There’s this saying: one can (try to) lead a horse to water, but …

We all consciously or unconsciously cling to some form of what Mircea Eliade termed an axis mundi when more abstractly appraised—some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information, without which we would loose our bearings, around which all of what we interpret to be the world pivots, and which, because of all this, we either implicitly or explicitly consider to be sacred (at the very least in relation to ourselves). To some this is the Abrahamic deity, to others it is scientism, to yet others it is the conviction that there are no correct facts, or otherwise some notion akin to the Platonic or Neo-Platonic notion of “the Good”, and so on and so forth. And we all hold confirmation biases in terms of this personal, typically implicitly maintained, axis mundi.

There is no convincing another that their own axis mundi is incorrect without the other being able to replace it with what they find to be a better axis mundi—one which accounts for the entire body of knowledge and values they already possess in addition to all new information they might be exposed to.

Or at least so I so far find. And so disagreement among humans on many but the most concrete of interpersonally experienced facts can be found.

But then this too is in itself a metaphysical perspective of sorts.

Are these aggressive anti-philosophy beliefs being promulgated in universities these days? — Gnomon

While it is likely that in some yes and in others no, I have no idea as to the overall reality of the matter. Opinionated as they might be, I doubt that others would know either in the absence of any impartial research regarding this topic.

I respect many of your views, but:

But it is one thing to claim that they ignore or distort facts , it is quite another to assert that they have taken radical relativists to heart and think that there are no correct facts. [...] They tend to be metaphysical, or naive, realists about both ethical and objective truth. — Joshs

How is that not blatantly incongruous (this in non-dialetheistic systems, if it needs to be said)?

Where “truth” is understood as conformity that which is actual/real/factual, that “the truth that ‘there is no truth’ is itself and affirmed truth” is not true on account of having no truth-value—and that one must be learned in many an authority figure to comprehend this—certainly seems post-modernistic to me. And, here, truth is whatever one wants to be true just in case one has the leverage, or power, to force the belief of its reality upon not only oneself but upon as many others as possible. Truth here can only be created in radically relativistic manners, rather than ever being the ontically uncreated waters in which we swim and breathe as psyches (this metaphorically speaking) and, on occasion, being that which can be discovered. In which case, this “metaphysical/naive realism regarding ethical and objective truths” wherein “facts can be and are ignored and distorted” is in perfect keeping with the radical relativism wherein there is no objective truths to speak of. This, again, granting a non-dialetheist reality.

For my part, in the world I live, most people need there being an unquestionable authority in their life. Most of those that then in one or another do away with the Abrahamic notion of an omni-this-and-that deity—which I find quite understandable on multiple grounds—will then turn to this nebulous term “science” as being just such an unquestionable authority. As a common enough example, for such people proclaiming “science says so” is to proclaim the unquestionable truth of that which is stipulated.

This is a gross misrepresentation of what the empirical sciences are. The vast majority of today's, for example, sciences regarding physics are, if fact, thoroughly entwined with a large sum of theoretical speculation—both inductive and abductive. There is zilch empirical about any interpretation of QM, regardless of what it might be. And when one takes a look at the nitty gritty of how we’ve arrived at today's QM, one will find a plethora of such inductive and abductive theoretical speculations regarding what in fact is. The proof that there is something objectively and fundamentally wrong with today's physics is that QM cannot be integrated into the theory of relativity in as is form so as to provide a theory of everything physical.

Science's only merit is that it can falsify those theoretical suppositions regarding that which can be empirically observed—this via empirical observations—and, by not falsifying, it can then to varying extents validate, but never “prove”, the theoretical suppositions in question.

This gross misunderstanding of science typically held by most people—these very same yet upholding science (hence, scientific inferences taken to be scientific knowledge) to be the de facto unquestionable authority regarding what is real—is, for example, readily witness in the popularized claim that “science has not proven human-caused global warming”. This being an utterly nonsensical claim, least of all because absolutely nothing of science is infallible and thereby beyond any and all doubt.

All that for now being placed aside, other than validating that it has a brain, science has nothing to say about whether or not a dog, for example, is conscious of anything, thereby holds a consciousness, thereby is a conscious being. It has no possible solution to the Sorites paradox. Nor does it have anything to say regarding the ontological standing of that which we all empirically perceive to be and label “the physical world”. In keeping with a long list of pertinent issues that science can only remain silent on is that of whether or not the universe is foundationally meaningless. Any position held on all of these many issues then being entirely metaphysical claims.

Which in a way brings me full circle to this:

Because, for one example, there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of lemmings actively swimming their way toward a climate change catastrophe in today’s status quo metaphysics of a meaningless universe. — javra

To deny the importance of any and all metaphysics is to be (bluntly expressed) ignorant of one's very own suppositions (be they culturally inherited or else arrived at by oneself) regarding what reality in fact is and consists of. Which, however, is not to then claim that all such suppositions are of equal value; some such being valueless, e.g., being the brain in a vat constructed by another brain in a vat constructed by another, this ad infinitum, though plausibly conceivable as a metaphysical possibility, is devoid of any value regarding, for example, what I should best do with my life or else how I should best understand value theory and, hence, the values by which I and others live our lives.

The idea of 'truth-value realism, which is the view that mathematical statements have objective, non-vacuous truth values independently of the conventions or knowledge of the mathematicians' is I guess what I am am exploring too. — Tom Storm

This hinging on the bifurcation I initially mentioned in my original post, here’s a simple argument for (some) mathematical statements having such "truth-value realism":

Regardless of ontological approach (materialism, idealism, dualism, pluralism, and so forth), that quantity occurs in the world is a fact. Secondly, the cognition of quantities can only occur via mathematical semantics (this irrespective of their symbolic representation, if any). Therefore, some mathematical statement (namely, those which can be mapped onto the empirically know world) have "objective, non-vacuous truth values independently of the conventions or knowledge of the mathematicians".

This conclusion, however, will directly ground mathematical thinking in the metaphysics of identity as foundation, for quantity can only occur with the occurrence of individuated identities (i.e., units, aka unities of that being addressed), and these are not always as intuitive as they might at first appear (the Sorites paradox as one easily expressed example of this).

At any rate, the only way I see of disparaging this stated conclusion is by disparaging the reality of quantity in the world.

These are far more abstract conceptualizations than that which I was addressing: the semantic which we, currently, in our culture, symbolize by "1" being universally equivalent to the semantics we convey in English by the phrase of "a unity".

So that "one unity and another unity will be equivalent to two unities" is then a universal staple of all mathematical cognition: in all humans as well as in lesser animals.

Hence, my question was intended to be specific to whether you find the semantic of "a unity"/"1" to be arbitrary and thereby not ubiquitously universal?

Asking whether math is different in other cultures is like asking whether chess is different in other cultures. — Lionino

Not sure what you mean by this. Chess has a long history and has had changes over time in different cultures. For example:

1200–1700: Origins of the modern game

The game of chess was then played and known in all European countries. A famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice is known as the Libro de los juegos, which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games. The rules were fundamentally similar to those of the Arabic shatranj. The differences were mostly in the use of a checkered board instead of a plain monochrome board used by Arabs and the habit of allowing some or all pawns to make an initial double step. In some regions, the queen, which had replaced the wazir, or the king could also make an initial two-square leap under some conditions.[64] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#1200%E2%80%931700:_Origins_of_the_modern_game

Does that to you then imply that something like 1 + 1 = 2 is constructed within specific culture contexts, such that the quantity "1" is arbitrary rather than ubiquitously universal?

does this point to maths being more arbitrary than we think? — Tom Storm

While I’m no math wiz either, I think (else presume) I know enough about maths to express the following (may I be corrected where appropriate):

Some maths are universal in their semantics (however these semantics might be expressed symbolically, if at all so expressed).

From these universal maths then can and often do get constructed derivations which, as such, often enough don’t consists of the same universality of semantics in that which is derived, but are to some extent constructed.

For instance, the mathematical semantic here expressed by the symbol “1” can only be universal. The symbol “one” here holding the semantic of “a unity” (which can get rather metaphysical when getting into the metaphysics of identity theory). It is a universal not only to all humans but also to all lesser animals that can in any way engage in any form of mathematical cognition.

So something like the semantics to 1 + 1 = 2 can only be universal relative to all sentience that is in any way capable of any mathematical cognition regarding addition.

On the other hand, mathematics which are very advanced derivations of this and similarly universal maths—such as surreal numbers or the mathematics to qubits—will be in part contingent on mathematical factors whose semantics are not universal to all those who can engage in mathematical cognition. Such complex mathematics can then be argued to be in some way constructivist (if in no way speculative) and, thereby, to some extent culture-relative.

For example, the Principia Mathematica (written in 1910) is commonly known to take about a thousand pages to in part formally prove that 1 and 1 is in fact equivalent to 2. No such formal proof occurred previously in human history (obviously, this didn’t prevent humans from successfully applying the mathematics of 1 + 1 = 2). Yet, while everyone has always universally agreed that 1 + 1 = 2, the formal mathematical proof of the book by which this is established is not universally agreed upon without criticism. As one example of this, at least one of the axioms the book uses, its introduced axiom of reducibility, has a significant number of criticism—thereby not being universally apparent in the same way that 1 + 1 = 2 is but, instead, being a best reasoned supposition which was set down as axiomatic.

So, 1 + 1 = 2 is universal and hence not culture relative or in any way socially constructed. The formal proof that 1 + 1 = 2 is however not fully comprised of that which is universal and thereby in no way culture relative or socially constructed—but, instead, can be deemed to be in part constructivist in ways which imply the relativity of some of its mathematical semantics (however these are expressed symbolically).

More directly to the quoted question: The mathematical semantics of 1 + 1 = 2 is in no way arbitrary. But it’s formal mathematical proof in some ways is (albeit yet constrained to reasoned best inferences).

The proper answer to the quoted question should then be relative to those specific mathematical notions implicitly addressed. Overall, the answer is "no and yes," this at the same time but in different respects.

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P.s. In large part posting this in a want to see if any more formally mathematical intellect would find anything to disagree with in what was here expressed.

This would satisfy my idea of perfection as that which can't be improve upon. — Tom Storm

OK. Understood. To be clear, my own vantage in this discussion wasn't concerned with the issue of whether circles are perfect in the sense you here specify - to me, we both so far have given all indications that we both accept they are - but, rather, whether perfect circles are subjectively perfect (as you seem to have so far repeatedly upheld) or else objectively perfect. But its not the most pivotal of issues to me.

In seeing you've started a new thread on the issue of mathematics, best of luck in your investigations.

But you are quite right to say that a perfect circle and a unicorn have little in common. A perfect circle is a mathematical abstraction, while a unicorn is a mythical creature. The unicorn relies upon open an open ended imaginative discourse, while the circle's properties are defined mathematically. — Tom Storm

Almost makes it sound as though the perfect circle - being here a mathematical abstraction delineated by its mathematical definition and, hence, not occurring to anyone prior to any such formal definition of it - is purely a construct of human imagination. This rather than being apprehended by understanding as something that objectively is (again, this in non-physical manners).

But, if so, then – via pi and so forth – so too is all our modern scientific knowledge of quanta nothing more than concoctions of human imagination. This rather than being discoveries (however imperfect) regarding the way the world in fact is.

Which to me would kind of relate to those magical unicorns you bring up: this being magical thinking with global efficacy.

But it may also lead to unicorns — Tom Storm

Ha. Not that I agree (e.g., there is no one universal exemplar of the perfect unicorn), but, if so, it can then likewise also lead to unicorn based technologies we all live by and universally agree upon.

Nice. I hear you but i don't think this is all that useful a formulation. We can find any number of minds to agree and visualise a unicorn but it still doesn't make it true. In this way we can also have objective accounts of ghosts and UFO too. Not sure what the word objective adds to this understanding. — Tom Storm

Just wanted to point this out:

All can however only provide the exact same example of what a perfect circle is epitomized by. And from this universality of agreement in understanding among all sapience then gets derived things such as the number pi. — javra

By entailment: If a perfect circle is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn, then the number pi is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn. If the number pi is no more real than is a unicorn, then neither is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which in part relies upon use of pi) any more real than is a unicorn. If the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which is a fundamental concept to quantum mechanics) is no more real than is a unicorn, then much if not all of quantum mechanics is no more real than is a unicorn. And, if the latter is true, then all technology reliant on quantum mechanics is no more real than unicorns.

I know, it might be hard to follow - but it's not oriented at convincing you of anything.

Unless evidenced wrong, the just mentioned argument appears to me quite sound; in brief: If a perfect circle is no more real than are unicorns, then the reality of our quantum mechanics based technology is on par to the reality of unicorns.

Since unicorns are commonly taken to be fully fictitious/unreal, something then is quite amiss with claiming that perfect circles are not objective in a way that unicorns can never be.

OK. Thanks.

Glad to hear. :up:

IMO, the comparison case for all these theories should be the best/most popular theories in other camps, not naive realism, which is more a strawman than a real position. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can get that, but then can you clarify what you make out of this statement - or else whether you find it erroneous - with emphasis on the highlighted portion:

In recent years, direct realists have wanted the perceptual relation to be entirely unmediated: we don’t achieve perceptual contact with objects in virtue of having perceptual experiences; the experience just is the perceptual contact with the object (Brewer 2011).This is the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the subject’s standing in certain relations to external objects, where this relation is not mediated by or analyzable in terms of further, inner states of the agent. — https://plato.stanford.edu/Entries/perception-episprob/#DireReal

I so far interpret it as expressing that our perceptions are in no way mediated by or else analyzable in terms of the agent's specific (even if this is only a perfect representation of the its species-specific) relations of "physiological senses - CNS capacities - resulting states of awareness" - these relations of themselves constituting the "inner states of the agent". I'll try to decompress this if needed, but I'm currently hoping it will make general sense to you as is. At any rate, how do you interpret the quoted statement?

I don't disagree with anything you wrote. However, contemporary versions of direct realism, intentionality theories, and phenomenological theories all explain the same phenomena. Each of these have their own problems, but it doesn't seem readily apparent that some have significantly worse problems than others. The result is that I would tend to say that "indirect realism can be made consistent with the empirical sciences," rather than "the empirical sciences confirm indirect realism," which would seem to imply that we can eliminate competing theories based on the empirical sciences. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This seems to me to hinge one what one means by "direct" and "indirect" realism, and I acknowledge that opinions can vary greatly. It's a bit lengthy, but here is an excerpt from SEP on the matter:

2.3.3 Direct Realism

Proponents of intentionalist and adverbialist theories have often thought of themselves as defending a kind of direct realism; Reid (1785), for example, clearly thinks his proto-adverbialist view is a direct realist view. And perceptual experience is surely less indirect on an intentionalist or adverbialist theory than on the typical sense-datum theory, at least in the sense of perceptual directness. Nevertheless, intentionalist and adverbialist theories render the perception of worldly objects indirect in at least two important ways: (a) it is mediated by an inner state, in the sense that one is in perceptual contact with an outer object of perception only (though not entirely) in virtue of being in that inner state; and (b) that inner state is one that we could be in even in cases of radical perceptual error (e.g., dreams, demonic deception, etc.). These theories might thus be viewed as only “quasi-direct” realist theories; experiences still screen off the external world in the sense that the experience might still be the same, whether the agent is in the good case or the bad case. Quasi-direct theories thus reject the Indirectness Principle only under some readings of “directness”. A fully direct realism would offer an unequivocal rejection of the Indirectness Principle by denying that we are in the same mental states in the good and the bad cases. In recent years, direct realists have wanted the perceptual relation to be entirely unmediated: we don’t achieve perceptual contact with objects in virtue of having perceptual experiences; the experience just is the perceptual contact with the object (Brewer 2011).This is the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the subject’s standing in certain relations to external objects, where this relation is not mediated by or analyzable in terms of further, inner states of the agent. Thus, the brain in the vat could not have the same experiences as a normal veridical perceiver, because experience is itself already world-involving. — https://plato.stanford.edu/Entries/perception-episprob/#DireReal

I then take the highlighted portion of this text to imply that the yellow flower's uniformity of hew as seen by humans is (for emphasis) the one true reality of the object - this such that a bee's experience of the flower as having a pattern of different hews is then incorrect / bad / illusory ... if not also somehow hallucinatory.

If what I experience is a direct access (one that is hence "not mediated by or analyzable in terms of further, inner states of the agent") to reality as it truly, objectively is, then the just mentioned conclusion so far seems to me entailed. If so, this then contradicts our scientific knowledge of reality/the world.

In which way would you find the just expressed to be inaccurate?

Lower animals certainly have the second type of concept, but it seems doubtful they have the first. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's plenty of scientific evidence that some of them do. As one example I quickly found online:
Can Dogs Learn Concepts the Same Way We Do? Concept Formation in a German Shepherd

This not to even start discussing studies on the great apes.

I just wanted to illustrate that theories all have significant problems AND can be made consistent enough with empirical evidence that none of particularly "confirmed" above others — Count Timothy von Icarus

My use of the term "confirmed" was likely inappropriate. I meant in the sense of "strengthened" rather than of of "having an assured accuracy". That mentioned, contingent on the issue of what "direct realism" entails, as previously expressed, our scientific knowledge does contradict our human perceptions being the be-all and end-all to what the objective world consists of (edit: to be clear, this perceptually). In this sense, I then yet find our scientific knowledge to evidence, hence support, the view that direct realism as just described in this post is erroneous. Be it "quasi-" or otherwise, this then results in science supporting an indirect realism.

But maybe I've got my definitions wrong.

Spaciotemporal properties are aspects of the phenomena for Kant, or aspects of what we intuit. — frank

This is very unclear to me.

What I expressed in relation to Kant's take on space and time is simply that neither space nor time are of themselves phenomena for Kant. They are instead for him "pure (rather than empirical) intuitions". Here's an excerpt from IEP:

The most basic type of representation of sensibility is what Kant calls an “intuition.” An intuition is a representation that refers directly to a singular individual object. There are two types of intuitions. Pure intuitions are a priori representations of space and time themselves (see 2d1 below). Empirical intuitions are a posteriori representations that refer to specific empirical objects in the world. In addition to possessing a spatiotemporal “form,” empirical intuitions also involve sensation, which Kant calls the “matter” of intuition (and of experience generally). (Without sensations, the mind could never have thoughts about real things, only possible ones.) We have empirical intuitions both of objects in the physical world (“outer intuitions”) and objects in our own minds (“inner intuitions”). — https://iep.utm.edu/kantview/#SH2c

Phenomena for Kant are appearances - which I so far take to always be in one way or another empirical. And, hence, I so far take it that for Kant space and time - both being a priori representations that are then in no way empirical - are not phenomenal in and of themselves.

Which is not to then say that either pure or empirical intuitions are not representations for Kant.

If you find this interpretation mistaken, can you please back up your disagreement with references.

Do we know if a perfect circle can be realised? — Tom Storm

That's the hitch. A perfect circle is realized in this world by all minds which can comprehend it's, granted non-physical, being and, furthermore, all minds with sufficient comprehension will be able to thus realize an understanding of the exact same geometric form. Such that this understanding is objective. Not so with abstractions proper: ten people will provide ten different examples of what the abstraction "bird" is epitomized by: from a finch, to maybe an eagle, and so forth. All can however only provide the exact same example of what a perfect circle is epitomized by. And from this universality of agreement in understanding among all sapience then gets derived things such as the number pi.

Is pi a realized, actual, number that occurs in the real world? I'd myself say of course: it is not unrealized, nor a mere potential, nor a fictitious construct. In which case, so too must the objectively perfect circle then also be a given that is realized all the time in the real world. For there can be no number pi in the absence of the circle's actuality.

In short, the answer to this quoted question would be "yes", albeit not physically within matter.

But its getting a bit late for me. And, again, I've got nothing to sell. So I'll leave it at that for the time being.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think contradiction

in (non-dialetheistic) logic = necessary falsity;

in modal logic = necessary impossibility; and

in modal metaphysics = necessary ontic-impossibility (e.g. sosein)*. — 180 Proof

Yes, I fully agree with that. I was only addressing the issue that contradictory claims are not necessarily equally fictional ... as per my example of "the Earth is flat" and "the Earth is roughly spherical" being contradictory claims that are however not both fictional.

Have I said that objectively perfect things do not occur? I actually don't think this, so if you can find me saying it, I withdraw it. — Tom Storm

I did say "implicit assertion". Which is corroborated by the following.

My actual point is what evidence do we have and can anyone provide an example in the real world of such a perfect thing? Not an abstraction, not an argument, not a theoretical description: but an actual perfect thing. — Tom Storm

Abstractions are abstracted from concrete givens, and as far as I know there are no concrete examples of perfect circles. If the latter is then true, then perfect circles cannot be abstractions by definition.

That touched upon, whatever they might be conceptualized as being by you, are you saying that (perfect) circles do not occur in the real world, but only in fictitious worlds?

This being a philosophy forum where debates and disagreements unfold, I just find your implicit assertion that objectively perfect givens do not occur, else that there is no evidence for them occurring, to be irrational, that's all. Would have liked to see the reasoning to it. But so be it,

Someone else may buy it. — Tom Storm

I'm not selling anything, you. So to you an apeirogon is not an imperfect circle. Hard to comprehend, but fine. What then is an imperfect circle to you?

The fallacy occurs because the two interpretations of "imperfect circle" are not equivalent. — Tom Storm

Would an oval then be an "imperfect circle" any more than any polygon? Why, when both are clearly not circles but yet resemble circles each in their own way?

Poetically addressed, an octagon is very much roughly circular when looked at from afar, and hence can be construed to be an imperfect circle - this just as much as an apeirogon can. Only that the apeirogon, being far nearer in shape to a perfect circle than an octagon, is then far less imperfect by comparison - but is imperfect (edit: as a circle) nonetheless.

Yes, what a great question! Wouldn't that be interesting? Imagine if there were a Platonic category of perfection - an instantiation of perfection that operates above and beyond any human criteria of value. The way the Platonic realm is said to work. Wouldn't that be something? Do you believe in this category? — Tom Storm

I thought you were only interested in perfection's application to morality; that perfection being one and the same with Neo-platonic, if not also Platonic, notion of "the Good", which you've stated you find unwarranted. At any rate:

Placing aside interpretations and/or misinterpretations pertaining to the metaphysics of Platonism, and here addressing objectivity as that state of being which is fully impartial relative to all coexistent sentience (let me know if you have a better but incongruous definition of “objectivity”), here’s an argument for the occurrence of objective perfection:

p1) There either can occur or cannot occur such a thing as an objectively perfect circle (this in contrast to the subjective perfection of a circle which my five-year old niece has drawn on paper).

p2) If there is no such thing as an objectively perfect circle, then neither can there be such thing as an objectively imperfect circle.

p3) If there is no such thing as an objectively imperfect circle, one can then objectively have a circle which takes the shape of an octagon.

p4) A circle in the shape of an octagon, however, is not a circle when objectively addressed - as is commonly confirmed by all sane humans.

c1) Therefore, there is such a thing as an objectively perfect circle.

c2) Ergo, objectively perfect givens can and do occur.

Is it a problem for "impossible" or contradictory claims to be considered equally valid?

No. They are equally fictional. — 180 Proof

As a minor contention, while contradiction necessitates that something is fictional or else false in any non-dialetheistic system of logic, contradiction does not necessitate the fictionality or else falsity of all givens which contradict. For ease of expression, I'll here use the adjective "false" rather than that of "fictional".

If A contradicts with B, the three following possibilities then strictly unfold: a) A is false and B is true, b) A is true and B is false, or else c) both A and B are (equally) false.

As an example, that the Earth is flat contradicts with the Earth being roughly spherical. This, however, does not entail that Earth is thereby neither flat nor roughly spherical (needless to add, Earth in fact being roughly spherical).

↪javra
I like it. — AmadeusD

Cool. :smile:

A tentative comment i'd make, at risk of upsetting some of the more stringently critical here, is that its entirely possible we in fact do have an electrical sense of some kind, — AmadeusD

I can respect the hypothesis. Since it concerns a possible human physiological sense, it is then open in principle to scientific investigation via which validation or falsification could be obtained.

But, for the record, this is often not as easily done as it is said. Take the possibility of human pheromones for example. At least some scientific experiments seem to indicate that humans might have such a physiological sense (below is provided one example of such (1) and a general history or the research (2) which also addresses the complications involved with it). But, if we do in fact have this sense in any capacity, it would obviously be largely, if not entirely, subliminal—this in contrast to how it appears to be in many a lesser animal (e.g., their Flehmen response, which by all accounts appears to be a consciously enacted behavior aimed at a greater pheromone perception).

Still, there so far are a number of problems with such studies on human pheromone perception; (3) provides a succinct abstract of them. So, to date, neither are human pheromones confirmed by science nor are they falsified by science. This despite the scientific investigation that has gone into the matter.

----------

1) Pheromones and their effect on women’s mood and sexuality

2) Chapter 19: Human Pheromones - Do They Exist?

3) Reproducible research into human chemical communication by cues and pheromones: learning from psychology's renaissance

-----------

It's one subject of interest to me that in some ways relates to your post, so I thought I'd share.

You do realize I was kidding? :joke: — Gnomon

:up: Yes, that was my best hunch. :grin: All the same, not being then fully certain, I stated what I stated as a general fact (it should be noted, without any explicitly given value judgment concerning this affirmed fact).

The statement was aimed at those - including some hereabouts on a philosophy forum - which are antagonistic toward metaphysical enquiries period, to include investigations into the nature of causation, time, space, and identity, among others issues of metaphysical concern. And to me it goes hand in hand with what I've said here.

To be blunt, upholding ignorance as a virtue to be pursued and safeguarded - or maybe worse, that the status quo perspectives of today accurately appraise in full all that there is to know about the nature of reality (e.g., regarding causation, time, space, etc.) - is not my cup of tea. But, to each their own.

↪javra

The indirect realism* which the empirical sciences confirm—

Do they? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's why I so far uphold the statement which you've quoted (any and all metaphysical implications of such perspective being to me irrelevant to the science involved):

Humans are known to be highly visual animals, so I’ll address our awareness of objects via sight. Birds, bees, and other lesser animals are know by science to visually perceive the world in drastically different ways relative to the average human. We see a flower as uniform yellow. A bee will see it as having different shades and shapes of ultraviolet. What the bee sees is no more (in)correct or (in)accurate than what we see. Yet the two species will see different things, that nevertheless yet hold the same spatiotemporal properties.

The spatiotemporal properties of objects, of the world in general (as difficult as this subject matter is), will nevertheless be commonly apprehended by all animate, hence sentient, beings—from bacteria to humans—which in any way causally interact. All else which is apprehended of objects and the world is indicated by scientific findings to be relative to, by in large, the species of sentient being concerned.

It should be noted that whatever we perceptually know of ultraviolet and infrared is, for us, yet perceived via neither (we view technologically interpreted ultraviolet and infrared only via what is relative to the human species visible light; we however have no clue of what a bee or snake experiences … other than that whatever they experience holds the same spatiotemporal properties as what we experience).

We infer there being gravitational fields, but we do not perceive them via magnetoception as objects of awareness in the world. We infer there being electric fields, but we do not perceive them via electroreception as being objects of awareness in the world. The list is by my account expansive.

Here’s an overview of non-human senses currently known to science. And I deem it very presumptuous to uphold that we have via science now discovered all the physiological senses that can possibly occur.

In short, science confirms what whatever that objective object we term a yellow flower is, it is neither in fact of a strictly uniform hew that is thereby devoid of patterns within petals nor are its petals it in fact of a complex pattern of hew. The flower is not perceptually both at the same time and in the same respect (although it is both at the same time in terms of its spatiotemporal properties which allows for both human-relative visible light and ultraviolet light to reflected from it). It is of uniform hew to one species of life and comprised of patterns of hew to another. This, again, because what the flower is as objective (fully impartial) object in the world will be interpreted differently by the different physiological senses of different species of life.

As to objects being mediated via concepts, consider the following scenario: one sees all the colors, shapes, angles, and lines which would otherwise constitute a house but, maybe because one hold’s no conception of what a house is, one then nevertheless does not see a house. Then there is the scientifically known disorder of agnosia, wherein—as in the example just provided—one sees all the specific concrete attributes of an object without being able to recognize the object. Taken together, these two examples serve to illustrate how the objects we all (typically) recognize in the world are all mediated via concepts—and science does evidence that perception via physiological senses can well occur in the absence of object recognition.

So that yellow flower that is actually out there in the world as a yellow flower would in fact not be were it not for the mind-dependent concept(s) of “yellow flower”.

Although all of this is a summery of sorts, I do take it to evidence that our scientific knowledge confirms that, for one example, the yellow flower which all of us humans can effortlessly agree occurs out there in the world independently of our senses and concepts is, in fact, fully contingent on our senses and concepts—this in all, or at least nearly all, respects other than its spatiotemporal properties (neither of which are phenomena in Kantian terms). To some other species of life, the very same spatiotemporal object which can be apprehended by all coexistent sentience will then be neither yellow nor a flower.

And this outlook I've just addressed which is confirmed by our current scientific knowledge I further take to be a variant of indirect, rather than direct, realism.

I'm of course open to being corrected, though.

What's so important about broader understanding? Does it make the world any more predictable & controllable? Why not just go with the flow? :joke: — Gnomon

In other words:

Ignorance is strength. — 1984 (as told by George Orwell)

... to which can also be added, "ignorance is bliss".

All this epitomizing philosophies which argue against an examined life

Let’s just lose the work perfect if all we mean is fit for purpose. — Tom Storm

And take all the Dionysian fun out of the term’s usage? I don’t know. — javra

When someone I'm enamored with tells me they'll see me at 10 o'clock, I'm gonna reserve the right to reply, "perfect". — javra

You would be using the word metaphorically/poetically. — Tom Storm

While I’ve got no issues with the use of metaphor/poetry in speech, wanted to point out the following:

The usage of the adjective “perfect” would in the case specified be in full keeping with “fit for purpose” - as in, her meeting me at 10 would be fully fit to the purposes/aims I (and maybe she as well) hold in mind. Hence, her meeting me at 10 would be perfect in non-metaphorical/non-poetic manners going by the term’s one translation of being “fit for purpose”. Plus, the term “perfect” in this standard (not even figurative) dictionary sense I’ve previously linked to is both more succinct and more aesthetic sounding than saying “that fully fits my/our purposes/aims” - tough they here can only be implicitly understood to mean the same thing.

Which is to in part say that, while one can deem that any philosophy of life should be Apollonian, the living of life is often best done in Dionysian manners. And, imo, in order to be honest, the Apollonian ought to fully account for what is Dionysian in life rather than prohibit those good-natured aspects of it not yet analytically understood. This, specifically, apropos to the usage of the term “perfect” in the sense of “fit for purpose”. But it could also apply in cases such as that of lovingly telling an infant “I’m gonna eat you up” (which I acknowledge would be fully metaphorical/poetic).

At the end of the day, though, whether it’s taken to be metaphorical/poetic or not is not that big of an issue for me - even though I don’t find its stated usage to so be for the reasons given. Heck, all language, regardless of how analytical, can well be interpreted as foundationally metaphorical/poetic in some deeper sense.

All the same: going back to "losing the word perfect when all we mean by it is fit for purpose", I find no reason to not reserve the right to use the term in cases such as that here mentioned.

[...] what is your best description of Metaphysics? — Rob J Kennedy

To put this as colloquially as I can, metaphysical enquiry is the attempt to figure out what reality is really all about.

Then there’s those who look upon it thus: If there’s nothing broken with the status quo metaphysics of today, why try to fix it?

Because, for one example, there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of lemmings actively swimming their way toward a climate change catastrophe in today’s status quo metaphysics of a meaningless universe.

Let’s just lose the work perfect if all we mean is fit for purpose. — Tom Storm

And take all the Dionysian fun out of the term’s usage? I don’t know.

When someone I'm enamored with tells me they'll see me at 10 o'clock, I'm gonna reserve the right to reply, "perfect".

Which then takes us back to more pragmatic relationships with ideas. How does one describe a 'fit for purpose' morality? Sounds sinister. Fit for whose purpose? — Tom Storm

A tangential topic to the OP, but isn’t that what any system of objective morality is founded on? A goodness which is universally applicable to the underlying purpose(s) of all co-existent sentient beings without exception. Yes, as you've mentioned, this would require adopting some variant of the Platonic ideal/form of “the Good” - but is in no way sinister in and of itself. It only becomes sinister when upheld in partial manners; as in, “good/beneficial for my purposes/aims but not yours” kind of thing. But then, if so, it wouldn’t be an objective good to begin with. Same potential sinister perversion can equally apply to the notion of “the greater good”, for an added example; but being “of benefit to more people than oneself” likewise is not in and of itself sinister, being instead a standard for the reduced egotism requisite to a functioning society.

I so far take it you're not big on objective morality. That's fine. Here just illustrating that the objectively perfect (i.e., "fit for purpose") goodness which an objective morality entails is not of itself sinister ... of course, this were it to be non-hypocritical (as previously described).

I’d just call that fit for purpose. — Tom Storm

Which happens to be different wording for this one standard definition of the adjective "perfect"

2. Having all of its parts in harmony with a common purpose. — https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perfect

Yet the conundrum remains due to comparative thinking when it comes to what constitutes perfection, sure you might have seen a beautiful perfect goal be executed in sport or purchased a perfectly crafted chair but there is always something better which leads me to think that so called attained perfection is purely subjective on the taste of the subject rather than a thing in itself.

Any other thoughts ? — kindred

My two cents worth:

There’s an expression I’ve always found humorous: something being “better than perfect”. A superficial look might deem the expression self-contradictory and absurd, but it can make plenty of sense:

Suppose I need an item which you then build, and I then declare it to be better than perfect. What I’m here expressing is that the built item not only completely adheres to, else fits, its intended, or else wanted, purposes but that it surpasses these very same.

In keeping with what expressed, this to me illustrates that perfection is always fully relative to the either concrete or else sometimes rather abstract purposes involved. And purposes always involve aims, goals, teloi.

A perfect goal in soccer fully satisfies the purposes of the game, the purposes for which one is watching the game, and so forth. As is also the general case for a perfect chair.

Can there be any type of perfection that is fully divorced from any and all notions of purpose? I so far cannot find any example of this.

A circle comes to mind, which is perfect by implication. Any imperfection of a circle would make it other than a circle: an oval maybe, or maybe a circular shape with waves in its circumference, or else a “C”-like form. None of which are circles proper. This, though, hearkens back to notions of the ideal, wherein the ideal is perfect - the perfection of some given set of attributes. And the purpose of any ideal is to serve as a standard: as that by we compare and measure or else aspire toward in our efforts. When we seek to draw a circle, then, we will always hold the (perfect) circle as the ideal we seek to emulate. (A circle is then always perfect as circle, but a circle will not always be the perfect object of awareness in many a context: it will for example be imperfect when one seeks to go from A to B in the shortest trajectory possible. So a circle might not then be deemed objectively perfect in at least this sense.)

So too then with any other ideal: such as one person’s ideal of perfect goodness and their aspirations to get near it or another person’s ideal of perfect mischievousness which they crave to enact; one person’s ideal of getting closer to perfect objectivity of judgment and another’s ideal of best becoming a tyrant over all others. It is these ideals, all of which are a perfection of one type or another, we hold that in large part determine how we then choose to behave so as to best approximate these very ideals that call to us, that pull us toward them.

The ideals we ourselves actively hold then, in one way or another, always being aims we seek to fulfill.

My main point here is to evidence that perfection is meaningless outside of notions of purpose.

As to perfection being subjective, in one sense it always will be, for it will always be in relation to the interests of one or more psyches and their strivings, their purposes in this sense.

As to whether perfection can ever be objective, this will depend heavily on the metaphysics one adopts: any system of nihilism will affirm no, for it will likewise deem the universe to in fact be purposeless; whereas, for example, at least some interpretations of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism will affirm yes: the “Unmoved Mover” and ‘the One” which was also known as “the Good”, these (among other examples) can be interpretable as perfect being and the proper aim of all of us imperfect beings - this same objective perfection as goal however arrived at from, and defined by, different scaffoldings of thought.

So, long story short: Whether or not there can be such a thing as objective perfection – one which is absolute - will fully depend on the metaphysics one subscribes to. “No” in a purposeless universe, and “yes” in a purposive universe. Notwithstanding, the occurrence of perfection will always be contingent on the occurrence of purpose.

I think the concept of an abstract object comes from Frege. — frank

Thanks. I'll look into it. :up:

And do smells necessarily have extension in space? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've struggled with this. I've no decisive answer to give. But I think it noteworthy that lesser animals (or even humans) with a heightened sense of smell can - or at least seem able to - discern direction by it. If so, this would entail notions of space. Come to think of it, its what a snake's forked tongue is there for: directionality of smell. But any such spatial aspect of smell would seem to simultaneously require temporality.

I'm mainly antagonistic to the Cartesian take on "res extensa" being utterly severed from mind stuff due to the former having extension in space but not the latter.

To be honest, I toy seriously enough with the idea that noumenal thought - which I take to be in no way perceptual (hence, phenomenal in the Kantian sense) - holds spatial relations: For example, we all know that a paradigm is larger than any one idea it is composed of. This to me then signifying the very real possibility of non-perceptual spatial relations. Or, more difficultly, the concept of "dog" is closer to that of "cat" than to that of "rock". Here again, there to me seems to be all indications of non-perceptual spatial relations.

If so, then even non-perceptual thoughts would require some conceptual notions of space and spatial relations.

Critiques are of course welcomed.

The question of time being a necessary component of imagining is very interesting though. It gets to the inherently processual nature of experience, which, as a fan of process metaphysics, I find underappreciated — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can very much relate to that.

"Abstract object" has a specific meaning in philosophy of math. It's not a physical object, but it's still something that transcends the individual. So an abstract object (in this sense) is not a kind of mental object. — frank

Not at all surprising. Although, as a personal pet peeve, I do dislike the way mathematics-specific concepts sometimes overtake more mainstream philosophical concepts. Mistaking the purposive, hence teleological, notion of function for the mathematical notion of function comes to mind as one example of this. But be that as it may.

To your knowledge, does the history of this particular mathematical concept of "abstract object" extend beyond this:

Abstract object theory (AOT) is a branch of metaphysics regarding abstract objects.[1] Originally devised by metaphysician Edward Zalta in 1981,[2] the theory was an expansion of mathematical Platonism. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object_theory

At any rate, I agree that such a formalized metaphysical notion was not around in Kant's time (other than maybe via basic Platonism, which I'm sure Kant was familiar with.)

I don't think they distinguished between mental objects (what you're thinking about now) and abstract objects (things like numbers and propositions.) — frank

Interesting. Its been a while sine I've read the likes of Lock, Hume, and Kant. Still, I so far take a visualized unicorn, for example, to be a "mental object" of one's awareness which is in some way perceptually concrete (i.e., has a specific shape, size, color, etc. when visualized), whereas abstract objects (quantities included) I take to be those mental objects of one's awareness whose delimitations are abstracted from - but do not include - concrete particulars. The concept of "animal" or "world" being two possible examples of the latter, among innumerable others.

I guess the basic idea was around, but not analyzed out? — frank

Without now doing research on the matter, that seems to be about right.

Is this true though? I feel like I have a pretty easy time imagining abstract objects without having to attribute extension to them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To imagine something perceptually--such as by visualization--there is needed both duration (time) and distance (space) to that thus imagined. Abstractions per se are by their very nature not perceptual but purely conceptual.

I'd be interested in counterexamples, but I so far greatly doubt that such can occur.

The idea of an abstract object didn't exist back then. — frank

Weren't they termed "concepts", also sometimes termed "ideas"?

Predicative logic and truth statements produce arbitrariness in the form of contradictions, because they fail to understand the grounding of their terms in a background mesh of contextual relevance that gives sense even to the irrational. Causal empirical models produce arbitrariness and skepticism for the same reason. — Joshs

I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote in the previous post. But I want to point out that there is a subtle difference between what one believes (consciously, unconsciously, or both) to be true and what in fact is true. This, for example, as per my definition of truth here. One can then, at least in theory, honestly affirm a truth while the truth affirmed is at best a partial truth and at worst an untruth altogether.

I'll uphold that truths always cohere to other truths when in close enough relation. It is only deceptions or else falsities, be these whole or partial, be they directed toward others or else unknown self-deception, which can result in contradictions.

But this does in part presuppose there being such a thing as ontic (rather than psychological) certainties as previously described by me. And I'm not yet clear of your metaphysical stance regarding these actualities/realities.