Ontological Relativism vs. Realism
I found that all my views have come from exploring two simple questions, one of which is “Why is there something, not nothing?”. This seeming paradox has been brought up in many threads, including the cosmological argument for God, but they all seem like rationalizations. So I noticed the question presumes there is something. What if there wasn’t? What empirical difference would that make? While difficult to get past the bias that there needs to be something, it turns out there is no difference.
It seems the position is a form of “Ontological Relativism” or possibly “Relational Realism”. I want to explore this view, but can find little if any references to how I envision it. What it is NOT is an epistemological stance or idealism or any other stance where reality supervenes on mind or concepts. Things exist only in relation to something (anything) else. There is no objective existence of anything, thus solving the problem of why existence exists. It doesn’t. Humans don't matter at all. The moon exists in relation to Earth, even if there was no life to observe it.
So I started with something like Ontic Structural Realism, except without the objective realism. The universe is a mathematical structure and things within it are real to each other. It is not platonic realism. Numbers are abstract (not real) to us, but relate (are real) to each other. 7 exists in relation to 9, or to the set of integers, but our universe is not existent in relation to them any more than numbers are real to us. 13 is prime, and doesn’t require objective existence to be prime. Similarly, we don’t require objective existence to relate to other parts of the structure. This is a key concept, demonstrating why objective ontology (or lack of it) makes no difference in the relations between different parts of the same structure.
It seems the position is a form of “Ontological Relativism” or possibly “Relational Realism”. I want to explore this view, but can find little if any references to how I envision it. What it is NOT is an epistemological stance or idealism or any other stance where reality supervenes on mind or concepts. Things exist only in relation to something (anything) else. There is no objective existence of anything, thus solving the problem of why existence exists. It doesn’t. Humans don't matter at all. The moon exists in relation to Earth, even if there was no life to observe it.
So I started with something like Ontic Structural Realism, except without the objective realism. The universe is a mathematical structure and things within it are real to each other. It is not platonic realism. Numbers are abstract (not real) to us, but relate (are real) to each other. 7 exists in relation to 9, or to the set of integers, but our universe is not existent in relation to them any more than numbers are real to us. 13 is prime, and doesn’t require objective existence to be prime. Similarly, we don’t require objective existence to relate to other parts of the structure. This is a key concept, demonstrating why objective ontology (or lack of it) makes no difference in the relations between different parts of the same structure.
Comments (81)
Quoting noAxioms
Quoting Andrew MI guess it was far longer than a day or two, but I wanted to attempt some research first. I found some dubious leads. The Stanford entry on Relativism doesn’t really go into it. It’s mostly about relativism of morals, aesthetics, truth and such. There is section 4.2 concerning conceptual relativism, but it seems to be again a form of idealism on concepts, not necessarily mind.
I found a Q/A on the Research Gate site.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_terms_for_various_ontological_positions_Are_realism_and_relativism_ontological_positions_If_yes_what_do_they_mean
They ask the question you see there in the link. Most popular answer was this from Luca Igansi,
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos:
OK, I am on track with that one. We’re not talking epistemology.
Here I must disagree, and this seems to be the point of my OP here. He says the only alternative to an objective reality is one relative to (or supervenes on) human mind. How very anthropocentric. Ontological relativism means relative to anything, but not supervening on that thing.
By "objective" here, do you mean "absolute"?
Quoting noAxioms
On your view, numbers seem to have an existence independent of matter (and mind) which would qualify as Platonic realism about universals.
Quoting noAxioms
I agree that absolute/relative is a different axis to realist/anti-realist (objective/subjective). Einstein's theory of relativity is a realist theory, for example.
The fact that the question can be asked rules out the possibility of there not being simply nothing. There could be no empirical anything if there were not anything to begin with. And it turns out that in order for someone to be around to even ask this question relies on there long having been a causal sequence that seems inextricably interconnected with what exists now.
Quoting noAxioms
That doesn’t allow for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Mathematics is predictive in the sense that it enables you to know things about the Universe which you would otherwise not be able to know. Why this is, is another matter, as Wigner points out. But Einstein also mused that ‘the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it’s comprehensible’.
There is a difference, since you exist.
Quoting noAxioms
I am having trouble distinguishing this 'clear line' between epistemology and ontology vis-a-vis this mathematical structure and you would need to explain this further. The problem I am having is that mathematics is our way of interpreting the world and not that mathematics itself exists outside of us. It is a useful heuristic we created to translate the patterns of physics and nature using numbers. This physical reality exists independent of you and I, but for you to claim this physical reality is a mathematical structure imposes the very invention of describing the universe you seek to avoid and thus quasi-empirical, particularly since mathematics is limited in articulating all possible realities in a cohesive formal system. Is realism and constructivism mutually exclusive? I have my reservations with mathematical realism and you would need to do somewhat better, however alluring Tegmark or Plato are.
Platonic realism says they have absolute or objective existence in a third realm of abstract things. The relativist view says they are real only to each other. This is independent of matter, sure. Something like the color red (universal) has existence under platonism, but is probably not independent of mind/matter since the 'red' is pretty meaningless outside that context. I explored platonism (lower case) for a while, but it is still a position of absolute reality.
"Ontologically, either you're a realist or an anti-realist. Either you accept facts are real independently of the "human mind" (realist), i.e. objective, or you accept that reality is only subjective (anti-realist)." [from Research Gate]
This view is not the objective/subjective axis either, so your initial comment is relevant. Absolute/relative is the axis in question here. Einstein's theory of relativity works on all sides of the objective/subjective axis, so it doesn't necessarily seem to be a realist theory. It is a relational theory, but not an ontological one. Time is relative to a reference frame, and there is no absolute time. Similarly, I am proposing that ontology is relative to something, but not anything in particular. It is not limited to being relative only to consciousness, but that is one valid thing to which the relation can be expressed. Idealism is a subset of relational ontology.
Buddhism addresses this seeming paradox, or dilemma, with its revelation that emptiness, or formlessness, or no-'thingness', is not other than form, which seems to imply an ontological primitive that must account for both, but then is unwilling to apply a name to whatever that is, perhaps recognizing that language, being a subject/object modality, is inadequate to resolve the apparent duality.
What I'm getting at here in a very cursory sort of way, is elaborated upon in the following blog post, which is surely of relevance and interest here: The Inconsistency of Nothing. Subjective or Objective?
What is "real", and is "reality" which must be for us, the same as the "real".
How we know what we know must precede what we know, even if what we know provides the conditions for how we know.
No?
So why not a 'real' Mind that emanates its 'real' ideations, being in essence not-two, as per Idealism?
Quoting WayfarerYou are presuming the very bias of which I spoke in my quote taken above. This view stands in opposition to that premise, so asserting it is just begging a different position. Demonstrate why it leads to contradiction, without at any point presuming this absolute realist premise.
Let us presume for simplicity a single-world deterministic interpretation of QM and a monist interpretation of mind. In that view, the universe is a 4D mathematical block structure, but not one requiring absolute existence. A person in that block is a worldline, and there is another worldline for an apple. The person worldline is a series of states, and a state has no experience. Thought is a process, and process is the difference between states. So the person-worldline in this structure would have the exact same experience in an existing structure as it would in the same structure without absolute existence. The structure is no different, only the ontology of it, and the experience depends only on the difference between states within the structure, not the ontology of the structure itself.
No, it doesn't turn out that way at all, and for you to reach that conclusion, my conclusion is that you're confused somewhere along the line.
There is of course something. There's you and I, and the world which we inhabit, and everything in it. This is known, at least in part, empirically. I can see people and other stuff.
If there was nothing, however, I wouldn't see people or other stuff or anything at all, because there would be nothing there to see. It would be impossible.
That's the difference.
You can call it "bias", but it's what I know. What we have here is another case of what philosophy can do to you: make you doubt what you know - which is not a good thing. My advice: resist it. Don't let yourself fall into the trap.
Tegmark did a pretty good job of demonstrating how our universe could be nothing more than such a mathematical structure. I think he then went a bit into Plato territory and presumed the existence of this structure. Not sure of this, since the structure itself is all that matters, and that doesn't change with ontology. A square still has 4 equal angles whether it has platonic existence or is just abstract.
We are talking about it in the context of this current Earth state which part of the structure that is this universe. I've attempted to illustrate just above how that is not impossible just because the structure itself exists no more than does the square that nevertheless has relations.
Will read the post, and hope it contains the sort of analysis that attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency for which I am seeking.
Try to say it fast!. Kindly rephrase a bit. Got lost there. Sounds like an argument I might have expressed in opposition to idealism.
"Badiou simply gives "this nothing" a name (namely, "the empty set"), et voilà, here we have our first being, the empty set, on the basis of which all other sets can be created. Now it will be obvious that, as an answer to Leibniz' question, this is totally unsatisfactory. I greatly admire the set-theoretic construction of mathematics out of the empty set. I'm even sympathetic to the idea that this construction may have some real ontological weight to it. But to answer the question "Is there something rather than nothing?" by simply giving a "proper name" to nothingness seems nothing more than a bad joke. Badiou's fallacy illustrates something of importance concerning the paradoxes surrounding the concept of nothingness. As soon as we start using "nothing" as a referring noun, we are in trouble: nothingness becomes a referent, an object. In that case, if we say that nothing exists, we imply that there exists this object called "the nothing", which is contradictory. It is clear that this contradiction is not an objective fact concerning the state where nothing exists. The contradiction is merely an effect of our objectification of this state. Just like Badiou cannot conjure being out of nothingness by giving the latter a proper name, so nothingness cannot be made inconsistent merely by our objectification of it." ~ Peter Sas
The nonexistent structure would still have those relations. There is something to see.
Isn't that what a bias is? You know it, but can't demonstrate it without presuming it. I've given examples of how structures have relations independent of their ontology. To assert that an abstract square does not have right angles unless instantiated seems to be just that, an assertion that is a different interpretation. Show why it is a contradiction of logic for the angles of an abstract square to be right angles, or why the analogy is invalid.
How we know what we know is epistemic (the starting point as Descartes showed), it must precede (in time) what we know, our ontology, but once we have decided on our ontological stance, then we can understand how it formed the conditions of our epistemology.
Yes, I see what you mean. In terms of Idealism it seems it can only be resolved by positing a 'real' Mind that emanates 'real' ideations, which immanently exist whether or not there is a finite locus of mind as its subject -- or in other words, a human locus of Mind, or a bird locus, or a locust locus, etc, etc.
I think the assumption "there is nothing", would need to be supported, and this would be impossible to support. All the evidence indicates that there is something, therefore "there is something" is a more sound premise than "there is nothing". And, "there is something" is the premise which supports the cosmological argument.
Aristotle explains in his Metaphysics, that when we separate the potential for existence from actual existence, and realize that the potential for a thing necessarily precedes that thing's actual existence, then the inquiry as to why there is something and not nothing is to question something in which the answer is necessarily inaccessible to us. It is a futile question because we cannot grasp "the potential for existence" except through the analysis of what actually exists, and this requires the assumption that there actually is something. To assume simply the potential for existence, is to assume nothing, and this leaves us with no premise to proceed from. This is why we must start with the premise "there is something", and the appropriate metaphysical question, he says, is the question of why there is what there is, instead of something else.
This post has two components, one is an attempt to sketch the construction of a ridiculously inclusive mathematical object which serves as the background 'model of things' in the OP, and the other attempts to situate what an ontology is in relation to the ridiculously inclusive object.
If you take any particular, there will be various different types of relation that apply to it. Every event can be related to any other event through the relations of antecedence and subsequence - occurred before and after interpreted as an ordering relation. Each proposition can be related to every other proposition through the relation of consistency partitioning arbitrary well formed logical formulae into consistent and inconsistent models. I think it's reasonable to posit that every particular can be related to every other particular in some way, and all relations can be related (and so on).
Imagine that we have access to the set of all particulars and every n-ary (generalised) relation between them (a construction similar to this but allowing 2-morphisms to map to 1-morphisms and introducing such 'cross' relations of arbitrary order and scope). This collection is a mathematical abstraction, but let's say that all of its elements are as real as any other, and every concrete particular and every relation between concrete particulars and abstract particulars (including all higher n-ary relations thereof) is contained within it. This is essentially the universe as considered in the OP. It's a jumble of everything in the broadest possible (or at least ridiculously broad) mathematised sense of a jumble of everything. Unsurprisingly that kind of object is not well understood.
Examples of elements in the jumble to remove the jargon - rocks are in it, the relationship between rocks and hills as 'currently rolling down' are in it, the relation between 'currently rolling down' and every possible physics-based description are in it, the individual rock's relation to every physics-based descriptions are in it, the rock's relationship to the mathematical abstraction of a group are in it. The abstract relationships between groups and every possible pairing and sub-pairing between these abstractions and rocks are in it. Everything in it is considered as an object in the same sense. Is anything interesting gained by asserting the existence of the whole thing or denying it? Probably not, as Quine noted:
in terms of giving an account of this 'everything', nothing about the properties of this giant jumbled object is determined by any insistence that the whole object exists. Rather, the properties of any subobject are determined conditionally upon their relation to any other subobject. In the giant jumble object itself (assuming we're allowed recourse to true and false as binary...), they'll be partitioned into subobjects consisting of obtaining relations of other subobjects and non-obtaining ones. If it is possible to construct (or assume there is) a choice function (or collection thereof indexed to subobject types) which acts on the giant jumble object in order to select every and only obtaining subobject relations, this gives a model of what there could be in terms of a sense of what obtains about it.
Unfortunately, the task of ontology is not to decide whether the giant jumble object exists or does not exist, it is to filter what obtains (questions of relation) and how/why it does so. In this formal sense a question of whether something exists in any sense is really only answerable to the sense in which it operates - Pegasus and a stick operate differently, who cares what we call existent and not, the operational difference suffices. Ontologies give fundamental ways of structuring questions about (and thereby elucidating) chains of relations and usually have their own native problematics. EG Heidegger's ontology isn't an ontology of dynamic ontical changes - and concerns the relation of human and Being, Democritus' atomism doesn't place much emphasis on the emergent relations of composites -it's concerned with the fundamental constituents of stuff, Hegel's doesn't place too much emphasis on the realities of social change - it's a historico-logical syntax of ideal development... Russel spent a lot of time dealing with fictional objects as problems for reference as a fundamental issue, others are indifferent to this problem - seeing fundamental issues as conceptual clarification with philosophical language as the medium for that clarification. It's conceivable that someone, perhaps like Jordan Peterson, would stress the reality of Pegasus in terms of its mythical-discursive structure - the relation between human and myth holds indifferent the contrast between Pegasus and a rock.
They all contain within them an idea of appropriate emphasis on what the fundamental questions are - the filter - and an account they deem appropriate (or at least in the right direction) for those questions [the constructed choice function].
Ontology neither begins nor ends with a decision on what exists, it concerns itself with the hows and whys of those things. So when you say 'it doesn't matter whether it exists or it doesn't' - you're missing the sense of why in question. Even if it doesn't matter there's still a hell of a lot of work to do interpreting the thing.
What empirical difference would that make? That question does not make sense. If there is empirical evidence, then there is something. If not, then there could still be something that is not evident empirically. Being quantified by the senses does not give some thing existence. Experiences are representations of things and are not necessary for the existence of those things.
Quoting noAxioms
How can relativism say that there is nothing more than some thing (like a mathematical structure)? It seems to me that in order for relativism to hold true, then the mathematical structure would need a non-mathematical structure in relation to it to exist and to say that it is a mathematical structure. In other words, relativism leads to an dualistic infinite regress. Realism does not seem to have that problem when it implies a final cause.
Quoting noAxiomsAny time you talk about some thing that exists independent of our senses you are implying that it has an objective existence. By Tegmark claiming that everything is nothing more than a mathematical structure, he has implied that the mathematical structure is not dependent on other things to exist, then it must have an objective existence. In order to say that nothing is objective, you'd have jump head-first in the the bottomless pit of infinite regress.
Even if they are, why does that matter? There's something nevertheless, and something is distinct from nothing.
Quoting noAxioms
I can make reasonable inferences based on what I observe and what I know. That's what I've done, and that's why I reject your conclusion. I see little reason to talk of numbers or Plato.
Quoting noAxioms
That doesn't make any sense. You're committing the reification fallacy by talking about a nonexistent structure as if it exists. There would be no structure whatsoever, and nothing to relate to. There wouldn't be anything, there would be nothing. If there is something to see, then it can't be nothing. So what are you talking about? Something or nothing?
Quoting noAxioms
No, not by definition. I suspect you already know that, but if not, then look it up.
Quoting noAxioms
Well, I'm a foundationalist, because I think that being a foundationalist leads to a picture which can best reflect reality. Starting from a foundation, I can demonstrate a thing or two.
Quoting noAxioms
A concept is not the same as an instantiation. What do you want to talk about? The concept of nothing, which I have no problem granting has relations, or nothing, for which there would be nothing to relate to anything, as there would only be nothing. There [I]could[/I] only be nothing.
I'm just being logical here.
For once, we agree.
What could I have possibly done wrong to deserve this? Now the next point the premise "that there is something" supports the cosmological argument. You still agree?
Quoting CavacavaThis sounds reasonable. Suppose I have decided on a relational stance on ontology. From that I am forming the conditions of our epistemology.
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverI would have perhaps worded it as "Not anything is", and I'm not asserting it, but just asserting the viability of it.
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverBut that evidence is based on only relations, so the premise of "there is something" is unfounded since the same empirical evidence is had in either interpretation.
Well I guess this is quite different then, because it now appears like you are allowing for the actuality of things, but there is a property or attribute which is referred to with "is", that you are denying as unreal. I would assume that "is" refers to being at the present, and you are saying that nothing could actually be at the present. This is very reasonable, because the present is very much unsubstantiated and it doesn't appear likely that it could support things. For instance, every time I say "now", by the time I finish saying that it is in the past. So it seems very unlikely that anything "is" at the present, because that which is supposed to be at the present would always disappear, instantaneously, into the past.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't know what you mean by this, "based only on relations". I think a relation requires things that are related, and the recognition of the things is prior to the recognition of the relations. In other words we must acknowledge that there are things, before we can acknowledge that there are relations. Therefore it is impossible that there is only relations. So I would argue the exact opposite of what you are saying. Evidence that there are relations is based on the premise "there are things". Therefore the conclusion "there are only relations" is invalid because "relations" requires necessarily, that there are things which are related..
Good so far, but the particulars you speak of here are components of the structure. The structure itself seems to be neither a particular nor a universal. Earth exists as a particular within my simplified uni-world QM model. It exists in relation to the structure, although not completely. It has no absolute coordinates for instance, only relative coordinates, and for that reason it is arguably a universal of sorts. I probably digress from where you're going with this.
I think I followed that, even if I could not have written it.
OK. I have only an objective description of the mathematical abstraction, so the B-series wording seems more appropriate. "The rock is rolling down the hill at time X" is better than the use of 'currently' which carries implications of time not being part of the abstraction, but something within which the abstraction exists. The whole idea is that the fundamental abstraction doesn't exist in any deeper abstraction.
OK, "Everything" is just a tautology then. Of course. But what if that list is empty, and there isn't even a list? So poorly answered. Mine was simply that it makes no difference, at least not to the relations.
...
I didn't quote your entire post, but it doesn't sound like you're trying to disagree with this view, but attempting to formalize it and see where it fits into works done by several others.
This makes sense. I've had my ontology expressed as a version of existential quantification, but I'm not sure if that term applies to the sort of structures of which we might be a part. So there is still ontology, but it isn't able to be simplified to "what is there?".
I didn't say that. I don't say the structure is, since there is nothing for it to be in relation to.
Just non-idealistic existence, but the negation of objective existence is not existence necessarily in relation to our senses. I pointed this out in my second post.
Quoting Harry HinduThey don't need other things to exist since they don't exist. The structure simply has these relations, and those relations are independent of the existence of the structure.
No, at least certainly not to any significant degree! :grin:
There is already a Relational Realism at least discussed by Jonathan Cohen, and its terms are completely incompatible with your radical nihilism, being declined as "x is P for S in C".
Quoting noAxioms
How can a relation stand between things which do not exist? If the relation grants existence to the things, then the relation cannot follow from the things.
This.
Quoting Wayfarer
And this.
Quoting noAxioms
Wat?
Is not he "recognition of things" entirely relational .. An aware subject in relation to phenomenal objects?
This is confusing. Are you sure you mean what you just said? How can the experience be [i]of[/I] those things, if those things don't exist? If no unicorns exist, then I can't have an experience of a unicorn. I can experience something resembling a unicorn, but I can't experience a unicorn. How could I ever encounter one?
The giant object is nearly equivalent to the class of objects. Membership in the class is given by the ability to denote the member. If you restrict this even bigger 'set of all things' style object to the set of relations of arbitrary arity with arbitrary related terms, you get essentially the one I tried to construct above. Pegasus is as much a member as rocks rolling down hills, the rocks and the hills, and that 'my feet are positioned below my knees relative to my body' considered as a conceptual object.
I'm indifferent to the claim that the universe has a mathematical structure. Insofar as 'mathematical structure' means 'exhibits patterns which are analysed well through mathematics', I agree. Further ontological commitments - like reality itself being fundamentally like something essential to mathematics - I don't want to go that far, nor to discuss this here.
When I say I don't think it's the time to discuss that, I'm gesturing to that I think your OP is different problem from the alleged mathematical nature of reality. Subordinating being to to relation; to be is to be part of a (chain of) relation (s); what it is is how it is; is something that can be done regardless of whether you believe the real existence of the related terms. Put another way, if all this was 'merely a fiction' it would still be the same except insofar as 'is a fiction' makes a difference.
Aggregating everything together into one of these giant objects whose implanted structures are then identified as the rules governing particulars in the object (rather than terms which are standing in for them...) isn't without its problems... Another irrelevant thread.
Even if you grant that this agglomerative operation is justified before adjoining 'is a fiction' or 'is real in the usual sense' to its product, it doesn't make much of a difference to the OP's argument. What I really wanted to take to task was this:
relates a very impoverished understanding of what an ontology is. Loosely, an ontology really is an account of the relations between different parts of a structure, where 'parts' are understood in a exceptionally loose sense. (eg an ontology can look for how things came to be and develop a conceptual apparatus surrounding that, things coming to 'parthood' is also within ontology's subject matter). Picking which structures to designate as primordial, which as derivative, privileging none.... etc and to provide a conceptual apparatus circumscribing the most general ways in which things are is exactly what an ontology does.
Picking out a structure from the giant object because it in some sense mirrors our world leaves an account of the mirror; and the explication of the chosen structural symmetries. In the OP, nothing is lost by refusing the question because it sets out a picture of ontological accounts in which nothing can be gained from them.
Most of what's in the giant object is totally alien to us, so we're situated in a way to ask questions and question those questions. The existence of the giant object isn't particularly consoling in this manner. It functions as an already presumed terminus of ontological questioning despite those questioners, us, not knowing the full extent of what's in it and what obtains in it.
Quoting SapientiaIt matters because empirical observation cannot be different, and therefore cannot be evidence one way or the other. This is an interpretation of observations, and like any interpretation, suggests no falsification test. If there is one, then it is science and the matter can be settled by running the test.
That's right. There is no structure to relate to, but its components still relate to each other. A square's opposite sides are still parallel despite no explicit existence of the square. The structure still has those internal relations, and our empirical experience is nothing more than such internal relations of the structure of our universe of which we are a part, whether that structure exists or not.
I am talking about the structure, whether it exists or not. It only needs to exist to relate to something outside the structure, and then only in relation to that outside thing. The reification fallacy concerns relating two things with different ontology (map and territory, horse and unicorn), not denial of the relation that the opposite sides of a square are parallel. The unicorn exists in my imagination, so that's a mental relation, but not in the same way I relate to a horse. So the unicorn doesn't exist in relation to the horse.
I guess I'm building from a different foundation here, experimentally perhaps. I don't really identify with any particular
My simple example has been squares, not the concept of squares. I have examples of little universes like chess, Conway Game of Life. The chess one is interesting because it has entropy and the beginnings of quantum mechanics, but it has limited use in illustrating the point being pushed in this thread. The square seems to serve quite well for now.
So squares must exist (in concept or other form) in order to have properties? My definition of a square doesn't include that requirement. The requirement seems only necessary for our knowledge of those properties, and I've really tried to emphasize that the stance is not an epistemological one.
So I did away with all the turtles. There doesn't need to be anything. There is nothing in need of rationalization on this front.
It is a different premise, not a statement of fact.
Different to what? Evidence of what? What you're saying here suffers from a lack of clarity, and, as a result, your meaning is lost on me.
Not a good start.
Quoting noAxioms
It's the most plausible interpretation, and it can be tested by way of explanatory power. The alternatives can be reasonably rejected by reductions to absurdity. If you and I do not exist, then how are we having this conversation? If no other objects exist, then, again, how are we having this conversation? And if the world doesn't exist, then - you guessed it - how are we having this conversation?
Quoting noAxioms
No, no components either. Nothing means nothing, so no components. Nothing at all. There wouldn't be anything to relate to anything else. There can be no exceptions, so it's amusing, in light of the futility of trying, that you nevertheless keep attempting to find a way around the impossible.
Quoting noAxioms
That can be better put logically, as folows: if there exists a square, then it is such that its opposite sides are parallel.
That can then be used to determine whether or not squares exist.
Quoting noAxioms
Do you not realise that it makes no sense to, on the one hand, talk of us as being part of the structure of the universe, and on the other, question whether that structure exists? You are tacitly contradicting yourself. If we are part of the structure of the universe, then the structure of the universe exists, as do we.
You've got yourself in a right tangle, methinks.
Quoting noAxioms
Right, let's get a few things straight, shall we?
1. If you're talking about the structure, then you're talking about something, not nothing.
2. If you can't say whether or not it exists, then, to be clear, you shouldn't be talking about, "the structure", as though it exists. You should instead be talking about its possibility. Or, alternatively, you could talk about the imaginary or presumed structure.
Quoting noAxioms
That's confusing. What are you actually talking about? What does it mean? [I]"The structure only needs to exist to relate to something outside of the structure, and then only in relation to that outside thing."[/I] What [i]is[/I] this structure of which you talk? Why are you speaking in such vague abstract terminology. If you want to talk about the universe in a meaningful way, then you should talk about the stuff and things of the universe, as well as their relations. Sorry, but I think I've had enough of your peculiar manner of talking.
This is why philosophy gets a bad reputation.
No, I don't agree. You are simply assigning to the "recognition of things", a relational existence. You are simply assuming, falsely concluding, or something along those lines, that a recognition of things is necessarily a subject in relation to objects, but this need not be the case. The recognition of oneself, as a thing, is not a relation. If you posit the recognition of oneself as a relation, then oneself is not an identified thing, but a relation between two distinct things. But that's contradictory to say oneself is two distinct things And if oneself is one identified thing, then it is one and the same thing, and this is not a relation, it is the simple recognition of a thing.
Quoting noAxioms
I don't see what you mean by "not solving the problem". Nor do I get the turtle reference. The assumption is "that there is something". The cosmological argument demonstrates that from this assumption it is impossible that there ever was nothing. Therefore the question, why is there something rather than nothing, is solved, it is because it is impossible that there is nothing. But this raises the question of why is it not "possible" that there is nothing
So we can proceed, and replace "nothing" with "the potential for something", or the simple possibility for something. This appears to be a more rational question because we observe that prior to the existence of anything there is the potential, or possibility, for that thing. So to avoid an infinite regress (perhaps this is the turtle reference), we might assume a time when there was the potential for things, but no actual things. This is what the cosmological argument denies. If at one time, there was the potential for things, with no actual things, no actual things could ever come into existence from that potential because any potential requires something actual to actualize it. This is what is referred to as the necessary actuality which is prior to all contingent things.
No, what I am is not a thing at all. There's awareness ... There's the contents of awareness ... but there's no actual boundary and no 'out there.' So it does seem that any relation is dependent upon an apparent duality. Could this be what the mystics refer to as the spell of maya, for the sake of the compelling dream of relational experience? The One is the many ... The many are the One ... Quite amazing!
I am going to fall back to my square again. I seem to be on my own. The view must be faulty if nobody seems to grasp what I'm trying to describe.
The sides of a square are parallel, a relation. That relation does not make the square exist. I'm not claiming relation prior to existence. But one side of a square exists (existential quantification, not a designation of ontology) in relation to the other sides and to the angles. This doesn't mean any of it has objective existence.
A different premise, not fact.
Well, the wording there wasn't my best effort. I'm not claiming ontological existence of anything, or of the relations. The opposite sides of a square have a relation of being parallel. That doesn't make the square exist or the relation exist. It means that squares have that property. If only existent squares have that property, then either platonic existence is necessarily true, or the opposite sides of squares are not parallel because there are no actual squares, only abstractions/concepts, and concepts don't have sides that can be said to be parallel.
Similar, the moon and I stand in relation to each other, and so I say it exists in relation to me, but that is not a declaration of absolute ontology. Yes, the view is a form of ontological nihilism, but I've read up on nihilism, and it is something else.
Quoting SapientiaI just quoted what I just posted above. I am not being careful with my wording. I say the moon exists, but formally I say it exists only in relation to me. We're part of the same structure.
So as to what I said in the bit you quote there, I'm saying the absolute (objective) existence of things is not necessary for the experience of those things. But my experience depends on there being a relation between me and the thing, meaning both need to be part of the same structure. So one side of a square could experience its neighbor if it was the sort of thing with enough complexity to experience something, which it isn't. A square isn't even a temporal structure, and I cannot imagine experience in a structure without process.
So I relate to a horse because we're both parts of the structure, with sufficient interaction for there to be experience. The unicorn is an imagination, and that imagination is part of the physical process that is part of the same structure as me. So I relate to my imaginations. The imaginations exist to me, and the unicorn is one of them. Different relation than the one I have with the horse where the interaction is through external senses. Yes, you said it. You experience something resembling a unicorn, but it is an imagination, not a physical object like the horse.
I can speak of a horse or unicorn interchangeably. You can interpret that as speaking of the concept of either of these things, or of an actual horse or unicorn, despite the lack of relation of "empirically observable" between people and the unicorn.
What an amazing question. I really used to ponder over it. The great presocratic Parminedes answers it. There can be no such thing as nothingness. There's only beingness. Once we realize 'why something exists instead of something' .next step is to analyze is the nature of nothingness and existence. Nothingness cannot be. Because what is not IS . That is a contradiction. Neither can nothingness can be a predicate. Unicorn don't exist. Is a contradiction. Because even by uttering the word 'unicorn' we ascribe a certain ontological status to it .even if it is in our minds. It has certain properties . A certain form. So when we say unicorns don't exist.So logically what we are saying is. "a unicorn(a horse with wings) is not a horse with wings." Because it is not. Whole Eleatic philosophy is based on rejection of nothingness. Which results in a logical necessity for things to just exist.
For purposes of this discussion, the relational stance says that opposite sides of squares are parallel, an ontology-independent property of parallelograms, and squares are parallelograms.
Are you describing a state-of-affairs that exists, or no? Are we actually having this conversation or no?
Really, when it comes down to it, all of these conscious machinations are doing nothing to address the 'hard problem' -- i.e. what is consciousness? What is the aware 'I'-ness which is aware of the moon, whatever the moon may be in essence, Platonic forms, mathematical structures, or otherwise? Absent any explanation, why should one adopt this metaphysical stance over physicalism? Physicalism at least has a theory of consciousness, however incomplete or inadequate it may currently be.
I see a white and gold dress. You see a black and blue dress. But we're both looking at the same thing. One can say that the object of perception is determined by the quality of the experience and not by the external stimulus.
Just as a painting is of a unicorn, even though there isn't a unicorn, the experience is of a unicorn, even though there isn't a unicorn.
So you have relations without boundaries, how?
Quoting noAxioms
OK, I'll see if I can make sense of this. You are assuming "a square", that is your premise. Now you are talking about the sides of that square. It is all in your mind, the square and the sides, so you say that it has no objective existence. How do you get to the point of talking about things outside of the mind?
Quoting noAxioms
Now you are talking about the moon. Aren't you assuming that the moon has some sort of existence, before you can talk about a relation between you and the moon?
Quoting noAxioms
Aren't you assuming the existence of this thing, the "structure", in order to make this claim of relations? I still don't see how you get to the point of saying that any of this is outside your mind. The "structure", the "relations", the "moon", they are all just in your mind. How would you give reality to this "structure" if you do not assume that it is a thing outside your mind?
You seem to have overlooked the word 'apparent' -- which I did italicize for a reason, but perhaps the 'bold' will help too -- or I should have said 'seeming.' You also seem to have overlooked the part about "the compelling dream of relational experience." ... In other words an apparency.
One could also say that the state of the sensory organs and the brain, along with the state of the object being perceived by said sensory organs, help determine what is experienced.
I don't get you. You said "there's no actual boundary". You're clearly not talking about apparent boundaries, you're talking about actual boundaries.
Again, this offers no explanation or theory of conscious awareness/experience whatsoever, so isn't of much interest to me -- and indeed does feel quite nihilistic. But since it is of interest to you, then carry on. :)
No we're going around in circles. You claimed that the recognition of things is entirely relational. I claimed that the recognition of myself as a thing is not relational. You said boundaries are unreal, so I asked how do you have relations without boundaries. Now you seem to be claiming that both of these, things, and relations, are unreal. Is that your point?
Quoting noAxioms
Wait a minute, what are you talking about, "a square" or "any square". The former is a particular square, the latter is a general idea allowing for the possibility of a particular. Am I correct that you are assuming a Platonic Form, "the mathematical form itself"? Doesn't this mathematical form exist as an eternal object?
The universe existed prior to any relationship. If not then, it needs a relationship with a non-universe to exist. Again what keeps you from falling into the bottomless pit of an infinite regress? Why does the universe not need something else in relation to it to say that it exists?
Anyway, I'll try to clarify some more. I don't deduce any actual duality, or boundaries, or relational experience, but nonetheless experience the seeming appearance of such, however ostensible that experience may be. So, for example, I experience a boundary between the edge of the black text on this screen, in contrast to the whiteness of the screen, while still knowing that there is no actual boundary, which allows for some meaning to be read into that text, according to some agreed upon rules of language, without which the seeming relational experience of this exchange of information would not be possible. And however much I can philosophically deny that relational experience, it is nonetheless a 'real' experience, insofar as it manifests as this meaningful expression of words we're apparently sharing. Likewise, when I experience a nightmare, however unreal it may be, it is still 'really' meaningful, and scares the crap out of me. As such, even any seeming boundary between 'real' and 'unreal' can be dispelled.
I think we're using "determine" in two different ways. You mean it in the causal sense, whereas I meant it in the empirical sense.
It's the difference between saying that the painting is of a unicorn because of the artist and the pattern of paint (causal) and saying that the painting is of a unicorn because of the way it looks (empirical).
I don't understand how this relates to my point, which is that we can see things that aren't really there and that we can look at the same thing but see different things (e.g. with the dress example).
So the question is, what do you base this knowledge on, this "knowing that there is no actual boundary"? You perceive a boundary through sensation, but you claim that you cannot deduce a boundary. So your deductions are incapable of justifying your perceptions. But just because you cannot deduce a boundary, this does not justify the claim that you know that there is no boundary.
One assumption is that there is boundaries, and this is firmly supported by sensation. The other assumption is that there are no boundaries, and this is only supported by your inability to deduce their existence. However, if we start with appropriate premises we can easily deduce the existence of boundaries. We can premise that there are differences, and that difference requires a separation between one and the other, and that separation requires a boundary. It is not hard to deduce the existence of boundaries. So what could possibly support this "knowing that there is no actual boundary"?
Once again there is some misconstruing, and a misquotation. I'm pointing out the difference between logical deduction and felt experience. I said that 'I don't deduce that there is any actual boundary.' In other words, I don't arrive at by reason, or draw as a logical conclusion that there is a 'real' actual boundary. Rather that is my felt experience, however ostensible that experience may be. Just as I don't arrive at by reason, or draw as a logical conclusion that the sun really descends beyond the horizon, but nonetheless that is my felt experience, despite knowing full well that it is an optical illusion based of the relativity of motion, since I understand that I am moving away from the sun on a rotating planet into the darkness of its shadow. Likewise, it is my felt experience that there seems to be boundaries and dualities, despite knowing that they are only an apparency.
Is so surprising that whether stuff exists is arbitrary when existence is embedded in the abstract concept of relation and relativised to it? Nah. Existence being arbitrary isn't really a feature of reality, it's a feature of how you've set up the avenues for questioning about it.
Consider when ontology is characterised solely by answering 'what is there' questions; and when it doesn't matter if there is anything in terms of our understanding of things. Of course ontology becomes a hollow discipline and 'true inquiry'; whatever is left of accounting for how things are in the general sense after the OP's levelling of ontology to a catalogue of existents; is concerned with what is stipulated to be of interest and independent of 'what is there' questions.
And this is a bit funny, because an ontology is usually concerned precisely with the relations between things. Man and being, substance and God, substance and mode, difference and trace, primary and secondary qualities, individual and community, history and idea...
It's like you've said 'assume studying language is only about studying when red is red, therefore linguistics is meaningless'. Reading nothing but your questioning framework off of the world it has provided the logical syntax for!
Squares are not just that. There is pure mathematical square, which has fewer properties than unit-square, or square in a coordinate system. There is the square cross section of a tetrahedron. All these make the square a part of a larger structure, and thus not the structure itself.
I don't think a square is necessarily a particular, but the cross section is is a particular cross section of the tetrahedron. So 'particular' itself seem to be a relation. The overall structure seems not to be a particular since there is nothing with which it has that relationship.
But the relational view has no un-relational existence, so nothing can depend on that in order for there to be relations within the structure.
The wording ("there exists", "such that") is associated with first-order logic, but I don't think I got it quite right. I'm a novice with respect to formal logic. I'm not sure whether propositional logic can handle existence, or whether it's the best language for handling it, and likewise with regard to predicates, otherwise maybe it could be made into something like a simple conditional statement:
[I]A?B
If A, then B
If there's a square, then it's opposite sides are parallel.[/I]
I wasn't quite sure how best to say something like that in first-order logic, but I suppose one could say something like:
[I]?x ? A(x) ? B(x)?C(x)
There exists an x, such that if x is A, and x is B, then x is C.
There exists a thing, such that if it's a shape, and it's a square, then it has parallel opposite sides.[/I]
Anyway, I think that wording it that way is better, if one wanted to, say, form an argument that squares don't actually exist, or that squares don't actually exist as such.
Ah, but [I]do[/I] we, though? That is the question! :grin:
Quoting Michael
Yes.
Quoting Michael
Yes, one can say that. Whether or not one should do so is another question.
Quoting Michael
Hmm... [I]seems[/I] to make sense... [I]on the face of it[/I]... to [I]some[/I] extent...
But I'm wary that it might cause problems or not withstand examination/scrutiny.
As the great Admiral said, "It's a trap!". :wink:
Anyway, I want to explore this point about objects needing to be real for them to have properties and relations. Take the mandelbrot set. That set cannot be instantiated by any means known. We can sample it a bit and print pretty pictures of the result of that, but it is just a sampling, not the set itself. So how can it be said that it has properties like being everywhere connected?
Well, it seems to me that it would make sense to start by questioning what kind of thing the Mandelbrot set is. You seem to suggest above that it's an object. But is it? What makes it an object, rather than anything else?
I can draw a crude depiction of the set the same way I can draw a crude square. Neither of them has the properties we've been discussing, but it's all the instantiation either is likely to have.
I used the word, "object", as you did. I said nothing of physical objects. You said that you want to explore this point about objects needing to be real for them to have properties and relations, and, in relation to this, you seemed to be taking the Mandelbrot set as an example of an object. You called it a mathematical structure. But, is that what you're saying it is [i]more specifically[/I], or is that what you're saying it is [i]instead of[/I] an object?
Anyway, what I'm interested in, is what the consequences of committing to the alternative stance would be. That is, if objects don't need to be real to have properties and relations, then what does that entail? Anything of significance? On the face of it, it seems to be right to say, for example, that a property of a unicorn is that it has a horn, or that a property of the Mandelbrot set is that it is complex or contains numbers. But you ask how it is that things like unicorns, which are not real, can have properties. That's a good question. There does seem to be something counterintuitive about that. I'm going to give this encyclopaedia entry on nonexistent objects a read, as I think that it relates.
[B]By the way, is the present king of France bald?[/b]
I admit that the word has connotations of being a member of something bigger. Earth is an object, but the universe isn't really thought of that way, unless in context of something larger like a god and his creation-object that he puts on the shelf next to his five other ones. So I suppose it was careless language use since those connotations are not intended. A side of a square is an object of sorts more than is the structure that is the square that is not in a larger context like a coordinate system.
Well the OP mentioned that it removes the perplexing question of how existence comes to exist. I can't say how it was created since that puts existence inside the larger context of time, reducing it to an 'object'. Objects in our universe get created. The concept is confined to the rules here.
So committing to the alternative stance eliminates the designation of 'is real', which only serves its own purpose. If the universe is real, the stuff in it is also real, but if it doesn't need to be real, then we don't either. It's like presentism's assertion of a real slice of spacetime (events not on that slice are not real) that changes position over a different sort of time than what clocks and other physical processes measure. While intuitive, it is completely undetectable and explains nothing, and there is no way to measure the pace of it. Seems superfluous. So around a century ago when all this was realized, they proposed that it could be eliminated without empirical difference, and eternalism was the result. I'm trying to see if that can be done with 'is real' in general since it seems to serve only its own purpose but doesn't really add anything.
Well thank you for giving it fair consideration. Most of the responses have been knee-jerk protests based on assumptions of realist views. And hey, I identified as a realist for some time, but I'm learning not to identify as anything, because that just closes you off to further exploration. There are few stances I've not given fair consideration. I don't think idealism is incompatible with physicalism. Both are relational views, but relative to different things. Mine is sort of a generalization, but minus a fundamental core of reality.
So it is a bit nihilist I guess, but not the usual sort. I don't think there are no morals or that life is meaningless, but those are what pops up under nihilism.
Surely I'm not the first to consider all this. It must have a name and maybe an article somewhere.
I think a more specific question relevant to this thread is what significance such a view would have on arguments such as the Cogito. Would the strength of that argument be affected if one does not take relations to be existence-entailing? @noAxioms apparently seems to be suggesting that it does (at least from what I've read so far). As for myself, I'm not sure I see how they are related, but I just started to look into it so I'll have to think about it some more.
What is the difference between the relationship of the Moon and a mailbox and the moon and yourself? Doesn't the differences lie in the attributes that make up the objects of those relationships?
And you keep cherry-picking my post, ignoring the point I keep making about the universal structure itself needing a relationship with something else in order for it to exist. How do you prevent yourself from falling into an infinite regress?
Quoting noAxioms
Process philosophy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6cDp0C-I8
"The universe is a set of relationships between relationships, between relationships - all of which change over time. None of these relationships is ever static."
Not much difference. There is the additional relationship of 'can experience' that I have with the moon.
Yes, it would need a relationship with something else in order for it to exist, and then only in relation to said other thing, degrading the 'no-longer-universe' to a component within a larger structure. For example, for there to be a way for a non-deterministic interpretation of QM to work, there would need to be a relationship between the physical sub-structure and whatever is rolling the dice for it.
But I never claimed the structure exists or needs to. That would be the different premise that I am rejecting. There is no infinite regress because there is no unqualified existence in the view.
I am using 'universe' as 'the whole structure'. Multiverse is another term for this, with multiple universes. I would alternatively call the complete structure 'the universe' with multiple worlds. The difference is just choice of terminology. For example, distant (say 30BLY away) stars do not exist in relation to our solar system. There is no direct relation between us. So the natural QM fit is the relational interpretation where the state of one thing is defined strictly in terms of specific other states. Such and such is true in relation to Alice, but a different state of affairs is the case for Bob or Bob a minute hence or the cat in the box. Other worlds do not exist in relation to any of them.
Haven't watched it yet. The summary you give seems true of realism as well, so not sure if it is what I'm seeking.