It was not clear if the OP was looking for “presuppositions” that only applied to pre-1900 physics — Questioner

I explicitly stated that was the case in the OP and elsewhere

Differences of degree within these qualitative wholes are quantitative. — Joshs

Here’s what Burtt has to say about primary and secondary characteristics.

Galileo, like Kepler, was inevitably led to the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities…Galileo makes the clear distinction between that in the world which is absolute, objective, immutable, and mathematical; and that which is relative, subjective, fluctuating, and sensible. The former is the realm of knowledge, divine and human; the latter is the realm of opinion and illusion.

The Copernican astronomy and the achievements of the two new sciences must break us of the natural assumption that sensed objects are the real or mathematical objects. They betray certain qualities, which, handled by mathematical rules, lead us to a knowledge of the true object, and these are the real or primary qualities, such as number, figure, magnitude, position, and motion, which cannot by any exertion of our powers be separated from bodies— qualities which also can be wholly expressed mathematically. The reality of the universe is geometrical; the only ultimate characteristics of nature are those in terms of which certain mathematical knowledge becomes possible.

All other qualities, and these are often far more prominent to the senses, are secondary, subordinate effects of the primary. Of the utmost moment was Galileo’s further assertion that these secondary qualities are subjective.

I tried to help — Questioner

Your comments haven’t been helpful or responsive.

Scientific inquiry presupposes a mind-independent, law-governed reality and the reliability of our cognitive and instrumental access to it, assumptions that science itself cannot justify without circularity. — Tom Storm

Yes. And nicely put.

You disagree with the generally accepted use of the words "phase" and 'form" in science? — Questioner

I disagree that it matters in this discussion.

It describes the state of physics knowledge in 1900. — Questioner

What does it have to do with the issues on the table? What does it change in the discussion going on? What does it add?

Metaphysics is not a science. — Questioner

Agreed.

"Numbers" related to science are expressed in units, and measure some quantitative property of the object under investigation. It is not correct to refer to "phases" of energy. When we are talking about energy, we talk about "the form of the energy." — Questioner

I disagree. Beyond that, you are talking about semantics not substance.

in late 1900 - Planck introduced the concept of "quanta" - that energy could be emitted in discrete packages

in 1905 - Einstein's Theory of Relativity merged space and time to spacetime - and measurements of them became relative to an observer's motion and gravity — Questioner

I picked 1905 because it is my understanding that Einstein’s papers in that year are considered the beginnings of both relativity and quantum mechanics. As I noted in the OP, I wanted to talk about the absolute presuppositions before those events.

So, in 1900, Newtonian physics still prevailed. Determinism was the prevailing belief. They lived in a deterministic universe, where the future behavior of systems could be predicted if their initial conditions were known with sufficient accuracy. Energy was viewed as a continuous wave-like phenomenon. Maxwell's electromagnetism provided a nearly complete description of the universe. And they held to the existence of a ubiquitous, rigid, massless medium they called “aether” – and light and electromagnetic waves propagated through it. — Questioner

How is that relevant to this discussion?

but science is not based on "suppositions." — Questioner

I disagree. If you believe science is not based on presuppositions, then you are one of those people who think there’s no value in metaphysics.

For something to have mathematical characteristics, it must have a qualitative identity which persists over time. — Joshs

Mathematically, an atom is a point. It has a location, a mass, a velocity, a charge, a spin. those are all numbers, no qualitative identity.

It’s not red, beautiful, or hairy.

Numeric iteration (differences in degree) implies sameness in kind. — Joshs

Sorry, I don’t know what this means.

"The real world in which man lives is a world of atoms, equipped with none but mathematical characteristics and moving accord — T Clark

I’ll put in this Burtt quote again—“The real world in which man lives is a world of atoms, equipped with none but mathematical characteristics and moving according to laws fully statable in mathematical form.” So, the world is made up of physical phenomena, but the characteristics of those phenomena are mathematical. Whatever the ding dong that means.

Science can only deal with what our senses reveal...with what is measurable and quantifiable. There are other less 'hard' areas of enquiry such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, ethology that require thinking in terms of purpose and reasons rather than or as well as mechanical causal models. So I think it depends on what you mean by "epistemology". — Janus

For the purposes of this discussion, we’re talking physics—CERN, LIGO, dark matter, string theory, superconductivity.

A scientist doesn't even need to think of what is being investigated as physical. They can simply "shut up and calculate" or they could think everything is ultimately mind and still do science perfectly as adequately as they do thinking everything is physical. — Janus

Maybe. I’m not sure. I’ve always thought epistemology should be considered part of metaphysics. They’re too intimately connected to be separate.

I can't see why one would need to be a metaphysical materialist in order to do science. Scince can only deal with what is given by the senses―that is its methodology. — Janus

Interesting. I’m not sure I understand how you can have a materialist epistemology but a non-materialist ontology. Can you give me an example of how that might work?

The question that jumps out at me is: are the mathematical laws themselves physical, and, if so, how? I don’t expect an answer to that, as there isn’t one, so far as I know. But it makes a point about an inherent contradiction in physicalism. — Wayfarer

I'm not arguing for physicalism but against the idea that it is inherently contradictory. It can be argued that what we think of as laws are simply the ways physical things behave on the macro level based on what is ultimately stochastic at the micro-physical level. — Janus

I’m not sure this is important, but I’m not sure it’s not either. Burt’s formulation of the mathematical absolute presupposition is different from mine. I wrote "Scientific laws are mathematical in nature." He wrote (with some fiddling by me) "The real world in which man lives is a world of atoms, equipped with none but mathematical characteristics and moving according to laws fully statable in mathematical form."

I bolded what seems like an important difference. The characteristics of the phenomena which make up the world are mathematical. The question then becomes whether the mathematical characteristics of the phenomena are physical. I'm not as sure of that as I was when we were discussing the laws of nature, which are not physical.

And Wayfarer can of course elucidate, but I took him to mean that a "law" isn't something made of physical items. — J

Agreed, see the previous exchange between @Wayfarer and me below.

Physical systems instantiate regularities;
scientific laws articulate those regularities in mathematical form. The laws themselves are not physical objects but ideal structures, grasped through intellectual acts of abstraction and measurement.
To treat laws as physical is to confuse what is described with the means of description.
— Wayfarer

I misunderstood what you meant by “are the mathematical laws themselves physical.” Now that you’ve explained, I agree with you. — T Clark

The problem with those presuppositions is that denying them, and asserting the opposites doesn't necessarily result in contradiction. — Corvus

I don’t understand why that would be a problem.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad — Maw

My favorite novel. I’ve given it to just about everybody on my gift list, some of them more than once.

Not to pull this back to reference magnetism, — J

This has been a very substantive discussion so far. I think the new approach we discussed in the previous thread gets the credit.

Physical systems instantiate regularities;
scientific laws articulate those regularities in mathematical form. The laws themselves are not physical objects but ideal structures, grasped through intellectual acts of abstraction and measurement.
To treat laws as physical is to confuse what is described with the means of description. — Wayfarer

I misunderstood what you meant by “are the mathematical laws themselves physical.” Now that you’ve explained, I agree with you.

That's too strong, I think. What we can know about natural laws are through certain mathematical equations, this only means that we understand the mathematical aspects of nature, not other aspects. It's not at all implausible to think there is more to nature than what our equations tell us. — Manuel

I absolutely agree, but I was writing my understanding of the absolute presuppositions Newton and all those other guys used. As I interpreted it, Burtt understood that similarly to the way I did.

[10] Something can not be created from nothing.
— T Clark

It would make no sense. Would it be impossible? I don't know. Perhaps we have a misleading picture of nothing. — Manuel

If I remember correctly, I took that from the critique of pure reason. Would it be impossible? Whether or not it would be, apparently Kant thought it would. Looking back from physics as we see it today, perhaps Kant’s understanding of nothing was limited.

Great thread by the way. — Manuel

Thanks. I’m having a good time.

Not to pull this back to reference magnetism, — J

Don't be reluctant. That discussion made a big impression on me.

the two approaches could be contrasted and understood without necessarily needing to employ the term "real" or "reality." "What does the the word 'reality' refer to?" is non-substantive. "Can we know anything apart from our own interpreted experiences?" is substantive. Or at least as substantive as such a highly abstract inquiry can be. — J

I generally agree with this. I talked about reality because that's the term @Tom Storm used and I think he used it appropriately. It's hard for me to avoid the language we discussed in the reference magnetism thread. I find myself going back and revising my text to eliminate non-essential language that might push the discussion in a non-substantive direction.

But it makes a point about an inherent contradiction in physicalism. — Wayfarer

It is, as you say, one of the main reasons to reject physicalism, at least as it's usually understood. — J

I don't understand why this would be true. Maybe I misunderstood what Wayfarer meant when he wrote "are the mathematical laws themselves physical."

I thought of you when I was writing the OP. These are issues we have talked about numerous times before.

The question that jumps out at me is: are the mathematical laws themselves physical, and, if so, how? — Wayfarer

Are you talking about something like Tegmark's mathematical universe? As I understand it, that's an example of an absolute presupposition. Pretty sure Tegmark disagrees. If I remember correctly, he thinks it's an empirical fact based on the so-called "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics."

Another question is about your understanding of ‘formal and final causation’. — Wayfarer

I don't normally talk about these issues in terms of Aristotle's four causes. That's used here because that's how Burtt expressed it. I interpret it as the idea that God created the universe and all existence. Not sure that's right.

Did they really think there was nothing that couldn't eventually be understood? Or does it only mean 'partially understood' or 'sufficiently understood'? — noAxioms

Keeping in mind, I’ve set these up as the absolute presuppositions of classical physics—If it can’t be understood, there’s no point in studying it, so there’s no point in physics.

Pre-20th century, sure, but also post renaissance. — noAxioms

The way I’ve set up this issue, the absolute presuppositions I’ve identified represent the basis of physics between about 1600 and 1900–Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

Norton's dome — noAxioms

I’m not familiar with this concept. I looked it up briefly, but I’ll have to look at it more thoroughly later.

Was this never challenged? It being false is a nice retort to say Zeno's attempts to drive a continuous universe to absurdity. — noAxioms

I’m sure there were people who didn’t agree with it, but as I noted, absolute presuppositions are neither true nor false. They have or don’t have what Collingwood called “logical efficacy” and what I call “usefulness.”

Your 11-14 seem to require discarding some of the previous presumptions. Less so with 15-19, but still not compatible with 1-10. — noAxioms

As I noted, I put together the list with items one through 10 in a discussion here on the forum about four years ago. Items 11 through 14 represent my interpretation of EA Burtt’s understanding of the absolute presuppositions of scholastic science before 1600. Items 15 through 19 represent my interpretation of his understanding of the absolute presuppositions developed in the 1600s by Newton and others. All in alI I thought they matched reasonably well, although certainly not perfectly.

The amount of energy is frame dependent. Matter wasn't back then. Nobody suggested that the two were interchangeable. — noAxioms

Good point. An anachronism.

Dark matter cannot be seen or measured, but it affects stuff that can be measured. — noAxioms

Dark matter can be seen indirectly. That’s also true of much of what physics deals with today. Electrons also cannot be seen or measured directly.

But it's not objective. It's subjective — noAxioms

You have provided your own understanding, your own absolute presupposition. As I’ve noted absolute presuppositions are not true or false, they either have logical efficacy or they don’t. That depends on context.

I don’t know about the others, but this one has often interested me. This statement seems to capture what I see as the foundational metaphysical assumption of science: that there is an objective reality which humans can understand. — Tom Storm

I have taken the position in the past that objective reality is an absolute presupposition of a materialist ontology. I think that is reflected in the absolute presuppositions of physics I have included.

do these patterns tell us about reality itself, or only about the ways humans organize and interpret our experiences? — Tom Storm

This is a really good way of putting it. I think the two choices you’ve given us above are absolute presuppositions of two different metaphysical approaches which have different understandings of what “reality” means. Either can be useful, depending on the context. We probably need the first in order to do physics. I’m not exactly sure about that.

That doesn't make it a presupposition though. That just makes it a practical reality. It's a practical reality that we have access to physical objects, can smash them into each other, and so it's a practical reality that if we want to predict the future of the world we live in, we can only do so using the stuff we have access to. — flannel jesus

An absolute presupposition is an assumption. You can't really establish whether it's true or false empirically. It's a way of looking at things that allows a particular way of thinking to proceed. In order to do physics as it was done in 1900, you need to observe and measure things. You can't do physics on things you can't see or measure. To overstate the case, in order to do physics you have to be a materialist. So...Yes, that does make it an absolute presupposition.

To say physics presupposes all their is is matter, is like saying botany presupposes that all there are are plants. I mean ffs Newton himself wasn't a materialist. — flannel jesus

To be nitpicky and clear, it doesn't say all there is is matter, it says all there is is matter and energy. This represents physicalism, materialism. That's all physics as it is generally formulated can study. I'm not saying this is something good. Many people think this kind of physics is limited and misleading.

In like manner, plants and related phenomena are all botany can study.

That's not a support of the presupposition claim you made, — flannel jesus

Yes, I think it is. As I wrote previously for the presupposition of physicality, "In order for science to be useful, you have to be able to abstract a general feature of behavior." In 1900, at the broadest scale, that was expressed as physical laws of nature.

whatever "law" may ontological mean, but you need not pressuppose EVERYTHING is lawful. — flannel jesus

As I noted, you need to presuppose everything you want to study or explain can be expressed by abstracting general features of reality. One way of doing that is by postulating laws of nature.

You'd have to define "law" first. — flannel jesus

Here's what I wrote previously.

All a principle or law is is a generalization of a regularity in the results of observations and measurements. In order for science to be useful, you have to be able to abstract a general feature of behavior. Otherwise, all you can do is talk about specific instances of phenomena. Again--It's something you can't do physics without. — T Clark

In order to call something a law of nature, it would have to represent a generalization at the highest level of abstraction.

Okay, well this one's too weak to even argue about then. Not a presupposition of science, apparently merely a common belief of scientists. — flannel jesus

No. It's a presupposition physicists have to make in order to study the physical world in a way that can be called science as it is currently understood.

I actually think that's the most important thing here - for you to define exactly what you mean when you call this things presuppositions of science, or physics, or newtonian physics or whatever the boundaries of this conversation are. To me, it means "someone cannot participate in the social endeavour we call Physics without assuming these things to be literally true". — flannel jesus

As indicated previously, "absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality." This is what R.G. Collingwood says about them--"[An absolute presupposition] is a thing we take for granted in [our thinking]. We don’t question it. We don’t try to verify it. It isn’t a thing anybody has discovered, like microbes or the circulation of the blood. It is a thing we just take for granted."

Do you have to assume all that crap is literally true to notice and try to figure out these patterns? — flannel jesus

I recognize you don't agree with my position, which is fine, but if you're not going to take it seriously--and recognize I take it seriously--let's end this discussion now.

I just thought maybe you'd want to get a correct understanding of the scientific views you're discussing. — frank

You think I’m wrong. I think I’m right. I think I’m probably as good as judge of this as you are. I’m comfortable with my understanding.

I think if you look into it further, you'll discover that I'm right. Energy is a scalar number that measures the capacity of a system to do work. There's an awesome Spacetime video in which Dr O'Dowd explains it really well. I've posted that video three times so far on this forum. But you can also discover the information elsewhere. :grin: — frank

I wrote a bunch of stuff about different principles in the OP. This particular one is just a small portion of what I’m interested in here and not a central one. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on all the presuppositions I identified.

Energy is a number, not a substance. — frank

The amount of energy is a number, but so is the amount of matter. Energy and matter are just two phases of the same substance like ice, steam, and water.

Before I get started, I put an edit in the OP to clarify my thoughts. As I noted there, the positions I describe are intended to apply to physics as opposed to all of science and specifically to classical physics before the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics in 1905.

I don't think most of these are presuppositions of science. — flannel jesus

I don't agree.

1. I mean, science is an attempt to understand the universe by humans, so... yeah this one's a presupposition, but a rather agreeable, obvious one. The alternative to trying to understand the universe is not trying, and not trying doesn't seem to have many returns on (non)investment, so we might as well try. — flannel jesus

Agreed.

2. Nope, not a presupposition of science in the slightest. Science has access to matter, and thus that naturally makes it easier to find out things about matter than ... things we don't have access to. It's not a presupposition of science, our focus on the physical is just an inevitable consequence of what it means to do science. — flannel jesus

And that's the whole point of an absolute presupposition. The question isn't whether it's true or false, it's whether it's necessary in order for the enterprise of physics to proceed. You couldn't do physics as it existed in 1900 without something you can measure, i.e. physical substances.

3...just because science tries to find principles and laws to describe behavior doesn't necessarily mean that in order to do science, one must presuppose substances all behave consistently in according with those principles and laws. — flannel jesus

All a principle or law is is a generalization of a regularity in the results of observations and measurements. In order for science to be useful, you have to be able to abstract a general feature of behavior. Otherwise, all you can do is talk about specific instances of phenomena. Again--It's something you can't do physics without.

4...It happens to be the case that a lot of what we know about matter is describable mathematically - the fact that that's the case doesn't require a presupposition that it's a universal truth. I don't think this one counts. — flannel jesus

I didn't say it was a universal truth or true at all, only that you have to assume, act as if, it's true in order to do physics as it was done in 1900.

5...Most scientists presuppose this, I think, but I again don't think it's a necessary presupposition. Someone could easily conduct science without that presupposition, right? Like one can imagine certain things we call laws fluctuating over time. — flannel jesus

I think you've answered your own point. It's not necessary I guess, but physicists do presuppose it. It's the background against which any variation from expected results is measured. You claim physics can be conducted without this presupposition. Can you give me an example of how that would work?

6...many scientists I'm sure are very questioning of the very concept of causality itself. — flannel jesus

That's true. I question the value of the concept of causality myself. But mainstream physics did not question it prior to 1900.

7...Not a presupposition. This is a belief that's a consequence of experience and observation. If human scientists lived in a different universe where we experienced and observed very different things, we could easily have a science that has substances which are destructable. Come to think of it... don't matter and antimatter destroy each other? I give this one a 0/10, big fat NO on that being a presupposition. — flannel jesus

The laws of conservation of matter and conservation of energy were fundamental laws of physics in 1900. Since then, we've learned energy and matter are equivalent. Now we have the law of conservation of matter and energy. Physicists didn't know about anti-matter until the late 1920s.

8...Not a presupposition. Not even a universal belief among scientists. — flannel jesus

I included this because the presupposition that the universe is continuous was included by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. An absolute presupposition doesn't have to be a universal belief.

9...Definitely a big fat no on this one. Separate? Have you literally never heard of spacetime? — flannel jesus

No one had heard of spacetime in 1900.

10...Not a presupposition. At best, it's a similar situation to 7 - a belief that arose from experience and observation. Different observations could have yielded a different scientific belief. — flannel jesus

The position that physical substances can not be created from nothing is just the flip side of the laws of conservation of matter and conservation of energy.

this about presuppositions of science, or of scientists? I'm not sure the former makes any sense. The latter is an empirical question only answerable by a survey, no? — bert1

Yes, science, not scientists. And, as I noted in an edit for clarification, I mean physics in particular. And yes, a discussion of the presuppositions of physics does make sense.

Energy isn't a substance. It's a physical construct, which means it comes from the analysis of an event. — frank

E = mc^2

The T Clark family Christmas film festival for 2025

Seven Psychopaths
Things to Come
A Christmas Tale
The Player
Superman

This is really interesting, I've been contemplating about how consciousness relates to existence and its seeming duality. I'm planning a post about such a thing right now, maybe the Tao Te Ching would have more to say about it. — QuixoticAgnostic

This is how I got involved with Taoism from the beginning. I’m an engineer and consider myself pragmatic. I am also introspective and reasonably intelligent—intellectual. Thinking is what I do.

I couldn’t get away from the intuition that reality is half human. Taoism gave me the words to talk about that. As the passage I quoted indicates, naming, conceptualization, categorization is what separates our reality into the individual things that make up our everyday world. Naming is something that humans do. We create the world.

Here's a new paradigm I recently read about: On biological and artificial consciousness: A case for biological computationalism. This one isn't phenomenologically informed, per se, other than the fact that it reflects openness to a somewhat fresh start. — Relativist

Thanks. Seems interesting. I sent the article to Kindle and I'll take a look.

My main point was that there is no incoherence or inconsistency in thinking that the physical world existed prior to the advent of consciousness. Science informs us that it did. The fact that such judgement is only possible where there is consciousness (and language for that matter) I see as a mere truism. — Janus

This lays the issue out well. I would add one thing--there is no incoherence or inconsistency in thinking that the physical world did not exist prior to the advent of consciousness. That is the essence of the Taoist way of thinking as I understand it. There is no reason both those ways of thinking may not be useful depending on the context.

I've been thinking about this discussion, wanting to take it further. As I wrote in one of my posts in this thread:

Maybe I'll start a thread with lists of statements I consider metaphysical by my standard and ask people to describe how they fit into their own understanding of the term. — T Clark

I started to try to start on something like that when I remembered I had started a somewhat similar discussion four years ago. Here's the OP from that discussion--"The Metaphysics of Materialism." I've hidden it so it won't clutter up this post.



That discussion ended up being successful from my point of view, but I had to struggle to keep it from devolving into the usual arguments about what metaphysics is and isn't. As I was rereading this I had an epiphany. The primary subject of the thread was not metaphysics, it was the enumeration of the underlying assumptions of pre-quantum mechanics physics. I could have raised that question without ever mentioning metaphysics at all. I've edited my OP to take out stuff that wasn't strictly needed to allow discussing the issues I was interested in. I don't think it's exactly the same thing, but in a sense I've drawn the joints of the discussion in different places.

So... I guess you were right. I've gone back and looked at some of my other comments and discussions on similar subjects. In some cases, I could have made them simpler and less open to confusion by focusing on the specific issue at hand and ignoring the broader metaphysical context.

I don’t see that passage as advancing a metaphysical position. It doesn’t make claims about what exists in itself, but about what scientific objectification leaves out by design. That’s a methodological and epistemological point about the conditions under which scientific knowledge is produced, not a thesis about the ultimate nature of reality. — Wayfarer

We've been down this path before. Your and my understandings of what metaphysics is are not compatible.

subjectivity is not a possible object of perception, as it is that to which or whom experience occurs. — Wayfarer

I can take a picture of my camera. I can see my eye reflected in a still puddle of water. I can think about your and my minds. I don't understand why people see this as difficult.

Interestingly then, based on that thread, it seems that the question and the three answers I give in the OP is almost a moot point; any of the answers might be correct according to some way of thinking about the question, and trying to claim any one of them most accurately answers the question along its terms is just trying to claim language rather than discuss the concepts.

That said, part of me posting this in the first place was an excuse to propose a way of viewing existence such that the third answer is valid, although I don't know if I succeeded there. — QuixoticAgnostic

Here's your third answer from the OP:

One might say, existence and non-existence are two sides of the same coin, so where we say a thing exists, we also introduce the possibility of that thing failing to exist. — QuixoticAgnostic

This is from Verse 2 of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell's translation:

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other. — Tao Te Ching - Stephen Mitchell's translation

You could read the bolded line as "Something and nothing create each other." In the Taoist context, this could mean several things. First, just a simple matter of comparison, juxtaposition. How do you know something isn't there unless something you expect is missing. What is the background that somethingness stands out from. Second, If there is nothing we won't be here to know it. Third, many philosophies recognize reality can be thought of as one undifferentiated whole--the One, the monad. One way of thinking about that is to presuppose what we think of reality doesn't come into existence until consciousness becomes aware of it. This from Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. — Tao Te Ching - Stephen Mitchell's translation

What 'metaphysical claim' do you think is being made? — Wayfarer

The following passage from your OP describes the metaphysical positions, claims of both the scientific and phenomenological approaches.

For Bitbol, phenomenology is the real starting point in the quest to understand consciousness, because it reveals something that scientific objectification systematically brackets out or ignores — namely the observer, the scientist, the one who makes observations, draws conclusions, and decides on the questions to be asked. Yet the point runs deeper than methodological oversight. Scientific objectivity does not merely forget the observer; it presupposes the observer as the one for whom objects appear, measurements make sense, and evidence is meaningful in the first place. Before there can be data, models, or theories, there must be a lived field of experience in which anything like a “fact” can show up at all. Phenomenology begins from this pre-objective dimension, revealing the conditions that make scientific inquiry possible but that science itself cannot capture because they are already assumed in every act of objectification. — Wayfarer

There's a categorical distinction you seem to be missing. Where in the world of apples and pogo sticks is your experience? — Wayfarer

Where are electrons? Where is dark matter? Where are the thoughts going on in your mind to me? Bitbol wrote consciousness is “not a something, but not a nothing either.” Does that mean consciousness does not exist, isn’t real?

At the heart of my understanding of how things work is the conviction that the foundation of philosophical thought is introspection and self-awareness. Believing that, an attraction to phenomenology would seem natural, but I've always been sceptical. The way phenomenology is discussed here on the forum and what I've read makes it seem a bit like new age spirituality wrapped up in philosophical jargon. At the same time, I've come to see that my own understanding of the relationship between humanity and the cosmos needs to be clarified. I have work to do. I'll try to be fair minded with what you've written.

Bitbol’s alternative is not a metaphysical theory — Wayfarer

This is one of my big problems with your presentation of what Bitbol believes--As I understand it, it is exactly a metaphysical claim. A valid and useful one, but still metaphysics. A failure to recognize that makes what you've written seem dogmatic and rigid, much as the philosophy of reductionist physics is. You have to have both. What brought me to my interest in Taoism, which is related to this question, is an understanding that reality is one half human. But there is another half. Writing that off as a delusion of some sort undermines the argument.

Phenomenology begins from a simple but far-reaching insight: the reality of first-person consciousness is ineliminable, and any account of the world must ultimately be grounded in the structures of experience as they appear to the subject. — Wayfarer

I would have no problem with this if it meant that both our internal experience and some sort of external reality are considered equally fundamental. I get the impression that's not the case, which leaves us with something close to solipsism.

At its core, phenomenology is the disciplined study of conscious experience from the first-person perspective...consciousness is not an object among objects, nor a property waiting to be discovered by neuroscience. It is not among the phenomena given to examination by sense–data or empirical observation. ... — Wayfarer

This is another problem for me. As I see it, conscious experience is not a metaphysical entity, it exists in the world of apples and pogo sticks--an object among objects. Ultimately, we can only know it empirically while acknowledging the special difficulties associated with limited access. This is where any possible compromise between positions seems to fall apart. Neither of us can understand why the other can't see what seems self-evident to us.

If we know what consciousness is, it is because we ourselves are conscious beings, not because it is something we encounter in the natural world. (We may infer that other sentient beings are conscious, but only our own consciousness is immediately given to us.) — Wayfarer

Here's one of the things I don't get. In what sense is our experience not part of the natural world? Why is there any problem with us learning about consciousness in others through inference? Much of scientific knowledge is gathered indirectly and without direct observation. Why is this situation any different? Speaking personally, I don't see that conscious experience is all that special. It's just one more thing for us to learn about. One more thing we encounter as we live our lives.

Bitbol considers consciousness to be “self-evidentially absolute” — Wayfarer

This is presumptuous. I'm a pretty smart guy. If it isn't evident to me, it probably isn't self-evident at all. Language I might be willing to accept in it's place would be "It is my understanding that considering consciousness absolute is the best way for us to gain a useful understanding of it's principles." That's not all that different from the position I find most useful.

From this perspective, the materialist project of locating consciousness in the brain or in neural processes is not just incomplete; it is conceptually incoherent. Like any empirical analysis, it rests on the presumption that what is real is what can be objectively measured and assessed. (Here I am referring specifically to the empirical sciences — physics, neuroscience, and biology — which construct their claims through measurement and intersubjective verification.)

However, the very notion of the objective world described by the empirical sciences is itself a product of selective abstraction — what Bitbol calls the end-product of the procedure of objectification. Why? Because science methodically brackets out the subjective pole of observation so as to arrive at an intersubjective consensus about the observer-independent attributes of the object. But when this methodology is applied to the question of the nature of consciousness, it turns around and tries to explain conscious experience in terms of that consensus. — Wayfarer

I don't understand the problem with applying tools and procedures developed by the mind on the mind itself. What's wrong with a little self-reference. Measurements of distance I made with a ruler in the good old days ultimately depended on comparing the ruler with the length of a bar of platinum in storage somewhere. One ruler measuring another. Calibration. Whatever problems there are with this are methodological, not fundamental.

The result is not only circular but, he says, will always culminate in the notorious “hard problem”: consciousness treated as if it were something that emerges from structural relations in objectively–existing matter, when in reality it is the precondition for identifying those relations in the first place. — Wayfarer

As I noted, it's not circular in any kind of problematic way. And the hard problem is only notorious to Bitbol et. al. To many of us here on the other side, it feels like a made up problem that seems to arise from an understanding that is spiritual. Spirituality, as I understand it, is focused self examination with the goal of improving self-awareness—another valid mode of knowledge. And this is where a failure to see Bitbol’s alternative as metaphysical runs us into a wall, because both the scientific approach and Bitbol’s approach are metaphysical. They’re not mutually exclusive. If you’ve paid any attention to the things I’ve written over the years you’ve seen I see self-awareness as essential to our understanding of the universe. That doesn’t tell us anything about whether standard scientific practices can contribute to our understanding of consciousness.

This is paricularly true of culturally influenced feelings and behaviors, like love and hate. Of course it is possible (even probable) that a trait or behavior that has become common has conferred advantages, but assuming it must have done so is an error — Ecurb

I’m mostly in agreement with your post, although I am a strong believer in a biological, genetic, neurological, psychological, sociological human nature.

Is hate an emotion, or is it more of an attitude, or a judgement? — Questioner

I think what we call hate is mostly anger, resentment, and judgment.

Is hate more irrational or logical? — Questioner

It’s definitely not logical. Is it irrational? I would say it certainly non-rational and destructive. Does that make it irrational?

Does hate serve a purpose? — Questioner

I suppose it serves an emotional purpose, but I also think it leads to ineffective actions.

Do love and hate always express themselves? — Questioner

Well, they affect things. Cause things. Even if they’re not recognized.

Why is it that both love and hate can result in both heroic and evil actions? — Questioner

I’m not sure I agree with the claim here. Besides that there’s no reason something can’t be both heroic and evil.

Which one has the wider radius of effect? — Questioner

I’m not sure what this means.

Is hate what happens when someone is not loved? — Questioner

I don’t think this question makes any sense.

Is hate a stronger force than love? — Questioner

I don’t think either love or hate is a force.

Are destruction and construction two sides of the same coin? — Questioner

I’m not sure what this means, especially in the context of the rest of this post

Is hate ever positive? Is love ever negative? — Questioner

Here’s the deal—the love created by natural selection that brings us together as a social species you discussed at the beginning is not the same love you talk about in the rest of the post. Our natural love is not the opposite of hate, it’s the opposite of indifference.