They are using the justice system to engage in lawfare, and the ease with which they can do it makes the system a bloody joke. — NOS4A2

Don't act surprised! The man with thousands of lawsuits under his belt. who lived his life engaging the legal system against others, with the greatest ease, anytime that it appeared to be profitable, has now had the tables turned on him. Could you expect anything other than this?

There are philosophers who are pragmatists and pragmatism(s) is(are) philosophical positions inside philosophy, so I don't accept the dichotomy implicit above. It seems possible you are conflating epistemology in philosophy with the correspondance theory of truth.
I was also reacting to what I think is overly binary in saying he 'deceived himself'. — Bylaw

Fair enough, I'll qualify my statement: "a certain type of philosopher seeks the truth". The one's who do not seek the truth, but seek some useful principles, pragmatists, might still be correctly called "philosophers" by common convention.

You're still going to need both and I was supporting what he had asserted around that. I am certainly not saying we can't be fooled by our senses, just as we can by reason. Unless you are a rationalist, there are going to be empirical facets to getting past illusions. You can absolutely decide that X, based on sense impressions, was false, but any demonstration of this will have empirical work around it. — Bylaw

The point though, is that reasoning is more reliable then mere sensation with memory. Furthermore, some types of reasoning are more reliable than others. The ones dependent on sensory input, like induction, have been demonstrated to be less reliable. So, the further we can get away from being dependent on sensation, the more certain we will be in our knowledge, and we can conclude that sensation tends to mislead us. When it's clear that sensation misleads us, and the further we get away from being dependent on it, the more certain our knowledge will be, how do you conclude that we will always need both?

Science is empirical. It is based on observations. — Bylaw

Yes, and this is obviously the weakness of science. It's the problem of induction which Hume pointed to. That is why the statement of the op is correct, science is irrelevant to the problem of consciousness. This is because we must get beyond the limitations of science to properly understand consciousness, and if we fall for the idea that empirical science is capable of providing such an understanding that would be a case of being deceived by your senses.

And, hey, that was a kind of slimy way to talk to me. I was not impolite to you so you didn't need to go ad hom. And before I am told I don't know what ad hom means, yes, you didn't make a formal ad hom fallacy, but it was definitely 'to the man.' And the first paragraph was also slimy though less direct. — Bylaw

I was referring to a particular instance, as an example, to demonstrate a general point. This is a common procedure. The example happened to be you. I thought perhaps a first hand example of how a person gets deceived by one's senses, might help to prove the point. If you took it as an insult, you shouldn't have because we all get deceived in this way. Anyway, it appears like you did take it as an insult, so I will apologize. I am sorry, no harm was intended.

Talk about senses in the sense of sense of oneself getting in the way of things. — Bylaw

Sorry, your personal example doesn't seem to work. I can't figure out what you're trying to say.

I believe a solution is possible, not that I have a solution. You'd probably have to reread a bunch of my posts to really understand. If we start with the premise that certain aspects of reality (like the temporal continuity discussed) appear to us a unintelligible, there are two principal ways to respond to this. One way is that we can conclude that such an aspect is itself inherently unintelligible. The other way is that we apprehend the appearance of unintelligibility as a product of our approach. In the latter case we reassess and analyze our approach. In the former case, we give up any effort to try and understand, as necessarily fruitless. The former is what I call unphilosophical. Check this post:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/802467

The fallibility of science is just a facet of the fallibility of human beings. I'm guessing, but I guess you are taking this line because you want to escape Hume's problem. — Ludwig V

Exactly, because Hume's method is to portray reason as infallible, then demonstrate the fallibility of our assumptions about causation, and induction in general, and conclude therefore that these types of reasoning are not properly called "reason". That is a problem, because it leaves these processes without any category, no means to understand them, therefore no means to address and rectify their problems. Instead, we ought to class them as forms of reasoning which are more fallible than some others, therefore these forms of reasoning have issues which need to be addressed.

So you put your faith in reason because a rational principle would resolve Hume's problem? — Ludwig V

Yes, look what I said early. Hume wanted to place such assumptions as based in some sort of custom or habit, and then not face the reality that reasoning is itself a habit or custom. This is a problem which inheres within Hume's approach to rationalism. He seems to want to give reason a sort of divine, infallible status, as if it were separate from a bodily function of human beings, but this is a mischaracterization of the human reasoning process. So my position is not as you say, to put my "faith in reason", it is to put my faith in the human capacity to adapt, change, and evolve reason in a way which is conducive toward truth.

One facet is the theorems and deductions, which give transcendent certainty. — Ludwig V

This is exactly Hume's mistake, to portray "reason" in this divine way, as something which produces "transcendent certainty". This means that we have to create a divide, a separation within the category of "reason", such that some forms of reasoning produce divine certainty, while others do not. That creates an inconsistency within the category, because what is necessary to some types, the declared "certainty" is not necessary to other types. So Hume's solution is to remove those types which do not create certainty, from the category, leaving only the divine forms, which produce transcendent certainty as qualifying for the category of "reason".

But this is a mistake. There is no such divine form of reasoning which produces transcendent certainty. All forms of reasoning suffer from some degree of fallibility, as activities of fallible human beings, so all forms of reasoning, including deductive, inductive, abductive, etc., ought to be classed together, and they can be judged according to their degree of reliability or fallibility.

When things go wrong, we cannot blame the rules which are by definition immune to mistakes and error. So we blame ourselves instead. In other words, reason has success logic. — Ludwig V

The issue here, is that we, the human beings, are the ones who created the rules for the logic. These rules are just "customs", therefore they are not immune to mistake, and yes we can blame them, when we can demonstrate the faults which inhere within them.

This is where there is a need to differentiate "custom" from "habit". A "habit" is a property of an individual, while a "custom" is attributed to a group of people. There is a difference because all customs are habits, but not all habits are customs. We tend to judge habits as good or bad, and when a habit is a custom, simply being a custom does not ensure that the habit is a good habit. We can say that "correct", and "right" are descriptions based in custom, such that rules and laws which conform to customs provide us for judgement of correct, and right, in our judgements of habits which conform to customs. If you act according to custom you act correctly. But since there is always inconsistency between one culture and another concerning some customs, we must allow a higher standard of judgement (good for example), whereby we can judge some customs which produce correct and right acts according to one culture, as actually not good.

You can trust reason in the abstract sense, but human attempts to apply it are not immune from mistake. When you think you have the rational solution, you may be mistaken. I think of reasoning as a human activity, rather than an abstract structure, so perhaps I have a slightly different perspective from you. — Ludwig V

So the mistake is evident here when you say "reason in the abstract sense". If you maintain your principle, "reasoning as a human activity", this principle itself is an abstract principle. It states a general process, as an abstraction "reasoning", or we could call it "reason". But what it says of this process, as what is essential or necessary to the process, is that it is a human activity. If we look at human activities as fallible, such that this is necessary, or essential to all human activities, then we can conclude that reasoning, or "reason" is necessarily fallible, through deductive logic.

Now we have excluded what you call "reason in the abstract sense" from our category of reasoning, such that it is just a fiction, imaginary, and not an abstraction at all, because it is not supported by any logic. We simply have this name, "reason in the abstract sense", which is really oxymoronic, because it is supposed to point to some sort of abstract reasoning, but it is not supported by any type of abstraction. If instead, we allow some sort of reality to this form of "reason in the abstract sense", we'd have to make up all sorts of fictional ideals, "transcendent certainty" etc., as defining features of it, and what would be the point of that?

. Hypotheses and theories are critically important, but when theory and data conflict, it is theory that needs to be changed. — Ludwig V

But I'm arguing the fallibility of science in general, because of its reliance on sense data, so this is just circular.

I thought you were against Hume's thesis. — Jacques

I agree with Hume's criticism of induction, as indicated. I just don't agree with how he proceeds from there. That the problem exists is really quite evident, but I think that Hume moves in the wrong direction, toward portraying it as unresolvable rather than toward finding principles to resolve it.

Are you happy to doubt that you are reading this? — Banno

Where doubt enters this scenario, is with the question of what does it mean to be "reading this". Then we may consider the statement of the op:

I made a thread about skepticism and said that we cannot coherently deny that language transmits meaning because by understanding this sentence you have proven that language transmits meaning. — Andrew4Handel

That meaning actually transmits from you to me, in the act of me reading what you wrote, is highly doubtful. This would require that I understand "reading this" in the same way that you do. Otherwise I cannot assume that I got the meaning you intended to give me, and meaning did not transmit. Discussions here at TPF demonstrate that you and I do not understand words in a similar way. Therefore I can conclude that meaning does not transmit, and I most likely understand "reading this" in a way other than you intend. Since you wrote "reading this" and you are proposing that someone else is the one doing the reading in the way that you intend by "reading", and it is likely that the person is reading in a way other than what you intend by that word, doubt is clearly justified.

It decieved him in a context that is almost completely useless to most of us most of the time. So, yes, if one wants to understand the motions of the solar system parts, his assessment is off, in nearly every other human context, he's got a perfect fine interpretation. And one that can be useful.
And reason can also deceive. But since he goes ahead and advocates for using both, I'm not sure what the overhanding problem is. — Bylaw

That is the difference between pragmatics and truth as providing the guiding principle. For reasons unknown, the philosopher seeks the truth. Some people feel comfortable with pragmaticism, and accept without doubt, the principles which currently serve them. The philosopher always wants to move ahead and proceed toward the truth.

Seems to miss the point. We don't have to give up either. Reason is pretty useless without the senses, at least to any empiricist. IOW the senses are, for example, the foundation of science: in observations. — Bylaw

Reread my post, I said "when the two disagree". It seems like you misunderstand the nature of science. The senses are not the foundation of science, science is based in hypotheses, theory. Your empiricist theory has misled you, another example of how human beings allow their senses to deceive them.

The cues that normally allow us to know when we are moving are missing, just as they are missing in an aeroplane. — Ludwig V

This is exactly why it's correct to say that the senses deceive. When the sensible "cues" are missing, we draw the wrong conclusion. You say: "The sun does go up and down, from the point of view of the surface of the earth. It could not be otherwise." Obviously, it could be otherwise. It could be that the surface of the earth is spinning in a circle, and the sun is staying put. And if you wrongly assume that you, on the surface of the earth are staying put, because the "cues" of moving are missing, you would wrongly conclude that the sun goes up and down from the point of view of the surface of the earth. Therefore, you failed to account for the motion of the earth in your assumption, and allowed your sensed to deceive you.

Senses and reason are both capable of misleading us and are our only resources for finding the truth. Junking one in favour of the other is incomprehensible to me.

I have a feeling that the conditions are not such as to provide a basis for progress in this debate. Do you? — Ludwig V

If you do not see that reason is far more reliable than sense, and when the two disagree it is far more reasonable to accept reason over sense, then I think you're right when you say further progress is impossible.

If consciousness does not arise from the physical properties we know, and it does not arise from something like panprotopsychism (and I'm sure many here do not believe it does), then what? — Patterner

Hi Patterner, welcome to the forum. I'll answer this question with a simple "stay tuned..."

But I am sure that the senses do not systematically deceive us. — Ludwig V

Why do you think that the sun appears to come up and go down, when this has been proven to be false? And why does it look like we see the full range of electromagnetic waves as the colours of the rainbow, when this is just a small portion? If this is not a 'systematic deception' than what is it? And how would you describe hallucination if not a form of deception?

I'm also sure that simplicity is not an option, but a necessity. — Ludwig V

That is the essence of deception, it is dome because it is deemed to be a "necessity". Plato also exposed this feature. Are you familiar with what is commonly referred to as the royal lie? Over simplification of something extremely complex, for the person's own good, is deception.

If we had senses that perceived everything that's going on at the level of electrons, we would be unable to grasp the bigger picture that we need. It's not about deception; it's about pragmatics. — Ludwig V

This is a faulty conclusion. There is nothing to prevent an intelligent mind from understanding both big picture and small picture at the same time. What is more likely the case, is that the physical sensing apparatus evolves much slower than the mind, because the brain must allow for vast possibility and rapid changes in thinking patterns, even over the lifespan of one individual. This allows the conscious mind to evolve much quicker than the physical sensing system. So the senses are suited to a less capable consciousness, which human beings had prior to the rapid advancements of the mind, in the last few thousand years. Therefore the senses are presenting very simplistic, over simplified, and underdeveloped images to the mind because the physical aspects of the human sense apparatus were developed when the mind was much less advanced, and the body cannot change fast enough to keep pace with the rapid advancements and evolution of the mind. In other words, the human body still has essentially the same physical sensing apparatus as it had thousands of years ago, but it's mental capacity has greatly advanced. Therefore the ends or purpose of the "pragmatics" you refer to, are greatly outdated, and this is analogous to continuing with a story about Santa Clause when the person is a grown adult, it's nothing but deception.

This is a classic example of what I mean. There's a story - I don't know if it's true - that someone observed to Wittgenstein that it is easy to understand why the ancients thought that the sun goes round the earth, because that's the way it looks. To which Wittgenstein replied "How would it look if it looked as if the earth was spinning?" The answer is, exactly the same. — Ludwig V

I did not use the word "look", I intentionally said "feel", to avoid this objection. Do you know what it feels like to be spun around? And when you are being spun, isn't it very obvious that the things in your field of vision are not moving around you, but you are being spun? Your example provides no bearing on the issue.

There is a reason why we have a multitude of different senses, different sense organs directed toward different aspects of the world. Each one, is in itself, by itself, very deceptive. Through comparison of what the different senses provide for us, the mind can reduce the deception. But reduction is not elimination.

As to electrons, we are simply not equipped to perceive electrons directly. I'm cautious about pronouncing on the sub-atomic world; I don't understand the physics well enough. I am clear that our senses give us the information they are equipped to gather. By paying attention to our perceptions more closely, we work out that physical objects are very different at small scale. Our perceptions did not deceive us, any more than a normal microscope deceives us when it does not reveal electrons. We misinterpreted them, but now have a better understanding because we paid closer attention to the information they give us. — Ludwig V

What you say here is a direct indication of the point I am making. There is a whole "sub-atomic" world which our senses are hiding from us. But you misrepresent, or misinterpret the actual problem. You say the senses are "not equipped" to provide us with information about this sub-atomic world. That is clearly false, because it is exactly the case that this is the type of information which the senses are providing us with. The sense of smell for instance, is providing us with information about the interaction of atoms at a molecular level, and this is exactly an interaction of electrons and sub-atomic particles. The sense of sight is providing us with information about the interaction of light (photons) with the electron structure of the various different molecules. And the sense of hearing is providing us with information about the vibrations of the massive parts of atoms.

So it is clearly the case that we are equipped to sense the activities of the sub-atomic world that's exactly what the senses do. However, the problem is that in the relation between the senses and the brain, the information provided through the sense organs is interpreted and represented by the brain, with the principal purpose of remembering, in a very basic and simplistic way. The human being's capacity for memory is very limited so this huge amount of data rolling in at an incredibly high speed must be vastly simplified. This simplification is essentially false memory, created by a very deficient memory system which requires that the sense data be overly simplified, and when the conscious mind looks at the memory as "true" it is deceived. When the conscious mind visits the memory, it is deceived into thinking that the memory is giving an accurate account which it is not. Furthermore, the conscious mind's experience of "the present" is nothing other than what the brain is submitting to memory, limited further by attention, so this is equally faulty and deceptive.

However, the conscious mind in its totality goes far beyond simple experience of the present, and memory, it has anticipations, intentions, desires, will, and judgement to deal with as well. These other aspects, intention and the desire to know, (philosophy), have led the conscious mind to a position high above what the physical body provides for it. That is why we have produced all sorts of instruments for analyzing different aspects of the world, which go far beyond the limitations of the underdeveloped physical system of the human body, like the electron microscope you mentioned. The simple fact of the matter is that the relatively primitive physical body of the human being has not been able to keep up with the rapid development of the conscious mind and its understanding. Therefore to fall back onto the observational capacities of the human body, asserting superiority and "truth" to sensation, rather than moving forward into the realm of what logic dictates, even though this may appear contradictory to sense data, is to fall for that deception.

Your conclusion has a certain paradoxical appeal. I agree that sometimes we draw the wrong conclusions from what our senses tell us (that's a bit over-simplified, but it will do for now); but surely we sometimes get it right. Similarly, reality is partially intelligible to us and partly not, and we work hard to understand the latter part. You seem very fond of comprehensive statements, but the truth is more mundane than that. For example, you say:- — Ludwig V

i see things in the opposite way to this. You say the truth is mundane. I believe that the truth is not mundane at all, and is way more complicated than any of us can possibly imagine. Quantum physics gives us the tip of this iceberg of complexity. I think our bodily systems greatly simplify a very complex reality, so that we sense extremely complex things as very simple. We've evolved this way, we must start from the bottom up in our understanding as evolving beings, so things must be put into the most simple form possible, to begin our understanding.

Look, we see the sun as rising and setting, when logic tells us the earth is really spinning. There's also supposed to be some sort of spinning motion with electrons around atoms. Do you think that living beings are incapable of 'feeling' that the planet they are on is spinning? Or, do you think it's more likely that all these spinning motions that logic tells us are occurring around us, and within us, are completely compensated for within the living system, to give us a seemingly stable position from which to observe? I think all these complex motions are hidden from the conscious mind, not sensed, because the senses have evolved so as to hide all these complexities from us because they are just too difficult. All that our senses bring to our conscious minds are some very simplistic motions, to begin us on our task of understanding.

And I say "Don't we also say things like "between t1 and t2 this process was going on?" — Ludwig V

Sure, but think about how we describe and understand processes, it always comes down to a matter of one state changing to another. We can name a process, even provide a brief description of it, but what really provides meaning and understanding is how the process takes us from A to B. A is the cause, B is the effect. This is why the truth about the passage of time is not mundane at all, it's actually very complex. We like to think of it as mundane, because this facilitates 'the simple life". In reality life is not simple, so all we're doing with this type of notion is facilitating the deception.

I agree with the first quotation, but not with the second and, although I accept that we often get things wrong, I'm not at all sure that it is because our sensations deceive us; it may be that they neither deceive nor reveal. The problem may like in our interpretations. — Ludwig V

In the first passage, I describe how my understanding of what we get from sensation differs from Hume's. There is a problem though with my perspective, and that is that for logical purposes, we describe things in terms of static states, in the same way that Hume describes sensation gives us. We say things like "this was the situation at time1, and this was the situation at time2. So the reason I believe Hume's position is incorrect, is because I think these static states are produced by us, by our minds, for the purpose of applying logic, and it is incorrect to say that this is what sensation gives to the mind. What sensation gives to the mind is a temporal continuity, and the mind breals the continuity into distinct states, in a variety of different ways, depending on the intended purposes. That is why I argued earlier that all the breaks in the continuity which constitute the divisions between t1 and t2, and such, are subjective, imposed for various purposes.

There is a fundamental incompatibility between the perception of reality as a persistently changing continuity, and as a succession of separate but contiguous discrete instances. This is an incommensurability which mathematicians have not been able to resolve. Therefore, one of the ways of representing the world must be wrong, either the way of sensation, as a continuity, or the way of logic, as a succession of discrete instances.

The inclination (intuition) is to accept the sense representation as the correct representation, and conclude that the way we use logic to represent reality is just a model, and this model is incapable of providing a true representation. But this renders that part of reality, the procession of time, as fundamentally, and necessarily unintelligible. However, as I explained in that post there is a potential way around this problem. It is completely possible that the way that our senses present the world to us is "deceptive", as explained by Plato. And from this perspective we can say that it is absolutely possible that the procession of time is truly intelligible to the human mind as a succession of discrete instances, and we just need to identify those breaks in time which constitutes the separate moments.

So, you say that the problem may lie in our interpretation. This is consistent with what I've argued. if reality is as I've said above, consisting of discrete moments, then the faulty interpretation is the assumption that how the senses present reality to us, as a continuity, is completely consistent with the way that reality actually is. If, on the other hand, we assume that the approach of our logic is incorrect, or inconsistent with the way that reality is, then we assume that reality is necessarily unintelligible. So to allow for the possibility that reality is intelligible to us, we must assume that this other assumption, that 'how the senses present reality to us is completely consistent with the way that reality actually is' is the faulty premise of interpretation. So to allow for the possibility that reality is intelligible to us, we must assume that the senses deceive us.

The difficulty is to see exactly what "how" means and to understand that asking such a question means rejecting Hume's idea of atomistic idea of experience (which analytic philosophy largely inherited from Hume). — Ludwig V

Yes, this I believe is the root of the problem. Hume described the experience of sensing as a series of static states which may change as time passes. This implies a break, a divide between each state. Then he moves to address the problem of how the mind relates one state to another. The distinct states being what sensation gives us. But i think that in reality, sensation is an experience of continuous activity, which we produce breaks in through withdrawing our attention, either intentionally or unintentionally.

This is a substantial difference because on the one hand we have the perspective of sensation providing images of natural states with implied natural divisions between them (Hume), and on the other hand we have the position that sensation provides natural continuous activity, with the sensing being imposing artificial divisions onto that continuity. So from the Humean perspective, it appears necessary for the observing mind to understand the natural relation between natural distinct states, in order to understand the natural progression of these states, and this is what he thinks of as causation. But if the other perspective is right, then sensation does not provide us with any naturally distinct states, and no natural separations. So any description of causation by this means would be to describe the relations between completely artificial separations.

But from the other perspective, these separations are apprehended as completely artificial, so they may even be totally arbitrary, or at best the separations are imposed in different ways for different purposes, (analogous to Wittgenstein's boundaries in meaning). So the difference manifests as Hume looking for an independent, objective relation between cause and effect, a relation which creates a unity through a natural form of synthesis, while the other perspective looks for the subjective principles of analysis whereby we divide what is present as a natural continuity.

I'm afraid I disagree with both of you. You misunderstand Hume. His position is that scepticism is right if it recommends careful and judicious examination of the facts and judicious decisions based on them, wrong if it is applied excessively. I think that's about right. It's not a case of radical scepticism (Pyrrhonism according to Hume) or nothing. — Ludwig V

I definitely wasn't saying that Hume is anti-skeptic. I see all philosophy as fundamentally skeptical. Even the anti-skeptic would be skeptical of skepticism. if one was just stating certainties, that would not be philosophy. The issue of course is the way that a philosopher places limits to one's own skepticism. No philosopher, not even Socrates, ever seems to be skeptical in an absolute sense, they always seem to believe that they get to the bottom somehow (In the skeptical form of analysis), and here they claim to find some sort of self-evident truth, something to take for granted (eg, Descartes' "I think therefore I am."). It may be the case that the best philosophers are the ones who never seem to get to the bottom, never finding any self-evident truth, and always remaining skeptical, open minded.

Hume's position is that even though our inferences are not well grounded, we will continue to make them, as a result of what he calls "custom or habit". He then makes a sequence of moves, as I outlined in an earlier post, to arrive at a non-sceptical position that "uniform experience" is proof. One may or may not think that's legitimate; it's certaintly dubious. There is also the problem that experience is not uniform, unless we select among our experiences. Which, as you are indicating, we do, and in the process notice differences as well as similarities. — Ludwig V

So the point I make above, is that this proposed "uniform experience" is not an inference, a custom or a habit at all. It is simply a statement of description of the sense experience, an observation. Therefore there is no need to inquire about the mental activity which creates this uniformity, it is not within the realm of conscious thought, and cannot be described as habit or custom.. However, since we are prone, (by habit), in our mental activity to impose divisions on this given uniformity, and we do seek truth, we ought to inquire whether there is any true, natural separations, upon which such divisions could be based.

This requires a deeper form of skepticism. We must cast doubt on what the senses provide for us, in the way of Plato, who teaches us that the senses deceive. From this perspective we can apprehend the continuity which is given by sensation as manufactured, created by the apparatus which produces the sense experience, and therefore there is the potential that this is not a true representation. Now we would have the proper platform for inquiring into the possibility of true divisions, the true separations in time, which the experience of sensation, as a continuity, hides from us in its deceptive ways.

That is, the very concept of being free to say whatever you want without reprisal (the tenure system basically) is being misued to only allow those club members in that pass a certain belief litmus test. — Hanover

Life at the university, conform or be cast out. Option number three, pretend until you're tenured. But how are the deceptive bastards who get in through pretense treated? The real pretense is that this system is supposed to support diversity.

What I have noticed in the past, is that I can pick an imaginary time in the future, say tomorrow morning for example, and say something about it, like it will get light outside, and the sun will rise, and when that time comes, it will happen, just like before. So in my experience, I've gone to bed when it's dark, expecting that it will get light in the morning, because it has done so in the past, and it actually does as I expect. So this I believe, justifies (is the rationale for) my belief that the future will resemble the past, with respect to this feature of reality.

If, in your question, you are assuming a more general definition of "future" and "past', and you are ready to produce a definition of these things, as abstract objects, I believe that the future cannot resemble the past in such definitions. The two are in a way mutually exclusive, but not in the way of proper opposites, where there is a similarity derived from being exactly opposite, they are opposed more in the sense of dichotomous. But if we take some particular aspects of reality, particular material things, like in my example, I think there is rationale for believing that the future will be similar to the past for those particular things.

1. Techniques in statistics and probability theory do not rely on induction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The theories themselves do not necessarily rely on induction to be produced, but a judgement of the reliability of them, in application, does rely on induction. So people might produce thousands or millions of such theories, in any random way, but we would only choose the ones proven by induction as reliable, to be used, and these would become the conventional.

One way to put this point is to say that Hume’s argument rests on a quantifier shift fallacy (Sober 1988; Okasha 2005a). Hume says that there exists a general presupposition for all inductive inferences, whereas he should have said that for each inductive inference, there is some presupposition. Different inductive inferences then rest on different empirical presuppositions, and the problem of circularity is evaded.

This is another way of putting the point I made above in my reply to Jacques. Inductive reasoning relies on particulars, and it proceeds toward making a general statement about similar particulars. And, predictions always concern particulars. So if we start with general principles, abstractions like "future" and "past" in the most general sense, the question of how they are similar is a completely different question. To show that two general abstractions like "future" and "past" are similar, would be to place them into a broader category of abstraction, the concept of "time', or "temporality", and say that they are both temporal concepts, therefore similar in that way.

So Hume really just makes an inductive conclusion about inductive conclusions, that they all employ some sort of presupposition about temporal continuity. This may be useful if we want to know something about the process of inductive reasoning, but then again it might itself be faulty induction. But to put inductive reasoning into the larger context, as to how the conclusions of induction are used by us, i.e. how induction is actually useful, we need to show how they are related to other logic, deduction.

This turned out to not be true under all consistent geometries, e.g., a triangle on a curved plane, as drawn on a ball. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is not really a consistent geometry though. A "curved plane" is contradictory because the curve of a sphere requires three dimensions while the plane is two. To make the curved plane we need to annihilate the convention of dimensions, but in doing this we annihilate the triangle. So really, the triangle is incommensurable with the proposed "curved plane" (which is a misnomer because it's not a plane at all), and in reality a triangle's angles always add up to 180 degrees. Because the proposed triangle on a curved plane is not a triangle at all.

That is, there is no way to tell between an a priori analytic truth and a firmly held dogma. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is why, as I said above, we could make thousands or millions of such theories, by what is called "pure mathematics" but only the ones which prove themselves to be useful (and this is itself an inductive method) are accepted into convention. The usefulness is what inspires the "firmly held dogma". So if it turns out that it's better for us (more useful) to annihilate the conventional spatial dimensions, such that we have the so-called "curved plane", then that will become conventional, or "firmly held dogma".

Additionally, if I buy into computationalist conceptions of physics, then what comes before dictates what comes after by the same sort of logical entailment Liebniz had in mind when he developed his conception of computation, then my expectation that the future is like the past is not grounded in Hume's UP. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As you point out though, your expectation is grounded in some sort of UP, or to put it more precisely, "a UP". And, as I discussed in my prior post, such principles obtain varying degrees of reliability. So we would need to isolate and analyze this specific UP as to its own peculiarities and uniqueness, in order to determine whether your expectations about particular aspects of the future are well grounded. Therefore the skeptic wins out in the end, because each such expectation is unique, and therefore must undergo examination through the skeptic's microscope, in a way unique to it.

I think this depends on what counts as justification; justification meaning the reasons given for the claim about the future. And, we have different sorts of reasons for making such claims. A random assertion about the future would not qualify as being justifiable. Nor would the claim of "intuition tells me so", or "I have a feeling that such and such is about to occur', qualify as justification.

But when we get into more reasonable attempts at justification, I would say that as described above, bare statistical analysis is at the lowest level. This would be simply a matter of following a pattern of occurrence, without knowing the reasons for the pattern. But when we know the reasons for the occurrence of the pattern, we can take justification, and reliability to the next level. This is because then we can pay attention to the features which are designated as the reasons for the pattern, to watch for any changes within those features, which could result in anomalies in the pattern. This would make prediction more reliable, so it's a higher form of justification.

I'm afraid I do have a problem here. I don't disagree with this, but I don't understand what "validates the necessity" means. — Ludwig V

Do you see that "necessary" is a judgement, a claim, or assertion? And, this type of judgement is one which requires justification or else it is meaningless. if I assert "Y follows X, of necessity", or "it is necessary that Y follows X", those terms "necessity" and "necessary" are meaningless without justification. So when I referred to something which "validates the necessity', this type of justification is what I was referring to.

That's fine, except that I want to ask why "must". What if it doesn't? — Ludwig V

The word "must" is justified in the same way the necessity is. If the necessity is validated by justification, so that we can use "must", yet what was deemed as a necessity by that word 'must", does not actually occur, then we can infer a flaw in the justification (the reasoning).

If you say "Oxygen is necessary for life (except for anaerobic bacteria)", I understand that if there is no oxygen, most living things die. So I understand that most living things must live in an atmosphere that contains a certain percentage of oxygen. — Ludwig V

So you have given a false necessity here. Oxygen is not necessary for life, as your exception of anaerobic bacteria shows. This is evident from the fact that you proceed from "oxygen is necessary for life", through the stated exception, to your later assertion of "most life". A more appropriate understanding would determine the types of life forms which require oxygen, and then the true statement of necessity, "oxygen is necessary for these life forms..." could be made.

I'm not clear what the last word adds to the bald statement "water will freeze." — Ludwig V

This is exactly the point, the word "necessarily' adds absolutely nothing, unless it is accompanied by the justification (reasons). We can, and often do, facilitate communication by using 'necessary' in its various forms, without the explicit justification, because the justification is implicit. We simply assume when speaking, or writing, that the other person knows the reason for the claim of "necessary". But I do not think that we can go to the extreme position which Hume seems to be proposing, to say that the reasoning is not there at all, and the use of "necessary' would just be a custom or habit, with no underlying support of reasoning.

The best that I can offer is that if the prediction fails, I will not abandon the generalization, but treat it as a problem that demands an explanation that will preserve as much as possible of what I thought I knew. So if a sample doesn't freeze at that expected temperature, I will research until I find an answer - such as that the water contains too much salt to freeze at the normal temperature. Again, having learnt that fire causes burns, when I find burns occurring in the absence of fire, I will research until I realize that it is heat, not fire, that causes burns and amend my causal law accordingly. Admittedly, my belief that when a causal law fails, there must be an explanation, and my treatment of such failures as not just a fact, but a problem, is a matter of faith, (this may not be the right expression, but something along those lines is needed). Strictly speaking, when what we think is a causal law fails, that disproves the law (cf. Popper). But I can postpone abandoning the law until I'm convinced that there is no explanation for the exceptional case. There is no time limit on the postponement, so I am never compelled to abandon it and if my law is useful, I will classify the falsification as an unexplained event and continue to rely on it. Necessity is a matter of the status of "water will freeze", and not a straightforward question of truth or falsity. — Ludwig V

So what you present here is the issue, and that is the reliability of the underlying reasoning, the justification. And this is what fuels skepticism. Suppose it is customary for us to use "necessary' in its various forms, quite often, because it facilitates efficient and rapid communication. Each time we use one of those forms, there is an implied reasoning or justification. But each implied justification is unique in its reliability, depending on the different sorts of understandings which comprise the various implied justifications. So the simple word "necessary" refers to all sorts of different types and different degrees of understanding (reasoning). Now the skeptic will insist that we must analyze each one, each time that we habitually think of something as "necessary", or use that term, to ensure that there is a reliable understanding which supports it's use. Our customary ways of speaking hide misunderstanding.

The 'exceptions' that you refer to, which pop up, will appear at first, to be random. That is because there are so few of them that there is not enough to produce any sort of pattern which can be analyzed. However, the random exception demonstrates a deficiency in the necessity (the underlying understanding). The method we use to approach the underlying understanding, with the evidence of exceptions as ammunition, is the critical decision. I believe this requires a different type of thinking, maybe what they call thinking outside the box, and this might point to a type of intuition. What is important is the art of identifying relevant factors. Things which seem to be irrelevant, and which may be treated by the customary understanding as irrelevant, may actually be relevant. Also the skeptic apprehends the potential for significant misunderstanding within the things which are taken for granted.

A very good example of attacking an underlying understanding, which was riddled with exceptions is the geocentric model of the cosmos. I believe that the multitude of exceptions (retrogrades) made most intelligent people believe that the model was fundamentally wrong, for many hundreds of years. I think that even further back than Thales and ancient Greece, many believed that a heliocentric model was required. The problem was that mapping the planets as perfect circles could not produce something consistent with the observations, so it could not be supported by predictions. Therefore the desired heliocentric model could not be produced. So, just like you describe here, the use of the extremely complicated geocentric model, which employed all sorts of exceptions persisted. I interpret Aristotle as producing the metaphysical principles which denied the reality of perfectly uniform circular motion. This is the critical point, and it enabled Copernicus with the ammunition to explore various possibilities for non-circular orbits of the planets around the sun, eventually resolving the problem.

"Materialism is the view that every real, concrete2 phenomenon3 in the universe is physical. It’s a view about the actual universe, and for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume that it is true.

2. By ‘concrete’ I simply mean ‘not abstract’. It’s natural to think that any really existing thing is
ipso facto concrete, non-abstract, in which case ‘concrete’ is redundant, but some philosophers like to say that numbers (for example) are real things—objects that really exist, but are abstract. — Manuel

How do you account for the reality of abstractions? You say that every real concrete phenomenon is physical. Then you say that "concrete" means "not abstract". So you allow for a category of 'real not concrete', or 'real abstract', as something distinct from 'real concrete'. By your words, abstract things are not concrete, therefore not physical, yet they are real things which you talk about. And, by your words, these abstractions cannot be part of the universe. So where are they?

I don't understand why you point to my alleged narrow-mindedness, though it could well be the case. — Manuel

I point to your effort to restrict your "universe" to exclude abstractions as a narrow-mindedness, because you seem to recognize the reality of abstractions yet you want to force them out of your "universe" through this exclusion, as if abstractions are somehow unreal. When a large part of what is present to your mind is abstractions, yet you want to force these abstractions out of your mind as something unreal, this can be called a narrowing of your mind, an effort to deny the reality of a large part of what is present to your mind.

As for the supposed contradiction you raise, I take it to be part of our cognitive constitution. We understand the manifest image (as per Sellars term) and we understand a bit of the scientific image.

We are so constituted that we grasp the two aspects of the world, which are actually different views of the same phenomenon, one being more reflexive and careful (science).

It could easily be the case that some intelligent alien species would see how photons get colours as they are processed in the brain, or they could intuitively understand how gravity or qm works. That's not us. — Manuel

I don't understand why this would require an alien. if we can see, as I point out, that our representation is incoherent due to a contradictory nature, then we could simply accept that this is a poor representation, and look for the true representation. There is no need to invoke an alien to do this for us.

But look, you claim two different views of the same thing. How would two different views of one thing be possible in a universe which only consists of one thing? Isn't it necessary to assume something which serves to separate one view from another view. Suppose the universe is all one substance, all matter as you claim, such that the observers, the observed, and everything else is simply matter. What would distinguish one view from another view, making this a real distinction. Furthermore, how could there even be something called a view, because all that matter would block any possibility of a view.

No need to rewrite physics. — apokrisis

Actually, the uncertainty principle, to begin with, is an obvious demonstration, of the reality of this need. Producing a metaphysics which incorporates the deficiencies of science, instead of recognizing them as deficiencies, and seeking the way to resolution, is a meaningless exercise.

You keep touting "naturalism", as if this categorization was sufficient to justify your metaphysics. But naturalism just reifies mother nature, in a similar way to the way that theology reifies "God". The principal difference is that theology allows that the aspects of the universe which appear to us as unintelligible, actually are intelligible, but only appear not to be intelligible because the method we are applying toward attempting to understand them is inadequate. This method is the method of natural philosophy, the scientific method, which has its limitations. Naturalism, on the other hand, treats the unintelligibility of these aspects of the universe as inherent to the nature of the universe itself, rather than as the consequences of deficiencies of the mind and its method of understanding. The difference therefore, is that naturalism approaches something which appears as unintelligible as inherently unintelligible, where theology approaches it as inherently intelligible, but appearing as unintelligible due to a deficiency in the approach.


So naturalism and scientism wrap each other up in mutual support of denying the reality of the supernatural (that which could only be understood by a superior intelligence). But this mutual support is really nothing other than a vicious circle of unintelligibility. Use of the scientific method reaches its limits and finds anything beyond that to be unintelligible to this practise. The naturalist metaphysician models the aspects of the universe which are rendered by the scientific method as unintelligible (chance, randomness, etc.) as ontological (symmetry breaking, etc.). The proponents of scientism take these ontological models as "truth", and therefore proof that the scientific method is the only means to the goal of truth. So the scientific method continues to produce more support for naturalism by demonstrating that these aspects of the universe are inherently unintelligible, as naturalism continues to produce the ontology which represent them, in its support of scientism.

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Our commonsense notions lead us astray in regard to the nature of the world. That something can be at the same time a particle and a wave in superposition is a fact about the world, it doesn't make sense to us, too bad, it's what we have. — Manuel

The reason why it "doesn't make sense" is not that it is counterintuitive, or contrary to commonsense notions, the reason is that it is logically incoherent, as I explained.

No, by physicalism I mean everything in the world is physical stuff - of the nature of the physical - this means that experience is a wholly physical phenomenon. But if it is true that experience is physical, and history is physical and everything that exists is physical, then clearly the physical goes way beyond what we usually attach to the meaning of the word. — Manuel

Until you define what you mean by "physical" this talk is rather pointless. And, as I explained last post, any attempt to describe the whole world as one kind of stuff will inevitably result in incoherent and contradictory descriptions when you start to apply your definitions in practice. To you, this might appear to be a very miniscule part of reality which gets rendered as incoherent, but that's just an indication that you have a very narrow mind, and the miniscule part you get a glimpse of is just the boundaries which confine that narrow mind. In reality, what is on the other side of that boundary is a whole lot more vast than what fits inside your concept of "physical".

I have to say that I don't understand what necessity means here. I assume you don't mean the "true in all possible worlds" kind of necessity. That would be ambitious for an explanation of empirical phenomena. — Ludwig V

This is how I understand "necessity" in the context of cause and effect. The cause is said to necessitate the effect, so we can say that when the cause occurs, the effect must occur. So for example, if a temperature of lower than zero Celsius is said to cause water to freeze, then we can say that whenever this temperature occurs, water will freeze necessarily. It is this "necessity" which validates the normal concept of causation, and which is very effective in prediction.

The difference between prediction by statistical analysis, and prediction by causation, is that the statistics alone cannot provide the required necessity. We could watch water freeze, always at the very same temperature, numerous times over and over again, and no matter how many times we do, we do not get the required necessity, even though we could use this to produce accurate predictions. Having it happen one hundred percent of the times, is not sufficient for necessity, because that might be one time, or a thousand times, in both cases it's one hundred percent. What provides the necessity is the understanding of how the molecules move, and this gives us the reason why water freezes at that temperature. It is this understanding of "the reason why" the two events are related, which validates the necessity of causation.

I'm not trying to defend Hume, just to understand him. All we've got is what he wrote and I don't think those texts have the answers to your challenges, except that I don't think he ever claims that there is any guarantee that our predictions are always successful. That would be inconsistent. — Ludwig V

The point is not whether our predictions are guaranteed, or one hundred percent certain, but that we can have success in a consistent way. We can predict that the sun will rise day after day for example, with a great deal of success. Success is not "guaranteed", but such a prediction has proven successful in the past, and will likely continue to be so. The question is whether such a prediction, which has proven to be successful, and will likely continue to be so, is produced by reasoning, or some other form of habitual or customary mental activity.

I believe that the critical issue here is the matter of successfulness, reliability. We know from experiential evidence that conclusions made through reasoning are reliable. We also know from experience that predictions made without any form of reasoning at all, are highly unreliable. So, we can make random predictions without reasoning, but they are unreliable, and the question for Hume is how does he think we can produce any degree of reliability without reasoning.

Here's an example. Suppose two events occur in succession which are completely coincidental, and I wrongly conclude that one caused the other. Now I'll predict that if I want the later one to occur again, I can initiate the first, and predict the second. But that would be unreasonable because the concept of causation requires more than a simple temporal succession. There must be another premise which establishes the relationship between the two events as more than just a temporal succession, to validate "causation".

So when we look at a simple prediction, like the sun will rise tomorrow, the prediction may based solely on the continuity of what has occurred in the past, into the future, the consistency of nature which Hume is talking about. But notice that there is no "causation" invoked by this prediction. It's a sort of statistical analysis which produces a prediction based on probability, without any need to appeal to causation whatsoever.

Now, we can see that Hume tends to conflate these two types of successful prediction, the one based in statistical analysis, requiring no concept of causation, and the one based in causation. We should also recognize, that the latter, the successful prediction based in causation, is derived from a true understanding, reasoning, because it requires that further premise which establishes a true and necessary relationship between the thing considered as cause, and the thing considered as effect. But the other type of successful prediction, the one based in statistical analysis does not require that form of understanding, just recollection of past memories, and perhaps a method of applying mathematics in a more complicated prediction. We might inquire whether this type of prediction based in simple memory, and developed into an application of mathematics in statistical analysis, is a form of reasoning, or another type of habit or custom. And I think this would be a valid inquiry because such predictions of events are made without producing a "reason" for the occurrence of the predicted event. But this question is removed from the question of causation, and ought not be confused with it. And Hume seems to conflate these two types of prediction.

Look at it this way. He argues 1) that all our ideas are drawn from experience 2) that experience provides no justification for making predictions based on past experience and 3) that we are going to go on doing just that. He also says that we have found this practice useful. Whether this counts as a justification or merely a cause is debateable. — Ludwig V

So the matter which Hume needs to address, if he were here, is the extra premise required to establish a relationship between the predicted event, and the thing which is supposed to be the cause of that event. We can make predictions through statistical analysis, and we can say that these predictions are solely derived from "past experience". The sun has come up every day, I think it will come up tomorrow. And, Hume can make all sorts of claims about this type of prediction, but those claims would be irrelevant to the subject of "causation", because no cause is implied by such a prediction.

But if we want to address the type of prediction which is based on causation, and this is a type of prediction which relates two events in a necessary way, we can't simply take what is true about the other type of prediction, and apply it to this type of prediction, because they are completely different. And I really don't think we can relate two types of events as cause and effect, in the true and necessary way required to produce consistently successful predictions, without some form of reasoning. And this is why it is necessary to understand "the reason" why they are related as cause and effect, in order that the relationship proposed be the true and necessary relation required for consistently successful predictions.

I follow Strawson here, everything is physical, and that means everything. It's a terminological choice, but a coherent metaphysical one, which focuses on the nature of the world.

Within the physical (or material) we understand the conscious aspects of it better than anything by far. But there remains a lot of the physical we understand poorly, which is the non-conscious aspects of the physical (or matter).

What's the incoherence in this view, if you could explain it a bit more? — Manuel

The point is that when such a theory is applied, incoherencies inevitably arise. We can start with the one most obvious in physics, the so-called wave/particle duality. It is incoherent to say that the same energy, at the same time, moves from one place to another as both a particle and as a wave. The way that energy is transmitted through wave action is completely different from the way that energy moves as an object moving from A to B.

By saying that everything is physical you are saying that the way that physics represents reality is the way that things are. But physics represents reality in a way which is incoherent.

You outline a standard account. But I don't accept that it is Hume's. But he is very clear a) that he accepts the sceptical argument (on the grounds that our experience provides no basis for rejecting it) and b) that we make our predictions because of association of ideas and custom or habit. He is careful to say that our understanding plays no part in this, which I think means that no process of reasoning is involved. I think his account is best classified as a causal one. — Ludwig V

This is simply a cop out by Hume. Reasoning is association of ideas, it is habit, and it is custom. And reasoning is the process of understanding. So if Hume wants to say that there is some type of association of ideas, which is not a form of reasoning, but some other type of mental habit, or custom, which is not conducive toward "understanding" like reasoning is, then he needs to explain what he's talking about. For him to assert that we pretend our predictions are based in reason, when this mental custom where predictions are based, is really something other than reasoning, requires justification. He needs to explain what other types of mental customs we have, which are other than reasoning, and how those other customs might result in successful predictions.

I think we by now have sufficient evidence to show that mind and matter are not distinct (different) ontological categories, but instead should be considered part of the same phenomena, matter, which we do not understand well at all. — Manuel

I disagree with this. I don't see how "matter" could ever be defined in a way to reconcile the two distinct categories. There would be too much contradiction and incoherency. What you say, i.e. that we do not understand matter, is evidence of this.

If we define a term for the sake of supporting some ontological position, when we do not really understand the thing referred to by that term, as you propose with "matter", then unless the ontological position is absolutely correct (which is extremely improbable), when we use that term in application, contradiction will be inevitable.

If current public languages are insufficient for communicating something an agent wants to communicate, it can use other means to try to transmit the semantic content, e.g. drawing a diagram of inventing a new word — Count Timothy von Icarus

More than this, the means for communicating is often chosen on the grounds of simplicity. Communication in general is a tool formed for the purpose of facilitating action. So in many cases the public language is sufficient, but sort of like overkill, so the agent may create a very simple demonstration to take the place of a long explanation which might be required if conventional language was employed. This is sort of like the way we use acronyms and short forms. As we gain experience we find simpler ways to do (or say) the same thing.

However, does this rule out theories of natural teleology to you? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know how one would conceive of "natural teleology", so I cannot answer this.

These have a conception of teleology/final cause that isn't dependent on an agent, at least not in a straight-forward way. — Count Timothy von Icarus

From my perspective an "agent" is something active, and something active is required for causation. So we can't really remove the agent from final cause, but you might have something different in mind for "agent", which is an ambiguous term.

Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos," proposes a sort of teleology of immanent principles underlying the universe that in turn result in its generation of agents. That is, the principles come first and in turn generate the agents that fulfill them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem I find with much of this type of metaphysical speculation is the difficulty in determining the active principle which is responsible for causation in a teleological explanation. So for example, you mention "immanent principles" which result in the "generation of agents". Well, a "principle" is fundamentally passive, and so we still need something active, to act as the actual cause of this generation. But this active thing, acting in a teleologically generative way, would really be an agent itself. So it doesn't make sense to say that this would result in the generation of agents, which from this precept must already exist. And if we remove the prerequisite prior agent, we just have a disguised form of emergence.

The need for the prior agent, the actuality which acts as cause, is explained by Aristotle's cosmological argument. If we remove all actuality, to start with a pure potential, like prime matter is supposed to be, then we supposedly have a time, at the beginning, with pure potential, and nothing actual. But any potential needs to be actualized by something actual, to become actual, so the pure potential could not actualize itself, and this would mean that there would always be pure potential, and never anything actual. This is the problem I find with Plotinus' One. It is supposed to be a pure potential which is the source of all things. But this idea falls to Aristotle's cosmological argument, so the Christian God is a pure actuality.

I find these hard to conceptualize at times. The principles are what generate the agents who can recognize the principles and whose existence is part of the process of actualizing them. But then it seems like the agents are essential to defining the principles as teleological, even though the principles predate them, which, if not contradictory, is at least hard to explain in a straight forward fashion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, it seems like you grasp the problem I described above, quite well. Notice that the problem is really the result of a reversal of the actual-potential order expressed by the cosmological argument. The principles which are posited, in the idea you expressed, are supposed to be responsible for the actualization of the agents, but it's really the activity of the agents themselves which accounts for the actualization of the agents.. The problem obviously, is that the action of the agents is supposed to generate (cause) the existence of these agents. So we have a vicious temporal circle where the agents, through their actions, cause their own existence. The point of the cosmological argument is to show that an agent (in the general sense of something actual) must be prior to any actualization of potential. So the actualization cannot be the cause of the agent, it is necessarily caused by the agent. Keep in mind though that "agent" is used in the general sense, so God as an immaterial "agent" is somewhat different from a human being as an "agent", existing with a material body.

I would imagine an example of this would be something like language generation creating exponentially greater cultural learning which then favors a trajectory away from fixed innate instinctual mechanisms for purely learning mechanisms. In this way, the higher level language creation influences lower level instinctual mechanisms (in this case reducing its efficacy). — schopenhauer1

The key here to what I was saying, is to see language development as a freely willed activity of individuals, which is a bottom-up form of causation. We tend to think of language as a structure of rules which we must necessarily be obliged to follow, in order to be understood. But this is a false necessity. If it were true, it would render the creation of language, and its evolution, as something impossible. So we must consider the creative power of the individual, with free will, as the true essence of language, being the necessary condition which allows for the existence of language by causing the existence of language, in the sense of final cause.

There is what I would call a faulty interpretation of Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations", which assumes a "private language argument", as demonstrating the impossibility of the individual's "private language" as having a relationship with language as a whole. This is analogous to the interaction problem of dualism, the private language is portrayed as incapable of interacting with the public language. But this is a misinterpretation because what Wittgenstein's so-called private language argument really demonstrates is how it is possible for the private aspect of language to incorporate itself into, and therefore become a feature of the more general public language, through this causal relation which Wittgenstein saw as necessary to the existence of language.

So what is particular at the globally general level of the Comos – its will to entropify – becomes the context that makes sharp sense of its own "other" – the possibility of tiny critters forming their own local wishes and ambitions within what remains still possible in a small, but personally valued, way. — apokrisis

By no stretch of the imagination can "entropy" be conceived as a particular. This is the problem encountered when you incorrectly portray final cause as top-down causation. You have to assign purpose to the most general, the most global, and this is exactly opposite to what empirical observation shows us, that purpose is a feature of the most particular, the most local.

This can be clearly understood in the principles of holism. The part has purpose in relation to the whole. "Purpose" therefore, is a property of the part, not the whole. And if we were to attempt to assign purpose to the whole, we would have to relate that whole to something else, make it a part of a larger whole, to say that it has a function in that relation.

To see how "purpose" is causal, as a property of the part, in its relation to the whole, requires an understanding of final cause, and it's associated concept, free will. When the part acts purposefully toward being functional in the existence of the whole, the part does this freely, without causal coercion from the whole. Therefore the "principle" which the part adopts, and which gives it purpose, is derived from something other than the whole of which it is a part of. This principle is fundamental to the part's existence as a part, and is causal (bottom-up) in the sense of final cause.

You haven't dealt with my naturalistic argument. — apokrisis

Your naturalist argument is flawed for the reason I explained. You wrongly portray final causation as top-down. This is because you incorrectly conflate final causation, which is bottom-up causation empowered by the freedom of choice, with the top-down constraints of formal cause, of which "entropy" is one. It is very clear, from all the empirical evidence that we have of the effects of final cause, that the purpose by which a thing acts, comes from within the agent itself, as a bottom-up cause, and it is by selecting this purpose that it may have a function in relation to a whole.

But yes, some new phenomena or discovery comes to light that sheds some light into what was already deemed extremely problematic centuries ago, like the hard problem, or machines thinking. — Manuel

I agree, the truly "hard problems" are the ones which get put aside and neglected for the longest periods of time, hundreds or even thousands of years. They tend to be fundamental, basic ontological issues, so that the work-around is basic and foundational to the ensuing conceptual structure which develops from it. A good example is the interaction problem of dualism, which is very closely related to the hard problem of consciousness.

If we take the hard problem as most basic, fundamental, and therefore most ancient, we can see that the classical work-around for this problem has been dualism. But in ancient Greek philosophy, the incompatibility between the material world of becoming, and the logical world of being and not being, was exposed. Since the logical world was apprehended as consisting of ideas which were considered to be immutable eternal truths, the interaction problem developed because it was impossible to show how this realm of immutable "objects" could interact with an ever changing material world.

The work-around for the interaction problem was initiated by Plato, as "the good", and developed by Aristotle as final causation, later blossoming into free will and intention. The modern day "hard problem" is just a form of extreme ontological skepticism, which rejects all of the significant metaphysical work-arounds produced over the past millennia, to bring us right back to the basic, fundamental problem, and have another go at that problem from a new perspective. The "new perspective" is the one currently obtained from all the gained experience and new knowledge developed over that time period.

So Hume really ought to be classified with G.E. Moore and Wittgenstein in as an opponent of sceptical conclusions. — Ludwig V

I don't think you can draw this conclusion so readily, because it's very unclear as to what Hume means by "uniform experience". And, Hume tends to be a little inconsistent in the way that he represents the relationship between reasoning and sense experience, so his claim that "uniform experience" can produce a proof which is beyond doubt, is in itself highly doubtful.

The problem is that by "uniform experience", Hume obviously means a number of distinct, or separate events, or experiences, compared with each other. This is how he generally represents sense experience, as distinct instances of sensation. But, it is through the use of memory, comparison, and inductive reasoning that we identify consistency through distinct events, to conclude uniformity. Of course memory and inductive reasoning are fallible, so Hume's statement that "uniform experience" provides a proof which leads no room for doubt is very unsound.

I just did the exact opposite of distinguishing them as the general and the particular when it comes to the downwardly acting constraints of a system.

The desire is the generality as it only cares for the achievement of its end, and not the particularity of the form needed to achieve it. — apokrisis

Talk about muddled blathering. Intention, will, is proper to the individual, the particular, while "form" as the formula is general.

Of course chance and spontaneity – as the character of pure material potential - must be entrained by top-down finality to produce an in-formed stable state of actualisation. — apokrisis

But finality is known to be a bottom-up cause, as the will, the cause of motion of the individual. So this bottom-up cause, which is inherently free, as the free will, enabled in its freedom by the potential of matter, is constrained in its bottom-up causation by top-down formal constraints.

Get to grips with the true Aristotle — apokrisis

There is no such thing as "the true Aristotle". It's a matter of interpretation, as is the case with any good philosopher.

But you need to get a grip on the true reality. Final causation is very clearly bottom-up. It is basic and fundamental to every action of organic matter, as purpose driven activities. You know that. So why do you claim final causation to be top-down, when you know that the purposefulness of living activities stems from the very existential base of the material organism?

As you are an Aristotelean – albeit of the scholastic stripe – it is surprising you don't immediately get all this.

Aristotle is the inspiration for the systems science movement. He analysed the irreducible complexity of nature in logical detail with his four causes, hylomorphic substance, hierarchy theory, etc. — apokrisis

I've seen your Aristotelian influence. you conflate formal cause with final cause. That's why you have no principles to separate the downward causation of formal cause from the upward causation of intention, and the individual's free will, final cause.

His hylomorphism spells out the basic Peircean triad of potentiality/actuality/necessity – the dichotomy of pure material potential and pure formal necessity which combine to create the third thing of actual or substantial material being. Prime matter plus Platonic constraints are the bottom-up and top-down that give you the hierarchy of manifest nature. A world of in-formed stuff.

The four causes expands this analysis to reveal the further dichotomies to the fundamental dichotomy.

The bottom-up constructive causes and top-down constraining causes are split by the dichotomy of the general and the particular. — apokrisis

The pure potential of matter cannot properly act as a cause, so you need to place intention, final cause at the base of the "bottom-up constructive cause'. But this is inconsistent with the common notion of "emergence", because it is teleological and emergence is not.

But could it be that doing good is as simple as not doing bad? — invicta

There's a few reasons why this doesn't work. First, human beings like other animals are active, so they can't be told to do nothing, which one might be inclined toward if simply directed not to do anything bad. Since they must be allowed to do things, we can't list off all the bad things, and tell them not to do these, because human beings are creative, and they will develop new, unnamed bad things. So, it's better to direct them toward doing good, so that they happily occupy themselves doing good rather than spending their time looking for loopholes around the named bad things which they are not supposed to do.

Back in the 17th century the "hard rock of philosophy" was the problem of motion, in which "motion has effects which we in no way can conceive".

What happened with that problem? It was accepted and science and philosophy continued - in fact, to this day, the hard problem of motion has not been solved, but we work with what we have. — Manuel

We develop "work-arounds", such as the idea of entropy, and then the problem gets hidden behind these strange terms. In this way, the problem will be sufficiently suppressed until in the future sometime it rears its ugly head again, in a new problematic form.

Hence you aren’t a structuralist or systems thinker. — apokrisis

That's right. I see significant flaws in systems theory. The "system" when used as a theoretical tool, is an artificial structure, a human construction which is produced in an effort to model an aspect of reality. The theory utilizes a boundary to separate the internal, as property of the system, (part of the system), from the external, environment, as not a part of the system. No system can have a closed boundary in an absolute sense, as experimentation seems to demonstrate, and the second law of thermodynamics, and the concept of entropy stipulate.

The problem with systems theory is that it does not provide a second boundary to distinguish between what is not a part of the system by being on the other side of the boundary to the outside (external environment), from what is not a part of the system by being on the other side of the boundary to the inside of the system (what is inherent to the theory, stipulated as not part of the system). By assuming only one boundary which separates "being part of the system" from "being not part of the system", anything which changes its status must cross that one boundary. But this renders certain aspects of reality as unintelligible, such as the entropy demanded by the second law,. This concept dictates that there is something which is lost from the system, i.e. no longer a part of the system when it was a part of the system at an earlier time, yet it is not apprehended as moving through the boundary such that it can be detected as being on the outside of the system. So entropy refers to something which changes its status, but not by crossing the one boundary, but through stipulation as inherent to the theory.

But my structuralist or systems metaphysics is saying that they are irreducibly complex. Thus not reducible to monistic simples. However capable of being reduced or explained as an inevitable relation, such as is represented by a ratio. — apokrisis

This is how the problem I've described above manifests in your metaphysics. The idea of something "irreducibly complex", is an admission of the unintelligibility of that feature. But you are making a false claim, a misrepresentation, to say that this irreducibly complex thing can be "represented by a ratio". To produce that ratio requires that we impose a separation, and this requires a reduction an analysis. To say that something is "irreducibly complex" is to say that it cannot be represented by a ratio.

This end product, 'that which is irreducibly complex', is what systems theory provides us with, due to the failure outlined above. When something, energy for example, is lost to a system, i.e. is no longer a part of that system, and it has not been observed to have crossed the boundary of the system, there is no way to know whether the energy has passed to the outside of the system in some undetected way, due to the limitations of observational capacities, or it has been lost inside the system to what is called entropy. "Entropy" therefore, is irreducibly complex, because no separation between the energy not accounted for because of failure in observation (failure in practise), and the energy assumed to be lost to entropy by systems theory (failure of theory) can be produced. Therefore the content of this irreducibly complex concept, "entropy", cannot be expressed as a ratio between those two aspects which actually make up what is commonly known as entropy.

There is a lot of that - an assumption of superiority, even supremacy - in all human cultures. It's an almost inescapable tenet of our self-regard as a species. (We must be the best, or we couldn't have killed off most of them, right?) Until we examine it with some degree of objectivity. — Vera Mont

We must assume superiority in order to give ourselves the right to do what we do to the other living beings. And we must give ourselves this right in order to protect and feed ourselves. In other words, the assumption of supremacy is necessary in order for us to actually have supremacy, as ideology precedes actuality.

Man a creature of rational intent whereby better socialisation can turn that intent to good side rather than bad, wants to inherently do good I believe but gets corrupted, turns to hate somewhere along the line and does bad stupid shit, hating his fellow man in the process to the extremes of wanting to kill him, because of petty differences or simply because he slept with his wife. — invicta

Whether or not human beings inherently want to "do good" depends on how we would define "good". Such a statement would require that all of our instinctual actions are directed towards goods. But this is really not consistent with the common definition of "good", as many such actions are designated as directed by bad intentions.

There has been an attempt in Christian theology to define "good" in the way that you propose. This is based in the idea that the end which the will is directed toward, in the case of an intentional act, is called "the good". That is how Aristotle described the intentional act. From this definition, any intentional act is necessarily directed toward a good, and we can say as you do, "our instinctual actions are directed towards good", because our natural inclination is to act according to our intentions.

However, this way of defining "good" produces a duality in types of good outlined by Aristotle. We say that the act is directed toward a good, because it is directed intentionally, and that's the way "good" is defined, as what intention is directed toward, but we still want to be able to judge some intentionally directed acts as wrongful. So Aristotle outlined a distinction between an apparent good, and the real good, to allow for this difference. This principle was adopted into Christian theology. The goal of moral training therefore is to produce consistency between the apparent good and the real good. Then we can say that human beings inherently want to do good, but this turns out to only be the "apparent good". Then we're still faced with the problem of how to determine the real good.

I noted the similarity between the "thick moment" and Douglas Hofstadter's I am a strange loop. Prophetic stuff. — Banno

The "thick moment", or what I call the breadth of the present, is what I've been arguing for for years, as what is necessary for an adequate understanding of the reality of free will. This is better known as the concept of a two dimensional time. The second dimension of time allows that one aspect of reality is ahead of another, thereby causal in that relationship of priority, while both are sharing the same 'now' of the present in relation to a linear representation of time.

I call it the "thick moment" of consciousness. What matters is that I feel myself alive now, living in the present moment. What matters is at this moment I'm aware of sounds arriving at my ears, sight at my eyes, sensations at my skin. They're defining what it's like to be me. The sensations they arouse have quality. And it's this quality that is the central fact of consciousness. — https://www.edge.org/conversation/nicholas_humphrey-chapter-11-the-thick-moment

The simple fact of the matter is that we sense the reality around us as activity rather than as a serious of static states, like a movie of still frames. And, since sensation is what provides us with a presentation of what is, at the present in time, we must conclude that there is activity at the present time. Since the passage of time is a requirement for activity, we must conclude that there is actually passage of time at the present. This time which passes at the present cannot be accounted for with a linear representation of time which posits a non-dimensional point at the present, to separate future from past. It must be considered to be a duration of time which is neither past nor future.

Nothing can exist except by being a system that marries Aristotle’s four causes in bottom-up “material” construction and top-down “immaterial” constraint fashion. — apokrisis

I think that since intention is personal, the immaterial final cause acts in a bottom-up freedom fashion.

Yet these two facets of human beings raise question as to man’s nature are we inherently bad or good ? — invicta

Human nature is neither good nor bad. We can look at the human being as having capacities, which provide for the reality of power. And as Plato explained, one can direct one's own capacities toward good, or towards bad. So the same person who has the power to do great good in the world , also has the power to do great evil in the world.

Before the next collision, we can now calculate, based on our experience, what will happen, but only based on the assumption that the balls will behave as they did in the previous collisions. The assumption that the future will be similar to the past, however, cannot be justified by any calculation but only by experience. — Jacques

I don't think you have this quite right. The point Hume makes is that the assumption that the future will be similar to the past cannot be justified by experience, because the future is always ahead of us, and never properly experienced. Experience is always, all in the past. Therefore, that the future will be similar to the past is a principle derived from something other than experience.

The prediction, for what will happen in the future, is as you say, based on an assumption that the future will be similar to the past, but the issue between you and I is the question of what this assumption is based in. We could say that this assumption is somehow derived from experience, but we cannot say that experience justifies it, for the reasons explained above, and it is the way that it is derived which is at issue here.

So this is where inductive reasoning comes into play. When we take past experience, and produce a general principle like 'the balls behaved in such and such a way in the past, therefore the balls will behave in such and such a way in the future", this is an inductive principle. So the issue is what grounds, or justifies the inductive principle. That things behaved in such and such a way in the past, is not sufficient to produce the necessity to imply that they will necessarily behave this way in the future. What is needed is another premise which states that the future will be similar to the past. But this again appears to be just a more general form of the same inductive principle, How things have been in the past, will continue to be how they are in the future. So we do not escape the trap of relying on induction, and this does not give us the desired necessity, or certainty. However, Hume and you as well it seems, want to say that this principle (that the future will be similar to the past) is not actually derived from reason, but simply some sort of predisposition which we have toward looking at the future. We just naturally assume that things will be the same, rather than having derived this idea from experience and inductive reasoning.

This is absurdity from where I'm coming from. We can speak of definitions (nouns) and actions (verbs) both. By the logic of what something does always being what we say of it, then if we say cats teleport then suddenly they do. Except of course what we say about something (either what it does or is) is independent of what that existant actually does or is. — Benj96

Right, you are just demonstrating the difference I am talking about. Even the name of the thing is distinct from the thing itself. And that's why we cannot reduce all to one, as you propose. Even if we make the name a thing itself, and say something about it, what we say about it is not the same as the thing, and this would just lead to an infinite regress. So your proposal for unification would just produce an infinite regress which would render all of reality as unintelligible.

Except one needs to outline that energy is fundamentally all things and their relationships. — Benj96

This is an incorrect representation of "energy", which actually only refers to the relationships between things. Things themselves are said to have mass, which is not the same as energy, but is in some way equivalent by the formula expressed in the op, "E=mc2". Do you recognize the difference between "the same", as indicating the very same, or one and the same thing, and "equivalent", as indicating two distinct things which are equal according to some principle or principles?

If this isn't coherent/making sense for you at this stage I think we can just agree to disagree. I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily but I think we are simply coming at the topic from completely opposite angles. — Benj96

I've known since the beginning of this discussion that we could never agree, because you very quickly demonstrated that you are not averse to believing something which is incoherent. You seem to believe on principle, or on faith, rather than through understanding. There is this incoherent idea you have, that a thing and what that thing does, could be one and the same, and instead of understanding what that means, and how it is incoherent, you simply keep insisting on it.

It appears like you desire to replace terms like "good", "correct", and "right", which appear to clearly have an opposing term, with a term like "truth", which if we dissociate it from "false", might not have an opposing term. Then we could say that the dialectician seeks truth. But this would completely divorce dialectics from moral philosophy, if moral philosophy is still held as dealing with good and its opposition bad, leaving it irrelevant in this field.

An opinion that I have, which you might take note of in relation to this issue, is that Christian theology, following Platonic dialectics, attempted to remove "good" from the category of terms which have an opposing term, by associating it with existence in general and assigning incoherence to any proposed opposition, "non-existence". This way of relating to "good", such that there is no true opposing term, no true bad or evil, is basic to fundamental Christian tenets like love thy neighbour, confession, and forgiveness, which encourage us to judge the actions of others as directed toward a misunderstood good, rather than as bad.

I think it comes down to a question of what the dialectician is supposed to do (as in the sense of ought), within the discipline of dialectics (if we can even call it a discipline). By saying that I am wrong you imply that something else is right. But won't these two actually negate each other, in sublation, to some further idea? How would we describe this further idea which it appears like the dialectician is supposed to strive for? We cannot say that this further idea is the "right". or "correct" idea, because that sort of term has already been used up in the process of negating my idea as "wrong", or "incorrect".