The reason that this core concept of objectness does mot remain stable in the face of changes in under is that it is an abstraction derived from a system of relations not only between us and the world we interact with, but between one part of the world and another. — Joshs

@Joshs Hi, I'm not sure if I understood this part correctly. I don't know if you're saying what it seems to me that you're effectively saying there. Can I ask for some clarification there? Specifically: what do you mean, and what do you intend, when you say something like that? Does that question make sense? Let's start with that, I think that could put this Thread back on track.

That distinction it makes between real and sensual seems to me a form of the distinction between the manifest and scientific images — Wayfarer

Yes, this is what "transcendental nihilists" (I'm not accusing you of anything, BTW) usually reply to Object-Oriented Ontology. The usual retort is that to trace a distinction between the scientific image of the world versus the folk image of the world is to focus on images, instead of objects (and consequently, instead of people, and of individual human beings. To say nothing of Nature in general).

there's the real object which science discerns, then how it appears to us on a sensory level. — Wayfarer

Not quite, for OOO holds that this happens even at the level of inanimate causation, even in the absence of ontological subjects. Perhaps the example of a meteor striking the Moon is too harsh for the soft tone of this tranquile discussion, a more appropriate one in tone would be the ancient Medieval Arab example of a flame slowly burning a ball of cotton. The flame burns the cotton, but it does not know what the essence of cotton is. It consumes the cotton until the cotton no longer exists. Then the flame no longer exists. There is nothing. And the moral of this story, is that the flame never knew what the cotton was, and the cotton never knew what the flame was. Flame had quintessence, cotton had quintessence. Neither knew each other, even though they burned together, until they both ceased to be.

(edited for the sake of clarity - Arcane Sandwich)

Oh man, forgive me for saying this, but in the last page of this Thread, we really made a hard turn to Wonderland, didn't we?

I mean, for a Thread called "Mathematical platonism", this just went to shite.

EDIT: And it appears that we haven't gotten out of that Rabbit Hole yet, on page 17 of this thing.

That’s a big problem, though; because you are arguing that the PSR applies in degrees. — Bob Ross

Indeed. That is indeed what I seem to be arguing. And, here is my humble opinion on that: it's not a topic that's usually discussed in the literature, on anything. It's a fringe topic in the world of Academia. Like, if I use Google Scholar for this kind of investigation, I don't exactly get many results, and the ones that I do indeed get, are of dubious quality.

So, I'm just doing the type of research here that's usually called "exploratory investigation". It's a type of investigation in which, since not much has been said, you go in anyways without having even a working hypothesis. It's like, you're not even putting a presumably false hypothesis to the test, you don't even have a hypothesis to begin with. Karl Popper said that every scientific investigation starts with a question, and that question is to be answered by the hypothesis to be put to the test. In an exploratory investigation, one doesn't even have a working hypothesis to begin with, because what one has, initially, is not a scientific question. It is instead a proto-scientific question (not to be confused with a pseudo-scientific question):

Question
Why is my existence as a person (and as an "Aristotelian substance") characterized by the factual properties that I have, instead of other factual properties? The perplexing thing here is that factual properties are contingent (in a modal sense), even though I experience them as necessary (in a modal sense). — Arcane Sandwich

You seem to be suggesting that the very question is objectionable. What I'm saying, literally, as objectively as I possibly can: Yes, you are right in one sense, and wrong in another sense.

So, if I am saying that, then:

1) there is a sufficient reason to your words in one sense (otherwise, you could not be right)

and

2) there is no sufficient reason to your words in another sense (otherwise, you could not be wrong).

Your freedom, your very freedom (not in a political sense, but in an ontological sense) is only possible if it is possible for you to be right and wrong about something, thought in different senses. Sometimes you "get it right", sometimes you "get it wrong". What's important is the following:

1) If you get it right, try to make sure that you're right about something that is indeed a big deal.
2) If you're wrong about something, try to make sure that you're wrong about something trivial.

Man, I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just "harping away", as in, I'm just "playing the Classical harp" at this point. It's Aesthetically unpleasing. And this is why you jumped into this thread in the first place:

you don't like it.

But who says that you have to like a certain style, or a certain way, of doing philosophy? Unless you think that my OP is non-philosophical.

Is it? Honest opinion, please.

(note: I edited this comment for the sake of clarity -Arcane Sandwich)

↪Arcane Sandwich


I am not quite sure what the presenter is trying to say in his video. — Corvus

I believe he is saying more or less one of the things that I have been saying in another thread: not everything is possible, not even at the level of pure theory, not even at the level of pure metaphysical speculation. The basilisk that he's talking about is like the example of the statue of a dragon that has a mechanism for producing fire, like you showed me. That was not a living dragon, it was just an inanimate object with a mechanism for making flames. Similarly, the "informational basilisk", or "Basilisk A.I." is impossible, such a thing could not exist in the real world, just as Pegasus does not exist in the real world (i.e., there is no such thing as a living, breathing, winged horse located somewhere on planet Earth).

That's why 'the tao that can be named is not the real Tao'. So what is the real Tao? — Wayfarer

Hmmm...

... there is a working theory today, which you have told me that you know, and which you do not accept: OOO. From the POV of OOO, there is a "real Tao" and a "sensual Tao", because every Object manifests itself, so to speak, as if it were two objects: a real object and a sensual object. Perhaps Tao is not an object. Perhaps it is a Quality. If so, in OOO there is a distinction between "real qualities" and "sensual qualities". Whatever the case may be, the following can be said, perhaps:

1) "The tao that can be named" = the "sensual Tao", in OOO-Speak.
2) "is not" = is not identical to
3) "the real Tao" = the "real Tao", in OOO-Speak. You will never access it. No one will. Nothing, no other subject, and no other object, can access it. Why not? Because the essence of a real object is forever inaccessible to every other object, even at the level of knowledge, even at the level of inorganic causation. But this is not to say that OOO is right about Tao, or about other topics. I agree with OOO on some things, yet not in others. On this one, if this were truly what OOO would say, then I would disagree with OOO. But not because I am a Taoist, since I am not. I would disagree for other motives.

Man, Earth, Heaven, Tao and Nature—the five 'elements' of the verse. — Janus

But in Wuxing those are not all of the same elements. In Wuxing, the five elements are: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.

The set of elements that are found both in the Tao Te Ching and in Wuxing = {Earth}

The set of elements that are different between the Tao Te Ching and Wuxing: {{Man, Heaven, Tao, Nature},{Fire, Water, Wood, Metal}}

Objectively speaking, in a pure way (in the language of mathematics, and of set theory more specifically), it is possible to obtain several conclusions here. The Tao Te Ching and Wuxing only have Earth in common.
As for the next part, notice that it is a set that has two subsets:

1) the first subset is = {Man, Heaven, Tao, Nature}
2) the second subset is = {Fire, Water, Wood, Metal}

That might not mean much to you, or to anyone, including myself. Because it is trivial. But it is not as trivial as it seems. For it is unambiguous language. It is as objective as it can possibly be, from the First Person Perspective of a human being (myself, in this specific case).

I am not qualified to comment on the intricacies of Taoist principles — Wayfarer

Pardon me, but I think that's rather disingenuous, considering the erudition you have shown — Wayfarer

I kindly suggest that you imagine these two quotes as if both of them were directed to yourself, by yourself. Then you will understand that you are indeed qualified to comment on the intricacies of Taoist principles: just not to the degree that you would like to have. And that, is why I have affectionately called you a "lumpen idealist" elsewhere: Phenomenology pales in comparison to Taoism. The former may be called, jokingly, "lumpen idealism", but the latter, Taoism, is not lumpen in any sense of the term. Taoism is serious. That is its tone. It is one of the elements of its tone. And that is something that you, from what I've read in your comments, have "in spades", so to speak.

That being said, I am listening.

I beg your pardon, it was a mistake. Interesting further points there on Hegel, with whom I am not well acquainted. — Wayfarer

Well, not to brag, but in one of my novels, I have invented a fictional character who I call "The Antarctic Hegel". As in, this is a character who is considered by his peers to be "the Hegel of Antarctica". He has not had much success as a professional philosopher so far, but he has not given up hope: perhaps, in the next century, he will be honored, half-jokingly, in the minds of many as "Antarctica's Greatest Philosopher."

But let us focus our attention on the Tao once again. The Tao itself (this is my interpretation, I could be wrong) does not follow itself. Not if we trust the words of Lao Tzu in Verse 25 of the Tao Te Ching. As I hope to have explained, Tao does not follow Tao. Tao does not follow itself. Tao follows something else: Tao follows Nature.

One should follow Nature, not the Tao, because of the following:

1) Suppose that one follows the Tao.
2) And suppose that the Tao follows Nature.
3) It follows from this, that one follows Nature.
4) If so, the Tao is not Nature: Tao merely follows Nature, without being Nature.

That is my thought on Tao. It could have mistakes, my thought. And I'm certain that it does.

No doubt. There are very many resonances between Tao, early Buddhism and Stoicism, albeit Taoism and Buddhism both had beliefs in immortality in various forms, which the Stoics did not. — Wayfarer

Why did you mention the Stoics there, and why did you not mention Epicurus? He was not a Stoic. Epicurean philosophy (Epicurean-ism) is not the same as the Philosophy of the Stoa (Stoicism).

Epicurus was a materialist. The Stoics, on the other hand, were objective idealists. I suppose you could say that Epicurus was an objective materialist, which would mean that he and the Stoics have something in common. But that commonality, in this case, would be their "objectness" (thing-ness) or "objectivity". Think of it in their original Hegelian sense, as the difference between Gegenständlichkeit and Objektivität. They have different etymologies, the former is from Common German (Gegenständlichkeit), while the latter is from Medieval Latin (Objektivität). The moral here, is that Hegel thinks that Objektivität is Ethically superior to Gegenständlichkeit, because it is older. It is more ancient. Yet, he himself (Hegel) was a Romanticist, he as an individual was in Love with Gegenständlichkeit, not with Objektivität. This caused him great suffering, so he studied the earliest philosophers. He studied Taoism, and Buddhism, and Legalism, among other Philosophies East of Europe. He then focused his gaze West of Asia. And he said: First there was Being. It is pure. It was first thought by Parmenides. At the same time, there is Nothing. It was first thought by Lao Tzu. The movement from Being to Nothing and from Nothing to Being is Becoming. And Becoming itself is the Absolute Spirit itself, before its March Through History truly begins.

But there is reason to believe that Hegel was simply wrong, on many intellectual fronts. He did not understand Lao Tzu. Not like someone from the 21st Century can understand him.

(Note: I have edited this comment for the sake of clarity -Arcane Sandwich)

I agree with Nominalism, on those three points. — Arcane Sandwich


Thanks for stepping up and clarifying your position. — Mapping the Medium

You are welcome, you have no need to thank me. I, in fact, thank you, for allowing me to communicate with you. As I have said elsewhere, I am not a nominalist myself. I am a realist (and also a materialist, an atheist, and a supporter of scientism). However, in that image that you shared, I agree with the nominalist on those three key points. There are, however, other ways to compare Nominalism, Platonism, and the work of Peirce.

In some of those comparisons, sometimes I agree with Platonism, believe it or not. How so? Well, I just take it as an ontological fact that Platonism, as a philosophy, is far more dignified (in the political sense, that is, the royal sense) than less respectable forms of idealism, such as "Parmenidean-ism", if that's even a thing.

In others, I agree with Peirce: Platonism is like having your head high in the clouds. A real detective solves criminal cases by looking for clues, and by reasoning. How does he do the latter, the reasoning? He deduces, he induces as well, but more importantly, he "abduces". Thus Peirce establishes a tri-partite distinction between three kinds of reasoning: deductive, inductive, and abductive. The problem is, no one has any real use for abductive reasoning, everyone just uses deductive and inductive forms of reasoning (let's be honest here, folks). That being said, abductive reasoning has a lot going for it, it just so happens that its success is to be found elswhere: in fictional characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, and in real world detectives.

And on some other topics, I agree with nominalism.

But, fourthly (from my "Fourthness", if you will), I have my own ideas, my own thoughts, my own hypotheses, and my own scientific theories. And I have the basic epistemic right to have such things. In fact, I have the basic human right to have them. Furthermore, I have the basic ontological right, as a subject in the ontological sense, to have such rights. I am, after all, free in the sense of having the capacity to act freely as a subject, and more specifically, as a human being.

(edited for the sake of clarity)

can you provide a summary? — Bob Ross

A summary of what we're discussing, in the context of a Thread called "How can one know the ultimate truth about reality?" That's a tall order. I mean, it's not impossible, since it's only page 3 so far. But it's still quite a tall order, I don't have that much confidence in my capacity as a philosopher to provide an answer to your question. That is due to my own incapability, not to the fact that it cannot be done, because there is no such fact, because it can be done. Just not by me.

In other words: I believe (and I may be wrong, since perhaps I am deluded) that the answer to the question of the Thread is the following one:

One can know the ultimate truth about reality by studying Hegel, because the ultimate truth about reality, is his concept of the Absolute Spirit.

That does not mean that the story ends there. It doesn't. Why not? Because, in my opinion (again, I could be wrong about this), the "moral of the story", as in "What is the Absolute Spirit?", is that the Absolute Spirit is the ontological fact that you are free to believe me, not because it is the politically correct thing to do, but rather because it is a metaphysical and scientific fact that you have freedom, in the sense that you have the ontological (aka, metaphysical) capacity to make choices. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are a human being. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are a member of the biological species Homo sapiens. This is something at the level of Nature itself, it's at the level of Physics itself, because it is an ontological feature of you as a subject (which is the only thing that Zizek gets right, everything else that he says is wrong), not of you as an object.

Does that make sense to you? If not, what does your intuition tell you? What is your "gut instinct" here, so to speak?

(Edited for the sake of clarity)

But what makes something alive? What do you mean by "alive"? — Corvus

Life, as biologists understand the term, is a list of criteria that any entity has to have, in other for it to be alive. Among those criteria, the most important ones are the following ones:

1) It must have genetic material (i.e., DNA and/or RNA)
2) It must have cellular organization (i.e., it must be a single cell, like a bacteria, or multicellular, like an animal)

There are other criteria, like maintaining homeostasis, but if it does not have the first two, then it is not alive. So, for example, a stone is not alive. Why not? Firstly, because it does not have genetic material (stones do not have DNA and/or RNA), and secondly because they do not have cellular organization (stones are not composed of cells, they are not "made" of cells).

Can machines be not alive? — Corvus

No. They cannot be alive, because they are like stones in that sense. A machine is not alive (i.e., it does not have genetic material, it does not have DNA and/or RNA, and it is not composed of cells, it is not "made" of cells).

That's my answer to those questions.

Please see the image I just posted above. Trying to put Peirce in either nominalism or Platonism (label or categorize him) just doesn't work no matter how hard you might want to try. — Mapping the Medium

I agree with Nominalism, on those three points.

Thank you for accepting my apology.

EDIT: What is an apology? Did Plato apologize for Socrates? Like, literally?

But from logical point of view, if we don't know what the state of death is, could we be sure that death will end the sufferings?

If the state of death has some sort of continuation of after-life consciousness, perception or feelings, could you be certain that the suffering might not even get worse or permanent during and after death?

If that is the case, there is no point of death, hence living forever is best? No? — Corvus

That example is easy to solve, from a Metaphysical POV: the dragon in that video is not alive. So, it's not fully representative of what I said. I said that the dragon had to meet two criteria:

1) It has to be alive.
2) It has to breathe fire.

Those two ideas, taken together, are incompatible with modern science.

In the example of the video that you showed, the "dragon" only meets one of the two criteria: it breaths fire, but it is not alive. And, technically speaking, it doesn't breathe fire either, because only living beings (only some of them, not all) can breathe.

I know that you posted the video because it is humorous, but there is truth in humor. Some truth, not all the truth.

↪Arcane Sandwich
My friend, there's nothing here to be angry about. We all use the forum to question and debate each other's ideas. I think you haven't gotten my point, but that's OK, and please feel free to move on. — J

I apologize. These discussions have to do with my profession (philosophy), and I studied at Academia, and I work in Academia. It is only natural for me to be passionate about such things (philosophy). And, since I'm aware that I might be wrong (in addition to being ignorant in general), I have joined this forum seeking wisdom, a greater intellect, and a terrain for philosophical discussions.

In other words, I would wish to hear the explanation of language, from your own First-Person Perspective. Or, tell me what your philosophy is, as a set of axioms, and highlight any particularly important theorems, please. Thanks in advance.

Those who regard an appeal to reason as illegitimate on that ground are wrong, I think, but so are those who want to say that the ancients nailed down the meaning of all our key philosophical terms. — J

Then I challenge the latter camp to explain to me, in Plain and Simple English, what this phrase means (these are Heidegger's literal words BTW): remanens capax mutationem. I know for a fact that Heidegger made that up. And I'm not even sure that's even correct from the POV of the syntax of Medieval or Classical Latin.

Only material objects have the property of existence. — J

Yes. That is correct. Only material objects have the property of existence. Ideal objects do not have that property. So, ideal objects do not exist. Again, what's the big deal here? No one care.

a conclusion drawn from some subset of the above axiomatic statements — J

Indeed. Again, I'm not going to give you a "Medal of Honor" for something so trivial.

or is it a separate axiomatic statement itself? — J

No mate, it's a theorem. You just said so yourself, because a theorem is literally what you deduce from some set of axioms. You make me angry when you ask that sort of question.

If the latter, it’s what I was referring to as a coincidence. It seems to demand further explanation. — J

But it's not the latter mate, it's the former. Again, you're making me angry.

Plus, people routinely equivocate on the sense of "game" here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Then the remedy for that is to learn some Game Theory. That, just for starters. They would have to learn other topics as well.

Anyhow, does a game imply other players? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, it does not. I can play Solitaire on my computer, so can you, so can they.

Does the existence of prayer prove that God must exist? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course not. It's the problem that Aristophanes points out in The Clouds.

Does it prove that anyone praying must "really believe" that there is someone on the other side of their prayers? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, but this is the point where you get some new people that join what we're discussing here. Some of them will tell you that the meaningless sing ∃ has "ontological import" (never mind even trying to understand what they mean by "ontological import", just take their word for it, hypothetically speaking, if only for the sake of argument). They will try to convince you that the expression "∃x" means "something exists". But it doesn't. "∃x" is not a well-formed formula. You need to add a predicate to it for it to have any meaning. So, if the predicate is "is Pegasus", I can say: ∃xPx, which I can then parse like so: there exists an x, such that x is Pegasus. And what I'm saying is that if the existential quantifier has ontological import, as they intend it, then Pegasus literally exists. Now I ask you: have you seen a flying horse somewhere, mate? Can I even call you "mate"? Have you allowed that? Am I insulting you? Am I trying to be your friend? What is a friend? What is an insult? What do these words mean? Are we playing a Language Game? If so, then what are the rules? Are there even any rules to begin with? What is the Universality of the Principle of Sufficient Reason? Does that question even make sense? What is sense?

That is the open-ended character of questioning that you were referring to. I call it, for a lack of a better word, "lumpen idealism".

However, there is a sort of open-endedness to questioning. Just as Moore pointed out that we can always ask "is it good?" or "why is it good?" we can also always ask "but what if it is false?" or "what if I am mistaken?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

In my humble opinion, to argue that is to argue about the rules of language themselves. It's a pointless discussion. Imagine if a soccer player began an argument with the referee about the rules of soccer. He would just be given a yellow card. And if he insists, he gets another yellow card, and he's out of the game.

If language is a game, then what is the point of arguing about the rules of language if no one is going to enforce the rules of the game?

If language is a game, who is the referee?

This is because reason is, in an important sense, transcendent, which is precisely what allows it to take us beyond current belief, habit, desire, etc. in search of what is truly good and really true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with you on that specific point, not necessarily other points.

All the madman needs to affirm is that the demon tormenting them (perhaps also them) has been very clever in conditioning them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But there is no demon.

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great. — Tao Te Ching

In my humble opinion (I could be wrong), this is what Hesiod called Xaos, and what Heidegger called "Being".

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns. — Tao Te Ching

This, in my humble opinion, is the idea of the Ying and the Yang in motion, and what Hegel called "Absolute Spirit".

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great."
These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them. — Tao Te Ching

In this part, Laozi (Lao Tzu) is trying to extract a moral lesson from his experience of the Tao. He says that the king is one of the four great powers of the universe. Yet, in the following verse (the final verse of Chapter 25), the king is not mentioned:

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural. — Tao Te Ching

The king is not mentioned. If the king is one of the four great powers of the universe, why isn't he mentioned in the final Verse? Because (this is my interpretation) the king is Man. And there are five elements here. I will count them: one (the king / Man), two (Earth), three (Heaven), four (Tao), five (what is natural / Nature).

This, in my humble opinion, is connected to the theory of the Five Elements as found in Wuxing (Chinese philosophy).

That, Wuxing (Chinese philosophy) is, in my humble opinion, connected to the ancient Greek theory of the four (actually five) elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water (and the Fifth Element, the fifth essence, the quintessence, is the Aether).

The Five Elements in Wuxing are: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.
The Five Elements in Western Culture are: Fire, Water, Aether, Air, and Earth.

We can represent the elements in common as a mathematical set, and the elements that differ as another mathematical set:

The Elements that Wuxing and Western Culture have in common = {Fire, Water, Earth}
The Elements that Wuxing and Western Culture do not have in common: {Wood, Metal, Aether, Air}

The first set has three elements.
The second set has four elements.
And I have written both sets.

Wouldn't it depend on what the definition of demon is? In the ordinary folk's mind perhaps demon means some evil with horrible looking face and body destroying and doing bad things to people. That's just a vulgar idea from the movies or comics. — Corvus

I honestly don't think that it would depend on what the definition of what the word "demon" means, or even what a demon is in the sense of vulgar ideas from movies or comics. Metaphysics should be able to talk about both: the word "demon" and the vulgar idea of what a demon is, as portrayed in movies and comic books. Why? Because if it can't do that, then it's not Metaphysics, it's something else, like Psychology, or Phenomenology, or Linguistics, or Anthropology. It would not be Metaphysics. But I think that Metaphysics can speak coherently about any topic, up to a certain point, and that certainly includes demons. Think of it like this: from the POV of Metaphysics, it's easier to talk about ghosts and demons than to talk about Being, God, Cosmos or Chaos.

Rise above from that, and you could define demon as a negative side of God, humans or anything really. There are always positive and negative sides of everything. The positive side of the world, life, mind, pleasure etc could be defined as the angelic property, and the negative side of these objects such death, war, pain, hatred ... etc could be branded as the demonic properties of the existence. — Corvus

What you said there is an example of what I call "Ying-Yang Metaphysics". It is metaphysics, done in the style of the ying-yang. But it is not the same thing as having a philosophical discussion about the image and the concept of the Ying and the Yang. But my colleagues that are actively working and publishing in the academic discipline of Western Metaphysics usually don't believe me when I say these things.

In that system, there is nothing to laugh about, but it could be a good topic to have discussions or thoughts on. — Corvus

I feel the same way about that idea.

Anyhow my point is, you could make anything possible theoretically — Corvus

And that's where I humbly disagree. Some things are impossible theoretically. For example, the idea that there might be a living, fire-breathing dragon somewhere on planet Earth, right now, in the year 2024, is an idea that is theoretically impossible, in the literal sense: it is incompatible with the body of knowledge that modern science currently has. Technically speaking, they do not co-here, there would be no coherence within a theoretical system that accepts, at the same time and in the same sense, the idea of a living, fire-breathing dragon in the world and the body of knowledge of modern science.

That sort of theoretical impossibility has a modal "ring" to it, but I haven't fully figured out that part yet.

Also what Arthur Schopenhauer says, but when he says it, he's a miserable pessimist. When a Taoist master says it, it is Eastern wisdom. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that on the topic of the impossibility of permanently satisfying desire, there is an important parallel with the philosophy of Epicurus. This is because Epicurus established a distinction between what he called "mobile pleasures" and "static pleasures". The former are fleeting, and associated with pain. The latter are permanent, in a sense, but have a duration in time. An example of a mobile pleasure would be eating something tasty. An example of a permanent pleasure would be to not feel hungry. And in Epicureanism as a philosophy, existence is the greatest permanent pleasure of all, because it is the one that has the longest duration of all of the permanent pleasures. What to make of the sorrow that contemporary existentialists speak about? That is where I always turn to the same verse of the Tao Te Ching, the final Verse of Chapter 25:

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 25

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great."
These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.


(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) — Tao Te Ching

Once one removes any notion of "human nature" or of the "essence/quiddity" of objects, however this becomes a much more difficult task. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which is precisely why OOO doesn't even remove it to begin with. It just declares that such essences or quiddities are unknowable, and necessarily so. Every object has an essence. It does not follow from there that the essence of an object is knowable by any human being or animal. In fact, it's not even directly accessible for inorganic objects. A meteor has an essence. The Moon has an essence. When the meteor impacts the Moon and forms an impact crater, it does not follow that the meteor has any more access to the essence of the Moon any more than we do when we look at it in the night sky, or when we look at pictures of it, or when we theorize about its physical properties in a peer-reviewed journal or a web Forum like this one.

Right I was aware of that, but it wasn't what I wanted to refer to by 'elements' and nor did I want to draw any analogy. — Janus

Then what did you want to refer to by 'elements'? And you are free to not want to draw an analogy. What does that have to do with anything in a Thread that asks how we can know the ultimate truth about reality? The OP is asking an Epistemological question, not a Metaphysical or Ontological one. It is certainly not asking a Linguistic question.

Not sure where you are going with rest of your post. — Janus

Politely, kindly, genuinely, candidly, honestly, I ask you: who is to be faulted, for your lack of sureness (or degree of certainty) in where I am going with the rest of my post?

Yes, but the response doesn't really act as a good counterpoint. We might very well use a PC desktop as a doorstop. However, we wouldn't turn into into a soup and serve it for dinner, wear it as an earring, attempt to drink it if we are thirsty (seeing as how it is not a liquid), use it as a sledgehammer to replace our sidewalk, ask it out on a date, hire it as our attorney, take it home as a pet, etc. Just as we wouldn't use a hunting knife to clean our ear and just as, while there are pastoral societies all over the world that raise animals for their meat and milk, none raise animals to consume their feces.Nor do any pastoralists mate sheep to cattle, goats to horses, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

All of this can be explained from the POV of Object Oriented Ontology, IMHO.

Re: the whole quantification thing, this just seems like equivocation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, indeed, it is an equivocation, and to equivocate, in that sense, is an informal fallacy.

Give me example of two things which the PSR applies whereof one has the PSR more weakly associated with it. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that I can do that. The whole point of the OP is that this is "uncharted territory", so to speak. Think of it like an actual geographical map. What we're talking about right now is like, I don't know, an island that has never been explored yet, but we can see it from afar. That's the metaphor here.

The best that I can do right now, is to compare AV1 to its equivalent in the literature on ordinary objects. Specifically, the argument that I presented above is structurally similar to Korman's version of the argument from vagueness against restricted composition:

(AV1) If some pluralities of objects compose something and others do not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for composition.
(AV2) Any such sorites series must contain either an exact cut-off or borderline cases of composition.
(AV3) There cannot be exact cut-offs in such sorites series.
(AV4) There cannot be borderline cases of composition.
(AV5) So, either every plurality of objects composes something or none do. — Daniel Z. Korman

My argument is structurally similar to Korman's. The only difference is that he's talking about an Argument From Vagueness (an A.F.V., if you will) against restricted composition (i.e., the idea that some objects compose a further object and that some other objects do not). My argument is similar to his not only due to how the premises are stated, but also due to the fact that it's an A.F.V. against what you might call "restricted reason" (what that would be, is the idea that some objects have a sufficient reason for their being while some other objects have no sufficient reason for their being).

I'll now switch back to Korman:

If the argument is sound then either universalism or nihilism must be correct, though which of them is correct would have to be decided on independent grounds. A sorites series for composition is a series of cases running from a case in which composition doesn’t occur to a case in which composition does occur, where adjacent cases are extremely similar in all of the respects that one would ordinarily take to be relevant to whether composition occurs (e.g., the spatial and causal relations among the objects in question). Understood in this way, AV1 should be unobjectionable. If it’s true that the handle and head compose something only once the hammer is assembled, then a moment-by-moment series of cases running from the beginning to the end of the assembly of the hammer would be just such a series. — Daniel Z. Korman

So, here is where I would offer a new argument, in support of my version of AV1:

1) If the A.F.V. against restricted composition is logically valid (but not necessarily sound), then the A.F.V. against restricted reason is logically valid (but not necessarily sound).
2) If so, then (AV1) is True: If some things have a sufficient reason and others do not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for the universality of the PSR.
So, (AV1) is True: If some things have a sufficient reason and others do not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for the universality of the PSR.

↪Arcane Sandwich
Of course you're right. There are five 'elements'. — Janus

the Tao is so quintessentially Chinese in character — Wayfarer

In Wuxing (Chinese philosophy), there are five elements: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.

The classic four elements from ancient Greece are: Water, Air, Fire, and Earth. The quintessence that @Wayfarer is speaking of, is what is known in the West as the Fifth Element, the Quintessence (literally meaning "fifth essence", or "Fifthness", if you will, as something different from Fourthness, Thirdness, Secondness, and Firstness (and, arguably, of Zerothness as well). The ancient Greeks call it the Aether.

First premise) If one follows Man, then one also follows the Earth.
Second premise) If one follows the Earth, then one follows Heaven.
Third premise) If one follows Heaven, one follows the Tao.
Fourth premise) If the Tao follows what is natural, then one follows what is natural. — Arcane Sandwich

Another way to phrase this, if I understood your suggestion correctly, @Janus:

1st Premise) One follows Man only if one follows the Earth.
2nd Premise) One follows the Earth only if one follows Heaven.
3rd Premise) One follows Heaven only if one follows the Tao.
4th Premise) The Tao follows what is natural only if one follows the Tao.

And here is my fifth premise:

5th Premise) One follows what is natural, because one follows the Tao, only if the Tao follows what is natural.

Why is there a need for a fifth premise? Because of what you said:

This all seems to me to suggest non-duality. Man, The Earth, Heaven, the Tao and nature are all one — Janus

Count them. The terms that you just mentioned. Count them. How many are there? There are five: Man (one), The Earth (two), Heaven (three), The Tao (four), and nature (five).

↪Arcane Sandwich
I always aim to be charitable towards others' interpretations. But no matter how comprehensive explanations are from both sides the possibility of diagreement remians. Doesn't mean one is right and the other wrong of course.

Language is not a thoroughbred, though, but a mongrel.
— Janus

Ok... Can you explain that? — Arcane Sandwich


I mean language usage has evolved not in an ordered and planned (selective breeding) way, but in an ad hoc (free for all mating) manner. — Janus

But that is literally the same for biological evolution. Scientifically speaking, evolution, in the biological sense of the term, is purposeless.

↪Arcane Sandwich
OK, as I understand Hegel the idea is that consciousness evolves according to a dialectic — Janus

Yeah, that part of Hegel's thought is pseudoscience.

which is so rationally or logically constrained that it serves as a kind of telos. — Janus

This part of Hegel's thought is also pseudoscience.

I never understood the logic of his idea of the end of history and the advent of absolute knowledge, — Janus

Because he's wrong about that. History will exist until the last human being on this Earth has died.

I see the process of the evolution of understanding as having no end in both senses: as not having a final goal and as never being finished. — Janus

And that is the literal truth about biological evolution: it is purposeless. And that is a scientific fact.

Language is not a thoroughbred, though, but a mongrel. — Janus

Ok... Can you explain that? I'm willing to be charitable to your intentions if you're willing to be charitable towards my intentions. Deal or no deal?

That sounds like a hard problem ;-) — Wayfarer

What do you mean? Is that a reference to the hard problem of consciousness and the metaphysics of qualia, as David Chalmers understands it?

Or do you mean something else?

Are you suggesting that what is natural is over and above and something thus different than the Tao (and by implication over and above and different from Man, the Earth and Heaven? — Janus

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's The Absolute in the Hegelian sense. That, is the ultimate truth about reality. And that answers the OP of this Thread.

I don't need or expect anything from anyone. We're here to discuss ideas, and these discussions do push buttons from time to time. — Wayfarer

Yeah, the button that says "lumpen materialism", and you lay that down on Bunge, on me, and on Searle. What did Searle ever do to phenomenology?

But then, as I explained, the view that 'mind is to brain as digestion is to the stomach' is a materialist attitude. — Wayfarer

So what? Who cares? It's not a big deal, to anyone. Not even to Bungeans, and I'm one of them myself.

Mario Bunge, whom you introduced into the conversation, is an avowed materialist. — Wayfarer

And so am I. And, I am not Mario Bunge. I'm allowed to have my own thoughts. That is a basic ontological right that I have. It implies nothing.

And the kinds of criticisms of phenomenology of his which you've referenced so far, hardly amount to arguments, so much as declarations. — Wayfarer

And I told you that I agree with you on that point: Bunge is wrong, and you, Sir., are right. Like, what more do you want, mate? I'm not going to give you a Medal of Honor for that.

So what's your point? You sound like you don't need me, from a philosophical point of view. But we're philosophizing. So what is that you need from me specifically in philosophical terms, mate? I mean, am I even allowed to call you "mate"? Have you somehow allowed it? Must you allow it? What do you think of it? Is your opinion as valid as mine? Do we both believe in good common sense? What is good common sense, anyway? Should it be trusted? Good common sense I mean, should it be trusted as if it were "a thing"? Etc., and so on, and so forth, down the Rabbit Hole we go, but for what? That's what I call "lumpen idealism": chasing the experience of imaginary Rabbit Holes. Like, mate, you have an intellectual addiction, you need more materialism in your life.

I know what you're getting at, but discussing the Divided Line is a different matter, no? Surely we can adapt the ideas of pistis and dianoia into our modern debates. — J

I think not, pistis and dianoia are pseudo-scientific concepts. They had their day, let them rest. When a science lives long enough, it turns into a pseudo-science, unfortunately. Oddly enough, it never begins as one. As a pseudoscience, I mean. Pseudosciences never turn into sciences. Only protosciences do. But when a science is living past "its heyday", so to speak, then it turns into a pseudoscience.

This is all just Theory though, that part might be wrong.