Funny how? How is philosophy funny? Like a clown? — Joshs

Aw, man! You almost got me!

Proper philosophy which concerns itself with a logical solution to a problem divested of ego is much more serious. — Philosophim

What you say is true. The big "however" is no human (like me) is logical all of the time nor entirely without ego. :rofl:

Philosophy is just a form of critical thinking — dclements

Agreed. Can we also make space for a bit of imagination?

...not a lot of people know how to do it well nowadays as we are too often forced to act without really thinking about what we are doing. — dclements

Yes. Info overload.

This is likely more true for people in the US than other places in the world. — dclements

R-O-C-K-IN-THE-U-S-A! - Faster_smarter_better; condensed books; one-minute eggs; Cliff Notes; NFL highlight reels; motel rooms by the hour; muscle cars; fast food...

https://youtu.be/9p3DzUwxI0o

Well, for me, philosophy is inherently absurdist rather than comedic (even though most philosophizers are clowns). — 180 Proof

:ok: :smile:

I didn't even get one laugh out of the Critique of Pure Reason. — Baden

:clap: :grin:

Okay. The ace is a high card that can also be used as a low card with value of 1.

Aces are not ones... — Metaphysician Undercover

In most Western card games, the numeral 1 is designated ace and marked A accordingly. In games based on the superiority of one rank over another, such as most trick-taking games, the ace counts highest, outranking even the king. In games based on numerical value, the ace normally counts 1, as in cribbage, or 11, as an option in blackjack. In games based on arranging cards into ordered series, such as rummy, it may count either high or low or even both (as in a “round-the-corner” sequence such as Q-K-A-2-3). -- Britannica.Com

In Poker, the Ace is the highest card and the 2 card (Deuce) is the lowest. However, the Ace can also be used as a low card, with the value of 1. -- wsop.com

In Poker, the value of the ace is on a switch between highest card/lowest card. Which side of the switch is chosen by agreement prior to beginning of play.

An extension of the switch can be argued when numbers on the number line are viewed as being existential. Since this perspective on numbers destabilizes value as based on position, every number on the number line is on a highest card/lowest card switch by agreement, thus making the value of a given number arbitrary and axiomatic.

I can say axiomatic because through the lens of existential numbers, it's self-evident that an infinite line of positions unranked can be ranked axiomatically by agreement.

Something akin to this is demonstrated by the motion of a material object through surrounding space. Many -- perhaps infinite -- positions are open to the positioning-by-motion of the material object because those positions are unranked by any kind of physical difference that makes one position more-or-less attainable than another.

The point, as small one, is that there is a distinction between stipulating a rule and taking it as self-evident. — Banno

Yes. What you say is true.

My word game here -- not generally valid -- contextualizes stipulating a rule under the super-ordination of an arbitrary governing rule -- aces are the highest card -- that analytically equates by decree stipulation a = self-evident truth. A parallel is when a judge decrees that the jury disregard evidence they've already heard. Under this analytical artifice, hearing evidence = not hearing evidence. The equation is false, but the governing rule compels human subjects to act as if it were true.

The above sophistry, I expect, would be upheld in any court wherein the deuce-holder might try to claim a winning hand.



This tells us that {stipulated rule ≠ self-evident rule} is not a simple inequality, but rather a negotiable inequality under the hierarchy of super-ordination-by-consensus, an actionable edict therefore legal in court.

This tells us that 2 is greater than 1 along the cardinal_ordinal axis; along the existential axis, however, all points on the number line are equal. (It's the same argument in our US Constitution: all humans are existentially equal: the most physically_mentally incapacitated habituè of intensive care exists no less than the most thoroughly endowed polymath at the prestigious university.

Now we know that the claim {2>1} is conditional and, moreover, the condition of its superiority -- in the context of our example -- is precluded by one of the rules defining the game of poker.

No, not the axiom! Being axiomatic is considered being self-evident; but it is clearly not self-evident that aces beat two's! Nor is it something that cannot be questioned - it might have been otherwise, it is not a necessary truth! — Banno

By my argument above, I can claim existential equality of one point on the number line with respect to any other point on the number line. That {2>1}, or that {1>2} are equally logically debatable claims by force of existential equality.

By my argument above, I can claim existential equality of one point on the number line with respect to any other point on the number line ⇒ {1>2} and {2>1} are moot.

From here I can proceed to the claim that it is self-evidently true that existentially equal numbers have cardinal_ordinal inter-relations that are moot with respect to size.

What you say is true. I must publicly acknowledge defeat.

I will, however, quibble as an exercise in futility in the following manner:

It's just that if you would play poker, you have to accept that aces beat two's. — Banno

This tells us the deuce-holding opponent in your example is playing Devil's Advocate for kicks, or doesn't know the game of Poker, which probably means the game couldn't've have gotten underway in the first place, which means your example, beyond the abstract, is dubious.

Alternatively, when the deuce-holder yells,"two is greater than one, a pair of twos beats a pair of aces," I yell "aces high!" Deuce-holder then yells, "numbers don't lie!" I then yell, "legal stipulations trump common sense!"

Furthermore, when a stipulation is common law by consensus and thus by a socially mandated definition, poker players, being savvy to "aces high!" by presupposition, must equate the stipulation with self-evident truth via the cognitive imperative of poker-as-defined.

I await your response to this word-salad.

P.S. I know it's pettifogging trench-fighting on my part. I think I could, in a courtroom, force a stalemate. What do you think?

... to infer a truth claim about how the world works — ucarr

For me, that's physics, not metaphysics. — 180 Proof

Can you write a flow chart showing the continuity extending from the five products of metaphysics (you listed: {categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations}) to the everyday world?

↪ucarr I don't follow any of this. — 180 Proof

Whaddya mean you don't follow? In making my explanation, I hewed to a close replication of your definition of metaphysics. I took in your definition and repeated it back to you in my own voice. This is meant to show I'm learning from what you communicated to me.

The reason I know a person uses a first-principle model (paradigm) to infer a truth claim about how the world works is because you taught the lesson to me.

Yes. I did add my two cents at the end. What's the mystery -- or incoherence -- about it? In order for a sign to point the way to wisdom, it must in itself be wise WRT to what it points toward. If you tell me you don't understand that small point, I can only say, once again, "Whaddya mean you don't follow?

Parsing precisely finely shaded distinctions of meanings between complex terms is your forté, not mine.

What is to count as proof here? In the end, you might just have to maintain that this is how we play the game... — Banno

Oh, yeah. The axiomatic, the limit of reasoned argument.

...metaphysics consists of categorical inquiries into reality... — 180 Proof

The resulting categories, paradigms, criteria, methods, interpretations constitute reflective ways of 'being in the world' (or world-making)... — 180 Proof

Proceeding from the conclusion of the above quotes, it seems reasonable to understand the five terms listed as guidelines-by-example that suggest how one might make his/her way through the world with a grasp of actionable truth that has has been modeled conceptually. After reflection upon these models, the enlightened person embarks upon principled empirical journeys through the everyday world of society.

For these reasons I say that a first principle is a signpost. Moreover, in its action of pointing towards a truth claim, signpost must embody a truth-claim-as-directive pointing towards a truth claim.

I think the first-principle truth claim is an epiphenomenon of the empirical truth claim because the former has no causal influence upon the latter.

Does this tell me that a charge can be considered fractional in a ratio with another charge but not ontically fractional in of itself? — ucarr

You still haven't defined what you mean by 'ontically fractional', so the question is unanswerable. — noAxioms

An ontically fractional electric charge is my attempt to describe an energy field that can only be accurately mathematically modeled to experimental observation by assignment of a fraction, and not by an integer.

The numbers assigned to the charges of various things are just conventions. — noAxioms

Given this convention, could someone, by convention alone, assign -1/2, -1/3, -1/4... as numbers assigned to the charges of various elementary particles?

Since a field by definition covers all of space, it would not seem to have a boundary. — noAxioms

Does it follow from this that what we call the gravitational field of the earth and the gravitational field of its moon are really one gravitational field?

I've not heard any suggestion of a 4th macroscopic spatial dimension. It only takes 3 coordinates to define any point in space, so you'd have to demonstrate that to be incorrect. — noAxioms

Does this tell me the hypercube is not a real entity, just an imaginary object of science fiction?

The holographic theory of the universe -- along with the event horizon surrounding a black hole -- adds complexity to the facts about the location of a material object in proximity to extreme gravitation.

Susskind's debate with Hawking re: the conservation of energy of material objects consumed by a black hole and the claims black holes are animate and eventually evaporate add complexity to the facts about where things are ultimately within spacetime.

metaphysical questions have no truth value. They are not true or false, they are useful or not useful. Metaphysics sets out the rules — T Clark

I burden T Clark with another question because he wrote this informative quote.

I hope others here will weigh in with responses to my following question: If metaphysics sets out the rules, and if rules can be construed as signposts pointing the way to specific truth claims, then does it follow that a signpost, like its referent, must in its role embody the same attribute it points the way towards?

Clarifying Example -- a signpost points the way towards a city wherein truth claims in arithmetic are taught to members of the public who wish to learn them. The signpost, in giving its direction to the traveler, makes no arithmetic truth claims. It does, however, embody -- or not -- the truth claim that its direction is true, thus aiding the traveler's quest to arrive at the chosen destination. In this situation, the truth claim of the signpost is an epiphenomenon of the truth claims of the arithmetic instruction it points the way toward.

To vastly oversimplify; in my view... science is applied materialism, mathematics is applied idealism. — T Clark

Let me indulge in gross simplification by characterizing materialism as quantitative and idealism as qualitative.

Are you saying science is hands-on measurement in practice (quantitative) whereas math is cerebral language in practice (qualitative)?

What entrapment? — Zettel

From your question above I surmise you reject my supposition -- elaborated above in the OP -- that 1D, 2D, 4D and all dimensional expansions not the seamless 3D expansion of our empirical experience are only mental apprehensions known solely a priori. As this supposition claims, while I have some understanding of it, I can't actually pick up and hold in my hand an authentically 1D line. Any physical line within my empirical experience may appear to my senses to be flat, but no. It actually has depth, albeit in small volume.

Universness talked about compressing a 1D line into a dimensionless point and I thought, maybe that's an example of moving a 1D object in our 3D world. Wait a minute! In order for compression to happen, even along a straight line, don't we have to assume the presence of the third dimension of depth?

..."metaphysical objects" is an oxymoron — Zettel

Firstly, your comment suggests to me you hold that metaphysical implies abstract entity known solely a priori.. My interpretation here supposes that object in this context denotes a material thing that can be seen and touched.. If it is your supposition that metaphysics has no material members in its set, then I make brief mention of a notion of mine.*

Secondly, language posits another type of object as with "I hit the ball." wherein the verb hit takes ball for its object. This type of object is conceptual, not physical. Following this line of reasoning, I can claim the members of the metaphysical set are conceptual objects of my perceiving mind.

*As we have complex numbers with one part real and one part imaginary, might we have complex objects with one part real and one part imaginary? Meta holds here according to the ordinal scheme that posits first-order, second-order, etc.

Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. — Agent Smith

What do you make of the following interpretation of your above statement: math is the infrastructure of theoretical physics(?)

Here's the definition of infrastructure I'm using:

infrastructure -- noun -- the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or [the] enterprise:

mere fractional parts of elementary particles — ucarr

By definition, elementary particles cannot have parts. — noAxioms

Yes. I posted mis-information that claims ontically fractional quarks. Universeness
set me straight about that. It's fractional charges attached to quarks, not fractional quarks.

fractional quarks and gluons are expanded into three spatial dimensions — ucarr

I don't know in what way you might consider a quark to be fractional (or worse, 'ontically fractional;) other than it being a part of something non-fundamental like a proton. — noAxioms

I stand corrected on this info also. I see that what you say is true.

Do the fractional charges of quarks play an essential role in the outer boundary of a quark's field excitations? — ucarr

It is meaningful to talk about fractional charge, like a helium nucleus has 2/3 the charge of a lithium nucleus. — noAxioms

Does this tell me that a charge can be considered fractional in a ratio with another charge but not ontically fractional in of itself?

...I don't know what you mean by boundaries of a field excitation. A field is arguably 4D, so the title of this topic might be about being trapped in a 4D world. I don't think an excitation has anything that can meaningfully be considered a boundary. An electron for instance might be measured anywhere with finite probability. — noAxioms

In the above block you make important observations of some curious details of elementary particle physics and the theoretical math measuring them. At bottom, I'm trying to look at the elementary particles as physically real material objects. Looking through this lens I'm assuming a field excitation of an electron is a material object with some type of boundary. I understand that energetic fields require nuanced measurements unlike the more simple measurements of what we call solid objects. Since, however, energetic fields dissipate their volume of energy over distance, as in the case of the inverse-square law describing how visible light energy dissipates as it travels through space, I've been assuming energy fields have some type of physically real boundary. Am I wrong about this?

A field is arguably 4D, so the title of this topic might be about being trapped in a 4D world. I don't think an excitation has anything that can meaningfully be considered a boundary. An electron for instance might be measured anywhere with finite probability. — noAxioms

We humans have reason to believe our world includes a fourth spatial dimension? I've heard a claim the fourth spatial dimension is perpendicular to the other three spatial dimensions. The claim goes on to say that, given this configuration, the 3D level of spatial expansion in no way closes itself off from the fourth spatial dimension. Does this openness of 3D to the fourth spatial dimension explain to some extent your statement that,

An electron for instance might be measured anywhere with finite probability. — noAxioms

I can now explain that the root of my inquiry pertains to the whereness -- I hope you can tolerate the neo-logism -- of material objects and how the perception of whereness is being modified by evolving theories.

Your statement is clarifying. Math takes us on cerebral journeys to higher dimensions. If, as I read your statement, these higher dimensions we peer at from afar might exist up there as real material objects, then my question comes into a sharper focus. What is the ontological status of these theoretical objects represented by math entities within our 3D world?

Murray Gell-Mann characterized quarks as purely mathematical entities. As I understand him, unlike you, he's not claiming his mathematical entities might describe real material objects at higher dimensions. Or is he? Quarks are supposed to be telling us real things about protons. Last time I checked, protons exist as material objects.

When he develops mathematical proofs is he discovering what pure math can do independent of material objects? If these theoretical math representations run parallel to our material universe, what is theoretical physics doing beyond playing mind games?

I'm asking whether these existentially -- right? — ucarr

I don't know what you mean by these words. — universeness

For clarity, let me extend the quote just a bit,

I'm asking whether these existentially -- right? -- fractional quarks... — ucarr

Above I'm trying to ask whether quarks are ontically fractional and, if so, how does a fractional or incomplete object express itself as a spatially dimensional entity.. This, however, is a distortion of the facts by me. After revisiting the Murray Gell-Mann story, I see that,

...in 1964, Gell-Mann and George Zweig (PhD '64) independently flew in the face of all that was known by proposing that the fundamental triplet had one member with a +2/3 charge and two members with charges of –1/3.

Gell-Mann called the members of his triplet "quarks..." Everything found in the old SU(2) symmetry group could be fashioned from +2/3 "up" quarks and –1/3 "down" quarks...

Quarks are not themselves fractional, but rather their charges are fractional. I don't suppose electric charge, an energy field, also possesses a particle configuration, so I won't be particular about asking whether electric charge has spatial expansion in three dimensions (unless you happen to know that it does).

Yes, quarks are 3D field excitations. A proton is made of 3 quarks, 2 'up' quarks and 1 down quark. Held together by gluons. There are no free quarks, all quarks are 'bound up.' — universeness

Do the fractional charges of quarks play an essential role in the outer boundary of a quark's field excitations?

Gell-Mann presented quarks as no more than an expedient accounting system, writing, "It is fun to speculate about the way quarks would behave if they were physical particles of finite mass (instead of purely mathematical entities . . . )."

Does Gell-Mann answer my question by identifying quarks as purely mathematical entities?

Well, I would ask, why you are differentiating is any sense between the 3 dimensions we 'empirically experience?' Why would 'two' spatial dimensions be abstract and another real? All three have equal 'significance of presence' and all three are experienced equally by humans (although up/down could be considered a different experience to forwards/backwards and side to side, I suppose).
I don't see how you can connect a dimension of space with the concept of an 'object'. An object can have dimensions but I don't see how it can be posited AS a dimension. Perhaps I am missing your main 'philosophical' point here. Can you exemplify further? — universeness

The above block of questions are important. They are clarifying and they address the philosophical point I'm trying to examine.

With respect to the central focus of my philosophical inquiry, the critical question is,

Why would 'two' spatial dimensions be abstract and another real? — universeness

Does the material universe have a one-dimensional realm? Does it have a two-dimensional realm? For three-dimensional humans, are these realms, if extant, inaccessible?

Your block of above questions present a picture of empirical reality a bit more complex than Gell-Mann's expedient accounting system of purely mathematical entities in that it posits two (presumably) purely mathematical dimensions as essential to the empirical experience of 3D humans.

If quarks, like you say of 1D and 2D within the human empirical experience, somehow play as essential to our empirical experience -- fractional charges included -- then do we have reason to see that Gell-Mann, by characterizing quarks as purely mathematical entities, creates some distortion of truth via simplification for the sake of clarity?

:up: Thanks for the citation. I'll check it out.

:up: You've answered my questions with useful info. Thank-you.

What about quarks and gluons, mere fractional parts of elementary particles, with fractional charges? — ucarr

What about them? What are you asking? proton's and neutrons are not fundamentals, Electrons are, as are quarks and gluons. — universeness

I'm asking whether these existentially -- right? -- fractional quarks and gluons are expanded into three spatial dimensions. Is the answer similar to your answer re: the 3D shape of the electron?

Given our apparent human entrapment within an empirical experience of 3D, does that entrapment render the first two spatial dimensions of our real world as metaphysical objects? — ucarr

You could use the very overburdened label 'metaphysical,' for such, imo, if you want to, but you invite the supernatural woo woo, associated with the term, if you do. — universeness

I'm not married to "metaphysical" as a modifier in this conversation. What do you say to the following reformulation: Given our apparent human entrapment within an empirical experience of 3D, does that entrapment render the first two spatial dimensions of our real world as abstract objects known solely a priori?

I see your OP as being generally concerned with the natural inequality of human individuals.

Touchy subject. Our constitution says all men are created equal. The gender omission of the preceding sentence is an example of how treacherous is the road to social justice.

Should beautiful people act in a way that acknowledges that... — Benj96

I subscribe to the dictum, "Know thyself!" If you exemplify what your culture regards as beautiful, you should know that about yourself and thus, behaving honestly in social situations means not parading false modesty before your friends. Given the power of physical beauty, it's hardly possible for the beautiful to be clueless about the fact, so putting on false humility is wrong. At any rate, whatever your physical package, it's good policy to couple honesty with sincerity when interacting with others.

As for rom-coms, they play a role in establishing and maintaining standards of beauty, so their influence is probably quite deep. There is evidence some humans will accept a particular standard of beauty mainly because it has been reenforced by the consensus of many people over a long period of time. Does political correctness counteract this? I'll wager that many people will pay lip service to political correctness when the stakes are low while inwardly maintaining self-serving politically incorrect standards of beauty and importance. I'm guilty of this wrong.

:smile: :up: :100:

I am myself a materialist (in the sense that I believe the material world is primary and that our subjective experiences arise directly from the physical) and have been trying to reconcile the idea of the "self", with a materialist worldview. The self, as I see it, is the "fundamental essence" of who we are; this sense of "I" we are all likely familiar with. — tom111

What we are (in the materialist view) are simply piles of carbon,... using past memories and experiences to compile a constant "self" that simply doesn't exist; a human being is empty of essence.

Upon thorough examination, the idea of a "self" is as arbitrary as the idea of a "chair", or any other object. In a purely material world, concepts like these simply don't exist. — tom111

In the first quoted paragraph, you write about subjective experience with language that assumes it is an existing (therefore real) thing.

In the second quoted paragraph, you write about "self" as an existing thing, an idea. You also write about thorough examination of "self" (through a materialist lens), concluding it's a concept that doesn't exist. This statement is complicated logically because you name a concept whose existence you subsequently deny. You also label an attribute of "self" as "essence," declaring human being lacks it. Again, in naming something you subsequently deny, you paradoxically posit its existence.

In the third quoted paragraph, you resolve the paradox of material body/immaterial "self" by denying existence of the latter.

Do you understand yourself to be a material body exclusively?

In your rejection of immaterial self, do you reject those personal memories of yourself mentioned above?

Do you understand your "self" to be a material body?

That you don't conclusively understand your "self" to be a material body is suggested to me when you write,

...our subjective experiencesarise directly from the physical) — tom111

Do you understand your "self" to be a physical epiphenomenon of your material body?

I have been trying to reconcile the idea of the "self", with a materialist worldview. — tom111

Here I see your effort to decide upon the physicality/non-physicality of the "self" unresolved.

Have you studied meta-physics? Do you have a response to it?

:up: "Excelsior!"

...the great will believe themselves to be great, for that seems to be required actually to be great. Second, the great will 'know' that they are great - not simply unjustifiably believe it - for their belief in their own greatness will be based on their having discerned it. So they have available to them evidence of their own greatness that others - most others, anyway - will not have access to. — Bartricks

The above describes some important psychological traits of the winner. Self-confidence is bid as a ground of success, even to the highest levels of human achievement. The key to the above claim is its partnering of believing and knowing. The great believe they are great, and they know they are great.

The delicate balance between believing and knowing is the key to success regarding human endeavor.

It's kind of tricky because it's true that the great knowing they're great is not entirely justifiable. For this reason, the battle between knowledge of greatness and skepticism of greatness is so crucial to outcomes.

We humans can't succeed on the basis of our human power alone. We also need a higher power. The knowing part of success is what we know based upon our exercise of reason. The believing part of success is what is based upon what we receive by utilizing trans-rationality, better known as faith.

Trans-rationality is the thing that potentially empowers all human individuals to access and express greatness. Trans-rationality employed or not employed is the only difference between the great human individuals and the undistinguished human individuals.

Trans-rationality is the unseen window in the room without windows. For this reason, paradoxes should be embraced at the same time they're excluded.

Trans-rationality, the in-betweener, when utilized, establishes a bond between the human individual and the circumambient universe and, beyond that, the super-ordinate universe. Within the Christian faith, trans-rationality, the in-betweener, stands presently known as the Holy Ghost. Trans-rationality is partly reason and partly the unknowable known.

The unknowable known is hard for us to wrap our minds around because it entails more than mind. It entails more than reason. It entails more than perception.

Is the unknowable known perceived by the third eye? Perhaps.

The upshot is that greatness i.e., a going beyond the everyday is mostly but not entirely justifiable. This I say when justifiable means logically whole and internally consistent. Existence almost makes good sense, but not completely.

Jesus, with his departure to heaven at hand, gave comfort to his believers with a description of the Holy Ghost, a power that would keep them connected to Jesus, thus giving them comfort during his absence.

Trans-rationality unlocks the door to the doorless prison cell. Reason, essential though it be, becomes a prison when access to the realm that navigates a ghostly course between natural logic and what lies beyond it, for one reason or another, gets denied.

You've gotten hold of some important ideas here in your OP. I'm much engaged by it. Very interesting and instructive.

...we do not typically do things we think we're going to fail at. Indeed, that might even by psychologically impossible. — Bartricks

Here you introduce what looks like your basic premise: we only embark on a serious mission to accomplish a goal when we think success possible.

In the case of greatness, however, the path to success is filled with difficulty so, in pursuit of establishing the truth of your premise, you introduce a big obstacle in order to tackle it.

...given that the odds that you're a great artist or great thinker are so vanishingly small, surely you are not justified in believing you're a great thinker? — Bartricks

Pressing on, you assert the graceful confidence of the seeker (after greatness). Buried here is the premise grace dissolves the insecurity that causes self-defeat.

...a great thinker will think they are a great thinker, for they will be confident that they can have great thoughts. That's step one of having any. — Bartricks

You then bolster this assertion by contrasting it with the counter-example.

...if you think you're not a great thinker then guess what - you're not. But if you think you are a great thinker then, though the odds are against it, there's a tiny possibility that you are. — Bartricks

The above is an argument for faith. It has some flavor of theism and some flavor of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking.

Next you picture the epistemological manhole through which seekers are expected to fall en route to failure. It will be your job to argue that the grace of the authentic seeker will transcend them over the gaping abyss of the manhole that swallows non-believers.

So a great artist or great thinker seems inevitably to be guilty of epistemic irresponsibility, at least when it comes to their own abilities. — Bartricks

I do not believe the great are guilty of an epistemic vice, however. I think the great 'know' that they are great, rather than unjustifiably believe it. And I think this is the case despite the fact others will think they are not great and that the great thinker or artist will probably be aware that most people do not share their own assessment of their own abilities. — Bartricks

Above you state your mission: to show authentic seekers, through faith in themselves based on natural grace, escape the clutches of epistemic vice by "knowing" their greatness, believing in it and pursuing it to its natural conclusion: expression that brings new light to the masses of people.

First, if you believe something to be true that everyone else believes to be false - and that everyone else is justified in believing to be false, too - are you epistemically irresponsible for believing it? — Bartricks

Here's the main obstacle that you need to overcome: rationally justified belief, in this case, rationally justified belief that a seeker is not great.

Next you follow with a clincher argument borrowed from an unknown source.

Here's an example (not mine - don't know whose it is, but it isn't mine). Imagine your plane has crashed into the ocean and you have washed up on an unknown island. You know that rescue missions will have been launched to find you and your plane. And as you have now been on the island for months, you know by now that everyone else will now believe you are dead. Furthermore, it is clear that others are perfectly justified in believing this. Indeed, it'd be epistemically irresponsible of them not to believe it. Your plane crashed into the ocean and there's been no evidence of your survival for months - it is beyond a reasonable doubt that you're dead.

But you're not. And you know you're not. It'd be quite absurd, would it not, for you to conclude that you might actually be dead on the grounds that everyone else believes - and believes justifiably - that you're dead? — Bartricks

So, you know you're alive, even though everyone else is justified in believing you're dead (and you know this too). You're in no way being epistemically irresponsible in believing yourself to be alive. — Bartricks

...you have access to some evidence of your continued existence here that others do not possess. You are having your experiences. And so you can reliably infer your continued existence from those. But others can't, as they're not having them. — Bartricks

But this applies to the great artist and great thinker. Everyone else thinks the great thinker is not a great thinker. And they're probably justified in thinking this. They've considered what the great thinker thinks, and to the best of their judgement, it seems to them that the thoughts the great thinker is having are not that great at all - indeed, a lot of them don't really make much sense to them. So, in light of that, they are justified in believing the great thinker to be something else - a mediocre thinker or even a bad thinker. And the great thinker will be aware of this; aware that others think they're not a great thinker, and aware that they're probably justified in that assessment.

But the great thinker or artist has access to some evidence that others do not have access to. They are discerning, correctly, their own greatness. Others do not have access to this evidence, or at least most don't, for you'd need to be great or somewhere close to have such powers of discernment. But great people do have such powers, for it is by exercising [greatness of discernment] that they produce great art and great thoughts. And thus the great thinker and the great artist are not being epistemically irresponsible in believing themselves to be great. — Bartricks

I conclude, then, that great people 'know' that they are great and will typically know it a long time before anyone else does. — Bartricks

In the next-to-last paragraph above, you put what I've called some flavor of "faith" and "the power of positive thinking" onto a rational foundation by asserting authentic seekers possess not only great and original thoughts but also great judgment in identifying the greatness of those thoughts.

The freedom of identity a technically advanced consumer society facilitates (identity commodified / personal paralysis packaged as endless novelty) contains within it the anaesthetic that neutralizes a more valuable freedom, the freedom of resistance against an orientation towards the self that dictates that a self must consume even the self and in as many flavours as possible in order to fully experience itself. And is directed to do so through the conduits of mass media, celebrity culture, and social engineering technologies. — Baden

Is your opening OP concerned with, at least in part, the subtle ways that high-tech industrial societies subvert organized opposition (specifically, opposition to its meta-narratives for GDP productivity), both individual and collective, with incentives for egotistical self-involvement compatible with its baseline goal, promotion of materialistic consumerism. Under this influence, the united front against the tyranny of the elite ruling class is supplanted by being "cool," which means competing for the top spot amongst the property-laden, gadget-crazy, leisure time centered ruling class parading their egos across mass media via movies and music videos?

Consider, if you will, the one abiding thought that dominates my thinking: The world is phenomena. Once this is simply acknowledged, axiomatically so, then things fall into place. The brain is no longer the birth of phenomena, phenomena issue forth from phenomena, and what phenomena are is an open concept. Conscious open brain surgery shows a connection between brain and experiences, thoughts, emotions, memories, but does not show generative causality. Indeed, and this is an extraordinary point: If the brain were the generative source of experience, every occasion of witnessing a brain would be itself brain generated. This is the paradox of physicalism. What is being considered here, in your claim about gravity and its phenomenal universality (keeping in mind that gravity is not, of course, used in phenomenology's lexicon. But the attempt to bridge phenomenology with knowledge claims about the world of objects that are "out there" and "not me" is permitted {is it not?} to lend and borrow vocabularies with science. An interesting point to consider) is a "third perspective". Recall how Wittgenstein argued that we cannot discuss what logic is, for logic would be presupposed in the discussing. You would need some third perspective that would be removed from that which is being analyzed; but then, this itself would need the same, and so forth. This is the paradox of metaphysics, I guess you could call it, the endless positing of a knowledge perspective that itself, to be known, would require the same accounting as that which is being explained. An infinite regression.

But if you follow, in a qualified way, Husserl's basic claim that what we call appearances are really an ontology of intuition (though I don't recall he ever put it like this), whereby the givenness of the world IS the foundation we seek, the "third perspective" which is a stand alone, unassailable reality, then, while the "what is it?" remains indeterminate, for language just cannot "speak" this (see above), we can allow the scientific term "gravity" to be science's counterpart to the apparent need for an accounting of a transcendental ego in order to close the epistemic distance between objects and knowledge. — Constance

Rather than saying "the world is phenomena", I say "the world is noumena" and phenomena, via the agency of the brain, is a higher-order feedback loop i.e., a two-tiered construction.

The world as noumena entails the axiom plane, a parallel to the critical line of Riemann's zeta function.

Later for these things. Let me return to some basics of gravity_consciousness_language.

Note - cons = consciousness

The trick of cons might be that it's permanently inter-relational. I can't be fully reified.

Subjective mind with its sustainable personal POV is higher order feedback looping with vertical stacking. Let me elaborate.

Consider the world of the story in a printed novel. As we travel about with the book, does the world of the story travel about with us?

The world of the book examples insuperable context. Where is that world?

It’s not in the black ink marking the letters, nor in the words imaging the letters, nor in the white spaces of the pages contrasting the words-sentences-paragraphs-chapters of the novel, nor in the neural networks of the memory circuits and other cognitive circuits of the reader’s brain-mind, nor in the interplay of the reader’s life amidst the circumambient material universe, but rather in the vast micro-synchro-mesh of all of these things.

Where is the world of our conscious experience?

Just as a material object perceived through the lens of relativity presses down upon the stretchy fabric of spacetime, creating a gravity well of curved space, likewise a sentient being presses down upon the stretchy fabric of physically real inter-relatedness.

Inter-relatedness perceived through the lens of gravity-based cons becomes the curved space around the presence of a sentient being. In everyday language we call this personality and the influence of personality. Picture the super-fine linen of inter-relatedness of the everyday world of material things and human society, for example.

A person like you, Constance, or a person like me, or any person, exhibits being (to use some language of Heidegger) as a gravity well pressing down upon the micro-synchro-mesh of (physically real) inter-relatedness, thus making your presence felt as a warpage of the physical inter-relatedness. This is a kind of fluid dynamics, but the flowing is of physical-gravitational cons, instead of water.

The trick to understanding how sentience connects to its physical substrate, in this case, gravity, might be understanding that sentience is permanently interstitial. An interstice is a gap of empty space separating two material things. As an example, superfine linen is a mesh of cotton fibers separated by empty spaces. Well, the linen is no less empty space than it is cotton fibers. Where is the empty space of the linen? It’s defined by the cotton fibers as the interstices. Importantly, the interstices only exist inter-relationally. Remove the cotton fibers, arranged precisely, and the interstices cease to exist.

In parallel, remove the gravity-based micro-synchro-mesh of sentience grounded in the physical, and POV, the self of sentience, vanishes.

This is why the radiant presence of sentience is wholly missed by reductive materialism.

This is what David Chalmers, in different words, refers to in his exposition of the hard problem. The hard problem is all about the extreme softness, or subtlety of the physical presence of sentience.

Let’s take a look at the soft physicality of sentience.

The feedback looping of a memory circuit contains subjective-mind, POV-of-the-self content. Its presence, however, is not simply in the electro-magnetic current flow of the feedback loop, the gravitationally-modulated physical medium of cons. It’s a feedback loop precisely because the first pass of the cognitive circuit is the noumenal part, the thing-in-itself of physical cons. Noumenal cons is the collective cons of the sentient universe. Once noumenal cons feeds back upon itself as a memory loop, the phenomenal part of physical cons propagates. Memory resides in the echo or interstices separating noumenal cons from phenomenal cons. The feedback process is the second pass wherein a sampling rate via comparison captures some (not all) of the noumenal part of cons as memory.

Phenomenal cons is rooted in memory, or the sampling rate of the second pass. Intuition = low sampling rate (gut reaction). Full cognition = high sampling rate (reflection).

The trick of understanding cons is that it is an echo of what has already happened in the noumenal part. Our cons experience of our existence is a memory.

Where is the world of existence? We must ask ourselves “Where is memory?”

Memory resides in the interstices of the modulations of higher-order cognition i.e., first pass_second pass EM current. It’s the ghostly memory within the mesh of inter-relatedness. It’s a cloud-like distribution of the modulations of interwoven empty spaces.

It’s the ghost misting within the feedback looping of memory.

Bartricks,
You ask if Christianity has a sound philosophical reason for believing God created the world.

I surmise Christianity makes a metaphysical commitment to creation of the world by a conscious, intelligent designer.

By this belief, existence has an innate design and also a purpose that gives the bible a role to play as teacher and guide to humanity regarding how it should live its life.

Evidence of the Christian commitment to creation by intelligent design is opposition by some Christians to evolution without a supernatural intelligent designer.

This reveals another aspect of the Christian metaphysical commitment. It says life creation is peer-to-peer, meaning life only from prior life.

This opposes some physicalist persons who posit life arising from lifeless organic compounds sparked by lightning into life.

There is something here. but the language has to change. First, remove the science-speak, for you have stepped beyond this, for keep in mind that when consciousness and its epistemic reach is achieved by identifying object relations as gravitational in nature, and then placing the epistemic agency in this, as you call it, logos, you are redefining gravity as a universal, not law of attraction, but connectivity and identity, and I do remember thinking something like this was a way to account for knowledge relationships: identity. The distance is closed because there is no distance between objects that are not separated. And I mentioned that Husserl did hold something like this, but the "logos" was not scientific, it was a phenomenological nexus of intentionality. And since gravity is at this level of inquiry a strictly naturalistic term (to talk like Husserl), the description of what this unity is about has to go to a more fundamental order of thought, phenomenology. Gravity is now a phenomenon, an appearing presence. Ask a phenomenologist what a force is, what the curviture of space is, and you will first have see that these are conceived in theory and they are terms of contingency. One doesn't witness space or forces, but only effects from which forces are inferred and the names only serve to ground such things in a scientific vocabulary.

Not gravity, with its connotative baggage, but phenomena, for this is all that is ever witnessed, ever can be witnessed. If it is going to be a universal connectivity of all things, I do think you are right to note that there is this term gravity that abides in everything and binds everything. I would remove the term and realize this connectivity does not belong to a scientific logos. It must be a term that is inclusive of the consciousness in which the whole affair is conceived and the epistemic properties are intended to explain. And this consciousness is inherently affective, ethical, aesthetic, and so on. For the nexus that connects me to my lamp and intimates knowing-in-identity is always already one that cares, in interested, fascinated, repulsed, and so on. A connection of epistemology not only cannot be conceived apart from these, it must have then as their principle feature, because these are the most salient things in all of existence. — Constance

Of course, gravity sounds a lot like God, then. For God is, sans the troublesome history and narratives, a metaethical, meta aesthetic metavalue grounding of the world.

You may not agree with the above, but for me, I think you are on to something. Gravity, I will repeat, never really was "gravity", for this is a term of contingency, See Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity for a nice account of this. When the matter goes to some grand foundation of connectivity, are we not in metaphysics? Or on its threshold? — Constance

I'm very grateful to you, Constance. Thank-you for you time, attention, knowledge and wisdom as applied to my thoughts about the mode of the phenomenon of consciousness.

I can see, in an early state of understanding, not yet in sharp focus, some of the truth of your claim consciousness is more at metaphysics than at physics. I therefore see value in developing my thinking towards effecting the transition suggested.

I'm supposing, tentatively, that physically grounded consciousness as metaphysics has for one of its essentials the phenomenon/noumenon relationship. This directs my research towards Husserl and, before him, Kant.

Encouragement such as you've given me motivates my presence here.

that's not what you said I said. You said:

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science.
— ucarr

I didn't say or imply either of those things. — T Clark

Don't confuse "easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science." with "easily solvable with the objectivist methodologies of science." I know you know neuroscience is hard work.

...As far as I can see, there's no reason to think that consciousness can't be understood in terms of principles we already are aware of. I don't see any hard problem. — T Clark

By my account, you trivialize the subjective/objective distinction when, firstly you declare the (objectivist) "principles we already are aware of" are good enough to cover both the objective and the subjective and secondly when you deny without argument the hard problem.

ad ho·mi·nem | ˌad ˈhämənəm |
adjective
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining: vicious ad hominem attacks.

Your insult, as I said, was directed against me, not against my argument. Your confirm the truth of this with your following statement,

...it was an insult. — T Clark

Well, an insult is a personal attack having nothing to do with a debate about ideas.

The fact you don't recognize the difference tells me everything I need to know about whether or not to take you seriously. — T Clark

You make a lot of declarations unsupported by arguments. In this conversation you refuse to answer a central question about your assumptions. I always support my declarations with arguments. Usually I answer honestly tough questions that threaten my argument with implosion. By these standards, I'm much more serious than your are.

No, I've never thought of it. Tell me briefly how a "surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity" would do what needs to be done here. — Constance

Let me call it Scientific Logos.

Consider the following parallel,

As a crystal chandelier is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a handful of sand, so a conversation between two humans is a workup (constructive metabolism) from a moon orbiting its planet (earth_moon).

Under the implications of the above parallel, consciousness is an emergent property of two (or more) interacting gravitational fields. Thus a conversation, such as the one we're having, is the deluxe version
(replete with all of the bells and whistles) of the moon orbiting the earth and causing the tides and global air currents that shape earth's weather.

Language, being the collective of the systemic boundary permutations of a context or medium, cognitively parallels the phenomena animating the material universe.

That we humans have language suggests in our being we are integral to a complex surface of animate phenomena via intersection of gravitational fields. Action-at-a-distance elevates the self/other, subject/object bifurcation to a living history with unified, internally consistent and stable points-of-view better known as the selves of human (and animal) society.

Under constraint of brevity, a good thing, let me close with a short excerpt from my short essay on the great triumvirate of gravity-consciousness-language.

There is a direct connection between human consciousness and the gravitational field.

Gravitation is the medium of consciousness.

One can say that the gravitational attraction between two material bodies is physical evidence that those material bodies are aware of each other.

Under this construction, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising from the gravitational field.

This tells us that the study of consciousness (and especially the hard problem of consciousness) begins with the work of the physicist.

Gravity waves, the existence of which has been established, can also be called waves of consciousness.

Since matter is the substrate of consciousness, one can infer that the material universe is fundamentally configured to support and sustain consciousness.

Just as there can be geometrization of gravitation through relativity, there can be geometrization of consciousness through gravitation. This is a claim held by astrologers dating back to antiquity.

The (material) universe itself is a conscious being.

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science.
— ucarr

Neither of these statements is true. — T Clark

I think the following list of your statements within this conversation support my interpretation above. In my opinion, they intend to show objectivist science is well on its way to explaining the subjective mind.

Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist who studies the biological foundations of mental processes, including consciousness. The book I have is "The Feeling of What Happens." — T Clark

In the same way, mental processes, including consciousness, are not nothing but biology. But they are bound by biology in the same way that recorded music is bound by a CD or MP3 reader or radio — T Clark

If it can't be known by science, how can it be known. How do you know it?... You don't. — T Clark

As far as I can see, there's no reason to think that consciousness can't be understood in terms of principles we already are aware of. I don't see any hard problem. — T Clark

the fact that many people cannot conceive that consciousness might have a physical basis is not evidence that it doesn't. — T Clark

You haven't provided any evidence that "Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous." — T Clark

Wayfarer has already done this on our behalf.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
— David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem — Wayfarer

You're kind of a dick. — T Clark

Was the above ad hominem incited by,

You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind?
— ucarr

Your above observations do not answer my question. Are you unwilling to answer it? — ucarr

I think your answer to this question is the essence of our debate. Why does the issue of this question enrage you? If I've enraged you by some other means, cite an example. If you're not enraged, why the hate speech?

Again, how does this span the epistemic distance? — Constance

My conjecture about a complex surface with some topology of invariance assumes a unity of subjective self and observed world (of material objects) so, what epistemic distance?

Subjective experience is not something magical or exotic. We all sit here in the whirling swirl of it all day every day. Why would something so common and familiar be different from all the other aspects of the world? — T Clark

Your statement implies the belief commonplace subjective experiences should be easily accessible to the objectivist methodologies of science. It also implies the subjective/objective distinction is a trivial matter and should therefore be no problem for science. Scientists examining "the hard problem" indicate how, regarding this question, the division between subjective/objective is deep and treacherous. Why do you disagree with them?

You're claiming the objectivism of science does not handicap its examination of subjective mind? — ucarr

Your above observations do not answer my question. Are you unwilling to answer it?

Any attempt to describe epistemic connectivity would encounter the same problem it attempts to solve, for whatever the metaphor might be put in play, one would still have to explain how epistemic transmission is possible. — Constance

Have you perhaps made epistemic transmission problematical by conceiving of consciousness and its learning process as being predicated upon a discrete self/other bifurcation? Have you contemplated a self/other complex surface semi-symmetrical in its continuity?

The only thing I can imagine that would bridge the distance is identity, that is, one's knowing-self itself receives direct intimation of the presence of an object. — Constance

All one witnesses is phenomena. My couch is a phenomenal event and its "out thereness" is clearly evident, but how does its existence get into mine? — Constance

Here again I see instances of an assumption of self/other bifurcation. If you're committed to bifurcation, why?

Can the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field elevate our conjecture (re:epistemic connectivity) above the simple self/other bifurcation?

I'm nor sure what this gives us — Tom Storm

Your tone in your role as historian of (certain) ideas has importance because in my view you're sounding the imminent death knell of non-physicalist ideologies.

I think at this point in history there are a few key issues left to people who wish to find support for higher consciousness/idealism/theism worldviews - — Tom Storm

I understand from the above you're saying consciousness studies and QM provide defenders of discredited ideologies with grasping, eleventh-hour attempts at redemption of their beliefs.

Is your appraisal of the science-guided zeitgeist correct?