The Laws of Nature are immaterial, transcendent and immanent, principles which act (operating, controlling). So, they are independent of, and determine, existence. From a theological standpoint, they can be equated (or at least associated) with God. — Galuchat

They do not determine "existence," but the time-development of material systems.

However, the relation to God has deep historical roots. Jeremiah, who introduced the idea of fixed laws of nature into Western literature (Jer. 31:36; 33:25 -- a generation before Thales), conceived of them as divine ordinances, and Aquinas used them as the evidentiary basis of his fifth way. Newton thought God "tweaked" them to give us the observed orbits (the "hypothesis of God" rejected by Laplace). I'm not making the God case here -- I'm looking at the laws in se and in relation to the mind-body problem.

The Laws of Nature are an explanation (cause) of existential change and/or stasis. Then are they efficient cause? — Galuchat

If you define an efficient cause as one that actualizes a potential, then in actualizing potential physical states, they are an efficient cause.

If the observable sign of intentionality is "systematic time development ordered to ends" (efficient cause), what is final cause? — Galuchat

We need to understand that formal, material, efficient and final causality are different ways of conceiving the same event or process. They need not be separate "things" as a logical atomist might think. A final cause is the foundation in reality for the form of a state to be actualized. It is those aspects of present reality that determine the form of what will come to be. In the model of physics, future states are determined by the initial state (present form) and the laws of nature. So, the final cause is the form of the present state together with the laws of nature, jointly conceived as determining the future state.

To make my point about different ways of conceiving the same process, think of the supposed opposition between mechanism and teleology. If a mechanist is a determinist, she is, ipso facto, a supporter of teleology -- for she posits the immanence of the future form Final causes do not act from the future to "pull" the present state into the future state, they are immanent and active throughout the process. My desire to go to the store (final cause) does not pull me to the store, it guides my intermediate actions to effect my arrival at the store. Thus, teleology and mechanism are two projections of the same reality. Instead of being contraries, they are complimentary -- related as ends and means. Mechanism fixes on means, teleology on ends.

I understand data transformation with reference to mathematical function (correspondence) and the process of encoding/decoding, but would appreciate a definition of "logic" in terms of data transformation which works for both the Laws of Nature and human committed intentions. — Galuchat

In talking about the logical order, I'm discussing information. Information is the reduction of (logical) possibility and results from the actualization of intelligibility. Both physical and intentional states have an intelligibility that is prior to our knowledge of them.

While information properly speaking belongs to the logical order, a state's intelligibility, as a source of information, may be called "information" by an analogy of attribution -- just as we say food is "heathy" not because it's alive and well, but because it contributes to health.

So, I'm using "logical" to refer to the information (intelligibility) specifying a state, whether that state be physical or intentional. "Logical Propagators" in nature, then, transform the intelligibility of one state into that of another.

What do you mean when you say that these laws are "operative"? You say that the laws are immaterial yet they operate, acting to control matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean that they inform future states. Of all the metaphysically possible future states only a determinate future state is actualized at a given time. As information is the reduction of possibility, the laws inform successive states of the cosmos.

So this "acting from within", is really the individual acting in choice to follow the laws. The laws are actually passive, not acting at all.. Is this the same way that matter is controlled by laws? Does the matter know and understand the laws, choosing to obey the laws, but still maintaining the capacity to disobey? — Metaphysician Undercover

We have no evidence to suggest that matter is aware, let along aware of the laws of nature. Because of the Fundamental Abstraction rational agents are not adequately accounted for by physics. Thus, it is not surprising that we act in ways not described by physics.

If this is not the way that these laws operate, or act, to control matter from within, how else could they act to enforce themselves from within the matter? — Metaphysician Undercover

We know, as a contingent fact, that matter exhibits an orderly dynamics, which by analogy with human ordinances, we call "obeying laws." This does not imply either awareness or choice on the part of matter. Asking how the laws work is like asking what dynamics links the dynamic of a system to the system it is the dynamics of. That kind of question misunderstands what "dynamics" means.

Well, yes and no. The laws don't cause material events in the sense of a willing, planning, intending mind. So they can't be essentially intentional in the usual psychological definition of intentional. It can only be some kind of analogy. — apokrisis

My logical propagator argument shows that the laws of nature are in the same genus as human intentions, not the same species. My comparison with human committed intentions is certainly an analogical argument. Still, since the analysis does not address the issue of an intending mind, we need to be agnostic as to their origin and its character.

Quantum theory shows that probabilistic spontaneity is part of the equation. — apokrisis

This is a common misunderstanding. Quantum theory restricts probability to observations and asserts that states evolve deterministically between observations. (E.g. P. A. M Dirac, Quantum Mechanics 4th ed. p. 108) Since there could be no observations before the advent of intelligent observers, quantum theory sees the evolution of the universe and of life up to recent times as completely deterministic.

not jump all the way over to a mentalistic or idealistic metaphysics. — apokrisis

It is not my intention to do so. Recall that I said that all knowing involves both a known object and a knowing subject.

A system develops a record of its past as some kind of memory. And that history constrains all further free possibility. The physical future is still free - a matter of unconstrained accident - but also a freedom that is shaped into some definite set of likelihoods. — apokrisis

The model physics finds adequate today is that all of the past is summed up in the present physical state (with no detailed "memory" of how that state arose). Future states are completely determined by the laws of nature acting on the present state. There are no "probabilities" involved unless one wishes to predict a measurement (observation).

by being able to predict the propensities of the world, an observing self becomes included in the future outcomes of that world. The self becomes a player who can act to constrain outcomes, even at a future date, so as to serve locally particular goals. — apokrisis

We agree. The question is how to form a coherent understanding of both physics and personal agency.

think you are aiming to conflate the two stories. Physicalism - seeking to make a minimal expansion to its causal metaphysics - would agree that finality has to be part of its fundamental story now. But it can already see how psychological finality is its own semiotic story. It is discontinuous with the physicalist picture in the important regard of introducing a modelling relation with the world. — apokrisis

I am not seeking to conflate anything. Broadly, I'm saying that physicalism (as opposed to physics) is an instance of Whiteheads Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness -- that it confuses an abstraction (resulting from the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science) with the complex concrete reality from which it is abstracted. We have two disjoint abstractions -- the objective world of physics, and the subjective world of Cartesian mind. What we need is to understand is how the concrete world bridges these abstractions. In other words, the mind-body problem is not a problem of the lived world, but of confusing our abstractions with reality.

Do you think a Thomas Aquinas would have made that statement? — Wayfarer

Yes, I think he would.

I think the awareness of ourselves as knowing subjects, separate from the domain of objective facts, is one of the hallmarks of the modern period. — Wayfarer

Consider:

As stated above (Articles 1 and 2) a thing is intelligible according as it is in act. Now the ultimate perfection of the intellect consists in its own operation: for this is not an act tending to something else in which lies the perfection of the work accomplished, as building is the perfection of the thing built; but it remains in the agent as its perfection and act, as is said Metaph. ix, Did. viii, 8. Therefore the first thing understood of the intellect is its own act of understanding. This occurs in different ways with different intellects. For there is an intellect, namely, the Divine, which is Its own act of intelligence, ... And there is yet another, namely, the human intellect, which neither is its own act of understanding, nor is its own essence the first object of its act of understanding, for this object is the nature of a material thing. And therefore that which is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind, and that which is known secondarily is the act by which that object is known; and through the act the intellect itself is known, the perfection of which is this act of understanding. For this reason did the Philosopher assert that objects are known before acts, and acts before powers (De Anima ii, 4).

-- Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 87, art 3.

You're right that, beginning with Descartes, philosophers have posited that we know our mind independently of knowing the other; however, this isn't what Aquinas and I are doing. I'm following Aquinas in saying that in knowing the other we can grasp that we have the power to know. ("that which is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind, and that which is known secondarily is the act by which that object is known.")

In other words, every act of knowing has two objects. One, (the objective object), is the thing we seek to know, say an apple. The other (the subjective object) is what our act of knowing the objective object reveals about ourselves -- e.g. that we can and are seeing, that we can and are being aware. In the Fundamental Abstraction we fix on the objective object to the exclusion of the subjective object.

Aquinas assumes that the intelligible forms of things are known directly by the intellect — Wayfarer

No, he does not assume "that the intelligible forms of things are known directly." He follows Aristotle's analysis in De Anima, saying that we know material objects via the senses -- by abstracting intelligible features from phantasms (bound sensory representations). He says explicitly that we have no direct knowledge of essences -- knowing them only by sensible accidents.

And that this comes sharply into focus with the foundation of modern science, and its assumption of the distinction of 'primary qualities', which are those qualities that are subject to exact mathematical analysis, and 'secondary qualities', which are associated with the subject. — Wayfarer

The modern mind-body problem begins with Descartes, who antedates Newton and whose mathematical physics is a joke. The distinction of primary and secondary qualities seems to start with Locke -- long after Descartes..

Nagel Has a poor grasp of the history of science -- accepting mythic over documentary history. A good remedy would be reading in the history of medieval science. good starting point. James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution is a good starting point, despite missing a few critical points. Medieval physicists developed mathematical concepts (such as inertia and instantaneous velocity) essential to classical physics -- providing the foundation on which Galileo and Newton built.

So, there's nothing about a mathematical approach to the material world that gives rise to either Cartesian duality or the modern mind-body problem. The actual cause is Descartes's profound ignorance of the tradition -- leaving him to work out both physics and philosophy de novo.

It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel

Nagel sees an important point here, but, I think, mischaracterizes it. Leaving out the subjective is a rational methodological move, but no more "essential" than the willing suspension of disbelief in watching a drama.

Dennett's 'eliminativism' is a direct consequence of the application of this paradigm to 'the subject' — Wayfarer

I agree that Dennett is applying this paradigm; but it is utterly irrational to think, as Dennett does, that the paradigm is adequate to the full range of reality.

I think that "matter" as used and defined by Aristotle signifies something completely passive, and that is potential, or potency. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unfortunately, Aristotle thinks "in some cases the matter .. is such that it can initiate its own motion [italics mine], and in other cases it is not ..."[/quote]. Until you can explain this statement on your theory, the case is closed.

My argument is that in all the cases where he uses "matter" in this way, it is in reference to living things, and he has clearly attributed this activity which appears to inhere within matter, to a form, the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

He uses living things as his primary source of examples of natural (as opposed to artificial) processes. I've already said that matter passively receives form in the creation of artifacts -- just not in natural substantial changes.

I was writing my post when you asked about point 2. I hope that it provides a satisfactory answer.

With regard to the first point, the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science: Every act of knowing is both objective and subjective. It involves both a known object, and a knowing subject. When we begin natural science we choose to focus on the object to the exclusion of the subject. We care what Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton and Hubble saw, not about their subjective experience in seeing it. So the fundamental abstraction leaves behind any and all data on the subject as such. As a result the natural sciences are bereft of the data required to address human subjectivity, awareness and intentionality.

The second point of discussion deals with the laws operative in nature, as opposed to what we may call "the laws of physics," which are approximate descriptions of the laws operative in nature.

(1) We explain things by immaterial laws of nature. Asking, “What is the law of conservation of mass/energy made of?” betrays a category error. Natural laws are not made of particles or fields, but are immaterial principles operating through­out the cosmos.
(2) These laws are immanent, operating in matter, and transcendent, depending on no single species or instance of matter, but controlling all matter regardless of constitution or properties.
(3) The laws explain things here and now because they act here and now. If laws did not act, we could never experience their effects. For energy to be conserved here and now, the law of conservation of energy must act here and now. The explanation is a concur­rent, co-existing cause, not a Humean prior event. “Explanation” has two meanings. One is a word string describing a causal structure. The other is the cause so described. We are discussing causes in nature.
(4) These laws are aspects of reality, not fictions. Laws of nature are not invented, but discovered. While the laws of physics are human products, the realities they approximately describe antedate humans. If they did not, they could not explain the evolution of either the universe or life.
(5) Since the laws explain why energy, momentum, and elec­­tric charge remain constant, science requires explanations not only for changes, but also for constancy.

A pivotal thesis is that the laws of nature are essentially intentional. One way to see this is to reflect on what I call "Logical Propagators."

Logical Propagators: Logical propagators are propositions or judgments allow­ing in­for­ma­tion about one space-time point to be applied to another. Using conser­vation laws to explain a stone’s existence required our premises be true at the time and place of their application. It is inadequate for a law to be true at another time or place. To be effective, an explanation must be operative when and where applied. Consider an argument whose premises are only true some­times. For a conclusion to follow, the major and minor prem­ises must be true simultaneously. If one premise is true now and the other later, the conclusion is unsound. For example:
All now in the room can hear Mary. (Time specific)
John will be in the room tomorrow. (Time Mismatch)
John can hear Mary. (Invalid)
This is invalid because of the temporal mismatch. There is noth­ing profound here.

Still, we routinely draw conclusions true at one time from data true at another. Scientists and engineers make predictions, and we base our lives on past experience and future expectation. Whenever we do this, we rely on logical propagators. Consider:
All in the room when Mary speaks can hear her. (Timeless)
Mary now intends to speak in the room tomorrow. (Logical Propagator)
John will be in the room tomorrow. (Time matched)
John can hear Mary tomorrow. (Valid)
The second premise uses a fact today to make an assertion about tomorrow. It is because Mary now intends to speak tomorrow that we can validly draw the conclusion. Absent her committed intention, the conclusion would be as unsound as before. Logical propagat­ors link information at two times.

While propagator propositions are in the logical order, they express a reality transcending a single time. In asserting existence (“There is a ball”) or a property (“The ball is rubber”), we are saying something true at one time. A committed inten­tion, however, points to future information. It is a present tendency with a path to fruition. If we are careful, we can call real tendencies “logical propagators.” They control the develop­ment of earlier material states into later ones, but are not material states. They are logical because they transform information. They are propagators because they propagate information from one time to another.

There are two species of logical propagators: commit­ted intentions and natural laws. If Mary commits to speaking tomorrow, she will speak to­mor­row. If billiard balls or quanta are in state S1 at t1, then, by the laws of nature, they will be in state S2 at time t2. Both predictions are true ceteris paribus (other things being equal), be­cause unforeseen factors may intervene. Mary could die. An earthquake could upset the billiard table. A cosmic ray could disrupt a quantum system. Humans are more complex, so more things can intervene, but the principle is the same.

Since com­­mitted intentions and natural laws are two species in the same dynamic genus, this is not a metaphor, but a shared dy­nam­ic. The time-development of human behavior under committed intentionality and that of physical systems under natural laws equally play out immanent dispositions or logical propagators. Both allow us to predict future information from present information. Both express immaterial principles in ob­­servable behavior.

What is the observable sign of intentionality? Is it not a systematic time development ordered to ends? This is how naturalists understand intentionality. Eliminativists’ theory-theory is based on human inten­tions and natural laws having a common dynamic so that intentions become theoretical constructs for behavioral prediction. (Goldman 1993: 351-8). Dennett (1987) argues that phys­­­ical systems be­­have exactly as though expressing inten­tions. Dawkins (1989) writes of the selfish intent of genes. Shared dynamics is a fact relied upon by naturalists.

Another way of seeing the intentional character of the laws of nature is to employ Franz Brentano's analysis of intentionality as characterized by "aboutness." As my intention to go to the store is about effecting my being in the store, so the laws of nature are about effecting the sequence of states predicted by physics.

Reflection:
Given Hume’s critique of causality, our grasp of time-sequenced causality is not adequately based on observing physical events. However, it is warranted by our experience of willing. Being aware of our own committed intentionality and its subse­quent incar­nation, we expect analogues in nature. Contrary to de­terminists who give time-sequenced causality prior­ity over voli­tion, will is the prime analogue and causality deriva­­tive. Associ­ation plays a role, but, as Hume noted, asso­cia­­tion does not warrant necessity. The idea of causal con­nec­tion over time derives from our experience as agents.

I will continue with point 3 in a later post.

Well, we seem to be going in circles again. I see no point in continuing.

I have considered the multiverse hypothesis and found that (1) there is no observational data in support of it (in contrast to the FTA) and (2) it makes no clear, falsifiable predictions.

It entails a special pleading, because you identified criteria to dismiss one hypothesis but ignore these criteria with respect to the God-hypothesis. — Relativist

No, it does not. The form of reasoning in the FTA is heuristic, not hypothetico-deductive. The FTA doesn't make a hypothesis, and then deduce its consequences as hypothetico-deductive reasoning does. Saying it does is a distortion. Instead, it argues that coordinated means directed to a common end signify intelligent direction. We have many examples of coordinated means signifying intelligent direction. Thus, the FTA is an argumentum signum quia -- an accepted form of heuristic reasoning. It is used, for example, by Forest Service look-outs when they call in fires after seeing smoke.

On the other hand, the Multiverse hypothesis, which pretends to be "scientific" violates fundamental canons of the scientific method. There is no experiential basis for taking life as a sign of the existence of a myriad of unobservable physical objects.

Multiverse is BOTH a physical hypothesis and a metaphysical hypothesis — Relativist

Metaphysics requires sound deductive reasoning, not hypothetico-deductive reasoning -- but if it did, it would still require hypotheses to be falsifiable. The falsifiability requirement is methodological, not discipline-specific. Unless hypotheses have testable predictions, there is no epistic point in deducing their consequences -- so instead of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, we have hypothetical reasoning -- the kind of "reasoning" used by conspiracy theorists.

the puddle exists accidentally, not a product of design, but from its perspective the world seems designed for it. — Relativist

As I said, this is not an analogous case.

a brute fact basis for natural law does not violate a principle of science, — Relativist

Of course it does. As Freud points out in the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, if we allow any exception to the principle of causality, we undermine all science. Either every phenomenon has an adequate explanation, or we have no rational grounds for requiring an explanation for any phenomena.
Some As require a B.
This is an A.
Therefore, this requires a B.
Is an obviously invalid line of reasoning.

Physicalism entails the non-existence of states that are "logically prior". — Relativist

Baloney! Physics problems often specify an initial state that is logically (and temporally) prior to the final state. Any information used as a starting point in reasoning is, by definition, logically prior to the conclusion.

Causation in the world (as opposed to its propositional description) is a temporal phenomenon. — Relativist

This is a baseless simplification often assumed in contemporary thought. Here is a counter example. If John is building his house, clearly John is the cause of his house being built. But, the house is not being built if John is not building it. Here cause (John building) and effect (John's house being built) are clearly concurrent, not sequential or time-ordered.

Another example is my thinking of you. My thinking is the cause of you being thought of. Time does not enter into my thinking of you in any essential way,

You didn't provide an analysis, you only made a vague allusion. — Relativist

I think I did, but if you'd like a more detailed argument, look at my discussion of "Logical Propagators" in "Mind or Randomness in Evolution" (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution) (pp. 5f in the on-line version).

Claiming they demonstrate intentionality is just a different way of saying they demonstrate design, or they imply God — Relativist

Establishing the truth of premises is not arguing their conclusion.

1. There is no valid reason to reject a physical hypothesis solely on the basis that it is not entailed by accepted science. If that were done, no new science could ever get off the ground. — Relativist

First, I am not rejecting the multiverse hypothesis. I agree a multiverse is possible. Second, the lack of supporting evidence is just one reason for saying it has no epistic value. Another is that it's unfalsifiable and a third is that it is unparsimonious.

multiverse seems to be entailed by the theory of cosmic inflation — Relativist

There is no "seems to be" wrt to entailment. Either something is entailed or it is not. As far as I can tell the multiverse is not entailed by cosmic inflation.

Inflation also entails symmetry breaking, which is the mechanism that produces the classical world that we know. — Relativist

No, it does not. If a symmetry is perfect, inflation will not break it. If a symmetry is imperfect, inflation can make the imperfection manifest.

Symmetry breaking at the level of a quantum system almost certainly entails alternative physics because most processes of a quantum system entail quantum indeterminacy. — Relativist

This is false. All unobserved processes are completely deterministic in quantum theory. Quantum indeterminacy is a feature of measurement processes, and so cannot have occurred before the advent of intelligent observers -- making them "special."

Multiverse is conceptually possible — Relativist

Conceptual possibility is utterly worthless. It does not even entail logical possibility. In the late 19th century it was conceptually possible to reduce arithmetic to logic. Goedel showed it was logically impossible.

Any proposed physical multiverse hypothesis is thus a viable metaphysical hypothesis — Relativist

As I said above, (1) metaphysics does not use the hypothetico-deductive method, and (2) if it did, no unfalsifiable hypothesis can pass methodological muster.

Violating the "norms of the scientific method" is irrelevant to evaluating metaphysical hypotheses — Relativist

False. As I said, methodological norms arise from the nature of the method, not from the nature of the discipline using the method.

it seems to us that human life is special. — Relativist

It is "special" because as humans (which we all are), it has, objectively, a special relevance.to us.

The problem that is often overlooked is that the FTA depends on there being an objective value to human life. — Relativist

As I pointed out in my last post <value> is a concept that arises out of the relation between the thing valued and the subject(s) by whom it is valued. There is no value devoid of a valuing subject. So, not only is there no "objective value," the very concept is an oxymoron.

The FTA does suggest that the result of coordinated, improbable means is of value to the intelligence instantiating those means -- that life is valued by God -- because one does not seek to effect an end one does not value. This is a conclusion, not an assumption.

I am not sure how you're defining "accidental." (referring to the possibility that "life is an accidental byproduct of the nature of this universe").

I simply mean "not designed"; "not intended". — Relativist

OK, then it's begging the question to decide this prior to examining arguments (such as Aquinas's 5th way, Paley's argument from design, the FTA and my discussion of Mind in evolution).

A metaphysics demonstrates its adequacy to reality by its ability to coherently account for everything that we perceive exists. — Relativist

No system of human thought can do this, because humans have both a limited representational capacity and a limited lifetime. So, if metaphysics is to be a real, human science, it must be far less ambitious.

I see metaphysics as the science concerned with nature of existence and how more specialized sciences are grounded in existence. It derives its principles, not from assumption or hypothesis, but from a reflection on our experience of being. It demonstrates the adequacy of its concepts and conclusions by showing how they are grounded in our experience of being.

It's no trivial task to construct a metaphysics that is coherent and complete — Relativist

Since reality cannot instantiate contradictions, grounding metaphysics in the experience of reality guarantees its consistency. The notion of a "complete" science is the result of self-delusion.

The problem of universals requires reflection and analysis, not the assumption of an a priori solution. Any and all a priori assumptions close the mind to reality. (if you're interested in my take on universals, see my video "#46 The Problem of Universals" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2SSENSKvA)).

Parsimony does not entail a small number of existing things, it entails no more assumptions than are necessary to explain a set of facts. — Relativist

No, the Principle of Parsimony tells us to favor the explanation with the fewest assumptions. The multiverse hypothesis posits not just one or a few other universes, but a myriad of other universes. If does not posit other universes like ours, but universes with a range of physical constants that we do not know to be self-consistent. Clearly, it is an unparsimonious solution to the fact of fine tuning.

Your claim that multiverse depends on "rejecting the standard framework of physics (which sees the laws and constants of nature)" can only possibly apply to a physical multiverse hypothesis, not the metaphysical one. — Relativist

Right, because the operation of intelligence in the cosmos does not require the rejection of standard physics. If it did, I would say it did.

it simply extrapolates to a hypothesis that established physics is a special case of more fundamental physics. This is exactly the same framework as Newton's gravitational theory is within General Relativity (which is a theory of gravitation): Newton's theory applies more narrowly than GR. — Relativist

The difference is that we have an observational basis for accepting GR and none for the multiverse.

Fine tuning entails a fine-tuner. In the context of our discussion, I am using the term "God" to refer to the fine tuner (or that which is the holder of the intention, if you prefer). — Relativist

We judge the merits of an argument by how well it conforms to the accepted norms of reasoning, not by the nature of its conclusion. I may agree with the conclusion of an argument, but still judge it to be unsound (as I do with Anselem's Ontological Argument) or not a proof, but conforming to accepted heuristics as I do with the FTA. What an argument aims to prove is irrelevant to the formal question of its merit.

We have the objective capacity to create "a perfectly well-defined set of criteria" (as you put it), but these will be arbitrary. — Relativist

1. What is said was that "I can have a perfectly well-defined set of criteria, and not be able to apply them in a particular case because of a lack of data." I did not say that I actually do, or even can, have such a set of criteria.

2. Any criteria we may devise will not be "arbitrary." They will reflect objective commonalities actually observed in our (historically conditioned) experience. They will reflect them in a way that we deem relevant to our situation.

So, how does this widespread agreement show anyone is "assuming" their common position rather than abstracting it from reality?

All metaphysics is based on abstracting from reality, and there is not agreement on all matters. — Relativist

I never said that there was agreement "on all matters." That would be ridiculous. Some issues are quite difficult, but over time, we develop more understanding.

One metaphysical system entails God, and another does not. — Relativist

Sound reasoning entails God. Unsound reasoning does not.

Notice, how matter is defined as outside the sphere of becoming and ceasing to be, such that to speak of it in these terms causes the contradictions indicated. It is an underlying substratum which does not change between before and after. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, hyle is a principle of continuity that helps us understand change. It does not, itself, change. All of this fits my account. How does it support your idea that it is passive and devoid of anything analogous to desire?

Potential is the capacity to act. As such it is not itself active. If it were active it would not be the capacity for action, but action itself. This is why potential and actual are categorically different. And, since it is other than active, we can say that potential is passive. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let me clarify. A potency can be passive -- like clay waiting to have a form impressed on it. Or, it can be active -- like an acorn able to become an oak tree. In neither case does the potency actualize itself. Each kind of potency needs an efficient cause to actualize it (a potter in the first case, moisture and other environmental conditions in the second). One important difference between them is that, while clay receives its new form from an extrinsic source (the potter) and so is an artifact, the form of the oak is immanent in the acorn and so its germination and growth into an oak is a natural process.

Living things have an intrinsic principle of activity, the soul, and it is clearly a form — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, so organisms are natural. Still, we aren't analyzing beings, but substantial change.

Again, what a thing is now is based on its form. Its tendency to cease to be what it is now, to become something else, (e.g. to germinate or to die), is not explained by being what it is now (its form), but by an intrinsic tendency (hyle) to become the new thing (e.g., an oak or decaying matter).

"Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art, some spontaneously."

Here Aristotle points out that natural substantial changes are not artistic ones -- alerting us to watch for the difference between active tendencies and passive receptiveness. He again contrasts nature and art in 20 and 33.

.

Ch.9, 1034a, 33,
Things which are formed by nature are in the same case as these products of art...

This is in ch. 7, not 9. If you read chapter 7 from the beginning, you'll find Aristotle explicitly rejecting your view that matter is always passive: "in some cases the matter .. is such that it can initiate its own motion [italics mine], and in other cases it is not ..."

Now, let's look at 1034a33 in context.

.

Therefore as essence is the starting-point of everything in syllogisms (because syllogisms start from the "what" of a thing), so too generation proceeds from it.

And it is the same with natural formations as it is with the products of art..

The similarity between substantial changes in nature and in art is not the matter, as you suggest, but that "generation proceeds from [essence]."

So, as described in Bk.7, in the case of art, the form comes from the soul of the artist, and in the case of nature, the form comes from nature. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, and hyle is a kind of nature (physis).

Perhaps your question is left unanswered at that point, until he proceeds to discuss efficient cause and final cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, my question is addressed when he says that "in some cases the matter .. can initiate its own motion."

"The (apparent) variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

What I'm trying to get at in this thread is the viability of the above sentence. An elephant, a rock, and a memory of childhood ... can they all be reduced to being merely different names and forms of the same thing, consciousness? Or do objects possess an ultimate (essential) uniqueness that goes beyond this underlying sameness? — rachMiel

I was not addressing consciousness in my post, but the idea that the whole is convertible with tits parts.

As for consciousness, I see no reason to think that any material being we know has subjective awareness other than humans -- and certainly not rocks.

We have different ideas ("forms of consciousness") because objectively different kinds of things act on us in objectively different ways, and their action on our sensory system gives rise to our neural representations of them. We call our awareness of these representations "ideas."

I don't see why neutral monists would need to be self-proclaimed Scottists — Janus

That was not what I was asking. I was asking for a philosopher who calls himself a "neutral monist" and, as you suggested, follows Scotus in ontology. I don't know Deleuze's work, but I intend to read abut him.

My question with regard to Descartes was based on taking res (thing) as possibly convertible with "being" with "thinking" and extended" as modifiers. Personally, I don't see being as a prior substrate that can be modified.

How deep/close is the relationship between an object and its most fundamental building block? — rachMiel

The question conceals an error. We do not know that there is any "fundamental building block(s)." The history of recent physics reveals that each object viewed as fundamental can give rise to new, previously unknown, objects.

This means that the building block paradigm, irrationally accepted from the Greek atomists, is fundamentally flawed. A better way of thinking about nature is to say that there are actual objects, out of which we can create finer objects and out of them finer objects still -- perhaps ad infinitum. Suppose you think string theory is viable. Then, what is to prevent strings from being modeled from, or actually decomposed into, components? And those components from being decomposed again?

None of the finer objects are discrete entities until we destroy the whole. in the original whole, they are potential, not actual individuals.

Further, we don't know that wholes contain no more information than obtainable from each component examined in isolation (if such an examination were even possible). In fact, we know the opposite. No examination of a proton in isolation would show that it will repel other protons at long range (via E-M interactions), bind to other nucleons at close range (via the strong interaction) or possibly transform into a neutron (via the weak interaction)?

So, clearly, behavior in holistic contexts is not reducible to behavior in isolation. Or, as Aristotle noted, the whole is not just the some of its parts.

Viewing objects as reducible to "atomic" building blocks is an example of Whiteheads fallacy of misplaced concreteness. When we're doing physics, we don't care if an electron is in an isolated hydrogen atom or in a human being. So, we abstract away (leave on the table) all of the data that distinguishes a human from a hydrogen atom. Once that data is gone (and it is gone from physics), it's not available to construct biology or describe a human. So, biology and human psychology can't possibly be reduced to physics -- there's no data in physics to do so.

Physics may leave open the possibility of bacteria, frogs and humans, but that is not information about actual bacteria, frogs and humans. As Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, pointed out, information is the reduction of possibility. Possibility is not information. Biology reduces some of the possibilities left open by physics to actuality. So, it is not reducible to physics. It has its own, independent methods and data.

the two opposing contraries are both of the formula, i.e. formal. This is evident in logic, being and not being, is and is not, has and has not. Matter cannot be opposed to form, so it is categorically different. — Metaphysician Undercover

How does this oppose anything I said about hyle? I did not say hyle was one of the contraries. I said the contraries were the old form and the new form -- as you seem to be saying here.

None of this tells us that Aristotle thought hyle in natural processes was purely passive, gives a reference supporting that claim, or says how a purely passive matter can solve the problem of Physics i, 9

Matter, being categorically different is therefore passive — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a non sequitur. Another way to be different is to be potential, but potential need not mean passive. To make your case, you need to show that potential (dynamis) implies passivity -- a difficult case to make given that the primary meaning of dynamis is "power."

I do not see this difference between "matter" in an artificial thing, and "matter" in a natural thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

One is defined as a kind of physis (nature = "an intrinsic principle of activity") and the other is not. Aristotle distinguishes artifacts by their lack of an intrinsic principle of activity.

Newton is not Aristotle or even Aristotelian -- nor is his physics that of Aristotle.

I don't see how you could argue that Aristotle claims that there's a different concept of "matter" for artificial things from the one for natural things. That would be blatant inconsistency, which Aristotle avoids. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, by distinguishing the natural from the artificial.

Why don't you read some of this stuff? — Metaphysician Undercover

I've read the Metaphysics more than once (some parts many, many times and in Greek), because, as you say, it is difficult. I've also read Plato and some of the pre-Socratics as context and background.

I think where he actually says matter receives form is prior to this — Metaphysician Undercover

I believe that discussion is about artifacts. That is why I want the specific reference.

substance consists of matter and form, and it is the form which changes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Strictly speaking, form does not change. It is replaced by a new form. In Physics i, 9 Aristotle is asking, "where does the new form come from?" Your view does not provide a satisfactory answer.

No, hyle is not all we have left — Metaphysician Undercover

In the discussion of Physics i, 9 there are precisely three principles, and hyle is the only one we have left after eliminating the original and contrary form.

continuing...

It is metaphysics, in examining the foundations of physics, that deduces the existence of God.

That deduction is contingent upon metaphysical assumptions. Obviously, physicalist metaphysics does not entail God. — Relativist

Not everything called "metaphysics" is an adequate to reality. A rational metaphysics is not based on assumption or speculation, but on sound reflection and analysis of our experience of existence.

Your argument is like saying that since Russell and Whitehead assumed that arithmetic could be reduced to logic (which Gödel showed to be false), all metamathematics is based on assumption.

1. I do not use metaphysical possibility to argue the existence of God. I only use actual being.

You have made no such argument in this thread, so this seems moot. — Relativist

Right, I have not. It is irrelevant to the discussion of the merits of the FTA that other, more cogent arguments exist. Still, my statement is relevant to your claim that our knowledge of the existence of God rests on possibility instead of actuality.

Your challenge is to show that the God possibility is a better explanation for each of the not-God possibilities I presented. — Relativist

I have. I showed:
(1) The FTA is evidence based, while the multiverse hypothesis is not.
(2) It is more parsimonious to posit one God than a myriad of other universes which have the additional property, also unsupported by evidence, of diverse physical constants.
(3) That the FTA is a classic argumentum signum quia -- a rational form of heuristic reasoning (e.g. "Where there's smoke, there's fire"). On the other hand, positing a multiverse violates the accepted norms of the scientific method by (a) being unfalsifiable, and (b) rejecting the standard framework of physics (which sees the laws and constants of nature as universal).

3. As I have pointed out a couple of times recently, possibility is not information. Information is the reduction of possibility

I have no idea what you're talking about. — Relativist

What I am talking about is that Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, defined "information" as the reduction of possibility. For example, in a binary message each bit we receive reduces the possible messages by half. Thus possibility is not information.

Here's the problem: Removing multiverse from consideration because it's not entailed by accepted science — Relativist

I have not done that. I explicitly said a Multiverse is logically possible. I also gave this possibility as one reason the FTA is not a proof. I did say that the FTA is supported by accepted heuristics, while the multiverse hypothesis is not.

We can show God exists?! — Relativist

Yes.

clearly one can't assume God exists if one is to claim the FTA makes a persuasive case for God's existence — Relativist

I disagree. We are not debating the existence of God, but the merits of the FTA. One can examine the merits of an argument whether or not one agrees with its conclusion. Some arguments are sound, some not. Some conform to accepted heuristics, others do not. Some are taken as serious threats by opponents, others aren't.

If we were debating the existence of God, I would rely on sound arguments, not the FTA.

Silicon and oxygen are only produced through fusion in large stars, in novae — Relativist

"Fusion processes create many of the lighter elements up to and including iron and nickel, and these elements are ejected into space (the interstellar medium) when smaller stars shed their outer envelopes and become smaller stars known as white dwarfs. The remains of their ejected mass form the planetary nebulae observable throughout our galaxy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis.

Thus, large stars and novae are not needed.

It's "an assumption" that the billions of people on earth have the objective capacity to evoke the concept <human>? I can't agree. For me, it is an experiential fact.

It is a concept that's vague, in the context of evolutionary history - as I pointed out. — Relativist

I don't see any confusion in deciding which present day creatures are human. So, all of those people have the objective capacity to evoke the concept <human>.

As I said before, if I lived in a different time or culture, I might have a different <human> concept. In other words, concepts are neither hardwired nor pre-determined.

If we look at our early ancestors, I agree: some would evoke my concept <human> and others not. I further agree that different individuals might evoke your <human> concept than would evoke mine. Nonetheless, whatever creatures evoked your concept would do so because they have the objective capacity to do so. So, I don't see that these differences undermine my case.

I'm stating an belief that I'm pretty confident of, but I invite you to prove me wrong by agreeing that physicalist metaphysics does not depend on assumption — Relativist

That's like saying that I must show that Trump usually tells the truth to show that there are people who usually tell the truth.

If you can't draw a sharp line between human and non-human in your ancestral line, then your concept of "human" is flawed. — Relativist

This is utter nonsense. I can have a perfectly well-defined set of criteria, and not be able to apply them in a particular case because of a lack of data.

Here's a postulate of Armstrong's ontology: everything that exists consists of a particular with properties. i.e. properties do not exist independent of the particulars that have them. — Relativist

So Armstrong agrees with Aristotle's discussion of substance and accidents -- as do most medieval Scholastics and modern Aristotelians.

So, how does this widespread agreement show anyone is "assuming" their common position rather than abstracting it from reality?

Causation is a spatio-temporal relation between particulars (due to laws of nature). — Relativist

Definitions are not assumptions. They simply tell others how you are using words.

Under this account "pure act" cannot exist, because it does not entail particulars with relations between them. — Relativist

You cannot define yourself into a conclusion about reality. It did not work for St. Anselm, and it does not work here.

Thanks for the comment on the relation of neutral monism to the philosophy of being. I have two questions:
(1) Do you have an example of a self-proclaimed neutral monist who is a Scottist in ontology?
(2) Given than Descartes calls both his substances "res," wouldn't he by classed as a monist by this definition?

The FTA doesn't point to evidence, it fits a hypothesis to a set of facts. — Relativist

In fitting a hypothesis to a set of facts, it points to those facts as evidence. For example, in positing the inverse square law of gravity, Newton fit a hypothesis to facts such as the relative accuracy of Kepler's laws. Those facts were evidence supporting his gravitational hypothesis.

A reasonable abduction requires that other explanations be considered - you have to test how well the facts fit the alternatives. — Relativist

Yes, if there are other, viable hypotheses, it is rational to compare them.

Newton did not do this in the Principia. In point of fact, Newton's theory, while simpler than Ptolemy's, was inferior in predictive power and continued to be less accurate for over 100 years after its publication.

I am not sure what relevance this has. I have considered the multiverse hypothesis and found that (1) there is no observational data in support of it (in contrast to the FTA) and (2) it makes no clear, falsifiable predictions. You mentioned predictions made by a version of the theory, but if these don't pan out, that wouln't falsify the idea of a multiverse. Supporters would say only one version was falsified -- not the basic idea.

If there's a God ..., — Relativist

You seem not to understand how an argumentum signum quia works. It does not begin by hypothesizing its conclusion. Rather, it argues that certain facts (here, the fine tuning of various constants in the manner required to produce life) are signs of the operation of some cause (here, the intelligent direction of nature). The way to a attack this line of reasoning is not to attack the conclusion -- because it is not a premise -- but to attack the significance of the relevant facts. You need to show how the facts might not signify what proponents of the FTA say. You have made some arguments to this effect. This is not one.

Your response to #1 is that multiverse is not entailed by known physics. Obviously, neither is God, so this fact doesn't serve to make God more likely. — Relativist

The FTA is not a physics argument, even though it uses physics as support. Physics concerns itself neither with intelligent vs non-intelligent causality. On the other hand, the existence of a multiverse is a physical hypothesis. So, we have to judge it as we do any physical hypothesis -- and it simply does not pass muster.

Relativist: "For the FTA to have any utility, it needs to have some persuasive power."

Clearly, it does.

Assertion without evidence. — Relativist

We have abundant evidence. Many people, including atheists, find the argument so strong they need to violate the norms of the scientific method to hypothesize an alternative explanation.

life is an accidental byproduct of the nature of this universe, with no objective significance or importance. — Relativist

<Significance> and <importance> are concepts depending on human valuation. If humans use life as a sign, then it has significance. If humans see life as pivotal, it has importance.

I am not sure how you're defining "accidental." Since the physics of unobserved processes is deterministic, if you think that biogenesis and evolution are physical processes (as I do) then they are not random, but determinate. As I have argued in a number of places, including my "Mind or Randomness in Evolution" paper, the laws of nature are a species of intentionality. If life is the determinate result of intentional operations, who can it be "accidental"?

“If you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" (Douglas Adams) — Relativist

For this to be analogous to the FTA, other "holes" (other sets of constants) would have to "fit" (work) equally well. They do not.

— Relativist

How do we explain natural law? That's a metaphysical question, who's answer depends on the metaphysical assumptions you make (despite the fact that you deny there are metaphysical assumptions, but more on that later). — Relativist

When you make an actual argument on the baseless nature of metaphysics, I'll give you an actual reply. For now, I merely observe that purely mental constructs (assumptions) can't operate to produce real phenomena -- only causes operative in reality can.

Physicalism with the assumption of a finite past entails an initial, uncaused state, a state that entails the natural law that determines the subsequent states of the universe. That initial state, inclusive of its properties, would be a brute fact. — Relativist

First, I don't think physicalism entails the non-existence of a state logically prior to this universe. Second, just because a fact is fundamental in a particular theory does not mean that it has no cause in reality.

I started with Brentano's analysis of intentionality in Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. showing that it is characterized by "aboutness" and then showed that the laws of nature have the same kind of aboutness

All this does is to show that the God hypothesis fits the facts, as I described in the first portion of this post. You have to show this more likely than the two "not-God" alternatives. — Relativist

No, because it neither mentions nor assumes the existence of God. It deals with the essential character of the laws of nature. if you have a criticism of my actual analysis, please state it.

to be continued

If I make a statement and we are to judge the relation between the reality of what's in my mind, and the representation (the statement) for adequacy, how are we to judge this? — Metaphysician Undercover

I may not be able to judge, because I have no direct access to what you know and/or believe.

Typically, you can judge. Suppose a Nazi asks if you're hiding Jews, you know you are, and yet say "no." You're acting morally, but still, you're being dishonest because you're misrepresenting what you know. Now, let's suppose that the Jews, having seen the Nazis drive up, have left. Then you are (accidentally) telling the truth because you have adequately described the reality about hiding Jews, but you are still being dishonest because you have not adequately represented the reality of what you believe.

Meanwhile, the Nazi doesn't care what's going on in your mind, except incidentally. What he wants to know is reality -- the location of Jews.

Do we judge it as adequate for my purpose, or adequate for your purpose? — Metaphysician Undercover

To continue with my example, your "no" is adequate to your purpose of protecting the Jews, but adequacy to that purpose is not adequacy to the reality of the situation. So, saying "no" is uttering a falsehood -- all be it a moral one. The Nazi has no right to the truth in this matter.

More broadly, you may tell me something that adequately describes reality as far as you are concerned, but creates an inadequate representation of reality in my mind. So, you're telling the truth, but I'm not hearing the truth you're telling. For example, thinking of Jane, I ask "Where is she?" You think I'm asking about Jill and say, "At the store," which is true. I think <Jane is at the store>, which is false. So, your statement is true for you, but inadequate and false for me.

As I said at the beginning of the post, when someone asks me to tell the truth, I think they want me to refer to my experience. You think that they want me to refer to reality. So I think you've reduced reality to experience — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I'm saying that we know reality from experience, not that experience exhausts reality. Experience is my awareness of being acted on by reality and me being acted upon by reality is (identically) reality acting on me. So, in experience, I'm linked to reality by a relation of partial identity.

Thank you for your gracious acceptance of by breaking off the discussion of truth.

Are you panpsychist? — Metaphysician Undercover

I have never met anyone claiming to be a panpsychist, so I have no idea if I may have anything in common with one. I do not call myself one.

I see the cosmos as reflecting intelligent guidance, but not as self aware.

By "subjective awareness" do you intend to posit something radically separate from the physical? What if the objective and subjective accounts of human nature are simply two incommensurable accounts of the one thing? — Janus

By "subjective awareness" I'm not "positing" anything. I'm simply naming an aspect of human experience -- that, by focusing our attention on contents, we transform them from merely intelligible to actually known. When we begin thinking about something, such as "subjective awareness," its nature is an open question -- something to be decided by analysis and perhaps further experience.

I don't think that our awareness, our intentionality, is separate from our physicality. We humans are intrinsic unities -- not two "substances" somehow glued together. Still, being a unity doesn't prevent us from finding different logically distinct aspects when we think about ourselves. Thus, it is perfectly consistent to say that while I'm one being, my physicality is not my intentionality.

There is a lot of underbrush to be cleared here before we can see the trees, let alone the forest. First, is Descartes's aberrant notion of "substance." There is no evidence that we are made either of two things or of two kinds of "stuff."

Aristotle's definition of "substance" (ousia) is much less conjectural. It "posits" nothing. For Aristotle a "substance" is an ostensible unity -- a whole that we can point out -- like you, the planet Mars or the solar system. Once we recognize a whole, we can discern its various aspects -- say height, hair color, age, etc., etc. These are not wholes, but intelligible aspects of wholes. Aristotle calls them "accidents." Again, this "posits" nothing. It merely names an aspect of experience

So, accidents aren't like raisins in a pudding of substance -- they're just different aspects of a unity. If we could name all of a substance's accidents, we'd exhaust it's intelligibility without residue -- there would be no "pudding" (substrate) left after removing the raisins because the raisins, the accidents, are the substance's notes of intelligibility -- collectively they are all we can say about what a substance is.

Another source of confusion is Russell's logical atomism and its spawn. There is no reason to think that all we know can be reduced to a one-to-one correspondence with physical "atoms" (atoma) in the sense of irreducible components.

First, this idea is based on shabby science. Physics has found no irreducible "atoms" composing the cosmos. Rather, it models (very incompletely) the cosmos in terms of continuous quantum fields and their interactions.

Second, logical atomism forgets that knowledge is a subject-object relation. Every act of knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. This is important because what we know, the instruments of logical representation and manipulation, is our relational to, our interaction with, reality -- not objects in isolation. We always know incompletely. We use abstractions, leaving notes of intelligibility behind. We have a single space-time history, not a universal perspective. Our conceptual space is the result of our uniquely personal history and cultural context.

As a result of this, one object, say a human being, can be thought of in many ways without having to be many things. To think both of our physicality and our intentionality we don't have to be, or combine, both a physical object and an intentional object. We just need to be able to act physically and intentionally.

This is not neutral monism, because real substances -- people like you and I -- are never "neutral." We are wholes that act both intentionally and physically. This does not imply the existence of an underlying neutral "stuff."

I've noticed your YouTube channel, and am interested in becoming somewhat familiar with your views on intentionality and mind as time permits. — Galuchat

My understanding of intentionality comes from the Scholastic tradition via Brentano. A key to my approach is the recognition that, as the laws of nature and human acts of will are both species of intentionality, they are in the same theater of operation. Another key is my discussion of the fundamental abstraction of natural science as leaving science bereft of the data to discuss intentional matters.

When Aristotle mentioned this in Physics Bk.1, ch.9, he is talking about how others, specifically Platonists, described the existence of contraries. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, he is contrasting his views with those of Platonists. The desire comment relates to his own view.

But later Platonism, and Aristotle redefined "matter", such that it is entirely passive. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have a reference in Aristotle for this? And, how can a completely passive matter solve the problem he discusses in Physics i,9?

Aristotle's Metaphysics you'll see that matter receives form, form being the active part of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

In artifacts matter does receive its form passively from the artificer, In natural processes the role of matter is very different. Aristotle defines nature (physis) as an intrinsic principle of activity and tells us that matter (hyle) is a kind of physis -- and so a principle of activity rather than passivity. If you say matter is passive in natural processes, you confuse natural objects with artifacts, while Aristotle takes great care to distinguish them.

So, where in the Metaphysics do you see the matter of a natural process passively receiving form?

matter is defined as the underlying thing which does not change when change occurs — Metaphysician Undercover

Only substance (ousia) changes -- substantially or accidentally. So, we cannot expect to see Aristotle saying principles change. We can expect to see Aristotle telling us how principles explain substantial change -- and he does that in Physics i, 9. He notes that the original form cannot explain it, because then it would have to work for its own destruction, Nor can the new, contrary, form explain it, because it's not actual (=operational) yet. So, all we have left is hyle, which must act to bring about the new form.

This produces the separation between material cause and final cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

Material and final causes are indeed distinct. Hyle, as the material cause, is potentially what it "desires." The final form is what hyle "desires."

I agree.

Now, the question is, for a physicalist, how can consciousness (as subjective awareness), produce effects that can be selected by evolution?

Thank you for your appreciative comment.

GIven your biological interests, I wonder if you would like to read in my article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). As a physicist, I would like a biological perspective.

When you ask me to tell the truth, you are asking me to be honest, to tell you what I truly believe, and not be deceptive. You are not asking me for an account relative to your concern, it is strictly my concern which you are asking for, what I believe. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually I'm interested in reality. I want to know where my keys really are. So, I'm not at all interested in your beliefs as beliefs However, being charitable, I accept that your knowledge may be limited and will not press you beyond your abilities.

This is being honest with oneself. — Metaphysician Undercover

That doesn't mean we can't truly know what we experienced.

But now you're using "truth in a completely different way, to refer to a relationship between our knowledge and reality. Above, truth is to honestly represent one's own experience — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I started with "truth is the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality" -- as a relation between our representations (primarily knowledge) and reality. You're the one that side-tracked into honesty.

In relation to honesty, I said that an honest statement is one that reflects the reality of what is in our mind -- again a relation between reality and representation.

then reality must be experience — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confused. Experiences are real. That does not mean reality is experience.

This is getting tedious, and we are making no progress. So I am not spending any more time on discussing truth with you.

For the FTA to have any utility, it needs to have some persuasive power. — Relativist

Clearly, it does. To quote mathematician and astronomer Bernard Carr, "If you don't want God, you better have a multiverse!" This shows both the persuasive power of the FTA and the shabby motivation for positing a multiverse.

The fact that you bring up intentionality demonstrates that you aren't judging the FTA apart from your related beliefs. — Relativist

Of course I hold related positions. However, I'm not relying on the fact that i can prove the existence of God in a number of sound ways to judge the FTA. Examine the arguments I gave, and you will find no such dependence. Further, I reject a number of arguments for the existence of God as both unsound and as making bad cases, e.g. the Kalam cosmological argument and Anselm's ontological argument. So, please avoid red herrings and stick to my actual reasoning.

it is also possible that the world is simple a brute fact — Relativist

Only if you reject the fundamental principle of science, viz. that every phenomenon has an adequate, dynamical explanation. If you start allowing exceptions to this principle, science becomes impossible. Imagine Antoine Henri Becquerel presenting his discovery of radiation at a scientific conference. He says that the image of a key appeared on a photographic plate kept in his drawer with a sample of pitchblende, and concludes that it is caused by a new aspect of reality, which he is calling "radiation." Someone in the back of the hall stands up and says, "But, my dear Professor, this may be one of those phenomena that has no explanation -- a brute fact." What is Becquerel to say but, "All phenomena have an adequate cause. The idea of brute facts est tout simplement fou!"

1) How is it not arbitrary to label any state as a "definite end" or "final state", if every state will evolve to another through a potentially infinite future? — Relativist

As I tried to indicate in my original statement, "final state" is a term of art in physics. It need not, and generally does not, name what happens at the "end of time" or infinitely far in the future, but only the state at the end of the process we're considering. In the same way, my arrival at the store is not the end of intentional guidance in my life, but only the end of the segment we're considering.

2) How would one distinguish a non-intentional state from an intentional one? I ask because your claims seem based on the assumption of intentionality ("knowing" that God did it) rather than demonstrating it. — Relativist

I did not use the existence of God as a premise in arguing that the laws of nature exhibit intentionality. If you read what I wrote, I started with Brentano's analysis of intentionality in Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. showing that it is characterized by "aboutness" and then showed that the laws of nature have the same kind of aboutness.

So, we distinguish aspects of reality into those possessing "aboutness" and those not possessing "aboutness." A stone is not about anything. It doesn't "point" to anything beyond itself -- it's just a stone. An idea is about its real and potential instances. A commitment is about what we commit to.

There's also no scientific support for intentionality or God. — Relativist

Right -- if by "scientific" you mean "in the purview natural science." As I said in another post, (1) the fundamental abstraction of natural science leaves it bereft of data on intentionality, and (2) no science proves its own premises. Examining the foundations of physics belongs to metaphysics, just as examining the foundations of arithmetic belongs to metamathematics. It is metaphysics, in examining the foundations of physics, that deduces the existence of God.

You seem to be doing exactly what I anticipated: only considering metaphysical possibility to admit God into consideration, and refusing to admit it for anything else. — Relativist

1. I do not use metaphysical possibility to argue the existence of God. I only use actual being.

2. I do use the logical possibility of a multiverse as one reason to say that the FTA is not a sound proof, only a persuasive case.

3. As I have pointed out a couple of times recently, possibility is not information. Information is the reduction of possibility.

We only have to consider actual evidence

Then this removes God from consideration. — Relativist

No, it does not. The point of discussing the FTA is to consider whether it points to evidence for the existence of God, and if so, how strong that evidence is. To say flatly that there is no evidence is to beg the question under consideration.

More broadly, there are sound, evidence-based deductive arguments for the existence of God. I give one in my video: #15 God & Scientific Explanation - Existence Proof (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJUIxaSDfU0). I provide a more formal proof in the appendix of my book, God, Science and Mind: The Irrationality of Naturalism.

Possible worlds is just a semantics for discussing modal claims. — Relativist

Yes, it is. Nonetheless, it's ill-defined and lacks an adequate epistemic foundation.

ou are inconsistent in your use of modality. What exactly is the modality you propose to use to "baselessly" (without evidence) propose God as the solution? — Relativist

I can't make sense of this. You don't give any example of my modal errors. You assume that my discussion of God is "baseless." Finally, you speak of a solution without specifying the problem.

For God to be the answer, God must be "possible" and possibility entails a modality. — Relativist

Yes, but since we can show that God existsl, we know that the existence of God must be possible, as nothing impossible can be actual. My philosophical claims about God are categorical, not conditional.

But whatever modality you use, consistency demands using the same modality to consider multiverse. — Relativist

I do. I demand evidence of actual existence to credit a multiverse, just as I do for the existence of God.

Snowflakes depends on a variety of elements — Relativist

The last time I looked, snow is a form of H2O and sand is mostly SiO2. There is nothing about a planet that requires heavier elements for its formation.

it is epistemically possible that a metaphysically necessary God exists. — Relativist

For some people; nonetheless, it is metaphysically certain that God exists and is metaphysically necessary.

The issue is that "essence" is a concept based on a primitive analysis of human-ness and dog-ness (etc). — Relativist

"Primitive" is not an objection, but a term of irrational derision. The relevant question is, is there an objective basis for the fact that you evoke my concept <human>, and Fido evokes my concept <dog>? If there is, then by Aristotle's definition, you have an "essence,"i.e. a foundation in reality for the species concept you evoke. The fact that you also have DNA, a blood type, neural activity, an evolutionary history, etc. does not change the fact that when I see you, I think <human>.

If everything that makes us human or dog is an accident (as genetics and evolution suggest) then there is no reason to think there IS such a thing. — Relativist

Our nature is not "an accident" in the sense of being random. Physics sees all unobserved processes (including the evolution of species) as fully deterministic -- not random.

On the other hand, if you're opposing "accident" to "substance," these are not opposing concepts. Aristotle defines a substance (ousia) as an ostensible unity -- a whole we can point out. Your whole being includes all of your "accidents" -- all of the things that can be said of you -- your height weight, hair color, genetic code, etc., etc.

Finally, whatever our genesis or mode of analysis, it is an experiential fact that billions of individuals have the objective capacity to evoke the concept <human> -- while trillions more do not.

my original issue is that the existence of "essence" is an assumption. — Relativist

It's "an assumption" that the billions of people on earth have the objective capacity to evoke the concept <human>? I can't agree. For me, it is an experiential fact.

Again: every metaphysical theory depends on assumptions. — Relativist

Thank you for sharing your faith.

You denied the concept is related to DNA — Relativist

You seem confused. DNA encodes out physical structure, and that structure goes into evoking the concept <human>. Still, to know that you're human, I don't need to know about your DNA. So, while DNA is a cause of what you are, it's not part of most people's concept <human>.

As I have also said, there is nothing predetermined about our concepts. They arise from our individual and cultural experience. So, it might well be that some people's concept <human> includes having the right DNA. Still, I doubt that anyone would reserve judgement on your humanity until they got your lab results.

Seriously, do you not understand that this is a postulated pardigm? — Relativist

It depends what you mean by "postulated." If you mean fundamental concepts abstracted from reality, I agree that essence and existence, potency and act, substance and accident, etc are such concepts. If you mean put forward as unjustified speculative starting points, then that is far from the case.

Earlier I referenced Armstrong's ontology. He accounts for existents differently, and it's every bit as complete and coherent. — Relativist

I have already agreed that we may project the same reality into different conceptual spaces. So if you want to project reality into the conceptual space of physics, interpersonal dynamics, networks of events, sequences of states of affairs, etc., etc, I say go for it. I don't see that any conceptual space, including those of Aristotle or Aquinas is "complete," i.e. capable of exhaustively spanning human experience.

I do demand, however, that whatever conceptual space we use, it has a foundation in reality. That it's not the result of speculative postulation a la Kant's transcendental idealism.

one can't "prove" any particular "conceptual space" is true. — Relativist

Conceptual spaces are like vocabularies. Vocabularies are not true or false, though they may be more or less adequate to expressing what we know is true or false.

What is properly true or false is judgements we make about reality, and the propositions that express those judgements. Whenever we prove anything, we need unproven premises as starting points. Still, "unproven" need not mean "unknown." We can know some truths directly, by reflecting on experience. And we can show other people their truth by leading them to look at their corresponding experiences in a similar way.

So, we can have a structured knowledge that is not merely possible, but known to be true -- but only if we are open to reality.

When you ask me to tell the truth, you are asking me to be honest, to tell you what I truly believe, and not be deceptive. You are not asking me for an account relative to your concern, it is strictly my concern which you are asking for, what I believe. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually I'm interested in reality. I want to know where my keys really are. So, I'm not at all interested in your beliefs as beliefs However, being charitable, I accept that your knowledge may be limited and will not press you beyond your abilities.

This is being honest with oneself. — Metaphysician Undercover

That doesn't mean we can't truly know what we experienced.

But now you're using "truth in a completely different way, to refer to a relationship between our knowledge and reality. Above, truth is to honestly represent one's own experience — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I started with "truth is the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality" -- as a relation between our representations (primarily knowledge) and reality. You're the one that side-tracked into honesty.

In relation to honesty, I said that an honest statement is one that reflects the reality of what is in our mind -- again a relation between reality and representation.

then reality must be experience — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confused. Experiences are real. That does not mean reality is experience.

This is getting tedious, and we are making no progress. So I am not wasting any more time on discussing truth with you.

I can't speak for others, but as I understand physicalism, it is the view that all of our experience of reality can ultimately be explained by physics. — Dfpolis


Isn't this more universal mechanism/ reductive materialism/ atomism than physicalism. — JupiterJess

These terms seem not to have universally accepted definitions. I'm giving my use of the term "physicalism" as opposed to "materialism" and "naturalism."

"For example, most people attribute the breaking of the window to a ball striking it. Though taking modern physics as having all the ontological facts would strip the ball of this causal power."

I don't think that is how physics would treat this. It would see that the ball is composed of various constituents bound together, and in virtue of being so bound, able to act as a unit.

a) common sense- if we accept a ball breaking a pane of glass is an illusion. — JupiterJess

As I indicated, I don't think physics would say the ball breaking the window is an illusion. Despite what logical atomists would have you think, physics considers binding to be very real. Describing atomic constituents is not all that physics is about.

b) spooky action at a distance (QM) - this is covered in this thread by Apo and others who say holism is necessary to resolve it. — JupiterJess

There is no spooky action at a distance. The EPRB experiment, conceived by Bohm and discussed by Bell in his famous paper, involves no action at a distance, spooky or otherwise. This can be shown by considering various frames of reference using Special Relativity. An observation is first (and so supposedly causal) in one frame of reference will be second (and supposedly an effect) in another frame. So, neither observation can cause the other. The actual explanation is rotational symmetry, which, according to Noether's theorem, guaranties conservation of angular momentum that is used to make the prediction. It precludes the emergenge of symmetry-violating states of affairs -- guaranteeing the observed result.

the binding problem, consciousness - how things appear together as a connected reality is obviously not reconcilable with reductionism which identifies everything in atomist interactional terms — JupiterJess

I discuss the neural binding problem in my book. It can be resolved by hypothesizing neural indexing mechanisms in the brain. Such indexing alleviates the need to bring all of the encoded information together in a single location in the brain.

Despite these counter arguments, physicalism fails because of the fundamental abstraction of natural science. While all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject, at the beginning of natural science we choose to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject, For example, we are concerned with what Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton and Hubble saw, not with their personal experience in seeing it. As a result, natural science begins by leaving data on the table -- unexamined. Since it has no data on the knowing subject as such, it cannot draw data-based conclusions about the subjective aspects of reality, e.g. consciousness. Because physics is missing data on subjectivity, it cannot model the intentional aspects of the human mind.

Another limit to physics comes from Aristotle's observation that no science can prove its own premises. Ever since Newton, physics has assumed the existence of universal laws of nature, which it seeks to describe with ever increasing accuracy. Yet, it is outside of the purview of physics to explain the essential nature of these laws, why they they exist and why they continue in operation. Reflecting on the foundations of physics is the province of metaphysics.

Despite the claims of reductionists, physics does not even have the capacity to construct higher level sciences such as biology. In considering electrons, for example, physicists abstract away the context in which the electron is found. We do not care if it is in space, in inanimate matter, or in a living organism. Thus we abstract away the very data that forms the heart of biological science.

Physics may allow organisms as possibilities, but as Claude Shannon pointed out, information is the reduction of possibility. Only biological studies, using biological methods, will inform us as to the actual organisms in nature and their ecological roles.

First, thank you for the kind words.

Platonism in mathematics is the view that abstract objects such as numbers are real independently of any act of thought on our part, but can only be grasped by the mind; ergo, real but immaterial (which is why Platonism poses a conceptual challenge to materialism). — Wayfarer

Yes. This is the view that Aristotle shows to be due to confusion in his definition of "quantity" in Metaphysics Delta. There he notes that there are no numbers in the physical world, only discrete realities, which are countable, and extended realities, which are measurable. So, numbers arise as a result of counting and measuring operations.

We teach children numbers by counting various kinds of things. When they realize that counting does not depend on what is being counted, they have abstracted the concept <number>. This seems very simple, and does not require us to posit unobservable, Platonic numbers with an ill-defined relation to enumerated objects. (Note that which object is #2 depends on the order in which we count the objects.)

This does not make the concept of number material, as the concept is result of a mental act (being aware of counting), and not merely a physical operation.

what Kant called the synthetic a priori - 'a proposition the predicate of which is not logically or analytically contained in the subject—i.e., synthetic—and the truth of which is verifiable independently of experience—i.e., a priori'. — Wayfarer

Kant was trying to avoid Hume's sound analysis of time-ordered causality as having no intrinsic necessity. Hume's conclusion was well-known to Aristotle. to Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and to Scholastic philosophers who called this kind of causality "accidental." Kant appears to have been ignorant of this tradition and thought that the idea that earlier states necessitate later states was universally accepted and so a synthetic a priori. As far as I can tell, everything we know is a posteriori wrt to the experiences underwriting it, even though if it is applied a priori thereafter.

Of course, there is a truly necessary kind of causality, called "essential causality" by the Scholastics. Aristotle's paradigm case of essential causality is: The builder building the house, which is identical with the house being built by the builder. In time-ordered or accidental causality we are dealing with two separate events, which, being separate, can have no necessary connection. in concurrent or essential causality we have a single event (the builder building the house) which can be distinguished into a cause (the builder building) and an effect (the house being built), which are are necessarily linked by identity.

The failure to grasp this led Kant to postulate a speculative structure that continues to distort philosophy. As accidental causality has no necessity, there is no sound argument for determinism in human choice. As essential causality is intrinsically necessity, Kant's critique of the cosmological argument fails when applied to the forms employed by Aristotle and Aquinas.

excellent mathematicians are able to see things that I simply cannot; and I don't think this is a matter of experience but of innate intellectual ability. — Wayfarer

I agree that we have diverse talents, but talents are not innate knowledge -- only an ability to deal with knowledge.

Eliminative materialism, a la Ryle and Dennett, seeks to show that there is no distinct reality corresponding to mental concepts such as <consciousness>. Ryle seeks to do this in his The Concept of Mind by showing that the concept of introspection is incoherent, but fails miserably. In Consciousness Explained, Dennett shows that our experience of awareness cannot be explained on the hypothesis of naturalism, but departs from the scientific method by rejecting the data of consciousness in favor of the theory he has just falsified.

Since eliminativists do not believe in the reality of consciousness, they see no need to show how it could have evolved.

I think it depends on whether your understanding of the physical is mechanistic or organistic. You seem to be thinking exclusively in terms of efficient or mechanical causation. If the experiences of organisms can modify DNA, and the effect of DNA itself is 'contextual', more of a "final" or "formal" kind of causation, than an "efficient" or "material" kind of causation, then consciousness could be "selected for" in a way which is not merely "efficient" and "material", without necessitating anything absolutely beyond the physical. This would be the biosemiotic argument that the physical is not 'brute' but always already informed by a semantic dimension. — Janus

I am considering only mechanical causation because we are talking about the "evolution" of consciousness, and evolution is a well-defined theory, based on three principles: (1) Random variation, (2) selection of variants leading to increased reproductive success, and (3) the inheritance of selected traits.

You are free to advance principles or hypotheses in addition to standard evolutionary mechanisms, but you need to say what they are. If you would like me to agree with them they need evidentiary support. If they are to be classed as scientific, they need to be falsifiable.

You seem to be defining terms in a unique way. I understand "physical" to name the aspect of reality studied in physics, chemistry and ordinary biology (inter alia) -- in which things are seen as developing and interacting mechanically. It is a understanding in which observable states are seen as transforming into later observable states according to fixed, universal laws of nature. i think this is a useful projection of reality, but not exhaustive of what we know from experience.

So, in my view <physical> is an abstract concept, in the formation of which many notes of comprehension are left on the table. It is not synonymous with "being" or "reality," and it does not span any semantic aspects of reality.

I have well-developed views on semiotics and see it as intrinsically intentional/mental.

I do agree that their are intentional aspects of nature -- the laws of nature and human intentionality being prime examples.

So, having sketched my position, I'd like to know first, what you see as the "semantic dimension" of the "physical," and second, what your "biosemiotic argument," for the "evolution" of awareness is. It may well be that we are projecting the same reality into different conceptual spaces.

This would be something like what you have described as Aristotle's view of hyle "desiring" morphe, and would be properly understood as an entirely immanent reality, with no absolutely transcendent being required. This is why I am puzzled by your rejection of naturalism, since, as I see it, naturalism is precisely, in its broadest definition, the rejection of anything supernatural. The idea of the natural is the idea of that which is completely immanent within physical reality — Janus

First, I see "supernatural" in these contexts as an ill-defined term of opprobrium. So, I neither accept nor reject any position because it involves the "supernatural."

Second, as I point out at the beginning of my book, "naturalism" is a vaguely defined term, having different meanings to different proponents -- rather like a group of people who have not quite "got their story straight." The range of positions I find irrational includes thinking that reality is wholly
"material," that physics is adequate to the whole of reality, that philosophical analysis can either eliminate or reduce intentional concepts to physical concepts, that "idea" and "brain state" are convertible terms, that ontological randomness can give rise to order, etc, etc.

Third, for reasons first pointed out by Aristotle, changeable reality (nature) cannot be self-explaining.

the idea of the supernatural is the idea of that which is radically other to physical reality. The problem with the idea of the radically other is the problem of dualism; how would such a purportedly absolutely transcendent being interact with physical nature? — Janus

Being "radically other" does not entail dynamical separation -- only having non-overlapping definitions. So, it is quite possible to be "radically other" and still have a dynamic connection.

I don't think Aristotle ever described matter as having intentionality. — Metaphysician Undercover

He said hyle "desires" form. I quoted the text from Physics i, 9. Desire is certainly intentional.

.... The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]." — — Metaphysician Undercover

Since all causation is physical... — Dfpolis


But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Dfpolis

You're just making this up, it's not Aristotelian at all, it's fiction.

I'm quoting Aristotle's Physics i, 9 here.

As indefinite is how Aristotle actually describes matter, as potential, what may or may not be — Metaphysician Undercover

You will need to give me a text. Often he is describing the views of others.

"Potential" (dynamis) need not mean "what may or may not be." As I discuss in my paper, "dynamis" had a history of medical usage, referring to the hidden, but determinate, curative power in plants, for example. Even a fully determinate outcome is potential before it happens. So, it is an open question as to whether any particular potential needs further specification.

And intentionality is commonly associated with freewill. — Metaphysician Undercover

Association is not a logical connection. All acts of will are intentional, but not all intentional realities are acts of will.

Fully determinate systems can exhibit intentionality -- clocks, for example -- but they exhibit no intrinsic free will. Their intentionality has an extrinsic source, as noted by Jeremiah.

Since all causation is physical... — Dfpolis

But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're arguing against a position that is not mine. I do not think all causes are physical. I'm saying that if you are a physicalist, you think all causes are physical.

We have a model of the world in which 'the subjective' is derivative or secondary or the merely personal - we feel as though it is easily explained by evolutionary science. — Wayfarer

Yes, there is a lot of "feeling" in contemporary philosophy -- positions that are "felt" to be true, but not rigorously examined.

When I say "subjective" in philosophical contexts, I most often mean "related to the knowing subject" in a subject-object relationship -- and not something lacking ontological status. It is little reflected upon that all knowing is both objective and subjective. There is invariably a knowing subject and a known object.

I'm still investigating the subject, and am not entirely convinced by Aristotle's arguments contra Platonic realism. — Wayfarer

Fair enough.

This would only hold true on an arguably superseded account of biological evolution that does not allow for any influence from the environmental to the genetic during the life of organisms. — Janus

I am not sure how you see this as rebutting my point. Whether or not environmental factors modify genetic factors, (and I think they do), it is still impossible to physically select a trait that has no physical effects.

I can't speak for others, but as I understand physicalism, it is the view that all of our experience of reality can ultimately be explained by physics.

TOE — Janus

Thanks for the kind word and the references.
— apokrisis

The historical reality looks more like that they both got the essential duality of a formal principle and a material principle as the causal arche. — apokrisis

Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it." Physics, i, 9.

Form is the "divine, good, and desirable" principle. The contrary principle is the privation of the new form, while the one actively desiring and yearning for it is hyle. ("The truth is that what desires the form is matter.") So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.

ontological atomism — apokrisis

Yes, Russell's views in “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” seem not to be reflections on our experience of being, but to originate in a desire to avoid the complexities such reflections reveal.

The material principle is that of an Apeiron or the Indefinite - chaotic action. — apokrisis

It is for Plato, but not for Aristotle. Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature.

The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent — apokrisis

Again, in Plato.

form is a developmental outcome - the imposition of habits of regularity on a chaos of possibility, which thus always emerges as substantial actuality that is a blend of the necessary and the accidental. — apokrisis

That is the point of Physics i, 9.

I would say that you have a problem in that your reading of hyle leads you to suggest it contains form within it in some sense. — apokrisis

Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]."

With regard to vitalism, "life force" was me waxing poetic -- trying to emphasize the active nature of hyle vs. the pure passivity of prima materia. I did not mean to suggest, and do not think, that life is due to a unique vital principle.

On the other hand, I see physics as completely deterministic in its realm of application -- so that biogenesis and the evolution of species are both fully entailed by the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. The only randomness in evolution is due to human ignorance.

So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined.

it is so hard to leave behind some notion of the material principle as already some kind of definite stuff - like a space-filling, but formless and passive, chora. — apokrisis

Indeed it is. As a physicist, l'm drawn to this idea. General relativity sees space as having observable properties (the metric tensor.) Quantum theory leads us to conclude that matter has a wave nature, leading to the supposition that waves must be cyclical modifications of some ether or chora. Still if the ether or chora is to be modified, it cannot be completely indeterminate. It must respond in a determinate way, with well-defined properties, or all would be chaos.

Thank you for an interesting discussion.

my position is that the alleged persuasive power is a consequence of people failing to see the inherent problems that I've brought up. — Relativist

Then you can only hope that people will listen. You have not convinced me of the cogency of your objections.

I agree with the approach, but disagree with your claim that there is intelligent direction "to that end." This characterization continues the same flawed reasoning by implicitly assuming there is an end (or goal or objective). — Relativist

As I said, I am a determinist in physics. So, there are definite ends (aka "final states" -- which need not be "final") to which physical processes tend. The question is, is the existence of a determinate end evidence of intentionality? If we accept Brentano's analysis of intentionality, it is. The essential characteristic of intentionality is "aboutness." Just as my intention to go to the store is about achieving a state in which I am at the store, so the laws of nature are about the determinate states they give rise to. That means that the laws of nature are "intentional" by Brentano's definition.

If we then say that any source of intentionality is, by definition, a mind, then a mind is responsible for the laws of nature. That does not mean that it's a mind just like ours. Clearly, it is not. Still, it is rationally classed as a mind.

The "realm of application" is the universe after Planck time. That's problematic for drawing conclusions about a broader scope - and a multiverse, and the possibility of differing "constants" is a broader scope. — Relativist

I agree, that is why there is no scientific support for a multiverse. On the other hand, the verified realm of application does include the calculations showing that small variations in the physical constants would preclude life.

Sandstone and snowflakes, to name two. — Relativist

Really? I think this requires a bit more argument. The existence of the required elements (H, O, Si) does not require nuclear fusion in stars and so is far less constrained than the existence of life.

if we're including God among the possibilities to consider, we have to consider all metaphysically possible worlds — Relativist

No, we don't. We only have to consider actual evidence. No consideration of "possible worlds" can add anything to what we actually know. Possible worlds talk is just a way of injecting baseless speculation into philosophical discourse.
1. As Claude Shannon pointed out, information is not possibility, but the reduction of possibility.
2. We have know way of knowing if any world is metaphysically possible other than the one world we know to be actual -- for nothing impossible can be actual.
3. Imagining that a "world" is possible is not adequate grounds for concluding that it is possible. Russel and Whitehead imagined that the self-consistency of arithmetic was provable. Goedel showed it was not.
4. Possible worlds don't provide a rational basis for representing propositional probabilities because the density of possible states cannot be objectively defined.

a multiverse with differing constants is every bit as metaphysically possible as is a God. — Relativist

No, again. God is a metaphysical necessity. The only possibility that can be attributed to God is epistemological -- due to ignorance. The evidence for God's existence is all being. If anything is, we can conclude, with metaphysical certainty, that God is.

Aquinas distinguishes between essence (necessary and sufficient properties) and accidents (contingent properties). — Relativist

Yes, he is seconding Aristotle on that. Some properties that humans have make no difference in there classification as human. You can be tall or short, fair or dark, have red hair or be bald, and still be human. If you agree with this, then you agree that some properties are "accidental" wrt being human.

Consider humans: there are no necessary and sufficient properties for being human - every portion of human DNA is accident. — Relativist

While I don't deny the biological importance of DNA, your genetic coding doesn't enter into my judgement that you're human and Fido is a dog. All that's necessary is that, as a result of my experiencing you, the concept <human> is properly evoked in me. That happens every day with people who have no real understanding of DNA.

However, try to divide up all living things that have ever lived on earth into human and non-human, and you will unavoidably have to draw an arbitrary boundary. — Relativist

No doubt. What does that have to do with anything? I am not saying that our conceptual spaces are predetermined. I am not a Platonist or a Neoplatonist. I don't think you are a person because you participate in an Ideal or because you reflect an exemplar idea in the mind of God. I'm saying that, as a result of experiencing the world around us, we abstract concepts that allow us to make rational judgements. As abstractions, these concepts leave out many notes of intelligibility (lots of data).

Why do we use abstractions? Because our brains can only represent 5-9 "chunks" of information at a time. So, we can't deal with reality in all its complexity. Thus, abstractions (universal ideas) are a "stupid human" trick for reducing the complexity of reality to our limited representations capacity.

God knows all reality exhaustively, so He has no need of the stupid human trick of abstraction, of universal or exemplar ideas. We humans on the other hand, can have different conceptual spaces. For example, Metaphysician Undercover and I have different, but related, concepts we call "truth." 19th century slave owners typically had a concept they called "human" that did not include blacks, while mine does -- and we all know how Nazis thought and think.

If you treat essence as nothing but a sortal of accidental properties — Relativist

Of course, I don't. I sort by what is essential to my concept of humans -- a concept that is largely transcultural.

... then Aquinas definition of God goes awry (according to Aquinas, God is a being in whom essence and existence are identical). — Relativist

I don't see that you've shown that there is no basis in reality for saying that a thing is (existence) or what it is (essence). So, I can't follow your thinking.

Also, while Aquinas does show that essence and existence are identical in God, I don't recall him using this as a definition.

I brought up essence just as an example of a metaphysical postulate. — Relativist

And I showed that it is not a postulate, but names something found in reality -- i.e., the objective basis of essential definitions -- what it is about concrete individuals that allows us to apply our species concepts to them.

Aquinas paradigm also postulates: act, potency, form, substance, and accident. — Relativist

All of which we find in our experience of reality and its conceptualization.

It's coherent, but it is not the only coherent metaphysical paradigm, so one can't claim to have an objective case for something that is based on any particular metaphysical paradigm. — Relativist

I'm sorry. First, It is more than "coherent" or self-consistent. It is based on reality, so it can be used to analyze reality.

Second, the fact that we have one reality based conceptual space that can be used to analyze reality does not, by any means preclude the possibility of other, equally reality-based, conceptual spaces that can be used to analyze reality. Given that reality is far too complex to be exhausted by the stupid human trick of abstraction, the more ways we think of reality, the more projections we use, the better.

If we have many diverse projections of the same reality, we can recover some of the dimensionality lost in each. Combining them gives us a more complete model than any one alone can give.

The nature of the things that exist (such as whether they consist of form and substance, or whether they are states of affairs) is not a "fundamental fact" that comes from experience - rather, it is a postulated paradigm - an assumption. — Relativist

This is a false dichotomy. We can take the same experience of reality and project it into an Aristotelian conceptual space or one preferred by analytic philosophers. There is nothing about thinking of objects in terms of matter and form, substance and accidents that precludes us thinking of the same experience in terms of sequences of events or states of affairs. This kind of territorial exclusivity is totally irrational -- but typical of modern philosophy.

What is fundamental is our experience of reality in all of its complexity. How we choose to think of it is in no way fundamental. Thinking of it in one way or another makes philosopical problem solving easier or harder in the same way that the choice of coordinate systems makes the mathematics of a physics problem easier or harder.

I asked if you believe the laws of nature EXIST (not operate) independently of the entities that exhibit them. — Relativist

The laws of nature only exist insofar as they operate to produce order in nature -- as producing order is their essence. So, they are physically inseparable from the matter and fields on which they act. They are, however, logically distinct, and so mentally separable.

What "adaequatio" would refer to is an activity, a process, a movement toward equation or equality. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Adaequatio" is not a verb. It names stable a relational state between what is in our mind and reality.

I think the most common use of "truth" is in philosophy, — Metaphysician Undercover

I recall my mother, teachers and others urging me to tell the truth. Not a day goes by without a discussion of Trump and his representatives failing to tell the truth. The news reports that many deny the truth of climate change, others the truth of the holocaust. So, "truth" is very current outside of the narrow confines of philosophy and law.

I do not believe it's used to name something we have experienced in our own thought and language, it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language, or a request toward others' thought and language; statements like "I am telling the truth", "Please tell the truth" — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what substantive difference there is between me saying "truth" names "something we have experienced in our own thought and language" -- meaning that we have experienced thinking true thoughts and speaking true sentences -- and you saying "it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language." Surely statements we make about about our own thought and language arise out of our experience of our own thought and language.

Suppose I say, "Please tell the truth." Do you think I'm asking you to tell me the state of the world with the detail and accuracy known only to God? I surely do not. I expect you to give me an account adequate to my area of concern -- e.g., to tell me if you took my keys -- without describing the exact shape and alloy of each key, its precise position and orientation, etc, etc.

We can't really say that we experience ourselves to have true beliefs, because we simply believe, and to believe that a belief is true would be redundant. — Metaphysician Undercover

We experience, introspectively, that our experience is reflected in our representation of that experience. In other words, that we have a true representation of our experience.

Beliefs are only true per accidens. So, they are only peripherally relevant here. Truth is primarily a relation between our knowledge and reality. Beliefs are not acts if intellect, but of will -- they are commitments to truth of various propositions.

Knowledge, on the other hand, is awareness of present intelligibility. Intelligible objects make themselves dynamically present by acting, directly or indirectly, on us. Since me knowing the object is (identically) the object being known by me, knowledge is based on an partial identity of knower and known. For example, an apple's action on my neural system is, identically, my neural representation of the apple. If it we not, I would not be seeing the apple.

This is a point which Aquinas makes as well, truth is a judgement which is separate from the thought — Metaphysician Undercover

This is confused. Aquinas position is that truth and falsity pertain to judgements, not concepts. He does not say that there is no truth until we judge that there is truth. And, he surely does not say that judgements are separate from thoughts, for judgements are thoughts that we can express in propositions.

[Aquinas] compares "the truth" to "the good", the good being the object of the appetite and the truth being the object of the intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, he does. It would be absurd, then, if humans had a natural appetite (for truth) that could never be satisfied. No appetite exists merely to be frustrated.

I truly believe that non-philosophical use of "truth" mostly refers to honesty — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't this circular? How would you define "honesty" other than expressing yourself truly? I understand that you may think something true that isn't. Still, your statement is only honest if it is a adequate reflection of your mental state -- and not of your whole mental state, but of the aspects of interest to your interlocutors

If you agree with " — Metaphysician Undercover

But no matter how you look at it, even that part, that simple truth, is missing a lot from being complete. Any statement about "what is", is always incomplete. You might say it is adequate and therefore truth, I say it's incomplete and therefore only "truth" to a degree. — Metaphysician Undercover

degrees of certitude" then why not "degrees of truth" as well?

I've already said that I see truth as an analogous concept: first, as Aquinas does, by analogy of attribution wrt Divine Truth, and second with an analogy of proportionality wrt contextual requirements. So, in a way I have, but I think "analogy" is a more precise word for this than "degrees."

If we were to say in completion, of what is, that it is, we'd have to state everything which "is" right now. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you were to do this, your use of "what is" would be equivocal wrt Aristotle's. Aristotle is discussing a particular what, you a universal what.

But no matter how you look at it, even that part, that simple truth, is missing a lot from being complete. Any statement about "what is", is always incomplete. You might say it is adequate and therefore truth, I say it's incomplete and therefore only "truth" to a degree. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. No human knowledge is complete or exhaustive. All human knowledge is a projection (a dimensionally diminished map) of reality. It is the real source of such a projection that Aristotle's "what is" refers to. So, we agree as to the facts.

There is no point in arguing with you over your choice of words when we agree on the relevant facts.

The principal use of "truth" is in relation to honesty, but when honesty is established, and therefore can be taken for granted, we move on to use "truth" to express a high degree of certitude. — Metaphysician Undercover

How often we use "truth" to mean "really so," "honest," or "certain" is a statistical question that I don't know any research on. I think that most people mean "really so" -- not exhaustively, but wrt to the relevant issue.

The symbol "2" must, of necessity, equal the concept "two" or else there is no "concept". — Metaphysician Undercover

This is complete nonsense. First, concepts are prior to words, as shown when we know what we mean, but can't find the word for it. So, concepts in no way depend on their linguistic expression.

Second, strictly speaking, <equality> is a mathematical concept, describing the relation between two or more quantities. Its use here is a suggestive analogy, not to be taken literally. Neither linguistic symbols nor concepts are quantities, so they can't be "equal" in any literal way.

Third, two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, but that is not the case here. "Dos", "zwei," and "two" all express the concept <two> when uttered and evoke it when heard by native speakers. Still, they aren't the same word, because they don't function interchangeably. (A person knowing English, but not German, will not think <two> when she hears "zwei." A person unfamiliar with Arabic numerals will not think <two> when he sees "2.")

Lastly, causal sufficiency is not equality. Reading "2" can be causally sufficient to evoke <two>, but that does not make them any more "equal" than a match and a forest fire.

You even indicate this by saying "the same concept". What you mean by "same" here is equivalence — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I mean identity. If different instances of sets of two objects evoked different concepts, I would be equivocating when I said, "These both have two units." All universal predication would fail as the first instance would instantiate <two-1>, the second <two-2>, etc., not the same concept, <two>.

If the symbol "2" means something slightly different for you than it does for me — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not my claim, nor is it relevant to your claim that the symbol and concept are equal. We are not discussing the relation between the concept <two> in me and the concept <two> in you, but the relation between a physical sign, "2," and an intentional concept, <two> -- which are of different kinds and so not interchangeable.

Your concept <two> and mine have identical information, but aren't identical because my concept <two> is me thinking of two, while your concept <two> is you thinking of two and I am not you. The information is identical because there is no individuating difference, not because the information is the same substantial object -- for information is not a substantial object.

I ask you for a 2 cm bolt and you hand me a 2.5, and say that's close enough? — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not saying that 2.5 cm is always, or even usually, "close enough." I'm saying that what is "close enough" depends on your purpose. As a teen, I worked in my dad's machine shop making aircraft parts. What was "close enough" was spelled out on the blueprints -- typically +/- 0.003".

This is why truth consists of the proper relation between the symbol and the thing — Metaphysician Undercover

I find this hard to reconcile this with your view that truth is found only in God. God knows directly, not via symbols.

I agree that this is a reasonable statement about the truth of expressions; however, expressions are true only derivatively -- as giving voice to true judgements in our minds -- which are true or false in the primary sense.

According to Aquinas, human beings know artificial things in the same way that God knows His creation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know of no such text. As this is a claim incompatible with Aquinas's most fundamental views, you need to supply a citation.

what we know is the result of us acting in the world, not it acting on us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Us acting in the world and the world acting on us are not incompatible operations. I may go looking for gold, but if the metal did not scatter light into our eyes, sink to the bottom of my pan and resist normal reagents, I wouldn't know I've found it. As you say, " We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts." It's reacting is acting on us.

Are you familiar with the concepts of active and passive intellect? — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course. The active intellect is our awareness of information encoded in neural representations. Neural representations are the result of objects acting on our senses.

The active intellect acts, and passes what is created to the passive intellect which receives — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a distortion. The active intellect does not "create" information. (Creation is making something ex nihilo.) The active intellect merely actualizes intelligibility (information) encoded in the phantasm (a neural sensory representation).

the point I'm making is that humans possess an essential requirement for rationality, which is the ability to form concepts and understand abstractions; it's also fundamental to language. — Wayfarer

I agree. Still, I have no difficulty in accepting Aristotle's empiricist account in De Anima iii. The senses provide us with intelligible data about the beings we encounter. The agent intellect (nous poiêtikos = subjective awareness) makes this intelligibility actually known, giving us ideas (awareness of intelligible data). Abstraction is awareness fixing on some notes of intelligibility to the exclusion of others. I wonder what in this account you find inadequate to your experience?

it is assumed that these capabilities have evolved — Wayfarer

I see no reason to believe they, as opposed to the brain, have. You have to be some type of physicalist to think consciousness evolved. Unfortunately, evolution fails you. Since all causation is physical, physicalists must hold that consciousness is epiphenomenal -- along for the ride, but without causal power. If so, no random, initial spark of consciousness could have a physical effect. Without a physical effect, it could not benefit survival. So, evolution couldn't select it. In sum, while you may continue to think that awareness has a physical explanation, it cannot have originated by Darwinian selection.

my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties — Wayfarer

I agree again. Biology can explain neural data processing. It has nothing to say about the specifically intentional operations of ideogenesis and volition, because the required data has been left behind by the fundamental abstraction of natural science -- in which we choose to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject.

I still don't understand why you think that we need more than our interaction with reality to know what we know. After all, what better way can there be to learn about reality than for reality to inform us?

Thanks for the kind word and the references.
— apokrisis

The historical reality looks more like that they both got the essential duality of a formal principle and a material principle as the causal arche. — apokrisis

Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it." Physics, i, 9.

Form is the "divine, good, and desirable" principle. The contrary principle is the privation of the new form, while the one actively desiring and yearning for it is hyle. ("The truth is that what desires the form is matter.") So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.

ontological atomism — apokrisis

Yes, Russell's views in “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” seem not to be reflections on our experience of being, but to originate in a desire to avoid the complexities such reflections reveal.

The material principle is that of an Apeiron or the Indefinite - chaotic action. — apokrisis

It is for Plato, but not for Aristotle. Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature.

The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent — apokrisis

Again, in Plato.

form is a developmental outcome - the imposition of habits of regularity on a chaos of possibility, which thus always emerges as substantial actuality that is a blend of the necessary and the accidental. — apokrisis

That is the point of Physics i, 9.

I would say that you have a problem in that your reading of hyle leads you to suggest it contains form within it in some sense. — apokrisis

Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]."

With regard to vitalism, "life force" was me waxing poetic -- trying to emphasize the active nature of hyle vs. the pure passivity of prima materia. I did not mean to suggest, and do not think, that life is due to a unique vital principle.

On the other hand, I see physics as completely deterministic in its realm of application -- so that biogenesis and the evolution of species are both fully entailed by the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. The only randomness in evolution is due to human ignorance.

So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined.

it is so hard to leave behind some notion of the material principle as already some kind of definite stuff - like a space-filling, but formless and passive, chora. — apokrisis

Indeed it is. As a physicist, l'm drawn to this idea. General relativity sees space as having observable properties (the metric tensor.) Quantum theory leads us to conclude that matter has a wave nature, leading to the supposition that waves must be cyclical modifications of some ether or chora. Still if the ether or chora is to be modified, it cannot be completely indeterminate. It must respond in a determinate way, with well-defined properties, or all would be chaos.

Thank you for an interesting discussion.

The essential note of intellect is awareness. — Dfpolis

However, creatures generally are aware — Wayfarer

Animals have medical consciousness, i.e. an observable state of responsiveness. We have no evidence they thy have subjective awareness. The only evidence that people have such awareness is reports of subjective experience.