This generated some interesting responses lol.

Anyway, of course goblins and unicorns exist. Or do only the ideas of goblins and unicorns exist? Or the words “goblin” and “unicorn?” — T Clark

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, since it seems counter to your initial sentiment, although it is logically consistent.

If a "thing" doesn't exist, then it's not actually a thing. So I take it we're actually failing to refer to anything at all by "thing". That does seem to commit us in some way to saying "If we can refer to something, then it must exist", like your goblins and unicorns. But as you note, these exist in a particular way, i.e. as ideas rather than physical entities.

That said, I think we can identify different classes of non-existent "things". The first is that which cannot be referred to; when I claim to talk about a "thing", but my utterance is effectively gibberish. But another is impossible objects, i.e. contradictions which are in reference to existing things. For example, the integer k between 1 and 2. We can say 1 and 2 are things that exist, but the proposed object k does not. The question is, is k a thing despite not existing, or is it the same as that which can't be referred to? I guess it's just the latter...

Anyway another thing that crossed my mind is how this question relates to a similar question: "Are there more true claims or false claims about the world?" This seems a little more vague, because while existent things may be finite, it seems truth claims can be arbitrarily infinite. Food for thought...

One's identity can't be divorced from reality. — AmadeusD

That's exactly the claim I'm testing. What determines conflict between "identity" and "reality"? I gave some examples in which I can claim things about myself which could be false, e.g. I can lift 100lbs. However, such examples are based on particular hypotheticals. Is the claim "I am (physically) strong" subject to a potential conflict with "reality"? And how could we determine such a thing without establishing arbitrary hypotheticals (e.g. "You're only strong if you can lift 100lbs")?

while that person expects other people to participate. — AmadeusD

I agree that communication is essential and sometimes overlooked in these discussions. I think anyone ought to express themselves such that someone else can understand their experience, and trans people do express their experiences such that non-trans people can understand. At some point, if someone can't or refuses to understand that expression, then that's a fault of the listener, not the speaker.

We know what men and women are. — AmadeusD

Evidently not. You're assuming some concept in your head (maleness/femaleness, sex, etc.) maps onto the same concept in other people's heads (behaving like a man, participating in manhood, etc.) when it doesn't and claiming your concept to be more important, the reality, and the default. Although just to see, what is man/woman to you? And before you say "adult human male/female", I will follow up to ask what is "adult", and is that necessary to the meaning you're actually trying to convey when you say "We know what men and women are"?

What is more important to a person's identity (who a person is), their body or their mind?

Mind is the correct answer. So, if a person exists whose mind—which is outwardly presented in behavior, beliefs, choices, expression, speech, etc.—identifies in contradiction to their body—the immutable substance, rather than those characteristics that are manipulated through the mind—what ought we identify that person by?

In fact, what does it mean for the mind to contradict the body? Some examples one might give:

• The mind thinks it's younger than it is.
• The mind thinks it's stronger than it is.
• The mind thinks it's smarter than it is.

But are any of these criteria bodily facts?

• Youth is not well-defined; time alive is well-defined, but not where youth ought to end.
• Strength is not well-defined; roughly how much weight you can lift, but not whether we ought to measure using that metric.
• Intelligence is not well-defined; we can measure many ways in which one can be intelligent, but not which measure ought to be used.

None of these are well-defined. However! One can set up metrics to test claims in the axis of ability. You can think you'll score high, but actually score low on these metrics. So there are physical facts about these things which can be measured, and compared to our intellectual seemings of it.

But can such a test be devised for our "biological reality"? I.e., what it is to be man or woman? If we cannot establish a measure of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, much less have men succeed at the measure for men, but not women, and vice versa, then I do not see how we can even claim that the bodily reality has a greater claim to a person's identity than their mind.

Upfront, I don't really care to hear about anti-trans perspectives, I want to know from trans allies: are there not legitimate worries in uniting trans identities with their cis-identity counterparts? As in, is there no tension in claims that, for example, transwomen are the same as women? Are there not significant differences in experience between ciswomen and transwomen, such that their identities can't participate identically?

I have no qualms about trans identity, it being defined in terms of one's self, because thats the only way gender identity makes sense from my view (as opposed to how one presents for example), and I am not in support of women that do not accept transwomen's experiences, but I can understand ciswomen's concerns about their own identity, their experiences (perhaps girlhood for example, in contrast to a transwoman that may not have experienced childhood as a girl), and, of course, their physiological experiences. I am not the most informed, but isnt menstruation a big component of ciswomen? The ability to carry a baby? I can sympathize with transwomen in the sadness that they may not be able to live these experiences, but does that not simply mean their experience is unique?

As a final question, why does a trans person want to dismiss their trans identity in that way? Is it that transwomen are women, and ciswomen are women, but transwomen are not ciswomen? Perhaps a clarification of that distinction would help me.

I have a lot of thoughts about the soundness of this concretist approach to possible worlds, and one of them I think has to do with your answer as well as, not the Island Universe section, but the Alien Properties after it.

It seems you're saying possible worlds are relative to actual worlds. So we can speak of the possible worlds based on our actual world, and presumably, if any of those worlds were the actual world, we'd be a possible world to them. The question I have then is about the scope of possible worlds, and what exactly their metaphysical claim is to reality.

I want to say that because possible worlds have no greater claim to existence than our actual world, the whole "possibility space" of worlds can be said to exist, but that's not all that exists. It wouldn't be everything because the possibility space is relative to our actual world, and one could imagine a world, by Alien Properties arguments, that is completely orthogonal to how our world is. If the world is completely unlike our world, then it is unlike any possible world, yet we can't claim it does not exist because no world has a greater claim to actuality than any other. The only way would be to deny that there could be a world that is completely unlike our own, but I'm not sure how one would argue that.

Does this account of possible worlds subject us to so-called "impossible worlds"? Is that the point, perhaps, that there exist plentiful worlds out there beyond our reach, and it's only those within our reach that we can call possible? Because I don't have any problem with such impossible worlds existing, but it seems to wander from the spirit of using possible worlds in the first place, although I can't articulate where it goes wrong at the moment.

I read 2.1 and 2.1.1 of the Possible Worlds article, but have not yet read the rest of whatever literature has been mentioned in this thread. I can try to follow along with whatever's posted next, and go back as necessary.

"Meta-worlds" sounds like virtual reality? — Banno

All I mean by "meta-world" is, basically, some world where all possible worlds exists. Based on the definitions given wrt AW1, that seems impossible, because possible worlds exist maximally, and a "meta-world" would connect possible worlds, hence not maximal, hence a contradiction.

The question of 'where" possible worlds exist is answered differently by different folk. Given that we are talking about possible worlds, they are in the domain of discourse and so we can quantify over them and they exist in that sense. — Banno

I'm curious what those answers might be. It seems you're suggesting that worlds can and do "exist" in some sense (they can be quantified over in the domain of discourse). Is this different from how things exist in worlds? And does that not introduce a conflict with how we describe existence?

Also, I happen to disagree greatly with this idea of worlds being defined spatiotemporally. I think existence behaves more abstractly beyond that, but I'm willing to discuss in those terms.

I'm also just going to leave this brief video here on the topic, very interesting take: the best way to count.

Nice, I arrived just as someone was defining terms.

Just today, I've been in conversation about things like existence, necessary/contingent things, and possible worlds. By your definition of existence, it seems that things exist relatively, particularly in relation to some possible world. This is something I resonate with, but I figure there's a difference in how I'm thinking about it.

One thing that I'm not sure is addressed in possible world semantics, is this concept of a "meta-world". So, if there exists possible worlds, are they all existing together as a collection in some world that contains them all? Is that the wrong way to think about it, and how so? Does it even make sense to say worlds exist or don't exist, as it seems you're defining existence to entities within worlds rather than the worlds themselves?

I didn't read everything here, but it interested me because I happened to be doing a bunch of arithmetic in different bases recently for fun.

The first thing I can relate to is doing a calculation in a different base, but not actually feeling like I know what the result means, i.e. how much it actually represents. For example, I was mostly doing base-8, which is pretty close to base-10 (base-ten, should I say) so the numbers aren't very far, but I pretty much always have to do a sanity check to understand how big 365 in base-8 actually is (245).

The thing to remember is, there truly is nothing special about the number ten such that we couldn't understand value if we used a different base. It's really just all about experience and context. I know how big the numbers that numerals represent are because I experience their size every day (in relation to the symbols I see). If we simply replaced the numerals we have now with a different base, and saw those in our everyday experience, then we would be just about as comfortable (with potential exceptions, see later).

But on the other hand, do we really understand how big, big numbers are, in an absolute sense? For example, do I really understand the difference between 3259 and 4573? By certain metrics, sure: It's about 1.5x greater, or maybe more like a single thousand. But would it make much of a difference if the numbers were maybe 3295 and 4537? In general, when it comes to big numbers, we're mostly just thinking about orders of magnitude and a couple significant digits.

There are limits to how well we can represent numbers in different bases. Obviously, binary numerals become very long and hard to parse, so perhaps not the best for a quick glance, and higher bases require more symbols to keep track of. Is base-ten the happy medium then? I personally think it may not be. It has some poor arithmetic properties that some other bases are better in. I would be happy to talk about those, but the main point I wanted to get across here is that it is not incredulous to think that bases other than ten can work, and our comfort with it is 100% due to our exposure with it.

Thinking about things like charity and the child in the pond is what made me conclude that there's no such thing as obligatory goods. If charity were obligatory, it just leads to this nonsensical moral theory of Singer's.

What I will say is giving away all my possessions and living basically poor as well is definitely not the best way I can help. I can help much more effectively if I allow myself to lead a successful life and attempt systemic change or at the very least yield more lucrative donations. I mean, if the argument is purely philosophical and concludes that we are technically moral monsters, but can't do anything about it then whatever, but to extrapolate this kind of action is ridiculous and flawed.

Does indeterminism? It wouldn't seem so to me. — flannel jesus

Under a standard account where your choices have multiple possible outcomes, and those choices are not fully pre-determined, then yes, indeterminism does give me say. Of course, you're probably wondering how this indeterminism is possible, especially if it's not just pure randomness. I have a theory for that, and though far-fetched, I think free will (which to me includes both sourcehood and leeway freedom) is indispensable to our experience, so so long as there is no contradiction in it's existence, we ought to believe or at least act as if it exists. (Although even if it is impossible, I still think we should probably believe in it anyway, as I've argued before)

I'll take the uncommon stance, it seems, and say that hard determinism is a bane to our existence. While I would technically agree with you insofar as you can "define" concepts like moral responsibility and choice and values into a deterministic universe, I don't think their properties are fully realized without leeway freedom (the ability to do otherwise). Yes, determinism doesn't necessarily prevent me from feeling pleasure or having meaning, but it also doesn't give me any say in the matter.

The great absurdity I perceive in discussion about hard determinism is the determinist attempts at persuasion. If hard determinism is true, then everything will happen as it will. You will attempt to persuade me because you were determined to do so, and whether or not I am persuaded is ultimately not up to me nor you. Yet, the determinist may still feel a sort of indignation if their argument is rejected, or pride if accepted, which are unreasonable emotions to have, considering the lack of agency involved. Again, you can still observe such phenomena and define terms such that the structure of the concepts like freedom and morals and values are preserved, but I think they lack the necessary property of leeway we intuitively accept in our folk notions of free will.

By the way, I did read some of the responses, but not all, so if I missed anything that you may have responded to that's relevant to my ideas, please let me know.

I'm not sure I see a problem with the idea that some concepts must reference themselves to be analyzable. I feel like, coming from ideas of axiomatic set theory, people view "the world" or "the set of all true statements in a system" as a tree, where there are fundamental truths (axioms) that one must start with and everything branches from there. Such a visualization does make it seem difficult to reconcile understanding those fundamental truths because nothing grounds them—they are the ground. But rather than a "tree of truth", I view the world as more of a nervous system, a graph or network (whichever you prefer) where everything is interconnected, and there aren't necessarily "undefinable" elements like the axioms. It should be noted that in such a visualization, everything would perhaps technically be circular, just more or less removed because there is no presupposed foundation.

So with respect to your example about being, I personally have a somewhat sophisticated (at least more sophisticated than "being" is "to be") understanding of it, which does rely on some circularity, but also incorporates elements of other concepts, such that a network can start to be realized. In my view, existence means "to stand in relation" to other things in an ontological sense (this is ontic structural realism). So if we're looking at the "network model" of the world, to say something exists means it is a node (or perhaps bridge between nodes) in that world. With some additional understanding, this implies a few things about existence that informs us of its nature: 1) There can be no world of just one node (one thing, because it doesn't stand in relation to anything else), 2) Something that exists in one world need not exist in another world; i.e., existence is relative, or 3) there is some barrier between that which exists actually and that which exists conceptually (concepts, like a physical unicorn, may fail to exist actually, in which case we may be said to be non-existent, although the concept exists in some sense).

Also, you also pose truth/falsehood as potential fundamental concept, but related to this definition of being, that may be explainable too: recall (1) that nothing can exist by itself, so there must at least be, say, two things that stand in relation. The most primitive relation of this nature can only be that of "something", and "not that something": this I believe, without additional structure giving weight to the meaning of "true" and "false", is the relationship that truth/falsehood describes. It's also akin to the idea of being and non-being, and harkens back to the Greek beliefs about opposites.

Don't mean to pontificate about my own beliefs, but with regards to your topic, I would say I think ultimately, not just some, but all concepts experience some level of circularity, but with some being more closely entwined, such as that of being and non-being, which is essentially self-referential, but can still be analyzed in the context of other concepts, and is not arbitrary. So I guess I disagree that they are unanalyzable, but also disagree that they must be non-circular. I thus conclude the answer is D, none of the above :grin:

Perhaps this a good way to transition into a discussion about the possibility of leeway freedom also, because, as is clear, I'm not convinced that we cannot have it. I'm not sure whether or not I'm a compatibilist, but whatever determinism the world appears to have I believe is theoretically compatible with the ability to do otherwise, although the reasoning does invoke a type of indeterminancy.

For example, let me ask you this: how would you describe the determinancy of a die roll? Because to me a die roll can basically function as determinant so long as the chance governing the die roll does not change. If the rule is constant, then even if the outcome is random, we can still determine the prior events and its outcomes.

I agree. In order to avoid this, I think the OP needs to clarify that it is arguing for it being true that one should believe in leeway free will even if leeway free will is false. If it were presented that way, then I don't think it would be a fallacy anymore. — Bob Ross

This is pretty much what I was doing from the beginning, and perhaps the source of confusion. I wasn't arguing that free will exists, only that we ought to believe in (leeway) free will, even if it may not exist, because it's the only way to yield (in my opinion, and one I admittedly would need further argumentation to justify) a sensible position. That said, I did, albeit briefly, describe in the argument why I think each possible position in the matrix is or isn't sensible.

A couple things to note though. I'm not saying that one should believe in free will despite thinking the contrary is true because they "like" it or it makes them feel comfortable. In fact, I'm not even saying, "if free will is false, one should still believe in free will", because I don't believe it's known whether or not free will exists, if such a thing can even be known. If we knew for a fact that leeway freedom doesn't exist, I'd pretty much concede anything, because I don't think it would matter whether or not we believe, since we'd only do what we're determined to do anyway. But as it stands, as we don't know for a fact if leeway freedom does or doesn't exist, we ought to believe it, because we have nothing to lose if it ends up being false, and everything to gain if it is true.

Oh right. Still curious about my questions regardless, and I do think the question of the origins/transformation into knowledge is relevant.

But the problem here is knowing and experiencing. You have to explain what exactly you meant by know to have a good definition. — Abhiram

I was just typing out a response to address this issue: My first instinct was to say "Something exists" or "I feel something", because I believe our experience is prior to any knowledge we might have, even of ourselves. But when does the mere sense experience start to come together to make a model of reality and our identity? Don't we need to have an understanding of self in order to claim knowledge of anything, or maybe knowledge of the concept of knowledge itself?

I think that I have the ability to choose because I can come up with reasons and reach conclusions in accordance with my will; but I don’t think I have the ability to do otherwise because if you rewound the clock, then I would expect nothing other than myself to generate the same reasons and reach the same conclusion—afterall, nothing changed other than the rewinding of time. — Bob Ross

I feel like this is boiling down to an equivocation more than anything, because my argument, as I mentioned in the OP, primarily relies on a leeway notion of free will, the ability to do otherwise. When I've said "choice", I've meant it as ability to do otherwise, so when you said (in your sample compatibilist counterargument):

because causal determinism [or some weaker variant] is true, one cannot do otherwise but they can choose — Bob Ross

it seems to just be a slight of hand.

Your point seems to be that just because people can value things under hard determinism, as long as someone happens to value truth (is determined to value truth), regardless of the reason, they shouldn't believe in free will if that's what they're inclined to believe. But my point is, if there is no leeway freedom, no ability to do otherwise, then there is no "should", there is no free choice (ability to do otherwise). If you can't freely choose your own belief, there's no point. Essentially, I'm arguing that 1) you ought to value leeway freedom (which I suppose is another argument in-and-of itself) and 2) if you value leeway freedom, then <insert above argument>. You might say, "well, people that don't believe in free will value truth over leeway freedom, so the argument is pointless", but I'd say that's, if not demonstrably false, likely to be incorrect in most cases, because a lot of people that tend to deny free will do value having that ability—it's where you get people lamenting over it's non-existence or trying to find meaning despite it—and so the argument should reasonably follow.

I don't mind discussing free will more generally (but particularly the necessary or sufficient freedoms required for it and the existence thereof). Ultimately, one could imagine morality and axiology and etc. to arise even without free will, but I think such an existence is meaningless, at least in comparison to a world in which we have the ability to do otherwise. Not only do I think it's meaningless, but I think denying free will is actively harmful because, as I say, it is convincing people that they literally have no control over their actions, and although that is unlikely to turn them into "robots" or resign them to doing nothing, it is still insidious and can cause damage to one's mind if they come to believe or merely fear it.

firstly, that in every act of willing there is, first of all, a multiplicity of feelings, namely, the feeling of the condition away from which, a feeling of the condition towards which, the feeling of this "away" and "towards" themselves, then again, an accompanying muscular feeling which comes into play through some kind of habit, without our putting our "arms and legs" into motion, as soon as we "will.". . . — Vaskane

So is his general point in this segment that it's reductionist to claim all of these different mechanisms going on almost simultaneously boil down to one act of free will? That when I make a "free" choice, it's nonsensical to say there's a single event or something I think or "will" that causes me to follow through with that choice?

And? Is that not just a pretentious way of saying everything is determined?

...one cannot do otherwise but they can choose

How? If they accept sourcehood freedom? Is that not different from choice, or do you speak of leeway freedom, in which case I ask again, how does one choose if they can't do otherwise?

one cannot do otherwise and they cannot choose; however, this does not negate the fact that they have values

I don't deny that one can value (or at least define values such that it is possible) under hard incompatibilism. However, notice I claimed we couldn't hold any value "freely", not just that we couldn't have values.

One can try to avoid error without having the ability to do otherwise nor to choose: this is just a non-sequitur.

And this is just an unsubstantiated claim. I ask again: how is it possible to "try to avoid" without being able to "choose" or "do otherwise"? Are these all diffferent things? If so, you have to explain how they're different, you can't just assert that "no, this doesn't mean that" and be done with it.

Pascal’s wager is a bad argument, because it renders the probability of the consequence occurring omissible when, in fact, it is the most critical factor for analysis.

There's no probability in this argument, there's no numerical "cost-benefit analysis". It simply claims that if you value truth, and additionally, you value "ownership", i.e. "free control", over your beliefs, then the only way these two values are satiated occurs if you believe in free will. I can further argue that our "ownership of beliefs" takes precedence over merely having true beliefs, because it is the reason for that value.

So let me ask you this to further the discussion: why do you value truth? Does it even matter? Will you argue that reasons for valuations don't matter, because so long as one just so happens to value truth, the argument is defeated?

Firstly, A-D are all presupposing certain axiological claims that I would completely reject. For example, A and B are false. What matters is relative to values; and values are subjective and relative (e.g., if one values truth, then it absolutely matters if one believes that they have free will even when they don’t). — Bob Ross

Expand on this, if you would, because the implications of lacking free will make it clear to me that we can't hold any real (free) value in something like truth.

Starting with B, surely valuing truth implies avoiding error, and perhaps some sort of pride or otherwise virtue in comporting with reality. But, such a value implies we have the power to "avoid" error, i.e., we have a certain freedom to do otherwise. Denying free will (in certain senses at least) is to deny that we have this freedom, so, if it is the case that there is no free will, we can not value our belief in the truth of this proposition, because we could not avoid erring.

Same principle with A. It seems the fear we have with believing in free will is that we could be wrong. But as I say, if we are wrong, meaning free will doesn't exist, then, since their can be no value in having true beliefs, that means there's also no negative value in having a false belief. So there is nothing to lose for believing in free will, and, by C, everything to gain (which is where the parallel to Pascal's Wager comes in, even though they don't function on exactly the same principles).

Interesting. Perhaps this form of argument can be applied to something like the self, which seems necessary for experiencing the world and reasoning.

Are you referring to my A and B, in which case youre mistaken, or is this your own statement? Either way, I don't really get the point or where your contention of what I'm saying is, if there is a contention. Compatibilism argues for free will, no?

To address D, it's not so much that someone who doesn't believe in free will can't behave freely or do good. Clearly they can, because free will exists. But I am pointing out the absurdity in the belief, because even if you do do good, you don't have any grounding for it. Any grounding you might suggest necessarily will either invoke some conception of free will, or imply you actually do believe in free will.

If you don't believe in free will, then you can't intentionally fulfill your obligation, it's just happenstance. Of course I think people who dont believe in free will still have values and will act in accordance with them, but if you truly believe its not your choice, then you can't claim praise or blame. So you might as well believe it.

I would say it doesn't matter whether it's knowable or unknowable. If we know there is no free will, then it doesn't matter what we do, we'll just do what we're willed to do. But if we know there is free will, that would just make the denial of free will even worse.

Surprised you engaged with him as long as you did. But also, do you mind giving your opinion on this point I made earlier: Even though it may be wrong to introduce life, because you are forcing them to bear the burden of suffering, that doesn't imply that life itself is inherently suffering. Perhaps thats a strawman though to say the antinatalist claims life is just or predominantly suffering. In fact, this may be in favor of your point that, for the people living, there's no urgency to end your own life because there is still value to be had in it. But just because there is value, that may not outweigh the prevalence of suffering, nor the nonconsensual thrusting of children into potential suffering.

I feel like a significant part of belief in God, particularly a personal God like in Christianity, is having faith: believing without sufficient reason to believe, or trusting without sufficient reason to trust. And I mean this from the perspective of the believer, not any objective basis for sufficient reason. For example, I may not trust my friend enough to sufficiently believe that they will pay me back, but I nonetheless put my trust in them to do so. Similarly, I think a necessary part of belief in God is not knowing sufficiently if God may, say, answer my prayer, but nonetheless believe God has my best interests in mind, or that God exists at all, despite not having sufficient knowledge of His existence.

My point is, I don't agree with the sentiment that one must know God exists, or prove the existence of God, or even have sufficient evidence to warrant belief in God to believe. That feels like us testing God, rather than the other way around, and I think belief in God would be diminished if it could simply be proven or shown to be true as a fact. Personally, I simply can't put faith in something without reasoning my way towards it as I feel faith in God requires, so I don't think I'll ever follow a religion. That said, I am agnostic and have been able to reason my way to the potential existence of some God-like being. But if I do find myself believing in some God, it will be through reason, not faith.

I regrettably can't argue too strongly against the imposition of will against potential humans argument. The only way I can logically get around it is if the parents had altruistic motivations for creating a child, like wanting to allow a child to experience the joys of existing, and if existence itself wasn't inherently burdensome, as it seems to be, even by the most optimistic of folks. I suppose I'll continue to hold the stance that anti-natalism is a rational position, but one that I simply don't feel compelled enough to act in accordance with. Although, now that I think of it, I think I may agree for the previous reason that natalism is ethically questionable, but that life and existence isn't inherently bad or suffering, because I think suffering can be overcome, even if it isn't right to impose it on a potential human.

A bad (negatively feeling) experience =/= badness overall. It's kind of the whole point of resiliency and growth: you fight through temporary displeasure to become a stronger person. You seemed to gloss over the argument I was making to nitpick a mostly semantic issue. Plus, it's kind of ironic that you seem to dismiss discussion right after ridiculing someone else for the same thing.

What are antinatalist counterarguments to a more stoic perspective on life? I.e., one that values self-improvement and a sort of indifference to suffering, such that avoiding suffering isn't necessarily a primary tenet of living a good life. In general, antinatalism seems to focus so heavily on the aspect of inevitable suffering, but if one doesn't think suffering is necessarily bad, what leg do they have to stand on?

I like this MinutePhysics video with Sean Carroll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKbJ9leUNDE. He gets straight to the point, explains in simple terms the (basic) nature of time, and gives an overview of how the universe started and how it's supposed to end. Sean Carroll also proposes an idea (don't know if it can be called a theory or not) in other videos you can easily find on Youtube that quantum fluctuations in empty space may satisfy conditions to initiate a Big Bang, basically beginning a new universe in the death of a previous one.

Yes, scientists don't say that the universe was "created" at the Big Bang, but it is commonly said that matter can't be created or destroyed, which is the only context I see Benj96 using the term.

I'm hopelessly confused. Let's try to start over from the beginning, leaving aside the logic of the statement for now.

First of all, to be clear: you are for PII, but only because the mere idea that two things are different can be predicated as thing 1 is thing 1 and thing 2 is thing 2. Is this a sort of haecceity or "thisness" as I eluded to before? That there is some substance underlying the properties that gives things their identity?

Secondly, and this is a rudimentary question, but what do you understand properties, predicates, and relations to mean, and how are they related or unrelated to PII? Are relations different from properties such that PII doesn't consider them as relevant to whether things are identical?

^ The above was written before Sophisticat's response.

No, I meant numerically distinct, as in the example of two spheres. If you are allowed to predicate anything by way of specifying a property, up to and including haecceity, then you will find a way to distinguish two apparently distinct objects, no matter how qualitatively alike they are. — SophistiCat

Which is why I don't think there's such a thing as haecceity, I suppose. If everything can be said the same about two things, except that one is this and one is that, then you're assuming PII is false, because if PII is true, then there aren't actually two things. You can't say one is this and one is that because there being two objects is just an illusion.

If there is a wider lesson here, it is that the traditional discourse of properties with its atomistic character, in which objects subsist without any external context, is inadequate. — SophistiCat

If this is what property is taken to mean, that they are intrinsic to objects and don't require external context, then I would do away with the notion of properties entirely. This is where my structuralist perspective comes in, because I don't believe objects have intrinsic qualities, rather that they are defined by their places in some structure, where the structure is just the composite of relations between things. However, property could still reasonably be defined of a thing as any relationship it has derived from the structure. This is why PII seems so important to me: if it were the case that two things related to everything else in exactly the same way, and those things were not actually the same thing, it would just shatter my worldview.

Random thoughts:

• Why is there something rather than nothing? Because there has to be something to have nothing of.
• Nothing is the lack of anything. It can be conceived, understood, and communicated. It is something.
• But nothing doesn't exist. It is the necessary non-existent that allows reality.
• But nothingness exists—it is everywhere, in fact. Wherever one may find something, there is nothingness, hiding what isn't there.

Also, physicists don't know nuthin' bout nothing. :roll:

Both you and QuixoticAgnostic have used numbers in both of your "non-mathematical" laws! — Harry Hindu

"You can say there is a dead cell with 3 live cells in its neighborhood" is a description of a state, but not a mathematical law because it doesn't describe the behavior of the system or how things interact, which was the point of me bringing that up. "However, I would qualify that mathematics isn't just about relationships, but interrelationships or, better put, interactivity. The distinction is in relationships that don't merely describe, but define."

I never denied that the first universe was mathematical. I specifically said that it was, and even bolded the text to make it easy for you to see, but you still missed for some reason. — Harry Hindu

Hmm. . .

"I believe you're describing what my first intuition was, that both universes are actually mathematical, just at a different level of description and precision."
— QuixoticAgnostic
No, that both universes are explainable. Like I said, you can use words or numbers to explain it, and numbers are just words. — Harry Hindu

Yeah, that certainly doesn't look like denial :roll:

Also, reducing mathematics to numbers and numbers to words (not even descriptive words, but literally just the denotation "one", "two", "three", etc.) doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Mathematics encompasses much more than just quantity and words don't always describe mathematical relationships. Your "numbers are words" argument is confused: just because numbers are words doesn't mean all words are numbers, which means it isn't necessarily the case that words describe mathematical relationships.

If you say:

a =/= b

Then I can write you a property that a has but b doesn't, namely:

LAMBDA x[x = a]

The only way to deny the conclusion is to stop me, somehow, from being able to express this property. — Snakes Alive

What formalism is this? I'm somewhat familiar with basic logics (propositional, first-order, second-order) but this doesn't quite look like any of those. Is it lambda calculus? How does the statement function then?

But I'm pretty sure your argument is circular; in trying to prove PII, you're assuming PII. You argue "If $a \neq b$, then there exists a property $a$ has that $b$ doesn't", but that is exactly what you're trying to prove! Your argument is of the form, $\forall x \forall y \left [ x \neq y \rightarrow \exists F \left ( \neg \left ( Fx \leftrightarrow Fy \right ) \right ) \right ]$,
which is just the contrapositive of PII, $\forall x \forall y \left [ \forall F \left ( Fx \leftrightarrow Fy \right ) \rightarrow x = y \right ]$. So your premise is equivalent to the conclusion, and your reasoning is circular.

Furthermore, if we grant you that the existing relation is that of identity, then the premise becomes, $\forall x \forall y \left [ x \neq y \rightarrow ( \neg \left ( x = x \leftrightarrow y = x) \right ) \right ]$ and logically reduces to:
$\forall x \forall y \left [ x \neq y \rightarrow \left ( \left ( x = x \wedge y \neq x \right ) \vee \left ( x \neq x \wedge y = x \right ) \right ) \right ]$,
$a \neq b \rightarrow \left ( \left ( a = a \wedge b \neq a \right ) \vee \left ( a \neq a \wedge b = a \right ) \right )$,
$a \neq b \rightarrow \left ( \left ( \mathrm T \wedge b \neq a \right ) \vee \left ( \mathrm F \wedge b = a \right ) \right )$,
$a \neq b \rightarrow \left ( b \neq a \right ) \vee \mathrm F$,
$a \neq b \rightarrow a \neq b$, which is a tautology.

I'm probably mistaken in my logic somewhere but I spent far too much time thinking about this to throw it away. So if I am wrong, please let me know, would be a good learning experience.

Well, I can certainly sympathize with that optimism. I suppose if any miracles do happen, they'd come from the mind, rather than elsewhere in nature. That said, although I do entertain romantic ideas more than I perhaps should, I am mostly grounded reality quite literally, in that I accept the physical world as it's been described and experimented with and come to the conclusion that it is self-contained, ordered, and describable. So to accept a disembodied, incorporeal mind has a causal effect in the world through a biological apparatus (the brain) is a leap in logic to accept. But the mind sure is amazing, and probably underestimated. I just wouldn't take the mysteriousness and our ignorance of it to reach unsubstantiated conclusions through literal magical thinking (thinking that disobeys the laws of nature)..