That's OK. No problem. As I said, I didn't follow the trial. But from I've heard there were a few inconsistencies in the prosecution case. For example, at least before the trial, they were saying that Floyd started experiencing breathing difficulties after the police officer kneeled on him. But there was a video in which Floyd was already agitated and kept saying "I can't breathe" even before the police even touched him. And he ended up on the street after the officers put him in the car because he got out and that was when they pinned him him down. Obviously, he shouldn't have ended up dead but I can't say I'm on either side because I don't know enough details, I just remember thinking that the video didn't match what the news presenter was saying and I thought that was a bit odd. — Apollodorus

Thanks, you probably know more about the case than most. I probably shouldn't have name-checked Chauvin if I didn't want to get into a back-and-forth about it. But I said that Charlie didn't kill anyone and nobody batted an eye. If I'd written the same thing in 1969 I'd have been public enemy #1. Everyone in the country hated Charles Manson. Just like everyone in the country hates Derek Chauvin, who, as I've said, is no prince.

I really don't want to have hijacked another thread into some irrelevant political issue. Maybe I shouldn't mention the case of Tony Timpa, a white guy cruelly choked to death by cops in a case far more egregious than that of George Floyd. "Dallas police officers kneeled on Tony Timpa’s neck for 13 minutes while he yelled, “You’re gonna kill me!” He died, handcuffed and face down, while officers joked about his mental illness. A district court granted qualified immunity to the police officers."

Early in the Floyd story I vaguely remembered the Timpa case but couldn't remember his name. I Googled, "White guy choked to death by cops," and found page after page of Floyd links and not a single link about Tony Timpa. I put the same search into Bing and Timpa's name immediately came up. I don't think people realize the extent to which web search is censored and politicized by Google. And as of right now, Wikipedia has no article on his case. (There is an outline of the case on the Wiki page for the Dallas PD). That's how the Internet works. It's 1984 in our daily lives, and we don't even see it.

There is an fact an epidemic of bad policing in the US. Some of it is racial but most of it isn't. Cops kill defenseless and undeserving whites more than they do blacks; although on a per capita basis, they kill more blacks. You can make a case either way. The racialization of bad policing makes it impossible to effectively address the problem.

Unfortunately, I didn't follow the trial either. Would you care to clarify that a bit for those of us who haven't? — Apollodorus

If I did, I'd become embroiled in an endless political argument about the case. I have no interest in that. If you don't know, for example, that Floyd swallowed drugs for his buddy in the car, his drug dealer who wanted to avoid arrest; and that the drug dealer then invoked his 5th Amendment privilege to not testify; and that obviously this information would have been exculpatory to Chauvin, what is the point of my enumerating a dozen other similarly exculpatory facts? If you remember the death of John Belushi years ago, the woman he was with at the time who supplied him with drugs was arrested, convicted, and spent time in jail for his death. Likewise Floyd's drug dealer buddy in the car with him at the time would have been legally culpable for Floyd's death, so he used his Constitutional privilege to not testify. Do you know this? Probably not, if you only watched the hysterical MSM reporting.

Floyd's already fatal blood level of fentanyl in him. The medical examiner said that if they'd found Floyd dead in his living room with that level of fentanyl in him, the medical examiner would have no problem calling it an overdose death. I know CNN didn't mention that, but it was recorded into evidence at the trial.

Floyd said he couldn't breathe long before the cops put their hands on him. Was that in the MSM coverage? No. But it's in the record of the trial, and it's in the news articles that didn't make it to the MSM.

Do your own homework or go along with a lynch mob. Not my problem and not my purpose in using Chauvin to illustrate what a modern day lynch mob looks like. There are as I say another dozen points I could make. If you prefer to be educated, everything's online. https://www.powerlineblog.com/ did fantastic day-by-day coverage direct from the courtroom but unfortunately they don't seem to have everything organized in one place anymore.

Here's Dershowitz on the Chauvin case. But why do I need to be the one who Googles things for you? You have a choice to mindlessly join the lynch mob or spend an hour Googling and reading. Even the fact that the judge refused to move the trial to a different city or sequester the jury will be grounds for appeal. One of the jurors tweeted earlier that he wanted to get on the jury to get justice for Floyd, lied to the court during jury selection about attending a rally wearing a BLM t-shirt that he was photographed in. This was a kangaroo court. That doesn't make Chauvin cop of the year, he was a bad cop in many respects. That doesn't make him guilty of all the counts against him, some of which logically contradict the others. I truly haven't the time or the interest to write you an essay about this case.

And here I was thinking it was Derek Chauvin himself who knelt on that neck, and not some "follower" of his. — Echarmion

Not the place to discuss this case, but I see you didn't actually follow the details of the trial. I suggest you do so.

And by the way, Chauvin did not kneel on Floyd's neck; only on his upper back, in accord with officially approved Minneapolis police procedure for restraining a combative arrestee, as eventually admitted by the prosecution at trial. Like I say, study the actual trial.

Then why do you ask me to repeat myself? — Metaphysician Undercover

LOL. First of all, I did actually scroll back to read your last post, and it totally failed to address the question I asked you, which was whether your claimed disbelief in quantum physics causes you to reject the most accurate physical experiment ever done, namely the calculation and experimental verification, good to 13 decimal places, of the magnetic moment of the electron. You simply ignored the question.

And where the question is coming from is that since your understanding of the concept of number is stuck back about 2500 years ago, it makes me wonder if your understanding of physics is similarly ancient.

But that's actually not what my most recent remark meant. When I wrote,

I'm thinking that I've read your last post. — fishfry

I meant it sarcastically. As, "I have read your posts for the last time." Funny that you entirely missed that.

Look, I think it's very important for a rigorous mathematics to distinguish between counting real things, and counting imaginary things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually you couldn't be more wrong about that. Pure math doesn't care what you count. If you count chickens, you're a farmer. If you count harpooneers in Moby Dick, you're a professor of English literature or a high school student reading the Cliff notes. If you count molecules you're a chemist; if you count quarks your a physicist. But if you study the act of counting itself, utterly without regard to the thing being counted, then you are a mathematician.

Once again you utterly fail to understand the nature of mathematics yet wield your ignorance like a cudgel.

This is because we have no empirical criteria by which we can determine what qualifies as a thing or not, when the things are imaginary. — Metaphysician Undercover

To the chemist, physicists, or professor of English literature, this may well be true. But to the mathematician, it's utterly irrelevant. Mathematicians study the natural numbers; in particular their properties of quantity (cardinals) or order (ordinals). What they are counting or ordering is not important. And to the extent that it ever is, the things that mathematicians count are ALWAYS imaginary. We count the rational numbers (same quantity as the naturals) or the reals (a higher cardinality). There's no claim that these things "exist" like rocks or planets or even quarks. How you fail to understand this yet regard yourself as having insight into the philosophy of mathematics, I can't figure out.

Therefore we can only count representations of the imaginary things, which exist as symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's perfectly true (or at least I'm willing to stipulate for sake of conversation) that the things mathematicians count are imaginary. Though I could easily make the opposite argument. The number of ways I can arrange 5 objects is 5! = 120. This is a true fact about the world, even though it's an abstract mathematical fact. If you're not sure about this you can count by hand the number of distinct ways to arrange 3 items, and you'll find that there are exactly 3! = 6. This is a truth about the world, as concrete as kicking a rock. Yet it involves counting abstractions, namely permutations on a set.

But when you say that imaginary things "exist as" symbols, you conflate abstract objects with their symbolic representations. A rookie mistake for the philosopher of math, I'd have thought you'd have figured this out by now.

So we are not really counting the imaginary things, but symbols or representations of them, and we have empirical criteria by which we judge the symbols and pretend to count the imaginary things represented by the symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? You don't think that counting the 120 distinct permutations of five objects is counting imaginary things? I don't believe you actually think that. Rather, I believe that if you gave the matter some actual thought, you'd realize that many of the things mathematicians count are very real, even though abstract. Others aren't. But it doesn't matter, math is in the business of dealing with conceptual abstractions. Math is about the counting, not the things. Farming or chemistry or literature are about the things. The farmer cares about three chickens. The mathematician only cares about three.

How do you not get this?

But this is not really counting because there are no things being counted. We simply assume that the symbol represents a thing, or a number of things, so we count them as things when there really aren't any things there at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's hard to take this line of thought seriously since mathematical practice so obviously falsifies your claim.

So counting imaginary things by means of symbols is completely different from counting real things because one symbol can represent numerous things, like "5" represents a number of things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well that's my first point above. To a pure mathematician there is no difference between counting 120 rocks and counting the 120 distinct permutations of five objects. Why don't you understand that?

And we aren't really counting things, we are inferring from the symbol that there is an imaginary thing, or number of things represented by the symbol, to be counted. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nonsense. Abject bullpucky.

So it's a matter of faith, that the imaginary things represented by the symbol, are really there to counted. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it's not. One need not reify abstract things in order to talk about them. YOU continually try to reify things that need not and should not be reified. I'm coming to see that this is your core error.

But of course they really are not there, because they are imaginary, so it's false faith. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah right.

Does everything that has a limit occupy a space? — Daniel

I don't think I understand what you mean by a limit. For example the sequence 1/2, 1/3,, 1/4, 1/5, ... has the limit 0, but a mathematical sequence is an abstraction and occupies no space; although of course any physical representation of it does. So what exactly do you mean by limit?

I hope taxpayers are not footing the bill for most of this activity — jgill

Taxpayer here. Make math, not war.

And medicine and biology and ecology and genetics and... — fdrake

Yes true. And actually a lot of physics is irreproducible these days, being entirely mathematical and not subject to any experimental verification at all. Industrial-scale rationality is failing entirely, as is industrial-scale everything.

Read my last post. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm thinking that I've read your last post.

That's what I would call a false count, because it's hypothetical. It's like if you look at an architect's blueprints, and count how many doors are on the first floor of a planned building. You are not really counting doors, you are counting hypothetical doors, symbolic representations of doors, in the architect's design. Likewise, if you count how many people are in a work of fiction, these people are hypothetical people, so you are not really counting people, you are counting symbolic representations. We can count representations, but they are counted as symbols, like the architect's representation of a door, may be counted as a specific type of symbol. And when you count captains of the Enterprise, you are likewise counting symbolic representations. If you present this as a true count of actual captains of an actual starship, you'd be engaged in deception. You are not counting captains of a starship, only symbolic representations. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm unmoved by your argument. I can't respond at all. I don't think you've said anything meaningful here. You can't count the harpooneers on the Pequod without engaging in deception? If I'm building a house and the architect shows me the plans and I count the doors, I'm not really counting the doors? This is an intellectual point you want people to take seriously?

Yes, I think quantum physics uses a very primitive, and completely mistaken representation of space and time. That's why it has so many interpretative difficulties. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have a better idea? You reject it wholesale? You disagree with the famous measurement of the magnetic moment of the electron, the most accurate physical experiment ever done, accurate to within 7.6 parts in $10^{13}$? When shown this result you say, "Pish tosh, those quantum mechanics don't know jack."

I want to be clear in my mind. Is this your position on the subject?

I don't want to impugn the character of the researchers, because I don't think the problem comes down to character. — csalisbury

I don't impugn characters. They're rational people responding to incentives. You're a young postdoc. You've busted your butt for years to get your Ph.D. then busted it again to find an academic job. You know that you have to "publish or perish." So you publish. You or I would do the same. And if you're not in a hard science, any research you do will be fuzzy and subject to all kinds of subtle biases. Your deadline's due, you need to show results to get your grant renewed. So you publish what you can. And everyone else is too busy to notice because they're playing the same game.

That's my understanding, anyway. The softer the science, the more it happens. You can't get away with irreproducible results in physics, but you can in sociology.

Charles Manson was blamed and imprisoned for actions he himself did not commit. — Pinprick

Charlie got railroaded by a country hysterical about the crimes of his followers. Not unlike Derek Chauvin. When the mob bays for blood they usually get it.

Truth is I'm not all that familiar with the case. I Googled around and found an on-point article.

Did Charles Manson kill anyone? No. Who said he ordered any killings? Only the killers themselves. So, in truth, what did Charles Manson do?

https://allthatsinteresting.com/who-did-charles-manson-kill

And numbers are not even countable objects in the first place, they are imaginary, so such a count, counting imaginary things, is a false count. Therefore natural numbers ought not be thought of as countable. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's silly. I can count the captains of the starship Enterprise even though they're imaginary.

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-movies-shows-enterprise-captains-kirk-picard/

I can count the harpooneers on the Pequod even though they're imaginary. What ever are you talking about?

First, there is no general definition of number in mathematics.
— fishfry

That's because numbers are not objects, and therefore they cannot be described or identified as such. And since they cannot be identified, they cannot be counted. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is "not even wrong." As Truman Capote once said of an inferior writer: "That's not writing, that's typing."

What is your definition of number?
— fishfry

It is a value representing a quantity. — Metaphysician Undercover

A moment ago you Meta-splained why there can be no general definition of number, and now you give one. Don't you even read your own posts?

But quantity is only one thing numbers represent. Integers (zeri, positive and negative whole numbers) represent signed or directed quantities. Rational numbers represent ratios of whole numbers. Irrationals and complex numbers, p-adics and hypperreals, each represent some other aspect of number-hood. Aristotle said that the reason bowling balls fall to earth is that earth is the "natural place" of a bowling ball. Surely you are aware that we have more modern explanations now. Why do you deny the historical development of our understanding of the concept of number?

Curious to know: If you deny complex numbers do you likewise deny quantum physics, which has the imaginary unit i in its core equation?

Not in math. After all, some numbers have neither quantity nor order, like 3+5i3+5i in the complex numbers. No quantity, no order, but a perfectly respectable number. You take this point, I hope. And are you claiming a philosopher would deny the numbertude of 3+5i3+5i? You won't be able to support that claim.
— fishfry

Yes, that's a symptom of the problem I explained to TIDF. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not following that convo, but do I take it that you deny complex numbers? Do you likewise deny negative numbers, zero, rationals and irrationals? Is your physics likewise stuck in the days of Aristotle? Why exactly do YOU think bowling balls fall down?

Once we decide that numbers are objects which can be counted, then we need to devise a numbering system to count them. So we create a new type of number. Then we might want to count these numbers, as objects as well, so we need to devise another numbering system, and onward, ad infinitum. Instead of falling into this infinite regress of creating new types of imaginary objects (numbers), mathemajicians ought to just recognize that numbers are not countable, and work on something useful. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're a trivial sophist with no insight or awareness of intellectual history.

Of course I'm wrong mathematically, I'm arguing against accepted mathematical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

If only you were, we could have a conversation. But you have no actual principles or arguments, only nihilism and denial.

But the question is one of truth and falsity. Are numbers objects which can be counted, rendering a true result to a count, or are they just something in your imagination, and if you count them and say "I have ten", you don't really have ten, a false count is what you really have? — Metaphysician Undercover

Guess we're done here. Again. I'd like to say something more substantive, but what can I say to someone who rejects the role of numbers as expressing order, or numbers as used in quantum physics, or even fractions for dividing up a pumpkin pie? What words besides nihilism fairly describes your mathematical perspective?

ArcTan(z)=L∞k=12z1+1+14kz2√ — jgill

This must be related, since Leibniz's formula is just the Taylor expansion of arctan(1).

But what I didn’t understand is this equation (leibniz) that reduces the seemingly random and infinite progression to just 15 variables has in fact made it “predictive”. — Benj96

Yes, in fact it was Turing who made the observation that numbers such as 1/3 and pi are computable; that is, their digits can be cranked out by a computer program or algorithm. There are in fact noncomputable real numbers, which are truly random.

On the other hand, the digits of pi are (as far as we know, but we're not sure) statistically random. They don't appear to follow any pattern, even though they are completely deterministic. The same is true of random() functions in programming languages. They produce a sequence of outputs that are statistically random, even though their underlying algorithms are completely deterministic.

So there are two different concepts: Actually random, and statistically random. There's a technical term for this distinction. A sequence that is statistically random but not necessarily actually random is called stochastic.

But I think your original concern is more about the impossibility of drawing perfect geometric figures in practice, rather than the subtleties of randomness.

What did Einstein mean by “Spooky Action at a Distance"? — Down The Rabbit Hole

If Sabine says it, I believe it.

Of course the original spooky action at a distance was Newtonian gravity. When Newton explained the observed motions of the moon and planets, the tides, and an apple falling to earth from a tree in terms of a single universal law $F = G \frac{m_1 m_1}{r^2}$ he was criticized and attacked for merely describing gravity but not explaining it. By what mechanism are two masses, separated in space by a long distance, somehow magically attracted to each other? Newton couldn't answer this; and in the end, ascribed it to God.

I always take Newtonian gravity as the prototypical example of spooky action at a distance. If you drop a bowling ball on your foot, how does the bowling ball know the earth is there? Einstein has some equations but not really much of an explanation. Why does mass curve space, anyway? What is mass? Well we're told that mass arises from the binding energy that confines the quarks to the protons and the neutrons. And how does THAT bend space and cause bowling balls to fall down? God did it. If you've got a better explanation, your Nobel prize awaits.

But how do we know for sure? There’s no proofs we can do to determine if indeed it continues as 3 forever. — Benj96

Of course there is, it's the grade school division algorithm. Perhaps they no longer teach this. If you divide 3 into 1 using the procedure they used to teach when I rode a dinosaur to school, you'll see that you always get 3 for the next digit, so that the 3's are perfectly deterministic and predictable by, say, a computer program.

On the other hand ... so are the digits of pi. For example consider the famous Leibniz formula for pi:

$\frac{\pi}{4} = 1 - \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{5} - \frac{1}{7} + \frac{1}{9} - \dots$

We can express this famous series as a closed-form expression like this:

$\displaystyle \frac{\pi}{4} = \sum_{k = 0}^\infty \frac{(-1)^k}{2 k + 1}$

which, if I counted correctly, can be expressed in exactly 15 symbols.

In other words pi, just like 1/3, only encodes a finite amount of information; despite their respectively endless decimal representations.

The answer to this mystery is that it's the decimal representation itself that's flawed. Some real numbers have two distinct representations, as 1/2 = .5 = .4999...; and others have no finite representation.

There are in fact other ways of expressing real numbers, The takeaway here is not to get hung up on the deficiencies of decimal representation; but rather to focus on the actual information content of a real number. In particular, 1/3 and pi are each expressible by a finite-length computer program or description. For 1/3, it's the grade school division algorithm applied to 3 into 1; and for pi, it's the Leibniz formula, or any one of the many other closed-form finite-length expressions for pi.

As far as drawing a conceptual circle, if you simply plot all the points on the x-y plane that are a distance of 1 from the origin, you'll get a perfect mathematical circle of radius 1 and circumference 2 pi. We can't draw a perfect circle in the real world, but as others have noted, we can't draw any perfect geometric figure in the real world. Geometric figures are abstract conceptions of the mind. They either live in the Platonic world, if you believe in such a thing; or they're abstract inventions of humanity, if you don't.

1 is ultimately arbitrary. — Benj96

Excellent insight. If you take a straight line and mark two points: one called '0' and the other called '1'; you thereby define your unit length, and all other lengths are relative to those two arbitrary choices.

Also see the replication crisis, in which it turns out that nobody can replicate most of the so-called studies that come out. Or as the longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer noted, "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." Science, especially social science, has hit the racket stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

Pi is essentially an endless number (irrational) — Benj96

Curious to know, what do you make of 1/3 = .33333....?

Feynman's great paper, There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1976/1/1960Bottom.pdf

I was watching this video — Hrvoje

I'm familiar with now chess engines work, with the history of machine chess since the 1960's, and with the fundamentals of neural nets. Can you give a tl;dr of your question or thesis? You wrote a lot of irrelevant stuff about the protocol between the engine and the UI and I got bored. I'd be interested to know the core of your post.

In any event, the most complex NN in the world is implemented on conventional hardware and is reducible to a Turing machine or even to a finite state machine; so its logic can always be analyzed by humans.

In our globalised world where there are less and less linguistic and cultural barriers does it make sense to identify with our country of origin? — BigThoughtDropper

The globalists think so. There are countervailing trends. Nationalism and national populism are on the march. Brexit for one, the Trump phenomenon for another. Nixon's going to China was a great play for the future of globalism. The plan was for China to be welcomed into the western world and to thereby become more democratized and western. If Nixon could see how that dream turned out he'd never have bothered. The rise of authoritarian and autonomous China is a great blow to the globalist dream. I'm sure you know all this.

There's definitely a place for nationalism and identification with the country of one's birth, or with ones adopted country. The next few decades will bear this out. And speaking of bears, how about them Russkies? After the fall of the Soviet regime the US had a great opportunity to become friends with a newly democratized Russia. Instead we used NATO to encircle them, pick fights over Ukraine, and generate more enmity. Another failure of globalism.

It requires more than innocence to be a saint. — Metaphysician Undercover

I like that! Or as the late, great Howard Cosell once said to a reporter: "If ignorance is bliss, you, my friend, must be ecstatic!"

That's what I meant, and though you can use numbers in ordering, it is not what defines them, quantity does. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK, so doesn't this support my point, order is not what defines a number? If not, then I really don't know what you are trying to demonstrate, and how it is relevant. Perhaps you could explain. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, there is no general definition of number in mathematics. We can define real numbers, rational numbers, p-adic numbers, hyperreal numbers, and so forth, but there is no general definition by which we can say what a number is. Therefore it's possible that you are working from an entirely different definition; in which case you could well be correct via your definition, but not correct mathematically.

What is your definition of number?

In math, there are ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. In fact in modern set theory, the cardinals are defined in terms of ordinals. That is, a cardinal number is a special type of ordinal. So in math, ordinals are logically prior to cardinals.

But as I say, if you are working from a different definition, your point of view could be consistent with that. But not with the usage in math.

Exactly what I've been arguing, a count is a quantity, not an order, hence what I said "numbers are defined by quantity, not order". — Metaphysician Undercover

Not in math. After all, some numbers have neither quantity nor order, like $3 + 5i$ in the complex numbers. No quantity, no order, but a perfectly respectable number. You take this point, I hope. And are you claiming a philosopher would deny the numbertude of $3 + 5i$? You won't be able to support that claim.

As I said, you can use numbers to order things, but this is not what defines numbers. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no general definition of number; and complex numbers have neither order nor quantity.

Here's an example by analogy. Ordinal numbers are a type of numbers which are used for ordering. Ordering is what defines the "ordinal" aspect, not the "number" aspect. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're wrong mathematically, as I've pointed out. But what is your definition of number then? And how do you account for $3 + 5i$? What about familiar real numbers like $\pi$? No quantity except by stretching the term. You're using an extremely restrictive concept of number.

In a similar way, human beings are a type of animal said to be rational. Rational defines the human aspect but it does not define the "animal" aspect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sure you don't need to explain that to me. But number and order are not an instance of this phenomenon. And as I noted, a cardinal is actually a special kind of ordinal; not the other way 'round.

The question is what is real about religion, rather than what is just some cultural inheritance, constructed, invented, like Christmas or Hanukkah. — Constance

These are deep and interesting questions. Sadly I am not the one to discuss them with. My knowledge of religion and theology is very shallow. I mentioned Darwin skepticism and ID because that's all I know of the subject. But of course you're right, these are actually closer to science than theology. I can't really hold up my end of a discussion of theology except to acknowledge that religion has been and still is a powerful force in the world, whether or not it's literally true.

What people care about is not the point because mostly you will find instantiations of something more basic. We have our institutions and we pretend they are real, but Genera Motors is not real, nor is the seat of the presidency. — Constance

These kinds of things are real in the sense of Searle's Construction of Social Reality. Traffic lights are only a social convention, but you ignore them at the risk of your life. They're real by virtue not of physics, but of social agreement. But they're real nevertheless. But I do take your point that General Motors is not as real as a mountain.

What I mean by real is primordial, originary: something there antecedent to these things that gave rise to their existence. — Constance

I think Searle calls these "brute fact." Mountains, trees. But you're meaning what lies beneath those things. The ur-force. Turtles all the way down IMO. Something humans can never know.

We form governments to organize our social and economic affairs, you could say. But even here one can ask, What are economic affairs? and then more basic questions would follow. Relgion has this underpinning and if we are to answer the question about religious belief we first have to understand it at the level of basic questions. — Constance

But that's the thing. I recognize religion as a social reality. Is there anything to it deeper than that? I'm out of my depth at this point.

But when we say 'God' is this religious concept really just reducible to the metaphysical concept churches and their theologies invented? Omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence? The creator of all things, who conceives, designs, thinks, anticipates, intends, etc. just like we do? Or is that just a bunch of hooey? I think the latter. — Constance

Wait you're arguing religion is a bunch of hooey? I totally don't get your point. I'm not religious but even I acknowledge the tremendous power of religion through history.

People pretty much put this all together as a kind of best guess, or a defense mechanism, or an attempt to hold power (as Foucault would have it). — Constance

Now I'm really out of my depth. My knowledge of the postmodernists is less than nil.

I dismiss this as just bad metaphysics and move on. — Constance

Is there good metaphysics? How can we recognize it?

Suffering is at the foundation of the essence of religion; it is a foundational cause that figures into the human situation that compels us to behold the world and ask questions. We are thrown into this world to suffer. Why? Once we become a bit savvy about the matter, we allow our cultural heritage to be silent and allow the world to speak plainly, and the world tells us that the aesthetic, ethical dimension of our existence demands resolution and consummation. Of course, you can disagree with this, but it IS where meaningful talk about God begins. — Constance

You just said it's hooey. I'm totally confused. I don't agree or disagree with anything here. I'm totally unqualified to do anything but make the most shallow of comments in response to matters that you've clearly given thought to.

What does the question even mean if God has not been properly explored as a meaningful term? Are you agnostic about a historical contrivance? — Constance

Of course not. I recognize the importance of religion as a historical force. I'm agnostic about the existence of some kind of supreme universal intelligence that organizes or creates the world. You said you find that position incoherent. I don't agree. It's the only position that makes sense to me. Of course that doesn't prevent it from being incoherent.

Richard Dawkins is a scientist. He is not concerned about philosophy, regardless of what he or others might say, for he does not deal in basic questions. — Constance

I'm referring to Dawkins's role as a professional atheist.

Basic questions are those that are presupposed by science. — Constance

Not religion? I can't tell where you're coming from.

I agree...and disagree. (If that makes sense?) — Don Wade

And you're doing it in the same place :-)

You are making the active claim that the RQF is not the fundamental thing that gave rise to everything else. — Down The Rabbit Hole

That's perfectly obvious, since it immediately suggests the question of how the RQF came to be. But we're flogging a deceased equine at this point.

No...There is no "law of physics" that states two objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time except "The Pauli exclusion Principle", and that only deals with certain types of sub-atomic particles - not real-world objects. Some may state it is an argument of logic - not physics, and becomes a philosophical question. That's why I'm asking the question on this forum. — Don Wade

Yes agreed. At one point I was going to link the Pauli exclusion principle but thought better of it, since it's a specific technical condition. We're in agreement on this. I'm not arguing whether two objects in physics may or may not occupy the same space. I'm only arguing that the example of a car and a garage, or an apple and its seeds, are word games and are not actual examples or counterexamples to your own thesis.

The point is that we were talking about a count, which is a measure of quantity, not an order. To use numbers to indicate an order is a different matter. So to demonstrate the use of numbers in ordering now, is to equivocate, because an order does not necessarily imply a count — Metaphysician Undercover

I only replied to what you said and did not investigate the context. You wrote: "Numbers are defined by quantity, not order ..." If you didn't mean that you should not have written that.

That is not true. These sets do not have the same elements. — Metaphysician Undercover

My God, you wield your ignorance like a cudgel. I could have just as easily notated the two ordered sets as:

* $(\{1,2,3,4, \dots \}, \lt )$ and

* $(\{1,2,3,4, \dots \}, \prec )$

which shows that these two ordered sets consist of the exact same underlying set of elements but different linear orders. Remember that sets have no inherent order. So {1,2,3,4,...} has no inherent order. The order is given by $\lt$ or $\prec$.

More concisely:

* $(\mathbb N, \lt )$ and

* $(\mathbb N, \prec )$

Tell me again how you think these two ordered sets don't have the same elements.

If "..." implies an infinite extension of the order, then 3 does not exist in the second set. Therefore they do not have the same elements. The symbol "3" is there, but the number is excluded by the infinite order which must occur prior to it. That's an obvious problem with your mode of equivocation, and conflating counting and ordering, it allows for contradiction. You can describe an order which is never ending (infinite), then say that there is a 3 after the end of it. And for you, that 3 is there. But of course you've just accepted the contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Crap sandwich. Nonsense. Garbage. And I'm being restrained. In the two formulations $(\mathbb N, \lt )$ and $(\mathbb N, \prec )$, explain to me how $\mathbb N$ has two different meanings. I really want to hear this.

On the contrary, sets have no inherent order. Given a set, we can put many different orders on it; just as if we have a class of school kids we can line them up by height or we can line them up by alphabetic order of their last name. Two different orders on the same underlying set. Of course both these orders have the same order type, as all orders on a finite set do. In the transfinite case, the same underlying set may have multiple distinct order types imposed on it.

I will agree with you that the notation {1,2,4,...,3} is meant to be suggestive. But in fact this is exactly the same set as {1,2,3,...} since sets have no inherent order. Order is something imposed on top of an existing set; and given a set, many different orders and order types may be imposed on it.

Why don't you have a look at the Wiki page on ordinal numbers and learn something instead of continually arguing from your lack of mathematical knowledge?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

This is simply not true. Numbers are defined by quantity, not order. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're failing to distinguish between cardinals and ordinals.

Let me give you a standard example. Consider the positive integers in their usual order:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, ...

Now consider the exact same set of positive integers, but with the number 3 moved to the very end:

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, ..., 3

We can implement this new order relation by defining the "funny less than" symbol $\prec$ as follows:

* If $m$ is any positive integer and $m \neq 3$, we say that $m \prec 3$. So $2 \prec 3$ and $47 \prec 3$ and so forth.

* If $m,n$ are positive integers we say that $m \prec n$ if $m \neq 3$ and $m \lt n$ where $\lt$ is the usual less-than relationship.

Now the quantity of positive integers is exactly the same in either case, since the ordered set $(\{1, 2, 3, \dots \}, \lt)$ and the ordered set $(\{1, 2, 4\dots, 3 \}, \prec)$ have the exact same elements, just slightly permuted. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of the two ordered sets.

But the two ordered sets have a different order type, since 1, 2, 3, ... has no last element, and 1, 2, 4, ..., 3 does.

Both sets have cardinality $\aleph_0$. But 1, 2, 3, ... has order type $\omega$; and 1, 2, 4, ..., 3 has order type $\omega + 1$.

Numbers that denote quantity are called cardinals; and numbers that denote order are called ordinals. This insightful distinction goes back to Cantor in 1883.

In grade school they teach this distinction as "one, two, three ..." versus, "first, second, third, ..." The distinction turns out to have more substantive content in the transfinite domain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

Yes. For some reason you're still missing the point. You are quoting the facts, but missing the point. — Don Wade

Not for the first time I'm sure. I tend to be a bit literal-minded, too much so for my own good.

The point I'm trying to make "when the car is in the garage" the space occupied by the car (while in the garage) - that space is still part of the garage (even though it has a car also in that same space). — Don Wade

I can concede that, without necessarily agreeing that two things have occupied the same space. Rather, it's a word game. "The garage" is the space enclosed by the four walls, floor, and ceiling of the garage. So the space in the garage where the car is parked is indeed both the car and the garage. But you don't actually have two things occupying the same space. You have tricky semantics in search of an actual point.

I suppose you'd say I'm being too literal again.

Or as George Carlin said, Why do we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway?

To me, that means, at that time, both the car and the garage are (in fact) occupying the same space - Not all of the space - just the space where the car is parked. — Don Wade

Yes I understand this is your point. I disagree that you have proven that two things can occupy the same space, except semantically by virtue of the inherent ambiguity of language.

I would say that you have made a cute semantic point, but not a point of physics.

I can't understand why that is hard to see. — Don Wade

It's perfectly easy to see, and I do in fact see it. I disagree with you about the significance. I see that you have made a cute semantic point but nothing more. Like the guy in charge of the outdoors being called the Secretary of the Interior. Another Carlinism.

Two objects, the garage, and the car, at some time both occupy the same space. — Don Wade

You need not belabor this point, I have already acknowledge your point, which is closer to being a pun than a substantive observation about the world. You're exploiting the semantic ambiguity of "garage," which casually means all the space enclosed by the boundaries of the garage, but that CLEARLY can't be taken so literally, else to risk falling in to the semantic trap in which you've entangled yourself.

Note: You don't push away the space in the garage just to park your car. — Don Wade

Well, you do push away the air molecules. At a physical level, consider that.

You use the same space. — Don Wade

"Garageness" is not something that can be measured physically. "Garage space" is a conceptual label given to the interior space bounded by the walls and floor and ceiling, but it's not a physical thing that is subject to being in the same place as some other thing.

There is also air in the garage - and probably other items - but they can also occupy that same space, at the same time. — Don Wade

Oh no, that is quite false. The air molecules must be displaced by the car. Surely you understand that. You can't possibly think that the metal molecules of the car occupy the same space as the air molecules bounded by the car's boundary. Surely you can't be claiming that. You've brought me up short. I'd been thinking we're arguing semantic games, but now you're violating the laws of physics.

But of course if the car windows are open, some of the garage air will enter the car. And if you SEMANTICALLY regard "the car" as including everything within the boundaries of the car, you will claim that the car and the air within the car occupy the same space. But then you're playing the same word game. The car, the air within the car, and the garage all occupy the same space -- but only semantically, not in any physical sense and not in any meaningful sense.

I think it is incorrect to believe only one object can occupy a given space at any given time. — Don Wade

I think you're fooling yourself with word play.

Maybe there is something more fundamental than the RQF (if the theory is correct) I just see no reason for there to be, as it begs the same questions as the RQF. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Right. Which is to say, Krauss has no ultimate explanation.

More the fact that we are debating something so absurd i.e what substance (for lack of a better word) has existed forever, or came into existence out of literally nothing! I wouldn't be surprised if we are the caterpillars, searching for a truth we can never know. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I am not debating that at all. I'm debating Krauss's nonsensical claim that the RQF + the laws of physics are "nothing"; and your claim that Krauss's claim may be labelled an "ultimate explanation." I say no to both. I take no position on the nature of the world.

Then of course there is the argument that physicalism is itself a form of dualism. — Joshs

How so? I thought physicalism is the belief that everything, including mind and all non-physical phenomena such as qualia, can be explained via physical phenomena and without recourse to any non-physical mechanisms. Maybe I don't know what physicalism means in a technical sense, I claim no philosophical knowledge in this regard.

Physicalism doesn't go far enough in exploring what non-physicals are or in what form they exist. I could be wrong, maybe you know some references. I'm always looking and I don't find much on it. — Mark Nyquist

I'm afraid I don't know any of the official literature on the subject nor am I familiar with any of the standard arguments. I think of physicalism as "Mind is a byproduct or output or emergent property of atoms," and dualism as, "Mind is some kind of non-physical thing that's independent of or separate from atoms." I'm sure those aren't the official definitions.

There's Cartesian dualism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism

But Meyer is a scientist/philosopher and talk about intelligent design and the like is talk about science. — Constance

Ok. I name-checked a couple of ID proponents and Darwin skeptics to meet you halfway and show that I am more open-minded that you may think. But I can't go any farther than that. If the IDers are too scientific for your tastes, I can't respond at all. I'm personally spiritual but not religious, and I'm agnostic -- which I get you think is a weak position -- about the existence of a universal intelligence. Frankly I'd be happy to see some here on earth.

But then, no matter, for it is not science, the scientific method that is, that is in question, and that would be impossble (for to think at all is a performance of just this method), but what is being singled out for "observation". Writing up a proof for the existence of God based on observations of the complexity and functions of affairs in the natural world is not going to yield a proof of God, for ideas like designer and creator are non essential features, do not belong to the essence, if you will, of the idea of God.
One has to be clear at the outset what it is that one is trying to confirm, and it is certainly not God the creator. This is not what an proper analytic of God gives us. — Constance

My understanding is that one comes to God through faith. And I'm afraid I haven't got that when it comes to religion. But I agree with you that it's kind of self-defeating to try to come to God through reason. God must be experienced or taken on faith, as I understand it.

Take God like any other object for analysis and look to its parts. and here we find a vast body of historical, scriptural, mythical narratives. We also find metaphysics. The former are incidental, I would say simply. Maybe Jesus rose from the dead, maybe not, but who cares. — Constance

Some people care a lot. If you don't, then I don't understand where you're coming from. I may be misunderstanding you entirely.

Such things come to us so embedded in naivete, suspicious motives that we can put aside "scripture" altogether. But then what IS there in this idea of God that is grounded in the actualities we encounter in the world? This goes to the metaphysics. Specifically, metaethics. Why are born to suffer and die? Then, what IS suffering, and bliss and pleasure and pain and so on? There are no answers to these questions, yet they go to foundational issues of meaning, importance, value: the question about God is a metaethical question, and the grounding is direct, in the world, palpable; it's in the falling in love and listening to music, being speared in the kidney; in the pleasure/pain, joy/suffering dimension of our existence. — Constance

Yes ok. Not following your point though. I acknowledge the power of religious and spiritual belief in the history of humanity. That doesn't prove God exists, only that religious belief does. God is neither and answer nor not an answer to the question of suffering.

Agnosticism and atheism is a reticence to affirm an anthropomorphic deity, the latter being an outright denial, but I think such a position is vacuous simply because the reticence and denying is obvious, like denying the moon is really a goddess named Luna. — Constance

Ok. I said I'm agnostic, and you call that position vacuous. I don't understand your reasoning. How could I know or not know if God exists?

What one really is trying to affirm is an irreducible moral foundation to our world, that is, affirming a redemption and deliverance from suffering and a consummation of happiness. How is this affirmed? That takes more further discussion. — Constance

I'm agnostic on the entire matter. I don't understand why you find this position vacuous. Am I compelled to choose a side between the Pope and Richard Dawkins? The Pope seems like a nicer guy, I'll give him that.

neurons, mostly cerebral cortex, possibly some more, do have the capability to instantiate non-physicals. — Mark Nyquist

That is exactly the physicalist position. The dualist believes there is "something else" beyond the physical.

Any possible ultimate explanation would seem incomplete to us. Either we are the result of something that has been around forever (god/s, universe/s, RQF), or something came out of literally nothing. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Yes. Agreed. But Krauss has no ultimate explanation, just a description of a speculative next level down. And do note that the RQF idea is speculation, not accepted or proven theory. I don't see how anyone can call it an ultimate explanation. But I already said that and perhaps we can agree to disagree.

Us caterpillars may never know — Down The Rabbit Hole

I'm not sure if you meant that as irony or lighthearted criticism of my position, but that is in fact my position.

I doubt that very much. — Xtrix

To the extent that this counts as a post, you're right. I just wanted to say that I ran my eyes down to the end and didn't read whatever you wrote. 9/11 is actually not much of an interest of mine, I watched a bunch of 9/11 vids a while back (before Youtube banned them all) and made a mental note of the standard talking points. And to be fair, I do believe we haven't been told the full truth about it; and that since it is an undeniable fact that there has never been a criminal investigation, I'd like to see one. Further discussion about the subject wouldn't be of interest to me. And you did yourself no favor by equating the questions of the 9/11 widows, formally submitted to the 9/11 commission and most of them still unanswered to this day, with flat earth theory. This marks you in my mind as a most unserious individual.

And now I really am done here.

Do you "visualize" there are seeds in the apple - or, do you physically take the apple apart to examine it? ]/quote]

At first the former, and eventually when I eat the apple, the latter.
— Don Wade

First, I believe, you visualize the seeds. — Don Wade

Of course. But in truth I don't actually visualize the seeds in the apple, I don't even think about them. If I chose to I could. I think my mental process when buying apples is, "I'll have one of these as a snack later this week." But I don't give any thought to their internals.

Yes, you can also visualize a unicorn in the apple. Actually, so can I. Visualizing an item doesn't take away from the reality of the item. (Even though some philosophers would debate that statement.) — Don Wade

Right. I think I must be missing your point since I don't see where this is going.

When you buy an apple at the store, and you realize it has seeds in it, do you perceive the seeds as part of the apple - or, do you perceive the seeds have their own existence as seeds? — Don Wade

As I said, perhaps this is dealt with in mereology, "the study of parts and the wholes they form." as Wiki says. I've never thought about it before (at the grocery or anywhere else) but of course the seeds are part of the apple AND they have their own existence as seeds. Surely nobody would disagree.

To me, both conditions are correct. — Don Wade

I agree. I'm still not seeing the point.

The seeds have their own existence, and they are also part of the apple. — Don Wade

I can't imagine anyone disagreeing.

Conventional science does not see it that way. — Don Wade

It doesn't? I don't know if I believe that.

Many people believe that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time - (the seeds and the apple). — Don Wade

That's just a semantic game. The part of the apple that's the seed occupies that particular space, and there is no part of the apple that is not that seed occupying that space. It's like saying that my garage and my car occupy the same space. It's low-end sophistry to say that violates the fact that no two objects can occupy the same space. I'm not buying your thesis.

It is how we view our "perception" that creates the problem - not what is actually real. — Don Wade

As you've described it, it's just a word game of little import. It's true that the space within the garage counts as being the garage, and the car is in the garage. I suppose I'm now backed into the corner of saying that when I park my car, I push away the part of the garage that's not my car so I can put my car in it. And when I drive my car out of the garage, the space where the car was immediately fills with garage space.

You can't possibly be trying to make something serious of this, can you? Am I missing your point?

I actually did draw the Venn diagram you described on a cheap graphics program. The basic question I would ask is have some of our neurons evolved the ability to instantiate non-physicals. I would answer yes in the extreme but others might say not at all-a physical impossibility. — Mark Nyquist

If one is a physicalist, then mind is ultimately explainable in terms of physics. I'm a pile of atoms and I have plenty of qualia and a rich internal life, so atoms must be capable of doing that. If one denies that, then one is forced to accept some kind of dualism. I think both alternatives are equally untenable.

Sorry I don't think this link works. Something about posting an image to the web that I'm missing and have never needed to do it before and it takes time to figure out. — Mark Nyquist

I copied your link but got 404. No matter, it's just circles. I don't think the diagram is the point, not sure why it's important to you. I thought that the real question is how a pile of atoms such as me has subjective experience; and if so, why couldn't some other non-living pile of atoms have the same? Perhaps there's something special about life.

I think that the interface between the subjective and objective is an important point of focus in thinking about consciousness. — Jack Cummins

I do too.

When we visualize an apple on an apple tree, do the seeds inside the apple exist? This may seem like a simple question, but there are many different ways of visualizing (the question).

Some people believe the seeds cannot exist in the same place as the apple (at the same time) — Don Wade

It's unclear if you're talking about visualizations or reality. I can visualize an apple with a small unicorn in it. I have no problem doing that, I'm doing it right now. Visualizing being very careful taking a bite, lest the horn stab me in my mouth. Ouch!

But when I buy an apple at the grocery store, it's perfectly clear that there are some seeds in it.

Can you clarify if you are talking about visualizations, which are unconstrained by the laws of physics and biology, or the real world, which is?

I wonder if you're asking about mereology -- the philosophy of containment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mereology

What's interesting about this is that whereas it is quite easy to see how mathematics (at its extremes) makes no sense, everything else knowable is EXACTLY the same. It's just more difficult to see. — synthesis

Oh I see I missed your point the other day and this is a good point. Yes even hard science is ultimately nonsense. There are no quarks. If you drill it down far enough you get to something that can't be quite right. Is that what you meant?

And social sciences like history are like that too. Something incredibly complex happens out of the interactions of thousands of people, then we label it "The Peloponnesian war" or "The industrial revolution," but these are just abstractions that summarize so many individual actions and events that in the end the abstraction must be a lie.