How do you know how accurate the knowledge humans can gain through the prism of their experience to reality? Why can’t reality be, for example, actually acausal, irrational, etc.? — Bob Ross

Because our experiments show us that the data we are receiving reacts from something that is not merely mental - in other words, there is retrodiction that fits in to events we can now see and evaluate. Which is why I believe that when are mental faculties happen to coincide with aspects of the external world, we have a science.

But it seems we disagree here on science. And of course, experience can be all you mention, but the same question can be raised: how do you know what you call irrational is actually irrational? But this then trends down to skepticism, which is not the main topic.

My point was that the chair does exist, if it there right now, independently of your observation of it; but that this is just a model of experience, and that is not to say that reality has chairs, atoms, nor planets like we perceive them. — Bob Ross

Chairs are folk-psychological concepts, heck, you if you put a trashcan upside down, you can call it and use it as a chair. There is flexibility in folk concepts that are severely restricted in the sciences. There we don't postulate folk concepts, we postulate very specific entities (electrons or photons, etc.) that must have those specific properties, otherwise they aren't photons or electrons, the rigidity does not apply to chairs or trees and much else.

A chair does not remain in the world, something very much like a photon will remain.

So, the phenomena vs. in-itself is an incomplete: the absolute is whatever exists beyond our possible forms of experience, and the in-themselves and phenomena are within the possibility of our experience. — Bob Ross

Here I disagree completely, things in themselves must be the ground stuff of reality. Adding another layer does fall prey to infinite regress. Which is why I think in these domains we stick to negative claims about what they cannot be.

But the knowledge of them is dependent on our experience, and so we can only say that we should expect them to behave within experience as if they persisted beyond our experience in a similar manner within a noumenal space and time—knowing full well we know nothing about what is actually happening in the world in-itself. — Bob Ross

Because atoms and planets behave as if we were not watching them. You have to account for how our science is able to retrodict things we weren't here to experience. Yes, the qualitative side of things, the color of the planet, what we call it, that is a mystery absent us. But not that they move in ellipses around the sun, or what we call "the sun", if you want to be very specific.

But my OP is using the definition of metaphysics which is the study of that which is beyond all possible experience, so within that terminology I am saying it is an illegitimate source of knowledge (which you seem to agree with, but disagree with the semantics). — Bob Ross

But who studies metaphysics as that which is beyond all possible experience? Not Descartes, not Locke nor much that come to mind prior to Kant.

Where we disagree then, is that I think epistemic structural realism is correct, science really does describe the structural components of the world, as they are mind-independently (not beyond all possible experience), but you go beyond and say, science describes our experience of the world, not aspects independent of us, so I think that's the main issue.

I would say it is a model of experience--not necessarily reality. It is empirically ungrounded, I would say, to claim that our experience gives us any sort of accuracy into reality (unless by ‘reality’ you just mean the human conception of it). — Bob Ross

I think this depends on the field in question. Like, if you have ordinary manifest experience in mind, then you can say something like we have a model of human experience, which is tautological - 99% of the time there is no other experience we have in mind.

If you have science in mind, then I do think you have a model of reality, as close as we can get to it. Sure, it is the human conception, there being no other we can access, unless we do so indirectly. It seems we disagree on what science describes.

On what grounds can your models of reality (or, more accurately, of experience) be said to tell us about something beyond that experience (i.e., ‘absent of you’)? I cannot know that the world has the chair of which I am sitting on right now nor that it persists in that world when no one is experiencing it—but I can say that one should expect, all else being equal, to experience it in the same manner next time. — Bob Ross

Science doesn't aim at model of a chair. That's actually too complicated and becomes enmeshed in our folk-psychological conceptions. By definition, there is not chair absent us, a planet or an atom is a different thing, something we postulate which belongs in the external world.

I would say that the ‘world in-itself’ as whatever is strictly beyond our experience is the ‘absolute’ and the ‘world in-itself’ within the model that we represent the world is one which would have to have certain properties (presupposed by the model itself)(such as causality, they “impact” us in some way, etc.). — Bob Ross

I don't follow your argument here.

I am not intending to say that metaphysics is solely the study of things-in-themselves: I am merely noting that it is impossible to know them (other than what is presupposed by the model that we represent them) and that we know nothing of the absolute. — Bob Ross

Then this is quite different from the title of the OP, because you say you have in mind metaphysics in the sense of beyond all possible experience, perhaps that could be considered a sub-branch of the field. I would add then, that physics in this sense, is metaphysics, because it postulates things that, though discovered through experience, do not depend on experience for existence.

However, we have no clue if there are stars and planets, let alone our own bodies, let alone space and time, beyond what is conditioned by our experience. You know what I mean? — Bob Ross

I think I follow, but there is more evidence to consider than what reaches consciousness. What reaches experience is but a small portion of everything there is. We don't experience photons - in the sense in which we are aware of them working in us - nor do we experience electrons or plenty of hues in the electromagnetic spectrum and so on.

But we have evidence for them. Yes, they are revealed to us in consciousness, given quite intricate forms of expanding human senses, we had no way of getting evidence for these things for thousands of years.

Yes, I would agree that these things don't reach the "in itself", but I think this domain is mostly beyond our understanding.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like modeling our experience is a part of metaphysics for you; which just means we are semantically disagreeing (which is fine). — Bob Ross

I think so to. We seem to have different reference points when speaking about metaphysics. It seems as if you follow a certain strain of Kantianism, while I follow an earlier strain, connected with Locke and Hume, Cudworth and a few others.

Which as you say, is fine.

Exactly. So why think that when it does predict something within experience that it would ever verify something that is beyond it? Which I think you anticipated my response here with: — Bob Ross

The issue I have is that, given the title of the OP, you are saying or insinuating that metaphysics is an illegitimate source of knowledge, I disagree with that, because I think it covers much more than whatever is "beyond all possible experience."

I never said the external world doesn’t exist; and astronomy and physics produce models of reality based off of predicting our experience (i.e., empirical evidence) and thusly are only valid insofar as they reference experience, which is conditioned by our forms thereof. — Bob Ross

While I agree that it is not possible to separate epistemology from metaphysics, I think you are trying to make the distinction way too strongly. Yes, models of reality - not models of models, the models we produce, if on the right track, tell us something about the way the world works absent us. Yes, experience tells us this, yes models are not reality, but they refer to it, not to a model.

All of archeological discoveries are conditioned, epistemically, by our possible forms of knowledge (namely space and time): if not, then please provide me with any empirical evidence you have of any archeology whatsoever which is not derived nor contingent at all on human (or animal) experience. — Bob Ross

Correct. But I ask you, is there any other way to get any knowledge at all about anything, that's not through a particular experience, related to the relevant creature? Knowledge is relational.

But you are limiting the historical scope of metaphysics only to things-in-themselves, not even Kant did this. He spoke about morals and religion as aspects of metaphysics.

And even Kant had things to say about things-in-themselves, that they are non-relational, and that they ground the objects of experience.

Finally, we should recognize, that appearances are part of empirical reality.

I disagree. When our cognition can be predicted, we have science. Whether or not one wants to imagine that that predictability suggests a correspondence to reality (beyond our cognition) is another matter. — Bob Ross

I think the topic of things-in-themselves to be, the single most interesting aspect in all of philosophy. And while this is true of me, I do not know why you insist on using this as the benchmark for metaphysics.

It's been known since the 17th century, that we have no access to this, except for a negative approach, as in saying, what they could be not. We can speculate. But here we are in free fall, even if we are carful.

If you think I am wrong, then I would challenge you to either (1) provide a means of providing empirical evidence for a claim which pertains to that which is beyond our experience or (2) provide justification for how we can know that our experience is accurate to the external world (of which is not appealing to models of reality which are determined by predicting our experience: which, naturally, are conditioned by our experience). — Bob Ross

Let's take Kant's proposal, one of several. Things in themselves are the ground of appearance and are non-relational. I happen to believe that thought experiments are empirical, because I don't limit empirical to the publicly observable, which is a mistake.

The way you are defining external world precludes evidence which shows that there are things absent us. Like planets or the stars. Yes, these are conditioned by our modes of cognition, but they happen to predict (and retrodict) things are subject to experiment and confirmation and refinement.

Unless you say that because all we have is a model, this model doesn't get to things in themselves, ergo planets and stars are not external to us.

I agree we possibly can't have knowledge of things in themselves, but I don't restrict metaphysics or reality to these terms - I don't see a good reason for doing so.

But a model doesn’t really make claims about things beyond possible experience: it just says, hey, look, we can predict stuff in experience if we treat stuff like they are this, so, until we come up with a more predictive model, let’s use that to navigate experience. It doesn’t say: this is actually how the world in-itself is. — Bob Ross

I mean, are we going to ask a model for it to predict something which is beyond all possible experience? That's incoherent.

But then, why is there any reason to believe that a more predictive model will tell us about things beyond all possible experience? We are still stuck in the same cage you set up. Astronomy says that X star in Y system exploded in a supernova 6 billion years ago, and the evidence supports the claim. That's a claim about the world absent human beings, we did not cause that event to occur, but can experience it.

Constrained by our possible forms of experience: space and time. Just because I experience the outer world in space and time, it does not follow that they exist in the outer world itself; nor that anything I derive from my experience, which is conditioned by them, pertains to anything beyond it. Instead, it only holds valid insofar as it references a possible experience from a being which has a similar ‘type’ of experience as myself. — Bob Ross

Astronomical and physics based evidence suggests otherwise, if you take these sciences seriously, you have to seriously consider that the external world exists. Not to mention archeological evidence. Yes, all these sciences are constrained by our modes of cognition, but when our cognition coincides with aspects of the external world, we get a science.

If that's not enough, or if you think this is not firm enough foundation, then, the only sense which I think cannot be "thought away", is solidity or impenetrability. Everything else is could be modified.

I agree, if by ‘about the world’ you take it to mean that one is deriving what the world fundamentally is in-itself: knowledge of the absolute, the whole, the totality of existence, that which transcends you, ontology, etc. — Bob Ross

That's part of it. It was part of what motivated Aristotle and Descartes, but notice that for neither of these two, was it ever possible to do metaphysics without epistemology. So either we assert, full stop, that we cannot know anything about the external world, or we say that some aspects we can tease out, most of them we cannot.

Or at least, that's how it looks to me. As for fundamental, sure, but this is a "game" we can play infinitely: no that is not fundamental, it is this, etc.

So, in other words, the ontological claims get stripped out, and what is left is the claim that we have reasons to consider the world that we experience as idealistic or physicalist (or what not) and not that the world in-itself actually is any of those. — Bob Ross

I mean, I think they are, if defended properly. But we have to be somewhat realistic, we cannot attain the kind of certainty you are looking for, that is, one that defeats skepticism about these topics. That's kind of what makes it fun, see which argument makes most sense to us.

But it's not definitive, nothing in knowledge is, so far as we can see.

I guess I am not entirely following: the model relates to possible experience. Metaphysics, as the study of what which is beyond the possibility of experience, is ontological in nature. For me, a model is not an ontology: the former is a map for navigation, which may or may not be accurate to the territory, and the latter is a theory of what the territory is. — Bob Ross

But then by definition, we cannot say what metaphysics is, because it is beyond all possible experience.

My point was simple, we have a model, which we use to navigate the world as is given to us. If there was no world, we wouldn't need a model. One needs the other. But again, "ultimate ends", are not things we can attain.

Good summary. I don't see anything that should be too controversial in that, heck if you just stated I think there is a world absent us, that could've avoided lots of unnecessary clearing up on your part, as far as I can see, maybe you feel differently about it.

What I think we are really ignorant about, is many aspects of the world absent us, which are not covered by physics, which is, although fundamental, far from exhaustive.

Kant's comments of "things in themselves" covers one aspect of it, but there are several. All in all, a high quality post. :up:

It can be taken as being that view. I think it is worth remembering that, ever since the shift in philosophy, from metaphysics to epistemology - Descartes philosophy - the original meaning of the word has shifted.

Look at say, Locke or Leibniz or Hume and others, they use "metaphysics" to refer to problems that are, more accurately described as belonging to epistemology. Hume's talk of the self, or Locke's talk about personhood, or Leibniz discussing innate ideas, these things pertain more to the way we think about the world, than the world itself.

Sometimes they do speak about the world, say, when Hume discusses problems about the continued existence of external objects: that pertains more properly to metaphysics, although there is always an epistemic dimension to all of this.

Cudworth, the most elaborate and fierce innatist of the 17th century, even more than Descartes and Leibniz is correct on the role of the senses:

They provide the occasion of experience within which innate ideas are able to arise. If we don't get experience, ideas won't develop.

"For these ideas of heat, light and colours, and other sensible things, being not qualities really existing in the body without us… and therefore not passively stamped or imprinted upon the soul from without in the same manner that a signature is upon a piece of wax, must needs arise partly from some inward vital energy of the soul itself… so that the soul cannot choose but have such sensations, cogitations and affections in it, when such external objects are presented to the outward senses.”

So even if what you say about Plato is true, and I don't doubt that, without sensation (which you said are treated dismissively, and I agree) we wouldn't be able to articulate anything. So whatever metaphysics is for you, senses must play a role, as must the intellect.

Not at all: it just means all of our knowledge is contrained by the possible forms of experience. Saying we have sense-data is a part of the contemporary model that is useful for navigating experience. — Bob Ross

Constrained in relation to what? Also, experience of what?

Absolutely sense-data or sensations or however you want to call it, is fundamental to any metaphysics. Beyond that, and being mindful that "metaphysics" is extremely contentious, I think the minimum requirement of agreement should be, that metaphysics is about the world.

Then you can add or subtract as you see fit. If we don't agree on that little bit, we will have a hard time talking with each other.

I am arguing it is illegitimate because it is purely imaginative: there is not an ounce of empirical content tied to it. — Bob Ross

That's not clear at all. Someone who calls themselves a materialist or an idealist use evidence all the time, they'll say that, for example, the collapse of wave function counts as evidence for idealism, or they'll say that the progress of neuroscientific evidence proves materialism is correct.

And so on.

So, you'd have to specify a bit, what you mean by not having an ounce of empirical data. As I see it, experience must count as empirical content, otherwise we are using the word "empirical" to mean, "publicly observable", these are not the same thing.

I wouldn’t say that modern physics is wrong, I would say that the metaphysical claims, which is separate but usually conjoined with the science, should be interpreted as models for the possibility of experience and not actual claims about the world in-itself. — Bob Ross

Sounds as if some kind of model-centric version would count as part of metaphysics for you. Because saying "model of possible experience" without specifying what this relates to, doesn't amount to much, so far as I can see.

Sure, relativity or classical physics are not changed if we consider ourselves idealists or eliminitavists. But given how a non-trivial amount of metaphysics come from "New Age" sectors, if someone argues that say, God created physics or that you can change reality just by thinking about it, then that would be wrong. And you may reply that such views are not metaphysics, and I would agree.

But I'm trying to cover as much as I can.



Correct. I replied in that manner to avoid someone asking "what do you mean by metaphysics?", if I say that sense-data is what remains if you deny metaphysics, then they know I'm talking about the world.

But the main point is better stated as you did.

Either we hold onto some kind of metaphysics or we do not. If we deny that metaphysics is legitimate, then we are left with the view that all there is, is sense data, for us.

The argument then becomes, everything there ever was, is or will be is sense-data and nothing else. Such a view is so radical, I don't recall any traditional figure ever arguing for such a view, it's too outlandish.

But you ask, how do we separate the imagination from metaphysics? It is not trivial nor should we be expected to find a nice cutting point in which we are able to say "the imagination stops here and metaphysics begins."

All the traditional topics of metaphysics, materialism, the self, dualism, free will, things-in-themselves, the nature of objects and so on, would be impossible to formulate absent imagination.

It's part of our way of interpreting the world. I mean, look at how Einstein discovered General Relativity, literally, by imagining a guy falling off a building, contemplating how would that person feel.

And I think we can say that part of General Relativity is important for metaphysics. We shouldn't have a metaphysics that says modern physics is wrong. It would be a bad system, imo.

Maybe the rhetoric will change several years after this war is over - that is, if it finishes without an accident happening.

It's well beyond that point of sending Ukrainian solders to get back territory, it's just to lead them to certain death. Sad.

Finished:

Chomsky & Me by Bev Stohl

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

Then his power is limited. Or he is not the kind of being we usually take him to be: all good, all powerful, etc.

Or we could have the wrong ethics - his are far beyond the ethics we understand.

Or he just doesn't care.

To be fair, this could be all considered "representation". That is to say, perceptions, conceptions, and imaginations (abstractions) are all architecture. The things-in-themselves are only known through the "furniture" of this representational stage. The furniture needs the interaction though. One can never have pure abstraction without the things-in-themselves running through the stage and its furniture transforming the sense-data into representation.

And this is the aspect that is emphasized by Schopenhauer and how he differs perhaps. He emphasizes that you can never have an object without a subject and vice versa, lest you get caught in the "furniture" and not the objects that interact with it. — schopenhauer1

I think this is quite fair, in that we can do away with some of what Kant emphasizes in the simple number of categories he uses to render objects manifest: "unity", "apperception" and so on.

Granted, one picks and chooses, his idea of "intuition" is rather important, I think. I tend to prefer Hume on the imagination, as he gives a more robust account, though I would have to read Kant more in-depth to see how he articulates the topic.

And for sure, I think Schopenhauer's idea of us being subjects and objects is quite sensible and rational.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to suggest that Kant's system fails or falls apart, it's very good.

Spacetime is indeed a form of synesthetic a priori judgments (which go beyond propositions as is the case with statements). But I don't see how a bunch of other things are considered synthetic and a priori too.

For instance, color.

It would be replied that color requires experience of an object, so it's not synthetic a-priori. But that's misleading, objects do not give us color, we add colors to objects via the innate apparatus we have, namely the eyes and the brain. The objects merely "open" or "awaken" our capacities.

Likewise, with spacetime, if we had no sense-data at all, how can we say these would still be synthetic-a-priori? We would need a world to apply this framework to, otherwise it's kind of useless.

Same with music and sound, and many other things.

As for causality, that is indeed a big problem. I was an ardent defender of Schopenhauer in almost all instances but reading Hume a few times makes me question Schopenhauer's confidence and Kant's "solution".

We can say, Kant (and Schopenhauer) argue how causality is an innate property of the mind as it deals with objects.

This does not guarantee that our notion of causality actually applies to external objects. We could be miss-attributing the moment of causality and in any case, the way we interpret causality may not be the way it works in the world.

There are even arguments that there is no causality in quantum mechanics, things just happen. I think this specific formulation is wrong, but it gets very murky very quickly. Note I amnot denying the existence of causality, but our application of it and our confidence in it on several occasions.

Yep! I am rather familiar with it, though I could perhaps use a brush-up or two. But it will be a while, since I've read him more than any other.

While I may disagree or be unsure of one point or another pertaining to his metaphysical system, I do believe something along those lines, is what is needed with Kant.

It's a bit hard to defend him exactly as he wrote his system over 200 years ago, we have updated science he did not have, which would've forced him to modify his form of sensible intuition, for instance.

Not to mention advances in linguistics which play an important role in our cognitive capacity. So, modifications of his system is in order. As would be the case with almost all the classics, obviously.

"Here we have a wide ocean before us, but we must contract our sails."

There might not NEED be real objects we represent, but are there in fact such objects? — Mww

I believe so, otherwise it seems to me we are stuck in Berkeleyan idealism. But in these topics we can't be certain. Maybe there aren't. Unlikely, but possible.

Thing is, though, under normal conditions, this perception enables this stimulated neural pathway, so….how to direct the external stimulation along the same pathway in order to generate the experience of the same object but without the perceptual conditioning event. — Mww

Exactly. As I understand it (which is Allais interpretation of Kant, whom I think has the best one) Kant is concerned with how we actually experience real objects in "ordinary" or manifest reality. If that's his concern, he is right to argue we need external stimulus, and you are also correct the brain does not care either way.

However, I think the Cartesian account of perception is correct, I have to find the quote from Allais the puts this issue very well, but essentially, the Cartesian account is concerned with how our brain constructs what we experience in principle, not in "ordinary life", in which we are concerned with the actual "real objects" we encounter on daily basis.

while it doesn’t prove that speculative system is not the case, it doesn’t disprove it either. All that can be said is the brain does all the real work, which nobody contested anyway, even without knowing how it does its work. — Mww

Again, completely agree, especially with the last sentence, which is no minor point.

Those dispositional states reside in us as a condition of our human intellect. Metaphysics doesn’t call them states, per se, but something consistent with the theory which suggests their necessity. Kant calls them pure intuitions with respect to the perception of objects, the categories with respect to understanding the perceptions, pure reason as “the One to Rule Them All”.

Scientifically, what would a dispositional state look like? How would we know it? — Mww

To quote Kant:

"This schematism of our understanding with regard to appearances and their mere form is a hidden art in the depths of the human soul, whose true operations we can divine from nature and lay unveiled before our eyes only with difficulty."

I'd perhaps add: not unveiled at all. Or if that's too strong: at least at the depths we would like.

The science for dispositional states is too far off, we don't really have an inkling how concepts arise nor how ideas work, other than some very weak "theories" pertaining to neuroscientific brain imaging or worse, the occasional evolutionary storytelling, which doesn't shed any light on this topic.

But if ideas don't exist in a dispositional matter, we could not explain how all of us experience the world in an extremely similar manner. We never see perfect triangles in the world, we see curved lines connecting, but interpret them as a triangle. Same with straight lines.

When we reach the level of trees or rivers, things are much more complex, but the mechanism must be similar.

So yes, it all comes from the brain interacting with the world, but we know so little of both, we cannot provide a scientific theory of how this works. Something like Kant's program is the best we can do, provide a detailed outline of some of the operations we can tease apart.

Sure. But what I had in mind is something like Schopenhauer's version or maybe even Mainlander, though I have to read him more closely to see if he does simplify Kant.



That's the thing, in principle I don't believe that there need be real objects which we represent.

It can be done by electrical stimulation of the brain, and we would see, for all practical purposes, the same object as if there were a "real empirical object".

Does this change synthetic a-priori knowledge? Maybe. It suggests that what we have are dispositional states which objects "awaken" or "make clear", when we have experience of them.

But the experience is accidental and not, strictly speaking, required for the idea to arise.

It's a technical term, which can be used in several ways. The issue is, is there a better way to think of what counts as "empirical"?

What prevents this word from applying to ideas?

You have baited me. :cool:

So knowledge a priori, because it is legislated by logic and can have no empirical content, must get its content from representations that do not arise from anything sensible, which leaves only understanding as its source, the representations of which are conceptions. Because there is no knowledge possible at all from a single conception, it follows necessarily that knowledge a priori is the conjunction of a manifold, or a plurality, of conceptions, the relations between them logically conditioned by the LNC. — Mww

As I've told you, I find Kant very good, but I think this level of technicality may be excessive, so I'd either change the vocabulary to something more intuitive, or I'd simplify his system a bit. I always remind myself that Kant was a Newtonian, hence his emphasis on Space and Time being forms of sensible intuition and not spacetime, worth keeping in mind.

Having said that, the potential Issue I see, is that it's not clear to me that a-priori knowledge need not have "emprical content". If we knew enough about the brain, we could simulate everything we experience with electro-chemical stimulation. What matters is what the organism reacts to (in terms of what "sets off" our mental mechanism, not behavior to be clear), not what there is in the world, in so far as we are dealing with philosophy of mind.

Then we might quibble and argue if electrical stimulation counts as "empirical content". Maybe, maybe not. The word empirical can often be restricted to publicly observable phenomena, things we can all see with our eyes.

But it need not be. Empirical content can be thoughts or ideas, so far as I can see.

It didn't occur to me at the time, since I know you tend to comment on Kant discussions. Had I known you don't visit this area much, I would have tagged you.

Good, detailed reply for the OP.

The traditional issue of mind being "non-physical" reckons back to antiquity and even early modern science, in which the concept of the soul was used somewhat interchangeably with the mind, indicating that we understood physical phenomena much better than we actually did (and still don't).

In modern talk, the domain of the mental is a very hard nut to crack, being that outside some narrow fields of insight, such as a bit from neuroscience, some from linguistics and a bit from psychology, we know so very little of it.

And it makes sense too, given that we are analyzing our most unique gift from nature: thought. So, it's not surprising.

And while being an atheist is perfectly fine (I suppose I am one too), not much is gained by attempting to argue that the mental is opposed to the physical is some obscure manner. Otherwise, we are repeating the mistakes of the 17th century. Saying the universe is mental or physical does not highlight much about it, in my opinion.

Agreed to a large extent. It seems to me this question hinges on two different, albeit related issues of what "touching" is, that roughly corresponds to Sellars' "manifest" vs. scientific image of man.

In ordinary life, we touch things all the time, keyboards, fruit, other hands, etc. There can be no doubt touching happens here: just peel an orange.

Things become significantly more complicated in the scientific image in which the forces of physics must be taken into account in considerable detail.

So yes, there are aspects of touch that are the bread and butter of physics, though they often don't directly play a role in our ordinary usage and thinking of our concept of touch.

As for brute emergence, I'm the odd one out and think it happens all the time. That's a different story though.

"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator."

- John Locke

No comment from Mww. :scream:

What a travesty.

It's fair to point out criticisms of many philosophers regarding how they interpret Kant. Say Schopenhauer or Russell.

But Hegel is a special case, I'm not going as far as to say that he offers nothing, some people get content out of him.

Nevertheless, he had an interest in being as obscure and controversial as possible, for academic reasons and prestige. All this stems from Kant actually, but Kant had lots to say...

Quite. There is a misguided tendency to take physics way outside of its purview.

If getting cut by a knife or tickled by a father doesn't register anything, perhaps there is nerve damage.

:fire: :fire:

"Inside" and "outside" become obscure terms as applied to the universe. A bit like speaking of up or down or east and west. Not exactly, but similar.

It's an issue of trying to be sensible and not going too far with a concept that may not apply as is commonly used. Empirical data for entropy is established for certain systems. On a universal scale, the evidence provided leaves me hesitating as if to pay much attention when some claim that entropy explains everything.

So it's speculation, hopefully tied to some degree of common sense. But I could be totally wrong.

I don't see why "all of existence" should include or not include an open or closed system, I don't personally see empirical evidence to suggest either. The issue about using entropy too broadly remains in both, only that in one case it is wrong in principle, and in the other case, it should be applied with care. No more than that, as I see it.

With something as vast as the universe, the meaning of a "closed system" is obscure in a way that does not arise, say, in a heat engine, or other small you could even say "encased" systems.

It would seem to rule out a multiverse, of which we have no empirical evidence for or against. Plainly many universes would have to have an effect on the universe we have now.

I would be forced to guess that nothing could affect the universe, in principle, which goes beyond itself, such as whatever "space" or "domain" or, I know not what, the universe is expanding to - in this case nothing "outside" the universe prevents its expansion.

So, if this is the case, which again, may be true but is nebulous, then we use entropy in applicable cases. To argue it has an effect on every possible system, looks to me like a extremely strong extrapolation from the origins of the concept.

So when some physicists, like Sean Carroll (and many others), say that we can understand the evolution of the universe via the arrow of time and entropy, I think some important complexities are being left out. But that is just an impression.

What nags at me is the extrapolation from steam engines to the universe. That's a gargantuan leap. Then again, Newton discovered gravity observing apples falling. So there's that...

Sure! Anytime. :victory:

Where does it say the universe is like a black hole?

In any case, if the universe is open system, then we are being mislead by insisting on analyzing it in terms of entropy, so here I would suppose we'd agree.

If, however, it turns out to be a closed system, then understanding the universe through entropy is sensible, but even here, one should be somewhat careful as to not spread the concept of entropy through every phenomenon, rendering the term more-or-less meaningless.

I read two of his short books In the Miso Soup and Audition, both were quite good and strange, though perhaps Miso Soup was a bit better.

This one looks to be the best one yet of the short ones.

But frankly, they pale in comparison to his big books, especially his Coin Locker Babies, which is a real masterpiece of mayhem and craziness, crackling fun and imaginative.

His From the Fatherland with Love, was good, but a bit too long and too much about politics, so it can become quite a slog.

I don't know why he is not more popular, nor why they don't release his more of his long books (if he has more, which I'd think he should, but am certain.)

Overall, however, he is great and if you like weird and violent material, he is a must read. If you get squeamish about blood and the like, then it would be better to skip him.

Popular Hits of the Showa Era by Ryu Murikami

Just finished The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz. He's a real talent!

Sure entropy exists. What's not clear to me is how far it should be extended. It was originally used to describe the behavior of particles in heat engines it was stated that particles in closed systems can only go from "ordered" to "disordered" states. That's fine.

But does such an abstraction apply to the entire universe? Is the universe an open or closed system? What does it mean to say that the universe is closed?

Cosmologies that are based on the concept of entropy have to face these issues...

Sounds nice, but is problematic. If you don't know what you are looking for, it will "find" you eventually and is necessary in so far as you have questions that seek elucidation.

Even if you know what you are looking for, you may not know what about it is making you curious.

That’s kinda the whole can of worms, innit? We’re going to bother with establishing a category, calling it “truth”, demand a certainty from it….then only be somewhat confident in it? Nahhhh….I want my truth indisputable, at least at the time I determine it, and from the same system from whence it came. If your truth is better than mine, on the other hand, then I got a whole different set of problems. — Mww

I see a problem, because I think Sellar's distinction between the Manifest Image and the Scientific Image to be quite right, yet the truth of a theory in physics, say, general relativity, is quite different from truths given from testimony, say, a witness describing a crime.

I will grant that they must share (the notion or category of truth that is) a resemblance. If there are several witnesses describing the same event, we might very well get different descriptions, how do we determine which one to take a true?

General Relativity is, once established, considerably easier to verify.

So we likely have different cognitive faculties working in different domains of life, with one that overlaps on both of them, the notion of "truth".

Absolutely. We do it all the time without ever granting to ourselves the very power by which it is done. Apparently, we’re satisfied understanding no truth from empirical conditions is at all possible, thereby no truth at all is possible. Which is catastrophic in itself, for in such case, there is no legitimate reason to attribute moral agency to humanity in general. — Mww

Sure, quite a catastrophe, but thankfully we don't go that far (denying truth).

It's obscure to me honestly. Some echoes of hints here and there, but no genuine insight as to how it is done (attain truth), even if we manage to reach it, some of the time.

I fear replying you to you on occasions, your sophisticated way of expression could make it easy to misunderstand (or rather misstate) what you are saying, but, I will risk it.

Granted, what you point out I think is correct, we have to distinguish what is true, with truth as well as take into account what are the cognitive conditions such that we can establish such a category as "truth" and be somewhat confident it is correct.

What is all quite puzzling here, despite it being trivial as well, is that whatever truth is, is established by us, it's not as if we can measure "the world" with "the world" and say "Aha! Here it is, look at the world corresponding to itself."

Which brings out very complicated questions, why do we choose one specific theory over another one, when both can explain similar phenomena? Why are theories radically under-determined by the evidence, that is, why do we leave so much stuff out? We need to of course; we cannot explain everything in one theory.

But that we are able to establish truth (or an approximation) based on something within ourselves, is, as I said, very trivial (what's the coherent alternative?), but also flabbergasting...

As to the things in the environment they affect the body differently pre-cognitively it would seem such as, for example, one appears as a tree and another a waterfall. One I can move around, remove branches and leaves from, maybe use its bark, even cut it down and burn it, the other I can go under and be washed, or watch the sunlight sparkling on the water and feel the fine mist of water vapour on my skin and so on. So, it seems to me that thgere is no arbitrariness in the ways we come to differentiate the things in the environment, they all have real pre-cognitive affactes on the body, on the skin, on the nerves, it seems. — Janus

If someone adds a chemical solution to what we call a river, it hardens and if I paint yellow lines on it, it becomes a road - and can be used as such. The change is chemically trivial, yet our conception radically alters, notice that in this case, we wouldn't perceive this hardened thing to be discontinuous from the surrounding terrain.

And if you put a concrete wall in front of the waterfall, it becomes a dam of sorts.

These small changes raise questions about how we individuate. Where I cannot find a fault in this, is in mathematics, it seems necessary.

It's not arbitrary, you are correct, it's subtle and delicate. Small changes drastically change how we conceptualize items as being one or many (is a tree one thing, or many?, etc.)

Our understanding of the microphysical seems to show us that things are not merely as they appear. But then the micro-physical itself is another, sensorially augmented, appearance. It's truly a mystery. — Janus

100% agree. It makes no sense as to how these microphysical things could lead to anything really...

But you are hitting on a most interesting point, often overlooked. What you say about animals is indeed correct. It raises the same issue, the animal is doing the individuating (in so far are we are able to discern what they do), meaning, it's an internal mechanism of the creature. And I think this generalizes to all creatures, that have a minimum level of experience (above a slug, for instance).

To me, the mystery is as to what that diverse world is in itself; I don't even consider what to me seems the most implausible possibility that it is all a human production. — Janus

I just don't see an alternative, with the only exception, is to give cognition to the world, a kind of panpsychism.

No two things in the world are exactly the same. Individual things are perhaps never the same from one moment to the next, some more obviously different through time than others, of course. The hill near my house, covered with tall eucalypts looks the same from day to day, but if I cast my thoughts back a few years I remember the trees were much shorter (Flooded gums grow 3-4 meters a year). — Janus

This is another mystery to me, the lack of identical aspects to object in the world. This changes in the micro-physical world, but that's virtually alien to lived experience.

Interesting, we seem to have different starting conditions, but agree on similar conclusion.

It's something like that, I've yet to read the official English translation, which is allegedly coming out this year.

As I understand it's "as if" (and it's very important to keep this in mind) God killed himself, creating the universe and life being as it were, his remains, going on to eventual total extinction. Which is fine for his metaphysics.

But for our concerns about metaphysics here, I don't see a practical difference between non-being and non-being, in that, prior to us arising, we were part of the process that made up "God's corpse" as it were.

We weren't alive and are now alive by accident. And death will be the same, I think. He was more or less correct in describing something like the Big Bang, but what happens after, we do not know. Maybe it's the complete cessation of all activity, maybe we contract back again to another Big Bang, maybe there are more universes. We have no idea.

Funny that you mention Nietzsche, in some other places I go to, he so popular. Never really got his popularity, aside his good prose.