Can you demonstrate that idealists are less individualist or materialistic? — Tom Storm

That idealism is commonly opposed with materialism would be a good indication that idealists are less materialistic. Don't you think?

You had to reach to Tel Aviv university to find a page closer to your definition? — noAxioms

That's a hell of a lot better than Wikipedia.

This is blatantly wrong. For one, the appearance of the sun revolving around the Earth once a day is not explained by the Earth revolving around the sun once a day any more than we’re revolving around all those other objects (moon, stars, etc) once a day. Secondly, the sun revolving around the Earth (once a year) violates basic Newtonian physics (lacking a reaction for the action of the sun). Newton’s laws were not in place back then so Galileo wouldn’t have known that.
Anyway, his pitch of principle of relativity used a boat’s relation to the water as the example, not celestial mechanics. The idea was that one could not tell from inside the boat whether the boat was moving relative to the water or not. — noAxioms

You clearly have not read any of Galileo's material, and continue to demonstrate that you do not know what you are talking about.

This statement is especially ambiguous. Which of them is moving/immobile relative to what exactly? — noAxioms

One body relative to the other body, is what is being discussed. Obviously, each is moving and neither is immobile. That it is impossible to determine that either one is immobile, yet possible to say that each is moving, implies that neither is immobile. And of course this becomes more obvious when the number of objects considered relative to each other is increased.

Humans tend to imply the ground since that’s their lifelong reference, but the implication is begging in this context. — noAxioms

Why do you incessantly resist and deny the point of the principle of relativity? The basic principle is that nothing is immobile (nothing is at rest). The principle of relativity renders the concept of "at rest" as obsolete. That is what allowed Newton to apply his first law of motion. The traditional concept of "at rest" which implied that a body had to be acted upon to be moved, is replaced with "uniform motion" by Newton, because by the principle of relativity "at rest" is not a valid concept. Then through extension of Newton's first law, a rest frame, or inertial frame, can be derived from any body displaying uniform motion because "uniform motion" is the concept which has take the place of "at rest".

I’m referencing far more reputable sources than are you. — noAxioms

Yeah Wikipedia, great source.

Firstly, what makes you think that there is an objective matter of fact as to whether an effect was intended or accidental? Secondly, if there are such facts, then what do those facts consist of? — sime

It doesn't matter as to whether there is such an objective matter of fact. What matters is that it's a useful distinction which demonstrates your model as faulty. The example demonstrates this. The man walks for the purpose of health. Health is the man's purpose for walking. If the man then proceeds to get an injury and dies from walking, we cannot conclude that getting sick and dying was the purpose of his walking, because this is contrary to his true purpose.

That it is a "subjective fact" that he was walking for his health, rather than an objective fact, is irrelevant to the reality of the situation. And as philosophers, what we are trying to understand is the reality of the situation. We are not attempting to constrain "reality" to objective fact, when reality also consists of subjective facts.

If we narrowly interpret the meaning of an "intention" as referring only to the agent's internal state, , then intentions as such cannot be teleological, for the agent's actions are explainable without final causes. — sime

No the actions are not explainable without final cause. That's the point to the example of accidents. Such an explanation would be wrong, like in a court of law when they demonstrate from the physical evidence that the perpetrator's intentions were X, when in reality the intentions were Y. The explanation is wrong, plain and simple.

So in order for intentions to be considered teleological, one must consider both what is going on inside the agent as well as the environmental effects that the agent's behaviour produces, - effects which play no causal role in the agent's history of decision-making. Yet this understanding of 'intentionality' as a type of relationship between the agent's behaviour and the environmental biproducts of his actions, in turn implies that the agent is fallible with regards to knowing what his intentions are. For who now gets to decide what the agent truly intended? — sime

Again, this is wrong. The environmental effects produced ny the intentional action cannot enter into a true understanding of the agent's intentions, because they mislead, as I just explained. The only things which can enter into such a determination are the precedent conditions. This is the only way to give a true representation of the position which the agent is in at the time. The agent, at the time does not have access to the outcome of the actions being deliberated on, therefore in understanding the agent's mind-set (intentions) at that time we cannot allow the outcome of the agent's actions to influence our judgement, because the outcome might be totally inconsistent with the intention, as explained. This becomes extremely relevant when the agent's intent is to deceive. In this case, the actions are intended to mislead.

Note that the problem of "Inverse Reinforcement Learning" is the problem of inferring an agent's overall goals from a history of the agent's behaviour, including the environmental consequences it's actions. It is a chicken-and-egg paradox; In order for observers to estimate an agent's overall goals given a history of it's behaviour, they must assume that the effects of the agent's actions were in accordance with it's intentions, that is to say, they must assume that the agent is an expert who understands his environment. But how can it be known whether the agent is an expert? Only by assuming what the agent's goals are :)

This implies that teleological concepts are either semantically or epistemically under-determined. — sime

Yes, this is exactly the problem. That teleological concepts are "under-determined" is very obvious to me, because of the subjective nature. Is it not obvious to you?

Therefore, in the event that Alice decides not to press the button, i.e. that event NOT A occurs, shouldn't Alice be open to the possibility that her decision not to press A was the effect of Bob deciding on NOT B 'before' Alice made her decision? — sime

No, if Alice believes that pushing A will cause Bob to push B, as your premise states, then there is no stated premise which denies Bob from pushing B even without Alice pushing A. You'd need to state that B occurs if and only if A. But then B is completely dependent (causally) on A, and there is no indication that not B could cause not A, as this would require a reversal of the dependence, and there is no statement of A if and only if B. Therefore Alice is continually free to push A at any moment of time, and the fact that Bob has not yet pushed B has no relevance because Alice's choice is dependent on something else.

the notion of anyone disagreeing with you is obviously absurd, — Isaac

Sure seems absurd to me, obviously.

Okay. The gravitational field doesn't predate the ocean. So, at all times, the ocean currents are under influence of both earth and moon gravitational fields.

Does the strengthening gravitational field predate the rising tide?

The ocean tide rises with the progressively closing approach of moon to earth. As strengthening field intensifies, ocean tide heightens simultaneously. There is no time lag in the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field. Were that the case, when a suicide jumps from the bridge, they would hover in the air for a positive interval of time before accelerating towards the ground. — ucarr

All this makes no sense to me. The suicide jumper is acted on by gravity before jumping. And, the "action-at-a-distance" of gravity is understood to not be instantaneous. The force of gravity, like light, takes time to traverse space. And I'd advise you not to get your images of physical actions from cartoons. Ever see the one where they cut a circle in the floor around a person, then the person just hangs there for a few frames before falling?

Have you seen this hover-in-the-air hesitation first-hand in your own experience? — ucarr

Come on ucarr, you're being ridiculous. Obviously gravity is acting on the person prior to falling over the edge. Why would you think that gravity would only avt after the person steps ove the edge?

Can you cite a definition of cause and effect that explicitly incorporates temporal antecedence?
4 hours ago — ucarr

Please don't waste my time, ucarr. If you do not believe me that causation is a temporal concept then do your own research, and find out how the term is used. Then get back to me with what you find. You know, asking me for a definition is pointless, because I can go through the web and pick and choose what I want to reproduce for you. I do not deny that one might define causality such that it is not necessary for the cause to be prior in time to the effect. What I've said is that this would render causation as incoherent and unintelligible.

Here's what Wikipedia says about causality in physics:

"Causality means that an effect can not occur from a cause which is not in the back (past) light cone of that event. Similarly, a cause can not have an effect outside it's front (future) light cone."

Further:

"Such a process can be regarded as a cause. Causality is not inherently implied in equations of motion, but postulated as an additional constraint that needs to be satisfied (i.e. a cause always precedes its effect)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)

Here's some further reading material for you. If you read some of this stuff you'll see that most traditional definitions of causality list temporal precedence as a necessary condition . However, some might allow for simultaneity, but as I said this renders causation as unintelligible because then there is no true principle to distinguish cause from effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria#:~:text=Temporality%3A%20The%20effect%20has%20to,greater%20incidence%20of%20the%20effect.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.2449.pdf

So, we can interpret that the vote comes from him. :eyes: — javi2541997

Right, judge for yourself. Am I an honest voter, or a troll?

I've often heard the view I subscribe to called model-dependant realism, but I don't know if that's the right term. — Isaac

Why didn't you vote idealist then? Model-dependent realism, as a manifestation of Platonist mathematics in conjunction with idealist physics, is the epitome of idealism.

I think this site Is full of closet idealist. Even Banno displays idealist tendencies when discussing mathematics and bivalent logic. There's a special form of hypocrisy which Wittgenstein demonstrates well, and it seems to have caught on with many philosophers, and that is to use idealist premises to produce idealist arguments while all the time asserting that idealism is unacceptable. Hmmm.

The gravitational field of earth's moon causes the rising and falling of ocean tides. Do you say that the moon's gravitational field predates the oceans covering the earth? — ucarr

No, if the gravitational field is the cause of the tides, it predate the tides, not necessarily the oceans.

Do you instead acknowledge that before creation of the material universe, cause and effect were temporally sequential whereas, in the wake of said material creation, cause and effect are not always sequential? — ucarr

No, that is illogical, cause and effect are always sequential by definition, that's the essence of causation.

I've already agreed that ordinal relations are not necessarily temporal. Causation is a temporal relation though. This points to my first premise. When we observe, and conclude through inductive reasoning, that material things are caused, what "cause" means is something prior in time. So we cannot change the meaning of "cause" here unless we get empirical evidence of a cause which is not temporal. Removing the temporal essence of "cause" would destroy the soundness of the argument.

Upon consideration of the above essentials, your thesis gives highest priority to time. It is the principle essential, ranking above even God. This must be so since God cannot exist or take action without the sanctioning empowerment of time, a principle essential that predates God. — ucarr

Yes, this is because God is defined as being "actual", and time is prerequisite for acting.

Is idealism here the love that dare not speak its name? Are the idealists in their cupboard, hiding their true feelings behind excuses and lack of commitment? Or do these forums disproportionately attract contrarians? — Banno

There. Happy now?

But "Final causes" are representable in terms of bog standard causation without invoking teleological purposes, as demonstrated by reinforcement-learning algorithms that train a robot to implement "goal seeking" behaviour via iterative exploration and feedback . In this case, one might say that the "final cause" of the trained agent's behaviour is the trained evaluation function in the agent's brain that maps representations of possible world states to their estimated desirability. In other words, the final cause refers not to the actual goal-state in the real world that observers might colloquially say the learning agent "strives towards", but to the agent's behavioural policy and reward function that drive the agents behaviour in a mechanistic forward-chain of causation from an initial cause in a manner that is teleologically blind. — sime

As I explained already, this does not give a true representation of "final cause" because it provides no real basis for a distinction between consequences which are intended, and consequences which are accidental. In other words, if final cause was truly determinable from an agent's behaviour, all accidental acts by the agent would necessarily be intentional acts.

If you accept the distinction between purposes and causes, then there is no case for the concept of causation to answer to regarding the distinction between intentions and accidents. For that's purely a matter of teleology and not causation. — sime

Exactly, and that's why the model fails. Final cause is teleological purpose, by definition. You give me a model without purpose and teleology therefore your model models something other than final cause.

A is at the beginning :) Either a "final cause" is used to refer to a bog-standard initial cause that implies none of the teleological controversy commonly associated with aristotolean "final causes", else "final cause" refers to a teleological concept such as a purpose that is defined in relation to a goal state that is external to an agent's brain and that plays no causal role in the agent's behaviour, despite the fact the agent's behaviour converges towards the goal state. — sime

Why do you think that "purpose" ought to be defined in "a goal state that is external to an agent's brain"? Obviously, the goal which motivates (causes) one to act is within the agent's mind, and nowhere else. Furthermore, the truth and reality of acting toward goals is that such actions are not always successful. So the external state which is brought into being (caused) by the agent's actions is not necessarily consistent with the goal which motivated the action. Therefore the only true representation of the motivating factors (causes), must be to represent what is in the agent's mind.

I suspect you are deviating from the commonly accepted notion of "final cause". The whole point of the "finality" in "final cause" is to imply that teleological concepts are necessary for explaining the effects of causation, which isn't the case in the dominoes example; teleology is explainable in terms of purposeless causation, as AI programmers demonstrate. But causation isn't explainable in terms of teleology. To mix up the concepts leads to confusion. — sime

You "suspect" something, but according to what I've stated above, you are obviously quite wrong in your suspicious mind. "Final cause" was proposed as a means toward understanding the purpose behind intentional actions, as the cause of these acts. It's obviously not intended as a means toward understanding the effects, because the effects are plainly observable and do not require teleology.

Take Aristotle's example. Why is the man walking? To be healthy. The action is walking, the cause is the man's desire to be healthy. Whether or not the man actually is healthy or becomes healthy from walking doesn't even enter the scenario. We see him walking, we ask for the cause of him walking, and it is his idea (goal), to be healthy, which is the cause. We cannot judge teleology from the effects because often the person's ideas and beliefs are incorrect. Therefore the effects do not properly reflect the cause in a logical way. The man might become ill from walking, and we would never know that the cause of him walking was to be healthy, unless he told someone this.

Which demonstrates the point i was trying to make, that what we call the "temporal order" has to be distinguished from the "causal order". That A causes B but not vice versa, doesn't necessitate that A occurs before B in every frame of reference. Also recall the time-symmetry of microphysical laws, models of backward causation etc. — sime

Since temporal order is what defines causation, separating the two only renders causation as unintelligible.

So God causing the physical-material universe out of time does not cohere with the axiom: causation cannot occur outside time? Theological God is thus incoherent with causation? — ucarr

Let me try again.

As I explained earlier in the thread, the conventional conception of time bases the passing of time in physical (material) activity. By this conception of "time", God is outside of time. And so the theological conception of God, as outside of "time" is coherent on this conception of "time".

Where the problem lies is that God is understood to be actual, and the acting cause of material existence. "Acting", and "cause" are conceptions which imply the passing of time. So there is an inconsistency. God cannot be both outside time, and also an acting cause.

Since the logic which dictates the necessity of God, as an acting cause prior to material (physical) existence is sound, then we ought to conclude that God is not outside of time. So we can see that it is the conventional conception of "time", which forces the conclusion that God is outside of time, and this conception is therefore faulty. It is only in relation to the faulty conception of "time" that God is said to be outside of time. God is outside of time by that definition of time, but since this creates inconsistency or incoherency, the definition of time is incorrect, and God is not outside a true definition of time.

can we assume someone can speak or write a logical statement that necessarily leads to:

the conclusion that there must be a cause prior in time to all material (physical) things. (?) — ucarr

Yes, I went through this logic already. We know through observation and induction that each and every material thing has a cause. The cause of a material thing is prior in time to the existence of that material thing. Therefore there is a cause prior in time to all material things.

Okay. Regarding the ordering of reality, if something is logically prior to time, then its priority over time is by a standard of measure not temporal? — ucarr

I really don't know, but obviously not temporal. Someone would have to show me the logical order before I could make the judgement as to what is demonstrated by it. I just stated that as a possibility.

In the above quote priority is temporal? — ucarr

Yes, because we were talking about "cause", and "cause" implies a temporal order.

So time is the product of physical activity is a false premise? — ucarr

Correct.

So God exists and acts within time is your main premise? — ucarr

For that part of the argument. However that God exists and acts within time are conclusions drawn from the preceding part, which we already discussed.

God’s existence in time is non-physical whereas human existence in time is physical? — ucarr

Yes, humans are physical (material) beings. God as the cause of material (physical) existence cannot be a material (physical) being, otherwise God would be the cause of Himself, which is incoherent.

Edit: I had to delete my reply to the following questions because I misunderstood:

So God causing the physical-material universe out of time does not cohere with the axiom: causation cannot occur outside time? Theological God is thus incoherent with causation? — ucarr

I had to delete many of his low quality comments every day. The staff discussed his case several times and we were generally in agreement.

We went out of our way to keep him here, but he just couldn’t do what we asked him to. — Jamal

I sometimes (but more often not) enjoyed interaction with Agent Smith. I completely agree that flagrantly causing extra work for the moderators is intolerable, and that's a principle with no exceptions regardless of the rationale.

...and that causation is still undergoing formalization... — sime

If this is true, it's proof that there is no formalized definition of "cause".

And, since there are two distinct principal types of causation, efficient and final, there will never be an acceptable formalization of causation until the relationship between the two is represented properly. Formalization of one principal type of causation while excluding the other principal type of causation does not give a true formalization.

Causal models merely express the concept that doing something leads to observations that otherwise wouldn't occur. — sime

This is exactly why a formalization is impossible, and causation will always be philosophical rather than scientific. This provides no basis toward understanding the cause of "doing something". So, a person does something and this causes something which otherwise wouldn't occur. If we want to know whether the thing which otherwise wouldn't have occurred is intentional, or accidental, we need a much better principle than this. And if you claim that this is irrelevant to "causation", all that matters is whether the thing otherwise wouldn't occur, you fail to properly represent "final cause" in your formalization, and you provide no principles for excluding accidents from our actions. However, it's quite obvious that the effort to exclude accidents is very important.

Causal models essentially define causes as being 'initial' with respect to the causal orders they define or describe, making "final causes" an oxymoron in the sense of the causal order. — sime

The use of "final" in "final cause" seems to be misleading you. "Final" is used in the sense of "the end", and "end" is used in the sense of "the goal" or "objective". The terms "end", and "final" are used when referring to the goal or objective because the intentional cause is what puts an end to a chain of efficient causes when looking backward in time. So if D caused E, and C caused D, B caused C, and A caused B, we can put an end to that causal chain by determining the intentional act which caused A. It is called "the end", or "final" cause because it puts an end to the causal chain, finality.

Take a chain of dominoes for example. We look at the last fallen domino and see that the one falling prior to it caused it to fall. Then the one prior to that one caused it to fall. When we continue to follow this chain of causation, we find the intentional act which started the process, and say that this is "the final cause", because it puts an end to that causal chain. The terminology is derived from our habit of ordering things from the present, and looking backward in time, so that the causes nearest to us at present appear first, and the furthest are last.

Nevertheless, causal models have nothing to say regarding the order and linearity of time itself unless their variables are given additional temporal parameterization. All that they demand is that causes are considered to be controllable preconditions of their effects, not that causes are necessarily temporally prior to their effects in some absolute sense, which might well be considered a matter of perspective. — sime

This I do not understand at all. The fact that accidents are still considered to be caused, demonstrates that causes are not necessarily "considered to be controllable preconditions". Furthermore, I've never heard of a causal model which allows for a cause to be after its effect. You simply create ambiguity here by saying "in some absolute sense" because the principle of relativity of simultaneity allows that from the perspective of different frames of reference, the temporal order of two events may be reversed.

The fact that you say the cause is a "precondition" of the effect, implies a temporal order in itself. So to say that causes are not necessarily temporally prior to their effects is blatant contradiction whether or not you qualify this with "in some absolute sense".

I understand Aristotle's definition of a 'final cause', but it makes no sense to me to muddle such "final causes" with the "causes" meant by the modern scientific definition of "causes" that refer to experimental inventions that go on to produce measurable effects. — sime

You don't seem to understand causation sime. There is no scientific definition of cause. Cause is a philosophical concept.

Since, by your declaration, logical priority ≠ temporal causality, it seems to follow that a realm of ideal forms exemplifies your statement that:

...we have an inductive principle that there is a cause prior to every material thing.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Furthermore, it seems to follow that this realm of ideal forms, being outside time because it timelessly causes material objects to exist, holds possession of a metaphysical identity in the sense that it is beyond both the temporal and the physical. — ucarr

No, not at all. A cause, as I painstakingly explained, cannot be outside of time.

Furthermore, you seem to be implying time is physical. — ucarr

No, not at all. As I explained, the idea that time is physical is what leads to the conclusion that God is outside time, God being the immaterial cause of the physical. This renders "God" as unintelligible, incoherent, as a cause, or act which is outside of time. Since logic indicates that the material (or physical) world must have a cause, we must conclude that time is not material (or physical).

Since you appear to be having difficulty let me restate the principles which I've been trying to explain.. Tell me what you don't understand.
1. Logic produces the conclusion that there must be a cause prior in time to all material (physical) things. This cause cannot be material (physical) because it is prior in time to material (physical) things. Theologians call this "God".
2. If time is the product of physical activity then God must be outside of time.
3. As an actual cause, it is impossible that God is outside of time.
4. Therefore time as well as God must be prior to material (physical) things, and is not material (physical).

Does this incline you to think time has a cause? — ucarr

No, that's what I describe as incoherent. "Cause" implies temporality, it is a temporal concept where a cause is understood to be prior in time to the effect. To say that there is something prior in time to time, as the cause of time, is incoherent. If we wanted to speak of something prior to time, we would have to use terms other than temporal terms to describe this sort of "priority". We might say "logically prior to" for example. But this would require a description of time itself, to determine what is logically prior to time, and we do not have such a description.

Does the following train of thought reflect your thinking: Since time predates God and God created the material world of physics, time must be something other than physical. — ucarr

No, that's backwards, you need to reverse it. We have the physical world first, as our source of evidence. We see that something preexists each and every material thing as the cause of existence of that thing. So we have an inductive principle that there is a cause prior to every material thing. This is what theologians refer to as "God". But "cause" is a temporal term, implying an act, and acts only occur within a duration of time (another inductive principle). So God requires time as a precondition for acting.

I think the whole idea of final causation was a casuality of the Scientific Revolution and the rejection of scholastic/Aristotelian ideas of causality. Note however Aristotle's Revenge by Edward Feser — Wayfarer

I think that's right, that "Revolution" came along with the rejection of Aristotelian philosophy. It started when Galileo and others demonstrated faults in his physics. Then there was no need to teach his physics, and this attitude progressed through his other topics, and eventually even his logic was removed from the standard curriculum.

As a part of his physics, "final cause" was an early casualty. It was completely removed from the field of physics, as irrelevant. The social sciences, such as law, replaced "final cause" with "intention". Now, "intention" retains the status of "final cause", as causal. But in as much as intention is seen as causal in law, this is far removed from physics, so the relationship between these two types of causes, efficient cause and intention, is not very well upheld in any discipline.

Because of this, we have no accurate representation of intention as a cause in the physical world, physics using "efficient cause". There is intention in law, where it is implied that intention is a cause, and there is efficient cause in physics, where it is presumed that there are no other forms of causation. As a result, intention is commonly comprehended as a form of efficient causation. Then there is no understanding of "final cause" at all, in any scientific discipline.

You can see this from sime's reply. The idea that thoughts and goals caused the existence of the shed is off-handedly rejected, because it is inconsistent with the understanding of "cause", as efficient cause. After this off-handed rejection, sime is left with the incoherent proposition 'the shed caused me to build it', as a representation of final cause.

If I had to quibble or add something, I’d want to emphasize that “material needs” for Marx included social, creative, spiritual and intellectual needs. — Jamal

Right, and I think that is actually quite important. The reason I said Marx is so insightful, is the same reason why his materialism is so similar to Hegel's idealism. He successfully transforms Hegel's "Idea" into "matter". So instead of rejecting Hegel, as pie-in-the-sky idealism, he just takes Hegel's historicity pretty much as it is, goes one step beyond, and grounds it in something supposedly real, i.e. matter. Therefore all the features of the Idea are manifestations of matter.

This is similar to what Aristotle did with Plato's "the good". The good is cast as some sort of guiding principle for the human being, combining both body and mind to act coherently, in unison. But the good is left by Plato as fundamentally unknowable. Aristotle saw that if the good is supposed to be the guiding principle, it cannot be left as unknowable, so he moved toward positing a real tangible "end" to human actions and that was "happiness".

The issue which arises, is that if the thing posited as the real tangible end, happiness for Aristotle, or material existence for Marx, turns out to be elusive, incoherent, or unintelligible itself (merely a pie-in-the-sky ideal), then the proposal is eroded, the structure collapses back, and is revealed as being just another form of idealism. So what is pivotal is the truth to the grounding of the idea.

Thanks Tom. It's an oversimplification which I believe to be somewhat accurate.

According to one of the two main accounts of causality, namely the perspectival "interventionist" interpretation, a causal model is a set of conditional propositions whose inferences are conditioned upon variables that are considered to have implicative relevance but which are external to the model, such as the hypothetical actions of an agent. These models, whose use is now widespread in industry and the sciences, are thus naturally "compatibilist" in conditioning all models inferences upon hypothetical or possible values of external variables that are considered to be chosen freely. So I presume you are criticising earlier historical conceptions of causality such as Bertrand Russells', which assumed a causal model to be a complete description of a system's actual dynamics (thus making cause and effect redundant notions). — sime

Look at it this way. The "variable" in the model described is a freely chosen act. But from the perspective of the agent, the chosen act is not a variable. It is known by the agent, chosen, and in that way determined. So to model the chosen act as a variable does not provide a good description of what a chosen act really is.

What I don't follow is the relevance of a "final cause", unless it is surreptitiously being used to refer to an initial cause, i.e. a bog standard cause. For example, if I am working to build a shed in the back garden, what is the "final cause" of the shed here? Obviously my thoughts, goals and motivation throughout the project cannot be considered a literally "final" cause, which speculation notwithstanding, leaves the resulting actual shed as the only remaining contender for the final cause. Are you insinuating that the resulting shed caused me to build it? (which incidentally isn't likely to look anything like my imagined shed due to my terrible practical skills) — sime

"Final cause" is the intent, the purpose. So it is exactly the case that your thoughts, goals, and motivation are literally the final cause of the shed. Whatever reason you had, whatever purpose you had in your mind, this is the reason why the shed was built. Therefore these ideas, as intent, are the cause of your actions, and by extension the cause of existence of the shed. This is the basis of the concept of "intent" in law, the decision to bring about consequences.

That is why "variable" does not serve as an adequate representation. The fact that you wanted a shed, and this motivated you to go out and built a shed, is the cause of the shed. And you could further specify the particular purpose you had in mind for the shed when you built it. The intent, purpose in mind, or "final cause", is not a "variable" in the coming into existence of the shed, it is the cause of existence of the shed

.

Without knowing exactly what you mean, I tend to agree. However, it’s probably essential in understanding Marx to see that he was attempting a philosophy of praxis, a realization of philosophy in history: — Jamal

I'll see if I can state succinctly what I believe to be the important point. The difference between Hegel and Marx is the difference between idealism and materialism. The two are actually very similar, but there is an inversion between them in the way that first principles are produced, which results in somewhat opposing ways of looking at the very same thing.

So Hegel described the State as being a manifestation of the Idea. The Idea might be something like "the good", "the right", "the just", and being ideal, it's derived from God. From here, the history of the State is described as a history of the Idea, and how human beings strive to serve the Idea. The Idea comes from God, and there is always a need for the human subjects to be servants to the Idea.

Marx liked Hegel's historical approach, but figured he got the first principle wrong. In order to produce a true historicity he had to replace the Idea with matter, as the first principle. This was to place the living human being, and its material body as the first principle, rather than some pie in the sky "good", "right", or "God". So from Marx's perspective there is real substance grounding these ideas like "good", "right", "just", and this is the material needs of the material human being. From this perspective we can have a real history of the State, judging by its practises of providing for the material needs of material human bodies.

You can see the inversion. From the Hegelian perspective, the people must be judged in their capacity to serve the ideals of the State. From the Marxian perspective, the State must be judged in its capacity to serve the material needs of human beings.

Your assumptions lead you towards your understanding and mine mine. So you are already assuming that there is a correct understanding, meaning your reasoning is circular. — Janus

No, there's no circle. I've already noticed that some of my presumed understandings turn out to be misunderstandings. And that is the basis for the conclusion that there is such a thing as correctness. It's not circular because the grounding for "misunderstanding" is in my personal failures.

How do you know there is a correct metaphysical understanding and how would you identify it as being correct? — Janus

I can know this from the same principle. I know that some supposed understandings lead to success, and some lead to failures, and, metaphysics is comprised of propositions for understanding. By deduction I can conclude that some metaphysical understandings lead to successes and others to failures.

How do you know there is a correct metaphysical understanding and how would you identify it as being correct? — Janus

I tend to judge metaphysical understandings by how pervasive they are through multiple cultures, and how well they stand up to the test of time. I think that those principles provide a good indication of success and therefore correctness. It's similar to natural selection in evolution.

One is my Anglo mode, in which I’m a plain-speaking direct realist, and the other is my sort of phenomenological, sort of Marxian, quite traditional, wannabe Hegelian mode, in which philosophy has ambitions as grand as you’ve set out here. — Jamal

I believe that Marx provided a very unique and informative approach (in the form of basic assumptions) toward the interactions between things, both animate and inanimate. He has very insightful principles which ought not be ignored by anyone interested in the interactions between beings, things, and both.

If you go back to the beginning of philosophy (with Parmenides and the Eleatics) the understanding of how things can come to be as they are is the fundamental question. — Wayfarer

When Aristotle addressed being qua being, in his Metaphysics, this he said was the fundamental question, why is a thing what it is, rather than something else. As an approach to this question, the law of identity, that a thing is necessarily what it is and not something else, was presented. When he considered the law of identity, (that a thing is necessarily what it is and not something else), along with the activity of becoming (coming to be), he concluded that the form of the thing is necessarily prior to the material existence of it. We can say that the form predetermines, as a cause, what the thing will be, so that when it comes to be, it will be the thing that it is, rather than something else.

Philosophy delivers only contextual truths, and there are as many possible assumptions to begin from as there are philosophies. The idea that some are "correct" and others not, tout court, erroneously fails to acknowledge the different presuppositions in play, and the reality of talking past one another on account of that. — Janus

The problem is that some assumptions lead us toward understanding, while others lead us toward misunderstanding. Since understanding is what is desired over misunderstanding, it is appropriate to say that some assumptions are correct and others incorrect.

What is it that interaction between non-perceiving objects is like? — schopenhauer1

The tree wraps its roots around the rock, and takes from the rock whatever it can get. Unbeknownst to the tree, the rock is also active, and may roll, killing the tree. This is the way of interaction between living things and inanimate things. The living being wants to take all that it can get from the inanimate. But the living being's inadequate knowledge of the activity of inanimate things makes this a very risky activity. So the being must develop a balanced approach between taking all that it can get, and producing the knowledge and capacity required to restrain itself, according to the dangers involved with the activities of inanimate things.

Beyond the problem of interaction between living beings and non-perceiving things, there is a further problem of interaction between distinct living beings. This problem is far more difficult because when the basic problem is complex, and unresolved, the difficulties tend to mount exponentially.

Okay. God is not self-caused. Does God have a cause? — ucarr

I don't know, I can't imagine the possibility of anything uncaused, so probably. But God is noy well understood by me so I can't make any firm judgement.

Okay. Time predates God. And God created the material universe.

So, time before God was metaphysical and there were no material things?

Okay. God can only act within time.

So, outside of time God cannot exist? — ucarr

I think my answer to all this is generally yes. But I don't know what you mean by saying time is "metaphysical". If you mean that it's an object of study in metaphysics, then I agree.

Also the answer to the last question depends on one's conception of time. In relation to the conventional conception of time (which is faulty), God is outside of time. In relation to a true conception of time God cannot be outside of time.

This demonstrates the usefulness of the conception of God. It helps us to understand the reality of faults in conventional conceptions, and the fallibility of humanity in general, as indicated by unenlightened above.

Are they following rules when they play then?

I think it’s the ‘realm of possibility’ and that it is a real realm, in a way analogous to ‘the realm of intelligible objects’. — Wayfarer

I agree, and I see a problem with the determinist attitude. Describing activity in the physical world in terms of efficient causation has been a very useful and practical venture. The problem is that this descriptive format has limitations which the determinist ignores or denies. We find that within human beings there is an active mind, working with immaterial ideas, to have real causal affect in the physical world. Causation from the mind, with its immaterial ideas is described in terms of final cause (goals purpose and intent), choosing from possibilities, which is completely distinct from efficient causation.

So there is a very real need to recognize the limitations of "efficient causation" as an explanation of the activities in the physical world. And we need to accept the reality of the immaterial "final cause" as having real efficacy in the material world.

Yes, I think so. This is clearly seen in the case of jazz. The innovators made the rules that those who came after them learned and followed. But the innovators did not make the rules in the sense of first making them and then playing according to them. They played and those who studied them codified them. — Fooloso4

So the innovators don't make rules at all. They just play. The ones wo study the innovators are the ones who make the rules.

No important reason. I'm accustomed to form and substance as a set. I perceive form and matter as being interchangeable.

It's true substance has a meaning other than matter. It can mean quality.

Do you think quality has form? More generally, do you think abstractions have form? — ucarr

A material object consists of matter and form. And, material objects are also said to be substance. So it cannot be correct to say that substance is matter. You could define "substance" to say that it is the same as "matter", but then why not just use "matter" instead?

I've never heard anyone use "substance" to mean quality. That's a new one on me.

Self-creation of God took time to occur? — ucarr

I already said that self-creation is incoherent, and I explained why. This discussion is not progressing.

Time predates God? — ucarr

If God is actual, time must predate God, because any act requires time. Don't you agree? How could God ever begin to do anything if there was no time?

No matter which intermediary you choose, all of it is a part of the environment, which is directly accessible and perceived directly. — NOS4A2

It is not directly perceived though, that's the point. I do not sense space, it's conceptual. But if you're quite sure that you are sensing space I see no point to the discussion.

The intermediaries you speak of are in the environment, which is still directly accessible, and therefor still entails direct realism. You seem to be stuck on this point. — NOS4A2

Ok, I'm stuck on this point because you seem to be incredibly wrong to me. I see some stars very far away. There is obviously an intermediary between my perception and the stars which I perceive. What is this intermediary, space, light, ether? How do you think that any of these proposals to account for the apparent separation between me and the stars, would be directly accessible to be perceived? I see each and every one of such proposals as a logical construct produced as a means to account for the intermediary. Don\t you? If I could see the thing between me and the stars, it would block my vision of the stars.

So the question is, where is this potential? — EnPassant

And the fact that this causes us to ask 'what we mean by "real"' is central to the whole matter. — Wayfarer

We might combine these two questions, to ask what does it mean to say that potential is real. The best way to look at this, in my opinion, is in respect to the nature of time. The reality of "potential" can be found to inhere within the way that time passes at the present. In relation to the future, there is real possibility as to what will come to be. This real possibility constitutes the reality of potential.

From the perspective of the living breathing human being, there is real possibility (therefore real potential) with respect to future acts. This real possibility is what gives human beings their power of choice, and their power to create. Mathematics is a great tool in exercising this power, therefore the reality of mathematics, in our understanding of it, is related directly to human potential.

But this opens the question of how human potential is related to real potential. We, from our human perspective, comprehend real possibility to inhere within the passing of time. The passing of time provides us with real possibility in future acts. However, it appears to us, that this real possibility requires the human mind to manifest its realness. How this could be the case is extremely difficult to grasp. How could it be that physical existence appears to progress in a completely determined manner of causation, yet somehow the human mind grasps real possibility to inhere within this determined world?

This is to say that the physicist will model the passing of time in the physical world as deterministic, and maybe even some would claim that this is a real representation of the world, yet this model excludes the reality of possibility. Then the philosopher will step in and say wait, human potential demonstrates real possibility. Now we get a sort of compromised understanding. The compromise is to say that there is real possibility, real potential within the world, but that real potential only exists as a property of the human mind, as ideas and conceptions within the human mind.

Any rigorous analysis of this compromised understanding will demonstrate that it is faulty. If the human being has real capacity to change things in the world, the potential for change must inhere within the world itself, in order that the world itself may be changed. And if the capacity to change things in the world is only a property of the human mind, it is an illusion, a falsity. The one perspective is that of free will. The other perspective is that of determinism. The compromised understanding is compatibilism.

In my mind the “internal stages” are a part of the perceiver and thus mediated by him. I don’t see why we need to include some other intermediary. If there is no intermediary the perception is direct. — NOS4A2

There is no mitigating factor or intermediary between perceiver and perceived, therefor the perception is not indirect. — NOS4A2

You seem to be stuck on this point, which is incorrect. We hear things which are far away, therefore there is an intermediary. We see things which are far away, therefore an intermediary is called for. Touch and taste appear to have no intermediary, but smell appears to have an intermediary.

Because of these differences between the various modes of perceiving, we cannot make any general statement about whether perception requires an intermediary or not. Therefore we need a more precise description as to how we perceive, one which would be inclusive of all five senses, before we can make any general conclusions about whether there is an intermediary or not.

Yes. Our empirical experience of reality always finds form and substance interwoven. Do you have any empirical experience of form and substance in separation?

I argue that: form without substance is an unreachable abstraction; substance without form is an unintelligible chaos. This leads to the claim that form and substance are essential attributes of existence. — ucarr

Why have you replaced my word, "matter" with "substance"? There is nothing to prevent the conception of substance without matter, such as the conception of independent Forms. So form without matter might be substance without matter. Matter is not essential to substance.

In making your argument here, you’re presupposing God is in time and, moreover, that time WRT God is insuperable. You need firstly to establish the logical necessity of this supposition. If you can do this you will then be in position to establish the logical necessity of “God prior to time” being incoherent. — ucarr

I told you the logic of this. God acts as a cause of the material world. Any act requires time to occur. Therefore the idea that God is prior to time, is inconsistent with the idea of God having actual existence, or God as the actual creator of the world. Therefore to think of God in both ways, as creator, and as prior to time, is incoherent.

No? Then what is? And what of the notion that all thoughts are singular and succession, which implies any thought is itself a particular instance of it? All conceptions are thought, so….. — Mww

I think I explained this. I guess not satisfactorily. Let me try again, in a different way. What is conceptualized is a bunch of relations between concepts, as you described earlier. "The particular" is something posited as having a relation to these conceptions. The particular does not enter into the conceptualization though, so we cannot properly say that it is conceptualized.

This is the point with truth and falsity being a judgement which is outside the validity of the logic. Logic here represents the conceptualization. The relation between the logic and the particular is that judgement of truth, which cannot be said to be part of the conception. That's the point with Wittgenstein's chair example. The person sees the chair one day, and sees it the next day looking exactly the same, and in the same place, yet the person cannot say whether it is the same particular (it may have been switched overnight). This indicates the what we call "the particular" does not enter into the conception of the chair. The person has all this knowledge about "the chair" in that place, but cannot accurately judge whether it is the same particular which is there now as was before. This is a statement of how we understand "the particular", as an object with temporal extension.

It's actually a very difficult ontological principle to grasp, which is tied up in Aristotle's law of identity. The law of identity is set up to support the very intuitive notion that there are real objects in the world, particulars, which exist with temporal extension, despite undergoing minor changes as time passes. Change is incompatible with our conceptualizations of an object, yet it very much appears (is very intuitive) that an object maintains its identity as the same object despite changing. Logically, if a thing requires two different descriptions, at two different times, then it is two different things. So Aristotle posited a principle of continuity, matter, which links the object at one moment, to the changed object at the next moment. This accounts for the reality of "the particular", as a thing having temporal extension.

The problem is that matter is described as potential, in order to account for the reality of change, and potential as what may or may not be, escapes intelligibility by defying the law of excluded middle. The other way of portraying the unintelligibility of matter, is that it defies the law of non-contradiction, as both is and is not. This is the position of dialectical materialism, which comes from Hegel's dialectics of being.

I hope that will help to explain this idea, that the particular does not enter into the conceptualization. There is something about the particular, that it changes (its properties change) while remaining the same (it maintains its identity as the same thing), which makes it fundamentally unacceptable to conceptualization. So logic simply leaves the particular out, and works with the properties. "Socrates is a man", for example, indicates a particular with that name "Socrates". But the proposition replaces the particular with a name, "Socrates", and the name, as the subject receives predications. If we say that the name, which enters into the conceptualization as the subject, is the particular, then we deny the grounds for truth, because it is what we say about it. So truth in the sense of correspondence requires that the name must represent the particular, rather than be the particular.

As for the issue of thoughts being singular, and in succession, as particulars, I don't think this is an accurate representation of thoughts. Thoughts are very much overlapped, in their comings and goings, and this is why they are best described as relations and associations.

It is still logical that a sensation now is of the same thing as the sensation is of that thing at a later time. — Mww

This is the key point. If the supposed "thing" requires a different description at a different time, it is not logical to say that the two are the same thing. A different description indicates a different thing. And when we learn that a thing undergoes minor changes at each moment of passing time, logic dictates that it cannot be the same thing unless we establish something which relates them like temporal continuity. This is what the thing is at one moment, and this is what it is at another moment, the two are not the same, therefore the two are different things. So we simply assume a temporal continuity between the two, and this allows us to say that they really are the same thing.

So, we allow a separation between the thing (particular) and its description (its conceptualization). This allows that the same thing can have certain predications at one time and contradicting predications at another time. The predications are applied to the subject, and the subject is a stand in for the thing, the particular, as a representation of it. We cannot allow that the subject is the thing, or particular, or we lose the grounds for truth (as correspondence).

Compromise: if we say my transferring is your collecting, I might still be inclined to grant intuition is the collecting tool, in that the matter of an object from which sensation proper arises, is represented as an empirical intuition. Dunno if that works for you. — Mww

It doesn't really work for me. The point is to make a complete separation between your mind and my mind, as each is being confined within distinct particulars (different bodies). The ideas produced in my mind are created by my mind, and the ideas produced in your mind are created by your mind. Similarities are the result of past occurrences, genetics, and conformity in teaching practises, etc..

So there is nothing which is really being transferred when you and I communicate. You write something (create something) according to the way your mind works, and I interpret it ( a creation of my mind) according to the way my mind works.

You might, I would not. I would limit the senses to information transferring devices, the information already residing in the things perceived. There isn’t any information collected per se, it is, rather, merely that which the mind employs as the instantiation of its methods. — Mww

This is the difference in our understanding of causation, which has pervaded this discussion. I place the cause of perceptions and ideas as within the person. You place the cause as external to the person. So where I say the person uses the senses as tools, in the mind's creation of ideas, you say that the external thing enters into the mind through the senses, and causes the existence of what the mind perceives.

Of course this is where some compromise could be afforded. I think we would both agree to some of each, as a combination. The question though is to priority, which is the principal form of causation in perceptions and ideas. And this is where determinist/choice becomes relevant. From my perspective, the chain of causation, which we commonly represent as necessary, is broken, so your representation cannot hold. Causation from the internal side is final cause, and there is no necessity in how external things are represented within the mind, so the chain of efficient cause from the external is broken.

Ok, so what something other than the mind creates forms? And if the information contains inherent meaning within it, what does understanding do? How is this not precisely the materialist doctrine writ large? — Mww

The common solution here is "God", simply because we really do not know where the order which appears to inhere within the universe comes from.

Ok, the mind abstracts meaning inherent within forms received as information, according to what it knows. But once again….what if the mind doesn’t know? Why would the mind create its own meaning, if there is already meaning inherent in the forms? Although, I’m beginning to see where your notion that judgement being the source of error, as I hold it to be, is not the case. I’m not sure it is legitimate to permit the mind to misinterpret, that is, mistake the meaning inherent in forms with the meaning it creates for itself. — Mww

Again, I will insist on a complete separation. The way that the independent Forms (the forms which particulars are supposed to have) affect us, is the way of efficient cause. The way that the perceiving mind creates its forms in conception, is the way of final cause. The two are incompatible, because "efficient cause" is a representation of how material bodies affect each other, and "final cause" is a representation of how the immaterial affects the material. In our commonly accepted understanding of efficient causation, those employed in science, there is no room for the immaterial to affect the material.

The only reasonable explanation for why the mind must create its own meaning (through final causation) rather than simply receiving meaning from the existing independent Forms (forms of the particulars), through efficient causation, is that there is a separation between the two. The separation is what we know as "matter", and this is the barrier of unintelligibility.

There is a temporal principle here. The immaterial soul has a causal impact on matter, final cause. But the mind understands causation within material things (particulars) as efficient cause, without the influence of final cause. So until the mind understands causation within the world of material things (particulars) as including an immaterial cause, final cause, there will always be a separation in our understanding of how things affect us, and the way that we affect things. The gap may be closable, but not under our current understanding (misunderstanding).

This works for objects received more than once. In other words, objects known to the mind as experience, re: according to conceptions which it already has. — Mww

You don't seem to be getting the point. This is the way of first time perception, because each instance of perception is a first time, as unique and distinct from every other instance. We class by similarity, not by being the same. There is no need for the same object to have already been sensed, only similarity in prior sensations. You don't seem to be grasping this fundamental point. Your bee sting this year is not "the same" as your bee sting last year, it is only similar. So it is not at all a case of receiving the same object twice, it is a case of similarity. No two distinct experiences are "the same". We class them as the same, but this just means of the same type. And when you come to understand that all such judgements are judgements of type rather than a judgement of the same particular, you'll see that the particular never enters into the conception. "The same" as in the same particular is some sort of ideal intuition, which we cannot grasp in conception because it is contrary to logic.

Consider the alternative, wherein the mind classifies in accordance with conceptions it already has…..how is it determinable that none of them represent the forms inherent in the information it received? — Mww

We can determine this in the way described above, from the known fact that the independent Forms (the forms inherent within particular material things) are constantly changing. In the mind's system of classification each change means that the thing has become a different thing. But this is counterintuitive to our idea that a minute change ought not constitute a different thing, so we posit a temporal continuity of existence whereby the thing would undergo minute changes and maintain its status as the same thing. However, this implies that the form of the particular, the independent Form is constantly changing, and this is fundamentally different from our conception of the form of a thing, which is a static description. Therefore we have a determination of the difference. A form inside a person's mind is a static description, the independent Form is a continuous change. In the mind, the form consists of properties which are attributable at a moment in time. At a different moment the form would consist of different properties. This implies that something happens between those two moments, and this "something" is fundamentally unintelligible to this way of conceptualizing. The independent Form, the form inherent within the material thing, is constantly changing. So there is no static thing with X properties at time 1 and Y properties at time 2, in the independent Form of the material thing which exists as continuous change.

OK. This is better, in that conceptualization is really categorization, in which the essentials are determined. Now, the mind can certainly interpret the information contained in forms in accordance with categories it already has, and the categories are themselves conceptions, but of a very specific gender and origin. But no particular instance of an object of sense is ever to be conceptualized from a mere category. Th essentials determined by categorization, are necessary conditions for the possibility of knowing what an object may be in general, not properties for determining what it is in particular. — Mww

This is exactly the point. Because of this, what you say "no particular instance of an object of sense is ever to be conceptualized from a mere category", we never actually get a conception of the particular. It's a sort of illusion, we tell ourselves that we've conceptualized the particular, but really, that there is a particular is just a stipulation which we make to account for our inability to properly conceptualize the way things really are. Aristotle stipulated a particular, with the law of identity, and the particular is necessarily distinct from the conceptualization, and this accounts for the failings of conceptualization.

There is certainly still a problem, in that the a priori which exists prior to the first instance, the categorizing conceptual structure, and any instance at all, doesn’t have anything to do with the determination of what that thing is, only that knowing what it is, is possible from them. — Mww

This is exactly why the symbol may be completely arbitrary and have no similarity to the thing represented, and why we must hand priority to final cause with its inherent choice. In one dialogue, I can't remember which one, Plato went through a whole lot of different words, trying to determine the origin of each, and how it somehow is similar to the thing represented. Some are easy, but in the end there is no need for the symbol to be similar, that's just a sort of memory aid for understanding meaning. So the principal determination, we give the thing a name, need not have any thing to do with what the thing is, no value in the sense of similarity. The problem which arises though, is that we find out later that calling two instances of appearance by the same name doesn't necessitate that it truly is the same thing (W's chair), which we've assigned the name to. Now we demand real principles of similarity to ensure that what is called the same thing really is the same thing. And then we get lost because we see that a thing is constantly changing, and it isn't by similarity that we make such a judgement of "the same particular" but by an assumption of temporal continuity. And we cannot understand temporal continuity.

Pinter's asserted view of "the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer" is a performative contradiction. That's the problem with the so-called view from nowhere in a nutshell. — Andrew M

The real problem here is with the notion of "the present universe". What Einstein reveals with the relativity of simultaneity is that "the present" is frame dependent. So the whole idea that there is such a thing as "the present universe" is an unsound premise because "the present" is something created by the observational perspective.

When we realize that "the present" is purely subjective, and we try to imagine an objective universe, independent from any observer, we have no place to insert "the present", because this would be an artificial insertion, therefore the creation of an observational perspective. Then we cannot possibly imagine such a universe, without a designated temporal perspective, (a point in time of now), because all things would exist everywhere, without some way of determining a specific point in time in their motions.

There is a form belonging to any sensed object which becomes known as a certain thing, but it is not abstracted through sense, but resides a priori in the mind. This also relates to the question as to what do you do in the case of first instances.

Again….lots of what you say I agree with, but I can’t see an answer to the original question in it. — Mww

This where I think you have it backward. The form of the sensed object inheres within the thing itself, as indicated by Aristotle's law of identity. What is a priori in the mind is some structure of universals by which the mind categorizes incoming information. So the form of the thing which the mind knows is fundamentally different from the form which inheres within the thing itself, as a representation produced from placing the information within the conceptual structure. The mind knows what it apprehends of the particular as the essentials of the thing, while the thing itself consists of accidentals. So even the appearance of the thing to the mind, the sense image which the mind works with, has been created in this way, as essentials rather than accidentals.

There is no problem with "first instances" so long as we maintain the reality of the a priori which exists prior to the first instance, and makes the first instance possible. As you can see though, the first instance would be extremely vague, and not what we would call a good representation of the particular at all, because the receiving mind would not have built up a good catalogue of information (memory), and so would not produce a good representation. However, the question remains now, as to how good the representation produced by human perception really is. Science tells us that the world is actually quite different from the sense representation that we get of it, with things like atoms interacting to make molecules, etc.. So we may not have really progressed very far from the first instances of sense appearances.

Does this answer the original question, or does it remain?

Abstracts….from what? The thing itself? This presupposes the form is already contained in the sensation, and that the senses have some sort of self-contained deductive power. I usually resort to the ol’ tickle on the back of your neck scenario to refute such description. A tickle is a sensation, and if the form of the thing which causes the tickle is abstracted from it, it would seem we would know immediately what causes the tickle. But we do not. In fact, it is the case we sometimes sense a tickle not caused by any object at all. — Mww

The mind would abstract from the information received through sensation. Remember, I am portraying the senses as tools of the mind in its creations. You might call the senses information collecting tools. The information is received as formal, but it consists of forms created by something other than the mind which receives it, so the meaning inherent within must be interpreted, like interpreting someone else's language. And the mind receiving creates its own meaning according to what it knows in its interpretation. That there is independent meaning, and Forms, not created by human beings or other known life forms results in the need for something like God.

So the act of abstraction which occurs in the feeling of a sensation as per you example of a tickle, is an act of creation within the receiving mind. The mind classifies the information received, according to conceptions which it already has, and creates what appears to you as a conception of that particular instance. But it is really just a particular instance of categorization, whereby the essentials are determined and a representation of a particular is produced. The conception, or categorization appears to be a true conception or abstraction from the particular, because of the vast multitude of possibilities which the mind allows for, but it isn't really a conception of a particular. That is evident from Wittgenstein's example of the chair. When you come into the room and see a chair, where there was a similar chair yesterday, you tend to think it is the same chair. However, someone could have switched chairs overnight. Therefore we can conclude that the abstraction is not really of the particular, but of some sort of universal, and we designate "the same particular" based on some sort of ideas of similarity, or continuity of temporal existence. We cannot properly conceive a particular.

The categorization of the particular according to an already held conceptual structure, isn’t the same as conceptualizing the particular sensation. — Mww

A quick reply in response to reading the first couple lines. The particular is never conceptualized. That is why there is a distinction between the thing itself (the particular) complete with accidents in Aristotelian terminology, and the phenomenal appearance, concept, as consisting only of what is apprehended as essential. So "a sensation" is not a particular. Wittgenstein visited this is the so-called private language argument, in the question as to how one could determine a reoccurrence of a sensation, at a later time, as "the same" sensation.

Is philosophy even searching for "God"? I've always thought philosophers seek wisdom (i.e. greater understanding). — 180 Proof

But "God" is one of the greatest mysteries of human existence. So if a philosopher seeks wisdom, then knowing about God would be a high priority. It's the mystery outlined by unenlightened above. What makes people stand up for, and defend in faith until the bitter end, something they know through probability to be incorrect, yet they still have hope for. The common portrayal is that these faithful people are being deceived by someone else, some higher-ups. This is a deception which builds the faith so that the people can be herded like a flock. However, "deception" implies that the deceivers, those "higher-ups", know something which the deceived do not. So to uncover those secrets is fodder for the philosopher.

Does form exist without substance (matter)? — ucarr

It may. Form is what is actual, and matter is potential. The argument from Aristotle is that if there ever was a time when there was potential without any actuality (what is called "prime matter") there would always be potential without actuality because potential with no actuality would not have the capacity to actualize itself. Therefore this would never result in anything actual. But what we find is potential with actuality, matter with form, so pure potential (prime matter) is ruled out. as impossible. Therefore anything eternal must be actual, and form may be prior to matter.

That form is prior to matter is understood in the following way. Each and every occurrence of an object, or material thing, is not a random occurrence of matter, a thing is an organized state of matter, it has a form. By the law of identity a thing is necessarily the thing which it is. It is impossible that a thing is not the thing that it is. So when a thing comes into being, the form of the thing is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of the thing, as the cause of, or reason why the thing is the thing which it is, and not something else.

However, if this is the case, then a given form, once destroyed, could never reappear at a later time. By this line of reasoning, destroy but one wheel and forevermore the wheel can never reappear. You don't believe this do you? — ucarr

Of course I believe that. Each object, wheel in your example, is unique, with a proper identity all to itself, as indicated by the law of identity. When one material object is destroyed it will never reappear, time does not repeat itself.

Talk to just about any Christian and she will tell you God exists outside of time. — ucarr

There is a little trick of equivocation in respect to the meaning of "time" which might help to understand this problem. By materialist principles the concept of "time" is tied to the activities of material things. If material things are moving, time is passing. Therefore under this conception of "time" there is no time without material things. God however, being the creator or cause, of material things, must be prior to material things and is therefore "outside of time" according to this conception of "time". That of course appears to be incoherent, to have something (God) which is prior in time, (as the cause of time), to time itself.

But this just demonstrates that there is a problem with the materialist conception of "time". When "time" is tied to the material existence of things, in that way, the possibility of time which is prior to the occurrence of material things is ruled out. Then the actuality (form) which is necessarily prior to material objects as the cause of their existence, is rendered unintelligible, as "an act" without time is incoherent.

Therefore to understand the theological conception of "God", as creator of material existence, it is necessary to dismiss that faulty conception of "time" which places God as outside of time. Aristotle's arguments showed God to be eternal, as outside time, by that conception of "time". This made it impossible to properly apprehend or understand God, "God" being incoherent, as an activity or cause which is outside of time, i.e. prior to time. However, the logic which places activity, or actuality, (Form) , as prior to the material existence of things, is sound. This indicates that the conception of "time" which ties it to the material existence of things is faulty. Nevertheless, that conception of "time" persists in most technical usage of "time", and "God" remains unintelligible to most educated people.

Quantum mechanics is the most accurate physical theory ever devised. What is at issue in all the interpretations is the meaning of the theory, not what it actually predicts will happen. — Wayfarer

That itself is a matter in need of interpretation. What quantum mechanics predicts is probabilities, not what is actually the case. That's exactly the problem I discussed above. What is actually the case, is what is, right now, the zero point in time. And that's when uncertainty is maximum. So quantum mechanics can accurately predict the probabilities of what could happen if..., the odds of X, the odds of Y, etc.. But it's absolutely uncertain about what is happening right now, and that's why it needs the "if", because those are the temporal conditions which introduce degrees of certainty.