the elemental equations of the world. Its orientation is merely a contingent aspect that appears when we look at things and neglect the details.
The notion of the ‘present’ does not work: in the vast universe there is nothing that we can reasonably call ‘present’.
The substratum that determines the duration of time is not an independent entity, different from the others that make up the world; it is an aspect of a dynamic field. It jumps, fluctuates, materialises only by interacting, and is not found beneath a minimum scale….

The absence of time does not mean… that everything is frozen and unmoving. It means that the incessant happening that wearies the world is not ordered along a timeline, is not measured by a gigantic tick-ticking. It does not even form a four-dimensional geometry. It is a boundless and disorderly network of quantum events. The world is more like Naples than Singapore.
If by ‘time’ we mean nothing more than happening, then everything is time. There is only that which exists in time….

The temporal relations between events are more complex than we previously thought, but they do not cease to exist on account of this. The relations of filiation do not establish a global order, but this does not make them illusory. If we are not all in single file, it does not follow that there are no relations between us. Change, what happens - this is not an illusion….

To describe the world, the time variable is not required. What is required are variables that actually describe it: quantities we can perceive, observe and eventually measure…If we find a sufficient number of variables that remain synchronised enough in relation to each other, it is convenient to speak of when.
There is no need in any of this to choose a privileged variable and call it ‘time’. What we need, if we want to do science, is a theory that tells us how variables change with respect to each other. That is to say, how one changes when others change. The fundamental theory of the world use be constructed in this way; it does not need a time variable: it needs to tell us only how things that we see in the world vary with respect to each other. That is to say, what the relations may be between these variables….

The world without a time variable is not a complicated one. It’s a net of interconnected events, where the variables in play adhere to probabilistic rules which, incredibly, we know for a good part how to write. — Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’

Consider: rationality (logic) - quality (ideal) - energy (affect). It presents rationality as mutually fundamental, while also allowing for its limitations and doing away with humanism and its hubris without ‘suffocating’ our capacity. And it’s simultaneously dynamic, stable and symmetrical.
— Possibility

I'd be glad to hear more about this. I neglected it at first as I was caught up defending my 'flat' metaphor. — plaque flag

It’s something I’ve been working on, based on ontic-structural realism: relations without pre-existing relata. It draws from examining the underlying, original language structure and content of the Tao Te Ching in light of Rovelli’s RQM and Feldman Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, as well as (more loosely) the triadic structures in Kant (read through Darwin) and Peirce. More recently, Barad’s New Materialism has helped with aligning the QM aspects with phenomenological realism, cultural theory and post-humanism.

The wisdom of the Tao Te Ching is in aligning the structure of reality as we understand it with the logical grammatical structure of qualitative ideas in traditional Chinese language use. Every ideograph corresponds to a variable quality of idea, whose actual or real meaning in the text is derived from: a) its relative logical position to other ideas within the text’s structure, and b) the reader’s embodied interaction, as the sole source of energy. The Tao Te Ching instructs readers to be aware of and then put affect/desire (energy) aside to align their understanding of qualitative ideas in the world with the rational structure of the text, so that the energy of the world flows through them without obstruction. But because the English language is conceptual in nature, this timeless understanding gets lost in translation, as each translator’s embodied interaction is embedded into their words.

‘Rationality’, ‘quality’ and ‘energy’ here refer to purely qualitative ideas, and are therefore paradoxical in nature. Rationality is to separate reality into constituent parts, while asserting an interconnected whole. Quality is to recognise variability while alluding to an eternal ideal, and Energy is to acknowledge an inherent dynamism, while striving for stability. To use any other form in this description, however, would be to draw from either the pure rationality of the ontological structure, or from my own affected position, which would result in a performative contradiction.

I think (I hope) that my OP made it clear the ontology itself (the stage and its ontological actors) is the necessary spider at the center of the web. — plaque flag

You mean this?

A single 'continuous' blanket ontology becomes possible, with the nonalienated immanent (even centrally located ) rational community as the spider on the web. — plaque flag

…it wasn’t clear.

I can’t say that I agree with ‘flat’ as an accurate descriptor for the ontology you propose here (although I get the reference), nor do I consider any humanist or rationalist ontology to meet your own criteria of not being stacked or privileging one entity over another. Would you consider this to be performative contradiction?

If what you’re striving for is immanence without transcendence, then you’d need a triadic relational structure without pre-existing relata. Consider: rationality (logic) - quality (ideal) - energy (affect). It presents rationality as mutually fundamental, while also allowing for its limitations and doing away with humanism and its hubris without ‘suffocating’ our capacity. And it’s simultaneously dynamic, stable and symmetrical.

This is my point: that regardless of intentionality, language or other human exceptionalism, there is no referring to an inherent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects, except under Newtonian assumptions that have since been scientifically disproven, over and over. It is more accurate that the past, the future, whatever matters “is substance in its intra-active becoming - not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency... phenomena in their ongoing materialisation.”
— Possibility
:up:
I relate to this. People tend to forget the crucial 'contribution' of the 'subject.' This subject is
the 'ontological community' or 'the Conversation,' which is not outside of the reality it articulates but arguably its necessary center. — plaque flag

I think the difference between your position and mine (or Barad’s), though, is that we don’t believe there is an inherent distinction of the ‘subject’ - certainly not as necessarily central to the reality it articulates. There’s a ‘Copernican Turn’ of sorts required here, to decentralise language, if we are to more accurately understand reality and our role in it.

In ironic contrast to the misconception that would equate performativity with a form of linguistic monism that takes language to be the stuff of reality, performativity is properly understood as a contestation of the unexamined habits of mind that grant language and other forms of representation more power in determining our ontologies than they deserve. — Barad

What I am suggesting is that there are strong indications that it must be possible to objectively determine 'the past'. And, the reason why we cannot, at the current position of human evolution is that we have not established the necessary logical premises. I would also propose that the only way to "objectively determine 'the past'" is to establish a very clear and unambiguous understanding of "the present". "The present" is where the future and past meet. The required principles (premises) are not as you propose, a clear distinction between past and present, and future and present, because this would leave the entirety of "the present" as inconsistent with both the past and the future, rendering "the present" as completely unintelligible from any temporal, empirically derived principles. This sense of "the present" gives us eternal immutable Platonic Forms, along with the so-called "interaction problem", and it validates the realm of imaginary, fictitious and fantastic mathematical axioms So the required principles are not as such, but I propose that they are those which establish a clear distinction between past and future.

So the problem which is now arising, is that Newtonian physics, and the physics of "objects" in general are based in a faulty understanding of "the present". The object is represented by Newton's first law as a static continuity of being, staying the same through time, eternally, unless caused by a force to change. The object is then represented by its past existence, and the cause of change to it, is generally represented as the past existence of another object which exerts a force. The consequence of this model is determinism.

The problem which I mentioned is that this is not a proper representation of the object's past existence, because it is actually produced with a view toward the future. The purpose or intent is to model the continued existence of the the object, into the future, for the sake of prediction. Generally speaking, this is the purpose of the conception of "mass" to show a continuity of the object from past into future through inertia. The issue is that this supposed continuity between past and future, is not real. It has been created just for that purpose of prediction. And this presupposes that eternal continuous existence of the object, at the present, unless caused to change. That is temporal continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

I read this far too late at night, and am now re-reading it after some sleep. The clearest distinction between past and future is an understanding of ‘the present’ not as an object, but as a phenomenon, or quantum mechanical system. Forget objects - you’re not going to get anywhere with those. So, it’s not just about coming up with principles, but recognising that the structure of reality as we describe it has to change.

The conception of ‘mass’ is more clearly understood as a measurement process - that is, a phenomenon in Bohr’s sense of the entirety of an experimental arrangement. You’re still looking for this linear continuity that you can call ‘time’, but the very concept of ‘time’ as we commonly understand it is also a measurement process in itself.

Quantum physics requires a new logical framework that understands the constitutive role of the measurement process in the construction of knowledge. — Barad

We need to stop assuming that nouns in our use of language are observer-independent objects, and start seeing them as material-discursive practices instead. All of them. As quantum mechanical systems whose values, boundaries and properties are relative to an embodied (temporal) intra-action. This doesn’t render ‘the present’ unintelligible, and doesn’t imply the existence of “eternal immutable Platonic Forms”. Quite the opposite. It enables us to focus on the precision of the intra-action, rather than how we describe it, by recognising ourselves as necessarily involved.

The differentiation might be "agential" in the sense that it is a feature of the agent's sensibility, and carried out through the process of sensation combined with other agential processes, memory anticipation, etc., therefore be inherent within the phenomena, or, it might be performed by the agent's application of logical processes. The application of logic to the sense appearances (phenomena) produces a differentiation which is distinct from the differentiation which inheres within the phenomena, produced by the agent's pre-conscious systems. The application of logic toward understanding any phenomenon as actually different from how it appears in sense perception is what Plato strongly argued for when he insisted that the senses deceive us.

Because of this, the proposed agential separation must be understood as complex and multi-faceted. Consequently, restrictions to differentiation, which are fundamentally within the phenomena, making some aspects of separability of the phenomena appear to be impossible, are not really impossible with the appropriate application of logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

The distinction you’re referring to here is between two different phenomena: in the first, ‘the agent’ is involved in producing their ‘sense appearances’, but in the second ‘the agent’ is thinking about the production of sense appearances (the first phenomenon) - in which case ‘the agent’ from the first is bounded and propertied differently to ‘the agent’ from the second, and the distinction between sensation and memory in the second is probabilistic at best.

But perhaps I need to clarify a couple of things before we continue:

Bohr’s phenomena is more complex than Kant’s phenomena (‘sense appearances’), in that they include ‘all relevant features of the experimental arrangement’. That is, phenomena as I’m referring to here would also incorporate ‘the agent’, their ‘processes’ and ‘systems’ as you’ve described here, as well as the ‘object’ of their sensibility.

Agency is not a property of certain ‘agents’ to varying degrees. The inherent dynamism of a reality that consists not of objects in time but of interrelating events (Rovelli) / intra-acting phenomena (Barad) IS agency.

According to what I stated above, you need reference to a transcendental reality in order to justify the perspective of "outside". The "new phenomenon" which you propose is not a phenomenon at all, being independent, or "outside" all sense appearances, and simply the basis for propositions or premises for logical proceedings. But unless the propositions can be justified, they are nothing other than imaginary, fictitious fantasies. We might consider the axioms of pure mathematics as an example. These axioms are not "new phenomenon", nor are they grounded in any sort of phenomenon, they are taken to be prior to phenomenon, and this is the way that mathematics gets "outside" phenomena. — Metaphysician Undercover

The new phenomenon isn’t independent, though. ‘Outside’ is in scare quotes precisely because being ‘outside’ one phenomenon is necessarily described (quantum mechanically) from ‘inside’ another. We’re not talking about objects or passive observing instruments here, but relational configurations as 4D events/phenomena, each with their own time relativity, entanglements and superpositioning.

I do get what you’re saying, though - there needs to be logical structure to understanding phenomena from the ‘outside’. As far as I can see, that’s quantum mechanics. The ongoing issues physicists have with using words to describe a reality that aligns with quantum mechanics, are the same ones we’re running into here. Newtonian assumptions are embedded in our language use.

Let’s see if we agree on the following:

• Reality consists of events/phenomena, not objects; material-discursive practices, not words.
• Events/phenomena are not sequentially ordered in a fixed linear temporality, but intra-act as 4D systems, with their own time relativity.

There very clearly is a meaningful distinction to be made between the object and instrument, as there clearly is a distinction to be made between the act of operating, and the thing being operated on. To deny this distinction is simply to deny the reality of the distinction between active and passive. And if we deny this then all things become equally active and passive, such that we rob ourselves of any principles of causation, along with any hope of understanding temporal reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not saying there can be no meaningful distinction, only that there is no inherent one. We make meaningful distinctions all the time, whenever we intra-act within phenomena. But I wonder how necessary is a distinction between active and passive ‘things’, if reality is found to consist of interrelating events, rather than objects in time? Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’ is worth a read in terms of our hope of understanding temporal reality.

This seems contradictory to me. If an embodied intra-action occurs with one or the other, but not both, then this implies that there is an unambiguous way to distinguish between past and future. The embodied intra-action, as described clearly provides the means for an unambiguous differentiation, because it must occur with one or the other and not both. And to say that "there is no unambiguous way to differentiate" contradicts what is implied by the description of the embodied intra-action. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see that, and I will try to clarify. The important point is that this differentiation occurs within phenomena - the separability is agential, not inherent. What I’m describing is two setups, two phenomena: one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the future) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the past’, and one in which the embodied present (inseparable from the past) unambiguously differentiates from ‘the future’. There are no inherent boundaries or properties to speak of here, no outside observer, and no way to describe the entire system. The description always occurs from within.

It matters whether or not we are ‘looking’ inside the phenomenon (in which case the ‘instrument’ itself is excluded from the description, and it is only the marks on the ‘instrument’, indicating and correlated with the values intra-actively attributable to the ‘object’-in-the-phenomenon as described by a mixture, that are being taken account of), or viewing that particular phenomenon from the ‘outside’ (via its entanglement with a further apparatus, producing a new phenomenon, in which case the ‘inside’ phenomenon as ‘object’, including the previously defined ‘instrument’, is treated quantum mechanically).

So when I state that there is no unambiguous way to differentiate between the past and the future, I’m viewing both phenomena from ‘outside’, within a new phenomenon, in which case both ‘the past’ and ‘the future’ are treated not as these previously defined ‘objects-within-phenomena’, but as entanglements inseparable from their respective embodied intra-actions.

The reason why "the past as we describe it is only relatively 'determined'", is because of our mode of description. There is always intent, purpose behind any use of language, therefore any type of description. Intent, or purpose is a view toward the future, therefore "the past as we describe it" is always conditioned by the future as we anticipate it, as the description is conditioned by intent. But the future we know is full of possibility, and so this possibility is allowed to be reflected into the past which we describe. Therefore we allow that the past is only relatively determined, in our descriptions, because this allows the past to be more consistent with the future which we know as undetermined, thereby supporting our physical representations, or models of temporal continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you suggesting there is a mode of description, observation or measurement that does objectively determine ‘the past’? This is my point: that regardless of intentionality, language or other human exceptionalism, there is no referring to an inherent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects, except under Newtonian assumptions that have since been scientifically disproven, over and over. It is more accurate that the past, the future, whatever matters “is substance in its intra-active becoming - not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency... phenomena in their ongoing materialisation.”

Attributing ‘possibility’ to the future or the past is inseparable from the phenomenon in which we are embodied as that part of the world to which such possibility makes a difference.

I can see how what you’re saying here makes sense classically, but an honest ontology needs to combat human exceptionalism and the disproven assumptions of Newtonian physics:

• Representationalism: the independently determinate existence of words and things;
• The metaphysics of Individualism: that the world is composed of individual entities with individually determinate boundaries and properties; and
• The intrinsic separability of knower and known: that measurements reveal the pre-existing values of the properties of independently existing objects as separate from the measuring agencies.

So there’s a paradigm shift required in how we describe reality. Our physical representations and models of temporal continuity are largely inaccurate, and have been proven so. To continue shoe-horning our ontology to fit these assumptions seems to me an ignorant and dishonest way to do philosophy. I’ve been working my way out of this, and have lately found Barad to be helpful in articulating the connections I’ve been seeing.

But what about the future though? Isn't it necessary to have a "cut" between future and past, to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible. Perhaps you don't believe this? — Metaphysician Undercover

Any description of the past OR the future is always in relation to a particularly embodied present. It seems to me that what you’re referring to is the difference between a living being’s relation to the past and their relation to the future, in terms of what is possible and what is impossible for them, in that moment. There is no unambiguous way to differentiate between ‘the past’ and ‘the future’ - an embodied intra-action (observation/measurement) occurs with one OR the other, but not both simultaneously.

I would say that we change our relation to the past, including our description of what happened, how or why it happened, etc. as well as how we respond to the what, how or why, whenever we intra-act with information available (marks on bodies) in relation to that past. This, in turn, changes any subsequent relation to the future. Every time we intra-act with, and observe/measure the past, we effect it indeterminably, altering our relation to what is possible/impossible in the future. That this effect can seem negligible does not make it zero.

But the important point is that all of this separability occurs within the phenomenon of one’s unique temporality. “No inherent subject-object distinction exists.” So the past as we describe it is only relatively ‘determined’ - Newtonian physics justifies ignoring this relativity by presuming that one can always reduce the effect of measurement interactions to the point where they are negligible. Quantum physics has demonstrated this presumption to be false.

Do you really believe this? The possibilities of the past are known as counterfactuals, and that's completely different from the possibilities of the future. If you really believe what you say here, can you explain to me how the past, which we've previously considered to be determined, could consist of real possibilities which we could choose from, to actualize through our actions, just like we do with future possibilities. I mean, aren't you saying we can choose to change things in the past? — Metaphysician Undercover

The belief that grammatical categories reflect the underlying structure of the world is a continuing seductive habit of mind worth questioning. — Barad

I’m not talking about changing ‘things’ as if these were the primary ontological units, with ‘words’ as the primary semantic units. Quantum physics demonstrates an ongoing, dynamic reconfiguring of the world that is purely relational at base. By changing material-discursive practices, measurements and observations of ‘the past’ (marks on bodies) change, which can alter ‘the facts’ of what happened.

Quantum physics requires a new logical framework that understands the constitutive role of measurement processes in the construction of knowledge. — Barad

What I’m referring to has nothing to do with counterfactuals or intentionally choosing to ‘change things in the past’ according to the classical ideal of causality. It isn’t that the past or the future consist of possibilities, but that intra-actions “change the very possibilities for change and the nature of change”. In this sense, how we may intra-act in the future with ‘the past’ (through techno-scientific practices, for instance) remains full of possibilities in gaining new information about the past, while other information becomes irrelevant to the future. To paraphrase Barad, since there is no inherent distinction between object and instrument, these ‘possibilities’ cannot meaningfully be attributed to either abstract object (the past) or abstract measuring instrument (the future).

A condition for objective knowledge is that the referent is a phenomenon (and not an observer-independent object)…The crucial identifying feature of phenomena is that they include ‘all relevant features of the experimental arrangement’.

I suggest that you've wandered into performative contradiction. You tell me to understand the 'limitations of rationality and logic.' Wouldn't this understanding be through rationality and logic ? — plaque flag

To understand is “to be sympathetically or knowledgeably aware.” Understanding through rationality and logic alone do not allow for sympathetic awareness or love, let alone any relation to the illogical or unknown. What is excluded from mattering must form part of our understanding, if we are to be fully accountable.

What does it mean to say that the past has agential separability, for example? And what does "open-ended dynamics of intra-activity" mean? — Metaphysician Undercover

Time is not objectively linear - there is no inherent temporal separability between past and present. Rather, we enact this cut within the phenomenon of experiencing temporality, and the boundaries and properties of ‘the past’ and ‘the present, living being’ remain dynamic, ever-changing in relation to each other, whenever and however they intra-act (as opposed to interact which implies pre-determined boundaries/properties).

The apparent determinacy of the past is inseparable from its present intra-action, enacting a particular embodied cut within such intra-action that delineates ‘the past’ from agencies of observation, including ‘the present’. Any difference between one such agential cut and another may not be obvious, but it is NOT zero.

Both the past and the future are full of possibilities in which we can ‘partake’. We are continually reconfiguring, reworking and re-articulating ‘the past’, including what we have previously considered to be ‘determined’ or ‘actual’.

When I say thought, I mean linguistic thought. Love begins in caring and nurture, you know nests, sitting on eggs, wagging your tail when the human looks at you.
— unenlightened

Right, that's why I said love is prior to thought, and thought requires love, in the sense that love is necessary for thought. This is evident in human beings, as thoughtfulness is the result of love, and thoughtlessness is what results from a lack of love.

Thought is derived from love, as a necessary precondition. So love is even deeper within the internal than thoughts are. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would suggest that ‘love’ refers to a human perception of ontologically primitive relation.

We are of the universe - there is no inside, no outside, there is only intra-acting from within and as part of the world in its becoming. — Karen Barad

I really cannot understand how dualism is avoidable in an accurate understanding of reality. This is due to the nature of time. The problem is that the future is indeterminate, consisting of possibilities, while the past consists of what actually is determined. Being unfolds in time, as you say, and this is at the present, so the living being partakes in both the undetermined future, full of possibilities, and the determined past, full of actualities. How can we understand this two-fold reality without a dualist framework? — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps by understanding that ‘the past’ is determined only within phenomenon, and has agential, rather than temporal, separability from either ‘the future’ or ‘the present’. The ‘living being’ does not simply partake, but, like all material bodies, acquires specific boundaries and properties through open-ended dynamics of intra-activity - as Barad says, “humans are part of the world-body space in its dynamic structuration”.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that time is not a container in which observer-independent objects move and interact, and has called into question assumptions of representationalism, individualism and this intrinsic separability of knower and known. Bohr has argued that this requires “a radical revision of our attitude towards the problem of physical reality”.

Our practices can be appropriately done, but that is not on a measure with their being “accurate”. You can have an appropriate excuse, but it is not accurate. Measuring is accurate, the retelling of the facts of an occurrence can be more or less accurate, but there is no standard against which we would call most of our practices “accurate”. — Antony Nickles

Yes, you can have an appropriate excuse in theory, but if delivered incorrectly or without qualitative precision - that is, done without accuracy - it may be deemed ‘inappropriate’ in practice. Accuracy is a qualitative term - one that I use instead of ‘appropriateness’ to avoid a human-centred bias, and to encourage broader accountability then simply what ‘culture’ currently deems appropriate.

The “conditions for objectivity” have “not been lost”, they were imposed in the first place. The desire for that certainty creates the need for a theoretical solution to what is just the varied conclusions available or not under our ordinary criteria. — Antony Nickles

There’s no desire for certainty here in acknowledging conditions for objectivity - again, there’s a distinct human-centred bias in your choice of words. And I’m not sure what ‘theoretical solution’ you’re referring to. What are ‘ordinary criteria’ but ‘conclusions’ themselves - apparatuses that reconfigure the world by enacting agential cuts?

Objectivity is about accounting for “the constitutive practices in the fullness of their materialities, including the enactment of boundaries and exclusions, the production of phenomena in their sedimenting historiality, and the ongoing reconfiguring of the space of possibilities for future enactments”. It’s about including all of the relevant features of any intra-action, in order to be more responsible and accountable with our involvement.

Yes our practices are not fixed, however, as I tried to claim previously, they are not decisions, arrangements, or solutions. They are the ways we have lived our lives over thousands of years; changing our shared expectations that create the implications on which our actions are judged is not resolved intellectually but culturally, over time as we change how we live, judge, and expect. And another point I was trying to make is every practice is different in the means and possibility of its evolution.

And bya priori I am pointing out that there is no reference here, only reasons, interests, what matters; and that we do not easily see these, but must deduce them, reflect on what has been there but is normally overlooked, assumed. — Antony Nickles

I don’t see where I claimed that practices are decisions, arrangements or solutions in the sense of human intentionality. It is human exceptionalism that leads to reasons and interests being assumed or overlooked as ‘a priori’. What cannot be taken for granted is difference - as Barad says, “it is what matters”.

Practices (regardless of human intentionality, intellect or culture) are habitual or embodied intra-actions that are material-discursive in nature. But they are not ‘ours’ to possess, attributing agency necessarily to humans. Barad argues that matter itself is agentive - “mattering is differentiating, and which differences come to matter, matter in the iterative production of different differences.”

So yes, every practice is different, but it is differentiating that constitutes each practice, each reason or interest, and even culture itself - “not just what matters, but what is excluded from mattering”.

Succinct. But merely a curiosity in physics and math. — jgill

Sure - until they’re applied or embodied, at least. Or anytime we attempt to describe our understanding of reality in non-mathematical terms.

This would involve a conversation with my mother. My own 80-year old mother, who I love dearly and is still in reasonable health, has made it clear that she’s ‘ready to go’ at this point in her life. While I could probably make a case for the importance of lived experience in rebuilding society, I would not choose the survival of my mother for my own selfish, short-term emotional reasons if she herself lacked the determination to live and interact.

I can agree that we are responsible to each other, but I would frame it in the sense that the criteria of a category are what has been essential to it for us (our culture) before you and I get there (a priori as it were). We came into our practices with their criteria already having been sculpted by human life choosing what is important about something being what it is, being done appropriately, what we can be held “accountable” to it for being a threat or an apology or a conclusion, etc. — Antony Nickles

What has seemed ‘essential’ for ‘our culture’ in the past has been found on numerous occasions to be no indication of its accuracy, let alone its importance or appropriateness. However, I do get this need to seek a solid, pre-existing foundation to practices - to find a resolution of ontological determinacy and conditions for objectivity. Barad explains that this has not been lost - it’s just not what Newton (or even Einstein) assumed it was. Rather, it’s relation all the way down.

The criteria of a category are themselves apparatuses, “constituted through particular practices that are perpetually open to rearrangements, rearticulations, and other reworkings”. That this has been happening long before you and I get there does not render it a priori.

Furthermore, any particular apparatus is always in the process of intra-acting with other apparatuses, and the enfolding of (relatively) stabilised phenomena (which may be traded across laboratories, cultures, or geopolitical spaces only to find themselves differently materialising) into subsequent iterations of particular practices constitutes important shifts in the particular apparatus in question and therefore in the nature of intra-actions that result in the production of new phenomena, and so on.

Practices with their criteria are by no means sculpted in stone - scientific practices are no exception. As Barad says, “boundaries do not sit still”. One of the things that makes Barad’s agential realism so interesting is the methodology of diffractive intra-action across categories, and the insightful reconfigurings of the world this makes possible.

The endgame is responsible and accountable practices, or intra-action.
— Possibility

I can understand how I could be held responsible and accountable for, say, an apology I did, held to the criteria for that practice. I can also imagine someone extending the limits or context of what we would consider the practice of comedy (say, its distinction from tragedy), but that would be relaxing the practice, expanding its criteria, though if we are judging a comedy as lacking the classic qualities, we are defending accountability to its practice. But what would be an example were we make a practice more responsible and accountable? And how? — Antony Nickles

We don’t really make a practice more responsible - rather we practice more responsibly. A key aspect of Barad’s agential realism is a performative understanding of practices, not as observation-independent objects, but as phenomena, which include all relevant features of the arrangement. A practice, then, is not an object with attributable properties inherently separate from the I who participates in such an intra-action.

A responsible or accountable practice or intra-action is one in which participants take into account relational possibilities as ontologically prior to any and all othering.

“Relations do not follow relata, but the other way around.”

It’s not about responsibility or accountability to a category’s criteria (as if these ‘qualities’ were not simply ‘classic’ but essential, static or a priori), but to each other (human or non-human) in general, regardless of criteria, “for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part”.

It’s about being responsible/accountable for the exclusions we participate in enacting (for example) in setting such criteria or limits as ‘comedy as distinct from tragedy’ via open-ended material-discursive practices: eg. Articulating/re-articulating a list of ‘classic qualities’ as an apparatus - a boundary-making practice, “formative of matter and meaning, productive of, and part of, the phenomena produced”.

Learning how to intra-act responsibly as a part of the world means understanding that ‘we’ are not the only active beings - though this is never justification for deflecting our responsibilities onto others.

Human bodies, like all other bodies, are not entities with inherent boundaries and properties but phenomena that acquire specific boundaries and properties through open-ended dynamics of intra-activity.

These “apparatuses are themselves phenomena (constituted and dynamically reconstituted as part of the ongoing intra-action of the world),” and we participate with them in the ongoing reconfiguring of the world.

Responsibility is not a commitment that a subject chooses but rather an incarnate relation that precedes the intentionality of consciousness

We (but not only ‘we humans’) are always already responsible to the others with whom or of which we are entangled, not through conscious intent, but through the various ontological entanglements that materiality entails.

I think that we practice more responsibly by maximising awareness, connection and collaboration, and by recognising boundary-making practices as agential separability, rather than individuation. “What is on the other side of the agential cut is not separate from us.”