What are the objections against ontological relativism?
What are the objections against the view that a lot of different realities can co-exist? Especially in the science driven global culture of today there seems to be a lot of resistence. That is at least what I experience.
Comments (62)
Generally, it is the responsibility of the person who starts a discussion to provide their own thoughts in the opening post. It's just common courtesy.
My thoughts - If you read many of my posts, this is a refrain you will hear over and over. There is only one world. Just look around. These "different realities" you refer to are just different ways of looking at that world. They are metaphysical systems. Metaphysical systems are not right or wrong, they are more or less useful in a particular situation. I have my own particular ways of looking at things. They are like tools. When I have to deal with something, I can rummage around in my tool box and pull out the one that will work best.
Welcome to the forum.
You’ll also notice that everything about this ‘same’ world he refers to is going to be idiosyncratic to his perspective, such that he will have to use the
blind men and elephant metaphor to explain how different perspectives can all coalesce around a same world. Suggesting that there are as many different elephants as there are perspectives is threatening to an empirical bent.
I think I feel what you mean. But I never heard of the blind man and the elephant metaphor. What does it entail?
Ah yes! That's exactly what I mean. The feet are material, the head the gods. The tail the magic, etc. It seems more humane. For everyone a part that fits. Not one and only part. ?
It seems to me that many people already are ontological pluralists. Sure, you can get the odd person who thinks that everything ultimately reduces to particles and the laws of nature, but that tells you very little.
We can stress some aspects of ontology, say, we can argue that we should think of the world in terms of events instead of on things. Or we can stress the mind dependence or mind independence of certain aspects of the world. These types of arguments would apply to all levels.
But there isn't much that can be said that applies to everything in the world. So we tend to be ontological pluralists by default.
Unless you’re a Continental philosopher, in which case everything comes down to ‘Will to Power’ or ‘ Dasein’ or ‘difference’ or ‘ transcendental subjectivity’. I think that even those considering themselves ontological pluralists make use of implicit unifying presuppositions, even as they cannot articulate them explicitly.
One of Husserl's? I don't properly understand it. Quick definition?
Yep. Transcendental subjectivity is what is left after one has performed a thoroughgoing reduction of everyday experience. One could perform a partial reduction in order to reveal the intentional acts underlying and making possible psychological processes like perception and cognition. Brentano, the Gestalt psychologists and today’s cognitive science all make use of such an intentional approach. But they don’t perform a complete reduction, because they found their intentional psychologies on a material stratum. The transcendental move makes empirical naturalism secondary and derived from the more primordial stratum of intentional constitution. One would have to imagine a generating process that is not an object in the world , and yet not a solipsistic ideality.
It’s a bizarre approach for those of us used to starting with the furniture of the universe and constructing human beings out of those building blocks.
"Unless you’re a Continental philosopher, in which case everything comes down to ‘Will to Power’ or ‘ Dasein’ or ‘difference’ or ‘ transcendental subjectivity’."
In that case only one small part of the total elephant is pointed to. To be thought the blood flowing through the whole elephant, regarding the outside as not- important. But it is still there. That is the all encompassing reality of an kntological pluralist. He can freely change from one reality to another. Which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
I think that this is the goal of philosophy, if not one important one, to try and unify things. The question is if we're actually doing this by evoking such terms or concepts.
It's hard to say.
It’s a bizarre approach for those of us used to starting with the furniture of the universe and constructing human beings out of those building blocks
Are there people who built other people from building blocks of the universe?
That's more like Heidegger's version (he traded on his Husserl connection so that most people are too confused to tell them apart). Some flaws in Husserl's own version needed attending to and Walter Hopp in Phenomenology, a contemporary approach pubd Routledge 2020 covers the scheme systematically and the comments already made by others to make it hang together better. In particular Husserl identified three successive phases in perception including valuing (which ties in with Nietzsche's call) which is separate from judgment.
Husserl maintained you can't genuinely perform "reductions" or "brackettings" (which just means hold two or more things in your mind alongside each other) beyond what "is" into the fact of "is" itself. This strikes me as similar to those people who say being is not a predicate, and Duns Scotus who warned against making analogy of being too much like equivocity and not univocity.
(I work in intersecting spectrums and continuums.)
Heidegger reifies a thing he calls Being itself, which causes all sorts of personality and societal disturbances.
Ontological pluralism (not relativity) is sound because each thing has its own identity. Epicurus urges us not to weaponise the big picture against the atoms so as to "pulverise" them. Then, any possible worlds is a mathematical construct, and inference tells us which one is real (the rest of the calculations are a good exercise).
We were all taught not to use inference, hence widespread weak thinking, sadly.
To my mind the meaning in what is, is "Is". Things that are, are telling us that they are, and that they are what they are. This is the answer to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question. (There must have been an existence wave or something. Popper's rather nice word is "propensity". I call it Sam Johnson's Toe.) Why questions are mostly how questions, and how questions are mostly what questions. To my mind, this must be the basic premise of logic.
The fabric (weave, which is like wave, perhaps Epicurus' shimmering) of the universe is analogies, all the way down. After all, particles that have no "mass" are themselves made up from some that do. If you look closely enough, the question of "location" of submicroscopic fragments becomes complex (not contradictory). This is obviously firm enough to stand on, eat, read, stretch our minds, help each other know more, build bridges, fly planes.
Isaac Newton's "non fingo" was about acceptance of his own findings and of our common findings, and not dumbing them down. Husserl is streets ahead of those miserygutses who moan that you and I are figments of their diseased imagination.
When one adds (to Husserl's scheme) the semiotics of Peirce (reading the language of nature as well as culture) and those forms of hermeneutics that resemble it (i.e not Heidegger's), not forgetting quasi-indexicality in holy texts (why gods are reported to say what they are saying and who it was as if to) and one gets a toolkit for sanity. Everything makes proportionate sense (analogy means using partial metaphor as aid to proportionate sense). (Peirce commentaries and Barthes make illuminating combined reading.)
Various other schemes called "phenomenology" don't have the breadth of coverage hence too much gets dumbed down.
In my childhood I thought every child knew that there is what is "out there" and what is "in here" in my head at the same time. It's not necessary for every one of us to rush headlong into the communal mental breakdown. What is real sends us its message that it is real as well as us whom the message is coming to: anthropic, not solipsistic, not antihumanising. We're here so that we can talk about what's here also.
I'm a beginner and I've not yet found out whether scholars have posited "ontological relativity" (my search engine is buzzing as it is).
What do you mean?
Thats my own invention...
There is the reality of physics, like the rishons, quantum fields thereof, played out on the underground of a (quantized) curved developing spacetime (itself influenced by these fields).
There is the reality of the Greek gods, to be supplanted by the horrible one-eyed monstergod with which Xenophanes had an unlucky encounter.
There is the reality of the Aboriginal dreamtime and their reality of a Natural world very different from the scientific one.
There is the reality of my girlfriend. I wont go into that one...
-There exist 2 basic massless quantum fields interacting by 7 gauge fields. Their mass/energy curves 4d spacetime. The particles themselves are 2d forms of magic stuff. Curled up to Planck scale. Big bangs take place on a 5d negatively curved static substratum. A 5d torus with cut open outermost outside, streching out to infinity with a Planck-sized mouth. It looks as if 4d space is expanding.
The Greek gods
The Greek gods live on the olympus. They are human like and various aspects of human life are present in different gods. The gods can be contacted. They quarel. The impersonal god of Xenophanes is still present in our day. He is called God/Allah/JHWH. He is omnipresent and omniscient and omnipotent. He is one. The only one without further discussion. All other gods are non-gods. He has the power to send you to heaven or hell outside our universe. Lucifer has his way too though. As a fallen angel he wants take over the throne of god. The angels are there to protect God. God created the universe, which appears to be eternal. But God exists outside of spacetime and has created eternal time. But not creation in a spatiotemporal way. God is love.
Will two do?
Quoting Fine Doubter
Maybe it sounds like Heidegger because I simplified it a bit.
Quoting Fine Doubter
Reduction is the removal of all knowledge of the world that isn’t based on immediate intuitive givenness.
Quoting Fine Doubter
Heidegger’s Being isn’t a reification. Could you elaborate on what you mean by ‘personality and societal
disturbances’?
Quoting Fine Doubter
This also the premise of empiricism, the myth of the given, and rationalism of logic. These are all concepts that phenomenology puts into question.
Quoting Fine Doubter
Peirce never freed himself from Hegelian rationalism.
I hopped to that, from what A W Moore in The evolution of modern metaphysics: making sense of things considers an illegitimate usage of reduction which Heidegger claimed in contrast to Husserl.
(I do a lot of hopping.)
It's the same world as the only world there is, it isn't a different reality.
Imposing some "Absolute" on others (which has been done, always accompanied by some form talk of same). Whilst maths for example isn't a complete language, its proper understanding furnishes us with a clue: something "more than more" invites us to be more tentative and not very categorical.
Not complete removal, so much as simply setting different issues in separate view as much as is needed to avoid conflating and confusing them. For example, one needn't lay down that metaphysics is about some sort of horrific solid gunk before knowing anything about perception (one would be likely to know less that way). Assumptions in other words: the real version of Occam's razor - clearing the way to investigate real realities that can form a layer of better probable assumptions to further research after. Some irrational "metaphysics" which was the background at the time, exhausted and closed people's minds to proper assumptions because improper ones made them look incompatible. There are other phenomenologists, but I gather Husserl's distinctive is his breadth.
Quoting Joshs
Comparing my knowledge of Peirce commentary and Hegel commentary I'm not aware that he had that problem. He was motivated by his scientific practice (surveying etc). Until and including Kant (and so I've just learned, Fries) dialectic was a group of related arguments or, in Peirce's case, relations. I think they all intended to be descriptive. I keep getting told Hegel saw everything becoming something else and that he has an Absolute fixation. Soon I'm going to seek guidance about primary sources - I want more free PDFs.
Great analogy! :grin:
What onthology basically is, is a framework to conceptualize content.
In that sense (im guessing) onthological relativism would come down to a statement of :
"we can not concepzualize some content fully with only one framework."
This kinda implies that you need at least two frameworks to conceptualize content A.
If statements about the content have no realiationship with each other there is no trivial reason why you shouldn't add the two statements up as statements about different variables about the same thing.
If they have a relation or overlap there is no trivial reason why there shouldnt be a framework that includes said relation or the overlap.
In a sense you could try to understand a framework as a basic n-dimensional vector space. If someone claims that the world needs another m-dimensional vector space to be described properly theres no reason why you can't just make an n+m-dimensional vectorspace to include both options.
So in a sense thats the most trivial counterargument. And also kind of the default position.
This in a way means theres no real counterargument to be made since the proponent of multiple ontholgies would have to show that there are two ontholgies that can't possibly be included in one bigger picture. This specific case would have very specific counterarguements.
The most basic example that comes to my mind for multiple ontholgies would be that the frameworks contradict each other.
Lets say you have two 3d vectorspaces with the dimensions w, x, y for V1 and x, y, z for V2 and you would find that in V1, w, x, y are all orthagonal but in V2 x, y, are not onthagonal. Creating incompatablity to be combined. If both V1 and V2 are consistent and applicable you have a case that said onthologies can't be combined.
So in a sense the most obvious answer is that your examples can be thought of as parts of the same reality rather then different realities.
Btw I think the question regarding reality was if you understand reality as the independant world, or as the image, in your head, of the world that you expierience.
Based on your examples I assumed you ment "physical reality" rather then "expierienced reality".
Btw2 This would be way easier if you actually elaborate on your concepts and the terminology or provide refrence sources.
So the only reality is that of vector spaces? But what if the realities are non-physical? You assumed I had these in mind, bu I havent. What you propose here is a math model of how physics pro- or regresses. But that physical way of thinking is just one among many. My first example of massless, interacting rishon fields is the absolute example of this reality.8
Yes. Only the dreamtime world reality is the real one. The world of quarks and leptons is just a minor part of it.
Quoting Prishon
No thats not what I said.
Quoting Prishon
I am not proposing anything, at all.
You said:Quoting Prishon
So you asked us to construct a counter argument to a position you made up yourself, and that you didn't elaborate on. Neither regarding terminology nor structure. Since I am no mindreader I had to make up a very primitiv basic example myself to show that:
Quoting CaZaNOx
Is what your position would need to demonstrate to establish multiple realities, rather than different parts of the same reality.
The vectorspace stuff is just to illustrate the ease with wich a combination can be found. And a possibility to show what a contradiction of different frameworks thats not based on content and rather the structure of the onthologies, could look like.
In your example of physics and greek gods you coud just add them together and have a view greek god + physics and that if you only look at physiscs you only look at parts of reality.
Or you come to the conclusion they are mutually exclusive views and therefore either one or the other is false and therefore not a reality.
"Creating incompatablity to be combined"
Im not advocating incompatibility. What I do promote is incommensurability. The Greek gods and quarks are all part of one reality indeed. But they are incompatible and commensurable.
You propose an answer to my question. What is that new reality of vector space? Its a nice analogy but subsumes both gods and quarks under the one reality of a vector space. But non of them is part nor parcel wrt to it. The vector space equalizes things that cant be equalized.
You asked what the counterargument to a position that you made up yourself is. But you didn't state anything about your position.
So maybe in a first step you should actually put forward a position. By formulating two onthologies that are correct and incompatible. And therfore can't be combined.
Btw Ethics already subsumes incommensurable values. I don't see how this ethics term is relevant here.
Once you did that we can look for specific counter arguments. However till you do that a trivial counterargument is that theres no principal reason not to combine stuff in to one ontholgy.
So my answer to your question is: there is no general reason to not assume combineability in to one reality and no specifc case given. Me needing to quasi invent a cheap model to illustrate one version of your idea that you couldnt be bothered to spell out is your shortcoming not mine.
The vectorspace is a tool of humans, it does in a sense nothing other then provide a framework for subsuming content by allowing you to add a desired amount of variables.
Quoting Prishon
A vectorspace doesn't equalize anything. What it does it groups it into the same construct without influencing the content.
But it's not important you could also just say greek gods exist and interact with the world, quantum fields exist and interact with the world, therfore bot are things that exist and interact with the world. Again I am not advocating for a specific onthology what I am saying is that it's rather easy to combine things on an abstract theoretical level.
In a sense what I am saying is it is your job to show that two specific onthologies can't be grouped together. Since both are true but also not combinable.
And you talking about an on the fly example I did or two examples you gave cause you got pressed to do it is just diverting from the fact that you should be presenting a specific case or a general argument why I can't combine stuff on an abstract theoretical level or in a specific case. You just stating Quoting Prishon is not an argument. It's just an empty statement without backup that can be dissmissed as easily as you positioned it. I can just say "Yes it can".
And there you take the wrong road... Didnt you see the warning sign?
The fact that it's rather easy to combine things on an abstract theoretical level is a basic counterargument to your position and answers your question.
Basically one reality ontholgy is because of it's intuitivty and existance of dominant models the default position, so it's your job to argue against it to which counterarguments can be raised. If you don't put forward any argument or position theres no point to swap from a functioning onthology to some random different form that hasn't been spelled out or been reasoned for. So the biggest counterargument is you saying nothing about or for multiple ontohologies.
Did I say it's my position? No. Did I say it's not my position? No.
You pose a question and I provide an answer.
Also stop diverting. Maybe elaborate your view and so on. Try to use arguments like "you are taking the wrong road BECAUSE ... (INSERT ARGUMENT HERE).
I'm not sure why you ignore what I and others have told you that you should
1) clarify the terms
2) Bring forward your view
My answer is as abstract as your question and until you put forward a specific case and further discussing is pointless.
In a sense you are doing pure sophistry since you are throwing a new term around without adding anything to it and then trying to shift the burden of proof by pretending your still empty position should be the default and the default position needs to defend it's legitimacy despite there not being any other option proposed.
The burden of proof is clearly on you since you introduce a new concept. Until you realize, and accept that, I think further discussion won't provide much value.
The different realities can be combined if they each ARE (sub) vector spaces. How would you see the difference between the two realities? What are the base vectors?
Again, the examples are fine, but you haven't defined what you mean by reality. That means I am left to draw my own conclusions by what you mean, and I might be off.
It seems to me you are describing descriptions of reality invented by humans. These descriptions do not necessarily represent reality, as reality is generally known as what simply exists. That's why it's important for you to define what YOU mean by reality, as I may not be addressing your intentions.
The whole point about these realities is that they cant be defined. By defining them you destroy them
To be able to tell if two "realities" are part of one bigger reality or uncombinable but not mutually exclusive. I would need to know different onthological models, the realties, and the specific conflict.
Since the poster did not provide that, I can't tell you, if it is a vector space or not. Or what the base vectors would be.
You are kinda asking what the solution to the math problem is that you haven't told me yet.
I also don't know how you would see the difference of two realities that aren't given.
Again it is like asking how big the weight difference of two different objects is. Without specifing the objects or the unit or the location that is used to measure.
Basically your descripition is to abstract to prompt a proper answer.
Until you provide a description of realities and the matching onthologies that can't be combined I can't help you.
Btw I tried to do your job by formulating an example for you that would argue your case but since you seemed to read straight past the point I will abstain from that and wait for your answer to the question how you know that there are two different realities and what their difference is.
The physical world, the second example, is the material aspect of stuff only. Say the matter part. It behaves acvording to Natural laws. It can be described by massless rishon fields on top of a 4d curved spacetime. The fields interact by means of 7 gauge fields. They contribute to the curvature of 4d spacetime which itself is developing on a 5d static substrate. There are hidden variables (necessary for communication with the gods). Particles are Planck sized 3d spheres rolled up on the 5d spacetime.
If you can translate these in two vector spaces go ahead. But I think these spaces are unreachable from one another. Of course the three realities I spoke of (with us as intermediaries) are not out of each other's reach. But I dont see how this translates in one vector space.
Quoting Prishon
By "realities", do you maybe mean "physical universes" (worlds)? Because "realities" refer (among other things) to people's view of the physical universe. Each human being has its own reality. And all these realities coexist and are different. If we agree on something, then we have a common reality. But conflicting or just different realities also coexist. Only that when there is agreement, what happens is that realities become stronger, to a point that they may be confused with the physical universe! For example, all the people on earth agree about the existence of the sun. And because this was happening since the beginning of the human history, the sun appears still more "real" to people and its existence becomes something like an objective, absolute reality for everyone. Yet, the reality around it has changed through time. It was once thought that sun turned around the Earth, since Earth was the center of the Universe! If science were not created, we might still believe that! That is, that would be our reality. (Most probably, tribes today who still have this reality. And they, as ourselves in the past, have all the reasons in the world to believe that ...Even today, we can get the illusion that the sun moves around the earth: "The sun rises and sets", "the sun is up in sky", ... are everyday common phrases!
So, a lot of people talk about an absolute, objective, universal reality. There's no such a thing. I have given a lot of reasons why this is so and explained why, quite a few times. See e.g. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/578622.
Quoting Prishon
The science did a lot of good to us by explaining and describing the physical universe so that we could get out of total ignorance and superstitions!
Anyway, again, I believe you mean resistance about coexisting physical universes (not realities), right? Well, isn't that the subject of "Parallel Universes?" :smile:
I think you make an excellent poit here. But (I wouldnt be me without a but; they even call me the but, "maar" in Dutch; there is Maartje...). For two different people there can be two different physical realities. If I see a complete different physical state of affairs than a fellow man. I can, for example, see sub quarks where others see one quark only. Whats the real thing? Both at the same time? Or are both combined some new physical reality. Or take both approaches in thermodynamics. The statistical approach and the classical. One contains continue media. The other atoms.
"But" is good! It is actually essential in philosophical discussions! :smile:
Quoting Prishon
Exactly. Yes, "physical realities". But always individual realities, i.e., they exist in the mind of the individuals, not outside (in the physical universe).
Quoting Prishon
What do you mean by the "real thing"?
Quoting Prishon
Yes, if you talk about realities, mental worlds. You and me can think of the same thing or have the same reality about something at the same time.
As for quantum physics (physical universe), where a particle can be at two places or two different forms (matter and energy) at the same time, well this is something I am not qualified to talk about! :smile:
Why cant they exist in the outside? Cant mental states and physical states coexist? By mediation maybe of the body? Is there an independent physical pulling through our mental states? If so then say a true material circle form pulls through our mental image of it cant we connect it with other physical circels, or otber forms, to create a new physical reality which wasn't present before our thinking?
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Good question. Depends on the one who's looking.
Let me first clarify. When I speak of Vectorspace I do not mean the stric mathematical definition. Because else I would need to show the mathematical axioms to hold. We can go there but you would need to provide a more detailed explanation of the realities you speak of.
What I mean when I say vectorspace in following parts I mean sth along the lines of:
Vectospaces consist of variables that are either linear independant or not.
If two variables are linear independant then changing one variables value won't change the others value. If the are linearly dependant it will changing one value will change the other value aswell.
Variables in turn are properties of elements. F.e. Position, temperature, humidity, volume and so on.
With that said we can now examine the realities you presented.
Lets take the physical reality. That you refer to as 5d. We could reduce it to 5 variables that are linear independant base but we could freely add other variables that just aren't linear independant.
However we asume that we have a vectorspace here with 5 base vectors.
Now we could consider dreamworld as an emergent phenomena of the physical reality and therefore a subset of the already existing vectorspace. So any properties you would find would just result in adding more linear dependant variable to our vectorspace.
But since you constructed your dreamworld kind of different we would need to look at the reality of the gods that is as you said outside of the physical reality.
Lets first assume that the reality of the gods has properties but the reality of the gods is independant of our physical reality.
In this case it should in theory be possible to find a cobination of vectors that form a base for said reality of the gods of size n. So we would have a n-dimensional vectorspace for the reality of the gods.
Now if the reality of the gods is independant from the physical realites we can just add the different vectorspaces and creat an n+5 dimensional meta reality that includes both sub realities.
If the dreamworld is as you said a inbetween between both realities this only means that variables of the dreamworld would be vectors that are build out of vectors of both realities you mentioned.
Lets say we assume that we cant identify properties of the reality of the gods. We in theory could still expand the basic phsical reality based on variables derived from properties of the dreamworld.
In this case we wouldnt be able to create a complete model since we can not model the possible vectorspace of the reality of the gods.
However if you denie that the reality of the gods has propreties, or can be investigated you have very little ground to assume that this reality exists or that you are able to create an independant ontholgy that would be applicable to the reality of the gods. Invalidating your attempt to have multiple onthologies that describe different realities. As soon as you have valid hints for the reality of the gods like dreamworld there is no clear reason why you shouldn't be able to expand the vectorspace for the physical reality with variables that describe partially aspects of the reality of the gods.
Except you would find incompatablities that prevent you from doing so.
At least thats how I conceptualize it.
And just to have it said thebkey part is not if its a vectorspace or not. The key point is that you need a strong case that invaldiates expanding a existing framework to include new knowledge. So in a sense a systematic issue that prevents the new knowledge to in principle be included in a framework and any future expansion of it.
I read your idea with great interest! Naturally, I dont agree. Partially. I agree that all material aspects of the true stuff (I' ll explain later what I mean by that) can be expressed by a vector space. Different people though see different material stuff (being part of the wider real stuff). The dreamworld is not emergent from matter though. Is emergent from the real stuff, probably making it even more easy to represent both out of one vectorspace cotaining both matter and magical essential content. The real stuf contains both. In our dreamworld only the manifestation of content is present. In the outside physical world only the material manifestation is present. Once upon a time these two were one only. There vector spaces coincided. With physical hidden variables contact with the gods is possible. Only they know the true Nature of that magic content of matter. How to model them by a vector space? I duuno. It would be blasphemy I guess. These are only two of the possible realities. You can see it as one I guess. But I havent discussed the reality and incommensurability of different physical theories. I havent discussed the real dreamtime of Aboriginals (Im not an Abo). And then there is the reality of vectorspaces. All different realities. All truly existent.
Im curious. If we assume gods exist and have knowledge of their reality, dreamworld and the physical reality would they be able to construct a vectorspace that would include all aspects of reality in a single framework.
Because if you would argue for multiple realities you would need to argue that even the gods can't build one unified framework.
However if you think theres no principal reason why they can't then at it's core the reason why we can't do it is not vecause it's in principle not possible and rather human limitations.
However given those human limitations constructing an adittional framework for the reality of the gods would be futile. So you would still end up with only one framework including the properties we can reasonably talk about.
In short if you are not specifically arguing that the gods can't build a unifying framework of reality because of reason x. The entire point for different frameworks for different realities kinda falls short because you say we can know properties of the reality of the gods while simultaniously saying the opposit when a different framework is used.
The gods can do whatever they like. But why should they transform reality in a black and white vector space? You can give the vectors color but dont they need instructions first (like us) to transform the elements of reality into vectors? Vectors are just linepieces with an arrow. Whats the difference between a quark arrow and a dreamed quark arrow? Lets assume the gods could make such a space appear instantly. Aint that reality, if WE could construct it, a reality thats artificial?
Do you ask it the reality that I have in my mind about a tree I am just observing also exists as such in the physical universe? How can that be? One is mental and the other is physical. What I have in mind is a representation of the tree. What exists in the physical universe is the tree itself.
Or maybe you mean something else?
Quoting Prishon
I can't get any of this ... Try maybe to create and post here a drawing that shows all that ...
Incommensurability in the sense of using different scales (or spectrums / continuums of scale) to measure has never been sensational.
Angels on pinpoints (not heads) was metaphorical (I don't know what for) till a few nutcases tried to allege it was literal.
"Angel" has probably a completely different meaning from usual, in context. In any case, everything in the world "tells us something". The meaning and the story of what is, is "Is".
Last night I found "ontological relativism", later today I'll put it here for you (whether it's the same as Prishon had in mind or not). I'll also think out vectors and dreamtime because they don't fit in the way you might think.
The thread you have started means you need to accept all our answers alongside each other. I recommend more reading on all subjects. Reasoning doesn't work without background knowledge of all kinds.
Quoting CaZaNOx
This is a fair point.
In what sense do you mean "create"? Are you talking about awareness in perception? To piece together or discern might be what you mean?
I think Phenomenology, a contemporary introduction by Walter Hopp (2020) will delight you.
I understand what you mean. The reality of you thinking about a tree and actually seeing one (let's limit ourselves to vision only; other sensory sensations can be treated the same way but with modification of what's observed; our ratio, be it religious, scientifi, instinctive, or whatever, orders these sensations, impressed by the senses), are two different ones. The minds eye view (including whatever ordening is involved) is the same as the view when looking. If you daydream you can imagine walking around a tree or climbing in it. This is different (obviously) from walking around a tree in the physical world. That tree has a physical , matter-like existence.This matter is not present when you think. Obviously. But whats the Nature of matter? Isnt it possible that it contains some "magical" "stuff"? That consciousness emerges because of this stuff? That it doesnt emerge because the physical process is complicated but because this "essence" content" moves along with these complicated matter processes (as they are tied together, the magic being the content of matter)? In the brain only the magic stuff reveals itself, though it can be examined materialistically in say a neuron scan, just as looking at that tree. The matter side of the medal manifests itself as matter only when the magic side of the medal has separated too, in the brain. The tree has magic stuff inside too. But in a tree the two sides of stuff (so, again, matter with magical essential content, which are inseparable; only a living creature experiences the two sides separatly) are still two unmanifested ones. The division matter-essence has not yet taken place (the stuff isnt litterally divided as matter and magical essence are inseparable). The body is the intermediate between the mental (essential, magical) inner world and the material outer world. The inner world can potentially contain all sructures there are in the matter world and can influence that matter world. By thought patterns or by the body. For now... my brain hurts... A physical process with magic content. But not nice. Things like experience of space and time are emergent but they show the world as it is. But... and now I stop...
We were posting exactly the same moment! I think about the create question. It was crystal clear the moment I wrote it... My brain is tired. The inner world tells me to slow down a bit... :smile:
And so is my wife...
:rofl: It can seem that way because our imagination is the laboratory atop our shoulders. Also since Hume (or Bacon) we have all been taught not to use any inference.
Donna Williams helped me understand that first we get either a sensory impulse we don't identify (or a memory or spontaneous imagining of one) then it "takes" form or we identify or interpret its kind and location, then thirdly we accord it value. Only after all of these ("fulfilment") do we move beyond perception to judgment, i.e inference. Deliberate revaluing can influence the way we handle the last of these. Hence assumptions (crucial in Occam, Husserl, Nietzsche et al) are vital in valuing as well as inferring. The second stage meantime depends on us matching prior learning with impulses.
I saw things on the floor when I was getting out of bed. I soon concluded they were feet. Then I decided they must be mine. That was the first two stages in three because I'm slow. Then I decided it's not so surprising, and that is valuation. Then I judged it's OK to carry on with my day and not plan to call for help (about that specifically), and that was my judgment or inference.
Your usage of "magic" is poetical. It's good to gain a sense of wonder.
Analogy tells us something is partly like something else in some way, but it doesn't tell us more than that. The world where we eat and track the sun and build and talk and study, is firm enough for those purposes, yet our knowledge is made up of partial likenesses to other partial likenesses. We know it is firm enough due to inference (much as we're told not to try). Logic is putting knowledge together with other knowledge.
All language is metaphorical. All words allude, and when we have several intersecting allusions, we can begin to see meanings in what is said. (This is where reifiers and fundamentalists go wrong.)
Analogy shouldn't be mistaken for a solid asteroid-like piece of gunk. Things (at every level) are like people who tell us part of a story. It has always worked like this.
A term like "predicate" is often taken in two separate senses: its presence and function, or its content.
What kind and who's reality this is?
Quoting Prishon
Re "the view when looking": What kind of view this is? A view mainly means the ability to and action of seeing something from a certain point (both literally and figuratively). It may also mean a sight.
Quoting Prishon
Present to/for whom? And why is it not present? It it is me, do you mean that I'm lost in my thoughts or anyway, my thoughts kind of block out my sight of the tree? (Most probably not, but what else?)
When I observe a tree, it is implied that this tree is present (for me, not someone else) at that exact moment. Otherwise, how could I observed it? If I only think of it, it means that I am not observing it, and I can do that even if the tree is not present (for me) at that moment.
Otherwise, you cannot say that something is "present" in general. Something is "present" if someone observes it. There must be a point of view for something to be considered "present". You can't say, e.g. that the tree you saw sometime ago is still present (exists at that location) at this moment if you don't see it. It may well have been cut out in the meantime!
Quoting Prishon
You lost me there! :smile:
In my young day we were taught not to be superstitious of metaphors, either pro OR anti. I think dreamtime is saying some things worth saying that some people don't think of saying and not saying some things some people do think of saying, I don't think it's more complicated than that. Where we need to critique is what is too dumbed down which is disrespectful to us all.
https://www.friesian.com/images/onto-14.gif
I've only just discovered that site, https://www.friesian.com/ (it is run by Kelley Lee Ross). I for one am going to enjoy dipping into it much more. I think neglected thinkers like Fries have much to tell us.
I should have added to my previous, it's also vital not to be superstitious about others' or even our own observations.
Thanks for the link! I can read there:
Although now with several contributed works, the number of submissions to the journal remains thin, often inappropriate, and all but never from academic philosophers or graduate students, whose concerns still seem to reflect unhealthy preoccupations with Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Marx, and the farcical and pretentious mash of "Theory," often with the addition of a term, "Critical," that really only means "Marxist," that is circulated in departments of English, Sociology, Anthropology, etc. -- and which has now spilled out into museums, the media, general "education," politics, and cowardly corporations.
How true!
Im writing a book. I have experience in writing, buf a philosophical/scientific story I havent actually written. Many short pieces yes. Mainly a lot of questions and answers on various physics sites and almost all sites on StackEchange (FACKExchange...). Only to be banned. I have started writing about my adventures on these sites and can use that to hop from subject to subject. From biology (I got banned for questioning the central dogma), to economy (idem dito for questioning the growth model), to physics (idem dito for proposing the rishon model), to philosophy (idem dito...), the brain, AI, cosmology, etc. etc. Now finally the pieces have fallen in place, I find it time to speak out (as I already did a bit here...). The book has as a working title is: "Hallo, wij schrijven...", meaning "Hello, we write...". The first words preceding the announcement of a suspension, ban, and a network-wide ban finally. Now Im not the uncomprehended guy. I think I just have found a truth about the physical and non-physical universe and all magic going on inside it. And I want others to join me on the trip. Thats all...
Prishon, defining things does not destroy the thing itself. In fact, if you find you cannot define something, it's an indicator that you need to think carefully about what you are saying, or that the idea is fiction, and does not exist.
Of course the things get not destroyed in the litteral sense. If I define an electron to be three rishons then the electron is not destroyed. But defining means placing it in another framework. In that sense its destroyed.Or better, changed into something new. Because, then whats the electron itself? The three rishons? The electron as a point particle? The last has a different definition from the three rishon definition. Off course a different definition can be given on top. The electron, just as virtual particle pairs, is just a popular scientific picture. A "real" particle is an excitstion of an electron field. But then again, an excitation *can* be expressed as a collection of simultaneous trajectories in phasespace. So what is the real thing? The mathematical field or the trajectories it describes? Particle Scientists are inclined to say the excitation of the field (the math) is more real. Or better: real. Logical, because with that they can make an impression on whoever.