Is everything random, or are at least some things logical?
For example, I'd like to think that natural selection is not random. It was probably not random that one species would eventually evolve and dominate the animal kingdom, which is us humans.
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If a drop of rain falls downwards, the path of the raindrop is not random, in that the new position of the raindrop depends on its previous position. The path of the raindrop is also logical, in that it is following a set of rules, in this case, the laws of nature. Therefore the path of the raindrop is both logical and not random.
Extrapolating, natural selection is both logical and not random, meaning that the fact that one species dominates is both logical and not random. However, any final situation, regardless of what it had turned out to be, would be both logical and not random. Two species dominating would have been both logical and not random. No species dominating would have been both logical and not random.
It does not follow that because the final situation is both logical and not random, the final situation has been teleologically pre-determined. Even though the final situation is both logical and not random, it does not follow that the final situation has any special meaning.
The fact that a sequence of events is both logical and non random is insufficient to give meaning to any subsequent state of affairs.
Yet, a case can be made that randomness (mutations with no rhyme or reason in them) is life's best game plan/strategy against an enemy (Thanatos) well-known for dropping by at unexpected, odd, ungodly hours and venues (planet-killer asteroids are stray bullets, oui?)
Quite intriguingly this: If a person is firing his gun randomly at points A, B, and C. It makes no sense to randomly switch one's position among the positions A, B, C. The chances of getting struck by a bullet is the same as just staying put, quietly now, reading a book perhaps, in any one of these locations. Am I right? :chin:
Randomness is a human construct for covering those things that we can't predict. Human predictive capacity is very limited. Therefore our perception of things can be called random when it is completely unpredictable.
Chaotic systems don't exist. We just don't know what happens in chaotic systems.
And I don't follow this:
Quoting 180 Proof
If you are able to explain in clear, precise, grammatically correct Englsih, and lacking in ad-hoc unconventional logical symbols, then please do. If you are incapable of writing without CAPITALIZING, italicizing, bolding and underscoring for lack of ability to express yourself in proper English, then please don't bother. I won't read your gibberish.
If you're going to spout scientifically illiterate and innumerate "gibberish" like the above sentence, then you damn well can afford to learn something by deciphering my dumbed-down (for your benefit) abbreviated schema.
:sweat:
Some long-form "gibberish" courtesy of scholars @Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/
In the physics meaning, "behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions."
So please notice the operative word "appear". A chaotic system is not random; it only appears to be random.
After my admitting my mistake, and properly seeing what you meant (thanks for the reference to point out my mistake!) please explain what you mean with this, after I said that unpredictability is a human disability, and randomness is a human construct for those events that can't be predicted:
Quoting 180 Proof
please remember: I think everything is predictable, but not by humans; and things that humans call random are predictable too, but not by humans. How does your formula improve or contradict my claim?
It looks like you are confusing how things work when we try to explain nature by logic. When we are able to predict the behaviour of an object, or an animal, this does not mean that the object, or the animal, is behaving according to our human extremely limited, I would even say stupid, logic. It is the opposite: we have built a logic that we adapted to what we observe in phenomenons, in order to gain some understanding and some mastering on those phenomenons. Logic has been built on events, not events on logic. Logic obeys to events, not events to logic. The fact that events seem to obey to some logic is just a human hypothesis, a mental frame, to try to understand nature.
That’s the reason why we haven’t been able to build a complete, comprehensive logic, able to explain everything so far. Think about this: why should nature obey to the ridiculous logic, miserable mental frames, poor schemes, petty rational systems, created by humans?
Agreed that the logic or chaos would have to be observed by us to make an argument one way or the other. But that is what is required here. Chaos or logic would need to be something that we (in our limited way) can observe.
I would argue about natural selection, that it is not random. But we can't just say survival of the fittest. There are way more variables to consider than fitness.
Reality is not reducible to a binary value. Natural selection is contingent upon both the random variability and logical consolidation of energy.
Quoting Angelo Cannata
The concepts are human interpretations, but there is an objectivity to be found in the quality of these ideas - if we can get past the affected nature of our existing relation.
The quality of both logic and randomness relates to the possibility/impossibility of absolute ‘oneness’, or universality.
Well put! Our oversimplifications are useful but not constraints on what we model.
Another nice one!
Especially when we seem to be merely a piece of that same nature, its 'creation.'
(1) Whatever cannot be predicted "by" (i.e. is intractably complex to) "humans" is, of course, unpredictable for humans (e.g. chaos theory, the P versus NP problem), yet are not 'random expressions or processes'.
(2) Whatever is random (e.g. noise, quantum fluctuations, radioactive decay, evolutionary genetic mutations, Kolmogorov randomness) is, in fact, universally unpredictable.
Many have believed, and still believe (so much for modern public education), that e.g. "the Earth is flat"; that you believe "everything is predictable" (despite mathematical and scientific evidences to the contrary), gmba, doesn't change the facts expressed in the two sentences above.
"Random —> unpredictable" abbrevates sentence (2) above and "unpredictable –/–> random" abbreviates sentence (1). Both contradict your evidence-free "claim".
Whatever objective you think you found is interpreted by you, so how can you say that it is objective?
You can always say: "for me or us, it's an objective truth."
If a fact is really objective, you must be able to say "This is not my opinion, this is a fact". You can say "In my opinion this is not my opinion", but this is not philosophy, this is careless common language. Absolute objectivity is what Descartes tried to find: his effort was to find something about which you can say "This is not my opinion and I don't even say that I think that it is not my opinion; this is just a fact, undeniable for everybody". This is the true absolute objectivity that Descartes wanted to reach and this is what we mean when we say "objective" in a philosophical sense. A philosopher would never say "I think that this is objective".
Something similar can be found in everyday language when we say "Two plus two are four". It is not easy to find people saying "In my opinion 2+2=4". Normally they claim that it is not their opinion, it is just a fact, so that, in that case, adding "in my opinion" doesn't make sense even in everyday language.
That depends on your philosophical position in the objective field. If you consider reality, like initiated by Xenophanes and Plato, who started the trend, leading to the modern conception of a subject independent unique scientifically and asymptotically approachable objective world, the same for all, then yes. If you consider objective reality dependent on the subject, then no. In this concept of objective reality there is no contradiction.
This is definitely true. So is goodness/infinite etc. There's nothing except a human abstraction which is randomness.
It even says in the link that "In addition to exhibiting sensitive dependence, chaotic systems possess two other properties: they are deterministic and nonlinear (Smith 2007)."
This in no way implies an equivalence between what was said about randomness.
What Angelo said and you also can't say "x is everything around y" because you're not communicating anything meaningful.
When you say e.g. "helium is objective" you're communicating nothing anyone can use but if you say "helium is the second element on the periodic table" it becomes an actual proposition.
Quoting Shwah
Dunno Shwah. Helium is objective seems more an actual proposition than helium being the second element on the periodic table. Helium actually is objective. There is super fluid helium, gaseous helium, hot helium, helium for balloons, helium to talk funny with, etc. The proposition that it is a second element on a periodic table seems pretty far-fetched and extramundane.
This is not what you find if you look for “objective” in any dictionary. See, for example, here:
“In most of its common uses, objective is contrasted with subjective, often as if it’s the opposite. Objective most commonly means not influenced by an individual’s personal viewpoint”
or here:
“In philosophy, objectivity is the concept of truth independent from individual subjectivity”.
That depends on the rigorous philosophy used. For you, objective reality it is an unknowable world, independent of human influences. I connect it with human influence, knowledge, ideas, worldviews, beliefs, etc. Your objective reality is one amongst many. Of course my philosophy about objective reality seems self contradictory. But only relative to yours. Judged by its own standards, its consistent.
Of course not. But the western dictionary is based on a philosophy started by Xenophanes and Plato. In this philosophy the simultaneous existence of multiple objective realities is indeed a contradiction. But there is no need to conform to this philosophy.
From Wikipedia:
"Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that facts in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed."
I go one step further though. I don't deny any objective reality.
What does "helium is objective" introduce? If we lived in a simulation and found out helium was computer code would you call that objective still? Why would that preclude the social construct fact of helium being the second element on the periodic table by Mendeleev?
If something is objective because it's dependent on the subject (like idealism?) then are you getting rid of the subjective distinction? If you're not doing that then how can the word be communicable between people unless you deny other objective worlds (or other subjects)? If it is communicable between different subjects then whatever realm that is that allows communication is still meaningly incommunicable and if you deny other subjects then however you account for reality outside your knowledge come up to the same issue.
Relativism just says no objectivism to a particular domain. We can speak about a "relative truth" in terms of the particular domain but none of this gets to the issue of objectivism being meaningfully incomunicable and in any sense that's not a definition of objectivism.
Relativism doesn't deny "objectivity", it just says the particular domain is distinct in some manner from the more universal domain. So what energy and matter is in biology is different from (either by being a partial of or not) physics.
Can you mention any source saying exactly what you said?
- EugeneW
- doesn’t say “Relativism doesn't deny "objectivity"
- doesn’t make reference to a “more universal domain”.
It says a particular domain and I think that inherently implies a more universal domain.
It also uses a particular object inside that particular domain (for ethics the moral agent) and the particular context is derived from the more universal context.
This being said I think the better way to word it is objectivity doesn't deny relativism. I would argue relativism requiring an external object commits it to "objectivity". Would you agree with either?
As a further step, we can then criticize these statements, but, as a starting point, in relativism everything is particular, everything is relative.
Objectivity does not deny relation, dependence, which is different from relativism. For example, objectivity admits that a fruit is related to the tree that produced it and is related to us who think of it, besides existing on its own. Relativism makes a step that brings us to a different level: relativism says that that fruit can be conceived by us only inside its dependence from us who are thinking of it. According to relativism it is humanly impossible to imagine the existence of that fruit on its own, independently from us, because, in the same moment we think of it, we are automatically putting it inside the frame of our ideas, making it dependent from our ideas.
For relativism the idea of “external” is an illusion, because, as soon as we think of it, it is automatically an idea internal to our mind, our brain, our mental schemes and frames.
I said "more universal" not universal itself although I think taken to any other degrees it eventually implies a universal domain and, through the same criticism of "objectivity", we can claim the most universal domain is effectively the universal domain for all intents and purposes of what object is involved.
Now I was going to justify that by saying the subjective domain is probably the most particular a human or conscious being can go and then build up from there to say there are inherently more universal domains as relativism necessitates the subjective domain to be more particular than the external domain it's examining but you seemed to make equivalent relativism with subjectivism. I was wondering if you had a justification for that.
Yes, I consider relativism equivalent to subjectivism, because relativism means that we, as subjects, cannot think of anything without automatically making it dependent on our subjectivity.
I think you're using more idealist or epistemologically-demanding metaphysics for your conceptions of universal vs relativist (= subjectivist).
In any case, math problems are "universal" to man while logic is universal to man but math is a proper subset of logic and even if you're not willing to grant that, calculus is derived from arithmetic operations at least partially (you must use arithmetic to write calculus). In any case there's clearly more structure than "universal/relativist/subjective" unless we use human perception as the standard which necessitates relativism to speak of these things even if it isn't an accurate way to express what these objects domains are.
When we see that, if we add two apples to two more apples, we have 4 apples as a final result, a lot of people think that this is an objective phenomenon of nature, not dependent on us, because it works the same to everybody, everytime, everywhere. This way we forget that the very ideas of “2”, “4”, “apple”, “adding”, “result”, every idea, scheme and frame involved in all of this, they are all built by our brain. The final result of “4” looks like a proof, an evidence that the operation happened outside our brain, but we again forget that the final perception, evaluation, idea, of “4” comes from our brain, our mind.
From a relativistic point of view we can realize that, in any operation, it is impossible to do it without our brain interfering in it, at least in the last stage, when we receive the final information. So, if it is impossible to understand anything without using our brain, how can we trust our understanding, since any check, any verification needs our brain again to be introduced in the process?
This means that we can accept a rough idea of objectivity in everyday life, but, if we want to be fundamentally exact, precise, like philosophy wants to be, we are forced not to trust any of our knowledge, because any knowledge cannot escape receiving interference of our mind.
I would think to solve the crisis we would have to treat the brain as an object within its own right. Then we can analyze the nature of it, and what thoughts/interpretations are derived from it, more accurately.
In any case these thoughts and beliefs all entail objects anyways which are referenced from the objects (if you misinterpret the object then some consequence arrives).
I think a good example is deciding to hang out with friend a because they are funny and deciding to hang out with anyone because they are funny. The subjective position would seek the funniest person adjacent to you where the relative position would seek person a for their funnyness.
A lot of philosophy distinguishes between the two but in any case, whatever you want to call it, predication inherently implies more particular and more universal claims and those can't all be conflated into a subjective disposition or you lose any meaning to connect or speak about anything except yourself at all (nevermind accuracy or degree).
Also, speaking about a dog entails an animal but that doesn't mean you're fundamentally speaking about an animal.
This objection works if we consider relativism in a static way, as it was something conclusive, like a system of ideas, an ideology. I think a lot of relativists make this error. Instead, relativism is not a system, it is part of an ongoing process.
Your objection is similar to those who say that the statement “everything is relative” is self contradictory, because it claims a universal truth and also because it needs to be applied to itself, so that the statement is to be considered relative as well, and this way it looses its universality.
This last objection as well works if we consider relativism like a static system of ideas.
Instead, as I said, it should be conceived as a process. As a process, it needs to make use of a language that contains a lot of words and expressions that assume static and universal meanings. So, relativism is in a very difficult situation, having to use the language as an instrument that was shaped by non relativist mentalities.
This makes me think that relativism, since it is not a system, is not solipsism, is not closed and cannot be 100% independent from objectivist words, language, mentality, concepts. It is a work in progress, an exploration, a work of never ending criticism and self-criticism.
This makes it weak and strong at the same time.
I don't disagree. I think I was trying to say all of them could effectively be spoken about under one system but can only ineffectively be talked about separately.
Once found, we can only relate to this objectivity in our own way. Doesn’t mean we can’t find it in the first place. It is our interpretation that is not objective.
Yeah but you can't interpret the object as anything but a series of predicates away from your subjectivity.
What object?
Whichever object that would be understood as objectivly, relativly or subjectivly interpretable fundamentally. I'd say it's impossible to interpret any object as subjectively and trivially they all have some input and can be better understood as predicates from your subjectivity.
Sure - but the idea is to get beyond this limited relation to a subject-object dichotomy. What if there was no ‘object’ as such? What if we didn’t exist as a ‘subject’? Language structure limits our ability to talk in this way, but not our ability to experience, imagine and relate.
I like getting past that dichotomy too but in my experience we can only perceive objects (whether they're hallucinations/simulations/etc or not). Darkness for instance has no material object but it's clearly an object and we can see whether we predicate out to it well enough to see if the predications rightfully describe that object. I treat everything as an object. How would you try to go past the dichotomy?
Darkness is a quality, and even attributed to an object, it is relative both to our perspective, and to the dimensional structure of the object. A room you might consider to be dark doesn’t appear as dark to someone wearing night-vision goggles. Also darkness as attributed to a room is not identical to darkness attributed to an action, which is not identical to darkness attributed to a person.
Sure but that never accounts for the object. Your perception can miss a carriage going across the road and you may still get hit by it (the objection to berkeleyan idealism until he posited that we're all in God's mind to solve the issue). If you conflate them all to subjective then you can't account for these things.
Again - what object? We’re not talking about a carriage going across the road, but about the quality of darkness. If you notice a relative darkness in your field of vision, it could be the shadow of a carriage about to hit you - or it could just be a cloud obscuring the sunlight. Darkness isn’t expected to account for the difference here that determines the object of your perception.
Darkness is an object as well and "qualify of" it is a predicate of darkness. If "quality of" is determined by the subject then darkness itself is still unreferencible solely from the subject.
You’re still limiting any possible relation with darkness to what can be asserted within language structure. Stop trying to describe or define darkness from a subject. Instead, imagine what aspect of darkness would be common to ALL possible subject-object iterations. Then test this theory by simulating or experiencing alternative logical perspectives of this vague, qualitative idea of darkness, until you’re confident with the applicable accuracy of your understanding, regardless of any subjective perspective, let alone any particular linguistic or logical assertion.
Randomness is the variability of any structure. Structure is, by its very nature, a limitation. Music quality is not just about melody.
I thought you were being serious lol
If you have antipathy to philosophy then pick up a logic book or a math proofs one.
In any case, you were defining it from the subject and the predicate is a stand-in for what's ontologically grasped next (e.g. I have no interest in how you understand darkness itself but whatever you do it may follow that "subject observes light in the negation that comes off as darkness" and you have an accurate path of predication that allows the subject but treats the object as separate).
If you’re unwilling to understand beyond your own perspective, let alone beyond language’s structure of subject-predicate-object, then why bother asking? Philosophy is not limited by logic. Understanding logical structure enables philosophers to relate accurately to what lies beyond its limits.
Take another look at what you’ve written. You’ve narrowly defined darkness relative to an observation event, simply shifting to ‘light’ as the object. So you’re still bound by the subject-object distinction.
Lol anyways you were the one saying we could find it from the subject as a foundation. Keep in mind that was just an epistemological track not an ontological one (clearly you have to start with yourself for the epistemological track).
Evolutionary genetic mutations are only random for human understanding. The chemical changes that are mutations are predictable (since they are chemical changes) and can be explained after the fact. Their effect on the changes of the structure or functioning of the superstructure, or of the organism, is also predictable, inasmuch as it is repeatable and accurately reflecting the same superstructure changes in the offspring of two similar organism pairs when the same DNA change occurs in both.
Radioactive decay is not random inasmuch as its rate is highly accurately predictable. I understand that the individual decaying elements can't be pointed out before they undergo the change.
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I claim ignorance, and validly so, about noise, quantum fluctuations, and Kolmogorov randomness. I would like to think that there are probably causational, theoretically explicable functionalities to these movements, and there are completely non-predictable ones, such as picking the atoms whose nuclei will undergo change in radioactivity. In our macrophysical world everything is causational; it seems in the microphysical (quantum) world that is not true. I can't address that issue, as my knowledge is insufficient to have proper insight on that part of your argument.
Naturally I capitulate to your reasoning now, because I can't know whether what I am rejecting is true or not. Just remember, that, for instance, in an electron cloud around the nucleus we don't know where the electron is at any given instant (if electrons exist in the first place), but we know that all electron clouds in separate instances of a given element are identical in a given state of excitement.
One must be careful claiming randomness; when we say "where is the electron", we ask the wrong question, and claim randomness illogically, because the electron is distributed in the entire cloud, according to some probability function, and the electron as a unit never exists in a corporation anywhere in the cloud.
You're welcome to your dogmatic stance, gmba! I won't trouble you trying to discuss this topic with you any further, and I appreciate the (time-saving) honesty
Not to say that I am heroically stupid. Dogma is for the ignorant, always has been. But there are hardly any dogmatists who view themselves as dogmatists.
My dogma is determinism, inasmuch as I believe every change is caused, and there is no change uncaused. If this is true, then true or absolute unpredictability is impossible. Theoretically speaking. I had to make a choice where to stand, I took the dogmatist stand on believing that our world is deterministic.