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Material Space & Complex Time

ucarr May 19, 2022 at 15:17 7450 views 48 comments
This is a scientific theory with philosophical ramifications, especially pertaining to ontology_materialism_cosmology. I want to know if the conclusion is persuasive to the extent it seems to follow from the premise_argument_evidence.

Chief Premise – universe is the limit of system

Argument – Incompleteness (Kurt Gödel) is the chief attribute of all foundational systems, including our semi-universe

The Three-Part Parallel

As wave is to particle, so space is to material object, so energy is to motion
In each instance, the b-term of the duet particularizes the diffusion of the a-term

Space = motion without time
For any interval of space, that interval is equal to an interval of motion with elapsed time = 0
likewise
A material object = motion without time
For any linear dimension of a material object, that interval is equal to an interval of motion with elapsed time = 0
thus
Space = a type of material object
thus
The material nature of space

Regarding motion, per the above

Motion = deformation of a material object (as described in Relativity*)

*This is the idea that increase of mass due to acceleration = deformation_warpage of the geometry of a material object. As acceleration approaches light speed, with associated infinity of mass, the geometry of a material object becomes unspecifiable.

In this context, a better word than deformation is liquiformation, a neologism.

liquiformation – the rendering of a material configuration to an indeterminate state prior to reformation

Speculation – Liquiformation may have played a central role in the big bang expansion.

What we’re looking at
A triad that interweaves motion-space-material

This triad sources the multiplexes of material expansion

Supporting Premise – time is a fundamental attribute of existence (Lee Smolin)

Argument – Because time cannot be stopped, not even within a singularity*, it supports multiple tiers of itself. Multi-tiered, or complex time, via relativity, transcends all hard boundaries. The universe is thus incomplete, and shall remain so, as incompleteness, like time (and via time) is a fundamental attribute of existence.
*The disequilibrium necessary to inflation of the singularity wouldn’t be possible without the presence of time within the singularity.

Complex motion_Complex time – The motion of motion & the time of time. The universe has no center & no boundaries because the motion of motion keeps pushing through false paradoxes that expand (from collapsed state) to upward dimensional states that perplex permanently static boundaries.

Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate true statements that can’t be justified within the generating system.
in parallel
Every basic phenomenal system will support phenomena that can’t be expanded within itself. This exoteric phenomena appears within its generating system as a paradox. Paradox is a sign post pointing to an upwardly dimensional multiplex wherein the paradox is resolved through expansion.

Example – Complex Motion – Two Atlases, real strong men, are tossing back and forth a tv that’s turned on, displaying moving pictures. These guys never drop the tv, so the game of toss has some complex motion going on as follows:

There’s an old western playing on the tv featuring a runaway stagecoach pulled by four horses with a damsel in distress trying to reign in the chaos without success. Pulling up alongside her comes the hero riding a fast stallion. After some calculation, the hero jumps onto one of the quartet horses, forcefully reigns in the panicking steeds, calms the crisis, thus bringing the calamity to a gradual close. There’s rising tension towards a kiss as the cowboy gazes into the eyes of the girl while making sure she’s alright, but later for that. Maybe a buss after the square dance in the barn.

The old western supplies the motion. The game of toss of the two Atlases provides the motion-of-motion. Since the motion boundaries of the western are upwardly dimensionalized by the game of toss, thus producing independent inertial frames of reference of motion and motion-of-motion, relativity keeps them local and independent and thus the framing boundary of the tv screen is only an apparent boundary, as our perception of the game of toss makes clear to us.

Maybe our expanding universe won’t die the death of equilibrium after all.

Conclusion – Material Space & Complex Time support the incompleteness conceptualization of our semi-universe.


Comments (48)

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:39 #697706
Quoting ucarr
Example – Complex Motion – Two Atlases, real strong men, are tossing back and forth a tv that’s turned on, displaying moving pictures. These guys never drop the tv, so the game of toss has some complex motion going on as follows:


I haven't seen such powerful example of an accelerated reference frame before!
ucarr May 19, 2022 at 16:35 #697742
Quoting Hillary
I haven't seen such powerful example of an accelerated reference frame before!


Thanks for weighing in, Hillary!

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 16:44 #697747
Reply to ucarr

:up:

I'm struggling still with some things you offer, brother ucarr. But at least you offer something new and interesting. That's how philosophy should be! I'll be back! There's a little lady dog staring me in the face with asking eyes. "Wanna walk daddy!" Woofwoof!!!
ucarr May 19, 2022 at 17:15 #697768
Reply to Hillary

It's springtime. Fresh air!
Joshs May 19, 2022 at 18:51 #697810
Reply to Hillary Quoting Hillary
But at least you offer something new and interesting. That's how philosophy should be!


I have a hard time thinking of theories by physicists as philosophy. I know it’s at least a form of applied philosophy. We use models from physics as proxies for philosophy when we don’t have enough background in actual philosophical discourse, and as result it always ends up being a reinvention of the wheel.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:59 #697819
Reply to Joshs

I think I see right through you. You think a physicist knows everything better. Well lemme tellya, I dont. Its just one reality amongst many.
180 Proof May 19, 2022 at 19:01 #697820
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:05 #697822
Quoting Joshs
We use models from physics as proxies for philosophy when we don’t have enough background in actual philosophical discourse, and as result it always ends up being a reinvention of the wheel.


Which wheel? I have invented a far better thing than a wheel. A structure on which the universe can inflate into existence repeatedly! The gods did a great job! They had selfish reasons but Ill settle for that! Proxies for philosophy? You feel threatened? How offers a physical model a proxie? It's just a part!
Joshs May 19, 2022 at 19:20 #697833
Reply to Hillary Quoting Hillary
Which wheel? I have invented a far better thing than a wheel. A structure on which the universe can inflate into existence repeatedly! The gods did a great job! They had selfish reasons but Ill settle for that! Proxies for philosophy? You feel threatened? How offers a physical model a proxie? It's just a part!


But you haven’t invented , you have reinvented. I’m
not saying your account of the genesis of the physical world from gods is a mere duplication of an extant discourse, I’m saying that it fits very comfortably within a certain era and movement in philosophy. You would be able to enrich your articulation of your worldview by familiarizing yourself with the thinking of some of these authors. It would also make your thinking more accessible to others , by giving them more
routes of access to your ideas. This is the great strength of Continental modes of philosophy.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:28 #697835
Quoting Joshs
But you haven’t invented , you have reinvented


Of course! You think I invented that 5D vacuum structure with virtual particles? Of course not! It were the gods! And they showed me in a dream. Im the humble messenger.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:33 #697839
Quoting Joshs
You would be able to enrich your articulation of your worldview by familiarizing yourself with the thinking of some of these authors. It would also make your thinking more accessible to others , by giving them more
routes of access to your ideas. This is the great strength of Continental modes of philosophy.


:up:
jgill May 19, 2022 at 19:34 #697840
Quoting ucarr
Chief Premise – universe is the limit of system


Quoting ucarr
A material object = motion without time


Quoting ucarr
Space = motion without time



No lack of imagination here. Limit of what system? However, these are metaphysical hypotheses that have little bearing on physical reality.



Joshs May 19, 2022 at 19:36 #697842
Reply to Hillary Quoting Hillary
Of course! You think I invented that 5D vacuum structure with virtual particles? Of course not! It were the gods! And they showed me in a dream. Im the humble messenger.


I do have a question. You chose to appoint a plurality of gods to take the place of a mono-theism. The idea of god as single unified personality was quite an innovation in the history of theology. By conceiving of the divine as unified , we simultaneously saw the human psyche as a autonomous and internally unified. It also gave us a view of the cosmos as a perfect unity. What are you trying to say about us and the world by connecting us back to a plurality of deities rather than the One?
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:45 #697845
Quoting ucarr
Speculation – Liquiformation may have played a central role in the big bang expansion.


I've encountered this view while discussing with another user. He compared space with water.

Quoting ucarr
Because time cannot be stopped, not even within a singularity


Here I disagree. If you throw a watch in a black hole, it doesn't stop indeed. It gets almosts instantly radiated away by Hawking radiation (the information, that is).

If we consider the 5D quantum structure, the 5D wormhole connecting two hyperbolic spaces) there is no direction of time. It goes to and fro. But indeed, the oscillation (which is by itself a kind of clock) doesn't stop.

Quoting ucarr
Space = a type of material object


I agree. But which material?

Quoting ucarr
Supporting Premise – time is a fundamental attribute of existence (Lee Smolin)


Agree. But not the clock.

Quoting ucarr
universe is the limit of system


Not sure I understand.

The motion of motion is the motions in a moving reference frame?
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:46 #697846
Quoting Joshs
Why are you trying to say about us and the world by connecting us back to a plurality of deities rather than the One?
9m


One moment. Gonna make some coffee fir me and my lady...
jgill May 19, 2022 at 19:58 #697852
Quoting ucarr
Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate true statements that can’t be justified within the generating system.


Not quite, but who cares?

Quoting ucarr
Complex time


You want "complex time"? Here's an example: T=t+ib(t). A ballistic missile defines a trajectory that has the following real part - the normal time in flight = t. For the imaginary part, suppose the missile were to hit an imaginary wall at normal time t and drop to the ground. The normal time it takes to drop to the ground is b(t). :cool:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 20:02 #697856
Quoting Joshs
The idea of god as single unified personality was quite an innovation in the history of theology. By conceiving of the divine as unified , we simultaneously saw the human psyche as a autonomous and internally unified. It also gave us a view of the cosmos as a perfect unity. What are you trying to say about us and the world by connecting us back to a plurality of deities rather than the One?


Not sure if this was a progression. This idea of a unified abstract omni monster god originates in Xenophanes who wasn't satisfied with the plurality of gods in his time. The idea fitted with the idea of a single abstract mathematical heaven introduced by Plato. The reality was knowable only approximately, in Plato's case by math. It fitted well with the trend of abstraction. But it became less personal (there it is, the impersonal absolute reality). It underlies modern science.

Why can't the universe just be a material temporary version of heaven and life in it? Which in orinciple can make each form of life a god. I know it sounds ridiculous, but why, literally, shouldn't there be whale gods, monkey gods, virus gods even? I dreamt i saw a beautiful place in nature where all were working enthusiastically during the preambles to creation. Collectively they were looking for, the gods particle. Turned out they needed just two! Plus that damned 5D vacuum structure, which appeared in full color, pumping out two universes, in both sides of the wormhole, on the beating. To let a temporary version of heaven inflate periodically. Their reason? Boredom from the eternal life!
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 20:07 #697857
Reply to jgill

Complex time, it, is used in relativity. Quoting jgill
T=t+ib(t)


z=t+ib(t)? If t increases ib(t) rotates! That's what happening all around us. The vacuum time fluctuates! Jgill, my man! :grin:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 20:14 #697862
Quoting jgill
For the imaginary part, suppose the missile were to hit an imaginary wall


The imaginary wall making time imaginary? :chin:

You're taking a walk with us! :joke:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 20:15 #697863
Quoting jgill
Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate true statements that can’t be justified within the generating system.
— ucarr

Not quite, but who cares?


I care! Is it the other way round?

ucarr May 19, 2022 at 20:35 #697872
Quoting jgill
Limit of what system?


Quoting Joshs
By conceiving of the divine as unified , we simultaneously saw the human psyche as a autonomous and internally unified. It also gave us a view of the cosmos as a perfect unity. Why are you trying to say about us and the world by connecting us back to a plurality of deities rather than the One?


I've quoted Joshs above as part of my reply to jgill's question at the top. More than a few philosophers want to comprehend "the cosmos as a perfect unity," want to be spiritually subsumed into The One of Platonism, want to resonate with the oscillations of universal Om.

Special Relativity replaces universal time with time dependent on reference frame & spatial position. I think we've got to spend more time navigating the local neighborhoods of existence before presuming to have a valid & practical comprehension of The One.

Metaphysicians can makes claims for the independence of their discipline, except when contradicted by scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence. Premature attempts to distill philosophy from science amounts to foolish class warfare. The two disciplines need each other.

Universe is the limit of system, my chief premise, has me claiming not even the material universe is a verifiable oneness, not to mention metaphysical speculations about oneness. I think Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem runs through the heart of a viable cosmology. Likewise, the essential reality of a sequence of unique & unrepeatable moments in time declared by Lee Smolin.

The human mind seeks patterns as foundations for its understandings. With respect to the cognitive importance of patterns, I think science is much younger than philosophy, which is to say, far less certain about the meaning (or existence) of "the cosmos as a perfect unity."

Reply to jgill

System, in general, makes an asymptotic approach to all-inclusive oneness, which is to say, our existence is always approaching but never arriving at oneness. And hallelujah to that! Since we all need something to live for, oneness, heaven & total harmony are the enemy.

The greatest question of all is, "What next?"







ucarr May 19, 2022 at 20:37 #697874
Quoting jgill
You want "complex time"? Here's an example: T=t+ib(t). A ballistic missile defines a trajectory that has the following real part - the normal time in flight = t. For the imaginary part, suppose the missile were to hit an imaginary wall at normal time t and drop to the ground. The normal time it takes to drop to the ground is b(t). :cool:


:up:
ucarr May 19, 2022 at 20:40 #697875
Quoting Hillary
Not sure if this was a progression. This idea of a unified abstract omni monster god originates in Xenophanes who wasn't satisfied with the plurality of gods in his time. The idea fitted with the idea of a single abstract mathematical heaven introduced by Plato. The reality was knowable only approximately, in Plato's case by math. It fitted well with the trend of abstraction. But it became less personal (there it is, the impersonal absolute reality). Why can't heaven just be a material temporary version of heaven and life in it? Which in orinciple can make each form of life a god. I know it sounds ridiculous, but why, literally, shouldn't there be whale gods, monkey gods, virus gods even? I dreamt i saw a beautiful place in nature where all were working enthusiastically during the preambles to creation. Collectively they were looking for, the gods particle. Turned out they needed just two! Plus that damned 5D vacuum structure, which appeared in full color, pumping out two universes, in both sides of the wormhole, on the beating. To let a temporary version of heaven inflate periodically. Their reason? Boredom from the eternal life!


You're onto something here! Keep on truckin'
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 20:43 #697879
Quoting ucarr
You're onto something here! Keep on truckin'


Thanks!
I keep my hands on the wheel! :wink:
Joshs May 19, 2022 at 21:34 #697921
Reply to ucarr Quoting ucarr
Special Relativity replaces universal time with time dependent on reference frame & spatial position. I think we've got to spend more time navigating the local neighborhoods of existence before presuming to have a valid & practical comprehension of The One.


But it does not eliminate the idea of a single unified space-time totality within which relative reference and position are orientated. What it does is replace a causal grid with a gestalt . The One god remained important for Einstein.

Quoting ucarr
Metaphysicians can makes claims for the independence of their discipline, except when contradicted by scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence. Premature attempts to distill philosophy from science amounts to foolish class warfare. The two disciplines need each other.


Scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence are riddled through and. through with metaphysical presuppositions. For instance , what is the r relation between theory-driven interpretation, observation and evidence? Only a science whose metaphysical presuppositions are consistent with those of a philosophical stance can challenge that philosophy.
Special Relativity has nothing to teach phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a future of physics.
ucarr May 19, 2022 at 22:01 #697935
Quoting Joshs
But it does not eliminate the idea of a single unified space-time totality


No, it doesn't. However, idea & practical phenomenon are not always the same thing, which is the point of seeking experimental verification by literally countless observers. I don't know if The One god, being intangible, can ever be subjected to an authentically public scrutiny.

Quoting Joshs
Scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence are riddled through and. through with metaphysical presuppositions.


There's no doubt of this and, I say, also, metaphysical commitments are predicated upon would-be scientific observations of nature. And moreover, the interweave of observation-interpretation-evidence falls under the scrutiny of the science of consciousness studies no less than under the ruminations of phenomenology.

Quoting Joshs
Special Relativity has nothing to teach phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a future of physics.


I would amend this claim as follows,

Special Relativity has nothing to teach the received opinion component of phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a conjectured future of physics.

Joshs May 19, 2022 at 22:10 #697940
Reply to ucarr Quoting ucarr
Special Relativity has nothing to teach the received opinion component of phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a conjectured future of physics.


If you’re trying to distinguish between something you would want to call scientific method from your conception of the methods of inquiry typifying continental
philosophy, as that between experimental conjecture and received opinion, I would strongly suggest that no such distinction can be drawn. A philosophical account is no more or less tentative, and no more or less validated, than a scientific one.

Quoting ucarr
idea & practical phenomenon are not always the same thing, which is the point of seeking experimental verification by literally countless observers. I don't know if The One god, being intangible, can ever be subjected to an authentically public scrutiny.


One god, in its most general sense, is precisely what is subjected to an authentically public scrutiny through experimental verification by countless
observers, because the shard commitment to a certain understanding of concepts like ‘observation’ and ‘experimental verification’ already presupposes a certain. metaphysics. In a certain historical era of science, this made God and scientific truth synonymous.

“It is often said that what distinguishes science from other modes of knowledge is that it is not dogmatic, like theology, but rather is willfully fallible, that is, it will quickly alter its hypotheses and claims to ‘truth' based on new evidence. But there are perhaps two ways of understanding this fallibility. In the first, if truth is expressed in propositions that refer to or denote reality, then one could see science, in principle at least, marching toward a kind of complete or ‘absolute' truth, where the descriptions given in propositions will perfectly denote the corresponding reality — the map will become equivalent to the territory. Science, in this view, is an asymptotic progress toward an ideal, and that ideal is the ‘Form of the True,' even if in fact science may never reach this ideal. As Kant showed, it is the idea of God that expresses this ideal of absolute knowledge. Indeed, it has been argued that, in the seventeenth century, science was a secularized theology: the notion of one God as an eternal being with immutable attributes was transferred onto a single Nature governed by a set of unchanging laws (Deus sive natura). Monotheism was transformed into a mono-naturalism that still held on to an eternal form of the true.“(Dan Williams)
jgill May 19, 2022 at 22:23 #697943
Quoting Hillary
I care! Is it the other way round?


What is "true"?

First Incompleteness Theorem: "Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F." (Raatikainen 2015)
Wiki
jgill May 19, 2022 at 22:41 #697958
Quoting ucarr
System, in general, makes an asymptotic approach to all-inclusive oneness, which is to say, our existence is always approaching but never arriving at oneness.


The allegory of all I've done in a nutshell.
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 01:38 #698025
Reply to jgill

Thanks for the correction. So, as to the following quote,

Quoting ucarr
Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate true statements that can’t be justified within the generating system.


I amend it to,

Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate moot statements.



ucarr May 20, 2022 at 01:45 #698030
Quoting Hillary
...time cannot be stopped, not even within a singularity
— ucarr

Here I disagree. If you throw a watch in a black hole, it doesn't stop indeed. It gets almosts instantly radiated away by Hawking radiation (the information, that is).


Leonard Susskind won a debate with Hawking to the effect that 2nd law of thermodynamics is preserved through the singularity, and thus no info is permanently lost, which would include temporal info.

ucarr May 20, 2022 at 02:19 #698059
Quoting Joshs
f you’re trying to distinguish between something you would want to call scientific method from your conception of the methods of inquiry typifying continental
philosophy, as that between experimental conjecture and received opinion, I would strongly suggest that no such distinction can be drawn. A philosophical account is no more or less tentative, and no more or less validated, than a scientific one.


If a philosopher is not a Berkeley type idealist, s/he acknowledges the source of ideas being external, objective nature (holistically unified, or not), and thus probative investigation requires empirical journeys beyond the boundaries of the explorer's own mind.

If you want to counter by arguing no explorer can get completely beyond one's mental boundaries, then we're venturing into Idealism's skeptical POV on the empirical. Is that where you're coming from?

Quoting Joshs
One god, in its most general sense, is precisely what is subjected to an authentically public scrutiny through experimental verification by countless
observers, because the shard [sic] commitment to a certain understanding of concepts like ‘observation’ and ‘experimental verification’ already presupposes a certain. metaphysics. In a certain historical era of science, this made God and scientific truth synonymous.


Sounds like herein you place your faith in Kant's transcendental idealism, which has the mind's conceptualization limits & biases shaping our view of nature via a priori intuition.

Well, Kant's claims about space & time (the foci of this theory) being necessarily rendered to us by a priori intuition hinges upon discarded Newtonian physics. We now know, in the wake of Einstein, that space & time are out there, impacting our world quite beyond the boundaries of mind.



Joshs May 20, 2022 at 03:02 #698080
Reply to ucarr Quoting ucarr
If a philosopher is not a Berkeley type idealist, s/he acknowledges the source of ideas being external, objective nature (holistically unified, or not), and thus probative investigation requires empirical journeys beyond the boundaries of the explorer's own mind.

[quote="ucarr;698059"]Sounds like herein you place your faith in Kant's transcendental idealism, which has the mind's conceptualization limits & biases shaping our view of nature via a priori intuition.

Well, Kant's claims about space & time (the foci of this theory) being necessarily rendered to us by a priori intuition hinges upon discarded Newtonian physics. We now know, in the wake of Einstein, that space & time are out there, impacting our world quite beyond the boundaries of mind.



Einstein’s work was fully compatible with Kantian Idealism, while Newton was following Descartes.

Quoting ucarr
If you want to counter by arguing no explorer can get completely beyond one's mental boundaries, then we're venturing into Idealism's skeptical POV on the empirical. Is that where you're coming from?


This is what I have in mind. It is indebted to Kant but it is not Kantian idealism. It is Pragmatism and phenomenology:


“ "I follow the trajectory that arises in the later Husserl and continues in Merleau-Ponty, and that calls for a rethinking of the concept of “nature” in a post-physicalist way—one that doesn't conceive of fundamental nature or physical being in a way that builds in the objectivist idea that such being is intrinsically of essentially non-experiential. But, again, this point doesn't entail that nature is intrinsically or essentially experiential (this is the line that pan-psychists and Whiteheadians take). (Maybe it is, but I don't think we're now in position to know that.) All I want to say for now (or think I have grounds for saying now) is that we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualist–that is, beyond the divide between the “mental” (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the “physical” (understood as not conceptually involving the mental).

“Many philosophers have argued that there seems to be a gap between the objective, naturalistic facts of the world and the subjective facts of conscious experience. The hard problem is the conceptual and metaphysical problem of how to bridge this apparent gap. There are many critical things that can be said about the hard problem (see Thompson&Varela, forthcoming), but what I wish to point out here is that it depends for its very formulation on the premise that the embodied mind as a natural entity exists ‘out there' independently of how we configure or constitute it as an object of knowledge through our reciprocal empathic understanding of one other as experiencing subjects. One way of formulating the hard problem is to ask: if we had a complete, canonical, objective, physicalist account of the natural world, including all the physical facts of the brain and the organism, would it conceptually or logically entail the subjective facts of consciousness? If this account would not entail these facts, then consciousness must be an additional, non-natural property of the world.

One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however — but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) — this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world.
(Evan Thompson)

Knowledge is taken to consist in a faithful mirroring of a mind-independent reality. It is taken to be of a reality which exists independently of that knowledge, and indeed independently of any thought and experience (Williams 2005, 48). If we want to know true reality, we should aim at describing the way the world is, not just independently of its being believed to be that way, but independently of all the ways in which it happens to present itself to us human beings. An absolute conception would be a dehumanized conception, a conception from which all traces of ourselves had been removed. Nothing would remain that would indicate whose conception it is, how those who form or possess that conception experience the world, and when or where they find themselves in it. It would be as impersonal, impartial, and objective a picture of the world as we could possibly achieve (Stroud 2000, 30). How are we supposed to reach this conception?

Metaphysical realism assumes that everyday experience combines subjective and objective features and that we can reach an objective picture of what the world is really like by stripping away the subjective. It consequently argues that there is a clear distinction to be drawn between the properties things have “in themselves” and the properties which are “projected by us”. Whereas the world of appearance, the world as it is for us in daily life, combines subjective and objective features, science captures the objective world, the world as it is in itself. But to think that science can provide us with an absolute description of reality, that is, a description from a view from nowhere; to think that science is the only road to metaphysical truth, and that science simply mirrors the way in which Nature classifies itself, is – according to Putnam – illusory. It is an illusion to think that the notions of “object” or “reality” or “world” have any sense outside of and independently of our conceptual schemes (Putnam 1992, 120).

Putnam is not denying that there are “external facts”; he even thinks that we can say what they are; but as he writes, “what we cannot say – because it makes no sense – is what the facts are independent of all conceptual choices” (Putnam 1987, 33). We cannot hold all our current beliefs about the world up against the world and somehow measure the degree of correspondence between the two. It is, in other words, nonsensical to suggest that we should try to peel our perceptions and beliefs off the world, as it were, in order to compare them in some direct way with what they are about (Stroud 2000, 27). This is not to say that our conceptual schemes create the world, but as Putnam writes, they don't just mirror it either (Putnam 1978, 1). Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.”
(Dan Zahavi)




Hillary May 20, 2022 at 03:18 #698087
Reply to ucarr

Must have been bitter champagne for Hawking. He bit his tires!

Recently, Strominger et. al. have dine some heavy cakculationd: soft hair! Some barbers. I could have told them though. It seems so obvious.
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 05:18 #698143
Reply to Joshs

Your elaboration of gnarly issues pertaining to the subject/object question shows clear & thoroughgoing scholarship on your part. I find what you've written very instructive and I understand myself to be a beneficiary of insightful readings & ruminations by you. I'm grateful for the time & effort you've expended in the writing of this latest post.

David Chalmers' Hard Problem of Consciousness is sparking current & exciting work in consciousness studies, and maybe you have fashioned a berth for yourself therein.

Quoting Joshs
Many philosophers have argued that there seems to be a gap between the objective, naturalistic facts of the world and the subjective facts of conscious experience.


I see that one of the big problems in bridging the gap is language. Subjective facts tries to express some realities of the observing self i.e., the personal POV, but it is blatantly a literal oxymoron because if subjectivity is factual, then it's objective, thus a general public of observers can perceive it in consensus, but, as we know, you're using Subjective facts in contrast with Objective facts.

I'm beginning to see your position overall as a heavily QM-influenced conceptualization & understanding of the hard problem; I'm thinking it's center is entanglement at the human scale.





Hillary May 20, 2022 at 05:33 #698150
Quoting ucarr
see that one of the big problems in bridging the gap is language


Thanks to language I have actually closed the gap. If I didn't speak with other people and read things I doubt this would have been the case.

Or do you mean the gap between people, speaking different languages?
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 05:37 #698151
Quoting Joshs
Einstein’s work was fully compatible with Kantian Idealism,


How can that be? Einstein saw spacetime as a real substance. Didn't Kant see it as an ideal, whose real being we can't know?
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 14:38 #698339
Quoting Hillary
Thanks to language I have actually closed the gap. If I didn't speak with other people and read things I doubt this would have been the case.


So... you've solved the hard problem. This is good news. Please share your solution with us.

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 15:49 #698345
Quoting ucarr
So... you've solved the hard problem. This is good news. Please share your solution with us.


Letmme give it a shot. The problem arises directly in the monist approach and indirectly in the dualist approach. The problem in the monist approach seems obvious. If we choose either mind or matter the fundamentals of reality, it's hard to explain their opposites. Impossible actually. Very hard!

We get somewhat closer to the truth if we combine the two monisms to form a powerful double, the dual. But new clouds rise in the dual blue sky. The clouds that block the Sun tell their rainy tale. We have rightly posited two monisms to be the basis of nature, but wrongly put them together as separate. If we consider them simply as belonging to the same elements, we see the Sun breaking through and a rainbow appear. The pot with gold shining is the magic stuff we were looking for! It explains consciousness, matter and their interconnectedness. Matter depends on mind, mind on matter.
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 16:08 #698355
Quoting Hillary
We have rightly posited two monisms to be the basis of nature, but wrongly put them together as separate. If we consider them simply as belonging to the same elements, we see the Sun breaking through and a rainbow appear.


Yin and Yang dualism!
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 16:11 #698358
Reply to ucarr

Get the picture? Both Ying and Yang would be hopelessly lost.
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 16:19 #698364
Quoting Hillary
Both Ying and Yang would be hopelessly lost.


In each other? Cosmic romance.

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 16:26 #698367
Quoting ucarr
In each other? Cosmic romance.


:grin:

That's an even better view! Ying and Yang hopelessly lost in each other. The new unifying dualism. Presented her on Tee-Pee-Fee...eeehh.... Tee-Pee-eeF!
ucarr May 20, 2022 at 17:17 #698379
Quoting Hillary
The new unifying dualism. Presented her on Tee-Pee-Fee...eeehh.... Tee-Pee-eeF!


:up:
Joshs May 20, 2022 at 18:22 #698381
Reply to Hillary Quoting Hillary
Matter depends on mind, mind on matter.


Wouldnt it be more satisfying to be able to see mind and matter as each in its own right possessing attributes that were formerly only seen in the other? Your approach, in Kantian fashion , maintains the split but makes each dependent on the other. What is needed is a way to get beyond the split, by making creative differentiation and transformation intrinsic to matter, and by understanding subjective feeling as having a kind of causality or logic.
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 18:25 #698382
Quoting Joshs
Wouldnt it be more satisfying to be able to see mind and matter as each in its own right possessing attributes that were formerly only seen in the other? Your approach, in Kantian fashion , maintains the split but makes each dependent on the other. What is needed is a way to get beyond the split, by making creative differentiation and transformation intrinsic to matter, and by understanding subjective feeling as having a kind of causality or logic.


Agree.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 19:25 #698404
Reply to Joshs

Let's consider, to get the taste, the simplicity of the early universe. Consider particles to be geometrical hyperspherical structures. Three dimensions of a 6D space curled up to Planck circles forming a tiny 3D closed structure, like a circle on a cyilinder forms a closed 1D spherical structure. The 1D circle moves in 1D only. Likewise, the 3D spherical Planck volumes move in three dimensions, the space around us. We can fill the Planckian volumes with physical charge. Seven kinds of them. The nature of charge is a great mystery in the world of physics. No physicist has an idea, and can't have an idea, of what it truly is. Let's call these charges mind charge. The vacuum is filled with virtual particles. Two kinds. Those used for the two basic massless matter fields, charged with various kinds of mindcharge. The compete set of charges can be specified but that go to far for a filosophy site. Suffices to know that their are two (again, the dual!) kinds of charges, attractive and repulsive. Mindcharge couples to the omnipresent virtual spectrum messenger particles. These contain mindcharge themselves, like the colored and supercolored charge, present in gluon messengers and supergluon messengers, or are mindcharge free, like the photon messenger. The two real basic massless mindcharges couple to the virtual messenger field (which can couple again to the two virtual basic massless matter mindcharge particles, which can couple again to the virtual messengers, etc. a bootstrap kind of interplay) to reach out to likes or anti likes.

To be continued. In the next episode we'll focus our attention to the origin of the real mindcharges in the primordial thermodynamically timeless (but filled with fluctuating time) 5D quantum vacuum to understand how TD time emerges together with a 3D time, and we'll try to get a better understanding of the duality.

Seeeeeeya next time! And remember, the gods are watching you! Make them laugh, make the cry, either way, you try!


ucarr May 22, 2022 at 03:27 #698925
Quoting Joshs
What is needed is a way to get beyond the split, by making creative differentiation and transformation intrinsic to matter, and by understanding subjective feeling as having a kind of causality or logic.


What you describe sounds to me like partial deconstruction of enlightenment scientific method back to modulated animism & also reinvigorated belief in instinct & intuition. Together these cultural currents appear to be slanting towards a mild version of postmodernism.