Metaphysics
Main points on the problems faced.
1.Most terms are misunderstood and they often lack substance on their own
The field is too broad and l can only touch a few important topics and l think the best way to state your position is to use relevant examples. The discussion of time for instance is always confusing because the concept of eternity can mean two different things, it can either mean the non-existence of time or time going on forever without ending. There Is also another problem when we use phrases such as before the beginning of time because that changes the entire concept of cause and effect and l often hear theist debating God and saying he created time as if casuality existed before time. The second problem with the use of phrase is that we don't even know what we are speaking about. As we observe our world in 3 dimension and perhaps we can experience time but we cannot comprehend the higher dimensions, eternity or the non existence of time. There are also many other countless problems with the usage of time. We can mathematically understand the higher dimensions but as far as philosophy is concerned, their usage is never clear.We have not yet translated the mathematical statements to something empirical/intuitive as it appears to be impossible and also an unending source of confusion.
The problem of existence is even in more mess. In my opinion the transition from non existence to existence will never be understood and our understanding will end there.
There was an Arabian philosopher who suggested that there are relative existence to solve this problem. Basically he suggested that in comparison to God, we do not exist but in comparison to non existent things, we exist. He argued for that before descartes and the arguments are similar except that he believed that the knowledge of God can cause us to exist as it is out of time and our knowledge is in time and therefore of different nature. I wont really get into it but the way analytic philosophy has dealt with existence is terrible. They have tried to remove the meaningless terms with symbolic manipulations such as instead of saying there exists no sqaure circle we can say, there exists no such object that Is both sqaure and circle. We often confuse the limitations of our mind as the limitations of existence. Perhaps we cannot think in an illogical manner as Wittgenstein argued and therefore pose the limits on existence.
The problem of free will and the soul are central to metaphysics and it is as if there are 100 different meanings of these 2 words. Most of the people who believe we have free will, often believe we have freedom of choice and they may think free will and freedom of choice are the same thing. On the other hand, determinist want free will to be taken in the absolute sense, l don't even if such a thing is even possible. Should we give up on these problems ?
1.Most terms are misunderstood and they often lack substance on their own
The field is too broad and l can only touch a few important topics and l think the best way to state your position is to use relevant examples. The discussion of time for instance is always confusing because the concept of eternity can mean two different things, it can either mean the non-existence of time or time going on forever without ending. There Is also another problem when we use phrases such as before the beginning of time because that changes the entire concept of cause and effect and l often hear theist debating God and saying he created time as if casuality existed before time. The second problem with the use of phrase is that we don't even know what we are speaking about. As we observe our world in 3 dimension and perhaps we can experience time but we cannot comprehend the higher dimensions, eternity or the non existence of time. There are also many other countless problems with the usage of time. We can mathematically understand the higher dimensions but as far as philosophy is concerned, their usage is never clear.We have not yet translated the mathematical statements to something empirical/intuitive as it appears to be impossible and also an unending source of confusion.
The problem of existence is even in more mess. In my opinion the transition from non existence to existence will never be understood and our understanding will end there.
There was an Arabian philosopher who suggested that there are relative existence to solve this problem. Basically he suggested that in comparison to God, we do not exist but in comparison to non existent things, we exist. He argued for that before descartes and the arguments are similar except that he believed that the knowledge of God can cause us to exist as it is out of time and our knowledge is in time and therefore of different nature. I wont really get into it but the way analytic philosophy has dealt with existence is terrible. They have tried to remove the meaningless terms with symbolic manipulations such as instead of saying there exists no sqaure circle we can say, there exists no such object that Is both sqaure and circle. We often confuse the limitations of our mind as the limitations of existence. Perhaps we cannot think in an illogical manner as Wittgenstein argued and therefore pose the limits on existence.
The problem of free will and the soul are central to metaphysics and it is as if there are 100 different meanings of these 2 words. Most of the people who believe we have free will, often believe we have freedom of choice and they may think free will and freedom of choice are the same thing. On the other hand, determinist want free will to be taken in the absolute sense, l don't even if such a thing is even possible. Should we give up on these problems ?
Comments (184)
After I understand those things, I can attempt to ponder whether discussing metaphysics is meaningful. Ultimately it's something you can do to pass the time "between the forceps and the stone," as Joni Mitchell once sang. And discussing metaphysics is certainly less harmful than, say, shooting up a Walmart. But is either act meaningful? All those people were going to die anyway, as is everyone else who was at the mall that day, and all of us. What is meaningful?
Meaningful may not be the best word but in the context of philosophy, meaningful discussions use clear terms and the people have a common understanding of the usage of words. I don't think that is possible for a few reasons and examples given above.
Alice: Do I have a broken leg?
Bob: Well it depends how you define leg. We surely need a better understanding of legs before deciding something so important.
Alice: It seems Pinochet was a tyrant.
Bob: Well it depends how you define tyrant. So much of the atrocities depend on the nature of tyranny.
Too much attention payed to the nature of words, not enough to the nature of the world.
Logical positivists were dumb ? :smile:
The world is full of obscurantists.
They were narrow minded and that led to their downfall but can you briefly explain what they got wrong ?
Avicenna? John Scotus Eriugena had a similar idea:
SEP
Metaphysics makes perfect sense within a domain of discourse. That is why for instance Thomism makes perfect sense for Christians. Of course if you're a logical positivist or member of the Vienna Circle, then it is all nonsensical; otherwise, you are ;-)
On a graph of urgency against feasibility, where do you plot the bard's question (or that of the nature of the world beyond the physics), relative to broken leg diagnosis and war trials conduct?
It was ibn Arabi and l am actually surprised on the similarities between john and ibn arabi. Ibn arabi would go on and establish man as a microcosm, standing between God and creation. It was sufism and philosophy put together. He was condemned by literalist.
I have a problem with that. Most abrahamic religion believe that God can see but since God is unlike any other creation as a creator, he is above comprehension. He sees without eyes and hears without ears. He exists but unlike creation, he is above space and time. Do they really understand the words see, hear and exist ( as used in the their expression) ?
Since how God does these things is unknown to them.
The domain of discourse allows people to use words which lack meaning and they often end up creating a fuss out of nothing.
Is it possible to resurrect the positivists from the 20th century. Did the positivist defeat themselves and do you agree with most of their ideas ?
Especially philosophy.
Where did I mention logical positivism?
Having been unable to quantify the urgency of concepts or the feasibility of their implementation in the general case, I have no idea.
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There.
First, a small irony - "Is discussing metaphysics meaningful ?" is a metaphysical question.
Rather than answer your specific examples, I'll make three comments. First - discussing metaphysics and epistemology has had a great influence on me intellectually. I'm an engineer. My job is to understand things and how I know what I know. Discussions here on the forum, including reading I've done at other members suggestion, have been enjoyable and eye-opening.
Second - most issues typically considered part of metaphysics are not matters of fact and aren't true or false, they are matters of viewpoint, approach, usefulness. Examples - free will vs. determinism; the existence of objective reality; the meaning of "truth."
Third - A lot of the issues you decry could be addressed if people would define their terms at the beginning of the discussion, preferably in the OP.
The confusion caused by language in philosophy was addressed by positivists. You stated that we should deal with problems rather than terms in which they are discussed. Like here below
I think that's probably unrealistic. In a very real (read "useful") way, the world is words.
I think the question is partly metaphysical and partly linguistic in nature, it sort of transcends metaphysics, as
Kant asked a very similar question.
His answer was no.It is like Godels incompleteness theorem, it belongs to the logical system but at the same time comments on the nature of such systems and the limitations.
I am far from being an engineer but l think we all benefit from discussing philosophical problems and it certainly opens our mind.This question does not take into consideration the benefits derived from discussing metaphysical problems and l should have specified that, ironically l didn't. We usually argue for a certain theory when discussing a metaphysical problem and pretty much like a scientific theory, we try our best to improve it by giving relevant examples. Sometimes there is a fault with the topic we are discussing and if all approaches are equally right regarding the world, won't that be a contradiction as there is a single reality out there ?
Second of all, if all approaches have their own merit, why do we adopt a certain position when tackling metaphysical problems and does that mean 1000 years of philosophy was simply based on misunderstanding.
I agree with you on this point but that raises some problems as l have mentioned above.The most common approach in tackling metaphysical theories is to adopt a scientific strategy, especially in english philosophy lately and try to pinpoint each terms, have them defined and that causes problems precisely because metaphysical objects are either falsely constructed or they do not need to have an objective reality attached to them.
It can be more than just defining terms in some cases like l have mentioned above, people may never even agree on the terms to begin with and there are countless other problems too.
Maybe that would be true if metaphysical questions had true or false answers. They don't. Metaphysics is a matter of agreement, consensus. It's the rules we agree to play by.
Quoting Wittgenstein
Isn't this an example of the problem I noted - you did not define what you meant by "meaningful."
Quoting Wittgenstein
Specific metaphysical approaches may or may not be useful in specific situations, to address specific questions. There is no "one size fits all" metaphysical approach. The key word is "useful." Almost everything in the past 1,000 years of philosophy was simply based on misunderstanding. Yes...well... maybe that goes a little too far.
Quoting Wittgenstein
As I indicated, the important thing about metaphysical issues is that we agree on an approach. You can't move on to deal with reality, whatever you think that means, until that is done.
Quoting Wittgenstein
That's the advantage of setting the ground rules in the OP. You get to determine the terms of the discussion, including definitions. Others, if they want to play by the rules, either follow along or go elsewhere. Alternatively, you can make the definitions the point of the discussion.
All of that is why it's important to respect the OP. As I've said before, I have not always done that successfully, but I try.
It wasn’t just plain ol’ no, because that wasn’t the question he actually asked.
“...Yet, in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge is to be looked upon as given; that is to say, metaphysics actually exists, if not as a science, yet still as a natural disposition of the human mind.....(...) And so we have the question: "How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible?" That is, how, from the nature of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason propounds to itself, and which it is impelled by its own need to answer as best as it can?...”
(CPR, B21, in Kemp Smith, 1929)
Metaphysics itself was never in doubt; metaphysics as a science, never was at all. The Critique’s whole raison d’etre was to determine under what conditions it could become one.
For the record.........
And yes, the discussion of metaphysics is meaningful, if kept within its proper domain.
Let's not split hairs over this. It wasn't a simple no, he reasoned it out.In the present philosophical literature, there are countless references linking whether metaphysics is possible with Kant. It Kant be a mistake.
The question, whether metaphysics is possible did not end in how those questions arise but how it is impossible to find their solutions.
No one here challenged its existence and Kant here is just beginning to answer why do we try to engage in metaphysics and how do we raise such questions and you haven't quoted his conclusion.
It could never become one due to limitations of human mind according to kant. You Kant deny that.
It isn't really a problem of domain but the nature of questions, method and many other variables involved when discussing metaphysics.
There is a branch of philosophy called meta metaphysics.
It sounds funny but it is out there and really important.
I think you're saying that metaphysics is clearly not a science. I agree that metaphysics is not a science by itself, but there are a lot of smart people who disagree with you. As I've said, I think it is an indispensable part of science.
The present dialogue is with respect to Kant, what he said and the perspective from which what he said, came. Hence, he is saying it never WAS a science, up to his time. Science, of course, having its strict Kantian connotation.
The question remains....was he successful in giving metaphysics a scientifically-oriented credibility? Depends, in the positive, on one’s receptivity for his arguments, or in the negative, one’s ability to refute them, both of which presupposes they are sufficiently understood.
In short, we already use it, might as well figure out how it is possible that we use it. If we figure that out, the meaningfulness of it should be given as a consequence.
If l am not mistaken, l think you are suggesting that discussions of metaphysics are language games. A lot of people would disagree with that stance and the scientific attitude usually adopted when discussing metaphysics explains that people do take certain answers as facts, for instance those people who believe that their soul exists besides their body and they believe in mind-body duality.
Unlike the rules of football and cricket which are clear and easy to follow around. Setting up rules when discussing metaphysical problems may not help that much.
Rules in of themselves are nothing. They can have different Interpretation and we cannot continue setting up rules on how to follow rules. Second of all, what kind of rules do you suggest and doesn't setting up rules restrict others to respond to you, as in some cases the rules are not justified with respect to the question. There are a lot of gaps to fill in the details. We should generalize this case and take it outside of the forum/OP stuff.
I would like you to respond to my examples or give your own examples and see how setting rules would help solving such problems. You should try rules that you find acceptable and those which you don't. You can also discuss the different approaches. Ironically defining terms in metaphysics will create another discussion since those words are at the center point of most problems.
It can serve as the ground for physics or psychology for example but can metaphysics provide answers that can be verified logically since their verification by empirical means are not possible. However l think physics can stand on it's own and other fields too without the need of metaphysics, as its role is not essential but helpful.
Casaulity as in how the brain is structured or the external influence from the world ? l believe that we have free will and l also believe in casuality. I don't think our mind works in a linear manner, it can handle and link both our choice with the chains of events that impress upon our mind.
Refuting causality is almost like trying to refute the existence of time, they are beyond our minds and we sort of need them as foundations for our mind to reason. It's like a computer trying to prove that software doesn't exist.
Its really difficult to pinpoint these words to a single definition and their usage too. What really matters is how we use them.
Quoting Wittgenstein
I've thought about time a lot. So, I guess the questions is - is it real. Yes, I think it makes sense to think of it as real. We measure it. Other properties and behavior of matter and energy depend on it. We can manipulate physical phenomena and affect time. Look up the arrow of time or the direction of time. Wikipedia has a good summary as do other places. Personally, I am most comfortable with the thermodynamic explanation of the direction of time, although, as you'll see, there are many explanations which are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Quoting Wittgenstein
I would definitely say it's a metaphysical question. I personally like my understanding of the Taoist understanding of existence. See below. But there are lots of other valid ways of see existence, depending on the context.
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it. ...
The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities. It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God....
Quoting Wittgenstein
Whether or not there is free will is a metaphysical question. I've always thought it is a question whether or not it makes sense to hold ourselves and others responsible for our actions. Looking at my own life, I think it usually does. I recognize there are situations where it would make more sense not to.
As for the soul and God - things brings up a fly in my ointment. Religious issues are usually lumped in with metaphysics when I think it often doesn't make sense, e.g the existence of a God that exists independent of ourselves and the universe. That seems to me to be a matter of fact, and therefore does not belong as a part of metaphysics. On the other hand, I think the general question of whether it makes sense in some situations to think of the universe as a living, perhaps conscious thing is metaphysical question. It's a way of looking, thinking, about things. It's not testable. Sometimes it may be useful.
There, there's three.
Forgot to respond to this comment.
I'm not familiar with the science or philosophy of language, so I don't really know what you mean by "language game." But in a general sense I think everything we know about the world is dependent on language.
In terms of definition or reference (which is the y in question), all terms have the ambiguity you refer to re "eternal" for example.
What is it for anything to be meaningful? I would say that the meaningfulness of anything consists in its being able to be experienced and considered as such. On this view there is nothing which is not meaningful in one way, or set of ways, or another.
We end up with metaphysical topics being meaningful to some people and not others, depending upon one's philosophical perspective. Which doesn't resolve the matter for everyone. It just ends up being another metaphysical dispute lacking consensus, because people have different philosophical starting points. If one finds Wittgenstein or Carnap persuasive, then one is likely to be skeptical of metaphysical discussion in general. But if one doesn't, then one probably won't be ask skeptical.
Do you mean, as appears to, that metaphysical discourse is in no worse a condition than any other kind of discourse is when it comes to definition or reference? And probably also that that limitation shouldn't in itself be assumed to damn the enterprise? As we notice with fdrake's examples of broken leg diagnosis and war trials conduct? Where, if we are sensible, we get our priorities right and manage not to split the wrong hairs?
If so, I would be interested to know whether you (or fdrake) regard any metaphysical conundrums as comparable to these examples, either in urgency or in the feasibility of reasonably meaningful thought and discussion about them.
Actually, I expect you won't say they compare in urgency, but what about feasibility?
Quoting Wayfarer
But if this is a clue, as you say, won't it make the subject of metaphysics non-urgent in the extreme, at least for the non-Platonist? You don't want to call the cast of characters in a story the "ontology" of the story, except as an IOU for that ontology. I'm not doubting we often get by without redeeming the IOU for the real thing, and even enjoy or use the story better on that basis. But the interesting philosophy would be in how to unpick the metaphor, not how to take it literally?
Your words don't convey any real understanding of religious discourse. And I don't think metaphysics is particularly meaningful outside the framework of the various spiritual traditions within which it has been formulated, particularly, in Western culture, Platonist Christianity.
(Of course, there is also metaphysical discourse situated in the context of science, revolving around the implications of science (e.g. The Metaphysics Within Physics, Tim Maudlin.) But the difference between that, and spiritual/religious metaphysics, is that it is completely divorced from human reality, from the human perspective.)
But in the context of the Western intellectual tradition, really understanding metaphysics takes some education in the foundational texts, beginning with Plato, and then a lot of further reading. (There's a useful index here.) But it also takes quite a bit of understanding of cultural psychology and the history of ideas. For instance, that the 'scientific revolution' embodied a very specific metaphysical framework, in which our own culture is now so thoroughly embedded that it's almost impossible to see, because we always look through it, rather than at it.
The point for me is that numbers (and the other intelligibles) are implicit to virtually every thought and speech act - and yet we don't understand the significance of that. I mean, if number (etc), is real but not physical, then it's a defeater for physicalism, right? And as most of think that we're fundamentally physical beings, or that the universe is fundamentally physical in nature, then this undercuts that whole worldview. We're actually creatures of a 'meaning-world', not of a physical world at all; meaning itself is more fundamental, more real, if you like, than the apparently solid objects that we're surrounded by. This has revolutionary implications, when you begin to realise it.
I said, "at least for the non-Platonist"... who won't accept numbers as the values of bound variables, or whatever. And probably regards them as on a par with fictional characters. Or is a formalist. But isn't, either way, tempted to look beyond physics for their cast of actual entities, on redeeming the IOU.
Funny thing is, I thought I gathered from reading some of @Terrapin's stuff that he is quite willing to posit fictional characters as mental entities... which could complicate things here.
But no - no "revolutionary implications" for physical ontology in fairy or other fictional stories.
If the measurements are affected by the relative motion between observer and an object, does that make it less real. Entropy of a closed system will increase with time but consider this thought experiment, suppose two observers, one at rest and the other moving relative to the system observe it, will there be a difference in the observed entropy at a particular instance for both observers ? However,the system is one and its entropy should be same regardless of the observers of it.I would like to discuss time with a philosophical bent.
What if time is a closed cycle in some way, and let's say a being outside time, like God would see us traveling through time but to him, there is no time. There is a starting point in time, and we maybe be moving along a closed curve and we can't really tell till we reach the beginning point again. It will be moving forward and at sametime backward in a sense. I hope it doesn't sound ridiculous.
I can see my thinking on existence going along those lines, but l would replace toa with something else. It appears that the infinity possibility of beings in this world and the uniqueness of each being in a sense of being irreplaceable indicates that a transcendental being ( God) is trying to reveal himself to his creation and he allows the manifestation of his attributes. It is also difficult to understand his essence because it is beyond our comprehension and existence is of his essence. Hence the ultimate existence cannot be understood, it can only be believed in by those who want to. I feel that the driving force behind existence is always love, whether it be the love of the parents for their child or the love of an artist for his craft.
We do consciously act and in a sense we tend to experience free will but the determinist believe that our brain has some sort of chain reaction due to cause/effect and we are not in control of this process. From stimulus and sense data to the thought process and finally the act itself are all interlinked in such a way that we do not participate actively. I think there is a middle ground between strict determinism and absolute free will.
After seeing countless debates on the existence of God, l can sense your frustrations. I think people believe in God for other reasons and using philosophy as hand maiden of religion will always create loopholes in the arguments and pointless debates. It belongs to metaphysics but as l far as l am concerned, it cannot be solved with reason.
You haven't mentioned anything about rules yet, l have given few objections on the process of making rules and following them.
How is discussing the attributes of God irrelevant to religious discourse. How do you define religious discourse. Since you keep using the word discourse, can you justify the existence of different discourses for the same topic as legitimate on their own. Is it all language games and not real philosophical problems ?
In philosophy there is a grand underlying method of reasoning and the interaction of different discourse happens all the time and causes confusion.
Regarding the current metaphysics behind physics and natural sciences. Do you believe that the laws of science are the natural phenomena or an explanation of them. There was a philosopher who argued that there a many sets of system to explain the natural phenomena and science is just one of them. I think he was sick of scientism but l won't go as far as him.
It was the question you were asking i.e. ‘how can ‘God’ see if He doesn’t have eyes?’ To me, it conveyed incomprehension of the subject.
The point about ‘domains of discourse’ is that within them at least words have common meanings, there is a shared set of understandings within which agreement and disagreement can take place. Whereas from the viewpoint of scientific materialism the discourse of metaphysics has no meaning. So the materialist and traditional metaphysical world views are not only different, but they’re incommensurable.
So in answer to the question you asked, ‘is discussion of metaphysics meaningful’, I am responding: ‘yes, if you situate the discussion in the context within which the basic terms of metaphysics - being, essence, reality, contingency and necessity - are meaningful.’ But if you look at the subject from the perspective of positivism, then it’s meaningless as a matter of definition. Why? Because positivism starts with the axiom that ‘metaphysical propositions are meaningless’.
" How does God see? " is a valid question as it allows us to understand the usage of "see" when describing attribute of God. If l told you someone is playing football without using legs, you would question the use of "play" here, as it may imply playing a video game, not the physical act itself. So, how does God see ?
Are those terms meaningful according to you. If you suggest that their meaning changes with the change of domain of discourse. I would contend that such changes imply that the terms are falsely constructed ( either one domain has got it right or all are wrong) since they all point to single reality ,the world. Metaphysics covers the foundation of many empirical subjects and hence it is not purely a theoretical enterprise but a practical one, which tends to be misguided.
No, merely human. They based their philosophy on a principle of empirical verification which itself can't be empirically verified. The counter to that is to relax the principle to be more of a guide than a rule. But then one can't just rule out metaphysics a priori. Instead a positivist needs to show why a metaphysical position needs empirical verification to be meaningful before they can rule it out as meaningless.
Otherwise, empirical verification is itself meaningless.
So the rejection of metaphysics was based on the sense that the entire subject had been historically superseded by Modern Science to which the whole project of modernity was evolving. Part of that, was also the centuries-long attempt to rid philosophy of the dreaded scholastic (read: Aristotelian/Thomistic) dogma (not coincidentally associated with the struggle against the political clout of the Catholic church).
So that's a bit of background. Although by way of postscript, for those who haven't seen it, it's always worth reading about A J Ayer's near-death experience.
I've been thinking about this more. I think you asked the wrong question. The right one is "Is discussing metaphysics useful." The answer is "yes, very useful."
which is a metaphysical viewpoint.
Where is the Light that shines to make me so?
‘Twas born from the stars in that milky glow.
There is a light seed grain deep inside you.
You fill it up with yourself, or it dies.
[i]Why do we wander around in the dark,
In the middle of the night like this?[/i]
Well, if we knew the answer to that one,
We would have been home some hours ago.
Did we not tire, e’er walking, looking, lame?
At first, we did, yes, but then beauty came—
The grand moment of wings grown; lifting, new.
The rhythm flies us—our music plays through.
[i]Such we are stirred, so touched by the starlight,
That it seems we’ll ne’er be the same again.[/i]
Do we sense the euphony of the spheres?
Can we fathom the theory of everything?
Yes, although to be fair, he has defined "metaphysics" differently that we have.
Of course, I agree with you and also with your earlier comment which makes the same point. But it's something that only becomes obvious when it's been spelled out. The lecturer under whom I did a unit on positivism used to say that the hardest thing about positivism is that it falls victim to its own criticism. He used to compared it to the legendary uroboros, the snake that swallows itself. 'The hardest part', he would say, 'is the last bite'.
If I say "This centants is speld rite in stantert inglitch," that don't make it so.
There's one reality, but many possible explanations? These explanations are not "equally right" ... or at least they may not be. The significant fact here is that we can't place a numerical probability value onto these things, so we actually don't know whether these "approaches" are, or could be, "equally right". We are even more ignorant than you think? :chin:
Which is already a kind of metaphysical assumption. And if we take in multiverse type models, it might be, in a sense or more than that, incorrect. But futher we assume that we all circle with our senses a thing, but perhaps it is vastly more malleable than that.
I think part of this issue is the relationship between science and philosophy, in general, and between science and metaphysics, in particular. For myself, I see science as a tool that grew out of analytically-oriented philosophy. Others see science as having replaced philosophy. :gasp: Perhaps the only thing we can all agree on (even if it's for different reasons) is that metaphysics is not a science?
But that's a bit like saying science is not a language. Well, yes, but uses one. Or Science is data. Well, yes, but...Science is not perception. Science is not logic. Science is not epistemology.
I am sure their are other examples. Where you have categories that overlap and also are members different kinds of categories.
Physics and specfically cosmology is really focusing a lot on metaphysics. All science is based on specific conclusions in metaphysics. Paradigmatic shifts that have taken place and in all liklihood will take place will have metaphysical aspects. Any scientist trying to decide what a model is and what it means about future research or what anomolies mean in relation to models, is likely mulling over metaphysical type stuff.
Metaphysics wouldn’t hold with peer reviewed, experimentally grounded predictions for the explanation of observations, so metaphysics wouldn’t be an empirical science. But if metaphysics holds with a certain rigidity, an internally consistent, logically non-contradictory theoretical foundation for the explanation of something else, it might be considered a science of that something else.
The doing of science is of a different category than that to which science is done. Just as physics is the scientific evaluation of the the known predicates of real objects from which a posteriori knowledge is given, so too can metaphysics be the scientific evaluation of all the possible predicates of pure reason from which a priori knowledge is given. In each case, the object of each science is different, but the doing of the science can be similarly rigid and potentially explanatory.
We treat the world scientifically in an attempt to understand it; we treat metaphysics scientifically in an attempt to understand ourselves.
This is true, if one considers the fact that no empirical science whatsoever, is ever done that isn’t first thought. Even if all empirical science is itself fundamentally grounded in observation, which has nothing to do with pure thought, what the empirical scientist does with that observation, is entirely predicated on his evaluation of it, which is necessarily an a priori determination. The study of that evaluation, and all such evaluations, would be the purview of a non-empirical science.
So the question really boils down to.....is a non-empirical science possible.
I find it odd that the human mind, a generic placeholder for the totality of intellect, is required for any scientific thought, and the same human mind then tells us there are things we are not allowed to think scientifically about. Metaphysics is by definition “something else”, other than empirical science, but metaphysics can still be treated scientifically, that is to say, adhering to, and governed by, a set of rules specific to it.
If the fundamental precept of eliminative materialism is the idea that a rational agency in itself has no right to the confidence intrinsic to the contents of its own mind, we are thereby met with a blatant contradiction, insofar as any such eliminative materialist must employ the very thing he denies, at least to some significant degree. While I admit some contents of my own mind are rather unsubstantiated, I certainly claim the right to them.
I see what you're getting at, but if I had written what you just did, I would have written "philosophical" every time you wrote "metaphysical". In fairness, metaphysical is not well defined to begin with, and we simply disagree about vocabulary. But I think there's more to it than just that.
Of course there is a philosophy of science, and it has a great deal to do with science. Maybe it 'belongs' with science. And then there's metaphysics, which is the cache of tools we use to investigate vague stuff, stuff where there's no evidence, and no chance of finding any, and so on. The stuff I'm describing here, as I do my (poor) best to define/describe metaphysics, is inaccessible to science, and cannot be dealt with by science. Just as there are a million things that science can deal with, but metaphysics can't even approach. They're different and complementary, science and metaphysics. I'm sorry if my vocabulary proves confusing, but just remember that when I write metaphysics, I'm referring to that branch of philosophy that considers truth, beauty, the nature of Objective Reality, and so on. Some of these things impinge upon science peripherally, but none of them are central to science. Those (the things central to science) are covered by (what I call) the philosophy of science.
I'm sorry, I know what you say here is perfectly plausible, but all I can see is an attempt to re-label metaphysics as "science". Thus, science makes another conquest. No, I'm sorry, this won't wash.
Science is too rigid for some things, perhaps for some of the things that metaphysics deals with. To force something that is not science into the mould of science is to damage and deform it. Like psychology, an important and significant area of learning, deformed by the attempts of its own practitioners to define it as a science. Maybe to obtain grants for their research? I don't know. But a subject that studies human personality, and the like, cannot function if its only tools are logical, rigid and scientific.
The achievements of science are many; its success is admirable, and not in dispute. But it is not useful or applicable in all circumstances. If you want to consider "Truth", you need metaphysics, or something like it. Science just can't cope. You write as though science can be adapted to any use, so I ask this: how could science deal with an issue where there is no evidence - none at all - and no prospect of ever getting any?
You and I have gone back and forth on this a bit. As I see it, much of what makes up the philosophy of science is epistemology. Science is fundamentally knowledge of what's what, of objective reality if you will. The scientific method is a way of knowing - ways of knowing. For me, separating epistemology from metaphysics is artificial and misleading.
If we use only science - and it isn't clear that that's what you're suggesting, but it looks that way - then our understanding is going to be less than it could be. To address difficult issues, we need to use all the tools we have, not confine ourselves to one. Like the human eye: rods give low-res B&W vision, but with a wide area of coverage, while cones cover a much smaller area, but offer colour and higher-resolution. If we had rods, cones and squiggles, we wouldn't be bother even for an instant about whether we should continue just with rods and cones, we'd use all three. And our sight would be better for it, overall.
If we hope ever to understand ourselves, we need a lot more than logic and science to do it. :chin:
Now you're opening a new can of worms. Thems fiten words.
Some other time, I guess.
I disagree. Science studies the apparent reality that our senses and perception delivers pictures of. Philosophically, we have no way to know if those pictures (using vision as a synecdoche for all the senses) are of Objective Reality, or if they relate at all to Objective Reality, in any meaningful way. The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach, without getting burnt! :wink:
I see what you're saying, and I sympathise. But human languages are what they are, and these things arise from time to time. We don't actually disagree, I don't think, except on the actual labels we use to describe these things. :wink: :up:
I'll be here. :wink: :smile:
Actually, I agree with you, but science does study the shadows of objective reality on the cave walls.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
I don't disagree with you here either, but I don't think you can have a useful discussion of metaphysics without also discussing epistemology (stamps feet).
True, IFF we’re forcing a science of metaphysics into the mould of empirical science, but we’re not because the two are mutually exclusive. The criteria governing the methodology in the latter is the non-contradiction between observation and predictable experience, which is always predicated on objective conditions, the criteria governing the methodology in the former is the non-contradiction between reason and a priori knowledge, which has no objective predications at all.
All I’m saying is we can do metaphysics in the same general way we do science, that is, in accordance with a theory-consistent set of rules.
————————
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Absolutely, if using only science here means empirical science. Although, some great strides have been taken in understanding the brain, which has the eliminative materialists dancing in the aisles. But that as yet says nothing definitive with respect to how a intelligence comes to understand its own condition.
Even seeking a plausible answer to the question whether metaphysics can be treated as a science, is treating it like one.
Since philosophical includes metaphysics I would obviously agree with those sentences, but I see no reason, for example, to say that cosmology is obviously dealing with metaphysics. Every epistemology is making claims about what is, and somewhere in it, at least as axioms, there will be metaphysical claims. I mean, what is physicalism but a metaphysical position. Or the idea that there are natural laws. That is also a position in metaphysics.Quoting Pattern-chaserTell that to the cosmologists. Tell it to Einstein. That space and time are relative, that's metaphysics and a couple of decades after Einstein's math and theory, it was confirmed empirically. Newton's univerise and Einstein's have metaphysical differences.Quoting Pattern-chaserQuoting Pattern-chaserI really cannot see how the nature of objective reality does not impinge on, and is not central to, the project of science, especially physics. Truth also. I didn't realize anyone was including beauty in metaphysics - I'd put that in Aesthetics - but I do realize that metaphysics' definition varies. It always seems to include ontology and science has a lot to say about ontology.
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And if you want to argue that the scientists are not talking about ding an sich, that is what things are like without us percieving them, I disagree wholeheartedly. They often write and describe what they think exists regardless of our perception. When they write about black holes, they are writing about what there is even if we did not exist.
But let's make sure we're not talking past each other. I think scientists consider themselves to be investigating objective reality and science for them is dealing with objective reality, for them. That is part of their and its philosophy. Now you can come in and argue that really they are examining appearances and so all their models and theories and data are really about appearances, but that is you aiming your philosophy at theirs and arguing what is really going on. Different scientists might, to varying degrees, agree with parts of this, but they all think they are modeling actual reality, out there.
And then, regardless, even the concept of appearances and what we can and cannot know is metaphysics type issues. No one is metaphysicsless. You cannot have opinions about reality wihtout explicitly or implicitly assuming and asserting metaphysical positions. And science is founded on its metaphysical positions. Right down to the idea of natural laws. Or that one can gain knowledge about reality, to physicalism, and then on up to specific theories and ideas about what is going on.
I am, though, mixing the this thread with the one about scientists not accepting philosophyr or looking down on it. They don't realize it's in their bloody bones, metaphysics also.
I am not, however, arguing that science is metaphysics or metaphysics is science. Just that they overlap and then also that they are not quite the same kind of category.
Metaphysics substitutes abstraction for the realm of the divine. There are plenty of things to glean from all kinds of studies in the field, and, so, to discuss Metaphysics is still "meaningful", but the methodology will ultimately be supplanted by some other branch of Philosophy.
Axioms are just assumptions by another name. Some of them might be metaphysical, others not.
Quoting Coben
If it was able to be confirmed empirically, it wasn't a metaphysical point, was it? :chin:
Quoting Coben
I need to offer a preamble here, before I answer this point.
Our senses and perceptions somehow deliver to our conscious minds pictures of an apparent reality. The pictures, we have direct (objective) knowledge of; we can 'see' them in our minds. The veracity of what the pictures show? That's another matter, and we have no objective knowledge of this, nor can we have such knowledge. Nevertheless, this apparent reality (I'll just call it AR from now on) is the only 'reality' to which we have access. So science necessarily examines and investigates AR. What else can it do?
We could be brains in vats, fed with interactive electro-bio-chemical data by the vat-maintainers. That data (in this thought experiment) is identical to that which we are actually experiencing now, as we read this, and as we continue to live out our lives. In this case, AR is not reality, but only a creation of the vat-maintainers. Another possibility is that AR is Objective Reality (subject to the limitations of our senses and perceptions). These two possibilities are indistinguishable. There is no evidence that can or could be gathered to tell the difference. So science simply cannot address it.
So, back to your point. The nature of objective reality (e.g. see my previous paragraph) is not something that science can address. It is not central to the project of science. It is not even accessible to the project of science.
Quoting Coben
Only if AR is objective reality.
Quoting Coben
No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing. Frustrating, isn't it? :wink:
Quoting Coben
Yes, that's what they "think", but it's just wishful thinking. An assumption, maybe even glorified by ascension to axiomhood (if that's a word), but not fact. Or, to be properly accurate: we cannot know it (to objective standards) to be factual.
Interesting. How do you think this might be achieved? :chin:
I'm assuming you agree that the whole AR vs. OR distinction you are making is a metaphysical one and not a matter of fact. If so, then you and I agree it is more useful to recognize that the only reality we have access to is AR, but it's not true or false.
Right, but you need metaphysical ones in epistemology. That things can be understood, that there are natural laws, ideas about the relation of perceivers to reality. Probably stuff about time also.Quoting Pattern-chaser
Sure it is. Einstein's ideas about curved space time are metaphysical. There is nothing in metaphysics that says it can never be tested or demonstrated. Quoting Pattern-chaser
You somehow have access to objective notions about all the components of perception - perceivers, perception, objects or objective reality and then how these interact. How did you get knowledge of all those pieces and not just appearances?Quoting Pattern-chaserTo me you are confusing absolute knowledge with objective knowledge. It doesn't have to be infalllible to be objective. Quoting Pattern-chaser
Not to me.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Sounds like both objective knowledge claim and an absolute one on your part.Quoting Pattern-chaserOnce you make a claim as to what others cannot know, you are assuming you are objectively (and here seemingly absolutely) correct about others using information gained via AR. How can you be correct and sure of it, for example, about me, and what i cannot know for sure but a scientist cannot know that what xylum does in a tree?
OK, I think we've already agreed that there is no universal understanding of what "metaphysics" actually is, so I can't (and won't) dispute what you say, even though it doesn't quite gel with my own understanding. :up:
Quoting Pattern-chaser[Highlighting added; it's not part of the original quoted text.]
To which you replied:
Quoting Coben
I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. I tried to explain how we don't have access to objective knowledge about anything at all (other than that Objective Reality exists). I do not have knowledge of the things you list, and neither do you. [And neither does any other human, of course.]
Quoting Coben
Yes, it does. "Objective" describes something that accurately corresponds to that which actually is, irrespective of our beliefs and opinions. Thus Objective knowledge is infallible, although it's probably also incomplete. [I.e. it isn't a complete description of Objective Reality.]
Quoting Coben
We cannot know if AR corresponds to OR. Given this, nothing we discover about AR necessarily applies to OR. That's the (metaphysical!) point here. So I can be sure that no human has objective knowledge of anything at all, except by coincidence (and even then, they couldn't demonstrate that their understanding was Objective). What scientists discover about AR, I accept. I only dispute any suggestion that this is Objective knowledge. It could be, but we can't know that.
Axioms are usually considered to be self-evident; whereas assumptions may or may not be.
One person's axiom is another person's assumption.
Metaphysics refers to the conventions of language-games that seem to lack a definite or well-understood collective purpose, or when used disparagingly, to a convention that is believed to be unhelpful with respect to some assumed purpose of the language game.
I actually hit this at a very abstract level. Anything self-evident, it seems to me, will only be that to some people. But OK, here's a few....
In formal ethics....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_ethics#Axioms
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That will seem obvious to some, to others it will seem obvious that certain rules apply only to certain people. For example many ethical systems include either in practice or openly the idea that greatness exempts one from the necessity of this axiom. They would see it as an assumption that it applies to all.
Postulate 5 in Euclidian geometry about angles at the intersection of lines or about parallel lines never crossing, is an assumption, now, and not really an axiom, any more, since non-Euclidian geomtries work just peachy while contradicting this one.
For this one see at the end that it is not accepted as self-evident by all epistemologists...
There, you just did it again. You told me a fact about me. I am not you. I am outside you. You didn't say it appears to me that you do not have knowledge of OR. You said how it must be.
I think @Pattern-chaser is positing a view of knowledge a la Kant.
Perception doesn’t involve direct apprehension of objective reality. Do you directly apprehend radio waves, microwaves, and atoms through perception? The short of it is “no”. One has to theorize about objective reality from what appears to our perception (apparent reality).
The Subject in the subject-object relation is necessarily private. Is that what you’re saying? I don’t think he would disagree with this, but you are also saying there is another kind of knowledge, viz. self knowledge. Right?
we can't know about the OR
is based on knowledge claims about the OR.
Well, first of all, no. Why need the OR be consisternt? Perhaps it's a multiverse or like one with different rules in different places, even in what seems, in the AR, to be a single 'thing'.
Then a further no, because my point is not simply that he is making claims about me and that I am, for him, a part of the OR, but that he is making claims about the nature of the OR in general. For example that things are separate from eachother. That they only impinge on each other via intermediate media. Like light comes from the tree, hits my retina, this triggers.....etc. That causes only travel over distance, cause leading to cause, that there is no directing intermingling. I think he has a model of reality in general, not just of my perception. And that is a model of the OR not just the AR. Or he wouldn't communicate with me the way he does.
A lot of this seems so obvious it might not even seems like claims about the OR. Hey, a reality has to be like that. Well, there you go, making a lot of claims about the OR.
I appreciate your mediation, it helped me flesh out the argument. I'll wait and see if he chimes in before responding more, and I think it would be useful for him to read our interaction. Might save some time there also.
I think you’re each using the term “perception” differently. Patternchaser is strictly using the term to mean “sense perception” in that we all see, hear, smell, and taste the same things and can communicate meaningfully about our experiences. You’re using the term to mean subjective experience which differs from person to person in that we all model OR differently. Or is that wrong? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Perception is the gateway to his OR. What he says about perception indicates a lot of things he thinks are true about the OR that are not just about perception.
Okay. So are you saying that maybe some people could know OR if their model is complete?
Now I will really stop until he rejoins the discussion.
It's not all about you. :wink: I told you a fact about the real world.
I said that a number of times to Noah. That it wasn't just about me, or just my perception. That is was a model of reality in general.
About the OR. How come scientists don't get to do that?
Are you saying you just have a subjective model? How come you seem so certain of it? How come it seems to be couched in objective frames?
But anyone reading your posts would think you think you can approach knowledge of OR. In fact, even this quote is an example of it.
Let me quote him referring to scientists....
We have no way of knowing if it is OR. If we have no way of knowing, then we cannot decide which models are likely and which are less likely.
Yet, here he is simply stating thigns about the OR.
If he has no way of knowing, why present his model without qualitification?
Why even come up with one?
Why not just say: I experience X.
That would be an AR description.
Here's another quote...
If that is the case how can we have models of it? How can he?
I don't think I am being 'excessively concerned with minor details or rules; overscrupulous.' I am working with his own descriptions of what science cannot do, which are very strongly stated and then evaluating his communication about his own models and conclusions about OR. I don't think they fit well at all.
I also pointed out earlier that science is objective, but not absolute. He seemed to think that something must be absolutely infallible to be considered objective. He did not accept that. So, then, what is he doing when he describes the OR?
So presumably his model is subjective, but I am not sure that is meaningful, and then you'd think it would be heavily qualified. Like 'the following model seems to fit my experience and I'm guessing other people's.'
Maybe. Or maybe he was trying to work things out as he was going. Anyway, I think his model is really inter-subjective in that people seem to agree on science which deals with sense data as well as theories explaining sense data. This is a communal activity. Whether or not it is knowledge of objective reality or things in themselves is impossible to know due to the nature of perception and theorizing.
I would say scientists do not agree in the least that they are merely drawing conclusions about sense data, nor would they think that the scope of science is related to that. He disagrees, I get that. And if someone was saying to him Science paints every increasing accurate pictures of objective reality, he has a case to be made. But that's a different situation.
Here he is saying that one cannot know, one has no way of knowing and.....
I think that's a very hard position to defend, because he will need to show why science can't reach OR and this will require him to explain the nature of OR and scientists to show the latter cannot approach the former. Fruit of the poisoned tree and all that.
Didn’t Einstein say something like objective reality is probably stranger than can be theorized by science? Patternchaser is making a philosophical, metaphysical and epistemological claim about objective reality. That is not science’s domain. Most scientists, unlike Einstein, know jack about philosophy.
Rather than the requirement to show the nature of OR, wouldn’t it suffice to show the limits of AR? If AR could be shown to be insufficient for epistemic certainty with respect to OR, would the nature of it matter?
I just realized that intersubjective doesn't work, because most people experience their model that they can know things about objective reality as working for them.
But one must confer with the community in order to determine that one isn’t completely crazy, delusional, or hallucinating. This is learned as a toddler in most cases in that a toddler forms ideas about the outside world by learning from others and observing how others interact with the shared outside world. A schizophrenic, for example, if she has insight into her illness will inquire of others about the outside world and listen to those she trusts, trust being something learned through interaction with others. So, yes, objective reality certainly IS a certain way, but that doesn’t give us its objective nature or how it would be absent a percipient.
Exactly. That's a glaring fault in the opening post. I would have made clarification on that point my top priority.
Quoting Wittgenstein
And this isn't much help either. I would predict that you'd get a mixture of affirmative and negative answers due to the lack of any firm, consistent, and shareable means or criteria upon which we can make that assessment, which ultimately means that there's no point in answering at all.
I would give this discussion set-up a rating of one out of ten.
OK. To start, even though the whole thing is a waste of time, I accept the absolute definition of "Objective". That is: Something Objective corresponds accurately with that which actually is, regardless of our beliefs or opinions.
Our senses/perception are flawed. We know this; we have observed and confirmed this many times, in many ways. [N.B. I'm not referring here to simple mistakes, like reading a meter wrongly. I'm referring to how, for example, we can fail to notice a man in a gorilla suit crossing the court of a game[/url] we're watching. And many other such shortcomings.]
Given the absolute way in which Objective is defined, we cannot rely on our senses to provide information to this standard, given their flaws. So we have no access to Objective information. Thus we cannot know any details of Objective Reality, except that it exists. How could we? We have no Objective source of information, nor any way to get one.
- I know nothing (Objective) about OR, except what is contained in its definition, or what can be deduced from it.
- I'm not telling you anything (Objective) about OR, except what is contained in its definition, or what can be deduced from it.
- No human is equipped to know or discover anything (Objective) about OR, except what is contained in its definition, or what can be deduced from it.
Surely that is clear now?Not anymore. :wink:
I bugged out of this discussion a few days ago. I thought I had said everything I had to say. I wish I hadn't. You and @Pattern-chaser have taken it somewhere interesting and are dealing with issues I've thought a lot about.
To start, I think you are being a bit unfair to Pattern-Chaser. Or are you just joking around. He's said this explicitly - when he says you cannot know anything directly about OR, he's not talking about you, he's making a metaphysical statement about what can be known and what can not be. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion, a statement about how it is useful to think about things.
Also - it's a very mainstream position. Here's a quote from a book " @Wayfarer posted the reference a few days ago:
The Reality Principle. Reality is a metaphysical concept, and as such it is beyond the reach of science. Reality consists of things-in-themselves of which we can never hope to gain knowledge. Instead, we have to content ourselves with knowledge of empirical reality, of things-as-they-appear or things-as-they-are-measured. Nevertheless, scientific realists assume that reality (and its entities) exists objectively and independently of perception or measurement. They believe that reality is rational, predictable and accessible to human reason. Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 8). Pegasus Books. Kindle Edition.
Schopenhauer talked about this stuff back in the early 1800s. Here's what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
This precipitates a position that characterizes the inner aspect of things, as far as we can describe it, as Will. Hence, Schopenhauer regards the world as a whole as having two sides: the world is Will and the world is representation. The world as Will (“for us”, as he sometimes qualifies it) is the world as it is in itself, which is a unity, and the world as representation is the world of appearances, of our ideas, or of objects, which is a diversity.
He compared his understanding with that of eastern religions - Buddhism and Hinduism. His idea of "will" was similar to eastern ideas that the world as we know it is an illusion and that underlying reality is undifferentiated and unknowable. I think of "will" as being like the "Tao," although nothing I've read indicates Schopenhauer read Lao Tzu.
Again - this is all metaphysics. My point isn't that your way of seeing things is wrong, only that the other way of seeing things is useful, meaningful, and mainstream.
I don't think that the ideal of objectivity was well established before early modern science and was strongly associated with the Galilean science of motion. The presumed 'primary qualities' of matter were presumed to be objective, i.e. the same for all observers. It's not much of a leap from there to the presumptions of philosophical atomism, i.e. 'the world consists of ultimately-existing atoms'. However this has been undermined by physics itself, what with the 'observer problem'.
Quoting T Clark
He did read the Upanisads every evening, according to Magee. Bear in mind, knowledge of Indian and Chinese sources was only just becoming published in his day. Magee has an appendix in 'Schopenhauer's Philosophy' on similarities between German idealism and Indian philosophy.
Can you name an ethical system which exempts "the great" from this axiom?Quoting Coben
The parallel postulate is more a stipulation than an axiom. Parallel straight lines are defined as being non-convergent. Non-Euclidean geometries do not "contradict" Euclidean geometry; they are contexts in which the axioms of Euclidean geometry simply do not apply.
As to causation; it is axiomatic just because events cannot be understood non-causally.
I agree. The fact that parallel lines never cross is part of the definition of parallel lines, not an assumption or restriction imposed on them.
Quoting Janus
On the other hand, I don't agree with this. Or am I being inconsistent? Maybe knowing causes is part of the definition of "understanding." Now I'm confused.
The idea of ontological indeterminacy is confusing. I'm not a determinist and can accept that nature is, or at least may be, at bottom indeterministic, but I have no clear idea what that could mean, beyond saying that microscopic probabilities average out to produce macroscopic causal determinations. :yum:
I've been thinking a bit about what it means for something to be caused and whether it makes sense to think of things that way. Right now, I come down on the side that it doesn't make sense to think things are caused, although I can't really give a satisfactory reason yet.
How about a 'transitioning', via laws.
Or just the one big effect of the Big Bang continuing? Our local cause and effect analysis has to draw a boundary, as a cutting off?
I think stuff just happens and "cause" is just an overlay we superimpose on the world. As I indicated, I haven't gotten it figured out yet.
As we've kind of measured, there may be trillions of tiny changes in tiny constituents every second, although the semblances containing them, such as the sun or a tree or a rock last very long. Perhaps events happen, which we take as stuff, and the laws of nature underlie.
It appears that there is such a continual transitioning of the 'World' that not anything in particular can remain the same, even for an instant, or the instant is incredibly short. To me, this indicates something very energetic. It's hard to specify.
This made me think of something. Is there a Planck length of relative motion or time as there is a Planck length in spacial extension? If not, then what are the implications? If so, then what are the implications for cause and effect?
There is a Plank time, the shortest time in which anything can happen, and there are zillions of these times a second. Presumably, the discreteness of this and other quanta indicates a digital universe, casting Einstein's analog continuum into doubt—but it could still very well approximate a continuum.
So if there are ‘jumps’ from one discrete state to another, what does that say about causality? It seems that at the quantum level, cause and effect break down, no?
When I say that stuff happens, I mostly mean human scale stuff. That's what humans experience in their lives. So - the cue ball is hit toward the 5 ball, which hits the 8 ball, which then goes into the pocket. The player causes the cue ball to go toward the 5 ball which causes the 8 ball to go into the pocket. It's when you get away from such simple situations and scales that causation becomes less clear.
It's confusing, for in quantum mechanics, there's no underlying objective state, as all is in a superposition until some interaction occurs, for which we understand the probability of the result, as unitary, meaning that the probabilities add up to 1. They say that some kind of wave function, either as real or just as a math tool, goes along deterministically until the wave function collapses, giving the probabilistic result. All of our computers work, so QM is telling us something right.
Or, maybe at every Planck instant the universe is created anew.
Philosophically, I'd think that randomness has to be the bedrock of reality, but, upwards of that there would be deterministic cause and effect when possible, it the operation doesn't touch the bedrock.
Much better. :up:
Two of Aristotle's other three "causes" (material and formal) are more what we would think of as constitutive and formative conditions that determine, respectively, what a thing is and what a thing is for, which in turn determine how it can act upon, and be acted upon by, other things.
Final cause is the idea of necessary and universal conditions that globally determine every thing and every process, every causally efficient action and every event; whether those conditions are thought to be the will of God, the Dao, entropy or whatever.
Biology, animal behavior and to an even greater degree human behavior, cannot be understood comprehensively in terms of efficient causation.
As I indicated, It's over my head too. I just have an intuition that causation is not needed to explain how things happen. I'm not using that as evidence or making any claims. I need to spend more time thinking about it.
When I talk about cause and the fact that I don't think it exists, I think I'm talking about efficient cause. It seems to me the other three modes of causation are just metaphorical. Maybe I can be talked out of that.
Quoting Janus
If I thought that efficient cause were the most effective concept for dealing with physical phenomena, I don't know why anything more would be required for biology, animal or human behavior, consciousness, or any other "higher" level phenomenon.
The causation you write about is similar to what I wrote about in my previous post:
Quoting T Clark
As I said, it seems to me things get a lot less clear when we talk about more complex situations. I can flip a coin 1,000 times and the results will come out close to 50/50, but I can't predict exactly. That's probably caused by a lot of unknown factors which are difficult or impossible to predict. Of course there's the weight and balance of the coin and the geometry and force of my hand and thumb, but then there are lots of other factors like wind resistance, me hiccuping or sneezing, differences in the force of my thumb, etc. etc. The chain of causation is too complex to track and, seems to me it will ultimately become impossible even in theory. Many of the phenomena in the world behave under the same kind of probability systems except much more complex. There is also complex behavior related to chaos and complexity theories and emergence. In complex situations, very small or infinitesimal differences in actions lead to large differences in effects, i.e. the butterfly effect.
I don't even want to bring up uncertainty associated with quantum mechanics, since that seems different in kind than the others.
Your point about complex "chaotic" systems is well-taken; even if nature were completely deterministic it would still be impossible to accurately predict outcomes with high reliability, all the more so the longer the time-frame. Quantum indeterminacy would not seem to make much, if any, practical difference to our ability to model such systems, since the randomness averages out nicely. It's actually the, for all intents and purposes, complex nature of statistically deterministic macro systems that presents the problem. It's interesting that complex systems such as for example the weather may be more or less accurately modeled and reasonably reliable and accurate short terms predictions made; but that is only possible on account of being able to model systems on powerful computers.
Interesting. Where is the evidence for this ?
I think the reason behind restriction on the shortest time as plank time is because that is the shortest time we can measure but mathematically speaking, consider " t " to be Plank time , wouldn't t/2 be shorter than that.
I would disagree with the following arguments simply for the reason that practical success indicates a good theory, not a perfect one. Newton's law work fine with average size objects traveling far slower than the speed of light.Once we get to really big objects or the really small ones, the errors are not negligible. QM is a mathematical construct and that's probably why they had to decide a physical interpretation of it and a philosophical one too in some sense.
If we leave behind cause and effect relation, most of the laws would be senseless. This takes me back to philosophers in the 11 century who thought of reality as being created in every instance with a tiny gap in time that is too small to measure. They used that theory to explain miracles or as they called it , the suspension of habit. If we continue with this theory, we will have to regards laws as describing a habit in reality, not the reality itself.
If an effect has multiple causes, as in the case of the flip of a coin. There can be multiple questions raised to examine the behavior. If someone asked me what caused it to fall. Gravity as an answer won't suffice because my releasing of the coin enabled gravity to make it fall as it was there before l released it but not effective. I dont think science will have much of a problem with regards to the confusion behind the cause as scientists have some effective method of ruling out many causes to focus on the cause which is essential. With regards to predicting head or tail, it gets a bit complicated. If we get a computer that analyzes the behavior of the coin as it gets closer to the ground, we will have more accurate prediction as we get closer to the event and it will be more clear.
Why not ? I am not a physicist but casually browsing about plank time, l think that we don't have any theory currently in physics ( that which combines relativity with QM ) to use any time period shorter than plank time. It doesn't imply that plank time is the shortest time period.
As a disciple of Wittgenstein, l will fight scientism wherever l find it. :smile:
There have been some books discussed here over the last few years, One here. It grows out of the need for some account of final cause especially in biology. Biosemiotics, which is derived from C S Pierce, often talks about the need for an idea of final cause. None of which is news to neo-thomists.
Of course. I did make that clear in there, the part about it not being specifically about me. I brought it down to a me you level, just to make it concrete. People often think as if they have a bird's eye view. But we don't, we're in situ. So, here I have someone saying we - note that, we - can't know anything about the OR.
I am part of his OR.
So, how does he know.
But the truth is I don't have to go to that level. He thinks we don't know things about the OR because of his ideas about the OR. How objective, perceivers, perception all work and don't work. He also talked about scientists not talking about objective reality. IOW they study AR - apparant reality - and that is what they can draw conclusions about. I think he was confusing absolute with objective. But beyond that, here he is talking about OR based on whatever his epistemology is. He goes so far as to say they can't approach OR at all. How could one even state an opinion? How could one compare one model of the OR with any other.
Noah defended him by saying that he can have models of the OR based on AR. Well, that's exactly what scientists are doing. But if scientists can't approach the OR at all, then presumably he can't either. So why would any model be better than any other? How does he get a model of the OR?Quoting T Clark
Same problem. Mr. Baggott just talked about OR and said 'never'. This position is not consistant because it contains a model of the OR that he is happily using to say 'never'. No qualifying, no possibility that this model is incorrect. Perception subjects objects. That's the way things are. And implicit in this is 'no action at a distance' or 'no intermingling at a distance', iow that causes must move through media so all experience must be filtered and interpreted and indirect.
Now that all sounds just peachy and logical, but here he is saying the way reality is. Because friends, we are a part of reality. And Mr. Baggot is talking about all other people, and they are a part of OR. And he has a model, based on AR, so how come he is so sure it applies universally in the OR.
I don't really care how common this is. It is self-contradictory.Quoting T Clark
What's my way of seeing things?
All of my posts have been about the contradictions in his position, that it undermines itself.
Earlier in the thread I was likely mixing a bit the topics where science and metaphysics and science and philosophy are being contrasted. My point was that scientists definitely consider themselves to be finding out thigns about objective reality. I think there are excellent arguments for this. However I actually think the situation is more complicated and my position is very complicated and I have not even started trying to convey it.
All I am saying is that Pattern and Mr. Baggott are contradicting themselves.
If they said something like: I have found it useful to think of things like X, then I wouldn't have a problem. But both make very blunt unqualified statements about how things are. And in some sense, built on the ideas of thinkers who were working with the idea that they are talking about the OR in a factual way.
If we want to go to the East it would be better if when asked if we can know about the OR
they should say 'Mu'.
But they tell us we can't know about it since we and the OR are like X.
And that is self-contradictory. If it is merely an opinion, this stil causes problems since one cannot approach the OR (Pattern). And given that the model that one can seems to be working for so many people, why should one switch over to this other opinion that undermines itself?
It also includes the very Western assumption that we are separate from reality, but that's a whole nother can of worms.
Your focus is on the idea which looks fine on paper. Great. But the problem is asserting it. It is a claim to access to the OR, because other people, causation, reality, other people's perception, those are all part of the OR. And his model, however common, is about the OR. So asserting his position is problematic, hypocritical.
And what I believe about OR and perception are irrelevent. I could be wrong and he could be wrong. My focus is on his position and I think it is self-contradictory.
And I find it odd that I have been called pedantic and unfair, by Noah and now respectively. Maybe I am wrong, but pedantic? unfair?
I am raising points I think undermine him asserting his position. I have tried to word it in a number of different ways. I don't think it's a small point - so I don't get the pedantic criticism - and I don't think I am treating Pattern, whom I enjoy as a discussion partner and respect, differently than I treat other people. So, I don't get the unfair charge either.
I'm gonna drop the subject. I actually decided that but then noticed you'd joined in, so I wanted to see if there was something new.
I think I presented my case well in a couple of different ways. That might have an effect or it might not, but I've put in the effort I am willing and I think I did a good enough job for it to be evaluated. A lot of the points raised against my arguments ahve seemed irrelevent. Though I do understand that it is a tricky area of discussion.
I think you can see from my posts that I am uncertain about my footing on this issue, so I'm not sure if I am headed in your direction or not. It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory. It's not just a case of being ignorant. Part of that feeling is a conviction that sufficiently complex systems, even those that are theoretically "caused," could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe. There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is.
Quoting Janus
That's a timely point. We're on vacation at the beach. The weather's been nice, but there have been a few days where the weather forecasts have been very inaccurate. That doesn't really undermine your point, but is "statistically deterministic" really what people mean when they say that something is caused?
If something is completely unpredictable, does it still make sense to say it is caused. Isn't cause inextricably tied up with prediction? It may be possible to model and predict a coin flip or build a machine that can flip a coin with near perfect uniformity, but how about 1,000 flips using 1,000 random coins flipped by 1,000 random people?
My responses on this subject all come back to the same point - this is a metaphysical argument. It's not right or wrong, it's a question of which approach is most useful and productive in a particular situation. @Pattern-chaser' indicated we do not have access to OR. That, again, is a metaphysical statement. It's one I happen to agree with, by which I mean it find it the most useful way of thinking about things in situations where I am trying to understand the world.
Quoting Coben
Again - a metaphysical statement. Yes, exactly - it's "based on whatever his epistemology is." That's the point. At least that's my point.
Quoting Coben
My interpretation of Baggott's opinion is that the "reality principle" as he's related it is the most useful and productive approach for scientists. Here's what he says"
[i]Just because I can’t perceive or measure reality as it really is doesn’t mean that reality has ceased to exist. As American science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick once observed: ‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.’
And this is indeed the bargain we make. Although we don’t always openly acknowledge it upfront, ‘reality-in-itself’ is a metaphysical concept. The reality that we attempt to study is inherently an empirical reality deduced from our studies of the shadows. It is the reality of observation, measurement and perception, of things-as-they-appear and of things-as-they-are-measured. As German physicist Werner Heisenberg once claimed: ‘… we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning’.[/i]
In my own thinking, I take it a step further, although I'm not sure it really matters practically. I say objective reality doesn't exist. What's the difference between "X is a metaphysical concept" and "X doesn't really exist?" Not sure.
"Scientists definitely consider themselves to be finding out thigns about objective reality," is clearly not true if by "scientists" you mean "all scientists." As I indicated before, the ideas that we can only know apparent reality, objective reality is a metaphysical concept, and even that objective reality does not exist are not wild and crazy ideas. They are mainstream epistemological understandings about the scientific method. And yes, not everyone agrees. And yes, many people don't understand that the discussion is a metaphysical one and not a matter of true or false.
Quoting Coben
I guess we could have a discussion about which approach is most useful and the possible pitfalls of each. Is this the place to do that? Am I ready to have that discussion? Are you interested?
Here in America, we don't say "mu." We say "whatever."
Quoting Coben
I have found myself doing just what you are doing here recently - giving it my best shot, deciding that I've made my best case, and calling it a day. It's a good way to end a discussion when we've all done the best we can.
I didn’t mean to offend you. I value your contributions to the threads I’ve encountered you in. My personal approach is that OR is modeled by observing, perceiving, and measuring AR. This method of approximating OR from studying AR implies a gap between AR and OR which is the nature of having conscious beings in a physical world. This is metaphysics, not science, as TClark pointed out.
Nicely put! Thank you for expressing it in that way, which I hadn't thought of. :up:
I think the Planck time is the time it takes for something travelling at the speed of light to traverse the Planck length. From this we reason that nothing can happen in a time less than the Planck time. I think I have that right, but I'm open to correction? :chin:
Are you saying that scientists simply filter out the lesser contributors to cause so that they can focus on just the one (even if it is the biggest one)? Ignoring and 'simplifying' reality in favour of calculability (if that's a word)? Perhaps I have misunderstood?
My point (as it applies to these words) is that one can't.
My so-called model of OR is that we - all humans, past, present and future - know nothing of it, other than that it exists. Not really worthy of the term "model", is it? :wink: More of a non-model, really. It is simply an acknowledgement of our inability to obtain - by any means - Objective knowledge.
Quoting Coben
And my point is that they are mistaken if they believe they have discovered Objective knowledge. For simplicity, I'm ignoring the possibility that Objective knowledge is discovered unknowingly. For it is not then known by the discoverer to be Objective, nor can the discoverer demonstrate the correctness of her discovery to Objective standards.
If you cannot or will not accept this, then please answer this question: what means do scientists have to exercise Objective perception? It cannot be their own, human, perception, as we are easily able to demonstrate its (many) shortfalls. So what is this magical means that scientists have, to discover the undiscoverable?
I sympathize with this point of view.
In absolute terms, this is - must be - true. But if you are a brain in a vat, your connection to OR is less direct than you think it is. I challenge your assertion that these things are "all part of the OR". I do not assert that you are wrong, I assert that you have no way to demonstrate, to Objective standards, the knowledge you just claimed. Please explain how you have sufficient (and Objective) access to OR that you can justifiably make any claim about what is or is not part of OR. :chin:
...and if you are a brain in a vat? Would you not then be modelling the 'reality' the vat-maintainers send to you? :chin:
I take it on faith that I’m not a brain in a vat or an AI in a simulation. It’s my opinion.
Blowing your mind…
The sun is not the same sun as it was a trillionth of a second ago, although to us a semblance of the ‘sun’ remains.
There are, strictly speaking, no objects that are identical with themselves over time, and so the temporal sequence probably remains open.
Nature is then no longer seen as clockwork, but only as a ‘possibility gestalt’, the whole world occurring anew each moment; however, the deeper reality from which the world arises, in each case, acts as a unity in the sense of an indivisible ‘potentiality’, which can perhaps realize itself in many possible ways, it not being a strict sum of the partial states.
It appears to us, though, that the world consists of parts that have continued on from “a moment ago”, and thus still retain their identity in time; yet, matter likely only appears secondarily as a congealed potentiality, a congealed gestalt, as it were.
(Maybe)
'History of ideas' sounds a rather generic description, but actually it refers to a specific academic sub-discipline. It is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time.
So why it's important, is that it allows us to understand these ideas in a cultural and historical context. In particular, the fundamental shift that happened in Western thinking revolved around the 'scientific revolution', precipitated by, among others, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes. Viewed through that historical perspective, the huge change in Western thinking was precisely around the shift towards objective measurement as the basis of science. Earlier science had been based on inductive reasoning and intuition - not without its merits, but deficient in terms of dealing with actual facts.
[quote=E. R. Dougherty]Modern science emerged in the seventeenth century with two fundamental ideas: planned experiments (Francis Bacon) and the mathematical representation of relations among phenomena (Galileo). This basic experimental-mathematical epistemology evolved until, in the first half of the twentieth century, it took a stringent form involving (1) a mathematical theory constituting scientific knowledge, (2) a formal operational correspondence between the theory and quantitative empirical measurements, and (3) predictions of future measurements based on the theory. The “truth” (validity) of the theory is judged based on the concordance between the predictions and the observations. While the epistemological details are subtle and require expertise relating to experimental protocol, mathematical modeling, and statistical analysis, the general notion of scientific knowledge is expressed in these three requirements.
Science is neither rationalism nor empiricism. It includes both in a particular way. In demanding quantitative predictions of future experience, science requires formulation of mathematical models whose relations can be tested against future observations. Prediction is a product of reason, but reason grounded in the empirical. Hans Reichenbach summarizes the connection: “Observation informs us about the past and the present, reason foretells the future". 1 [/quote]
And that's a major part of the context within which many of the debates on this forum take place. A lot of people (understandably, but incorrectly, in my view) assume that scientific method has superseded classical metaphysics and also undermined religion. But that doesn't see that whilst scientific method is powerful, indeed universal in scope in some respects, it often starts from basic assumptions about what constitutes 'evidence' and indeed what amounts to valid knowledge, that contain an implicit metaphysics - that of scientific realism and naturalism. And it's that attitude which emphasises (not to say 'worships') the notion of there being an Objective Reality, same for all observers, which science is painstakingly exposing, breakthrough by breakthrough, much like the chipping out of the fossilized remnants of a T. Rex from the jurassic layer in the Dakota badlands.
Whereas for some:
Quoting PoeticUniverse
which is actually much nearer the emerging understanding of 'systems theory' informed by biosemiotics and ecological perspectives, not so much built around 'atomic facts' as 'emergent patterns and networks'.
With regards to a complicated system, l have found the following article whose link is below quite useful. From what l have understood partially is that, a deterministic system can be unpredictable because the uncertainty and the error in the initial measurement of the system will cause drastic change in the calculated outcome.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12166/1/DeterminismIndeterminismWordPittsburghArchiveWithF.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwift_CkjonkAhUL-2EKHSknAvwQFjABegQIDxAH&usg=AOvVaw3LDopPZI0btavaExsb5oik
I think it is more like nothing can happen in less than plank time that has any meaning in the current theoretical framework of physics.
It depends on ones perspective in my opinion. If you regard the current theories of physics to being complete in explaining the universe, then plank time is the shortest time period. I think physics will have to develop a more complete theory which unites the macro world with the quantum world, so there is a possibility for time period being shorter than plank time. To be candid, the possibility is low.
Yes, l think that was my point. For example when deriving a equation, say PV=nRT. Physicist will make certain assumptions which will simplify the model. Like these assumptions which can be false in certain cases.
– Gases are composed of very small molecules and their number of molecules is very large.
– These molecules are elastic.
– They are negligible size compare to their container.
– Their thermal motions are random.
-- The molecules do not attract/repel each other.
Sometimes the results are not precise as in case of actual molecules ( they occupy space, hence affecting the actual volume, they have attraction between molecules affecting the pressure ) and there we need ,Van der Waals corrected equations. Later on there was Maxwells correction too.
Doesn't that make causality a bit, er, indeterminate?
People often connect determinism and causality but l think they are not that interlinked, we can have a indeterminate system ( if indeterminate system is a unpredictable system ) that is based on cause and effect relation.
Consider the example below , > represents cause.
A>B and B>C,D,E
C>F,G,H D>I,J K E>L,M,N
This system will be complicated as the cause and effect relations will grow exponentially. Let's say at a certain limit the computer cannot track the causes anymore and that will be quick. From that point onwards , we will have an unpredictable system but that which can be traced to a general cause.
For example it wont be correct to say whatever E causes will be caused by A. So we may approximate certain things. It will also be negligible since the systems will gradually become smaller or restricted under A.
I would go with that too . :smile:
What is your take on the free will debate ?
How would you explain free will and what does it mean to have a free will ?
Absolute freedom is absurd since everyone interacts with the sense data provided from the world.
Those who believe that we do not have free will should have problems explaining something that doesn't exit according to them. Similarly those who believe in free will should have problems explaining cause and effect 's relation to freedom.
Quoting Wittgenstein
Did I just cover that, in what I said above?
What do you mean by " freedom " in freedom to act ? :wink: :wink:
:ok: l agree that it works in only one way but what is that way ?
I never implied that it was your stance, l was just going about an extreme form of determinism.
The freedom to do as we wish, constrained only by the world, and the way it is, and the way it behaves. So long as we accept that we can't change the world (with some minor exceptions), we can act as we wish within that world.
Quoting Wittgenstein
The way it is. Just as Objective Reality is that which actually is, so the world, expressed in a rather less rigorous way, is what it is. It follows no laws, and acknowledges no constraints. It just is. So the way of the world is ... the way of the world. The way of the Tao, perhaps. :wink:
Since we are constrained by the world, how does that interfere with our freedom ?
Can you explain objective reality and subjective reality as a concept, l don't really know what's going on here. :grin:
Objective Reality is the absolute reality; it is what is, and that's all there is to it. It's the view generally adopted by analytic philosophers, sciencists, and the like. It's daft because we cannot knowingly access Objective knowledge, but that's part of another discussion, not this one. :smile: I do not value "subjective reality" as a concept, although I don't deny it or anything....
Will that do? :smile:
This reminds me of the opening lines of tractatus logico philosophicus.
1. The world is all that is the case.
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.
1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.
1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2 The world divides into facts.
1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same.
2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.
Is this view :up: or :down:
Thanks for the link. I downloaded the article and I've read through it quickly. I'll go back now and spend more time with it. It addresses issues I've thought a lot about in different terms than normally use.
My first take is that the idea that determinism and predictability are not the same isn't correct, or at least is not a useful distinction. As I said in an earlier post -
Quoting T Clark
We can talk more after I've spent more time with the article.
Yes i think that's one way to interpret the situation. Random uncaused events on the quantum scale average out to produce apparently deterministic events on the macro scale. We know with almost certainty that if you are hit by a car traveling at 100 mph you will die. However, unless I am mistaken here is a miniscule theoretical possibility that if all the electrons of both your body and the car were perfectly aligned a certain way, then the car would pass through your body.
If there are no physical processes involving anything smaller than the Planck length then there could be no time interval shorter than the Planck time, no?
According to current theory Planck's the smallest that is physically possible. I am not denying that could change, but given the incredible success of QM it seems unlikely. Even if it is merely a limit to what we could ever measure, it would seem senseless to talk about anything beyond that limit.
:smile: