Yes. To portray G*D as a "composite", of which we humans are the parts, seems to be a materialistic/physicalist notion. It views G*D as a mechanism with interdependent interacting parts. A machine (e.g. a watch) is indeed dependent on its constituent parts. Take away one cog and the machine no longer functions properly. — Gnomon

Well, the ontological dependence is also true for an organism, even if one accepts an holistic model. If a living human being is more than his parts, the human being qua human being still seems dependent on them.

But my hypothetical god-model is more meta-physical, and imagines G*D as Enfernal (infinite/eternal) Potential, and our space-time world as one of infinitely many possible Actualized systems. Potential is not a thing that can be divided into smaller things. Instead, Potential is more like a Whole which is more than the sum of its parts. The "more than" is not more Parts, but more Potential. Just as physical Energy is not a material object, meta-physical Potential is infinite and inexhaustible. — Gnomon

I think that 'holism' per se is not enough to answer this objection.
Also, IMO 'energy' is a property rather than a 'physical substance'. A rock is not 'made by' mass-energy but has mass-energy. Unfortunately, I think that even physicists themselves sometimes indulge in some confusion about this.
We can't say that 'fundamental physical reality' is 'energy' because 'energy' is a property.

IMO rather than 'parts' it would make more sense to speak of 'manifestations' or 'features'. Something like Heraclitus' fragment 67 (source):

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savor of each.

Or maybe something like 'God' in Whiteheadan process philosophy (but I am not really familar with that).

Wow, thank you for the informative answer. I need some time to reflect to answer back. TBH, however, I feel that many things are above my 'level'. So, I'm not sure how useful will be my answer.

Anyway, forgive me for asking you another question, more a curiosity actually. But, how would you answer to Einstein's claim that a 'nonlocal' theory can never be 'realistic' in a meaningful way?

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)
(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep) — boundless

No doubt the quest for enlightenment or spiritual relaxation seems attractive to some but how likely is it you will arrive there? I often think that this quest is just a spiritual equivalent of consumer culture and status seeking. Thoughts? — Tom Storm

Well, different people and different traditions would give you different answers. This will be a long post but of course not exhaustive about what how much these 'different' answer are among them, despite sharing a structural similarity. Clearly it doens't go into much 'depth' in this analysis, but I hope it should give the 'right' 'gist'.

Anyway, the reason why I 'introduced' the concept of the 'two truths' is that, IMO, it gives a general framework for evaluating the validity of some claims about empirical knowledge. The 'version' of this 'two truths doctrine' that I 'proposed' had the purpose to be as general as possible, i.e. someting that should be accepted by many people as possible. For instance, the phrase 'The Sun and stars move from east to west' if taken to denote a description of 'what appears' to an observer on the Earth's surface is clearly 'true'. But if it is interpreted the way the geocentrists did, of course, we know that is 'false' (because the 'literal' interpretation of the geocentric model implies some predictions that were discovered to be erroneous). Still, both a geocentrist and a modern scientist would agree about the fact that that phrase is a valid descriptor of what 'we observe'. Note, however, that I made absolutely no claim about the 'ultimate truth', which in the present contest is an 'ontological theory' of 'what external reality really is', 'how the external reality really behaves' or whatever.

Following, this premise, since you seem interested, I now make a long digression about how the 'two truths' doctrine/framework has been present in some 'Eastern' and 'Western' ancient models. Let's start by making a distinction, between what I would call 'gnostic theories', i.e. doctrines that say that indeed knowing the 'ultimate' is something that, at least in principle, at least some people can do (by spiritual practice, philosophical reasoning or whatever) and 'skeptical theories', i.e. doctrines that deny this possibility. Let's start by four examples about the first.

Epicurus clearly believed that, following Democritus, the 'ultimate truth' was that there are only '(indestructible and eternal) atoms and the void'. This belief led him to adopt the view that 'trees', 'rocks' but also 'humans' are derivative realities and also that something like 'consciousness', the 'soul' is an emergent propery, which disappears when the atoms change a determinate configuration. Hence, according to him, 'whatever happens after death' would not something to fear or to hope.

Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that there were two levels of 'truths'. At the 'higher level' of understanding, there was really one Being, eternal, indestructible and so on. How we get to 'realize' such a 'truth' and the supposed effects of such a 'realization' are unfortunately unclear, due to the fragmentary nature of the reamaining writing. But maybe it would have some positive effects.

In the East, I can cite the 'traditional Abhidharma schools' of Buddhism which, as far as I understand, held that 'trees', 'mountains', but also 'peoples', 'sentient beings' were only 'concepts' (prajnapti*) which didn't represent something 'really' real (they were merely useful 'fictions' for pragmatic purposes, that the 'unenlightened' mistake for something 'really real') - the reason being that such 'things' and 'beings' are composite and for them only waht is simple would be truly 'real' (these useful concepts made up the 'samvrti satya'*, usually translated as 'conventional truth'). On the other hand, the 'ultimate truth', 'paramartha satya*', is given by a collection of 'simple, irreducible things(dharmas*)' which are either 'conditioned' or 'unconditioned', like Nirvana*. The experiential realization of the ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects, i.e. the 'attainment' of Nirvana.

The Madhyamaka school, associated with Mahayana Buddhism, agrees with the distinction between 'samvriti satya*' and 'paramartha satya*'. But, this school (or maybe 'schools'), as far as I understand, denied that we can make any kind of 'conceptual representation' of the 'ultimate'. For them, both the composite objects and the 'dharmas*' proposed by the 'Abhidharma schools' were to be regarded as part of the 'samvrti satya'. The 'ultimate truth' is totally indescrivable. Again, the experiential realization of this ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects. However, it should be said that in Mahayana, the 'lower' versions of the 'doctrine of the two truths' found in the Abhidharma system could be still salvific because it still regard the 'self' as an 'illusion'/'illusion-like'.

On the other hand, there are skeptic schools. For instance, the Pyrrhonists believed that we should suspend judgments about metaphysical theories, while eomploying something like 'conventional truths' in order to function. This 'suspension of judgment' would give us some kind of 'peace of mind' or 'ataraxia'.
Christians too are somewhat 'skeptics' in this matter, as far as I understand. After all, the existence of the 'living God' and other spiritual truths were thought to be revelead truths (of course, some Christians believed that they could made 'proofs' for the existence of God, but I doube that they really believed that such proofs proved the existence of the 'God who revelaed himself in the Bible'). Also, St. Paul believed that in this life our knowledge is imperfect, confused (like he says in 1 Cor 13:12) and theerfore we should relie on faith according to them.

I could go on with more recent examples like Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer etc. But I'll stop.

To give a conclusion of this rather long post, I believe that these philosophers/religious figures etc believed that either the realization or the the faith or even the absolute denial of the possibility of knowledge of the 'ultimate truth' had serious positive consequences. Clearly, it wasn't for them a matter of 'idle' speculation and IMO the 'search' of any kind of 'correct version' of the 'two truths' was seen as something of the highest importance, certainly like a 'status seeking' or 'consumistic'. It also required probably less 'skepticism' that there is nowadays (even, ironically, for the Pyrrhonist in their ability to 'prove' the impossibility to find the 'ultimate truth'). So even if they might agree with you that it is 'unlikely' to arrive to such a 'correct doctrine', they still regarded it as extremely important or 'the most important thing to do'.
Of course, I am not saying that this 'ancient perspective' is unfindable nowadays or that in those time no one approached this kind of things for 'status seeking' or in a 'consumistic way'.


*these words are from Sanskrit terms.

Of course I agree with you, but then that is a distinction that we both discovered through Buddhist philosophy, whereas most folks on this forum (and I know this from experience!) will treat that with utmost suspicion. I think I’m going to try and write up something on this topic. — Wayfarer

Yeah.

Anyway, while I believe that in Buddhist schools the formulation is more clear (after all, in their view it also had a salvific importance), the distinction is also present even in pre-socratic greek philosophers. Parmenides, for instance, developed a version of the 'two truths' doctrine similar to Advaita Vedanta. But even someone like Democritus developed one for his own philosophy. It is IMO a very useful framework to discuss any epistemological theory.

(As an aside, I believe that 'conventional truth', the translation that we give to the 'lower' truth in Buddhist/Indian philosophies can be misleading to us. We in it read a 'social convention', but it is more like a 'provisional truth' IMO I am not disagreeing with the translation but the point is not that the 'conventional truth' is a social convention...)

I don't agree with that arbitrary conditional hypothetical if-then scenario. It seems to be placing restrictions on what an omnipotent deity can or cannot do*1. If there are no parts or aspects, then what is G*D*2 the Whole of? That negative definition of Perfection seems to be a bunch of nothing : no boundaries, no parts, no change. no properties, no place for an evolving world with imperfect creatures. Nothing to do : Eternally Boring. — Gnomon

But if G*D is not simple, i.e. if G*D is composite, then it necessarily depends on the parts. If those parts were to 'separate', G*D is no more. BTW, G*D being simple doesn't mean that G*D has no properties, just that G*D has no parts.

On the other hand, it has also been a historical philosophical problem how to explain an evolving world that originate from a timeless and changeless Creator/Source etc.

On the other hand, I can only guess that G*D is not frozen into a boundless timeless changeless blocktime popsicle, but is instead a dynamic entity capable of creating an imperfect world internally without compromising He/r own boundlessness or wholeness. Just as a human mind can imagine a Utopian or Dystopian world without reducing its own unity & wholeness, a G*D-mind could move imaginary chess pieces around without compromising its own integrity. As some have expressed the idea : G*D is dreaming our world, so our "real" existence is imaginary or fictional from the perspective of the dreamer. :smile: — Gnomon

I have some sympathy for this kind of view, BTW. Anyway, if G*D is a 'dynamic entity', then it is easier to explain changes. Maybe G*D has some changeless aspects and some dynamic aspects. Don't know.

Lately I prefer "the sun, its sunrays & their heat" (rather than "the ocean & its waves") as an analogy because "the sun" is so remote and not visibly manifest at night even though its effects of "light & heat" are always manifest on Earth (e.g. gravity-well, climate, weather, seasons, photosynthesis); and also, that staring directly at the sun with naked eyes is blinding more or less like fully comprehending 'eternal & infinite substance' with temporal, finite reason is impossible. So for me, in this limited (physical) sense, analogously "the sun" is naturing and Earth, etc are natured ... even though our local star is, according to Spinoza, just another mode (of the attributes of substance (i.e. 'laws of nature')). :fire: — 180 Proof

Well, I see your point but maybe it is a 'middle way', so to speak, between the two kinds of analogies.
Natura naturans and Natura Naturata IMO are two aspects of the Substance - an unmanifest and one manifest. The modes are particular features of the manifest aspect, which we erroneously take as independent substances.

I don't know. Maybe a further analogy might be that natura naturans is like a code of a program, natura naturata is the 'manifest' execution of that program and the 'modes' are some 'steps' of the execution, which cannot be thought as separate from the whole execution of the program.

No, I still don't know what you mean by 'external world as it is,' in general and specifically in this context. You say that the description is good, but it is not true to the 'external world as it is'. How can we know that? Apparently, not from appearances, since that is what is being described, and the description is good. — SophistiCat

In fact, we can from appearances. After all, the model makes predictions that are in constrast with observations in some contexts. As I said here, actually (here you can substitute the word 'experience' with 'appearance'):

But note that if one accepts that experience is the starting point of knowledge and if one accepts that experience is also the way we 'validate' our judgments, then corrispondence is difficult to maintain.
I can infer something about the 'external world' from my experiences but how can I 'prove' that my inferences are correct? How can I have a certain/true knoledge** of them?
Induction is not compelling. Even if all my experiences were to be consistent with some of my inferences about 'how the world out there should be', then I would still not have a certain, true knowledge. All I can have is a 'best guess'.

But I can still detect errors in judgments. I can still determine that some of my inferences are incorrect if they contradict some of my experience. In other words, while I cannot determine 'truth', I can determine (at least some) 'falsity'. Induction might not be a solid foundation for truth but it is still able to determine the falsity of some judgments.

But of course, this validation that we get from experience doesn't give us true knowledge and so it is not enough for truth (I reject 'coherence theory of truth', because a judgment that is coherent with all experiences is not enough to be called 'true'). So what? I think that, at least philosophically, we should 'suspend judgment' about the 'external world', i.e. the world outside experience. There is no denial here about the 'external world', or how it might be. — boundless

In other words, we can 'falsify' a theory or a model if we discover that it makes erroneous predictions in some contexts, i.e. we find an incoherence between what the theory predicts and what we actually observe. This is enough to falsify the theory as a valid 'picture of physical reality'.
Still, however, this doesn't mean that 'falsified models' cannot be useful and correctly describe appearances in some contexts. So even if the 'picture of the physical reality' that they give is wrong, we can still use them in some contexts and for some applications - hence, they are pragmatically true (in some contexts).

BTW, why do you think that the geocentrists in ancient times and middle ages were wrong? What was their mistake?

The book this is quoted from is considerably clearer than Hoffman, while also grounded in cognitive science. It makes the sense in which the brain constructs the cognitive arena we call 'the world' much clearer. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the reference. BTW, I actually read and enjoyed Pinter's book and as you say IMO it is clearer than Hoffman's.

Anyway, what I was getting at is possibly more 'general', in a way, that Pinter's point. My point was that we can make a distinction between 'provisional' and 'ultimate' truths without any kind of 'explanation' on the reason why we tend to perceive the way we perceive. For the sake of the discussion above, I think that before giving such an explanation, it is important to make clearly the distinction between those kinds of truth and why it should be important.

To give an analogy, I believe that if the 'ocean' is 'natura naturata', a wave is a 'mode'. Regarding 'natura naturans', maybe water itself. But I'm not sure how much the analogy makes sense. — boundless

Other possible analogies:

let's say that there is a house totally made of wood. The house itself is 'natura naturata'. Doors, rooms, walls etc are modes (both finite and infinite modes). The (totality of) wood is natura naturans.

Also, let's say that a statue of a man is made out of a block of marble. The 'man' is 'natura naturata'. Each 'part' of the statue is a mode (for instance the 'nose' or the 'arms'). The marble is 'natura naturans'.

In both cases, there is a sense in which the 'manifest whole' (natura naturata) is 'more' than the sum of the 'parts' (i.e. the modes, both finite and infinite).

What do you think about these analogies?

I wasn't talking about geocentrists, I was commenting on the plain facts about the rising and setting of the sun and the stars. This is the stuff of astronomy textbooks, not to mention thousands of years of observations by people all around the world. I don't know what is not veridical about that. Yes, this is a description of appearances. — SophistiCat

Well, yes, I fully agree with this. Probably, I wasn't clear enough.

"The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is a good descriptions of appareances. In this sense, it is 'true' and 'valid', yes.

The problem is the interpretation that we give to that statement. The ancient and medieval geocentrists clearly implied that such a statement described the 'external world as it is': the apparent motion of the celestial objects, to them, wasn't a mere appearance but the 'real motion' of the celestial objects.
They clearly didn't consider their model as a mere 'predictive model' but as an accurate description of the 'external world as it is'.

BTW, clearly we still use a 'geocentric model' in our daily lives, for practical purposes. As you say, it correctly describes the appearances. But we recognize, on reflection, that these appearances are mere appearances, so to speak.
So that's why I said that the statement "The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is provisionally/pragmatically true. But if it's interpreted in the way the ancient and medieval geocentrists did, it's false. Their mistake was an incorrect interpretation of appearances.

Do you agree with my analysis? If not, how do you explain the fact that those people were mistaken?

Are implying that there is a world beyond appearances that can somehow be known? — SophistiCat

Actually, no, my epistemic position is neutral about that. Still, I recognize that the 'existence' of a such a 'world' would explain better intersubjective agreement, the fact that we observe some regularities in phenomena and not others and so on. But at the same time, I recognize that empirical knowledge cannot give us a knowledge of such a 'world'. Nor we can be sure of its 'existence'.

Is that what you are referring to by the honorific 'a correct description of (external) reality as it is'? — SophistiCat

Yes and no. I think that the ancient and medieval geocentrists incorrectly believed that 'the world as it appears to me' is 'the world as it is in itself', i.e. their mistake was that they assumed a naive realist view (or at least a particular version of it). If one is a realist, but not a naive realist, I believe that yes the 'honorific' is correct.
Of course, some deny that there is a 'reality' beyond appearances. But IMO such a view does suffer to some serious problems (maybe not necessarily fatal, but they are serious).

I don't know as an empirical matter whether or not Spinoza is an "emergentist"; metaphysically he's certainly not. — 180 Proof

OK, I see.

In other words, sub specie durationis I interpret Spinoza's natura naturans as ontologically deterministic and unbounded (i.e. unmanifest ... vacuum ("void")) and natura naturata as ontically chaotic and bounded (i.e. manifest ... fluctuation-patterns ("swirling recombing atoms")). — 180 Proof

Maybe we disagree about 'natura naturata', then. IMO 'natura naturata' is the totality of modes, but this totality is not reducible to the mere collection of them, so to speak. By this I meant that it 'holistic', i.e. the whole is 'more' than its parts and its relations (that is enough for a 'holism', but IMO 'natura naturata' has also an ontological primacy over the 'individual modes').

To give an analogy, I believe that if the 'ocean' is 'natura naturata', a wave is a 'mode'. Regarding 'natura naturans', maybe water itself. But I'm not sure how much the analogy makes sense.

... which is why I describe compatibilism as conditionally deterministic. Neither strict determinism nor strict indeterminism are compatible with "free will / free action" (i.e. human agency). — 180 Proof

:up: Ok, we seem to agree then here!

The definition of God as "simple & unchanging" may or may not be true ; but it's irrelevant to you & me. I have no way of verifying that "standard position". But, in the evolving space-time world, where you and I are operating, Complexity and Change are the context from which we vainly try to imagine a First Cause capable of producing an evolving world. Presumably, enfernal G*D does not evolve, but He/r space-time creation may be a machine for evolving little gods. — Gnomon

I think that the argument goes like: if God weren't simple, i.e. it God was composed of parts (which themsleves are entities) then it could not be eternal, or at least God would be contingent. God would be ontologically dependent on its parts.

In other words, God's ontological necessity and eternity requires an ontological simplicity.

Anyway, maybe you could say that some aspects of God/Whole evolve and some aspects do not, in order to accept both a panendeistic world view and God's eternity and necessity. But I am not sure if this helps.

I disagree about the relevance of Probability to Free Will*1. Calvinistic Classical Physics assumed that the fate of the world is pre-determined by the absolute Will of God. But Quantum Physics has undermined the philosophical certainty of that presumption. According to 21st century science, the physical foundation of reality is Relative, not absolute, and Uncertain, not pre-destined, and Organic, not Mechanistic. The Probability "gap" in quantum physics is anywhere a mind makes a measurement. No minds : no gaps in Determinism. — Gnomon

But note that, even if we assume that mind is somehow required to make a 'quantum' measurement, the measurement itself is a probabilistic, i.e. random, process. So, while I agree that probabilism is, in a sense, closer to the kind of indeterminism that is required by free agency, it's still not enough. Our choices are neither fully determined nor random.
QM might not be 'mechanicistic' as newtonian mechanics is, but is still not enough.

Of course this is so ... sub specie aeternitatis. — 180 Proof

I am not sure if you say this is true according to Spinoza. IMO Spinoza was a parallelist, he would never say that 'mind' emerges from 'matter' (extension) even sub specie durationis.
Of course, this is not necessarily means that he is 'right'. Can you give some reference/arguments to argue that he was an emergentis?

Also, I would say that the holistic character present in Spinoza was absent in Democritus, Epiricurs, Lucretius et al. This doesn't mean that one can build a 'Democrito-Epicurean Spinozism' of sorts but I believe that the ontological primacy of the 'whole' was completely foreign to the classical atomists.

IMO a better example would be actually Friedrich Nietzsche who at least in his private notes seems to endorse the possibility of a 'pantheism/pandeism':

That the world is divine play [göttliches Spiel] beyond good and evil―for this, my predecessors are the philosophy of Vedanta and Heraclitus.

(It was a note the wrote in 1884. In his unpublished and unfinished book 'Philosophy in the tragic age of Greeks', written in 1873, he wrote his interpretation of Heraclitus.
Edit: I borrowed the quote about the 'divine play' from this thesis that I randomly found online, at page 34 of the pdf. I didn't read the thesis and I actually found the quote in another source online that I wanted to share but I didn't found it...)

If not conditionally "deterministic" (i.e. constrained by your (my) nonlinear dynamic, ecology-nested, embodied cognition), then what makes any "choices" yours (mine)? — 180 Proof

In a sense, yes. But if 'compatibilism' is strictly deterministic then it is incompatible with any meaningful notion of free will or free agency. A free agent necessarily has some degree of control on his or her choices and such choices aren't predictable by either a deterministic or probabilistic model.
For instance, a 'Laplace demon', if determinism were true, could be, in principle, able to predict all of my choices. Since compatibilists often remark that determinism and free will are consistent, they must redefine one or the other in some ways. Problem is that this 'redefinition' renders one of them ininitelligible. If the 'Laplace demon' could predict all my choices in advance, how can I say that I am a free agent in a meaningful sense?

On the other hand, yes, choices must be in part deterministic (after all, if a free agent makes the choice A instead of B, his or her actions deterministically follow, unless there are other causes that prevent those actions).

Ha! You'll have to ask the Deus why He/r system of Cause & Effect is not strictly dictatorial & deterministic, but statistical, and frivolously creating novel arrangements of matter & energy as a basement hobby. Apparently you think the Deity is incapable of internal change, or oblivious to the little independent-minded creatures running around inside the Whole. Either our evolving world is accidental or intentional, or Deus is just having a bad dream. — Gnomon

Well, I wasn't talking about my ideas on the matter. But anyway, the 'standard' philosophical position about God (even for the classical theists) is that God is simple, unchanging and transcends time. Spinoza accepted this kind of view. If you say that 'Deus' changes, then yeah I think that my objections do not apply strictly speaking. Still, by 'statistical' you don't mean 'probabilistic'. Probabilism is just as incompatible as determinism to free will/agency (choices are not random).

All I can do is guess : that the evolutionary system was intentionally designed to produce living & thinking creatures, with abilities that allow for some self-determination. Or, that our universe is a divine experiment gone disastrously awry. Why would an eternal/infinite/omnipotent Being have unruly pockets of space-time scrambling around in He/r bosom? Why would an absolute Entity allow little bubbles of evolving matter to grow inside He/r womb? How could Omniscience/Omnipotence have statistical "gaps", unless they were designed to provide opportunities for creativity? — Gnomon

The problem is IMO that the 'Whole/Deity' is or contains, according to you, the whole universe 'sub specie aeternitatis' - where past, present and future are fixed - and yet you also claim that change is real. IMO you have to let go one assumption or the other.

Either the 'Deity' evolves, changes in some way and therefore it's not 'outside time' or change is ultimately illusory.

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally, perfectly true, as anyone can attest*. What is unclear is the honorific 'what really happens in the external world'. — SophistiCat

Not sure if you are disagreeing with me or not. If by 'taken literally' one means that it correctly describes the appearances then, yes, I agree that it can be said to be 'literally true'.
On the other hand, the 'geocentrists' believed that our experience was totally veridical: the Earth was at the center of the universe and didn't move and the Sun revolved around it. It wasn't a mere 'it appears as if' but 'it appears because it is so'. In other words, they were extremely naive realists.

The 'honorific' simply means that it was taken as 'a correct description of (external) reality as it is'

"Unmistaken" is not "certain". To be knowledge, a belief must be true. That means for empirical beliefs we can never be totally sure that our beliefs are knowledge or not. And that is ok. — hypericin

Well, by 'unmistaken' I meant without error, i.e. correct. To me this is 'certain', unless by 'certainty' we mean the certainty of, say, a logical deduction or a mathematical proof. I think we agree.

However, if by 'knowledge' we mean a 'true belief' we need to understand what 'true' means. IMO, believing that 'Sun moves from east to west' can be considered a kind of provisional/pragmatic knowledge. But of course if the same statement is interpreted, as you correctly point out, as a 'correct description of external reality' is false.

I feel you are muddling things here. Statements are only true or false wrt an interpretation. Given the same statement, some interpretations may be true, others may be false. This just demonstrates that uninterpreted statements, "statements in themselves", don't have truth values.
Only interpretations do. — hypericin

Ok, point taken. We need to establish some kind of criteria before be able to assign a truth value to a statement. I think that a 'doctrine of two truth' is able to do that.

To use the same example:

• "The Sun moves from west to east" is false pragmatically/provisionally (it contradicts the appearances) and false ultimately (it isn't a correct description of the 'external reality as it is')
• "The Sun moves from east to west" is true pragmatically/provisionally (it correctly describes the appearances) and it is false ultimately (it isn't a correct description of the 'external reality as it is')

So, I would say that I agree that the truth value of a statement is dependent on the interpretation. This also means that there are different types of knowledge.

Also, it's possible to consider the issue in another way.

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally (i.e. as an accurate description of 'what really happens in the external world'), false.
But at the same time if we interpret the same statement in a non-literal way, in some sense is true.

Clearly, the truth of this statement is provisional, pragmatic - not 'ultimate'. The mistake of those who believed in the accuracy of the statement was that they took it literally. You can take these statements seriously (i.e. as statements of provisional, pragmatic truths) even if you don't take them literally (for instance, I can say 'I want to have the sunlight in my room in the morning, so I should have windows that face the east because the Sun moves from east to west during the day' is a valid inference even if my reasoning is based on a geocentric model, which is used in a practical way. I can use such a model even if I do not take it literally).

So, we can say that it is a 'pragmatic, provisional knowledge' but not a 'true knowledge'. IMO the distinction between these two concepts is important.

You are making the common mistake of equating knowledge with certainty. Certainty has no place in empirical knowledge, only in math and logic. Your over restrictive "true knowledge" limits knowledge to the latter. I suggest you abandon the obsession with certainty. — hypericin

I would not say that this kind of certainty is the same as the one found in math and logic, but yes I would say that in order to be 'true knowledge' (and not a 'provisional', 'pragmatic', 'transactional' or even an 'approximate' one) it must be unmistaken. Do you think that a false (but reasonable) belief can be said to be knowledge?

If we grant a 'fallible knowledge' the status of a 'true, unmistaken knowledge', then our ancestors that believed that the Sun and the stars revolved around Earth would correctly claim 'I know, based on observation, that the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west'. If this is taken as a statement of 'knowing how the world really is', then we know that is mistaken.

But of course the same statement 'I know, based on observation, that the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' can also be considered correct, if it describes the apparent motion of these celestial objects. Also, it is correct if it is taken to be a claim of provisional or pragmatic knowledge. The problem arises when one clings to such a statement as an affirmation of 'how the external world really is'.

To conclude, I am not sure I disagree with you, actually. If 'knowledge' is taken to mean as a reasonable belief then I think we agree. If 'knowledge' is taken as meaning an unmistaken belief, then no.
IMO the distinction between 'provisional truth' and 'ultimate truth' that I made in my previous posts doesn't by itself denote an obsession for certainty. It can also denote an 'open minded perspective' that doesn't consider our beliefs based on empirical evidence and inference from such evidence as unmistaken beliefs.

I.e. if we are more like droplets of spray from a wave of the ocean (or rays of sunlight from the sun) than e.g. passengers riding on a moving train... — 180 Proof

Good analogies. But this 'separateness' leads to deism or theism IMO.

For Spinoza, no doubt an "inadequate idea" (i.e. imaginary, illusory) sub specie aeternitatis. — 180 Proof

Agreed!

Fwiw, my view is that sub specie durationis (e.g. Husserl's "natural attitude") acosmism seems cogently pandeistic (or consistent with classical atomism). :fire: — 180 Proof

Well, Spinoza's Natura Naturata would be cover both the 'vacuum' and the 'atoms', the union of them (also, according to him, the attributes are independent from each other, so emergentism is not compatible with Spinoza).

As to "how", I must assume that the binding chains of natural Cause & Effect have some "gaps" or "loopholes" that can be exploited by Autonomous Agents — Gnomon

Ok. But how these 'gaps' arise in a pantheistic/panentheistic/pandeistic/panendeistic system?

In his book Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett concluded that some degree of Free Will*1 is compatible with Natural Law. He refers to certain "abilities" of homo sapiens that allow us to make choices that are not dictated by physical laws. Among those abilities are Logic and Language. Regarding the rigidity of natural law, I'll just mention that Thermodynamics is based on statistical averages not specific instances*2, and Quantum physics is also statistical, not mechanical. So some slack (statistical loopholes) in the chain of Cause & Effect seems to be allowed. — Gnomon

The problem I have with 'compatibilism' is that it redefines 'free will' and 'free agency' in a way to render them meaningless. For instance, if a compatibilist argues that my choices are 'free' because they do not have 'external' causes but they are still deterministic, I fail to see how this can be true 'freedom': actions and choices would be still inevitable. Even if one includes the (apparently) probabilistic nature of QM into play, nothing really changes IMO. Our choices would be determined by a combination of deterministic and probabilistic processes. Something more is needed.

@Count Timothy von Icarus

For instance, if I cling to the expression 'the sun rises and sets' as some truth about 'how the world is' I would be in error. Still, in a sense, is a 'valid' statement: it correctly describes some experiences (but not all) and has some practical utility. The same goes for, say, newtonian mechanics. — boundless

To expand on this...

I believe that 'the sun rises and sets' might be called a 'provisional truth'. It is valid in some contexts but if we cling at is it were a 'true description of the world', what we might call an 'ultimate truth' about the 'external world', we would be in error.
So, in a sense, yes, we can make 'true judgments' in the sense they are coherent, at least in some contexts.
But at the same time, 'experiences and inferences from experiences' alone cannot give us true knowledge. Provisional, pragmatic 'truths' yes, but these 'truths' are not truths in the 'classical' philosophical sense. Accepting these 'provisional truths' is not really the problem, the problem seems to be clinging about them.
Without additional assumptions we are not justified that we can know 'truths' which are 'higher' than 'provisional truths'. And IMO it is up to who upholds these additional assumptions to give a justification of them. BTW, I am not saying that such assumptions cannot be 'reasonable', so to speak, but 'reasonableness' might not be enough to be a philosophical justification, in the sense that of a rationally compelling justification. And, also, as our progress in science revealed to us is that even the most 'reasonable' ideas human beings have had about the world turned out to be incorrect, incoherent with observations (which ultimately are experiences, after all, if one thinks about it). And these 'reasonable ideas' were supported by equally 'reasonable assumptions', which themselves were found incorrect.
Note that I am not saying that all our reasonable assumptions are necessary false and will necessarily be found false but simply that we seem not to be able to justify them in a 'rationally compelling' sense and also that clinging about them have been a source of mistakes.

BTW, actually more than Pyrrhonism, my view of knowledge is mostly inspired by some versions of the 'theory of two truths' that I encountered in some schools of Indian philosophies/religions (especially some Buddhist schools). At the same time, similar ideas are also present in some western thinkers and philosophical schools, e.g. Pyrrhonism, which maybe is actually close to my own views on epistemology as I don't make any claim about 'ultimate truth' (after all, even in Indian philosophies/religions, positive claims about the 'ultimate truth' were made in a religious context and often had a religious 'justification', not a philosophical one, at least not completely philosophical one. But I am digressing...).

Well, on the error point, I don't think someone like Berkeley has the same problem here. For Berkeley, we see the world as it is under normal conditions, although of course we see it from our individual perspective. Error is its own category. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, Berkeley was an ontological idealist, so yeah, I agree with this. After all, ontological idealism is actually more similar to realism than some forms epistemic and transcendental idealism, skepticism, phenomenologies etc. After all, ontological idealism is, well, a metaphysical theory of 'how things really are'.

The problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." The problem is not only that both experience under normal conditions and conditions of error share in unreality, but that we have no means of saying which is closer to "what things are really like." If the way things "really are" is inaccessible, if even space and time are the unique products of the mind, then there is no possible comparison of experience and reality. Correspondence is out. Nor will an identity theory work. We can't say that there is an identity shared by experience and reality—that, as Aristotle says in De Anima, the "mind (potentially) becomes all things," because this possibility is also excluded. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But note that if one accepts that experience is the starting point of knowledge and if one accepts that experience is also the way we 'validate' our judgments, then corrispondence is difficult to maintain.
I can infer something about the 'external world' from my experiences but how can I 'prove' that my inferences are correct? How can I have a certain/true knoledge** of them?
Induction is not compelling. Even if all my experiences were to be consistent with some of my inferences about 'how the world out there should be', then I would still not have a certain, true knowledge. All I can have is a 'best guess'.

But I can still detect errors in judgments. I can still determine that some of my inferences are incorrect if they contradict some of my experience. In other words, while I cannot determine 'truth', I can determine (at least some) 'falsity'. Induction might not be a solid foundation for truth but it is still able to determine the falsity of some judgments.

But of course, this validation that we get from experience doesn't give us true knowledge and so it is not enough for truth (I reject 'coherence theory of truth', because a judgment that is coherent with all experiences is not enough to be called 'true'). So what? I think that, at least philosophically, we should 'suspend judgment' about the 'external world', i.e. the world outside experience. There is no denial here about the 'external world', or how it might be.

For instance, if I cling to the expression 'the sun rises and sets' as some truth about 'how the world is' I would be in error. Still, in a sense, is a 'valid' statement: it correctly describes some experiences (but not all) and has some practical utility. The same goes for, say, newtonian mechanics.

On the other hand, I believe if you actually think that we can have true knowledge about 'how the world is' that we can discover by inference from our experience, we need some other assumption which is IMO unprovable.

Personally, I think I am closer to Pyrrhonism than Kantianism in epistemology.

Now, if the intelligibility of things and the intelligibility of our experiences and our knowledge of things is the same, there is no problem. Reason is perhaps the glue that holds things together (rather than a sort of "bridge between them" that we must build). On this view, we are never separated. But on this view it isn't true that we don't see things as they are. To be sure, we don't see things perfectly. There is a difference between discursive human reason and simple divine apprehension of all truths. Truth, with being, is inherently bound up in intelligibility though (e.g. St. Thomas' disputed questions on truth). — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you say that 'we can get true knowledge, at least in principle, from inferences from our experiences because the world is intelligible' this is IMO an assumption. It might be correct but we cannot prove it.

Counterfactual definiteness? Yes, I guess; but again, when people talk about counterfactual definiteness, they are usually talking about the wavefunction and perhaps things like collapse. Stochastic interpretation would be talking about definiteness in regard to something else, so the concept has arguably changed. — Apustimelogist

No, CFD (counterfactual definiteness) simply implies that physical quantities have definite values at all times. de Broglie Bohm's interpertation is a perfect example of an interpetation which has CFD. MWI violates CFD because it assigns multiple values to hypothetical measurements, so it can be realistic and 'local' (although in a weird sense... after all, what is more nonlocal than a 'universal wavefunction' split at each measurement?).

If your stochastic interpretation accepts that there is a definite configuration of particles at all times, then how can you explain Bell's experiments without non-locality? In de Broglie-Bohm's interpretation, in the case of entangled particles, the velocity of each entangled particle (which always has a definite value) depends instantaneously on the positions (which always have a definite value) of the other entangled particles. That's how the interpretation 'explains' (or at least 'gives a description of') Bell's experiments.
But this implies that you need some kind of 'simultaneity' (a long time ago, I read of some versions of this interpretation which are Lorentz invariant. So, I guess that this kind of 'simultaneity' doesn't necessarily imply a rejection of special relativity. I don't remember however the details)

So, in your view, if the particle configuration is definite at all times, how can you describe non-local correlations without a non-local dynamics/kinematics which involves some notion of simultaneity?

Well, either the state of relative perfection or the state of suffering. Which one do you pick? By nothing I didn't mean permanent death. — MoK

Of course I would pick the 'better' choice. But none of them seems 'desirable'. Also, why do you think that death is impossible?

During the expansion of space-time most emergent Actualities result from natural energy exchanges. But, since the recent advent of homo sapiens, some novelties in the world have been caused by human choices. That's what we call Culture as contrasted with Nature. Therefore, you could say that Cultural Evolution has been "co-determined" by rational agents. But I would not say that all actualities, or all phenomena, or all "actual histories" are determined by the "demi-gods" of the world. — Gnomon

Neither did I want to say that, in fact. Even the 'co-determination' of some actualities is enough. It is something like Tolkien's concept of subcreation, in a sense.

So, the Whole determines all the possibilities/potentialities. Natural processes - either random or deterministic - co-determine most actualities. Then, humans (and maybe other beings) co-determine some actualities with some degree of autonomy. I use the 'co' prefix because, after all, this kind of determination is not from 'nothing' but both from previous actualities and potentialities themselves. Is this now an accurate assessment of your view?

Still my question is: how can we have some degree of autonomy if we are not separate from the Whole?

Would Spinoza disagree? :smile: — Gnomon

Yes, to some extent. And to some extent he would agree. For instance, I think he would ask the previous question, I think.

Interesting. There is a revised version of Gödel's ontological proof of God that entails modal collapse because of the given definition of God. — Lionino

Thanks for the reference. Anyway, for the sake of completeness, some scholars disagree with the 'necessitarian' interpretation of Spinoza. However, IMO necessatarianism is the consistent way to interpret is thought.

This idea of gradations of being allows for a richer metaphysical framework, one that resonates with pre-modern views like Aristotle’s, where being is understood in terms of potentiality and actuality. — Wayfarer

To be fair, I do not, in principle have a problem with this understanding. Problem is, however, that the 'collapse' of the wavefunction is observer-dependent, i.e. it takes place in the perspective of a given observer (whatever an 'observer' might be). In this view, the collapse is a process of actualization, so actualization is observer-dependent.

So in other to be consistent, I think that this kind of understanding has to treat both the potentialities and the actualities as observer-dependent. No matter how Heisenberg saw these these things, I really doubt that Aristotle or Plato would have liked that potentiality-actuality is something that is perspectival.

The observation ‘manifests’ or is actualised in a particular outcome. I can’t help but feel that it is at least a pregnant metaphor. — Wayfarer

With this I agree.

The whole point is why would a perfect god create this kind of game of hide-and-seek of his "blessedness" and "good and evil"? — schopenhauer1

I wanted to elaborate on this point, again.

Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that God exists and created the world and humans as finite rational agents who have an essential desire to be united with the Good (i.e. God if some kind of theism is true), even if they are not aware of fully aware of it.

Now, as I understand it, the philosopher Thomas Talbott makes a very interesting argument: maybe it is impossible to come into existence as fully developed rational beings, maybe in order to fully develop as self-aware rational agents we need some kind of contrast and frustration. For instance, I need to be aware of the distinction between 'me' and what is 'not me' in order to develop a rational mind. However, this awareness might only develop due to some kind of contrast: what is 'not me' doesn't respond always to my wishes. So, the frustration I experience is actually a way to learn, to be more self-aware. Also, at least the awareness of the possibility to make evil or bad choices makes me aware of the distinction between good and evil, good and bad. Also, seeing bad outcomes of evil/bad choices is actually a way to learn why bad choices are bad. And so on.

So, maybe some amount of suffering as well as at least the possibility to do evil and to make bad choices, is inevitable in order to develop into truly rational beings.

Note, of course, that this argument doesn't say that all suffering and the evil we experience in the world is 'necessary' or 'meaningful'. Also, it's not meant to be a complete 'theodicy' but only a possible explanation to why a 'learning process' might be actually necessary.

If we can never see the world "as it really is," then how shall we explain things like mistakes? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that you are raising here a very good objection, but it is not 'decisive' IMO.

I believe that a 'mistake' or an 'illusion' can be interpreted as an interpretation of a given experience that is inconsistent with his inconsistent with other related experiences.

For instance, consider the case where you see a circular table from a certain distance and angolation. It doesn't appear as circular but as elliptical. And as I move around, its apparent shape is still elliptical but different and it continues to change. So, I conclude that the 'elliptical shape' is a mere appearance, an illusion if you like, because the fact that the 'apparent shape' changes as I change my position means that it is not an intrinsic property of the table and assuming naively that it is makes my judgment mistaken.
On the other hand, saying that the table is 'really circular' does accomodate all these observations and, therefore, it is 'more correct' than saying that a particular elliptical shape that I saw was the 'real one'. But of course, we know that the 'circular shape' itself when examined more closely is not true either etc.
BTW, I used the example of the physicist David Bohm (see e.g. this video).

So, I think that you can't detect a mistake even if the 'world as it really is' is inaccessible to us.

Also IMO this doens't imply that the world is not intelligible or our experience is not intelligible. In fact, at least up to a certain point we can say that there is intelligibility.

I think it really depends on what you mean by all these terms which I often find confusing. Yes, realistic in terms of there are particles in definite configurations all the time. But it will also have all the statistical properties in the wavefunction that are responsible for violating contextual realism generally in quantum mechanics. However, the wavefunction isn't a real physical object in this interpretation. — Apustimelogist

Ok, I see. The wave-function is interpreted as an 'useful' fiction but at the same time the theory also adopts Counterfactual definiteness. How is non-locality handled in this interpretation?

It is realist, but I think he really does say there are degrees of existence:
.... — Wayfarer

I can see the appeal but IMO this view leads to some problems (some serious, some not).

First, if the wave-function is given any kind of reality, then non-locality is inescapable. If I make a position measurement, then QM literally says that the wave-function can contract instantaneously from a 'very large space region' to a 'point-like space region'. Of course, you can say that it has a 'different' degree of reality, but I'm not sure how a truly physical non-local effect can be avoided. This is not per se a 'damning'* problem (after all, I know that even the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation can be formulated in a way that is consistent with special relativity) but it is still IMO a problem for one who wants to present it as 'local'. BTW, I know that Kastner argued that the interpretation is local because the measurement only 'destroys' possibilities, not actualities but at the same time the 'actualities' do, well, become actual and if they do not come 'from nothing', something 'real' must be there before.

Second, the wavefunction itself can be changed before the measurement. In fact, the wave-function contains the information of the experimental set-up, which can be modified by the experimenter. In some ways, then, if the wavefunction is interpreted as having some kind of reality, it somehow interacts
(in some cases nonlocally) with the experimental setup and/or the experimenter.

Third, in a Wigner-friend type of scenario, some actualities seem to have become 'actual' only to an observer and not to the other. If one wants a realist interpretation, this IMO leads to an inconsistency.

I believe that this shows that the wavefunction does indeed represent 'potentialities' but only epistemic ones, i.e. gives probabilities that some experiences or observations occur.

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)

(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep)

Edit: by this I don't mean that those who think that 'non-local realism' is possible are wrong. But it would be still a quite strange form of realism where we cannot 'separate' the elements of reality by using a spatio-temporal separation.

In other words, are you saying that God/Whole determines all the possibilities but the actualities are determined or co-determined by the rational agents?
And maybe also by other phenomena?
In other words, God 'fixes' all thepossible histories but the actual one is co-determined?

I'm not sure how this doesn't lead to a theistic or theistic-like perspective (i.e. that God creates and sustaines but at the same time the creatures maintain an identity that is distinct from the Creator), but I'll wait your answers before delving into this.

Correct. Life becomes boring if it is eternal. — MoK

To be fair, I should have added that boredom would not the only one reason that after a certain point such an endless life would be unbereable. But in any case, I'm not sure how you have not conceded my point, i.e. that such a 'relative perfection' is undesiderable. We seem to agree that an endless life with only finite goods becomes after a certain point unbereable. Yet, you seem to say that a state of 'relative perfection' is 'better than nothing'. How can an 'endless unbeareable life' be better than 'nothing'?

In other words, every possibility is a necessity, modal collapse? Good post btw, keep it coming. — Lionino

Thanks!

Yep, but note that in Spinoza's philosophy such a necessity is not an 'intrinsic characteristic' of the modes, but when considered as 'modes-of-substance', i.e. when seen 'under the perspective of eternity' (sub specie aeternitatis), all modes are actually necessary 'manifestations' of the attributes of God. In other words, when seen as themselves - i.e. abstracted from the Substance/God - they are contingent. But this perspective is ultimately illusory and therefore, ultimately, according to Spinoza, it is true that even the modes are necessary (but seen in this perspective, they are not individuals anymore).

My take on the 'observer problem' is not very complicated. The answer to the question 'does an electron exist prior to being measured?' is that it just is the wave-function, which is a distribution of possibilities, right? So it doesn't definitely exist, or exist as a definite object - there really is just a pattern of probabilites. It is the observation that reduces all the possibilities to zero (collapsing the wave function.) What's 'spooky' about it is mainly that the act of measurement is not itself part of the equation. And also the ontology of the purportedly fundamental particles of physics. A realist would rather hope there was a definitely-existing point-particle somewhere along the line. It's like the measurement 'makes manifest' something that was previously only potentially existing. (This is something that Heisenberg said, referring to Aristotle's 'potentia' (source). — Wayfarer

Yeah, I sort of agree, but maybe with a qualification. If one interprets the wave-function epistemically, i.e. as a quantitative measurement of knowledge/degrees of beliefs (i.e. probabilities as interpreted in a Bayesian way), then the 'collapse' is simply an update of knowlege/degrees of beliefs. However, if one wants to interpret the wave-function epistemically, then such an approach should be followed to the end, in a consistent way: QM doens't allow us to make any ontological commitments.

Unfortunately, sometimes what is presented is a 'mixed' approach. For instance, my problem with saying that "the 'measurement' makes manifest something that was only 'potentially existent'" is that it can be misleading: if one attributes some kind of 'reality' to those 'potentialities', wehave a 'realist' view. After all, if it is supposed to describe 'what is really happening' when a measurement is done, then how is not a 'realist' interpretation?
If it is interpreted as a 'convenient way of speaking that should not be taken literally, then one remains faithful to an epistemic approach.

Of course, a truly consistent epistemic approach doens't deny that there is 'something' before a measurement/observation (or whetever word one might prefer) takes place. However, that 'something' cannot be described/known and is not an object of the theory. Indeed, an epistemic interpretation is actually like saying 'there is a limit of what I can know and what I can represent mathematically'. That's why instead of 'non-realist interpretations' I prefer 'non-representationalist interpretations'.
When one understands this IMO, all the talk about 'what is an observer' becomes irrelevant. The theory should be silent about such a question. But, of course, I can say that 'I' can be an observer - this and only this is self-evident apparently - and since I am a conscious being, every other conscious being might be an observer. Maybe only conscious beings are observers, maybe something else can also be. But how can I know that? How can I know that a computer might be an 'observer'? What can I have are speculations, maybe reasonable speculations. But real knowledge? IMO the best if we follow an epistemic/'non-representationalist' interpretation, we should admit that QM itself simply doesn't tell us what an 'observer' really is. It's silent.

Also, this 'epistemic interpretation' is not really restricted to QM. It can IMO be used also for other physical theories (after all, as I said in an another thread, nobody takes the 'forces' in newtonian mechanics as literally existent physical entities... they are useful fictions).

If on the other hand, one prefers a 'realist/representationalist' view one apparently is forced to accept non-locality (a weird kind of non-locality where non-local effects are 'hidden'*), many-worlds or something else (and weirdly enough, even if one accept a 'realist' interpretation, the epistemic interpretations can be still be used to make correct predictions...).

*non-local effects are hidden because in an experiment with, say, two entangled particles, Alice can discover that the 'non-local' effects have taken place only when she gets access to Bob's data on his particle.

Nelsonian stochastic mechanics seems a valid interpretation that is both realistic and non-deterministic, as far as I know. Not sure why ChatGpT seems to say that a stochastic and realistic interpretation is impossible (it must have some kind of non-locality)

↪Wayfarer The key here is what is to count as an "observer". You presume mind. That's down to you, not the physics. Alternative include "We don't know - shut up and calculate" and "whatever collapses a wave function". — Banno

I actually see this as irrelevant regarding the 'independent reality' of cups and other physical objects. Even if an observer is a generic 'physical object' as the relational interpretation of QM says, how can we be certain that another physical object has a definite position (e.g. being in a dishwasher) outside of the 'interaction/observation'?

IMO assuming that the observers are not necessrily conscious beings doesn't really change much about this issue.

Well, the state of relative peace is better than nothing. The better you understand life it becomes easier to achieve relative peace. — MoK

But if there is nothing that guarantees that I may not fall from such a state of 'relative peace' (assuming that it is a positive state), then such a state is not possible (for instance, in traditional theism, God is the foundation of the stability of the beatitude of the blessed).
Also, if it is too similar to the present life - after all, if it is seen as a perpetual struggle, the comparison is IMO apt - I am not sure how it is better than nothing. If I really think that this life will last forever, well I think it will be at a certain point unbereable (due to boredom... after all, finite goods can give finite happiness).

Is there a downside to accepting that "feeling" of change in the objective world and the practical effects of willful behavior? I feel older and wiser than I did at 18. Am I just naive, or deceiving myself that I can be an agent of change in the world? When I imagine that I'm driving my car to the grocery store, was that destination destined by God or Fate 14b years before I was born? If my free agency is a mirage, will I go hungry waiting for the world to bend to my will? :snicker: — Gnomon

The problem IMO is that you seem to want it both ways. On the one hand, the Whole, i.e. God in your view, is ultimately changeless. On the other hand, you seem to think that change is ultimately real for us and that we are free.

But my question is: how can our perception of change be veridical if the Whole (of which we are mere aspects or maybe 'parts') is changeless? how can we have free will, i.e. a degree of autonomy, if we are mere aspects/modes/parts of God, who is changeless?

Why should humans care how much BALANCE of suffering occurs in the universe, when it is him/her that is being subjected to suffering in various amounts, perhaps on the more negative end of the equation? In other words, for humans, why should it matter how the "overall picture" looks from their point of view, if they are the ones suffering!? — schopenhauer1

Sorry I think I misinterpreted your questions. But I won't edit my previous post because I am actually curious to see your answers to my questions that I made before about the 'basic desire' and the best hypothetical state.

Anyway, well... I am not sure how to respond to these questions and also I am not sure how they are related to the point I was making. I was merely saying that at least in the 'universalist' view, all the suffering might be seen as part of a non-ideal process that was necessary to complete in order to arrive to a result that we 'really' want. This doesn't imply that every instance of suffering is seen as a necessary of the process... in other words, a learning process is necessary but this particular process we experience isn't inevitable (unless one is a rigid determinist, I guess).
Sorry in case if also this answer is unstaisfying.

Well, I can imagine a state of peace and harmony (what I call perfection) as well but our current state of affairs is not like this. — MoK

Ok, fine. But the 'relative perfection' you mentioned earlier didn't sound as something desirable, something to seek etc if it is a constant struggle.

I don't make any claim to be a "Spinozist". That would be absurd, since I have never read any of his work first hand, and I don't regard him as my Guru. I merely identified with his break from traditional religion without rejecting the logical necessity of a non-empirical preternatural First Cause of some kind. Since my "critic" did claim to be a Spinozist, I just noted that my personal worldview seemed to be generally compatible with Spinoza's, yet making allowance for advances in historical and scientific understanding since he wrote his "radical enlightenment" manifesto. :smile: — Gnomon

Ok!

Regarding Free Will, I can only agree with Einstein's comment on past-present-future Time --- that it's a "stubbornly persistent illusion" --- which 99% of humans accept as a pragmatic assumption. :joke: — Gnomon

Ok, what worried Einstein, however, is that such an illusion seems so 'persistent' that it strongly suggest that change is real and not only perspectival? As I said before, I stopped to dis-believe in free will and the supposed illusory nature of change, when I decided to take what my experience suggested to me at face value. Of course, I am not saying that I am necessarily right. But, after all, science is an empirical subject and in order to refute something that experience so strongly suggest there must be a 'sufficient evidence'. To date, I don't think I found one.

Since, unlike Einstein, I am incapable of imagining omniscience, I would say that an ever-changing world is not an illusion but an empirical Fact of human understanding. To deny real world Change might be a sign of dementia, or of extreme Idealism. :cool: — Gnomon

I disagree. One can say that change is illusory and at the same time admitting that he experiences change. I can still experience an optical illusion even if I suspect or know that my experience isn't veridical.

Evolution and FreeWill are only illusory relative to Omniscience. Relative to mundane human understanding it's an undeniable verity. Since I have almost 8 decades of personal experience, I can't deceive myself that Aging & Death are figments of imagination. From my imaginary personal perspective, Death looks like a skeleton in a black hoodie holding a mean-looking scythe. :wink: — Gnomon

But note that as I said, something can 'feel' very real but at the same time can be illusory.

For instance, in a dream I might go to a city. At the level of the dream, I went to that city and I had that experience. But the experience was illusory.

So, the experience of change might be 'dream-like' but for us can seem real.

That's the GAME then.. training, learning, etc. It doesn't have to look like Chess or Monopoly or Basketball! It's an obstacle course of choosing between options, and sometimes the game puts participants in vicariously tragic positions, despite seemingly good decisions. So, it's a game of obstacles, suffering, learning, etc. — schopenhauer1

Ok, I see. Well, normally we do not call, say, school as a 'game'. But, if you want to use that word, ok.

Let me rephrase your question, then: why God created this 'learning process' (or 'learning 'game'' if you prefer)?
An answer might be: "well, considering that we are created as finite and imperfect rational beings, the 'learning process' (again, you can use the word 'game') is what is needed to such a being to be able to know God"

So, at this point, you can make the following question: "why did God created us in the way we have been created, as finite and imperfect rational beings that need such a learning process in the first place?".
Well, actually, I am not sure how to respond to that. But again, is it really important to have an answer to that question? Let's say that we can't find an answer. Does this invalidate the hypothesis 'creator, personal God'?

In other words, for humans, why should it matter how the "overall picture" looks from their point of view, if they are the ones suffering!? — schopenhauer1

Because that, maybe, it's part of what humans really want? For instance: what do you think that is the most basic desire? What do you think would the best hypothetical state of affairs to you? See, for instance this post or this other post.
Given that our present state of affairs is not the 'best', the search of a final, positive state might be what is really important.

God's nature? That makes it seem like God himself is following a rule he cannot escape. There goes the all-powerful part. Again, do you see why this God looks very human to me? And as with my question to MoK, are we talking the Biblical/Abrahamic God or some personal notion? — schopenhauer1

Yes, I was thinking about a Personal God.
Anyway, God's nature is not an imposed 'rule'. So, I cannot see how God would be following a rule, if God's activity is not constrained by something external.

There is no guarantee that we don't lose it. It is a constant challenge to stay in a state of relative peace. — MoK

An unending challenge is not IMO a state that we should hope, but I'm going to leave at that.

I don't equate a state of peace with a state in which we experience more pleasure than suffering. A state of peace is neutral. By neutral I mean you neither suffer nor have pleasure. — MoK

Well, in any case, your conception of 'relative peace' cannot be a real 'peace'. If we have to continue to struggle to maintain it, it inevitably involves suffering.

Correct. But you ask whether we can make any progress without suffering. I mentioned that there could be progress without suffering if there is no experience. I then mentioned that change is not possible without experience. Progress is a change. Therefore progress is not possible without experience. I also don't think that you can make progress without suffering. That is how life is! — MoK

Well, at least hypothetically/logically I think that it isn't true. I can imagine an interrupted continuum of neutral and/or positive experiences. At least I do not see a logical impossibility here.

I didn’t mean that; I said consciousness is a capacity, understood, in accordance with a particular methodological system, as a necessary condition of intelligent agency. That being given, it can be deduced consciousness doesn’t unify; it is that under which unity occurs. — Mww

Ah, sorry. Thanks for the clarification. I think I am ok with that!

Me neither. Didn’t really understand it either. Although I can see the connection with QBism. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree. There is at least a structural analogy between his 'interface theory of perception' (ITP) and QBism.
But, on the other hand, the main prolem is that he not only notes the analogy. But (1) he insists that he is basically saying the same thing as some contemporary research in quantum gravity (!) for instance say and that (2) as the review remarked his own theory of 'conscious realism' contradicts his IPT, if the latter is followed to the end.

ITP after all doesn't make ontological commitments about the 'reality as it is' and, therefore, strictly speaking isn't compatible with any kind of ontological theory. It's a form of epistemic idealism which also tries to explain why we more or less 'see' the same 'interface'.

(regarding the review, I found it ok, but some objections are IMO questionable... for instance, in the chapter where Hoffman evokes contemporary phisical theories, the main comparison is with ITP, not conscious realism. So when he says that 'non-realist' theories are incompatible with conscious realism, it should be noted that Hoffman discussed them when he was speaking about ITP, if I recall correctly)

‘Meta-conscious awareness’ is the term, I believe. — Wayfarer

Ah, ok, thanks. But I think that also 'self-consciousness' is valid for that.

With respect to specificity, I rather think, assuming an interest in such matters despite the absence of sufficient empirical facts from the scientific method proper, little remains but to fall back on logical constructions, the certainty, hence the explanatory value, of which is our own responsibility. — Mww

I meant that you described a type of consciousness. For instance, if I can be just 'be aware' without having thoughts, I would be conscious without any kind of conscious interpretative activity. But maybe I misunderstood you.
If you meant that consciousness is an 'unifying' activity, in a sense yes, I agree.

BTW, there are some psychiatrists that try to apply pheonomenological concepts in their practice. For instance, the concept of 'self-disorder'/ipseity disturbance employs the distinction of 'narrative self' (any kind of conceptual description about ourselves) and the 'basic self/ipseity' (the sense that experiences are our own). They argue that some psychotic experiences (like the experiences where one feels that his thoughts are inserted by some other agent) are actually a strong expression of a disturbed 'basic self', i.e. that the content of the experiences are not one's own (but a lower level of 'privateness' remains, after all...if a content of our experience doesn't feel 'ours', after all, we still have the sense of 'privateness').
The reason I brought about this is because I think that these kinds of study might be useful to study the structure of our experience. For instance, these kind of studies suggests to me that these kind of disorders can only happen in sentient beings that are 'self-conscious', i.e. beings that are conscious to be conscious.

Maybe also @Wayfarer finds this kind of thing interesting.

I'm finding Donald Hoffman's book alternately interesting and frustrating. His formula of 'fitness beats truth' makes me want to ask what is the ‘truth’ that is ‘beaten by fitness’. He says that we don’t see ‘objective reality’ but that we see what evolution primes us to see. But at the same time, as we all have the same evolutionary heritage, then why that can’t also be ‘objective’? We’ll all share a very large pool of common objects of experience, so if I call a tomato an orange, or measure a meter to be 80cm, I’ll be objectively mistaken. — Wayfarer

More or less I had the same impression. I found his 'interface theory of perception' (a form of epistemic idealism) fascinating and also the basic idea that we might not know 'external reality as it is' because, after all, our perceptive and cognitive system is at the service of fitness, i.e. our own survival and the survival of our species. And a 'non-literal' respresentation of external reality might be far more useful than a 'faithful portrait' of it.

I actually didn't like his excursus in speculative idea of contemporary physics. After all, when he did that he was trying to argue for his speculative idea using other speculative ideas (so that chapter was IMO unhelpful). Also, the final chapter about 'conscious realism', where he tries to define what a 'conscious agent' might in general be and concludes that the external reality might only be other conscious agents, might be an interesting speculation but leads to a confusion between it and the interface theoty (to his credit, however, he is clear that the two theories are separate).
Finally, regarding the theorem, well, I think that he uses a weird definition of 'reality'. So, I think that it is a good book, has interesting and provocative ideas, but also I get the frustration and in some cases, his 'wilder' speculations, so to speak, might obscure his more 'reasonable', 'down to earth' ideas.

Thanks for the link, I'll read it.

If suffering is endless then we cannot reach the state of absolute peace but we can reach the state of relative peace. — MoK

Ok. But if this peace is 'relative', as you say, what guarantee we have that we do not lose it?
Also, is this scenario desirable because suffering is less than pleasure in this 'relative peace'?

Well, it depends if experience is necessary for any sort of dynamic progress. If progress can be achieved without experience then there would be no suffering otherwise there would be. Change to me however is not possible without experience. The argument for this is very long and technical. If you buy this argument for the sake of discussion then it follows that suffering is involved in any sort of dynamic progress. — MoK

All I see here is an assertion that change always entails 'suffering'. For instance, the reason why I believe that transience entails suffering in this world is that there isn't an unbroken continuum of pleasurable/positive experiences. Sooner or later, the 'continuum' of positive experiences will have an end, due to illnesses, other kinds of suffering, and death. On the other hand, if there were only positive experiences and the succession of these experiences would continue forever, I would say that there would be no suffering in this case. This is to say that I don't think that logically change necessary entails suffering.

Yes. I'm aware that Spinoza's 17th century worldview predated both 19th century Darwinian Evolution, and 20th century Big Bang theory. So I have updated my own worldview to include those challenges to the standstill world of Spinoza-God. — Gnomon

Well, that's not Spinozism anymore IMO, lol. But of course, you still have a right to call your philosophy a modification of Spinoza's (there are after all analogies) or even say that it is 'Spinozist'.

Perhaps God's omniscient view of the world is like Einstein's Block Time*1, in which all possibilities exist concurrently, yet unchanging. — Gnomon

Well, the problem of 'omniscence' is, indeed, a difficult one. If God (whatever S/He or It is) already knows everything, how we can avoid an 'block time' and also the conclusion that free will is a mere illusion? It's indeed a quite difficult question.

But humans, observing only from inside the world system (limited perspective), can only see one snapshot at a time, then merge those stills into an ever-changing illusory movie. For all practical purposes, I assume the "persistent" illusion of ever-changing Time is true. — Gnomon

Einstein maintained that the distinction between past, present and the future is an illusion, albeit a persistent one, but nevertheless considered the 'now' as the main problem of physics. If the passage of time is illusory, why we do have such a 'persistent illusion'? Our immediate experience is a strong argument against the block time, after all.

Again, this is a matter of perspective. From God's perch outside the physical universe, all things, including humans, are totally dependent on the Source, the Potential, the Omnipotent. But, from a human perspective inside our little world bubble, rational creatures have developed some independence from Absolute Determinism. We "little gods" are indeed dependent relative to God/Omniverse, but independent relative to our local environment, as indicated in image *3. That doesn't make us Autonomous substances, but Relative instances. We are Free only relative to other creatures. :wink: — Gnomon

So, you seem to agree that free will is an illusion, after all. And also the cosmic evolution is merely pespectival and ultimately illusory. If so, your philosophy is closer to Spinoza's than I thought before.
I thought that you asserted that the cosmic evolution is 'real', not illusory. Apparently, I misinterpreted.

The whole point is why would a perfect god create this kind of game of hide-and-seek of his "blessedness" and "good and evil"? It doesn't matter if the game ends in eternal damnation/bliss, or temporary purification/purgation, or whatnot. The idea of eternal damnation or temporary (the rules of the game) don't matter here, just that THERE IS A GAME. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand why you continue to use the 'game' analogy. It is more like a training or a learning process in my opinion.
The reason why I brought Christian Universalism here (a view that lately I feel drawn to BTW), is that ultimately in that view the end result is positive*.

But anyway, for your first question... well, I don't know. Maybe a 'loving, perfect God' creates because it is an expression of its nature (this doesn't imply that God is ontologically dependent on created things but creating is an expression of God's nature...). If this is the case, then, creation doesn't come from a 'need' or a 'lack' in God but it is simply an expression of the nature of God.
But also you might ask, why such a God created a world structured like ours and not another. Well, I don't know how to answer that, to be honest. Did God create other worlds, different from ours? Well, I don't know and I don't know how a universalist might respond to that (same as before).

(*also, I don't think that an universalist must say that all suffering has a 'purpose'. In my previous post, I was speaking about the concept of 'punishment' in this kind of view)

But this is quite evasive of the question I am asking and putting on the human. Why would God give a shit to have creations that need to go on a journey? He's perfect right? He has needs to see this VERY HUMAN STYLE game play out? This isn't very lofty. Kinda what a human would make up if playing a game of "do good" variety. And GUESS WHO IS THE CENTER OF ATTENTION IN THE GAME- HUMANS!! OF course! We truly are images of God, who is a reflection of us, that is. — schopenhauer1

Well, if oneaccepts a Personal God with Whom a person can have a relation, I would say that, yes, persons have a special relation with God - it seems obvious to me. BTW, the 'journey' is not something God needs but something that people/human need (see above).

Of course, if one doesn't accept the existence of a Personal God... but, even if this is the case, I think that religions with a personal God have a lot to teach about human beings as persons, how they relate etc.

The only way to get around this is to define God as everything that ever exists in every possible mode that can ever happen. It is akin to the Many Worlds hypothesis in physics. We are playing out one mode of existence out of an infinite array. — schopenhauer1

This is more or less the Spinozist solution (although, I would say that if the MWI were corrrect, it would describe an infinite mode of the Substance/God). Everything that can exist, does exist necessarily and it is a mode of God. 'We' are also modes, not really 'created things'.
Interestingly, in MWI the only thing that really exist is the 'universal wavefunction'. We, our particular world are convenient abstractions. That's why calling MWI a theory of 'parallel universes' is incorrect, BTW. At the same time, even if MWI were true, it would hardly describe 'everything'.

But as an analogy for pantheism/acosmism where the Deity is an impersonal 'source', I think that MWI is apt (of course, all analogies are limited etc).

I think that, if one adopts the view of an 'impersonal God', yeah I would think that this is a good way to get around.