Why do we assume the world is mathematical?
Ok, I easily see how, if we have two rocks made of the exact same material and one is twice as big as the other, the bigger one should weigh twice as much. There certainly is something mathematical about this place we live in. I am wondering though if modern science takes this too far. I often see physicists say things like "we discovered some math that helps with problem so and so" and stuff like that. I have a hard time putting my finger on what they are saying. It often seems like that are taking math a priori and assuming that the world must accord with it. That would be a Pythagorean position though. It would need defending. Anyone willing to help me reason through this issue?
Comments (192)
In my opinion absolutely everything can quantified. Whether everything should be quantified for the benefit of People is doubtful. Mathematics is an extremely broad field and to me it encompasses absolutley every field of study. Given the fact that anything can corrupted i would argue even with our best efforts to quantify everything, things will still go wrong. When i use the word quantification, i'm referring to approximate quantifications. Even NASA approximates their measurements when they quantify a concept or physical object. The absolute truth exists but it is very hard to obtain.
One argument that mathematics doesn't apply to everything is that there is essentially no known perfect witness. If a perfect witness exists, he/she doesn't make him/herself known.
It is a particular branch of maths these days. Symmetry theory.
Although of course it used to be mostly geometry as you might expect. The maths of spatial relations.
Then geometry was found to have algebraic description too. Calculus helped to capture actions in time.
Symmetry groups finally emerged because symmetry breaking is what happens to reveal a world of particles once you have some kind of geometric description of nature that unfolds as a cooling~spreading manifold.
So it is not really a big surprise. Maths grew out of the everyday utility of modelling the everyday world in terms of "form". Spatial form, or geometric relations in Euclidean space, was the everyday starting point.
And the fact that maths has turned out to stay useful no matter how many different avenues it explores should tell us that the universe is itself in some sense a "mathematical operation". A process of mathematically-structured evolution.
Higher level of maths are created by relaxing constraints. Non-Euclidean geometry arose out of geometry by relaxing the constraint that parallel lines can never meet (because the world is perfectly flat). If you permit space to be curved (making flatness a special case), then you can see reality with greater generality.
Quoting turkeyMan
That's key too. No point having a theory if it doesn't have measurements.
The mathematics is essentially just describing reality, and whatever reality should be like, we can always come up with some way of describing it. One may be tempted to say that that does not make the description identical to reality itself, as in the adage "the map is not the territory". In general that adage is true, and we should not arrogantly hold our current descriptions of reality to be certainly identical to reality itself. But a perfectly detailed, perfectly accurate map of any territory at 1:1 scale is just an exact replica of that territory, and so is itself a territory in its own right, indistinguishable from the original; and likewise, whatever the perfectly detailed, perfectly accurate mathematical of reality should turn out to be, that mathematical model is a reality: the features of it that are perfectly detailed, perfectly accurate models of people like us would find themselves experiencing it as their reality exactly like we experience our reality. Mathematics "merely models" reality in that we don't know exactly what reality is like and we're trying to make a map of it. But whatever model it is that would perfectly map reality in every detail, that would be identical to reality itself. We just don't know what model that is.
There necessarily must be some rigorous formal (i.e. mathematical) system or another that would be a perfect description of reality. The alternative to reality being describable by a formal language would be either that some phenomenon occurs, and we are somehow unable to even speak about it; or that we can speak about it, but only in vague poetic language using words and grammar that are not well-defined. I struggle to imagine any possible phenomenon that could cause either of those problems. In fact, it seems to me that such a phenomenon is, in principle, literally unimaginable: I cannot picture in my head some definite image of something happening, yet at the same time not be able to describe it, as rigorously as I should feel like, not even by inventing new terminology if I need to. At best, I can just kind of... not really definitely imagine anything in particular.
He was the philosopher of contradiction. He often says we are all reality, and fleshes out a philosophy where contradictions within our nature result in the world, which contains both these contradictions and the symmetry of the future we are headed to.
What about logic? Logic seems more fundamental, at least more broader in application, than math.
How about things like black holes? I remember Michio Kaku (I hope I got the name right) saying that Einstein's equations "break down" inside of black holes? Quite possibly we just need a better but still mathematical theory but who knows, black holes maybe nonmathematical. :chin:
Quoting Gregory
This should be read as the scientists claiming a way to present the problem that leads to some greater clarity.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes.
I suppose you could say that but language is nothing apart from semantics - concepts - and being so, paradoxes must be about flawed or inappropriate concepts.
:ok:
...you would have nothing left.
Hegel speaks of pure conceptualization through intuition. Actually looking at an idea in the mind.
Kant had separated reality from perception. This was done with his Antimonies. Today it is done by science. They say we don't see things as they are. And they say stuff is flying all around us which we can't perceive. I believe the dresser over there and the desk to my right are in reality exactly as they look to me. My eyes go out and touch them, to be poorly poetic about it. My eyes know of contradiction and there is beauty there
True. The traditional scholastics (a term used for Thomists, Scotians, ect) thought an object was divided into accidents and substance. The former are how it is, the latter is what it is. The only difference between this belief and what Kant said is that accidents say something about substance, while phenomena says nothing about noumena. Scholastic tradition believed in a "ghost in the machine". Descartes's ghost was the soul
An idea that I find quite congenial.
A couple of months ago articles were popping up about "new mathematical techniques that can prove causality", which I find to be a bold face lie. Certain philosophers spend their whole lives studying causality and the different ways it could work. Then some physicists come along and say they can topple this with math techniques? That's pretty embarrassing
I've said my peace
And not only can most of us do without mathematical representations, often they're not even relevant.
Since nature can be expressed mathematically, those who assume the world is mathematical do have a mathematical viewpoint of nature at hand they can point to and say "see!". Good. But to then not be able to point to anything else would be their loss.
I would be hard pressed to describe anything that is demonstrably anti mathematical.
Sure, great question! Math/a priori abstract concepts go way back to Platonism which of course is still popular today. Numbers or other abstract objects are supposed to be objective, timeless entities, independent of the physical world and/or of the symbols used to represent them. However, we know that there are other problems associated with those descriptions and concepts of reality.
For example, we know that running mathematical calcs. to size-up a structural beam is an abstract way of describing a physical object. And similarly, also running calcs. to compute or describe unseen things (metaphysical) like the laws of gravity. Of course neither are necessary for building certain things or for dodging falling things/objects. And so you have this ancillary feature of human existence that just is. Why we have this ability is a mystery. But the mystery also extends to the paradox of existence (timeless truth's v. time dependent truth's).
Platonic realms, mathematics and reality relate to contradictions in temporal time and time dependency (contingency & causation in nature) v. timelessness. Since mathematical truth's are known to be timeless abstract truth's that can effectively describe physical things (though not perfectly complete viz Gödel and Heisenberg), yet at the same time we live in a time dependent reality, we have to confront the contradiction between those concepts from our reality. And that could also lead to the other intriguing questions about whether math itself has an independent existence or whether it's a human invention, or other problems relative to logically necessary truth's which are based on formal logic/mathematics, like the infamous ontological argument.
But here's the thing, living life itself is not strictly binary either/or like much in the world of mathematics, computers and mathematical abstracts. Instead, it's more akin to the dialectic reasoning of both/and.
So I think it's just another means to and end. It's a tool that is obviously useful yet has its limitations. When discussing the nature of reality and existence, you have to confront the paradoxes associated with timelessness and time dependent things in nature. But it's ironic that we ourselves have this capability to compute timelessness (Platonic realms) through the use of mathematics and mathematical abstracts in our thinking, yet we live in a world of time dependent * reality.
(*Though I suppose one could make a case for relativity insofar as the speed of light being timeless and eternal like mathematical abstracts.)
No mathematical physics - no internet, no computers. You'd be writing that post on paper, or on the wall.
Maybe thru evolution we will, someday, build newer computers using only our intuition
:up:
The irony and/or paradox for some (atheists, etc.) is that they rely on objective reasoning, yet deny the significant implications of Platonism/mathematical truth's.
True enough, but mathematical symbols are not the only thing that accounts for the cyber world and computers, other symbolic structures (and social structures) are involved. Mathematicians have a convenient way of forgetting this.
Explain
This is a non-sequitur. "rely on objective reasoning" is your own confusion, false premise. Clearly you have an agenda bent in the direction of some form of supernatural idealism. Plato's desire for a spiritual world is not significant, it is psychologically common and primitive. Bottom line is that human's, in general, cannot handle the contingent nature of reality. I challenge you to be a serious thinker and forgo the temptation to retreat into the comfort of idealism.
Fascinating
Not sure what you are referring to...are you thinking subjective idealism of some sort?
My point is that if you (or say, an atheist, or LP, etc.) argue that all of life is objectivity, then you would be contradicting yourself. You would for at least two reasons:
1. Part of Mathematics is essentially an abstract metaphysical language that is timeless and objective. Platonism comprises those descriptive elements.
2. Objective reasoning does not, in itself, explain the nature of your existence.
So I would say non-sequite this... how do you reconcile your paradox?
The only paradox here is the one you have created with your loaded premises. This line of reasoning is a waste of time.
Really, how so?
Let me understand your premises. You are critiquing Platonism/mathematics/abstract language/objective truth's and concepts (and denying its value), yet you use similar objective reasoning to argue whatever it is you're trying to argue. Therefore, you are essentially unknowingly endorsing (said objectivity, mathematics, etc.) that which you have problems with or objections to... ?
Are you folding under pressure already?
So say you. You are of course, free to explain why reasoning has to be "objective" in order to have value? This is not my assumption.
Please share your assumption.
Yes.
Quoting Pfhorrest
No, I reckon not. Fine to gloss description as map or model, but not map as working model or replica or simulation. Neither description nor map typically imply these. Indeed "1:1 scale map" is an obvious and reasonably good joke. Scale model is admittedly an intermediate step, but the gloss (from map to replica) is misleading. Map correctly suggests the potential gulf between symbols and objects in a system of interpretation, hence the adage, which you can't just turn on its head; nice try!
"Mathematical model" is ambiguous between
In a thread about mathematical Platonism, one fears that playing on this ambiguity risks encouraging the worst kinds of philosophical excess as typically perpetrated by fans of The Matrix.
Quoting Pfhorrest
You mean (we hope), the reality would provide a real instance of the otherwise fictional structure described by the theory. But you encourage simulation-hypothesising. :roll:
Quoting Pfhorrest
I mean, really.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes, no reason to put limits on the scope of scientific (or artistic) representations. But as Putnam and Goodman both point out, no reason either to assume limits on the variety of right ones.
Quoting Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art, p6
Here's a good quote: "Intelligence is recognitive: it cognises an intuition, but only because that intuition is already its own." Hegel
The deeper you get into intuition, the less need to add and subtract, multiply and divide
Evolution has no teleology.
I don't know either way
Teleological Notions in Biology
That is, you will be pushing against recent thinking.
Structure is function; to be is to do. If you were to make a truly complete map or model of something, you could not help but replicate its function, and so build a replica, a simulation.
Clearly not the case, since map is such a near synonym for description (which indeed was your starting point), or theory. Completeness of a description (or map or theory or representation) implies no similarity between descriptors and objects. This is as true for mathematical descriptions as for any other kind.
All maps, models, etc, are effectively descriptions, even if they are not descriptions in human-readable verbal languages. A visual map can be encoded in binary on a computer, and a human could read off those ones and zeros, even if they didn’t understand what they were reading. All the information in the picture would be retained in the sound of the human voice. If that picture were to be perfectly detailed down to the subatomic level, it would have to be animated or at least include temporal information in it like momentum, and all of the structural details that give a complete picture of its function, and contain within it all the exact information that the physical thing the “picture” it is of does.
Wrong word - teleologically, meaning ‘with purpose’. What happened with the scientific revolution was the abandonment of the notion of final and formal causes, with the attempt to reduce all explanations to material and efficient causes. ‘Purpose’ was thereby banished. But look at this Wikipedia entry.
‘ plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose’ ~ some French dude.
What?
I’m saying that rather than ‘theologically’, the word should have been ‘teleologically’ - although, as it happens, one implies the other, which is the point I obviously made a mess of making.
So am I.
Quoting bongo fury
But I'm not confusing the object (whether actual or only fictional/possible) with a representation/description/map of it... which I think you are doing. (No idea why.)
Quoting Pfhorrest
I was pointing to what I hoped were clear enough cases of said distinction.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Good...
Quoting Pfhorrest
Sure ...
Quoting Pfhorrest
So this seems to me an excellent example of the obvious differences to be found between an object (whatever it was, a still life?) and its representation or description (the vocalised bit map). The map is certainly not the territory.
Quoting Pfhorrest
If you mean represent temporally successive states, gradients etc. then, sure. If you mean represent them by a temporal succession of symbols, then surely not? Why? (I know the bit map is vocalised as a succession, but thus far that aspect was irrelevant to what it described, and could continue to be so, I would have assumed.)
Quoting Pfhorrest
Sure, why not. We're on a flight of fancy as regards the level of precision achieved by the description, but that's ok. Bolt on another hard drive (or immortal chanter) to store the whole bit-map.
Quoting Pfhorrest
(Interesting syntax... reminds me of "no head injury is too trivial to be ignored" ;) )
Do you mean, "the physical thing that the picture is (a picture) of: the thing it depicts; the bowl of fruit?
Ok, the picture/bit-map/description must be as complex as the physics of a bowl of fruit; but was this paragraph meant to show how the bit-map must become a replica of the bowl of fruit? That's what I'm not getting.
You can walk down a real city street, but you can’t walk down a street on a map of that city... unless it’s an enormous map the size of the actual city.
But still, you can rest in the shade of the buildings in the real city, but not on the enormity map... unless that map also includes depth.
But still, you can enter the buildings in the real
city, but you can’t enter the buildings on the map... unless the map includes the detailed 3D interiors of the building too.
But still, you can use the toilet in a real
building, but not in a map building... unless the map also includes full 3D fully detailed plumbing in it.
And so on. Whatever you can do in real life but can’t do with the map, it’s because there’s some detail that’s been left out of the map. So a map that did include absolutely every detail would just be a replica of the territory it is a map of.
So a “map” of reality that includes every detail down to the most fundamental physical level would be a replica of reality. And it would thus include humans like us in it, who would function just like we do, and experience that “map” as their reality.
There is thus no reason to think that maps and territories are ontologically different kinds of things. Our actual reality is completely indiscernible from “just” a map, representation, model, etc, of it. Which doesn’t require that there be some “original” reality that we’re a copy of; rather, it just DOESN’T require that there be more, ontologically, than informational, mathematical structures. If it functions exactly the same (because its structure is exactly the same), then it just is the same.
So our reality can just be taken to be an “abstract” mathematical object like any other; the only thing that makes it “concrete” to us is that it’s the one that we are a part of.
Only if you assume maps are meant to be replicas. "The map is not the territory" reminds us that this is far from being the case, and that they (maps) function rather as descriptions: which is to say, symbolically, like sentences (in the relevant respects).
You seem to be trying to convince yourself that,
You may even have succeeded, I don't know.
Quoting Pfhorrest
No, unless the map (or description or theory or representation) were your fantasy of a map (etc.) as an imperfect replica.
Quoting Pfhorrest
It goes on like this. :roll:
I’m not saying anything at all about what they are meant to be. A map or model in the usual sense is useful precisely because it is a simplification. But maps/models and replicas aren’t ontologically different kinds of things, they’re together on a spectrum; if you simplify irrelevant details out of a replica you get a map or model, and if you add sufficient detail to a map or model you get a replica.
The best-known quote is:
But I think the tendency has been to forget this warning, and to assume that only those properties that are amenable to mathematical description are real properties, and that anything not so described can be disregarded. That's what physicalism seems to assume anyway.
Nobody in this thread has mentioned Eugene Wigner's interesting essay The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. It is philosophically interesting, and also significant on account of the fact that its author won the Nobel Prize for mathematical physics. He concludes 'The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.'
Beautiful!
Sorry I missed that... It deserves a bit of emphasis if you will... .
Only on certain conditions: if the replica were already a complete map or model, every detail already relevant in the sense of referring to some detail or aspect of the subject matter, and you just removed some of that already relevant detail; or else, if details not removed were made relevant and significant in that way, even if they hadn't been, before.
In other words, you are still confusing the referential function of a map or model (or description or representation) with replication. Which is what "the map is not the territory" (but equally well also your excellent example of the voice-coded bit-map) should remind us are separate.
[quote="Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art, p3" ]
The most naive view of representation might perhaps be put something like this: "A represents B if and only if A appreciably resembles B", or "A represents B to the extent that A resembles B". Vestiges of this view, with assorted refinements, persist in most writing on representation. Yet more error could hardly be compressed into so short a formula.
Some of the faults are obvious enough. An object resembles itself to the maximum degree but rarely represents itself; resemblance, unlike representation, is reflexive. Again, unlike representation, resemblance is symmetric: B is as much like A as A is like B, but while a painting may represent the Duke of Wellington, the Duke doesn't represent the painting. Furthermore, in many cases neither one of a pair of very like objects represents the other: none of the automobiles off an assembly line is a picture of any of the rest; and a man is not normally a representation of another man, even his twin brother. Plainly, resemblance in any degree is no sufficient condition for representation.[/quote]
Quoting Pfhorrest
Only if you insist on (and have some way of) making the enhancement of referential function of the map coincide with an increase in the degree of physical resemblance. But obviously this is not how scientific models are typically enhanced.
Having been in the math game for sixty years I feel deprived not meeting such a colleague. I am sure had I done so I too would have chuckled. :cool:
What then does mathematical supernaturalism entail? The straight-forward confession that one worships math and that math is a God? I think not. To be a mathematical supernaturalist you simply need to hold to the position that numbers are more than human symbols, that they are something we discover weaved into the fabric of the cosmic universe, as oppose to something we create in an attempt to understand and navigate the universe.
Oh oh. How embarrassing. Guess I qualify. :yikes:
Can you provide an example of two things that are exactly the same? In order for math to be what you believe it to be (for starters) this must the case.
Quoting jgill
Indeed; any two of Meta's posts on how 1 is not equal to 0.999... would provide an excellent example.
You have this supernatural belief, so you must have some kind of reason for it, surely, being a mathematician for "sixty years," this ought to be an easy question for you.
All your concerns will be addressed here. :cool:
Mathematics is a formalized language of quantity. Sans quantity, no maths. The latter can be readily disproven by one example of a non-quantifiable mathematics.
Though we can produce symbols via which to convey mathematical concepts, we do not likewise willfully produce the universe’s attribute of being endowed with quantity. Therefore, at least some of the mathematics we know of is “something we discover being weaved into the cosmic universe”—this in correspondence to how quantity and its relations is so weaved. (And there’s a lot of maths which isn’t, especially when entertaining the nearly boundless forms that theoretical mathematics can take.)
That claimed:
Quoting JerseyFlight
:up: Couldn't agree more on maths (as well as the quantity and quantitative relations which it references) not being a deity ... nor, for that matter, a pivotal, or else essential, foundation of Being. But arguing for this is above my current pay-grade.
Wait for it, wait for it,
Non-sequitur:
"Therefore, at least some of the mathematics we know of is “something we discover being weaved into the cosmic universe”—this in correspondence to how quantity and its relations is so weaved."
Quantity does not equal mathematics. Humans have produced a symbolic structure to try to make sense of quantity.
Quoting javra
Then you should easily be able to provide an example of two things that are exactly the same?
Generally speaking this is not entirely incorrect regarding numbers. Euclid's Elements - first four books, basic point-set topology, elementary geometry, !st order Categories in Category theory are counterexamples. But numbers or quantities are lurking everywhere in the math galaxy.
Tragic. What a waste of life. Do tell me, where did these conversations take you, what did they do for you in terms of concretion? Clearly, even after all of that, and sixty years of mathematics, you still can't provide an example of two things that are exactly the same? Sophistry always works this way... "hang on, it will make more sense if we use more symbols." (All the while trying very hard to sneak past a false premise, only then to declare victory).
That was a common assumption until the advent of Quantum theory. Ironically, though the theory is based on quantized phenomena, it was eventually stymied by the "measurement problem" and "the Uncertainty Principle". Moreover, Big Bang theory was obstructed by the breakdown of mathematical Natural Laws (and the perspective-dependent measurements of Relativity Theory) at the point labelled as the "Planck Time & Space" --- beyond which our quantifications become meaningless.
So, it seems that our quantitative measurements are limited by an impenetrable boundary of mystery. You can't quantify Infinity. But philosophers and cosmologists can speculate beyond the beginning, because they are not bound by quantification. In the time before time, conventional space-time Quantities don't apply, but they can assume that pertinent timeless Qualities may still be valid.
Hence, I would qualify your assertion to say that "almost everything" in this world can be quantified, except for such minor details as Life & Mind & Infinity. :cool:
Measurement Problem : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
Yes. Pitiful isn't it? I feel so ashamed. :cry:
What I am most interested in, I would to like hear from you what reality looks like through your eyes if the universe is not mathematical? What does it mean if math symbols are just contingent and limited human constructs? After all, this is the part that reveals the true motivation behind belief.
Can you address a quantity without making use of number? Given an example if you can.
What I said is the mathematics is the language of quantity and its relations. Not that quantity equals mathematics. Read what I say the second time around with more care. Else no second reply from me.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Two instantiations of an abstract entity are exactly the same in reference to both being the same abstract entity. Hence, one table and another table are both exactly the same in being a table.
But this latter part is beside the point - and also seems to be another misreading of what I wrote.
You already did this: "Mathematics is a formalized language of quantity."
Quoting javra
Strange you would misquote your own position when we have it in writing: "some of the mathematics we know of is “something we discover being weaved into the cosmic universe”"
Quoting javra
This is a formal assertion, where is the concrete example that corresponds to your idea?
One more thing I should have noted: this conversation has just morphed into a total waste of time. This is a red herring. I never claimed that numbers are lacking in value, I attacked mathematical supernaturalism. What you have asked has nothing to do with this. You are posturing away from the point because you made an indefensible claim: "some of the mathematics we know of is “something we discover being weaved into the cosmic universe”"
By all means use numbers, even marvel at their proficiency, but please stop claiming they are a special, cosmic language of the universe.
Quoting JerseyFlight
There is a reading incomprehension in all this. Unpleasant and unproductive.
Ooh! I like that. Go beyond logic, find ways of using our intuition, our non-computational facilities, to do things. The science of the future. We've reached the limits of reason. Reason is failing all around us. We need a new way of controlled and productive unreason.
Friend you're behind on the times, we already went beyond logic over 200 years ago. Further, "intuition" is not what lies beyond logic, being, comprehended through dialectics, is what lies beyond logic.
Have you read either of Hegel's Logics? When I first got on this forum there was a thread about whether he was even a true philosopher. I wonder that about analytic philosphers. I guess sometimes they are interesting. There is a video on YouTube on Ayer, language, and truth that is tempting me. But ye, Hegel :)
Of course, one cannot be a serious thinker if they have not read Hegel. I should say, one could be, but only if they get past thought as an inert image in order to comprehend being in the context of movement. It's unlikely a human could do this without assistance. Hegel is the gateway to dialectic.
Nice. I recently put down Being and Time in order to read the lesser Logic. Three fourths thru and loving it. Someone recommended Peirce to me instead of Hegel. He does seem to be a serious thinker. Too bad he didn't write an actual book
There's a reading group on this text meeting through Zoom. If you have an interest let me know and I'll tell you where to find it. Please note: I am not part of the group and am not trying to advertise it.
Marxist? Hegelian? Bravo. But you made a claim far in excess of available evidence. You wrote down an opinion, not a fact.
That being is more than a dead image or fragmentation of time, is not an opinion.
This seems like a logic trick. If two things are the same, they're only one thing. If they're two things they're not the same. In fact it is not possible to give an example of two things that are not the same.
This is the heart of my ongoing argument with @Metaphysician Undercover. He thinks 2 + 2 and 4 are two things. I say they are two representations of one thing.
I don't know enough Hegel or Marx to discuss dialectic. I do know that dialectic is a historically contingent idea of humans; and that therefore it can't be true in any absolute sense. That's what I meant by your statement being an opinion. You said: "Further, "intuition" is not what lies beyond logic, being, comprehended through dialectics, is what lies beyond logic." That is an opinion, not a fact.
If you can establish the existence of this thing I will agree to it as a negative criteria.
If there's no absolute truth, that also is an opinion and not a fact. I'm not up on this dialectic stuff, can you toss me a lifeline here? Tell me exactly what claim you are making. It seemed to me that you are making a claim about how the world is; and I believe that any such statement is necessarily an opinion and not a fact.
Hegel is a way to learn about philosopher. He is not the be all or end all. If you had read, in a poetical mood, a poem that said "time is a fragmation of time" you might think it was true. So that would be a "negative", meaning movement in Hegels mind
How you use the term absolute matters quite a bit here. One must be wary of the false criteria of a radical skepticism. Why is it false? Because it stacks the deck, just like religion does, demanding the highest possible level of exactitude in terms of justification -- which is a violation of its own existence. (None will ingest a gallon of cyanide unless they want to die, but according to radical skepticism they cannot know it will kill them, there is then no reason not to drink it). However, mathematics does not get to play the lesser game of knowledge because of what it claims for itself.
Quoting fishfry
I think the problem here is one of mere formality, logical abstraction void of any concretion.
I do not deny that words can lead to logical mazes, but reality is not merely a word.
I did not say this, I said he was the gateway to dialectic. But I will say more about him, he was, very possibly, very possibly, the greatest human mind to ever live. These are not merely my feelings, my conviction is based on the objective power of his thought. No philosopher did what he did, but many were able to do much more because of what he did.
Your posts are neat but unnecessarily convoluted. For Hegel, the positive stays, the negative moves. That's how the dialectic worked. I think he was brilliant like Aquinas, but not a genius like Einstein or Hawking
I take your point about the cyanide; and if you say reality is not merely a word, then we are in agreement.
With all due respect, I am not going to expound Hegel's dialectic here on this thread, but it is not simply explained by the movement and stagnation of the positive and the negative. Dialectic is, to be brief, a living approach to understanding, which accompanies being through movement, in order to ascertain its essence. The point of dialectic is comprehensive comprehension. I could cite more examples from Hegel himself, but I have other ventures besides this forum and am not going to spill all the beans in this format.
Thank you
I kind of got bored of the subject, so I moved on.
Quoting fishfry
This is a fine example of the boredom. If someone cannot see that 2+2 is something different from 4, and continues to deny this after months of discussion, I feel helpless to help that person. Clearly 2+2 are different symbols than 4. And, if "2+2" really represented the same thing as "4", we would be inclined just to use "4=4" instead of "2+2=4", because it's so much simpler. But obviously "2+2" is not commonly used to represent the same thing that "4" is used to represent, because the "+" in 2+2 has a special meaning which is not represented in "4"..
Quoting JerseyFlight
Actually Plato provides a much more useful dialect than Hegel. After reading Plato and Aristotle, you'll be able to see where Hegel goes wrong in his dialectics, leading people like dialectical materialists into a violation of the law of non-contradiction.
My guess is that people respect you on this board, well, I am not a respecter of persons, I am a respecter of thinkers. I am calling you out right now, because I know for a fact that you are speaking out of your backside. I would like to make it clear, unlike you, I am not merely posturing here. What you have asserted merely manifests your blatant ignorance, not only for dialectics, but also toward the philosophy of Hegel. Admit that you have never studied 1) Hegel or 2) Dialectics. (I suppose you might think you have studied dialectics because you have read Plato and Aristotle, but these are 2000 year old formations, we have come vastly beyond these architectures). If you have merely studied Plato and Aristotle then you have not studied dialectics, you have merely studied the dialectics of Plato and Aristotle. This would be like studying the Ptolemaic models, and saying because of this, that you have studied science.
Is that supposed to be a joke?
Quoting JerseyFlight
Ha ha, make my day, tell me another funny one. Try telling that to the professor of my post-graduate course on Hegel's Dialectics of Being. Of course, he didn't like my interpretation of Hegel either, just like you seem to be insulted by what I said about Hegel. Hmm, that's interesting. Hegelians seem to be very funny that way. There's a certain clique, defending a way that one is 'supposed' to interpret Hegel, and if you slip outside of those needless and unjustified boundaries, I guess you are headed toward a Marxist interpretation or something. And this is flatly wrong.
All the better, then we can actually discuss the work of Hegel. How did you retain Aristotle's position on Identity after Hegel clearly demonstrated that it collapsed in on itself, precisely because, to speak of Identity, one must presuppose that Identity is not Difference, which is itself a violation of the principle? (As I'm sure you know, dialectics comprehends contradiction emerging from being itself). I would love to hear your refutation? And as you well know, having done "post-graduate" work on Hegel, this is only one small portion of his argument against Aristotle's position.
Hegel simply has a different solution to the apparent incompatibility between being and becoming demonstrated by the ancients, from the one proposed by Aristotle.
The incompatibility is laid out by Aristotle in a way like this. If the world is describable completely in terms of what is, and what is not, then we cannot grasp change because at one moment the world is like A, and the next moment it is like B, and we need to be able to understand what happened in between, which is the change itself. If we can say how the world was in between, as C, then we still have to deal with the change between A and C, and C and B. Of course this produces the appearance of an infinite regress, as we always need to posit another determination of how the world is and is not, as the medium between any two different states, to account for the change. And, since this proposed medium state is always a different state, we still need to account for the change in between the one state and the other, ad infinitum. Therefore we need to allow a separation between the world as described by the logical dichotomy of being and not-being, and change itself, as becoming.
So In recognizing that becoming is completely incompatible with the logical dichotomy of being and not-being, Aristotle proposed a distinct category called "potential". As distinct, it can neither be described in terms of being nor not-being, and is a violation of the law of excluded middle. The concept of potential is validated, substantiated or justified, by Aristotle with reference to future events which are still undecided. Such events cannot be assigned any value of truth or falsity. In his Physics, the concept of "matter" substantiates the real existence of potential, allowing for what may or may not be, in the future, i.e. the potential for change.
We can see that Hegel takes a different approach in his dialectics. Under his principles, the logical dichotomy of being and not-being is subsumed within becoming, instead of the Aristotelian approach of separating the two as incompatible. Negation is a process of becoming which envelopes both being and not being. So instead of separating becoming, and matter (as logically unintelligible aspects of the world), from that dichotomy of being and not-being, and insisting that the supposed dichotomy is incomplete because it leaves matter and becoming in violation of the law of excluded middle, Hegel places the dichotomous terms of being and not being together, in a violation of the law of non-contradiction. Now the concepts of matter and becoming violate the law of non-contradiction.
Quoting JerseyFlight
I see no such demonstration of a collapse, just a straw man collapsing. Hegel specifically avoids Aristotelian terms like "potential, and "matter", leaving the reader to make any comparisons to Aristotelian conceptual structures on one's own, so there is really no such demonstration. Your presupposed concept of "identity" is unfounded, demonstrating a misunderstanding of Aristotelian identity.. If a thing is only the same as itself, there is no problem with the conjoined premise that it is different from everything else, and even different from what it was, itself at a different time. Sameness is assigned directly to the thing itself, allowing difference to be a feature of sameness, instead of being dichotomously separated, such that the same thing is changing. This is simply the way we speak about an identified thing, it can change and be different from one minute to the next, while it maintains the status of being the same thing. "Sameness" and "identity" therefore is assigned to the evolving object, and difference is not excluded dichotomously from sameness. Since this is the way we speak about an identified object, as remaining the same object despite changes to it. it is dialectically correct, and Hegel's proposed dialectical argument is unwarranted.
And your premise, that "dialectics comprehends contradiction emerging from being itself", is just an expression of Hegelian biased dialectics, grounded in the false premise displayed above. In reality, "being" like "not-being" is a logical assignment, a human determination, so these are what emerge from becoming. These logical principles are designed to establish an artificial separation from becoming, in an attempt to understand becoming. The need for this separation is grounded in strong metaphysical principles. The Hegelian proposal, to throw these ideals of being and not-being back into the obscure, mysterious, and vague realm of becoming, instead of crystalizing the separation in understanding, just renders the world of material existence as unintelligible. . .
If you had actually read Hegel on identity, which I am highly skeptical of given your exposition, then you would know that Hegel does exactly the opposite! He removes the idealism from identity (the mysticism) by specifically drawing out its concrete components, which Aristotle was not able to do.
(The only reason I am not quoting Hegel directly is because I have zero respect for intellectuals like yourself, masters at posturing, masters at playing the superiority card, simply because you are good at articulating yourself. It makes me feel like I am merely giving you more ammunition to bully people.)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is only further proof that you have not read Hegel. Further, your idiosyncratic formation is here very likely your own. Now that is all fine and well, but you seem to be attributing it to Aristotle as though this was his position. Can you show me where he assigns "sameness" and "identity" (difference through dichotomy) to the evolving object? This is very strange indeed. Allow me to clarify Hegel's position against your false, intellectual posturing: one cannot assign "inert images" to living objects if they are concerned about comprehending reality, this is the whole problem that Hegel exposed and refuted in Aristotle and thought in general!
The fact that your entire exposition doesn't even contain a trace of this awareness in terms of Hegel's dialectic, is proof for me that you either haven't read him, or you have failed to comprehend him. Your formation of Aristotle is also exceedingly suspect. I don't want to have any more interaction with you, but I want people who read this to know that you are not an authority on Hegel, and likely Aristotle as well, you are making stuff up in order to posture yourself as being knowledgeable.
No one has to take my word for it, all they have to do is read The Science of Logic. To further add weight to my position, because I admit it is unorthodox that I am not quoting Hegel, but I have my reasons, one can also read the masterful text by Thomas Hoffmann, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, A Propaedeutic.
1) his post was good, yours was not
2) pride is a mortal sin
3) you are a newbie here. Speak tentatively
4) you remind me of a Christian fanatic I know named Robert Wood and threatened to kill me
OK, so instead of actually discussing the philosophical issues, because that would be too "intellectual" for you, you'd prefer to just hurl insults. Greatt! I'm game.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Fuck off then, you ass hole!
Quoting JerseyFlight
Yes, your reasons are that you are just a smart ass piece of shit, who'd rather engage with petty insults than address the issues, because you haven't even approached the issues, let alone apprehended, or comprehended any of them. I hope you were sincere when you said you don't want any more interaction with me. You can be assured that I'll test you on that, ass hole.
What's most interesting is that I don't think I called you any names? I was trying very hard not to do that, but I did accuse you of things based on your performance and approach. I tried to draw accurate conclusions off of the information you provided, as it is quite clear, that you are indeed, talking out of your backside. No doubt you are upset that you got called out, and exposed for posturing. But this is good because I think you have likely dominated many people with this technique. You could always just fight back and provide the links to Aristotle, instead of calling me names. (Moderators please do not remove these posts, they truly manifest some very important things, and they really stand to prove my point.)
Let me get this straight, you had to "try very hard" not to throw insults at someone who knows more Aristotle than you and simply explicated the issue reasonably? You got major issues. And, your right: Marxists are outnumbered. And you're wrong: you are going to lose
I am not a Marxist. It is intellectuals, those who use words to solve problems, that are outnumbered against systems of violence. Sadly, we are not smart enough to see ourselves as a class, and so we will divide until they conquer.
Fair enough. I don't see how Hegel is THE answer though. He's cool, and maybe you are too idk. I've read the Phenomenology twice, his Philosophy of History, Philosophy of Nature, and the Philosophy of Mind. Now I am in the middle of the lesser Logic. So I can speak on this. You proposed that Aristotle was wrong because he brought idealist thoughts to nature. I agree. I also agree Hegel's super-idealism is better. But when you say "to speak of Identity you have too pressupose Identity is not Difference" you are stating a tataulogy, NOT an argument of any kind. To be successful of this forum you need to be kinder, clearer, and. more thoroughal
I was speaking with a person who claimed to have done post-doctoral work on Hegel, he claimed to be well-versed and knowledgeable on the subject. He also claimed to be well-versed in Plato and Aristotle, so much so that he claimed they were superior to Hegel in terms of dialectic. This means he should be familiar with Hegel's analysis of Aristotle. It is quite clear in the Logic. Hegel does not merely assert what you call a "tautology," he draws out the contradiction from the very being of identity itself. Further, he proves that Aristotle's formation is a "tautology."
Metaphysician heal thyself!! lol
You're very good at misjudging people. You've demonstrated this masterfully.
Why do you feel the need to make such judgements?
"I know for a fact that you are speaking out of your backside."
"What you have asserted merely manifests your blatant ignorance."
On and on, while asserting things like, "I am not merely posturing here" without providing anything to justify you assertions. You're a very strange sort of hypocrite.
Quoting JerseyFlight
OK hypocrite, maybe you might present this claimed contradiction, since you're so certain of it.. As I explained already, in the Aristotelian conception of "identity", change and therefore difference, is inherent within a thing's identity, due to the fact that any identifiable thing has temporal extension, and a thing changes as time passes. Therefore difference is an aspect of the same thing, and there is no contradiction in saying that the same thing has differences, due to a thing's temporal extension. Since matter is the underlying aspect a thing which remains the same as time passes, while the thing's form is changing, sameness is assigned to the matter of the thing.
Quoting JerseyFlight
It's called the law of identity, stupid. "A thing is the same as itself". Do you not comprehend that a thing necessarily has temporal extension, and also that a thing changes as time passes? Therefore we can conclude that change and difference are inherent within the identity of the thing, as an aspect of its sameness. There is no contradiction here, just a feature of temporal existence being accounted for.
Quoting fishfry
Thanks fishfry, but I feel that JF has already heeled me.
You mean these are the same? No difference needs to be drawn in order to make a distinction, which would indeed imply, as Hegel says, going beyond the principle of identity? How can you contain identity and difference in the same instance of identity? Further, how can you identify something as being the same which is itself beyond the "inert imagine" that identity strives to cast? Of course, you should have worked through all these questions and many more doing post-doctoral work on Hegel? Unless of course, you just focused on his aesthetics? Unless of course, you haven't actually done any post-doctoral work on Hegel? Your replies are a good indication that you've never even read him.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, that is part of Hegel's discovery, identity and difference are part of being, but Hegel did not stop there, but of course, you already know this, so I don't have to tell you. More importantly, you have refuted the very principle you claim to champion without even realizing it. Change is not the same as sameness, identity is not the same as difference. This means identity cannot contain difference in order to be equal to itself, must not presuppose it in order to make itself intelligible. If a thing is identical to itself, which I take to be the proper formation of the concept, then the "self" you point to at the moment of identification, vanishes in the next instance. You have, as a matter of fact, gone beyond the image you propagated, so boldly and mightily tried to assert was "itself," but now it is not. Quite accurately then, you are dishing out a tautology to thought, you are in the business of asserting "inert images" as reality, most of all, you do not even realize your own negation. Sorry my poor fellow, but you must choose, you cannot have it both ways, either take being as it goes beyond Aristotelian logic, or live your life in the error of a tautology. Do you start with being or do you start with identity? It seems to me the evidence is clear; for you identity is and must be secondary to being, very hard to see how this doesn't cause problems for your view of identity?
What is most striking is that you seem to think you can simply class identity with difference without going beyond the claim of identity itself. It is a mere assertion on your part, a loaded premise, hoping you don't get caught by a more careful thinker. This is ignorant and proves you don't comprehend the necessary literalness of the concept. Now I know you will insist and demand that you have the right to pack being (with all its difference) into the concept of identity, or to interpret the concept through being, but the concept itself will not permit it, which is proven the very instance you make a distinction between identity and difference. Yours is merely an attempt to retain the abstraction of identity against the reality which negates it. The real question is how you can identify anything through the identity principle, once you admit that being supersedes it? (Notice, you are not qualifying being with identity, but as you must, you are qualifying the nature of identity through the authority of being. Your solution is merely to assert and pretend that this has no effect on the concept of identity).
I am not interested in playing these games with you merely to appease your wounded ego. Metaphysician Undercover, you need to go under the covers and brush up on your Hegel.
So are you saying Heidegger was wrong to posit being as most prior? And are you saying that identity (self-sameness) comes before being in Hegel's works?
I've been trying to reconcile those thinkers actually..
Not at all.
You might not have specifically called him names but you certainly were extremely obnoxious and rude.
Even a total noob like me can see that MU dealt with substance in his post to which you responded with statements without any justification. You refrain from arguing your points or quoting source material but you expect another to do so? You might very well be right in everything you claim. I haven't a clue. But surely you ought to argue and show why it is true rather than citing books? Which I don't mind if you add more on top of that.
Out of a past interaction with you it seems that you only like to discuss with people who hold the same views as you. And seemingly call people who do not (yet?) hold these views insincere thinkers?
I am not talking about making a distinction, I am talking about a difference which exists whether or not any one distinguishes it. That's why I said that the law of identity, "a thing is the same as itself", puts the identity of the thing within the thing itself. Therefore identity is not dependent on someone drawing a distinction.
Human beings make such distinctions through reference to the form of the thing. But the human capacity to abstract the form through sensation is deficient, as we abstract what is called essentials, and miss the accidentals. The accidentals however are an important part of a thing's identity. Therefore the identity of a thing cannot be dependent on human distinction.
Quoting JerseyFlight
This is quite simple, as I've explained to you a couple times already. A thing has it's own identity. A thing changes as time passes. Therefore a thing's identity contains difference. This is made comprehensible by Aristotle's hylomorphic physics. A thing is a composition of matter and form, therefore it's identity consists of both its matter and form. When a thing changes, its form is what changes, while the underlying matter remains the same. Therefore there is both difference (changing form with the passing of time) , and sameness (continuous existence of the same matter) within the same identity.
Quoting JerseyFlight
I am unfamiliar with your term "inert image". But since inertia is a sort of substitute term for "matter", and "image" is something created in the mind, it appears like you have created some sort of contradictory notion here. What is imaged within the mind is forms. Matter itself cannot be imaged. So any attempt to cast an image of matter as an "inert image" of identity, would be an attempt to do the impossible, like trying to image a square circle.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Who said anything about having done postdoctoral work on Hegel? I'm beginning to see you as a master of the straw man. Just look at the false representation of Aristotle's "identity" which you have proposed. A masterful straw man!
Quoting JerseyFlight
I would disagree with you here. Hegel recognized the distinction between the logical determinations of being/not-being, and the real physical world of becoming, just like Kant distinguished phenomena from noumena. And, within his dialectics, as I said earlier, being/not-being is subsumed by becoming. Therefore, since identity is handed to the thing itself, we cannot say that identity and difference are a part of being, they are a part of becoming. We could only make such a claim If we blur the distinction between becoming and being, as some philosophers like Heidegger are prone to do.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Common JerseyFlight, you demonstrate seriously flawed logic here. That something is not the same as another thing (change is not the same as sameness, or identity is not the same as difference), does not indicate that one cannot be contained within the other. There is nothing here to indicate that one might be a category which contains the other two. Identity might be a category which contains both sameness and difference, like temperature is a category which contains both hot and cold.
Quoting JerseyFlight
It is not "identity" which is the same as itself, it is the thing which is the same as itself. And being the same as itself means that it has an identity, and it cannot be other than it is. This is what the law of identity says. And if we allow it to be violated, allow that a thing is other than it is, we allow that the world is unintelligible to us, because one thing could be an infinity of different things, all at the same time, and there would be no reality or truth to what is existing at any given time.
Quoting JerseyFlight
This is not true, and there is a very important ontological principle underlying this, understanding which is a key point to understanding the law of identity. A thing, or an object, what you refer to here as a "self", necessarily has temporal extension. Without temporal extension there is no thing (nothing). Temporal extension is therefore a defining feature of "self", it is essential to any "self". Therefore the fact that the self which is pointed to at one moment is always in some way different from the self which is pointed to at the next instant, cannot be used to negate the identity of the self. This would be to deny the empirical evidence that the self continues despite changes to its form, merely for the sake of placing the identity of the thing within the form of the thing. But the empirical observations demonstrate that the self remains the self despite such changes to its form. Therefore we must conclude the opposite, that the identity of the self, as that which remains the same, is proper to the matter of the self, and the identity of the self does not vanish with each moment of changing form, while the differences of the self are proper to its form.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Again, you appear to be conflating being with becoming. I suggest you go back to reading Hegel's logic with the intent of making a firm distinction between his use of "becoming" and "being", prior to continuing on this venture of making a fool of yourself.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Excuse me master of the straw man, I have not classed identity with difference. I have classed difference with same, in the category of identity. So quit with the straw man and address the issue. If you have a difficulty with this category "identity", then bring it out.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Again, you display a complete ignorance of Aristotle's "identity". As the law of identity states, a thing's identity is proper to itself, and itself alone. Identity cannot be an abstraction. That is the purpose of the law of identity, to prevent sophists from asserting that a thing's identity is a human abstraction, and proceeding to produce absurd conclusions from this premise. The human abstraction is deficient, failing in abstracting accidentals. And accidentals are essential to a things identity, but not essential to the abstraction. Therefore identity cannot be classed as abstraction. As you continue with your masterful straw man.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Ha ha ha, and now you continue with you comedic entertainment. I'm sorry JerseyFlight, but I don't know why hypocrisy is so amusing to me, I must have a twisted sense of humour. But this is quite the statement coming from someone who cannot even distinguish between Hegel's use of "being" and "becoming".
Identity is exactly dependent on a human being drawing a distinction, this takes place in every instance of identity. There is great confusion in your speech, what you mean to say is that being is not dependent on someone drawing a distinction. This is accurate, the other is not.
You are indeed making a distinction, you just sophistically claim not to be "talking" about it. Further, one cannot distinguish without the aid of difference, and to determine a difference is to make a distinction. Do you qualify "identity" by the concretion of the "thing" or do you qualify the "thing" by the abstraction of identity? (The problem here is that we can already see the answer). When you say, "the law of identity puts the thing within the thing itself," this is false, it is also ignorance. Identity does not allow this. By all means, do tell how identity puts the thing within the thing itself -- because this is not 1) what identity is and does and 2) not what you are doing; you are putting "the thing" into the concept of identity! And this is no doubt because you must, you have no choice but to take this road, precisely because being is not identity! Identity is a formal premise that states A = A, it does not contain information, it is just a tautology regarding the "inert image," which, as you should know, was Hegel's term.
I already anticipated your reply: 'Now I know you will insist and demand that you have the right to pack being (with all its difference) into the concept of identity, or to interpret the concept through being, but the concept itself will not permit it, which is proven the very instance you make a distinction between identity and difference.'
You have been true to form.
When you speak of being and becoming you are mistaken, being is becoming, the way you try to artificially divide being from "itself," to use your own term, merely displays more confusion and ignorance on your part. For you are trying to say that the law of identity contains both being and becoming within itself because the term "thing" encompasses the movement of being (this is a loaded premise not a proof). What you fail to see is that you are no longer talking about identity but have gone beyond it! A = A contains nothing but the assertion that the image is equal to the image. IN THE REALITY OF BEING THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A = A. You have been arguing this all the while, ignorant of the ramifications it has on identity. This is why you give supremacy to the "thing" and not the abstract tautology! What identity means to say is that A is the beginning of -A, but it never gets there, it repeats the image of itself, thereby distorting reality.
Being familiar with Hegel you should have known all of this, the fact that you don't only adds further weight to what I said:
You neither understand Hegel's dialectic, or for that matter Aristotle's position on identity. What you have repeatedly displayed is that you are posturing with your own, juvenile and idiosyncratic formations of the concept of identity, totally oblivious to the concrete ramifications. This is, and cannot be, an example of skilled thinking.
"In the form of the proposition, therefore, in which identity is expressed, there lies more than simple, abstract identity; in it, there lies this pure movement of reflection in which the other appears only as illusory being, as an immediate vanishing; A is is a beginning that hints at something different to which an advance is to be made; but this different something does not materialize; A is—A; the difference is only a vanishing; the movement returns into itself." Hegel
Great Hegel quote, but MU does seem to really understand Aristotle and i'd also say he won't be moved by such a quote from Hegel. Hegelians and Aristotelians are in different camps. They can learn a little from each other and I encourage study of both sides to people. But fundamentally they have different brain waves. An Aristotelian tutor of mine in college said you have to have a twisted psychology to enjoy Hegel. I enjoy Hegel and enjoy being "twisted". I'd like to ask an Aristotelian: when you are welding two pieces of metal together, at what point does it stop being two forms and starts being one form?
Heraclitus allegedly thought his "fire" moves by some kind of rule. But I don't see why pure chaos would be pure absolute nothing however.
We are talking about "identity" as defined by the law of identity, not some peculiar non-philosophical, idiosyncratic notion of identity which you happen to hold. Look, "a thing is the same as itself" does not indicate the requirement for a human being to name the thing, point to the thing, or otherwise notice the existence of the thing. Here's what Stanford Encyclopedia says on identity:
Can you understand that? The relation a thing has to itself, and nothing else. This means no human beings drawing distinctions, or anything like that is required for a thing to have an identity.
Quoting JerseyFlight
So all this is irrelevant. Identity, as defined by the law of identity, has nothing to do with human distinctions.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Straw man! Gee Jersey, I'm beginning to think that your straw manning is associated with a lack of reading skill rather than intentional. I wrote that the law of identity "puts the identity of the thing within the thing itself", and you quote it as "the law of identity puts the thing within the thing itself". Please, slow down and relax in your reading. Think about what the person has actually said, not what you expect the person to be saying.
Quoting JerseyFlight
This is not identity, it is a representation of the law of identity. Do you understand the difference? The law of gravity is not gravity.
Quoting JerseyFlight
This is what i mean about your reading skills. Please, read what the person actually writes, rather than anticipating what the person will write, and automatically assuming that the person has written what you thought would be written. Until you grasp the concept of "identity" as dictated by the law of identity, and rid yourself of that other vernacular, there is no point in discussing how this concept relates to other concepts.
Quoting JerseyFlight
It's becoming overwhelmingly clear that you are not familiar with Hegel's dialectics. As a staring point, let me refer you to the Stanford Encyclopedia again.
[quote=Stanford Encyclopedia, Hegel's Dialectics, 2]But if we focus for a moment on the definitions of Being and Nothing themselves, their definitions have the same content. Indeed, both are undetermined, so they have the same kind of undefined content. The only difference between them is “something merely meant” (EL Remark to §87), namely, that Being is an undefined content, taken as or meant to be presence, while Nothing is an undefined content, taken as or meant to be absence. The third concept of the logic—which is used to illustrate the speculative moment—unifies the first two moments by capturing the positive result of—or the conclusion that we can draw from—the opposition between the first two moments. The concept of Becoming is the thought of an undefined content, taken as presence (Being) and then taken as absence (Nothing), or taken as absence (Nothing) and then taken as presence (Being). To Become is to go from Being to Nothing or from Nothing to Being, or is, as Hegel puts it, “the immediate vanishing of the one in the other” (SL-M 83; cf. SL-dG 60). The contradiction between Being and Nothing thus is not a reductio ad absurdum, or does not lead to the rejection of both concepts and hence to nothingness—as Hegel had said Plato’s dialectics does (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG 34–5)—but leads to a positive result, namely, to the introduction of a new concept—the synthesis—which unifies the two, earlier, opposed concepts.[/quote]
See, "Becoming" consists of both Being, and its defining opposite, Nothing, unified in synthesis, as I tried to tell you earlier, when we first engaged. So it is false to say as you do here, that "being is becoming".
Quoting JerseyFlight
None of this makes any sense. It just demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what I said, and of what Hegel said.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Good quote. See, the "movement" referred to here is an instance of "becoming". The "being", an abstraction, is represented as A, which cannot be understood without reference to not-A. Are you beginning to see the difference between "Being" and "Becoming"?
Now let's see if we can make some progress here. You want to assign "identity" to the abstraction, the "Being", which is called A. But the law of identity disallows this, saying that the identity of a thing is in the thing itself. But under Hegelian dialectics, the thing itself is a movement, a becoming, and there is no basis to assume a thing. So we now have no "thing" to assign identity to, only "Becoming". Do you apprehend this dilemma? There is no "thing" in the thing itself, only a becoming, so nothing in this world of becoming can have any identity.
You might be inclined to dismiss the philosophical definition of "identity" and go back to your vernacular form of "identity", but then what could ground truth?
Relaxed thinking is hardly Hegelian. "With a quickness". Hegelian thoughts on movement are coded in Hegelian's empirical thinking. They take these matters seriously. To us, you are just sitting around speculating. If I cut an apple ( ) in half, is it now two forms or still one? I do want an answer to this MU. And how many forms are in a pool?
Of course two. How could you say one, when by your very description you have made one thing into two? But I don't see how this is relevant.
It's relevant because form becomes dependent on how cohesive "two" things are to each other. All we did was cut an apple. You say a metaphysical "spook" (not to be derogatory) was replaced by something else. Was the prime matter replaced too? This line of questioning tends to show that there is something arbitrary about Aristotle's system
Two things are two things, and therefore two distinct forms, it makes no difference how cohesive the things are. This is why Aristotle placed identity in the thing itself, rather than in the way we describe the thing. We might describe the same scenario, the solar system for example, as one thing, or as a group of distinct things, depending on the purpose. The truth of the matter though, whether it is one thing or a group of things, is a feature of the thing itself (or things), regardless of what humans believe.
Quoting Gregory
I don't know what you mean by "spook" here, but placing identity within the thing itself ("a thing is the same as itself") was actually meant to remove the arbitrariness from identity, a step toward objectivity, by denying the arbitrariness of the sophist's claims of identity, that a thing's identity is what we associate with the thing.
Let me try this. Suppose, for WHATEVER reason, that a pen glued to a table means something to an aboriginal culture. To you it is two things, or three if you include the glue. But to them it's one. So how many forms does it objectively have???
"Thing" is a word used by humans to demarcate objects of being. Further, the word 'thing" is itself insufficient to encompass the reality of being, this is why you must use other words to demarcate the nature of being.
The kind of identity you are talking about is precisely the idealist identity, the mysticism, that Hegel disposes of. Further, all that you are distinguishing here, does require, as your articulating presence proves, a human to make the distinction. This is because the abstract formation that you are putting forth is not the object, it is a characterization of the object invented by humans. Now I agree that objects exist beyond words, but what you are trying to do is equate essence as being synonymous with your concept of identity. But essence and identity are not the same.
It is agreed that matter exists beyond concepts. It is not agreed that your concept of identity explains or contains the essence of matter. It is too narrow and one-sided to even come close to accomplishing this purpose, enter now Hegel's dialectic.
"Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Once again, we are beyond identity, which states, A = A, are you saying this is false? Hegel's point is that identity never makes it to reality precisely because it never makes it to -A, which is actually the concrete reality of what occurs in being, the essence of being.
You are doing here with Hegel, exactly what you are trying to do with Aristotle, distort the position to suit your idiosyncratic formation, falsely attributing your own confused ideas to Hegel and Aristotle.
The real trick to your sophistry, and every last ounce of your philosophical leverage, is achieved by trying to smuggle in a loaded premise; you are trying to say that identity embodies negation, but the concrete problem is that it has no negativity in it, the formation is entirely positive! This is undeniable, A = A does not say, A = -A, and this proves you are distorting and twisting the position, no doubt, because you know you cannot get the content you need for essence from the empty tautology of identity. Hence, you are trying to argue that the law of identity states, A= -A =A = -A. This was in fact Hegel's point, "the movement returns to itself." And I must confess, it is nearly beyond belief that you would be so bold as to assert that the law of identity states A = -A. While this is an accurate presentation of what occurs in being, this is not the law of identity, this is a step in the direction of dialectics, as Hegel demonstrated, it is a step beyond identity.
Where your mysticism arises is that you are trying to claim that your concept is the most basic representation of reality, thus attempting to fuse it with the highest philosophical authority. This turns identity (because it is not a representation of reality) into an ideology that is wielded against reality, it literally becomes a form of tyranny that leads to tyranny.
One more thing can be mentioned here. When you make use of this concept in discourse, you most assuredly do not, and will not, use the form you are here trying to assert for reasons of posture, A = -A. Instead you will assert the positive image against the negation. On all fronts then you are defeated and exposed as a practical negator of the position you espouse.
I hope it is clear to those who are reading this that you are not only distorting the concept of identity, but also distorting and misrepresenting the position of Hegel. [Please do not listen to this man, read Hegel for yourself.] There is one simple question that proves this, where is the negativity in identity? You have no choice but to bring it in from the outside by going beyond identity, then turning back to the concept in an attempt to correct its error by adding the negation which it does not contain! Your fallacy is the lie that states: identity is equal to essence.
You Sir, have not studied Hegel, which was my original point. You are merely dealing with a straw-man-caricature of his position. Intellectuals like yourself are not liberators of the minds who read them, but you cast them into confusion and error because you are after praise and validation as opposed to truth, a kind of polemical power that champions itself by preying on ignorance.
Ladies and gentlemen, take it from his own lips: "The "being", an abstraction, is represented as A, which cannot be understood without reference to not-A."
And yet, this -A is not contained in the law of identity! The refutation is complete.
To be fair, he was talking about the world. For him it has actuality mixed with potency (and a host of other things). He believes in God as prime mover, who would be identical to himself with no movement or negativity. So ye, remember he is speaking only of the universe in his posts
The point is that human intelligence is deficient.
Quoting JerseyFlight
You are trying to give "being" a meaning which is not consistent with the meaning that it has in its status when opposed to not-being, or nothing, in Hegel's logic. We need to adhere to the meaning of "being" as used in Hegel's dialectics to avoid equivocation. "Being" refers to the abstraction, the human determination. I already explained to you the incompatibility between the world of becoming, and the logical determinations of what is and what is not, being and not-being. Now you want to talk about "the reality of being" as if being is really becoming, but all this does is confuse the issue, making it difficult to distinguish the incompatible categories which were disclosed by the ancient Greeks.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Yes, you continue to assert that Hegel demonstrated "identity" to be faulty, or contradictory, but you have yet to produce the argument. The argument you have here does nothing. Just because the abstract formation I put forward, describing the identity of the object, is not the object itself, does not mean that there is not an object, with its own identity. So long as I maintain the separation between what is said about the object's identity, and the object's real identity, there is no problem. That is, until you deny that there are any real objects.
Quoting JerseyFlight
No, clearly I am not trying to do this. I have said that an object's identity consists of both its matter and its form. I never said anything about "essence", another confusing word with multiple meanings, just like "being". Again, I request that you read clearly what I say, and do not try to distract in this way, by saying that I am talking about something I haven't even mentioned.
Quoting JerseyFlight
No,no,no, this is totally confused. Essence is formal, and matter is a completely distinct category from form, so it doesn't even make sense to talk about the essence of matter. Furthermore, we haven't discussed matter enough to have any agreement as to whether it is more than conceptual.
Quoting JerseyFlight
I don't know what you're talking about. The law of identity is represented as A=A. There is no need to reference -A. Of course A would never make it to -A, that would violate the law of identity. The relation of A to -A is what is called "becoming". It is not being! And you cannot represent it as "the essence of being". That is an incorrect interpretation of Hegel. It is a movement, a becoming. If you think that becoming is being, in Hegel's dialectics, you are simply wrong. Read the Stanford article I referred for you. Being is the abstraction, there is no such thing as the the concrete being. This is why identity doesn't make sense to Hegel. There are no individual beings in the concrete reality, only the process of becoming, Therefore identity, which is what Aristotle gives to individual things, beings, makes no sense. Individual things are what a mind distinguishes in the act of individuation, but in reality the thing vanishes into not that thing as fast as time passes, so identity makes no sense.
Quoting JerseyFlight
You are completely neglecting predication. The subject is A. What is predicated of A, may be negated. and this represents change to the thing. Clearly, identity embodies negation when the object which is being represented as A, changes yet maintains its identity as A. What may be predicated of A at one time is negated and cannot be predicated at another time. There is no need for A=-A, for identity to embody negation. You are just making this unwarranted claim without considering the nature of predication.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Why do you keep bringing up "essence" as if it has some relevance? As I said last post, stick to what I have written, and please try not to read your straw man presuppositions into what I write. Essence is something completely different from identity. I have no desire to discuss essence here. So unless you can show how essence is relevant, just leave that term alone. But please, don't pretend that it's my desire to discuss essence.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Did I ever claim that? Stick to what is written! Please.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Burn the straw man! When did I say A=-A? The law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself, and this is sometimes represented as A=A. As time passes, the thing which remains the same as itself, represented as A, changes. So the properties we predicate of A, may be negated, while A remains A. Therefore negation is contained within identity. How you can possibly interpret this as me saying A=-A baffles me. Your capacity to produce straw men is simply amazing.
Is a stop sign one thing, one being? The sign itself is merely screwed into the pole. Yet we think of it as one thing. Turns out my arguments against Aristotle end up supporting Hegel
Quoting Gregory
I know I'm in the minority on this, but IMO, the fact that we can do math, and make good predictions about the external universe doesn't prove that the universe is mathematical.
Mathematics is a set of tools for rearranging data; deriving non-obvious facts from obvious facts -- essentially augmenting our reasoning process, and intuition. It works because it's self-consistent and the universe seems to be self-consistent, and for thinking beings like us, formally figuring out what can be inferred from what we know is of course a big deal.
It's actually the opposite of what you're saying. They aren't assuming maths works. They are using maths to make predictions or inferences and finding that they work; they make good predictions.
At this point, there's such a long track record of applying maths usefully that it's the most promising place to first look. You're free to use mysticism to try to predict events, but humans have done that for thousands of years and come up with nothing. Or, if you have an alternative way of making predictions, go for it! No-one would be upset to discover another way of successfully understanding our universe.
"Actually Plato provides a much more useful dialect than Hegel. After reading Plato and Aristotle, you'll be able to see where Hegel goes wrong in his dialectics, leading people like dialectical materialists into a violation of the law of non-contradiction."
This assertion has not been sustained throughout the course of this exchange.
Hegel's position on being, as you seem to use the term, is that it is not only inconsequential, but dangerous insofar as it serves to distort essence: "For here we are not concerned with the object in its immediate form, but want to know it as mediated. And our usual view of the task or purpose of philosophy is that it consists in the cognition of the essence of things. By this we understand no more than that things are not to be left in their immediate state, but are rather to be exhibited as mediated or grounded by something else. The immediate being of things is here represented as a sort of rind or curtain behind which the essence is concealed. Now, when we say further that all things have an essence, what we mean is that they are not truly what they immediately show themselves to be. A mere rushing about from one quality to another, and a mere advance from the qualitative to the quantitative and back again, is not the last word; on the contrary, there is something that abides in things, and this is, in the first instance, their essence."
You are free to insist that you are talking about the law of identity. You are also free to insist that your external imposition of negation doesn't imply a violation of the law, but the law of identity is an entirely positive formation. As soon as you bring in the negative you have gone beyond identity. You are free to pretend that Aristotelian logic deals with actual being, but it does not, it deals with abstract being, with dead images. Dialectic is thought suited to essence, Aristotle's axioms are principles suited to the creation of abstract categories, not the comprehension of reality.
Hegel commenting on Aristotle's logic: "Now if, according to this point of view, thought is considered on its own account, it does not make its appearance implicitly as knowledge, nor is it without content in and for itself; for it is a formal activity which certainly is exercised, but whose content is one given to it. Thought in this sense becomes something subjective; these judgments and conclusions are in and for themselves quite true, or rather correct – this no one ever doubted; but because content is lacking to them, these judgments and conclusions do not suffice for the knowledge of the truth."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The object's identity and the object's real identity? Then what is the non-real-identity of the object that you are maintaining against the object's real identity? How is this not an exercise in abstraction? It proves that what you are talking about is nothing more than an idea, a stale and lifeless category.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
My position is not that the abstraction is not the object, but that it distorts our comprehension of the object, the actual being of being is its movement not its fragment. I am saying exactly what Hegel says, take your categories from the phenomena, do not impose them on the phenomena. I suppose you could assign multiple abstractions to an object if you so desired, but the danger is always the same: distortion of the comprehension of reality itself.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In concise form, you will have to connect the dots through careful contemplation:
"Thus the principle of identity reads: "Everything is identical with itself, A = A'; and negatively: "A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time." -Instead of being a true law of thinking, this principle is nothing but the law of the abstract understanding. The propositional form itself already contradicts it, since a proposition promises a distinction between subject and predicate as well as identity; and the identity-proposition does not furnish what its form demands." Hegel
Count me in that minority with you friend.
Modern physics is an attempt to combine theoretical and practical truth in a unity by the use of "creative imagination" to use Napolean Hill's term
Is it really so orderly after all? There is new evidence that the so-called laws of physics aren't even constant throughout the universe. You're part of the old school, which is just now beginning to get bumped out. More critical scientists are emerging who aren't afraid to ask the question, what if symmetry isn't part of the equation, what if we are discovering chaos? Now this terrifies idealist thinkers, this is why they begin with the projection of idealism. (I should go gently here, not my strong suit, because reality is pretty damn scary when you remove all the idealist assumptions -- that is, when one has been programmed to derive their sense of safety and well-being from them). Nevertheless, the discovery of disorder and chaos doesn't actually change anything except for our beliefs. We can still use our intelligence to make a world that is valuable to life.
This passage demonstrates how this so-called distortion of essence is a feature of Hegel's misunderstanding of the Aristotelian concept, "essence" and nothing else. As I explained to you already, Aristotle defined two senses of "form". The one is the human abstraction, and this is how we come to know the essence of things. The other is the form of the material thing itself. Each material thing is a particular, an individual with a form proper to itself. This form is distinct from the essence of the thing, which is the form which human beings know in abstraction, because it consists of accidentals, whereas the essence does not. Do you apprehend that difference? The essence does not contain the accidentals which inhere within the form of the material object. Both are "forms", yet "forms" in two distinct senses of the word.
So the following statement reveals Hegel's misunderstanding "The immediate being of things is here represented as a sort of rind or curtain behind which the essence is concealed...there is something that abides in things, and this is, in the first instance, their essence." The essence of a thing is not concealed at all, nor does it abide in the thing, it is the form which exists within the human abstraction, what the human mind apprehends and determines as the essential properties of the thing. What is concealed is the independent "form" of the thing, complete with the accidentals which the human being does not necessarily perceive. And this independent form constitutes the identity of the thing. That this is the proper interpretation is evident from the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who did much work expounding on the difference between the forms of human abstraction (essences), and the independent "Forms".
Hegel, with this use of "essence" puts us right back into the confusion of Plato's Timaeus. "Form" as "essence", is a universal. The problem which confronted Plato was the question of how a particular could come into existence from a universal form. He thought it necessary to assume this, because things, like human beings for instance, come into existence as a determinate type. So the human form, as a universal, must be prior to the particular, the individual human being. He was stumped because the medium between the universal and the particular was seen as matter, but the universal form could not account for the existence of the particulars of the material individual. Aristotle got beyond this problem by assigning all such universal forms (essences) as the product of human abstraction, therefore posterior to the things themselves, while also positing a new type of form, the form of the individual. which substantiates a thing's "identity". Hegel, in not upholding this distinction confuses identity with essence.
Quoting JerseyFlight
That's right, formal logic deals with essences, not with actual things. But dialectics is not formal logic. How do you suppose that a person might create useful abstract categories without an appropriate understanding of reality? Creation of suitable abstract categories can only follow from a comprehension of reality.
Quoting JerseyFlight
Right, there is a distinction to be upheld, between the form of the thing, within the human mind, the abstraction, and the form of the thing in reality. The "non-real identity" is the identity given to the thing by the human mind, the abstraction, the essence. It is "non-real", because it is lacking in the accidentals which are a part of the identity of the individual thing.
Quoting JerseyFlight
This is not what Hegel says. The "movement" you refer to here is called by Hegel "becoming". It is not called "the actual being" in Hegel's dialectics. That is the point I'm trying to impress on you, "Being" is subsumed within the category of becoming, "movement". That's how Hegel can argue against Aristotle's concept of identity. There is no such thing as beings in the real, actual world, only becoming, because Hegel has done away with any independent Forms. All forms are dependent on the human mind, as essences, and there is no true form or being concealed behind how the thing appears to us, only movement, becoming. A thing only has being through human apprehension. Other than this it is just a becoming.
Quoting JerseyFlight
See, this is Hegel's misrepresentation, a straw man. The law of identity says that a thing has an identity unto itself. It says nothing about abstract understanding. It is a law against the abuse of abstraction reasoning. It says nothing about what abstract understanding is, or how it ought proceed, only what it is not, i.e. a thing's identity. It was created by Aristotle as a tool against sophists who claimed that the human abstraction (essence) of a thing is the thing's identity. This sophistic claim denies the possibility of human mistake as to identity. That is why we must uphold a distinction between a thing's true identity, its own particular and unique form, and the identity which we assign to it in abstraction (essence). Without this distinction there can be no such thing as human knowledge being mistaken, because what we say about the thing is what is true about it.
You should clarify that by "idealist" you mean A\T (Aristotle and Aquinas) and not Hegel's objective idealism. Hegel thought they had a false idealism, as did Descartes
I would have loved to ask Hume to pick up a chair and deny to my face that he feels the causality. He was right though that I cant prove the wind causes the chair to rip over. And without causality, what happens to physics as a whole?
1) you only assert all this. You have no evidence
2) there is no way to know Hegel was wrong to say something can be both itself and it's opposite
3) a thing exists, it does not "have evistence". Descartes was right about that, Aquinas wrong
4) are you aware there are humans who are essentially half woman and half man? The adult industry pays money for these individuals. People who are more one gender or who are changing there gender is what people usually know about. But not to know that a human can be 50\50 man and woman is just ignorance.
5) A\T leads you to praying to a God who will never answer your prays
Descartes kinda tried in The Passions of the Mind but it's all too subjective
The possibility that certain constants in those laws might vary a bit in space and time does not mean physical principles are endangered. There remains quite a bit of orderliness in nature.
Quoting JerseyFlight
We must stay calm. :gasp:
Let's say that the law of identity is an ideal. As such, it is proposed as a limitation, or rule for abstraction. As a proposal, or proposition, it might be judged for truth or falsity and rejected or accepted accordingly. What I am arguing is that Hegel's rejection is unjustified, being based in a faulty dialectic, consisting of a misunderstanding of the Aristotelian conceptions of "form" and "essence", evidenced by Jersey Flight's quotes.
Furthermore, if we reject the law of identity there are consequences which need to be respected. Initially, the assumption that there are particular, determinate individuals, beings or objects, in the real, or actual world, is unsubstantiated, unsupported and unjustified. So it makes no sense, as hypocrisy or self-contradiction, to both deny the law of identity and also talk about "actual being". Without the law of identity, or an adequate replacement, the claim of "actual being" is completely invalid.
Quoting Gregory
The evidence is right there in JF's quotes from Hegel. When compared with a thorough understanding of Aristotle, like that displayed by Aquinas, Hegel's faulty representation of Aristotelian concepts is clearly evident.
Quoting Gregory
How does " a thing exists" mean any thing different from what "a thing has existence" means? Are you saying that "existence" means something other than what it means to exist. What could that difference possibly be?
This is another example of Hegel's misrepresentation of Aristotelian principles. A thing, for Aristotle consists of both matter and form. A thing's identity is form alone. Therefore we have the required distinction between subject (the thing as matter and form), and what is predicated of the thing, identity (its form). It is this separation of a thing's true, real form ("identity" rather than human abstraction), from the material thing, which allows Christian theologians to conceive of immaterial Forms, which are prior to, and necessary for, as the cause of existence, of material things. Aristotelian principles disallow matter without form, but not form without matter.
Indeed, simple enough! :up:
BTW, MU, are you a mathematical realist or anti-realist?
Are you sure? Complete chaos precludes contingent order. I thought the closest thing you get to chaos is random fluctuations in QM and indeterminacy in nature (deterministic chaos)?
How to interpret Aristotle is highly contentious. You indoctrinated yourself into a Thomistic take on this, which says existence is a thing added to form. But form must exist to have existence added to it. Again, things exist, they don't "have" existence as a property. This was Descartes great realization about Aquinas. Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is legit. After all Aristotle though God only the final cause. Aquinas thought it obvious that God creates, to the contrary. Aristotle has a more modern take on this.
You have offered up tough-minded and reasoned replies. I have nothing but respect for this. It leaves me with much to consider. I will indeed reply, as soon as I can get to it. We are here having a serious conversation, this is not just forum banter, so it requires more effort in thinking, at least on my part.
I took the liberty of moving this exchange to a new thread.
In my opinion this is basically the secret to the world of man as well as man himself.
If I had to take a label, I'd say anti.
Quoting Gregory
Aquinas offers the most thorough, and rigorous interpretation of Aristotle available, so such an "indoctrination" is a very good step toward understanding Aristotle.
It was Aristotle himself, in his metaphysics, who demonstrated that the form of a thing is necessarily prior to the material existence of that thing. Of course we would say that such an immaterial form would have "existence. This is why Neo-Platonists, and Christian theologian claim the existence of immaterial Forms. I don't see what you're trying to get at.
Thanks for that. Care to have it developed?
No, Aquinas is one out of thousands of interpreters of Aristotle. Aquinas was a genius only of coming out with thousands of faulty arguments. Those under his spell failed the test of being impartial.
Also, Aquinas said existence is added to form and prime matter to actualize it. But they must be actualized to be actualized. Therefore Aquinas was wrong
See, that's how an argument goes. Aristotle and Aquinas proved nothing about "forms" and what not. Aquinas gives up arguing there and talks dogmatically, as if his mind is the only mind there is
I encourage people to read Aquinas vs Hegel. But neither really proves anything
A genius at faulty arguments. :lol: So accurate. Idealism will do that to a person.
I’m liking your exposition. Frankly I find it difficult to draw a sharp line between any of these positions as they all seem to be generally right, but then also then generally wrong in the same way too. Peirce and modern systems science fix the problems in hylomorphism for me.
So the gist that I say is right is the idea that substantial being - actuality - can be understood as a dialectic of “form” and “prime matter”.
But form is not some kind of existent - a Platonic object or schema. It is best understood as a constraint or limitation on being. So it is contextual. It specifies a state of being by reducing uncertainty. A cat is a cat to the degree it’s form is feline and not canine, bovine, piscine, etc.
Form is thus a hierarchy of increasing specification. A top-down exercise in constraint in which Nature moves closer and closer to some mark - some equilibrium state. The Cosmos has its general physical laws. They restrict free action in a way that - through the laws of thermodynamics - results in chemistry. Chemistry then provides a context that restricts free action in a way that biology can arise. Biology produces animals in general and then animals in particular. Evolutionary competition is a contextual constraint that results in increasingly specified variety. There are Indian elephants and African elephants.
So Nature is not starting with ideals. An African elephant didn’t have to exist because that form was part of some Platonic library as a finality. An idea in a divine mind. Nature is instead layers of constraint that themselves result in greater and greater local specificity - to the degree the world can undergo levels of symmetry breaking in which, dialectically, there is a clear division of paths. A fork or a switch such as left elephants isolated in two different breeding populations and now free to be evolutionarily constrained in some way more highly specified by the information of a local environment.
In the same way, the material part of the hylomorphic equation is understood as the opposite of constraint or context.
I have just describe form as an evolving weight of increasingly specific history that impinges on some locale. The context starts of with cosmological generality and develops a local structure. Cats are cats due to a history of evolutionary events that were responses to environmental demands.
Prime matter is then the opposite to formal cause in being understood as constructive accidents. Simple fluctuations that are actions without specific direction. A chaotic ferment of possibilities. What Peirce described as Firstness or Tychism.
So the material aspect of being is understood as the least formed notion of an efficient cause. A random event. A mere accident. But coupled to form, that raw materiality starts to be shaped into some direction. It is incorporated into a constructive flow.
Water falls on a plain in scattered random fashion. The trickles merge into flows. A snaking river forms. It then reaches the sea and breaks up into the fractal branches of a swampy delta. The whole thing is a story of local accidents being shaped by global physical laws. Every drop of water is having to respond to the constraints of the least action principle in terms of finding its most efficient drainage path from the uplands to the ocean. And a variety of actual drainage patterns emerge, like the form that is the snaking river or the fractal fan of the river delta.
This is a sketch of how Nature actually works in hylomorphic terms. So what does that say about the law of identity? Or being vs becoming?
Well it says actuality is this combination of constraints and accidents. A constraint puts a limit on accidents. But it doesn’t eliminate them. In only imposes a dialectical imperative in the sense that it divides being according to the differences that make a difference and the differences that don’t.
So all is difference when it comes to any substantial thing. Every physical object is composed of some collection of particles or degrees of freedom. We can count its information/entropy. Substance is always some bound collection of material accidents.
But the constraints are essential permissive. They constrain what they constrain, and beyond that, all is left free - by dialectical definition.
A cat is a cat if it sufficiently conforms to some general contextual definition. It could be a black cat or a cartoon cat. A cat in a story or a real cat just over there. Definitions are globally tight but locally open. A cat is a cat to the degree it isn’t a horse or an alligator. Or more narrowly, to the degree it isn’t a civet or a leopard. And so on. A black cat is a black cat to the degree we can ignore the tuft of white on its throat as a difference not making a difference, at least when stacked up against the big difference in it not being a white or grey cat.
So the law of identity can only logically claim that A = A to the degree that there is no difference that makes a difference. And yet logically, there will be always differences. Especially as we dig down towards the material ground of that instantiated being where the hierarchy of constraint is becoming attenuated.
Peirce realised this meant that logic has to include vagueness as a category to balance the idea of existence as having counterfactual definiteness. The principle of non contradiction can fail to apply when material differences become a matter of indifference. So identity and contradiction are emergent properties of Nature. They are relative.
The laws of thought were framed for a world presumed to be fully actualised - crisply formed in every detail. Bivalence rules all things.
But Peirce built a new picture based on a hylomorphism, a dialectic, of constraints and freedoms. Everything is formed only to the degree that it needs to be crisply or sharply identified as some actuality. But that very act of formation - of the informing of Nature - already includes the “other” of Nature’s indifference. What isn’t forbidden is free to happen. And must happen, indeed.
Some actual entity or structure is thus an equilibrium balance. It is a collection of differences that is specified to whatever degree pragmatically fits the context. The differences that matter are in balance with the differences that don’t. The thing in question has stable being to the degree its flow of becoming is not making a substantial seeming difference.
Rivers wriggle about the landscape the whole time. Even the continents flow over geological time due to plate tectonics. Things are building up and breaking down due to multitudes of accidents, but also they are expressing physical laws like the principle of least action.
As Peirce says, it becomes vague when a river becomes some different river, a continent some other land mass. Identity is sort of maintained and was also always sort of an illusion. Nature - at a physicochemical level - just has a looser actuality. A lower grade of substantiality in terms of being mechanically divided into A and not-A.
Interesting.
Many philosophers in Germany, England, and the USA were Hegelian at the beginning of the 20th century. I'm thinking Peirce had read some Hegel? Certainly he brought his own ideas to the tradition
Totally fascinating reply, an excellent synopsis and outline of Peirce's thinking. Thank you for taking the time to articulate.
Ditto
We learn to think dialectically thru the Spirit (the Ultimate Idea in the form of the Holy Ghost) and through the Notion (which is the Logos of the Idea, it's word to be more precise).
There is no consciousness higher than ours for Hegel. No father divine in the sky. We are all of reality he wrote
Hegel did not negate Aristotle, he merely showed his thinking was 1) a violation of itself and 2) incomplete. That ought to be enough to compel you in the direction of Hegel, because it's basically what your are here saying.
When you say, "Nature is not starting with ideas," which I believe should be common sense, but alas, what has idealism done to man? This is quite important because, I would think, based on your thinking, this must constitute an exceedingly high place in any epistemological hierarchy? If this is true it inevitably takes us in the direction of Marx. Marx was the ultimate anti-idealist, this is what makes his philosophical thought so powerful.
He was certainly reacting to Hegel and read him in depth. But in his own words, he ends up more aligned to Schelling and Duns Scotus.
So he spends a lot of time criticising Hegel ... while sounding quite Hegelian.
So for Peirce, the Cosmos was "mindful" (and matter merely effete mind) in the sense that it was driven by the imperative of every increasing reasonableness.
That translates more to a natural end state of crisp "rational" order. That is, a world that does achieve counterfactual definiteness in the limit.
The human mind is something that is highly specific within existence. So only we are "conscious" in the way that we understand consciousness.
But Peirce started his metaphysics from a psychological beginning - how scientific human minds make sense of the world through a pragmatic process of inquiry. We form a "world" in our minds by a rationalising process of semiosis - an interpretive relation.
And then this linguistic semiosis - rational thought - can be generalised towards pansemiosis. Nature itself can be understood as a system of signs thinking itself into definite being.
It is a little metaphorical when stretched that far. But it is a far better foundation for metaphysics than thinking reality is a dumb accidental machine. It starts us off looking for the dialectical logic by which Nature could bootstrap itself towards crisp counterfactuality out of some prior total vagueness or Tychism.
And that process of semiosis ends in its "other" of global continuity or the holism of Synechism, in Peirce's scheme.
So the generality of Peircean metaphysics is Hegelian in spirit. But he latches on to something new in making this dialectical distinction that is embodied in the triadic modelling relation which is semiosis.
Modern science has arrived at the same place to the degree that it now understands reality as an interaction of information and dynamics. We have two kinds of "stuff" - formal stuff and material stuff. But actually they are the same kind of stuff as information and entropy have been shown to be dual faces of reality at the Planck scale.
Information is signal - the differences that make a difference. And entropy is noise - the differences that don't make a difference. And so at the bottom of all that, there is just difference.
But at the Planck scale, this unity also means that you have absolute smallness (constraint) and absolute hotness (freedom) looking the same. So there is also an effective annihilation of difference as such. Difference only gets born with the Big Bang fracturing the Planck scale symmetry. It grows to have fully expressed dialectical being from that point.
I dunno. Hegel has just never grabbed me.
Aristotle is a great as he covered both the organic and mechanical conceptions of nature. He did not finish the job, but he got it properly started.
Then Peirce clicked with me as soon as I actually understood where he was coming from (which took a few years). His story fits the modern scientific view where Nature is in fact a dialectic of the organic and the mechanical. Semiosis pinpoints how mechanical or informational constraints do organise chaotic or organically self-organising nature.
And that is what we have discovered to be the basis of life and mind. It is all about the semiotic machinery that regulates physical dynamics.
Peirce was half scientist - a high level scientist - as well as a founder of modern logic and a dazzling metaphysician.
I've skimmed and dipped into Hegel on many occasions. But it lacks the sharpness I always find in Peirce. So my own philosophical landmarks would be Anaximander, Aristotle and then Peirce.
Peirce just makes Hegel redundant - at least for my purposes in pursuing a systems metaphysics.
Pure potentiality for Hegel is also pure freedom. Every thing is constrained in his system until the realization of the Absolute idea. Tielhard tried to use Hegel and incorporate the historical person of Jesus as the Omega Point of the "after" of the Big Bang. I don't agree with this, but lots of thinkers spin off from Hegel. All fascinating
That is what I disagree on. It is too anthropomorphic.
As individual minds, we humans believe that our destiny is to be self-actualising. We should grow to become creating gods. Our power to construct is only limited by our imaginations. And that is (informationally) unlimited.
Semiosis - as the mechanism of Nature - has become unbound in our hands. With words, we can express any idea. With number, we can construct any form. Semiosis promises unlimited means in terms of what we might chose to will into being.
Yet this is one-sided. The other half of Nature's equation is entropy. Material freedom.
Humans in fact can only give physical expression to ideas that fit within thermodynamic constraints. We remain rooted in the fact that semiosis is about information being used to regulate physical dynamics. And doing so with the purpose of rebuilding itself as an actual material system doing informational regulation.
Our minds are a bundle of habits dedicated to the job of rebuilding that bundle of habits - preserving a bunch of neural pathways woven into a network of metabolic paths and organs. The blood has to pump. The fats and sugars have to feed the hungry cells. We are functioning organisms, not immaterial souls.
So the highest form of semiosis might be the most actualised human being. We look around and don't find a better example of life and mind at its most individually potent.
But that means we are the most constrained as well as the most free. That is the paradox of freewill. We all agree to the same things under the force of science and rationality and cultural custom. Or if really pushed, due to hunger, need of shelter, and other things that speak to basic entropic survival as organisms.
So to be supremely rational is both maximising our freedom and maximising our constraint. Or at least, it means we think of freedom as chaos constrained to the point where we can impose our own private will on Nature - within practical limits that we just accept as being out of our personal control.
I would love to fly by flapping my arms. But it is not a failure of freewill that I can't.
And could the further evolution of humans ever arrive at a place where we can contradict the "laws of nature"? We know that is a silly question.
So our actual potency is measurable in terms of entropy dissipation. We have potency as organisms to the degree we can generate enough entropy to pay for a matching amount of purposeful work.
This is the basic metaphysical equation that science has arrived at. Even the Cosmos obeys the same ground rule. It has this organismic structure - see David Layzer's model of the Universe as a dissipative structure.
The end state of dialectics is still a dialectic. The connection is semiosis. The two halves of the equation being balanced are constraint and freedom. Or information and entropy.
I said "the most thorough". Sure there are many less thorough. Do you know any that are more thorough?
Do you mean "wrote more words" or made more sense? Aquinas is a clear writer and useful for people learning philosophy. But his main points are not proven no matter how much ink he would waste on a question
1) he said Being is added to form and matter as they unite in order to actualize them. But as Saurez and his school pointed out, form and matter must first exist to be in that triad. So Aquinas was wrong
2) Descartes says our reason IS our soul. He is right. Hold up, says Aquinas. Reason is a power of the soul, and will is a power of that power, he says. But this leads to contradictions. Aquinas says the greater is prior to the lesser. The will does greater good than the reason, so if will is dependant on the "power" of reason, than the greater is posterior. This a contradiction in his system. Therefore Aquinas was wrong
Why are you obsessed with proof? What I meant by "thorough" was complete, rather than superficial. That he wrote more words, and makes more sense, is evidence (as in proof), that he is more thorough.
Aquinas said he could prove a simple all powerful all good ect God exists and that anyone who disagrees is irrational. Disciples of his, like Edward Feser, are obsessed with proof and think atheism should be considered a mental illness
Unless you're a biosemiotician? :chin: