Scientist reported the other day that they have found a planet so hot that it probably rains gem stones, they cannot prove it yet but who would have thought something like that was conceivable.
There are probably millions of things that no one can even imagine but that really do exist, just don't ask for proof until they are actually discovered.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 02:18#386890 likes
Reply to Sir2u What sort of answer is this? Of course a planet so hot that it rains gemstones is conceivable, I have a mental image of it right now. And I could easily have a mental image/conception of a planet so hot that is rains gemstones any time before it was every noted by scientists.
And I could easily have a mental image/conception of a planet so hot that is rains gemstones any time before it was every noted by scientists.
But you didn't did you. Which just goes to show that anything is possible as soon as someone discovers or conceives it. No one will ever know until then whether something is actually possible.
It would seem hard to affirm this, since it seems hard to know the limits of conceivability.
Well what about turning it around a little? It could be that conceivability is the limit on possibility. It is basic to notions of existence that being must be intelligible. The self-contradictory is impossible to start with. It already rules itself out. So if something actually exists, it must have been possible because it had this kind of essential reasonableness of conceivability.
So it hinges on your definition of conceivable.
If you just mean are there things that we humans could never really imagine, yet they also exist, then of course this seems true for practical reasons.
We might lack access to the scales at which these things exist in a way that might give us the usual clue to get conceiving. They may simply escape our notice, rather than being actually inconceivable.
And also we might only ever get an imperfect grasp of something that can attract our notice. We can still conceive of the thing (as an explanation for some phenomenon), yet that conception might be held as extremely general, or partial. However again, that is a practical issue of either effort or access. There is some level of conception that is going on even to know that there is a phenomenon in need of explanation.
But at the deeper level of metaphysical possibility, we would have arguments that any forms of existence must depend on the kind of possibilities which are conceivable - that is, which meet rational principles like being not self-contradictory.
However then after that we get into the tricky area where possibility itself is defined in terms of self-contradiction. A potential - like say electric charge - can exist because it is the breaking of a symmetry. You can have positive because you can also have the contradictory state of being negative. And neutral is neither - in being both.
Get down to the quantum fine grain of things and the neutral vacuum seethes with matched pairs of virtual particles having temporary (measurable) existence before mutually annihilating. At least that is one useful conception that seems a good way of accounting for the phenomenology.
So the message there is that if conceivability is taken as something stronger than a "mere combination of words" approach to imagining possibilities - if it is in fact taken as a logical constraint like the principle of non-contradiction - then physics suggests that only that kind of conceivability has a strong relation to the facts of material existence.
A "hot planet raining gemstones" is a "random combination of words" type conception. It suggests an actuality but is too vague a proposition to be answered without further information.
However the proposition that "there must be a solid gold planet the size of Jupiter somewhere in an infinite universe" can be ruled out as self-contradictory from known physics. We can know from general relativity that a mass that heavy would collapse under its own gravity and turn into a black hole.
So a ball of gold the size of Jupiter becomes only possible if the Universe is other than what it is. Issues of conceivability limit the actual possibility, even if the statement itself - there is a gold ball that large - is easy to say.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 02:39#386990 likes
Reply to Sir2u The point though is that conceivability does not preclude the possibility of someone else or myself having a conception of it at any time prior to its scientific discovery. I easily could have conceived of it. Hence it is conceivable.
Alternatively, I would almost bet money that some science fiction writer in the past conceived of such a notion, but I am too lazy to look.
Edit: I suppose I should have just said that even the scientists that made this discovery thought of this exact sort of planet, so it was conceivable to them.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 02:45#387000 likes
Reply to apokrisis Definitely not in agreement with the notion of physics determining what is possible or with the notion of self-consistency determining what exists either, but you touched on a lot of classic points. To give you a better idea of what I take conceivability to mean, I interpret 'x is conceivable' to be more or less equivalent to 'x can be thought of' (even if for reasons of practicality, no one ever actually DOES think of it)
Definitely not in agreement with the notion of physics determining what is possible or with the notion of self-consistency determining what exists either
Well given physics is what has examined this question in the most exhaustive fashion, I'm not sure what you would be basing your reluctance on.
o give you a better idea of what I take conceivability to mean, I interpret 'x is conceivable' to be more or less equivalent to 'x can be thought of' (even if for reasons of practicality, no one ever actually DOES think of it)
But that is merely the trivially true "random combination of words" approach to conception. An infinite number of typing monkeys would surely generate every conceivable truth on that score - but leave the whole question of why any one conception would rate as carrying any reasonable force quite untouched.
So even if you deny it, you are still in fact going to be seeking not just conceivable in a bare propositional sense divorced from any likelihood. Surely you would want to be talking of conceptions with some kind of further motivation behind their utterance.
And then, as I say, practicality does come into it. There is always going to be a conceiver with both a purpose and a matching level of indifference. You can't simply ignore that aspect of the question and expect any sensible comment.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 03:29#387060 likes
Reply to apokrisis I guess I'm unclear on a lot of things you find important or relevant here. For the sake of this question, all I care about is whether or not there is something that can't be thought of. Is it trivially true to you that everything can be thought of? Ok, that's great. That's sufficient to me.
For the record, I don't think it's necessarily true, much less trivial at that, that all the typewriter-monkey-brains would eventually think up anything possible. Just like even if you have the infinite set of even numbers you won't find an odd number among that infinite set. Or equivalently, just because we can mash together all the words in the world in any sort of combination doesn't mean that there is something possible out there that is unexpressable in any sort of string of words (something that analogously is not conceivable).
Physics is either inaccurate, or is just a few specific types of perceptions. I dislike it on a whole as an enterprise, because it is often used to conclude far more than the actual perceptions it is based off could conclude themselves.
For the record, I don't think it's necessarily true, much less trivial at that, that all the typewriter-monkey-brains would eventually think up anything possible.
Well I don't either. And so my point is that focusing on conception as "that which can be said" is trivial. It is clearly not sufficient.
Or equivalently, just because we can mash together all the words in the world in any sort of combination doesn't mean that there is something possible out there that is unexpressable in any sort of string of words...
The missing argument there is why words couldn't be invented as fast as the need arises. Clearly, words and conceivability go together somehow. I was focusing on that how. The relation is tricky.
Physics is either inaccurate, or is just a few specific types of perceptions. I dislike it on a whole as an enterprise, because it is often used to conclude far more than the actual perceptions it is based off could conclude themselves.
We don't have a theory of everything so in a sense the existence of the universe is yet inconceivable to us, but the universe exists despite that fact.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 04:36#387170 likes
Reply to m-theory But I don't need to conceive of every single property of the universe in order to have a conception of the universe. My mind can simply grasp the idea of the universe as "all of existence", and this means the universe would be conceivable.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 04:38#387180 likes
Reply to Question 1. What is a square circle, and what is Godelian space? 2. More importantly, how can you prove that one cannot have a conception of a square circle?
I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
-J. B. S. Haldane
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 04:54#387210 likes
Reply to m-theory I can accept this quote. Just because something is unimaginable to someone now, does not mean it is unimaginable in general.
Reply to maplestreet
That is true, but it could be that the universe is more strange than we are even able to comprehend.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 05:01#387250 likes
Reply to m-theory Well yes, hence my original question. I am looking for a proof or serious argument that would give me a good reason to believe that "the universe is more strange than we are even able to comprehend".
Reply to maplestreet
Oh I don't know of any proofs that universe is incomprehensible.
Maybe this?
https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04573
It is a proof that a problem in physics has no logical solution.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 05:30#387350 likes
Reply to m-theory No, but you at least have a much better understanding of my problem now.
To say that something is (formally) undecidable in an axiomatic system is to say it is true in a certain system and false in another. This is a much different meaning from incomprehensibility, which has a much more cognitive aspect.
Reply to maplestreet
No to say something is undecidable is to say there is no axiomatic system that can be used to resolve the question in a finite amount of steps.
If something is undecidable in one system it will also be undecidable in any other system.
That is to say you can not obtain true or false about that problem.
Terrapin StationDecember 15, 2016 at 12:57#387730 likes
"Possible" refers to what can obtain. (And can refer to different contexts, such as what can obtain logically, metaphysically, etc.)
"Conceivable" refers to what someone can coherently imagine.
The two are not at all the same.
The former (at least when we're talking about metaphysical possibility) is limited by facts in the world independent of persons.
The latter is limited by an individual's mental abilities.
Obviously one can't list something that one believes is possible but not conceivable, because by imagining it, one can conceive of it. It's simply asking someone to do something they are not capable of doing.
But some people can conceive things that others cannot. We do not all have the same mental abilities. So conceivability is always a matter of who we're talking about, exactly.
More importantly, how can you prove that one cannot have a conception of a square circle?
Asking whether it's provable that something isn't conceivable is a different (and a silly in my opinion) question. Of course that's not provable. For one, if you see it as an empirical issue, empirical claims are not provable period. But even if you simply consider whether it could be provable that something isn't conceivable on purely logical grounds somehow, all someone has to do is claim that they can conceive it, that the logical argument must therefore be flawed, and there's no way to counter that really. Proofs, after all, are always relative to particular systems of logic, and there are a lot of different systems, with some incompatible with each other.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 17:30#388070 likes
Reply to m-theory This is an answer typical of someone who has never take a class on ZFC or basics of set theory. You are using "undecideable" in the sense of computability theory. I am using it in the traditional Godelian sense. It's quite easy to show how your statement
"If something is undecidable in one system it will also be undecidable in any other system."
is incorrect: Simply make a new system in which said statement is added as an additional axiom to this system. It is therefore (obviously) true in a very trivial manner.
Also, it's also quite clear that undecideability (in either sense of the term) is an unsuitable basis for determining conceivability, as I've already demonstated.
Reply to maplestreet If it is not conceivable then it's not able to be witnessed. It would be outside of our knowledge except perhaps by indirect inference. For example, we don't really know what dark matter is, but many scientists use it as an explanation for certain phenomenon. The theologian would use God as an explanation for the causal chain. Etc.
anonymous66December 15, 2016 at 19:56#388420 likes
I can think of this in one of 2 ways.
1. Yes. There does exist something (if it exists, it is possible) that hasn't been conceived of.
2. No. This implies the assertions A. that in order for something to exist, it must be conceivable, and of course.. B. We haven't conceived of it, therefore, it can't exist.
1 makes more sense to me.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 21:58#388820 likes
It's not obvious at all to me that possibility is different than conceivability, and your comments on the matter are presently insufficient to show this.
1. Your definition of 'possibility' begs the question to say it is independent of persons. I see no reason to believe why the 'possibility' should be concerned with anything more than simply ways in which the world might exist. It also assumes a very objective sense of the term 'world'. But all I can assume is that the world is simply all of my perceptions. I have no evidence of anything independent of my perceptions. So it is possible to say that the ways in which the world might exist are simply which ways my perceptions are limited.
"The latter is limited by an individual's mental abilities."-Sure, but what if my mental abilities are equivalent to how the world can behave (akin to what I just said a moment ago)
So, it's certainly not obvious to me that they are both different.
2.
"Obviously one can't list something that one believes is possible but not conceivable, because by imagining it, one can conceive of it. It's simply asking someone to do something they are not capable of doing."
This misses the overall point. At best, if your conclusion here follows, all it shows is that one cannot generate a concrete counterexample. However, this does nothing to preclude the possibility of a proof of mere existence, that has no concrete referent. It also does nothing to preclude a proof by contradiction. However, at least you note later that " it could be provable that something isn't conceivable on purely logical grounds somehow,"
However, your justification for this is not nearly so inscrutable as you suggest. This is mainly because a mere claim of the person who disputes such a logical argument is insufficient to rebut that argument (because such a claim would require actual evidence in order to shift back the burden of proof; a claim alone won't rebut that argument). So we don't have to worry about potentially not knowing whether or not that particular person truly could "conceive of it". The keyword here is 'it', which betrays your error of supposing a logical argument would have to provide some concrete possibility, the 'it'.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:08#388840 likes
Reply to anonymous66
1. I agree that your '1' is a legitimate possibility, with the important edit that 'hasn't been conceived' be changed to 'can't be conceived'
2. I agree that your '2a' is also a legitimate possibility, with no changes.
3. I agree that your '2b' is also a legitimate possibility, with the important edit that 'We haven't conceived of it' be changed to 'We can't conceive of it'. More importantly, I'd like you to note that 2b is the same as 2a, as it is the contrapositive of 2a. In other words, 2b is redundant.
4. Most importantly of all, I'd like you to give me some sort of justification for thinking "1 makes more sense to me."
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:09#388850 likes
Reply to darthbarracuda Sure, but this still doesn't answer my overall question. It is merely the consequent of one of the possible answers to my question.
Terrapin StationDecember 15, 2016 at 22:14#388860 likes
1. Your definition of 'possibility' begs the question to say it is independent of persons. I see no reason to believe why the 'possibility' should be concerned with anything more than simply ways in which the world might exist. It also assumes a very objective sense of the term 'world'. But all I can assume is that the world is simply all of my perceptions. I have no evidence of anything independent of my perceptions. So it is possible to say that the ways in which the world might exist are simply which ways my perceptions are limited.
Idealism is wrong. So that's your first problem. If you're not making the typical infantile conflation with respect to your perceptions and what your perceptions are of, you should have evidence of things independent of your perceptions.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:17#388880 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station Whether it is wrong or not is not in fact my prerogative. So long as idealism is even possible, it shows that your misinterpretations of conceivability and possibility are unwarranted.
Terrapin StationDecember 15, 2016 at 22:23#388900 likes
Whether it is wrong or not is not in fact my prerogative.
It's not your prerogative, it's a fact that's independent of you. You're asking for definitions that work under any ontological interpretation, but there's no reason to ask for that if what possibility versus conceivability is is something about the factual, realist world and not a fictional, idealist world.
It's possible that Trump will make a good president, but it's not really conceivable.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:44#388960 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station If what possibility and conceivability turn out to be is something that indeed something that requires minds to be separate from what appears in the world, then this is a matter to be shown. It is not permissible to assert such a conclusion from defining them in the beginning. So no, I'm not asking for definitions that work under any ontological interpretation. Specifically, I don't want question begging definitions that assume an ontology in which there are facts independent of people (and hence, are not conceivable). Such as what you claimed:
"The former (at least when we're talking about metaphysical possibility) is limited by facts in the world independent of persons."
What would be acceptable example is if you claimed that
1. 'what is possible is the set of what can manifest in the world' matches our ordinary conceptions of 'possibility' / is a good candidate for a definition of 'possibility'
and
2. this understanding of possibility requires that there are facts that manifest in the world that are independent of people.
Btw, I'm still waiting for your reply to my second point from 2 posts ago
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:45#388980 likes
More importantly, how can you prove that one cannot have a conception of a square circle?
How you prove such things is to demonstrate that they are contradictory. So you would need to define "circle", and "square" in such a way that the two conceptions would exclude one being attributed to the other, by virtue of contradiction. Those who would say that a square circle is possible would be defining these terms in another way to ensure that there is no contradiction.
So we produce impossibilities by definition, and maintaining the fundamental principle that contradiction is unacceptable. Thus what is signified by the contradiction cannot be conceived of, and is said to be impossible. This is what is inconceivable, contradiction.
What you ask in the op, is if there could be something in reality, existing, which could not be described in any way other than in a contradictory way, this would make that thing inconceivable. I don't think that this is possible. If something appears to us as if it cannot be described except through contradiction (and this might be the case with what is referred to as "becoming"), then we have to keep on looking for a different way to describe it, until we determine the way which is non-contradictory.
I believe that from the point of view of the philosophical mind-set, which is the desire to know, it is necessary that we maintain this position. If we allow the possibility that there is an actuality which cannot be conceived, then anything which appears as if it cannot be described in any way other than a contradictory way, would appear to be such a thing. We would give up trying to know that thing because we would assume that it is the existing thing which is inconceivable. Therefore the true philosopher, who maintains the desire to know everything, would never admit to such a possibility.
Barry EtheridgeDecember 15, 2016 at 22:57#389050 likes
The more I read of your own contributions the more I think it was a troll question to begin with. Clearly you have your own answer to every objection already so I can see no other motivation for this thread than to anger everybody.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:57#389060 likes
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Good explanation, but I don't see anything fundamental or forceful about that principle. How can you prove to me that I can't have a conception of something contradictory?
Personally, I can convince myself of this, since I have had such a conception before. Of course, I cannot reasonably persuade you this, but this is still irrelevant; how can you prove that no one can conceive of something contradictory?
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 22:59#389070 likes
Reply to Barry Etheridge If I wanted to anger other people, there are much more efficient ways to do that than by providing reasoned responses, irrespective of whether or not these responses turn out to be persuasive.
Metaphysician UndercoverDecember 15, 2016 at 23:07#389100 likes
How can you prove to me that I can't have a conception of something contradictory?
Then it would not be a conception, it would be a misconception. A supposed conception, which contains a contradiction is really a misconception. That's the point here, we control these things through definition. I follow a definition which separates a conception from a misconception. So if you claim to have a conception which consists of a contradiction, then to me this is not a conception at all, so I dismiss it as a misconception. If you continue to insist that it is a conception, then either we give up our attempts to communicate, or you describe to me your definition of conception which allows you to say that what I call misconception, you may call a conception.
maplestreetDecember 15, 2016 at 23:28#389200 likes
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover OK, you are being very fair. I respect your definitions and simply therefore request that you proceed to answer my question using the following definition for conception:
x is conceivable=x can be thought of/is percievable
On this definition, I maintain that something logically contradictory is conceivable, and while I do not expect you to accept this assertion, I would request any proof if you continue to maintain that "if x is contradictory, then x cannot be thought of"
On this definition, I maintain that something logically contradictory is conceivable, and while I do not expect you to accept this assertion, I would request any proof if you continue to maintain that "if x is contradictory, then x cannot be thought of"
That a contradiction is conceivable is to say we can conceive of what - for reason of contradiction - can't possibly exist. So not sure how this helps with any issue regarding inconceivable existences.
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 00:49#389280 likes
Reply to apokrisis The issue is that Metaphysician Undercover claimed that a square circle possibly exists: Depending on how one defines 'square' and 'circle', this concept need not be impossible. In other words, it would be possible. And he claims that a square circle is not conceivable. Of course, one might rightly wonder whether or not if the definitions changed that this change could also make a square circle now be conceivable. So yeah, I am inclined to agree with you that this looks like a moot point.
OK, you are being very fair. I respect your definitions and simply therefore request that you proceed to answer my question using the following definition for conception:
x is conceivable=x can be thought of/is percievable
I would not equate conceiving with thinking of, or perceiving. If this were the case, then other creatures which think and perceive would have conceptions. I think conception requires some judgement of consent by the thinker, a judgement that the thinking is correct thinking.
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 01:36#389420 likes
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover What's wrong with saying other creatures can have conceptions or judgements of consent? Either way, it really doesn't matter if you think it's a good definition or not. I am requesting that definition be used for the sake of my question. If you want, simply don't answer the question. Alternatively, answer my original question as 'Does there exist something that is possible but cannot be thought of/perceived?'
Metaphysician UndercoverDecember 16, 2016 at 01:48#389440 likes
Reply to maplestreet Well, I already said that I don't think it's wise to even believe that there is anything in existence which cannot be conceived. And as I defined conceiving, it is a specialized form of thinking, so clearly I don't think there is anything in actual existence which cannot be thought of, in any absolute sense.
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 02:13#389480 likes
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover ok, this simply answers my original question directly. this is sufficient to me and similar to my own thoughts.
Metaphysician UndercoverDecember 16, 2016 at 02:23#389490 likes
I guess I like stating everything in the most convoluted way possible. But here's the thing, it's just an opinion, an attitude, a belief that it would be unphilosophical to think otherwise. So it can't really be proven, it can just be explained.
Terrapin StationDecember 16, 2016 at 12:42#389770 likes
If what possibility and conceivability turn out to be is something that indeed something that requires minds to be separate from what appears in the world, then this is a matter to be shown.
The problem with this approach is that there is no default "foundational" stance that everyone accepts for us to start at. The answer to a lot of questions will stem from particular other stances that someone might not share. We can't start from the beginning all the time, even if we'd want to, because of that lack of some shared, default, "foundational" stance. And Lord knows I don't want to turn yet another thread into an idealism vs. realism discussion--sometimes it seems like that's all we do here. It's like some sort of OCDish obsession.
Aside from that, my comment isn't at all question-begging. Question-begging specifically refers to an argument where the conclusion is one if the premises.
Terrapin StationDecember 16, 2016 at 12:53#389780 likes
On this definition, I maintain that something logically contradictory is conceivable,
"Something logically contradictory being instantiated materially" that should be, as anyone who understands what logical contradictions are finds them conceivable--otherwise one would not understand what logical contradictions are in the first place. "Conceiving logical contradictions to be true" wouldn't really work, either, as everyone who can grasp the basics of paraconsistent logic, at least as a formal construction, can conceive of that.
Conceivability should specify a coherency requirement. Otherwise, people often say they can conceive of something if they can roughly imagine it while avoiding thinking about details/how it would work, where the details often don't make much sense to them. However, coherence is typically defined with respect to logical contradictions, so one would have to give an account of what coherence is amounting to when one says that one can conceive of something logically contradictory being instantiated materially.
anonymous66December 16, 2016 at 13:16#389810 likes
4. Most importantly of all, I'd like you to give me some sort of justification for thinking "1 makes more sense to me."
It's purely intuition. I suspect most people would agree. If someone doesn't agree, then they would have to make an argument in defense of the assertions I mentioned.
A. in order for something to exist, it must be conceivable. B.We haven't conceived of it, therefore, it can't exist.
There has already been an example. Before we conceived of the idea of a planet that rained jemstones, that planet did exist. I suppose we could quibble about whether or not that planet Could have been conceived of, Before it was actually discovered.
I interpret the OP to be asking, "Could there exist something that could never have been conceived of(prior to its discovery)?"
It seems to me that you are making the assertion, "If something Is discovered, Then it Was conceivable." I'm saying that just because something was discovered, it doesn't follow that anyone would have ever conceived of said thing, before it was discovered.
It's almost as if you are suggesting that no one has ever been surprised. What is surprise, if not the feeling "holy cow! I had no idea! "?
2. No. This implies the assertions A. that in order for something to exist, it must be conceivable, and of course.. B. We haven't conceived of it, therefore, it can't exist.
There's a difference between being conceivable and being conceived, and so B. doesn't follow.
anonymous66December 16, 2016 at 13:40#389850 likes
This suggests that you agree that there could be things that exist, which haven't yet been conceived of (but Could eventually be conceived of).
I don't see how anyone could disagree with that. After all, all sorts of films, music, etc. will be made--and just next couple years, say, that no one has conceived of yet.
anonymous66December 16, 2016 at 14:19#389940 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station But you're talking about the future, in the case of the examples you used. I thought the OP was about things already in existence.
But, even then. There probably do exist film scripts, music, etc.. that I couldn't conceive of, and yet they do exist.
Another thing to consider: in the instances above, the things were conceived of before they were created (I think). I may not have conceived of unknown film scripts, etc before I was aware of their existence... but Someone did conceive of them, and Then created them.
When we talk about whether something is conceivable, we do not usually mean whether a particular person is capable of conceiving it at a particular time; we usually mean whether any person could ever be capable of conceiving it.
Well yes, hence my original question. I am looking for a proof or serious argument that would give me a good reason to believe that "the universe is more strange than we are even able to comprehend".
Since it seems obvious that a five year old cannot comprehend the simplest of things (like how a light bulb works) and many fairly intelligent people cannot comprehend complex things (like how a car engine works) and even other very intelligent people cannot comprehend very complex things (like how quantum mechanics works), it seems finally very obvious that the most intelligent people cannot comprehend the most complicated things.
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 16:34#389990 likes
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 16:35#390000 likes
Reply to Hanover It doesn't matter how many people can conceive of a thing or how smart they must be. All that matters is that some mind, somewhere, sometime, and somehow can conceive of that thing.
maplestreetDecember 16, 2016 at 16:51#390010 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station Here you are confusing "something that is logically contradictory" with the concept of being logically contradictory. I am referring to a directly perceivable thing that is logically contradictory, not the notion itself.
About the concern over definitions, I'm only assuming some default stance with respect to coneceivability. I am asking answerers to assume that what I mean by 'x is conceivable' is 'x can be thought of/x is perceivable'. It is a definition to be assumed in answering the question. Whether or not one thinks this is a definition that accurately models what conceivability is or not does not matter to me. If you prefer, simply eliminate all trace of conceivability from my original question and replace it with 'x can be thought of/x is perceivable'. It may be an issue that there may be no precise consensus as to what it means to be thought of or to be perceivable, but that would be a separate issue.
You'll notice I didn't define what it means to be possible anywhere, so I am open for some room to interpretation. However, I have already explained that simply positing a definition of possibility in which it is assumed that things exist independent of our thoughts begs the question, so at least this interpretation is not permissible. Why does it beg the question? Because I defined conceivability in terms of what can be thought of. Hence it is obvious to say that if something is possible 'independent of whatever we think about it' assumes that there is a world in which there is no one around to conceive (think of) yet we can still say that things are possible (or not).
Again, I'm still waiting on your response to my point #2 from 3 posts ago (I think) in our conversation.
It doesn't matter how many people can conceive of a thing or how smart they must be. All that matters is that some mind, somewhere, sometime, and somehow can conceive of that thing.
I don't understand your question then. If you're hypothesizing that there can be a mind that has infinite comprehension, then it's logically entailed that such a mind be able to conceive anything that is possible.
If your question is, though, whether the actual most complex event can be comprehended by the actual most complex mind, then the answer is empirical, and it seems to be the answer is no because there are all sorts of things that are not currently comprehended.
Terrapin StationDecember 16, 2016 at 18:30#390060 likes
Here you are confusing "something that is logically contradictory" with the concept of being logically contradictory. I am referring to a directly perceivable thing that is logically contradictory, not the notion itself.
Here you are showing that you didn't actually comprehend the phrase "Something logically contradictory being instantiated materially," but nevertheless, you didn't care that you didn't comprehend it.
I have already explained that simply positing a definition of possibility in which it is assumed that things exist independent of our thoughts begs the question,
And once again when you say this, it's as if you're hainging a sandwich board on yourself announcing "I don't actually know what 'question-begging' conventionally refers to.'"
Terrapin StationDecember 16, 2016 at 21:10#390160 likes
I was just going by your comment: "This suggests that you agree that there could be things that exist, which haven't yet been conceived of (but Could eventually be conceived of)." I wouldn't know how to read that so that it's not talking about the future--re "haven't yet" and "could eventually be conceived of."
Another thing to consider: in the instances above, the things were conceived of before they were created (I think). I may not have conceived of unknown film scripts, etc before I was aware of their existence... but Someone did conceive of them, and Then created them.
Yeah, people conceive of them first--or at least while their in the earliest, rough-sketch etc. phases of them, but that's why I said in the next couple years. A lot of things will be created--some of it by me, as I make my living with music, including doing some film music--where the people who will create it haven't conceived of it in any guise yet.
Reply to maplestreet
So your's is a common point of confusion and I can relate because I did not understand myself not all that long ago, and I made the same mistaken assumption as yourself.
Here is a good break down of godel incompleteness that might help with your confusion.
There is the classic idea of a contradiction like the liar paradox.
"This statement is false."
And you can play with the axioms of a formal system so that you can avoid the possibility of constructing these type of contradictions within that system.
But godel also illustrates a different kind of statement that is subtly different in formal terms.
It looks more like.
"This statement is unprovable."
What godel showed, as a consequence of incompleteness, is that you can construct an unprovable type of statement in any formal language.
There are plenty of examples of unprovable statements that can be used as axioms.
... A statement is independent of ZFC (sometimes phrased "undecidable in ZFC") if it can neither be proven nor disproven from the axioms of ZFC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statements_independent_of_ZFC
Undecidability as a computer science term is an extension of incompleteness applied to the particular synatx (formal language) of computation.
I disagree with you that undecidability and/or incompleteness have nothing to do with inconceivability/incomprehensibility.
In my opinion inconceivability is simply an informal way of referring to this formal concept.
Comments (68)
There are probably millions of things that no one can even imagine but that really do exist, just don't ask for proof until they are actually discovered.
Obviously not the one you were sitting there waiting for, less than 3 minutes to reply seems kind of fast.
Quoting maplestreet
But did you conceive it before I mentioned it? that is the point I was trying to make.
Quoting maplestreet
But you didn't did you. Which just goes to show that anything is possible as soon as someone discovers or conceives it. No one will ever know until then whether something is actually possible.
Well what about turning it around a little? It could be that conceivability is the limit on possibility. It is basic to notions of existence that being must be intelligible. The self-contradictory is impossible to start with. It already rules itself out. So if something actually exists, it must have been possible because it had this kind of essential reasonableness of conceivability.
So it hinges on your definition of conceivable.
If you just mean are there things that we humans could never really imagine, yet they also exist, then of course this seems true for practical reasons.
We might lack access to the scales at which these things exist in a way that might give us the usual clue to get conceiving. They may simply escape our notice, rather than being actually inconceivable.
And also we might only ever get an imperfect grasp of something that can attract our notice. We can still conceive of the thing (as an explanation for some phenomenon), yet that conception might be held as extremely general, or partial. However again, that is a practical issue of either effort or access. There is some level of conception that is going on even to know that there is a phenomenon in need of explanation.
But at the deeper level of metaphysical possibility, we would have arguments that any forms of existence must depend on the kind of possibilities which are conceivable - that is, which meet rational principles like being not self-contradictory.
However then after that we get into the tricky area where possibility itself is defined in terms of self-contradiction. A potential - like say electric charge - can exist because it is the breaking of a symmetry. You can have positive because you can also have the contradictory state of being negative. And neutral is neither - in being both.
Get down to the quantum fine grain of things and the neutral vacuum seethes with matched pairs of virtual particles having temporary (measurable) existence before mutually annihilating. At least that is one useful conception that seems a good way of accounting for the phenomenology.
So the message there is that if conceivability is taken as something stronger than a "mere combination of words" approach to imagining possibilities - if it is in fact taken as a logical constraint like the principle of non-contradiction - then physics suggests that only that kind of conceivability has a strong relation to the facts of material existence.
A "hot planet raining gemstones" is a "random combination of words" type conception. It suggests an actuality but is too vague a proposition to be answered without further information.
However the proposition that "there must be a solid gold planet the size of Jupiter somewhere in an infinite universe" can be ruled out as self-contradictory from known physics. We can know from general relativity that a mass that heavy would collapse under its own gravity and turn into a black hole.
So a ball of gold the size of Jupiter becomes only possible if the Universe is other than what it is. Issues of conceivability limit the actual possibility, even if the statement itself - there is a gold ball that large - is easy to say.
Alternatively, I would almost bet money that some science fiction writer in the past conceived of such a notion, but I am too lazy to look.
Edit: I suppose I should have just said that even the scientists that made this discovery thought of this exact sort of planet, so it was conceivable to them.
Well given physics is what has examined this question in the most exhaustive fashion, I'm not sure what you would be basing your reluctance on.
Quoting maplestreet
But that is merely the trivially true "random combination of words" approach to conception. An infinite number of typing monkeys would surely generate every conceivable truth on that score - but leave the whole question of why any one conception would rate as carrying any reasonable force quite untouched.
So even if you deny it, you are still in fact going to be seeking not just conceivable in a bare propositional sense divorced from any likelihood. Surely you would want to be talking of conceptions with some kind of further motivation behind their utterance.
And then, as I say, practicality does come into it. There is always going to be a conceiver with both a purpose and a matching level of indifference. You can't simply ignore that aspect of the question and expect any sensible comment.
They exist in Godelian space.
For the record, I don't think it's necessarily true, much less trivial at that, that all the typewriter-monkey-brains would eventually think up anything possible. Just like even if you have the infinite set of even numbers you won't find an odd number among that infinite set. Or equivalently, just because we can mash together all the words in the world in any sort of combination doesn't mean that there is something possible out there that is unexpressable in any sort of string of words (something that analogously is not conceivable).
Physics is either inaccurate, or is just a few specific types of perceptions. I dislike it on a whole as an enterprise, because it is often used to conclude far more than the actual perceptions it is based off could conclude themselves.
Well I don't either. And so my point is that focusing on conception as "that which can be said" is trivial. It is clearly not sufficient.
Quoting maplestreet
They go to the issue of what would even count as sufficiency when it comes to this apparently rather nebulous thing of "conceivable".
Quoting maplestreet
The missing argument there is why words couldn't be invented as fast as the need arises. Clearly, words and conceivability go together somehow. I was focusing on that how. The relation is tricky.
Quoting maplestreet
People never like what they don't understand.
We don't have a theory of everything so in a sense the existence of the universe is yet inconceivable to us, but the universe exists despite that fact.
I suppose, but your question made me think of this quote.
-J. B. S. Haldane
That is true, but it could be that the universe is more strange than we are even able to comprehend.
Oh I don't know of any proofs that universe is incomprehensible.
Maybe this?
https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04573
It is a proof that a problem in physics has no logical solution.
To say that something is (formally) undecidable in an axiomatic system is to say it is true in a certain system and false in another. This is a much different meaning from incomprehensibility, which has a much more cognitive aspect.
No to say something is undecidable is to say there is no axiomatic system that can be used to resolve the question in a finite amount of steps.
If something is undecidable in one system it will also be undecidable in any other system.
That is to say you can not obtain true or false about that problem.
"Conceivable" refers to what someone can coherently imagine.
The two are not at all the same.
The former (at least when we're talking about metaphysical possibility) is limited by facts in the world independent of persons.
The latter is limited by an individual's mental abilities.
Obviously one can't list something that one believes is possible but not conceivable, because by imagining it, one can conceive of it. It's simply asking someone to do something they are not capable of doing.
But some people can conceive things that others cannot. We do not all have the same mental abilities. So conceivability is always a matter of who we're talking about, exactly.
Quoting maplestreet
Asking whether it's provable that something isn't conceivable is a different (and a silly in my opinion) question. Of course that's not provable. For one, if you see it as an empirical issue, empirical claims are not provable period. But even if you simply consider whether it could be provable that something isn't conceivable on purely logical grounds somehow, all someone has to do is claim that they can conceive it, that the logical argument must therefore be flawed, and there's no way to counter that really. Proofs, after all, are always relative to particular systems of logic, and there are a lot of different systems, with some incompatible with each other.
"If something is undecidable in one system it will also be undecidable in any other system."
is incorrect: Simply make a new system in which said statement is added as an additional axiom to this system. It is therefore (obviously) true in a very trivial manner.
Also, it's also quite clear that undecideability (in either sense of the term) is an unsuitable basis for determining conceivability, as I've already demonstated.
1. Yes. There does exist something (if it exists, it is possible) that hasn't been conceived of.
2. No. This implies the assertions A. that in order for something to exist, it must be conceivable, and of course.. B. We haven't conceived of it, therefore, it can't exist.
1 makes more sense to me.
It's not obvious at all to me that possibility is different than conceivability, and your comments on the matter are presently insufficient to show this.
1. Your definition of 'possibility' begs the question to say it is independent of persons. I see no reason to believe why the 'possibility' should be concerned with anything more than simply ways in which the world might exist. It also assumes a very objective sense of the term 'world'. But all I can assume is that the world is simply all of my perceptions. I have no evidence of anything independent of my perceptions. So it is possible to say that the ways in which the world might exist are simply which ways my perceptions are limited.
"The latter is limited by an individual's mental abilities."-Sure, but what if my mental abilities are equivalent to how the world can behave (akin to what I just said a moment ago)
So, it's certainly not obvious to me that they are both different.
2.
"Obviously one can't list something that one believes is possible but not conceivable, because by imagining it, one can conceive of it. It's simply asking someone to do something they are not capable of doing."
This misses the overall point. At best, if your conclusion here follows, all it shows is that one cannot generate a concrete counterexample. However, this does nothing to preclude the possibility of a proof of mere existence, that has no concrete referent. It also does nothing to preclude a proof by contradiction. However, at least you note later that " it could be provable that something isn't conceivable on purely logical grounds somehow,"
However, your justification for this is not nearly so inscrutable as you suggest. This is mainly because a mere claim of the person who disputes such a logical argument is insufficient to rebut that argument (because such a claim would require actual evidence in order to shift back the burden of proof; a claim alone won't rebut that argument). So we don't have to worry about potentially not knowing whether or not that particular person truly could "conceive of it". The keyword here is 'it', which betrays your error of supposing a logical argument would have to provide some concrete possibility, the 'it'.
1. I agree that your '1' is a legitimate possibility, with the important edit that 'hasn't been conceived' be changed to 'can't be conceived'
2. I agree that your '2a' is also a legitimate possibility, with no changes.
3. I agree that your '2b' is also a legitimate possibility, with the important edit that 'We haven't conceived of it' be changed to 'We can't conceive of it'. More importantly, I'd like you to note that 2b is the same as 2a, as it is the contrapositive of 2a. In other words, 2b is redundant.
4. Most importantly of all, I'd like you to give me some sort of justification for thinking "1 makes more sense to me."
Idealism is wrong. So that's your first problem. If you're not making the typical infantile conflation with respect to your perceptions and what your perceptions are of, you should have evidence of things independent of your perceptions.
It's not your prerogative, it's a fact that's independent of you. You're asking for definitions that work under any ontological interpretation, but there's no reason to ask for that if what possibility versus conceivability is is something about the factual, realist world and not a fictional, idealist world.
"The former (at least when we're talking about metaphysical possibility) is limited by facts in the world independent of persons."
What would be acceptable example is if you claimed that
1. 'what is possible is the set of what can manifest in the world' matches our ordinary conceptions of 'possibility' / is a good candidate for a definition of 'possibility'
and
2. this understanding of possibility requires that there are facts that manifest in the world that are independent of people.
Btw, I'm still waiting for your reply to my second point from 2 posts ago
How you prove such things is to demonstrate that they are contradictory. So you would need to define "circle", and "square" in such a way that the two conceptions would exclude one being attributed to the other, by virtue of contradiction. Those who would say that a square circle is possible would be defining these terms in another way to ensure that there is no contradiction.
So we produce impossibilities by definition, and maintaining the fundamental principle that contradiction is unacceptable. Thus what is signified by the contradiction cannot be conceived of, and is said to be impossible. This is what is inconceivable, contradiction.
What you ask in the op, is if there could be something in reality, existing, which could not be described in any way other than in a contradictory way, this would make that thing inconceivable. I don't think that this is possible. If something appears to us as if it cannot be described except through contradiction (and this might be the case with what is referred to as "becoming"), then we have to keep on looking for a different way to describe it, until we determine the way which is non-contradictory.
I believe that from the point of view of the philosophical mind-set, which is the desire to know, it is necessary that we maintain this position. If we allow the possibility that there is an actuality which cannot be conceived, then anything which appears as if it cannot be described in any way other than a contradictory way, would appear to be such a thing. We would give up trying to know that thing because we would assume that it is the existing thing which is inconceivable. Therefore the true philosopher, who maintains the desire to know everything, would never admit to such a possibility.
The more I read of your own contributions the more I think it was a troll question to begin with. Clearly you have your own answer to every objection already so I can see no other motivation for this thread than to anger everybody.
Personally, I can convince myself of this, since I have had such a conception before. Of course, I cannot reasonably persuade you this, but this is still irrelevant; how can you prove that no one can conceive of something contradictory?
Then it would not be a conception, it would be a misconception. A supposed conception, which contains a contradiction is really a misconception. That's the point here, we control these things through definition. I follow a definition which separates a conception from a misconception. So if you claim to have a conception which consists of a contradiction, then to me this is not a conception at all, so I dismiss it as a misconception. If you continue to insist that it is a conception, then either we give up our attempts to communicate, or you describe to me your definition of conception which allows you to say that what I call misconception, you may call a conception.
x is conceivable=x can be thought of/is percievable
On this definition, I maintain that something logically contradictory is conceivable, and while I do not expect you to accept this assertion, I would request any proof if you continue to maintain that "if x is contradictory, then x cannot be thought of"
That a contradiction is conceivable is to say we can conceive of what - for reason of contradiction - can't possibly exist. So not sure how this helps with any issue regarding inconceivable existences.
I would not equate conceiving with thinking of, or perceiving. If this were the case, then other creatures which think and perceive would have conceptions. I think conception requires some judgement of consent by the thinker, a judgement that the thinking is correct thinking.
The problem with this approach is that there is no default "foundational" stance that everyone accepts for us to start at. The answer to a lot of questions will stem from particular other stances that someone might not share. We can't start from the beginning all the time, even if we'd want to, because of that lack of some shared, default, "foundational" stance. And Lord knows I don't want to turn yet another thread into an idealism vs. realism discussion--sometimes it seems like that's all we do here. It's like some sort of OCDish obsession.
Aside from that, my comment isn't at all question-begging. Question-begging specifically refers to an argument where the conclusion is one if the premises.
"Something logically contradictory being instantiated materially" that should be, as anyone who understands what logical contradictions are finds them conceivable--otherwise one would not understand what logical contradictions are in the first place. "Conceiving logical contradictions to be true" wouldn't really work, either, as everyone who can grasp the basics of paraconsistent logic, at least as a formal construction, can conceive of that.
Conceivability should specify a coherency requirement. Otherwise, people often say they can conceive of something if they can roughly imagine it while avoiding thinking about details/how it would work, where the details often don't make much sense to them. However, coherence is typically defined with respect to logical contradictions, so one would have to give an account of what coherence is amounting to when one says that one can conceive of something logically contradictory being instantiated materially.
It's purely intuition. I suspect most people would agree. If someone doesn't agree, then they would have to make an argument in defense of the assertions I mentioned.
There has already been an example. Before we conceived of the idea of a planet that rained jemstones, that planet did exist. I suppose we could quibble about whether or not that planet Could have been conceived of, Before it was actually discovered.
I interpret the OP to be asking, "Could there exist something that could never have been conceived of(prior to its discovery)?"
It seems to me that you are making the assertion, "If something Is discovered, Then it Was conceivable." I'm saying that just because something was discovered, it doesn't follow that anyone would have ever conceived of said thing, before it was discovered.
It's almost as if you are suggesting that no one has ever been surprised. What is surprise, if not the feeling "holy cow! I had no idea! "?
There's a difference between being conceivable and being conceived, and so B. doesn't follow.
This suggests that you agree that there could be things that exist, which haven't yet been conceived of (but Could eventually be conceived of).
It only suggests that I disagree with your inference.
I don't see how anyone could disagree with that. After all, all sorts of films, music, etc. will be made--and just next couple years, say, that no one has conceived of yet.
But, even then. There probably do exist film scripts, music, etc.. that I couldn't conceive of, and yet they do exist.
Another thing to consider: in the instances above, the things were conceived of before they were created (I think). I may not have conceived of unknown film scripts, etc before I was aware of their existence... but Someone did conceive of them, and Then created them.
Since it seems obvious that a five year old cannot comprehend the simplest of things (like how a light bulb works) and many fairly intelligent people cannot comprehend complex things (like how a car engine works) and even other very intelligent people cannot comprehend very complex things (like how quantum mechanics works), it seems finally very obvious that the most intelligent people cannot comprehend the most complicated things.
About the concern over definitions, I'm only assuming some default stance with respect to coneceivability. I am asking answerers to assume that what I mean by 'x is conceivable' is 'x can be thought of/x is perceivable'. It is a definition to be assumed in answering the question. Whether or not one thinks this is a definition that accurately models what conceivability is or not does not matter to me. If you prefer, simply eliminate all trace of conceivability from my original question and replace it with 'x can be thought of/x is perceivable'. It may be an issue that there may be no precise consensus as to what it means to be thought of or to be perceivable, but that would be a separate issue.
You'll notice I didn't define what it means to be possible anywhere, so I am open for some room to interpretation. However, I have already explained that simply positing a definition of possibility in which it is assumed that things exist independent of our thoughts begs the question, so at least this interpretation is not permissible. Why does it beg the question? Because I defined conceivability in terms of what can be thought of. Hence it is obvious to say that if something is possible 'independent of whatever we think about it' assumes that there is a world in which there is no one around to conceive (think of) yet we can still say that things are possible (or not).
Again, I'm still waiting on your response to my point #2 from 3 posts ago (I think) in our conversation.
If your question is, though, whether the actual most complex event can be comprehended by the actual most complex mind, then the answer is empirical, and it seems to be the answer is no because there are all sorts of things that are not currently comprehended.
Here you are showing that you didn't actually comprehend the phrase "Something logically contradictory being instantiated materially," but nevertheless, you didn't care that you didn't comprehend it.
Quoting maplestreet
And once again when you say this, it's as if you're hainging a sandwich board on yourself announcing "I don't actually know what 'question-begging' conventionally refers to.'"
I was just going by your comment: "This suggests that you agree that there could be things that exist, which haven't yet been conceived of (but Could eventually be conceived of)." I wouldn't know how to read that so that it's not talking about the future--re "haven't yet" and "could eventually be conceived of."
Quoting anonymous66
Yeah, people conceive of them first--or at least while their in the earliest, rough-sketch etc. phases of them, but that's why I said in the next couple years. A lot of things will be created--some of it by me, as I make my living with music, including doing some film music--where the people who will create it haven't conceived of it in any guise yet.
So your's is a common point of confusion and I can relate because I did not understand myself not all that long ago, and I made the same mistaken assumption as yourself.
Here is a good break down of godel incompleteness that might help with your confusion.
There is the classic idea of a contradiction like the liar paradox.
"This statement is false."
And you can play with the axioms of a formal system so that you can avoid the possibility of constructing these type of contradictions within that system.
But godel also illustrates a different kind of statement that is subtly different in formal terms.
It looks more like.
"This statement is unprovable."
What godel showed, as a consequence of incompleteness, is that you can construct an unprovable type of statement in any formal language.
There are plenty of examples of unprovable statements that can be used as axioms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statements_independent_of_ZFC
Undecidability as a computer science term is an extension of incompleteness applied to the particular synatx (formal language) of computation.
I disagree with you that undecidability and/or incompleteness have nothing to do with inconceivability/incomprehensibility.
In my opinion inconceivability is simply an informal way of referring to this formal concept.
Buddhism would say that stuff exists and does not exist at the same time. We are dreaming up a reality.