But the relativity of simultaneity isn't just about one person seeing something before another person; it's about that thing actually happening for one person before another person. That's what I find peculiar. — Michael

Before and after are relative to the frame of reference. So if the two persons are of the same frame of reference, then the event will not happen for one person before the other person. And, if they are of different frames of reference it makes no sense to talk about it "happening for one person before another person" because before and after are frame dependent. That is why it is sometimes necessary to use a "world line", or "proper time", to make sense of such an idea.

I don't see how this psychology has provided any evidence to support your claim.

I believe that the facts are quite obvious. There are two primary factors involved in male arousal, imagination and sensation. Imagination is the primary, yet sensation plays a role which is also very natural. Any sense may be involved, including the visual sense of sight. Clothing serves as a filter between the sensing subject and the body being sensed. It is very effective to the sense of touch, but also quite effective to the sense of sight. As a filter it affects the way that the sensation influences the primary cause of arousal, the imagination. So clothing can have either a positive affect on the imagination which causes arousal, if perceived as provocative, or it can have a negative affect if perceived as plain covering. Since it is a filter between the person sensing and the body being sensed it cannot have a zero effect.

It seems to me like you are not properly apprehending the ground, or base. The grounding point is that sensing another body provides the potential for sexual arousal. We can do things to that body, like put clothes on it, to either raise or lower the level of potential, but we cannot remove that potential in any absolute way. It appears to me like you want to start from the assumption that there is no such basic potential for arousal involved with sensing another body. You want to say that the potential for arousal is a product of the taboo. But this is an unnatural starting point, and simply false because sensation has a real and natural influence over the imagination.

The reason i find it bizarre is because it is quite clear to me that nakedness becomes sexualised by being made taboo, not the other way round. — unenlightened

I don't think so, I've seen other animals get erections. Notice how the "de-sexualizing" described in your referred article requires effort, so it is not what is natural. Maybe the embarrassment, shame, discomfort, and fear, come from the taboo aspect, but not the sexuality. Still there is a certain natural discomfort associated with an erection, which inclines the male toward further action, and this natural feature cannot be neglected either.

about five to twenty minutes has elapsed — jgill

I'm glad you're not on my appointment list.

I wasn't disagreeing with that necessarily, but I was just remarking that part of the reason they don't let women squeeze into the men's showers along side men isn't just because the women might fear assualt, but it might also be that the heterosexuals would find that too arousing. — Hanover

You're saying that the reason we have separate changing rooms is because men are frightened they might get aroused? Really? Bizarre. — unenlightened

I'm with Hanover on this one, even though unenlightened finds it bizarre. However, I think it's more of a young man's, or even boyish, problem, and the separation is imposed to help those boys develop in a healthy way. Being aroused in a public place, like having a bulge in your pants, would produce serious embarrassment for many boys, (exceptions like Robert Plant), quite conducive to fear. In my old age, I would never have such a fear, but still great discomfort as Hanover describes. Part of that discomfort might be a holdover from the days of that boyish fear.

Being “friendly” to people we have just met is a marker strategy for being a good cooperator. — Mark S

That's a very unreliable principle. If I meet someone on the street who is unusually friendly toward me, I am very wary that the person is trying to take advantage of me in some way or another, because that is how the con works.

What evidence do you have that your perspective on cooperation that does not include being friendly is useful? — Mark S

It's very useful to distinguish differences between concepts, in analysis, to better understand those concepts, and to apply deductive logic. Cooperation involves working together toward a goal, and you may say that being friendly is a necessary condition for cooperation. I would not argue against that.

However, being friendly is not the same thing as cooperating. Being friendly is the wider concept, so cooperation is not necessary for being friendly. This means that being friendly is logically prior to cooperation, as a necessary requirement for cooperation, but being friendly does not necessarily result in cooperation.

As an analogy, consider that being human is necessary for being a women, just like being friendly is necessary for cooperating. But being human doesn't mean that you are a woman, just like being friendly doesn't mean that you are cooperating. This implies that people with very different goals or ends, may be friendly to each other, but because their goals are quite distinct, we cannot say that they are cooperating. This is the principle which allows that competitors, who are obviously not cooperating because they have opposing goals, can still be friendly to each other.

So it is not the case that my perspective on cooperating doesn't include being friendly, it's just that being friendly does not necessarily mean cooperating. And I think that this perspective is useful to help us understand what it means to cooperate, and what it means to be friendly. Further, it allows us to properly relate these concepts to competition, which is where we came from in this discussion.

And seriously, do you think that the Golden Rule is either not a cooperation strategy or does not advocate being friendly to other people? — Mark S

I explained already why the Golden Rule is very clearly not a cooperation strategy. Cooperation requires a common end. The Golden Rule as commonly stated has no implications of any end. You simply misinterpret it to claim that it states that one should treat others in a particular way, with the end, or goal of getting treated that way back. And I already explained why that particular goal, which is inserted by you in your interpretation, is clearly not a part of the Golden Rule.

Furthermore, because the Golden Rule stipulates that we ought to behave in this friendly way, irrespective of what our goals are, it encourages you to act this way toward people regardless of whether the person is cooperating with you or competing with you.

Being nice to each other” is cooperation. — Mark S

It seems we have two very distinct ideas of what constitutes cooperation. I know of no other definition of cooperation other than to work together. And so it follows that people can be friendly toward each other without necessarily cooperating.

I describe the same phenomena of moral behavior but point out these unselfish behaviors exist because they provide net benefits. — Mark S

You are proposing an unjustified cause/effect relationship which is inconsistent with my interpretation of the golden rule. You are saying that the benefits of working together, cooperating, cause people to be friendly and unselfish. However, I am saying that the golden rule says that we ought to be friendly and unselfish without any view toward benefits. Therefore according to the golden rule, benefits cannot be perceived as the motivating force, or cause of people being unselfish and friendly.

This is why your description is not objective. It contains a cause/effect assumption which you have not justified, and this assumed cause/effect relation is inconsistent with the moral principle we know as the golden rule. Therefore this proposed description is not a sound observation.

When societies fail and the rewards for acting morally in the larger society stop and become losses, I assure you that people will stop acting morally in the larger society because they no longer benefit from those moral acts. — Mark S

This is pure conjecture, so it does not adequately justify your unsound observation.

This version explicitly calls out why we should follow the Golden Rule. I am a bit dubious about the translation since the translator made it rhyme, but I expect he got it mostly right. Several sources suggest this implied understanding of morality as cooperation strategies was a common view at the time. We just got confused about morality for a few thousand years. — Mark S

It's good to be dubious about the translation, because I think this material was written in hieroglyphics so the translation of verb tenses and causal relations would be rather subjective.

To support your position I think you would be better off to look at something like "Karma". This concept expresses a clear causal relation. The way you behave will have consequences toward what happens to you in the future.

The problem though, is that this still does not support the causal relation which you assume. You are claiming that actual benefits which have occurred in the past, benefits which have actually materialized, are the cause of unselfish behaviour now. But Karma works with a temporal relation which is inverted to this, by asserting that unselfish behaviour now will cause benefits in the future.

So you haven't presented the means for your inversion. You say "unselfish behaviors exist because they provide net benefits", implying that benefits have caused the existence of unselfish behaviour. However, Karma says that unselfish behaviour will cause benefits. You propose an inverted form of Karma which you have not justified.

Several sources suggest this implied understanding of morality as cooperation strategies was a common view at the time. We just got confused about morality for a few thousand years. — Mark S

Since you have a backward, inverted perspective on morality, you think that human beings are digressing instead of progressing in their morality. You think that the Christian Golden Rule which states that we ought to do good without any expectation of benefit or return, is a case of being "confused about morality" in relation to Karma, which encourages us to do good at the expectation of return. Then you yourself digress even further from the true nature of morality, to suggest that the benefits, or return, are what actually cause us to do good.

The fact is that everyone is always “looking for bad behavior from someone else”. But this vigilance (innate to our moral sense) is not primarily “an excuse to do something bad”, but a reason to do something good – punish the moral norm’s violator. Punishment of moral norms violators is necessary to sustain the related cooperation strategy.

One punishment for moral norm violators is a refusal to cooperate with them in the future. In dysfunctional societies, this can lead to refusal to cooperate with (to act morally toward) anyone who is not a member of your most reliable ingroup – usually your family. — Mark S

This is the type of confusion which results from your backward way of looking at morality. You portray inflicting "punishment" as doing good. But the inclination to punish is nothing but vengefulness, which is not good at all, and inconsistent with Christian principles of confession and forgiveness. But of course you look at Christian morality as a step backward, so it makes sense that you would look at punishment as a good.

Competition is not the opposite of cooperation. The opposite of cooperation is creating cooperation problems rather than solving them.

Cooperation to limit the harm of competition and increase its benefits is what makes our societies work as well as they do. We can cooperate or compete to achieve the same goals. They are not opposites, but alternates. The difference is that people who agree to compete are agreeing to the potential for harm (limited harm if the competition is to be moral). — Mark S

Well, I think that if you are not prepared to inquire into the true nature of competition, and simply represent it as a form of cooperation, this discussion has no place on this thread. The whole point of me bringing this up was to expose the reality of competition, and how it relates to the subject of the op, "what is a 'woman'".

When we "agree to compete", we have an artificial form of competition. The ensuing engagement will be restricted and greatly limited by rules and regulations. If we want to understand the real nature of competition we need to look at it independently from such artificial restrictions.

What I said already, is that equality norms, and fairness norms, are produced as required for such artificial restrictions to competition. To understand competition in its natural form we need to see it as based in inequality. Inequality is what is essential to, and what enables, or capacitates, the real and natural existence of competition.

I think Hume provides us with a very good approach to this problem with his discussion of induction and causation. We create inductive rules through empirical observation of what has happened in the past. And from this we can, and do, produce very effective predictions concerning the future. However, we have no empirically derived principle which tells us that things in the future must necessarily be the same as they have been in the past.

So the prediction must always be expressed in terms of probability rather than the necessity which we desire of logic. This means that empirical observation along with inductive reasoning cannot provide us with an understanding of causation, and prediction in general. There is a feature of the universe which allows that empirical observation, with inductive reasoning, can provide us with very good predictions, but empirical observations with inductive reasoning cannot provide us with an understanding of this feature. That is because this mode of prediction which employs empirical observation along with inductive reasoning, to make accurate predictions, takes this feature of the universe for granted.

By taking this feature for granted, as a sort of foundational premise, the logical system built on top of this premise has no capacity to understand the meaning of that premise, it just employs it. The premise employed, or feature of the universe represented, can be portrayed as a temporal continuity. This is the same temporal continuity which is taken for granted by Newton's first law. When these "laws" which are in themselves actually derived from inductive reasoning, are taken for granted as a premise for a logic system (an axiom), the logical system cannot be turned back on itself to question, inquire, or analyze the premise in a skeptical way, because the premise must be taken for granted in order for the system to be applied. So to analyze the fundamental premise (axiom), in order to understand it, we must use principles from outside that system, therefore an independent system.

Now when we get to the very bottom of empirical observation, and the inductive reasoning which deals with it, and we want to understand these features, and how they work in our universe, we must employ principles which are not empirically derived. Therefore our logic must transcend empirical observation, or else we could not ever understand the relationship between past and future.

I will argue the contrary, that fairness and equality moral norms are norms for solving cooperation problems. — Mark S

You don't seem to be grasping the incompatibility between "cooperation" and "competition". We cooperate, help each other, as the means to an end. So cooperation requires an agreeable end, such that people will work together to achieve that goal. Without the agreeable goal, people can be nice to each other, and behave respectfully, but this cannot be called "cooperation", because they are simply being respectful of each other without cooperating (working together). On the other hand, competition between you and I means that we are both striving for the same goal, but the goal can only be achieved by one of us, exclusively. This rules out the possibility of cooperation.

Now, when people cooperate there is no need for any fairness or equality norms. If we are cooperating, like a man and a women raising a family for example, we are each contributing what we can, toward the common goal, and whether we do this in a fair and equal way is completely irrelevant. Since we each contribute something completely different, toward the common goal, how could one even begin to judge whether the contributions were fair or equal? Fairness and equality are concepts which cannot even be properly applied to cooperation, which is derived from the will to help out.

Therefore fairness and equality norms cannot solve cooperation problems. Cooperation problems are the result of a lack of a common goal, or a failure of agreement on the goal, which kills the will to cooperate. No amount of fairness or equality rules can restore the will to cooperate, only the initiation of an agreeable end, and the will to help obtain it can.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you” and “Do not steal or kill” are all moral norms which are heuristics (usually reliable but fallible, rules of thumb) that initiate indirect reciprocity. (An example of indirect reciprocity is you help someone else in your group with the expectation that someone in the group will help you when you need help, and that the group will punish people who refuse to help others.)

Following the Golden Rule, you would treat others fairly because you would like to be treated fairly. — Mark S

I think you are misrepresenting the golden rule here. When it says "as you would have them do to you", this is spoken as an example of how you should treat others. In no way does the golden rule imply that you expect an equal, or fair return on the goodness which you give. This is the meaning of Christian/Platonic love, to do good without the expectation of reciprocation. Therefore it is a significant misunderstanding, to represent the golden rule as principle of equality in this way, that one only ought to do good in expectation of reciprocation.

If the moral will of human beings, to do good, is dependent on having others do good, then everyone would be looking for bad behaviour from someone else, as an excuse to do something bad, and all of humanity would slip into evil at a very rapid rate, as one bad deed would incite many more.

Equality norms are equal rights norms, not norms that would incoherently somehow claim equal capability. Equal rights norms are reciprocity norms that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma. — Mark S

That you can point to a "cooperation/exploitation" dilemma ought to be an indication to you, that this is the manifestation of the cooperation/competition incompatibility. Money is one of those goals which we compete for. If there is a fixed amount of money on the table, and everyone in the room wants as much of it as they can get, then there is an inclination to compete rather than cooperate. Therefore equal rights norms solve the "cooperation/exploitation" by addressing exploitation as a competition induced problem. They do not address cooperation at all, they address a breakdown in cooperation which has emerged from competitive urges. The competitive urges are the manifestation of goals which are personal, and cannot be shared with others. Cooperation, as explained above requires a shared goal. If my goal cannot be shared with you, then there is no cooperation, and my desire to be competitive will lead me to exploit.

Consider two groups. Each cooperatively makes and tries to sell widgets to the same outsiders. As part of this competition, one group figures out how to make better widgets cheaper than their competitor’s widget. The group that makes the worse, more expensive widget loses all their investments and are now unemployed. The losing competitor has been harmed.

Has the winning group necessarily acted immorally in causing that harm? No, so long as they acted fairly in the competition and limited the harm they did to the generally agreed on limits to that harm. — Mark S

Remember Mark S, I did not say that competition is inherently bad. I only said that it is inconsistent with cooperation. That's why I said that cooperation does not suffice as a first moral principle, because it cannot account for the good of competition. And I further explained this above, cooperation requires an agreeable end. So the agreeable end is logically prior to cooperation.

In your example here, you show competition between the two groups, and the competition results in a better, cheaper product, which we can say is good. But you do not show any cooperation between these two groups, which brings about this good. And, since it wasn't cooperation, but competition which brought about this good, there was a bad side-effect, the one group lost their jobs. This sort of bad side-effect seems to be a feature of life in general.

The following books explain fairness as the keystone of morality: — Mark S

If fairness is the keystone of morality, then cooperation is not, that's plain and simple. This is because cooperation is based on having a common goal, as explained above, and fairness is not at all required for cooperation.

I remember reading somewhere that the novelty of competetive sports evolved as a nonlethal alternative to lethal combat. — Merkwurdichliebe

It could be that these sports developed as training exercises for soldiers. But this brings up another issue, historically only men wage war. So we might consider whether only men are inclined toward such battles, as a product of hormones etc., or whether women were excluded due to a lack of strength or some other reason. I think it would be some other reason, like they were being protected as valuable. The possibilities are endless, but if the former scenario is the case, then we might consider that the competitive attitude which leads to war and such sports, is itself a masculine trait.

So, given all this conjecture, if men originally endeavored in competetive sports for honor and pussy, can we contrast it with the original reason women began to endeavor in competetive sports? I can't think of a reason women first endeavored in competetive sports. My instinct tells me it was imposed on them by the patriarchy - to demonstrate woman's inherent subordination to men by manipulating them into immitating man's activity. I could be wrong. — Merkwurdichliebe

According to the speculations above, it would be the case, that women simply do not have the same competitive attitude which men do. If we can blame their inequality in sports on a lack of testosterone, and perhaps other innate physiology, then we ought to look at how these factors might affect their overall mental attitude as well.

And here we have an issue. If morality is associated with cooperation, as described earlier, and this competitive attitude is opposed to cooperation, then men are inherently lacking in morality. But again, it might be a mistake to associate cooperation with morality, at the exclusion of competition. Classically, morality is associated with the good, and the good is what is desired, as the end. War, and competition in general, are the manifestations of conflict in what is desired, ('I win vs you win'). So reconfiguring morality to exclude this intention, the good, might not be the proper thing to do.

However, I've laid out the parameters for a distinction between the kind of thing which men desire (the good for men) and the kind of thing which women desire (the good for women). If it is possible to make such a categorization, it might shed light on the question of whether men are truly more competitive than women.

The rules and ideas about fairness we establish regarding competition are cooperation norms. — Mark S

I don't think this is correct. "Fairness" based rules for competition are derived from equality norms, rather than cooperation norms. And equality norms are fundamentally different from cooperation norms because there is no requirement for the intent to cooperate for there to be a desire for equality. That is to say, that when people compete, and there are rules established to ensure fairness of competition, that is the only required end, fair competition. And fairness is based in equality. There is no requirement that the people also cooperate, they simply desire equal rights.

I think perhaps you are under the impression that competing while following rules is a form of cooperation. But that is an illusion, the people are really competing against each other. That they agree to follow rules is a form of cooperation, but this type of cooperation is a restriction on what they are doing, so it is directed toward some other end, not toward the competition itself. The competition remains the primary end, and the agreement is simply to hold up some other end, that of fairness or equality.

So I think we need to separate equality based principles (therefore "fairness") from cooperation based principles, and see them as being derived from distinct ends, i.e., the means to different ends. The end for competition is a "win" which belongs to the winner only, the end for cooperation is something which is shared. Cooperation allows people with distinct differences, performing distinct activities, to work together toward the same end. "Equality" intends to make distinctly different people equal, in some sense the same. This makes "equality" an ideal which is fundamentally flawed, as oxymoronic, attempting to apprehend different things as the same.

Since the ideal itself is fundamentally flawed, problems will follow from its applications in practise. The problems become very evident in competitive sports. Rules of fairness are intended to ensure that all competitors start on an equal footing. Of course the competitors themselves are not "equal" in any absolute way, or else there'd be no competition. There would be a draw every time because everybody would have equal skills.. So the basic rules of fairness are actually intended to emphasize inequalities which are internal to the competitors by reducing external differences. This is done to encourage a "fair win".

Now the problem is that "equality" as an ideal, must have its limits. We define the boundaries, human equality means that all humans are equal, despite differences, and the boundary is at the limit to the species. In competitive sports we are inclined to put a boundary within the species, such that men and women are not equal. We justify this by saying it is required to make the games fair, and have a fair winner. However, we must respect the fact, that games are artificial, creations of human beings. And this sort of game produces a boundary or division between men and women in relation to equality.

So we need to ask the question of why would men create games to be played by men, for the purpose of displaying their manliness. Or is it the case that women created these sports so that men could show off their abilities, and the women could use this to judge them. Understanding the intent behind this type of sports is crucial to understanding this proposed inequality between men and women. Consider, that if men created these sports for the purpose of demonstrating to women that they cannot compete with men, and that they are therefore unequal to men, then this is nothing more than systematic sexism. Furthermore, if this is the case, then the men would not even actually be competing, they'd be cooperating in this system, by participating in these sports. Then, that this is competition is really what is an illusion, because the design of the game is not based in competition, it is based in the difference between men and women. So the players would be nothing but actors in a sexist form of entertainment.

I think your post is a good summary of the issue. I'm not someone who cares much about sports, but I do care about fairness. From what I've read, biological males who compete as women in mixed martial arts consistently beat the crap out of biological females, sometimes causing serious injury. That's not fair. — T Clark

How do you define "fair" in a competitive sport? Is it a matter of following the rules? How do we know if the rules are "fair"? Consider @Mark S 's thread on the science of morality. There, morality is defined by cooperation. But competition is directly opposed to cooperation. So we have a big problem right off the bat. Competitive sport is fundamentally immoral according to the science of morality. How do you propose that we can make "fairness" a principle in any competitive sport, which by its very nature is immoral. Fairness would have no real bearing in an immoral activity.

Of course, the solution here is to realize the benefits of competition in general, and to see that morality is not restricted to cooperation, because this would exclude the the good of competition. So when we proceed to look at competition as a good, we need to put that into context, what is it good for. If it was only good for entertainment, this would provide the guidelines needed. However, competition is good in many ways, primarily in the sense that it builds strength in character. And, we see it in the market place, in the office, and in many other places where it often is good. Therefore I ask you, if it is morally correct, for men and women to compete against each other for the same career positions, how could it be moral incorrect (unfair) for men and women to compete against each other in competitive sports?

[Edit] Should have included issues with sports teams. — T Clark

Sports, in general are very problematic. This is probably because sport is an entertainment based industry, and activity. And the inclination to entertain may lead the mind of the actor in many strange directions. Some of these directions are demonstrably unhealthy and that's why censorship is a real feature of the entertainment industry.

The boundary between healthy and unhealthy is ill defined, and we still allow people to make unhealthy choices until it becomes a burden on the welfare system, or has a noticeably bad effect on others, as the freedom to smoke cigarettes demonstrates. When the unhealthy choice affects others, second hand smoke, not wearing a mask in a pandemic, etc., restrictions are enforced. In the entertainment industry such restrictions occur as censorship.

Sports are generally viewed as healthy entertainment, censorship not required. But, there is another feature of sports which complicates the issue, competition. This produces another requirement for restrictions, the need to create fairness in competition. Now sports has two incompatible principles for restrictions, the requirement of healthiness, and the requirement of fair competition. This is because natural healthiness is not conducive to fair competition, and this is at the base of evolutionary theory. So sport is a very complex psychology and not something one can just wade into.

Interesting notion : time (change) without a material substrate to evolve. How would you describe "non-empirical passage of time"? "Eternity" is usually defined as changeless by philosophers. But for religious purposes, Heavenly Eternity has been described as changeable, but never-ending. How would you define "non-empirical" (non-experiential)Time? — Gnomon

Time is other than change, for a number of reasons. First, change is more specific, particular, it is something becoming different than it was. Time on the other hand is more universal. The very same period of time applies to a vast multitude of different changes. In this way time has become a means for comparing changes. This makes time completely different from change, as something which all changes have in common.

Basically, change is the physical difference that we notice. We do not notice the passing of time, only the physical difference, then we conclude logically that time must have passed. This is because we posit the passing of time as what is required for change. We do this, because we see that all changes have this in common, the passing of time. So whenever we notice that change has occurred, we know that it is necessary that time has passed. But this cannot be reversed. Time can pass with no noticeable physical change. This is evident at time periods shorter than Planck time. A short length of time must pass before change can be noticed. Therefore time is logically prior to physical change. For comparison, "animal" is logically prior to "human being", as something which all human beings have in common, just like all physical change has "time" in common. But we cannot reverse this to say that all time has physical change, just like we cannot say that all animals are human.

I don't see how the timing of when I walk out makes any difference at all. The end comes soon... but not yet.

I'll just demonstrate this time. I'll stop the narrative, and the real self with its real identity will live on. The only problem is that since you only know my identity through the narrative, you'll never know. So the demonstration is bound to be useless.

Of course it does! All this is only a story! there's nothing real about it. But when you tell me about the real me and how it escapes - that's just a story too. So have you escaped the narrative, or are you still in a different narrative? — unenlightened

So we just went around in a circle. After making that big circle, do you see now why the narrative of the self cannot comprise the identity of the self? If the self knows that there is nothing real about the narrative, it's just a story, then it must also know that it cannot identify itself with that narrative which is just a story.

Sure, what I say is just a story as well, but it is a story with a lesson to be learned. If you see the self as distinct from the narrative, as you clearly do, then you must also see that you cannot use the narrative to identify yourself, because that which is in the narrative is not you and therefore cannot provide you with your identity. Nor can you find your identity in the narrative in any way, because that is not you in the narrative, it's just a story, so it cannot be your identity.

The fact that The Agent (that's what I'll call it for you) cannot be known empirical, does not prevent us from knowing it. That's what's described by Aquinas, as knowing the cause by its effect. This type of knowledge is much more difficult than direct empirical knowledge and subject to a higher degree of fallibility because it relies on empirical knowledge for premises, then goes further through deductive logic. So whereas empirical knowledge may be simple, this knowledge, of the non-empirical,
(what is prior to the empirical as cause of it), requires complex empirical knowledge to proceed logically. Therefore there is more opportunity for error. The common occurrence of this type of knowledge, is the knowledge we get of a person's thoughts, from the person's words, and knowledge of one's intentions, from the person's actions. You can see how this type of knowledge is much more complex than direct empirical knowledge, and has a higher degree of uncertainty.

However, such knowledge need not be "uneducated". We need to proceed only from very strong premises. Here is a starting point. All change, activity in the empirical world requires the passing of time. If no time passed there would be no change. Further analysis of the nature of time, passing from future to past, at the present, and the empirical fact that activity, or change only occurs at the present, reveals that the passing of time is the cause of change, or activity. So we can associate The Agent with the passing of time. To understand the passing of time as non-empirical, yet having an empirical effect (change and activity), is a first step toward understanding how non-empirical causes may have empirical effects.

OK. Who or What is the bottom-line Agent/Agency? : Matter, Energy, Evolution, God, First Cause, "Idiosyncratic Causality", John Barrymore, Other? — Gnomon

That's the issue, we do not properly know the source of this form of agency. But evidence indicates that we ought to accept it as real. So to portray it as nonexistent just because systems theory doesn't provide the means for modeling it, is a mistake.

Well you have a problem because you are looking for a 'true' or a 'proper' identity. I don't have that problem, because for me, identities are marks on a map, or labels, not facts about the world.Identity is all talk. — unenlightened

We've just circled around now, back to where we were. What I said at the beginning is that I think identity is more than just the narrative. That is because I think that if we take away the narrative there is still a self remaining, the self which looks toward the future. The narrative is associated with the self which looks toward the past. And if there is still a self, when the narrative is removed, i.e. the self which looks only toward the future, that self must have some sort of identity itself.

Now in a general way, we believe labels and maps and talk. Ready meals have ingredients lists, but occasionally one finds a 'foreign body' in the pie. The label does not know. Sometimes the label knows that it does not know - 'may contain nuts'. Sometimes the label has official permission to be economical with the truth - peanut butter may contain a percentage of ground insects but doesn't tell you. Sometimes completely the wrong label gets put on by design or accident. But whatever it says, don't eat the label, and have a look and a sniff at the contents too. — unenlightened

When I look to the future, I see that it is filled with 'things' which cannot be labeled, because they are unknown. We can label them in a general sense, as undetermined, unknown, possibilities, etc., but we cannot label them in particular because the particulars are unknown completely. And we can identify specific possibilities, and even bring them into the narrative, assigning "probability" to them, through some form of statistical analysis, or even apply a stronger form of logic supported by inductive premises and principles of continuity, to make very accurate predictions concerning these possibilities. Nevertheless, these accurate predictions apply only to a very small part of the overall "future", and therefore do very little to calm my anxiety concerning the vast undetermined, unknown possibilities of the future.

I've come to the realization that the narrative cannot tell me why I have such an uneasy attitude toward the future because my anxiety is associated with a part of reality which escapes the narrative, the future. And now I see that the narrative is actually very limited in its scope and capability for predicting the future, compared to the realm of real possibility for the future. This makes me even more uneasy. Furthermore, you describe my identity and consequently my "self" as being limited to that narrative, and this seems to be the norm in our society. Therefore, I must apprehend a vast part of my own personal self as escaping my identity, that part of me which is anxious about the future. This adds a whole new level of uneasiness to my preexisting anxiety concerning the unknowns of the future, by telling me that this part of me, my anxiety toward the future, cannot be comprehended as a part of my identity.

It simply is the case that people label each other all the time; even here on TPF, some people think I'm a very stable genius, whereas I think I'm absolutely innocent. Even the Deep Mods cannot agree, which is why I'm still here. Or is this all fake news? Will the real Slim unenlightened please stand up?

As my previous thread seemed to arrive at, the story (label, map) of the powerful is the one that tends to be imposed on everyone as dogma. If Hitler says you are Jewish scum, it doesn't matter what you or your granny think, or what the truth of matter is, off to the extermination camp you go. — unenlightened

I'm very tempted to tell you to fuck off and die. Are you trying to increase may anxiety, you fucking bastard? Are you saying that there are some elites who actually exercise control over my future, through the use of dogma? Are you saying that though my future is unknown to me, because my narrative cannot give it to me, these elites have a secret narrative which actually lets them control my future? And are you insinuating that these elites have a tendency to act like pricks?

Relax, I am. As you can see, I do not buy that bullshit. I do not limit my self and my identity to "the narrative". The real me escapes the narrative.

So I have been sent here to destroy you
And there's a million of us just like me
Who cuss like me; who just don't give a fuck like me
Who dress like me; walk, talk and act like me
It just might be the next best thing but not quite me! — Eminem

This is much more interesting to me, because it is a conflict that people, especially teenagers go through, and some have more trouble than others. If my brother likes blue, I have to like red, just to differentiate myself. If my parents like jazz, I have to like punk, but at the same time as I seek uniqueness, I seek fellowship, and we are family, or class or nation, or whatever. — unenlightened

I would say that while we seek uniqueness we rely on sameness, as sameness is what we tend to take for granted. And maybe its because of the overwhelming commonness of this commonality which is so basic and taken for granted, that we seek uniqueness. If that makes any sense. Though one's DNA is said to be unique, it is over than 99 per cent the same.

Physically, there is no problem, because one has unique DNA, unique fingerprints, and a unique history, but also we are all one species. But it is in our constructed relationship with ourself and with others that difficulties arise - in the idea I have of me, and the idea I have of you, and the idea I have of the idea you have of me, and the idea I have of the idea you have of yourself, and vice versa, and how we both perform and communicate and negotiate these ideas. And notice that all these ideas include value judgements - that unenlightened - too clever for his boots, but at least he's not as confused as [censored]. — unenlightened

This is where I see the basic problem with associating identity with an act of identifying. I will identify you in a way which is other than the way that you identify yourself. By what principle do you say that self-identifying is what gives you identity rather than someone else identifying you? It wouldn't be right to say that they're both your proper identity, because then you'd have as many identities as there are people who know you. And it might seem correct that you know yourself better than anyone else knows you, but doesn't "identity" refer fundamentally to how others know you?

So, you propose a distinction, personal identity versus social identity. And, since your subject is "self", it is personal identity you wish to deal with. Here's the difference I think, social identity is your name, and what that name carries with it, while personal identity is your body. Or is it? You say that it is how you identify yourself, so this is attributed to your mind, and not necessarily related to your body. In reality, your body is attached to your name, so it is an aspect of your social identity.

I might therefore ask you, how do you think your body is related to your personal identity, your self? Surely you don't see yourself as a body, in the same way that others see your body, but how do you relate to your body? Do you feel like you have a body? Are you inside your body? Do you have control over your body? Is your body something which is there for you to use as a tool? Is it the source of pain? Is it the source of pleasure? What is pleasure and pain? Why do you even have a body? Do you need it? The questions are endless, from the perspective of personal identity, even though from the perspective of social identity, the body is just taken for granted.

The act is not special to us, it's what we are always doing in thought, such that it creates a centre of thought as the self that thinks. Everyone thinks they are somebody special, and also that they are one of the people. — unenlightened

So, when a self thinks "I am special", how is this thought grounded, or what is it based in? From the social identity perspective, you appear as a unique body, but really it's almost the same as everyone else. If we are almost the same, over 99 per cent of DNA being the same, then why does everyone think that they are different?

But property is also made flesh by identification - scratch my car and you have wounded my body. Thus it becomes clear that identity is everything - me in my world. — unenlightened

Why then, is flesh and body important to personal identity? I can see how it is important to social identity, but I do not see how it fits into personal identity. Is one's what rationalizes "I am special", by being a reflection of how others see us, as a unique body? We see the names of others as referring to unique bodies therefore we think of ourselves as unique bodies. Is the end of your story to give up on the importance of your body, quit thinking "I am special", and quit identifying with how others identify you for your own personal identification, as a unique body?

I'm interested in bottom-up agency.

So what is the cause that retards your progress as you try to push through the rush hour traffic constrained by the weight of other cars and all the stop lights? What do you say made you late for work? — apokrisis

This is an indication of your faulty way of looking at things. The activity involved is described as pushing through rush hour traffic. The cause of this is the intent to get to work. The end state is described as "late for work". The cause of being late for work is that the person did not find the most efficient way to get there, or did not leave early enough, or something like that. The things which retard your progress are obstacles. Assigning "cause" to the obstacles is simply an attempt to lay the blame for your own mistakes on something else.

How is it that science can measure entropic and viscous forces?

Why is agency just half the story of the world when the other is the frustration of agency that follows from the interaction of agents?

Even if we accept your idiosyncratic framing of causality as agency - an ontology of animism - the logic of systems still applies. — apokrisis

I fully agree with these remarks. Agency is only one part of the story. And, the logic of systems still applies, but it only applies to a different part. Since it takes agency for granted, it cannot be applied toward understanding that other part, agency. So it produces an incomplete understanding. The issue being as I explained already, there is no distinction between the internal boundary and the external boundary. Systems logic doesn't have that accommodation. The problem occurs if someone believes that the logic of systems can produce a complete understanding. This would be a misunderstanding of what systems logic can do.

Take Newton's first law for example. It takes the motion of bodies for granted. This law is extremely useful, and has very wide ranging applicability. However, since it takes motion for granted it cannot be applied toward understanding motion itself, or the cause of motion. Some people might argue that we can apply it toward understanding the cause of motion, because it stipulates that a force is required to alter a body's motion. But that's just a change to motion, and there is no indication as to what a "force" even is, other than just another motion.

Yes, i understand what you are saying, but I think you are conflating what one is and what one identifies oneself to be - being with idea of being, territory with map. one's idea of oneself can be realistic or unrealistic, but never real. — unenlightened

Well, if we assume this distinction, between "what one is and what one identifies oneself to be", we can see that there might be quite a difference. And the issue is that what one identifies oneself to be is often an incorrect representation of what one is. So if what one identifies oneself to be, is meant to be a true representation of what one is, then there can be no difference between the two, and one's true identity is found in what one is. If we allow that what one identifies oneself to be is one's identity, and this is meant to be a representation of what one is, then we allow for falsity within one's identity. And if we open that door, then one can falsely represent oneself, intentionally, and we'd have to say that this intentionally false identity is the person's identity, because it is how one identifies oneself.

It appears to me, that what you are requesting is that there be an act required, the act of identifying, as prerequisite to having an identity. I think that simply being is all that is required to have an identity, but you think that an act which identifies is required in order for a person to have an identity. You seem to think that a person's identity is created by this act of identifying.

We can make some sort of compromise, or compatibility between these two senses of "identity", by assuming that this act which creates a person's identity is the act which creates the person. Then the person's identity would be something like the first, second, or third (whatever) son, or daughter of such and such couple. But you can see how this would be incomplete. For completion we'd have to identify the parents, and the parents of the parents, etc.. This form of identity is important in some religions, and you can find this type of narrative in the Old Testament, so and so is son of so and so who is son of so and so, etc.. It's difficult if not impossible to trace this narrative to the end/beginning to complete the identity, so they posit something like Adam and Eve with the initial act, or even a "primordial soup" with the initial act being a bolt of lightening or something like that.

The problem with that sort of identity is that it gives us all the very same beginning, but "identity" is understood as what each of us has that is different from each other. So in spite of each of us having one's own distinct act which brings one into existence, giving oneself one's own identity in that way, when we try to complete that identity, it comes around to being a matter of something which makes us all the same.

What we are left with is two incompatible principles which are both equally essential to identity. These are the being of the person, what one is, and this is a principle of sameness for us all, and also the particular acts which makes each of us different, and this is the principle of difference.

The problem I have with your perspective, is where does the required act of identifying fit into this? Why do you think that having an "identity" which is what makes each of us different, yet also the same in some way, requires a special act called "identifying"? When we move to identify, don't we assume that the person being identified already has an identity, or else the act of identifying would prove fruitless? When we "identify" aren't we trying to determine something which is already there, rather than create something which could be completely imaginary and fictitious?

Step 1 to understanding apokrisis is to swap the idea of "causes" for the idea of "prevents". — Srap Tasmaner

OK, now to understand me, you need to recognize that "causes" cannot be adequately replaced with "prevents". This is because "causes" implies agency, an act whether its intentional or not, and the discussion of how specific acts are prevented, or allowed for, can never produce an understanding of the act itself. Therefore in ontology we ought not think that we can swap "causes" for "prevents", because the two have different meanings, and thinking that we can do this would be to misunderstand.

Certainly for evolution, this ought to be obvious: variation happens wherever and to whatever degree it can, and insofar as one variation gains predominance in the next generation, to that degree there is some new constraint -- and new options -- as we go around again. — Srap Tasmaner

This provides a good example. What you describe, is how a variation gains "predominance". But this descritpiton is inadequate for understanding the cause of variation in the first place. So if one were to claim that the theory of evolution provides us with the means to understand the cause of variation, this would be an unjustifiable claim, because it only provides an explanation for how a variation gains predominance. This leads many to claim that "chance", or "random" mutations are the cause of variation in the first place.

But you should understand that "chance" and "random" are not proper causal terms. These terms represent ideas which are produced when this mode of thinking reaches the end of its applicability. We could call this the boundary conditions to that system of thinking. That mode of thinking already assumes active variation, as a given, so anytime this system of thinking approaches that boundary condition there is the appearance of endless possibility and this gets interpreted as chance, or randomness. And this is because the cause of variation itself is on the other side of the boundary condition, being taken for granted, and therefore cannot be understood in this way. Then to think that this provides an understanding of the cause of variation would be to misunderstand.

The gist of it is that -- particularly considering the time-scales and populations involved -- whatever can happen, will. And "can" here is glossed as "not prevented by some (generally top-down) constraint", and keeping in mind how change gets locked in, at least to some degree and at least temporarily, so we're never talking about everything conceivable happening, but only what is a genuine possibility under current conditions.

In this sense, yes indeed, degrees of freedom construct. It's their job. — Srap Tasmaner

Do you agree now, that I've explained how this claim, your conclusion, "degrees of freedom construct" represents a misunderstanding. "Constructions" are artificial structures requiring intentional agents for design and production. To show how the intentional agent is restricted, or prevented in its constructive capacities, by current physical conditions, and non-physical ideas, and claim that this provides a representation of "the cause" of these constructions, is a gross misunderstanding. That is because it takes the intentional agent, which is the true "cause" of the constructions, for granted, and therefore provides absolutely no understanding of that agent. Then, since the intentional agent is on the other side of the boundary conditions for that system of understanding, it must have infinite degrees of freedom at its disposal, so its actions cannot be understood at all by that system, and therefore are represented as chance or random acts. But this is not consistent with how we understand intentional acts.

The problem here is that since the agent, as the active cause of activity is placed on the other side of the boundary conditions, it is rendered as impossible to understand by that system of thinking. Therefore, the agent in those constructions which the "degrees of freedom construct" might equally be an intentional agent, or a non-intentional agent, depending on how one moves to define the relative terms. So there is much ambiguity simply because the agent is outside the boundary conditions and therefore cannot be understood.

If we adhere to the principles of that system of thinking in a strict manner, the degrees of freedom must be represented as infinite at the boundary condition, and this is completely inconsistent with how we understand "intentional". Then we have the irresolvable problem of how a random act may "construct". The first act within the boundary, the act with the highest degree of freedom, yet not infinite freedom, is a "construct", showing the characteristics of intention. However, intention is not allowed to be outside the boundary, because that would require a type of constraint not provided for by the system of thinking. And so this system of thinking is demonstrably incapable of understanding intentional acts.

In comparison, the theistic way of thinking places intention as outside the boundary, with a transcendent intentional God. But this way of thinking implies that the constraint system of the other model is incomplete as there are necessarily bottom-up constraints (moral constraints) imposed by God.

As usual, you just don't listen to what I've said — apokrisis

Well, a one-liner about people recycling manure provides no indication that you understand the first thing about the difference between open and closed systems.

Life evolved metabolic power by learning to recycle its materials and thus learn to be able to live off just sunlight and water. — apokrisis

Do you agree with me then, that since life required both sunlight and water, biological systems are open in the sense of matter and energy. Therefore that distinction is irrelevant to this discussion, and to proceed in that direction is just a digression, diversion, or distraction.

Thats just what I mean by identity; that which comes into being by the process of identification. — unenlightened

I would say that your idea of identity, as identifying oneself, is one step better than identity as identifying another. Yours is the identity which one gives to oneself, while the other is the identity which others give to you.

However, there is another step yet to be taken, and that is the identity which one has, inherently, simply by having existence, without any act of identifying required by anybody. This is the ontological sense of "identity" referred to by the law of identity ('a thing is the same as itself'), which recognizes that no act of identifying is required for a thing to have an identity. Simply being is enough to have identity.

If you were a Chinese peasant with paddy fields to manure, you would know that material recycling is what nature does. — apokrisis

You're not making any sense apokrisis, just demonstrating that you have no understanding of the first principle of general system theory, the distinction between open systems and closed systems.

Enough idiocy. A biological system is closed for its materials and open for its energy flow. It sets up the metabolic turbine that an environmental entropy gradient can spin. — apokrisis

You are the one preaching idiocy. As a living, acting organism, I am a biological system. I eat my dinner, therefore this biological system is not closed for materials. Your proposed material/energy distinction is simply inapplicable here.

Life is agency in that it harnesses chance. It ratchets thermal randomness to sustain its organismic order.

The Universe wants to entropify. Life says here, let me help you over the humps. The second law gets served in the long run, but life gets to swim in negentropic loopholes it discovers. — apokrisis

Are you preaching vitalism? That's the way you are talking, "life is agency...it ratchets...", "life says...". You have simply replaced the ancient term, "the soul" with "life", to distance yourself from theology. We could effectively replace one for the other without a change in meaning. I'm not opposed to vitalism in general, and speaking of "life" or "the soul" as this type of agency, that is how Aristotle defined "the soul". But then there is the magical thinking you employ in an attempt to make vitalism consistent with the principles of physics, such as those "negentropic loopholes it discovers". This type of magical thinking is what I am opposed to. Do you not recognize a "negentropic loophole" as nothing other than magic?

All irreversible physical processes are entropic. That means any and every temporal process is entropic. What on earth are these magical, nontemporal, "loopholes" which life has discovered. I didn't see any of that magic in Pattee's material.

In terms of top-down constraints and bottom-up degrees of freedom, this is a direct demonstration of the balancing act that maintains Earth as a Gaian level superorganism. — apokrisis

Is the magic based in "bottom-up degrees of freedom"? Instead of portraying life as an agent which produces bottom-up constraints through a form of causation which escapes the principles of physics (which is consistent with classical vitalism), you propose magical loopholes that the soul discovers. But the magical loopholes are really nothing but mathematical sophistry, created from deficiencies in the way that mathematics deals with infinity. In other words, your boundary condition is infinite degrees of freedom, and this false boundary condition allows for the positing of magical loopholes anywhere that the system approaches the boundary.

I meant it is the general top-down constraint acting to shape the upwardly constructing degrees of freedom. — apokrisis

This statement you made to Wayfarer is inconsistent, somewhat incoherent. Constructions are constraints. "Degrees of freedom" cannot construct. This is why there is a need for an agent which produces bottom-up constraints, in the manner of bottom-up causation. With phrases like this, it appears to me that you recognize, and clearly acknowledge (being the very intelligent person that you are), this need for constraints which are caused, and created in a bottom-up way. But this logical need interferes with your naturalist bent, so you try to sweep it under the carpet. Then you are left relying on the magical thinking of discovering "negantropic loopholes".

The bacteria want exactly this kind of world so that they can thrive. And the world wants exactly these kinds of little organisms – ones that can both photosynthesise and respire – so that such an optimised planet can continue to be the case. — apokrisis

You have not shown how "the world", as an inanimate planet, you described as having an O2/CO2 Gaian balance, has taken on the magical agency of life (a soul), so that you can speak of it in terms of seeking those magical loopholes. This appears to be a huge problem in your metaphysics, you assign to life this magical power of agency (the capacity to discover negentropic loopholes), then you jump the gap to inanimate objects and assign the same magical power to them as well. Of course, that leaping of the gap is only provided for because the "negentropic loopholes" are a feature created by the mathematical axioms employed, and the same mathematics is applied to both the animate and the inanimate. This allows that the magical loopholes can be said to exist within both the animate and the inanimate. The statement that they have real existence is just a falsity though because the loopholes are a fault of the mathematical laws (the map), not the world itself (the terrain).

Individual organisms might seem to answer to your simplistic definition of openness. They transact raw materials with their environments. But then the environment itself is a Gaian superorganism. Life is now woven into the material cycles of the planet itself. — apokrisis

You clearly have no idea of what von Bertalanffy had in mind with the distinction between open and closed systems, therefore your understanding of general system theory is deeply flawed. Your categorizations are nothing but abuse of the theory, which makes it appear ridiculous. But the ridiculousness is not in the general system theory itself, as composed by von Bertalanffy, it is in your abusive application.

But the biological system is still constrained by the Second Law. — apokrisis

This is not an accurate statement. The biological system itself, being an open system, is not constrained by the second law. The second law is not applicable to biological systems, because they are open systems, and the second law is applicable to closed systems only. That is the defining feature of the open system. All irreversible processes within the open system are understood to be subject to the second law, but the system itself is not subject to that law. In the open system there is entropy and negative entropy which is imported, therefore the system is not subject to the second law. Read the quote I provided carefully.

Therefore, the change of entropy in closed systems is always positive; order is continually destroyed. In open systems, however, we have not only production of entropy due to irreversible processes, but also import of entropy which may well be negative.

From observation of the open system, there is evidence that the system itself violates the second law of thermodynamics. So von Bertalanffy describes it as importation from the system's environment. If open systems are modeled as dissipative structures, then it is incorrect to say that such a system is subject to the second law. Furthermore, the means by which entropy and negative entropy are imported into the system is not necessarily known, so we cannot conclude that it must be either upward or downward causation.

Now the issue at hand is the agent which imports the negative entropy into the system, or we could simply say "the cause" of that importation. You can write this agency off to "symmetry-breaking" or some such thing, but this is nothing more than just saying that chance is a causal agent. And that is not logically sound.

At least that is my story, you may prefer your story. — unenlightened

I don't like your story, it doesn't make logical sense to me. I don't see why a thing must make the reflective action of self-identifying, in order to have an identity. Why would you think that identity is dependent on reflection? Put it this way, how do you think that reflection could create identity, when the nature of reflection is just to throw back on itself what was already there prior to being reflected?

I think your contrivance here just continues the narrative and does not end it, just adding an extra identification "true" — unenlightened

Yes, you can, very clearly, think of things in this way. What I described to you, is done so with words, so it is impossible for me to end the narrative in this way, and it will appear to you that I practise self-deception, because I am trying to deceive you by preaching other than what I practise. That seems to be unavoidable.

Is a non-narrating narrator of a self-narrative not a straightforward contradiction? — unenlightened

When our attempts to say what we want to say end up in contradiction, even though there is no contradiction in what is meant, there must be a reason for this. The reason in this case is the nature of temporal existence. The narrator has narrated, and continues to be the narrator of that narrative which has been narrated, despite no longer narrating. So, the self-narrative has ended, and through the separation you described earlier, the narrator continues to be the narrator despite no longer being in the operative mode of narrating.

Again, the nature of temporal existence is pivotal here. The only true narrative can be of the past. But we can make fictional narratives of the past just as well, like you explained, counterfactuals. Likewise, we can make fictional narratives of the future. The narratives of the future are all fictional because the future is as of yet undetermined. Yet, they are "fictional" in a different way from the way that the counterfactual is fictional, because some could turn out to be true predictions.

Now, since all narratives of the future are necessarily fictional, in that sense, despite the possibility of a true prediction, "narrative" is unsuitable for use in describing one's position relative to the future. And, as you yourself indicate, one's relation to the future, wants and desires, is what is primary, the animalistic aspect of the human being:

Psychologically, they do not live in time, but in the continuous present; memories they have, and habits, and these present themselves by association as appropriate to the present moment. Thirst provokes the memory of the way to the water-hole, but there is no story, so no particular individual, no self, and no time. Such is paradise, there is no death, because there is no narrative to end. There is no good and evil, because judgement requires time and there is no time, only the present. — unenlightened

So when we apprehend the fact that animals, plants, and other things have "an identity" just as much so as the human being has an identity, we see that the self-narrative is not the identity of the thing. And, when we apprehend that the thing's position relative to the future is just as much a part of the thing's identity as it's position relative to the past, we understand that narrative is insufficient for identity. Now the narrative as self-identity must end because it is determined as insufficient. But the self, with its identity remains. Identity, and self, are simply understood in a way other than narrative.

But you are still stuck in the immediate post-medieval stage of theistic thought. Even Kant and Schelling are adventures yet to be undertaken. — apokrisis

Kant and Schelling are for the most part consistent with theistic thinking. top-down causation of intentional acts is not consistent. The problem is that since top-down models cannot account for the reality of "self-determination", since such acts are caused in a bottom-up manner, and top-down models do not allow for the reality of bottom-up formations, these models are left to represent such constructions as the product of chance, symmetry-breaking or some such thing. Kant and Schelling represented the bottom-up as unknown rather than pretending that it could be known as top-down. This is the problem i described here:

This is the deficiency of systems theory. Boundaries are used to distinguish what is part of the system from what is not part of the system. But there are no principles to distinguish a spatially external boundary from a spatial internal boundary, so anything which is not part of the system is generally understood as, "outside the system", or spatially external. A proper understand requires distinguishing between what is not part of the system by being across an internal boundary, from what is not part of the system by being across an external boundary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Systems theory, which is employed exclusively as the tool of such thinking, does not have the means to properly separate the external from the internal. You represent this as a resolution, a "correcting the faultiness of Cartesian dualism", but there is no resolution at all, just the bold, unsupported claim that the same "systems" principles can be applied equally to animate as well as inanimate systems.

This directly contradicts the position of the purported founder of "general system theory", Ludwig von Bertalanffy. He very explicitly distinguished between inanimate "closed systems" which are dealt with in physics, and "open systems" which are living systems. The distinction is primary to general system theory, and very significant. These two distinct types of "systems" cannot be reduced one to the other, as you seem to think, as they are fundamentally different.

Closed and Open Systems

Conventional physics deals only with closed systems, i.e. systems which are considered to be isolated from their environment.

However, we find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a continuous inflow and outflow, a building up and breaking down of components, never being, so long as it is alive, in a state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium but maintained in a so-called steady state which is distinct from the latter.

It is only in recent years that an expansion of physics, in order to include open systems, has taken place. This theory has shed light on many obscure phenomena in physics and biology and has also led to important general conclusions of which I will mention only two.

The first is the principle of equifinality. In any closed system, the final state is unequivocally determined by the initial conditions: e.g. the motion in a planetary system where the positions of the planets at a time t are unequivocally determined by their positions at a time t°.
This is not so in open systems. Here, the same final state may be reached from different initial conditions and in different ways. This is what is called equifinality.

Another apparent contrast between inanimate and animate nature is what sometimes was called the violent contradiction between Lord Kelvin's degradation and Darwin's evolution, between the law of dissipation in physics and the law of evolution in biology. According to the second principle of thermodynamics, the general trend of events in physical nature is towards states of maximum disorder and levelling down of differences, with the so-called heat death of the universe as the final outlook, when all energy is degraded into evenly distributed heat of low temperature, and the world process comes to a stop. In contrast, the living world shows, in embryonic development and in evolution, a transition towards higher order, heterogeneity, and organization. But on the basis of the theory of open systems, the apparent contradiction between entropy and evolution disappears. In all irreversible processes, entropy must increase. Therefore, the change of entropy in closed systems is always positive; order is continually destroyed. In open systems, however, we have not only production of entropy due to irreversible processes, but also import of entropy which may well be negative. This is the case in the living organism which imports complex molecules high in free energy. Thus, living systems, maintaining themselves in a steady state, can avoid the increase of entropy, and may even develop towards states of increased order and organization. — Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General system Theory (1968)

https://www.panarchy.org/vonbertalanffy/systems.1968.html

The significance is clear. Maintaining the true status of "open" in a biological system, requires that the system's interaction with its environment cannot be modeled as top-down causation, which is the modeling of a closed system.

It is only by denying the reality of the agent, that the system can be presented as top-down causally, rather than the true bottom-up causation, which is indicated when the agent is included.

Try reading again and realising that biosemiosis doesn’t talk about agents who interpret but systems of interpretance. — apokrisis

That's exactly why the theory is faulty. We know that systems of interpretance are just tools used by agents who interpret. To remove the agent (therefore subjectivity) from the interpretation, and present the interpretation as if there is an automatic objective system of interpretance, doing the job on its own, denies the reality of subjectivity within interpretation, which is really an essential aspect of interpretation.

In conclusion, biosemiosis makes interpretation into something which is inconsistent with interpretation as we know it. There is an agent (subject) who applies systems, makes judgements, and produces an interpretation which is unique to that agent (subject).

At the core, that we do cooperate does not imply that we ought cooperate. — Banno

This is the base of the top-down/ bottom-up division. The description "that we do cooperate" produces a top-down perspective on morality. However, that "I ought to cooperate" is something that I must feel, and will myself, and this is the basis for a bottom-up perspective on morality.

I think "pseudoscience" is an appropriate word. It is a presentation of metaphysics which does not stand up to a critical philosophical analysis because the principles are lacking. So it is presented as if it is supported by science rather than metaphysics, which it is not.

... it is losing everything...
... would be I think to imagine self continuing beyond its own end. — unenlightened

Why do you think it is a matter of losing everything? This is not the necessary conclusion. And this is the conclusion which makes you think that there is nothing left of the self, to continue after the narrative ends. The way I described it, it is a losing of the narrative self, but the narrative self is not the true self, that is an illusion. So the true self is allowed to continue after the end of the narrative self.

Consider what you said about how the narrator is not a part of the narrative. The true self is the narrator, , the self in the narrative is the illusionary self. When the narrative ends, so ends the narrative self, but the true self, as the narrator remains.

I respect Pattee and have learned from him. I'm also cognizant that biosemiotics is a wide-ranging discipline accomodating divergent perspectives (that's why I linked to the Short History article, which is an overview.) — Wayfarer

Yes, he has a deep understanding of the workings of biological organisms, and many clear thoughts. However, his speculative theory of biosemiotics is deficient for the reasons I described. When you study biosemiotics further, in the future, keep in mind the issue I mentioned, and now that it's been pointed out to you, it ought to become evident that it's a very real problem, indicating that biosemiotics is quite insufficient.

But if you want to understand life 'from the inside', this is not enough. Thermodynamics does not explain that autocatalytic process, nor does it explain the steering and control instance that life implies. — Wolfgang

I've discovered that any attempt to explain this to apokrisis, who retracts into a shell of denial accompanied by random ad hominem attacks, is pointless.

This is the deficiency of systems theory. Boundaries are used to distinguish what is part of the system from what is not part of the system. But there are no principles to distinguish a spatially external boundary from a spatial internal boundary, so anything which is not part of the system is generally understood as, "outside the system", or spatially external. A proper understand requires distinguishing between what is not part of the system by being across an internal boundary, from what is not part of the system by being across an external boundary.

You'll want to read this to get up to speed on what apokrisis is referring to (but it's also a worthwhile study in its own right. Apokrisis is or was a student of Howard Pattee who is mentioned in the first paragraph.) — Wayfarer

Apokrisis has directed me to enough material for me to see that Pattee's theory is hugely deficient. Interpretation of signs, or symbols, to decipher meaning, requires an agent which does the interpreting. The agent interprets through what is loosely represented in language and communication theory (Wittgenstein for example) as "rules", conventions, or something like that. Pattee provides no separation between the signs and the reader of the signs (interpreter), to allow for the separate existence of such "rules" of interpretation.

When I asked apokrisis about where the rules for interpretation of meaning might exist in Pattee's theory, the reply was that the rules for interpretation exist within the sign itself. What was implied is that the sign itself (code or whatever you want to call it) consists of all three elements, symbol, agent (interpreter), and rules for interpretation, such that the sign self-reads, and self-interprets.

Obviously, this is a false representation because it leaves no room for error, and error we see as paramount in the existence of evolution. "Error" is better understood here as subjectivity in interpretation. This is because "error" implies wrong, or incorrect, when we assume that there is a "normal way" which is supposed to be the correct way. And, the "normal way" is supported by statistics as the common way, but it is also generalized in order to produce those statistics, so as to ignore all sorts of differences (subjectivities) which don't make a difference to the purpose at hand . The idea that the common way or normal way is the "correct" way is produced by an illusion that the statistics produce an objective truth as to how the symbol ought to be interpreted. Therefore anything outside the statistical norm is seen as an "error" in interpretation.

Such error, what I would prefer to call "subjectivity", is made impossible by Pattee's representation which provides no separation between the sign and the rules for interpreting the sign. If the sign, and rules for interpreting the sign are one and the same thing, then it is impossible to stray from the rules in the act of interpreting the sign.

The capacities to realize, to fail, are ontologically absolute, and cannot possibly be overthrown. — quintillus

You set forward an absolutism of the future. This is very deterministic.